Cochrane’s Farm
Chapter Twelve
Over the next month, Steve had found himself overrun by unicorns. All eleven of Pineapple and Cherry’s unicorn foals had grown into healthy fluffies. He had neutered the blue colt with the green mane, but left the one with the yellow mane intact. Some of these little bastards need to get sold, he had thought. Even though I really didn’t want to sell until the next generation.
His friends had all encouraged him to study art in college, but he knew how to draw already—he didn’t need a degree to tell him he was an artist. Instead, he pursued a marketing degree—now that had proven useful. It made him capable of selling himself and his stories to publishers, and he again found it useful in building his brand as a fluffy breeder.
He already knew he wanted to go for higher quality clientele. Hand raising and training foals in the barn lent itself to customers who were willing to shell out a little more to get a quality fluffy pony. Mills that supplied stores like FluffMart and Foals-R-Us had a low smarty rate, but they didn’t exactly have a personal touch.
His website was phenomenal. He styled it after several of the area AKC-registered puppy breeders, including not only a picture and short video of each foal, but also pictures of each of their parents. Bidding was open, and he quickly found takers for all of the unicorns. The seven he wanted to sell, anyway—the three monochrome fillies and the blue and yellow colt he kept for breeding stock. Cherry’s two earthies sold, as well, but for much less.
Grapefruit’s four pegasus foals were keepers, as well. Steve figured he would get all four of them, plus the four unicorns he kept, genetically tested—he wanted to know for sure what he was likely to get out of breeding them, and what his chances at breeding for alicorns were.
On the subject of alicorns, Steve bred both Bonbon and her earthie sister, Marzipan, with Seraph. Worst-case scenario, he ended up with a bunch of earthies and pegasi.
Candy’s brown earthie foal from her first litter (her second was due any day now) had grown into a beautiful, chocolate covered gelding. Although he had poor breeding colors and would never sire litters of his own, Steve developed a fondness for the cheerful, compliant fluffy. Chocolate became his “special helper” around the barn: he helped the mares give birth, played with the foals so their mothers could rest, and gave huggies to everyone who passed his way. Katie liked him so much that she brought a red bandanna for him to wear around his neck.
Steve and Katie’s relationship progressed as well. She spent a lot of her spare time (and her nights) on the farm, and the couple learned more about each other as time went on.
“You know, Steve, I’m going to have to meet your mother eventually. Every guy who’s serious about a girl takes her home to meet his mother.”
sigh “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
They agreed that she should go with him when his cousin’s son was baptized. Steve didn’t have a large family, but most of his living relatives would have dinner at a restaurant afterwards. Two birds with one stone, he thought.
The day came, and he picked Katie up at her apartment. She wore a pastel sundress and flats (in spite of her short stature, she hated heels), and he put on a tie for the first time in nearly a year.
Dinner was a fiasco. Cecelia had seated Steve’s cousin, Nicky, two seats down from herself, with their son in between. He always liked his cousin—Nicky was a bit of a redneck, and one hell of a mechanic, even if he was kind of an idiot. He spent most of the meal chatting up Steve and Katie, and seemed really interested about his cousin’s venture into the fluffy pony business.
The problem was that Cecelia had seated Steve’s mom (and her twentysomething boyfriend) across from herself, so Steve had to listen to her prattle on about how she and Derek had just spent a fabulous week on Grand Cayman and would be going to St. Thomas next month.
Two bitches who deserve each other, he thought. He tried to sound interested when his cousin started talking about some new engine he had refurbished for his Mustang, but couldn’t get his mother’s voice out of his head.
“You know, they’ve got the right idea down there—the Virgin Islands have banned fluffy ponies entirely! Of course, that upsets the idiot hugboxers who want to—‘bring their fancy-shmancy designer pets’ on vacation. I mean, come on. People with real pets put them up in a kennel for the week, for God’s sake!”
Steve got uncomfortable in his chair. He was used to his mother behaving like an ass at social functions—she embarrassed the family at every holiday and reunion since he was a kid—but matters only got worse when she had a few glasses of wine in her, as was the case now.
“Mom, I think you need to stick to water.”
“Oh, shut it, Stevie.” She turned back to Cecelia. “He always did think he was the adult in our relationship. Guess that’s why he decided to make children’s toys. Just how old are you again, Katie?”
Steve turned to Katie as he got up. “Would you excuse me for a minute?” He leaned down and whispered in his mother’s ear, and then walked to the bathroom. By the time he returned, she and Derek were gone.
Katie squeezed his arm when he sat down. “Jesus, what did you say to her? She turned red as a beet and then dragged her boyfriend out of here!”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I just asked how long Derek had been her pool boy. That’s all.
Candy had six healthy pegasus foals the next day, and their colors were all beautiful. And sellable, Steve thought. She was a good mother, too—all of her foals got the nourishment they needed, and she never once complained.
More than I can say for Chrysanthemum, he thought. Chrysanthemum was a red earthie mare who wandered onto his property pregnant a couple of weeks before. He didn’t name her—in fact, it seemed to him almost cruel to give such a simple creature such a hellaciously long name. She was a domestic stray who said she had left her “dummeh daddeh” when he wouldn’t let her have babies. By law, Steve had to place a legal notice in the paper for three consecutive weeks to let the owner know she had been found, but no one had claimed her. He was a little disappointed, because she was a pill.
“DADDEEEEEE! ‘sanfemum wan mowe nummies!”
Ugh. Every. Damn. Day. He got out of bed at 5:30 that morning, not wanting the irate mare to wake up the whole barn. He thought maybe it was smart that Katie had cut off the monitor the last few times she had stayed over.
He trudged out to the barn and opened the door. Sure enough, Chrysanthemum had awakened every fluffy in the barn. None of them seemed too happy about the fact, though, as several of the mares were already up at night with nursing foals. He scooped some Happy Mummah kibble out and dumped it into the red earthie’s bowl. Both Marzipan and Candy, who shared a pen with Chrysanthemum, glared at the greedy mare.
“Now, is everybody satisfied?” Hearing no objections, he told the fluffies to all go back to sleep, which is exactly what he planned to do.
Twenty minutes later, he heard a high pitched yelling over the monitor. “SCREEEEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!”
Goddammit, Chrysanthemum.
Steve went back out to the barn, where all of the fluffies were yet again awake before the sun. There was a lot of high-pitched muttering, which he would have found hilarious had it not been 6am. He readied the birthing mat for Chrysanthemum and got ready to deliver her foals.
When she was done, the dam had four healthy foals, all earthies. None of them had spectacular colors (and one was dark brown), but Steve had found that proper training could overcome a lot of objections. He left the mare to care for her four newborns while he checked on the rest of the fluffies.
Candy was unflappable, as always. She still seems like she’s been through hell and back. Nothing around her bothers her for too long. I think when these little ones are weaned I’ll let her have the run of the barn again. She rotated two of her foals off of her teats and onto her fluff to sleep, smiling up at her daddeh as she did.
Cherry and Grapefruit both nursed their broods while Bonbon tried to get back to an uncomfortable sleep. He had tried to put the alicorn mare in with Candy and Chrysanthemum, but the red earthie had lost her shit at the sight of the “monster fluffy”. Her new pen-mates already knew her and were happy to share their quarters with their “pointy-wingie friend”.
Wizard and Pineapple made a fluffpile with their six new unicorn foals. They definitely played the part of the “old married couple” here in the barn—in spite of all of Pineapple’s henpecking, Wizard never left her side.
Steve sighed when he looked over at Orchid. The purple earthie mare had lost another whole litter of foals yesterday afternoon, and he was afraid that she would never be able to carry a litter to term. He felt sorry for her—not only because her monochrome purple color was extremely popular, but also because he had come to love his fluffies.
Maybe I could talk her into becoming Chocolate’s “special friend” and they would at least both have a companion. But he knew better than to think that you could talk a fluffy into choosing its partner-for-life. Any more than he and Katie could choose to be in love.
“Dummeh kibbwe. Nu wan!”
Shit. “What is it now, Chrysanthemum?”
“’sanfemum nu wan dummeh kibbwe. Haf bestest babbehs, nao wan bestest nummies. Wan SKETTIS!”
The barn raised a cacophony unlike any which Steve had ever heard. He had purposefully never used the “s” word around any of his fluffies, and never had anyone in the barn other than Katie (who knew better than to mention spaghetti around fluffies, as well).
“Chrysanthemum, we’ve been over this. THERE ARE NO ‘SKETTIS’!” He made sure to say this loud enough for all of the other fluffies to hear. “We never ask for ‘skettis’. In fact, good fluffies don’t ask for anything!”
“Nu cawe, dummeh. Gif ‘sanfemum skettis, NAO!”
That fucking does it. He went to the utility closet and grabbed the sorry stick off of the wall. He rapped it on the side of the pen.
“Good. Fluffies. Don’t. Tell. Me. What. They. Want.” He smacked the sorry stick on the pen door with each word to add emphasis.
“Nu gif mummah da sowwy stick, daddeh! Sowwy stick am bad fo babbehs!”
“Ah, but that only applies to babies, and to soon-mummahs,” he replied. “I would never use this on a baby. And you’re not a soon-mummah anymore.”
“SCREEEEEEEE!”
Five minutes later, the red earthie was sobbing on the floor. Steve gathered up her foals, placing two on her teats and two on her fluff, and then he walked out of the barn to get breakfast.
Two days later, he went back in the barn for the morning feeding. He had done away with the baby monitor, realizing that he needed sleep as much as the fluffies needed him, and that it gave him an added pretense to get Katie to stay over more often.
All seemed to be going well. The weaned foals, separated by gender, were all playing nicely, the chirpy foals were all nuzzled in their mothers’ fluff, Chrysanthemum’s brown colt sat chirping in the litterbox—
What the fuck?
Steve walked over to the pen where Candy and the red dam sang to their foals. He leaned in carefully, not wanting to disturb the scene, and surely enough saw a brown earthie colt sitting in a pile of shit, chirping in fear.
“Chrysanthemum, what the hell is this?”
“Huuuu…daddeh say meanie wowd…”
“Never mind that…why is your baby in the litterbox?”
The dam looked over as if this was the first she had noticed. “Oh, dat? Dat am poopie babbeh, daddeh. Aww gud babbehs haf miwkies an gwow big an stwong. Poopie babbehs am poopies, an num poopies.”
Regardless of misinformation spread by abusers trying to justify their hobby, Hasbio did not program a baby hierarchy in fluffy pony mares. In order to reduce waste, they preferred to have humans sort out the foals after birth. In the factory setting, Hasbio planned to have humans monitor the birthing process of all mares in the facility. Those humans would take foals from the mares to the sorting room, where they would grade by color and race. Even brown foals could find takers, as some customers would prefer more “natural” colors.
However, some fluffy breeders and mill settings brought about a hierarchy by which dams would sort their foals. Human employees are generally too expensive to hire in large numbers, and once fluffies became commonplace the undesirable colors didn’t merit enough margin to waste resources raising them. The long term result of this was the creation of racism among some of the stock. Had Hasbio had their way, most such ponies wouldn’t have been permitted to breed.
“There is no such thing as a ‘poopie fluffy’. Daddy loves all fluffies. Look at Chocolate—he’s got brown fluff and he’s a really good fluffy.” The brown earthie sat tall and beamed at his daddy.
“Chokwit nu am gud fwuffy. Am dummeh poopie fwuff.” The sound of chirping pegasus foals was deafening as Candy reared up into an attack position with her cheeks puffed out. Although she was bloated with foals, Marzipan also stood up and puffed her cheeks out in her brother’s defense.
“SHADDUP, dummeh mawe! Wha’chu kno ‘bout ‘bestes’ babbehs’? Yu su stoopi’ dat yu nu gif miwkies tu aww babbehs!”
Wanting to put a stop to the commotion, Steve scooped up the brown foal, which immediately began sucking on one of his fingers. “Girls, that’s enough! Candy, your foals need you. Marzipan, you calm down. Getting angry is bad for your tummy-babies. And Chrysanthemum…I’ll deal with you in a minute. I’m going to take this baby over and give it to Orchid, since she’s such a good mummah.”
Orchid had a tear in her eye, but graciously accepted the brown foal from her daddeh. It chirped once, but quickly latched on when the purple earthie offered him her teat.
“Now, what are we going to do with you?”
“Dummeh daddeh, nu cawe. Yu am BAD daddeh! Nu gif skettis, an take dummeh poopie babbeh fwom mummah an gif tu dummeh mummah-nu-mowe!”
In that moment, Steve saw only red. His entire field of vision turned as red as the belligerent dam’s fluff. His anger subsided only when he heard the purple nurse sobbing in her pen.
That’s it. I tried. No more. He picked up the red earthie by the scruff of her neck and lifted her out of her pen.
“Bad upsies! Nu wike!”
He chucked her into a sorry box and latched it, but then left it in the dark utility closet. The mare screamed in the dark, but he didn’t really care anymore.
“Orchid, sweetie. Can you take care of all of these foals for daddy? I would be very happy with you.”
With tearstained cheeks, the purple earthie nodded and picked the brown foal off of her teat. She placed it firmly on her neck fluff and shuffled over to the open gate. Steve offered her the bed that had been Chrysanthemum’s and then placed the foals in her fluff. Orchid curled up and sang them a mummah song.
Steve closed the gate and retrieved the sorry box from the closet. The sobbing red mare cried for her foals as Steve carried her past the pen and out one of the side doors to the barn.
He came upon two tiny graves. On each of those, he had put a little stone into which he had carved a name that only he knew. He shook his head and carried the sorry box on past the stones and into the woods.
When he got about twenty yards past the treeline, he opened the box. The red earthie slowly stepped out onto the pine needles. Once she had looked at her surroundings, she looked up at Steve.
“Whuh daddeh doin’?”
“I’m not your daddy.”
He pulled out his 9mm, to which he had attached a brand new suppressor. He didn’t plan to take it out in public, as CMPD tended to frown upon them, but it was perfect for things like this.
FOOMP
The mare dropped to the ground in a heap. Steve pocketed the pistol, picked up the carrier, and walked back to the barn. Chrysanthemum’s name was never spoken again.
Candy sniffed the air. Something familiar, yet not altogether pleasant, was coming towards the barn. Her foals were now weaned, and it had been two weeks since daddy had taken away the dummy red mare.
Since she didn’t have foals (she might have tummy-babies soon, since she had special huggies with Seraph again last bright time), daddy let her run around the barn again. She and her grown-up baby Chocolate chased after a ball and played together all day long. The pink pegasus was as happy as she had ever been.
She was so far removed from her many previous lives that she could barely remember a time before daddy brought her to the barn and gave her a new name. She did have a few vague memories, though. Every time they came back to her, she just shook her red mane and thought about her fluffy friends and all of her good babies.
Mummah was going to be gone for another bright-time. She had overheard her telling daddy she was going somewhere called a “beech” and that a “weeding” would be there. She didn’t know what a “weeding” was, but she hoped that mummah would be back soon.
Daddeh had to go out to the “stowe” to get more nummies for fluffies. She couldn’t wait for him to come back—one overwhelming feeling she got when daddeh was gone was loneliness. That brought back a lot of old memories that she would just as soon do without.
The smell persisted in the air. It got closer and closer to the door in the barn—not the big door or the side door that daddeh used sometimes, but the door that daddeh never used. She asked where it went one time, and daddeh just said that it didn’t go anywhere.
Candy shuffled over to the door and sniffed. The smell got stronger and stronger until she knew what it was.
“What dat smeww, mummah?” Chocolate had come over to investigate, as well.
“Dewe am odda fwuffies out dewe.”
The barn sat empty for the first five years Steve Cochrane had owned his farm. He cleaned it out and refinished it as soon as he finished renovating the house—not because he had a use for it at the time, but because it seemed better than letting it crumble into a ruin.
His care was rewarded when the fluffies came. He had a safe place for them to stay out of the elements, and he could partition off the pens to give each of them their own space. One thing he had never bothered to do was replace the faulty latch on the right side door. It couldn’t be pushed open from the outside, so having animals get in was implausible. And Steve found it unthinkable to believe that Candy or Chocolate would ever want to run away.
The one thing he didn’t account for was Chocolate’s curiosity getting the best of him. He nosed the door and the wind blew it wide open. The brown gelding didn’t notice that his mother—who was standing next to him—clenched and drew back her wings at the sight of the fluffy herd standing outside in the grass, led by a white unicorn with a green mane and a red stallion with the stump of a horn.
“Hewwo,” the friendly brown earthie said. “Nyu fwends?”