Special Babies - 2

FractalFluff, January 29, 2014; 01:37 / FB 17088
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(Hugbox enclosed. Contains less than your daily recommended allowance of torment. Driver carries less than $50 cash.)

SPECIAL BABIES (pt 2)

>Be a first-time fluffy owner.

>Just faked out your spayed mare with a pseudobirth

>Chemical chow simulates pregnancy

>Spray-on goop simulates various fluids

>Foals send their regrets, but they won't be appearing in this production.

>The part of the litter of babies will be played by twelve gaudily dyed, pheremone-soaked white mice.

***

>You make sure the mice have enough real food by stashing some in her toys and bedding for them to find

>Hand-feeding them when she's asleep.

>They don't act like foals.

>They don't sound like foals.

>They crap everywhere.

>They bite her.

>They don't have proper manes, just stripes of dye that you painted on.

>Their tails are fleshy and almost bare, instead of being sheafs of silky, colourful hair.

>But she treats them as if they were perfectly normal.

>She's actually sort of a great mother.

>Huh.

***

>A few days in, one of the mice dies.

>Lilac fluff, purple "mane"

>Grey skin, sightlessly staring pink eyes.

>It's really no-one's fault.

>Mice just do that.

>You take reasonable care that the mice are as healthy as possible

>Feed them properly, and so on

>But they're just mice.

>You tell her off anyway

>She was already grieving.

>Reduce her from tears to howls.

"Wavindah! Wavindah! Mah pwetty baybeh! Why gu wonges sweep, funneh baybeh? Pweeze be wakies, Mummah nee aww funneh pwetty baybehs! Uuuhuuuuhuuhuu!"

>The next day, another one is dead

>Looks like it tried to eat the padding from her bed, puked it up, choked.

>Foals a few days old just don't do that.

>Tell her she's a bad mother as she cradles the little corpse.

>Two of them attack and kill a smaller one

>She's in hysterics. This is beyond her ability to cope.

>"Nuuuu! Fwowew take fowevew sweepies! Why baybehs huwt baybeh? How baybes gif baybeh fowevew sweepies? Pweese, baybehs, nu huwt bwuddas! Gud fwuffies mus pway nice, gif huggies, be fwendies!"

>She realizes that you're in the room and turns to you for help. "Why baybehs huwt baybeh, Daddah? Huuhuhhuhuu... nu knoh wat du... nu knoh wat duuuuu..."

>Still tell her off.

>Another one pops off from natural causes later that day.

>Sobs over it for three hours straight

>Babbling at it, hugging it, singing to it

>Then just begging it.

>"Pweeze wate up, baybeh, pweeze wate up! Mummah gif huggies, gif miwkies! Pweeze nu be wonges sweepies!"

>Won't hand it over when you ask for it.

>Screams and clasps it to her fluff.

>Smack her nose and take it anyway.

>Prostrate with grief.

>Only eats when you tell her the babies will all die if she doesn't.

>Still tell her off.

>She hugs the mice

>Coos over them

>Sings to them

>Feeds them.

>Well, tries to.

>Of course they're mice, so they don't really nurse.

>It's more a matter of her mashing them against her teats while she squeezes out milk and begs them to drink it.

>Sometimes she manages to get some in their mouths

>Most of it ends up soaking their fur.

>They don't latch and hang on like real foals when she lets go

>They just bite her and slope off to eat the pellets you're sneaking into the pen.

>They won't make "good poopies," no matter how hard she tries to teach them.

>She cleans up their crap

>Which for a fluffy pony means wadding it into her own fluff and scraping it out over the litterbox

>Or eating it.

>Either is a miserable experience.

>One day you come in to find her screaming over a bunch of peanut-sized baby mice

>All dead.

>You facepalm.

>You didn't think to check the sex of the "foals".

>Just accepted the storekeepers' assurances that they were all male.

>Too late now.

>"Daddeh! Daddeh! Why dese wittewes foaws nu wake up? Wah happen wittwes foaws? Nu efen membew hafin dese babbies! Nu efen membew dem! Nu efen gif namesies!"

>Oh yeah.

>She named the mice.

>All the mice.

>A lot of mares don't bother to name any of their foals at all.

>"Why mummah noh seen wittwes foaws? How wittwes foaws be fowevew sweepies? Wha mummah duin wong?" she howls. "Demmin bad mummah? How dis happen? How be mowe baybehs? Wha duin wong?"

>You're starting to feel like maybe this wasn't such a great plan after all.

>In your mind, Denim was just being a brat when she asked for babies.

>She would play with them for a while

>Then fail when she realized that babies weren't just plushies that moved.

>You imagined that you could overload her with responsibility.

>She'd go crazy trying to deal with the "foals," and either lose interest, reject them or kill them herself.

>They'd run off or die off, you'd tell her she was a bad mother, she wouldn't want babies anymore.

>But she didn't do any of those things.

>Instead, she's more obsessive than ever.

>She notices that they aren't growing. That they don't talk.

>She spends hours trying to teach them to talk. Then she just pleads with them to speak.

>"Miwkies, Sky? Sa, 'miwkies'? Tawk fow mummah, baybeh. Tawk fow mummah, Sky, pweeze..."

>She looks up at you from tear-filled eyes.

>"Daddeh," she sobs, "Dese baybehs nu gwow. Nu tawk. An dey hoofsies awe aww funneh. What mummah duin wong, Daddeh?

>You reach down to pet her mane. As you ruffle the silky blue strands, you feel your hand skip over a bald patch.

>Realize she's begun to yank it out from the stress.

>She's going crazy, trying to parent a bunch of rodents that were probably intended for snake chow.

>You wanted to put her off babies.

>Prove to her that she wasn't smart enough or loving enough to be a mother.

>Make her realize she wasn't special enough to have foals.

>But you wanted to make her feel stupid

>Not suicidal.

>You kind of want to stop this now, but you're not really sure what to do.

>Another "foal" turns up pregnant. She find it giving birth. She's destroyed.

>"Sunny? Wewwoh baybeh, haffin baybehs? Nuu! Baybeh, hu gif Sunny speshuw huggies? Dat bad fow baybehs! How weawn speshuw huggies? Mummah nu teww! How baybeh haf speshuw huggies? Whewe cowt dat du dis? Wittew wewwoh baybeh, mah poow wittew baaaayyybeh!"

>Weeps bitterly over the lemon-yellow mouse as its own infants suckle. "Baybeh... baybeh haf suuu many baybehs... huuhuuhuu... mah poow wittew Sunny..."

>Keeps trying to make the "mummah-baybeh" feed. "Gots tu dwink wotsa miwkies, Sunny! Yu mummah nao, nee' miwkies fow make miwkies!"

>The mother mouse responds to the increased handling and disruption by panicking and eating her own young. Denim catches her just as she's gutting the last one.

>It nearly kills her.

>"SUNNY! NUUUUUU! Baybehs nu am nummies!" She picks up the squirming mouse and holds it tenderly between her hooves as she talks to it. "Baybehs nu nummehs, Sunny! Baybehs fow wuvvin! Fow huggies!" She clasps the wriggling mouse to her chest fluff and strokes it tenderly. "UUUHuuhuuhuu! Baybeh! Wat yu du, Sunny? Why yu du dis? Why baybeh eat baybehs? Whyyy? Wat Mummah duin wooong?"

>She starts compulsively biting the skin around her hoof.

>Then one of them disappears during the night.

>There's a small hole at the bottom of the pen where it probably chewed its way out.

>She becomes frantic, running around her room, screaming the baby's name. "Fowwis! Fowwis! Whewe yu gu? Whewe gu Fowwis, Daddeh? Whewe gu wittew gween foaw?"

>You tell her that Forest must have wandered off while she wasn't looking.

>You tell her to be more careful.

>One day you're talking to your neighbour in the front doorway. Just shooting the breeze while his unicorn chases butterflies or nibbles on the edges of your lawn.

>Suddenly you hear a scream of "BAYBEEEE!"

>You look down just in time to see one of the "foals" drop off the step and scoot away into the shrubbery.

>Denim blunders past you

>Fast as her legs will carry her.

>Not very.

>Then you see the cat.

>Shit.

>In a matter of seconds, you're trying to control Denim as she fights to get out of your arms, while Duke is cuffing Larry's tabby, screaming "BOOTSIE BAD KITTY-MUNSTA! GIF FWEND BABBEH!"

>Cat growling menacingly over the little orange body in its jaws.

>" NUUUU! TANJ'WEEEEEN!" shrieks the struggling mare. "SAF BABYBEH! SAF TANJ'WEEN! BAYBEH NU AM NUMMIES!"

>"Oh God," says your neighbour, grabbing the cat and trying to make her drop the "foal". "Bootsie! No! Bad girl!"

>He's got the baby away from the cat. It's lying on the path, very dead. He crouches over it..

>"I think it's — oh, no, I don't think we were in time," he says.

>That's an understatement. The mouse has been ripped almost in half.

>Larry's face is ashen. "Oh God, Denim, I'm so sorry."

>"NUUUUUU! NUNUNUNUNUBAYBEEEEE!"

>Duke pokes at the "foal" with one hoof. "Dis... dis am poni?" he asks. "Dook nefew see babbeh wike dis."

>He's looking at it in perplexity.

>So is your neighbour.

>"But... are you sure this is a foal? It looks like a... good grief, is this a mouse?"

>"Nu am mousie! Dat Demmim baybeh. Gif baybee! Pweeze, nice mistah, gif baybeh! Baybeh got owwies, nee' huggies fow bettew!" sobs Denim.

>"I... err..." you flounder.

>"It's been dyed," says Larry wonderingly. "Orange and yellow. Who'd dye a mouse..? Wayne, did... did you do this?"

>In all the confusion, you forgot the door was still open.

>Duke slips through, sniffing intently.

>"Oh! Hey! Duke, no going in other people's houses! Come back! That's a bad pony!" shouts Larry.

>Denim's saferoom door is also open. Duke goes inside.

>There's a brief pause, then a yell of horror.

>"AAAAAH! DADDEH! BAD FING! DOOK FINE BAD FING! DADDEH! NEE HEWP!"

>Larry doesn't wait for an invitation. If his boy is screaming for help, civility can take a running jump.

>Duke is standing there, staring wide-eyed at the play-pen.

>The hole the mouse chewed to get out has been obliterated by a much bigger one, torn by Denim as she went after her supposed baby.

>The "foals" are too busy scrounging for pellets in the bedding to notice.

>A few of the second-generation are still just about alive

>Didn't really look all that convincing.

>You've been doing what you can with felt-tips.

>Result: a bed crawling with brilliantly dyed mice of different sizes.

>The man and the unicorn turn to face you as one.

>Identical expressions of horror and disgust.

>Duke speaks first.

>"Dis... dis some fwuffin buwwshit wite hewe," he says.

***

>Be an ex-fluffy owner.

>When Larry took the weeping Denim from your unresisting arms and walked out with her, it was technically either theft or abduction.

>You didn't stop him, though.

>You're going to have to move house

>Maybe leave town.

>Most of your street is no longer speaking to you.

>Larry is no longer speaking to you.

>Duke is no longer speaking to you, apart from the occasional muttered "asshowe" as you pass.

>Denim sometimes acts as if she's going to speak to you, running up to the fence when she sees you; but then she runs away in tears.

>Between them, Larry and Duke made sure she understood what had happened.

>She knows what you did.

>She knows about the laced chow.

>She knows about the mice.

>She knows about the lies.

>She knows you let her think that real fluffy foals were dying all around her, and that it was her fault.

>She knows everything.

>She'll never forgive you.

***

>Be walking home one day when you see her and Duke playing in Larry's fluffy-run.

>They have a tiny pink foal with them.

>As you watch, Denim sits down, hugs the baby, begins to nurse it.

>The breeze brings her soft coos and the baby's happy chirps to you.

>"Dwinkies, baybeh. Nyu Mummah makin wotsa miwkies for bestes baybeh!"

>Duke sits beside her and gives her a hug.

>"Speshuw fwend gud Mummah fow wittew pinkie babbeh. Vewwy bwave fow take pointy owwies dat make miwkies."

>Probably a rescue foal.

>Larry must be using hormone injections.

>"Dook bestes Daddah fow bestes baybeh! Demmin wuv baybeh. Saddie dat hew ow' Mummah an Daddah nu wan pwetty fiwwy-foaw. But nao Demmin hew Mummah, gonna gif aww dah bestes wuv an huggies an miwkies!"

>They put a foreleg around each other and nuzzle. Then Duke presses his hoof to an oblong shape lying on the grass in front of them. An audio storybook begins to play.

>"Daddy closed the pretty red front door and turned on the happy yellow light," witters the device. "'Welcome to your new home, Felicia!' he said."

>Both the fluffies speak the final sentences together, in chorus with the reader. "Felicia Fluffy was finally home. She gave her new daddy the biggest hug, and they laughed and played till bedtime!"

>Denim looks so happy.

>You walk away from the cosy family gathering and return to your empty house.

>Used to come home to find an exited fluffy waiting on the mat, all ready to greet you with an eager hug

>Now you find a slab of roadkill.

>Someone must have shoved it through your letter-box while you were out.

>The species is anyone's guess. It's been spraypainted fluorescent orange and yellow.

>There's a large paper luggage tag round what might once have been its neck.

>Written in neat block capitals are the words "ASSHOWE BE NYU DADDAH?"

>Turn the tag over with your toe

>Written in a very different script, you read:

>"kIw U sEwF."

>"SiNGd, DNm."

>Definitely time to move.