This shit is pretty hugboxxy for this series. Plenty of suffering in later installments, though!
Your name is Greg. Right now, you are driving your two alicorns on a special errand. Pickle and her daughter, Cocoa are sleeping quietly in their carseat, while the radio plays quietly and the miles move along, driving down the interstate. Your destination is not exactly next door: Happy Acres Specialty Fluffy’s is a 90 minute drive south, through farmland and rolling forests.
—
Happy Acres is a nice looking place: several lush acres of lovely forested land, with an old-style farmhouse at the edge of a clearing. The kennel itself is a nice wood barn, with fenced-in runs for the fluffies, complete with netting to keep out birds of prey. Across from the house, and past the barn, is a showroom, a low wooden structure with large bay windows. The only inkling that this is anything but a winery or hobby farm comes in the form of the tall chain link fence that surrounds the property, topped with razor-wire, of all things. You notice plenty of security cameras as well, as you pull your truck up to park in front of the showroom.
Pickle and Cocoa sniff the air and babble nervously as you set them down, leashes firmly attached.
“Wat dis pwace, daddeh? Pikul Smew fwuffies!”
“Nyu fwends?” Cocoa asks happily, her tail swishing the air excitedly.
“Yeah, maybe. Girls, we are going to meet some other fluffies. I need you to be good, okay?”
“Pikul an Cocoa be gud fow daddeh, pwomise.” Pickle insists solemnly as you lead the two of them through the front door.
Inside, you find a scene that you imagine is the dream of many a fluffy. The spacious room is cut almost in half by a waist-high plexiglass barricade. Beyond the wall, the floor is covered in soft, colorful carpet, littered with toys. A row of soft, padded beds lines the back wall, and soft, cheerful music is playing from somewhere. The space is occupied by nearly two dozen bright and shining fluffies, unsurprisingly ALL alicorns. Every color of the rainbow, they run, and play, and stack blocks, and snuggle up together. A big white alicorn with a brilliant rainbow mane noses up to the glass as your two fluffies approach, awe and wonder on their faces.
“Su many nyu fwends!” Pickle whispers breathlessly.
“Nyu fwend? Wan pway?” The white stallion asks excitedly.
“Not right now guys. Dad’s got some business to take care of.”
“Hello! You have such pretty friends here! What are their names?”
A red-haired woman about your age approaches from behind the long counter.
“This is Pickle and Cocoa. Say hi to the lady, girls.”
“Hewwo, nice wady. Fwuffy am Pikul!”
“That must make you Cocoa?”
The lady offers them both a treat. Cocoa is transfixed by the woman as she kneels down to pet them both.
“Wady fwuff am su pwetty!”
Cocoa finally exclaims. The redhead and you both laugh. She does have very nice, long red hair that glistens in the light.
“Thank you dear, thats very nice of you to say.” She straightens and turns to you.
“Hi, I’m Liz. What brings you in here today? All of our stud appointments are booked for today, I’m sorry to say.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that. I’m Greg.” You shake Liz’s hand and offer her your business card.
“Oh, I see you’re an IFBA member as well.”
“Yeah, but I only do regular product. A fairly small operation: 150 mares.”
“You do all that single-handedly?”
“Yeah, I manage okay.”
“You might call that small, but for a one-man operation, that’s pretty impressive.”
“That’s nice of you to say. It certainly is a lot of work, but I think a quality product is worth it.”
“I totally agree.” She has a very nice smile
“I’m actually here about the girls today. I’ve had them for most of a year now, and since they are such hard workers, I figured it was time to get them a special f-r-i-e-n-d.”
“You don’t breed them already?”
“Oh, no. They are working girls, along with their brother, who is an earthy as big as either of them.” You show her a picture on your phone.
“That’s certainly a unique use for them.”
“It works well. Pickle in particular is excellent at dealing with ferals, and Cocoa and Midnight are quick learners.”
“Well, we certainly have a large selection of males. Did you have something specific in mind?”
“Could we talk privately for a moment?” Liz tilts her head in confusion, but motions you towards a sort of booth, one of a series that line the right hand side of the building.
“Stay here girls, I will be right back.” The girls sit patiently, talking to the fluffies on the other side of the barricade.
“Otay daddeh!”
Lize ushers you into the small room, with its glass front walls and door.
“We use these rooms for people to meet potential fluffies. They are soundproof.”
“Thanks, I just didn’t want the girls to hear me. I definitely want to get each of them a special friend, but I am not sure I am going to have enough money to buy one of the fancy ones out in the pen there. I love them, sure, but they are also working animals, and I cannot bring myself to shell out $1000 each for them to have babies. Does that make any sense?”
“Oh, for sure. Alicorn’s are expensive due to their rarity, and ours are very well trained on top of that, which isn’t cheap either. To tell you the truth, most people only buy our ‘plain’ alicorns. Those fancy ones out there tend to take a while to sell. The plain ones, like that blue one there, with the purple mane, they go for $1000. The designer ones are actually $3000 each.”
“Jesus christ! Who can afford that much for a pet?”
“Well, I don’t disagree, but people pay that much for purebred dogs all the time. I have an alicorn I love dearly, but he was a plain one, and I could only really justify the expense due to my discount.”
She seems lost in thought for a moment as you check on your fluffies. You needn’t have worried: the two of them are happily chatting with a black stallion with a white mane through the fence.
“So here’s my idea. Alicorn breeding is a little bit different than normal fluffies. The stock isn’t quite so…’disposable’ you might say. Even ‘bad colored’ alicorns go for insane money compared to regular ponies, so we keep every viable foal we possibly can. As a result, we have a fair number of less than stunning looking alicorns available that are still great fluffies. They are much more affordable than the showroom models. We also give a rather significant discount to IFBA members to start with. The prices vary, but I don’t imagine two decent boys would cost you more than $1000 for the both of them. How does that sound?”
“That sounds more reasonable, for sure.”
“Great. Now, we usually don’t take customers back to the barn, but since you are a fellow professional, I don’t think it really matters. Were you planning on letting them pick their new friends, or choosing for them?”
“Oh, I was going to let them pick. Can I bring them into the barn with us? They see my work space all the time, so I think they won’t be desturbed.”
“Yeah, that will be fine.”
“Suuuu many pwetty fwuffies!” Cocoa coos in amazement as you enter the barn.
It is an impressive operation, you must admit. Both sides of the barn interior are lined with wooden pens, lined with soft cedar shaving, just like yours. Each pen is much smaller, but still spacious, and seems to hold a breeding pair and their young foals.
“Bonded pairs, huh?”
“Yeah, it just works better for alicorns. Each foal is so valuable that we try to avoid trauma as much as possible, and two parents just work better than one. They also only have two litters per year. We could squeeze a third out there, but they seem to respond badly to volume breeding; lots of stillborns.”
The alicorns mosey up to the walls as Liz walks by.
“Hewwo Miss Wiz!” The bright blue mare chirps as Liz reaches down to pet her soft head fuzz.
“Hi Bluebell. How are your babies today?”
“Babbehs am gud. Miss wan see babbehs?” The blue mare lifts a bright purple foal for Liz. She pets the cooing foal, which flaps its tiny wings happily.
“Babbeh wuv nice wady.” Liz hands the foal to you. He is a cute little sucker, about the size of a guinea pig, or one of your weanling foals. He has a blue mane and tail like his apparent father, who looks on with pride from the pen.
“How old is this one?”
“About two weeks?” She checks a clipboard hanging from the door of the pen.
“Two weeks?! You’re kidding?”
“No, they are almost that big when they are born. Almost. Of course, they rarely have more than three of them at a time, so it balances out.”
You hand the foal back to its mother, and the four of you continue on down the row, to a set of much smaller pens. These pens are stacked two high, and there are many of them. Each contains the normal fluffy necessities, as well as a toy for each occupant. The alicorns seems happy, and are certainly well fed and groomed. Many different colors are present: red, blue, white, black, even some pinto’s here and there. Liz takes you past all these pens, and down to a section at the end. Past several empty cages is a door.
“The ones you want are outside right now. We let them out several times a day to play with each other. We don’t treat any of them any differently, because a smarty alicorn is a nightmare.”
She leads you out a side door, into a fenced in run, covered with short grass. A dozen or so alicorn’s frolic and play, chasing each other, bouncing around a large inflatable beach ball or just relaxing on the soft grass.
“You can let them off their leashes here. Ours are very well behaved.”
“Go play, girls.”
You let the ladies off their leashes, and they dash off to play with the other alicorns.
You are Cocoa, and you are so excited! Daddy brought you and your mom to a nice, bright place with so many new friends. You weren’t quite certain why you were there, but you didn’t care. You liked daddy’s house a lot, it was safe and warm, and you had plenty of toys to play with, but you only got to play with other fluffies occasionally. Sometimes, your daddy would bring you and the other fluffies that worked for him out to the big grass place, and you would all run and play until you fell over in exhaustion. These ‘nurse mares’ were shy at first, but they learned to not be scared of how big you were. You liked playing with them, but it only happened once every few bright-times.
“Nyu fwends?” A dull cream alicorn asks, striding up to you and your mom.
“Fwuffy am Cocoa. Wat am nyu fwend namsie?”
“Fwuffy am Awfwedo! Nyu fwend wan pway baww?”
You nod in agreement, and off you go! All the other fluffies followed you and Alfredo, chasing the ball and bouncing it into the air with your snouts. After that, your new friends took you to a big toy you had never seen before.
‘Wat am dis?” You asked
“Dis am swide! Pway swide wike dis.”
The green mare who answered you led you up the grippy steps, and then you both slid down the big tube at the top, into a pile of fluffies at the bottom. It was so fun to go sliding down, and you felt the wind on your little wingies. Dusting yourself off from the fluffpile by the slide, you looked out over the grass-place. Daddy was sitting, talking to the lady with the pretty head-fluff. Your gaze wandered over and you found your mother hugging a big gray stallion. They nuzzled each other softly, and you could hear them from where you sat.
“Hippo wike Pikul?” Your mother asked the fluffy.
“Ob cowse! Hippo tink Pikul am su pwetty! Gib su gud huggies tu!”
“Pikul wike Hippo tu! Tink hippo fwuff an taiw am pwetty. Wike huggies with Hippo.”
Your mother was being awfully friendly with this ‘Hippo’ character. Maybe he was going to be your new Fluffy-Daddy? You would love to have new friends at the house, and maybe mom would have new babies!
Babies were the best, and you loved to see them when daddy took you to the Barn. Those babies were always afraid of you at first, but then your nurse-mare friends would teach them the truth: you weren’t a monster, just a Pointy Wingy fluffy! Then, the foals would hug you so much, and you would play with them, running around their pen. You loved babies. Mommy said you were big enough to have babies now, but daddy would have to approve first. Of course, you would need a special friend before you could have babies.
Then something clicked in your head. That’s why daddy brought you here! Daddy always took you when he went to deal with bad fluffies, and thats where the fluffies in the barn came from, and they had lots and lots of babies. You were a good fluffy, though, so maybe daddy would get a good fluffy to be your special friend? You wanted to be sure, so you ran over to daddy.
“Daddy, Cocoa pwese hab question?” You asked slowly
“Sure Cocoa, whats up?”
“Am daddy bwing Cocoa and mummah hewe fow find speshul fwend? Fow babies?”
Your daddy almost choked, and you ran up to hug his leg to make it better.
“Nu hab huwties daddy! Cocoa gib huggies, make bettah!”
“Hahaha, I’m fine Cocoa. I just forget how smart you are sometimes. Pickle! Come here now!”
Your daddy called over your momma, who was napping with that nice gray alicorn from before. At the sound of daddy’s voice, Pickle’s ears perked up and she ran over to your side.
“Daddeh nee Pikul?” She asked attentively.
“I wanted to talk to you and Cocoa. Are you having fun with these fluffies here?”
“Oh yus, daddeh! Pikul wuv wun and pway wid oddah fwuffies!” You nodded your agreement.
“Good. What do you think about having a Special Friend again?”
“…daddy gib Pikul speshul fwend? Pikul…hab mowe babies?” Your mother asks apprehensively.
“You can have more babies if you want to. Is that something that you want?”
“Oh yus daddeh! Pikul wub babbehs! Pikul wub Cocoa an Midnight, bu awso wan mowe babies fow daddeh!” You mothers tail is swishing back and forth happily as her pretty wings flap as well. You decide to chime in too.
“Cocoa am big fwuffy tu! Wan speshul fwend an babies!” You blurt out loudly.
“Pwese?” you add belatedly. You daddy glances at the nice lady and laughs loudly.
“I guess that would be okay. I want each one of you to find the boy fluffy you like most, and then…”
“Pikul wan Hippo be speshul fwend!” your mother interjects. You gasp at her interrupting daddy, but daddy doesn’t seem to be angry. In fact, he smiles.
“Haha, I guess you’ve made up your mind. How about you, Cocoa?”
“Cocoa nee find gud fwuffy fow be speshul fwend?”
“Yes Cocoa. Find the boy fluffy that you want to be your new special friend, to have babies with. We have plenty of time, so go look.” He shoos you off to go play some more, as Pickle sprints over to tell Hippo the good news. There are so many nice fluffies to choose from, you aren’t sure which one you like best. They are all so pretty and strong, but they also play so roughly! You only like being rough with the bad fluffies your daddy has you find. You want a nice, gentle special friend. Your gaze passes over the herd of jostling boy-fluffies, and you notice a fluffy you missed before.
This stallion is so tiny! He is a yellow-green color, like an olive, with shiny black tail and mane, but he is smaller than all the other stallions. He is even smaller than you, and maybe smaller than the stallions in daddy’s Barn. You walk over to him, where he is sitting by himself quietly.
“Am fwuffy hab saddies, nee huggies?” You ask carefully, and the tiny stallion perks up.
“Owive wub huggies!” He squeaks at you, like a tiny fluffy. He is so cute! You hug him warmly, and as he nuzzles your fur, you feel a tingling feeling in your special place.
“Wut am fwuffy name?”
“Fwuffy am Owive!”
“Hewwo Owive, am Cocoa! Owive am su pwetty!”
You circle him quickly, and the two of you start to play chase. His little legs move you quickly, and he can almost keep up with you. You run, and laugh and play. He is so fun. Almost out of energy, you tumble into him, and you both roll over into a pile.
“Owive…wan be Cocoa speshul fwend?” You ask, your heart fluttering like a bunch of butterflies.
“…Owive be speshul fwend? Make pwetty babies wid pwetty Cocoa?” He asks with baited breath.
“Yus! Daddeh say Cocoa nee speshul fwend, take home to bestest housie!”
“Yayyyy! Owive wuv nu speshul fwend!” The tiny stallion hugs you tightly.
Your heart is so happy, it might burst!
You are Greg, and its obvious that the two girls have chosen their mates. Well, that was easy. The boys they chose seem nice enough, even if Olive is so tiny. Little guy might need a stool to consummate his marriage, you think to yourself, laughing.
“Olive is an excellent stallion, Greg. I’m sure he will be great for Cocoa. His dwarfism is supposedly non-hereditary, but most people just overlook him for a full-sized alicorn. He’s also cheaper than the others.” She laughs heartily and smiles.
“That certainly helps me like the little guy even more!”
Alicorn foals, huh? This should be interesting!
