Mint trudged through the forest, each step sending pain shooting through her entire body. Her two current babbehs, Yam and Acorn, tried to snuggle into the light green fur on her back. Yam, the orange coated, older foal, sat quietly, wondering what had happened to her other brothers, while Acorn, the brown, chirpeh foal, mindlessly peeped to himself. They had been part of a herd, but had woken up to the new bwite time completely alone. After much panicking, crying, and scaredy poopies, Mint scooped up her babbehs, picked a direction, and started walking, determined to find her herd. That had been many fowebahs ago, and her soft leather hooves and brittle bones weren’t built to handle this kind of stress. At any moment one of her weggies could snap, but she had no choice but to continue; the dawk time was coming, and nothing was worse than being out in the open during it.
How much time had passed? If Mint had a concept of “time” she might have been able to tell you, but all she knew was that the shadows were growing long. She shambled forwards, too tired to even beg the bwight sky baww not to leave, while Acorn screeched from hunger pains on her back. Even her tiny fluffy thinky pwace could figure out that she wouldn’t be finding anyone in this state, and that if she didn’t get sweepies soon her body would make her take them wherever she fell. On the verge of collapse, Mint finally spotted her salvation: a large tree with a much more important tree hollow close to the ground. With the very last of her energy, she hobbled over to it, the opening just barely wide enough for her to fit through. She stumbled as far from the entrance as she could and finally fell, passing out the second she hit the ground.
When she awoke, Mint felt her babbehs nuzzling close to her, mouths stained with miwkies and backsides stained with poopies. She coo’d in joy before giving them a quick wicky cweanies. Her two babbehs gave her the biggest heawt happies, so many that she couldn’t help but screech out a mummah song, the tired “Mummah wub babbehs, babbehs wub mummah” every one of them seemed to be pre-programmed with, paying no regard to silly thing such as “volume.” “Mummah hab wots of miwki-” as she reached out to hug her foals, she suddenly winced in pain. “Huuhuu, why weggies huwt mummah?”, she asked, as if they would actually respond. “Babbehs! BABBEHS! Mummah nee huggies!” Her foals stirred, crawling towards her front legs and awkwardly embracing them with their own stubby little nubs. The sight made Mint’s owwies melt away. Huggies really did make everything better! With that problem dealt with, she glanced out of the hollow. Nothing but scawy dawkies. That was okay, her and her babbehs would be safe here until the bwite time! When she found her herd, they could even make a new nestie here! She restarted her song, singing about her love for her babbehs until her eyes grew heavy, falling asleep to the sound of their peeps.
Acorn was crying. Mint forced her eyes open, looking down to see the brown lump of fur at one of her teets, trying to force out his precious miwkies. Yam was laying next to him, nuzzling the dirt with her snout. “Mummah, why no gib miwkies? Hab tummy huwties” she whined. “Siwwy babbeh, mummah nee nummies fo’ miwkies. Mummah find bestest nummies fo’ bestest miwkies!” Mint duly informed her, before looking out the hollow for any pwetty fwowah nummies. The sight made her heart sink: it was still dawkies. How could there still be dawkies after two sweepy times? She tried to stand up, but was quickly forced down again by the agony of standing on her own weight. “BABBEHS! Pwease gib weggies huggies! Mummah nee weggies to fin nummies!” Once again, her foals snuggled against her legs, Yam pleading with them to get better so mummah could feed her. “It otay’, wots of huggies gon’ make weggies bettah, den wen bwighties mummah make miwkies!” The naivety worked well enough to get Yam to stop begging, but did nothing for Acorn’s chirping. Mint laid her head down, truly believing her own words, and closed her eyes. Hours would pass before Acorn would tire himself out and pass out, giving Mint wowstes heawt huwties the whole time, though sleep would mercifully take her not long after.
Mint was up. The first thing she did was try and look outside. Still dawkies. “Nu! NUUUUU!” she cried, leaving a puddle of scawdey peepees under her. Next were her babbehs: Acorn was laying down in the center, barely breathing, much thinner than she last remembered, and Yam, sitting next to her, face stained from sad wawas. Mint tried to give them huggies, but even that was still too much for her weggies. She couldn’t take anymore; Mint buried her head into the dirt and started bawling. “Nuuhuuhuu! Why no bwighties?! Nee ge’ nummies! NEE GE’ NUMMIES! BABBEHS NEE MIWKIES! NO WAN FOWEBA SWEEPIES FO’ BABBEHS! WHY WEGGIES NO WOWK? WHY SKY BAWW NU COM BACK?! HUUHUUHUU!” Yam stood on her hind legs, trying to cheer her up with a danceh babbeh routine of randomly waving her arms around, but she was hysteric. “WHY HEWD WEAVE MUMMAH?! NO AM BAD FWUFFY! WHY TAKE BWIGHTIES?! HUUHUUHUUHUUHUU!” This continued for some time, Mint running out of breath, nearly blacking out, then recovering and going on like nothing had happened several times. Eventually she screamed herself hoarse (heh) and just laid there, not even having the energy for more sad wawas.
She rolled over. She placed one hoof on the ground, then another, her body already in pure agony. She readied her back hooves, then, with a long screech, stood. Her pain was excruciating, so bad that she would have immediately puked if she had anything in her stomach, but she was up. Shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, she began the journey outside, her torment pushing her through the fear of the dark. Yam ran beside her, begging her to stop, but no words reached Mint’s ears. Stepping over the bottom of the hollow was like carrying the weight of the entire world on her back, but she stumbled over it, into the dark. Teeth gritted, lungs on fire, she continued; one step forward, then another, then one more, then…
Mint winced as sunlight hit her eyes. The sky was clear and blue, not a single cloud to spoil the view of the bright green forest she found herself in. All of her pain evaporated. “Bwighties? Sky baww? Buh, buh, buh dawkies?” Several different thoughts rushed through her head. Mint stood there, mouth agape, trying to understand at least one of them. Was dawkies finally over? Had she done something good that made sky baww come back? Was she a good mummah again? She turned her head back to tell her babbehs, just in time to see the dawkies lunge towards her.
She was knocked on her side, pinned to the ground by some unknown mass. Before she knew what was happening, a pair of jaws pierced through her flesh, continuing straight through the muscles into her vocal cords. In one hard yank her entire throat was torn out, splattering torn flesh and pieces of gore across the forest. Mint tried to scream, but there was nothing for her to scream with anymore. She could only vacantly stare as she felt the maw press against her once again, this time on her spine. A snap of bone, and her head was severed from her body, her corpse violently convulsing for a moment before lying still. Mint’s body was dead, but her brain would live for a few seconds longer, long enough for her to feel her eyes bulging out of her skull, her tongue lopping out of her mouth, and a pool of her own blood staining her light green coat.
Yam bawled her eyes out. Mummah wouldn’t give miwkies, wouldn’t listen to her, and now walked out into the scawy dawkies, leaving her here? All very good reasons to cry. Without her mummah she was helpless, and it was only a matter of time until foweba sweepies would come. So she cried and cried, lamenting how unfair it all was, but there was nothing she could do, something she accepted when she dragged herself into the corner to hab sweepies. Looking at Acorn gave her biggest heawt huwties; she knew he wasn’t going to last long. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing anymore. She wanted to give him huggies, but she also didn’t want to move enough to feel tummy owies. As Yam stared at her brother, imagining her and her family in a sketti paradise where the gwassies were always pwetty and the sky baww was always shining, she noticed something strange. Were the dawkies moving closer?
Yam froze, perfectly still as the pitch black outside silently crept towards Acorn, coating him entirely. All was quiet for a second, before there was a loud snap. Acorn’s upper half suddenly came flying towards her, slamming against the wall and obliterating the foal’s skull, showering Yam with blood and brain matter. She screamed, and ran for the hollow. Anywhere was better than here, anywhere! She climbed onto her hind legs, desperately trying to scramble over the top, but it was an inch too high. “NU! NUUUUU!” she cried as she pathetically tapped against the wood, as if she could ever possibly hope to break through. “MUMMAH! MUNSTAH! MUMMAH SABE BABBEH!” She was desperate, trying to jump and slam against the tree with her entire body weight even as the darkness enveloped her completely, only stopping when she felt razor sharp teeth sink into her back and belly. With only a nibble she was torn in half the same way as her brother was, her lower half weakly kicking around in its death spasms as she was swallowed. Acorn had been lucky; he didn’t feel much pain in his last moments. He never felt his flesh melt, his mouth fill with bile as he tried to scream, his eyes boil out of his head. He didn’t spend his final moment in complete darkness, trying to beg someone, anyone, to save him.
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Rumia Yukkuris are well known for their ability to create and control darkness, which they will readily use to mercilessly exploit the fluffy pony’s built-in fear of the dark. They will commonly use it to ambush fluffies, to terrify them during direct attacks, or to trick them into thinking that it’s night. In the latter case, they will wait near a nest, sometimes for days, making sure to not let too much light slip through. Their manjuu bodies will always last longer without food than a fluffy’s will without water, letting them take it easy while they wait until the ponies are forced to emerge due to thirst, starvation, or insanity. Once in the open, the Rumia will immediately target the throat, tearing it out with her massive bite strength so the fluffy can’t scream and alert the others, then quickly bite through the spinal cord and decapitate it. She will feast on the body, then repeat the process until there are no grown fluffies left. The nest invasion will target the remaining foals, the Rumia aiming to quickly maul to disable rather than immediately kill, as there is a possibility of them slipping into a crevice they can’t reach. Once they are all incapacitated, the Yukkuri will eat whatever meat she can recover. Sometimes she will have choice spoiled, bloated best or sensitive babies, but more often than not she will only have the skin off tiny starved bones. This may seem like a disappointment, but the Rumia already had her filling with their parents. As long as it’s more meat, she’s happy.