Bestest Baby, Bestest Milkies

FractalFluff, February 26, 2014; 06:37 / FB 18528
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(Vanilla hugbox with fruity abuse ripple. Contains traces of backstory. May cause encopresis in sensitive anons.)

BESTEST BABY, BESTEST MILKIES

"Baybehs comin! Mummah! Mummah! Baybehs comin!"

Not "big poopies"? you think, as you hare towards your fluffy's saferoom. Bun always was a bit special —just a little better at putting two and two together than the average fluffy pony. Of course, she was still a fluffy, which meant that sometimes the answer she got was five.

You've had a pile of newspapers and an armful of old towels standing ready in there for the last two days, so all you need to grab is your rubber gloves and some paper towels. Bun is lying on her side in her fluffy bed. You've covered it with plastic sheeting and puppy-pads to deal with messes, although Bun still has her favourite blankie wrapped around her upper body for comfort.

"It's alright, Miss Bun," you tell the panting blue basketball as you come to kneel beside her. "Mummah's here, baby. Mummah's here." You're thrilled that this is case. What with your recent promotion and two of the other PonyCare staff out sick, your work schedule hasn't permitted you as much time with Bun as you'd like. This is your first weekend off in a month.

Reg has been brilliant, though. Currently out of work (sodding economy), your boyfriend has really stepped up. While you've been putting in overtime at PonyCare, he's been giving her regular portions of fluffy chow (you'd tried leaving a day's worth in her bowl, but she'd just bolt it all before eleven and then spend the day crying because she had no food), taking the immobile dam to and from the litter-box, putting on the TV for her and making sure she has everything else she needs. Reg doesn't really have much interest in fluffies, regarding them as one of your many eccentricities, so you're grateful that he was willing to keep an eye on her at all.

Fortunately, her pregnancy has been uneventful. She comes from a good line of breeders, as does the stallion you had her mated with. Your vet has been very pleased with her progress, and you're confident of a healthy litter.

The fluffy shudders and whimpers in pain. "Mummah," she says weakly, "Mummah, Fwuffy got tummy-owwies. Bigges tummy owwies, Mummah! Huwties in noh-noh-pwace!"

"It's okay, Bun. It's okay, my little blankie-bundle, it's just your babies coming," you tell her, using the pet name you gave her when you first brought her home. A lonely little weanling, orphaned when her mother died in an accident, she'd come to you wrapped up in her mother's old baby blanket. You remember two big blue eyes peeping at you over the folds of worn and nubbly fleece, impossibly huge in her tiny face. That had been almost a year ago. When the sweet-natured mare shyly asked if she could become a mummah herself, you'd been more than happy to oblige her.

Never having attended a fluffy birth before you're unsure what to expect, but your heart sinks when you see the first foal. It's all present and correct, but it seems far too small. Its thin, mewling cry doesn't sound much like the foal chirps you hear when you visit the fluffy specialist or watch Babies! with Miss Bun. Your worst suspicions are confirmed when she wrinkles up her nose at the baby's smell. To her credit, she deems it a "sickie baybeh" rather than a "bad baybeh". Those Very Special Episodes of Babies! must have sunk in.

She begins to lick the baby clean, but stops as the next contraction sweeps over her. You'd hoped for just one runt, but the second foal is even more hopeless than the first. It's barely more than a rope of tissue with a mouth at one end. It's not even breathing; you decide to leave it that way, wrapping it in a swatch of paper towel and setting it where she can't see it.

"Baybeh?" she asks.

"Just... just tummy-yikkies that time, Bun-Bun," you lie. "No baby." No need to upset her any more than you need to.

The third and fourth babies are in slightly better shape, but they're still very, very small and don't look properly developed. A fifth emerges waving its two stunted limbs feebly. Bun is more and more devastated as you show her each foal. "Baybehs," she sobs. "Mah poow wittew baybehs. Wy yu aww sickie baybehs? Huuhuuhuu... Bun bad mummah... Bun bad mummah!"

"You're not a bad mummah, Bun," you tell her. "It's not your fault."

Her sobs rise to a howl as another contraction strikes. Dreading what you'll find, you go to take up the sixth foal. With relief, you see that this one looks normal — a small but well-formed little pegasus, a "wingie-friend", as the fluffies call them. She looks almost like a miniature Bun, in fact. Her fluff is paler than her mother's, though: a blue so light as to appear almost white. Bun accepts her, sniffing carefully.

"Dis baybeh nu smeww sickies!" she says, sounding almost astonished. Then: "Mummah, dem wittew sickie baybehs... wat du, Mummah?"

She's so certain you have the answers, so certain you can make everything okay. It breaks your heart. "I don't know, baby," you tell her gently. "Sometimes sickie babies like these just need milk and love to be okay. Sometimes they're too sick to get better. But I know my Bun is a good fluffy mummah. I know my Miss Bun-Bun will give all her little babies love and milk." You feel a little bad for manipulating her this way, but you know she'd eventually hate herself if she rejected the new babies.

Weeping, the fluffy nods. "Uh huh," she says, tearfully. "Bun wuv aww dah wittew baybehs. Gif wotsa wuv tu wittew sickie baybehs." You help her set the very smallest two babies to her teats; one of them latches and begins to suckle normally, but the other — the two-legged foal — doesn't seem to be able to take the teat.

"Maybe this little guy isn't hungry right now," you say, even though you know in your bones that the foal is probably moribund. "Let's see if his sister wants milkies, shall we?"

It's a struggle for her, you can see; but she lets all the babies feed, rotating them with a touchingly scrupulous fairness. The healthy pegasus gets no more nor less than her siblings.

You figure she'll be okay for a few minutes, so you shove the worst of the soiled puppy-pads and towels into a trash bag and take it through to the porch. You can't quite bring yourself to just throw away the stillborn foal, even though it was clearly non-viable; instead, you wrap the sad little thing up more thoroughly in a threadbare hand towel, and set it on step. You'll bury the poor little thing later — possibly along with some of its siblings, you think, gloomily.

As long as you're taking the rubbish out, you should probably grab the kitchen trash. You catch it on the doorframe, and the thin bag rips; exasperated, you shove the burst bag into the one with the pads and towels, then lug the whole lot down to the wheelie-bin at the end of the garden path.

As you walk back to the house, you hear your fluffy's voice. "Mummah! Mummaaaah!" Bun's wail has you rushing back to her room with your heart in your mouth.

"What's wrong, Bun-Bun? What's the matter?"

"Mummah... dis wittew baybeh... him nu moof nu mowe..." she looks up at you beseechingly. "Fwuffy twy make bettah wif huggies, but him nu moof, him nu chirp, him nu wan miwkies..."

"Oh, sweetie..." It's the two-legged foal. In the time it took you to take out the trash, he's slipped away.

"Make dah baybeh bettah, Mummah? Pwease make dah baybeh wate up?"

"Oh, Bun-Bun... I'm so sorry, but nobody can help this little baby now. He's never going to wake up. He's... he's gone, baby. He's sleeping forever."

The fluffy's strangled cry of grief, bitten back so as not to frighten her surviving offspring, cuts you to the quick. You sit with the pegasus and console her, but it's a while before she'll let you take the tiny body away. You leave her trying to persuade a tiny red foal, almost hairless, to nurse some more. "Dwink miwkies, baybeh," she's telling it. " Pwease dwink miwkies... gotta get bettah, nu wan yu take fowefah sweepies wike bwuddah..."

You place the second sad little bundle next to the first, then head back inside. Reg, still in his pyjamas, is coming down the stairs. "Hey, hon, what's the matter?" he says, scratching at his bed hair.

"Oh... Reg..." you suddenly find yourself brimming with tears. "It's Bun. She's foaled and... most of the litter... they're runts..." He goes to hug you, and you almost fall into his arms; then you stop yourself. "Wait. I'm filthy," you say, dabbing your eyes on the back of your wrist. "Let me wash my hands." You hastily scrub up at the kitchen sink, then accept that hug. You need it.

"But they're all okay, aren't they?" he asks, letting you go.

"No. I don't know. There's only one normal infant in the whole litter. We've lost two already..."

"Lost?"

"One was born... God, it was barely even a foal. Another one died not long after birth. I'm going to call work — maybe Novak can help..." Your toe clanks against something on the floor. You look down to see a tin can that must have fallen from the torn rubbish bag. You mutter a mild profanity and pick it up to put it in the bin, when the label catches your eye.

HUGGIES CHOW

You frown. You've never bought this stuff. The Huggies Chow people do make regular fluffy pony food, but they're best know for their "enhanced" blends: Big Litter, given to mares before pregnancy to ensure a large brood, No Litter, which brings on miscarriages and purports to cause sterility in mares (something you doubt); and Runt Litter, which causes...

You're holding an empty can of Huggies Chow Runt Litter.

Your hand begins to shake.

"Reg," you say, as evenly as possible, "what is this?"

***

Your name is Bun.

You're a fluffy mummah.

You were so happy when Mummah said you could have babies. All the time they were in your tummy, you just got happier and happier. You cuddled your tummy and sang and hummed and talked to your tummy-babies; you told them they were the bestest babies, and how much you loved them, and how many cuddles you were going to give your bestest babies...

...And then they came, but you must have done something wrong, because they were all sickie babies! All except one. You thought you had four and two, but Mummah said one of the baby-feels was really just tummy-yikkies. So you had four and one babies. But then one of the little sickie babies, the one with only two leggies and not four, the one that didn't want any milkies.... he stopped moving. He wouldn't chirp or wiggle or even take milkies. And Mummah said he'd gone to sleep forever and could never wake up, even if you gave him bestest huggies for everso long. She told you that you had four other little babies who needed your bestest huggies now. Then she took the little forever-sleepies baby away.

You've made so many saddies, it feels like your eyesies and chestie are burning. You have the worstest heart-hurties of your whole life. You look at your one good baby and three little sickie babies, and think about more babies taking the forever-sleepies, and... and...and...

You have to save them.

Maybe you can't save them.

You couldn't save the little two-leggies baby, even with your bestest huggies.

But... but all the other babies took your milkies!

That must mean they'll be okay..?

But Mummah only said "maybe" they would be okay. Maybe is when you don't know. It's like two things happening at once, later on, and then when you get there only one thing can be happening, but you can't tell which thing will go 'way till you get to later.

"Maybe" is no good to you.

You have to save your babies.

Maybe you can't save them.

Maybe you can save some of them?

How can you save the most?

You could give less milkies to the wingie baby that looks like you. It is a good baby. It probably doesn't need as much milkies. You know that other mothers say that bestest babies should get most milkies, but you've always been sure that was backwards. Shouldn't littlest babies get most? Then they could all be good babies.

You will give bestest milkies to the sickie-babies. The wingie will 'stand. She's probably clever, like you.

But how can you make sure you are giving bestest milkies..?

Milkies are made from nummies.

Mummah and Unca Wedgie give you very good nummies, and you eat up like a good fluffy.

But are they bestest nummies?

You look frantically at the babies.

Bestest milkies make bestest babies. All the other mummahs agree on that. It sounds right to you.

But if you can make one thing from another thing... could you make the second thing from the first thing?

If bestest milkies make bestest babies, could bestest babies..?

No.

You won't even think it.

But you have such heart-hurties from the forever-sleep baby.

Maybe you have to think bad things.

Worstest things.

You have three sickie-babies.

You have one bestest baby.

Three is more than one.

Doesn't a good fluffy mummah have to help the most babies she can?

The bestest wingie baby is very very small.

She is lying in your belly-fluff, wagging her little shutty-eye face, saying peep peep.

She wants milkies.

Do you even have enough milkies for four babies?

You have three sickie-babies.

You have one bestest baby.

Three is more than one.

Maybe a good mummah has to do worstest things sometimes.

***

You wait for Reg to tell you it's a mistake. That someone brought the can to show him, or for a bad joke. That he found it in the street and threw it away so it couldn't make someone's pet sick.

You wait.

"Look... Nance..." he says.

"Oh my God."

"Look, I didn't think it'd do any harm."

"You didn't think..? 'Runt Litter'? You didn't think something called 'Runt Litter' could do any harm?" You keep your voice low, trying not to frighten the fluffy in the room across the hall.

"I thought it'd just make them... smaller, or something. Or make her less interested in them, or whatever. I didn't know it'd hurt them."

"Of course it bloody hurt them! You hurt them! You hurt her! You hurt me! Why would you do this?"

"Because you care more about your fluffies than you do about me, that's why. You get that promotion at FluffyCare — "

"PonyCare. And that job pays our rent, Reg."

"Whatever. I hardly ever see you for weeks, and when I do it's Bun this, fluffies that, Doctor Novak the other, and you spend half your free time with your precious bloody pedigree fluffy! Your perfect little pegasus and the perfect little foals she was going to have. I just..." He runs his hands up through his hair. "I just wanted them to be a bit less perfect, that's all."

"'Less perfect'? Reg, you ruined her foals!"

"Ruined..? Look, I don't believe it can be that bad. They wouldn't be allowed to sell it if it was that bad." He's heading off to the saferoom as he speaks, now determined to see for himself. You keep pace, backing away in front of him, flabbergasted at his stubbornness.

"Of course they're allowed to sell it! You can still do practically anything you like to fluffies!"

He shakes his head. "It just can't be that bad," he reiterates calmly.

You can practically read the scene he's imagining through the back of his head: happy Bun playing with happy, if bijou, babies, himself tickling a healthy miniature foal, smiling condescendingly as all your silly worries melted away. You seethe. Reg opens the door.

"Oh dear GOD!"

Everything is suddenly happening at once. You hear Bun making a horrid gagging sound; you hear the frantic chirping of her one healthy foal, the thready peeps of the runts; you see Reg bent over your fluffy, doing something — something — what? Is he choking her? There's something in her mouth — Those are a foal's legs! God, is he shoving her foal down her throat?

"Reg! Reg, let her go! Reg!"

He does, standing up and backing away. Her little wingie is chirping miserably in his hands.

"She tried — she was trying — "

"Gif baybeh!" demands Bun, tears streaming from her eyes. "Gif bestes baybeh! Mummah nee bestes baybeh!"

"What's going on? What have you done? What are you doing to that foal?"

"Nancy — she was trying to eat it!"

"Eat it? Why would she try to — "

"Mummah nee bestes baybeh fow make bestes miwkies! Nee bestes miwkies fow saf wittew sickies baybehs! Gif baybeh! GIF BAYBEH!"

The fluffy collapses into wracking sobs, hugging her three runts. "Gif baybeh... gif baybeh..." she wheezes, as if pleading with the Universe itself for the healthy foals she could have had.

Mechanically, you speak. "I'm calling Doctor Novak at work."

"I think you'd better," says Reg, weakly. He's looking at the babies now, glancing from the bedraggled foal in his hands to the runts that Bun is clutching, guilt creeping over his face as he realizes what he's done.

Numbly, you gaze at them both: the poisoner and the cannibal mother.

You're not sure you'll ever be able to look at either of them the same way again.

***