It was raining, that kind of thin, dreary rain that’s almost fog, almost sleet, and entirely miserable. The bone-chilling mist had hung over the vibrant autumn forest for days, dulling fiery oranges into dull muddy browns as the trees slowly skeletonized. The distinction between short gray days and long dark nights was blurry. Sometimes the cloud cover would almost relent, only to thicken once again and plunge the scene into a monotonous gray once more.
In what had once been a burrow of some kind, long abandoned by its original owner and too long unmaintained, a miserable creature huddled, wincing every time a drip or drizzle wormed its way between roots and onto her sodden fluff. The rain had brought with it the first real chill of the year, and the mare was colder than she’d ever even imagined possible. Shivering convulsively, she tried to huddle closer to the wall in the hopes of staying a little dryer. It didn’t seem to be working, but there was nothing else she could do.
Her swollen belly rumbled again, an audible protest to accompany the constant ache of starvation. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Two bright-times? Three? Many? She couldn’t even begin to guess. The gradient of light and dark that had made up the foggy days and misty nights was too hard for her to track, down here with only thin beams of light peaking through holes to the base of the tree above.
Soon-mummah, as she insisted on calling herself, was not well adjusted for the outdoors. Being so far along in her pregnancy she could barely move certainly didn’t help, but she’d had no idea that it was necessary to stockpile food for the cold-times, nor even when the cold-times were. It had never been a concern before. So when the rain and the chill started, when she’d hidden down here in a hopeless attempt to avoid the chilling drizzle, she’d had nothing to eat.
Soon, she would have to leave the burrow, and risk whatever might happen. She knew it was possible for fluffies to go forever-sleepies from too much cold, and that there were many scary munstahs that lived outside, but the time was coming when she wouldn’t have a choice. Already the gnawing in her belly was becoming unbearable, and she worried that the tummeh-babbehs would go forever-sleepies soon if she didn’t find nummies. She’d been through too much for her tummeh-babbehs to let that happen.
Wracked with sobs, she lay there, soaking in both cold water and her own misery. All she’d wanted was to have her babbehs! Why couldn’t meanie mummah and daddeh understand that? She would be a good mummah! She would! But she knew that they’d never let her have babbehs of her own, no matter how much she begged and pleaded.
She thought back to her own mummah, to her brothers and sisters when she’d been a babbeh herself. How her mummah had sung her mummah-songs, and given her huggies and loved her so much before meanie-mummah and meanie-daddeh had taken her away. She promised her tummeh-babbehs that they would all be loved just as much as she had been, even if they weren’t pretty babbehs or wingy babbehs or pointy babbehs. It was why she was here, after all, why she was enduring all of this.
A sharp cramp ripped through her belly, and soon-mummah forced herself to her hooves. Moving slowly, legs trembling with hunger and cold and exhaustion, she half-walked, half-crawled out the narrow tunnel out of the burrow. Cold mud clung to her, hiding her pretty pink fluff, the pink fluff meanie-mummah had said was so good, under a layer of dark, nearly-black loam. At this point, though, she was beyond caring about how she looked.
She had to find nummies. It wasn’t a problem for later anymore, it was a necessity right now. She knew her tummeh-babbehs were hurting because she wasn’t eating, and she knew that she was almost out of time before they went forever-sleepies. Even if it meant going forever-sleepies from coldy-hurties, she had to find nummies now. Time had run out.
She could barely see at all through the mist. Was it morning or evening? She couldn’t even tell. Nuzzling the ground, she nibbled at the grass, but instinctively knew that although it might ease the agony a little, it wouldn’t be enough to save her babbehs. She needed real food, food she hadn’t seen since she’d run away. Even the yicky kibble would be enough, if she could just find some!
Distracted, semi-conscious, and on the bring of collapse, soon-mummah didn’t even notice she’d started walking on gravel. She continued lurching along, one slow step at a time, as the drizzle turned into a full-blown downpour, until she tripped on something and the underside of her snout slammed into something hard. The sharp pain in her tongue and the taste of boo-boo juice jolted her awake, and she looked upwards in awe.
It was a housy!
~
Willow sighed as she heard the half-hearted tapping at the door. Another stray fluffy, another stupid runaway realizing too late how much of a mistake running away was. With a muttered curse, she approached the front door, preparing herself for the inevitable flurry of demands, pleas, threats, and whining that would certainly deluge her the moment she opened the door.
Somewhat expectedly, it was a pregnant mare. Willow didn’t know why pregnant mares tended to be the main type of fluffy to show up at her door. She had a personal theory that the males were more likely to pick fights with, then be killed by, random “munstahs,” The females, which probably ran away specifically for the purpose of having babbehs, would become obsessed with protecting their tummeh-babbehs, thus living long enough to become desperate enough to knock at doors.
Regardless, it meant she usually ended up bringing fluffies that were eating for 3-8 to shelters. Of course, the shelters, being overcrowded as they were, would almost certainly abort the pregnancy, but that was none of Willow’s concern. She had no interest in what happened to fluffies beyond her involvement in dropping them off at the closest ethical shelter, and certainly had no interest in keeping any herself.
Willow liked having a guestroom so friends could stay over. She liked having free time and not having to worry about caring for a creature that combined the fragility of a mayfly with the survival instincts of a toddler. Most importantly, she liked not having to clean up shit and piss whenever the damn things threw a tantrum.
She would have been the first to admit that maybe her perspective on fluffies was a little biased. After all, her mother’s pet fluffy, bought on the basis that “they’ll grow up together,” had made her life miserable from the time she was twelve to the time the damn thing died three years later. Why it was that cleaning the litterbox had fallen to her was a complete mystery, although she suspected it was because her mother realized the mistake in buying the thing but had been too stubborn or too easily guilted to get rid of it.
Childhood grudges can be surprisingly persistent, so Willow still associated fluffies with broken toys, messes she had to clean, and obnoxious noises. Her adult experiences with them hadn’t readily changed her mind, either. While there were a few feral fluffies desperate enough to seek her help, and those were largely well-behaved and accepted being brought to the shelter, most of the fluffies she brought to the shelter were spoiled domestic pets that’d run away for petty reasons and threw a massive fit when she tried to return them to their owners or drop them off at the shelter.
Willow jolted out of her thoughts, realizing that the mare she’d been unintentionally ignoring had moved past pleas and into desperate sobs. She watched the gravid creature try to crawl past her to get inside, clearly too tired, too hungry, or too cold to walk. Given that the moisture-laden air was chilling Willow even through her coat, it was shocking the thing had even survived this long. Maybe she’d just been hiding somewhere warm until whatever poor stallion she conned into caring for her and giving her “tummeh-babbehs” got himself killed trying to provide for her.
She moved her leg to block the mare dragging mud and filth into her home, triggering another burst of sobs, pleas, and a generally pathetic display.
“Pwease, nice wady!” the thing wailed. “Soon-mummah hab wowtest cowdy-huwties, an’ tummeh-owwies, and scawdies! Nee’ nummies! Nee’ housy an’ nesty! Nu wan gu fowebah-sweepies! Nu wan wose tummeh-babbehs!”
Willow sighed again, but didn’t move her leg aside, although she did flinch in disgust as the mare tried to hug her leg and rubbed filth all over her boot and pants. Looking outside again, she decided she’d be damned if she was taking this thing to the bus stop in this weather. Gently pushing the mare away, she closed the door.
The noise of the mare’s renewed shrieks for food, and a home, and a bed, and probably toys and a TV too, were muffled as the door shut. Absent-mindedly drumming her fingers on her forearm, Willow searched for an appropriate container to transport the mare in so she could avoid getting its filth all over her. Finding a cardboard box that she’d been meaning to throw away for the better part of a week, but had never gotten around to disposing of, she picked it up and opened the door once more.
“Nice wady?” the mare wheezed, having apparently exhausted her breath.
“Listen up,” Willow commanded. “You can stay here until the weather clears up, then I’m taking you to the shelter. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to have a bath, and I don’t want to hear anything about how water is bad for fluffies.”
The mare’s eyes lit up.
“Tank 'ou, nice wady!” she burbled. “Soon-mummah wiww be bestest fwuffy ebah!”
“I doubt it, but let’s get this over with.”
Of course, it wasn’t that easy. As soon as the damn mare was in the bath she started wailing again about how the water was bad. Willow gritted her teeth and suppressed the urge to slap the obnoxious creature in the face. It would just be here for a day, maybe two, and then she’d get a blessed few months where the weather was too cold for the nuisances to keep showing up.
~
Soon-mummah tried her best, but when the wawa of the bath touched her leggies it gave her the worstest hurties ever! She couldn’t understand why. She hadn’t had a bath in so many forevers, and the wawa was scary, but it’d never hurt like this before! She tried so, so hard to be a good fluffy, to not make the nice lady angry, but she just couldn’t help it!
“SCREEE! WAWA GIB BIGGEST OWWIES! WAWA AM BAD FOW SOON-MUMMAH! NU WIKE BAFF!”
“Shut up,” the nice lady snapped, and Soon-mummah began to think that maybe she wasn’t so nice after all. “Stop being dramatic and let me get you clean. I’m not letting you track mud and shit all over the place.”
Soon-mummah pleaded for the hurties to just stop. “Pwease! Nu wan huwties! Nu wan meany baff!”
She was pulled out of the wawa, and the horrible pain in her leggies subsided a bit, but then the nice lady put her back in the box! “Nuuuuuuu! Nu wan gu! Nu wan fowebah-sweepies! Nu wan cowdy-huwties!” she pleaded as she was carried to the door. “Pwease! Pwease, nice wady! Soon-mummahs nu am fow fowebah-sweepies! Am fow huggies an’ wub!”
“I told you, either you get a bath or you go back outside.”
Soon-mummah sobbed, trying to reach the nice lady for huggies. Her crying turned to a shriek of horror as she was set down on the porch once more, and the wet fluff of her leggies seemed to turn to ice as the cold air touched it.
“Wiww hab baff!” she wailed. “NU WEABE SOON-MUMMAH!”
~
The scare tactic seemed to work, and the obnoxious mare let Willow bathe her, even if she cried and complained the whole time about how “wawa am bad! Gib Soon-mummah owwies!” Once she was clean enough, which took quite some time to achieve with all the ground-in filth, Willow vigorously dried her with a towel and set her on the floor.
~
Soon-mummah looked up at the meany lady, tears in her eyes from the horrible owwies the wawa had given her leggies. “Pwease, nice wady.” she pleaded. “Nee’ huggies fow make owwies gu 'way!”
The meany lady glared at her. “Stop that.”
“Stahp wut?”
“Stop trying to manipulate me. I know how you spoiled runaway brats operate. You try to weasel your way into my life and guilt me into keeping you. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
“Pwease?”
“No, and if you keep this up I really will kick you out. Shut up, stay there. I’ll bring you some food, and you’d better not complain or beg for sketties, understand?”
“O-otay, nice wady,” Soon-mummah sobbed.
~
In the end, the nummies ended up being some kind of strange goopy stuff that tasted like milkies. Soon-mummah wanted to explain that she was a big fluffy, and was too old for milkies, but decided against it. The meany lady seemed to hate her for some reason, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong.
After eating, the meany lady gave her a cushion to sleep on. Compared to sleeping on the hard ground, it was so, so soft, even if it did smell like dust. Soon, the meany lady clicked off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. Soon-mummah was used to the dark, though, and succumbed to her exhaustion almost as soon as she closed her eyes.
~
“What do you mean the busses aren’t running?” Willow demanded of her phone. “Damn it.”
It was early Wednesday morning and she’d been hoping to get the demanding runaway mare to the shelter and out of her life before work. Now she was stuck with the obnoxious fluffy until the roads weren’t flooded. That might be hours, or it might be days, and in either case it was too long for Willow’s taste.
Beginning to feel as though answering the door in the first place had been a mistake, she mixed up another bowl of bread and milk. As much as she despised the mare already, she wasn’t going to let her starve. Or rather, based on the mare’s appearance, keep starving. Willow had too much self-respect to just let the creature suffer unnecessarily. Even if it meant the mare would pretend to be suffering to manipulate her, like with the bath.
~
Soon-mummah awoke to the sound of the door opening, and opened her eyes to darkness. She yelped softly as the lights turned on, blinding her, and tried to leap to her feet, only to roll off the cushion and heavily onto her back. She could barely feel her legs, and was still so, so tired, but she wriggled in an attempt to right herself.
“Nice wady hewp Soon-mummah?” she asked, when she realized she was too weak to right herself.
The meany lady sighed, then reached for Soon-mummah, making her suppress a flinch. The meany lady was surprisingly gentle, and Soon-mummah lurched to the bowl of fresh food. It was still milky-nummies, which was disappointing, but Soon-mummah still felt very hungry, so she ate it all without complaint.
“Tank 'ou, nice wady,” she said, genuinely grateful to not be quite so hungry anymore. “Tummeh-owwies am bad fow tummeh-babbehs.”
“I can’t take you to the shelter today,” meany lady said. “So you’ll have to stay here a bit longer.”
Soon-mummah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She didn’t want to stay here with the meany lady, who hated her for no reason, but she also didn’t want to go to the shelter. Her old special-friend had come from a shelter, and he said it wasn’t a good place. She was used to bad places though, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad at the shelter.
“Well?” the meany lady asked.
Soon-mummah realized she’d been asked a question, and panicked a little. “Soon-mummah am sowwy, nu heaw wut nice wady ask.”
“I asked if you need to go out.”
Soon-mummah panicked at that. Why would meany-lady ask her that? Why would she want to go out and have coldy-owwies and forever-sleepies? Her guts churned, and to her horror she realized she’d made scardy-poopies.
Meany lady’s face clouded with anger for a second, then relaxed. “Apparently so.”
“Nuuuu! Nu wan gu! Wan stay! Nu wan fowebah-sweepies! Wiww cwean poopies! Nu am bad fwuffy! Wiww num! Wiww num!”
Meany lady seemed stunned for a second, then realization dawned. “I meant did you need to go outside to…uh…make poopies and peepees.”
Soon-mummah’s panic subsided a bit. She turned around and, trying her best not to think about what she was doing, leaned towards the poopies as best she could. “Nu smeww pwetty” she muttered, forcing herself to lick at the pile.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” meany lady shouted, and Soon-mummah made scardy-poopies again and burst into tears.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Soon-mummah am sowwy! Wiww num fastah!” she promised, taking a large bite of the mess and almost throwing up.
“Stop that! Filthy animal.”
“Huuhuuhuu! Soon-mummah am bad fwuffy! Make bad poopies!”
~
Willow gagged as the disgusting creature took a bite of its own feces. God, she hated fluffies. She remembered her mother’s fluffy would do the same thing sometimes, when he’d made a mess and didn’t want the sorry stick. How he figured eating shit was any better was a mystery to Willow, but clearly what she’d thought was an anomaly was just typical fluffy behavior. Rancid animals.
Grabbing the mare and pulling her away from the mess, Willow set her down in the cardboard box so she could clean up the mess without interruption. This set her off into another gale of tears and somehow she managed to shit even more, coating herself and the inside of the box.
“How much shit can you hold?” Willow asked incredulously, before beginning the arduous process of cleaning up after the mare. Thankfully, she’d had to foresight to keep her in a spare bathroom, so the tile floor was relatively easy to clean. It was still a disgusting ordeal, though, trying not to vomit at the absolute stench and ignoring the mare’s semi-coherent screeches.
“Now I need to give you another bath, damn it,” she said, beginning to run warm water into the bathtub.
“Nuuuu! Nu wike baff! Nu wike meany wawa!”
Willow almost shouted at the mare to shut up, then reconsidered at the horrifying thought that she might shit herself again. Settling for sitting in silence and ignoring the pleas to stay filthy, she waited for the tub to fill. Briefly leaving and returning with rubber gloves, she gingerly lifted the filth-spattered mare and set her into the tub.
Apparently having learned her lesson from last time, the mare didn’t make a fuss about being bathed this time, and fifteen minutes later she was sitting on a fresh cushion while Willow decided what to do with the old cushion the mare had defecated all over. Deciding that double bagging it and putting it in the garbage would have to due in lieu of walking fifteen minutes to the nearest biowaste bin, she tossed the ruined cushion and mountain of paper towels into the garbage.
~
They settled into a bit of a routine while they waited for the weather to clear and the roads to no longer be flooded. Soon-mummah would leave her waste in an old flowerpot on the back porch, and ate whatever Willow felt inclined to make. The mare had stopped complaining so much, evidently having decided that Willow wouldn’t be so easy to manipulate as she’d hoped.
Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as Willow had dreaded, keeping the mare for a few days. She’d expected complaints about wanting attention, or toys, or a night light, or to watch FluffTV, or any of the other myriad demands spoiled fluffies made. Instead, Soon-mummah seemed content to just lay on the cushion, except when she needed help moving to relieve herself, and sing tuneless songs under her breath. Compared to Willow’s mother’s fluffy, it was practically refreshing.
That being said, Willow had no intention of keeping Soon-mummah. For one thing, the mare clearly had an owner who was probably looking for her. For another, Willow had her suspicions about the mare. Persisting in calling herself Soon-mummah, instead of her actual name, made Willow believe that the mare was hiding something. What it was, though, Willow couldn’t begin to guess.
~
Soon-mummah had been sitting immobile on the cushion for a long time, and all that time the rain hadn’t relented. Every time the lady, who Soon-mummah was beginning to think might actually be nice after all, took her outside, it was like being blasted with shards of ice. So she held her poopies and peepees as much as she could.
One bright-time, though, it happened. She felt an overwhelming spasm run through her, and bit back a scream. Biggest poopies! she thought, but didn’t allow herself to say it. Grinding her teeth, she endured the pain, hoping that the nice lady wouldn’t come into the room, not yet.
It felt like many, many forevers, but eventually she was done. Scooping up her babbehs, she licked them clean, barely noticing the yicky taste, and let them nurse. Four babbehs, only one pretty like her, which made her heart sink. One of the nu-pretty babbehs had wingies, though, which was something. It made that babbeh a little special.
~
Willow suddenly realized that Soon-mummah hadn’t asked to be taken out to relieve herself in a while, and decided to check on the mare. Opening the bathroom door, she thanked God she’d kept the mare in the bathroom in spite of her conscience. It was a horrorshow, the mare having clearly given birth some time in the last few hours. Strangely enough, though, the mare was only holding one foal, a little bright blue one. According to the Hasbio manual Willow had read, litters were supposed to range from three to eight, with first-time mothers tending towards the former.
Heart sinking, Willow looked around the room, hoping the mare had simply rejected and pushed away whatever foals hadn’t been desirable. Some mares would crush “ugly” babbehs that tried to nurse, while a few with the cannibal gene would eat their offspring if they weren’t appealing enough. Willow didn’t see any crushed foals, but with the mess that Soon-mummah had made birthing, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were brown foals among all the blood and feces.
“Wook, nice wady!” Soon-mummah said proudly, holding up the blue foal. “Soon-mummah hab nice pwetty babbeh!”
“Where are the others?”
“Siwwy wady,” soon-mummah said, “fwuffy onwy hab wun babbeh!”
“Where. Are. The. Others?” Willow asked, scanning the room, before she heard a chirping coming from behind the toilet. Eyes widening with shock, the looked and saw three foals, one dark green, one light brown, and one gray, huddled together. She rounded on the mare with fury.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The mare cringed, both at the curse and at her deception being revealed. “Pwease! Soon-mummah make pwetty babbeh!”
Face twisting with anger and disgust, Willow reached behind the toilet, pulling out the foals. They chirped in terror, asking for the mother that didn’t care about them. Placing them down in front of the mare, who looked at her in horror at the thought of having to care for “ugly” foals, Willow barely restrained herself from breaking the mare’s neck.
“You disgusting piece of shit! That’s it, you’re leaving NOW!” Willow roared, any goodwill she’d started to feel towards the mare long gone.
“Bu’ soon-mummah-”
“You aren’t a soon-mummah,” Willow snapped.
“Soon-mummah wiww be gud mummah,” the mare sobbed. “Pwease, nu wan fowebah-sweepies! Just wan gud babbehs! Nu wike ugwy babbehs!”
~
The horrible noise came to a stop, and the bowl in front of Soon-mummah was filled. She hugged her two good babbehs to her, crying as they nursed. They didn’t understand the noise, didn’t understand the smells, so they latched onto her and nursed more for comfort than out of hunger.
“Soon-mummah nu wike uwgy babbehs,” she murmured as she ate, tears damping the fluff around her eyes. “Just wan’ gud babbehs.”
18 Likes
She’s really regretting her decision to leave that mare in. Even if she says she not being fooled & manipulated, she still being manipulated now with foals in the equation.
5 Likes
Classic bitch mare, bet she’ll be kicked out, or killed, eventually
4 Likes
Enjoyed reading this, looking forward to part 2!
3 Likes
Well, that brought a very abrupt end to my sympathy, but we’ll see what the deal is later, hopefully.
1 Like
I like how this is written. Stories like this are very common but how they’re written really determines if it’s worth continuing and this is.
The fluffy kept one foal & abandoned three, but in the end paragraph she has two foals with her. What happened between the last paragraph and the one before?
1 Like
I long to see how winter now does its work
Spoilers for possible plot twist:
The author could play this straight and have the fluffy as a standard bitch mare, but I suspect this mare is a former breeder and has been conditioned to only produce pretty good babbehs else she’d get killed.
Given her state at the beginning of the chapter, I suspect she’s either escaped or was thrown out and thinks that giving Willow a pretty babbeh is the only thing that humans want.
She’s also not strong enough to overcome the conditioning, hence her repeated affirmation that she ‘nu wike ugwy babbehs’, but she’s still feeding at least one ‘bad’ one (not sure what happened to the other two).
1 Like
I want the next part to show that soon mumma was like a breeder show fluffy that got punished for having ugly babbehs, and I want the human character to discover that the fluffy actually has a leg nerve issue or something that causes pain and the human feels bad