“Chirp!”
You’re a fluffy foal. Specifically, you’re a monochrome golden alicorn. You love mummah. She’s wonderful. Mummah loves you too. You know she loves you, because she sings to you, hugs you, and gives you miwkies. Mummah is the best.
“Chirp!”
“Pwetty widdwe babbeh, in mummah’s fwuff! Wun an jump an pway, bu dun get tuu wough! Awways make gud poopies, in da witta bawx! So yoo can pway wif baww, an aww yuu bwocks!”
“Chirp! Chirp!”
“Hee hee hee, mummah wuvs chiwpeh babbeh! Babbeh hungy, wan miwkies?”
You gently knead mummah’s miwkie pwace with your little hoofsies while drinking and she coos to you. So warm. So soft. You love mummah.
Then a shadow falls over you both and mummah gasps.
You’re Johnny. You’re twelve. If you were any edgier, you’d be made of bismuth.
Today, you’re going to be an asshole. You snatch the unnamed foal from your uncle’s fluffy, Buttercup, and examine it while it cheeps in terror. This little thing pisses you off SO much; it’s so cute and adorable, and every time you try to pick it up it gets scared. Your stupid uncle said it’s too cold away from its mother and it doesn’t like being handled because it’s so little. Stupid foal.
Buttercup, naturally, starts whining for her foal back, resting her front hooves on your leg, saying it’s too little and needs its momma, blah blah yadda yadda, shut the fuck up. You kick her away from you, then close the visor on your space helmet.
Oh yeah, you have a space helmet. Because you’re an entitled little shit and your parents buy you everything you ask for. You even have the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier. That hasn’t been relevent since the 1980’s, decades before you were born, but you wanted one and you got it.
“Houston, this is Colonel Johnny. We have our volunteer and are proceeding to the launch pad.”
“CHEEP! CHEEP! CHIIIIIIIRP!”
“Nuuuuu! Pwease, gif back babbeh! Babbeh tuu widdwe, nee mummah! Staaaaawp! Staaaawp!”
“Roger that, Colonel Johnny. Mission control is standing by.”
“Gif back babbeh! Daddeh! DADDEH! DAAAAAAADDEEEEEH! WIDDWE PEWSON BEIN MEANIE AN TAKIN BABBEH! HEEEEEEWP!”
“Chirp! Chirp! CHEEEEEEP! SPEEEEEP!”
You bend down and open the cargo compartment on your massive model rocket, which is a scale model of the Saturn V space rocket and cost more than your dad’s monthly car payment on his Porsche. Then you stuff the chirping foal into the cargo compartment, which is totally a violation of the Estes Pledge, and shut the door. Then you kick Buttercup away from the launch pad while she cries and tries to retrieve her foal, and retreat to where you’ve set up the launch controls.
“Houston, we are ready for launch.”
“Roger that, beginning countdown. Ten, nine, eight…”
“SPEEEEEEEP! SPEEEEEEEEP! SPEEEEEEEP!”
“BABBEH! WET BABBEH OUT! MEANIE! GIF BACK BABBEH!”
“… seven, six, five, four…”
“PWEASE, BUTTEWCUP DU ANYFIN! ANYFIN! PWEASE, JUS GIF BACK BABBEH!”
“CHEEEEEEEP!”
“… three, two, one, launch!”
You turn the key and press the button.
“Chirp?”
PsssssssssssstFWOOOOOOOOSH!
The rocket shoots into the sky so fast it’s just a blur, the exhaust trail leaving a gray streak shooting straight up into the clouds. Buttercup, who had been trying to retrieve her foal from the rocket, got torched by the exhaust as it launched and is now screaming and writhing, fluff blackened and smoking. The rocket flies so high that you lose sight of it. Maybe it even flew so high that it went into space for real!
“Wicked!”
Oh hey, the parachute is laying in the grass next to you. Looks like you forgot to put it in before the launch. Oops! Heh heh heh!
You’re babbeh. You don’t know what’s happening, but it’s scary! If you hadn’t already made poopies and peepees before cuddling mummah, you’d be making scaredy poopies and peepees RIGHT NOW! Something invisible is squishing you against the floor of the tiny room you’re stuck in. You don’t like being squished!
Now your ears feel owie, like they need to pop. It’s cold, and no matter how fast you breathe, it’s like you’re not getting enough air!
“Cheeeeee…”
Mummah. You want mummah. You want mummah so bad!
“Let me get this straight, you little shit. You kicked my fucking pet. You fucking SET HER ON FIRE WITH A FUCKING ROCKET. You STOLE her baby, who was ALSO my pet, and LAUNCHED HIM IN A FUCKING ROCKET TO GOD KNOWS WHERE! Do you have any idea what that foal was worth? Do you? DO YOU?!”
You’re Johnny. You think you’re in trouble. If mom and dad were here, they’d intervene, but they dumped you with your uncle for a week while they ran off to Paris for a vacation.
“You ever been spanked, Johnny?”
You shake your head. Your uncle’s face is purple and you can see a vein twitching in his forehead. You’ve never seen someone so angry in your entire life.
You think you fucked up.
“Then this is gonna be a new experience for you.”
Why is he taking his belt off?
“Bend over. OVER MY KNEE, DUMBASS!”
You hurriedly comply, scared. What… what the hell is he…
“I’m going to start beating you now. I’m not sure when I’ll stop. And guess what? It’s still legal in Alabama.”
SMACK!
Oh, FUCK!
You’re Buttercup. Daddy trimmed off the worst of your burnt fluff and rubbed some special lotion into your burnie hurties. They don’t hurt as much as they did, but now you feel cold.
And the burnies don’t hurt nearly as much as your heart.
You ignore Johnny’s squealing and the smacking sounds coming from the house and stare up at the blue sky, longing with tears in your eyes.
“Babbeh…”
You are Twig, wisest fluffy of the herd. You are an old, grey pegasus who is starting to get white spots in his fluff from age. You are the oldest and wisest fluffy in the herd. Smarty, the burnt orange and brown unicorn, may be the herd’s leader, but he defers to your judgement whenever you see fit to voice an opinion.
You glance at Leaf, a green pegasus colt who has become your apprentice and is following the path to become the herd’s chief storyteller and advisor to the smarty. He’s young and over eager, but he’s clever and is learning patience. He’s a good apprentice. Better than the last one, anyway; you ended up making sure he ‘accidentally’ drowned after the third or fourth time he tried to give special huggies to chirpy babies.
You’ve just finished telling the herd the story of the Perfect Fluffy, the one who is destined to return and lead the herd to a new era of prosperity. He will return by a miracle, in front of all, and will learn the ways of the herd so as to better lead them.
You’re not really certain where that story came from. You don’t remember all the details as they were taught to you, so you kind of gloss over some of them, and elaborate on others based on what you think you remember. The chief storyteller before you admitted to doing the same thing, and suspected the storyteller before him did it too. But the point of the story isn’t to take it literally or adhere to every detail exactly, it’s to teach the herd valuable lessons about leadership and-
Every fluffy in the herd just simultaneously screamed and shat itself. You turn and look behind you, just as a giant tube made of fire crashes into the big rock you and Smarty stand on while speaking to the herd. It bursts open in a fireball that, thankfully, is immediately extinguished, and a plastic tube falls out, rolls up to your feet, and pops open.
A little golden foal tumbles out, chirping in panic. You pick it up in your hoofsies and examine it, then your eyes widen.
It’s the Perfect Fluffy. Big and strong like an earthie, pointy like a unicorn, winged like a pegasus, and shining bright and golden in the light of the sky ball overhead.
“Chirp! Chirp chirp chirp! CHEEEEEEP!”
You turn to the herd and raise the foal high above you.
“AWW HAIW HE WHO HAS CUM FWUM DA SKY! DA PEWFECT FWUFFY HAF CUM TUU WEAD US AWW TU SAWVATION!”
All the fluffies, even Smarty, fall to their knees and cover their eyes in awe and respect. You gently lower the tiny savior and look in wonder back at the still-smoldering thing in which he arrived.
“CHIRP!”
“Um, da saviow nee miwkies.”
Several mares clamor to be the one to feed the Perfect Fluffy, one even casting aside her own foals to do so. Yeah, we’re just gonna count her as a terrible mother and pick someone else.
You look down at the little golden foal and it looks at you curiously. Yes, it was definitely delivered by a miracle. And he shall learn the ways of the herd and lead you all to salvation.
Two miles away, little Johnny is still getting his ass beat like his uncle was Ron Bushy and his ass was the drum solo from Inna Gadda Da Vida.
