Chapter Text
She might've stayed put, were she alone. Paralysis was a learned response; running is always a bad idea. Any of Her blows that Ragatha avoids will always find her again, doubled in strength to make up for last time. Hiding away in her room is the closest thing she ever had to retreat, hoping that Mother will simply forget about her, perhaps considering the isolation and the pending dread Ragatha felt sitting on her bed in the dark and waiting for the sound of footsteps up the hall to be adequate punishment.
She's lazy, that way. Her laziness saved Ragatha too many times to count. But this time, She started in her room. And if Mother is in her room, that means it's bad. It won't just be one lecture. It won't just be a few minutes of yelling. It won't just be—
Her eye hurts.
She could take it alone. Usually, she knows better than to flee from it. But Pomni is here. And she will not let the jester suffer this with her.
She doesn't really remember the moment she decided to scoop Pomni up in her arms and take off down the hall. Her mind had been screaming, sirens blaring, ears ringing, as she raced for shelter from the apocalypse— any decisions she had made were signed off far deeper in herself than she is consciously privy to. From somewhere far down, somewhere fundamental and absolute, came the decree:
Take Pomni and run to the stables.
That's always where she hides, when her room is inadequate, be it over the course of a long, tense day, to put off the show-trial waiting for her at the end of it, or in the middle of the night, the rare few times she had tried her luck with dodging a punishment she was due. It's where she hides ever since the cellar had been turned against her, at least. It was a lesson she had learned more thoroughly than any other: never hide behind a door that locks on the outside.
Mother knows to look in the stables, of course. But maybe, she always figured, there's enough little nooks and crannies and hiding places that she could wait out Mother's patience, hide so well and so deeply that Her laziness wins out, so that when the time of Ragatha's execution does come, Her fury has moved on somewhat, and will be rendered more half-heartedly.
It never worked before. Nothing ever worked with Her. But it's all she's got. Maybe, some part of her rationalizes as she swings around a corner, nearly losing her balance and tumbling through a hole in the floor into the void, maybe her horses will defend them. Her horses never did like Mother.
"Ragatha, what the hell is going on!?" Pomni demands, sounding shaken.
Guilt tugs on the doll's heart, but no, no, if she wastes even the faintest bit of breath on answers, she won't make it. Mother had always said, "I can run faster angry than you can scared". Ragatha had proven her wrong once, though only with great effort.
She can still feel the gravity, right behind her, feel the hot breath and smell the wine and cigarettes at her back, see her own shadow cast by a red and white glow that will follow her anywhere. So she sprints through the ever-darkening hallways, from gray to shadowed to near pitch black as she holds close the only thing Mother had never before gotten the chance to take from her.
Do not look behind you, her mind helpfully informs, not that she needed to be told. A thousand snippets of Mother's voice echo throughout the halls after her, all muffled and unintelligible, heard as if by an ear pressed against a bedroom door, or up around the bend of the stair, or from out in the field, come to find her as a dim echo that carries no discernible message except that unmistakable tone. Ragatha had always wondered why She bothered to speak words at all; surely, She could simply roar and growl like an animal and get the same result.
"I-I don't— where are we? This isn't the circus!" Pomni cries out, clung too close to the doll's chest to do more than look up at her in confusion and fear and anger and ask questions.
Of course it isn't, Ragatha's mind serves as an answer that her broken voice does not deliver. We're going for the stables. That means, down the short hall, turn right, then down the long hall to the back door.
Glancing to the walls, Ragatha feels the faintest bit of hope as she recognizes the portraits, not one crooked in its place. She recognizes the faded, irreplaceable vintage wallpaper and the precious, expensive hardwood floor that Her clumsy children had been punished over more times than maybe anything else. The back door is just ahead, around the next corner and at the end of the long hall. Mother rarely bothers to leave the house; the fields were always His domain, when he was alive, and She seldom bothers to fight with Him or his ghost over it anymore.
"Ragatha, where— hey! HEY! RAGATHA! Are you listening—" Pomni shouts, growing irritable. Ragatha turns the sharp corner, whimpering as she sees Her in her peripheral vision, achingly close, unbelievably angry, eyes burning white hot. Pomni sees her too, and screams. "FUCK FUCK FUCK! NEVERMIND JUST RUN! RUN!"
Pomni's fear sets a chain reaction into motion inside Ragatha's own chest, and her semi-determined look of pragmatic survival breaks into tears and terror and whimpers and screams of her own. Somewhere in the back of her head, she chides herself on wasting breath, on making more noises that will only annoy Her. She remembers the score exactly: each whimper invokes another little retaliation, and each scream— don't scream. That's the rule. Never, ever scream.
She's so close to the back door. She knows she won't even need to open it— it always was flimsy, as she was so often warned. A running start should be more than enough. If she can just make it through, Mother won't follow her— not in her slippers. She'll have to get her boots on first. Mother is subservient to few things, Her own sense of decorum being one of the few.
Ragatha sobs, remembering the sound of her boots stomping closer over the gravel and hay. That's a nightmare for later. Right now, she's almost there, almost.
She shrieks as an inky claw grabs at her hair, catching a single red yarn of it in Her fist. Ragatha doesn't slow, and it tears out the back of her head. At least it doesn't hurt as bad as when She brushes it.
Mother screams as they close in on their escape. Her voice fills the house, shocking everything, even the centipedes in the cellar, the mice in the crawlspace, and the spiders in the attic into practiced silence. All is still except Her and Her foolish prey. The scraping of stainless steel integrates almost seamlessly in the orchestra of nails and chalkboards, but not seamlessly enough. Ragatha ducks; a knife sails over her head and embeds itself into the door frame like an arrow. Another nips her heel as it sinks into the precious floor (she winces, knowing who's fault that will be in the end). Another slashes out across her back, scraping over her shoulders and spine with just the sharpest slant of its tip, tearing threads on her dress. She winces again, immediately guessing that it'll take her four hours to patch by hand, or forty minutes with the machine she knows she won't be allowed to use.
She's almost too distracted by all the cleanup this mess she's making will incur to remember to hit the door back-first— she wouldn't want Pomni to take the brunt of the impact, after all. She leaps off her hooves and dives through the door, bursting its latch through the flimsy, mold-bulged frame, white painted splinters following her out. It would've been smart, to close her eye before she jumped. Instead, Ragatha screams as she sees Mother lunging for her, barely inches away, half-lit eyes burning like a crashing sun in a sea of darkness like the deepest corners of the cellar. Quietly, her nervous system congratulates her on making the correct choice to run.
Ragatha wraps her arms tight around Pomni to cushion her from the fall as they tumble down the porch stairs and into the tall grass, cast in a blood red and white glow still pouring after them from the door mixed with the silver blue of the stars and moon above. The doll wastes no time, scooping Pomni back up before she can stand on her own and going right back to running. She looks back only once, to see Mother standing at the threshold, two hateful eyes shrinking behind her like the far-off glow of a brushfire as she flees.
The back door slams shut. It will open again when She is dressed. But for now, Ragatha has a head start that she has no interest in wasting as she runs for the stables.
"What... the... fuck...?" Pomni mutters, glancing around to see an infinite meadow stretching in all directions, interrupted only by the scattered structures of a car-shed, a barn, the stable, and of course the house, all cast in lonely dark blue-and-silver light from the sky above. "W-Where are we?"
"We'll be okay. We'll be okay, sweetie. We'll be okay," Ragatha gasps, breath scraping raw as her chest heaves and her legs burn with each thudding step down the gravel path to the stable.
"Ragatha, hey, stop. Stop. STOP! It's gone! We— we got away, just, stop! Please! Put me down!"
Ragatha doesn't even slow. "She'll be back."
Confused as she is, Pomni isn't stupid, and she can put two and two together, as much as she's been trying to avoid this equation's answer so far. "Was that your fucking mom!?"
She can only answer with another whimper. They're almost to the stables. Almost there. There they can talk, she figures, while they wait to see if they hid well enough.
"Ragatha. You need to stop. We gotta get you calmed down or we're just gonna get lost even deeper in this. It's not real, okay?" Pomni tries, hoping that if she pretends it's just a nightmare hallucination, it can fade away like one. "Please listen to me."
The doll shakes her head. Coming to the door into the stable, she sets Pomni back on her feet but does not let go as she undoes the deadbolt and pushes her way inside.
It's ten degrees warmer and a thousand percent nicer, softer, and kinder in the stables than anywhere else on the property. Pomni's jaw almost drops from the atmospheric whiplash as Ragatha pulls her by the hand inside; the space feels angelic, providing a nameless and absolute sense of peace and safety that no specific or tangible facet of the building could possibly account for. Ragatha flips a lightswitch with a bare aluminum case, casting the stable into a soft incandescent glow shining down from the lofted rafters, warm on their faces like the flicker of a campfire amidst a winter storm.
The large building with its hay-dusted stone floors and wood panel walls walks a bizarre balance between luxury and rustic pragmatism, Pomni notes. It has only four stalls, all apparently of significant size, with swooping black iron gates. At the other end are the barn-style doors and various other 'horse stations'— Pomni doesn't know the first or last thing about any of this, other than 'horse live in stall and lives and eats and probably poops there'. It smells... earthy, though not in an unpleasant way. Pomni wonders how accurate this manifestation is, next to the real thing.
The jester tries to regain her own balance as she watches as Ragatha stumbles off to the first stall, her back shivering with swallowed sobs as she half-collapses against the gate. The head of a massive, dark chestnut shire, appearing almost raven-black in the soft light, leans over the gate, poking his white-striped nose over the barrier and nestling onto Ragatha's shoulder.
"Hey, big guy..." the doll whispers, wrapping her arms tenderly around Barrel's neck. "I-I'm... I'm glad to... to... s-see you..." her voice shivers with every word; she's missed him so dearly, for all these years, and yet, the familiarity of the comfort he provides is just as hellish as the rest of her return 'home'. Her ears are still primed for approaching footfalls as she holds him close.
Pomni approaches slowly, beyond out of her depth, the exhaustion of the last week still weighing on her. She wishes she were absolutely anywhere else but here in Ragatha's personal hell, trapped with her. She glances back to the door they entered through, backtracking to it, trying to let her firm desire to just leave turn the stable door into an exit door, back to the circus, back to the others. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens it.
Still just the field. She feels as though she's being watched from the dark windows of the house.
"...Fuck..." Pomni mutters, turning back to Ragatha and making her way over. The doll's dragged the stall door open by now, and is sitting inside, leaned against Barrel. She lays on the ground with him, curled up with her knees to her chest, looking terrified, small, and lost.
Pomni keeps her steps gentle as she approaches; Ragatha flinches anyway, until the jester rounds the corner and makes the most heartwrenching eye contact of her life with her. Pomni's eyes shy away as if burned, glancing to Barrel's, looking sadly back at her. She needs both of us this time, they wordlessly agree, and Pomni carefully walks over to sit next to her, letting Barrel take one shoulder while she takes the other, making no sudden movements.
The three of them sit in silence for a moment, Ragatha curled up stiff and leaned against Barrel's side. Pomni tries to even begin imagining how to approach this, with no luck. "I'm here, Ragatha..." she whispers, trying to just say anything.
The doll doesn't move. Following the path of her eye, Pomni suspects she's staring at the back door still, her vigilant gaze piercing clean through the solid wall that should be blocking it. Tentatively, Pomni reaches a hand around her shoulder, ready to withdraw her touch at the first sign of her jumping.
Instead, the moment contact is made, Ragatha throws herself into Pomni's chest, curled up and shivering and shriveled so small that the jester practically dwarfs her by comparison. Pomni holds her close, as if her arms could be shelter for her. Two thin rubber-hoses of refuge are all she can provide.
"P-Pommy..." Ragatha whimpers pitifully, retreating deeper into the jester's embrace, too wrapped up in her own arms as well to hold her back.
"I-I'm here. We're gonna get out of this, okay? Everything will be okay."
"I was n... never supposed to come b... back. I promised myself when I left that I'd never come back."
"We can leave again. We can get back to the circus, okay? You just need to catch your breath. Then we can... focus on making a door out of here. You— we conjured our way into this, and we can conjure our way out, right? It's basically like one of the adventures. It's not real. It won't follow us back," she attempts to persuade, her hands tracing gentle circles over the doll's shaking back. As far as the split goes, she's 80% trying to convince Ragatha and 20% trying to convince herself.
"She found me," Ragatha shivers. "I didn't make her. She found me. E-Even if we make it back, she'll be there. I'll never be safe there again."
"You did make her— by accident," she quickly appends. "You... made all of this, I guess. Once we get better at it, then, you'll have more control. This won't ever happen again."
"Yes it will. It will. I'll always end up here... I don't know why I thought otherwise."
"...You've never been here with me, though. You're usually alone, aren't you?"
Another whimper. "I'm so sorry, Pomni—"
"No—! No, that's not what I mean. I mean, it's different this time. It'll be different. We're gonna find a way out, just, breathe, okay? In, hold, out." Pomni takes her own advice, demonstrating with the rise and fall of her chest pushing against Ragatha's cheek.
"O-Okay..." the doll mumbles, trying to follow her lead, each inhale shaking and skidding like failing brakes on a car, each exhale a burst of emptying lungs.
"Just... keep at it... alright? I'm here. It'll be okay."
"Okay..."
Barrel rubs her back with the side of his head as she tries to settle in; nestled between him and Pomni, it takes a while, but she slowly manages to calm down, even if only slightly.
"...I guess..." Pomni starts, unsure if she should say anything. "Guess I know what Caine did to you. He made you see her again, didn't he?"
"Uh-huh."
"...He showed me Gumigoo. It wasn't really him, I guess. He didn't recognize me, and he was..." the jester takes an unsteady breath. "...More like an animal. Tried to rip me apart."
"I... I'm so sorry, Pomni..."
"It's okay. I made it through. We all did, and it's over now. Just like this will be."
"I'm still sorry. That's so horrible."
"...Honestly... second worst part of it, after just, having to see him at all...? The whole time I was thinking, 'fuck, that's all you know, isn't it? You didn't even listen enough to do more. Where's the ‘angel’? The fake exit? No visions of the cellar, nothing else at all, just my friend that you killed in front of me? Am I that one note?'" Pomni laughs, shaky and bitter. "Maybe that was the point. Making me feel forgettable and ignorable by... forgetting and ignoring me? If so, it worked great. I don't know. I'm not gonna give the bastard that much credit."
"I'm sorry, Pomni..." Ragatha repeats, wishing she had anything else at all left in her to say.
"...Thank you. I-It's, I'm not trying to make this about me. I just... we've all been through hell. But we're all still standing, and we still have eachother. I knew I just had to wait for Kinger to... uh, kill Caine, it turns out, I guess. And then I could see you again. He couldn't take you from me. And she can't take me from you. If she tries, I'll rip her goddamn head off."
The thinnest of smiles breaks through onto Ragatha's face. "That's... I don't know if that's a good idea," she says, her smile barely lasting a second. "I think she's... it's not literally her. I-I know that. It's worse. It's how I... remember her... and I don't know if she can be hurt."
"Figure that’s why she's so tall? Like we're supposed to be children? In this... uh... 'scenario'?" Pomni glances around the stable; everything looks too big to her, in her stupid little jester body, but the stable here and the halls they had been running through seem especially over-tall.
"I guess."
"Well, we're not children. You're a grown woman, and so am I, and she has no power over us. We've fought and beat worse, on the adventures— hell, earlier today. As if she's anything next to Caine."
An airy, quiet laugh bubbles out of Ragatha. "You'd be surprised. I was in my twenties when I finally left. I had to plan it in secret. Only barely made it out."
Pomni leans away to look her in the eye, tenderly cupping her hand around the doll's tear-damp cheek. "But you still did it. You stood up to her once, you escaped. And that... must have taken so much. And I'm sorry you had to go through it alone," Pomni says softly. The doll looks up at her, eye glistening and still so full of fear. "...But you're not alone anymore. Never again. We're going to get through this, okay?"
"...Okay," she agrees, Pomni finally getting through. "I-If you're sure."
"I am."
They almost have time to share a smile. They almost have time to linger in the moment, to take comfort in one another, to have a single lasting minute of respite.
Instead, Barrel's ears go flat. In the distance, a heavy boot thumps on the first porch step, and then another, another, and then onto the gravel. The grinding stones beneath Her heel echo like boulders tumbling down a mountain slope, each step closer crashing like falling bombs.
In an instant, all of Pomni's efforts are undone. The haven-like atmosphere of the stable dissolves immediately, the temperature plummeting, the lights flickering and growing cold, sickly yellow. The horses all bray in their stalls, panicking as Her storm closes in. Ragatha's arms wrap back around herself as she scrambles away, back to the wall, head whipping around in terror as she looks for somewhere to hide. "She's coming," the doll warns, choking on her own breath. "She's—!"
"Shit. Okay. Um, help me... let's find a— a weapon, right? Like a pitchfork or... something? Let's be ready for her," Pomni says, leaping to her feet and extending a hand to the doll. "Ragatha, we can do this. I-It'll be okay!"
Barrel's back standing as well, pacing nervously in place, shaking his head with rattling exhales of clear distress with each approaching step. She's already about halfway— it took them half a minute to sprint over, and yet She crosses Her property in just a few short bounds.
"Hide. Hide! P-Pomni, we gotta hide, w-we can't—!"
"Get up! Come on! We can do this!" The jester reaches her hand closer, and Ragatha shrinks away, shaking her head.
"I-I can't!"
The door slams open. She doesn't bother to switch the lights off— Mother's shadow precedes Her, casting over the stable and plunging it into abyssal dark. Pomni stands in her shadow, turning to face Her defiantly, shaking in fear but holding firm nonetheless.
And it doesn't matter. In an instant, the shadows swallow her, and she's just gone.
Barrel is gone. Everything is. The shadows sublimate and displace everything Ragatha had in an instant, crossing the stable and blocking the pen's gate to trap her. There's no chance to hide. There's no chance to change her mind and fight by Pomni's side. There isn't even a chance to apologize to the jester, for failing to communicate just how hopeless fighting back always is. She's just gone.
Mother stands at the gate of the pen, looking down, looking disgusted. The glee in her eyes from earlier is gone— Ragatha is not where She wants her to be. Her eyes glow cold and baleful like the moon over a battlefield, lit up with tracers of ideas floating to Her head of how best to retaliate against this little deserter.
"You brought a guest," Mother says, and nothing else. She doesn't need to.
Ragatha freezes.
You gave no notice, Her eyes instruct Ragatha to say in her own head. She hears it all in Her voice, crystal clear. Did you even clean up first?
The doll runs through her options:
I didn't know she would be visiting, I'm sorry.
I've been keeping on top of the chores, so it should be okay.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
GIVE HER BACK.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Potential placations cloud her mind, each one failing to spark into words like flicks of an empty lighter. There is nothing she can say that's good enough, she can tell by Her eyes, perforating her with all the things they both know she doesn't need to bother saying anymore:
Look at you. Out here hiding like an animal. Why do you humiliate both of us like this? Mother would ask. Her questions are never rhetorical, no matter how little she cares for Ragatha's answer, and no matter if she actually asks them or not.
Ragatha shrinks into the wall, hoping that she’ll magically phase through the wall and get a second chance to run.
I'm sorry.
I don't know.
It won't happen again.
You scare me.
WHERE IS SHE.
I'm so sorry.
"W... Where is she?" Ragatha asks with strength she could never have imagined she still possessed.
The white eyes narrow. What did you say to me.
"WHERE IS SHE!?"
"Lower your voice," Mother commands.
Ragatha flinches.
"My guest is at the table." Where you should have taken her in the first place. Her glare intensifies; Ragatha can read it like a teleprompter, can see the tiniest hints of indignation, of offense, of implicit demand for apology and supplication. Her tells get a little less noticeable, each time; Mother likes to make her work for the understanding She expects.
Unbelievable. You're yelling at me, now? How dare you. Look at me. Look at what you've reduced me to. Do you have any idea how it feels, to know the one you love most doesn't care in the slightest how hard you try for them? How dare you be so cruel, how dare you think so little of me that the first words out of your mouth to me after you abandoned me are a threat.
"I-I didn't threaten—"
"You wanted to," Her voice is quiet, and yet her words boom, deafening and distorted like point-blank thunder. Mother looms taller, darker, eyes shining brighter, angrier, despite her supposedly wounded tone. She hovers like an angler fish, waiting behind her victim act, waiting for another mistake.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.” Ragatha's mind blanks. Nothing else comes to her. She sits immobilized under Mother's gaze, burning alive in twin flames— inescapable terror, and inactionable rage.
"You will clean yourself up. You will come to the table. You will introduce me to your... friend..." Mother spits, as if the word that had first come to her tongue had been rancid. She lets her eyes convey the rest. Afterwards, we will have a TALK. Understood?
Ragatha stares back and gives a tiny nod.
"Speak."
Ragatha's eye twitches as her mind fails her yet again:
I hate you.
I HATE YOU.
I'LL KILL YOU.
Mother laughs softly, as if watching a baby do its best to scowl. It's an uncannily human sound, coming from her. "No you won't."
She's gone again the instant She says it, leaving Ragatha on the floor, reeling from the fear, from the shattered dignity, from the loss, from the hurt, leaving her to wallow like a pig in mud in the cold meager relief that at least She's finally gone, for now.
Barrel doesn't come back— who knows where she sent him. She hadn't gotten to see her other horses yet either, but they're gone too. Mother did always say they'd sell for a high price, be it to one of the neighbors or the glue factory.
Pomni doesn't return either. She's at the table. Mother took her.
Mother took her. Took Barrel. Took her anger. Took everything, and somehow, Ragatha's still the one feeling greedy. She slumps over onto the floor and sobs.