How Minnie Became Known
Welcome. This is the story of a young fluffy mother - a feral, to be precise - and how she became known as the neighborhood mascot!
Now, being a feral, the mare didn’t have a name of her own. For the sake of ease, let’s call her… “Minnie”. After all, that is what the townspeople would come to call her.
You see, Minnie was a little bit peculiar. She carried four children, like many other mares, but while two were regular little fluffy foals, the other two were little white mice! Nobody knew how or why she would adopt mice as her own, but she protected them as though they were her own. Thus, she became known as the “Mouse Mummah”, or Minnie by those who wanted something a little more proper.
But I digress.
Our story begins in the late autumn, just behind a fluffy store. Halloween was fast approaching, and the store was selling holiday-themed foals colored after pumpkins and bats and other spooky things. The pumpkin foals were selling so well, in fact, that the store was starting to run out!
It was quite good for the store, but for the poor workers it was rather stressful. After all, if there were no pumpkin foals to buy, the shoppers would get quite irate and that was no fun for anyone.
One morning, as the store opened and one of the workers stepped out the back to throw away the night’s garbage, he saw Minnie and her foals sleeping next to the stairs. At this point, of course, Minnie was no more than an unknown feral - all he saw was a pale red-brown pegasus curled around two little earthie foals, with a quite literal rat’s nest in her orange tail.
He almost passed her by, but one detail caught his eye. You see, while one foal was a pale-grass green with a faded blue mane, the other was a light orange with a green mane. A perfect little pumpkin foal, just like the ones they needed.
The worker considered both risks and ethics for a few moments, but decided both could be put aside and so carefully stole the foal right out of Minnie’s embrace.
Now, fluffies can be quite heavy sleepers, and Minnie was no exception. As far as the worker figured, the little foal would be long sold by the time she stirred. But mice on the other hand are not heavy sleepers at all, and being accosted by a strange human set both rodents into quite a stir. They rushed away and around and into Minnie’s fluff, and the scrabbly movements were enough to wake her up.
“Babbeh-?” she asked deliriously, still taking in her surroundings. The worker hurried away, jostling the pumpkin baby who yelped and woke to find himself far from the warmth of his mother.
“Mummah!” he cried panickedly, wiggling his little legs into the air between his kidnapper’s fingers. “Hewp!”
“Babbeh!” Minnie gasped and scrambled to her hooves, running after the worker as she called for her child. She was met with nothing but a bang to the snout, however, as the thief went right into the shop and slammed the door shut.
She pawed and whined at the door, but it wouldn’t yield even one bit. Being a fluffy, Minnie didn’t know that this door could possibly be connected to any others, and she certainly wasn’t keen on asking any humans for help - after all, humans were scary and dangerous, and any fluffy who relied on them too much risked quite some trouble. But this was an emergency, and only a human could open a big door.
If you’re wondering where her other, green foal was during all of this, well… As I said, fluffies can be quite heavy sleepers, and he was no exception. Yes, he didn’t stir until Minnie went right back and gave him a good nudge.
“Squeaky, wake upsies,” she told him. “Meanie hooman took Bitey, fwuffies nee’ go find nice hooman to get him back.”
(Now, neither Squeaky nor Bitey are common names for foals, and neither name was accurate to the foals’ personalities. Minnie was just such a silly fluffy that she had given her foals names for mice. But I digress.)
A frowning sort of concern on his face, Squeaky nodded along and gave an agreeing little ‘mmm’ in place of an ‘okay’ - he was not one for talking, you see. And so, with her mice on her back and her foal by her side, Minnie left the alley to find help.
And as luck would have it, the very moment Minnie stepped hoof onto the street, the fluffy store opened its doors wide to declare itself open for business. Minnie saw a hint of human vanishing back inside and followed, trying to catch a glance of them. “Hewwo? Need hewp!”
The store clerk, a young lady who was a little grumpy about working first shift and more than a little surprised that her first customer was a fluffy, quickly decided to play along. “Yeah sure, what can I help you with?”
Now, Minnie would have explained her plight, but the store was full of colors and trinkets and smells of all kinds and it left the young mare quite overwhelmed. There were toys and treats and leashes and fluffies all around, and in the middle of it all stood big transparent enclosures, one with black foals and another with little pumpkin foals.
Bitey hadn’t yet been added to the enclosure, of course, but for a young fluffy surrounded by new senses that was quite hard to tell. She simply assumed her baby was among the others and rushed to the enclosure, eyes wide. “Babbeh!”
“Halloween foals are five bucks a pop,” joked the clerk, figuring that as long as they could pay it didn’t matter if she was selling to a human or a fluffy.
“Bu’ fwuffy nu haf any bucks,” Minnie pleaded and tapped a hoof at the enclosure wall, too high for her to reach. “Pwease, dat am fwuffy’s babbeh!”
“Sorry, but I can’t let you get one for free. You need money for it!”
“Bu’ fwuffy nu haf moneys eithew! Whewe can fwuffy get money?”
“Hmm…”
Most people would have thrown Minnie out by now, but after a moment’s thought, the young lady decided to help her out just a little. Some say that she did it out of kindness or pity, but that’s not quite it. As I said before, this particular clerk wasn’t happy with working the morning shift, and Minnie’s appearance was the most fun thing she’d get to see all day. So she decided to play around a bit!
“Here,” she said, giving Minnie a small paper cup and a push toward the door. “I hear some people get money by dancing or singing on the street. Why not try it out?”
“Weawwy?” asked Minnie. “Bu’ how know when haf enough money?”
“Oh, just come back when the cup is full and I’ll count it up for you!”
And with that, Minnie found herself right back out on the street, now with a paper cup and a mission. She sat herself next to the door, put down the cup where it was easy to see, and she began to sing.
Except, Minnie was not much of a singer. No, she had a singing voice that made people run and mice cover their ears, a loving falsetto that only her foals could love. So no matter how much she sang, even as people began to fill the street, nobody would come close to her - much less give her money. Squeaky was no help either, as his quiet nature meant no singing along, the green foal just snuggling into her belly fluff and falling asleep.
Poor Minnie needed another idea. She stopped singing, much to the relief of everyone but her son, and placed Squeaky aside to clear some space. And then, she began to dance.
Fluffies are not well known for their good dance moves, and neither Minnie nor Squeaky had ever been dancie babies. But she tried, wiggling her forelegs and tilting from side to side, even pushing herself up on her hind legs to wobble from hoof to hoof.
It wasn’t very impressive, of course, but she did get one or two coins for her efforts. It wasn’t much, not nearly enough to fill the cup and get the five dollars she needed, and the display was tiring Minnie out. As her legs buckled and she fell to a sat, however, she made a grievous mistake.
She sat right on her tail… And on one of her mice! With a startled squeak the mouse retaliated, biting Minnie right on the buttock and clinging with all its might. Minnie squealed and flew back to her hooves, swerving around to try and pull the little rodent from her fluff, but it was much too small for her to reach. And as she spun in place, her second mouse - who had spent the whole ordeal tucked into her mane - started panicking and dug itself deep into her mane, biting hold to avoid being thrown off!
Minnie spun and hopped around on two hooves, yelping and flailing to try and get her mouse children off, and I don’t know about you but to the people passing by, a fluffy doing twirls and bounces makes for a pretty good dance. Squeaky sat at the paper cup and clapped his hooves with a delighted laugh as he saw his mom put on a show, and soon the little fluffies had amassed both a nice crowd and a cup full of coins.
Not that Minnie noticed, of course. She didn’t stop ‘dancing’ until exhaustion made her fall on her belly, and only when she was lying still did the mice feel safe enough to let go.
“Thank-yu, squeaky babbehs…” she breathed out, scooping up the two mice as they climbed down and hugging them to her chest. As she reasoned, they were just little babies, so how could they know better than to bite her? “Pwease nu bite mummah again.”
“Mummah,” called Squeaky, and the rare word caught all her attention. Minnie gasped and put the mice on her back as she rushed over, first giving Squeaky a big hug for calling her name, and then staring sparkly-eyed at her full cup of money.
“Thank-yu!” she called up at the bystanders - some had left, of course, but others were staying around to take videos and enjoy the show. Picking up her cup, Minnie hurried inside and quickly found the lady clerk again.
There were more customers in the fluffy store now, of course, and the clerk was talking to a man already. Minnie tried to get a word in, but the man scowled down at her and told her to get in line, and so… Well, she did. She found there were two people behind the man, and three people standing in a line meant she should line up behind them. So she waited and waited as another person stepped into line behind her, walking forward a little each time everyone else did.
“Next,” called the lady clerk once Minnie was at the front, looking at the man who was behind her in line. He paused for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head, pointing down at the expectant pegasus.
“Oh hey!” she said, lighting up at once as she saw Minnie. “Wow, you actually filled it!”
“Fwuffy haf moneys nao!” Minnie called proudly. “Wan Bitey babbeh back!”
The clerk lady took Minnie’s cup of coins and counted them out, surprised to find that it contained almost six dollars. “Well, alright then! Just pick out your foal, and you’re good to go.”
Minnie rushed straight to the pumpkin foal enclosure - there were less of them now but Bitey was among them, freshly shampooed with his fur all fluffed up.
This, of course, had the unfortunate side effect that he smelled nothing like the baby Minnie had lost, and she couldn’t recognize him by his fur or mane either. He was just one of many strange orange foals!
“I’m guessing any foal will do,” said the clerk lady as she reached into the pumpkin enclosure, but Minnie gasped in horror.
“Nu! Wan Bitey!” she protested. “Mummah’s babbeh am Bitey!”
“Right,” hummed the clerk. She knew that one of the babies had been a feral found out back, of course, so now the pieces were falling into place. She couldn’t tell which one was which, however, so she tried to pick up Minnie and let her pick the foal out herself - but seeing the white rodents in her fur, she recoiled. “Oh- geez, uh, did you know you have mice?”
“Yus,” Minnie smiled lovingly. “Squeakies am Gnawy an’ Twashy, dey am mummah’s squeaky babbehs!”
“I uh, I see.” Now, the young lady wasn’t afraid of mice, but these were wild ones and getting nipped by any wild animal is a good way to catch a disease. This is why she instead looked into the enclosure and tried to find the correct foal herself. “Hey, which of you guys is named Bitey?”
“Hewe!” called Bitey, but you see, all the foals wanted to be adopted. And as they realized that ‘Bitey’ meant being adopted, they all scrambled over themselves to declare the same thing. Within moments, the entire enclosure was claiming to be Bitey!
“Uh… Do you have any other tips?” the clerk asked, glancing down to Minnie. She put a hoof to her snout, thinking hard.
“Um… Haf pwetty gweenie see-pwaces!” she replied. It did narrow the foals down a bit, but there were still several that fit the bill. So she thought much harder, on what could make her little foal unique, before lighting up. “An’ am squeaky babbeh!”
This, of course, was not true. A fluffy is a fluffy and a mouse is a mouse. But one of the foals in the enclosure grew indignant at the proclamation and called back down at her: “Mummah! Babbehs nu am squeakies!!”
Minnie looked sheepish, but smiled. Bitey had always been the most clever member of the family. “Dat one.”
The real Bitey was summarily scooped up and returned to her loving hooves, and Minnie snuggled him tight until his fluffy fur was just as messy as before. With the almost-a-dollar left over she could even buy some cheap fluffy treats, which she carried in her little paper cup as she took her babies and cheerfully headed back for the alleys.
As far as she knew, that was the end of the ordeal. But for the citizens of the town, the rumors and videos quickly spread of a little fluffy mare who had bought back her foal by dancing for money. Soon all the locals knew of her and could point her out on sight; a young pegasus with some quite funny dance moves, and white mice in her fur.