‘There’s a fine line between discipline and abuse’, Frank thought to himself, and not for the first time.
Discipline was a necessary evil. It was important to be used against people or animals, young or old, to teach them lessons with an added ‘oomph’ to make sure they remembered them.
Parents spanked kids. Dog-owners bopped their canines on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Even cat-owners used a spray bottle of water to stop their fuzzy friends from clawing apart the furniture. But abuse… abuse was when you hurt purely for the sake of hurting. Ignoring the point of teaching a lesson and instead just causing pain and suffering because it made you feel good to hurt other people.
Most people, in Frank’s experience, weren’t capable of abuse. Sure SOME were, but the majority of people were too empathetic to other creatures, too kind-hearted, too compassionate. Hell most were too soft even for discipline, never mind abuse.
Frank kept that thought in his mind as he gazed around the pet-store from his lofty position behind the checkout, running his eyes over the various products available for training and teaching your various pets. Spray-bottles of unpleasant scents for cats, whistles for dogs… whatever the hell you needed to discipline a fish. A shark, maybe.
As Frank’s eyes travelled, he came across the store’s biggest attraction, the large pen of fluffy ponies which never failed to grab the attention of wide-eyed young children and lonely elderly folks. In fact, the fluffy ponies were the only live animals the store sold anymore, everything else was just supplies.
The pen took up easily a full quarter of the store’s floorspace, which was only permitted since it was the store’s biggest money-maker. In the pen was a deep bed of soft hay layered over the store’s cold linoleum flooring, upon which scampered up to 15 adult fluffy ponies with a scattering of foals among them, all in varying shades and hues, some with horns, some with wings, some with neither… but none with both.
The store itself was owned by an elderly couple, who had started it in their 30s after they’d gotten married. He only knew them as Mr and Mrs Wilson, but he had seen less and less of Mr Wilson as the months had rolled on. Finally he’d stopped coming into work, and Mrs Wilson had only mentioned something about ‘health problems’, while dabbing at her eyes.
And then Mrs Wilson started spending more time at home, taking care of Mr Wilson, and leaving Frank more and more in charge of the store. Which he didn’t mind, he was only 25, and it looked good on his resume to be able to say he had done so much for one business. He was in charge not only of the welfare of the animals, but also the building’s security, finances, ordering stock, and plenty more.
He basically ran the entire place himself… which was only a problem if you hated fluffy ponies.
Frank had no real interest in fluffy ponies at first, but in order to work in the store, he’d had to undergo some ‘training’ with them, and he had found very quickly that he didn’t like them.
There was something instinctive about it at first, the way they babbled in baby-talk as if they were human beings, only to lisp and stumble over the most basic words, like some parody of a child’s speech. Not only that, but they were filthy, constantly shitting and pissing everywhere, either as a defence mechanism, out of fear, to punish each other… or sometimes just because they had nothing better to do.
As Frank learned more about how to deal with them, his dislike for them grew. He had absolutely no love in his heart for them… but as he always told himself, there was a fine line between discipline and abuse.
He didn’t like fluffy ponies, but he wouldn’t dream of intentionally hurting one. He’d heard all about abusers, he’d even had a couple come into the store, and he’d done his best to warn them away from the premises. ‘Lil Slugger’, Mr Wilson’s prize baseball bat which was kept hidden under the counter, helped with that.
But things got tricky when it came to dealing with the fluffy ponies themselves.
Their human-like brains were intelligent enough to understand basic rules and lessons… but they were so forgetful, dim-witted or just plain entitled that they either ignored the established rules, or just decided to stop remembering them. Anyone could say ‘bad fluffies get hurt’, and a fluffy would remember it for a day or two… but then it would decide it was a ‘good fluffy’ regardless of what it did, resulting in it shitting on daddy’s slippers, which then resulted in beloved fluffy having it’s skull crushed in a car door.
Which meant Frank had been forced to get creative, to ensure the lessons stuck for good.
He couldn’t directly hurt the fluffies, although that would certainly be effective. He’d read numerous tales online about owners punishing their beloved pets for minor transgressions by brutally tearing off their limbs one after another… which certainly helped traumatise a lesson into the little beasts, but also left them physically crippled and mentally scarred for life.
No, the fluffies were the store’s only real source of income, everything else was just set-dressing. So Frank had to find ways of embedding lessons into a fluffy pony’s brain without actually harming it in any way, should anyone ever want to take it home.
Fortunately, he’d come up with solutions every time, some more effective than others, but all without actually harming a single fluffy… except maybe mentally.
Sure enough, that afternoon, Frank was presented with another such challenge.
One of the ponies, a fat pegasus mare with pale pink fluff and a cherry red mane and tail, named ‘Blossom’, was pregnant. It had been just over two weeks, and she had finally started giving birth to her litter. Frank had seen it all before, ‘biggest poopies’, licking them clean, etc… nothing out of the ordinary, until the fifth and final foal was born.
It came out the spitting image of it’s mama, pale pink and cherry red, absolutely gorgeous, a hot seller for certain… except it was an alicorn. A unicorn horn and pegasus wings, the first one Frank had seen in the store since he had begun working there three years ago.
And he sadly knew why.
Fluffy ponies had a strange issue with alicorns, he had never quite understood it. It was like their tiny brains just couldn’t handle the thought of a unicorn AND a pegasus’s traits existing in a singular being, and so saw any alicorn as a monster, deserving of the most vicious of punishments (which, again, usually involved shitting on them). As such they’d become astonishingly rare to find, as adult alicorns would be rejected from mating with any other breed, except for other adult alicorns… but finding one that lived to that age was like finding a real-life genuine unicorn, what with how their parents tended to murder them.
Frank knew this was a problem in the making. And that problem was going to require a solution.
He picked up the tiny, shivering, peeping foal, feeling it’s miniscule heartbeat fluttering against his palm, picking up in speed at the mere brush of human contact. He didn’t know what to do. He had a good idea of how Blossom would react, but the baby needed it’s mother… and Blossom wanted to see her baby.
“Whewe babbeh, daddeh?” She trilled. Mr and Mrs Wilson, and Frank himself, had told every fluffy at least fifty times that they were NOT their mommies or daddies, but as usual, the lesson never stuck, so they just gave up on correcting them eventually.
“Baby… baby’s right here.” Frank said, steeling himself as he brought the alicorn around to Blossom’s front. She immediately held out her arms, ready to hug and cuddle and snuggle with her darling beautiful baby… and then halted.
She had seen it.
Frank saw her piggy little eyes darting from the horn to the wings, then back to the horn, then to the wings again. Her tiny bio-engineered mind was struggling to process the thought, but finally the last cog clicked into place, and she positively snarled.
“Nu wan dummeh munstah babbeh!” Blossom huffed, pulling her arms back to herself in disgust.
“Blossom, it’s your baby.” Frank said gently, placing the foal in the ground. It immediately began to crawl towards it’s mama. Frank was actually touched at how instinctive it’s senses were. It couldn’t see a thing, but it absolutely knew for sure where it’s mother was, and it was going to crawl miles to reach her if that’s what it took.
He couldn’t stand fluffy ponies, but sometimes, just once or twice, they could melt his heart.
And then Blossom slammed her hoof against the alicorn foal’s head.
The foal immediately squealed in pain and fear, but it’s cries were drowned out by Blossom’s own howls of pain. It seemed as though the alicorn’s tiny horn, while too blunt to actually do any damage, had been JUST pointy enough to jab into Blossom’s falling hoof, unintentionally hurting her back.
“Blososm, what the fuck?!” Frank yelled, unable to control himself. Fortunately the store was already closed, so no customers had heard him, but every fluffy in the pen immediately began babbling about ‘bad wowds’.
He scooped up the tiny foal, chirping and suckling on it’s hoof, and checked it over. No blood, no cries of pain when he gently pressed down on it’s head, no clear breaks in any bones… fortunately the foal seemed relatively unharmed, it looked as thought Blossom had done more damage to her own hoof than to her baby, but that hadn’t helped matters.
Frank looked up from the chirping foal in his palm, and saw Blossom glaring at him, cheeks puffed out, hugging each of her other four babies to herself, presumably to keep them safe from the ‘monster’.
“BWOSSOM NU WIKE MUNSTAH BABBEH!” She snapped. “MUNSTAH BABBEH HUWT BWOSSOM HOOFSY!”
“Blossom, you were trying to kill it!” Frank yelled back, exasperated.
“MUNSTAH BABBEH DESEWVES OWIES! BIGGEST OWIES! FOWEVEH SWEEPIES!”
Frank knew that term. It’s what fluffy ponies called ‘death’.
And at that moment, he understood why abusers spent so much time devising ways of hurting these shitful monsters without actually killing them. Because death was a mercy for something this evil.
But quickly, Frank calmed down. He couldn’t hurt them, not any of them, not if he wanted to keep his job. No, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t punch Blossom in her fat, ugly little face. He had to think of something else.
While he thought, he carried the baby over to the back room, where they kept emergency supplies for situations just like this.
Every now and then, a mare rejected a foal for some arbitrary reason (it was the wrong colour, or it ‘smelled’ wrong, or the mare just never wanted kids in the first place), so Mrs Wilson had setup a box of emergency baby-survival supplies for just such a situation, including a bottle of formula, a pipette, some blankets, and a specially designed custom made ‘mama fluffy’ toy she’d bought from someone on Etsy.
The thing was genius, it was like a teddy-bear, but shaped like a fluffy with colourful fur. Inside it was a battery powered speaker and heater, which warmed up the toy for hugging, and played recordings of a babbling mama singing to her beloved newborn. Plug in some AA batteries, switch it on, and you had a perfect facsimile of the loving, caring mother most foals never got to experience.
Frank placed the tiny alicorn foal in the box with the blankets, gave it enough formula to fill it’s tiny belly, then switched on the ‘fluffy mama’ and carefully placed it next to the foal. Within seconds the newborn was cuddling up to it and chirping, snuggling into it’s warm, fuzzy belly for comfort and safety as the toy softly sang to it.
Frank was disgusted. Not at the foal, but at Blossom. All her babies wanted was simple kindness, and she was willing to kill one of them for… what? Being born ‘wrong’?
Frank wasn’t going to accept it. He’d had it hard enough with his own family treating him like that. He wasn’t about to let some jumped-up bio-toy freakshow treat one of her own children the same way.
And just like that, the solution came to him.
And Frank began to smile.
He was a fucking GENIUS.
Frank emerged from the back room minutes later, having prepared everything he was going to say. He had all his supplies on hand already, it was going to be his finest solution yet.
It was already dark outside. He should’ve gone home already, but the alicorn foal had taken up so much of his attention that it wasn’t even a thought in his mind anymore. He walked over to the counter and took out a piece of paper and a black marker. He scrawled a very brief message, and then taped the paper to the glass doors of the store.
The paper read ‘SORRY - CLOSED TODAY! NEW FOALS ‘DELIVERED’!!!’, with a little cartoon fluffy pony with a pacifier in it’s mouth drawn under it.
Nobody would be in the store tomorrow. That gave Frank all the time he needed to make sure his plan worked perfectly. If Mrs Wilson happened to come by… which, let’s face it, was a one in a million chance, she’d understand perfectly. The fluffy ponies were her pride and joy, but she loved their babies most of all. She had no children of her own, and she loved each and every fluffy foal like it was her own flesh and blood… and the moment he told her about what Blossom had done, she’d probably want to throttle the little bitch herself, arthiritis be damned.
With the store in ‘lockdown’, Frank put the next part of his plan into action.
He walked over to the fluffy pen and immediately spotted Blossom, who was cooing to her newborns while her fellow fluffies chased a ball around or played ‘tag’ (which basically consisted of running around until they forgot what they were doing, which took less than a minute).
“Hey. Blossom.” Frank called. Blossom looked up, and smiled.
“Hewwo daddeh! WOOK!” She said, holding up her foals. “Bwossom have babbehs! Bestest babbehs!”
“Blossom.” Frank said, grimly. “You hurt one of your babies.”
Blossom huffed.
“Dat smewweh babbeh, dummeh babbeh, munstah babbeh! Huwt Bwossom’s hoofsy, stoopid munstah babbeh…”
“Blossom…” Frank said, nervously. “Don’t you know what that means?”
He paused, making sure Blossom was listening (and noticing that most of the other fluffies had started listening too).
“Blossom, you hurt one of your foals. Whether you thought it was a monster or not, that doesn’t change anything. It was still YOUR FOAL. Your BABY. You tried to hurt, to KILL your own baby.”
Frank noticed some of the fluffy’s looking at Blossom with surprise.
“Hmph. Dummeh munstah babbeh.” Blossom insisted, and the surprised fluffies began nodding along solemnly. Of course, it was a monster, that made it okay to murder it seconds after it was born, with your own bare hands.
Frank once again had to quell the rising anger in his chest. It took everything he had to fight the urge to jump into the pen and stomp on Blossom’s head like she had tried to do to her own child.
Instead, Frank kept going.
“No, Blossom, you don’t understand.” He said, feigning fear and concern. “Don’t you know about the CURSE?!”
Now every pony was listening. The store had a weekly ‘story time’ on Saturdays, where kids could come by and see a staff-member, usually Mrs Wilson, reading a story to the fluffies. Always fairytales, usually the same ones repeated every week, but the fluffies were too stupid to remember them after that long, and the simple tales of pretty princesses and scary dragons were more than enough excitement for them. The fluffies had grown to love story time… and Frank had a fucking story for them alright.
“Long ago,” He began. “There was a fluffy pony mama who had some babies, but she didn’t like them. One was too fat, another was too thin, and one was a bad colour. So she stomped on the fat one, she didn’t feed the thin one, and she left the bad colour one behind in the cold and the dark, to die all alone!”
Several fluffies let out small peeps and 'huhuhu’s of fear. This was about the point where a knight in shining armour would appear to save mama, or when Robin Hood would suddenly join the fray… but this wasn’t that kind of story time.
“Then, the next morning…” Frank continued, putting on his best ‘campfire ghost story’ voice he could muster. “The mama woke up, but something was wrong! She was too fat, so fat she couldn’t move… and then suddenly STOMP!” He shouted, clapping his hands together. The fluffies shrieked in fear, several of them even shit themselves, but Frank ignored them, he’d deal with that later.
“A big ugly foot came down from the sky, and stomped her flat, just like she’d done to her own fat baby!” Frank explained, making sure they got the point. “Then, everything went dark, and mama woke up again… but now she was too thin! Her tiny legs couldn’t lift her up anymore, and suddenly she saw some nummies!”
The fluffies got excited again. This was the ‘knight in shining armour’ moment… or so they thought.
“But the nummies were JUST out of reach!” Frank explained, fearfully. “Her skinny little leggies, they were too weak, she couldn’t move close enough to eat the nummies!”
“Nu-hu-hu!” One of the fluffies wailed, covering his eyes with his hooves.
“That’s right. She STARVED!!!” Frank shouted, once again scaring the fluffies with his loud voice. Now to bring it home. “Then, it all went dark, and she woke up again!”
“Oh nu!” One tiny foal chirped. They were starting to understand now.
“Yes, mama woke up again… and this time she was an ugly smelly brown colour! And she saw a big pretty purple pony looking down at her! But when she tried to crawl closer, the purple pony turned and left her behind, in the cold and dark… where she DIED, all by herself.”
Every fluffy in the pen, including Blossom and her four ‘good’ babies, were silently listening, enraptured with the tale.
“And ever since then,” Frank continued, lowering his voice. “Any time a fluffy mama hurts one of her babies, she suffers exactly the same way she made IT suffer.”
He pointed a trembling finger at Blossom.
“Blossom, you mark my words… you hurt one of your foals! Tonight, you too will be hurt in the same way! Do you hear me, Blossom?! Your fate is sealed, you have fallen under the curse! The curse of being a BAD MAMA!”
The entire pen gasped in fear and horror, with every fluffy backing away from Blossom, who herself was looking around fearfully.
“N… nu… nu am bad mummah!” Blossom insisted. “Buh… bah… babbeh was bad! Bad babbeh! Munstah babbeh!”
“Whether it was a monster or not won’t change ANYTHING, Blossom.” Frank said, grimly, shaking his head slowly. “You still hurt your baby… and tonight, YOU’LL be hurt too.”
The next few hours passed quite well. The fluffies went back to playing once story time was over, all except for Blossom, who was being totally ignored by the rest of the group. The only company Blossom had were her babies, who were too busy suckling at her teats and attempting to open their eyes to be of any fun as a play partner to her.
But as the hours got late and the night got darker, it was finally bedtime.
Frank stayed in the store the entire time, having some of Mr Wilson’s stockpile of instant noodles in the back room for dinner, while keeping an eye on the little alicorn foal. It seemed to have recovered from it’s earlier ordeal, and was ready for another meal. Formula again wasn’t exactly ideal, but it would keep the baby alive regardless, while Frank’s plan would fully come together.
He waited until midnight, and then put the next step on the plan into action.
The store had CCTV, but more than that, it had a specific night-vision camera for watching the fluffy pen, to make sure there were no fights, rapes, murders, etc…
As Frank thought about that, he once again remembered how much he hated these vile creatures. All the worst parts of humanity, jammed into a cutesy kid-friendly shell… just remember that they openly rape each other if they happen to be in the mood for it, they obviously make a PERFECT toy for children!
He grimaced, and set his mind back on the task at hand.
Grabbing his phone, he opened up the CCTV camera’s feed, and saw the entire pen plunged into an eerie, ghostly green light. He felt inside his pocket, checking he had everything he needed. Scissors, superglue, and the ‘nipple’ tip of one of the nursing bottles used for the rejected babies.
Everything he needed.
He opened the door from the back room and headed out into the main floor, and making a bee-line straight for the fluffy pen. It was unsettling, being in the store in the dark, but he could find his way around blindfolded if he had to.
Soon enough he was right at the pen, and could see himself on the camera, like a ghoulish green spectre looming over the fluffies. If all went according to plan, that was exactly what they’d think he had been.
He climbed over the high fence into the pen, guiding himself using the camera’s image on his phone, carefully stepping over each snoring, snoozing fluffy (and piles of turds) until he made his way to Blossom.
He was sure it was her, she was the only pegasus with foals. Most of the other fluffies had formed a fluff-pile together, but a few of the aggressive ones, some of the ugly ones, and of course, the cursed Blossom, had been left out by themselves.
Which was perfect.
Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out the scissors. They were relatively blunt, and not at all sharp enough at the tip to do any damage. They were used primarily for trimming fluffy pony fur, and that’s what he needed them for today.
Working by the image on his phone, he carefully felt his way to Blossom’s head, and deftly trimmed a small lump of pink fur from her forehead. He snipped again, and again, until finally he felt there was no more fur to snip. He hadn’t cut a large patch, only a few centimeters in either direction, but it would be enough for his plan.
He put the scissors back in his pocket, and took out the superglue and the baby bottle nipple. The glue was always in the store, Mr Wilson had used it for numerous small repairs around the place, and always had a couple of tubes ready to go. He swore by it.
Frank smirked. Mr Wilson had been more right than he’d realised. He felt the bottle nipple in his hand in the dark, and was certain it would do the job. It was narrow and pointy enough, but wouldn’t weigh much either, it would feel as though it wasn’t there at all.
Perfect.
He squirted a hefty amount of the superglue onto the base of the nipple, then carefully placed it against Blossom’s bald forehead, not pressing it down hard enough to wake her, but holding it in position long enough to ensure the glue dried and held it in place.
He knew from experience that the bottle only took 5 minutes to dry, but he waited a full 7, just to be safe.
When he removed his hand, the nipple was stuck to Blossom’s head, just where he wanted it to be.
He saw Blossom shiver slightly on the camera, and was ready to bolt, until he heard her murmuring in her sleep.
“Bwossom cowd… wan’ wawmies…”
She very quickly settled back down, and Frank took note of just how easily these things got cold without their fur. It was astonishing they survived at all with how utterly fragile they were.
Frank placed the superglue back in his pocket, and got ready for the most difficult part of the plan. Not in ethics, just in physicality. He glanced at his phone, mentally measuring the distance from his position, back to the fence of the pen. He would have seconds at best before the entire pen woke up, so he had to ensure he got out fast. If they saw him there, the entire plan would be shot.
So, steeling himself, mentally spacing out a map of the pen in his head, remembering where each fluffy was sleeping… Frank raised a hand, and brought it slapping down on Blossom’s head. Not hard enough to do any real damage, not even punching her, but just a firm, hard swatting ‘WHAP’ to her head. Just hard enough to sting.
And as soon as his hand made it’s sharp, slapping contact, Frank turned and sprinted, vaulting over the fence and scuttling back to the back room, as Blossom began to wail in the darkness.
“EEE! MUNSTAH! MUNSTAH HUWT BWOSSOM!!!” She wailed. Her screaming woke up her foals, who began crying in fear and confusion, which in turn woke up the rest of the fluffies, who also began wailing and babbling about ‘munstahs’.
Safely back in the back room, Frank collapsed into a chair, breathing heavily. He was more out of shape than he thought he was… but it hardly mattered. The plan had gone perfectly so far. The entire fluffy pen was in a mewling uproar about Blossom apparently being attacked by a monster in the dark… and when morning hit, the final piece of the plan would fall into place.
Frank couldn’t wait.
He was about ready to sleep himself, but before he did, he checked in on the alicorn again. It was awake, possibly from the screaming fluffies outside, or possibly from Frank running in and closing the door loudly, but it didn’t matter. The little pink alicorn was crawling around the box, peeping and cheeping and turning it’s sightless little head.
Frank looked down at it, and felt sorry for it.
“Hey, little buddy.” He said, giving it a gentle rub on the head. “You can go back to your mama soon, don’t worry. And I promise, she’ll never hurt you again.”
The alicorn let out a tiny peep, and actually began to nuzzle against Frank’s fingertip, cuddling it with it’s stumpy hooves and suckling at it like a teat.
Frank smiled warmly at the little fuzzy pink creature, and felt something in his heart.
But that couldn’t be. He hated fluffy ponies… or at least, he hated the arrogant, entitled, stupid, bigoted ones. But this little pink alicorn didn’t seem to be that way… it just seemed genuinely happy that someone was showing it some love and care.
Frank knew how that felt.
And that thought reminded him of Blossom, and how much he was looking forward to the next morning.
Frank woke up at 7am as his phone gave off a quiet jingling alarm. He had slept on the floor of the back room, which was carpeted, but wasn’t exactly COMFORTABLE.
He uncurled himself from where he had been sleeping, stretching and feeling his bones and joints popping and clicking… and realised something.
Before going to sleep, he had lifted the alicorn foal’s cardboard box off of the table and wrapped an arm around it. Not only that, but the alicorn foal had been sleeping pressed right up against the edge of the box where Frank was.
He shook his head. It was obviously just looking for warmth, nothing else… but Frank couldn’t deny it anymore, the little bastard was adorable. A tiny peeping little alicorn with pink fur and a cherry red mane, it was a perfect colour scheme, a rare specimen, and an absolute heart-breaker of a sight.
He carefully put the box back on the table, then prepped another load of formula for the baby, and readied himself for the day. The only thing he needed this time was one of Mrs Wilson’s old makeup compacts she’d left lying in a drawer. Specifically, the only thing he needed was the mirror.
Frank walked out of the back room, doing his best to act like everything was fine. He briefly walked by the fluffy pen, and gave a ‘good morning’ to them all, but usually he’d have received a chorus of sing-songy ‘good mownings’ back… this time he got a few mumbles he could barely make out.
He kept walking and smiled. He knew what had happened already. He just needed to act like he DIDN’T know, and it would all work perfectly.
He grabbed a bag of kibble and heaved it over the fence into the pen, stepping in after it to begin filling the various food bowls. After this he collected the water bowls and filled them in the back room sink, the same routine he did every single morning after arriving at work.
He placed the filled water bowls back in the pen, and stepped out, watching the group and taking mental notes of anything unusual. Some piles of shit still needed cleaned, easy enough, a foal was getting particularly fat and seemed to be actively forcing his much thinner siblings away from their kibble bowl, that would need dealing with…
Then he spotted Blososm, who he had been deliberately ignoring until the end. She looked like a hell of a sight, she didn’t seem to have slept at all since he’d woken her up with a hard bonk to the head, and she was nervously looking around at the other fluffies.
“Daddeh!” She squeaked, opening her tired eyes and seeing him there.
“Hello Blossom.” He replied. “Is everything okay?”
“Nu!” Blossom squeaked. “Wast night, Bwossom was huwt! By a MUNSTAH!”
“A monster?!” Frank asked in horror, looking around frantically. “What happened?! Where did it go?!”
“Bwossom nu know… but it huwt Bwossom!”
“Oh? What did it do?”
“Bwossom got big owie, on head!” She wailed. “An’, an’, an’ aww oddah fwuffehs ignowing Bwossom!”
Frank fought with all his might not to smile. She hadn’t noticed it yet, but the others had. It was perfect.
Frank looked at her, peering and staring as if trying to work something out… and suddenly gasped.
“Oh my god, Blossom!” He said, snapping all the other fluffies to attention. “You… you’ve… oh god… oh my GOD!” He yelled, fumbling in his pocket. Blossom was looking more and more scared by the second, and Frank made sure to take a good long time pulling out the makeup compact, dragging out her anxiety and apprehension for as long as he could.
Finally, he opened the compact, showing Blossom the mirror, letting her see herself… and the bright orange ‘horn’ that was now ‘growing’ out of her head.
“WHU… WHA?!” Blossom squealed, slamming both hooves to her head as she felt around for the ‘horn’. She finally got it and gripped it with her hooves, trying to pull it off, but only succeeding in hurting herself.
“Well,” Frank said, folding his arms. “I guess you should’ve expected that!”
Once again, all the fluffies were listening, even Blossom and her four foals.
“You hurt your baby, remember?! It had wings and a horn, and you hurt it. And now look! A monster comes here at night, it puts a horn on your head, and it hurts you too, just like you did to your baby! And now you’re going to be a big ugly MONSTER for the rest of your life, JUST like the baby that you hurt!”
Blossom took only a second to think it over, and then SCREAMED.
“NUUUUU! NU WAN BE MUNSTAH! NU WAN! NU WAN BE MUNSTA-A-AH! HU-HU-HU!!!”
Again she gripped her horn and tried to pull it off, but the superglue held it tight against the bare skin of her shaven forehead. Finally, after several minutes of violent tugging, followed immediately by squeals of ‘OWIE! HUWTIES!’, she had given up, collapsing on her side to cry her eyes out.
Frank looked around the pen, seeing how all the other fluffies were keeping their distance from the new ‘munstah’ that had appeared in their pen, each one staring at Blossom with either fear, hatred, or both in their eyes.
“Now,” Frank said. “Don’t you wish you’d treated that alicorn foal a little nicer?”
Blossom looked up at him, nothing but grief and sadness in her eyes.
“Yuh… yes, daddeh… Bwossom sowwy… wan’ babbeh back…”
And then Frank made a decision.
“It’s too late.” He said. “You’re not getting it back. You can never see it again. Because it’s dead.”
The pen of fluffies gasped. If Blossom had been hurt when she hurt her foal… would this mean she would DIE too?
“Fortunately, that wasn’t your fault.” Frank said, calming them all down before absolute mad panic erupted from the lot of them. “But maybe, in the future, if you have another alicorn foal, you’ll be a bit fucking nicer to it, won’t you?”
Blossom didn’t reply.
“WON’T YOU?!” Frank yelled.
“YUH-YES! YES DADDEH! BWOSSOM PWOMISE!” Blossom squealed in response.
“And that goes for all of your foals too, Blossom!” Frank continued, finally unloading his anger on the worthless little shit-rat. “Don’t you DARE hurt any of them, you understand?! You feed them all, you protect them all, and you LOVE them all! If you let any of them get hurt or die, the curse will make sure you suffer that way too! Understand?!”
“Yes daddeh! Bwossom puh-puh-PWO-O-OMISE!” She wailed, burying her head in her hooves.
Frank turned his gaze onto the rest of the fluffies, watching in silence.
“And that goes for all of YOU too!” He continued. “You all know about the curse! Don’t ANY of you EVER hurt one of your babies! It doesn’t matter WHY, even if it’s an ACCIDENT, you’ll suffer for it! Understand?!”
The pen erupted into affirmative responses and nodding of heads, and Frank stepped back, proudly looking at his handiwork.
That is, until he heard a voice from behind himself.
“Frank?”
Frank turned, and saw Mrs Wilson at the doors, pointing at the sign indicating the store was closed.
Frank swallowed. It was time to see if his theory about Mrs Wilson held true.
Ten minutes later, Mrs Wilson was holding the baby alicorn in her hands, cooing at it, tickling it’s chin with her withered old fingertip, and showing more love to it than it would have ever gotten from it’s own mother.
“I can’t believe that Blossom bitch.” Mrs Wilson whispered to Frank. He’d heard her swear a few times before, but it was always a surprise when it happened. “Look at this darling little thing, such pretty colours, and such a rare mix! A full alicorn, from a unicorn father and a pegasus mother! I just cannot believe it, I simply can’t. Why on earth would she ever want to hurt this precious little thing?”
Frank had shown her into the back room immediately, and after showing her the weak alicorn foal in the box, and explaining the reason behind his tirade at the fluffies, Mrs Wilson seemed to have come around.
“It was a damn good idea, Frank.” She said. “Although I can’t help but worry if someone wants to buy Blossom, and finds out she’s not a real alicorn.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already thought of that.” Frank said. “It’s why I’m keeping the store closed today. I’ll get some solvent remover from the hardware store next door, then when it’s dark again, I’ll use it to remove the horn from her head. Blossom won’t know it’s gone, she’ll think it’s still there for the rest of her life. If the rest of the pen say otherwise, I’ll just tell them I can still see it.”
“Ah, how very ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’.” Mrs Wilson chuckled. “I wonder if I should read that story to them next time, see if any of them pick up on it.”
“Exactly. We can convince them the horn is still there, and Blossom is cursed for the rest of her life to look like a ‘monster’.” He said, but felt bad saying it, as he looked at the tiny pink alicorn in Mrs Wilson’s hands, gently kicking it’s hooves in the air as Mrs Wilson tickled it’s tiny belly. It was no monster. It didn’t deserve to be called something like that.
“But what are we going to do about this little darling?” Mrs Wilson asked, right on cue. “You can’t give it back to Blossom, and it needs a home to go to.”
“Actually, if it’s okay with you, Mrs Wilson… I was thinking of taking it home.” Frank said. Mrs Wilson looked at him in surprise.
“Are you sure? I thought you hated the fluffies.”
“Well, it’s the damndest thing… I used to. I honestly did. They annoyed the hell out of me, I couldn’t stand them, I only put up with them because, well, I liked working for you and Mr Wilson. But after seeing how Blossom treated her foal like that…”
He gently lifted the alicorn foal from Mrs Wilson’s hands and held it in his own. Immediately the alicorn wrapped it’s hooves around his thumb and cuddled close to it, cooing and peeping contentedly. It seemed to have actually replaced the thought of it’s mother with Frank.
“…I just couldn’t see it going any other way. This little thing, it doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, nobody does. Plus, my own parents weren’t exactly ‘accepting’.”
Mrs Wilson nodded solemnly. She’d had no issues with Frank’s sexuality, she’d even looked into helping him find a boyfriend before, but she didn’t trust any of the local boys enough to recommend them.
“You think you could take care of it?” Mrs Wilson asked at last. “It’s a lot of work, y’know. Fluffy ponies are quite easy pets to raise, but they’re still PETS all the same. Feeding, cleaning, showing them love and affection… and you’ll put up with all of it?”
Frank looked again at the tiny pink alicorn in his hands, and felt it’s heart beating against his palm again.
There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind.
“Absolutely.” He said. Mrs Wilson smiled.
“Then help yourself to whatever you need from the store, Frank. Don’t worry about the costs, I’ll cover it. I’m just glad to see you’ve finally found something that makes you happy.”
Happy?
Had he been happy before the alicorn was born? He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been UN-happy… but he hadn’t exactly been HAPPY either. He’d kind of just been going through the motions of life, working, eating, sleeping… just day after day without any changes. The only thing that gave him any joy was his work, mostly because it let him get creative in ‘educating’ misbehaving fluffies.
But now, he’d gotten a pet. A pet that he would fight to protect, that he’d kill for if necessary, a pet that meant the world to him. A tiny little life that depended on him for survival, and maybe that was what he’d needed all along. Something he could love, where he could feel it loved him back. And looking at the tiny alicorn cuddling his thumb, nuzzling against it like it was it’s own mother… he knew that was exactly what he’d found.
Seven months later.
Frank was behind the counter again. It was a quiet day, nobody had come in yet. Mrs Wilson herself had been away for the last few weeks, but that was to be expected, Mr Wilson had finally up and died at long last. The funeral was all arranged, Mrs Wilson had offered Frank the day off for it, but Frank had declined. Someone had to look after the fluffies after all. As much as he hated them, he couldn’t let them go unattended for a full day.
“Daddeh?” A small voice asked, snapping Frank out of his thoughts.
He looked down at the floor under the counter, and saw a pink alicorn with a cherry red mane and tail looking up at him.
“Wha daddeh doin?” She asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Nothing, Rosie, just thinking.” He said, giving her head a gentle rub, elieciting a pleased purr-like warble from the fuzzy pony by his leg. He checked his watch, it was just about midday, time to check in on the pen again.
“Want to come with daddy for a walk, and see the other fluffies?” He asked.
“Yus pwease daddeh!” Rosie peeped. Frank looked at her, astonished at how polite she was. He used to think every fluffy needed at least some degree of trauma to show any semblence of behaviour… but Rosie had never once had any kind of issue like that. She needed lessons, of course, but she’d adapted to them fast and never forgot them. She never made a mess, or acted spoiled or demanding. She was never bratty about going to bed, or about having to share toys when she was at the park. She was absolutely perfect.
Frank got up and headed around to the fluffy pen, Rosie trotting along behind him at a decent pace. She could have wandered off if she wanted to, she had free run of the store, as long as she stayed within daddy’s sight… but she never wanted to leave his side. She loved being near daddy. She couldn’t explain it, he just made her feel… safe, somehow.
Frank reached the pen and looked over the fence. Blossom’s horn had been removed as he had said, and the fuzz had grown back in over the spot, but she still looked nervous at all times, and constantly seemed shunned by the other fluffies. Not one had noticed the horn going missing after all, or even if they had, they hadn’t said anything about it… they just kept Blossom at a distance regardless.
“Daddeh?” Rosie asked from down by his leg. “Can Wosie see da oddah fwuffies pwease?”
“Of course.” Frank said, gently picking her up in his arms like a baby, lifting her high enough that she could see into the pen.
There wasn’t much to see, but all fluffies liked seeing other fluffies regardless. At first the fluffies in the pen seemed scared of Rosie, being an alicorn… but each one took a brief glance towards Blossom, and then immediately became friendly.
“Hewwo fwiends!” Rosie peeped, waving her front legs at them.
“Hewwo fwiend!” Each of the ponies replied, some waving back, some doing dances, others reaching for hugs, but Frank had a hard rule about not letting Rosie into the pen to ‘play’ with the others. Alicorn or not, ‘curse’ or not, he didn’t trust any of them with his darling Rosie. Not after what Blossom had almost done to her all those months ago.
But that reminded him. Blossom. The best part about having Rosie join him at work every day.
Blossom looked at Rosie, and felt something. A kind of instinctive knowledge, an undeniable fact, a rock solid certainty… that Rosie was her own child. But that was impossible, of course! Daddy said that her ugly dummy monster baby was dead… and daddy never lied, that would be not-nice of him!
But then why? Why, why, WHY did Rosie look so much like Blossom?! Why did their coats and manes match exactly? Why did Blossom look at Rosie, and feel for absolute certain that it was still her child? It couldn’t possibly be her, she was dead… unless the curse had gone one step further, and was haunting Blossom with her child’s ghost.
And so, every time Blossom saw Rosie peeking in through the fence, or held in daddy’s arms… Blossom stared. Blossom stared in absolute terror, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to even shiver or trembline… and stared until Rosie went away. Sometimes she didn’t go for hours. Sometimes Blossom got very hungry, or made a mess outside of the litterbox… but she couldn’t help it. She was absolutely frozen in mortal terror every single time.
Because the ghost of her dead child was staring at her, and did so every single day, and even when she finally left, Blossom knew it was only a matter of time until she came back again tomorrow.
Several hours later, it happened again.
“EEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!” A dusty grey unicorn mare squealed. Frank sighed, putting down his half-eaten sandwich, and walking over to the pen, Rosie waddling by his side as ever.
“Wha happen, daddeh?!” She squeaked nervously. It sounded like the grey unicorn was in a lot of pain, so Frank quickly reassured her with a pat to the head.
“It’s okay, Rosie.” He said. “That mama in there is having her babies.”
“Ooh, babbehs!” Rosie peeped. She was still too young to want any of her own, but every fluffy pony still loved babies regardless.
One by one, the foals were born, totalling three overall. A pegasus like dad, a unicorn like mom… and an alicorn, like both of them.
Frank couldn’t believe it. The very first litter of foals after Blossom’s own, and another alicorn already. He was starting to wonder if it was something in the water, when he saw the dusty grey mare pick up her alicorn baby, looking it over.
The moment of truth.
The mare recoiled from the sight alone, looking like she just tasted her own vomit, and dropped the foal on the hay-covered floor of the pen. Fortunately the fall wasn’t far enough to hurt the baby, but then the mama readied a hoof to strike down on the baby’s frail, newborn body…
“Nuuu!” A voice squealed, halting everything. Frank turned, and saw Blossom waddling across the hay as quickly as she could.
“Nu huwt babbeh! NU NU NU!” She stomped her hooves on the ground to puncutate every word.
“Why not?” The mare snapped. “Smewweh ugwy dummeh baby, needs big owies, nee-”
“NU!” Blossom squeaked, before bopping the mama right in her nose. “DA CUWSE! DA CUWSE! WEMEMBAH DA CUWSE!” She wailed, rubbing her hooves on her own head, where they all believed her horn to still be.
One by one, the ponines in the pen remembered the ‘curse’, and turned their gazes from Blossom… to the grey unicorn, who had been mere seconds away from murdering one of her own children.
The grey unicorn herself looked at her alicorn baby on the hay below her, reaching out to her with it’s limp, stubby arms, peeping and chirping, desperate for milkies in it’s tummy… and then she looked back at Blossom, massaging her head where her horn must be (Ithat is, she couldn’t SEE it but EVERYBODY knows you don’t just get rid of a curse in a day! It MUST still be there!)
Then the grey mare picked up her alicorn foal, and, as if fighting the urge to vomit, began licking the baby clean. Soon, the alicorn baby was happily suckling at mama’s teats, enjoying a delicious meal of warm milk in it’s belly.
Frank watched it all, and smiled.
“C’mon Rosie.” He said. “Everything’s okay here. Let’s get some lunch.”
“Otay daddeh!” Rosie chirped, waddling alongside him to the back room.
“And you know what day it is today?” He asked. Rosie furrowed her brow, thinking as hard as she could.
“I’s… i’s… uhm… saw-tee-day?” She asked, uncertianly. Frank found himself smiling.
“That’s right, Rosie. It’s Satruday. And you know what THAT means?”
Rosie suddenly gasped.
“I’s ‘Sketties saw-tee-day’?!”
“That’s right.”
Two Tupperware containers of spaghetti were sitting in the back room fridge at that moment, one with delicious meatballs, the other with nutritious kibble. Rosie and Frank both had their steaming hot meals together, then spent the rest of their lunch break in the back room, Frank slumped back on an old sofa, while Rosie curled up in his lap, softly 'coo’ing in the warmth of his presence.
And then, not for the first time, they had the exact same thought as each other at the exact same time.
‘I love my life.’