30 minutes after the foals left the garage:
“Finally, I thought that call was never gonna end!”
John sighed having finally convinced his mother to go see a specialist for her problem, now he could make sure his little pet family was still having fun outside. Though when John looked out the window he didn’t see a single fluffy.
“Where are they? Maybe they moved to one of the sides of the window that I can’t see.”
John stepped outside and took about two seconds to see everything in his rather small yard. The toys were still there, and so were the food and water bowl left out for Lemon, but he couldn’t see a single trace of the fluffy family. Now John was getting nervous, he began pacing and checking the fence-line for any intrusion as he called for his pets. “Lemon! Spike! Berry! Tulip! Where are you! Say something if you can hear me! PLEASE! SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING!”
John collapsed in on himself, they weren’t here and there wasn’t a single mark on the fence or ground to indicate they left. He knew they couldn’t be in the house because the door was still closed when he came back, so what happened? His happy pets had all just vanished in an instant. He had barely gotten to see the children grow up and the thought of losing Lemon…
He could remember how skittish Lemon was when he first brought her back, every little sound set her off for the first few days. It just so happened that there was a stray dog in the neighborhood around that time. The dog wasn’t aggressive towards humans but it loved to bark which constantly sent Lemon into panic mode. While the screaming and crying of “Nu num soon-mummah bawkie-munstah! Tummie-babbehs nu am nummies! Huuhuu!” was annoying the biggest problem was the ‘scaredy-poopies’, it was incredible how much poop these things could hold in their tiny bodies.
While John did have thoughts of returning Lemon during those moments, they were quickly swept away with everything else she did. She would constantly try to snuggle up to him, and even the simplest touch from John would cause her to coo in delight. Lemon would always wait for him to look at her and when he did she would start telling how good her babies were going to be and how she just knew they would all love him. John could definitely see why fluffies weren’t for everyone, but to the right person they could be very endearing.
Eventually John got sick of cleaning up poop every time a dog barked and was ready to call animal control, however before he was able to the dog suddenly stopped showing up. John didn’t know where the dog went and at the time he frankly didn’t care, he was just glad it was out of his hair. With the barking stopped Lemon was her cheerful self throughout the day more, John became attached to her and now she was gone…
John moved to his front yard to continue calling for his lost pets, but no matter how much he called he knew it was a lost cause.
“Maybe one of the neighbors saw what happened to them.”
John went to go see Simon first as they occasionally hung out on the weekends, John hoped Simon was home as he tentatively knocked on the door. Thankfully John could hear movement inside and was greeted by a very unkempt looking Simon, “Hey John, what’s up? You okay man? You don’t look so good.”
John did look awful, his clothes and hair were messy from searching and his eyes were red with the telltale signs of crying. “Hey Simon… I just… I’m a little troubled right now is all.”
“It’s okay man, come on inside, we can talk about it.”
Simon made sure John was comfortable on his living room couch with a hot cup of tea and then sat down himself beside him. “Now tell me, what’s going on that has got you like this?”
“Well you know how I adopted a pregnant fluffy a while ago?”
As soon as the word fluffy was uttered Simon instinctually tensed up. “Uhh… yeah I remember.”
“She’s gone, and so are all of her children.”
Confused Simon asked, “John what do you mean they’re gone? As in ran away?”
“That’s just it! I don’t know what happened to them! One second they’re playing in my backyard, the next thing I know that had all disappeared! I checked the fence for intrusions or digging, I checked the door to see if it was ajar at the time, I even checked for spots of blood to see if some sort of bird of prey caught them! There is nothing to indicate how they left, THEY’RE JUST GONE!”
Simon decided to give John a second to calm down before asking anymore questions, “So what are you going to do?”
John looked defeated as he said, “I don’t know, I was kind of hoping you could help me. You’re the only person I know who works with fluffies, so I was hoping you might learn what happened to them. Though I understand if you say no, I know you don’t exactly like fluffies.”
“John, you do know what my job entails right? It’s not that I don’t like fluffies, it’s that I CAN’T ALLOW myself to like fluffies. Also I work in the city that’s a thirty minute drive from here, I highly doubt I’ll find out what happened to your pets all the way over there.”
John slumped in his chair and silently sipped on his tea, “Yeah… I don’t know what I was thinking… I guess I was just hoping someone close by would know what happened.”
Simon rolled his eyes and sighed, “Fine! I’ll see if anyone around town has seen anything if it will make you feel any better. So what are their names and what do they look like.”
A small heartfelt smile formed on John’s face as he straightened up in the chair, “The mother’s name is Lemon and she is a yellow earthie with a green mane, then there are the foals: The oldest one is a colt by the name of Spike who is a purple unicorn with a light blue tail, then there is Berry who is also a colt and a blue earthie with a dark blue tail, and finally there is Tulip who is the only filly and is an orange pegasus with a yellow tail. The foals are at the age where their teeth should be growing in any day now, so they should start becoming independent from their mother.”
“Whoa, you sure got the whole bundle with them. Alright I’ll ask around where I can but don’t get your hopes up, okay man.”
“Thank you Simon, this means a lot to me. Even if you can’t find anything thank you for trying.”
After the two had said their goodbyes John went to go check with his other neighbor, Melissa. He barely had to knock on the door before Melissa opened it, “Hello John, is there something you need from me?”
She greeted him with her famous forced smile. While Melissa wasn’t rude, she did seem uneasy around other people. So John decided to just skip the pleasantries and just tell her what he had told Simon. When he had finished talking he saw Melissa holding her hand over her mouth in concern, though it was always hard to tell if the emotions she showed were genuine or not. “Don’t worry John, I’ll keep an eye out for them or any news about them.”
With that John was out of options at the moment and decided to return to his now empty and very silent house. Only one thought ran through his head as he went about the rest of his day, “Please be safe…”
“Wowwie! Dis big nestie!”
The foals had arrived to where the alicorn’s herd were nesting and were surprised to find it in an abandoned building. “Pointy-Wingie-Fwend nestie am big housie?!”
“Big housie make nestie safe fwom sky-wawa an’ munstahs!”
While Tulip and Spike wanted to admire the structure, Berry was getting anxious. “Pointy-Wingie-Fwend? Whewe am miwkies? Chiwpe-babbeh nee’ miwkies.”
The brown baby did indeed need milk as it was on its last legs, it was so weak that the loudest sound it could make was a mumbled peep.
“Babbehs fowwow fwuffy! Fwuffy hab speciaw-fwend wif wots of miwkies fo’ chiwpie-babbeh!”
The foals followed the alicorn through the small hole into the abandoned building, and while they were initially worried by the dark entrance, the nest itself had been placed in a room with lots of windows to allow plenty of sunlight in. Multiple sleeping spots had been set up for each member of the herd. The sleeping spots were made up of old newspapers, grass, weeds, shedded fluff, and anything else soft that could be used to cushion the ground. A small group of fluffies of all types and colors rejoiced when they saw the alicorn had returned, “Pointy-wingie-fwend am hewe!”
Once the herd noticed the trail of babbehs following behind the rejoicing only got louder, “Pointy-wingie-fwend bwing nyu fwends! Fwuffies wuv nyu fwends!”
The trio was soon surrounded by a hoard of technicolor ponies all wanted to be the first to ask the foals if they wanted to be friends. The alicorn pushed the crowd away and stated, “Babbehs hab wots of tummie-huwties an’ heawt-huwties, nee’ wuv an miwkies noaw.”
The crowd soon dispersed and the foals continued following to a sleeping spot containing a single mare. The mare was a black pegasus who looked able to nurse put had no babies nearby. Her eyes lit up as she saw the green fluffy approach, “Speciaw-fwend! Fwuffy hab heawt-happies naow dat yu am hewe!”
The alicorn came closer and nuzzled the mare, eliciting coos from both of them.
“Speciaw-fwend dese babbehs am wost an’ nu hab teefies tu num nummies o’ nestie fo’ sweepies. Su fwuffy wan hewp babbehs an’ make dem pawt of hewd, den hewd hewp babbehs nu be wost nu mowe. Can speciaw-fwend shawe miwkies wif babbehs su babbehs gwow up big an’ stwong?”
“Fwuffy wuv hewpin’ babbehs an’ miwkie-pwace hab tu many miwkies.”
The second the go ahead was given Berry immediately plopped the brown baby down on the teat, and watched with worry. “Pwease nu gu foweva-sweepies chiwpie-babbeh…”
The room was silent (or as silent as you can get a room with at least a dozen fluffies in it) as the baby sat on the teat motionless, and then… movement! The weak little baby had resigned itself to its fate… but then it smelled something, something delicious, something it had never been allowed to partake in before, but now it was right in front of them. The brown baby latched on with all of its dwindling might and began to suckle, and after a second it started suckling faster. The baby put all of its energy into suckling as only one thought went through its mind ‘this substance is the nectar of the gods, and I have been blessed that it might touch upon my lips.’
Once the baby had begun suckling an audible sigh of relief could be heard from Berry. As the mare watched the baby suckle she smiled and began to sing, “Mummah wuv babbeh, babbeh wuv mummah, babbeh get miwkies gwow up big an’ stwong…”
When the baby had finished drinking its fill it pulled itself off the teat, laid on its back, and gave a hearty burp. The mare gently picked the baby up and nestled it in her chest fluff, which was rewarded with some happy peeps and coos from the submerged baby. She then sniffed the air for a second, and looked at the foals to say, “Babbehs nu smeww pwetty, nee’ wickie-cweanies.”
The mare helped clean all of the foals and the chirpy-baby, occasionally murmuring “Nu taste pwetty…” as she did so. The foals began to settle down in the nest when a cacaphony of noise erupted from the rest of the herd, “Smawty am hewe!”
This grabbed Spike’s attention, he had never met a smarty before but he felt like he desperately wanted to be one. At the center of the commotion was a red unicorn with an air of authority and he was currently approaching the trio’s nest.
“Bwuddah! Fwuffy miss yu!”
“Smawty gwad bwuddah am otay!”
That’s when the smarty noticed the foals in the nest and his face turned to one of shock, “Bwack fwuffy hab babbehs!?”
“Nu bwuddah, fwuffy find wost babbehs an’ bwing tu nestie su dey nu gu foweva-sweepies.”
The smarty collected himself and began examining the foals. “Dese babbehs wook wike gud babbehs, dey can stay in nestie.”
Without thinking Spike approached the smarty and asked him a question few fluffies ever ask, “mistah smawty? Wiww smawty pwease teach Spike tu be smawty tuu?”