"Daisy o’tay?” Durum added pausing the game as she began so get slightly lethargic.
“Daisy sweepy.” She added with a yawn. Before she could even give him permission to continue playing while she napped had Durum put the ball aside and entered the hollow to snuggle.
A warm breeze was all that could be heard except for the satisfied coo’s of post meal/play cuddles and general bliss.
‘Good, I can head over while they are taking a nap~” The lone survivor though about to step away when a clarion call stabbed his ears like a knife.
“BIGGESHT POOPIES!”
Durum sprang to a panicked attention.
“What’s wrong?” The lone survivor added stepping over to examine the mare. “Perhaps a poor reaction to one of the crops?” You thought for a moment.
“Dat no poopies speciaw fwiend, babbehs commin!” Durum added having proceeded behind his special friend to clean her up but no poop being present.
‘How very odd… I wonder why they say that?’ The lone survivor thought for a moment when suddenly their face sagged with a sudden realization. ‘Synths that can give birth!?’ While gen three synths were all but identical to a real person as far as you know there’d been no recorded pregnancies of one, let alone a pairing of them.
You pressed a button on your pipboy summoning Handy 2 to go and fetch some supplies for you, original I know. Sanctuary hills had four Mr handy robots ever since the mechanist reared their helmeted head and you built your own robot crafting station. The sole survivor mostly kept them on standby to conserve fuel and power though when they weren’t helping him with errands.
Your hands worked subconsciously with the skill of a trained physician and surgeon to help deliver the foals while you continued to think. ‘Synths that can create more synths…’ This was incredibly dangerous. As far as you knew generation 3 synths were sterile as part of controlling the means of production. Afterall what good were undercover agents if you didn’t know which people were your agents? Perhaps they had more efficient means of receiving report or issuing orders now?
“Daddeh? Gib babbeh to mummah pwease.” Durum added nudging you as your attention returned to the sticky little squirming jumbo jelly bean in your hand.
“Yes, of course.” He added passing the Orange first born to its mother who proceeded to clean them with their tongue.
“Gud babbeh.” She exclaimed between licks and passed it off to Durum as you were already in position to deliver the next one.
That and the more units that were out there, the more chances you had that any one of them could experience technical difficulties of one sort or the other. Even if they started recruiting now, it was highly unlikely they would have a proper maintenance team ready to deal with all the likely support tickets that would arise from synths that can birth synths that can birth even more synths…
“Huh, is that.” You looked closer and sure enough the second lime green foal seemed to possess tiny wings upon its back. ‘This would definitely require more study.’
“Wingie babbeh am good babbeh.” The mother pronounced post cleanup as Durum proceeded to cradle the second foal as they waited eagerly for milk with hungry chirps and peeps.
Next was a dull red foal, mostly normal except for a slight bump on its head.
“Pointy babbeh. . .” The mother paused. “Give miwkies last but still o’tay.” This made you curious.
“Handy 2, move two bottles of brahmin milk to the lab and replace the bottles in the house fridge with some fresh milk from Bessy.” You only kept one Brahmin in sanctuary anymore. You realized you had a problem when you went on a bender and made over ten thousand inhalers of Jet to collect every bottlecap from every vendor in every settlement that day while disposing of the manure last time. “Also pick a bag of mutfruit for the lab fridge while you’re at it.” You said absently to the robot already hovering away.
“And that’s the last baby.” You add surprised because this one had wings and a horn, it’s coat a decent shade of white. ‘Wait… Horn, unicorn. Wings, Pegasus… Wings and horn?’ You ponder trying to remember if you’d ever read anything in mythology about such a creature. Pegasus and unicorn were very iconic comparatively, alicorn was a bit too niche despite his intellect.
You paused mid thought by the sudden panic of the mother. “Mu-mu-munstah scawy.” She added with a quiver fighting her instinctual desire to love and clean it.
“Well it’s certainly unique Daisy, but all your children are different. One’s just like the two of you, one has a special horn that you don’t have, and one has wings which you don’t have either. Surely it’s a good baby then if the others are fine too right?” You add attempting to offer the foal again.
“. . .Maybe daddeh wight.” Daisy added with a sniff and a few licks and her mind seemed to run over the speed bump of fear from earlier as she concluded the bonding ritual.
As you pulled out a sack to clean up the placenta and afterbirth for examination the fluffies proceeded to feed the foals from Daisies Massive Milkers. ‘I need to have a word with the design team…’ You thought to yourself. You got out a small vile and a cloth and as each of the foals finished you managed to get a few drops of milk that they had failed to consume into the vial and then wiped down their faces before passing them on. The three of you worked efficiently and despite her reluctance or perhaps it was worry at feeding the alicorn and unicorn there seemed to be enough milk for them all to be fed.
The family of six snuggled up for a nap and you found yourself pondering ‘Why am I crying?’ you needed to busy yourself and you definitely weren’t in the right mind to confront the institute yet so it was time for some science. You take off your helmet as you enter the Garage and put on your favorite hat and labcoat, you didn’t quite know why but you felt far more confident in your abilities as a scientist when you wore these. Perhaps clothes really do make the man?
You analyze what fluffy milk you have and put it into a machine to determine its composition. Afterall if you needed formula you would have to know the dietary requirements of the creature you were preparing it for. While that ran you could poke around the placenta and afterbirth for a bit to see how accurate they managed to get this new series and if there were any signs that it was synthetic.
It was an intriguing study, next time you’d probably go to the institute to use their facilities instead. But for that you’d need fresh samples, so you proceeded to processes what was left before proceeding to cook it in a pot while you got out a couple of jars of Tato sauce from the pantry. You missed old world Marinara but you’d gotten close with your own personal blend of Tato’s and spices, but it tended to have the subtle hint of potato as if you had drowned French fries in the red gravy.
While stirring you looked at the breakdown of the fluffy milk. “Hmm, higher fat and lactose levels but I can probably compensate within a margin of error. A little healthier then straight up brahmin milk anyway but Brahmin milk would still work in a pinch. Especially with a few addatives.”
You lower the heat on the stove and proceed over to the white bored. ‘Memo to self: Powdered mutfruit.’ ‘Import Lactose from Brahmin Farm Cheese division.’ You then set a quest memo in your pip boy to check the institute supplements to see if they had something like Lacto or some suitable probiotics. If the foals were anything like the parents this might help with digestion and firm up their shit a bit. You had filtered water for other projects and plenty of whole milk, cream and various vegetable oils since you liked to bake and cook. You added a few other components to your shopping list that you could use in other projects or general cooking like some Cod. If none of the coastal settlements had any you could probably get some by heading to Far harbor.
The saucy cooked placenta had started to cool and you filled a spare bowl from the cabinet with the meaty majority for Daisy and the remnants of the sauce on a plate for Durum. On your way out you tap Handy 3 on its charging port. “Clean the dishes and proceed to powder the bag of mutfruit. Save the juice.” Man was it handy to have robots to do the tedious boring chores you didn’t want to do.
As you paced down the street towards your house and around the corner Durums nose seemed to wake up before the rest of him.
“Sketties?” He muttered standing up. “Whewe sketties?”
“. . .Sketties?” The sole survivor addes curiously as he approached. “Wait, do you mean Spaghetti?” How did this thing know of spaghetti? He was one of the few people that he knew that made much in the way of pasta from razor grain and while it’d been gaining in popularity at his settlements it was by no means a staple of traditional wasteland cooking.
“Uh-huh Uh-huh!” Durum nodded enthusiastically his voice and movement had started to stir the children and Daisy.
Chirp cheep peep~
“Why Durum wake mum- - Sketties?” She added looking up at the smell cutting her short.
“Well it’s certainly spaghetti sauce but im not particularly sure if you should eat noodles…” You add absently as you set down the two bowls. “There you go little ones.”
Durum seemed a little disappointed by what seemed like favoritism in the quantities but realized his special friend needed them more so enjoyed what was served to him.
The foals picked up on their parents happiness and their peeping turned from curious and mild fear to excitement and happiness.
“Have you ever eaten spaghetti before?” You ask curiously.
“Nu, but somehow awways knew sketties would be bestest nummies ebah!” Durum added looking at daisy who nodded in agreement between meaty bites.
“I see…” You added making a mental note.
“Ok you two, Daddy needs to go to work. Would you like to stay here with a Friend to keep you company and feed you if im away too long? Or would you like to come with Daddy to the Institute?”
