“Mummah wub babbehs… Babbehs… babbehs wub mummah…” You sang softly to your unborn foals.
You did love them, you did. Even if they ended up like the last litter, with too many legs and not enough eyes, making horrible rasping noises. You loved every scary baby you had. You would sing to them all the same, even if your voice shook when you did. When they finally stopped their gurgling and fell still you cried over them, even if it was a mercy.
You left out the part of the song about growing big and strong.
You were far too bloated to move by this point, the lab workers had set you in the litterbox of your cage a long time ago. You wished they would clean you, but you knew better than to ask anything of them. You would have to wait until your foals came to groom your matted russet fluff yourself, no matter how hard you tried to turn your bloated belly kept you from cleaning any further than your shoulders. It felt like you had been pregnant forever. Many forevers at that.
The foals in your belly churned and kicked, hard. You gasped quietly, silently begging your foals to wait. The lab workers would turn the lights off soon, and leave to wherever they went when they weren’t making fluffies suffer. If you birthed them now, the workers would come. They would yank the foals out of you, roughly and carelessly, and take them away before you could even get a good look at them. Monster babies or not, they deserved at least a moment to be held, to be cleaned and fed and told that they were good babies and that they were loved.
Another hard kick, you hissed in pain. “Pwease be nicey, babbehs… nu huwt mummah…”
“Twelve is close, should someone stay overnight?” One of the workers asked. Twelve, that was you. You knew it was a number, too high for you to count.
“Nah, that one won’t pop till the morning.” Another replied.
“You sure?”
“I have never been wrong before. Not once.”
“Alright man, but if something goes wrong and Sutton gets up my ass about it you’re buying me lunch.”
“Deal.”
One by one the lights flicked off, each one with a deep THUNK. At one time the approaching darkness terrified you, now you knew it meant safety. No one was around when it was dark, so no one to stick you with pointy things, strap you down to tables, or shove things into your special place. You held your breath a moment longer, waiting to be sure no one came back in. The foals in your belly squirmed, stronger than you had ever felt before. They were coming, now, nothing more you could do about it.
“BIGGEST POOPIES!” You cried, grateful despite the pain that they had waited until now, until you would have all night to love them. Or… Give them a quick death. Whatever you had to do to be a good mummah. You gritted your teeth as you felt the pressure in your special place, you would make sure these babies wouldn’t suffer.
“Cum owt ob mummah, babbehs.” You moaned, pressure and pain building. “Mummah wub yu.” Something was different, it felt like the baby was coming out sideways! Your hooves dug into the wood chip litter as you groaned in pain. For a moment you wished the lab workers were still here, they might be able to help you. Then again, you only remembered cruelty from them. They would probably just hurt you worse.
Something in you tore, and you screamed, a wordless bleat of pain. You felt the rush of fluids push a solid mass out of you as the world grew fuzzy around the edges. Everything was blue, and you felt hazy, your screams fading into sobs. Some twitch of instinct at the edge of your consciousness urged you to care for your foals, and you pushed yourself around with shaky hooves.
Behind you was not a mass of chirpy foals, nor a mixture of unmatched limbs, but one large foal. If you could even call it a foal, it was nearly half your size. Its burnt orange fluff was slicked back with fluids along with its dark green mane. Your head fell into the wood chips of the litterbox. Was this your foal? You could feel unconsciousness beckoning you into the darkness, your eyelids impossibly heavy and the pain of your hind end foggy and unclear.
As your eyes started to slide shut the foals flicked open, brilliant purple, and fixed themselves on you.
You dreamed of malformed foals and sharp, shiny things. The smell of antiseptic and murmured voices too low for you to make out. Blurry, nonsensical snapshots of things. Your nightmares were usually more clear.
The gentle sucking of the milking machine woke you. Not an unfamiliar feeling, it was often attached to you after you birthed more doomed foals. You curled tighter, wanting to stay in the haze between sleeping and waking when you felt a warm mass against your belly.
Not a milking machine. A fluffy.
Attached to your milky place, nursing softly was an orange mass of fluff with a green mane and little wings just like yours. Your foal! Still with you! You reached with a hoof and gently stroked his head, his eyes shot open to stare at you, as brilliant purple as you remember. You smiled at him. A strange baby, far too large and with his eyes open so soon… but you loved him.
You weren’t in your cage either, you were curled on a blue blanket in a pen. You had been in cages just big enough for you and your litter box as long as you could remember. The pen felt massive by comparison. Against one wall was a familiar feeder and water bottle, next to it a strange contraption with a pair of milky places. In the middle of the floor was a plush toy fluffy and a ball. You’d never had a ball before!
Were you still dreaming? Could this be skettiland? Your special place wasn’t in any pain, it felt a little prickly and numb though. Maybe this giant baby gave you forever sleepies… You decided you didn’t really care. You were finally a mummah! For real, not the mummah of a mass of legs and organs! Not a scary baby, just a big one!
“Mummah wub babbeh, babbeh wub mummah…” You sang, happy tears flowing down your cheeks. The giant baby’s ears wiggled as you sang. “… Gwow up big and stwong!” He would grow up big and strong! You would get to raise him!
Once your baby had drank all the milk you had, he slowly got to his hooves. You tried to protest, telling him he was too young, but he ignored you and began to stumble around the pen. You got up to follow. You hind legs were being silly, so you giggled as the two of you investigated the pen together. You told the big baby about the huggy toy and the ball, telling him you would play ball with him when he was older. You told him about the litterbox, and how important it was to always make good poopies. You showed him the nummy dish and the water bottle, and he sniffed at the fake milky places intently before latching on and drinking hungrily. You sang for him while he ate, grateful to have help feeding such a big baby.
He just… watched you, with those bright eyes. It unnerved you a little, but you felt silly expecting a baby to talk. He should be chirping, but he should also be the size of one of your hooves and not nearly up to your shoulder. The pair of you settled back into the blanket together, you curled around him as best as you could.
You loved your odd baby. Whatever happened, you would love him.
It was strange to be free of the lab workers. At first you kept trying to look over the walls of your pen, watch for them like you did out of the mesh front of your cage. No one ever came for you. You were free to play with your weird, silent baby all day. Or maybe it was all day. Unlike in your cage, the lights never went off. The kibble never stopped filling your feeder, the water bottle never ran dry, and when you ran out milkies the fake milky places would feed your baby for you. Sometimes you wondered why you were here, why you got to keep this baby. Most of the time you were able to just bask in the joy of being a mummah.
“Babbeh, cum hewe!” You called him over to the blankets. He dropped the huggy toy and came to you immediately, filling you with pride. You had such a good baby.
“Mummah wub yu babbeh, nu wan just caww babbeh. Mummah wan gib namsie!” You had spent lots of time thinking and thinking, a special baby like him deserved a special name. He stared at you silently, his bright eyes wide like they always were.
“Mummah name babbeh Bwite!” You set your hoof on his shoulder, he was as big as you now!
Bright just stared, as he always did. You slowly lowered your hoof, and Bright got up and walked back over to his huggy toy. Something was… off. You had never raised a foal before but… you felt like things should be going differently. Shouldn’t he be talking? Or eating kibble with you? Wasn’t he fully grown? These thoughts swam through you as you watched him shake the huggy toy roughly.
A strange smell hit your nose, thick and chemical. You sniffed intently, trying to pinpoint the source. Your eyelids felt heavy, and panic sparked in your chest. You tried to step towards Bright, but your legs gave out from under you. He stared with his brilliant purple eyes as yours slid shut.
“… was a complete success… Yeah, no parts rejected.” A deep voice spoke.
Where were you?
“I think we’re ready for full trials.”
What happened?
“No, it shouldn’t be an issue.”
Your eyes were so heavy.
“I have at least three units ready now.”
You needed to wake up.
“Yes… Yeah. Absolutely.”
You forced your eyes open. In front of you was a familiar wire mesh, a metal table, and the figure of a man with his back to you.
“There wasn’t much left of the first test subject, “accident” with a lawnmower, I heard. But we did preserve what we could.”
Your cage? What happened to the pen?
“Oh, indefinitely. No real risk of loss.”
Where was Bright? You couldn’t make your head turn to look for him.
“Proprietary hardware, happy to show you if you come by for that tour.”
Was it all a dream?
“That works for me!” The man took a step to the side, and your blood ran cold.
On the table was a glass jar, filled with a pale pink liquid. It was surrounded by a halo of wires, tubes, and displays. In the center was a pink mass you didn’t recognise, and attached to it…
Were two bright purple eyes staring back at you.