Chapter Text
Nobody said anything on the walk back.
That was the worst part.
Not Caine’s fake-out. Not the mannequin. Not even the sick, weightless feeling Ragatha had gotten when she’d looked at those two buttons and realized that hope, somehow, could still hurt worse than fear.
It was the silence after.
The whole circus felt wrong without their voices in it. Too big. Too colorful. Too bright. The ground still glittered under their feet. The blocks still lay with impossible cheer. Somewhere in the distance, one of the decorative pinwheels spun in the fake breeze like nothing had happened.
Ragatha hated that.
She kept glancing at the others like she could fix this if she just caught the right expression soon enough.
Pomni walked with her arms folded tight around herself, shoulders curled in, staring at the floor. Wet-cat miserable. Not crying, somehow worse. Just small. Like if somebody looked at her too hard she’d fold in half.
Gangle was holding her comedy mask against her chest with both hands, not wearing it. Her face underneath looked naked without it.
Zooble looked angry in that specific way that meant they were one wrong sentence away from either punching a wall or being weirdly kind to somebody about it.
Kinger shuffled along near the back, gaze distant, but not gone. Present in flashes. Ragatha had learned to recognize the difference.
And Jax-
Ragatha’s eyes slid toward him, then away.
Jax had laughed.
Not normal Jax laughing, either. Not smug, not taunting, not even mean. It had come out of him all wrong. Sharp and breathless and breaking apart at the edges until it sounded less like he thought anything was funny and more like his mind had simply run out of places to put the sound.
Now he walked with his hands shoved in his pockets, ears low, face blank.
That scared her more than anything.
They reached the common grounds and stopped because... what else were they supposed to do?
Ragatha placed Caine's gift basket on the floor as a sad attempt to remind herself of the things she could control.
No one had ever gotten this far before. No one had ever almost escaped together before. No one had ever had the whole thing yanked out from under them quite like that.
The gift basket of soaps and lotions still sat where Ragatha had placed it.
Zooble stared at it for one second.
Then kicked it across the circus.
Several little hotel-sized bottles exploded out over the grass.
“Feel better?” Jax asked without looking at them.
Zooble turned. “Do you?”
“Fantastic.”
“Liar.”
Jax shrugged one shoulder.
Ragatha opened her mouth before she even knew what she was going to say. “Okay. Maybe- maybe we should all just take a second.”
Five faces turned to her.
There it was. Reflex. The role. The thing she always did.
Smooth it over. Keep everybody level. Keep the room from tilting.
She smiled automatically, and even she could feel how thin it was.
“We don’t have to talk about everything right now,” she said. “But maybe we shouldn’t be alone either?”
Pomni looked up at that, just slightly.
Jax snorted. “What, you scared one of us is gonna abstract if unsupervised?”
Nobody answered.
Because, Ragatha realized with a cold sinking feeling, yes. A little. They all were.
Jax’s grin stretched, humorless. “Wow. That is rough, doll.”
“Don’t call her that,” Zooble said immediately.
“Didn’t even mean you.”
“I know.”
Gangle made a small noise. “Can we maybe not fight?”
“I’m not fighting,” Jax said. “I’m being charming.”
“Jax.” Ragatha kept her voice gentle. “Please.”
That got his eyes on her.
For one awful second, she thought he was going to say something truly cruel. The kind of thing he saved for when somebody got too close to an exposed wire. His expression sharpened, then flickered.
Then he looked away first.
“Whatever,” he muttered.
Pomni spoke so quietly Ragatha almost missed it. “I don’t... really want to be alone either.”
Something in Ragatha’s chest pulled tight.
Pomni never asked for things directly unless she was scared enough to forget not to.
“Then you won’t be,” Ragatha said, too quickly, too warmly, because that was easier than acknowledging the way her hands had started trembling. “We can all stay together for a little while.”
Kinger lifted a finger. “I think that is a very good idea.”
They all looked at him.
Kinger blinked. “Traumatic group events are an awful time for isolation. That’s just science.”
Zooble rubbed at their face. “Did science tell you that?”
“No,” Kinger said. “My wife did.”
The air changed.
Not fixed. Nothing like that. But softened, maybe. Like everyone had been holding their breath and forgot, for one moment, not to.
Gangle smiled faintly. Pomni’s shoulders loosened by half an inch. Even Zooble looked less razor-edged.
Ragatha swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat.
Kinger looked at all of them, then at the scattered soaps in the grass.
“Oh dear,” he said. “I still can't believe this was the prize”
“Neither can I,” said Zooble flatly.
“That is extremely insulting.”
That got the tiniest, weakest huff of laughter out of Pomni.
Ragatha turned toward her so fast it almost made her dizzy. “There you are.”
Pomni startled. “What?”
“You laughed.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah.”
Pomni stared at her for a second, then looked down. “Sorry.”
The word hit Ragatha like a slap.
“Hey.” She stepped closer before Pomni could shrink away. “No. Don’t apologize for that.”
Pomni’s face did that crumpled thing it did when she didn’t know what expression she was supposed to wear. “I don’t know. It feels weird.”
“Everything feels weird,” said Zooble.
“Yep,” said Gangle.
“Very weird,” Kinger agreed.
Ragatha tried for another smile, softer this time. “Then I think weird is allowed.”
Pomni looked at her, searching her face like she expected to find a catch hidden somewhere in it. Ragatha kept it steady. The way she’d practiced making herself seem for... well. Longer than she liked to think about.
Eventually Pomni nodded once.
There. Good. One problem down.
Only five hundred more to go.
Jax started walking again.
Ragatha frowned. “Jax?”
He didn’t stop.
“Where are you going?” Zooble asked.
“Away.”
Pomni’s head jerked up. Zooble swore under their breath.
Ragatha moved before she thought about it, hurrying a few steps after him. “Jax, wait.”
He stopped just long enough to look over his shoulder.
“You all said the magic words,” he said. “Nobody should be alone, blah blah. Really touching stuff. But I think I’ve hit my daily limit for sincere emotional bonding.”
His tone was light.
Ragatha knew false brightness when she heard it.
“Please don’t go,” she said.
That made him pause.
Not because he cared about being asked, probably. Jax hated being asked to do anything. But something in her voice must have come out wrong, because his ears twitched and his expression changed.
“What,” he said slowly, “are you doing?”
Ragatha blinked. “I’m asking you not to go?”
“No. The face.” He squinted at her. “Why are you making that face?”
She hadn’t realized she was. Her cheeks felt tight.
“I’m not making a face.”
“Uh-huh.”
Zooble came up on one side of her. “For once, he’s right. You look awful.”
“Thank you, Zooble.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ragatha laughed a little, because that was what was expected there. “I’m fine, really.”
Every single person there reacted badly to that sentence.
Zooble groaned out loud.
Pomni looked actively pained.
Gangle winced.
Kinger tilted his head in the particular way he did right before saying something devastatingly perceptive.
Jax actually barked a laugh.
A real one this time, short and ugly.
“Oh, wow,” he said. “That’s bleak.”
Ragatha’s smile faltered. “Excuse me?”
“You’re doing the thing.” Jax turned around fully now, looking at her with that sharp, unpleasant focus he used when he was about to make somebody regret being visible. “The ‘I’m fine’ thing. You do it all the time.”
“I am fine.”
“There it is again.”
“Jax,” Pomni said quietly.
“No, let her stop me,” Jax snapped, then pointed at Ragatha. “This whole time, everybody’s freaking out, everybody’s losing it, and you’re just standing there acting like the world’s saddest camp counselor.”
Ragatha went still.
“Jax,” Pomni said, more firmly this time.
But he was wound up now, too fast to catch.
“You’re not fine,” he said. “You haven’t been fine since the f%#K!ng fake exit. Probably before that. You just keep doing that smile like if you hold it long enough nobody’ll notice you’re one bad day away from splitting at the seams.”
The words landed with surgical precision.
That was the thing about Jax. He could be lazy about a lot of things, but not cruelty. Cruelty, he did with craftsmanship.
Ragatha felt the heat crawl up her neck.
For a second, she thought she might snap back at him. Not even something clever. Just something. Anything sharp enough to get him away from the sore, soft center of it.
Instead, nothing came out.
Not because he was wrong.
That was the problem.
The soft smile stayed on her face a moment too long, brittle and strange, like it had forgotten how to come down on its own. Her hands folded together in front of her, her doll hands lacing so tightly together they hurt. She stared at Jax, then somewhere just past him, and the whole world seemed to go a little muffled around the edges.
Bright circus colors. Glittering ground. Everyone watching.
Too much.
Pomni took a half-step forward. “Ragatha?”
Ragatha swallowed.
When she spoke, her voice came out quiet and even, which was somehow worse than if it had shaken.
“He’s right.”
Ragatha let out a little breath through her nose, eyes fixed somewhere low and distant. “I mean, he’s being awful about it, but…” She blinked once. “He’s right.”
Gangle made a tiny, heartbroken noise.
“No, no, don't villainize me! Hold on-” Jax started, and for once he sounded less smug than caught off guard.
Ragatha shook her head before he could finish. “No, you're right Jax.”
There was no drama in the words. No big collapse. Just a fact, flat and worn thin from overuse.
“I’m just…” Her hands twisted harder together. “I’m trying, okay?” Ragatha's voice broke towards the end of her sentence.
That scared Pomni more than if Ragatha had started yelling.
Zooble’s expression sharpened immediately, all irritation replaced with concern. Gangle looked about two seconds from crying. Jax had gone very still in the particular way he did when he realized he’d kicked harder than he meant to and had no idea what to do about it now.
Ragatha could feel them all looking at her, and usually she knew how to hold that. Usually she could smooth herself out into something reassuring, something easy, something useful.
This time she couldn’t.
Her face had gone blank. Not empty exactly, just… gone quiet. Like she’d pulled every curtain closed and locked the door from the inside.
Kinger moved first.
He did not rush her. He did not crowd her. He simply stepped around the others and came to stand near enough that she could see him when she lifted her eyes, but far enough not to feel cornered.
“Ragatha,” he said gently.
She looked at him.
His expression softened in that warm, achingly patient way of his. “I think,” he said, “you have been brave for long enough.”
Something in her face flickered. Just the smallest tremor.
Kinger held out a hand.
“Come with me.”
Ragatha looked at his hand, then at him again, as if trying to figure out what exactly he was offering.
“My fort is very good for this sort of thing,” he added.
That got the faintest huff of air out of Pomni. Barely a laugh, but close.
Ragatha didn’t smile.
But her shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Kinger…” Gangle whispered, like she was relieved somebody knew what to do.
Kinger kept his eyes on Ragatha. “You do not need to say anything else right now.”
Ragatha’s throat worked. She gave one tiny nod.
Jax shifted where he stood. “I didn’t-”
Zooble elbowed him hard enough to shut him up.
Ragatha didn’t even look his way.
She reached out after a second, slow and careful, and put her hand in Kinger’s.
Kinger closed his fingers around hers with impossible gentleness, like she was something fragile but not broken, and turned to lead her toward the pillow fort.
Pomni immediately moved to follow.
Kinger glanced back. “I think,” he said softly, “just me for the moment.”
Pomni stopped short, looking like every instinct in her was screaming not to let Ragatha out of her sight.
Ragatha turned her head just enough to look at Pomni over her shoulder and managed the smallest nod, more tired than reassuring.
Pomni hugged her arms around herself and nodded back.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
Gangle pressed both ribons over her mouth. Zooble stood beside her, one hand awkwardly settling on what was meant to serve as a shoulder. Jax stayed a little apart from all of them, ears lowered, face pinched into something unreadable.
Kinger guided Ragatha into the fort and pulled the pillows closed behind them.
Inside, everything changed.
The circus light dimmed into something soft and muted, filtered through layers of blankets and pillows. It smelled faintly like fabric and dust and that weird clean digital nothingness that clung to everything here. The walls muffled the outside world until the others’ voices became distant shapes instead of words.
Ragatha stood there for a moment like she didn’t know what to do without an audience.
Then her hands came apart.
Kinger sat down on the floor of the fort with a little sigh and patted the space beside him.
Ragatha stared at the spot.
Then, very slowly, she folded down next to him.
The second she sat, something in her seemed to give out.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
She just... caved inward.
Her shoulders curled. Her hands fell limp in her lap. Her head bowed, red yarn hair slipping forward to hide her face. She did not cry, at least not at first. She just sat there, frighteningly still, like all the strings holding her upright had been cut at once.
Kinger waited.
After a while, Ragatha said, in a voice so small it barely seemed to belong to her, “I didn’t mean to lie.”
Kinger looked at her quietly.
“I really thought if I kept going...” She swallowed. “If I kept smiling and helping and making sure everyone else was okay, then maybe I’d be okay too.”
Her laugh came out thin and breathless and miserable. “Turns out that’s not really how it works.”
“No,” Kinger said softly. “It rarely is.”
Ragatha stared at her hands. “And the worst part is, I knew that. I knew that and I still did it anyway. It was all a lie.”
The first tear hit the back of her hand before she seemed to realize she was crying.
She blinked at it.
Then another followed.
And another.
No sobbing, no wailing. Just silent tears slipping down her face while she kept staring at her lap like maybe if she looked hard enough, she wouldn’t have to feel it.
Kinger reached for a pillow and gently set it in her arms.
Ragatha took it automatically, clutching it to her middle.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“I hate that he said it in front of everyone.”
“I know.”
“And I hate that he was right.”
Kinger was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes,” he said, “the truth arriving in cruel packaging makes it harder to accept, but it does not make the truth less worthy of care.”
Ragatha pressed her face into the pillow.
Her voice came out muffled. “That sounds wise.”
“I have many pillows. Wisdom is almost inevitable.”
That got the tiniest, wettest laugh out of her.
Kinger smiled, just a little.
Outside the fort, there was the faint sound of somebody pacing. Probably Pomni. Maybe Gangle too. Zooble would pretend not to worry. Jax would probably pace somewhere farther away and act like that was different.
Inside, Kinger stayed beside her, steady as a lamp left on in a dark room.
Ragatha cried into the pillow, small and silent and exhausted, while Kinger kept watch like this was the most natural thing in the world.
And for the first time all day, nobody asked her to be the strong one.
Kinger let the quiet settle.
He didn’t rush to fill it. Didn’t try to fix it. He just stayed there beside her while her breathing slowly evened out against the pillow, while the worst of it drained off into something duller and heavier.
After a while, when her grip on the pillow had loosened just a little, he spoke.
“Can I ask you something?”
Ragatha didn’t lift her head. “... Of course.”
“You can decline. That's also very fair,” Kinger said.
A small pause.
“…Okay.”
Kinger folded his hands in his lap. “A couple of adventures ago,” he said gently, “you mentioned your mother.”
Ragatha went still again.
“You said she yelled,” he continued, careful with each word. “And that she was often… unkind in how she spoke to you.”
Ragatha’s mittens tightened in the pillow.
Kinger’s voice stayed soft. “Did it ever go beyond that?”
The question hung there.
For a second, it looked like she hadn’t heard him. Like the words had just... slipped past.
Then her shoulders locked.
Her breathing stopped just for a beat.
Kinger didn’t say anything else.
Didn’t repeat the question.
Didn’t push.
Ragatha slowly lifted her head from the pillow, but she didn’t look at him. Her eyes fixed somewhere on the blanket wall instead, unfocused, distant in a way that didn’t belong to the circus at all.
Somewhere else.
Her mouth opened like she was going to answer. Nothing came out.
Her mittens curled tighter into the fabric, knuckles pulling taut.
Kinger saw the shift. The way her posture changed, not just guarded now, but… small. Contained. Like she was trying to take up less space without even realizing it.
He had seen that before.
Too many times.
“Ragatha,” he said quietly, “you do not have to-”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
The words came out fast, as if she’d been holding them ready.
Kinger stopped immediately.
Ragatha swallowed, still not looking at him. “I just... I don’t. Not right now.”
Her voice had gone flat again, but underneath it was something tighter. Fragile.
Kinger inclined his head. “Of course.”
Silence returned, but it felt different now.
More careful.
Ragatha pressed her face back into the pillow, but this time it wasn’t to hide tears. It was to hide everything else. Her shoulders curled in again, arms wrapping around the pillow like it was something solid enough to hold her together.
Kinger adjusted slightly beside her, giving her space without leaving.
After a moment, he reached over—not touching her, just resting his hand nearby on the blanket between them.
“I am very glad,” he said softly, “that you told me to stop.”
Ragatha didn’t respond.
But her grip on the pillow eased, just a little.
Outside the fort, someone shifted. A faint voice, Pomni’s no doubt, murmured something. Zooble answered, quieter. Gangle sniffled.
The digital world was still there.
But in here, the walls stayed soft. The light stayed dim.
And Kinger stayed exactly where he was, steady and patient, like he had nowhere else he needed to be.
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
Pomni didn’t stay still for long.
Maybe thirty seconds.
Long enough for the quiet outside Kinger’s fort to start feeling like it was pressing in on her from all sides, like if she didn’t do something she might just dissolve into it.
Gangle was crying softly into her ribbons. Zooble stood next to her, stiff and tense, not saying anything but clearly thinking too much. Neither of them looked up when Pomni shifted her weight.
Pomni hugged her arms around herself.
Then she turned and walked.
She didn’t really decide where she was going until she saw him.
Jax was a little ways off, near the edge of the grounds, leaning back against one of the support poles like nothing in the world had changed. Like he hadn’t just-
Pomni’s chest tightened.
She marched over.
“Hey.”
Jax didn’t even look at her at first. “Wow. Round two already?”
Pomni stopped a few feet away from him. “What was that?”
That got his attention.
He glanced over, one brow lifting slightly. “What was what?”
“You know what.” Her voice came out sharper than she expected. “Back there. With Ragatha.”
Jax shrugged, like it was nothing. “What? I told the truth.”
Pomni stared at him.
“You hurt her.”
“And?” he said flatly.
Pomni took a step closer. “And you don’t care?”
Jax let out a short breath through his nose, almost a laugh. “Oh, I care. I think it’s hilarious.”
Pomni blinked at him.
For a split second, she thought she’d misheard.
“... What?”
Jax tilted his head back against the pole, looking up at the circus sky like this was the most casual conversation in the world. “I mean, come on. You saw her. Whole thing finally cracks a little and suddenly she’s all quiet and miserable instead of playing the world’s most upbeat emotional support doll.” He snorted. “It’s an upgrade.”
Pomni’s hands clenched at her sides. “That’s not-”
“She deserves it,” Jax cut in.
That stopped her.
Jax finally looked at her properly now, eyes sharp, expression carved into something deliberately uncaring.
“She’s been doing that fake cheery act since day one,” he said. “Always smiling, always ‘Oh it’s okay guys, we’ll figure it out!’-like that fixes anything.” He made a vague, dismissive gesture. “It’s creepy.”
Pomni felt something hot and immediate flare up in her chest. “It’s not creepy, it’s-”
“It’s fake,” Jax snapped.
Pomni flinched, but didn’t back down.
“No, it’s not,” she shot back. “She’s trying.”
“Oh, she’s trying, alright,” Jax said. “Trying to pretend she’s not just as messed up as the rest of us.”
“That doesn’t mean she deserves to get torn apart for it!”
Jax rolled his eyes. “Relax. I didn’t ‘tear her apart.’ I just said what everyone else was thinking.”
“No, you said it like a jerk,” Pomni said, stepping even closer now. “There’s a difference.”
Jax’s ears flicked slightly, annoyed. “Wow, Pomni, thank you for that groundbreaking insight.”
“I’m serious!” Her voice cracked a little, but she pushed through it. “You don’t get to just decide she’s fake because she’s trying to keep everyone together!”
“And you don’t get to decide she’s doing it for the right reasons,” Jax shot back immediately.
Pomni froze for a second.
Jax leaned forward just a bit, eyes narrowing. “People don’t act like that for no reason,” he said. “That kind of ‘everything’s fine’ act? That’s not normal. That’s someone who’s got something way worse under the surface and is too scared to deal with it.”
Pomni’s jaw tightened. “So your solution is to make it worse?”
“My solution,” Jax said, straightening again, “is that it’s better she drops the act.”
“At her expense?” Pomni demanded.
“At everyone’s benefit,” Jax corrected. “At least now it’s honest.”
Pomni stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“She was barely holding it together,” she said. “You saw that.”
“Yeah,” Jax said. “And now she’s not pretending she is. Problem solved.”
“That’s not solving anything!”
“It is,” Jax said flatly. “It means I don’t have to sit there watching her fake being okay while everything’s falling apart.”
Pomni took a shaky breath. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Jax shrugged.
Pomni shook her head, frustrated, angry, and something else she didn’t want to name. “You don’t get it.”
“Oh, I get it just fine.”
“No, you don’t,” she snapped. “You just— you push people until they break and then act like you did them a favor.”
Jax’s expression flickered for half a second.
Gone just as fast.
“Hey,” he said lightly, “if it works, it works.”
Pomni’s hands curled into fists. “You’re such an-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he cut in. “I’m the worst. Save it.”
She stepped forward like she might actually hit him.
Jax didn’t move.
“Look,” he said, waving a hand like he was bored of the whole thing, “you wanna go sit in the sad circle and hold hands about it, go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”
Pomni didn’t move.
He pushed off the pole, stretching slightly like he’d just finished a nap instead of starting an argument.
“I’ll deal with her later.”
Pomni blinked. “Deal with... what does that mean?”
Jax gave her a sideways glance. “It just means I’ll talk to her.”
“You’ve done enough talking.”
He ignored that.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m not gonna bite her head off or anything.”
“That’s not reassuring!”
Jax started walking past her.
Pomni turned quickly. “Jax.”
He didn’t stop.
“I said I’ll handle it,” he tossed over his shoulder. “You don’t need to babysit me.”
Pomni stood there, watching him go, her chest tight and buzzing with leftover anger.
Behind her, the fort sat quiet.
Ragatha was still in there.
And somehow, that mattered more than whatever Jax thought he was going to do next.
Pomni hugged her arms tighter around herself, then turned back toward the others, jaw set.
“No,” she muttered under her breath.
She was absolutely not letting him “handle it.”
Pomni took a step after him.
“Pomni.”
Zooble’s voice cut across the space, sharp enough to stop her mid-stride.
Pomni turned, frustration still buzzing under her skin. “What?”
Zooble was already walking toward her, Gangle close behind, hands still pressed to her mouth. Zooble glanced in the direction Jax had gone, then back at Pomni.
“Let him go.”
Pomni stared at them. “No.”
“Yes,” Zooble said flatly.
“Did you hear what he said?” Pomni gestured wildly in the direction Jax disappeared. “He thinks she deserves that!”
“I heard him,” Zooble said. “Unfortunately.”
“Then why are we just letting him walk away?!”
Gangle flinched at Pomni’s tone but nodded a little anyway. “H-He was really mean…”
“Yeah,” Zooble said. “That’s kind of his whole brand.”
“That doesn’t make it okay!”
“I didn’t say it did,” Zooble snapped. Then they exhaled, rubbing their face. “Look. I’m not defending him. I’m saying chasing him right now is a bad idea.”
Pomni shook her head, already turning back like she was going to go after Jax anyway. “He said he’s going to ‘handle it.’ That’s not—”
Zooble stepped in front of her.
“Pomni.”
Pomni stopped.
Zooble lowered their voice just a notch. “You really think anything good is gonna come out of you yelling at him more right now?”
Pomni opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
They were right.
Zooble gestured vaguely in the direction Jax had gone. “He’s already in a mood. You pushing him is just gonna make him worse.”
Gangle nodded quickly. “A-And then he might say something even worse to Ragatha…”
That landed.
Pomni’s shoulders tensed.
Zooble crossed their arms. “Exactly. So maybe we don’t escalate the situation with the one guy here who turns everything into a problem on purpose.”
Pomni looked between them, jaw tight. “So we just... let him do whatever he wants?”
“No,” Zooble said. “We're letting him cool off.”
Pomni frowned. “You think that’s gonna happen?”
Zooble gave her a look. “It’s more likely than him suddenly developing emotional intelligence because you yelled at him.”
Gangle let out a small, nervous laugh. “T-That’s... probably true...”
Pomni exhaled sharply through her nose, hugging her arms around herself again. “I don’t like this.”
“Yeah,” Zooble said. “Join the club.”
They glanced back toward the fort, their expression shifting, still tense, but quieter now. “Right now, Ragatha matters more.”
That... hit even harder.
Pomni’s gaze followed theirs.
The pillow fort sat still and closed, soft walls hiding whatever was happening inside. Hiding Ragatha.
Pomni swallowed.
“...Yeah.”
Gangle wiped at her eyes. “S-So we should just stay close? In case... she needs us?”
Zooble nodded once. “Yeah. That’s the plan.”
Pomni hesitated, then nodded too, slower this time.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
But her eyes flicked once more toward where Jax had gone.
Her expression tightened.
“Just... not forever,” she muttered.
Zooble didn’t respond to that.
They didn’t need to.
letting Jax “cool off” was only a temporary solution.