Rag Doll

by No one is home


Ladybug, Chapter 18: The Ladybug Princess

“The multiverse looks like dreams to them.”  The Unnamed crystal face chuckled merrily.  “So much easier for them to wake up from.  So much easier for them to break on a whim.  They call us names: heroes, villains, they call us monsters, my little ladybug.  And they push us into the darkness and hide behind us.  It was never fair.”

“Leave her alone!” The Ragdoll snapped, flailing his arms in noodly rage.  “She’s already lost enough without you rubbing salt in the wound!”

”Don’t you get santimonious with me, you overstuffed snot-rag!” The head snarled in reply, as it floated menacingly over the Ragdoll.  “Her entire history, and everyone, and everything she’s ever known was rewritten because of a debate between two mad gods over how the world is supposed to be.  She’s not aware, the way we are.  And you clearly lack the stomach to explain the truth to her!  And believe it or don’t, but one of us knows how that feels, and it’s not you.”

“Why should I trust you?”  The insectile princess bristled with rage.

“Because I will always tell you the hard truth, at first.  Right up until I lie again.” The things magical… trail stroked her elytra, evoking a shudder of disgust.

“Do you think I don’t know who you are?”  The Ladybug scuttled away from the crystal head thing.  “My hive kept the most complete history since…”

“Do you mean the history that just wrote your hive out of existence?” The head snarled, then took a deep calming breath.  “You don’t even know what I am, let alone ‘who’, my little ladybug.  The Multiverse is cruel in ways you cannot even perceive.  You think I am ‘The Nopony’, the monster under your bed that made the Night of the Dragonfly necessary… justified even.  But here’s the little secret.  The Nopony was no one pony.”

“But that’s not important right now.  I’m sure you’ll have plenty of experience with Singular Near Infinity Conglomerates in the near future.  I want to talk about your feelings.  You already know you’re not the one he would have saved if he had that choice.  I can taste it rolling off of you.”  The changeling head cajoled as the ragdoll cast a glare of inexpressive hatred.  “Tell me, did you somehow steal Ragdoll Charlie, or did she just give him away?  Guilt and betrayal are part of a well balanced breakfast, but give me some context.  He loves you, because of course he loves you,  He’s loyal to you because of course he’s loyal to you.  And you know it.  I can taste it in your sadness.  But tell me, why does that make you so sad?”

“You treat me like a child lost in delusion!”  The Lady snarled, her true teeth fully on display.  She stomped scurrying, chitinous hoovesies over and slung the ragdoll on her back with more force than necessary.  “Uncle, we’re leaving!”

“And going where exactly?” The Last Nopony replied with the friendliest chuckle.  “Charlie brought you here as a last resort to dodge the realignment of the border of the universe.  He’s already opened your path.  You only get one of those deals.  He can’t make a deal to get you out of the outback.  But I can.”

-=-=-=-=-

“Charlie,” Her words cut me in half.  Because she calls me by name,  not “Uncle”.  Because she means the words, “I want to give you back to Gloomy Sonnet.  If I give you away you owe me one more path!”

“Gloomy Sonnet doesn’t exist anymore!”  I laugh because it’s all I’ve got left.  “Or maybe she’s always been there, just never knowing me.  And now I always gotta wonder, if she’s still out there, does she smile more for never having found me?”

I hate the bitterness I can’t keep out of how I look at her.  “Gloomy Sonnet gave me away.  When you pass me on, I will open one last path.  But you can never give me back.”

“Oh, the Ragdoll speaks?”  I want crush it’s stupid head.  But I won’t.  I can’t.  “He can’t send you back, Ladybug.  But I can.  I can cast you back into the realigned universe.  Where-ever you would have ended up, assuming you even exist.  But I’m certain you do… or still could.  I can undo the wish you wish you never made to see the sky, my little Ladybug.”

“I climbed out of the mountain…”  Her voice carries vulnerability.  Confidence comes with uncertainty.  “I’ve seen the sky…”

It’s not even the second time I’ve seen that childlike wonder. It’s my first time seeing that big ass mass of empty Nope for the terrifying empty that always was behind her smile.  “Ladybug, he can’t put you back where you came from.  You don’t exist there anymore.”

“I don’t exist.  Not my family, not the whole wide world, uncle.  Just me.”  The thing that looms over me is not a Princess of Cuddlemuffins.  The spots on her flared, pale grey elytra are dull black as the light of a cave.  Her carapace is the color of shadows that have never seen natural light.  Her equine body beneath her shell is bulky, but strangely flat.  Her four front legs are stubby, seeming to belong on a foal perhaps half her age.  Her rear hind legs would be proportional to a grown pony, but always crouched and ready to pounce.  Her snarling teeth reselmed a shark more than a pony.  She is a predator.  She is a Ladybug.