It takes a few days of sulking in bed and watching TV, but you manage to recover from your weird dream. You’re back to your confident self, and you feel like going out for a walk. You sit Fireball down in front of the TV, and put on a 24 hour long video you found on the internet titled “Running and playing”. He immediately begins lamenting the fact that he can’t run or play anymore. You can tell he’s at the end of his rope.
It’s 7 AM, and the air feels nice against your face. The sounds of the early morning city are beautiful. Everything seems perfect, right up until you walk past an alleyway and you hear someone talking. You just wanted a day away from these goddamn things. For some reason though, you’re drawn in to whatever is happening. You step into the alleyway, where a light yellow feral mare has made a nest. She only has one child, and, amazingly enough, it’s an alicorn! grey fluff, very light yellow mane. Looks like a colt, maybe a month old, eating solids but not old enough to take on the world yet.
Most people, even abusers, would take these things and sell them for profit. Not you. You aren’t a moron, who has to scrounge around the streets looking for actual trash to sell for a profit. Regardless, you decide to observe from a distance. You simply duck behind a trash bin and watch. The mother brings some noodles over to its child.
“Hewe yu go babbeh! Mummah find sketties!” The child smiles up at its mother. “Tank yu mummah! Mummah wan sum sketties too?” It pushes some of the noodles to its mother. “No, babbeh, mummah fine sum oder nummies, babbeh nee sketties to gwow big an stwong!” The baby smiles at its mother. “Tank yu mummah! Mummah am bestest mummah!” The mother gives its child a little lick on the top of the head and nuzzles against it. She begins to sing one of those god forsaken songs that these things make up. They aren’t even songs, it’s more like just words of varying pitch strung together. There’s no rhythm.
“Mummah wub babbeh! Babbeh wub mummah! Mummah an babbeh bestes team!” The baby laughs as it eats the pasta. “Wub mummahs songies.” it says, mouth smeared in sauce.
This all makes you think back to your own mother. She was gone through most of the day, and when she was home she was asleep. You think about being 10 years old again. 7 pm, you’re sitting in the living room, hungry. Your mom comes in through the front door, exhausted. She plops down on the couch, and you ask her if she can cook something for you to eat. She waves you off, and says that she’ll cook dinner in a little bit. “Just gotta sleep off this headache.” Despite the strained relationship with your mother, you were still a happy child. Playing with toys, making friends, thinking the world was all sunshine and rainbows, but your mother working constantly was your first look at what the world was truly like.
Dad left when you were born, as is probably the story for this fluffy. Just you and your mom, against the world. You were relatively well off, as far as the son of a single mother can go, but you never got to play with your mother, or spend time with her. You ended up resenting your mom for it.
And these things below you are living a happy life despite their position. They took the hand they were dealt and they made the best of it. And that makes you angry. It makes you so angry. Why should this thing be happy with its mother, when you weren’t able to be? Why is this THING getting better respect from the world than YOU?
You stand up from behind the can, making your presence known. The alicorn lets out a little peep of surprise and runs to hide behind its mother. The mother looks up at you, wary, but slightly trusting. “Hewwo, am yu nice mistuh?” You smile at her. “I like to think I am, but I’m sure that people have their opinions on me.” She just looks at you, confused. You look down at her again. “Do you love your baby?”
She looks at you like you just asked the dumbest question in the world. “Yus! Mummah wub babbeh mowe den anyting in da howe fowebah!” You nod. “Despite the fact that his fluff isn’t very pretty, and hes a ‘munstah babbeh’?” She looks at you with a look of confusion. “Babbeh nu am munstah, babbeh am just pointy wingie babbeh! Owd speciaw fwiend say babbeh am munstah babbeh, but mummah git awaye fwum meanie speciaw fwiend. Mummah pwotec babbeh!” The baby speaks up at this point. “An’ babbeh pwotec mummah!” You nod again. “Did you have any other kids?” She frowns a little. “Yus, but dey had fowebah sweepies. Mummah was saddies, but babbehs awe in skettiland, and dey awe happy. Maybe mummah see dem again one day?” You frown. “Alright, but what about your babies fluff color? Pretty dull and boring if you ask me, not very pretty at all.” You desperately hope you’re able to convince this mother to abandon her child based on something as petty as this.
“Mummah nu cawe if babbeh is pwetty or nu, mummah wub babbeh nu mattaw what! Babbeh aways be pwetty babbeh tu mummah!” You feel like your head is going to explode, this baby talk is too fucking much. And the relationship between this mother and her child is filling you with a trillion different emotions. Hate is at the top of that list. Followed by anger, then jealousy. You feel something you’re surprised to feel as well. Sadness.
You’re sad at your squandered childhood. Even though these two are living on the streets, probably fighting to get by, and they’re still happy together and love each other. Why couldn’t you have that? Why couldn’t your mom love you the way this mother loves her offspring? Why? You think about what it could have been like to play games with your mother, going on trips with her, eating meals with her, having an actual mother and son relationship with her.
Tears are streaming down your face. The mare notices it, and sits down in front of you, baby next to her. She puts her front hooves in the air, in the ‘upsies pose’. “Mistuh wan huggies? Huggies make ebwyting bettah!” You look down. “Are you taking pity on me?” you say through your tears. “Wha?”
You grit your teeth. “Don’t act like you’re better than me. You aren’t better than me.” The baby looks up at you. “M-mistuh wan huggies? Babbeh wan hewp mistuh nu feew saddies!” You continue staring down, the mother still with her arms in the air. Your judgement is severely clouded by memories of a childhood that never happened colliding with a childhood that broke you.
Suddenly, you reach down, grabbing the mother by both of her front hooves. You can feel the bones cracking in your vice grip. “SKREE! M-mistuh, pwease nu huwties!” You stare at her, and decide to give her a chance at life. “I’ll spare you, but if I do, I’m going to torture your child to death in front of you.” Her mouth drops open, and her eyes begin to well up with tears. “P-pwease, nu huwt babbeh, bu nu huwt mummah eithew! Babbeh need mummah, an’ mummah need babbeh!” You shake your head.
“Choose.” She shakes HER head in response. “B-babbeh am onwy widdwe babbeh, nee’ mummah tiww gwow big and stwong!” You squeeze her legs harder, and she lets out a little squirt of shit that goes surprisingly far. “No, goddammit, do I need to spell it out for you? Either I kill you, and he lives, or I kill him, and you live.” She cries. “Huu, o-otay. Gib mummah fowebah sweepies, but pwease nu huwt babbeh! Am onwy w-widdwe babbeh!”
No, no this wasn’t how these things were supposed to act. Right? They were supposed to be selfish, only caring about themselves! Right? That’s what all the people you’ve talked to on the internet have said! That’s what YOU said! You can’t be wrong! Surely you can convince this thing that you’re right. You could tell her the truth, that it’s going to die either way, that there’s no way it’ll survive on its own, but that wouldn’t prove that you’re right. She wouldn’t be sacrificing it to save her own skin. Surely there’s a way to make her see how she’s supposed to act.
“But you can just make another, can’t you? You can make a prettier, nicer baby!” She shakes her head. “Nu cawe! Mummah wub babbeh, nu mattew wut!” You grit your teeth. “Alright, let’s see how your kid thinks then.” You bend down, mother underneath your arm, looking at the child. “Alright, kid. Who do I kill, you or your mom?”
The colt is crying and trembling, lip quivering. “W-why mistuh wan gib mummah ow babbeh fowebah sweepies?” You stomp your foot, causing both of them to shit themselves a little. “Just answer the question. Who do I kill, you, or your mom?” The fluffy cries, and closes its eyes. Then, it looks up at you with determined eyes. “Nu huwt mummah, take babbeh.”
Why? Why are they doing this? It’s like they’re trying to make you look dumb! “But what if I said I’ll kill your mom, but take you in and give you a nice life? You’ll have toys, a nice warm bed, TV, and sketties everyday!” The fluffy colt looks away, almost looking unsure now. Yes! This is it! He turns back to you.
“Nu wan be wiffout mummah! Nu nee’ toysies o sketties o bed, just nee’ mummah! Bu’ babbeh wan pwotect mummah! Weab mummah awone meanie munstah, take babbeh instead!”
You stand up, infuriated beyond belief. You don’t say anything. You put up a front of being perfectly calm, but inside you are furious. You just hold the mother out in front of you, and rip both her front legs off. “SKREEEEEEE!” She drops down to the ground, hitting her head on the hard pavement. The baby looks up at you, tears in its tiny eyes. “M-MUMMAHHH!!” He runs over to her and instinctively begins hugging her. The mother looks at the baby, gives it a lick, and says “M-mummah wub babbeh, babbeh w-wub mummah. S-sowwy babbeh, mummah sowwy.”
“M-MUMMAH! MUMMAH PWEASE NU WEAVE BABBEH!” You look down at the colt hugging its dying mother. Her breaths slow down, until they stop altogether. Blood drips down her face. You bend down, looking at the tiny creature below you. “Sucks that your mother couldn’t hug you one last time huh?” He just continues to cry and hug his dead mother, not looking up at all. You decide to leave the colt here to die on his own, with nothing but the corpse of his loving mother for company. Maybe now he’ll know what it’s like to grow up alone. “Have a nice life, kid.”
You stand up and turn around, walking out of the alley. You can still hear the cries of the colt when you get to the end of the alley.
