Rag Doll

by No one is home

Ladybug, Chapter 2: There Are Rules

“So…” Here it comes. I don’t know what she’s going to say, but nothing a teenager says that starts that way is anything I want to talk about. “You and the First Queen of the Underhive? Like, you were a couple?”

See, that. Exactly that. “Yes. I broke her out of tartarus this one time and over the years things got weird. If I remember right there was also a lot of murder. It turned out she was in tartarus for a reason. Can we not talk about my ex, and just be glad we’re off her murder list?”

“I mean this is a pretty big deal, Uncle!” Tirek’s flabby flank, it turns out we can’t just not talk about this. “This answers so many questions about my hives history, and it brings up so many more! Why is she pretending to be the No Pony? He’s like basically the most evil thing in our history.”

“I don’t know, I was in sensory deprivation for what I’m assuming was a thousand moons when that happened. Also she’s kinda violently insane. I think I mentioned all the murder? Girl really used to like her some murder… TAKE A PICTURE!” Stupid ponies staring at two walking plush toys having a perfectly normal conversation about my serial mass murdering ex mare-friend. “We’re trying to have a private conversation on a public sidewalk here!”

“Can’t you use your powers to take me home, Uncle?” Dammit, I knew this was coming.

“This isn’t on you. And somehow it's still all on you.” I can see the last pieces falling into place in her head. “There were time loops. I skipped as much as I could so you didn’t have to see what could have happened. Gods, this is hard. Gloomy carried me for twenty years. I had time to teach her the rules. I can’t take you places anymore. That’s the first rule.”

“I’m not okay with this Uncle! The sky is right there!” I can’t protect her from the sky.

“We both know what lives below, OC.” I can’t protect her from that either. “I was only able to get you past the smooze the first time by opening a path. I can only make that kind of deal once.”

“I thought the legends said you could give a creature anything they want, though?” Celestia’s great white plot device, I’m being rules lawyered by a teenager.

“Technically I can make anything happen… if the creature asking is willing to pay the cost.” I sometimes wonder how I sigh when I don’t actually breathe.

“So take me home! I’ll pay whatever it it costs!” If I had a heart, it would skip a beat.

“This is exactly why I never asked you what you wanted.” I might be yelling and flailing a little bit. To their credit, ponies actually are taking pictures now. I won’t begrudge it, it’s a full on doll fight on a public sidewalk. “There are rules. You picked me up and I opened the path to where you wanted to go. That was a one time thing. That’s not to say I won’t cut deals between other ponies and the text on your behalf. I have the final say in those kinds of deals though, and where you’re concerned the answer is always ‘no’.”

“So, you’re never going to take me home?” There’s a quiver in her voice that stabs me deep in the fluff.

“I can’t open another path.” I wish I could. I wish I could afford to tell her that. But I’m teaching a child to use a dangerous magical artifact. She can’t think she could use emotional leverage to push or pull me. “That doesn’t mean I won’t help you get home. I just won’t make deals directly with the text for you… directly. So long as you can see me, you have control of whether or not I can make a deal with any other creature. Gloomy used her last deal to specifically say I’m your doll, so unless you deliberately discard me or give me away yourself, I can’t be lost or taken from you. The narrative won’t allow it.”

“And if you get lost…” The wheels that turn in her head grind any heart I ever had between them. “You’ll just arrange deals with other creatures to make them carry you back to me?”

“Yes.” Whoever said confession is good for the soul can go buck a thorn bush. “Exactly like I used you to carry me back to Gloomy. I’m considered ‘cursed’ for a reason.”

“You!” She’s suddenly accosting one of the ponies that is filming us for their social media. “What do you want most in the world? In the whole wide world?”

I admire her straightforward style. We’re gonna see how this works. I don’t have a voice. The poor stallion reads the words that his world is made of. “What do you want?”

“I…I…” The poor frightened steed runs in circles, trying to comprehend what is happening. OC is horrified. As she should be. She can’t see what he sees, but she sees that it’s frightening him. “I just want Petal Breaze to like me?”

“What are you willing to pay?” He stops being a pony, and he turns into words. Unicorn. Green. Stallion. Rose Thorn. Gardener. Likes Pegasus, Petal Breeze. He can see that.

“What do you want?” There’s the desperation of a creature that doesn’t really know the value of what they want. What I want is irrelevant.

“You have to take in Princess Ladybug Pastel. You have to give her shelter, give her food. Protect her. If you do that, Petal Breaze will like you. If you walk away from the deal, I can promise she will never look back.”

“I don’t feel good about this…” As well she should not.

“Neither do I OC. We do what we gotta do, though.”

“I’ll do it!”

Comments

[Booster Spice]

At least its not the cursed item that can never be given away, but only sold for less than what was paid for it.