☀️ Sunshine (Pomni x Ragatha)

Chapter 4 - Spellbound

"...and I'm sorry." Pomni wiped at her eyes, dragging her drooping gaze up from Ragatha's torn, tear-soaked dress. "The other day, when I was yelling at you — and everyone else? I was being a jerk."

Ragatha laughed. "A little. But you're not a bad person, Pomni — if you were, you wouldn't have apologized. That takes maturity."

Pomni sniffed. And sniveled. And sniffed again. "What does it matter? Everyone still hates me..."

"Nobody hates you. Especially not me." Ragatha sighed. "You're going through so much, Pomni — we understand."

Pomni shook her head with a shaky sigh. "I just..." Her voice warbled. Another tear dropped from her shimmering eyes, "...I just want to go home..."

"Oh, Sweetheart. Come here..." Ragatha pulled Pomni closer. She rubbed circles around the little jester's shuddering back, patiently comforting her until her tears ran dry again — however long it would take.

"...I don't understand. How do you do it?" Pomni's voice, still shriveled and small, eventually found the strength to speak again. "You've been trapped in this horrible place for years now. How do you stay sane? How do you just...accept it?"

Ragatha stirred her head. Had it really been that long?

"...I try not to dwell on things that are out of my control. To focus on the little things that make life worth living." she said. "It's easy to be miserable — cathartic, even — but to focus on the silver lining, even if you have to squint to see it? It's not easy, but I think it's worth the trouble. Because it's always, always, always there."

Pomni was perfectly still for the longest time, quietly breathing, silently squeezing tear after tear from her weepy eyes. When at last she met Ragatha's gaze, she opened her mouth to speak — but no words spilled forth. Instead, Pomni simply pressed her cheek against Ragatha's chest, holding the doll tighter than she ever had before.

And Ragatha smiled. "Yeah...?"

Pomni nodded.

Ragatha hummed softly, brushing her finger through Pomni's hair. "I'm glad I met you, too."

🎪

The memory was still fresh.

Ragatha groaned, stirred from her sleep by the court of wild ravens clicking and cawing in the stony branches above. Just like every other morning, her drowsy eyes remained stubbornly shut, but the persistent tap-tap-tapping of woodpeckers kept her mind from sneaking back into slumber.

Propped against the pruned, petrified redwood, Ragatha shifted her head and took in a long, soothing breath. The forest air had thickened overnight, for better and for worse; the aroma of dewy wildflowers just barely masked the foul musk of rotting wood.

She grit her teeth, exhaling through her nose. Ow — Ragatha had forgotten how much it hurt just to breathe. The countless rips and tears carved into her fragile form worked in synergy to maximize her suffering; any slight movement was immediately punished with a cacophonous chorus of pain, pain, and more pain.

Reluctant to even open her eyes, Ragatha remained perfectly still, spacing out her shallow breaths as far apart as she possibly could. Slowly, the roaring in her chest faded into a rumble, the screaming pain in her legs hushed to whispers, and the boiling discomfort in her right arm cooled to a bubbling simmer.

Even as the choir's shrill song faded into silence, however, a single voice continued its grating chant.

It was odd — Ragatha's left arm laid just as still as its opposite, yet a bothersome, prickling pain still coiled around the appendage. Even stranger, it was a far different sensation than the rest: instead of a blunt, radiant agony that flared up whenever she tried to move, the pain was...precise. Targeted. And dreadfully persistent.