A tale of two mothers

>Be the loving owner of Pearl, a pregnant white unicorn.
>She’s literally ecstatic at the idea of having foals in her belly. In the last three weeks all she did – except for eating, pooping and sleeping – was singing at them and babbling tenderly that she loves them.
>Today, finally, is the day: after breakfast, Pearl starts complaining about “big poopies”.
“Dahdeh, Peawl nee’ hewp fo’ poopies! No can weach wittew box!”.
>Well, you can blame her for that, she’s basically a sphere with a muzzle and four useless wiggling stubs.
>You hurriedly bring her to the safe room and start squeezing her belly gently to help her give birth. She shrieks in pain, but smiles weakly at you: she knows you’re not trying to hurt her.
>After a couple of minutes, Pearl finally gives birth to the first foal… but something’s wrong with it.
>It isn’t crying.
>It isn’t trying to crawl to its mother to drink milk.
>You touch its minuscule chest. No pulse.
>In the meantime, Pearl is squeezing her second foal out. “Big poopies!”, she’s screaming at the top of her little lungs. “Big poopies comin’!”.
>You catch the second foal before it falls on the blanket.
>It’s female, and a unicorn.
>And stillborn.
>Pearl has shrunk to the size she was before pregnancy, and the third foal slides out of her pussy.
>You feel your heart twist painfully.
>The third one is dead, too.
>An entire litter of stillborns.
>How can you tell the bad news to your beloved fluffy? It would surely break her little heart into pieces…
>Pearl lets out a big sigh.
“Peawl fee’ bettah now. Bahbes come soon?”
>You quickly scoop out the three small corpses and hide them behind your back. Luckily, she didn’t notice them, probably because they didn’t mewl or cry.
>You pat her gently on her head with your free hand.
“Sure, Pearl. You should take a nap, now. I’m sure when you wake up, you’ll find your babies right here with you”.
>Pearl’s eyes sparkle.
“Peawl take napsies in bwankie den! Wan’ see bahbes soon!”
>She crawls under her blanket and falls asleep after a couple of seconds. The delivery must have exhausted her.
>You close the safe room’s door behind and toss the foals’ corpses in the trash.
>You know what you have to do now.
>You just hope you’re lucky enough to find what you need.

>After twenty minutes of frantically searching in your neighbourhood’s alleys, you finally find what you’ve been looking for: you hear mewls coming from a cardboard box, and when you come near you see a mare – a steel blue earth fluffy – trying to nurse her three newborns.
>Bingo.
“Sowwy bahbes! Mumma no haf mo’ miwkie! Need nummies!”
>The mare is clearly malnourished, chunks of her fluff missing. Her foals wouldn’t probably survive the night.
>It still doesn’t make what you’re going to do any easier.
>Finally, the fluffy mother spots you. She smiles and tries to wave at you.
“Mistah hewp fwuffy mumma and bahbes? Pwease, need nummies!”.
>You crouch in front of the box, without saying a word.
>The mare keeps babbling at you.
“Pwease, be new dahdeh fo’ mumma an’ bahbes! Bahbes cowd, need miwkies and huggies!”.
>The foals – two earth fluffies and a pegasus – are indeed shivering, but you don’t think it’s because they’re cold. They’re probably hungry as hell, condemned to starve to death in a few hours.
>You gently pick up the pegasus foal. He – because he’s clearly male – murmurs something intelligible and tries to hug your thumb.
>The mother, on the other hand, starts trembling and screaming like a madwoman.
“GIF BAHBE BACK! BAHBE NEE’ MUMMA! MISTAH NO GOOD, MISTAH MUNSTA! HEWP FWUFFY, HEWP!”
>You quickly put the baby next to her. The pegasus tries unsuccessfully to suck one of the mare’s teats and starts crying softly.
“Calm down!”, you tell the mare. “I wasn’t trying to snatch your baby, see? I was just looking at him”.
>The fluffy looks at you incredulously.
“No wan’ huwt… bahbes?”
>You shake your head.
“No, I’m not gonna hurt your babies. In fact, I want to give them a new home!”.
>The mare squees in delight.
“Bahbes, mistah be new dahdeh, heaw? Gif mumma and bahbes nummies and wuv!”
>You absent-mindedly pet the fluffy’s head.
>It’s now or never, you think.
“Well, yes and no…”.
>With a quick movement, you put your other hand on the mare’s mouth and nose, shutting off her air.
>The fluffy looks at you, her eyes wide with terror; she tries to squirm and cry for help, but your hold is too firm for her to escape.
“I’m sorry”, you mutter. “But what I said before is true: I’ll give your babies a home, and love, and toys to play, and they’ll never feel hungry or cold again… I promise”.
>And, just as you says the last two words, the mare stops her feeble attempts of saving her own life. She closes her eyes, as if she accepted her fate. A couple of seconds later, her body goes limp.
>You quickly grab the mewling foals and start running towards your house, your heart heavy.
>The moment you open the front door, Pearl starts crying from her locked safe room.
“Dahdeh, whev bahbes? Peawl wake upsies, bu’ no bahbes! Peawl scawed!”
>You enter the safe room: Pearl is looking at you from a corner, tears in her eyes. Blankets and toys are scattered everywhere, probably because she tried to find where her babies were hidden.
>Well, at least she didn’t make “bad poopies”.
>You crouch down and open your hands, showing her the little fluff balls.
“Look! Your babies are here, Pearl!”
>For one long, horrible moment, you realize she could realize the foals are not hers: surely, they must have the other mare’s scent on them. Also, one of them is clearly a pegasus…
>But then Pearl’s lips widen in an ecstatic, dopey smile.
“Dahdeh, that bahbes! Peawl gif bahbes miwk, otay?”
>She’s such a sweetie… she’s not crying or throwing a tantrum, she’s actually asking you to let the foals suck her milk!
>You put the three baby fluffies on the soft blanket and they eagerly crawl to their new mother’s teats. You watch Pearl bond with them for a couple of minutes, softly cooing that she loves them, that she’ll give them hugs and love and spaghettis.
>You feel like puking. Every time you close your eyes you see the terrified face of the dying mare.
>You killed a living, talking creature, even if it was a starving stray fluffy pony. Was it really worth?
>Pearl is looking at you quizzically.
“Dahdeh, dat bahbe haf wingies!”
>You pat her on the head.
“That’s because you’re a very good mumma, Pearl!”.
>She beams at you. You’ve never seen her so happy.
“Yay! Peawl bes’ mumma!”.
>She pauses for a second.
“An’ dahdeh bes’ dahdeh. Peawl wuv dahdeh”.
>You scratch her behind the ears.
>Maybe you didn’t do a good thing.
>But, looking at Pearl and her new babies, you think that – maybe – you did the right thing.
“I love you too, Pearl”.