They should be here any second now. You glance up at the clock on the wall and watch the second hand tick by before you again resume your pacing. It’s just another job, you remind yourself, nothing at all to be stressed over. You’ve been doing this for months, there’s no reason this one should be weird.
Admittedly, you know why you’re nervous. Being a foalsitter was always stressful the first few times you did it, because you’d never taken care of a baby horse before. You were afraid you’d break them, say the wrong thing, or basically just fuck everything up royally. After those first few times? Smooth sailing. It didn’t take long for you to realize that they were pretty much exactly like human babies, except even easier! You’ve never been the mothering type, but it turns out, when it comes to foals, you actually have a knack for things.
Okay, there was that first time when you had to take care of Moonie, but you consider that one a fluke. The child is a literal nightmare, there’s no way you were coming out of that one unscathed! Never again for that one, never a-fucking-gain. Still, that should just give you more comfort, right? If you can handle Moonie, you should be able to handle anything.
Besides, how different can a pegasus foal be, anyway? Sure they can fly, and sure you have to watch the kid at your little cottage, because you can’t exactly come up to take care of the dear on a cloud. But other than that, same routine. Playing, changing, feeding, story time, bed, and then watching TV and drinking moderately while the kid slumbers. It should be great!
You swallow hard and check the clock again. This waiting is torture.
At long last you hear a knock at the door, and you practically sprint to answer it. You fling the door open, quickly trying to smooth stray wisps of your hair back into the braid you’ve worn. Then you put on your best, most professional smile.
“Well hey there! Welcome!” you say brightly. “Come on in!”
The young pegasus mare enters, looking around your small abode with a polite but appraising eye. You’re proud to think that you’ve removed all choking hazards, sharp objects, alcohol, and vibrators from sight. No kid is finding anything that could hurt them or raise serious, world-view-altering subjects.
She’s carrying a small, swaddled white bundle, which she gently sets down on your favorite armchair. It doesn’t move and it doesn’t make a sound, and for a moment you have the morbid thought that the kid must have died and she’s coming to ask you to help hide the body. But no, Cloudkicker doesn’t seem like that kind of mare.
“Nice little place,” she says gently, her voice high and vaguely musical. “It looks like you’ve prepped pretty well.”
She nervously glances at your ceiling fan, and you quickly pipe up to reassure her.
“It’ll stay off all night, I swear,” you say calmly. “Tonight we’ll just play a little, have some dinner, then it’s story time and straight to bed. But in case there’s any flying, no one is going to get hurt, okay?”
Cloudkicker bites her lip in unease, but nods slowly to show she understands. She continues to glance around as she wanders aimlessly through the small cottage.
“I, uh, really appreciate this,” she says softly. “I don’t often get a night out or get to have dinner just for myself. Cirrus is kind of a full time job, you know?”
You shrug.
“Hey, I’m glad for the money, and I seem to be pretty good with kids. Happy to do it, don’t fret.”
“Right, just…”
An idea seems to come to her abruptly, and she stills. Her ears prick up, and you too catch the sound of the quiet chime from your wall clock. Through her light purple coat, you think you can see her go pale.
“Oh goodness, it’s later than I thought!” she says with a little gasp. “I don’t want to miss opening curtain at Rarity’s show! Spike’s not in it this time, so it’s supposed to be a really good one!”
You remember all too well the last show and how Spike stuttered his way through each and every line. Sure, the costumes were great, but you’ve made up your mind never to go watch Pulp Fiction, The Musical ever again, no matter who’s directing. Spike even replaced all the ‘motherfuckers’ with ‘motherbuckers.’ Disgraceful.
“Yeah, don’t want to miss that!”
She nods and flutters her wings as she paces quickly side to side, as if something is nagging at her mind. Then it seems to hit her.
“OH! Right, I have some food to leave with you just in case,” she says, producing a few small jars of pinkish paste. “She can be picky sometimes, and really messy, and I want to be sure you know how to-”
You hold up a hand slowly to silence her.
“I have plenty of food here, and I honestly don’t mind getting messy when it comes to feeding,” you say as you take the jars from her and set them on the kitchen table. “But I really appreciate you packing a few jars from home, sometimes that does make it a lot easier.”
She seems unconvinced, so you set a delicate hand on her shoulder, feeling the soft feathers of her wings rustle a little beneath your finger tips. She looks up into your face, and you pat her gently.
“I’ve got this, you really don’t have to worry. Have a nice night, you deserve it, Mom.”
As you give her an additional wink, you can feel her relax under your palm.
“Right, you’re right, Im sorry,” she says with a sigh. “The other ponies say you’re perfectly competent. I need to remember to take it easy. Just…come find me if anything goes wrong, okay?”
“I will. Now go have fun.”
Cloudkicker nods and moves to the doorway with a simple flit of her wings.
“She’s been sleeping for a while, so feel free to just let her rest,” she says as she steps outside. “If anything, you’ll just need to feed her, then she’ll go back to sleep. Okay?”
Is it okay? Hell, you get to skip playing and story time and go straight to the red wine and TV. This is perfect. You nod and wave her goodbye.
“See you at nine!” you call softly as you press the door shut so quietly that it wouldn’t wake a baby mouse.
Then, with a grin, you turn back to the little bundle on the chair. Inside the swaddled blankets is the purple-blue face of an infant, resting dreamily and breathing easily. You lift it as if it’s glass, and you can feel how light the little thing is in your hands, lighter than other foals you’ve been around. Must be that whole pegasus thing, they’re probably more like birds than you’ve guessed.
Tip-toeing, you make your way across the hall to your small room, and set the infant on its side in the old crib you set up. It barely moves as you draw your hands away and go back to the main room. With a smile and a practiced hand, you head to the kitchen and open the half-finished bottle of merlot that’s calling to you.
Heck, you were worried for nothing! This could be the easiest job you’ve ever had.
——
It’s less than an hour later before the silence in your cottage is shattered by the screams of what sounds like a dying rabbit. It’s so startling you almost drop your glass of wine, but fuck that, because wasting wine is for plebs. You hastily set down the glass and rocket out of your chair, then jog over to your bedroom.
You smile and remind yourself to be calm as you peek over the edge of the crib and down to the caterwauling infant inside.
The swaddled blankets have mostly come undone, and two miniature indigo wings flap aimlessly about the back of the diapered foal. It rocks back and forth, flailing its little hooves, and emitting that desperate death cry like it is trying to curse the name of whoever felled it. Still, like a pro, you maintain your smile.
“Hey there Cirrus,” you coo as you reach down into the crib. “Are you all grumpy from your nap. Missing your mama?”
The thing spots you and only wails all the harder. Undeterred, you pick her up into your arms, again marveling at how light she is. You rock her back and forth in a bouncy, easy rhythm, the way you’ve done so many times before, and wait for the screaming to abate.
It’s always worked. Sometimes it’s a slow process, but it always works.
This time, it doesn’t work.
Five minutes later, the screaming has only risen in pitch, and your ear drums are beginning to hurt. What’s this kid’s problem? Hell, an eagle couldn’t scream this loud! Your smile is beginning to crumble around the edges, and you wrack your brain over what to do. All of a sudden, Cloudkicker’s words come back to you.
Of course! You just have to feed her! Heck, you can even use the cans she left you, to be sure the kid gets something she’s familiar with. With a sigh of premature relief, you go back to the kitchen, still cradling the struggling pegasus foal.
You set the foal down on your counter, and, holding her gently by a back hoof so she doesn’t flutter away, fish a spoon out of a drawer. The can Cloudkicker left for you opens easily, and while the stuff inside smells pretty nasty, you can only assume it’s delicious and nutritious, at least by foal standards. You use the plastic little spoon, the one you usually reserve for gelato, to scoop out a small amount, then crouch down so you’re eye level with the baby.
“Okay,” you say brightly, making a big, open-mouthed face. “Here comes the airplane, open up!”
You make a soft buzzing noise as you move the spoon towards her mouth and, miraculously, the infant stops crying. In fact, she stares at you, then the spoon, then shuts her mouth tight and makes a whimpering noise.
You frown. Huh, usually the airplane thing goes great with the little ones. Okay, well, try it again.
“Here comes the choo-choo, down the track! Open the tunnel!”
Nothing. The kid pulls away from the spoon and screams internally, her little lips sealed tightly shut. Okay, well, no worries, there are other ways to try to get this kid to eat!
You go through the car and the garage, the bat in the cave, the space ship in the docking bay, and even the skeezey van in the back alley, but nothing works. Okay, now you’re actually starting to panic. What’s worse is that the kid is trying to get away constantly, and your hand is getting super tired.
What the hell does this child want from you? Are you not making the plane noises right? Does she expect to be breast fed, because that little creatures is not grabbing a mouthful of your tah-tahs. That pleasure is reserved only for boyfriends and mammogram technologists (hey, ponies use their mouths for everything in this place.) Does it want you to sing, dance, read poetry, solve riddles, what the FUCK does this kid want from you??
Half an hour passes with this struggle. As if to add insult to injury, you feel the kid starts to slip your grasp, the strong little bugger, and you reach out to snatch her before she goes ceilingward. You have to find a way you keep this kid grounded until she’s fed!
In desperation, you grab rubber bands, chip clips, and some baking twine from a nearby drawer and practically tie the kid to the edge of your counter. Practically… nah, actually literally. You create a weird harness, slip it over the kid’s body, and physically tie it down. Because that’s what a responsible babysitter does, right? Sure, if CPS saw this, you’d probably be arrested, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and at this point, you think you’ve reached desperation.
Seeing that she’s tied down, Cirrus looks at the twine and rubber band contraption around her torso and legs, then begins to cry again. Louder this time.
Okay, fuck it, you need help. Not from the mom, of course, you still want to get paid, but from a pegasus. Someone who’s kind, helpful, good with little babies and stuff. Someone who will make everything alright, who knows how to make others smile and feel safe. Someone who knows how to deal with small creatures. Do you even know anypony like that?
The name hits you like a sloppy punch from a drunk basic bitch, and you bolt to the phone. You stab in the number with your finger and listen, over the kid’s crying, as the dial tone sounds. Once. Twice. Then you hear the click of her picking up.
“Hello?”
“It’s Anon,” you say in a rush, barely breathing between your words. “I’m foalsitting and I need help from a pegasus right now. Please! If you don’t help me this kid might starve or something, I don’t know what to do!”
There’s silence on the line for a moment.
“Wait, what?”
“Look, just get over here now, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, you slam down the receiver and begin to pace the floor, just as you did before. Through the screechy, belligerent screaming, you say a quiet prayer that your savior will get there soon.
——
After what feels like an eternity, you hear a knock on the door. You practically throw the door open and look down, panting, to find your new helper standing at the ready.
“Uh… hi there Anon,” Rainbow Dash says haltingly. “Apparently you need my help or something? It was hard to understand over the-”
Without waiting for her to finish, you grab her by her chest floof and drag her inside your cottage. She gives an indignant squawk, but you slam the door before anypony who might be wandering can see and think you’re abducting her. She stares up at you as you release her, then glances at the crying kid.
“Woah!” she says wincing. “I can see why you said you needed help.”
“No shit, now…what do I do?!”
As if nothing in the world were wrong, Dash walks over to the baby, looks it up and down, then gives you a disapproving shake of her head.
“Anon… did you tie down this foal?”
You almost break into sobs.
“I had to!” you groan. “It was trying to fly away, and I couldn’t get it to eat… hell, I was moments away from trying to pry the kid’s lips apart with a spatula and then getting a funnel!”
Dash grimaces. Yeah, probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.
The baby seems to have noticed that there’s another pegasus in the room, and the sight of a familiar pony seems to be calming it slightly. For now, it just sniffles and squirms in its bonds. You look from it, then thankfully, feverishly back to Rainbow Dash.
“What the fuck do I do,” you whine at her.
“Okay, first of all,” she says gently, “untie the foal.”
Sniffing almost as much as the kid, you untie the baby and step away from it. Rainbow nods approvingly.
“Good, and secondly… actually, I gotta ask, why didn’t you call Fluttershy? This seems like more her kind of thing.”
You freeze, caught up in how absolutely sane that sounds. Yeah, why didn’t you call Fluttershy? She’s good with animals, she likes babies, she’s soft spoken… actually, why in the hell would you even think to call Rainbow Dash? She’s kind of a bitch sometimes, and she’s loud, and hasty and…
Wow, you’re just full of bad decisions today, aren’t you?
You hang your head in shame as Dash soothingly pats your arm.
“Hey, it’s okay, I took care of my little cousins growing up sometimes, so I got this.”
She puffs out her chest as she speaks, proud and boastful as usual. Well, if what she says is true, at least it can’t be that bad. You wipe your nose on the back of your arm and nod to her.
“Okay, thanks,” you mumble.
“So, what exactly are you trying to do right now?” Dash asks.
“I just want to feed the baby. Then Cloudkicker said she should go right to sleep. But she won’t eat!”
Dash shrugs.
“Well, maybe it’s how you’ve been feeding her. Why don’t you practice on me.”
She hops up onto the counter next to the baby, who looks up at her in teary-eyed wonder. Then, she assumes an innocent looking face, bats her big pink eyes, and holds her hooves up in front of her chest like a begging dog.
“Waaah and all that,” she says in her usual sassy way.
Okay, you’re definitely not a lesbian, but some part of even you hurts with how cute she looks right now. You stifle your gnyygh as you again take the little spoon and get a tiny mouthful of the pink paste. All of a sudden, you feel with every fiber of your being how awkward this is. Rainbow Dash is sitting on your counter, pretending to be an infant, as you try to feed her baby food using a gelato spoon.
“H-here comes the airplane,” you say haltingly, then try to make the buzzing noises. You’re so nervous you mostly end up just spitting on yourself.
Rainbow Dash maintains eye contact with you as she pulls her head away from the spoon in disgust. The gaze she gives you is so disapproving that you can’t help but lower your hand in shame and stop your very wet airplane noises.
“Anon,” she says tersely. “What exactly do you think you’re doing here?”
“…th-the airplane trick?”
“Don’t. It’s demeaning. Would you like if I tried to shove an airplane down your throat?”
You suppose not.
“Well, okay, what should I do with the spoon then?”
Dash shakes her head.
“Put it away! That’s not how you feed a pegasus foal at all, everypony knows that. This kid is probably so confused about what you’re doing that it’s scared you’re trying to skewer it for dinner. Aren’t you, Cirrus?”
Here Dash scratches the foal under the chin, and it sort of goos through its muffled sobs. It seems Dash is pretty good with kids after all.
“So… what’s different about feeding a pegasus?” you ask with a defeated sigh. “Do you use your hands or hooves or…?”
Dash looks you up and down, and her expression seems to soften a little.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
You shake your head no, and she rolls her eyes.
“Fine, I’ll show you, ya loser. You just have to do exactly what I do. It’s kinda like feeding a baby bird, so you have to do it gently and calmly, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll do anything if it gets this kid to eat!” you say pleadingly
Eager to help, you pick up one of the jars and offer it to dash, but she gingerly pushes it away from her and shakes her head.
“Nah, I ate earlier so it should be fine.”
That’s… a weird thing to say. Did she think you were trying to get her to eat? Why would her having food earlier matter? Before you can muse too hard on this, she waves a hoof at you to get your attention.
“Hey, giving feeding lessons here, you paying attention?”
“Yeah, of course, just walk me through it.”
She smiles smugly at you.
“Okay newbie, just watch and learn. First ya gotta stand in front of the kid, like this.”
Dash positions herself in front of the baby, and you move to the side so you can see it happening. Sure enough, the baby has gone quiet, and she’s watching Dash with large eyes. She’s not even really wiggling anymore, so Dash must be doing something right after all! You try to make a mental note of exactly where Dash’s feet are positioned.
“Next,” she continues, “You gotta really feel down in yourself, get things moving, and pull your head back like this.”
With these words, dash cranes her neck way back, keeping her chin tucked. Okay, this is really weird now, what is she even…
“Then it’s just a matter of getting things to convulse, the kid will figure it out, then…”
As you watch, Dash’s chest seems to swell. Her fur all seems to stand up a little, and her wings open across her back. Her cheeks seem rounder, like she’s puffing them out, and her mouth opens a little as she begins breathing hard. The kid too has leaned forward expectantly, and her little mouth is opening up, wider and wider with each passing second. You want to ask what the fuck is going on, but you’re too enthralled and horrified to even break your silence.
Then, Dash’s head begins to move. She brings it sharply forward, till her neck is straight, straining even, then sharply all the way back with her chin tucked, over and over, in a near rolling motion. You can hear soft ‘urk’ noises coming from her open mouth, and they seem to get thicker, more gurgly with each motion of her head. The foal has started flapping its wings, and now its mouth looks like it could swallow most of Dash’s face whole.
Then you remember something. Something horrible.
Like feeding a baby bird. She said it was like feeding a baby bird…
All at once, Dash’s head rockets forward over the baby. With a garbled sound like a teenager trying to breathe in a vat of pudding, her mouth opens wide, teeth showing, and her eyes roll back slightly until they’re dilated and unseeing. She doesn’t even look conscious, really, and she begins vibrating, from her tail all the way to her head. You can see her throat undulating, like a snake under a thin sheet. Before you can force yourself to look away, she at last begins to vomit.
The torrent of puke streaming out of Dash’s throat sprays in light brown down into the waiting mouth and onto the face of the foal, who makes a glubbing sound of delight as she begins to swallow it down. Her eyes too roll back, going wall-eyed, and just flailing her hooves as flecks of pony vomit spray her fur and your counter. The stream goes on endlessly, and Rainbow Dash’s head vibrates up and down, forcing more and more liquid-processed food out of her and down into the wiggling infant. Her wings flap forward and back with each small vibration, urging the vomit rain on.
You stare, unable to break away from the scene, as it goes on for several minutes. Just Rainbow Dash, puking brown bile into and onto a baby. The sound of it is something like pouring wet cement onto an unsuspecting puppy.
At last, the torrent stops. You can feel your body shaking.
Dash wipes her mouth on the back of her hoof, and the baby convulses as the rest of the liquid in its gaping mouth slithers down her throat. A large, brown bubble pops across the surface of her mouth, then she closes it, smiles at you, and makes a little coo noise of joy. You’re utterly, completely overwhelmed. Your brain can’t make sense of what you just saw. The stench permeates ever part of your senses. Your body can scarcely take it.
Dash smiles at you as well.
“See? Easy as pie, even a newbie like you could do it.”
You stammer, making a soft creaking noise in your throat, as the blue pegasus picks up one of the jars of food, sniffs it, then offers it to you with a grin.
“Here, now you try! Seems like Cloudkicker purred these worms herself, so they should actually taste pretty good!”
This proves to be too much.
With a wail of despair, you turn from the scene and proceed to vomit up all the wonderful red wine you’ve been drinking, as well as probably both your dinner and lunch. It splashes onto the floor to form a stinky, smelly puddle, and you tremble as you sink down next to it, coughing.
“See? That’s the spirit, you’re getting the hang of it already!” you hear Rainbow Dash say behind you. “Now you just have to aim it at the kid!”
You’re glad you turned away from both pegasi, because at least this way they can’t see you beginning to cry.
——
Without letting the ticket master stop you, you stride past the entrance way of the small theater and walk directly into the lobby. You make your way to the doors, push one open, then trudge lifelessly down the isle, searching for Cloudkicker. As you spot her, smiling up at the ongoing performance, you quicken your pace, and she spots you as you get near. At first she looks confused, then just horrified.
“Anon, what-” she hisses at you, but you don’t give her enough time to finish that thought.
Instead, you extend your arms away from your vomit-stained dress and deposit the filthy, wiggly child into her lap. She looks from it, then back up to you, and stammers to find words. Others in the theater are staring at you, but you don’t care. Nothing matters. Nothing will ever be okay again.
“You can keep your bits,” you say to her emotionlessly, “and you can keep your kid.”
Somepony tells you to shush, and you ignore them. Cloud kicker blushes deeply, tears forming in her eyes. Your heart remains cold.
“But…”
“No.”
Before she can say anything else, you turn away and begin to trudge out of the theater. Behind you, the sounds of Silence of the Lambs, The Musical begin to fade. You don’t care that it might traumatize the child. You don’t care that you probably ruined the night for her and some other ponies. All you care about right now is getting home, and taking a shower.
Then, you’re going to call the doctors at the hospital and make an appointment to go get your tubes tied. You’re not taking any chances.
-End-