Playing Favorites

ButtStuff, July 12, 2016; 21:12 / FB 39911
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Playing Favorites

You are a yellow pegasus, and you are playing hide-and-go-see with your chirpy little brothers and sisters.

Well, they can't really see. Their see-places haven't even opened yet, but they must be having fun. They're making so many peepy-chirpy sounds!

“Nu do, talkie babbeh!” your mother, a green earthie, shouts as she comes back from the poopie place at the end of the alley. She runs (stumbles) up to the little slab of cardboard that passes for your feral family's bed and crouches over your siblings, glaring at you like you're a meow-monster. That's not fair! You would never hurt the little babies like a meow-monster! “Am onwy wittow babbehs! Nu fo' pway wif bwudda! Am onwy fo' mummah! Mummah gif babbehs huggies an' miwkies an' wub...”

She lapses into her usual routine of licks and hugs and mummah-songs for the other babies. It's like she doesn't even see you.

You should be used to this by now, but it still makes your chest hurt like owwies. You wish your mother would give you that kind of attention again. You got plenty of it before she had the new babies and got small again. Her tummy isn't full of babies anymore, and it's like her heart isn't full of love anymore. Just enough for the new babies and nothing else.

“Nu wowwy, big babbeh,” your daddy says as he stands watch at the mouth of the alley.

You waddle over to him, hoping he'll have enough time for you. You really wish he would notice how meany your mommy has been since the new babies, but he never does.

“Wittow babbehs gwow big an' stwong wif mummah,” he says as he pats you with a hoof. “She am gud mummah. Gif aww da bestest miwkies fo' babbehs to gwow an' be big fwuffies.”

“Huuhuu, talkie babbeh wan' miwkies too! Nu big fwuffy wike Daddeh! Nee' miwkies fo' big fwuff.”

“Nu, big babbeh,” your red daddy shakes his horn. “Miwkies am onwy for nyu babbehs. You num da nummies wike Daddeh.”

You huuhuu a bit more at the thought of never getting milk again, but Daddy's hug make you huuhuu a bit less.

“Wut you doin', spesho fwien'?” your mother looks up sharply from her hug puddle, fixing you both with a glare. “Take talkie babbeh and fin' nummies fo' bestest mummah to make bestest miwkies fo' bestest babbehs!”

“Otay, spesho fwien',” your father says, standing up and taking his hugs away. “Wet's go, babbeh.”

Your legs can't move, frozen in shock. You look up at your daddy in confusion, then at your mother, then back and forth between the two in betrayal when it becomes clear that this isn't a haha they're playing on you.

A baby like you going out of the alley?

“N-nu can! Babbeh am neva s'posed weave da safe pwace. Mummah an' Daddeh say! Safe pwace am safe an' safies am' fo' babbehs! Wike miwkies an' wub!”

“You nu get miwkies no mo'e,” your mother says from the fluff pile. “You owd 'nough fo' nummy-findies wif Daddeh.”

You're not sure if you want to huuhuu or puff your cheeks up at your mommy, even though you know that's bad.

“B-b-but am onwy wittow babbeh! Onwy walkie an' talkie fo' wittow bit.”

“Nu cawe,” your mommy says as she goes back to licking a baby with green fluff just like hers.

Then you feel your body going limp as your Daddy picks you up by the scruff of your neck.

And just like that, you join your daddy on his morning food-finding mission for the first and last time.

.

.

.

“Pwease gif babbeh back upsies, Daddeh,” you say as you plop down on the ground. It's hard like rocky and gets hot in the sky ball time, but it's still early sky ball time.

Your daddy stops, but he doesn't kneel down to let you crawl up on his back like always.

“Nu, babbeh,” he says, opting instead to nudge you back to standing with his snout. “Am too biggies fo' miwkies, so too biggies fo' back upsies.”

“Wai, Daddeh!? Babbeh wub back upsies!”

“Nu know, babbeh, but Mummah say. An' mummah say talkie babbeh am too biggies fo' miwkies an' upsies an' stay in nesties fo' num-find time.”

You dissolve into the sidewalk again, flailing your hooves in protext.

“Nuuuuuuu! Nu am twue! Mummah am bad mummah!”

Your father bops you on the nose.

You cry even harder than you were crying at the nest. You can't believe it. Your father told you he would boop you if you kept making poopies in the nesties when you were only a see-place baby, but he never did it. You learned fast, and he's too nice for bops.

At least he used to be nice. Mommy used to be nice too.

“N-n-nu do! B-babbeh onwy w-wan wub f-fwom Mummaha an' Daddeh!”

“Mummah wan' nummies fo' babbehs an' dat most impowtan'.”

.

.

.

You got walking again after you see Daddy raising his hoof for another bop on the nose.

You're in another place you don't recognize. It's so far from safe place that you can't see it even when you turn around. You don't know if you'll ever see it again. (You don't realize it, but you're only two blocks away from your alley.)

You're so busy looking over your shoulder that you bump into Daddy's legs, which hurts your nose all over again.

“Stawp pwayin' games, babbeh,” he says. “Dis am nummie pwace. You go dat way. Daddeh go dis way.”

“Pwease, Daddeh. Wet babbeh stay wif Daddeh.”

Daddy bops you on the nose again, and you run crying in the direction he pointed you.

You throw yourself down to huuhuu for a while, not even knowing or caring where you are. You huuhuu in frustration, sadness, betrayal and anger and so much more. But that doesn't really get anything done, so you decided to fluff up and start acting like a big fluffy even if you don't want to.

It's another alley, but it's wrong. There's no happy fluffy family (at least, yours used to be happy), no boxy-thing for a nest. Worst of all, it smells all wrong. There are so many new scents you can't pick them all apart, but it makes you a little afraid and a little hungry all at once.

You decide to follow the tasty-hungry smell because that's why you're here. You find another boxy-thing, but it's smaller than yours. You gingerly touch it with a hoof.

“Hewwo? Fwuffy? Wan' come out an' pway?”

It's a boxy-nest thing, and those are for fluffies. But it smells like nummies. So there must be more fluffies in there with some nummies they might be willing to share. It's an awful small boxy-nest thing, though, so maybe there's a lone little baby hiding in the boxy-nest thing.

If more babies make Mommy more happy, saving another little baby and bringing it back should make her love you again, right?

So you paw at the box until it just so happens to flap open, revealing a smattering of old pizza crusts no humans wanted.

But you don't know what a pizza is, let alone a crust. You just know it's nummies, and you know you're extra hungry without any milk this morning. So taken with the smell and the promise of good tasty, you jump right in and bite down hard.

This is not your first mistake of the day, but it's going to be one of the most painful.

“SSCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Your little baby teeth are barely strong enough for dough as it is. With this box having been carelessly tossed in the alley and left to sit overnight, the crusts might as well be concrete.

Several of your front teeth splinter and crack, but your gums are too busy bleeding for you to care about that right now. On some instinctive level, you know too much water is bad for fluffies, and boo-boo juice is a lot like water. So you start spitting and sputtering and gagging, which only hurts your mouth and makes the pain that much worse, but you need to keep yourself from swallowing too much boo-boo juice. That's how a fluffy pony drowns.

You're so busy hurting and crying and spitting and choking that you don't know (or care) about all the noise you're making. You don't notice the humans until you literally run into them.

“Oof!” you grunt, falling back on your little rear end and looking up at the huuuuuge human through your watery eyes. The response is so deeply ingrained in you as to be almost a reflex. “Pwease be nyu daddeh? Hewp fwuffy? Take cute wittow babbeh away fwom mouf huwties an' cowdies an' tummy owies?”

The big human in the pretty orange vest reaches down and picks you up with the kind of care even you own father hasn't been showing you lately. You curl around his gloved thumb and coo contentedly. Ah, this is nice. This is what a little talkie baby like you deserves.

“Don't you worry, little guy,” he says. “I'll make sure you never have to worry about any of that ever again. But before I do, can you help me find the other fluffies in the area? You're pretty small. You must have a herd.”

“Nu,” you say, your mouth still hurting but a bit less now that you have love and hand-huggies. “Nu haf hewd. Onwy fam'wy.”

“Hm. How many.”

“Men-knee?”

“That is to say... tell me about your family.”

“Huuhuu, fam'wy no wub talkie babbeh no mo'e. Mummah an' Daddeh onwy haf wub an' huggies an' miwkies fo' chirpy babbehs.”

“Oh, God, newborn foals? There's a fertile mare in the area? Am I glad I found you. I'm going to get a huge leg up on my quota for that.”

“What am ku-wota?”

“Don't you worry your fuzzy little head about that. Why don't you tell me where your mother and these chirpy babies are?”

.

.

.

You are Will, and you're having a great day.

You swung by that gated community on the east side to check up on the “special Sketti” you put out for the homeowner yesterday. You know now that a pregnant mare had been raiding some trophy wife's award-winning flowerbed for her daily meals, but your tainted cuisine was too tempting to pass up. You found a half-dead mare gasping and panting in the bushes nearby, the Foal-B-Gone having both expelled a whopping six premature foals from her womb and stricken her with a monstrous case of dehydration.

You decided to grant her the mercy of giving her some water. Never mind that it was water straight from the bladder, and you didn't stop until well after she had drowned. Thank God the homeowner didn't see it, or you would be out of a dream job.

Now, with a helpful little pegasus colt giving directions, you were on your way to the second brood-wipe of the day.

Oh, yeah, you found a red unicorn, too, but sneaking up behind him with a garrote as he loudly and obliviously rummaged through some trash bags was so easy that it's barely worth mentioning. Stallions aren't worth as much at the end of the month, given that they are the ones typically wandering away from their minimal safety of their nests to get themselves killed.

That he lived long enough for an exterminator like you to get him is both mildly impressive and redundant.

But the dead mare and the deader stallion are behind you. The newest kill is just up ahead and to the left if the colt in your hand is to be believed.

He better fucking be right about it this time. You've put on the big smile and played the nice guy routine long enough, carrying him around and trying to jog his memory. If he doesn't hit the jackpot soon, you'll have to start breaking legs.

It's almost a pity it doesn't come to that.

“Stay 'way!” the slovenly green mare says as she finally notices you looming over the nest. Took her long enough. If you didn't like to savor these moments, you could have introduced your steel-toed boots to the side of her head by now. “Dis am fwuffy wand! Stoopit hoomins gu 'way o' spesho fwien' gif biggest poopies when fwien' get back!”

“Nu, mummah!” the colt wiggles in your hands so frantically he almost slips out. “Nu do! Dis am nice hoomin! Hoomin take talkie babbeh an' fam'wy to Skettiland if fwuffies be gud! Nu be meanie and wuin dis fo' fwuffy!”

“Nu tawk to yo' mummah wike dat, dummeh talkie babbeh! Mummah teww you to get nummies wif Daddeh! You no get nummies fo' bestest babbehs, and you fowget Daddeh! You am dummeh, poopie babbeh!”

Jesus Christ. This is turning into an episode of Jerry Springer.

“Hey, hey! Let's all calm down now! No one needs to worry about food. I've got enough for everyone! And I'm sure you'll all see your daddy and special friend again very soon. Tell me, is he a red unicorn?”

“Yus! Mistah fin' Daddeh?” the colt says.

But the mare is less concerned with her baby-daddy's safety and more concerned with the food. Figures.

“GIF NUMMIES TO BESTEST MUMMAH WIGHT NAO!”

With a muttered “yeah, yeah, in a minute,” you turn and make the short jog back to your truck, the bed of which is full of all sorts of gear. An assortment of “neutralization tools” like a sledgehammer and knives, lures, sorry sticks and sorry boxes (for those few good-colored ferals who might be able to net you some extra cash) and a special biowaste bin marked with both the usual biohazard symbol and a colorful, smiling horse-like face.

“What dat, nice mistah? Dat fo' fwuffies?”

“Very perceptive of you, little guy!”

Then you pop open the top and dump the still-living foal into the biowaste bin with the corpses of his own kind. You were thinking about shoving a burning match up its ass to watch the flame slowly slink toward its sensitive anus and flammable fur, but you're really more of a mare guy. Especially the pregnant or recently pregnant ones like the mother back in the alley.

You'll come back to the pegasus colt later, if you can be bothered to remember. Then again, maybe not. You could just leave him in the corpse-filled bin to starve.

You fish around one of the compartments for the Foal-B-Gone, which is a wonderful little three-in-one. It induces abortion, poisons the mother and taints the milk in such a way as to cover all your bases of fetuses, pregnant dam and newborns all at once. It will even finish the odd stallion who might find it before a mother or mother-to-be, making it a true all-rounder. Not a single member of a fully intact fluffy family will survive.

As you fish out a little can, it dawns on you that closing the lid on that helpful pegasus colt's screams did less to dampen the sound of his betrayal than you expected. Impressive lungs on that one.

You wonder what it could do with some real motivation.

You'll have to remember to buy a book of matches on your lunch break.