The Mare held her hoofs to her mouth to keep from crying out.
Outside her hiding spot between the trash-cans and the wall, she could hear the sound of her mate being torn to shreds by the dogs, the sound of meanie mistahs laughing, the sound of blood and viscera splashing the concrete around her.
The sounds of his screaming had long since stopped, but she could still hear that as well.
Eventually she heard a sharp whistle, and something heavy and wet hit the ground. She stayed hidden, not wanting to risk a human trick, after a moment she peeked out and saw that the humans and their barkie-monsters were gone.
In front of her was her mate, her special-friend, her love. His bottom half lay torn and exposed, chunks of flesh and organs ripped from him from where the dogs had devoured him.
His top half was nowhere in sight.
The Mare wept openly at the sight, crying for the love she had lost, crying for their promised future they would never get to have. Crying for her unborn foals who would never meet their father.
They had been smart, they had waited until hot-times before having their young. It had been tough, their love for each other was strong enough to break through any barrier, but both had seen what happened to babbehs in cold-times.
The Mare had very few memories of her youth, she vaguely remembered humans voices, the taste of milk, the sudden absence of warmth when she was removed from her mother. But as far as she knew, she’d always been an outside Fluffy and had seen the hardships of what outside Fluffies had endured.
Never did she think she’d have to suffer a similar fate.
She had to move, aside from the corpse of her mate giving her a constant reminder of what had happened, the knowledge that humans knew where her home as scared her more than anything. But moving brought with it uncertainty, could she find a safe place to stay in, would there be food nearby, could she find enough to feed herself and her tummeh-babbehs.
She debated with herself until she saw the wingie-munstah starting to peck at her special-friends remains, then she decided it was time to leave.
The Mare wept as the harsh rains pelted her swollen and pained body. It had been several days since she left her old home, and new shelter had not been afforded to her.
An Alleyway she tried to seek solace in was claimed by a massive grey stallion and his fat red mate, she’d tried a nearby park and had stayed safely hidden for a couple days behind a bush before she was chased off by an angry man with a stick and a bright orange vest. Now she was on the outskirts of town, nothing but debris and desolation around her, not even any humans to beg for safety.
As scared as she was of humans, her desperation ached for the comforts of a new mummy or daddy, to save her and her tummeh-babbeh.
She felt them squirm in her stomach, she was hungry so she knew they were hungry too. Food was getting harder to find, and the little she could find was getting harder to reach with her stomach dragging across the ground. Her waddling made her slower, it made her vulnerable.
She cried as her pretty purple Fluff was rendered low and sodden by the rain, the Fluff that her special-friend had loved so much when they first met, now literally dragging her down, making her already laboured steps even more of a chore.
She wished she’d never left her home.
Inside of a broken concrete pipe, The Mare strained. Her babbehs were coming, but she wasn’t ready.
She had eaten in days, only just managing to find shelter in the rough, uncomfortable tube before she turned completely immobile, unable to venture out to find more food. The bottom of her stomach was scratched with small cuts which stung whenever she moved, which right now was constantly as her foals tried to push their way out of her.
She pleaded with them to wait, wait until she could feed them, wait until she found them a proper home. But the babbehs didn’t listen, they were coming whether she liked it or not.
She braced herself as her first foal pushed out of her, she tried her best to angle against the side of the pipe, knowing that the stony ground would be fatal to the teeny babbehs. With great difficulty, the felt something slip out of her special-place and slide down between her legs, a moment of elation pulsed through her.
Only to immediately die at the sound of silence.
She couldn’t turn around, there was still more babbehs to come, another pushed their way from her, another silent cry filled her ears. Then another, then another.
By the time The Mare was able to use her legs again, she had birthed six foals and was met with six echoes of silence. She turned round and openly wept at the sight.
Her babbehs were not beautiful, they were scary. Even without their unnerving stillness, their patchy Fluff, their skinny bodies, their blood-encrusted mouths, they had died long ago from starvation.
The Mare nudged them all gently with her nose, wishing for one of them to breath, in floods of tears she began picking them all up, licking them clean, only to be met with coldness and a sickening taste of death.
She crumpled into a heap, she was the worst mother ever, she’d failed her special-friend and failed her foals, she wanted to curl up into a ball and wait for death, she wanted…
Peep
Her ears perked up, did she really hear that? She looked at the corpses of her foals, and ever so slightly she saw the tiniest, but unmistakeable, jolt of movement.
Peep
One of her foals was alive, in a flash The Mare leapt forward and took the foal into her arms, it looked weak, it’s blue Fluff thin and patchy, but it was alive. The Mare hugged her last babbeh tight, crying again but with tears of joy, she wasn’t a terrible mother, her lastest babbeh made everything better again.
She immediately licked it clean and took a moment to appreciate everything little thing she saw. It was a he, his blue coat and unicorn horn was just like his father, but he had her white mane and Pegasus wings, and he…
Wait.
Wings AND a horn?
That wasn’t right, Fluffies couldn’t have both? That must mean her babbeh wasn’t a babbeh at all. It was a monster.
The Mare shrieked and dropped the foal, only the soft landing of his siblings protected him from harm. The foal cried and chirped at the sudden loss of his mother’s warmth, blindly he shook and twisted trying to find her again.
The Mare scowled at the beast in front of her, she had a monster, a monster that had killed her good babbehs, a monster that deserved to die.
A monster that was all she had left of her special-friend.
Even with her hoof raised above the infant’s head she couldn’t do it, this was her babbeh, hers and her special-friends last babbeh. Monster or not, he was all she had.
With great effort, she put her hoof down and took the foal in her arms, placing him gently between her legs to drink the little milk she had. He wouldn’t be filled, but it would stave off starvation for a little while.
The Mare didn’t sing, she couldn’t find it in her heart to do so, the monster might have been her foal but that didn’t mean she had to love him. She would feed him, clean him, keep him safe, but she could never love a monster.
Not even her last monster.
