Welcome, and thank you for deciding to read this story! This is my first story on FanFiction. It was originally just going to be something to help me out of a writer's block, but it's evolved into its own little story, so let's see where this goes. c:

I currently don't have a beta reader for this, but I know that there are some mistakes in this writing. I'll fix those in later chapters.

Just a heads up, there is some language in here, but anything really foul will be censored.

Enjoy! :3

How could he do that?

Just up and leave like that? It was preposterous! Propaganda, to say the least. The peanut had obviously been just waiting for this to happen, so that he could flaunt in his face like a new bushy mustache. A giant new bushy mustache. That damned Lorax, leaving the moment his job was done...

His job was done.

Green suited shoulders heaving, the young man recalled the furry guardian of the forest, how he had seemed so sad to see the final Truffula tree cut down. How he had sadly sent all of the creatures off to go somewhere, far, far away. How he had lifted himself up by his shaggy pants and disappeared through the smog-

The Once-ler looked up into the sky, his deep blue eyes flicking from cloud to cloud. They were all uniform, gray, hopeless. Slight rolls and indentations puckered their undersides, but there were no awning gaps in the sky. No orange furry creature falling flat on his mustache at his feet.

No more trees.

No more Lorax.

No more friends.

He ripped his top hat off of his head in exasperation, thrusting it at the ground and stomping all over it. His teeth ground together as he pictured the hat as any number of things: the Lorax, his mom, Aunt Grizelda, Melvin, and for a short while, even himself.

His spic-and-span green suit complained at being tortured so, not used to such vigorous movements. A suit was not made for stomping things, but rather for, well, flaunting how rich you were in everyone's face. Not like there was anyone to boast to anymore.

With a grunt, Beanpole tore his jacket off. It refused to relinquish its sturdy grasp on his skinny frame, however, and burst at the seams before finally coming off.

"Stupid coat," muttered the Once-ler. His brow fell over his blue eyes as he inspected his coat. It certainly wouldn't be wearable anymore. Not in this state. Unless he fixed it. And he hadn't sewn anything since his family had started to work for him. It turns out that there was something unmanly about knitting, after all. He didn't even know if he remembered how to sew things.

"Great. How am I supposed to look fabulous when I don't have a coat?"

The young man scuffed at the ground with a spotless shoe, watching the dust clouds float through the air wearily. There was no wind to pick them up and float them away. They spiraled slowly back towards the earth. Once they had settled down, it was as if they had never been disturbed. There was no grass for the dust to sit upon, only the cold, lifeless ground.

Far off in the distance, a machine groaned, already beginning its long, arduous path to deterioration. Long, graceful necks of steel bent slowly towards the ground, making a delicate archway of death. The ax heads at the top drooped forlornly, seeming almost pitiable in nature.

"If anybody needs any pity, it's me," the tall man muttered before looking around himself again. He had seen it all before – the bleak, flat horizon, the schloppity lake, the pointed lack of trees, but only now did he understand what it all implied.

This was his home until things got better. Which they never would.

"All mine, until the day I die. How romantic." Not.

But it was all his. Unless...

Blue eyes raked across the landscape once more, scrutinizing every last detail. Everything was still. There was no doubt about it, he was the only living creature in sight. Which, coincidentally, tended to have its downsides.

Like the fact that there were no f***ing people.

Even if he wanted to, there wasn't any saving his pretty face. No one was coming to rescue him, of that he was certain. "Why no one thought to, I don't know, leave me a car, I'll never know," he growled.

Well, there was no point in dwelling on the past, he always said. That's what his Uncle Ubb always did, and look where it landed him! Jobless, living with his wife and her three kids. Always better to think about the future!

Then maybe I wouldn't have f*** things up as badly as I did.

Pushing that glum thought aside, the leggy man took stock of his home. His tent had long since forgotten in the chaos of running a company. There was no going back to that flimsy old thing, even if he wanted to. Which he didn't.

Thinking about before you were successful can be painful.

He had moved his apartments to a more lavish accommodation, a big five room suite. Well, now instead of one suite, he had an entire factory to himself. Wonderful.

Far off in the distance, he heard the clamoring of the few people who remained in Thneedville as the people tried to reorganize themselves. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone did leave the town after the business failed. Some people, having invested so much of their life's work into this company, had stayed on, even when everybody else had left. There were few people now, but once the place had been cleaned up and made to look more liveable, people would start to come back.

A younger, more ambitious Once-ler might have set off towards the town. But this older, more experienced businessman knew better. Sound carries far in a valley like this, making sound travel farther than it normally would. Without a car or mule to take him there, the trip could take all day, if not longer. And once he got there, would they even let him in?

Saying he was the reason they were in this mess would be the understatement of the year.

Although he was loathe to admit it, he had another reason for not heading towards the town. He was ashamed. Being forced to see these people that had worked for him being in the same situation he was in was too embarrassing for the young man to think about handling right now. He had to come to grips with himself before he could start thinking about others.

Yes, it was better to stay here.

Even if no one would be blessed by his wondrous pretty face from all the way out in the middle of nowhere.

Just a footnote, this will be a crossover eventually, between several different books and TV shows. Since it is predominantly in the world of The Lorax, I decided to put it here, however if this should be moved to crossovers please let me know, as I'm still learning my way around the community. ^^" The reason I put this story in this section is because there are going to be multiple crossovers, so I wasn't sure what the other book could be considered for this story.

Potential crossovers for this story include: His Dark Materials, The Chronicles of Narnia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and Phineas and Ferb. I'll be explaining everything from those series as I go along, so as long as you don't mind potential spoilers you won't have to have seen/read those series to understand what's going on. ^^

Thanks for reading! c:

~Mika