Once upon a time, there was a fluffy pony who ran away from home. She did this because she wanted to have babies, but her owner didn’t agree. So the fluffy, knowing better, abandoned her safe home full of toys and food, and set out into the wild with her newfound special-friend.
One round of special-huggies later, and her babies were growing inside her belly. But of course, things were not always as pleasant as that. The fluffy’s special-friend was obliterated under the wheels of a school-bus as they went round and round, the mama-to-be struggled to find any food on her own (it was so difficult because there were no food-bowls on the outside!), and lots of people were very mean to her!
But, one way or another, she managed to survive long enough to give birth to her foals, in a tipped-over wooden crate that had once been used to transport apples. She birthed five foals total: a bright yellow pegasus (he was her bestest!), a neon pink unicorn (she was the second bestest!), a snow-white alicorn with a green-pink-blue mane and tail (which she stomped to death on sight for being a hideous monster), a smelly brown poopie baby (which she also stomped to death for the same reason), and then the oddest one of all.
Her fifth and final foal was an earthie, with a solid black coat, save for two white streaks running along either side of it’s back. From the top of it’s head to the end of it’s black tail, the fifth foal had two vibrant white streaks of fluff. He was definitely a strange foal, but… well, he wasn’t brown or an alicorn, so that meant he was okay, for in the binary world of fluffy ponies, all is either ‘monster’ or ‘not monster’.
Mama named her three surviving foals Sunshine, Pinky, and Stripe, which taxed her imagination to near breaking point.
And so, every day her foals milk drank from her teats, with Sunshine and Pinky going first, while Stripe was left until they had both had their fill, peeping sadly as his stomach growled painfully. Finally, when they were finished, all Stripe could have was the last remaining drops his two increasingly fattening siblings hadn’t been able to force down their throats.
And every day, mama sang to her babies a stumbling, tuneless song.
“Mummah wub Sunshine, Mummah wub Pinkie… an’ Mummah wub Sunshine, an’ Mummah wub Pinkie… oh, an’ Stwipe too, buh Sunshine and Pinkie fiwst!”
And so the song continued. Sunshine and Pinkie loved it, but Stripe never liked hearing it. It did not sit well with his half-empty belly.
But before long, tragedy struck mama fluffy once more.
It had been over a week since her foals were born, but none had yet reached the ‘walkie’, ‘talkie’, or even the ‘seesy’ stages yet, and still depended entirely on mama for everything.
One day, just after feeding her foals their usual rounds of milk (full bellies for Sunshine and Pinkie, and a few drops for Stripe), a strange sound was heard outside of the wooden box the small family reluctantly called their ‘home’. The sound was a kind of hissing, yowling, snarling noise, and it set mama and her three foals on edge.
“Who dewe?! Gu 'way!” Mama peeped as she saw a dark shape slinking it’s way out from behind a trash-can. The thing had four legs, a long whippy tail, and a narrow face with two brilliant green eyes staring at her.
To humans, it was known as a cat. To the binary minds of fluffy ponies, it could only be a…
“MUNSTAH!!!” Mama shrieked, jumping up and bolting out of her box. She almost made it to the end of the alley, when she realised she had left something very important behind.
“BABBEHS!” She shrieked, spinning around and waddling back as fast as her stubby legs would carry her.
The alleycat had made it’s way to the box in her absence and had amused itself by batting Pinkie back and forth in it’s paws. The violent movement, plus the general fear of the situation, caused the still-sightless foal to vomit up it’s entire meal of milk all over itself. If cats could laugh, it would have guffawed at the sight of the tiny pink foal covered in it’s own milky-white vomit and tears.
“MUNSTAH! WEABE BABBEHS AWONE!” Mama cried, stomping her hooves on the ground despite the tears pouring from her face “…E’CEPT STWIPE! WEABE BABBEHS, E’CEPT STWIPE!”
If Stripe could form words yet, he would have said ‘what the fuck, mom’.
The alley cat wasn’t happy at having it’s fun interrupted by a shrieking cloud on legs, and decided to continue it’s fun elsewhere, lowering it’s head to sink it’s teeth into the pink foal’s wriggling body. Almost instantly it’s limbs went limp, as the cat’s fangs tore into it’s fragile skin and pierced it’s organs.
Pinkie was dead.
“NU-U-U!!!” Mama cried, waddling frantically over to her former nest. The cat saw her coming and bolted, leaping up onto a trash-can to enjoy it’s meal.
Mama looked at the remains of her family. There was Sunshine, of course, which was really all that mattered… but then there was the other one, ‘Strike’ or whatever his name was.
Mama looked up and saw the cat was still sitting on the trash-can, tearing into Pinkie’s still warm body with it’s blood-soaked teeth, and she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with only one foal.
There was only one thing to do!
Mama picked up Sunshine in her teeth and, flicking her head as hard as she could, she let go again, letting the tiny yellow foal soar through the air.
“GU BABBEH!” She wailed. “WUN AWAY! BE SABE!”
Sunshine’s sightless body tumbled through the air for several feet before landing with a hard crack against the stained concrete of the alley. He died on impact, and let out a burst of watery, milk-based shit as his life ended.
Mama took a second to process what had happened, then gasped.
“NU! BABBEH!” She cried, and took off down the alley herself.
The cat, seeing his potential meal making a break for it, launched itself from the trash-can with the balletic agility of suburbia’s greatest predator (apart from Pedophile Dave). The cat landed directly on the fleeing fluffy’s back and sunk it’s claws into mama’s skin, eliciting a shriek from her jabbering, blubbering lips.
The two tumbled down the alleyway, locked in combat as the cat tore chunks out of mama’s body, while mama retaliated by weakly begging for mercy.
Nobody even spared a thought for Stripe, who was left in the wooden box, his half-empty stomach already starting to growl again, as a cold wind blew through the alley.
Then, an hour later, something happened.
For once, just for once, luck was on Stripe’s side.
A small black fuzzy thing was making it’s way through the alley, slinking between the debris and trash, when it came across Stripe. He was where he had been left, in the overturned wooden box, pitifully chirping and peeping, his tiny still-forming limbs wiggling pathetically as he tried to do anything at all to help himself survive.
The black creature looked at him, and sniffed him briefly. It didn’t smell familiar, but it looked familiar, all black with the white stripes on it’s back…
The skunk looked at Stripe, and sniffed again. It was so strange, it smelled nothing like one of it’s own kind, but it looked almost identical. Maybe it was some newborn, or just a strange relative of some sort. Either way, the skunk knew what to do.
Very gently, the skunk picked up Stripe in it’s mouth by the nape of his neck, it’s teeth making no impression at all on the fluffy foal’s delicate skin. With the foal in tow, the skunk scampered away down the alley, quickly vanishing into the night.
The next few days passed strangely for Stripe. He still couldn’t see, but things all around seemed very different. He was in a place that smelled far nicer than before (then again anything was a nice change from the constant smell of rotting garbage), with something far softer on all sides. And there was a strange sound in the air, a kind of chirpy, chittery sound, it wasn’t familiar but it wasn’t unpleasant.
Stripe found himself joining in with it using his own chirps, which seemed quite welcome.
Not only that, but best of all, Stripe’s belly hadn’t rumbled even once! Every day, he got plenty of milk. It tasted a little funny, but it was still milk, and that was all that mattered!
Then, at long last, Stripe could finally open his eyes!
The first thing he saw was a large (to him) fuzzy creature, covered in black fur with two white stripes on it’s back. He had been suckling at it’s teat at the time, and realised this must be mama.
Or at least… this was his new mama. The one who had taken him in when his own had left him for dead, and the one who was determined to take care of him.
If Stripe could form words yet, he would have said ‘I love you, mom’.
And not only that, but Stripe had siblings too! But they weren’t smelly or fat like Sunshine or Pinkie had been, they were much nicer! They were all a bit smaller than Stripe, but they were very friendly! They all snuggled together for warmth, and they had funny little tails that tickled his belly and his face!
After some weeks of living with his new mama and new siblings, it was finally time to go outside again.
Their home was on the outskirts of the city, near a small river, underneath a rusty old dish that had, at one point in time, been mounted on the side of a building to receive television signals.
One by one, mama, Stripe, and the rest of the black-and-white babies waddled out from under the old satellite dish. It was time for Stripe and the others to start finding food for themselves, which mama showed them how to do.
Stripe was a little unhappy that he was going to have to eat nasty buggy creatures, but they were actually very easy to catch and eat, even with his stubby little hooves. He found that by stamping his hooves on the ground for a while, he could actually make the silly wormy-buggies come out, and once they did, he had more than enough to eat all by himself, and plenty leftover for his family!
Then, after a long day of eating and drinking at the river’s edge, the family would go back into their home to sleep.
Time rolled on, the babies grew and split off from mama to go and make their own families… all except for Stripe. Stripe knew deep down he wasn’t the same as his family, he couldn’t survive quite like they did, and he was happy enough to stay with his mama. He knew she’d protect him.
Mama skunk, meanwhile, still couldn’t quite figure out what this strange maybe-skunk was, but he was good for finding worms for food, and she had no ill-will towards him.
There was only one problem.
Once or twice, over the months, a monster had come to attack the skunk family. Stripe had been terrified, but his siblings and mama had all known what to do, pointing their rears at the big ugly monster and hosing it in a disgusting, foul-smelling liquid that immediately caused the creatures to run away.
Stripe had seen this several times, and wondered if he could do the same thing, but doubted it. He wasn’t a skunk, he just looked like one and lived like one. That didn’t necessarily make it so.
But with the rest of mama’s babies leaving, it was only a matter of time before another predator found the tiny family…
And that was how, as mama and Stripe were crawling out from under the satellite dish early one morning, they heard a snarling sound. They both turned and saw a long, lean, orange-colored monster staring at them, it’s many sharp teeth on show as it growled and drooled.
The fox readied itself to pounce, preparing to sink it’s teeth into the big fat one called Stripe, when the fat one did something unexpected.
It turned, presented it’s rear, and with a mighty clenching of sphincter muscles, unleashed a booming fart of such magnitude that the trumpeting toot it created made every jazz musician on the planet wonder who was manning the trombone.
The vile bout of gas erupted from Stripe’s anus and caught the fox directly in it’s face. The smell was so foul it began hacking and stumbling, it’s vision blurring from the burning foulness that was assaulting it’s every sense.
The fox, defeated by the 'skunk’s stink, wobbled away in shame, while Stripe and mama rejoiced, nuzzling into each other.
Mama didn’t care if he wasn’t a skunk, and frankly, nor did Stripe.
They were a family either way.
