//------------------------------// // Ladybug, Chapter 17: Those Who Remained // Story: Rag Doll // by No one is home //------------------------------// “Jessica!, we have to get help!  Petal is dying!” The Unicorn dective snarled at the goat pony. “If you break the fourth wall right now even my cards can’t stabilize her existence!”  The blind goat snapped testily. “It’s a bright sunny day full of HOPE!” The poster on the wall proclaimed. “Just open the door…” -=-=-=-=- “They are probably already dead, OC,”   I’m not great at explaining this.  Endless plains of savannah that is not jungle helps you hone your answers to hard questions.  Because why a Jungle Queen? The out back, yo. “Uncle!” She knows how to use the word to cut past my fluff.  “They were trying to help us!” “The unicorn has been stalking Gloomy since she was a filly.”  I can’t afford the ladybug the time I had with Gloomy.   There was always one more day of being her fun imaginary friend until one day there wasn’t another day.  She has to hear the truth.  “I just don’t like the pegasus, and I’d sooner trust myself than trust the goat.  I don’t care what happens to them.” “Wait!  Uncle!  I see an inside!”  And… emotional moments are ruined because OC see’s a way out from under the sky.  The good news is we found the villa. The bad news is that OC can roll like Sonic when she wanna.  And being encased in her pill bug shell and cuddle hooves, when she does that, is exactly like letting your cousins stuff you into a tractor tire and roll you down a hill.  It is exactly like that. I mean it’s technically fu, but thank Twilight’s great purple flank I don’t have the plumbing to vomit. “Eewww!!!  Uncle!”  Okay, I might not understand the extent of my questionable biology… And that quickly we’re inside the villa. I’m guilty of lying to her mother,  and I feel bad, I really do.  “Charlie.  It’s been such a long time.”  I always knew what we were always going to find here.  It’s voice rolls over us like warm motor oil, sticking in the crevices of thoughts and leaving stains as it flows.  “Is that a new changeling filly?” The crystal head trails changeling magic like viscera, and smiles with an unsettlingly sincere rictus grin.  “If it were up to me I’d put you on a watchlist.  Honestly, what is she, like seven?” “Hey!  I’m fourteen!  Underlings just live in small spaces!”  OC meeps as the head turns it’s smile on her. “Huh… I always told Whatserface the drugs would stunt your growth in the long run.”  The crystal changeling head crocks a curious eyebrow.  It turns its gaze on me.  “You need me.  You would never expose her to me if you didn’t need me, Charlie.  I know your name, Ragdoll.  I know what you are… and you need me.  It’s about her,  just say it.” “Uncle… I don’t like this person!  I’m afraid.”  It breaks what passes for my heart because she is right to be afraid, just not of this broken relic. “Did she just call you ‘Uncle’,”  The head’s mad cackle echoes outside of the villa and across the psychological outback.  “Uncle-Daddy-Dearest… how delightfully disgraceful.  Don’t worry little Ladybug.  I’m no threat to you.  I'm not that self destructive.  But tell me… has your “uncle” directed you to kill yet?” “How… who are you?”  My ladybig asks the dreaded question.  I want scream, I try desperately to do a scene transition.  I regret it immediately. -=-=-=-=- “Who am I?”  The disembodied crystal head smiled brightly.  As the plushy princess advanced in curiosity the ragdoll stared on with his impassive smile and button eyes, the crystal changeling head continued.  “I am Iam Selrahc Noone!  I’m so glad you asked!  Normally I would say ‘I am no one, and you don’t know me.’  But that would just be lying, and besides, do you know how long it’s been since an actual Equestrian has come here to talk to me?  And that was Twilight Sparkle.  Something about ‘Blah, Blah, Fire Alicorn’ and “Blah, Blah, seal on pony magic.’  None of which had jack all to do with me.” “I don’t know anything about that…” The Ladybug stammered against the assault of the words of the disembodied head. “You don’t know, but the outerverse grinds on.  It changes at the edges.  Did Charlie tell you that Zephyr Heights was suddenly never Canterlot?”  The thing’s smile was as friendly as it was cruel.  “What city did your home and family exist beneath?  I can’t remember?” “Uncle what’s he talking about?”  The Ladybug scuttled, panic creeping in to her voice.  “What does he mean Zephyr heights was never Canterlot?  Zephyr heights was Canterlot!  My ancestors built our hive in the undercity that Zephyr Heights built over!  The Undersqueaks use bootleg Zephyr Heights internet!  I climbed the ruins of Lower Canterlot just to get to Zephyr Heights!  Ask the doll!  Uncle, tell him!” “It was until a little while ago.  Yesterday Zephyr Heights was built on the ruins of Canterlot, and always had been.  And now it was always Cloudsdale, rebuilt on a mountain peak.”  The ragdoll turned his plushy, impassive face to the animated crystal bust of a mad changeling.  “You’re an ass.  The universe realigned, OC.  If we had stayed we would have realigned too.  You’re existence is dependent on your hive being in that place at that time.  I couldn’t risk that, so I brought you here.” “NO!”  The plushy princess glitched and for one moment became an enraged insect evolved to live underground.  Her hooves and legs were built for scurrying, climbing, and jumping.  Her elytra were a shell, never intended for flight.  Why would a creature that had never seen the sky have wings?  For one moment she was the creature she had grown into before magic returned.  “Your both lying to me!  Even if they’re gone, They!  Were! There!” “Yes.”  The grinning crystal head winked knowingly as it floated around the little underling at most unseemly angles.  “They were always there, just like you always ended up here, in the greater scheme of a thousand moons of the ever changing tides of history.  I understand.  You’ve always seen the past as an immovable rock.  But the past is really a river, the future is the inevitable dam that we crash against.”