Pity
“CHIRP! CHEEP!”
You’re a tiny fluffy foal. You’ve just entered a cold, uncomfortable world. You can’t see a thing- it’s all dark, and every now and then there’s a blurry flash of red. There’s something yicky covering you, loud humming noises everywhere and it smells really not-pretty. You cry out for help, hoping for something to come and save you.
“Kylie’s foal.”
You hear something else- deep, murmuring. You can’t understand what it means.
“Just the one foal? Well, nice change from the constant miscarriages, I guess.” There’s a pinch on your tail that makes you squeal, then a rushing sensation, and you can feel your entire body is now off the ground. You flail in distress, waving your little leggies around and swinging to and fro.
“Colours are nice. Great result for a first-time mother, in fact. Beautiful golden tail, mane will grow out the same colour soon enough. Light brown coat with reddish patches. Not overimposing, like the blue and hot pink bullshit the mares seem to like.”
“Well, it works in our favour, doesn’t it?”
You’re flicked hard in the ribs. It really, really hurts, and you yelp in pain. “Alright, little guy. Off to see mummah.”
Mummah? It’s the first word you’ve recognised. It somehow makes you feel better. You don’t know why, but you feel like mummah is something big and warm and safe. You feel yourself being taken away- you hope it’s to see mummah.
“Babbeh! Kywie haf babbeh! Gif babbeh, babbeh nee’ mummah!”
You’re rested back down on another surface. It’s gritty and even more uncomfortable than the last, but there’s a new smell here that catches your attention and you start to wriggle towards it. Then something pushes you the final inch and you come across some sort of lump that you instinctively suckle on. It’s delicious! You slurp the thick, sweet liquid as fast as your little body allows you to.
“What do you think of your first baby, Kylie?”
“Kywie wuv babbeh!” You still don’t understand what’s being said, but somehow you know this voice is mummah.
“Look, Kylie. You know how we talked about new mummahs and daddehs, and how good babies get the best mummahs and get to live in big houses with lots of toys and a pretty saferoom?”
Mummah starts to shake up and down a little. “Kywie wememba!”
“Well. You see, humans… humans are more likely to want to be a new mummah or daddy to a fluffy if they think that fluffy has been abused. Hurt. If they think the fluffy has had a hard time.” There’s a pause. “So we want you to be mean to this baby. Say mean things to it. Tell it it’s ugly, an ugly, dumb, poopie baby. Hurt it, if you need to. Feed it and clean it, just be really mean to it as well.”
“W-wha? Nu! Nu wan be meanie ta babbeh! WUV babbeh!”
“Kylie, you love this baby?”
“Yes! Wuv babbeh mowe dan anifing!” Something shifts around you, and you find yourself buried in a world of warm, soft fluff.
“So you’d do anything to help this baby get a lovely home with a nice mummah or daddy?”
“Mummah do anifing!”
“Well, being mean to this baby will help it get that. A saferoom to play in. Walks outside. A name. More toys than you can imagine.”
There’s an uneasy silence as you carry on suckling greedily.
“O-okayee… huuhuuhuu… mummah be meanie ta babbeh.”
You’ve finished drinking the tasty milkies and had the yicky mess wiped off you by mummah. Now you’re lying on your own. Is mummah still here? Where is mummah? You peep and chirp desperately, too weak to stand.
“Why don’t we try the song now, Kylie?”
“Huuhuhuuu… nu wan…”
“You want what’s best for your baby still, don’t you?”
“Huuhuuhuu…” you feel your mummah’s voice come closer.
“Mummah hate babbeh,
babbeh am stoopi,
babbeh poopy babbeh,
hope babbeh… huuhuuu… hope babbeh dwown.”
“That’s a good girl. Now. I’m going to leave for a minute. I want you to carry on singing that song. Do it for your baby, it’s what’s best for it.”
There’s a banging sound, then silence, then you’re lifted up and you feel yourself covered in mummah’s warm, soft fluff and squeezed tight.
“Nu wowwy babbeh… mummah wuv babbeh weawwy! Mummah nu wan be meanie to babbeh huuhuu…”
You wriggle deeper into mummah’s grip and chirp. You don’t understand what mummah’s saying, but her voice right now calms you anyway.
“Mummah wuv babbeh,
babbeh wuv mummah,
babbeh dwin- EEEEE!!!”
You’re violently grasped and lifted away from mummah. You have hurties all over your body now, and you’re so scared!
“Congratulations, you stupid bitch. We’ve been patient with you and let you keep trying to have babies because you wanted to. Honestly, after this many miscarriages any other breeder would have you disposed of.”
“G-gibe babbeh back!”
There’s a THWACK, and a loud, piercing “SCREEEEEE!”. “You couldn’t do a simple task that we asked, so we have to take your baby away. I hope you enjoy going back to having babies that die while they’re still inside you.”
“STAP! HUUHUUHUU! MUMMAH WIWW BE MEANIE TO BABBEH, JUS’ GIB BABBEH BACK! BABBEH NEE’- EEEEEEEEEEEEP!”
You hear mummah’s cries fading into the distance. This doesn’t feel right. Why are you leaving mummah? You want to be back in mummah’s warm fluff! You don’t like this!
“What now?”
“I have an idea. Meet me back in rearing room two.”
You spend a while longer wriggling around as you feel yourself carried further, until you come to a stop and you’re left helplessly dangling by your tail.
You hear chirping and cheeping, but it isn’t from you. Are there other fluffies like you close by?
“Ready?” The voice softens. “This is Elena. She doesn’t have a sense of smell- pure luck for us. Dumb as anything too. Watch this.”
You’re placed down somewhere. The chirping is closer this time. You wriggle around, and you come into contact with some more fluff, which you nestle into.
“Oh my God, Elena!”
“WHA’? Wha happen? Why wake Ewena?!”
“Look! You’ve had another foal! You must have had it while you were sleeping!”
“Wh-wha?” There’s a sound of something shifting, then you chirp as you feel something softly nudge you. “Dis am Ewena’s babbeh?”
“Hang on, let me check.” You’re lifted up, then there’s a sniffly sound. “Yes, Elena, this is definitely your baby. I’m sure of that.”
There’s another sniffly sound, and you’re placed back down. “But it also smells bad. Like a poopy baby.”
You’re nudged a few times more. It’s not very comfortable. “Dis bad babbeh?”
“Yes. It’s a bad baby.”
You’re nudged, more violently this time. “Mummah nu wan yucky poopie babbeh!”
“Hey, now, Elena. Remember what we said before about bad babies?” There’s a pause. “We said that mummahs have to take care of all babies, even bad poopie babies.”
You’re shifted back a little. “Okayee… mummah take cawe of poopie babbeh. Bu’ nu wanna. Is wowstest babbeh.”
“That’s fine. Just clean it every now and then and give it milk. I’ll be very, very disappointed if you don’t.”
You feel yourself propped against another fleshy lump, and you latch on and begin to suckle. The milk isn’t anywhere near as nice as the first drink you had; it doesn’t taste of anything in particular, with a more watery feel, and you finish all of it quickly.
“That was fast.”
“Yeah. Foal smell’s a stimulus for lactation. Elena here doesn’t produce as much milk for that reason, so we might be pushing it by bringing a third foal into the mix. Hopefully this works out.”
You burp and wriggle around until you find some fluff and cuddle up into it.
“Come on, don’t give me that. Looking at me like I don’t know how convoluted this seems. Trust me, nothing empties wallets like a foal describing how its own mother mistreated it.”
You’re a brown-and-red fluffy foal. You live with your mummah, a sky-blue fluffy with a creamy-coloured mane and tail, and your two siblings. Bestest babbeh is a colt, a slightly darker shade of blue than mummah with the same cream tail. Neks-bestest babbeh is an orange filly with a pinkish tail. You’re worstest babbeh, or bad babbeh, or poopie babbeh. It always gives you bad heart-hurties whenever they call you that. You don’t understand why mummah doesn’t love you.
“Mummah wuv babbehs… babbehs wuv mummah…”
You’re waiting patiently for your siblings to finish their fill of milkies. You’re so jealous of them, their little tails wagging behind them as they greedily suckle as much milkies as they like, occasionally mewling between slurps.
All of a sudden, a brown lump falls to the floor behind bestest babbeh.
Bestest babbeh burps. “Sowwy mummah… nu mean make poopies…”
Mummah leans over, almost knocking neks-bestest babbeh away, and hugs bestest. “Nu wowwy babbeh. Was accsiden’! Wowstest babbeh wiww cwean.”
“Nuuu!” you whine. “Nu wan cwean poopies!”
“Dummeh babbeh!” Mummah yells, still clutching bestest. “Cwean poopies ow nu get miwkies!”
You hold back tears as you waddle over to the poopies and nudge them with your nose. The litterbox is all the way on the other side of your enclosure, and you leave most of the poopies in a brown smear on the floor as you push them over. You can smell it on your face too. You struggle to get what little is left up the side of the litterbox. But eventually mummah seems satisfied, so you return to her for your fill of milkies.
“Nu!” Mummah boops your nose, and you cry out in pain. “Babbeh covad in poopies! Yicky!”
You hang your head meekly. “Mummah cwean babbeh?” Mummah gives lickie-cleanies every day, and even though she gives more attention to your two siblings, she makes sure you’re kept clean too.
“Mummah nu wick poopies!” Mummah boops you again. “Babbeh take baffie!”
You tremble. Mummah made you take a bath in her water-bowl before, and it wasn’t nice. “Pwease nu m-mummah…”
“BABBEH TAKE BAFFIE OW NU GET MIWKIES!”
You walk over to the water-bowl and dip your hoofsie in it. It’s even colder than you remember. Your tummy rumbles. You don’t have another choice.
“EEEEE! Cowdie!” You try to edge into the water slowly, but miss your footing and stumble straight in. You splash around for a while before you’re able to drag yourself out, damp and sobbing. Then you stumble over to mummah for what feels like the longest walk of your life and suckle the rest of the milkies that are left.
“Babbeh stiww hungwy…”
Your mummah doesn’t reply, playing with bestest babbeh in her hoofsies and giggling. Mummah not loving you is always the worst part. You don’t understand what you did wrong for mummah to not love you- babbehs are FOR love and huggies, after all. Every time she says mean things to you or ignores you you get a painful sinking feeling in your heart that’s worse than any boops of hoof-hitties.
Desperate, you waddle back to the water-bowl. There’s a food-bowl next to it with what’s left of mummah’s dry oat nummies. You bend down and take a bite. It’s not nice. It feels like when you get mummah’s fluff in your mouth by accident. But right now you’re so hungry that you scoff it down.
All of a sudden, you feel yourself being lifted. “EEEEEP!”
“Goddamnit, Elena, what the hell is this all over the floor?”
“Babbeh make poopies, su wowstest babbeh cwean!”
“For fu- and you made him clean up in the water bowl again? What did we tell you about that the first time? You know what, it doesn’t matter. Because this baby’s big enough to eat adult feed now. He won’t be staying here any more.”
Your mummah looks shocked. “Babbeh weave mummah?”
“Yes, Elena, this baby’s leaving. The other two will probably be going soon as well, so I’d enjoy your time with them before that happens.”
You catch a glimpse of mummah, looking worried and clutching bestest babbeh tightly, as the man takes you away and the only other fluffies you remember disappear behind a door forever.
You’re in a long, warm-looking room with lots of boxes on each side. Each one glows a dim yellow, with woodchips covering the bottom, a litterbox, a pretty-coloured bed at the back and a few toysies. On closer inspection, most of them have fluffies inside. There are more fluffies than you’ve ever seen, red, green, pink, white, some sleeping, some running around aimlessly, some tapping against the no-see wall at the front and yelling “PICK FWUFFY!” or “WAN NYU MUMMAH!”
“Eye-level. Best seat in the house, kiddo. You’re welcome.” The man opens the door to an empty enclosure three rows up and drops you inside.
“Babbeh neva see mummah again?” You ask.
“No. You’re never seeing mummah again.”
You sniffle. You feel like you’ll miss mummah, even though she was always a meanie to you.
“Babbeh haf odda fwuffies fo’ pway an’ huggies an’ singies?” You ask, taking note of all the other fluffies around you. Maybe they’ll be even better than mummah. Maybe they’ll love you and be really nice to you.
“You get thirty minutes of playtime after breakfast every day and an hour in the afternoon. Now,” the man says, “why don’t you make yourself at home here. I have other things to do.”
You don’t understand what that means exactly, but it sounds like you’ll get to play with other fluffies soon enough. You hope that’s the case, because it’s really lonely where you are now.
“Look at this little guy!” A strange lady is bending over towards you and giving you nice scratchies all over. “What’s your name?”
“Nu have name nice wady,” you reply, as politely as you can. “Am jus’ wowstest babbeh.”
“Well, that’s not nice!” The lady replies in shock. “Did your mummah call you that?”
“Yus… mummah say babbeh am wowstest dummeh babbeh an’ awways be meanie ta babbeh.” You struggle to hold back tears.
“Well, if I took you home, I definitely wouldn’t call you that.”
“Wady be nyu mummah?” You blurt out. You’ve had a lot of different people you’ve never seen before approach you, and you know by now that it means they’re thinking about being your new mummah or daddeh.
Suddenly, one of the other fluffies on playtime jumps in. “NU TAKE DAT FWUFFY! Pick fwuffy, am bestest fwuffy! Weawwy weawwy wan’ nyu mummah!”
“GET BACK, YOU”, one of the regular humans snaps at the other fluffy, so aggressively that it even makes you scaredy. The nice lady seems to notice that it scares you and gives you soft strokies under the chin. You push against her hand affectionately.
“Oh, how much for this one? He’s simply adorable,” the woman asks. You can smell her strong, flowery scent, and her voice soothes you and makes you feel safe. You really, really hope this lady takes you home.
“Ninety for this one.”
“NINETY?” The woman jumps up. “Oh, I’m very sorry, little one. I don’t think I can afford to be your new mummah.”
It takes all the effort you have in your body not to cry as the woman walks off and starts to take interest in other fluffies in the play area. You creep away to the corner, hoping nobody notices you.
You don’t get to play with other fluffies as much as you’d wanted. Almost all the time you spend is alone in your enclosure. You’ve been here for so long that you’re bored of what few toys you have in your pen. The play area has more, but they’re all raggedy and broken and there’s so many fluffies around that it’s impossible to get your hoofsies on them. The fluffies aren’t as mean to you as mummah, but they still aren’t very nice and won’t play with you ever.
The humans start putting the fluffies away for the end of playtime, one by one, while you’re still sulking in the corner. Cries of “WAN MOWE PWAY!” and “NU TAKE FWUFFY!” ring out. Eventually you’re one of the last fluffies left.
“Son of a whore,” one of the humans says. “I really thought she’d take him. Are we just mad? I mean, is it really unreasonable to ask for a price less than a hundred for an animal that can fucking talk?”
“When there’s others going for forty, maybe,” the other replies. “We’ll have to lower the price on him.”
“Damn, damn, damn.” The first man sighs. “We weren’t all wrong. The colour scheme and history of abuse are generating interest, just fractionally less than we need to sell him. I was really hoping we’d be rid of him before his mane turned.”
“How long do we have?”
“Well, it wasn’t even visible a week ago. Perfect golden mane. Now there’s puke green around all the roots. It’ll probably have covered all of it within another week.”
One of them lifts you up in his arms and you ready yourself to return to your enclosure. “Once it covers it, he’ll be down to forty. Maybe less.”
“Well,” the other human replies, “we could… we could send him to Hyde.”
“I was having that thought myself,” says the human holding you. “They DO tend to fetch more over there. He could be ideal.”
There’s a moment of silence between the two. “OH NO!” One shouts. “It looks like you have an infection, fluffy!”
You perk up. “Wha’? Wha’ mean?”
The man holding you plays with your leggies. “Yes, you have an infection! Oh, no, we’ll have to get the vet to look at this.”
You’re quickly carried down the long room through a set of doors, then through another, reaching an dull-looking, nasty-smelling white-and-grey room. There’s a dark man dressed up in a funny-looking way waiting in one corner.
“Hyde, how’s it going,” says the man bringing you in. “We think this one has a… uh… INFECTION.”
The dark man looks at him, then at you, and prods your leggies. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s uncomfortable. The whole room is uncomfortable. You don’t know what you’re doing here or what’s going on, and it sounds bad.
“Yes, that’s an infection, alright.”
“Wha’ fecshun? Wha’ mean?”
“It means that you’re in danger! You have ‘sickies’, and it could end up killing you!”
Your tummy turns over itself. “FWUFFY GET FOWEVA SWEEPIES?! NU!”
“Shh, shh, it’s OK. Right now the sickies are only in your leggies. We’re going to send you to sleep- short sleep, nice sleep, like at night-time- then we’re going to make the sickies go away and save you.”
You understand most of that. “M-mistuh make fwuffy betta?”
“Yes, I’m going to do all that I can. There’s going to be a sharp scratch, then you’re going to fall asleep.
Sure enough, there’s a terrible sensation in your shoulder, and before you can cry out, you feel your body weakening and your eyes start to shut.
You slowly open your eyes. Some memories start to come back to you. You remember the dark man in funny blue clothes, who’s standing in front of you now. You remember the 'fection. Did the man make your 'fection go away?
"Wuh… wuh…”
“Shhh, shhh. It’s OK, fluffy. Your infection is gone.”
You breathe a sigh of relief. “F-fankoo mistuh…”
The man doesn’t have a happy look. “I’m sorry, fluffy, but we had to do something very serious to make your infection go away.”
You’re confused. What did the man do? You try to stand up, but your leggies feel funny. They’re all really itchy, too.
“I hope you know that this isn’t the end of the world. We did what we had to do to save your life.”
You’re leggies aren’t budging, no matter how hard you push. You look down to see what’s going on, and you have a horrible revelation.
“WUH-WAA-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WEGGIES! WEGGIES! WEGGIIIIEEEES!!!”
The man tries to shush you and calm you down, but you keep on screaming and screaming for your leggies. You pant and look around desperately until you run out of breath and all you can manage are short bursts of air, somewhere between sobbing and sniffling. This isn’t right. This must be a scary dream.
“Will you take him away?”
“Sure,” says one of the other men still in the room. You’re lifted up, still wide-eyed and gasping for air. Looking down, you can see where your legs used to be now. They’re thick masses of bruised and swollen skin, some crusty, almost black blood still coating the area, with vaguely cross-shaped scars held in place by what look like metal wires.
You’re walked down a different room with two of the men. Thoughts race through your head, more than you can handle. You think of not being able to walk wherever you like. You think of never being able to play or give huggies again. You don’t even think you’ve had proper huggies before. The last thought makes you sadder than anything.
“Do people actually buy these ones?”
“Cuidado, cuidado. Español. Don’t want to say anything incriminating in front of the fluffy.”
The humans carry on talking between themselves as you’re carried into yet another long room.
<<It has an appeal. Fluffies run around and get lost and break things. People think a fluffy with no legs is the same but without those problems. Not always the case, of course.>>
This room has lots and lots of boxes on each side. The boxes are larger than where you used to live, each reaching from floor to ceiling, but narrow, with old dark-green-painted wood on either side and a lattice of metal wires at the front. Most have fluffies inside, and most of the fluffies you can see are missing leggies.
“WAN MUMMAH HUUHUUHUU!”
“WHY TAKE WEGGIES? WAN WEGGIES BACK!”
“HATE DIS! HATE DIS! TAKE FWUFFY WAY WAAAAAAAH!”
The further you go in, the louder the chorus of wailing fluffies becomes, and the acoustics of the room gives it a spooky, unnerving emptiness. You can hear every pitter-patter of the man’s footsteps on the floor.
<<People don’t like intentional amputation, though. The fluffies have to believe that there was a valid reason for it, so that the buyers do, too. So, on a lot of occasions, they’ll only take three legs, or two, or take something other than legs. Less suspicious that way.>>
The two men stop, and you dangle in front of a pen with a miserable-looking black fluffy. This one has his two front legs missing. His rump is raised in an awkward-looking position.
“N-nyu daddeh?” He asks meekly, tears staining his cheeks.
The two men move on. <<My God, this place is miserable.>>
<<That’s the idea. Customer sees a sad amputated fluffy in a comfortable pen, they think there’s nothing they can do for them. Customer sees a sad amputated fluffy here, they think 'how sad, I bet he would be happier if I took him home and gave him somewhere pleasant to live’.>>
You keep going until they reach an empty pen, right at the very end of the room in the darkest corner. In the pen next to it, a blue fluffy, who looks like he’s had his entire back half mangled and two back legs removed, wails incoherently and bangs his head against one side of the pen.
The man places you in your pen, facing towards the entrance. The ground is rough and gives your tummy and leggies hurties. There’s a food-bowl in front of you and a litterbox right behind you. That’s about it. It’s narrower than it looked from the outside- even if you had leggies, you don’t think you’d be able to turn around.
“Welcome to your new home, fluffy,” the man says, closing the front entrance. All that’s left to look at is the tall metal gate in front of you and the crumbling grey wall behind it. “Sorry about the infection. We did what we had to do to make sure you didn’t die.”
You cry as the two men walk away, leaving you alone with the choir of moaning fluffies. You’re not even sure that forever sleepies wouldn’t be better.
“This one at the end? Forty-five. For eighty you can also get a bundle of extras, which I highly recommend- video guide on owning handicapped fluffies, few toys, some specialist equipment for amputees and entitlement to a free full checkup in the first six months.”
“I’ll go for the eighty deal, sure.” The strange lady picks you off the ground and hugs you. You cry tears of half-sadness-half-joy as you’re held in your first-ever huggie, unable to hug her back.
“Great! Follow me, I’ll get the paperwork sorted out front.”
Mummah carries you away from your pen. You’re so happy to finally leave it behind.
“How did you lose your legs, fluffy?”
“Mistuh say… huuhuu… fwuffy haf 'fection… fwuffy take sweepies, den when wake up nu haf weggies…”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the lady says. “And you’ve been here ever since? Well, don’t worry. Mummah has a big house for you to live in, and soon I’ll get you some toys, and a saferoom and a cozy warm bed. How does that sound?”
You notice one of the fluffies in the pens look devastated as he overhears mummah. You’re just so glad that you’ve been chosen. “Yes, fwuffy wike dat, mummah. Wuv… sniff wuv mummah.”
The man in front walks new mummah over to a bright, colourful room. Your eyes are so used to the dim grey room that it’s almost hard to look. You’re dropped on a counter and the man gives some paper to mummah which she starts scribbling on.
One of the other men shows up.
“Hey.”
“Hola.”
<<What’s the situation?>>
<<Kylie miscarried again. She’s clearly not working out as a broodmare.>>
<<No. Have her sent to Hyde, he’ll arrange to transfer her to the milk-bags.>>
New mummah hands the paper back to the man. "What were you two talking about?”
“Just some things that happen here. Bad things.” He strokes your back. “Things we can’t talk about in front of the fluffies. They’re sensitive animals.”
“Fair enough,” says mummah. She lifts you up and hold you in front of her. “You don’t have a name, do you?”
“Nu… nu haf namie. Mummah gif?”
“Hmm… how about Autumn?”
Tears start to form in your eyes. “Awtum… w-wu… wuv… huuhuuuhuu…”
Mummah pulls you in and hugs you. “Oh, there, there, Autumn, it’s OK. You’re OK now.”
“Awtum sowwy… nu knu why cwy…”
“It’s OK. Let’s just go home. How does that sound?”
You nod your head and smile, and mummah places you in a carrier and takes you away. You’re still crying. You don’t know why, but you still feel sad. But mummah’s right. It’ll all be OK once you get to your new home. You’ll never have to feel sad again.
