“So you starved it, then did a shit job making a bottle of formula, and tried to feed it a full 12 fluid ounces causing it to gorge itself and puke up everything it ingested.”
Jitters cringed as Loretta relayed everything he had told her, knowing he was getting chewed out for his negligent behaviour. “It didn’t drink all of it…Just like… Most of it…”
“Goddammit, Jitters, that’s like trying to stuff a whole fucking soda can’s worth of formula into a newborn kitten! It can’t possibly ingest that much in a single sitting! The average a foal can drink is 1.7 ounces minimum every two hours! 5.2 if it’s really necessary!”
“Oh…”
“‘Oh’ is right, you dunderhead! Even human babies don’t drink that much! Crimeny, how the hell are you so smart yet so dumb? I mean you’re majoring in Biology in hopes of getting a job as a wildlife ecologist, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you have enough common sense to not overfeed a fucking infant?”
“Okay, one, my school studies don’t cover anything involving fluffies, they’re not even legally considered living animals, as confusing as it sounds. Two, just because I’m majoring in Biology does not instantly mean I know the exact measurements of milk required for the offspring of every living creature known to man!”
“How much does a baby harp seal eat before it’s mom abandons it?” Loretta casually asks.
“The average daily milk intake for pups was 3.65 +/- 0.24 kg which is equivalent to 79.5 MJ of energy. They nurse on high-fat milk for about 12 days. During this time, they gain about 5 pounds per day so if we do the math- I hate you…”
Jitters groans, realizing he’d fallen for Loretta’s trick as she cackles from her end of the phone call. He had approximate knowledge of many things, but fluffies were not one of them.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, but now you know. I’ve currently got his mom on a milk pump, so I can deliver some of it to you the moment I get a chance. It’ll be better for him than the formula, and if he keeps puking, we’ll be able to diagnose him further for any digestive sensitivities. Hopefully it’ll have been just a one-off incident due to overfeeding.”
“Okay… Maybe you should just take him back? I-If Trixie’s not still… You know?” He offers, knowing that Trixie would be the best solution for the foal, even though she terrified him with her emotional meltdown earlier.
“Yeah! Yeah, we can definitely do that! That’d be an excellent- H-Hang on-” Loretta’s voice becomes fainter as background noises of her fluffies grows louder and more frantically pitched. Loretta can be heard cursing aloud as a shrill voice screeches out ‘BIGGEST POOPIES!!!’
“Jitters, I gotta call you back-”
The call ends, and Jitters is left with a half-cleaned mess and a softly chirping alicorn in a shoe box.
Once the vomit and shit had been cleaned, Jitters had to wipe up a few more instances of the alicorn’s poopy messes before succumbing to a desperate desire to be cleaned himself. Anything to rid himself of the sour smell of milky vomit.
He set the shoe box on the lid of the toilet so he’d be close by in case the foal needed him. Just a quick shower to wash away the stress, that’s all he needed. Then it’d be back to babysitting until Loretta could take the foal away.
You are a foal. After the horrible experience with the sickie wawas and bad poopies, you felt awful. Your poopie place felt sore from the dry, rough cleanies daddeh gave you when your nestie had become dirty again. Your poor tummy felt empty, but you didn’t wanna num any more yuckie milkies. Instead, you just wanted to sleep off your exhaustion in the nice nestie your Daddeh just finished making for you.
You were dozing off as you heard him speak. You didn’t know who he was talking to, or what he was saying. Was he talking to you? You peeped at him to let him know you heard him. You felt your nestie move, your Daddeh carrying you and your nest away. Daddeh must be so strong to whisk you away so easily. You hope to be as strong as him some day, but to grow that strong you’d need milkies. You miss Mummah…
Your nest is carefully placed down, and you hear Daddeh speak again. His voice feels louder somehow, as if it whatever place you both were in now made all the sounds more pronounced. You don’t understand what he says, but it’s comforting to hear his voice. He pets your tiny head, and you coo softly at the attention.
There is a lot of shuffling, and then a terrifying noise. A loud, metallic creak, and the sound of rushing wawas. The wawas were so close to you! Wawas were bad for babbehs! You cry out for daddeh, to warn him of the danger.
“Still here, little guy, don’t worry-Ah, dammit, forgot to grab a rag…”
You hear a crinkly shuffle, and you feel the presence of something reaching above you. Was it a munstah?! Or was it Daddeh?? You couldn’t tell. You cry out again, desperately searching for Daddeh, squirming in your nest as if you could find him by blindly reaching out around you.
Then you feel it, a splash of warm wetness. You screech in terror, flailing your tiny arms to escape the bad wawas attacking you. The rushing wawas were deafeningly loud. You cry for Daddeh, and you hear him humming. Why wasn’t he scared? Didn’t he hear you? Why wouldn’t he save you?!
“Ah, there we go.”
A strong, pretty smell fills the air, but you’re not able to enjoy it. The small droplets of wawa that soaked into your baby fluff were quickly losing their warmth. You shiver at the cold, begging for Daddeh to save you from your misery.
“Almost done little guy, I promise! Jeez… Can fluffies be colicky??”
You can barely hear your Daddeh over the terrible, awful wawas. The air feels thick and heavy the warmer it gets. You cry, scrambling your uncoordinated little legs in a desperate attempt to run away. Your poopie place makes the bad feelings again and you smell not pretty.
You need daddeh. You need to escape. You need out.
You reach the edge of your nestie, pressing up against the wall in a desperate attempt to climb. Your tiny, featherless wingies flap in uncoordinated movements, still unsure of how to make them work properly. Your useless hooves tap and scratch against the cardboard surface, finding no purchase as your body feebly slides down at every fumble.
Jitters finishes his shower, shutting off the water and stepping out of the tub to dry off and get dressed. The foal is squeaking loudly again, and for a moment he’s worried until he sees the pile of poop covering it’s back half.
“Oh dammit, I just cleaned you…” He couldn’t blame it though, it was a baby. Baby’s don’t control their bowels very well.
Grabbing a few squares of toilet paper, he picks the alicorn up and cleans it again. It’s not as effective as the wet wipes or wash rag, but it got the job done for the most part. At this point he needed to do some laundry just to make sure he had enough clean rags on hand.
The foal fussed and squirmed, hugging his fingers tightly as he finished cleaning it. Loud squeaks were screamed out as water dripped from his still wet hair onto the foal. So dramatic.
“There, all clean. That wasn’t that bad, now was it?”
The foal calmed down considerably as he carried it and the shoe box(with the wash rag replaced with yet another clean one) out of the bathroom. All he had to do now was wait for Loretta, and wait he did.
And he waited. And waited. And waited…
After a while of trying to skim over information on baby fluffy care while letting the foal to snuggle in his hand, he decided he couldn’t wait any longer for Loretta to bring the milk. He’d have to attempt another go with the formula.
This time, he measured the ingredients carefully and filled the bottle to the appropriate amount as instructed.
The feeding went considerably well! The foal was reluctant at first, but after a moment of nudging and coaxing his mouth to open, it finally fed at a much calmer rate and was even successfully burped with a few light taps from Jitters’ finger.
The next several hours passed by with little excitement. The foal mostly slept, pooped, and ate, to which Jitters carefully monitored and made notes to show to Loretta for when she finally showed up. With how much the foal slept, Jitters was able to get some work done, quietly typing away at his computer to finish some class work with semi-frequent breaks for snacks, stretching, and of course checking on the alicorn who had slowly become more fussy the later in the day it became.
Your tummy had finally been filled, without the sickie feelings. Daddeh gave you cuddles and love, and you were happy, for a time…
Now your poopie place felt tender and sore. It was such horrible hurties. Every time you made poopies, your Daddeh would give you cleanies, but these cleanies did not feel good. They were dry, and rough, and it took longer for him to clean all the poopies than went he gave you wet cleanies. He did try to give wet cleanies on a couple occasions, but they were so cold you ended up screeching and giving him bad peepees on accident.
You cry and tap your hooves in distress, trying to signal to your Daddeh that something was terribly wrong, but you couldn’t tell him what it was. He gave you pets, tried to feed you, tried to comfort you with nice words, but he didn’t understand. At least, not until you made another poopy mess and he tried to give you cleanies again, to which you shrieked at the top of your tiny lungs in pain.
Jitters flinched and nearly dropped the damned foal when it made an ear piercing shriek. He didn’t know what the fuss was about! All he did was try to wipe it’s shitty little behind like he’d been doing all damn day!
Lifting the foal up to get a better view at what the problem area could be, he suddenly understood.
The whole area around it’s tiny little asshole was rubbed raw.
He looked at the toilet paper in his hand and examined the material by carefully feeling it between his fingers. A little coarse, but not the worst… Though, maybe to newborn skin it was too coarse… Damn, he didn’t think about that.
Carrying the foal to the bathroom, he cleaned the foal off with his last clean washcloth (definitely had to do a load of laundry after this) and dug around in his medical stash until he found what he’d been looking for. Antibacterial ointment.
“Don’t worry, kiddo, I’ll fix you right up…” He says in an attempt to reassure the sobbing foal.
Grabbing a Q-tip, he slathers the ointment on it before carefully applying the medicine to the poor infant’s sore bottom.
The alicorn sobbed and clung to his fingers, squeaking pitifully at the cold feeling of the ointment being smeared on it’s skin, but soon the soothing coolness eased the raw pain and the foal began to settle down.
“Alrighty, just need to keep an eye on that and reapply the ointment whenever you’re in need of cleaning and you should be okay, I hope.” Jitters sighs, tossing the used Q-tip in the trash before carrying the foal to it’s makeshift nest. “Who knew babies were so fragile…? Probably Loretta… Definitely Loretta… Speaking of, where is she?”
He looks at the clock, noting that it was well past dinner time at this point. Was she even gonna show up today?
Another half an hour passed before there was a banging on Jitters’ front door. The foal was asleep and now peeped and cried at it’s sudden and rude awakening.
“Goddammit…” Jitters grumbled, getting up to see who it was. After peeking through the peephole, he opened the door and was quickly greeted with the sight of a very disgruntled Loretta.
“Cheese and fucking crackers, what the Hell happened to you?!” He exclaims, noting the smeared spatters of blood on Loretta’s face.
“If anyone ever tells you that childbirth is easy, stab 'em in their taint.”* Loretta orders, shoving a cardboard box of supplies into his hands. Without another word, she barges into his home and immediately searches for the foal.
“W-Wait, what?” He asks, closing the door behind him as he follows her.
“I can’t stay for long, one of my mares gave birth and instead of the regular 4-6 pup litter, she squeezed out a whopping 9 foals. Dunno if all of them are gonna make it, and the dam is currently in critical condition from the blood loss, so I’ve got all hands on deck with my remaining mares pitching in to help. Unfortunately my other soon-mummah is gonna pop either this week or the next, and there’s no telling how many foals she’s ready to deliver. So, that leaves you to deal with this little guy, because I don’t have the room for another hungry mouth right now…”
Jitters fumbles with the box, setting it down on the table as he looks at Loretta in exasperation. “What?!”
She finds the baby alicorn in it’s nest on the coffee table, peeping up a storm. With a tired smile, she picks the foal up and inspects him. “What the hell is all over his ass?”
“T-Topical ointment, the toilet paper I used to clean him rubbed his skin raw…” He explains, shaking his head as he processes everything Loretta told him. “What about Trixie?! Can’t she keep him?”
She rolls her eyes, already irritated with her stressful day. “Trixie’s going to be looking after the rest of his siblings, and trust me, despite her determination to take care of ALL the babies, five is her safest limit right now. I had to split up the big batch between the other mummah’s just to make sure all of them would be taken care of, and I’ve still gotta step in and help them when I can. So for now, we’re shit out of luck and I need you to keep this damn thing alive the best you can.”
“Is that what the box is for?” He asks, looking at the contents of foal supplies. Loretta nods in affirmation as she tickles the foal’s tummy before setting him down in his nest.
“Yeah, it’s got all the basic items you need for his care. Wet wipes, baby blankets, a mini-auto feeder, nutrient boosters, formula, nightlight, expandable foal pen, and a couple of fluffy baby books for you to brush up on for any facts you need. Oh, and I got you a couple of bottles of Lady Bell’s milk, keep it in the fridge so it doesn’t spoil and when you need it, just warm it up in a pot of warm water. If you need anything, just call me, okay? I gotta go.”
“Wha-? W-wait, I- What about- Hold on-” Jitters can barely get a word in before Loretta hurries to the door. Looking from the box of supplies to Loretta, he trails after her, stumbling over whatever words he was trying to form. By the time he manages to call out to her, she’s already halfway down the sidewalk and showing no signs of stopping.
“I just-Call me when you get the chance?!” He huffs in disbelief. He’s only had the alicorn since the previous night, and he had more than proven he was neither ready nor qualified to take care of it. Now he had no choice but to take care of it.
Standing in his doorway, he watches Loretta until she disappears down the street. A low rumble of thunder is heard in the distance.
“Fuck…”
Loretta and Trixie belong to @UndercoverPallasCat
