Chapter Text
Everyone gets a hug.
The Suggestion Box prompt had been made with good intentions. Good intentions, along with a secret, desperate longing. Such were the main ingredients of Ragatha’s existence, so it seemed. An ache had covered Ragatha’s fabric skin when she wrote that pitiful plea. Months had passed since she’d arrived in the Amazing Digital Circus, and the absence of touch became a presence of its very own. It festered, and burned, and chewed at the edges of her soul. Years later, Ragatha would reminisce on that younger version of herself. The memories formed like Ragatha had been a passive observer of her own life. She saw herself entering the suggestion with the combined guilt and relief of a terrible confession.
How sad and utterly lonely she’d been. At times, Ragatha almost wished she could go back in time and visit that person, just so she could give herself the hug that she’d so desperately needed.
But now, she watched the consequences of her own stupid actions unfold, and she knew, without a doubt, that she would give that past version of herself a hard kick. As it was, Ragatha could do little else but gape in disbelief at the sight in front of her.
Weeks had passed since Caine even deigned to mention the Suggestion Box. The humans gave up on telling him their ideas, because the AI had only gotten more and more adept at shooting them down. So Ragatha didn’t know what could have caused him to find her worn, old prompt. All she knew was that this unexpected scene had to be her most familiar specialty: All Her Fault. Caine, who she’d stumbled upon during a late night stroll through the Big Top, seemed to be in the midst of testing out an NPC for the morning’s adventure. And how was he testing it out?
By holding out his arms, and waiting tentatively for the NPC—a standard, featureless mannequin—to shuffle forward, lean in, and wrap its wooden arms around his torso. Caine paused for a moment, as though considering the realism of the NPC’s rigging, and noting any adjustments that would have to be made before it was ready for the adventure. Then, slowly, he reciprocated the hug, tucking his head beside that of the mannequin. As Ragatha watched Caine’s teeth shut around his eyeballs, she knew that he was fully devoting himself to absorbing the sensations of the embrace. The ever-present ache on Ragatha’s skin flared, but it was overshadowed by a different feeling. Dread washed over Ragatha, and before she could be noticed by the ringmaster, she turned and hurried toward the Hall of Rooms. There, she tried to figure out how she could solve her latest mistake. If she didn’t come up with something to halt her own, stupid hugging adventure, she would wind up even further on the other humans’ bad sides.
Of all the people trapped within this digital purgatory, Ragatha was the only one that consistently enjoyed physical touch. Some tolerated it better than others. Kinger even initiated it on some occasions, but it was rarely more than an impulsive action, brought upon by a mind that lagged several paces behind any given circumstance. Besides Kinger, Gangle was the only other character that could reasonably be expected to enjoy a hug, but only if it came from someone she trusted. Namely, Zooble. Every other member of the troupe disliked, even despised random touches. Especially those brought upon by Caine. Their ringmaster had a penchant for being overly tactile in all of his performances.
And a performance was all it ever seemed to be. After all, the singular time Ragatha had reciprocated all of his touchiness, she’d gotten an…odd reaction. To put it lightly.
The “incident” happened a couple days prior to tonight’s weirdness. It was an average morning in every other sense. Caine had been swooping around, wielding his baton and his voice in equal force while he explained the day’s wacky adventure. He’d settled in the air beside Ragatha to place a crass hand on her shoulder. His jaws leaped in her periphery when he spoke in his booming tone, and to say it made her uncomfortable was an understatement. But Ragatha saw her own discomfort multiplied tenfold in the cartoonized expressions of the humans before her. They wanted nothing more than to avoid the awful time that Caine was laying out for them. It was obvious by their faces, but as always, Caine was oblivious. Ragatha had decided to reassure them by pointing out a silver lining in the literal rain clouds.
“A rainy day adventure sounds like fun to me!” she’d said in her usual, chipper voice. Fun may have been an exaggeration. Ragatha hadn’t exactly been looking forward to Raucous Railroad Rainstorm, an adventure that would combine mudslides and precarious cliffside transportation in ways—Caine promised—were sure to surprise. But there was no point in being pessimistic about the inevitable! She’d resolved to give the AI some help in making his adventure sound more appealing. It was a subconscious decision to mirror Caine when she placed a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed.
“Maybe,” she’d continued, “if we end up having to abandon the train…for whatever reason…we can find a safe space to walk around and smell the wet grass! Doesn’t that sound nice? You know, my favorite time to take my horses out for a ride in the pasture was right after a good—”
“Good old Raggy, taking every chance to remind us she’s a spoiled horse girl,” Jax scoffed. “Why don’t you shut up so we can get today over with? You can talk all about your cheesy American Girl Doll stories when you’re washing off the mud clinging to your ugly…” Suddenly, his gaze had shifted, sliding away from Ragatha’s irritated scowl to land on Caine. He paused, then grinned in a way that made Ragatha reconsider the ringmaster hovering in her periphery. It wasn’t until Jax’s next words that Ragatha realized something. Caine had gone completely, eerily still.
“Heh. Speaking of clinging,” he had gestured to Ragatha’s hand that gripped Caine’s shoulder. “Feeling a little handsy there, aren’t ya? You’re making the poor guy uncomfortable!”
Jax may as well have slapped Ragatha, with how startled she felt at his needling words. Her surprise only tightened the grip of her fingers. She whipped her head to stare at Caine, and the look on his uncanny features had immediately seared itself into her memory. Even in the present, as Ragatha sat in her room and busied herself with other concerns, she could clearly see the odd intensity with which he’d stared at the hand on his shoulder. His posture had slumped, but his eyes picked up the slack, narrowing in on their point of contact until Ragatha had to wonder if the sudden burning on her skin wasn’t imaginary. She’d recoiled and apologized profusely. It only took a couple moments for Caine to resume his usual, buoyant demeanor. But Ragatha had definitely done something…wrong. She had approached the enigmatic AI entity the wrong way. She hated to remember it, but she knew it was something she’d have to consider when she approached him in the morning, before the other humans woke up.
During all of her fretting and pondering, Ragatha had slowly decided on a plan. She couldn’t let Caine go through with her Suggestion Box prompt tomorrow. The other humans would hate her for making them endure hours of unwelcome hugs from what would certainly be overbearing NPCs.
In the early morning, Ragatha would find Caine, and she would save the others from a nightmare that she was so alone in considering a dream.