“BIGGEST POOPIES!” The mare cried out. A little over a week had passed since Marie had left for her friend’s house. At that point Bella could barely walk and needed to be carried up and down the stairs. Far too dangerous to be left unattended with two little girls.
As Marie was getting ready to run out the front door to climb in her friend’s car and drive away, she gave a tearful goodbye to Bella as the fluffy begged her mommy to not leave her behind. Marie reassured her that she would be back and was excited to meet her chirpeh babbehs as soon as they were born.
Bella had spent the next week being cared for by gwandmummah, she wasn’t as nice as her mummah she wouldn’t give her cookies or play tea party with her, and she took her out of mummah’s nice pretty room. She was also a meanie when Bella broke rules like asking for sgettis. She also wouldn’t share any of the delicious nummies she could smell being cooked up on the stove. The worst though was that gwandmummah smelled like yucky burnie sticks.
Bella hated the special mummuh nummies that gwandmummah gave her but ate them anyway since gwandmummah said they were the best nummies for tummie babies. Bellah missed her mummah’s room but gwandmummah said she had to stay in the kitchen so that she didn’t hurt her tummeh babies. Bella didn’t understand but it was okay as long as it was for her bestes tummeh babies. Gwandmummah also promised her that her mummah would come back as long as she was a good fluffy.
Martha had to admit, this was much easier than a normal horse birth. At the very least, she wasn’t in her sweltering barn elbow deep in a mare’s behind. Bella hated the barn, Marie had taken her out there to meet Rusty, Martha’s aging quarter horse. Between the sight of the “big nu tawkin mustah fwuffy” and the barnyard tomcat, Bella was content to hide inside the house and avoid exploring unlike the yard at her son in law’s house. Martha moved Bella to the kitchen to avoid an accident or miscarriage once she had become engorged enough from pregnancy and she heard no end to the whining from Bella over her “ugly” saferoom.
Martha had tried to keep the mare occupied but she had to balance care for Bella with all the other work and animals on the farm. She did her prep work before the foals were born and read up on fluffy care online. She decided to grab a fluffy coloring book and nontoxic crayons from the Dollar General down the road for Bella to fill in while she waited for her babies. She colored in lots of brightly colored foals and begged her to put them up on the cabinet doors. At least the kitchen was decorated for the rapidly arriving foals.
As each foal was born, Martha transferred them to their mother’s hooves to receive “wikkie cweanies”. There were six foals in all. An orange unicorn colt like her mate, a green pegasus colt, three cream fillies like their mother (one of each earth, pegasus, and unicorn), and a light brown colt. Martha collected her bowl of warm wet bloodstained rags and carried them over to the sink. The kitchen was the best place to raise the foals, the floor was easy to clean, and the room had no furniture for foals to get stuck inside or to fall off of climbing. She had already checked the babyproofing on the cabinet doors and made sure the holes under the cabinet corners were blocked. The room, excluding the counter space was about ten by ten feet and was adequate as a safe room for foals to play when they could eventually walk.
As she returned to the old towel that separated Bella from the yellowing linoleum floor, she noticed one of the foals was still covered in viscera from birth. She had moved on from cleaning and was singing a mummuh song as she picked up the orange fluffy and began placing it on her engorged teats. “bestus babbeh daddy cowow bebbeh gwo up stwong and waise da hewdie”
“Hey there, missy, you missed one of your foals.” Martha indicated pointing at the brown foal.
“Dat nu am mummuh bebbeh, dat am dummie poopie bebbeh, no good for huggies and wub! Poopie am nummie feef! Steaw aww gud miwkies fwom bestes bebbehs!” Bella exclaimed with enthusiasm as she went back to doting on her chirpy bestes. Martha was used to farm animals rejecting offspring from time to time but usually it was actually either a deformed newborn, their entire litter, or she had heard of a few cases from neighboring chicken farmers of birds killing albino offspring.
“But that’s the ugliest one” Martha said matter-o-factly indicating at the foal so orange that could have been the Florida Gators’ new mascot. GAAAAAAAAAAAASP Bella inhaled with so much theater that Martha wondered for a moment if she understood dramatic effect. “Dats nuu nice tu sehy abowt dah bestes babbeh!”
Rejecting a perfectly healthy and normally colored foal should get Bella turned into glue, Martha thought. She read about favoritism in litters and knew immediate segregation of foals to this extent was a major red flag for breeders. But she knows Marie would never forgive her if she came back to a dead fluffy.
Martha tried to appeal to the biotoy’s better nature, “remember that Marie wants to meet all your foals so they need to look nice and clean for her.” This worked briefly as Bella picked up the foal and quickly licked it clean before dropping it back on the towel. “Dewe, aww cwean!” she exclaimed in a plastic singsong tone before dropping the foal back on the towel.
Martha went to the closet to check for some old baby accessories and grabbed something from her box of riding gear. As she walked back into the kitchen, the brown foal crawled limply towards his mother’s teats. Bella offhandedly swiped him away with her rear hoof. Martha’s blood began to boil, and she swiped the bestest baby out his mother’s hands. Her granddaughter wasn’t around to count the newborns and she had a few days to correct Bella’s behavior before Marie returned.
cheep cheep cheep The foal could not comprehend what was occurring, it’s eyes were still closed and all of it’s weight was pulling down on it’s neck as it’s head rested in Martha’s hand. Its neck was too weak to even lift its head, so the foal’s torso dangled like a pendulum in her grip.
Bella desperately reached up towards Martha, “siwwy gwanmummah nu giv bad uppies to bestes babbeh” Martha sighed, it was an act of mercy at this point, before it grew up to be a spoiled rotten bestest baby. It didn’t know anything, it didn’t know pain, it didn’t know happiness, sadness, love. And it never would.
CRUNCH The bright orange newborn foal’s head popped like a grape between Martha’s fingers.
“whuh duu to bebbe-? Huh?” The new mummeh’s face contorted from one of happiness to pure terror as she struggled to process what she had just witnessed. “SCREEEEEEEEEEE!!! MUNSTAH GWANDMU-” SMACK The riding crop that Martha had carefully concealed behind her leg had struck across Bella’s face. It was a superficial injury, but the stinging was hard enough to shut Bella up, for a moment at least.
“Listen you little bitch” the fluffy’s eyes opened wide with surprise and confusion “I’ve been raisin’ horses for 50 years and I ain’t gonna take sass from nobody! Least of all some bag of shit toy like you! Now, you either love all your babies or I’m gonna kill them all. There ain’t such a thing a milk stealing baby!” Martha emphasized the last part by throwing the limp foal at the ground in front of Bella.
The cream colored chirpies had been riled up by the shouting and Bella rushed to scoop them all up and gently rock them to calm them back down as she fought back tears. “huu huu, babbehs nu cwy pwease!” Martha took that moment to grab one of the wet rags to wipe the splattered blood and brain from her hand.
“Aren’t you missing one little Bitch?”
Bella looked around staring at and completely ignoring the brown foal inches away from her before climbing up and rushing over the dead foal and picking it up in her front two hooves. She stared down at the mass of mangled flesh attached to the corpse’s neck. “Dewe dewe bebbeh, mummuh hug yuu an make huwties bedduh”
Martha reached down and grabbed Bella by her scruff, dragging her face down towards the brown foal. Out of fear, Bella dropped her dead foal during this process. The fluffy was too scared to cry out in fear. The gears turned in Bella’s head for a moment before she responded, “Ooooh! Otay, I undahstawnds nao” before picking the brown foal and rocking it to stop its crying.
Martha could see the anger in Bella’s eyes as she avoided looking up at her. “Now, lets set some ground rules. Are you listening?” Bella remained silent, avoided eye contact with Martha. “I said, are you listening?” Martha repeated now reaching for the green pegasus. “Yus Bewwa wistenin.”
“First. When I tell you to do something, you say yes m’am. Second, when I ask you a question you answering me immediately. Am I clear?” Bella looked up in terror. “I said am I-” “Yes mam” Bella chirped out. She was terrified and clinging to her remaining babies, well, most of them.
“Third. You will take care of all of your babies and if you don’t, you’ll end up like him.” Pointing at the orange pile of fluff now lying in a puddle of its own blood. “Fourth, if you even try to make sorry poopies I will bury you in a mountain of sorry poopies.” Bella knew she wasn’t lying, she had seen the pile of horse manure outside the barn. “I’m going to set up a baby monitor, that means I can always see you. If you hurt any of your babies, I will know. If you say mean things to them, I will know. If you lie to me, I WILL KNOW. Am I clear?” Bella had tears streaming down her face as she had never been yelled at like this before. “Yes mam…”
Martha thought back through what she had just said. This wasn’t a normal animal, it was a spoiled child, and spoiled children were rules lawyers even when they knew they couldn’t win. “I want you to show me all of your children.”
Bella sobbing held up the green one “Dis hewe gween chirpy bebbeh wike daddeh’s mane” then the three cream colored mares one at a time “dis hewe cweam babbeh …. Dis hewe cweam pointy babbeh … dis cweam wingy babbeh” As she struggled to count to five in her head she looked down at the dead foal and realized what Gwandmummuh wanted her to do. She had listened to her rules and knew she wasn’t supposed to hurt her foals. HER foals.
She tried to think of a plan but knew she had to keep moving or gwandmummah would catch her plan. “Dis hewe am foweba sweepie owange bebbeh. HUU HUU HUU” She made a big show of being distraught with grief. She cried for a good thirty seconds before setting him down and going to lay back in her towel nestie. “AND” Gwanmummuh’s Voice was like a knife.
“and…” slowly picking up the brown colt that had begun snuggling up against his mother’s back hoof, suckling on it as he had yet to receive any milk “dis hewe am p-po-” Martha raised the switch over her head, she couldn’t swing for fear of hitting the foal which Bella instinctively help up in front of her face. “powetty bwown bebbeh.” Bella chirped with terror.
Martha sighed, “I need a cigarette.”
The editing took more work than I expected. There was a few of plot holes, unexplained family dynamics motivating characters and I added some more detail and foreshadowing earlier in various parts. Expect 8 Chapters in all. I’m also having some fun with the text formatting on this website. Looking forward to posting the rest!