You are a fluffy mummah, you’re burnt orange with a light blue mane. You don’t have a name, you were called Owange Babbeh by your mummah, and Enfie Mawe by the smarty of the meanie herd that your mummah joined. After being held down for the worst special huggies you ran away from them. Your mummah didn’t care. She had a new batch of babies in her tummy, other fluffy mummahs to talk to.
Many weeks later you were squeezed behind a dumpster, wailing as the contractions ripped through your tiny form. You were never immobilized by the pregnancy as a combination of being rather young to give birth and general malnutrition left you with a very small litter. A saving grace as you had to feed yourself. It didn’t feel lucky to you, you had rubbed your belly raw dragging yourself from one meager food source to another.
“Babbehs… hnnng… stahp huwtin mummah… hnnnnng… pwease!” You moaned, gritting your teeth.
“I swear I heard a shit rat down here.” A human voice made your blood run cold.
“It’s nothing man. The ferals aren’t worth shit.” Another voice replied. “Too fragile.”
You were intimately aware of what the humans were capable of. Your mummah told you many stories of the horrible things they did to babies that wandered off, and you had seen the aftermath of their twisted games. They would do unspeakable things to fluffies that had done nothing wrong, leaving them to suffer slowly from their wounds. You shoved your hoof in your mouth to muffle your moans.
"Yeah, but they’re free. Tons of them around too.”
You heard their footsteps slowly move towards you. The dumpster you were behind was at the end of a wide, empty parking lot. Even if you could ignore your pain and run, there was nowhere to go. You bit down on your hoof as the pressure in your special place built.
“Nah man. The exterminators just went through here. They’re thorough as shit.”
One of them kicked a rock under the dumpster and you jumped as it knocked into your side. You silently pleaded with them to leave you alone, to go away. You wished that you had a nice special friend to protect you, to chase the monster humans away. Someone. Anyone.
The footsteps moved closer, you could see their weird not-hooves from under the dumpster. And then, as if to answer your prayers, a strange cry rang out into the silence.
You froze, the humans froze.
“Bro, that’s a cat.”
The closer human sighed. “Yeah, that’s a cat. Fuck.”
The other human laughed, and they began to walk away. “You’re a fucking dumbass.”
You kept your hoof in your mouth well after their footsteps faded away. You gasped in pain as you felt the first foal exit you.
“Babbehs! Quiet pwease babbehs!”
Your first baby didn’t listen, peeping softly from behind you. You cried out as a second form pushed through you, plopping onto the pavement behind you.
“…Babbehs… Mummah… haff… Mummah wub…” a few more contractions ripped through you, slowly fading in strength. You slowly turned, the space not as tight now that you had shrunk down. You looked upon your foals for the first time, finding them so perfect and so lovely that it brought tears to your eyes. You quickly gathered them up in your hooves, licking them clean. The joy of being a mother made you momentarily forget how close you came to certain doom.
You had only two foals, and once carefully licked clean you marveled at their beauty. The first was a filly, a little grey unicorn who peeped with all her strength. You set her against your milky place to feed, reaching for her brother. He was quieter, a round earthie whos fluff was a nice dusty blue. He wriggled in next to his sister, and you leaned back against the dumpster to watch them. Your exhaustion was getting to you, you started to let your eyes slide shut when you remembered; the humans. You were not safe here. Not in the slightest.
“Dwink quickwy babbehs.” you stroked their backs gently as you whispered to them. “Mummah nee fin nyu home.”
Once they had both finished drinking and detached, you settled them in the fluff of your back and peeked out from behind the dumpster. It was starting to get dark, the sky-ball lowering in the sky and making everything all orange like it did before it went to sleep. You didn’t have much time. Seeing no sign of any humans, you waddled as quickly as you could across the parking lot. There were some bushes on the other side, you hoped they would provide you with some cover.
A loud honk from the nearby highway made you jump, sending your newborn foals into peeping fits.
“Awmost dewe babbehs, den mummah gib huggies.” You tried to soothe them, pulling your sore body up and over the curb.
Under one of the dense bushes you found a discarded shirt. It was stained and smelled, but it would do for the night. With a relieved sigh you collapsed into it, pulling your foals off your back and falling into a deep sleep.
You awoke to the feeling of your babies suckling, a soothing feeling. You blinked in the early light of dawn, looking down at the small fuzzy forms curled against you.
“Hewwo babbehs! Mummah wub yu!” You sat up, careful not to disturb your nursing orange baby.
You picked up the grey filly, pulling her into a hug as she cooed. “Mummah wub gwey babbeh!”
You set her against your free nipple and picked up her brother. He wriggled in your grasp, only relaxing when you licked his forehead. “Mummah wub bwu babbeh!” He chirped, and you cradled him in your arms. You started to lower him down so he could drink, but realized your orange baby was already there. “Bwu babbeh hav miwkies when owange babbeh am dun.” He continued to peep as you tried to soothe him.
You didn’t remember this being an issue the day before, how did you hold him? You tried to remember. You fed the grey baby, and then the blue baby… and then held the orange baby? No, that didn’t feel right. You were petting them while they ate. You tried holding the blue baby with just your one hoof but he was far too wiggly. Did he wait on the ground? That didn’t feel right either, you didn’t want him to be sad and alone while his siblings got fed.
… something wasn’t right here.
You cleaned your grey baby, and set her down. Then you cleaned the blue baby, and set him down…
“Mummah hab nyu babbeh??” You stared down at the little orange baby. He was orange, like you, and very fuzzy. He had stripes though, something your other babies didn’t. Odd. He detached from your milky place, and you carefully swapped him out with your blue baby.
“Mummah wub owange babbeh!” You held him at hoof length, smiling at him.
He had a weird flat face, with a little pink smell-place and pointy ears. You frowned. You remembered all your babies being pretty. Not that he was an ugly baby, no, you were quite happy to have a baby that was orange like you! But he was… strange. And the longer you studied him the stranger he got. He had a fuzzy tail, unlike the little nubs your other foals had. His hooves were very strange, fuzzy and pink.
He opened his mouth and a strange sound came out. “Meeh!”
This was not one of your babies. This was a monster. A milk stealing monster.
With shaking hooves you slowly set it down on the shirt, careful not to disturb your babies. “Muh-Munstah… gu way. Nu steew miwkies… ow… ow mummah gib… wowstest huwties.” Your voice shook. You had never heard of a monster that looked like a baby. You had no idea what it was capable of.
The monster baby wriggled on the damp shirt, unable to get its hooves under it. “Meeh! Meeh!”
You pushed it away, sending it tumbling into the dead leaves. “Gu way!”
“MEEH!” It’s cries were loud and terrified sounding. “MEEH! MEEH!”
Your babies stopped drinking to peep in alarm, and you curled up over them, covering your ears with your hooves. “GU WAY MUNSTAH BABBEH! GU WAY!” You yelled.
Its cries slowly got quieter and quieter, and you started trying to soothe your foals. They sounded so similar, the distressed peeps of your foals and the monsters cries. It gave you heart hurties to listen to. It was a monster baby though. It could hurt you, or your foals. Monster babies were bad. Your mummah told you so, they were milk thieves who would hurt pretty babies!
But… was she right?
The monster baby sounded so sad. Monsters didn’t feel sad… did they? And your mummah was not a good mummah, she didn’t care when the meanies gave you bad special huggies. You looked over to where the monster baby lay in the leaves. It was shivering, making much softer noises. It was far too small to hurt you. You had given sorry hoofsies to much bigger squeaky monsters.
With a heavy sigh you stood and approached the monster baby. “Munstah babbeh nu huwt mummah ow babbehs. Ow gib wowstest huwties.”
“Meeh… Meeeehhh…” The baby cried, and you carefully picked it up.
“Mummah take cawe of munstah babbeh. Buh babbeh be guud.” It made a soft noise as it snuggled into your chest.
You set it down while you got your foals back to drinking. It began to cry again, but soothed quickly as you stroked its back.
“Mummah wub babbehs,
Babbehs wub mummah,
Gwow up big and stwong.”
The monster baby curled up against your leg as you sang, and you found yourself smiling at it. This was just a baby, monster or not it couldn’t hurt anyone.
“Mummah wub munstah,
Munstah wub mummah,
Be gud munstah babbeh.”