Rag Doll

by No one is home

Chapter 18: Day Two - What Dreams May Come in the Witch House

“You think you're better than me, don’t you?” I run so far away, time and time again, I can never get away.

It’s always one more step, one more night before I change my ways…

It’s only in dreams that ever face the truth. It’s only mirrors that show me what I've become. I’m the monster, I’m the Ragdoll. I'm the epitaph that has to burn. It’s only in dreams that I see that the nightmare wears my face… And I’m awake again. It’s hard to sleep in the streets of the undercity. “OC, you are kicking me in the face with your fifth leg. Please stop kicking me or I’m going to flop into that warm looking pile of garbage! It looks warm and like it won’t kick me in the face…”

I am threatening to sleep in the trash.

She mutters sorries in her sleep. I’m just glad to wake up. I am awake now. So at least what I see is there. There’s no halfway between me and dream time. I can’t close my eyes. So there’s no transition between awake and asleep. And I don’t really need sleep… physically…

Also, damn but that ain’t a big rat. I’ve been assured by OC’s brothers that this is actually a rodent of average size. But given the cyclopean scale of door frames since we made it into the old undercity itself, I’m coming to very uncomfortable conclusions about my recent “growth spurt”.

-=-=-18 Hours Ago-=-=-

“Okay so then she asked what was missing…” Ragdoll slurred as he hung precariously from the queen’s mane.

“She didn’t?” Christine giggled manically.

“She did, and then she started trying to look to find it!” The doll nodded solemnly. “I was mortified!”

“I can only imagine,” the Underling queen laughed.

“Okay.” Ocilia fumed. “One filly made it weird with her doll. That does not make this weird! Also you are both drunk! Franklin! Mom is getting my doll drunk and making things weird!”

-=-=-=-=-

There is water everywhere I can’t breathe. Of course it’s his face… my face that I see. What face is more appropriate? It’s my first memory, whose else’s face would I see? I was baptized. This is a fact I accept. I would prefer not to remember, but my eyes don’t close. The dream won’t stop. I suck in water and I drown. This happens. I am there. I was never there.
I don’t remember that. It’s only a dream.

-=-=-16 hours ago-=-=-

“Mother,” Frank scurried his many, many legs in agitation, “You can not tell me you actually trust this… doll-thing to escort our sister to the surface?!?!”

“Trust it?” The queen laughed mirthlessly. “My son, if I thought it would sway the path I would tear that thing in half and throw it back on the refuse pile that poor unicorn found it on.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Ragdoll queried from his perch on the queen's head.

“You know that I don’t care, right?” The Queen smirked at her rider.

-=-=- Present day. Present time…-=-=-

“It’s a bitter pill and it’s hard to swallow…” Gloomy took her medicine, thus sealing the bargain with the gods of the narrative. She laid down alone in the bed they had made, perhaps to sleep, perhaps to dream…

Gloomy floated on a lily pad down a lazy stream, unaware she was already asleep. As her makeshift raft floated through a tunnel she watched her beloved ragdoll riding on the back of a giant, foal-sized lady bug filly with a bright blue unicorn head.

The ladybug suddenly flipped revealing a bright blue pony(?) beneath the insectile outer shell with six legs that kicked the doll into the air as both giggled. “Wow, this is some really potent medicine…”

Gloomy spun on the sudden intruding voice, “Charlie? Is that… you?”

“I ain’t never been a Charlie,” a middle aged earth pony stallion with a dirt colored mane, a coat the color of spoiled cream, and eyes that sparkled with the color of dead salmon answered with an easy smile. “Is this more what you hoped your ragdoll would be, or what you feared?”

“You have his voice?” Gloomy glanced aside to see her Charlie riding this strange ladybug pony through what looks almost like Zephyr heights, but deep underground.

“I am no one, and you don’t know me.” The stranger with her doll’s voice smiled. “But damn if this ain’t some good drug-induced-transformation fever-dream.”

“I’m dreaming…” It wasn’t even a question.

“Yeah, pretty sure I called ‘drug induced dream state…” The perfidious pony replied with a grin. “But what does it mean?”

“I’m jealous.” Gloomy admitted. “I’m afraid he might find someone… more socially appropriate… older… younger?”

“You read too far in!” The stallion laughed. “You think that’s part of the dream. That part is actually happening. Drug induced magic dream thing.”

“You're my subconscious questioning why I’m attracted to a doll that talks like an old earth pony stallion… wait, are you huffing paint?” The gray unicorn blinked slowly.

“Honestly, this is just to bring me down from the contact high of existing inside your fever-dream.” The unnamed pony giggled around his gold-paint mustache. “I don’t know what that doctor gave you, but I want some!”

“None of this is really happening!” Gloomy Sonnet screamed into the darkness.

“You say that like it’s remotely true,” the stallion replied, “But I keep telling you that is what really happened. Except the part where you took the medicine, that was you remembering, mid fever dream, that you took the green pill. And this lily pad… where did that come from?”

Gloomy awoke in a cold sweat.

Author's Note:

Author’s note:

The crossover is still going strong.  Gloomy and Ragdoll continue their crossover quests…  To see more of what’s going on with gloomy, check out David’s Return to Equestria.  This all takes place during and around the current chapater....