The compassionate rabbit noticed in dismay that the ladybugs were not very good at flying. Some of them landed in dangerous places because they could not fly very far, or fly in a controlled manner. They'd land in the water, or on an open walk in the path of an oncoming foot, or on the back of an animal running far away from the prickly bush, its life-giving aphids, and its sheltering leaves.

The rabbit could stand it no longer, and spoke to the ladybugs: "Attention little red friends! I have seen the fates of your companions who have left you for the wide world beyond the bush, and they have not been fortuitous! Dear ladybugs, to fly, for you, is to die! All the food you need is right here! All the fine ladybug friends you need are right here! All the shelter and protection you need is right here! When you get to the tip of the twig, turn around, for your very lives, turn around, and walk back down the twig. Resist the draw, tame your urge! There is nothing out there but the naked hot sun, confusion, starvation, drowning, and horrible, crushing feet. Stay home and be safe, little ones!"

The kind rabbit seemed like a marvelous god to the ladybugs. They took his lesson to heart, and proliferated, and grew strong and big and fine. Every time one of them reached the tip of a twig, saw the vast, open vistas before her eyes, and felt that twitchy, adventurous longing in her disused wings, she'd take a deep breath, quell her desire to leap, and go back down the twig.

Generation after generation of huge, bloated, long-lived ladybugs would tell their young of The Law and how it came to be. They related the story of The Lawgiver, The Saint, The Savior, The Great Fluffy God Who Shook the Ground When He Hopped and Blotted Out The Sun With His Tremendous Ears, and how he came to their ancestors, showed them that heaven was beneath their feet, and that all they had to do to be happy forever was to cleave unto the prickly bush, to overcome the base, irrational, animal desire to fly away.

One hot summer afternoon when the prickly bush was very dry and the aphids were not very sweet at all, two children exploring the forest happened upon the prickly bush, the Eden of the faithful ladybugs. They had never seen so many ladybugs in one place, and such huge, shiny ladybugs! The children ran up to the prickly bush noisily, expecting a cloud of candy smooth carapaces to fill the air in chaotic splendor as they rushed close, but the terrified ladybugs clung fast to their perches, their tiny limbs infused with the power of their faith.

The children were perplexed, and began to shake the prickly bush, but not a single beetle of its denizens flew out from the thorny twigs. The children grew impatient, hungry for spectacle, and began hurling rocks at the bush. Some of the ladybugs were crushed dead in the assault, but mourn though they might, the surviving number would not budge.

One of the children grinned mischeiviously, and thrust a lighter he'd snagged from his older sister's dresser that morning into the thick of the prickly bush and clicked a flame. His companion grinned as well, and began chanting a rhyme she had learned years before:

Ladybug, ladybug,
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
Your children are alone.