HOLLYBERRY
The Christmas Fluffy
A Story by Wangew_Wick and Gardel
The red earthie dam rested uncomfortably on her side. Her breathing was heavy and irregular, but she could not easily right herself, as she was heavy with foals. She tried to sleep, but sleep didn’t come easily to her now.
Come to think of it, sleep hadn’t come easy to her since the day she came to this place.
She closed her eyes, remembering a time when she was a tiny foal huddled in a box under a tree covered in “shiny-brighties”. When the lid came off of the box, she saw a small human with a big, toothy smile on her face, and the fluffy’s heart had filled with love.
Finally, the mare had found a memory that would bring her rest. But just then, she felt a burbling in her tummy, combined with an intense, unyielding pressure in her “baby place”.
“SCREEEEEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!”
And sure enough, the poopies came. Shit sprayed all over the dam’s tiny house as well as on the floor and the walls behind it. But the red earthie knew that what she was feeling was more than just bad poopies—her new babies were coming!
“HNNNNNNNNNNGH! HNNNNNNNNG!”
The laboring fluffy looked up and saw a human with a black mane and light brown skin standing over her. The man knelt down beside her small house and watched as she continued to grunt and strain.
“Nice mistah Miguew hewe fo hewp Howwybewwy? Babbehs comin’!”
Miguel said nothing, but watched as the first foal dropped out with a splort.
chirp**chirp
Hollyberry wiggled her legs impotently. “Babbeh! Dat sound wike babbeh! Babbeh, come tu mummah!”
The human opened the cage and picked up the foal, wiping it clean with a wet towel. Typically a fluffy mother would take care of that task for her foals—a practice that helped “mummah” and “babbeh” to bond—but the dams here usually had so many foals that the employees knew it would be difficult for them to clean them all themselves—and leaving afterbirth on the fragile newborns greatly increased the risk of infections.
“Nuuuu, mistah Miguew! Nu take babbeh! Babbehs nee’ mum—HNNNNNNNNGHHHH!”
splort
Out popped another tiny, helpless foal. And another. And another.
splort
chirpchirpchirp
chirp chirp
“Huuuuu…babbeh pwace haf wowsest huwties! HNNNNNNNNGHHHH!”
SPLORT
With the last foal came the placenta, which Miguel quickly tossed into a dirty bucket. Hollyberry struggled to sit up on her rump, but was able now that she had deflated to normal size.
“How many’s she got, Miguel?”
“Uhhhhh,” Miguel said, recounting just to be sure. “Looks like ten altogether.”
“Nice,” said the grey-maned man wearing flannel not-fluff. “How many worth keeping?”
“All but two. Got one with wings, and it looks like that little green one took a hard fall out of ‘mummah’. Think I see a leg bone sticking out.”
“Eight’s a damn good haul. Shame the demand fer wings ain’t where it was a couple’a years back. Nowadays, a pegasus ain’t worth our time. Fix ‘em up, then we’ve got some packin’ to do.”
Hollyberry sat, oblivious to the men’s designs, and sang to her large brood.
“Mummah wuv babbehs, babbehs wuv mummah,
dwink wots of miwkies, gwow up an’ be stwong!”
The inane, discordant singing continued until the mare saw Miguel pick up both her blue pegasus colt and her little green earthie, the latter of whom chirped madly as if hurt. It was only then that Hollyberry noticed her little exposed bone, which caught on the bottom of the wire cage. The man, who was in a hurry to finish his job, pulled at the filly roughly, tearing most of the green foal’s leg off. The bloody limb landed on the cold concrete floor with a splat. Horrified, the dam screamed.
“SCREEEEEEEE! NUUUUUUUU! Nu gif babbehs huwties! Babbehs nu am fo’ huwties! Am fo’ huggies an’ wuv!”
The facility employee shrugged as he shut the cage door. Hollyberry dropped one of her foals as she reached desperately for her doomed babies, pawing at the chicken wire with her scarred, ruined hooves.
“Pwease, nice mistah nu take babbehs! Babbehs nee’ mummah!”
Miguel didn’t respond. He carried the bucket containing the frail fluffies to the end of the aisle and dumped them into a hole in the wall. The sightless, feeble creatures chirped in fear as they slid down the cold metal chute and landed on a heap of dead, rotting fluffy corpses in a covered dumpster. There they would live out their last hours, wondering why they could never find mummah for milkies and huggies. The otherwise healthy blue pegasus would breathe his last atop a long-dead breeder mare, who had been discarded after a third failed insemination attempt revealed her to be barren.
The human whistled a tune as he passed by Hollyberry’s cage and re-hung the filthy bucket. The dam had gone back to singing to her remaining foals, having realized that this was all part of the routine—it wouldn’t be any different this time.
“Mummah wuv babbehs, babbehs wuv” sniff mummah,
dwink wots of miwkies…g-gwow up an’ be stwong!”
This was her life. In fact, this was the life for the two-thousand breeder mares who lived here at Savory Hills Fine Meat Products in Vienna, West Virginia.
Despite having given birth and being back to her normal size, Hollyberry still found it very hard to rest. Not only did she have eight foals constantly rotating on and off of her engorged teats, but she also knew that these moments—which should have been filled with happiness—brought her sadness and despair.
“Dwink aww da miwkies ‘oo wan, babbehs. Mummah wuv ‘oo. Mummah n-neva…neva fowge’choo…”
If only that were true. She had lost count of how many foals she’d had in this place…how many she’d given up and never seen again. In the end, it was a few painful memories that remained, rather than the personalities of the babies themselves.
She remembered the first time the humans shoved a not-no-no stick into her special place. It was painful, but she had a glimmer of hope when she got the “baby feel” in her tummy. She thought that maybe when her babies came, one of the humans would take them all home and give them a nice warm bed, and toys, and “sketties”, just like her human mummah had.
Mummah, she thought, mummah, pwease come back fo Howwybewwy. Howwybewwy am sowwy fo’ be bad fwuffy. Nu du neva ‘gain! Jus’ pwease take Howwybewwy tu howsie!
“Good girl, Hollyberry!”
“Hee hee! Howwybewwy get dat baww, mummah!”
“You sure did! Now, bring it back and I’ll throw it again.”
“Otay, mummah! Howwybewwy wuv ‘oo!”
Hollyberry’s mummah was an eight year old girl with dark brown hair. The girl lived with her parents in a comfortable suburban home that was big enough for the little red foal to have her own room. Most nights, she slept in her mummah’s bed anyway.
“Emma! Time for bed!”
“Ok mom!” the little girl yelled back. “Hollyberry, I need to go brush my teeth. D’you wanna sleep in your bed, or in mine?”
“Wan sweepies wif mummah!”
Emma giggled. “I thought so! Ok, let’s go!” She scooped Hollyberry up in her arms, and the red earthie responded by spreading her little front legs and placing her soft, marshmallow hooves on the girl’s neck.
coo “Wuv!”
chirp “mum-mah…?”
gasp “Das wite, babbeh! Am mummah!”
The brown foal looked up at his red mother and chirped proudly. He was the kind of foal who, depending on your perspective, was either very fortunate or very unfortunate to have been born here. You see, had his mother given birth to him at a foal mill involved in the pet trade, he’d likely have been destroyed on his first day merely for his color.
He then crawled over to the dam and latched onto her right nipple. His red sister drank her fill from the left, and then toddled off to sleep in the fluffpile with the other foals. The brown colt kneaded at the teat, and Hollyberry frowned as she thought her milkie-places looked different from how they used to. With past litters, they had remained engorged all the time—to the point of being painful. Now, it seemed she wasn’t making as many milkies as before. Her teats were almost…shriveled.
Fortunately, this colt was resilient. In fact, he was bigger and stronger than his brothers and sisters. It was such a shame that soon he would be gone, and that she would never see him again. She tried not to think of when that day would come, but that day always came. And she remembered being told long ago that it was “a privilege just to have foals.”
“Moooooom! Hollyberry is going off again!”
It was early April, and everyone in the house was miserable. Emma was miserable because she took care of her fluffy’s every need—she fed her, she played with her, she still let her sleep in her bed, and she sat and watched FluffTV with her every night…
Then again, maybe that had been her mistake.
“Mummah nee’ wet Howwybewwy haf babbehs! Babbehs am bestest fing evah! If mummah nu wet Howwybewwy haf babbehs, den Howwybewwy gif sowwy poopies ‘gain!”
“I told you I’m sorry, Hollyberry! But mom and dad said we can’t have any more—”
pbbblrrrrrrt
“Eeewwwww! Hollyberry!”
“Howwybewwy teww ‘oo! Nao gif mowe sowwy poopies if nu wet Howwybewwy haf babbehs!”
Just then, Emma’s father entered the room. Both the red-faced man and his wife were tired of putting up with the sullen mare’s demands for foals—in fact, he would have broken the fluffy’s neck and thrown her out with the trash had it not been for his daughter’s tearful pleas to keep her. He hadn’t wanted a fluffy in the first place. That had been his dumbass sister-in-law’s idea: get all the nieces and nephews a Christmas foal (at a discount if you bought at least six), and leave the parents to sort out the mess. He’d have chucked her in a biowaste bin on Day One had his wife not argued it could hurt her relationship with her sister.
“Dammit, Hollyberry! What the hell is wrong with you?!?”
“SCREEEEEEEE! Mummah-daddeh am use huwtie-wowdies!”
“Dad, you know you can’t say things like that in front of her! She’s sensitive to bad words!”
“She’s crapping all over my carpet, my walls, and my daughter! I really couldn’t care less what her feelings are!”
Hollyberry yelped, scurried away, and backed herself into a corner. Having babies was her heart’s desire, but she knew better than to challenge mummah’s daddeh. He had proven time and again he wasn’t afraid to use the Sorry Stick (or to have mummah do it).
“Nu huwt Howwybewwy, mummah-daddeh! Howwybewwy nu make bad poopies nu mowe! Jus’ wan babbehs fow huggies an wuv!”
Emma’s dad sighed. “Emma, she’s your responsibility, so you need to clean this mess again.”
“Ok, daddy. But what about—”
“What about what?”
“What she keeps asking about…can’t we let her? Just one time?”
“I’ll talk it over with your mother—if we decide to let it happen, then maybe Mr. Peter from my office will lend us Brutus.”
The girl’s parents agreed, begrudgingly, to let their daughter’s fluffy have a litter of foals. Two days later, Peter Thompson brought his grey earthie stallion, Brutus, over to meet the red mare. Hollyberry was overjoyed. She babbled incessantly the entire time she was being mounted.
“Wuv Bwutus! Wan babbehs! Gif Howwybewwy babbehs! Am be bestest mummah wif bestest babbehs! Gon’ gif aww babbehs wotsa huggies, an’ wuv, an bestes’ miwkies, an wuv…”
“That’s right, Miguel. You gotta ignore her bitchin’—shove that turkey baster in to the black line, an’ then squeeze the ball on the end.”
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE! Nu touch speshuw-pwace! Nu wan bad speshuw-huggies! Nu wan! SCREEEEEEEE!”
Even worse than the burning pain of having a long, plastic not-no-no stick rammed into her special place was knowing the heartache and suffering that would follow. Unlike her old human mummah, these humans wanted Hollyberry to have foals. In fact, they wanted her to have lots and lots of foals. This wasn’t her first cycle—at this point, she had given birth to more litters than she could count.
By now, she knew this to be a sign that her babies (who all cried and sobbed in the far corner of the cage as their mother was violated) would soon be big enough to leave her, and that she would never see them again.
She also knew that the bad not-enfie stick was filling her with no-no juice that would give her more tummy-babies. Fluffy pony mares are, by nature, overjoyed at the thought of tummy-babies and of having pretty foals to love and cuddle. But not Hollyberry. At this stage in her life, the thought of another litter was exhausting.
“Ok, good. Aaaaaaand pull it out!” The baster came out with a sickening fffffffft, and then the older man shut the cage door and the humans went on their way. There had been no comforting touch of a stallion’s warm fluff above her. No rhythmic, sensual enfenfenf sound. And once the deed was done, the strong stallion hadn’t exclaimed “GUUUD FEEEEEWS!” It had been an entirely mechanical process, performed without emotion, and it left Hollyberry feeling empty and depressed on the unforgiving wire floor.
coo “Wuv babbehs! Aww babbehs am su pwetty! Gon’ gif ‘oo wotsa miwkies an huggies an wuv!”
Hollyberry was absolutely smitten by her foals. The six “chirpeh-babbehs” had come just hours before, while mummah was off to school and mummah’s parents were both at work. She gave them all lickie-cleanies, and they had quickly found her massive milkie-places, where they nursed until they were full and then all settled in for a nap.
She just knew that when mummah, and mummah-mummah, and mummah-daddeh saw that her foals were the prettiest, bestest babies in the whole world that they would all be so sorry they hadn’t wanted her to have babies before! Hollyberry had told them and told them that she knew better—and now she could prove she was right!
A tiny, monochrome red foal gave a chirp, and the dam knew it was time for another round of milkies. Hollyberry rolled onto her side, exposing both teats as the red colt and three more of his siblings crawled over for sustenance.
“Hewe babbehs!” the red earthie mare exclaimed. Mummah haf wotsa miwkies! Mummah gif mummah wotsa bestes’ sketties tu make bestes’ miwkies!”
That…was very true. Hollyberry had, in fact, become quite the insufferable bitch as she grew bigger and bigger with foals. Naturally, she hadn’t seen it that way—she merely saw it as a case of “mummah knows best”. Every fluffy knew that mummahs who ate sketties every day made the bestest milkies for their babies!
A few minutes later, the red dam heard her young mummah tromping up the stairs. School was done for the day, and Emma checked on her pet each day without fail to make sure her needs were met (and to see if she had given birth yet).
“Awwww, Hollyberry! You had your foals?!?”
Yus, mummah! Howwybewwy haf da bestes’ babbehs evah!”
The little girl dropped her backpack in the hallway and stepped over the baby gate. “Oh, how cute! Can I see them?”
The excited mare nodded and her owner knelt down next to the fluffy bed. Hollyberry smiled as Emma cooed over the foals, but her delight turned to concern as the girl reached down with both hands to hold her pink unicorn.
Mummah! Nu touch babbehs! Babbehs tuu wittwe—onwy mummah kno wat du!”
“Calm down, Hollyberry. I’ll be gentle,” the girl replied, as she cradled the newborn filly in her hands. The child did as she promised, making sure to support the foal’s whole body. The unicorn cooed in response, wrapped its tiny front legs around her thumb, and began to suckle.
Nu! Mummah nu unnastand—babbehs am onwy wittwe babbehs! Am tuu wittwe fo’ hooman upsies!”
“Look, Hollyberry. Your baby is fine. See? She’s even—OW!”
Hollyberry had tried to explain. She told mummah that the foals were too little—she knew they needed her more than they needed anything else. But mummah wouldn’t listen. That meant the dam needed to do something drastic.
“You bit me!”
Howwybewwy nee’ du what am best fo’ babbehs! Mummah nu wisten tu Howwybewwy!”
In fairness, a fluffy bite causes about as much pain as a weak handshake. It wasn’t that Emma was physically injured—there was no blood, bruising, or even indentation in the skin. The girl was upset because of the principle—her own pet had bitten her.
The unicorn filly fell back onto the bed, chirping in fear and pain. Emma stared at her fluffy, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. Hollyberry, who had no idea just what she had done, stared right back at the girl. Tears welled in the child’s eyes, and she turned and ran out of the room, slamming her own bedroom door behind her.
“It am otay, babbeh—mummah am hewe! Nu be mean to hooman mummah—hooman mummah jus’ nu unnastand! Hoomans am dummeh. Mummah wuv babbehs, babbehs wuv mummah…”
The mummah songs continued long into the evening. Once Emma’s father found out what had happened, he decided the family had had quite enough of fluffy ponies. After a week of having both Hollyberry and her foals posted to the “free” section of Craigslist, he finally found a taker for the latter who also owned a Burmese python. The mare’s screams and protests as her litter were wrenched from her grasp did no more to endear her to the family, and so she ended up in a local shelter.
She was three days from incineration when a man with a white mane offered to buy every ex-domestic earthie mare the shelter had at a bulk rate. Her face lit up when she overheard the man telling the shelter employee that the mares would all be having lots of babies.
“Nuuuuuuuu! Pwease nu take babbehs, mistew Miguew! Dese babbehs am aww dat Howwybewwy haf!”
Miguel, for whom it had already been a shitty day (to some extent literally), pulled out a car antenna and whacked the sobbing mare in the face before plucking more foals out of the cage. He held up a red colt, who stretched out his tiny hooves in the futile hope that he could cling to his mother.
“Mummah! Nu wan weave mummah! Mummaaaaaaaaah!”
“Here, Stu. This one’s got a little cock and balls.”
“Not for long, he don’t,” the older man replied. “Give ‘im here.”
The foal’s pleas turned to wordless screaming when the old man drew the box cutter across his genitals. There was minimal bleeding, as the longtime factory employee knew his craft—he had learned years before just how to cut so he wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of using expensive salve or time-consuming bandages.
slit
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
The gelded colt continued to scream as he landed in the bucket on Miguel’s cart. Two of his sisters shuffled over to hug his hurties away, but the foal was inconsolable thanks to the loss of his “speshuw wumps”.
As soon as factory foals wean, they head for the fattening pens. Fillies will grow up into nice, plump roasting mares as long as they have ample food and water. Stallions, on the other hand, require an extra step. Many consumers in the early days of fluffherding were turned off to stallion meat, as it was “too gamey” or “too musky-smelling”. Fortunately, the problem is solved easily enough by removing the testicles before they reach sexual maturity. Without the extra testosterone, geldings develop a taste similar to that of their female counterparts. That, and the farmers don’t have to separate them into different pens to prevent unauthorized breeding.
One by one, Hollyberry’s foals plopped down into the bucket. The bucket was small, so the first ones in struggled to breathe (including the red colt, who still huu huued over his lost no-noes. Miguel had to shove the breeding dam aside to take her last foal—the big, brown colt, who had always been so much larger than his brothers and sisters.
“Ugh, finally! Nut this one, and let’s dump these little bastards into their cages so we can go home!”
“Hang on a sec, Miguel. This one’s a biggun. I’m gonna have ta measure ‘im. He might be breeder material.”
Surely enough, Stu measured the brown foal’s length and girth and found he met the factory’s standards for breeder stallions—that meant he was in the 95th percentile of all colts bred at Savory Hills. It would almost be a shame to see that kind of size end up on someone’s dinner table.
Stu placed the brown foal in the bottom of the cart, where he pawed at the outside of the huu huuing bucket, hoping to break through to his brothers and sisters within. Hollyberry could do nothing but bawl and stretch out her ruined hooves towards her crying foals.
“Huu huu! Nu haf speshuw wumps nu mowe! Wai take babbehs speshuw wumps? Babbeh nee’ speshuw wumps!”
The red gelding didn’t know why he needed special lumps, but he did know that they were his, and the place where they were supposed to be had the worst hurties ever! He remained in so much pain and duress that he didn’t even notice his litter mates being removed from the bucket to their cages. Each foal wailed in pain as they were tagged with their mother’s serial number in their left ear and their father’s in the right. Soon, he was the last one left in the bucket, and Miguel dumped him and all of the “scaredy-poopies” into his new home.
The transition from bucket to cage was jarring for the foal, and he found himself surrounded by bigger fluffies he’d never seen before. He hid his eyes under his leggies, hoping that if he couldn’t see the other fluffies that they couldn’t see him, either.
His hopes went unrealized as he was soon approached by an older weanling. The green fluffy cocked her head and addressed the red newcomer.
“Hewwo! Nyu fwend?”
The fearful colt lifted up his eyes and regarded the earthie filly. She was older than him, but not by much. The goofy grin on her face was enough to tell him that he had nothing to fear from her.
“Nyu…fwend?”
“Wed fwend haf huwties?” the filly asked, having spotted the red foal’s bleeding scrotum. “Fwuffy gif huggies? Huggies make evewyfing bettew!”
The huggies didn’t make his special lumps come back, or make the hurties go away, but it was nice to have a friend.
“Huu huuu…whewe takin’ babbeh? Babbeh nee’ mummah!”
The brown colt shivered as he sat alone on the cold metal cart. His body ached from the shaky ride, and he feared his unfamiliar surroundings. Before long, the cart rolled into a much smaller (albeit brighter) room.
Breeder stallions were placed in individual pens for one major reason: to keep bigger, stronger fluffies from taking out their sexual frustrations on smaller, younger ones. Rape, while rare among fluffies in general, tends to be more common when a group of stallions is left alone with no mares to be had. For a high-volume farm like Savory Hills, a foal rape proved a double curse: (1) it usually killed the raped foal, meaning he wouldn’t grow up into a virile stallion, and (2) it was a waste of the rapist stallion’s semen.
Once a stallion was fully grown, his body would occupy about ninety percent of his cage, at which point he would be ready to breed.
“Nuuuuu! Nu weave babbeh aww awone! Wan be wif mummah! Huu huuuu…”
Miguel ignored the foal’s desperate cries and quickly filled the food bowl at the front of the cage. Stallions received a special blended diet with plenty of vitamins to increase sperm volume and generally benefit their health.
munchmunchmunch “Fankoo fow da nummies, nice mistah! Dese am bestest nummies!”
The cage was made of cold metal chicken wire, which didn’t bother the colt as it was all he had ever known. He was still sad over the loss of his mummah, as well as his brothers and sisters, but the delicious food warmed his heart and softened the blow of his separation.
The little red gelding hadn’t seen any of his brothers or sisters in days. All of the older fluffies in his cage seemed weary, and even his green filly friend had lost her chipper demeanor. The cage was small—smaller than the one he had lived in with his mummah—and by the time all six of the foals here had grown to full size they wouldn’t have any room to move. They didn’t have any room to run around or play as it was now.
Play. That word seemed like one the foal should know, though he had no concept of what it meant. He closed his eyes and thought really hard, and his tiny brain conjured up images of a round thing bouncing around—was it…was it called a “ball”?—and of things being stacked up on top of each other—blockies! Yes! He knew what blockies were!
Not that the knowledge did him any good here. Here, in his cage, there were no balls. Nor were there any blockies to stack. There was just metal wire wrapped around cold metal frames, and six depressed fluffies who could do nothing but cry and stare at each other all day long.
He lay down on his belly, being unable to think of anything else to do. His soft, leather hooves lay before his eyes, already shredded to bits even though he was but a month old. They reminded him of his mother’s hooves—though rough, they had cuddled and comforted him while he waited his turn for milkies. He remembered being surrounded by her red fluff, which was nearly the same color as his, and being comforted by her mummah songs.
Now, mummah was gone forever. He would never see her again, and there was no one left to comfort him in his distress.
“MUMMAAAAAAAH! MUMMAAAAAAAAAAH!”
“Fankoo ‘gain fow da bestes’ nummies, nice mistah!”
The brown earthie colt had grown into a big, strong stallion thanks to the special diet he had been on for the past two weeks. He ate ravenously, knowing he had to build up strength for what the nice misters wanted him to do.
On his second day in the stallion room, he had seen a woman take a big gray stallion out of his cage. The stallion asked the woman where she was taking him.
“I’m taking you so you can give babies to lots of mares.”
“Fwuffy am gif speshuw huggies tu mawes? Mawes gon’ haf wotsa tummeh-babbehs wif fwuffy?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Yeeeep.”
The gray stallion started humping the air, he was so excited. When the little brown colt thought hard on this, he realized that he needed to grow up into a big, strong stallion so he could make foals with lots of mares, too! Every fluffy knew that babies were the best thing in the world, and made mares very happy. Maybe he could make a mare so happy that she would want him for her…what was the term?
Oh, right. “Speshuw fwend”.
“Hee hee! Wuv pway baww!”
The fluffies in the cages didn’t have a real ball, of course. A large chunk of dried feces had dislodged itself from the chicken wire, and the fluffies started batting it around. Under normal circumstances, a fluffy pony would abhor such “nu smeww pwetties”. But these fluffies were so desperate (and so bored) that the shit cake would have to do.
“Baww! Baww!” the red gelding’s green friend giggled. The friends batted the poopies-ball back and forth, and eventually a couple of the other fluffies in the cage joined in.
The fun was all too brief. Eventually, the brown earthie mare accidentally batted the ball to the big blue earthie in the corner. He was the biggest fluffy in the cage, and his stature caused his neck to tilt downward. He glared at the red gelding when the smaller fluffy asked him to pass the ball back.
“Pwease gif baww back tu fwuffy! Fwuffy can pway, tuu, if fwuffy wan’!”
“Nu!” the big fluffy declared. “Dis nu am baww. Am nummies fow fwuffy nao!”
True to his word, the big blue gelding gobbled up the ball of dried shit. The red gelding stared at him in disbelief, and the green mare who had befriended him upon his arrival began to cry.
“Nuuuuu, bwue fwuffy! Dat am onwy baww dat fwuffies haf! Nao fwuffies neva pway ‘gain!”
All of the fluffies cried together, except for the blue earthie, who was still choking down his ill-gotten meal supplement. Just then, the white-maned man and a new, brown maned human walked in front of their cage.
“Yep, I’d say the blue one and that brown one are ready to go, Stu.”
“Well, that about wraps it up, then. I’ve got some foals to move over t’ finishing, and then it’ll be quittin’ time.”
The red gelding watched as two of his cage mates were taken out and dropped into a big metal cart, where many other big fluffies were scrambling around. He couldn’t make out what any of them were saying, but none of them seemed too excited to be going wherever they were headed.
“Huwwy, speshuw-fwend! Babbehs am comin’!”
The brown earthie stallion shuffled back to the nest, where he found his bloated special friend waiting for him. She was a monochrome white pegasus, and he loved her more than he had ever loved any other fluffy pony.
[bgcolor=tan] “Babbehs comin’! Babbehs comin’! Fwuffy am su ‘cited!” the stallion sang as he danced around. The pegasus mare giggled, and before they knew it they were surrounded by foals.
“Wook, speshuw-fwend! Dis one am big uwfie cowt! Am gwow up an be big an stwong stawwion wike daddeh!”
She was right. The stallion looked down proudly at his little brown baby, who opened his bright blue eyes and exclaimed “Daddeh!”
“Das wight, babbeh! Am daddeh! Daddeh wuv ‘oo foweva, an gif wotsa huggies an wuv!”
He hugged the little colt, and the perfect little fluffy family lived happily ever after, until the brown earthie stallion awoke in his lonely cage.
Whuaaaa? Am onwy sweepie-pictuwe? Huu huu… The earthie had never felt more alone than he did in that moment, when the illusions from his dream still seemed so real. So attainable…
Had he been a less simple creature, he would have known his dream wasn’t real from the start. First of all, he had imagined himself living in a brightly-colored house—the words “safe room” came to mind, as though he knew what it was all along—surrounded by toys, and he had never once seen a “toy” in his life! Second, and more importantly, he didn’t know where he’d gotten the idea that a fluffy could have wings.
For that latter reason, it was probably best that his long term memory was extremely selective. Not only had one of his siblings been taken away for being a “wingie-fluff”, but he once saw a breeder mare in a cage adjacent to his mother’s chew the wings off of her own newborn pegasus foal. The dams knew what happened to foals with wings, and some of them went to desperate lengths to keep them hidden. But the factory employees weren’t stupid—they knew to look for bloody stumps and scar tissue on the shoulders and forehead (as unicorns weren’t exempt from the non-earthie purges).
Regardless of what he could or couldn’t remember from his past, and whether or not he fully understood what it meant to live in a “safe room” with a “special friend” or to “play with toys”, he determined from that moment that he was going to find his special friend and that, together, they would be happy forever.
“SCREEEEEE! Bad upsies! Nu wike!”
“We’ll send that one to Debbie. She’ll make a good size breeder.”
“Sure thing, Marcus. Whaddya think—that red one ready to go, too?”
“Nu take fwend ‘way! Nee fwend fow huggies!” The red fluffy reached out desperately for his friend, and she reached back, but she was soon too far away.
Marcus picked the red gelding up by his mane, causing him to SCREEEEEEE. “Yeah, I’d say he’s big enough. Into the cart ya go, buddy!”
The earthie plopped down onto dozens of crying fluffies. He had no idea why he was in the cart, but the sheer panic that enveloped the rest of the creatures soon caused him to start scrambling for an escape.
“Whewe fwuffies goin’? Pwease wet fwuffies gu!”
Marcus stared straight ahead as he pushed the cart through a pair of double doors. “Let you go? Now why would I do that? Besides, now comes the fun part.”
“What am ‘fun pawt’, mistah?”
“Weeeeeell,” the man started, before pushing through a final set of doors. Then, he started singing an oft-repeated song, to the tune of “Howdy Doody”.
“Forever sleepy time!
Forever sleepy time!
This is where you’ll become
what people like to num!”
There was more to the song than this, but all of the fluffies had started screaming and wailing at the mere mention of “forever sleepies” and becoming “nummies”, so they missed out on the rest. Standing near the beginning of the assembly line was a middle aged woman with her hands on her hips and an expression of disdain on her face.
“For fuck’s sake, Marcus. You know that just makes ‘em squeal louder.”
“Lighten up, Karen,” the man replied. “Ya gotta have a little fun with ‘em. That’s what they were made for, right?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just help me get ‘em hung up and then get yer knife ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Karen McNeely was a master of her craft. Years of experience at dressing out all the deer she and her brothers took during deer season served her well at Savory Hills, and she could skin five fluffies in the time it took her predecessor to do one.
The red gelding was one of the first to hang. Marcus stuck a hook through each of his back hooves and suspended him upside down. Blood trickled down his back legs towards his torso.
“SCREEEEEEEEE! Huwtie-upsies! Nu wike! Nu wike! SCREEEEEEEEE!”
“Bwudda? Am dat’choo?”
The gelding choked back a sob and turned his head. Sure enough, hanging next to him, was his sister. The two fluffies hadn’t seen each other since the day they were separated into different finishing pens.
“Sissie! Gif huggies, pwease! Fwuffy haf huwties!”
“Huu huuu” the pink mare sobbed. “Nu can! Fwuffy haf wowsest huwties, tuu! Meanie fingies nu wet fwuffy gif huggies!”
The siblings sobbed and wailed, suspended in the air and unable to reach each other. More and more fluffies joined in the cacophony as they were hooked to the apparatus. Then, somehow, the screams started getting louder.
“SCREEEEEEEEE!”
“Wai take pwetty fwuff? SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“SCREEEEEEEEEEE! Wowsest huwties!”
The gelding watched in horror as the woman with the knife approached his sister. She looked at the woman sadly and begged her to “nu gif huwties”, but the woman continued her grisly work as if she were deaf to the fluffy’s pleas.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Nuuuuuuuuu! Nu huwt sissie!” the red earthie screamed. “Fwuffy nee’ fwuff! Nu gif huwties an take pwetty fwuff!”
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
And in the blink of an eye, the mare’s bright pink fluff was gone. The monster-human had made his sister look…well…like a monster herself! But he knew his sister wasn’t a monster, so he reached out to give her huggies to make the hurties go away, but before he knew it, the knife had reached his own chest.
slit**slit
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEEEEEE!”
The gelding arched his back in a rictus of pain. But no words escaped his lips now. all he could do was scream his lungs out and hope the hurties would be over soon.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Huuuuuu…nu am pwetty mawe nu mowe! Am dummeh munstah nu-fwuff fwuffy! MUMMAAAAAAAH!!!” his sister wailed. He turned to face her. He couldn’t give her huggies, but maybe he could say something to comfort her—that she wasn’t a monster, or that she was still a pretty mare…
chirp
But it was too late. By the time the meanie-human who had promised them forever sleepies cut his sister’s tummy open and ripped out her tummy-sketties, he had lost his ability to speak.
chirp**chirp
The man came for him next. He could no longer plead for “no more hurties”, as if his begging would have received a response, anyway. He merely kept chirping as he saw his guts fall down past his face. The man cut off his digestive system and threw it in a bin, where all the butchered fluffies’ internal organs would be kept until a local fish bait company picked them up to make stinkbait for catfish.
Tears stung the gelding’s flayed face, and he chirped weakly and continued to stretch out feebly for his sister. She looked at him helplessly, and then reached out for huggies. The last thing either of them knew was the bitter cold of the flash freezer, where they died and were shrink-wrapped for storage.
The brown stallion knew his day had come. This was the day he would make lots of tummy-babies for pretty mares, and that maybe…just maybe…he would finally meet his special friend and they would live happily ever after.
He was so excited that he almost forgot to eat his nummies. Then, he got tummy hurties so bad that he scarfed down his food in three bites. He was the biggest stallion the factory had ever raised for breeding, and needed lots and lots to eat to avoid hunger pains.
Soon after he ate, the nice lady came by to take him from his cage. He wagged his tail happily and started singing. A bop on the nose brought an end to the latter.
“Wai put fwuffy on cowd fwoow, nice wady? Nu wike!”
“Hmmm…6.12 kilos…this is a big boy!”
“Yus, nice wady! Am big fwuffy stawwion! Wan gif mawes wotsa tummeh-babbehs nao! Wan fin’ speshuw-fwend!”
“Mmmhmmm…” the woman acknowledged, not really paying attention to what the fluffy had said. She continued to scribble on her notepad, and the stallion could barely stay still.
“Gon haf speshuw-fwend, an wotsa babbehs, an safewoom, an toysies, an sketties, an wotsa babbehs…”
The breeding specialist then picked him up and placed him in an upright harness. Once he was strapped in, he could look down and see his no-no stick throbbing in anticipation.
“Wai am fwuffy in bad huggies-fing? Whewe am da mawes dat wan babbehs?”
The stallion looked on with horror as the human affixed a device shaped like a Champagne flute around his no-no stick. Then, she flipped a switch and an unsettling sound filled the room.
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
suck suck suck suck
“Huuuuuu…nu wan bad speshuw-huggies! Nu wike! Huu huu…”
suck suck suck suck
Before long, the stallion felt his no-no stick acting like it enjoyed the bad special huggies! But he was so afraid—this wasn’t a pretty mare! This wasn’t supposed to be happening!
“Pwease wet fwuffy gu, nice wady! Jus’ wan pwetty mawes, an speshuw-fwend, an babbehs, an pwetty safewoom, an…ENF!”
Nu…nu wan…
suck suck suck suck
“…enf…enf…enf…”
His whole body was strapped against the harness, so he couldn’t thrust his hips. All the same, he could see white fluid traveling through the tube from his no-no stick to a clear container.
Nu! Nu-nu juice, come back! Nee’ fow pwetty mawes!
suck suck suck suck
“…enf…enf…enf…”
The machine continued its work for many forevers, until finally
POP
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Ah, SHIT! I was hoping to get lucky this time!”
The “stallion milker”, as factory employees lovingly called the machine to which the brown stallion was connected, was capable of pulling every last drop of semen out of a fluffy’s genitals. There was enough semen in one fluffy pony to impregnate fifty mares, which was quite enough to tolerate the machine’s one major drawback: the powerful suction had a habit of making the stallion’s penis explode.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Huu huu…pwease nice wady, hewp fwuffy! Fwuffy nu-nu-stick haf wowsest huwties!”
Debbie hurriedly shut off the machine and cut off the flow to the semen receptacle—she couldn’t risk having it contaminated with blood. Then she removed the container, labeled it, and took it out of the room to the cold storage refrigerator with all of the rest of the stallion samples. All the while, the brown earthie hung from his harness, screaming and staring at the mutilated remains of his genitals.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Once the breeding specialist was done recording her work, she unhooked the stallion from the machine. The tube and cup were disposable after every use, so she tossed them in the nearby trash can and then grabbed the pony off the wall.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE! SCREEEEE—mmmf!”
“Can’t have you distressing the mares,” Debbie said. “Now, where’s my damn bucket?”
The stallion, now freed from confinement and safely in a black bucket, tried to give huggies to his obliterated member. As his leggies were too short to do so, he whined uncontrollably (though the rubber band the factory employee put around it did a pretty good job). Soon, he could tell that he was moving.
The room through which Debbie carried him looked familiar. Rows and rows of cages lined the aisles, and he thought that one fat, red dam in particular was one he had seen before.
Mummah? Dat am mummah?
“Mmmmf! Mmmmmmf!”
But his mummah couldn’t hear him. Not only was his mouth shut tightly, but the dam, who was heavy with foals again, was turned with her head facing away from him. Not even she would save him from his gruesome fate.
“Mmmmf! Mmmmmmf!”
Debbie threw open the dumpster door and gagged immediately. Clearly, the disposal company was late for another pickup. She quickly dumped the contents of her bucket down the chute and slammed the door closed.
The stallion tumbled down into darkness, acutely feeling the pain in his ruined no-no stick with every bump along the way. Eventually he came to a halt atop something soft. It felt…familiar. It was almost comfortable. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light that came through a crack in the wall, he screamed so loudly that the rubber band around his jaws came off.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE! Nu wan foweva sweepies!”
He scrambled around, finding nothing but more dead and dying fluffies underneath him. They appeared in varying states of decomposition. One foal, who looked as though half of his face had been chewed off, scared the stallion so badly that he tumbled backwards, bending his back at an odd angle.
crack
“SCREEEEEEE!”
His back leggies could no longer move. He slumped down in despair, hoping against hope that it was all just a bad dream. Then, a chirping in the darkness got his attention.
chirp chirp
The stallion turned his head to see a tiny foal with a horn crawling up the bodies next to him. He couldn’t remember having ever seen a unicorn before.
“Babbeh…nu can sabe pointie-babbeh…fwuffy weggies am meanie, an nu wan wowk!”
The little foal, whose eyes were not yet open, responded only with a chirp. It moved closer to the stallion, sensing that the voice was friendly.
chirp chirp
“Nu cwy, babbeh! Fwuffy wuv nyu fwend!”
The unicorn foal, who had the blessing of his first milkies before being stripped from his mother and cast into this horrible place, continued to chirp. The brown earthie knew he had to do something. He looked at the crack in the dumpster with resolve.
“Fwuffy am take foweva sweepies soon, bu babbeh nu haf tu! Fwuffy am hewp babbeh wun ‘way!”
He grabbed the chirping foal with his teeth and placed her on his back. As everything behind his front leggies was paralyzed, every movement was a struggle, but the stallion was determined to give his best. He pawed at the wall with his scarred front hooves, hoping to rise high enough for the foal to escape.
chirp chirp
“Yus, babbeh! When fwuffy come tu da bwite-pwace, ‘oo wun ‘way. Unnastand?”
chirp
The fluffy inched higher and higher, with each painful motion getting closer and closer to freedom. The foal was mere inches away from the light when the stallion’s useless legs gave way, and the filly fell back down onto the corpses. She landed straight on her horn.
“Babbeh! Nuuuuuuuuuu!”
The little unicorn twitched. There would be no second attempt. Even if the stallion had strength enough to reach up the wall again, the foal was in no condition to squeeze through the hole. The hole, in fact, was too small in the first place.
The brown stallion wailed as he watched the filly expire. She became one of a hundred dead, nameless fluffies that day. The spent breeder was not so fortunate—he lingered for days before the dumpster was finally taken to the incinerator.
“Nuuuuuu! Nu weave Howwybewwy, mummah! Howwybewwy wuv ‘oo!”
“You love me? You bit me, stupid! I hope you never have babies again…ever!”
“Huu huu…Howwybewwy nu mean be meanies! Jus’ wan babbehs! Babbehs am bestes’ fing evah!”
“Oh yeah? Well, you know what? Daddy told me that a snake’s gonna eat all your babies. I’ll bet they’re all dead now! And I hope you die, too, you selfish meanie!”
“Sweetie, that’s enough. Let’s go home.”
Emma stuck her tongue out as she and her father left where Hollyberry had been put in her shelter cage. The red dam pawed at the door with her soft, marshmallow hooves, as if she could reach out and pull the little girl back.
“Mummah! Come back mummah! If babbehs am foweva sweepies, den mummah am aww dat Howwybewwy haf! Nu weave, mummah! MUMMAAAAAAAH!”
Hollyberry awakened from her nightmare unable to move. She was once again so big with foals that her legs did not touch the ground. This had happened so many times that she had large patches of fluff missing from her belly that would not grow back.
Mummah…Howwybewwy am su sowwy. Nu wan mowe babbehs. Jus wan mummah back!
A tear rolled down her cheek, and then dripped down between the wire that made up the bottom of her cage. It landed with a splat on the shit-covered floor.
Her stomach burbled. She knew it wasn’t because she was hungry. And she had made poopies before she slept, so it shouldn’t be that, either.
burble
Nu. Pwease, nu.
blrrrrrrt
Nu wan mowe babbehs. Pwease, nu be mowe babbehs.
An old, familiar pressure built in the mare that she had felt so many times before. With it came a pain that enveloped her whole body.
“SCREEEEEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!”
THE END