This going to be a long, multi-part story. It will be mostly sad box but some parts will vary in tone. Will try and be as specific as possible with my tags.
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Charlie was a runaway.
A dark blue unicorn with a yellow mane, tinged with the subtlest hint of orange.
He had been a faithful and loving pet to his Mummah, a retired University Professor, who sought a companion to see her through her autumn years and loved him back for helping her feel less alone.
When death came for her, as death comes for us all, Charlie was faced with a choice between a shelter or the wilderness.
Deciding that the potential dangers of the outside world were preferable to a cage and the indifference of the humans who had come to clear out his Mummah’s house, he snuck out while they were distracted.
After several days and nights of lonely, grief striken travel, he came to the forest.
Flower was a feral.
All she had ever known was the wilderness and so, when Charlie stumbled across her, exhausted and half starved, he appeared to her to have come from another world.
For Charlie’s part, Flower was the first fluffy he had talked to since his journey began and so he thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, muddy and tangled though her yellow fur and dark green mane were.
And so, on that summer evening, as the sun was setting and the last rays of light disappeared, bathing them in the glow of twilight, the two of them fell in love.
Flower took Charlie to join her herd and he settled right in.
As guilty as it made Charlie feel, because he had loved his Mummah, living in the forest with his new special friend and her herd had allowed him to experience happiness the likes of which he had never thought possible.
This contentment only grew stronger when Flower gave birth to Charlie’s foals.
There were three in total and Charlie’s heart swelled with pride as he looked at them.
“Wook”, Flower cooed in satisfaction “Hab pwetty wingie babbehs an dey hab bewstest pwetty fwuff. Su many happies”
Charlie looked down at the two little pegusus fillies, one bright green and the other a glorious pink.
They lay curled round each other, their tiny wings too small to do anything other than twitch occasionally.
“Fwower gonna caww dis fwuffy Weaf”, she continued, motioning towards the green ball of fluff.
“Pwetty namsie”, agreed Charlie happily.
He was still amazed at the concept of fluffies getting to name their own babies, having grown up in a world where humans made all the important decisions.
“An Fwowew gonna caww dis fwuffy Bewwy”, she proclaimed once more, gazing fondly at her pink filly.
That sounded just fine with Charlie.
“Wat Fwower wan caww uduh babbehs?”, Charlie asked, turning his attention to the next little ball of fluff, an earthie with a rich brown layer of fuzz already covering her tiny form.
Charlie’s heart sank a little, as Flower made an unimpressed sounding grunt.
He had been afraid of this.
Although he loved life among his herd in so many ways, he couldn’t help but flinch at the treatment of the poopie babbehs.
It was contrary to all the lessons he had been taught in his time as a domestic.
He couldn’t bear the thought of casting one of his foals aside just because her fluff was the “wrong” colour.
Thinking as fast as his simple fluffy brain would allow, he cast his mind for something positive to say.
“When Charwie hab housie, hoomins hab nummie cawwed Chocowate. Was bewstest nummies eba. Dat babbeh hab fwuff wile Chocowate. Mawbe dat am gud namsie.”
It was a clever move on his part.
In the same way that Charlie found romanticism in the ways of wild fluffies, Flower loved to hear about stories from the human world Charlie came from.
They were as alien and exotic to her as her world was to him, and Charlie knew it.
“Weww…”, Flower said hesitantly, her instinct to reject a baby with bad colours battling against her desire to make Charlie think she was as sophisticated and worldly as she thought he was.
“Dis babbeh am cawwed Chocowate”, she agreed, although Charlie couldn’t help but notice that Flower didn’t sound as enthusiastic as she had when naming their first two foals.
Eager to move the conversation along, he turned to the last of their newborns, a tiny unicorn.
This one was a colt.
Charlie gave a start.
This little unicorn’s fur was a funny colour, unlike one he had ever seen on a fluffy.
In all the commotion, he hadn’t fully registered it. And if it startled him, then…
He looked up at Flower, who looked equally unsettled.
“Wat cowouw am dat?”, she gasped, somewhere between shock and suprise.
Charlie’s mind raced, as he desperately thought for something reassuring to say.
He knew in his heart that this wasn’t a monster baby and couldn’t bear the thought of rejecting him any more than he could have lived with himself if he had allowed Chocolate to be thrown into the place where the herd made poopies.
He thought hard.
What was this colour called?
Somewhere in the recess of his brain, a memory stirred.
“Wen Chawlie hab housie wif hoomin mummah…”, he began hesitantly
"…mummah see fwends and gib dem nummies. Wen dat happen an Mummah see hew bewstest fwends dey eat nummies wif…wif…
“DAT’S WITE!”, he exclaimed, startling Flower with his enthusiasm.
“Mummah an hew bewstest fwends num speciaw nummies wif mummah’s bewstest siwvew! Dat cowouw am cawwed siwvew!”
“Oooooow”, said Flower.
The concept was so foreign to her as to be almost incomprehensible.
But once again, her love of Charlie’s tales from his former life won her over.
“Otay”, she cooed, nuzzling against her special friend.
“Pointy babbeh am cawwed Siwvew”.
Click here for Silver, part 2. By Poopieplace