Part Twenty-Three
Sunbeam wandered around, looking for something to eat, anything to eat. It’d been only a few days since she’d bitten her mummah, desperately trying to keep her from taking her newborn babbehs away, and she’d learned that there were things worse than having her foals taken from her. For one, watching them starve when she couldn’t find nummies.
Their incessant desperate chirps, that had once been like daggers in her heart, had slowly become part of the background for her. She knew they were hungry, knew they were dying, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t even find nummies for herself, let alone her babbehs. The occasional tear blurred her vision, but she was too exhausted to even feel grief for the inevitable.
In spite of everything, she knew she’d been lucky. Her mummah hadn’t given her to the meanie man, saying that it would be unfair to her babbehs, so she’d just been dropped off on some random street and left to starve. She missed her family so much, but she was happy they weren’t here too; watching them starve too would hurt even more.
Somewhere, in a shameful corner of her mind, she’d believed that humans would be more likely to help her, an alicorn with good colors, than other fluffies. That’d turned out to be a misconception; when a filthy and reeking fluffy with foals, none of whom had good colors, approached a human she was lucky if she wasn’t kicked. Once, someone had given her the last bite of their sandwich, and that was it as far as human help was concerned.
Human harm, on the other hand, had been fairly common. Mostly just kicks for getting in their way, but she’d sustained fairly harsh injuries as a result. One of her back legs was broken and hung limply, useless. Not that it mattered, to be honest; her woeful lack of any survival skills whatsoever would have doomed her regardless.
“Mummah wubs babbehs, gon’ find munnies fow maek bestest miwkies fow babbehs,” she murmured, but her babbehs didn’t seem to hear or care about her words. All they knew was that they were hungry, so hungry, and their mother didn’t seem to care.
She’d already lost two of them, a thought that stuck in her mind like a searing splinter. They’d fallen off her back when she’d had to run from a barkie-munstah, and she’d heard their desperate cheeps as they were torn apart. She’d done what she had to; if she’d died the other foals would have even less chance of living.
“Mummah nu wose odda babbehs. Mummah gu forebah-sweepies fiwst. Mummah wiww sabe babbehs. Mummah wiww fin’ nummies.”
But her words weren’t convincing even to her. At this point, she was just speaking to hear a voice that wasn’t raised in anger, wasn’t threatening her or her babbehs. She knew what was going to happen. Much as she wanted to pretend she didn’t, she knew.
Sunbeam stumbled her way into an alley, hoping to find some shelter there. A cardboard box, clearly once the nest of a fluffy long-gone, beckoned to her. She needed to find nummies, but the thought of sleeping was so, so tempting! As she stood there, wavering, she noticed something.
A sound. Or rather, the absence of a sound. One of her babbehs! He’d stopped chirping! Horrible dread ate at her as she carefully lowered the two foals, frail and malnourished, to the abandoned nest. She felt a bit relieved when she lowered the first, but that relief turned to horror when she noticed how the second one was barely warm to the touch, and didn’t react to her. Dead.
“Nuu huu huu,” she sobbed. “Sunbeam am wowstest mummah ebah!”
Her stomach growled, reminding her of how much she needed to find nummies. She considered eating the dead foal, and as horrible as the idea was it was strangely appealing. She knew fluffies, good fluffies, didn’t eat each other, but she wasn’t a good fluffy, was she? The urge felt stronger than hunger, almost, as if something deep inside her was compelling her. This isn’t just nummies, it seemed to say. These are the best nummies.
No! She couldn’t! She couldn’t eat her babbeh! She couldn’t! She couldn’t not. For a moment, Sunbeam ceased to be, and in her place there was only a desperate, hungry animal. Her jaws crushed delicate bones as the warm red blood quenched her thirst. Soon, her stomach was no longer so horribly empty.
“Mummah maek miwkies nao,” she told herself when she came to her senses. It was all for her lastest babbeh! “Gonna gib wastest babbeh wotsa miwkies su nu hab tummeh-owwies nu mowe!”
She laid down, grateful for the chance to rest. Soon, there would be milkies and her lastest babbeh would be feeling better. Wait. Where was her lastest babbeh? She didn’t see her, only the few scraps of fluff from the dead one she’d had to num. The dual-colored scraps of fluff. The fluff from both babbehs!
“NU! NUUUUUUUUUU! MUMMAH NU MEAN NUM BOTH BABBEHS!”
The horrible realization of what she’d done sank in. She wasn’t just the worst mummah ever, she was a MUNSTAH mummah! She’d nummed her babbehs! She gagged, but desperately though she wished to, she couldn’t throw up. Sobbing, she lay there for what seemed like forever, before finally drifting to sleep once again.
…
Sunbeam awoke in the dim light of the saferoom, surrounded by the rest of her family in the fluffpile. Relief overwhelmed her. She wasn’t really a bad mummah! She hadn’t really eaten her babbehs! She was a good…well, maybe not a good fluffy again yet, but she was trying.
She relaxed again, trying to go back to sleep. Everything was fine, she was fine. But her heart didn’t believe her, and kept racing. Her thoughts returned over and over to the memory of warm blood, the crunching of bones between her teeth. Now, it seemed horrible, revolting; but in the dream it’d been so…wonderful.
She could still feel the damp warmth. Suddenly, her eyes widened. A horrible realization struck her. The warmth was real! No! She couldn’t have! Shaking, she lowered her nose and sniffed.
…
“SCREEEEEEEEEE!”
Sam sat bolt upright in bed, leaping out of under the covered. Since the near-disaster with the arson attack, she’d slept very lightly, always slightly on edge. By the time she was fully awake and aware of what was going on, she was already outside the saferoom door. Dreading what she might see, she flicked on the light.
Sunbeam was still shrieking in horror, and the other fluffies had woken up and joined in, the sudden awakening and cries driving them to panic. Aqua had taken off at a sprint and was now cowering in one of the corners, while the others hugged each other in terror.
“SUNBEAM AM SOWWY! NU MEAN TU! PWEASE, NU! NU NU NU NU NU!”
“What’s going on?”
“SUNBEAM MAEK BAD PEEPEES! PWEASE, MUMMAH! SUNBEAM AM SOWWY!”
The fuck? All this over wetting the bed? It happened, but normally there was just a bit of crying and apologies, not a blind panic. What was Sunbeam going on about? Sam was too confused to even ask for clarification.
“PWEASE, MUMMAH! NU GIB FWUFFIES TO MEANIE MAN! SUNBEAM AM SOWWY!”
“Why would I do that?” Suddenly it clicked. “Sunbeam, I said if another one of you got tummeh-babbehs I’d do that, not if one of you was bad. Christ, you scared me. I’m going back to bed, I’ll deal with this in the morning.”
“Fwuffies nu am gon’ be littew-paws an’ enfie-mawes?”
“No. Go to sleep.” Sam yawned. She’d been looking forward to having a good night’s sleep after spending the last few nights worried about the fluffies’ stay at Sorryland. Well, apparently that just wasn’t going to happen. With a sigh, she flicked off the light once more and went to bed.
…
The next morning Sam decided that she needed to clear some things up with the fluffies. She didn’t want them reverting back to their ungrateful demanding behavior, but she also didn’t want them to be living in constant fear. There was no way Sunbeam should have been that stressed over making a little bit of a mess.
“Okay, first I want to clarify something to you all. I’m not going to get rid of you the next time you do something annoying. However, I WILL get rid of you if you do something really bad. Understood?” She paused for the chorus of affirmation. “Good. Now, Sunbeam, we need to talk.”
Sunbeam shook in fear. “Pwease, mummah, nu maek Sunbeam weabe housie.”
Again, what the fuck?
“I’m not going to. What’s going on with you? You seem way too stressed, and I’m worried.”
“Sunbeam hab bad sweepie-time pictuhs.”
Actually, that made sense. The fluffies had been through a lot recently, and unlike the others, Sunbeam hadn’t really been exposed to prolonged intense stress before. That, and she was pregnant; pregnant fluffies weren’t known for being able to handle stress well. No wonder she was having nightmares.
“I see. Well, in that case I guess you won’t get the sorry-box for making a mess. Try to relax, Sunbeam.” Sam stopped herself from mentioning that the stress was bad for the tummeh-babbehs; that’d only make things worse.
“Tank ‘ou, mummah. Sunbeam am tiwed, gon’ gu sweep 'gain.”
“You do that.”
Sam was relieved. Turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about. Just nightmares. Not that Sam was the type to underestimate how bad nightmares could be, especially since the smarty incident. Still, now she could relax a bit more. There was nothing to worry about.
Part Twenty-Five
21 Likes
Not ominous. In. The. Least.
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Whatever do you mean? Did I put the foreshadowing tag? No, no I didn’t. Because there is no foreshadowing tag.
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Crunchy foals. Can’t take out the bones because then they wouldn’t be crunchy.
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“nothing to worry about”
Its either something bad or something dumb and stupid cause it.
But Im surprised on the start like “when did sunbeam bit sam again?” I was confuse until the middle revealed she is having a nightmare, and very traumatic eating her two babies (one by dumb accident)
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Yes me to I thought I had skipped a chapter.
Hmm Maybe Sunbeam has the Cannibal gene if this exist in MuffinMantis Universe and it lay dormant till now.
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“Nothing to worry about.” Oh no…
She better not start thinking if she lies about having nightmares her actions won’t have consequences…