Requested by @lastresort for my christmas fluffy requests. Honored to be your first comment on the site!
You are Ellie! You’re a very pretty blue mare with a light pink mane and a sparkly horn on your head! You have been good all year so that Santa will bring you the best gift there is, babies!
You used to be a no-home fluffy, and a meanie took you away from your herd and brought you to the shelter. They did something mean to you and took away your baby place. It made you very, very sad, because babies are the best thing in the whole wide world!
You got adopted by the nicest mummah who gave you all sorts of nice toys and good nummies, but she said she couldn’t make it so you could have babies, but if you were a good fluffy you could ask Santa to bring you some for christmas! That was very exciting, because you were already a good fluffy! That’s why your mummah always gave you what you wanted and never said no! When it was time for Christmas you would get the most beautiful babies in the whole wide world. It was sooooo hard to sleep christmas night knowing that you were a soon-mummah!! You dreamed of playing with the prettiest foals all night, all beautiful shades of blue just like you!
“Wake up Ellie! It’s Christmas!!” You heard your mummah call.
You scrambled out of bed as she opened the gate to your saferoom, running down the hall and skidding to a stop in front of the big tree! You looked all around but you didn’t see any babies, just things with babies on them. Packages of bottles, a large fluffy bed with a picture of a mummah and babies sleeping in it, a tiny litter box with art of a foal making good poopies, but no real babies.
You sat down on the carpet sadly, staring at the wrapped box in the middle of all the baby supplies. Did Santa not love you? Everyone loved you! You were the best fluffy ever, why wouldn’t he give you what you wanted??
“What’s wrong, Ellie-Belly?” Mummah came into the room and sat on the couch.
“Wai Santa nu bwing babbehs fo’ bestest mummah?”
Mummah laughed. “You need to open your present, girl! The box in the middle!”
You huffed and waddled up to it. You didn’t want whatever stupid toy Santa gave you. You wanted babies!
You lifted off the top of the box and gasped, seeing a bundle of light blue fluff laying on a sparkly blanket at the bottom. A baby!! A pretty baby!! You scooped it up into your hooves, hugging it tightly to your chest. It peeped loudly, but you soothed it with a few licks. “Dewe dewe, mummah hewe! Nu wowwy, pwetty babbeh!”
“I think there’s something else in the box there…” Mummah said.
You leaned over and saw a little brown pile in the box.
“Babbeh make bad poopies!” You gasped, bopping the foal on the nose. “Bad babbeh!”
“Ellie! Don’t hurt her!!” Your mummah yanked the peeping foal from your hooves. “You don’t hit babies!”
“Buh’ godda teach babbehs tu make guud poopies!” You protested.
“She’s too young to know better, Ellie. And that’s not bad poopies! It’s her sister!” Mummah lifted the poopies out of the box. “See? It’s another baby!”
Your lip curled. “Ew. Poopeh babbeh.”
“No, she’s a pretty baby!” Mummah set them both on the carpet in front of you. “She’s like chocolate! Or your kibble! A nice, pretty brown!”
You grumbled, pulling the blue foal back into your arms. “Nu wike poopeh babbeh.”
“Ellie… what’s wrong with you??” Mummah sounded upset.
“Nu wan’ nu pwetty babbeh. Ugwy babbeh make guud babbeh diwty!” You tried to explain.
“Ellie, in this house we love everyone, no matter what color they are.” She pushed the peeping brown foal at you. “These are both your babies, and if you can’t love them both equally I’ll tell Santa you’re a bad mother and he’ll take both babies back!”
You gasped, pulling the brown foal in for a hug. “Nu! Am guud mummah! Wub babbehs!” You plastered a smile on your face as the ugly babbeh snuggled in next to her better sister. “Fwuffy am sowwy, wiww be nicey to babbeh.”
“That’s right. We love all our babies here.” Mummah nodded, smiling down at you. “Now how about we get everything set up for the babies?”
Later that evening you were sitting in your new mummah bed, glaring at the stupid ugly foal. You had such a nice baby, such a pretty baby, and it had to show up and ruin everything. You wanted to go bury the horrible thing in the litter box with the other poopies, but this was your mummah’s house, and if you didn’t take care of them she’d take your best baby away!
Then your thinkie place had a great idea! If you didn’t live in your mummah’s house you wouldn’t have to take care of the ugly baby? You were so happy that you did a little dance before tucking your perfect little baby between your shoulders. The two of you would find a better place to live, with someone that understood what was ugly and what was pretty!
Mummah had left your saferoom open while she “shoveled”, whatever that was. You trotted out, peeking out the front window to see her stomping up the driveway. Perfect!
You crouched by the door, muscles tensed. As it opened you darted silently behind your mummah’s leg and out into the world. You didn’t think she noticed you, but you ran as fast as you could just in case.
It wasn’t until you jumped off the porch that you realized how cold it was. You landed in snow up to your neck, something you had never experienced in person. It always looked so fluffy and fun through the window but the sharp pain of the cold made you jump back. You started shivvering immediately, but carried on as fast as you could. You couldn’t go back, not to the ugly baby taking the love and care that should belong to your good foal.
You are a first time fluffy owner. You were aware that you had made some mistakes, but not until you watched her reject a perfectly healthy foal did you think that maybe you didn’t know enough about fluffies.
After finishing shoveling the drive way (for the third time in a week, thanks to the snow storm) you did some research on the couch while you warmed back up. After a few search results you had realized how much you screwed up.
First of all, you assumed that fluffies were like most animals and would have their instinct to tell them how to raise their young. Every site you found recommended extensive training before you allowed a mare to raise foals, specifically around alicorns and off-color foals. They also had to be taught that all babies were the same, otherwise they would pick a favorite as a sort of survival strategy. To make sure, if push came to shove, at least one of their foals would survive.
Second, you had clearly spoiled Ellie rotten. You didn’t have a sorry stick or a sorry box, they seemed barbaric when you were getting supplies for her. Your usual mode of punishment was to lock her in her saferoom until she apologized. You didn’t realize that you were leaving her in a room full of toys as a punishment, and you accepted any apology whether or not she meant it. You didn’t know Ellie not using her name meant she was lying.
Third, you didn’t even know fluffies could be racist. The resources you found explained to you that fluffies had an inherent dislike for colors they found ugly. Dull greens and yellows, most pastels, and any shade of brown. Some fluffies could get over it, through having friends or family that were brown but when it came to adoption they would view the “ugly” foal as a threat to their “pretty” young.
With your newfound information you decided to go have a talk with her. As you approached the safe room you could hear peeping. You anticipated the worst and hurried in.
Ellie was nowhere to be found. You saw the brown foal alone in the bed, peeping in distress. Looking her over she was unharmed and calmed down once she was being held. Must have gotten cold. You snuggled her up to your neck as you began to search for Ellie.
“Ellie-Belly? Where are you?” You called, scanning the room. With no sight of her (and nowhere in the room a full grown fluffy could hide) you started searching the house.
You checked all the places you could think of, anywhere a fluffy could fit. She wasn’t under the bed or couch, behind the toilet or even under either the bathroom or kitchen sink.
You stood in the living room, chewing your lip anxiously while you thought. She didn’t respond to your calls, and you’d run out of places to look. All the doors were closed, so it wasn’t like she had gotten outside… unless…
You set the brown foal on the couch and rushed to the door. Opening it your heart sank as you saw clear hoofprints in the snow you tracked onto the porch. You grabbed your jacket and threw it on, slamming the door behind you.
There was a fluffy shaped indent in the snow. At the bottom of it was a small blue form dusted with frost. Hands shaking you picked up the stiff body of the blue foal, having fallen from her mother’s back. Looking across the yard you could see the faint remains of a trail through it, rapidly filling with the falling snow.
You wanted to run after her, there had to be some chance she was still alive out there but something in you hesitated. The frozen foal chilled your hands as you trudged across the yard. Ellie was willing to risk not only her life but her foal’s just to get away from the “ugly” one. If you found her, how would you convince her to care for it? Sure, she may see it as her only opportunity to be a mother, but more likely she would blame it for the death of her “pretty” baby.
With a heavy sigh you opened the lid of the biowaste bin. “Sorry, little girl. I messed up.” You dropped the foal in, wincing at the thump of it hitting the bottom.
The foal curled on your couch was a fresh start. You could raise her right this time, with proper knowledge and training. Smiling to yourself as you made your way back across the frozen yard, you decided that the only name a brown christmas fluffy could have was Cocoa.
