//------------------------------// // Ladybug, Chapter 23: It Follows Its Tracks // Story: Rag Doll // by No one is home //------------------------------// “So I guess we’re ‘hospital buddies’ in this fragment.”  The pink filly smiled like a playful cat.  “Is this your first time on the train?  I’m a Lilly, Lilly Ghast, just call me Ghasty, every-entity does!  I don’t think I’ve seen one of you before.  I’d say you might be a Diane, but they’re all doing that ‘multiversal collective mind thing’?  Anypony?  I think that’s what they’re calling it… Anyway, we’re playing ‘guess who?’, and I already know you're a changeling… with more than four hooves… that narrows it down…” -=-=-=-=- “I came in on a rainy tuesday, on the avenue.”  The grey unicorn ignored the ragdoll.  “I thought I heard you talking softly.” “I turned on the lights, the TV and the radio.”  The the doll sobbed, tears leaking from his button eyes.  “Still I can’t escape the ghost of you.” “What is happening to me,”  The unicorn didn’t so much respond as mused, “Crazy some would say.  Where is the life that I left behind, gone away.” “Passion or coincidence once prompter you to to say,”  Rag Doll reached out to the young gray mare as her color saturated into a bright blue and she smiled at the memory, mouthing back the quote as images of their hubris induced against the very fabric of their universe swirled in a vortex of text, “‘Pride will tear us both apart’...” “Well now pride’s gone out the window, crossed the rooftops, run away.”  The unicorn flashed a sad smile back at the ragdoll.  And left me in the vacuum of your heart.” There was no music but the horrible drumbeat of the tracks.  There was no harmony beyond rhythm and word, as it had always been between them.  But the train only followed it’s track. “What has happened to you?” The ragdoll scrambled after the unicorn.  “Crazy, some would say.  Where is my friend when I need you most?  Gone away…” “Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and grief.”  The unicorn trotted aimlessly down a non-descript residential street as abandoned newspapers burst into flames beneath a smiling sun.  “Here today, forgot tomorrow… Amid the news of holy war and holy grief, our’s is just a little sorrow…” “I won’t cry for yesterday.”  The unicorn explained.  “There’s an ordinary world, somehow I had to find.  And as I try to make my way, through this ordinary world, somehow I shall survive.” And there was a light, and the ragdoll couldn’t follow. -=-=-=-=- “A literal train.”  The shard tilted it’s disembodied head.  “I am actually mildly offended.  I have existential issues, too you know!” “You don’t belong here.”  A deep voice interrupted the abominations musings as a massive pale horse of an earth pony entered from the front-most carriage.  “And you shouldn’t have come.” “J-Jimmy Jack?” The head levitated back slowly, taking in its surroundings and suddenly noticing it was surrounded by snarling, clown-faced changelings.  “It’s been, what?  A thousand moons?  You’re looking good, big-guy. You know, apologies get thrown around a lot…” “Jimmy Jack was my human name.” The massive stallion dragged a hoof threateningly across the train floor.  “My pony-name is Deadlift.  You should know that.  You gave it to me.”