Apricot was in tatters.
Metaphorically of course, but the clumps of Fluff she was losing from stress made it feel somewhat physical. In the days since the birth of her foals and the death of her son she had been teetering on the edge of sanity, being both overprotective and overbearing.
Desperate not to lose another child and fully believing Victoria’s lies that it was her rejection of her purple son that killed him, Apricot made sure to give each and every foal as much love and huggies as she could give. Usually that would be perfect, foals love the bonding moments with their mother, especially in the days before they open their eyes, but they could sense the quiver of fear in their mother’s voice, turning what should’ve been a loving time of bonding, left the babbehs frightened and unnerved.
Worst still was the feedings, one bowl of kibble was never enough to feed all of her young and Apricot would often be left with at least one or two foals getting barely, if any milk. And it wasn’t like she could go exploring the house again for scraps of food, anytime she left the bed to feed or poop the foals would start peeping out in fear, fear of being cold, fear of being hungry, fear of being abandoned.
So Apricot stayed with them, starving herself, but too scared, too traumatised to do anything about it.
And it only got worse once the babbehs opened their eyes.
The silver filly was the first one to open her eyes, lazily blinking herself awake as she tumbled out of the fluffpile her and her siblings had created. Apricot felt the moment beside her and gasped.
“MUMMAH, MUMMAH, COME WOOK, BABBEHS OPEN SEE-PWACES!”
Victoria causally moseyed on into the safe-room, she had shown no interest in the foals at all since their birth, but she knew Apricot’s programming forced her to seek her owner’s approval, even if Victoria made it clear she didn’t give a shit.
Standing at the doorway, close enough to see what was going on but far enough away so that her lack of interest was clear, Victoria watched as Apricot and her silver daughter met each other for the first time.
“Muh… mummah?” The filly asked as she peered up at the big orange mare in front of her.
“Dat wight babbeh, am mummah?”
“Heh, wub mummah.”
“Mummah wub babbeh tuu.”
Apricot picked up her silver daughter and hugged her, holding her tightly until…
“Mummah?”
Apricot gasped again and looked down, seeing the purple earthie colt had also opened his eyes.
“YAY, twu babbehs open see-pwaces.”
One by one, the foals all opened their eyes, resulting in more cheering and hugging from Apricot, for the first time in days the mare felt like she could relax, her children were all here and all safe, she could just enjoy the happy time with all four of them.
Hold on, four?
Apricot shot up, nearly knocking some of her foals out of her arms and looked around, having been the first to open her eyes and the first to be ignored in favour of her siblings, the silver filly had pulled herself out of the bed and was crawling along the carpet.
“Hehe, am spwowin babbeh.”
“BABBEH NU!”
Apricot charged forward and stopped her silver filly from getting any further from the bed, a curious reaction to Victoria, who had only ever seen mares celebrate their children being so brave and curious to explore their environments.
Then again, Apricot was clearly overdoing it on the parental front.
“Wai mummah take babbeh bak, mummah nu wub spwowin babbeh?”
“Mummah nu wan babbeh spwowin, tuu scawy. Say wiv mummah in bedsies.”
“Huu, mummah, babbeh hab huwties.”
Apricot realised to her horror, that in her sudden rush to save one foal, she had inadvertently hurt the others, knocking them onto the bed, which granted was very soft and comforting, but the foals knew they had been knocked over and their programming told them that was wrong.
“BABBEHS! Mummah sowwy babbehs, nu mean gib huwties.”
Victoria watched Apricot struggle with her bawling brood for a moment before turning away. This was going better than expected.
In an attempt to distract herself, Apricot gave her children names. Or rather she tried to get Victoria to name them, only to be reminded once again that her children were her responsibility.
With Fluffies not known for their originalities, the names weren’t all that special. The earthie green filly became ‘Green’, the orange earthie filly became ‘Orange’, the purple earthie colt became ‘Blue’ because ‘Puwpew’ was too difficult for Apricot to say, the green unicorn colt became ‘Evergreen’ although Apricot couldn’t remember why that name meant something her, and the silver unicorn filly became ‘Shiny’.
Briefly Victoria wondered if designating the filly with a shiny nomenclature would result in bestesh babbeh syndrome, but it turned out she needn’t have worried. For even though Shiny clearly was the bestesh babbeh, Shiny didn’t take the title all too well.
Shiny was a splorin babbeh, she wanted to explore and run and examine every inch of her safe-room, but Apricot didn’t let her, she demanded that all her children stay as close to the bed as possible, in case anything happened to them. Apricot genuinely believed if he children got too far then her love couldn’t protect them, and if they didn’t have her love, they would go forever sleepies like their brother.
Of course none of the foals even remembered their brother, but naturally they felt sad to hear that he was dead. They all cried and mourned for him when Apricot told them what happened to him – at least as far as she knew it – but after less than a day, most of the foals had forgotten the heartache.
Instead, their pain was in their stomachs.
“MUMMAH, GWEEN HAB TUMMEH-HUWTIES!”
“BWUW HAB TUMMEH-HUWTIE TUU!”
Apricot gathered her weeping children and tried to hug the pain away. “Am sowwy babbehs, nu can gib miwkies tiww mummah hab nummies.”
“Huu, wai mummah nu hab nummies? Babbehs hungwy.”
“Need wait fow big mummah gib nummies, nu nummies in safe-woom fow mummah tu hab.”
Victoria waited outside, a bowl of kibble in hand, she listened to the whining of the foals, knowing none of them would ever know a full belly. Thinking quickly, she took a handful of kibble out of the bowl and dropped it into a bin before heading inside.
“Hey Apricot, I got your lunch. I hope you’re hungry.”
“YAY, nummies. Fank yu mummah.”
Apricot happily trotted over to her bowl and munched away, then she had to stop once she realised that after only a few mouthfuls there was a significant chunk of her meal already gone.
“Uh… mummah, can Apwicot hab mowe nummies, jus dis wunce. Babbehs hab wowstesh tummeh-huwties an Apwicot nu hab enuff miwkies fow dem aww.”
Victoria put on her best condescending grin and knealt down in front of Apricot, making sure to speak slowly and loudly for all the foals to hear her.
“Apricot. I told you, if you need any more food, you need to get it yourself. These are YOUR babies and YOUR responsibility. If you need my help then maybe you’re not ready to be a mummah.”
“NU! Nu, Apwicot gud mummah, wub babbehs, Apwicot git nummies.”
Of course the moment she said that, Apricot looked around the room, she hadn’t been able to find anything in days, what hope did she have now?
Satisfied that the message had gotten through, Victoria turned to leave, only to be stopped by Shiny.
“Victowia?” The silver filly asked, having already been told not to refer to her as ‘mummah’. “Can babbehs hab mowe toysies pwease> Dewe nu am enuff fow aww babbehs.”
Victoria beamed, this was something she hadn’t considered, Apricot’s safe-room was purposefully designed for a single Fluffy and it was good for a single Fluffy with a ball, a stack of four blocks and a single picture book all providing Apricot with hours of fun when she was young.
But now there were five young Fluffies, all of whome with different levels of attention span and interests and all sharing the same overprotective mother. Boredom was going to be rampant without extra stimulation.
And Victoria wasn’t going to give it to them.
“Well Shiny, if your mother has more toys to give you, then of course you can have more. Why don’t you ask her?”
Shiny smiled but Victoria could see the worry in her eyes, already expecting disappointment as she turned round to face Apricot.
“Mummah? Can babbehs hab mowe toysies pwease?”
Apricot giggled. “Siwwy babbeh, dey am pwenty toysies, an yu hab aww bwuddas an sissies tu pway wiv tuu.”
“Bu dey nu am enuff toysies fow AWW babbehs, need mowe su babbehs nu git heawt huwties.”
Hearing the potential for heart-hurties brought Apricot back to earth, her face dropped as she looked around the room, seeing only the scarce amount of her old toys left behind from her youth.
“Mummah nu knyo how git toysies, git dese aww fwom mummah.”
“Well then…” Victoria interrupted before the foals could start thinking for themselves. “…I think you should start looking for more toys then, don’t want your little babies to get bored now, do we?”
The panic set in for Apricot once again as she tried to look around the room, seeing if there was anything even resembling a toy for her babbehs, the soft curtains were too high to reach, the night-light only came on when it was dark, there was no screen to watch Fluff-TV on.
Shiny rolled her eyes and lay down as her siblings started crying for the milk they had been promised. Now they were hungry AND bored.
If it was at all possible, things only got worse once the foals started eating solid foods.
Victoria could see the writing was on the wall for most of the foals even before they started to wean themselves off their mother’s milk, having lived most of their lives in a constant state of hunger and boredom, most of them weren’t showing any signs of personality and enthusiasm, they were too tired, too fatigued and too emotionally unfulfilled to form any baseline personalities, none of them knew what they liked because they’d never been given the chance nor the energy to try anything.
Even to Apricot, as blinded as she was by her overbearing protectiveness, she could tell something was wrong. Babbehs staying close to her for huggies and love was everything she wanted, but babbehs staying close to her because they couldn’t find the energy to run and play anymore scared her.
“Come on babbehs, nu wan pway baww, ow huggy-tag?”
Evergreen raised his head up with an enormous amount of effort, and slowly shook it before dropping back down again.
Only Shiny showed any outlying personality, having very quickly designated herself as a Sploring Babbeh and even quicker realised how much she disliked her mother’s overprotective attitude. It was also possible that Shiny had been given a little bit extra milk if her formative weeks as the potential bestesh babbeh but Victoria had no way of proving that.
It was Shiny that let Apricot and Victoria learn about the foals growth away from milk when she found a strewn piece of kibble on the carpet and crunched into it.
“Mummah, Shy-nee find guud nummie.”
“Babbeh, dat am big Fwuffy nummie, babbeh am bein big Fwuffy nyo. Mummah hab biggesh heawt-happies.”
After an excited Apricot told Victoria the good news, she waited patiently for lunch-time, hoping she would be able to share in the wonders of kibble with her children, then maybe one day, sketti.
But then lunch time came, and with it there was only one bowl.
“Mummah? Wai onwy wun nummie bow? Dey am thwee an thwee Fwuffies hewe?”
Victoria put on an exasperated sigh. “Apricot, I don’t know how many times I need to say this, but YOUR babies are YOUR responsibility. I can’t spend extra money on them that I don’t have. You told me you could look after them, that you could provide for them, and yet every time you ask for MY help.”
Apricot dropped her head in shame. “Am sowwy mummah, bu babbehs am big Fwuffies nyo, was finkin dey couwd hab big Fwuffy nummies tuu?”
“If you can find it, then sure. But it had to be YOU that finds it.”
Victoria left the room, intentionally leaving the door open a tad as she did.
Apricot hemmed and hawed, wanting badly to eat herself but not wanting to let her babbehs go hungry now that she couldn’t feed them milk. With a deep breath, she made her decision.
“Babbehs wait hewe, mummah gu find mowe nummies.”
Turning away before she could change her mind, Apricot squeezed herself through the open door and started exploring the house. Not much had changed since she’d been confined to the safe-room almost two months ago, but the notoriously scatterbrained Fluffy, it might as well have been an entirely new place. The vast hallways, the pretty pictures on the walls, the happy sounds coming from the TV in the other room, it was all so exciting, and somewhat terrifying.
With all her worries and fears of something hurting her babies, the house now scared Apricot. Every nook and cranny filled with so many ways for her children be put into pain, or worse, go forever sleepies from. Apricot quickened her pace to the kitchen, she knew that’s where the food was kept, maybe there she could find solace too.
Instead, there was only more terrors. The sharp knives hanging precariously in their rack and safely out of reach, the deadly water dripping menacingly into the unplugged sink, and worst of all; the oven, ready to give the worst burning hurties to any Fluffy that came near it, climbed the sheer glass front for three feet, somehow turn everything to the right setting and sat inside it for 20 minutes while it heated up.
Apricot screeched and turned back, the kitchen was far too frightening for her anymore, she couldn’t stand to be in the room, let alone look for kibble in it. She returned to her children, sobbing and farting, her stomach too empty to shit out anything.
“Huu, am sowwy babbehs. Mummah nu find mowe nummies, am wowstesh mummah.”
“Bu mummah.” Shiny exclaimed with unrecognisable happiness. “Babbehs hab nummies.”
Confused, Apricot wiped her tears and looked over at her children, whilst still not active, most of them looked sated and contented around an empty food bowl. They had eaten the kibble.
More importantly, they had eaten HER kibble.
“Oh… dat am gud babbehs. Fwuffy happies babbeh hab gud nummies. Mummah gu west nyo.”
Apricot lay down and tried to ignore the grumbling in her stomach. Part of her was relieved that her children were able to eat something, but a bigger part of her felt an ugly reaction to the news, something toxic, something painful, something…
Resentful.
I swear I did plan this as a one chapter story. Hopefully Chapter 4 will be the end.
