Never Hope [By MuffinMantis]

SPOILERS for Filling the Space parts 1-5

[Author’s Note: This is a bit of a bleak what-if scenario about what happens to the fluffies in the Filling the Space story if things have turned out a bit differently.]

You’re a light blue pegasus soon-mummah, and in another time, another world, your name might have been Hope. The icy wind cuts through your fluff, the decorative fur providing very little warmth. Overhead, gray clouds swirl, bearing the promise of rain.

Your special friend, a brown unicorn, thumps his shoulder against the door in front of you time and time again, each thump sending a wave of agony through him. His front left leg hangs limply from when the mean human had used it to pull him away from the babbehs he was desperately trying to save. The injured leg and gnawing hunger have left him too weak to try to knock against the door, and you’re too far along in your pregnancy to help. But no matter how often he thumps the door, there is no response.

It starts to rain, and chilling drizzle that seeps the last warmth from your fluff and leaves you shivering uncontrollably. Your special friend notices a gap in the door of the shed nearby, and you both struggle to force the door open enough to fit inside. After what seems like many forevers, you squeeze your way inside the shed and collapse gratefully on the rough concrete floor. As hard and cold as the floor is, at least here you’re sheltered from the rain and most of the wind.

You wander about, finding whatever scraps of material you can to try to create a nestie. It’s not as good as the one you shared with the old herd, but it’s better than nothing. Your special friend dozes uncomfortably, and you do your best to keep him warm, knowing that he’ll need to find nummies as soon as he wakes. You wish there was more you could do to help.



Time passes, and you become less and less mobile, until eventually you can hardly move at all. You’re thankful for the safe place to rest; you’ve seen soon-mummahs torn apart by barkie-munstahs because their cardboard box shelters weren’t well-hidden or tough enough to keep the munstahs away. But to you, the scariest munstah was the cold wind that snuck through the cracks and stole your precious warmth away.

One bright-time, you feel the babbehs coming, but it’s too soon, far too soon. You feel sad for your special-friend; we wanted so badly to be there when the babbehs were born. But recently he spent more and more time looking for nummies, sometimes barely sleeping, as his leg grew worse and worse and he become slower. He always says he ate nummies he found outside before bringing more back to you, but seeing his emaciated form fills you with doubt.

There are only two foals, a pair of sisters, which surprises you, since you’d never seen such a small litter before. But they’re chirping, and they’re healthy, so you’re happy. The smaller of the two is a yellow alicorn, which scares you a little even though your old herd told you alicorns weren’t munstahs. She has a stubby horn and a bright orange mane. The larger of the pair is a blue unicorn, which a long, pointed little horn and an aquamarine mane.

Secretly you’re happy that there are only two babbehs, since it means less food for your special-friend to find. As is, your stomach growls as you feed the babbehs, and there’s barely enough milkies for the two of them. If there’d been more babbehs, you’d have had to let them go hungry, with not enough milkies to go around.



Your special-friend went forever-sleepies, curled up against one of the holes in the wall. You knew this was coming, knew he’d been giving you most of the food so you could have milkies for the babbehs, but it still made your heart hurt more than you ever imagined it could. He’d barely managed to drag himself back, his back legs shattered completely from whatever munstah had attacked him, before collapsing, passing away as he chirped from the pain, unable to even form words as the suffering took him into the dark.

You knew why he chose to die here. Knew why he chose to drag himself back, inch by agonizing inch, exposed shards of bone scraping against the ground. Knew that he desperately hoped, against the certainty he no doubt felt, that the foals could somehow survive. Hoped that by some miracle, you’d manage to keep them alive long enough for the cold times to pass.

With your shattered heart breaking even further, you crawl to the last gift your special-friend gave you. The last meal he could ever offer. The last hope for your children.



You only manage to eat about half of your special-friend before the cold gets too harsh and he freezes too much. Your teeth are already broken, gums sliced and bloody, and try as you might you can’t manage to get even a single bite out of the frozen corpse. Your mind gives in to the hopelessness as you realize that all this was for nothing. You hold your babies tightly, one already gone and beginning to be covered in frost, and fall asleep one last time.



You’re a yellow alicorn babbeh, and you have the worst hurties ever! You can’t feel your hoofises or your hearing-places anymore, but everywhere else is a mass of pain, hunger, and cold. You’re curled up in the fluffpile, but your sister and mummah are so, so cold! But outside the fluffpile is even colder. Yet in spite of the pain, you soon drift off to sleep again.



Sam returned to her house, shivering in the chill she’d spent two weeks away from on her vacation. Rebecca had originally arranged the vacation to start a week later, but her work schedule had changed and they’d had to adjust the timing. Still, with Sam’s self-employed status, she wasn’t really constrained to a particular schedule, so it wasn’t a big deal. It made no difference if she happened to be home that week.

Rebecca had originally proposed the vacation to help Sam get over the incident, saying that a distraction from her loss would be a welcome change and would help her mood. After all, nothing good could come from sitting home alone and brooding. To be honest, though, her house just felt colder and more empty than when she’d left.

Sam hadn’t expected the temperature to drop so rapidly, or she would have made preparations before leaving. She knew most of the plants in her back garden were almost certainly dead by now, as she’d expected at least a few more weeks before winter started in earnest and so hadn’t prepared the plants for sub-freezing weather. Still, it was worth checking to see what could be saved.

As she walked into her back garden she froze, her blood running cold from more than the frigid breeze. The shed door was open, one of the last rays of light from the setting sun passing through the open door and landing on a sky-blue pile of fluff. Oh, please no, she thought, as she dashed to the shed and darted inside.

The fluffy was dead, probably only a few hours dead from the lack of major freezing. Against one of the doors lay the remains of another fluffy, clearly cannibalized. Sam knew that mares with young were usually much more willing to engage in cannibalism, their desire to save their foals more important than the aversion to eating their own kind. But she didn’t see any foals around, either alive or dead; likely their bodies had been taken by crows or other scavengers.

She sighed, silently blaming herself for the death of the fluffies, although she knew there was no way she could have known. Grimacing, she walked inside to grab a bio-waste bag and began to clean up. She was mostly done cleaning the remains of the dead stallion when she heard a soft cheeping noise from the dead mare.

Whirling around, she quickly lifted the mare, revealing two small foals, hardly a few days old and undersized, hidden under the corpse. The blue foal was clearly dead, its limbs frozen and its face contorted into an expression of fear and grief. The yellow foal, however, was still clinging to life. It’s ears and hooves were long lost to frostbite, and it was barely able to move, almost entirely immobilized by cold and hunger.

Throwing standard hygienic practice to the winds, Sam picked up the foal and held it tightly to her chest, hoping that the gesture would give the foal some comfort. She knew that the damage was far too extensive, that the foal was doomed long before she’d arrived home. At least it’ll have some moments of love before it goes.

“Pwease…nice…chirp…wady,” the foal spoke, barely audible, its underdeveloped vocal chords struggling to make the unfamiliar sounds. “Babbeh…miss…famiwy…Babbeh…wan…wan…wan…die…”

I should have been here! Sam thought to herself. I could have saved them, if I’d just been here!

Grasping the foal tightly, she rushed inside. She knew that placing the foal near a heater would only fill its final moments with suffering, as the numbness would give way to unspeakable agony, so she set it on a soft cushion and fumbled with a locked cabinet. Upon getting the lock open, she pulled out a small syringe full of morphine. Illegal as Hell, yes, but it was the best way to make sure a fluffy passed peacefully.

The fluffy chirped softly as it felt the needle pierce its skin, then quickly relaxed. Soon, its heart began to fail, its consciousness fading as the bliss took it to a merciful end.

Sam set next to the cushion, and softly sang to the foal, offering it the last peace she could as it passed away.

“Babbeh gu sweepies
nu mowe be afwaid
fwy fwy away nao
nebah huwt again.”

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Its too tragic :sob::cry:

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Now this is Bleakbox. Ooh got my heart aching.

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