The Designated Hitter

It's too hot.

You try to chirp when your mother talks to you, but you can't make the noise come from your parched lips.

You are a fluffy, pink pegasus foal, forty-eight hours old, and you are baking to death in the summer sun.  Baking with you are your two sisters and your mother, whose dirty aqua fluff the three of you are currently hiding in.  One of your sisters, a olive foal, wheezes loudly.

“Babeh no cwy, mumma hewe!” your mother sniffles, trying to shade her children in her fluff as the sun fries her alive.

Time immeasurable passes.  You drink what little milk you can from your mother's teats, but even its warmth is anathema to you in this hellish heat.  You try to chirp, to reassure your desperate mother that, yes, you still draw breath, but the air parches your mouth and trachea to the point of irritation.

You remain quiet.

Suddenly, it becomes darker.

Your mother looks up gently, as not to knock your feeding sisters off her belly.  A cloud has obscured the glaring white ball that hangs above.  It grows a little cooler.  After a while, though, the cloud moves away, and the ball returns.  The heat returns, too.

You continue to fry together, your mother too weak to move you again to a shady place.  Instead, she gets up and stands over you, taking the brunt of the light to spare you and your siblings.

“No feew goo',” she whines, in a voice that triggers sadness even in your tiny mind.  You instinctively reach up and hug her dingy fluff.  It is dark again, thanks to her.

“New fwiend?”

What's that she said?  That's not the way she usually speaks to you and your sisters.  You manage to slide yourself out from under her and look up, your eyes stung by the harsh glare of the sidewalk upon which you lay.  It is so bright, you can only see a vague shape, an outline of some creature that vaults into the sky above you.  It has a shape you've seen before, when it was kicking your mother and making her leave the safe place that your family once occupied.  The fearful tone in her voice back then stuck like glue, even in your frazzled, overheated memory.  You were barely old enough to hear it.

“Pwease hewp babehs?” she asks the tremendous thing, stepping carefully back to reveal the three of you on the scorching pavement.

The being speaks, reaching down a thing that pets your mother on the head.  Whatever it said, your mother cheers happily, so you are happy.  You wheeze gently with joy for a thing you cannot comprehend.  The tall being leaves, returning later with an object you do not understand.  It reaches down as your mother hugs the lower part of it, and suddenly you are airborne in its grasp.

In the back of your little mind, a spark appears.  As if obligated, your tiny wings flap.  You leave the safety sphere, the area around your mother in which you can still smell her fluff.  You feel a liquid leak from between your rear legs.  In an instant, you are in a new place, a colder place.  A soft thing cushions you, makes it hard to drag your weakened body around.  The coolness so refreshes you, that once it penetrates your ratty fluff you simply collapse into its embrace.  The air is more amicable in this place.  You chirp because you must, because your mother's fluff is in a place that you are not.

“No cwy babeh, mumma hewe!  New fwiend hewp!”

Her tone is easy and relaxed, and so you are relaxed now, too.  Your olive sister arrives, the massive enigma placing her next to you.  She immediately detects your fluff and clings to you, as you do to her.  You chirp and wheeze to each other.

I am all right.  I am here.  We are here.

Your green sister is placed in next; she does the same.  Engulfed by the cool air of this strange, walled, soft place, you chirp to each other as if your lungs were revived from death.

“Babehs cwy 'gain!  Mumma happy!”

Her voice distorts as she sails through the air above you, in the grasp of the towering mystery.  She then comes to a gentle rest in the cool place.  Your sisters, and yourself, crawl toward the scent of her welcoming fluff and cling to it.

“Babehs hewe!  No wawm!  Wuv new fwiend!”

The sheer joy in your mother's voice emphasizes that one simple word...a new noise escapes your dry lips, a noise that feels both alien and as natural as the breaths you take.

“Wuv!”

Your mother immediately takes you up in a gentle hug.  “Wuv babeh!  Babeh say wuv!”

The voice of the towering mystery comes down from above you.  Its tone is akin to your mother's, so you relax again.  Soon, your sisters are repeating the noise you made.  Squeaks of 'wuv' fill the cool place at intervals.  Your mother babbles with happiness.

The cool place moves.  Its motion is upward, then subdued by something.  You look up as your mother steadies you and your siblings.  The shiny white ball hides behind the very top of the towering mystery.  You still cannot get a good view of it, but this is no longer much of a concern for you.  Your mother coos happily to it.  She continuously calls it a friend, a word that sends tingles of happiness through your tiny body.  You want so desperately to hug it as you do your mother, but your miniature legs cannot reach it.

Very well; you will speak to it, as your mother does.

“Wuv!  Wuv!”

It speaks back to you, with words that escape your ability to comprehend.  The tone remains friendly, so you are happy.  You chirp to it and your mother as one, until your stomach tells you it is time to feed.  You bring yourself over to your mother, who sits on her purple and green tail and guides you and your olive sister to her teats, while cuddling your green sister out of sight above.

“Wuv babehs.  Wuv new fwiend.  Babehs happy!”

You are happy.  This is happiness.  In the two days of your life, you've not known a feeling such as this.  The comfort you found in your mother's fluff was always tainted by her cries, by her rumbling stomach, with the shaking induced by her fear.  Now she is truly at ease, feeding you, feeding your sisters, talking easily up to the towering mystery.  You chirp loudly, louder than you ever have before.

“Wuv fw-fwiend!”

“Babeh wuv fwiend too!  New fwiend happy!”

You are so tired, and now you are full.  You nestle in your mother's belly fluff and give yourself to sleep as she talks to her friend.

When you wake, the cool place is again still.  The shiny white ball that tormented your family is being obscured by something.  With a quiet yawn, you roll over and look up.  A sprawling mass of green things spreads above you, defeating the blinding light.  The air is cooler here than you have ever known it.  The towering mystery is not so tall now, and is beside the brown wall of the cool place.  Its total visage still eludes you; you are lethargic, your sight blurry from sleep.

“Babehs wan' nummies?” you mother asks.   Your sisters get to the teats first.  You are busy trying to regain your bearings, to walk on your weak legs.  The soft thing defeats your efforts, and you chirp with frustration.

“No cwy babeh, mumma gif nummies.”

You find yourself at a teat again, and you suckle automatically.  The being speaks, and you are finally able to deduce a word amongst its fantastic speech.

Play?  You've heard your mother say this to other beings like this one in your brief life, but they always seemed to reply with harsh tones and loud, scary noises that made something very smelly come out of your mother, and sometimes you.  This time, however, the tone is gentle, reassuring.  You try your level best to copy the word, and lift your head from the teat.

“Wuv!  Pway!”

Your mother approves uproariously.  “Babeh wan' pway!  New fwiend, wan' pway game!”

Soon, your sisters join in, randomly squeaking out play, love, friend.  The being grows in height again, asking your mother something you do not understand.

“Dis babeh pway!” she says, lifting up your green sister to the towering mystery.  “Babeh pway fwy!”

The towering mystery has your sister in hand.  Instinctively, she chirps with fear, no longer in the safe cocoon of her mother's scent.

“No cwy!  Fwiend pway game, make happy!”

Suddenly your sister does fly.  She leaves the grasping thing, tumbling lazily into the air.  Her chirps are both thrilled and terrified.  She has no idea what to think, only that she has never done this before.

“Babeh fwy!” your mother cheers.  If she is happy, then you are happy too.

“Wuv!  Wuv pway!”

A flash of silver suddenly streaks across your sight, slamming harshly into your green sister.  Her chirp is shattered into a noise that makes your little spine tingle.  You can see her only briefly as she rockets through the air, a green and red and brown and yellow comet racing out of sight.

“B-babeh?”

Your mother's tone has dropped.  You are not happy now.  Your sister clings to you, shouting love and play and chirping for all she is worth.  Your mother scoops you both up and holds you closely to her heaving chest.

“No wike dis game, pway new game pwease?” she pleads.  You feel that shaking through her fluff again.  Helplessly, you let that liquid leak out onto it.  “Pwease no huwt babehs...”

Hurt?  No, hurt is a bad word.  You know this, but you do not know why.  You begin to chirp loudly, fear robbing you of the ability to make those happy noises.  You feel a sharp movement, and suddenly your olive sister is gone.

“Nuuuuuuuu!  Pwease no wan' babeh fwy!”

You chirp in concert with your mother's desperate request.  Please put my sister back.  Please stop making my mother sad.

Your bronze sister flies lazily, leaking a yellow something as she spirals up, then begins to come back down.  The silver flash comes again, annihilating her body into a screeching meteor of crimson.

“Nuuuu!  No huwt babeh!  New fwiend no do dis!  No huwt!”

Your mother places you down on the cool thing and stands above you, pleading with the towering mystery.  You chirp because you know not what else to do.  Suddenly, your mother is gone, moved to the other side of the cool place.  The being has you, now.  You leak warm liquid onto it.  With the shiny white ball at your back, you finally see its true form.  With yellow fluff at the top, white fluff in the middle, and blue fluff at the bottom, it grips the silver misery in its other limb, smiling at you with an emotion you cannot grasp.

“Wuv!  Fwiend!” you call to it, hoping to evoke the good feelings with which it first came to your family.

“Babeh wuv new fwiend!  New fwiend pwease no make fwy game!” your mother begs from below, leaned up on the inner wall of the cool place.

You fly.

Your wings flap madly; in this instant, you realize that you, unlike your sisters, were meant to know this feeling, this detachment from the solid earth.  It overwhelms and invigorates you, and you blurt out your happiness as you always have.

“Wuv fwy!”

“Nuuuuuu, fwy bad fo' bab--”

You do not detect the end of your mother's plea, as something hard and cold and painful explodes upon your back, shattering your tiny wings and obliterating your skeleton inside of your body.  A red mist explodes from your mouth, and something you can't see shoots out of your rear.  It smells terrible; or, it would, if your destroyed senses could detect smell any longer.  Unlike your sisters, your flight is short and violent, a steep angle almost directly into the ground.  You lie amidst the cool grass, chirping weakly in pain.

“Nuuuu!  Babeh!  Mumma gif huggies, make betta!  No cwy!”

You barely hear a ringing noise, and the voice of the towering mystery.

“Yeah, this is Tiffany.  Nah, just practicing for the softball game, heh.”

“Why huwt babeh?!” your mother screams helplessly.

Your eyes roll around at random, the edges of your vision growing dull and black.  Before you lose your sight forever, your gaze fixes upon the shiny white ball, now directly above.

It mocks you.