Shadow slammed the glass door open hard enough it shook dangerously, dragging out stacks of wire panels. Her hair was a disordered mess, her eyes noticeably wild. “Alright. Enough is enough. Once is weird happenstance, twice is freaky coincidence, thrice is enemy fucking action. This is at least weird shit event five. There are Odin damned shattered doors. ” At the far end of the grassy yard, she set up all three wire ex-pens and promptly vanished back into the facility.
Armload by near panicked armload, she set eight mares in different stages of pregnancy into one of the pens, then herded a handful of stallions into the one next to them. A quartet of mares heavily laden with assorted foals and attended by a worried pair of stallions followed soon after, waved into the next pen. She frowned, counting pens, before coming back with a armful of weanling alicorns in her hands and setting them in with the nursemares and younger foals. The rest of the weanlings from the sale pen, the striped stallion with them, were tipped into the nearest part of the feeder pen. A quartet of bright colored plastic boxes followed, set under the shade of the iron wrought table.
“Mummah? ‘Ou nu seem happies,” Rook ventured, leaning hard against her leg as she carried out a handful of young foals and settled them in a padded cardboard box. Nearby, seeming just as unsettled, Foxfire, Glory and Marnie were glancing around the yard wide eyed.
“Rook, sweetie? Probably best you stay out of the way today. Keep the itty bitties and everyone out of trouble.” She awkwardly manhandled Aurora’s swollen form out of the door to settle her near the box. “And the rest of you… try staying out of trouble. Mummah Shadow has to do important things to keep all of you safe. Things to destroy, walls to paint with blood and runes, many, many things that need to be drenched in blessed water. Or blessed mead, even. Might need to break out the big tools for this.”
After what looked like a long moment of thought, she went in again, dragging a small brown pegasus and a massive bronze stallion out with her and dumping them in the feeder pen as well. Two more large crates joined them, neither of them opened before they were set down. Another was dropped under the table with the demonfluffs.
Already holding the hose like a weapon, she waded into the pen, grinning more than a little manically. “Warlock, you can go sit with Druid and the others if you want. I promise I’ll leave Rose and Grape and the foals out of this.” She glanced over the cluster of terrified ferals. “But I’m gonna need some fluffies for an extra special game. I have to consecrate all new gear now, so I might as well do it right. Do it with tradition, as much as I can. The old, old ways, with proper offerings to all the gods I like.”
One of the new fluffies huddled back, frantically trying to comfort the tiny foals under her, and Shadow frowned. “Asher and I pulled all the herd foals, none of you were imminently pregnant, where did you-” she got a better look at the foals and her scowl deepened. Hose still over her shoulder, she stalked over to the occupied barrel, picking it up to dump the orange mare and her cheek puffing mate onto the grass. “One, two, three, four, five, six. Meaning those are indeed babies seven and eight,” she snapped, counting off the foals Hazard was frantically trying to hide back under her belly. “I’m pretty sure you were there for at least one iteration of the ‘bad momma’s don’t get to keep babies’ speech I used to give Aster, Hazard.” The orange mare just tucked herself further over her babbehs, cheeks puffed and ears back as she glared up at the human. “You- yellow unicorn mare with the babbehs. How long have you had to look over Hazard’s rejects?”
“Am Butta’cup,” the mare whispered, her ears flattened out to the side in terror. “Babbehs…Cinna’mn fin’ babbehs wwen’ hoomin muns- wen hoomin gib wawa huwties. Sab babbehs, den Butta’cup gib babbehs miwkies an’ keep babbehs safe fwom wawa. Pwease nu huwt babbehs, babbehs am gud babbehs…”
“So she ditched them the moment I wasn’t looking.” Shadow grumbled, staring daggers at the orange mare. “Right. Here.” She snagged the yellow mare by the scruff of her neck, paying no attention to the sudden shriek of “bad upsies!” and the scardy shits hitting the ground except to scoop the foals out of harm’s way in time. Buttercup was promptly deposited in with Pepper and the rest of the small foals and nurse mares, the foals she had been tending tossed lightly onto her back fluff the moment she was on the grass.
The yellow mare was still staring wide eyed around her, not quite hyperventilating as Pepper and Cinnamon softly patted her leg, when an outraged scream rent the air. “Nu! Nu take babbehs! Babbehs nee’ mummah! Bad, bad, munsta hoomin! Hazawd am gib aww da wowstest sowwy- screee!”
“Yeah, that sounded a fuck ton like pick me, I volunteer for sacrifice to me,” Shadow muttered. “Here. Look after these, too. Pepper, if she or the other new one put a hoof out of line, yell for me.” Just as carelessly as she had first two, Shadow passed the other six chirpies into the pen, eyes already on the larger run.
“Nu! Wawkspu’ nu wet munsta take speciew fwiend! Gib wowstest huwties wess hoomin gib Hazawd babbehs back!” Shadow grabbed both of them by the scruff, holding them out at arm’s length until the puffed cheeks deflated and their tails tucked up underneath them defensively. “Bad upsies…” he whispered, the fight draining back out of him like a ripped tire. “Pwease nu huwt speciew fwiend? Nu huwt babbehs?”
“Oh, your babies will be fine. For now, at least. Your special friend, on the other hand, is going to have a day almost as bad as mine has been.” She hefted Hazard again, aiming the reflexive shitstorm out over the grass.
“Pwease nu huwt Hazawd! Hazawd am mummah, nee pwotect babbehs, nee’… Take Wawkspu instea’!” the purple pegasus pleaded, desperately enough to earn himself a raised eyebrow.
“Munsta take stupi’ speciew fwiend!” Hazard agreed hastily, enough so the dtallion in question did shoot her a startled look. “Speciew fwiend take wowstest huwties, an’ Hazawd gets bestest babbehs back!”
“Yeah, no. You get one out of that list of requests, Larkspur. The babies will be fine and happy with Pepper. Hazard’s gonna be sacrifice one, and you’re gonna stay right where you are and whine about the unfairness of life.” She tossed the orange mare out onto the grass, dropping Larkspur back into the pile before selecting a few more fluffies almost at random. Her gaze did, however, noticeably pass over the young pair of brothers in the corner with the neon green mares before she grabbed the adolescent colt out from under his shrieking mother. “Let’s see, I need enough sacrifices to consecrate a new boline, athame, secespita, spear and pentacle, wash out and refresh my chalice, wand and what candles I salvaged. Plus draw out all the runes for a basic protective ward sigil once I soak everything in new blessed water. And if I have time after the vibes settle out, I can render out enough tallow to make new ritual candles form the sacrifices, turn the tails into a new besom….this can work. And if all else fails, I pull out the Grimorium Verum, Ars Goetia and the rest of the books Jean gave me during that ‘You’ve explained the difference between norse paganism, Druidic practices, and Satanism repeatedly, but I found you books!’ phase. At least he didn’t mistake me for a Wiccan, they’re so prissy about blood sacrifices.”
First Chapter- The Pack- because what we need is more fluffies bred to eat other fluffies. (1) by :Shadowfox
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