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Ragatha's mother was the sun in her life.
Back in the real world, the adults around her always found this to be an adorable comparison. To them, when she referred to her mother as the sun, she was calling her a radiant, cheerful individual in her life—at least, that could be deduced from the abstract wording of a child.
She'd always smile and go along with it, of course; But no, that's never what she meant.
Not at all.
Yes, her mother was the sun in her life—in the sense that the sun was a overpowering, scorrching-hot force of rage. When the sun came out from behind the clouds, you had to run and hide in the nearest source of shade, or the sun would find you and burn you up.
Most of the time, Ragatha wasn't lucky enough to find any shade to hide in.
There was one vague moment that never left her mind: She remembered another round of shouting, of being berated for "playing too loudly"—at least, that's what Ragatha thought it was. Anything could have set that woman off.
She couldn't ever remember the context of the situation, only the way her younger self cowered, trying to sink into the floor and escape from the sun's scalding glare. She remembered how her mother sneered down at her with those distain-filled eyes, until she sighed and turned her back to her.
"...Somehow, you're even more annoying when you're smiling." She muttered, swirling that glass of pink, candy-colored liquid around in her clutches.
"Clean up, and get out of my sight."
Those words would stay with Ragatha as long as she lived. But she never stopped smiling—she couldn't stop smiling. Because the second that she stopped, she would become just like her mother. And she couldn't let that happen.
She couldn't become anyone's sun.
"Gangle, please, I just need you to tell me—"
Ragatha's grip trembled slightly on the edges of the ribbons imitating shoulders, head throbbing from some kind of virtual hangover. If it wasn't for her getting that goddamned sauce in her eye, she wouldn't have to be cornering Gangle and prying information out of her like this.
"—What did- What did I say to you during that adventure?"
If Ragatha wasn't feeling guilty enough by now, the way Gangle shrank into herself once the doll had asked that only served to worsen that guilt. The masked ribbon glanced around, blue crystal-like teardrops swinging from the corners of her eyes as she did so.
"It... I-It wasn't just you saying things, Ragatha, I- J-Jax also—"
"It's not about what Jax said, that doesn't change anything! I-"
Ragatha immediately paused, flinching at her own rising tone and tightening grip. She drew in a deep, albeit shaky breath, attempting to compose herself again as she eased up her hold on Gangle.
"...You can be... honest with me, Gangle." She began, trying to mask the tremble in her voice. "The last thing I want to do is to say something hurtful to you... e-even if I wasn't... sober."
The doll managed a smile, through her own uncertainty and the pulsating pain in her head still. "S-So... please, what did I say to you during that adventure...?"
...
Ragatha watched Gangle as her gaze shifted to the floor, the ends of her ribbon arms wringing together.
"I...I know you weren't really there, b-but you said—" She croaked, pausing to sniffle before finally continuing:
"—...Y-You said I was... kind of annoying, wh-when I had my happy mask."
Something, somewhere deep inside Ragatha's cotton-stuffed chest cavity, violently twisted at the phrase.
She had become Gangle's sun.