Chapter 1
Princess was unhappy.
Her life had been perfect. She was a white earthy fluffy pony with a magenta mane. She had a big warm house, delicious food every day, and a human mama who loved her and played with her constantly! Warm baths, lots of toys… sure, she had no fluffy friends to play with, but she didn’t care. All other fluffies were smelly and stupid. Princess was the best one of them all, her human mama said so every day!
But then things went wrong.
Mama’s mama and daddy began shouting at each other. Princess couldn’t understand the words, but it was something about ‘cheating’ and ‘divorce’ and ‘you bitch’ and ‘Tyrone’. Then mama and mama’s mama went away, and Princess was left alone with mama’s daddy. She hadn’t ever seen him much before, mama had always said he was busy with ‘working’, but now he was always at home. He smelled funny too, a smell unknown to fluffies but known to humans as ‘whiskey’.
All he did was sit in front of the TV, drinking a bottle of smelly amber water and saying things about ‘that bitch’, ‘that whore’, and ‘Tyrone’. He never even remembered to feed Princess, at least, not directly. Any time he got food for himself, he’d often drop some on the floor, at which point Princess would scarf it up before he could reach it (although he never noticed he’d dropped it anyway). Or when he fell asleep with something in his lap, Princess would leap up and devour it before he could wake up.
It was his own stupid fault, Princess reasoned, after gorging herself on half of a pizza he’d left in his lap. If it wasn’t for Princess to eat, then why did he make it so easy for her to get it? Stupid daddy!
And so Princess’s days went on. No mama to play with, but she still had plenty of toys. No warm baths, but she had plenty of food. She used to get in trouble if she made poopies outside the litter box, but the litter box was FULL of poopies, and daddy never bothered to clean it (or himself, for that matter). So Princess had just begun making poopies anywhere she wanted, and daddy hadn’t noticed. It didn’t smell nice anymore but there was a strange fun to being able to just drop a lump of shit wherever you wanted!
Then one day, it all went wrong.
Daddy was flipping channels on the TV, not even looking as he drained another bottle of smelly water, and for a second, just a split second, the channel landed on an advert for some kind of diaper product. But it was just long enough for a single word to be announced from the TV’s speakers, echoing all around the house, loud enough for Princess to hear.
‘-BABIES-’
And that did it.
Some hard-wired impulse in Princess’s mind snapped to attention, some previously un-thought-of desire had awoken deep within her.
“Pwincess wan babbehs.” She said to herself. She waddled from her filthy safe-room, down the shit-smeared hallway and found daddy in his usual place, slumped in front of the TV, a half-empty bottle in his hand.
“Pwincess wan babbehs.” She repeated. Daddy didn’t even look away from the TV, he didn’t seem to have even heard her. Princess huffed, and stomped her hooves on the grimy carpet. “Pwincess… wan… babbehs!” She shouted, but daddy still didn’t notice.
Finally, Princess rammed her head into his leg, doing more harm to herself than to him, but it was at least enough to make daddy realise she was there.
“Oh, it’s you.” He mumbled, glancing at her with blurry eyes.
“Wan babbehs.” She stated again, sulking. This stupid human had made her say it THREE times already, and that was a LOT more times than just two, or even one!
“I… what?” Daddy asked, finally listening to her. Princess snorted and huffed again.
“WAN BABBEHS! WAN BABBEHS! PWINCESS WAN BABBEHS!” She screamed as loud as her tiny lungs would allow her, alternately stomping her hooves with every word.
“God, shut the fuck up!” Daddy growled, rubbing his head. “You want what? Babies?”
“Yus! Pwincess wa-”
“No.”
“…wha?!” Princess squeaked. It was the first time in her life she had ever heard that word in response to one of her very reasonable demands.
“No. No fucking babies. One of you is bad enough. And besides, you’re too fucking young.” Daddy said, sipping from his bottle again. “That bitch was meant to come and get you months ago. Can’t keep her legs closed, can’t pick up a pet on time…”
He lapsed back into miserable silence, but Princess wasn’t going to let him stop her.
“Pwincess wan babbehs!” She repeated. “Pwincess wan babbehs NAO!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Daddy shouted again, wincing at the volume of his own voice. “You’re not having any fucking babies! You’re lucky I let you stay here at all! Now shut the fuck up and leave me alone already!”
“Buh… buh PWINCESS WA-”
SMASH!
Daddy threw the bottle across the room and it exploded into a shower of shimmering sharp bits.
“Shut up!” Daddy yelled back, as Princess covered her ears. “Shut up! Shut up! SHUT THE FUCK UP! If I hear one more fucking word about babies, I swear to god, I’ll cut your ovaries out with a fucking potato peeler!”
Princess didn’t know what ovaries were, or potatoes either, but she knew better than to test daddy. She bolted from the room, scurrying back to the safe-room (which now felt remarkably less safe, all things considered), and covered her eyes with her hooves to hide as best she could.
Hours passed. Princess didn’t move from her spot. She heard daddy grumbling, swearing, farting, belching and at one point vomiting before he finally started snoring. Princess crept out of the safe-room and waddled out to the kitchen, then through the modified dog-door which allowed her access to the back yard.
It was already getting dark, which scared Princess, but she was willing to brave it if it meant getting what she wanted (which was the most important thing of all). Daddy said she couldn’t have babies… well, what did stupid daddy know?! He’d had a baby, and then she’d gone! Clearly he knew NOTHING!
So, while cowering in the smelly dark of the shit-crusted safe-room, Princess had made a decision.
She was leaving. That’d show stupid daddy not to yell at her and say ‘no’ when she wanted something!
Princess was meant to use only the back yard or the litter box for her poopies, but that took a lot of walking and the back yard was cold, so she’d mostly just stayed inside instead. The back yard used to be very pretty, fully of flowers and her mama’s toys, but since the shouting and fighting had happened, it had gotten ugly and scary. Brown crunchy leaves were everywhere, the flowers were all dead, but most important of all… the fence was broken!
There was a grimy little gap, made by some kind of bigger animal, which Princess was positive she could fit under. She used to be a lot fatter, but daddy’s terrible and unpredictable feeding of her had helped fix that.
Princess nudged her way into the gap, and despite the slight squeeze it gave her rotund body, she slipped through rather simply, finding herself on a street she’d never seen before.
And that was it! She was FREE! Daddy could never be mean to her again! Daddy could never yell at her or say ‘no’ ever again! She already had it all planned out. She’d go out into the ‘outside’, find herself some babies, then bring them home! Daddy could hardly say ‘no’ once she’d already gotten them!
Princess was so delighted by her genius plan she started to hop down the street, bounding along in utter joy… until two things hit her tiny brain simultaneously.
- She didn’t know where babies came from, or where you were meant to find them, and…
- Despite only taking a total of five steps away from the hole in the fence, she couldn’t remember how to get back to ‘home’.