So, I listened through the Bear Ghost Blasterpiece album tagged for my prompt. This is what my brain came up with to type. not sure it perfectly fits the right mood, but I tried.
“And how are my little subjects doing today?” The pale gold and blue alicorn shuddered at the sound of the voice and the way the door slammed behind the blond woman. She longed to huddle back into the darker shadows of her little shelf, but long experience had taught her that the scarred stumps left of her legs couldn’t even do that. In the cage next to hers, a silver maned blue unicorn mare was desperately trying to suppress a sob, and the alicorn flinched at the sound. Noise was bad, noise meant attention. She knew she should offer comfort, wanted to offer huggies to her crying mummah, but… there was no way to reach, even if she still had legs. And anything she said…
“Hu-huhu, pwease, Cwewic wan babbehs back. Pwease! Gib weggies an’ babbehs an Cwewic be bestest fwuffy fo mummah!” The woman’s path through the dim lit room stalled, and the alicorn squeezed her eyes shut. nothing that would happen now was something she’d want to see. “Neba twy hide babbehs ow teww babbehs dat hoomin mummah am munsta ow twy ‘scape ‘gain! Pwomise pwomise pwomise!”
“I’ve seen what your promises are worth, Cleric.” The woman crossed over to the small fenced shelves that held the pillowed fluffies anyways, dropping her lab coat on the chair at the desk on the way. “Your foals go to the incubator, because you can’t be trusted not to interfere with the experiments. Neither of you.” Despite her harsh tone, she did reach up, stroking along the ears and muzzles of the immobile mares, smiling when they pressed into her touch despite their flinches and tears. “You turned out a stunning litter this time, Paladin. Want to see them?”
“If mummah wan Pawadin see babbehs, den Pawadin wan see babbehs. Pwease,” she whispered, hesitation in every syllable. Even knowing it was coming, she couldn’t entirely restrain the whimper as the human scooped her out of her cushion, or the flinch at the aggravated sigh when she was heard.
From the vantage point granted her by a place in the woman’s arms, she could see the line of babbehs with the first bits of tufted manes in the bright lit, nu-see-walled box, suckling at the milky places visible at the far side. There was one that looked just like her, a blue and silver like her mummah, blue and gold, black and gold, black and silver. There was even a pair in the same dark, dark blue one of her brothers had, with the same mixed gold and silver mane her sister had had. At that thought, she had to restrain a sob of her own. She could still remember what was left of her sister when the humans were done, the colors of death and pain painted over the walls of the little room they used to live in. Her brothers had managed to get out through the almost open sliding door when she tackled the other humans legs, but the teebee said so much about how scary the outside was. Maybe all she had done was make the forever sleepies wait a little before they caught them, because her brothers had been so little, barely even colts.
“They’re a pretty bunch, and a good handful of alicorns in them. Might keep this bunch for behavior studies instead of dropping them off at the lab with Bill. Hell, I might pass them over to the facility and see how much Shadow can get for them.” Paladin was gently set down on the padded rug as the blonde went to dig through her pockets. “Actually… Paladin, do you remember why you lost leg privileges?”
“Pawadin twied huwtin’ daddeh Biww afta Bawd gu foweba sweepies, wet brudda’s wun ‘way,” she recited dully. “Pawadin am bad fwuffy an’ bad fwuffies nu get weggies. Nu can keep babbehs.”
“Good. You did really well with the last batch, so I have a surprise for you. If you can be good for me today, no fighting or complaining. Give me another good litter like this one, and I’ll think about an even better surprise.” Paladin frowned at this, a confused tilt to her head before the human pulled a familiar foam support from a drawer.
“Nu, pwease nu again…” she whispered, glancing frantically around for whatever stallion the human had brought this time. She hadn’t heard any new fluffies in the house, but… she closed her eyes, shoving her nose against the floor until it hurt. “Mummah wan Pawadin hab mowe babbehs?” she eventually managed to say.
“That is pretty much your only reason for existence now, yes. There are a few ampoules of interesting traits in a freezer, but I think I want to see how those turn out on easier to replace mares before I risk the pair of you. It’s really hard to get original bloodlines these days, no matter what your connections.” The woman lifted the still snuffling Cleric off her shelf as well, settling her into the foam so her rear was elevated. “Rogue! Get out here and earn your damn keep.”
A jet black alicorn hesitantly slunk out from under the desk, walnut brown mane tumbled over his face. A glance at the set up before him, and he swallowed, wings fluttering against his scarred back. “Nu- Woug mean, yes, mummah. Woug am hewe.” the woman just arched an eye at him, and he carefully stepped the rest of the way behind the blue mare. She was still sobbing, and each cry and protest sent his ears flicking back and his eyes checking the resolute expression on the human’s face.
Finally he closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths before he mounted the mare and enfed away. “Enf, enf, guud feews,” he eventually declared, fast to pull back and not looking at the mare. “Am mummah happy wit Woug?” he hopefully asked, ears still back.
She was busy, wiping off Cleric’s rear and settling her back in her place. A vial was pulled out of another drawer and dumped it in a bowl with a grudging amount of water. “You aren’t done yet. Drink up and give me a minute.” He immediately stuck his nose in the bowl, whining slightly at the bitter taste but seeming careful to lap up every drop regardless.
Paladin found herself plopped into the same support her mother had been in, and barely bit off an instinctive complaint. “Alright. Rogue, as soon as you’re ready again,” this was even worse than she had thought, and she struggled not to sob. She didn’t want this, it wasn’t right.
“Pwease? Wouf nu wan…Dis am Cwewic an’ Woug babbeh, nu wan… Nu am babbeh nu mowe, bu’ am stiww Woug babbeh. Pwease, nu wan make babbehs wit’- Screeee” without a word, the human had brought a long, thin metal rod down on his rump, right over one of the scars. “Hu- hu, pwease! pwea-scree-” Three bleeding lines through his scarred fluff later, he had screwed his eyes shut again, the tears still on his cheeks not stopping his quick thrusts into the other alicorn.
When Paladin was also cleaned up and put away, the blonde set Rogue up on her lap, angling her chair so all three fluffies could see her tablet screen. “Just a short little thing I noticed the other week and decided to pull out the phone to film.” She pressed the button, a fuzzy picture resolving into a sharper image of a chainlink kennel run. A deep green stallion with a dark walnut mane was nuzzling fondly at a golden brown mare, both of them curled around a litter of chirpie foals, a two point harmony of humming audible.
“Dat…Dat am Dwuid?” Paladin snuffled, eyes wide. “Dwuid am otay, hab speciew fwiend an’ babbehs.” Cleric was openly in tears at this as well, Rogue ducking into the absent pets down his neck.
“He lives with a friend of mine now, and is somehow behaving well enough she hasn’t gotten rid of him again. The same friend who will help me get homes for your best babies.” She pushed Rogue back off her lap, smirking at the sudden hope visible on three faces. “If you’re good enough and your babies are pretty enough, maybe I’ll take you over and let you visit.” With that last thought, she patted all three of them, grabbing her coat.
A soft chime came from her pocket, and she pulled a slim phone from her pocket, answering with a brisk “Hello? Oh, hey Bill. no, the recessive gene isolation is going fine, even if I’m having to pull the oldest linebreeding trick in the world. Yeah, I know how susceptible pillows are to wan die, but I found a carrot to add to the stick. Those last two alicorn foals she had me look at are Druid’s. No, no he definitely remembered me.”