Based on @GooGooDa’s Work Day Artwork.
Victoria Harkness grumbled as she poured her third cup of coffee that hour. Since there was clearly nothing else to do she had to keep some part of her mind active even if it was making a cuppa.
Her work had a micro-Fluffy infestation, someone hadn’t closed the door properly after a smoke-break and now the whole office was infested with the little shits, likely trying their luck to avoid the encroaching winter. According to the poor security guard who opened that morning, there was at least 70 of them, all either chewing on the phone cables or humping away at the desks, and from what other coworkers had told her, that wasn’t an exaggeration.
So the office was closed for the next three days where the exterminators went in and fumed the place out, ensuring all nooks and crannies were free of the vermin. Since most of the work was done of the computers anyway, the managers had broken out the old laptops to allow people to work from home. But since those old laptops were really fucking old – as in Windows 97 old – they weren’t compatible with the phone lines, meaning all Victoria had to do was the emails, and her work barely got any emails because the people who wanted her expertise wanted a person to speak to so they could be sure their work was being handled properly.
Victoria had logged in at 8:30 sharp that day, it was just after 10am and she had dealt with one email which ended up being a rescheduled meeting for someone else. She needed something to occupy her mind, something enticing, something fun, something…
‘TAP TAP TAP’
…Fluffy.
“HOOMIN! HOOMIN PWEASE HEWP!”
Victoria leaned back in her chair to see a Fluffy mare at her patio doors, frantically tapping on the glass. The mare was an unremarkable earthie with an unremarkable grey coat with ugly brown spots dotted all around her and a horribly clashing bright fucking neon turquoise mane, one of her eyes were bruised almost to the point of being swollen completely shut, there were frozen tears circling her entire face and her hoofs were cracked and bleeding, likely battered from the rock hard ground of frozen dirt.
More importantly though, even from a distance, Victoria could see the swollen teats and protruding stomach of a mare just about to enter her second trimester of pregnancy.
“Pwease hewp hoomin! Am soon-mummah! Am su, SU cowdies, cowdies am bad fow tummeh-babbehs.”
Victoria silently stared at the mare, then at the red streak of blood staining her patio doors, then at the open gate at the end of her garden – thank you Izzy for leaving that open AGAIN – then back at the mare. Then without saying a word, she reached over and pulled the curtains closed.
“NUUHUUUUUHUUUU!!! PWEASE NU WEAVE SOON-MUMMAH, NU WAN COWDIES, NU WAN TUMMAH BABBEHS HAB WOWSTESH HUWTIES!”
The tapping on the glass got even more frantic and desperate, a soft squeaking of leather hoofs sliding on plate-glass as fresh blood kept the mare’s hoofs slippery pierced through Victoria’s ears and she knew that even the miniscule amount of work she was doing wouldn’t get done with this annoyance outside.
Double checking that her email box was still empty, Victoria stood up and opened the curtains again, the mare’s face lit up when she saw the nice lady return, then her smile widened even more when she saw Victoria inch open the sliding door… only for that smile to vanish when she saw the door move that single inch and no more.
“Soon-mummah come inside pwease?” The mare asked gingerly as she reached over to push the door a little more. Near instantly Victoria slammed the door shut again, causing the mare to jump back or risk having her hood cut off. Seemingly taking the hint, the mare stepped back and stayed still as Victoria opened the door that single inch again.
“This is just so we can talk. Who are you, do you have a name?”
“Soon-mummah’s nameis am So-fee nice wady. Pwease wet soon-mummah inside, am wowstesh cowdies ousside.”
“Why the hell do you have kids Sophie? It’s been getting colder for weeks now, I thought you Fluffies at least knew not to have kids in the cold times.”
Victoria watched as Sophie’s face started to quiver, then almost immediately burst into tears, tiny streak of blood dribbled down Sophie’s face from where the frozen tears stabbed into her sensitive skin. But the grey mare was so distraught by some horrible memory that she barely even noticed.
“So-fee nu wan be soon-mummah, So-fee hab gud wife wiv wittew mummah an famiwy, den big gwan-mummah git wittew daddeh anudda Fwuffy, his namesie an Buwws-eye. So-fee twy tu be fwiends wiv Buwws-eye, bu he jus meanie, nu shawe toysies ow sketti wiv So-fee. Den wen So-fee an Buwws-eye am awone, he gib So-fee wowstesh bad speciaw-huggies, caw So-fee dummeh enfie mawe and gib wowstesh sowwy hoofies. So-fee twy tu teww famiwy, bu Buwws-eye say dat So-fee gib HIM bad speciaw-huggies cos wan babbehs, an famiwy bewieve him. Big daddeh gib wowstesh angwies an thwow So-fee ousside, caww So-fee munstah, nu wisten wen So-fee say dat Buwws-eye am weaw munstah.”
Victoria half-listened to Sophie’s tale of woe as her attention was more focused on the cigarette she had just lit up in her hands. She took a drag just as Sophie looked up, her heart broken all over again from having to relieve her trauma.
“So… you’re a victim. And your family took your attackers side. Welcome to the joys of being a woman.”
“Wha?”
“Forget it. Look I’d love to help you out but I only have your word for it, you might be lying to me.”
“NU! SO-FEE PWOMISE NU AM WIAW, SO-FEE NEBA WIE! PWEASE NU WEAVE SO-FEE AN TUMMEH BABBEHS IN COWDIES, SO-FEE DU ANEEFING!!!”
Victoria already knew Sophie wasn’t lying, she hadn’t called herself ‘Fluffy’ once during her story, but it was that last part of her plea that grabbed her attention the most.
“ANYTHING, you say?”
Unaware of what kind of woman she was speaking to, Sophie nodded with every desperate fibre in her body.
“Yeh, So-fee pwomise du aneefing nice wady wan su So-fee an tummeh-babbehs nu be in cowdies aneemowe.”
“… I’ve got just the thing.”
Victoria shut the patio door – eliciting a soft whine from Sophie – and rushed to her kitchen, a few seconds later she returned, inched over the door once more and tossed a handful of green leaves at Sophie’s feet.
“Wha dis? Am gween nummies?”
“Those are special-nummies… well I think they’re special, you might disagree. It’s called parsley, it doe something magical to soon-mummahs.”
“Wha gween-nummies du?”
Victoria took a long, slow drag of her cigarette, relishing in the tension building between her and this traumatised mare. As she deliberately blew her smoke out at a snail’s pace, she looked down at Sophie and smirked.
“It kills tummy-babies.”
“WHA!?”
Sophie jumped up and kicked the parsley away from her, terrified she shook her already wounded hoofs trying to get any piece of the green horror off of her.
“WAI WADY GIB SO-FEE MEANIE FING?”
“Because that’s the only way you’re coming inside my house.”
“Wh… wha?”
“I’m not taking in some bastard’s spawn, even if you are telling the truth I don’t want some rapists kids to grow up and be like their dad. If you want to come inside then only you will come inside, you eat that parsley, make sure those little bastards inside you are good and gone, then we’ll see about letting you inside. If you don’t eat the parsley, then you and your tummy-babbies are free to leave my property and survive out there on your own. You’ll be cold and hungry, but at least you’ll be together, right?”
Sophie’s heart was beating so fast, Victoria swore she could hear, the grey mare anxiously darted her eyes between the parsley, Victoria, the still open back gate, and back again, all the while her breathing got quicker and shallower.
“Nu… mummah… need… can’t… babbehs… wawmsies… wan…. oooohhhhhhHHHHUUUUUU!!! NU WAN MAKES WOWSTESH CHOOSIES, NU WIKE MEANIE WADY NU MOWE!”
“If you don’t like me then feel free to leave.”
“Ca… can So-fee jus stay tiww tummeh-babbehs nu need miwkies aneemowe? Den So-fee an babbehs weave?”
“Not a chance, that’s far too long.”
“Huu, can So-fee jus stay tiww tummeh-babbehs am hewe den?”
“Ha, then it’ll be even colder. But hey, if you want to wait until your babies are blind, dumb and frozen then by all means you can….”
Sophie broke down into tears again, knowing Victoria was right, she either had to find a new home NOW in order to survive the winter with her foals, or she would have to make the impossible choice.
“Mummah am su sowwy babbehs.”
With her eyes shut tight, Sophie leaned forward and took a large mouthful of the parsley, she chewed and chewed, shuddering slightly at the mildly peppery taste, and swallowed, waiting for the inevitable to happen.
It took mere moments before she felt her stomach churn in the wrong direction, then an uncomfortable pressure moved through her body, passing through her stomach to her intestine, all the way to her special-place where…
“BIGGESH POOPIES!”
In a spray of blood and shit and other assorted fluids, Sophie’s body violently expelled her unformed foals, with how much parsley she had ate, the force of the expulsion nearly knocked Sophie unconscious from the effort alone. Once the vibrations stopped she dropped to the ground, took a moment to catch her breath before shakily turning around.
Lying on the frozen grass, some of them smashed and squashed against the brick-hard dirt, were six grey-ish pink blobs that were vaguely foal-shaped. Sophie could make out their heads and legs from what would be their bodies, and the start of their eyes beginning to form, but otherwise they were fluff-less piece of meat the size of walnut.
And yet, they were her babbehs, and she loved them so.
“Mummah am su sowwy babbehs, bu mummah knyo nu can pwotek yu in cowd-times. Wiww awways wub yu su muchies.”
Sophie gently nudged one of her dead children with her nose and turned around, only to be met with a look of absolute horror and disgust on Victoria’s face.
“You heartless cunt.”
“Wha? Bu nice wady say…”
“You didn’t even TRY! You give up SO easily and you chose yourself over your own CHILDREN!”
“NU! Nu, wady say dat…”
“I mean if you had even bothered to argue, to try and make a case I might have listened but you… you put yourself over your kids without even thinking about it.”
“SO-FEE WUB BABBEHS! NU WAN BABBEHS GU FOWEBA SWEEPIES! WADY SAY DAT SO-FEE NEED NUM MEANIE PWANT!”
Victoria sneered at Sophie and stepped back, her hand gripping on the door hand.
“Your family was right, you really are a monster.”
The door slammed shut and the thick curtain was drawn so fast that Victoria was gone before Sophie even realised.
“NU! NU PWEASE, NU WEAVE SO-FEE OUSSIDE! AM SO COWDIES, NU WAN GU FOWEBA SWEEPIES, PWEASE NU WEAVE!!!”
Sophie attacked the glass in a frenzy, hopelessly trying get Victoria’s attention. But having finally stopped moving for five minutes, the blood covering her hoofs had frozen over, making her hoofs slip and slide against the glass, each violent jerk sending shockwaves through her bruised body.
Eventually she had to stop from the pain, her first thought turned to finding a place to lay low and wait for Victoria to return, but there was nowhere in the garden to protect her from the bitter winds starting to build, and nowhere she could turn to that would remove her dead foals from her sight.
In her desperation, she tried to lick her babies off the ground, to protect them in death the way she couldn’t in life… but they had already frozen to the dirt and couldn’t be moved.
Heartbroken and alone, Sophie took one angonising step towards the back gate, then another, then another, then with no other option left for her, she took another.
“Wan die.” She whispered to herself, no longer caring what the icy breeze did to her anymore.
Peeking through her curtains, Victoria smiled as she watched Sophie leave, she couldn’t hear the wan-die, but the despondent and defeated language in her body movements told her enough.
Happy that that little distraction was over, Victoria returned to her laptop… and found her email box was still empty. She rolled her eyes and growled to herself as she left her desk once more.
“I’m getting another fucking coffee.”
