Love is not enough

>“Waaaaaaaaaah! Big poopies comin’!”
>The blue fluffy dam squirms in pain, her useless legs waving in midair. She can feel her babies moving inside of her; they want to come out so bad…
>Despite the pain, she starts thinking about her babies, and this helps her relax. A few minutes later, she feels something wet slide out of her vagina and land on the floor of the burrow.
>“B-bahbeh…”, she murmurs, hearing the little foal chirping for the first time. “M-mumma wuv bahbeh…”. She tries to reach it to clean it, but she’s still to bloated to move. “N-nu can weach… Bahbeh haf’ wait, pwease… Mumma wuv…”.
>Another foals comes out of her “special place”, and then another, and another one. The mare is absolutely delighted. “Wossa bahbes! Mumma wuv aww bahbes, gif miwkies and huggies and wuv!”. They chirp in response, trying to find their mother and a teat to suckle from.
>Unfortunately, she’s still to big to move properly. And the funny, painful feeling in her abdomen is still there. “Otha… otha bahbes in tummy?”, she asks to no one in particular. “Bu’ haf’ awweady as many bahbes as miwkie pwaces…”.
>But they keep coming. Two, three, four more. She’s now small enough to start licking them, and when she’s cleaning her eighth foal, another one slips out of her now sore and reddened pussy. “M-m-mumma wuv…”, she whispers, hugging him.
>She can now look at her huge litter. Three of them are pointy, just like her: two fillies – one blue and one green with yellow mane and tail – and a purple colt. Four are earthies: three light blue colts – two monotone and one with a white mane – and a white filly. And two fillies are wingies, just like their daddy: one pink and grey and the other orange and tan. Luckily, none of them is a dumb baby.
>Looking at the wingies makes her think about your special friend: he went searching for food three dark times before and still haven’t returned. Silly special friend, doesn’t he know his babies are here? He should give them huggies and love too! Luckily, he left her with a sizeable stash of nummies.
>But she can’t think about nummies now! She’s tired, but she has to give your babies milk! She places four of them near her swollen teats and watch them start suckling with a prideful look in her eyes. The other five foals starts crying, though: they want something to eat too! But they’ll have to wait their turn, their mother thinks, trying to gather them so she can hug them.
>Unfortunately, trying to hug five small, fragile beings with a pair of stubby hooves is not a very smart thing to do.
>“Nuuuuuuuu!”, the mare shouts when she clumsily makes the earth filly fall on the ground. The series of tiny breaking noises is unmistakable: many of her bones are now broken. “Sowwy bahbeh, nu wan’ gif huwties! Fwuffy gud mumma!”. She tries picking her up to give her the best hug ever – because as every fluffy knows, hugs make everything better – but she then realizes she would risk dropping her other eight foals.
>The only thing she can do is look at her broken baby until she stops crying and sleeps forever. “S-sowwy bahbeh… Mumma no can gif wuv…”. After a few seconds, she passes out from exhaustion.
>She’s woken up sometimes later by the shrill crying of her babies. She frantically opens her eyes; the first thing she sees are the four foals – the two pegasi, one of the monotone blue earth colts and the yellow and green unicorn filly -  that were drinking her milk when she fainted: they’re sleeping against her fluff in a little, adorable fluffpile. They seem happy, and certainly aren’t crying…
>Oh, no! She’s still hugging her other babies! They must be starving!
>She carefully puts the four foals on the ground, near her belly. Three of them, their eyes now open, wiggle towards the teats and start sucking their share of milk. But the unicorn colt just stays where the mother put him.
>She tries to push him with one of the front hooves. “Siwwy bahbeh, need dwink miwkies! Haf nummies, be heawty fwuffy!”.
>The baby unicorn doesn’t move, though. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t chirp, he doesn’t call for his mumma.
>After a while, the mare starts crying softly. She now knows her pointy baby is sleeping forever.
>“S-sowwy bahbeh… H-huggies make ev’wyfing betta, bu’ mumma gif wongest sweepies wif huggies… Fwuffy bad mumma…”.
>No! No, she’s not a bad mumma! She still has lots of babies that need her! And she can give her love and good huggies and nummies and be the bestest mumma ever!
>She suddenly feels her stomach rumbling: after all, she hasn’t eaten anything since she gave birth. And, before realizing it, she has wolfed down a good half of the nummies her husband had gathered for her.
>“Husban’, pwease, come back… Fwuffy nee’ husban’, bahbes nee’ daddy…”, she whispers, before falling asleep.
>When she wakes up, it’s bright time again. The seven foals are still sleeping, murmuring and cooing. The mare sees the two dead babies on the floor and she’s once again overcome with guilt; and, when she comes out of her burrow under the big bush to make her not pretties, she’s carrying the little corpses in her mouth, before placing them gently on the grass. “Sowwy bahbes… Mumma w-wuv bahbes foweva…”.
>Once inside her home, she wakes her babies up. “Bahbes, miwkie time… You haf’ dwink wossa miwk, be gud fwuffies!”.
>Four of them – one of the monotone blue earthies, the white and light blue earthie, the blue pointy and the pink and grey wingie – happily suckle from her teats, while the other three can only sniffle pathetically on the floor. “No wowwy, bahbes… Mumma haf’ wossa miwk, bahbes jus’ haf’ shawe…”. She doesn’t try to hug them, not yet: the memory of the dead unicorn colt is still fresh in her little fluffy mind.
>No accidents happen in the next two days: the seven foals shares their milk, they hug each other and babble lovingly, and they even start waddling around the burrow, bumping into each other, giggling and saying “wuv!”.
>The morning of the third day, the mare wakes up really hungry, only to discover the stash of nummies is completely over. “Nuuuu…”, she sobs. “Why husban’ stiww no back wif nummies fo’ mumma an’ bahbes?”. She cries a little. She fears her special friend might not coming back ever again. He’s probably sleeping forever with their babies.
>But the foals are waking up, and they want their nummies again! As always, four of them drink eagerly, but when they’re full she can feel that her milk places are empty.
>She looks at the three foals futilely trying to suckle some milk. “Sowwy bahbes, mumma haf’ eat nummies befo’ can gif mo’ miwk…”. Ignoring their cries of “Mumma! Hewp! Miwk! Wuv!” she exits the burrow and starts eating the yellow grass around the big bush. It’s yicky and it will probably give her tummy owwies, but she can’t go very far and leave her babies unprotected. A kitty, doggie or stripey munsta could find them and make nummies out of them!
>She keeps doing this over the next couple of days, even if her tummy is giving her ouchies and the milk she’s able to produce is less and less, and her babies wants more and more…
>The morning of the third day, she discovers that one of the blue earthies died in his sleep. He was the weakest of the litter and the last one to get his milk, and the only one who still haven’t talked yet.
>He never got to call her “mumma”.
>She takes his body outside the burrow before his brothers and sisters wake up, crying all the way.
>That evening, the mare finally decides she absolutely needs to find some good nummies, or she won’t be able to give milk to her children.
>Her foals, who are now one week old, are lovely and playful, and have already learned that they have to poop only in one corner of the burrow. Some of them – especially the two pegasi – tried to go out of the burrow, and their mother bopped them on the nose. “Nu go owside buwwow untiw mumma say so!”, she told them sternly, while they were hugging each other, sniffling.
>”Mumma haf go find nummies”, the mare tells her six foals. “Bahbes be gud an’ stay in buwwow untiw mumma come back, otay?”.
A couple of them start whining. “Bu’ wan’ mumma!” “Pwease can go wiff?”.
>The mare stomps a hoof on the ground. “Stop tawkies! Bahbes stay hewe an’ do wha’ mumma say!”.
>The green and yellow unicorn filly starts crying loudly, and is immediately hugged by her blue sister. “Sowwyyyyyy! M-mumma no be meanie, no wan’ huwties! Waaaaaaaaaah!”.
>You hug the two of them tightly. “Mumma no wan’ gif huwties, mumma gif onwy huggies and wuv. Bu’ mumma nee’ go owside, an’ owside weawwy scawy pwace! Wossa meanie munstas out dere!”.
>At the mere mention of monsters, the foals squeal in horror; a couple of them cover their eyes with their front hooves, mumbling “bahbeh hide, munsta no can find if no see…”.
>After repeating another three or four times to stay inside the burrow no matter what, the mare waddles outside. The hot summer has scorched the park where the mare lives in, but there are some places here and there where the grass is still green, and she also know where the hooman munstas leave their trash foodies.
>This is not going to last forever, she thinks. Soon, her foals will be big enough to stop drinking her milk and help her find some nummies; they will learn to make their not pretties outside, and they will become good, healthy fluffies, and…
>“Mumma! Bahbeh scawed, pwease come, gif hewpies!”.
>The orange pegasus has followed her outside the burrow, and now she’s in the very middle of the field, crying at the top of her lungs because she has tripped over herself.
>At first, the mare is angry: she told her babies to stay inside their burrow, but one of them disobeyed! “No hewp to stupit bahbeh!”, she shouts. “Mumma teww stay in buwwow, why bahbeh no wissen!”.
>“Nuu-huu-huuuuu! Bahbeh no stupit, bahbeh gud fwuffy! P-pwease mumma hewp! Wan’ be wif mumma, wan’ hewp mumma fin’ foodies!”. The pegasus is snivelling pathetically, her tiny wings buzzing.
>Those words warm fluffy mumma’s heart. “Sowwy bahbeh! Bahbeh no stupit, bahbeh smawty an’ gud! Mumma come hewp gud bahbeh now!”. She starts waddling towards the pegasus, but she takes no more than five steps before she sees a quick shadow coming from above. “Nuuuuu!”, she screams, running towards her foal. “Mumma no wet bahbeh be…”.
>But it’s too late. It’s always too late. The hawk grips the little pegasus by her back fluff and flies away, carrying his latest prey in his claws.
>“WAAAAAAAAAAAH! MUMMA HEWP! MUNSTA TAKE BAHBEH, BAHBEH HUWTY! NO WAN’ FWY, TOO WITTWE! BAHBEH SCAWED, WHY MUMMA NO HEWP? WAAAAAAAAAAH!”
> “B-bahbeh…?”. The mare plops on her haunches, crying her heart out, staring at the bird that is taking her good and brave foal away from her.
>And when the bird disappears from sight, she can also feel something inside her go away, never to come back.

>Three fluffies are returning to their home, under the big bush. It’s the season of red leaves now, and they need to gather a lot of foodies if they want to survive through the big white time. The green and yellow unicorn is dragging half of a sandwich with all her might; the monotone blue earth colt has several nuts and berried stashed in his back fluff; the pink and grey pegasus, however, is singing mindlessly and dancing silly while walking alongside her brother and sister.
>They have names, now. Meadow, Fountain and Dove. They vaguely remember having a bruda and a sissy, but they were taken away by a stripey munsta several dark times ago. They don’t remember what their names were, but they’re sure their mother knows.
>Their mother remembers everything, especially the things that give fluffies inside ouchies.
>The unicorn mare is waiting for their daughters and son outside the burrow. She looks stern and severe, as much as a fluffy can. There’s a sizeable amount of nummies at her feet. “Meadow, Fountain an’ Dove, haf bwing foodies fo’ big white time?”, she asks dryly.
The unicorn shows her mother the half-eaten sandwich, a prideful look in her eyes. “Mumma, wook! Meadow fin’ big nummie!”.
>The mare nods, hugging her daughter briefly. “Meadow gud an’ stwong fwuffy”. She then looks at Fountain.
>“Fountain fin’ nuts an’ tasty wed bewwies!”. He shakes himself, and the amount of food he gathered collects at his hooves.
>The unicorn mare just stares at him. “Fountain eat wed bewwies befo’ bwing back”.
>The colt lowers his eyes. There’s red juice all over his face fluff. “S-sowwy mumma, Fountain haf tummy ouchies…”.
>The mare walks in front of Dove, that is still babbling random, joyful nonsense. “Wha’ Dove bwing?”.
>The pegasus smiles at her mother. “Dove see wed weafies dance! Dove dance wiff beautifuw weafies! A-an’ Dove twy to fwy wiff weafies, bu’ nu can. When Dove big enouff to fwy, mumma?”.
>The mother doesn’t respond. “Whev’ Dove nummies?”, she simply asks, her voice tense.
>The pegasus’ tail disappears between her legs. “D-Dove nu find noffin’… Dove sowwy, wuv mumma…”.
>The mare’s only answer is a crude bop on her daughter’s nose. “Dove stupit fwuffy. No haf’ foodies tonight, and no sweep in fwuffpiwe”.
>Meadow and Fountain don’t even try to defend their sister. They know it would be pointless. Dove, however, bursts into tears. “N-nuuuu… B-bu’ why mumma meanie? Dove say sowwy… S-say wuv mumma…”.
>“Not enouff”, the mother replies coldly. “Foodies fo’ big white mo’ impowtant now. Now fwuffies hewp mumma bwing foodies inside”.
>But, while the four fluffies are pushing the sandwich inside the burrow, Dove still snivelling and shedding tears, the unicorn mare can’t help feeling a pang of guilt. She’d love to be gentler, to give huggies and love to her son and daughters all the time…
>But she can’t anymore.
>She still remember her husband, who loved her and tried to get her nummies. That never came back.
>She still remember all her babies that slept forever, the one taken by the birdie munsta, and Raindrop and Icicle, eaten by a stripey munsta.
>She tried to give love to all of them, but they were too many for one fluffy. And they got taken away from her, one after another.
>And so, the mare learned her lesson the hard way.
>Sometimes, love is not enough.