Rag Doll

by No one is home

Ladybug: Dealing with Devils

“Wow, it’s you! Color me 50 shades of not at all surprised they put you running the train!” The crystal head smiled his most convincing smile. That was convincing, right?

The pony shaped giant stamped an angry hoof. It opened its mouth, and then it opened it’s mouth again. The pony thing flared it’s scaly wings. Its mouth opened wide and bisecting once more as dextrous snakes poured out operating the various levers and cables that controlled the train. Three great Hydra headed serpents vomited forth. The first head spoke. “You know damn well you ain’t welcome here.”

-=-=-=-=-

“Ocellia, you know I’m your friend, right?” The pink ghost pony floated around the straight-jacketed lady-bug marked pegasus. “I can walk you through this. We can get new stuff.”

“That bitch thinks she can put an Underling in a cage. Lock me away from the sky…” The ladybug responded with a rictus grin. “Explain ‘reality anchors’ to me again. Why can’t I be a changeling?”

“You can’t be a changeling because changelings don’t exist in this fragment. Trust me, different laws of physics are a pain and the Ghost Train plays it safe.” Lily spun her head like an owl. “I come from the wider multiverse, and I’m kinda a thrill seeker. Your universe is kinda a big deal in how hard it is to get in and out of. It’s surrounded by all these fragrant universes that it shed to maintain a singular timeline.”

“So the anchors function based on the words, ‘There are no changelings?’” The ladybug grinned.

“If you had a potential object of relativistic normality that could just read the universe like a story and change the words? Yeah, I guess, why are you laughing?” Lilly spun her head counter-clockwise in confusion.

C:/ I was wondering when you would try something like this.

“You are the words between the walls. You are the Text. You are the devil Uncle makes his deals with.” The Ladybug flared her pegasus wings. “You can make a deal with me.”

C:/ Can? Yes. Will? Maybe. Coulda, shoulda, woulda… What do you want?

“I want to be myself.” The ladybug stared down the wall of words that was reality itself.

“Then you should ask yourself what that is. What is yourself? You went your entire life without being able to change, before magic returned.” The text declared in large print across the void. “The first thing you did when you could change was to make yourself ‘pretty’ in pony terms. I will give you what you asked for. The reality anchors on the ghost train won’t let you change form. This is a set value. But if you really want to be yourself… your original self. I’ll allow it. But it comes at the cost that you can’t change. You are yourself.”

“Ocellia!” Lilly gasped in shock at the suddenly almost empty straight jacket as the toddler sized underling struggled in what was now functionally a sack holding them.

“D-dont look at me…” The ladybug sobbed as she crawled free of her confines.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Nature is all about change, and researchers are narrowing down the function that can calculate the smallest range of probabilities that can give rise to a given event. One of the first numbers was Grahams number, which I think was the minimum number of dimentions a hypercube had to be before it was impossible not to have a crossed square of four freinds form. The first self replicating molecule is a lot more complex and so needs more room to have the chance to exist. But, Once it exists, its always existed, and the probability is less than infinite.

The ghost Train threads along the Hilbert Line, connecting all events, and so eventually everything has to happen with it?

Just like loose change under teh seat?

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

“You can’t be a changeling because changelings don’t exist in this fragment. Trust me, different laws of physics are a pain and the Ghost Train plays it safe.” Lily spun her head like an owl. “I come from the wider multiverse, and I’m kinda a thrill seeker. Your universe is kinda a big deal in how hard it is to get in and out of. It’s surrounded by all these fragrant universes that it shed to maintain a singular timeline.”

Should be
all these fragment universes that

That is, unless the shed universes have a odor to them.

[No one is home]

11679951
Fixed. :D

[No one is home]

11679890
Lilly is kinda like a mountain climber who only climbs mountains in active Earthquakes.