VALENTINE
A Pegasus Story
Chapter One – The Warehouse
The halls were dark in the old warehouse. A single bulb hung from the ceiling every ten feet or so, providing dim light that barely reflected off of the aluminum walls. Cages stacked eight feet high lined the walls, and in each cage was a fluffy.
Commercials for FluffMart and Foals-R-Us depicted happy, playing foals. One recent FluffMart advertisement showed a whole herd of brightly colored, giggling foals chasing a ball directly at your TV screen. At that moment, a pure white pegasus foal popped up on the screen in front of the ball with its little front hooves spread and exclaimed, “Fwuffy wuv yu!”
None of the fluffies in the warehouse radiated this enthusiasm. Beaten, mangled, raped—these fluffies lived a life of hell, and few ever saw sunlight. All of the fluffies here were mares. Their routine was simple, and every mare who had been here for every time knew what each day would bring.
At the beginning of the cycle, a carefully selected stallion would be forced into the pen with the mare. Some of the stallions were more eager than others—but the shy ones knew that they would take a sorry stick up the ass if they didn’t do their job. Some of the stallions were what the outside world would call “hellgremlins”—natural-born rapists, whose job was to fulfill their only pleasure in life. Either way, the mares who were on their third try or more didn’t bother to fight back anymore. Fluffy pony conception rates meant that the mare rarely had to be bred twice. Failure to conceive within a week meant the end of the line.
After a successful pairing, the mare would wait. Three or four days later, she would likely feel the “baby feel” that, to mares outside the warehouse, would bring about the greatest joy in all the world. To these mares, it meant only expanding to an uncomfortable size within their too-small cages, and impending heartache. Most of the time, the newly pregnant mares wouldn’t even bother to tell the men who roamed the halls that they were “soon-mummahs”. They knew that the time would come regardless in which they would be poked and prodded, and the humans would confirm the rising dread they felt within them.
The mares would do nothing but sit in their cages, eat their “kibble”, poop in a corner, and wait. This they did, every single day, until they finally were immobile, usually two to three days before they foaled—a normal, healthy dam would be immobile for ten days to two weeks.
When the “biggest poopies” came, the mares would cry. Part of the crying was because of the normal “owwies” of foal birth, but most of the crying was from the “heart hurties” that represented the end of the cycle.
Each mare usually had two to six foals—any more guaranteed stillbirths—and all six needed immediate care. Invariably, the foals would be taken away. No huggies. No “drink milkies”. No “mummah songs”. No mummah would ever see her babies again.
The next day, a stallion would be brought to the pen and the cycle would begin again.
This is the cycle of MACKAY BIOTOYS, LLC—FluffMart’s largest supplier in the Greater Charlotte (NC) area.
Gary clocked in at 8:03. Goddammit, Mike gets pissy about clocking in even a minute late. He put his sandwich in his locker, and got ready for what he figured would be another busy day. Then, he walked through the door to the warehouse. He would have to walk down every aisle, checking charts.
Mackay had a pretty simple, sticker based system—if a cage had a green sticker, the mare was ready to be bred. If it had a yellow sticker, the mare had been bred, but the results were inconclusive. If the sticker was red, the mare was pregnant.
“Morning, Gary. You show up on time today?”
Fuck you, asshole. “Morning, Mike. 8:03.”
“You know I’m ‘a have to write you up again.”
“Well, then write my ass up. But let’s get through the greens first.”
“Fair enough. But you’ve gotta grab the stallions.”
Fuuuuuck. Mike hated retrieving the stallions. And with only fifty of them for around 1500 mares, half of them whined about “no-no stick owwies” all of the time.
The stallions were kept in their own room. Ten cages were stacked on each of five carts. Mike grabbed the handle on the first rack and pushed it towards the mare room.
“Huu huu…pwease, nice mistah. Nu make fwuffy gif speshuw huggies ‘gain. Fwuffy nu feew nu nu stick. Nu haf gud feews.”
Gary banged on the cage. “Shut the fuck up, shitrat. I wish my job were nothing but fucking all day.”
“Huu huu…”
“Ok, Mike. Got your first batch of shitrats.”
“Bring that orange unicorn over here. FluffMart forecasted a need for more unicorns this spring. Have him fuck that pretty yellow thing in there.”
Mike pointed to a terrified looking unicorn mare in the corner. She had huddled as far away from the cage door as she could. Doesn’t really matter, does it?, Gary thought. We all have our jobs to do around here, and popping out baby shitrats is hers.
Fortunately, this stallion was one of the eager ones. “Dummeh mawe, fwuffy gif yu bestest enfies ow wowsest owwies—eeva way, yu gunna get ENFED!”
He heard Mike chuckle at the end of the aisle as the mare cried and the stallion grunted in that trademark fluffy “enf, enf, enf”.
“Gary, bring that bright blue one down here to this pink earthie. Need some good colored Easter foals.”
Gary nodded, and picked up the cage containing the shitrat that had bitched at him before. Sure enough, he wasn’t done.
“Huu huu…nice mistah…fwuffy nu can gif speshuw huggies. Nu feew no-no stick.”
“Hey, Mike. This one tells me he can’t get it up. What do we do with him?”
Mike laughed. “I guess you’ll have to try it manually, then.”
“Manually.”
“Exactly what it sounds like. A fluffy handjob.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Gary reached down and grabbed the fluffy’s tiny dick. It was no wider than a pencil, and only half as long. He started stroking its member, causing the fluffy to “huu huu” some more. He noticed that Mike was doubled over laughing.
“What the fuck is so funny?”
“You just gave that fluffy a handjob,” Mike chortled, “why don’t you try blowing him if that doesn’t work?”
“Man, fuck you.” Gary dropped the fluffy on the ground. “So, what do we do with him?”
“Process him.”
Only forty-three of the stallions got to have “special huggies” that morning. The rest had a crusty “enfie toy” thrown into the cage with them. The bright blue stallion was the morning’s only waste, and his cage got sent to the processing room.
All FluffMart stores offer a wide variety of fluffy foods, each one “specially formulated for your fluffy’s dietary needs”. From the “Big Babbeh” kibble for weaning foals to “Babbeh Wuv All-Natural Kibble” for pregnant and nursing mares, each one is designed to keep your fluffy companion happy and healthy. And that’s not even including the dozens of fluffy-specific spaghettis available.
Of course, fluffy kibble is expensive—especially when one is providing for over 1500 fluffy ponies. To reduce expenditures, foal mills like Mackay Biotoys reduce, reuse, and recycle.
When a stallion becomes impotent, a mare ceases to be productive, or defective foals are produced, they are processed into food for their more productive counterparts. A hormone substitute is mixed in with the pureed biotoys. This liquid solution conveys a threefold benefit: (1) it increases the foals’ size at birth, (2) mares produce more milk for a longer time, and (3) it alters the smell of the meat so that the fluffies never know they are cannibals.
“Hey, Mike. When does Brenda come in?” Brenda was Mackay’s “Quality Control Specialist”—basically a glorified foal-sorter.
“She said she had a dentist appointment this morning. She’ll be in around noon. What’s it matter to you? You getting sweet on her?”
“Tell me you wouldn’t hit that too, with that rack she’s got?”
“Hell yeah, I would. C’mon, let’s see how many new ‘soon-mummahs’ we’ve got today.”
Gary and Mike checked the “yellows” next. If a mare had reached her fifth day with a yellow sticker, she went green again, and Mike would have to yank another stallion out of the stallion room for her. If they poked around at a mare’s stomach for long enough to feel something poke back, she went “red”.
Mike reached into the first yellow cage. The frightened blue earthie scrambled her hooves, but there was nowhere to go.
“I think we know the answer on this one…yep, she’s red. Sticker her, and on we go.”
Checking the yellow stickers took no more than an hour. By then, it was lunchtime. Gary sat down to his soggy chicken sandwich and bag of Doritos and started flipping through channels on the break room TV.
CLICK
“—shooting this morning near the intersection of Sunset and Beatties Ford Road”
CLICK
“—the law offices of Eric J. White. We’ll help turn your crash…into cash!”
CLICK
“Fwuffy nee’ weggies to wun, pway an’ hugs—
“Oh, my god. Turn that shit off. Some of us have to eat.”
Gary jerked his head around as Mike walked in. He had a McDonald’s bag in one hand and a Coke in the other, and casually dropped the bag on the table.
“Ugh, it’s bad enough that we have to deal with the shitrats in here. But I leave and every-fucking-body talks about them all the time! You know my niece is begging my sister for one?”
“I had a girlfriend who had one a few years back. Thing was pretty cool—until it shat all over its ‘safe room’ every time we were fucking. It said it heard a ‘scary monster’.”
“Just thinking of you having sex is scary enough for me, man.”
“Fuck off.”
“All right, boys, watch your fuckin’ mouths. There’s a lady present.” The men quieted down when Brenda Monroe walked in the room. Brenda wasn’t fat, but as Mike would say (never to her face, of course), “popping out three kids has definitely taken its toll”.
“Hey, Brenda. How was the dentist.”
“Eh. ‘Come back in six months’. Y’all about done eating? We’ve got a lot of foals to go through today, and not enough time to do it. I’ll be damned if I’m here a minute after five today.”
Checking the “reds” was a simple matter. Check the breeding date versus today’s date, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of how long until the mare foals. The standard was four weeks, but stressed mares would often go prematurely.
Brenda walked the first aisle of cages, with the two men behind her pushing the “sorting carts”. “Hmm…one week…one week…fresh…week and a half…any day now…oh, here we go.”
The woman stopped in front of a black earthie whose legs touched the ground. The mare appeared to be distressed.
“Are you about to have your ‘biggest poopies’, sweetie? Here, let’s get you turned around a bit.”
“Pwease nu take babbehs again, nice wady. Fwuffy pwomise be bestest mummah an gif miwkies an huggies an wuv.”
“Shhh…calm down. You know these babies aren’t your babies—they’re mine. And when they come, you’re going to give them to me.”
“Bu babbehs nee mummah! Mummah wiww gif wotsa miwkies fo aww babbehs.”
Brenda responded sternly. “Your babies are mine. And if you don’t give them to me, I will give all of them forever sleepies.”
On the verge of panic, the mare replied, “Nuuuu, nu gif babbehs foweva sweepies. Babbehs am fo huggies an pway an wuv! NeeEEEEEEEEH BIGGEST POOPIES!!!”
Mike turned to Gary. “About time. The ones who have been around the block a few times usually don’t talk back.”
The mare birthed six foals—an unusually large litter here. The mummah “huu huued” as the specialist took them one-by-one and started the sorting.
“Hmmm…blue filly with a purple mane…A rating. Yellow colt with a dark green mane…B rating. Yellow colt with a red mane…A rating. Shit brown…C rating. Another shit brown…C. Oooh, black filly—I can’t tell but I think the mane’s going to be black, too…K rating. Ok, Gary. Slap a green sticker on the chart, and on to the next one we go.”
Brenda was Mackay’s highest-paid warehouse employee for a reason: it was her job to manage future trends and make sure that the foals all got top dollar for their types. A-Grade foals are the ones that you see in FluffMart. B-Grade foals weren’t good enough for retail sales, but could be sold in bulk to pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, and the military for testing. C-Grade foals were good for the processor. K was Brenda’s special designation for “keeper” foals to replace the warehouse’s breeder stock.
Only twenty-five mares gave birth today. Two were designated “shit-factories” and sent to the milkbag area. One more gave birth to her third litter of stillborn foals—with the milkbag room fully stocked, she was destined for the processor.
The foal sorter strode down the aisles a second time to ensure she hadn’t missed any. A little over halfway from the first aisle, she came across a white pegasus mare with a lavender mane, who was huddled in a ball at the back of her cage.
In her most gentle voice, she said, “Hello, what’s this? Why are you being so shy, sweetie? Come on, I know you’re not sleeping. Out you come.” She picked up the mare, who screamed.
“SCREEEEEEE!!! Nuuuu! Nu take babbehs! Nu take babbehs!”
“I see. You had your babies overnight, and now you want to hide them from me. Oh, sweetie, you know you can’t hide from me.”
“Pwease nu take babbehs! Babbehs nee mummah fo miwkies an huggies an wuv!” Brenda mouthed the last sentence along with the mare.
“You are all so fucking predictable. Gary, read her chart. What’s her history?”
“Ah, let’s see…first litter: all stillborn. Got her back legs amputated for fighting when they were taken away. Second litter: all stillborn except for one brown foal.”
“Hmm…well, not much hope for this litter, I see. Mike, would you do the honors?”
Mike grinned as he scooped up the four foals from the cage. “Sure thing. Ok, here’s one dead. Here’s another dead one. Dead. Hey, I think this one’s still kicking!”
Sure enough, the last foal in Mike’s hands was alive. The pink pegasus gently fluttered its wings and let out a weak chirp.
“Whuuuua? Wastest babbeh am awive? Pwease, nice mistah, gif wastest babbeh tu mummah? Wastest babbeh am aww dat mummah haf!”
Mike tossed the three dead foals into the C bin. “What you want to do with this one, Brenda?”
Brenda eyed the foal. Pegasi were always popular, and with Valentine’s Day coming up this one should fetch a good price. “A Grade. We’ll sort that one–and all of the other pink, red, and white combinations—out in a separate box for a higher price. FluffMart can advertise them as ‘Valentine’s Foals’ and sell them at a premium.”
Mike set the little pegasus down into an A box and closed the lid.
“NUUUUU!!! Nu take wastest babbeh! Nuuuuuu!”
Brenda, who was still holding the white pegasus, slammed her face down on the edge of her cage. Several of the mare’s teeth shattered, and her mouth filled with blood. “One good foal in three litters, and you’re still demanding things?” The woman stuffed the crying mare into the C Grade bin. “You’re not good for anything but kibble!”
The rest of the day was spent grinding foals (and the useless adults) into food for the afternoon feeding. The white pegasus with the lavender mane, who went into the grinder rump-first, screamed for her “last baby” until her throat and lungs were torn to shreds.
The “last baby”—a pink pegasus filly with the beginnings of a red mane—was dumped chirping into a small pen with a dozen other foals to nurse from a blind, tongueless, legless fluffy with engorged teats. Since her eyes were still shut, she never knew the difference.
