You are Jake, and you’re anxious this week.
You check your watch for what feels like the twentieth time today, only to see that barely three minutes has passed since you began to check, and pacing isn’t something you can do right now.
You look back down to your heavily pregnant Fluffy mare, watching as her breathing increases in pace, then decreases, then increases again, the intervals between each growing shorter as the inevitable process grows closer. You check your watch again; she’s going to pop too soon, you think, it’ll be WAY too soon. And then, you hear that telltale cry, the one you’d been warned about when you first got her.
“BIGGEST POOPIIIEEEES!” she screams, and then - in a rush of blood and fecal matter - several small plops follow. The first peep, then cheeps, and then a chorus of peeps, and you check your watch again as your fluffy gasps through the final pains, the final foal, and weakly turns her head this way and that. “B…babbehs? Mummah hewe babbehs, it okie! Gib wicky-cweanies!” She manages to turn, using her back legs to scoop up her newborns to her front legs, and then from her front to her awaiting tongue, licking each one clean.
Your cotton-candy-cyan fluffy’s bright cherry-red tail is stained with birth and feces, but it wags happily all the same, smacking - thankfully - against the towel you’d placed beforehand as she licks her foals all clean. A red one, a yellow, a green, a lime-green, a dark blue…and then at last, a small cotton-candy-blue that’s just a shade off from her. She gasps in delight, and is about to speak, when there’s another cheep from behind her.
You look up expectantly. You’ve taught her about Good Mummahs; how ALL babbehs get licky-cleanies and love. You hope for the outcome you’ve been waiting for all day.
She sniffs at it, a hoof reaching out at first to bring it to her…and then her nose scrunches. “Nu smeww pwetty.” she says, out of breath but still managing to sound confused. You take a step closer. “Give your baby licky-cleanies.” you command her; at first, it seems like she’ll comply. But then, her hoof trembles, and she pouts. “Daddeh, dis am nu babbeh…is poopies!” she says, turning up to you with her ears down. You shake your head, squatting down next to her and her newborns as the cotton-candy one wiggles it’s way to her teat. You place a hand between her and her baby, and hold your finger up towards her nose. “NO. That is a baby. You give them licky-cleanies now.”
She seems in shock, and looks down at the baby you’ve blocked from it’s very first milkies. “D-daddeh, pwease, babbeh nee’ miwkies!” she says, trying to lean down; your palm meets her face, and you push her back towards the burnt-orange-colored foal still covered in afterbirth. “Not until you give ALL your babies licky-cleanies.” you say, glancing to your watch again.
The fluffy looks to her ‘poopie’ foal, and slowly leans forward, nose scrunching. She stops an inch short, and then turns to you with the sweetest look her tired face can muster. “Can…c-can Factowy give Bestest miwkies fiwst, DEN wicky da nu-smeww-pwetty babbeh?”
You glance at your watch again, and then you hear the sound you’d been waiting for, two minutes earlier than you thought. A triumphant jingle of “Doot do-do DOOT”, as if signaling the response you’d dreaded, while secretly hoping for.
You scoop up every baby she’d had, save the burnt orange, and picked them up, turning away. The fluffy stood there paralyzed, and then quickly followed you, squealing like a distressed pig. “NUUU, DADDEH! BABBEHS TOO WIDDWE FO UPPSIES! NEE’ MIWKIES, PWEASE, GIB BACK!” she cries, following you down the hall and into the kitchen.
With relief in your voice, unable to be picked up by the emotionally stunted creature nagging at your heels, you firmly state “You broke the rules. You’re a bad mummah already. I TOLD you, ALL babies are good, and there will be NO bestest!” you say, pushing her aside when you stand in front of the source of that triumphant noise from earlier. You open the lid of the air fryer, the heat blasting out of it and wafting over your face, getting some of the cold from the day off you already. The Bestest feels the heat on the back of it’s leg, and while they’d all been chirping since you’d picked them up, now they were nearly squealing as much as their parent.
“PWEASE, DADDEH, FACTOWY SOWWY! PWEASE, GIB BESTEST AND BABBEHS BACK!” she cries, watching you hover your full hands over the fryer. You look down at her, give a brief “Tsk tsk”, and then drop them in. You hear the sizzle of their newborn flesh, and the squeal of pain they emit, for only a brief moment; you close the lid swiftly, setting the fryer for eight minutes at 360, just as the book had told you, and then sit down in your seat, sipping coffee as your fluffy’s marshmallow hooves beat out a frantic rhythm against the door beneath the counter your air fryer sits on. She’s blubbering and crying so much, she can’t even form coherent words anymore; you THINK she’s saying “Sorry” every other word or so, but your stomach growls, uncaring to the plight outside.
Eight minutes later, that triumphant ding goes off again; grabbing a pair of tongs, you open the lid, and your ragged-breathing fluffy stands up from her puddle of tears, hopefully looking up at you. “D-daddeh…b-babbehs…am…awight?” she asks. You pick up the first foal, the one that HAD been Bestest, and plop it’s crispy, blackened-edged carcass onto a plate, setting it down in front of her.
As the plate lowers, excitement and relief crossed her face, but once she was confronted with the corpse of her undeserved favorite foal, you heard something you’d never heard from her before; complete and utter silence. She stares at it until the rest are on your own plate, and then you bite into the first one; her face slowly moving to meet your gaze as the sweet, tender, flaky meat of newborn fluffy graces your tongue, reminding you of a slightly drier honeybaked ham.
You walk into the other room, where the burnt-orange foal is peeping weakly, and moments later, your fluffy trundles in after you, cheeks damp and fur matted with a fresh bout of silent tears. She looks up at you as you toss the back end of the fluffy you first bit into in the litterbox, sparing you the semi-full intestines; like tossing the gristle out of a bite of ham.
As you bite into the second one, your fluffy waddles to the burnt orange fluffy and slowly begins to lick it clean. You look over at a dark red stallion in the corner, closed up in a cat carrier, and raise your eyebrow. His rich pink mane flicks in and out of his face as he looks between you and the mare, frowning. “You towd hew, daddeh.” he says at last, his little legs curling under him as he goes from sitting to laying.
You nod, tossing the second rump into Factory’s litterbox. “Maybe she’ll learn…next time.”