Winter gave way to spring and the weedy overgrown grass of PuttPutt Kingdom was more dandelions than the deep green of golf course fescue. The air was full of bees and butterflies, and food plentiful.
The small and clever Milton managed to break into the concessions stand storage, and found a veritable cornucopia of fluffy pony sized nummies in easy to tear packages. Snack cakes were plentiful, juice pouches that could be easily torn open by blunt fluffy pony teeth. One of the domestic fluffies taught everyone about ‘stack blockies’ and a simple staircase was built out of empty crates to get easily in and out of the nummies house. After the engineering feats completed, the store room was easily cleared of plastic bags of rotten fruit and plastic bags of moldy hot dog buns.
If the herd stayed in this place until the next cold times, the lower shelves could be cleared to form nests, and Spruce found himself excited to plan for more seasons with his found family.
Speaking of family. Mulberry and Sweetie were blessed with three lovely little fillies. A deep blue unicorn they named “Blueberry,” a small grey Pegasus they named “Jellyberry” and lastly the pale blue alicorn filly they named… Dingleberry. None of the fluffy ponies had ever seen a dingleberry, but Sweetie said his human daddeh called him “Dingleberry” and it sounded like Mulberry, so it must be the bestest name ever.
Spruce was overjoyed with his growing herd. everything was going so well. Babies were, indeed, the best thing ever.
THe ponies of PuttPutt Kingdom also found themselves visited, quite literally, by the consequences of their past choices.
Before the cold times, when the herd was just the six stallions and Mulberry, the stallions happened upon a herd that was only mares. Being young, dumb and full of… idealism, the stallions thought the mares would be special friends for them, and they would raise the young they spent the short autumn afternoon making.
Spruce snuggled close to the most beautiful of all the mares, their smarty to boot, happily babbling about babies and hugs and love and how he was so happy to be a father. The dust colored alicorn kicked him in the face and laughed.
Their Smarty, a ferocious alicorn called “Tormenta” informed Spruce they would never see the babies and if they stallions looked for the herd, the mares would kill the stallions. They did not keep stallions and were only nice to the stallions to get babies from them. This gave spruce the worst heart hurts, and even though his strongest urges told him to stay close to his mate, they stayed at the mini golf course.
The strange herd of Amazonian mares had returned in the spring. and their leader had four small dots of colors on her back.
The mares all lined up at the entrance to the PuttPutt Kingdom, and Tormenta spoke clearly and briefly, “Gibb Towwmenta nummies, Towwmenta gibb dummeh stawwions dey dummeh cowts.”
Milton’s rage couldn’t be contained in his little body and he shouted back, “Meanie Munstah Mawes shud gib babehs and gu way!”
Tormenta darkened like her storm cloud namesake as she shook the tiny foals from her back and raised a menacing hoof. Spruce looked on in horror, too shocked to speak. It was the slow moving but determined toughie Pansy who broke the tension, calmly striding towards the hostage situation with a shopping bag full of individual packets of corn nuts. They were the least favorite of all the nummies, they were heavily seasoned and gave the fluffy ponies the kind of tummy hurts that made stinky air.
Pansy gently scooped the frail, trembling colts onto her back, feeling their little spines poking sharp through their thin skins. “Dere, dere, bebbehs, Auntie Pansy gotchu nao.” The little foals were about half the size they should have been at nearly 3 months old.
It was hard for Spruce to look at the neglected foals. Especially the dark green one everyone had dubbed “Branch.” Spruce thought perhaps that babies were not always the best thing ever. Not when seeing them hurt causes you such terrible heart hurts.
Not long after the arrival of the bebbeh colts, tragedy seemed to hit one after the other. The most sickly of the colts passed away in his foster mother’s arms. Even Pansy’s bestest milkies and hugs and love from Milton and their eight foals could not have undone the damage of a little lifetime of neglect by the Munsta mares.
Cotton and Cheddar were welcoming their litter into the world. Cotton’s screams of agony echoed through the air. She was very small, and the foals were very large, the last one stuck and breach. The old mare Pookie grabbed the last foal by one of his stout back leggies and tugged. Cheddar was absolutely horrified, thinking Pookie was trying to num his baby, but she calmly explained the baby needed to be out or Cotton and the baby would go forever sleepies.
Poor Cheddar could do nothing but anxiously clean his foals while Cotton and Pookie struggled to bring new life into the world. After nearly a whole bright time and dark time in labor, Cotton was delivered of four healthy foals. The last one, who caused all the troubles, they named “Stucky.”
The spring baby fever claimed its first victim right as the days grew long enough and warm enough for the herd to safely venture away from their walled fortress. The young Pegasus mare named “Luna” succumbed to an illness after delivering her foals. Her special friend Ranger was devastated.
Looking down at his two helpless sons, he thought of names. Ranger remembered his human mummah telling him names have meanings. Her name, Dolores, meant sadness. That was an awfully hard name for a fluffy to say, so the little unicorn colt was named Lolo, and his alicorn sister named Luna, after her mummah.
Spruce found himself thinking often of the strange year. When all the humans went away and there was fire and burny hurty air, it was just him and Mulberry, barely grown. By the time they escaped the city and settled in at the Mini Golf, they were 7. Then sixteen. Then twenty. Any fluffy who could follow the rules and play nice was welcomed into Spruce’s Land. And his strict but gentle leadership had earned him the respect of their nearest neighbors, the Supermarket Herd and the Pancake House herd, and the deigned nicety of not being killed by the war-like and stallion-hating herd of Tormenta, and her lands in the sandy place by the big Wawa.
At high summer there were twelve families, a few singletons, and probably thirty foals, counting the four traded from Tormenta. Spruce couldn’t even count that high. He often thought himself in way over his head, overwhelmed by the responsibility of so many lives.
But babies are the bestest thing ever, right?
