Cherry was waddling around the play pen leading Eclair along with a string. “Si-tah! Dis ams bwock!” She was excitedly pointing out everything she could name, trying to show how good of an explorer she was.
Eclair was just happy to be involved, “Yus! Bewwy Interestin’, thankies foh showins’.” On and on they went, with Cherry showing off the enclosure they’d both shared for days.
Strawberry was watching tv, grumbling about how much the neighbors just didn’t get him.
Maxine took a deep breath and picked up the lazing mare.
“Hewwo? Wat yu wants.” Strawberry said with annoyance.
“You and me, we gotta talk.”
Strawberry had an inkling this was coming. He nodded silently and prepared for the worst.
He was carried off to his old bedroom and dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.
“I kinda suspected you were no good what with the whole slaughtering Cherry’s family thing but from what the neighbors told me… you’re a real piece of shit arn’t you.”
Strawberry nodded slowly. Truth be told, he thought his neighbors liked him. He had been keeping the fluffies away, after all. Sure there were screams in the middle of the night but… yeah in hindsight that was probably annoying.
“So, give me a good reason why I shouldn’t just end this farce now and rescue some milk maid from a shelter?” Maxine put her hands on her hips with a scowl.
“Stawbewwy… ams sowwy?”
Maxine was genuinely surprised.
“Stawbewwy… wike Chewwy. Ams good babbeh. Ecwaiwe… towewable. Wan hewp Chewwy gwow ups.”
He gritted his teeth and added, “Wub Chewwy.”
There was a long silence as Maxine considered the situation. Between fluffies being terrible liars and being able to read minds if she really focused, Maxine could tell Strawberry was telling the truth. At the same time, he likely had an absurd amount of blood in his hands. Hooves. Whatever. She carefully weighed the options and for whatever reason, be it her fucked up sense of morality or just a whim, decided to let things ride.
“Didn’t expect that. I uh… guess that works for me?”
“Stawbewwy ams be bestest mummah.” He sighed, half with defeat and half with aspirational pride, “Den… wan keeps Chewwy when tuwns backs.”
“Stawbewwy thoughts dat neighbow fwens wiked Stawbewwy. Buh aww dem say ams wowstest. Eben tink Stawbewwy ams du huwties tu speshaw fwens. Stawbewwy… nee changies.” The mare started crying. It’s not an easy thing to know that everyone in your life thinks you’re a piece of shit. Even harder to acknowledge that they might have a point.
“Well, acknowledgement is the first step in growing I suppose. Good on you.” Maxine picked Strawberry back up and walked back to the foals, placing the mare with the babbehs. “You girls have fun, gonna cook up something special for dinner.”
The foals immediately noticed that Strawberry had been crying and rushed over as fast Cherry’s stubby legs could pull the two fillies. “Mummahs! Ams otay?” Eclair asked while Cherry struggled to catch her breath. Pulling Eclair’s cart was hard work.
“Yus. Ams… otay.” Strawberry embraced his babbehs in a warm hug. The first genuine hug he’d ever had given a fluffy.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.
Eclair got her leggies back after many painfully itchy nights of regrowth. Her night terrors faded. At one point she got to confront her tormentor at the fluffy mart. After that, she never saw that woman again. Things were looking up.
Cherry had been working diligently on her blocks. Advanced techniques, building houses, stacking things higher by making stairs. The filly was a certified fluffy genius. She had even been learning her alphabet!
Strawberry, for his part, had learned that working with the fluffy side of his body made things go much easier. The frustrations that built up inside him had an outlet and he never had any instances of going “Full fluffy” again. Mostly, he treated the whole fiasco as a vacation. Fake him did all the work and his idiot keeper did everything else. All he had to do was entertain his babbehs every so often and relax.
Maxine for her part kept things running smoothly. Taking the fake Geoff to work, doing chores, cleaning poopies, giving hugs and doing the occasional DIY. Just in case, she did have a few things signed to her name.
The Creams had grown into an actual family.
The Cream family was enjoying a sunny summer day. Maxine was making an attempt at gardening, Strawberry was sunbathing and enjoying a very watered down beer, and the girls were rolling a ball back and forth between them.
Eclair was still getting used to the whole, “having a full set of legs” thing and occasionally kicked too hard. She launched the ball past Cherry and it rolled off towards the street.
“Ams gots it!” Cherry shouted as she turned and trotted towards the ball. She had to catch it before it got to the road!
She was running as fast as she could and catching up, the distance between them dwindling. Had the yard been slightly bigger, she would have caught it. Instead, the ball rolled lazily into the pavement.
Cherry stopped. Maxine had made Eclair and Cherry watch many, many videos about the dangers of the road. They even had to take tests before being let outside! Cherry failed a few times, and eclair even more but the idea that roads were very very dangerous was drilled deep into her brain.
Cherry sighed and turned to get mummah Max. She froze halfway. Careening towards her was an oversized pickup truck. It was veering back and forth off the road, on and off the sidewalk.. She needed to move, but her body wouldn’t respond. Her little legs were frozen in terror.
Strawberry opened an eye. The giggling of his two idiot babies had stopped. Something was up. Eclair looked fine. Cherry… CHERRY. Strawberry rushed to his feet and ran faster than any fluffy had run before. Every bit of power that a fluffy could bring to bear was being pumped into his steps. Adrenaline and that desperate strength of a worried parent. He nipped at Cherry’s neck and tossed her into the yard.
“Mummah!” Cherry screamed mid air.
Strawberry smiled.
He was obliterated in an instant.
The magic that had hardened his body was no match for 3 tons of metal.
The last thing he saw before everything went black was the worried faces of his girls.
They were safe.
Geoff woke up at what he assumed to be the pearly gates of heaven. Maxine was there, talking to an old bearded man at a podium who looked extremely tired of her shit.
“Hey pal. Been doing a bit of advocating for you.” Maxine said casually as she waved Geoff over. She gave him a warm and gentle hug, “You did good.”
“Yes, Miss Maxine has been quite insistent on your admission.” Saint Peter said with a tinge of annoyance in his voice, “Always a pleasure when we get a visiting goddess.” The man was clearly lying but Maxine was blissfully oblivious.
“So I died, then?”
“'Sploded. The girls are still crying over you. If it helps, the driver hit a tree and died. Oddly enough not from the tree. He passed through a few days ago I think.”
Geoff nodded. He honestly didn’t care about the driver. He was glad his baby was alright and that was all that mattered to him. “So, what now?”
“Despite your long history of cruelty, your final months were ones of love and repentance. Miss Maxine here has been testifying to your change of character. Quite insistently. Even when I am talking with other departed souls.” The kindly man glared uncharacteristically at the woman.
“Least I can do, really.”
“You can certainly do less, miss.” St Peter replied, trying to get the woman to go away. "Ahem. You were set to spend some time repenting, but with your fate changed by the interlop- esteemed associate you are cleared to enter the gates of heaven.
Maxine gave Geoff a double thumbs up, “looks like you get away with it after all, Geoff!”
Geoff smiled. The woman was annoying, a menace, and was the root cause of months of suffering. But she also wound up saving his soul. Well, Eclair and Cherry did. Maxine was there too, he supposed. “Tell the babbehs I’ll miss 'em. And take care of them.”
“Will do.”
“And make sure Cherry gets that trip we promised her.”
“Yep.”
“And-”
“Sir. If you don’t mind, heaven awaits.” St. Peter may have had all the time in the world and then some but he still didn’t like to hold up the line. And he really wanted to get rid of Maxine.
“Right. Well, this is it. I guess I don’t forgive you but… it was nice near the end. Take care.”
Geoff disappeared from sight as he walked into that blinding light. After the past six months, he’s earned this. He had become a better person and left it all behind.
“Now if you don’t mind, can you please leave?” St. Peter asked impatiently.
Strawberry’s funeral was held in the backyard a few days prior. Maxine had gathered up most of the body and placed it into a shoebox casket. A small hole was dug and the box was gently laid down. Eclair stepped forward to speak.
“Mummah Bewwy was… a meanie mummah sometimes buh was bewy kind in mummah’s own way. Mummah hewped Ecwaiwe du wawkies 'gain aftew gettin weggies backs. Ans… ans wet Ecwair snuggies wid hew duwin nite times.”
The filly’s eyes were filling with tears as she continued, “Mummah Bewwy, Ecwaiwe wub yu. Tankies foh bein mummah. Ecwaiwe wiww be bestest nuh dummeh fwuffy wike yu wan! Wiww twy hawd ans be smawtiest fwuffy!”
For all of Eclair’s life, there were only three beings that had ever shown her kindness. One of them is now gone forever.
Cherry had some words as well, “Ch-cheww… huuuhuuuu… ams so sowwies mummah! Ams so sowwies yu wen sweepies foh Chewwy! Huuuuuu, miss yu mummah!” She had more prepared, but the words were lost as she collapsed into a sobbing wreck. Survivor’s guilt would eat at her for months, but she would eventually come to accept her mummah’s sacrifice.
Maxine knelt down and patted the girls on their manes. Silently, she covered the casket with dirt. The girls stomped it down with their hooves, giving one final hug to their fluffy mummah. For Maxine, just another chapter in a very long life. For the girls, their world had changed forever. It was the only mummah the two of them had ever known, and despite her many faults they loved her deeply.
Maxine took out a large life insurance policy on Geoff a few months back and with the real Geoff being very very dead figured it was time to cash in. She gave an order to the homunculus and loaded up the truck for a camping trip.
The fake geoff burnt down the house with it inside. Between the life and fire insurance Maxine had made a tidy profit from the whole ordeal. She used the funds to purchase an old manufacturing plant to convert into a fluffy shelter, living in the old management suite that she had refitted into a home.
Geoff’s lasting legacy would be the Green Meadows Shelter, of which he was listed as one of the four founders.
The girls moved on, always missing their mummah but trying to do right by her memory. Eclair would get her wish to become a mummah to many, many babbehs. Cherry wound up being an excellent helper for the shelter. Her love of 'splorin led her to wander the shelter, often picking up on things that would have gone unnoticed if not for her unexpected arrival.
Life goes on, the world keeps turning. Geoff might have died unceremoniously but his change of heart lives on in the lives of everything and everyone the shelter touched. Also he thought the insurance fraud was really funny. For Maxine, everything turned out great and she learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
The end
