Chapter Text
Ragatha doesn't dream, at least, not anymore. Her nights, or what she assumed were nights, were spent closing her eye and suddenly waking up to the world around her. Time had moved on, and she barely remembered lying on her bed, getting comfortable, and falling asleep. It just happened.
So this morning, she woke up like every other day. Ragatha got ready, like every other day. She stared at herself in the mirror, like every other day. But the moment she stared at herself, she froze.
It was subtle, but the light in her eye was gone. Ragatha blinked, then blinked again. Was she still tired? Maybe she hadn't fully woken up yet.
But the longer she stared at herself, the more she noticed other changes to her face.
She had bags under her eyes, both under her normal and button eye. Ragatha didn't even know that she could have bags. Her felt skin was pale, was she able to grow pale? Was that another trait that went unknown to her in this cursed body? And her cardboard lips weren't upright into the forced smile that she had always known. Instead, Ragatha was staring at herself with a prominent frown.
And try as she might, she couldn't smile. She couldn't force it. Every time she tried to force that fake and radiant smile, she felt a hollow weight placed upon her che–
Her chest?
Her chest.
Something felt wrong.
Ragatha placed a hand on her chest, staring at herself in the mirror but found nothing outwardly wrong. She was suddenly hyperaware of her plush chest expanding and shrinking with every ragged breath she took. Her eye was shrinking, and she felt that too. She was suddenly able to feel every piece of cotton shifting around in her core, right at the center.
Like something was missing.
Almost like Ragatha was sensing everything with her body, both within it and outside of it.
What was going on with her? What was happening? She didn't understand.
And yet.
As the panicking thoughts were overflowing, Ragatha oddly felt…unbothered? Yes, she was hyperaware of every miniscule movement, down to her fingertips, but Ragatha felt.
Empty.
What was going on with her?
A knock on the door startled her out of her thoughts. Ragatha was about to take a moment to compose herself like she normally would, but she found that she didn't have the energy to do so. She hardly had any energy for anything.
Upon realizing that, Ragatha's eye glossed over to the floor, staring at nothing, her mind growing hazy, her thoughts going quiet. Even the knocking on her door was muffled in her own nonexistent ears. Something was happening to her, but Ragatha couldn't understand what [nor did she want to].
Her mind stopped racing, so that went quiet. The outside was blotted out, so that went quiet. It all came crashing down on Ragatha when she realized something.
She couldn't hear her heartbeat.
The clarity was returning to her eye, and suddenly she was face to face with Pomni. The fearful look that she gave Ragatha should have stirred her to comfort her little jester. She always comforted Pomni, even when she knew better. But she didn't. Ragatha, for the life of her, couldn't find an ounce of willpower to speak so much as a word of reassurance like she tended to do.
Eventually, the muffled silence from the outside world was slowly going away. Pomni's voice, muted and muffled, was finally hitting her with the full panic and dread that Ragatha expected to hear.
“–gatha! Please! If you can hear me–”
“Pomni.”
Even her voice sounded…wrong. It sounded so hollow. So empty. There was a lack of warmth that her tone always carried through the stress of it all. She sounded so cold and disconnected.
And judging by the look on Pomni's face, she noticed it as well.
“Ragatha?” Pomni asked, hesitant. “Is…everything okay?”
Ragatha blinked.
This would be the moment where she would plaster on a smile, wave her hand dismissively and run a hand to the back of her neck sheepishly for even scaring Pomni in the first place. But no such thing happened. No wave of her hand, no hand on her neck, no smile.
Ragatha simply stared at Pomni with no fanfare. And Pomni's brows furrowed deeply, her cartoon-like body conveying exactly how distressed she was just by the look Ragatha gave her. It made her wonder…if looks could kill, then what was Ragatha doing to Pomni?
“Ragatha, you're scaring me,” Pomni admitted quietly.
“Oh.”
No apologies. No reassurances. She stood there, staring at Pomni, feeling the jester's fingertips digging into her plush skin. Her grip tightened and the cotton inside her was shifting around her fingers.
“‘Oh?’ What do you mean, ‘oh,’ Ragatha, what's going on?” Pomni pressed, stepping closer into Ragatha's personal space. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
The answer seemed to trouble Pomni. Was it because Ragatha outright told her that she was not okay? She knew she deflected all of her thoughts and feelings so the other members wouldn't have to worry about her. That's what she does. Ragatha worried about others, others aren't supposed to worry about her.
So why was she telling Pomni? Why was she admitting that she was not okay?
Part of her was confused, the rational part that was still questioning everything about herself. That rational part that was wondering why it was so hard to be herself. But the rest of her body, her mind, she was acting on her own?
Was it like that?
Was she acting on her own?
But a part of her doesn't want this.
Ragatha wanted to reassure Pomni.
But Ragatha doesn't want to think.
Her mind was split.
Her body was split.
Her emotions–
Emotions?
How was she supposed to feel?
Why can't she hear her heartbeat?
What was going on?
.
.
.
Pomni couldn't help but feel the unease growing within her as she stared at Ragatha. She could tell that something was happening, but she didn't know what. Ragatha stood over her, her pupil a pinprick, bags under her eyes, her normally vibrant plush skin was pale, and worst of all, she had no smile.
Pomni knew her girlfriend, she knew she would always grin and bear it until she couldn't anymore. That's just how Ragatha was, unfortunately. And while Pomni should have been happy that Ragatha wasn't forcing her smile anymore, the air around her just felt…different.
Wrong.
Her skin even felt…cold. The simulated warmth that Pomni felt whenever she was close to Ragatha, whenever she touched her hand or on those rare occasions, was enveloped by her warm embrace? Gone.
Ragatha stood there. Staring at her. Watching her. Almost like she had no thought in her head. Like she was dead to the world.
And what frightened Pomni the most was that Ragatha admitted to not being okay. She hardly put up a fight. There wasn't any fight! No resistance, no hesitation, her girlfriend just outright told her “no!”
What was happening to Ragatha? What was happening to her girlfriend?
“Caine needs us. We…we should probably meet with the others,” Pomni said, swallowing a lump in her throat.
“Okay.”
That emptiness in her voice shook her to her core. Perhaps things would get better once she's out of this stuffy room. Yeah. Maybe Ragatha slept wrong, or….or maybe she had been thinking about so many things that her mood just collapsed. A person could be positive for so long, maybe Ragatha reached her limit. Whatever the reason, seeing that face void of emotion scared Pomni.
She didn't want her girlfriend to abstract.
So off they went. Pomni took hold of Ragatha's wrist and guided her out of her room. Normally, when Ragatha walked she had a bounce to her step, one where–even in her most vulnerable moments, she would still have that skip or a bounce. Not this time. Ragatha's arms were glued to her sides, as her body hardly swayed or bounced with each step she took. And the soft thumping Pomni expected to hear from her light footsteps were replaced with heavy thuds.
She was stiff.
Like some sort of puppet….
Pomni decided to take Ragatha to the lounge area with the couches. She needed to sit down, and it wasn't because Pomni couldn't stand watching her walk anymore. No. Not at all.
So Pomni guided Ragatha to sit down on the couch, which she did with no fuss. Of course there wouldn’t be a fuss, Ragatha hardly spoke against anything this morning. Everything came out of her like it simply was.
As Ragatha sat, her eye on Pomni, Pomni stood in front of her. Occasionally they would lock eyes, and while Pomni expected to feel a flutter in her chest like she normally would when she and Ragatha exchanged glances; she was only met with an uncomfortable heat creeping up the back of her neck. She had to constantly avert her gaze.
Normally such an act would cause Ragatha to shuffle uncomfortably herself. She would hunch over slightly, hold her arm or wrap her arms around her middle like she were to try and hug herself for comfort. Pomni was met with nothing but that blank stare.
“Good morning, Pomni,” came a high voice from behind her. Pomni immediately turned to see Gangle approaching them. “How’d you sleep?”
“I slept…fine,” she said, trying not to sound so bothered.
“Is everything alright?” Gangle asked her, only to be met with silence. Pomni watched the way Gangle shrunk in on herself before turning to Ragatha. Oh God. “Good morning, Ragatha, did you sleep well?”
“No.”
It was almost comical how blown Gangle’s eyes were upon being met with such a tone from Ragatha of all people. Pomni jumped in between her and Ragatha. She turned behind her, giving Ragatha another concerned look before shooing Gangle away from her girlfriend.
“Did I do something wrong–?”
“No, no, no,” Pomni interrupted her in a sharp whispery voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong, but…I think something is really wrong with Ragatha right now.”
Gangle leaned over, possibly to get another good look at Ragatha. Pomni could see the way she winced, possibly from having Ragatha stare at her with that disturbing blank stare.
“Ragatha’s always there to greet me by my door every morning,” Pomni began to explain. “She wasn’t there today, so I thought that she was feeling under the weather. So I go to her and when I knocked on her door, she wasn’t answering me.”
Pomni moved her hands to the pom–pom on her chest, her body shaking as she recalled everything. “I was so worried, so I rush into her room only to find her sitting in front of her mirror staring into the floor like…that.” She nudged her head towards Ragatha’s direction. “‘Oh good,’ I thought, ‘she hasn’t abstracted,’ so I start calling out to her. But she wasn’t responding to me. No matter what I did, she wasn’t reacting to my calls.”
Gangle’s face fell as Pomni kept going. “Finally she noticed me, and I could tell just how…tired? No…um, exhausted? Disassociated?” Pomni shook her head. “She wasn’t herself. And when I asked her if she was okay, she just said, ‘no.’”
“‘No?’”
Pomni nodded. “She’s been…distant, if that’s even the right word to call it. Or…maybe detached? Like she isn’t even here.”
“Do you think it might be something someone did yesterday…?” Gangle asked, her shoulders hunching up slightly.
“I can’t think of what happened yesterday that could cause her to act like this,” Pomni said, her body sagging.
“Ohh…what if it was something that I did.”
“Huh?”
Gangle stepped around Pomni, closing the distance between her and Ragatha. She watched the way Ragatha’s eye darted from her to Gangle as she approached her.
“Ragatha? Pomni told me everything, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry about yesterday!” Gangle said, tears forming on her mask.
Ragatha simply blinked. “Why?”
Gangle sputtered a little, blinking. “Y–You know…you were hovering around me and I asked to be left alone. I saw how much it bothered you, but I didn’t say anything!” The tips of her ribbons tapped against each other shamefully. “It’s not that I don’t like talking to you…I do like talking to you! I was tired and maybe I came off super mean and–”
“You didn’t do anything.”
Gangle froze, and Pomni just…stared with her eyes wide. “H–Huh?”
“You didn’t do anything,” Ragatha repeated simply. Like nothing bothered her.
“Oh…um…th–that’s good?” Gangle asked, very unsure.
“Yes.”
Gangle turned to Pomni, the tears on her mask had disappeared and were replaced with a very prominent frown. “Something’s very wrong…”
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
Pomni and Gangle turned to find Zooble approaching them next. The two rush over to Zooble, both speaking over one another before they held a grey plastic hook in front of them to stop.
“Alright, one at a time, I can’t understand the both of you when you’re babbling like that,” they groaned.
“Something is very wrong with Ragatha,” Gangle told them. Their eyes widened gazing over at Ragatha before turning to Pomni.
“It’s true…” Pomni sighed.
After Pomni explained to Zooble about her very distressing morning with Ragatha, Zooble shifted their weight to one side of their body while crossing their arms. “And you’re saying she’s been like this ever since?”
Pomni nodded her head. “Yes.”
“I can see why you’re worried, Pomni but maybe she’s just having an off day?” Zooble suggested with a shrug.
Pomni’s eyes widened. “Wh–no! It’s not that! Zooble, I mean it–something is really wrong with her!”
Zooble eyed Ragatha for a moment before sighing. “Pomni, she’s been here for a very long time. Maybe the stress finally got to her.”
“You don’t understand! She doesn’t get like this!”
Why would they assume they know Ragatha like that? Even Pomni didn’t know Ragatha like that, but she knew enough to know when her own girlfriend was coping differently than she normally would. The subtle signs of needing a reaffirming touch, a hug, the seam ripper on her vanity.
Pomni shuddered at that last one.
But she knew Ragatha. Or at least…she thought she knew her. Maybe she really was having a terrible morning?
Pomni snapped out of her thoughts when Zooble walked past both her and Gangle and took a seat beside Ragatha. Just as before, Ragatha’s eye darted from them over to Zooble.
“Hey…Pomni told me what’s going on,” Zooble started. “I know we don’t talk much, but if there is anything that’s on your mind–we’re here for you. Don’t be afraid to talk to us, okay?”
“No thank you,” came Ragatha’s blunt response in that disturbing monotone voice.
Zooble shook their head, eyes wide. Gangle’s jaw dropped. Hell, even Pomni couldn’t help but feel an unnamed fear creeping into her heart at the response.
Ragatha would hide her true intentions. If she didn’t want to speak about herself, if she didn’t want to go to someone for advice or comfort, she would say yes but politely find some sort of excuse to not go through with it. But now?
Ragatha said no.
She said no….
Zooble slowly turned their head towards Pomni and Gangle, and it’s as if the reality of Pomni’s words were finally settling in. “Okay yeah, something’s wrong.”
.
.
.
For a while now, Pomni, Gangle, and Zooble were discussing what was probably going on with Ragatha. It hurt Pomni deeply to be talking about her girlfriend like this, but what else was she supposed to do? They had to figure something out!
It wasn’t until Jax arrived at the scene that Caine had popped in from above with much fanfare. “Well good morning my Salacious Scallywags! I sure do hope that everyone had a good nights rest because today we’re–”
“Caine!” Pomni interrupted him, waving her hands frantically.
He pursed his teeth together at the interruption but still lowered himself closer to Pomni. “Mmmmyeessss?”
If anyone knew, it might be him.
“Something’s wrong with Ragatha,” Pomni told him.
“What isn’t wrong with her?” Jax scoffed which earned a glare from Pomni.
“Why, whatever could be the matter with our beloved doll?” Caine asked before doing a summersault in the air, facing Ragatha who was still seated in the same spot she was left in.
Pomni rushed over to her. Their eyes met, but that spark that she normally felt was still absent. She tried hard not to let it show how much it bothered her. Gently taking Ragatha’s arm, she tugged on her arm slightly to coax her on her feet. Well, there was hardly any coaxing when Ragatha simply followed Pomni’s unsaid request.
“Ragatha’s been acting very strange today,” Pomni said, her voice quivering. “Something’s wrong with her, but Zooble, Gangle, and I can’t figure out what’s going on with her.”
She tugged on Ragatha’s arm and guided her to stand in front of Caine. She saw the way Zooble and Gangle’s faces scrunched up in a slight discomfort seeing how Ragatha also moved without that bounce in her step. Even Jax’s eye twitched.
“Mmm, I can fish up an idea or two.” Biting her lip, Pomni reluctantly shuffled beside Zooble as she watched Caine descend in front of Ragatha. With a pop, he wore a white coat over his outfit while a black bag hovered the ground beside him. Unclasping the bag open, Caine rummaged through the contents before pulling out a comically large magnifying glass with an, “aha!”
Holding the magnifying glass to one of his eyes, he stared at Ragatha, humming while moving the glass all over her body.
“I see the problem! She has no heart!” Caine exclaimed as if he hadn't said the most concerning thing Pomni ever heard. With a snap of his fingers, his white coat and medical bag had disappeared into thin air.
“Wh…what?” Pomni managed to breathe out.
Caine stared at Pomni with his unblinking eyes. “What?”
“What…what do you mean she has no heart?”
Because that's not true. Pomni heard it before. She felt it. It may not be the same as the real thing, it would never be the same…but still. Pomni remembered her long nights just listening to Ragatha while she rambled on about anything that came to her mind. And she remembered each of those nights vividly.
Ragatha had a heart.
“Just as I said, my perturbed pinwheel!” Caine began, resting his hands on Ragatha's shoulders and turning her around for her to face the others. And upon seeing the face of her beloved, Pomni was finally coming to the disturbed realization that he may be right… “Her heart is missing! Our poor ragdoll must have misplaced it somewhere!”
“What do you mean ‘misplaced?!’” Zooble called out. The edge in their tone had Pomni feeling an unknown fear weighing in her chest. “You don't misplace something like that!”
“Weeeeell….either she misplaced it,” Caine let go of Ragatha's shoulders to cross his arms over his chest. His eyes drifted to the right, looking like he was lost in thought. “...or it was removed. You can't expect me to know these things, Zooble.”
“You have your all seeing eyes!” they snapped back. “You should know if–wait…removed?”
Before Pomni's mind could start to drift over to the implications of Caine's words, Jax's loud voice came crashing. “So…you're stealing our stuff for a scavenger hunt?” His tone dripped with that usual amusement that he was always known for. With a chuckle, he put a hand on his hip. “You're seriously running out of ideas, Caine.”
Caine's eye twitched. “I have not run out of ideas! In fact,” he snapped his fingers and a file cabinet had poofed into existence. Pulling the middle cabinet out, he flipped through the files. “I've had my adventures preplanned weeks in advance! They all have been sorted alphabetically, by date, and are all lemon scented.”
“Caine!” Pomni paused him before he could continue, desperation creeping into her panicked voice. “Ragatha? Her heart?!”
“Oh yes! Well…” he snapped his fingers once more, the file cabinet disappearing before tapping his…chin. “Well, without her heart, Ragatha wouldn't be able to enjoy my adventures nearly as much as she used to. And I do so admire the feedback. Okay!"
Raising himself higher into the air, Caine continued on. “I shall postpone today's adventure in order to help Ragatha. We shall call it–Pulse Pursuit! It will be your job to find Ragatha's frilly candy heart, and reunite it with our plain and polite puppet!” Pomni could feel the moment her teeth begin to sharpen at the name given to her girlfriend. “And as much as I know you all love your little side missions and side stories, there will be none of that today! The sooner we reunite Ragatha with her heart, the sooner we can start one of my adventures!”
Pomni stepped up to Ragatha, her eye devoid of the warmth and life that she had grown to love. Cupping her cheeks, she half expected the life to return to her eye and lean into her touch.
But she did not.
“You can't turn this into an adventure,” Pomni protested, her teeth sharp against her tongue. “This isn't fun and games. This is about Ragatha. Missing her heart!”
Jax snickered before Caine could get a word in. “I'm shocked that you're not more gung-ho about finding your girlfriend's heart. Why are you complaining? Or wait…” Jax paused, bringing up a hand to cover his exaggerated gasping mouth. “...could it be. Do you like having Ragatha this quiet?”
Pomni had no blood. She knew she didn't. She had many times for that theory to be proven false. And yet, she could feel it boiling within her. “How dare–”
At that point, Zooble and Gangle had stepped in between Pomni and Jax.
“Back off Jax,” Zooble warned with a dangerous edge in their voice. “We don't have time for your %$!t right now. Can't you see how %$!#ed the situation is?”
“You're both acting like having a single day without Dollface constantly nagging our ear off is a bad thing,” he groaned, his eyes glancing over at Ragatha.
Maybe Pomni might have imagined it, but she swore she saw Jax's pupils turn into pinpricks upon staring at Ragatha. There was even a small twitch of his grin that even made her uncomfortable. But his jovial grin returned just as quickly as she noticed it, and Jax took a few strides just to stand right in front of Ragatha.
“Who's to say Caine's even telling the truth about this whole heart thing,” Jax said as he brought his hand out of his pocket and up to Ragatha's face. He lightly slapped her cheek the way one would slap someone to wake them up. “She's probably trying to fib her way out of an adventure or something.”
Pomni gritted her sharp fangs, as she swiped his hands away from her. “Don't touch her!”
“Fine, fine, since you're so sure she ain't fibbin’.” He moved away from her rather quickly. “I'll go ‘search–’” he exaggerated the word with quotations before he stuffed his hand back into his pockets. “elsewhere.” No one else said anything to him as he walked away. Leaving them with one last parting word. “Have fun dragging around a useless toy!”
With him gone and Caine disappearing off to who knows where, Pomni, Zooble, and Gangle were left to stare at the still ragdoll. The longer the three looked at her, the more that unsettling feeling crept within Pomni. She looked less and less like Ragatha and more like a plush toy by the second.
“I hate to say it, but Jax’s right,” Zooble sighed which caused Pomni to whirl her head towards Zooble. “We can’t just drag her everywhere with us. She’s…” They winced, their parts shrugging slightly at the choice of words that came next. “...dead weight.”
“Don’t say that about her!” Pomni snarled.
“Pomni…” Gangle tried to reassure before Zooble waved a hook in front of her.
“I know you’re worried about your girlfriend, but being quick to snap like that isn’t going to help her and you know that.” Pomni’s eyes widened at the sharp tone Zooble gave them. “I’m worried about Ragatha just like you, we all are. Some more than others…” Zooble mumbled that last part while staring at the direction of where Jax disappeared to. “...but bringing her along with us is only going to make things take longer. And I don’t know about you but I don’t like the idea of her being separated from her…heart,” they said with a shudder, “longer than she needs to.”
Pomni’s eyes drifted from Zooble to Gangle, before settling on the floor even though every ounce of her body screamed to look at Ragatha. Zooble’s right, and she knew it. She was letting her worry and fear over Ragatha cloud her judgement. If they were going to help her then Pomni needed to go search without bringing Ragatha along.
“But where do we leave her?” Pomni asked. “I don’t feel like we should leave her unsupervised, what if something happens to her?”
Everyone stood quietly. It’s true, leaving Ragatha alone in such a state was not the safest option. What could they do to ensure her safety without having to worry too much about her?
Gangle’s face lit up, a ribbon raising slightly into the air with a gasp. “I–I think I know where.”
.
.
.
He shuffled the pillows to the side and was greeted by the faces of Pomni, Zooble, and Gangle standing before his little entrance. His mind wasn’t too hazy, so he crinkled his eyes in a soft smile.
“Oh, hello,” Kinger greeted them.
“Kinger,” Pomni started before turning to the other two. “Can you do something for us?”
“Sure!” he said with the slightest pep in his tone. “I’m not sure if my fort has enough room for everyone but I’m certain I can accommodate.”
“No, no–” Pomni interrupted before she, Zooble and Gangle stepped aside.
That’s when he saw Ragatha. She was stiff as a board, the heavy bags under her eyes were very prominent while the very faint memory of Ragatha’s normal deposition clashed with his current observation. The light in her eye was gone, replaced with a distant and cold stare that sent a shudder down his spine.
When was the last time he felt unsettled like this?
Even in his somewhat clear mind, he couldn’t remember.
“We need you to watch over Ragatha for us,” Pomni urged as she guided Ragatha into his fort. He watched the way the doll moved with an animated-less precision, clear but mindless steps through his entrance and past him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “We need to take care of something very urgent but we need someone to watch over her.”
There was something unsaid in the air, something in relation to Ragatha that would explain this stare she currently was in. But Kinger chose to not ask. It seemed like the three were in a hurry to leave.
“I can watch her,” he simply said, the small peek of the light was beginning to strain his eyes, his mind fogging up.
Zooble and Gangle turned away, Pomni stood there, immense relief washing over her face as she shot a grateful smile to him. “Thanks Kinger…” Her eyes darted passed him, he didn’t need to guess who she was staring at.
Without another word, Pomni closed the door to his pillow fort, enshrouding him and Ragatha in darkness.
Kinger settled on the floor, opposite of where Ragatha sat. She sat with her back straight and her hands over her lap. He couldn’t help but imagine her as a doll that was being displayed on a shelf. In this close proximity, Kinger could feel the cold air around her.
“I cannot remember when I last had guests,” Kinger said, breaking the silence.
“I see.”
Her voice sounded so…detached. Not in the way she sounded when she was sad or depressed, no, there was still a bit of a soft and comforting tone to her voice when she spoke. Now? It sounded automated.
Something was very wrong with her.
“Is everything alright, Ragatha?”
No movement, not even a muscle. “No.”
Kinger blinked. He wasn’t so used to her being so…forward. She was so quick to push aside her feelings, she always was since he knew her. This didn’t do anything to settle his unease.
“I can tell,” he mused.
“How so?”
It seemed that she was still able to ask her own questions, could she possibly form her own thoughts? Perhaps she wasn’t entirely automated as he assumed.
“It’s just…odd, you always wear your heart on your sleeve or,” Kinger chuckled to himself. “Lack thereof.”
“Caine said my heart is missing,” Ragatha said simply in that bothersome monotone voice that felt like a mockery of her.
Still, the words weren’t lost to Kinger. The way she spoke, she spoke simply and honestly. There was nothing to hide, not from the Ragatha that he was staring at right now. So what she said right now terrified him.
“Oh…like, actually missing?” he further inquired.
“Yes. It’s not in my chest.”
How long had Ragatha had a heart? His mind was reeling a little. The idea that some of them could potentially have organs within their digital bodies. How long had he been trapped here and he never could have come to that conclusion?
Well, he knew why.
Kinger knew he didn't have organs. God knows how many times he had been broken apart or splintered off without anything other than his wooden chips to show for it. As for Ragatha, as much as he could try to wrack his brain, he couldn’t remember her having any organs.
Much less a heart.
But the idea of Ragatha, someone who he has known for this long becoming this when her heart goes missing? This was so wrong to see. Like he was prying into something he shouldn’t have.
“That’s…not good,” he said, shuffling closer to her. “How…are you feeling?”
Something flickered in her eye. Almost as if he saw a brief spark of the real Ragatha. But as quickly as he saw, it was gone just as instantly.
“I don’t know.”
“I see…”
She sounded so…lost. Even in this state that Ragatha was in, she sounded so confused, so lost. Shackles were restricting her and he could only watch as she sat there, stating the obvious, and struggling to feel.
“Don’t worry,” Kinger said, shuffling even closer where she was within arms reach. “We can sit here and figure that out together.”
“Okay.”
Whatever it was that Pomni and the others were doing, Kinger could only hope that they didn’t take too long.