Fluff and Co. Part 10
by roguesoul
“BIGGEST POOPIES!” you groan against the cot, pressing your face to the pillow. You were exhausted, it’d already been a long day and the night was going to be even harder. You pull your phone out, eyes screwing up at the blurry screen, letting out a louder groan. It was four am, god damnit. “HURGH!” You get up a bit faster at the cry, practically falling off of the cot, and you pull yourself to your feet with a groan. Mentally you’re tallying up the weeks, too early for Jersey, who did that leave?
You step out into the room, brightening the room with the dimmer switch. “Mistas!” it’s Nightshade, still boycotting foals from her single pen, and her calloused hoof banged against the pvc wall of the pen. “Ih sweepie time! Nu bwight time!” You put on gloves, rolling your eyes as you go over to Pen 1.
“It’s bright time now, too bad,” you shoot back, yawning as you lean over the wall, “Sapphire,” you say, voice softer as you see the earthie mare’s drawn up face, her hoof wrapped around a beat up purple stuffed bear. “How we doing?”
“…h-hu-wts,” she gets out, and you move to her tail, moving it out of the way. Ambiotic fluid stained her cobalt fur, and she was barely dilated. “B-bbabbehs?” she asks, her pained voice shaking.
“Not yet, Sapphire, looks like-”
“MIIIISTTTASSS! B-B-BAABBEHS COMIN!!” it’s not Sapphire, and you turn to see a foal pushing out of Gala. You rush over, not able to change your gloves as you rush to the mare’s side. She was a True MLP Line fluffy, not exactly a rare one as an Applebloom, but she had good colors nonetheless, a buttercup yellow coat with a soft cherry mane and tail. She was the oldest fluffy you had, over three years old, and she was the reason your shop was started. She was a good mom, and an even better grandma- though her timing was awful. Three wasn’t too old for a fluffy, most indoor fluffies living about six- maybe seven years, but it was enough to give you pause.
You swear, moving to the mare’s side, moving the pvc wall down. Gala’s special friend, Simon, was there already, cleaning off the first born foal. “Here, let me take a look,” you reach down, watching Simon’s face twist in displeasure.
“Simon hewp babbeh- Mistas hewp speciaw fwend?” you frown, hooves drawing the foal closer, “Pwease, Gawa hab huwties!”
“nnnu-nu wook aftah babbehs, am-am FIIIIIINNNNEEE!” she cries out at the next contraction, and you are able to catch the foal this time. It’s a unicorn, its legs flailing in your hand as you flip it-him onto his back. His coat is soft, a cantalope orange color, aside from his belly which is a light pink. Good colors, and you nod as you pass the foal to his father. Unlike Monty, Simon had actually bonded with the mare, and had refused to breed with anyone but her. Which wasn’t great for business, but it made him a good father compared to the other stallion. “Aww-aww babbehs awight?” Gala asks, panting.
“Your babies are fine, give me a good push now,” you respond and the earthie nods as she pushes again with a guttural groan. The second foal comes out easier, at least in your eyes, though you grit your teeth as your gloved hands are splattered with fluffy shit amongst the fluids.
“Ssssooowy, nu-nu mean fow bAAAHHH!” her apology turns into another scream and you hush her, cleaner hand moving to the mare’s side. You see a nose begin to peek out from inside her, and you hand the shit cover foal off to his father.
“Clean-” you’re cut off at another scream.
“UUUGHH! IH HUWTS!” It’s Sapphire and you curse, getting up. You eye the pair, nodding at Simon.
“Take care of her, I’ll be back soon,” you say, and the stallion nods. You step across the room, moving behind the mare, your nose wrinkling. “Sapphire, let’s take a look.” You pull her tail out of the way, wrinkling at the shit dripping from her tail. It dripped down onto the pen floor, along with a mix of fluids. You reach up, gently probing her belly. You’d checked her over just a few days prior, feeling six or seven foals, a big litter for a first time mom, and you were not surprised as you feel her seize up- trying to push again.
“Ih huwts, ih huwts su muts!” she cries out, grinding her face into the stuffed animal, “Nu weab gain, pweEEESE!” she yells louder, and she pushes harder, straining and your frown. You reach up and frown as you reach up to her vagina, she was contracting that was obvious, but she hadn’t even started dilating. “D-dah-dat am speciaw pwace, nu-nu tash dey,” you push your forefingers into her, looking up as you see Connie run over at her daughter’s scream, “EEEEE! NU TASH!!”
“Weave babbeh awone! Gib sowwy hoofies!” you frown, feeling her beat her hooves against your arm. Sapphire was still screaming as you tried to force the birth. It’d been too long since she’d started, every second the foals weren’t coming out the risk of complications grew higher. You should have gone to her first, not gotten distracted with Gala.
“Connie!” you snap. It’s not like she’s hurting you, but it’s distracting, “Connie I am trying to help your ‘baby!’” Not that she’s a foal any longer. You pull your hand away, and you, in annoyance, slap the mare away. “Stop, now!” she flies into the pvc wall, and you force yourself to look back at Sapphire. You don’t have a scalpel, so you’ll have to force her open with your hands.
“I’m sorry Sapphire,” you call out, focusing on the work ahead of you as you push your fingers deeper, blood and amniotic fluid dripping down your hands and onto the blanket below. You force your forefinger and middle finger deeper, feeling the nose of one of her foals.
She’s screaming, and you hear the fluffies awake around you now, all chattering and shouting. “PWEASE STAHP!” you can’t, and you feel her flesh begin to tear, and her screaming turns incoherent as the foals start to fall out of her, along with a new wave of blood.
“STAHHHHHP! STAHPEEP-AUGHHHHH!” it’s bloodcurdling, the wailing and you watch in horror as you tear her open. You don’t see Connie, Sapphire’s mother, holding her leg and watching in terror.
“There we go, there we go,” you murmur, catching the foals in your hands. At least the first three, the others landing atop their siblings in a pile of slick bloodstained foals. You count them out, seven- then eight, then nine- and you want to yell. No wonder she had so much trouble, this was a massive litter. You grab a spare blanket, and press it to her, feeling it as blood soaks it. “Come on, Sapphire,” you reach up and pull one arm under her, the other pressing the blanket firm to her wound.
“Connie!” you snap at the mare, and she looks back to you, “Take care of the foals, keep them clean, I’m going to help Sapphire.” You see her shakily nod as you carry the mare into the back room. It’s a risky decision, but you need to help the mare if she’s going to survive this. You place her on the table, and grab a kit from the wall.
The mare is bleeding out, and it might be too late already, but you begin to cauterize the arteries you’d torn. You try, fingers shaking as you grab your suture kit and try to sew her back together “HEEEEE! EEEERREEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!” she’s still screaming, her highpitched whine like a mosquito in your ear as you try to fix the mess she was in. The thread keeps tearing, as her legs flail as if the mare was seizing, and you feel the blood beginning to overflow down the table.
“Damnit! Damnit!” you smack the metal table, blood spraying, it wasn’t holding- she just, just kept bleeding. “Sapphire, you can’t just die on me- not, not after all that!” You’re yelling, you know you are, and you throw your kit against the wall. It hurts, to know it, and you feel her flinch.
“EEEee-eeheees,” her voice is dropping, and you turn away from her. She was good. She was so good, great colors, and now she was- “Heeesss, heeeees-” she’s panting, she’s dying. You know she is, and you go to sink, turning on the cold water. It’s like a shock as you dip your bloodied arms under the water, “Heee-heeewp,” she’s finally saying words, her voice hoarse and ragged. “…hewp Saffiwe…pwe-hewww…” her voice trails off and you let out a long breath, stripping off your gloves.
“I’m sorry,” you breathe out, looking down. You feel disgusting, covered in blood, and other fluids. You want to go home, jump in the shower, get rid of the skin crawling sickness that’s invading your brain.
You can’t, you have work to do.
You put on your apron, trying to cover up any blood that you couldn’t wash away, and you return to the breeding room. Connie is standing over the foals, tears dripping down her face, and you stride over to her. “Wh-whewe babbeh?” she asks, voice breaking as she shifts over the pile of foals protectively, they are her grandchildren. A few days ago, you’d explained it to the mares, the two delighted that the foals would have two mummahs, one as her grand-mummah.
“She’s-she,” you rasp, clearing your throat, glancing over at Pen 2. You need to check on Gala, you need to- “Sapphire went forever sleepies, Connie.” The mare’s jaw drops, and she falls back onto her butt.
“B-b-babbeh wen-wen foweba sweepies,” she gasps out, her voice desperately quiet. “Mistas?” you force yourself to look at her, “Mistas may babbeh gu sweepies?”
“No-”
“Mistas may babbeh gu sweepies! Gib babbeh biggest huwties!” she’s yelling now, and Monty runs over to her, wrapping his hooves around her middle. “Wet gu! Wet gu ub Connie!” she tries to lunge at you and the larger stallion pins the mare down. “WET GUH!” she sounds crazed as you quickly wrap the blanket around the foals, picking them up and pulling them from the pen. “GIB BABBEHS BAH! WET GU! HAB TU HUWT MUNSTAH!!”
“Thank you Monty,” the stallion frowns at you, getting off of the mare now that the foals were safely out of reach. The foals wriggle in your hands, and you walk away, hearing the slam of Connie against the pen wall.
“Pwotect fwen fwom mistas, nu odda way woun,” you hear him say over the sound of Connie sobbing.
You go to Pen 2, seeing a sleeping Gala, a handful of foals nursing at her teats. Simon sat over her, though he swayed slightly, as if dead on his hooves. You feel it, you feel like you’ve been up for hours. “Mistas?” you crouch down, lowering the pen wall and setting the blanket down. “Wha-wha happen ova dewe?” You look up at him, and you see him shift a bit, putting himself between you and his children.
“A- ah,” you clear your throat, looking down, “One of the mares over there went forever sleepies, and left all these babies without a mummah.” The stallion’s eyes go wide, and he looks down at the foals. Your eyes fall to them, and you start to take a look at the foals.
“Dat-dat su saddies,” he says, sniffing, “Can-can Simon hewp?” You glance up and nod.
“Can you help me clean the foals off?” The stallion nods, shifting closer. You begin to pick through the foals. They were mostly cleaned off, Connie must of done so, but you still needed to check them over. You also needed to check Gala’s out, but it seemed the group was doing well. You pick up the first foal, flipping- her over, wings fluttering weakly. She was a mess of blood, or- or maybe that was just her color? And you pass the filly off to the stallion taking the next one, only to watch in horror as the foal practically fell apart. It was not only stillborn, but heavily mutated- like the one from a few weeks back that’d been born without skin.
This one, you felt sick, it looked more like a hunk of meat and hair, and you note a few bones that had barely developed. It was fascinating, in a morbid sense.
“Wha am-” your hand flies in to catch it, feeling mismatched flesh crush between your fingers.
“Don’t look Simon, keep cleaning that foal,” you order, and the stallion quickly looks away. You drop the clump of flesh onto the ground, out of sight of the stallion and you shake your hands trying to get off the last of the foal bits before continuing to pick through the foals.
The next foal looks far better, far more developed, and it-he lets out a loud disgruntled squeak as you check him over. He’ll look better when he’s clean, his fur a dull silver color. “Wha- wha gun happen tu babbehs?” You hand the grey one over, taking a look at the next one, “Dey-dey nu hab mummah? Nu hab miwkies?” The next one is small pegasus, at least half the size of the other foals, his coat either a pastel pink or white- but despite his size he’s quite vocal as you flip him around.
“I was hoping Gala would take care of them, but there’s a lot of them, so we’ll wait and see,” Simon frowns, cleaning the small foal as you pick up the next one- and you set the foal aside onto the ground. You don’t even note the color, just feeling the bloat of his stomach and the stiffness of rigamortis already in effect. You take the other one, frowning, the foal stiff to the touch- a blanket appaloosa like his mother.
And just as dead.
You drop the foal down, hearing the others begin to peep in distress, and you look up to see Gala shifting upwards. “Wewe aww dah babbehs com fwom?” the mare asks, her voice exhausted. Her front hoof moves down, and you think about stopping her before watching her pull them up to her teats. “Hewe, Simon-” the unicorn pops up at his name, the mare having him wrapped around her hoof, “Hewp moob biggest babbehs su wittwest babbehs hab miwkies.”
“Buh,” he looks confused, “Buh awe nu Gawa an Simon’s babbehs?” Gala frowns and makes a weak swat at her special friend.
“Dey stiww babbehs! An babbehs nee miwkies!” she shouts, and you give her a tired smile as you move your hand to her foals. They were considerably bigger than Sapphire’s own, but luckily fed earlier, and they only made weak protests as Gala shifted the first two foals in to her teats, the pair immediately start nursing, while the the others impatiently suck at her belly fluff.
“How many babies did you have Gala?” you ask her, looking back at the pile of foals. Gala’s bigger ones snuffled at your hands while you pick up Sapphire’s smaller foals. The next was probably the biggest of the foals, a pegasus- colt, with a lovely pitch black coat. He peeped loudly, and you passed him forward to nurse.
“Oh, eh-” she winces a little, “Gawa hab- uh, tu wingies babbehs, wun pointy babbeh, an-an tu nu wingie nu pointy babbehs.” You pick up the next foal, and immediately frown.
“Wha am dat?!” Simon cries out, fear in his voice, “Am munstah!”
“It’s not a monster,” you shoot back, “It’s a-a,” you pause, shifting the foal in your hand, “It’s a skinny fluffy.”
“Skinny?” he asks. You hear a fluffy pad over, and you look up to see Juniper approach. She’s slow moving, over two weeks into her pregnancy, and her eyes go wide as she sees the mess between the three of you.
“Yes, skinny- it’s a special kind of fluffy, like an alicorn- like Juniper,” you were lying on the spot, you had no idea if this was a real kind of fluffy or not just that it was not going to die today. There had already been too many dead today. And maybe this one would end up following suit- but hell, you had to try. And maybe his hair would grow in in time or someone would want a naked little fluffy.
“Oh-otay,” Simon sounded unsure, but Gala wasn’t as she took the foal and started to lick it clean.
You pick up the last foal, and frown, an alicorn filly. Her breathing was shallow, probably from being at the bottom of the pile, and you lift her carefully over to Gala. “Ih awicown babbeh? Wike fwen!”
You smile, “Just like your friend, Juniper, yes,” you nod, and get to your feet.
“Wai!” it’s Gala and you look back at her, the mare looking pensive, “Wub babbehs, an dese babbehs nee wub, buh-” she swallows, “Buh nu hab nuff miwkies fow aww babbehs- miwkie pwaces hab huwties.”
“I-” you almost scrub a hand through your hair, before wrinkling your nose at the thought, “I don’t know yet, we’ll find out later okay?”
Gala looks like she’s going to speak, but she hold her tongue.
Simon speaks however as you walk away, “Nu wan wose babbehs, Mistas.”
“You won’t lose them, we-we won’t lose them,” you say, looking down at the proverbial pile of foals. Sapphire’s foals had begun to fall asleep, joining Gala’s foals at her side. Eleven newborns and one mother. The others were either pregnant or their foals were on the weaning process. The record number was thirteen, though even then only two survived to adulthood- the rest too mutated and underdeveloped to survive. This was unprecedented, and you didn’t know what to do first…except-
You reach down and gather the dead foals, hiding them in your hands before walking to the surgery room with purpose and begin to clear the room, tossing the corpses aside and running hot water in the sink. You are efficient, practiced, nose wrinkling at the smell of bleach as you pour it into the water. Your hands sting from the heat as you grab a scouring brush and begin to scrub the blood away. It’s menial, and it helps you think. Cleaning has always helped you think, even though you detested it. It cleared the mind, washing the blood and grime away.
It helped put things in the right order. While you’re at it, you begin making up the kibble. It was more of Alex’s department, he was best with sales- best with people while you worked with the fluffies and ran the training classes. But lately you knew you’d pulled back even further, hoisted even more onto the man.
It hurt. What you did, it hurt sometimes.
It was strange, you’d never had fluffies before you and Alex opened the shop. Yet, these little lives, of these stupid little creatures affected you so much. Gala and Nightshade had been your first fluffies, the pair having been left to you after your great aunt died.
Initially you were just going to give the two away, but Alex was the one who found out how much they were worth. And together the two of you made the shop into what it was. You’d found Monty and Simon at a shelter, and later Alex would show up with Jersey under one arm and an injured Juniper in another. They’d been the lucky break, a pair of gorgeous fluffies somehow alive after living outside for who knows how long
From there Connie, fuck Connie she was the first holdback you’d had. Then there would be Selena, and as of last year Lucille.
Then Lola.
And Sapphire.
She was the grandchild of Gala, having the grandchildren of Connie, a Russian nesting doll of genetic potential–wasted.
“You look like the dead,” you glance at Alex, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, vision blurry as you take him in. He walks over and takes the kibble from your hands, hand moving to your shoulder. “Dude, did you even sleep last night?”
“I-” it comes out in a rasp and you clear your throat, “I tried, Sapphire-” you stop and take a deep breath, “Sapphire and Gala had their foals.”
Alex’s face twists into a grin, “Seriously! That’s fantastic, I’d hoped she’d pull through!” You give him a grimace, and his joy begins to dissipate, “No-” he pauses before running a hand down his face, “No-no, no!” he slaps the metal table, just as you had, “FUCK!” He spins around to look back at you, and you can practically see the mental math he was doing in his head. How much had it cost to get Sapphire to this point, how much money had they practically poured down the drain?
“She lost all of them then?!” You blink, practically feeling the exhaustion tugging at you, and you clear your throat to clarify.
“No- she-she had dystocia,” Alex’s eyes go wide and you look away. There’s still some of her blood splattered from where you’d thrown the cautery, the red drops now staining the walls, “She’d already started birthing in the pen, and I tried to widen her there, only to tear through her vaginal wall.”
“…no, tell me she pulled through…”
You can’t say it, taking a long breath. The medical room smells like bleach and rot, and you can’t stand it.
“Fuck, did the foals make it at least?”
You nod, swallowing, “Yeah, six foals, along with two stillborns and a mutant.”
“Nine, damn, no wonder- I thought you said she had seven last time-”
You look back up, eyes furrowing, “Don’t blame this on me, we both know that probing isn’t an exact science and I’m not a vet!” You snap at him, and Alex draws back.
“So, what- it’s my fault the mare crapped out?” he steps closer to you and you take a step back hitting the sink. “Because last I checked the shitrats were your damn department!” He shoves you slightly, “I run the show up front, and you’re supposed to keep the bastards alive!”
You flinch, and look away. Hands previously on your shoulders pull back as if burned, and you can feel his gaze on you. You want to apologize, though your not sure what for, and instead you ball your hands into fists.
“How bout we stick to our respective lanes, huh?” Alex says after a beat, and you pointedly refuse to look at him. “Keep those foals alive, I honestly don’t care how- get a milkbag if you have to-” you jump to deny him when he continues, “Just keep them alive or I swear to god I’m leaving and taking my share of the company with me.”
You stop at that, standing up a little taller, your chin jutting outward. You want to snap at him, you want to yell, but as you take in the steel in his eyes you swallow it back. He’d do it, and while you wish you’d be fine without the bastard, you knew the place would go belly up.
So, did Alex, by that look on his face, an arrogant smirk that rolled your stomach.
“Fine.”
End of Part 10
(author’s note- so, I have no excuse why this is so late, cuz fun fact this was originally written as part 7, so yeah, sorry for the wait, you guys are lovely.)