You are a fluffy. You don’t have a name and you’ve never even heard of a fluffy having a name, so you don’t think about it too much. You are a mummah though! Curled up against your belly are three of the sweetest little foals, each one having thin pale blue fluff that matches yours perfectly! They’re such perfect little babies! You have two colts and one little filly. You know that having favorites is bad, that all babies need equal love and attention but you find yourself loving her just a little bit more. You always let her brothers eat first so you can take some extra time to snuggle her, to play gently with her little hooves, to whisper what a perfect little baby she is. There’s not a lot of room in your pen, but you make sure she always sleeps on the side of you that’s furthest from the litter box.
Today you held her up in your hooves giggling as she made cute little frowny faces.
“Mummah wub yu, bestest babbeh!” You weren’t thinking, it just came out of you. Immediately a pit of dread formed in your stomach. Bestest babies were bad. Something bad would happen because you said that. You didn’t know what, or why. You tried to shake off the nervous feeling but it just wouldn’t go. Your little filly was perfect! She was the best of your foals, what could be so wrong about telling her??
Your filly wriggled in your grasp, and to your shock her tiny eyes opened! They were dazzlingly pink and somewhat foggy as she blinked at you. Her little lips parted, and the slightest noise came from her. “…Muh…muh?”
You gasped, pulling her to your chest. “Yus, wittow babbeh! Am mummah!!” You jostled her brothers with a hoof to get their attention. “Wook babbehs! Bestest say wowdsies!”
They ignored you, continuing to suckle greedily. What rude little babies. You glared at them for a moment. Didn’t they realize how important of a moment this was?
“Muh… Miwk…” The little filly mumbled.
With a solid kick you pushed one of the colts off your milky place. “Nummies fo’ Bestest!” You set her down on the wire mesh of your pen and she quickly latched on to drink. You watched her squeeze in next to her brother, and frowning again you gave him a kick aside as well. The two chirped in distress against the wire mesh door, one leaking a tiny bit of booboo juice from his nose. You felt a twinge of sadness for them, but didn’t they understand that their bestest sister was hungry? You snorted at them, turning away. They weren’t bad babies, but they needed to respect their sister.
“Mummah wub babbehs, buh’ dummeh babbehs nee’ wet Bestest hab nummies fiwst!” You told them.
“What was that?” The fluff on the back of your neck stood on end as you heard a garbled voice of the monster. Its silhouette appeared at the mesh door as it leaned down, looking into your cage with its wide, glassy eyes. You knew this monster all too well, the one that gave you the worst pokies in your special place, the one that took your babies away when they were old enough to speak, the one that knocked your teefies out of your mouth when you tried to stop him.
“Mummah… nu say nuffin…” You curled your body around your best filly.
“Really now…” He flicked open the latch on the cage as your colts whimpered in fear. “Because it sounded like you were talking about a Bestest Baby?”
“Nu… fwuffy nu hab… bestest babbeh…” You couldn’t look at him and covered your head with your hooves and nuzzling into your little filly. He didn’t know, how could he have heard you? He wasn’t there when you said it. Your tongue probed the gap between the teeth in your lower jaw, remembering when you tried to stop him taking your last foals. You couldn’t let him just take them, they were so perfect and wonderful, they needed their mummah!
“Hm. Alright. How are your foals doing then?”
“Dey… guud…” Your filly detached from your milky place and started peeping as she tried to squirm out of your tightly curled body. You pulled her in tighter, silently begging her not to speak.
“No one talking yet? No teefies??” The monster asked in a mocking tone.
“Nu, nu yet.” You mumbled.
“Huwties!” Your little filly cried, crushed under your body.
“Oh you bitch.” The monster grabbed you roughly by the shoulder and threw you aside. You landed hard against the corner of your litter box but managed to keep a hold of your struggling filly. You curled around her again, shaking in pain and fear.
“Mummah nu wet munstah taek bestest babbeh.” You licked her cheek, trying to soothe her frantic peeping.
“Oh you do have a bestest! Wonderful!!” He laughed as you heard your colts’ peeps get further away. “Then you won’t mind if I take your dummeh foals away.”
You minded very much, but you knew better than to fight the monster. You had very little chance of saving even just your one little foal, never mind all three of them. It was such a shame to lose your little colts, and you would miss them, but you needed to protect your perfect little filly.
The monster grabbed you again, by the tail this time, and shook you roughly.
“Huwties!” You yelped, releasing bad poopies all over him.
“Fucking disgusting.” He dropped you into your own filth, you dropped your little filly upon impact. The monster grabbed her before you could snatch her back. She tapped her little hooves against his gloved hand, struggling to return to you.
The metal mesh door slammed shut behind them, and you crawled up to it, pressing your hooves through the bars. “Pwease! Jus’ wittow babbeh!!! Nee’ mummah!!!”
“I am so happy you fucked up today, bitch.” He threw your filly into a blue bin with her brothers, they chirped in distress. “I am so sick of dealing with you, that was your last fucking strike.”
“Nu say bad wowdsies-”
“SHUT UP!” his fist slammed into the cage door, sending you flying back. “I DON’T FUCKING CARE.”
You sobbed into your hooves as he carried your foals away. Their tiny peeps got softer and softer as your foals left you for the first time. You had lost many litters of foals this way, listening to their tiny peeps and chirps until the loud THUNK of the door closing silenced them. You didn’t know what was beyond your little room. All you could see out the mesh cage was the smooth white walls and the big door. You never saw other fluffies or anyone other than your monster and your foals.
Covering your head with your hooves you sobbed into the wire mesh below you. You hoped wherever your babies went they were warm and loved, that someone was there to hug them and make them feel safe. Yeah, they were in the place you saw when you slept. The sleepy place was nice and open and warm, with friends and playthings! You closed your eyes and began to suck on your hoof as you pictured it. Your little filly being cared for by all your other foals. Some of them must be grown by now, maybe even with foals of their own! They would know that she was special, to be attended to. They would know that she was perfect.
Your foals must be happy there. They had to be.
You jumped as the door opened again, and shrunk to the back of your cage as you saw the monster approach once again. “Nu… nu wan… nu hab mowe babbehs.”
“Oh, I know, shitrat. I’m here for you.” He undid the latch on the cage, blue bucket in his other hand.
“Munstah… taek mummah to babbehs?”
“Sure! Something like that!” He roughly grabbed your scruff and tossed you in the bucket on your back. “We’ll go reunite you with your Bestest Baby!”
You didn’t know how to feel, stuck with your hooves in the air, looking up at the monster. You had never known him to be nice. You couldn’t make out any sort of expression on his face, his glassy eyes were as blank as always, and you didn’t know if monsters like him even had a mouth to smile or frown. You had a small sliver of hope in your chest among the pits of dread, you did want to see your foals again, to meet them in the sleepy place.
The monster swung you back and forth roughly, you felt like you were going to be sick as he walked. You caught glimpses of things other than the white walls and ceiling, a long skinny room with many many silver doors like yours, other monsters with their glassy eyes, big carts containing parcels the same light blue as you. Odd, unfamiliar things.
“Here’s the bitch.” Your bucket slammed into something as it came to a stop. Looking up, your monster had thrown you down next to another, its wide eyes looking you over.
“Careful, these are expensive.”
“I do not care. Make her suffer for me, eh? She’s been a thorn in my side for months and I’m quite happy to see her go.”
“I’ll do my best.” The second monster lifted your bucket up slowly, and you tried to free yourself from the bottom.
“Uhm, nice munstah, mummah am stuckies…”
Without replying to you the monster simply tipped the bin up on end, moving you into a seated position. You gasped with joy to see your little foals laying on the white table top.
“Babbehs! Mummah am hewe!.. Why am saddie?” Your little filly lay in a puddle of her own pee, hooves over her head.
“Muh… muhh…” she got to shaky hooves and took a single step to you before the hand of the monster pinned her to the table.
“Uhm, munstah, babbeh wan gu tu mummah. Pwease wet?”
The monster paused ever so briefly. “No.”
With a solid thunk you were separated from her once again, a large wall of shiny between you and her. Well, most of her. The silver wall had pinned down your little filly’s outstretched hoof!
“NU HUWT BESTEST HOOFSIES!!” You began to struggle, your round form stuck firmly into the plastic bin. The monster lifted the silver thing and revealed your perfect little foal, eyes wide in shock as she stared down at her detached hoof.
“SCREE-” Her screech of pain was cut off by the monster shoving some clear sketties into her mouth.
“SKETTIES NU MAEK BETTAH!!! BABBEH NEE WEGGIE!!!” You cried.
The monster ignored you, pinning down your little foal once again and lifting the silver tool high.
THUNK. Another leggy was separated from your little foal, now stained purple with her own boo-boo juice.
THUNK. THUNK. You watched in horror as the monster took away all her leggies before rubbing a thick greyish goo over the wounds. Behind her, your colts sobbed silently, four globs of the same goo where their little leggies should be.
“W-Wai?! Wai taek weggies?!” You asked the monster as he brushed your foal aside.
“Because she doesn’t need them.” He said. You watched him scoop all your babies leggies up and throw them into a red bin very similar to yours.
“Babbeh nee’ weggies! Nee’ fo’ wun and pway!!!”
“Oh. She’s not going to be doing any of that.” The monster picked your little filly up by the scruff, holding her in front of your bin. “She’s going to be making medicine for us.” He jabbed a pointy thing into her side, and she yelped around the clear sketty sticking out of her mouth.
“Den… den when done makin’ meddy-sins fo’ munstah… den babbeh get weggies bak?”
“No. Then she goes into the incinerator so our trade secrets don’t get out.” He attached another bit of clear sketty to the pointy and you saw it fill with her boo-boo juice. “Or as you would think of it, she goes forever sleepies after getting worstest burnies.”
“Nu… Nu wan…” You stretched out your hooves towards the little filly as the monster poked her with another sharp pointy.
“We just inject her with the enzyme and…” Your little filly’s eyes widened, she released a muffled scream around the clear sketti and wriggled in the monster’s grasp. “And she makes what we need her to.”
“Sumtin’ wong! Babbeh hab huwties!!!”
“Nope. It’s supposed to hurt.” He set your filly down on the table where she thrashed on the reddish stain. “This wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t made her your bestest.”
“Wha?” You didn’t make her anything, she just was the best!
“She was supposed to replace you as a breeder. You would have gotten to raise her until she was old enough to have babies of her own, but we can’t have her being a brat like you. A shame.” He rolled her off the stain and onto her brothers, where she contorted and flailed.
“Nu… mummah… nu wan…” You babbled, staring at your foals. Your sweet little filly, your most perfect baby, reduced to a wriggling blue mass.
The monster yanked you out of the bin, you felt your leg pop at the shoulder before it exploded into pain. He slammed you down roughly onto the white table, pinning you down with a hand across your back.
“HUWTIES!! PWEASE MUNSTAH MUMMAH BE GUUD, NEBAH DU DAT AGAIN!!” You screeched as he lifted the shiny into the air again. “MUMMAH NEE’ WEGGIES PWEASE NU TAEK PWEASE!!”
“Yeah, I really don’t care. You need to be useful, and we need more milk bags. It’s nothing personal, just my job.”
“FWUFFY DU ANYTING PWEASE NU-”
THUNK.
How long had it been since then?
You were alone in your darkness. You sorta remembered something being put over your eyes, but the longer you were in here the less you were sure. The void was all encompassing, there was nothing here but you and your thoughts.
Sometimes you thought about that awful, awful day. They took your babies leggies, they took your leggies, they shoved horrible hard sketties into your mouth and gave you the worst pointy hurties. It hurt so much, you wished you could save your little filly from the monsters. They were just too strong.
Sometimes you thought about the dream place, you didn’t really remember it well but you remembered it was good. A nice place. Where all your other foals were.
You wished you could go there.
PSSHT.
The horrible noise. Your chest began to ache as the pain spread, the worst pointy hurties spreading into a burning sensation across your body. You tried to scream, as you always did, but a muffled groan was all you could do.
You felt the pressure on your milky places, the horrible hurty babies drinking from you again. They were so big, so hungry, you wished you could see them in the darkness. You wished you could stop them, the all over burning was bad enough. Didn’t they know you had a bestest baby? She needed your milkies more than any other dummy hurty baby.
Maybe when she was back from the dream place she would save you from the darkness.
“Yam? You awake?” You called down the hall towards the office turned saferoom.
“Yus Mummah Mawy!” Her little voice chirped back.
“Come get breakfast then!” A soft pitter-patter of hooves answered you as she made her way down the hall. You tried explaining that you were not her mummah, you were just housing her until Romero was able to move somewhere he could keep her but she clearly wasn’t the brightest of fluffies. It was annoying, but other than insisting on calling you mummah she was well behaved. You had to scold her once for eating her own shit off the floor, clearly she had been punished for “bad poopies” before.
You popped open the can, the same high nutrient tomato flavored feed you had been giving Primrose, and poured it into the ceramic bowl Romero had gotten for her. It was pink, and the side was embossed with the word “NUMMIES”, matching the blue bowl labeled “WAWA”. The baby talk grated on you, but you had to admit that it was cute. Most fluffy supplies were cheap, mass produced garbage but Romero was very choosy with his supplies. The bowls were solid and wider at the base in order to make them hard to tip, the water bowl had nubbly bumps in the bottom which made it very hard for even the dumbest of fluffies to find space to drown in it. Her bed and litter box were made for cats and carefully checked over for any sharp edges or loose threads.
She smiled at you as you pulled a second can down, one labeled with a smiling blue mare. Yam had shown very little interest in her food in the last few days, you were worried that she was coming down with something. Probably something caught from the corpses she was tossed onto. The milk was heavily treated with fluffy antibiotics and flavor enhancers, you were told it even had slightly stimulating qualities in fluffies and could become addictive. It was used as a cure-all for sickly foals, and on occasion for adults that refused to eat and boasted a long warning label on the side of the can. Yam would pick at the food if you watched her but often left large portions behind, you were hoping the milk would put some pep in her step and get her eating properly.
“There’s some milk on this, eat as much as you can, okay?” You said, setting the bowl in front of her. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“Otay mummah, Yam wiww twy.” You bit your tongue as she started licking the creamy coating off the puck of food.
“I’m headed off to work, be a good girl.”
You gathered your coat and mentally prepared yourself for another day in the psych wing. Knowing what you did now, it was hard to keep your mouth shut. Primrose was nearly ready for release, you had done most of the paperwork for her transfer to a local rescue. You had pressed for her to go into a no-kill shelter, it really felt like the least you could do for her. You had been complicit in her treatment, if you even wanted to call it that. Whatever they gave her left her with no memory of her special friend or history, and you couldn’t begin to guess what they did to her to make her not want foals. It was wrong, and the bitter taste in your mouth was just part of your life these days.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket as your hand touched the doorknob, a text from Romero. “How’s my little sweet potato feeling?”
You snapped a quick pic of her eating and sent it to him. “Finally eating well, it took adding some milk to it but she’s eating.”
“Don’t you mean miwkies?”
You didn’t dignify that with a reply.
