The right thing

>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, whew’ 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 it?
>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 for her.
>“I love you too, Pearl”.