The cold times were becoming sparser, and the greens and colors was returning to the land early this year. Now that they could more easily forage it was time for babies. Like any good father your special friend needed good food to feed her recent foals. While rooting around the back of the gas station trash for some recently tossed food they paused and cautiously leaned against the shadows to hide hearing humans talking.
“I cant believe march is already over.”
“I know, hardly seems like April.”
“Apwil!?” The surprised stallion let out as they immediately booked it.
A face leaned around the corner of the building and watched the bush line part and shake from the passing of the creature. “We got one boys.” Came a wicked smile.
“speciaw fwiend~ nee’ to gwab babbehs an’ go.” The stallion added horridly.
“wha’ wwong?” Green mare with yellow mane and tail inquired.
“It Apwil!” The white stallion with black mane and tail replied.
“Oh nuu!” She replied in panic.
But it was too late, with a rumbling shudder the bushes parted and the pair hurriedly began stacking the foals onto the mothers back. They paused and were set off in a panic as a human sprung fourth from the bushes with confetti popper and covered them in glitter and paper while exclaiming “APRIL FOALS!”
One was not even picked up off the ground and two fell from the shifting movement and rapid pace, their arms not strong enough to hold on. Four clung for dear life to their mother as the pair fled deeper into the tree place. Three lost to the prankster that had plans for its mewling bounty.
“April foals?” came a series of various human voices from different directions in the tree place. The family was practically surrounded. They dared not go back, to their right was a human, to their left a human and forward a human. They choose to attempt to weave between two as they turned left from their path that was taking them near the one ahead of them.
“APRIL FOALS!” Said the voice to their right as they pointed and braced a squirt gun pistol and let loose a series of spritzes.
The first was a direct hit to an Orange earthie on the flank which panicked and lost its grip. “no babbeh! wawa am bad fo’ fwuffies!” A few others dampened her flank. She lost step only for a moment as her special friend closed the gap and checked her in the side to keep her on pace and to shield her from continued onslaught of water. They couldn’t afford to stop to save this one or they risked losing all of them with so many humans near. He knew the terrors of April from the last two he had survived.
“Tsk, three more going northwest!” The human added scooping up the orange earthy and placing it in a vest pocket.
The two continued as they heard something approaching their backside. “A-a-a-a~pril~ FOA~lsssss~” The voice added drawing nearer with each drawn out syllable, their fingers now halfway up the mothers back ready to give a fur wedgie.
“Wook ou’!” The stallion added checking his special friend once again to the side as they were grasped into the air to the surprise of the person expecting to nab a foal as they came to a stop. The mare continued into the brush huu huu’ing all the way.
“. . .Wait, I know you.” The man said with a smirk. “Good to see you twenty twenty.”
Ahead was a fence and the human sounds were closing in from all around. She paused spotting a dark circle against he base of the boards, what luck! Thankfully she slowed down slightly due to it seeming tight but regardless conked her skull against the looney tunes style tunnel that had been painted earlier. She fell on her side and the remaining foals spilled into the grass, mostly unharmed.
Things were a little hazy for a moment as she came too but things went black straight away as she heard a whispered “April foals~” in her ear as a no smell pretty cloth wrapped around her muzzle.
“twenty twenty nu wike apwiw.” Said a grumpy stallion in a jesters hat too small for him with his number on it as he slurped a single noodle of the spaghetti from his pile in front of him as if it were a protest.
“twenty one nu wike apwiw eithah buh at weast babbehs get sketti miwkies.” She said balancing her own tiny hat while nursing the collected foals that had been returned to her. A similar looking foal to its father was wearing a diminutive cap and vest as it snoozed in its mothers chest fluff.
A series of feral fluffy families were on display in the fenced in park area as humans milled about considering their potential adoptions. Some foals would get reserved post weaning and would be picked up from the shelters. Adults were usually fixed unless they were reserved by someone who wanted one otherwise. The annual ‘april foal’ was picked by judged and given a pardon from such proceedings and released into the woods like a local mascot when they were old enough, or in this case with their parents. If they could survive the year and the yearly April foals day pranks they’d earned their yearly pardon.
These ones were fortunate, there were quite a few bad apples out there and there were often a spike in fluffy based misdemeanors this time of year. Like the ones who treated foals like rotten eggs / tomatoes to pelt buildings with. Or the ones that treated them like potatoes to clog a tailpipe. Or the people who switched multiple families of fluffy foals with one another at different locations just because they had access to them.
Yes April 1st was a day where people had to be vigilant.