Wod Sehwing, the black and white Alicorn presenter, walked out onto the screen, a candy cigarette hanging from his lips. He took a drag then looked into the camera.
“Fwuffies am towd nu tu hab a bestesh babbeh, bestesh babbehs tuwn into Smawties an Smawties am wowstesh Fwuffies. Bu wha if a mummah nu undastan dat, wha if a mummah, eben a gud mummah, nu can can hewp hewsewf fwom wubbin dat wun babbeh a wittew bit mowe. Wha if dat mummah find hewsewf on a wun-way twip tu…
Da Twiwight Pwace.
Fable gazed upon her litter of newborn foals and she smiled, this was it, the happiest day of her life.
Ever since that handsome stallion next door had given her the gift of motherhood, she had been anticipating this day, the day her tummeh-babbehs became real babbehs. Her daddeh wasn’t happy that Fable had special-huggies without his permission but relented and allowed Fable to keep her foals, provided she was a good mummah and loved all her foals equally.
That meant no bestesh babbehs.
Fable had been confused at first, after all she had been a bestesh babbeh and she turned out just fine, but she agreed to her daddeh’s rules since he seemed to know best. But that was before she saw her foals for the first time, naturally she loved them all, her little red pointy colt, her precious orange wingie filly, her adorable green earthie colt. But most of all, her perfect pink pointy filly, the babbeh that looked just like her.
That was her bestesh, she had to be.
Being the good mummah she was, Fable made sure that all of her babbehs got a good amount of milkies, happily singing to them as they suckled on her teats.
“Mummah wub babbehs, babbehs wub mummah, dwink da miwkies, gwow big an stwong.”
Hearing the happy song from the safe-room, Fable’s daddy went to visit, having missed the birth he was eager to see the foals. His hopes of a happy family were dashed when he opened the door just in time to see Fable placing the pink filly onto a breast and sing the second verse of her song.
“Bestesh babbeh, hab mowe miwkies, bestest babbeh, gits bestesh miwkies.”
“Fable. What are you doing?”
Fable looked up and, completely misconstruing the look on Daddeh’s face, beamed a wide smile at him and shook her hoofs in excitement.
“Daddeh, daddeh wook. Fabew hab pwetty babbehs, am mummah nyo.”
“I see. And what was that song about?”
“Bout bestesh babbeh habben mowe miwkies. Nu wowwy daddeh, Fabew gib AWW babbehs wots of miwkies an huggies an wub, jus bestesh babbeh hab wittew mowe.”
Daddy sighed, he did not look happy. “Fable. Do you remember what I said about having a bestesh babbeh.”
Fable’s ears drooped and she shamefully looked down at the floor. “Daddeh say nu tu hab bestesh babbeh. Bu daddeh, Fabew nu mean tu, babbeh am jus su pwetty an… an… an Fabew was bestesh babbeh an hab pwettiesh babbehs eba su… su Fabew’s bestesh gwow up be big an stwong den she hab eben PWETTIA babbehs an… an babbehs am bestesh fing eba.”
Daddy waited silently for Fable to run out of steam before the mare realised she was talking to herself and drooped her head even lower. “Am sowwy daddeh, nu huwt babbehs.”
“I’m not going to hurt your foals Fable, but I am going to have to take them away for…”
“NU TAKE BABBEHS, AM TUU WITTEW TU BE WAY FWOM MUMMAH, AM ONWY WITTE…”
“FABLE!”
Daddy’s bark caused all four of the foals to shit themselves with fear, and froze Fable in place while she pissed herself. She shakily looked up at her daddy who simply smiled back at her.
“Fable, I’m not taking your babies away forever, I just need them for few minutes so that I can check up on them.”
“Bu babbehs am onwy…”
“Fable.” Daddy growled with a less friendly tone. “Am you questioning daddy? Are you being… a BAD Fluffy?”
Fable cowered and shook her head. “Nu wan be bad Fwuffy, am sowwy daddeh. Jus pwease nu gib babbehs huwties.”
“I promise, they’ll return to you without a scratch on them.”
Fable hesitated for a moment, she loved her daddy but something about him right now scared her. But she fought past that fear, such was her will to be a good Fluffy and handed the foals over to Daddy who gathered all four of them in his hands and stood up.
“Whewe am daddeh gu…?”
“Don’t question me Fable, I won’t be long.”
Fable sunk into her bed, whining about her children. She tried to relax but as seconds turned into minutes she couldn’t help but worry. Daddy hadn’t been happy when he found up about her tummeh-babbehs, what if this was her punishment, what if daddy had taken them away and given them to another mare, what if he had given them forever sleepies and was planning to do the same to…
“Fable, we’re back. Told you it wouldn’t take long.”
All the worries of the overimaginative mare disappeared and she excitedly danced on her feet as Daddy returned her babbehs.
“Yeh, daddeh bwing bak babbeh, mummah hab biggesh wowwies an heawt-scawdies an…”
As Daddy placed the foals back into her bed, Fable felt her heart catch in her chest, where her four beautiful, colourful babies should be, there were four fleshy, shivering, bald foals, all chirping from distress and cold.
“Ba… babbehs. Wha happen tu pwetty babbehs?”
Daddy’s smile did not make Fable feel any better “Well you picked the pink one to be your bestesh because you thought she was the prettiest, so I thought it would only be fair if ALL your babies looked the same, that way none of them would be prettier than the others.”
Fable panicked and gathered her foals in her belly Fluff. “It ok babbeh, mummah hewe, mummah nu wet babbehs hab wowstesh cowdies nu mowe.”
The frantic mother tried sniffing out her foals, but being hours old, if that, their scents were still too similar, she had no idea which one was her pink bestesh, all of them were the exact same dull peach colour with only their special-places distinguishing the colts and the fillies.
Daddy wiped the last of the Fluff-Removal cream onto his trousers, he had picked some up during Fable’s pregnancy just for this occasion since he figured she’d be too dumb to take in his teachings. He was doing the nice thing by letting her keep those foals, he’d be damned if he was going to risk a potential Smarty in his house.
The cream was powerful stuff, not technically permanent, but it burned the Fluff follicles enough that the foals would be fully grown before their Fluff grew back, by which point any threat of bestesh babbeh syndrome would be long over.
At least, that’s what he thought.
The next day Fable seemed to be back to her happy self, in a weird way the foals being bald actually worked out better for her since the still blind and confused babbehs had to stick close to her as much as possible so they wouldn’t freeze. The furthest any of them would go was to the other side of the bed to cuddle up to Fable’s favourite stuffy-friend, a yellow and red toy called ‘Pooh-Beh’ who she had had since she was a filly.
Between their mothers warmth and Pooh-Beh’s softness, the foals were content, if a little chilly. The shock of their sudden loss of Fluff had subsided and now all they could feel was the happiness in their little hearts for their happy family. Happiness that some of them couldn’t just keep inside.
Fable looked over and saw one of her colts, still shaky and blind, start wiggling his hoofs back and forth in a semi-rhymthmic nature, but that was enough for Fable to see what he was trying to do.
“Babbeh make dancies fow mummah? Hab biggesh heawt-happies. Dancie babbeh am bestesh babbeh.”
Fable clapped her hoofs and sang her song, oblivious to Daddy entering the room again with her lunch.
“Bestesh babbeh make bestesh dancies, bestesh babbeh git bestest miwkies.”
Daddy groaned. “Fable, do you have ANOTHER bestesh babbeh?”
Fable, once again too naive and stupid to realise, smiled at her daddy and pointed to the colt waving his limbs about. “It am dancie babbeh daddeh, gib mummah biggesh heawt-happies. Dat am bestesh babbeh, need mowe miwkies so can dancies fow wongesh time an… whewe am daddeh takin babbeh?”
Daddy didn’t say anything, he just gathered the foals and left the room again, it took Fable a moment for the penny to drop and for her elation over her dancie babbeh to evaporate and be replaced by that fear again.
“Pwease daddeh, nu huwt babbehs.” She quietly pleaded with the closed door, her heart racing with untold horrors.
A short while later Daddy returned, and he brought the noise of terror with him.
“Daddeh, wai am babbehs cwyin, wha daddeh du?”
“I made things fair for them.”
And Daddy coldly placed the foals onto the bed, it was all Fable could do not to scream out in horror at the sight. All four foals were missing their legs, nothing but reddened scars where their legs use to be remained, the four siblings, still blind and chirping in their young lives, could only roll towards each other for comfort, inadvertently smacking their heads together and hurting each other.
Fable felt her breath constricted against her tightening neck. “Wa… wa…wai daddeh? Wa…wai take bab…babbeh weggi…weggie?”
“Because you chose the dancing baby as your favourite. So now none of them get to dance. I told you no bestesh babbehs Fable, and I meant it.”
Daddy pushed the bowl of kibble he’d brought in earlier closer to the bed and left the room, Fable didn’t eat any of it, she just gathered her four pillowed children close together and made a safe-huggy-pile with them and Pooh-Beh.
She wanted to love that they had to stick close to her, but this just felt wrong.
Fable was upset.
Without their legs, her babbehs couldn’t do much, other than feed and poop. They couldn’t stack her blockies, they couldn’t dance to show their joy, they couldn’t even hug her. They just… lay there.
Fluff-TV had educated her on this, sometimes babbehs would just lay down for hours on end before they opened their eyes, but that was ALL her babbehs could do, even when they were awake all they did was lay down and peep, either for her or Pooh-Beh to lay with them and make the nightmare of being without leggies go away.
Daddy was there but he was distant, always on the lookout to make sure Fable didn’t name another one as her bestesh. Fable still didn’t understand why having a bestesh was such a problem, so long as she loved all of her babbehs why couldn’t she give a little extra milk and huggies to her best foal to give it a little extra help growing big and strong. Not that that mattered anymore, all of her children looked the same, acted the same, cried the same, other than their genitals she couldn’t tell them apart, she couldn’t tell which was her pretty pink daughter, or which was her happy dancing son or which was her brave spolring daughter or which was her loving huggy son, none of them could show off their personalities that babbehs are supposed to do until…
It was on the forth day after their birth that Fable saw it, one of her daughters had turned away from Pooh-Beh and was angling her nose towards Fable, her eyelids fluttering. Fable pulled the filly towards her and stared at the foals’ beautiful face, waiting for the moment when everything came together just perfectly.
The filly’s eyes shuddered and shook as days of blindness fell away and her world of blackness was replaced by the bright colours of her new safe-room and the smiling pink face of her mummah.
“Mu…mummah?”
Fable felt tears falling down her eyes as her heart was refilled with the love she had for her babbehs on that first day. “Dat wight babbeh, am mummah.”
“Hehe, wub mummah.”
“Mummah wub yu tuu babbeh. Hab biggesh heawt-happies babbeh am tawkie babbeh nyo. Babbeh mush be su smawt tu be fiwst tawkie babbeh, smawt babbeh am bestesh babbeh an bestesh…”
“Are you kidding me Fable?”
Fable’s little heart jumped in fear as she suddenly remembered Daddy was in the room, he’d been there all day but between her boredom and her sudden elation over her foal’s first words she had forgotten about him.
And he heard everything.
“Nu daddeh pwease, Fabew nu mean it, jus say dat babbeh am su smawt tu be tawkie babbeh an…”
“I’ve heard enough Fable, clearly you’re not taking this seriously, I guess I have to take drastic measures.”
“DADDEH NU!”
Fable was helpless as Daddy gathered her foals again and took them out of the room once more, the mother frantically slammed her hoofs on the closed door, begging for her children to be returned to her.
“DADDEH PWEASE, NU GIB BABBEHS HUWTIES, FABEW PWOMISE NEBA BE BAD FWUFFY GAIN, JUS NU HUWT WITTEW BABBEHS!”
Her cries went ignored, all she could do was curl up into a weeping ball, terrified over what horrendous punishments Daddy would inflict upon her children now.
The safe-room was filled with the sounds of chirping, panicked, frightened chirping, chirps of fear, of coldness, or hunger.
And sitting in the middle of it, Fable sat in her bed, her bloodshot eyes glazed over the four peach markings in front of her.
Daddy had been thorough that last time, he had taking the foals tongues as their eyes, now none of them could talk and be the smartest talkie babbeh, none of them could see and have the prettiest eyes, none of them could do anything other than weep in fear of the darkness and gargle out cries for milk.
Milk their mother wouldn’t give them, not out of cruelty but out of apathy, too dulled down by her children’s repeated mutilations, she daren’t show them any love for fear of what her daddy might do to them. Her teats strained with pressure, begging for something to suckle form them, but Fable could not bring herself to do so, even as it physically and emotionally wrecked her.
In her dazed state, Fable reached over to Pooh-Beh, the only source of colour and silence left in her life, and pulled him close, hugging him tightly as she tried to block out the crying.
“Pooh-Beh am bestesh babbeh nyo.”
She softly cooed as she stroked Pooh-Beh’s soft yellow fur, her innocent mind needing to place all the love in her heart somewhere, even above the fear of what her daddy might do to her new bestesh babbeh.
Then again, what else did she have left for him to take away from her?
The screen fades to black on a broken Fable hugging Pooh-Beh and fades back in on Wod Sehwing, stubbing out his candy cigarette into an ash-tray.
“Nu aww bestesh babbehs am Smawties. Bu aww Smawties am bestesh babbehs. Wouwd Fabew babbehs tuwn into Smawties? Nu can teww, bu hew daddeh teww hew nu tu hab anee bestesh an Fabew nu wisten, nyo hew babbehs hab foweba huwties an cowdies. Dis am mistake data nee Fwuffy can make, gud an bad, inside an ousside Fwuffies, eben if yu wub aww yuw babbehs, dewe am nu need tu hab a bestesh babbeh. Cos a bestesh babbeh onwy bewong in wun pwace, an dat am in…
Da Twiwight Pwace.”