~1~
“So everyone’s clear, right? I grab the little fuck, jump in the van. As I’m doing that, Barry’s gonna be on the corner setting off firecrackers. Should create enough confusion to get in and bail.” The skinny 17 year old with a patchy beard and dirt stache pulled on a ski mask. His friends looked first to each other and back to him. “I dunno Gus, this all seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a fluffy.” The ringleader shook his head. “Sid, it’s not just a fluffy. It’s Principal Maybourne’s fluffy. That fucking dork hasn’t shut the fuck up about it since it got knocked up a month ago, and if that fuckin’ pussy ain’t gonna let me graduate, I’m gonna fuck up his summer too.”
He of course neglects to mention that he was expelled for lighting a student’s car on fire.
Time for discussion was over. They were rounding the corner towards their destination. There, sunning her tummy on the front lawn, was Cauliflower. She was a plump white Pegasus with big round cheeks, a sparkly rainbow mane, and the friendliest disposition a Soon Mummah could have.
She was also completely immobile on her back. She could right herself, but it would take several minutes, during which she’d give up and cry twice, forgetting that Daddeh works late. It’s a safe neighborhood, and the lawn is fenced in.
But no neighborhood is safe enough when you draw the ire of a human dumpster fire like Gus.
He jumps out of the van and kicks the picket gate open right as the firecrackers go off down the street. Cauliflower voids her bowels and starts kicking her feet impotently in a sad attempt to flee. “Screeeee! Munstah! Nu wike! Bad fow Soon Mummah! Bad fow tummeh babbehs!” Luckily, there were at least a dozen more fluffies on this block having similar meltdowns, so Gus was able to pluck her up into a burlap sack and jump back in the van. By the time anyone noticed damage to their neighbor’s gate, the van was long gone. Barry had disappeared into an alley and ditched his hat and jacket.
And nobody was looking for her until her owner came home hours later. By then, it was far too late.
…
…
…
“Bigges’ Poopies!”
Cauliflower wailed out the traditional cry of the new mummah. Her foals bursting into the world out of her special place, her milkie places already sore and swollen with the sweetest milkies mummah could make.
But as she turned to see her six beautiful foals, she was crying. This was not her beautiful house. This was not her beautiful life. She’d been taken from her safe yard at daddehs house several forevers ago. She figured it was at least “a bunch of forevers.” Long enough her babbehs were born.
She was in a basement. It was dark most of the time, aside from a light in her cage. The light was always on and was an extremely bright and extremely harsh fluorescent. The basement had no windows, and she couldn’t see much further beyond her cage. She was in a cage, on a table, in the middle of a room. The light in her cage was punishing, but the cage was designed in such a way that it wouldn’t permit any light escaping. She therefore had limited vision.
Every day the scary hoomin who stole her from daddeh came down and fed her. Her first night she asked him for a litterbox. He refused, and she puffed her cheeks and stamped. “Huff! Hoomin hafta gib Cowwyfwowah wittabocks ow wiww haf bad poopies! Bad poopies nu smeww pwetty on daddeh’s fwoow!”
He stood, laughed, and dumped a bowl of wet mush food on her head. “Screee! Nu wike! Goopy nummies am in pwetty fwuff! Hewp cwean fwuff, hoomin!” He silently walked out of view, returning with an airsoft pistol. He started plinking pellets off the bars of her cage while she panicked. She shit herself, spun around, shit in her food, fell in the shit, and then shit again. Gus zinged her in the milkie places a few times for good measure before going upstairs.
Cauliflower had stopped asking for things.
Eventually, the hoomin stopped doing anything but feeding her. She had her foals, cleaned them, nursed them, everything. They’d all been walkie talkie babbehs for a week when their manes came in. That’s the day things, perhaps predictably, began to turn dark.
Gus came in with an empty fishbowl. It was the first time he’d had anything other than a food bowl. Cauliflower wanted to ask what the small clear container was for, but she also didn’t want to get hit.
He placed it down on the table and opened the lid of her cage. As he reached for her green on brown wingie babbeh, she moved to stop him. “N…nu, babbeh tuu wit-” She wasnt flicked or smacked. He punched her. Hard. She felt something snap below her neck, maybe where her shoulder meets her clavicle? She wasn’t sure, but breathing hurt. As she picked herself up, she felt a few teeth slide out of her mouth. Her blue unicorn colt ran over to them in the floppy way foals do. “Nu wowwy mummah, babbeh sabe teefies fow mummah!”
While all that was going on, Gus dropped the brown babbeh in the empty fishbowl. “Hewp! Babbeh am stuckies! Nu can see sowwy box! Sabe babbeh, mummah!” Before she could think of a course of action, Gus had returned. To her horror, he picked up her blue pointy babbeh and two of her teeth.
“Nu! Nu gib upthieth! Babbeh tuu thmaww!” Gus ignored her. He held the colt in his hand tenderly, like one might hold a baby bird. The terrified and quivering babbeh looked up at him for mercy, and finding neither mercy nor malice, began nuzzling against his thumb.
Gus slowly eased his thumb over the foal’s swollen belly. Mummah may be unhappy, but she’s well fed. And that means her babbehs are well fed too. As the small foal began to coo and close his eyes, he suckled his hoof for comfort, nestled up against the human’s thumb, which was giving a quite satisfying hug now.
But it kept hugging. He tried to cheep, but when he opened his mouth, the thumb squeezed harder and the half digested milk started coming back up. He was fighting to keep it down, both out of sheer panic at the pain and also because on some level he understands what that is. That’s food. It’s all the food he gets today, and he just ate. Anything he loses, he’s going to miss all day.
He assumes.
His tiny hooves patter softly against Gus’ thumb as he gives one last sharp squeeze. It was less to make sure he was cleaned out and more because Gus knew it would hurt him.
The slimy and gasping babbeh looked up again for mercy. Where once there had been nothing, now there was something far, far worse.
A smile. A smile hanging below two hollow, empty eyes. Eyes with nothing behind them but pain. His pain.
And soon they all would share it.
~2~
“Mummah, hewp! Babbeh scawed! Tuu many owwies!”
Cauliflower had been gagged and strapped down. She could not move or turn her head. She could either close her eyes and see nothing, or open her eyes and see her pretty brown babbeh trying in vain to pick glass out of his food. The hoomin had mixed in small glass pellets with the batch of kibble. That meant that it wasn’t enough to eat around it, some of the pellets were in the kibble itself.
Every time he bit down on one, he howled in pain. His still developing teeth were cracking and shifting as they repeatedly tried to crush what were effectively small smooth stones.
The formerly jolly and chubby babbeh had lost half his body weight. His ribs were showing. By the time he figured out how to eat safely by crushing his food beneath his hooves, his mouth was in bad shape. And stomping on glass pellets didn’t exactly feel good. When he went to have nummies, it hurt his mouth so much he could barely eat. Even the pulverized glass free kibble was too much. His teeth were cracked and jagged, nerves exposed on more than a few. The roof of his mouth was covered in cuts and abrasions. Same with his cheeks. His tongue had a great deal of scar tissue. He could talk, but most of his taste buds were dead.
He’d fallen asleep in a sludge made from the smashed up kibble and his own blood, drool, and tears. He awoke with the remnants of the sludge still caked in his no longer pretty fluff, but that was all. While he’d been sleeping, someone had scooped almost all of the sifted and cleaned food. They’d left the loose piles of detritus that was clumsily separated, and dumped in yet another pile of dry kibble.
This kibble was even drier and coarser than the previous day had been. He’d worked so hard! He’d gotten so tired, and just needed nappies! He still wanted to eat those nummies, why had someone taken them away? He’d been so hungry…
He cried for a while, looking at his mummah. She was bound and gagged. She was fed through a tube, and he hadn’t seen his siblings in days. He hoped they were safe. He hoped they had huggies and love.
He went to start breaking up the kibble again. At least this time he’d start with stompies and not hurt his mouth. That would probably make this move a lot-
As he stomped down on the first piece, a sharp piercing pain struck his hoof. Pulling back, he could see it. Sticking out of his hoof was a tiny piece of a hypodermic needle. He could see one more that had been in that piece of kibble alone.
He sat, and wept. He’d never felt so alone. He didn’t even know what alone meant. He’d always been with his family. Mummah said the hoomin was a munstah, but only now did he realize how true that was.
Then he realized he had no idea how to pull the needle out. He panicked and flopped around a bit. He tried to grab it with his back hoofsies, but only managed to accidentally press it deeper into his sensitive developing hoof. Now when he looked, he couldn’t even see it. But he felt it. It hurt. It hurt and it didn’t stop hurting. It just hurt worse, and different.
Quietly sobbing, he started pushing some of the one piece of kibble he’d smashed around with his snout. He was able to pick around the other needle, but it was only one piece. He was still so hungry, and so weak.
He rolled another piece over, then sat and wondered if it was better to keep giving the hoof that already has hurties more hurties, or hurt one of his comparatively healthy ones.
But that just made him cry even harder.
~3~
The Blue Unicorn colt sat. And waited.
It’s all he could do.
He’d only been trying to help.
The mean human had taken him away from mummah and told him he’d never see her again. He started begging for his life only to be interrupted with laughter.
Then a jagged tooth in each eye.
So he sat. He sat and waited. He waited for help. He lost track of how long he waited for. After what seemed like forever, he’d gotten used to the background noise. The hum of the basement. He could hear and feel every part of it, which meant he could ignore it. He could barely make it out, but he was sure he heard mummah.
“Mummah! Babbeh heaw! Babbeh heaw mummah! Babbeh su happies!”
The next thing he felt was the rough pressure of a hand pinning him down from above. Then he felt something tickle his left ear before plunging into his eardrum with a pop that was literally deafening. He was just screeching when the other ear went. By the time the pain subsided enough for him to calm down and say words, he didn’t want to. He was so scared and so lonely. He listened hard for his mother again.
The only sound he heard was his own sobbing reverberating through his skull.