Author's Note
This is terrible, and I am not sorry for this at all. I loved writing this. So much. I giggled like a crazy person with each paragraph. I am so happy I got to create this horrifying abomination...huh...creating abominations. Seems to be a theme there.
-Pencil
More infantile humor...
You never knew true happiness until the day you found out that you were going to be a father. Well, at least after the terror, urge to vomit, and directing all obscenities you know at a box of faulty condoms had passed. Yes, after that, it was sheer bliss.
Never mind that you knocked up a mare, and never mind that it was that chick Lyra who seems…a little obsessive. In fact, she was always commenting on the fact that you walk on two legs, the way your limbs have ‘little wiggly things on the ends.’ Basically, she seemed 100% focused on your humanity. It got so bad that when you finally bit the bullet and took her home from the bar one night, she was fricken thrilled to get a look at your junk. Giddy even. She kept saying how much she was looking forward to staring at it all the way home. Then, when she finally saw it, she gasped, blushed and announced with glee “Oh my GOD it’s so little!”
Not exactly your kind of pillow talk. Sure, some guys are into the penis embarrassment thing, and to each their own, but it’s definitely not your cup of tea. It almost made you get soft. Almost. Sort of. Not at all. Hell, you’d been dry since you came to Equestria, weird penis insults weren’t going to stop you from putting it in.
And somehow, of course, you'd managed to get the mare pregnant. Fantastic.
But honestly? Things weren’t so bad. Lyra was really kind to you, still put out even though she was prego, and she assured you that the two of you could take things slow. Much to your surprise, as the weeks passed and her belly grew, you found your feelings for her were growing too. At first it was feelings of like, then it was love, and before you knew it you were more certain than ever that you’d love the heck out of that kid too. You could be a family. You were ready to be a father.
As her due date began to approach, you found you were nervous but also excited. Pinkie had some word for that emotion, but it was dumb and you refused to use it. Either way, you were happy with your life with Lyra, you were happy blowing raspberries on her big pregnant fuzzy belly, and you were happy with listening for the movements and shifting of your soon-to-be progeny inside her.
So, now, sitting in your chair by the fire with your sweet sweet Lyra, everything feels right in the world. Until, of course, you hear her whisper five fateful words.
“Um…I think it’s time.”
You blink at Lyra as she blushes up at you sheepishly.
Oh. It’s time. That’s nice.
…
WAIT. WHAT. IT’S TIME?
“IT’S TIME!?” you screech in some strange dinosaur-sounding tone.
“I..think so?”
“ARE YOU SURE HOW CAN YOU TELL?!”
“Well…”
You follow her eyes to the growing puddle of wet around her on the floor. So, either your girlfriend pissed herself, (and sure, she’s into some weird kinky shit but you told her no more urine after that last time) or the baby is in fact coming. Now.
It’s father time.
Oh fuck.
You emit a sound that reminds you of a dying rabbit and snatch your pot-bellied girlfriend off the floor. Before she can really protest, you kick open the front door of your house and bolt down the street, not caring that it’s the dead of night or that your screaming is probably waking up the neighborhood. You make a straight line, not caring what rocks, bushes, and late-night strollers you knock over as you go, to the front of the hospital.
“Uh, sweetheart?” Lyra says questioningly.
“NO TIME. TALK LATER BABY NOW!” you tell her.
“But…”
“BABY!”
“O-ok sweetheart.”
She stops protesting as you kick open the doors to the hospital and run up to the first doctor you see. Before the doctor can open his mouth to ask what’s wrong, you hold out your girlfriend in outstretched arms and shake her at him, trying to make him get the point.
“BABY!” you shriek at him.
You really thought you were better prepared than this. But nope. You’re an incoherent mess. Welcome to fatherhood. Lucky for you, the doctor has seen the symptoms of fatherhood many times before, and he gives you a swift nod.
“Ah, yes, don’t worry we’ll take good care of her. Nurse?”
A young pony with her hair in a bun and a nurse cap poised atop her head approaches with a wheelchair. You plop the obviously uncomfortable Lyra into the chair and motion frantically for the nurse to take her away so that she can get care.
“GO!” you demand. “GO AND BIRTH!”
Lyra glowers up at you, now too annoyed and embarrassed to find your antics amusing.
“Don’t worry sweetheart, I will,” she says with a sigh. “Just do me a favor and…calm down? I’m stressed enough as it is without you…sweetheart?”
Without the weight of your pregnant girlfriend in your arms, you suddenly feel a lightheaded wave of relief wash over you. It’s calming and also…dizzy. Like the weight of the world is off your shoulders so now you can suddenly remember that you’re not much of a runner. And you didn’t have much dinner tonight. And you sprinted for over a mile carrying a pregnant god-damned horse. And that you’re about to be a for real father.
Oh…hi floor. When did you get up near my face?
Ow, you don’t have to hit me so hard, floor, I said hi and everything. Don’t be such a bitch, floor.
You hear Lyra cry out in alarm, and hear the doctor call for a second nurse to tend to you. After that, the world fades to darkness as you pass out there on the hospital waiting room floor.
——
You’re not sure how much later it is when you finally come to. You’re lying on a small cot in a side room, and the lights are dimmed. There’s an IV dripping fluids through a long winding tube into your arm. Fucking needles…you hate those things. You grimace at it, then tear it sharply out of your arm like you see people do in the movies.
Big mistake.
A sharp stream of blood spurts suddenly from your inner arm, and you quickly slap your palm over the puncture wound. FUCK that hurt! What the shit, why do people DO that in movies and on TV and shit?! That’s some stupidly dangerous misinformation right there.
After taping probably way too many cotton balls onto the inside of your arm, you venture towards the door. You stop short as you hear soft voices speaking on the other side…and it seems like they’re talking about you, by the sound of the word ‘human.’ You pause and press one ear to the door, trying see if you can hear exactly what’s going on.
“I just…don’t know what to tell him!” you can hear a female voice say.
“Well I suppose we just tell him what we know.”
“But we don’t know anything about this!”
“True, but we know…it’s alive and…healthy I think?”
Your baby. They’re talking about your baby. And…it sounds like something is wrong? That’s all you need to hear before the adrenalin sets in you kick open the door to the hall.
Wow, you certainly have been kicking in a lot of doors lately.
“My baby!” you say, trying to keep the pterodactyl out of your voice. “Is something the matter with my baby? How’s Lyra? What’s going on!”
“Oh sweet Celestia, he’s awake!” cries a nurse as she jumps back.
The doctor looks just about as startled, but quickly regains his composure. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as if collecting a set of very jumbled thoughts. You wait, practically vibrating with anticipation, as he clears his throat and finally speaks.
“Mr. Anon,” he says slowly. “Your…wife?”
“Girlfriend, fuck your societal norms and judgement.”
“…Ok…your girlfriend delivered your child with much magical assistance about two hours ago.”
Two hours? Have you really been unconscious that long, plus delivery time? The doctor continues.
“The..baby has a steady heartbeat, seems to be healthy, and the mother is doing just fine. We gave her some drugs to help her recover. Your…child was quite large, so she’s quite exhausted even if there’s no damage.”
You don’t like the way he hesitates at words like ‘child’ and ‘seems.’ There’s something almost ominous in the way he’s speaking about all this. You loom over him, shoulders heaving as you pant. You can feel nerves and sweat taking you over, and it’s all you can do not to grab the doctor and shake him.
“Doc…give it to me straight,” you say as calmly as humanly possible. “Is there something wrong with my baby?”
A sudden and odd thought hits you. What if your baby has a human form, rather than a pony one! Oh my god…they probably aren’t used to dealing with human infants! The shape of a tiny naked human is probably confusing as hell. They probably don’t know what to make of it.
“Is it…is it like me? Just tiny and chubby and kinda…gray?”
You remember that horrible movie in health class. They all look gray and like their covered in cottage cheese and strawberry jam during those first moments. The doctor seems to wince, considering your words, then he shrugs.
“Sorta?”
“Sorta? What is THAT supposed to mean?”
“Well…your son looks sort of like you.”
Son? You have a son? You feel your breath catch in your throat, and you can sense your testicles practically swelling with pride. Your seed toughed it out, fought for glory, and managed to make you a boy! Thank god, you never wanted to deal with a daughter, there are…too many folds there when changing the diaper. Too many chances to get poop where it shouldn’t be.
Hey, shut up, that’s a legit worry, ok?
You can feel yourself beaming at the doctor who is still eying you warily. You smile warmly down at him, most of your worries suddenly forgotten. You pat him gently on the head like he’s been a good puppy and point down the hall to nowhere in particular.
“Take me to see my son,” you command, voice overflowing with testosterone.
The doctor again shrugs and leads you down the hall to the last room on the left. He pauses there before he lets you in.
“Now, sir, I want you to try to remain calm.”
You blink at him. Calm? Why wouldn’t you be calm? Sure, he has no reason to think you have this ability considering how you’ve acted since you came to the hospital, but still.
“Ok,” you say gently.
“He looks…a little different."
“…ok.”
“It may be startling at first, but I must stress again, try to remain as calm as possible.”
“Doctor.”
“Ok, ok, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
With that, the doctor slowly pushes open the door to the hospital room.
Inside, you see Lyra sleeping comfortably on her back in one corner. Her chest rises and falls gently to show she’s completely at ease, and with the bag of horse tranquilizer she’s hooked up to it’s no wonder. In the other corner, you see a small plastic-walled cot with a swaddled yellow shape in it. You realize with trepidation that this must be where your baby is.
With shaking knees, you make your way over and reach to pull back the blanket. You can hear your heart in your ears, feel your breath stinging your throat with each expanse of your lungs. This is it. You’re a father. You’re finally a dad, you’re…
The blanket falls away a little, and you stare down at your baby’s face.
The first thing you notice is the horn. It’s small, stubby, barely more than a swirly green zit, but it’s definitely there. The baby’s face is chubby, and strangely moist looking, but that horn is what first draws you in. He’s sleeping there, eyes shut beneath small swirls of wispy green fur, and you cannot take your eyes off that little spot on his forehead.
Your child…is a human unicorn? The doctor’s reaction makes a little more sense to you now. It’s a normal looking human baby, but it has short, swirly greenish hair and a tiny green horn. All you can thing though is that this little thing is cute as heck, and what’s more is that it’s yours. Your heart begins to melt in your chest, and you feel tears come to your eyes. Sniffing back your unmanly emotions, you turn to the doctor, steady your voice, and speak.
“M-may I…hold him?” you manage to murmur reverently.
The doctor again shrugs.
You reach down into the cot and cup your one hand behind his head. You slide the other down to his back and very carefully lift him up. Funny, he’s heavier than you thought he’d be. In fact…he’s really heavy. You stumble back a little as his weight shifts onto you, and the yellow blanket swaddled around him comes undone. As it falls away, you freeze, unable to stop staring.
There, in your outstretched arms, is a human child. At least…from the waist up. From the waist down, you see four long, spindly, awkward horse legs. But not even pony legs like you see in this world. No. These are green, knobby, and look just like a baby horse’s legs from back on earth. There’s also the long, damp looking body of a horse, complete with long horse tail and big horse butt.This looks like somebody squashed a cabbage patch kid on top of a Bella Sara figurine.
You gawk for a moment as your brain tries to process what you’re seeing and fails. Unfortunately, your mouth processes things faster than the rest of you.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” you scream.
Your baby (if you can call it a baby) stirs and squirms in your hands. It’s little eyes open to reveal black pupil-less orbs, exactly like those of a horse on earth. You look into those empty, bottomless pits that might be called eyes and scream. The child starts to scream as well. Like father, like son.
You drop the infant as a reflex, trying to get away from the misshapen form, and are shocked to find that it’s hooves unfold under it like the legs of a stork. It catches it’s weight awkwardly, then sways back and forth. The upper part, the human torso, flops around like half-cooked spaghetti with each movement, the child’s wail undulating as this happens.
“How is it standing!” you demand of the doctor.
Before you he can answer, your brain starts to catch up. Baby horses can begin to walk almost right away after birth, and this…thing must be able to do so as well. And the flopping? What of that! Your brain answers that too. Human infants are unable to hold up their heads or bodies at all, for a long ass time. Like…weeks and weeks long ass time. What you see before you is the perfect melding of a baby horse and a baby human.
And it’s grotesque. And confusing. And yours. Oh god…you made this thing.
You suddenly want to vomit or faint again. Any way to get away from the sight of this horrifying thing that was built of your loins. You suddenly become aware of the fact that the thing is still screaming. And flopping, and staggering about like a drunken emaciated camel.
“Make it stop!” you cry to the doctor, which helps not at all.
“I told you to be calm!” he yells back at you, which helps even less.
You look back to your strange progeny, and suddenly realize that it’s urinating. On the floor. And…it has a horse dick. A big floppy high-definition horse dick that’s spraying piss just about everywhere.
Suddenly Lyra’s comment about your equipment being small makes more sense, and you deeply wish that it didn’t.
Some part of your parental brain urges you to calm the squealing creature, and after taking a few deep breaths, the nausea subsides a little. You hold out your hands in front of you in a non threatening posture and slowly approach the abomination. You even force yourself to smile a little.
“H-hey there buddy,” you say slowly, gagging on every word. “How…how you doing, huh? D-do you know who I am?”
The baby thing trains its soul-less eyes on you and quiets down just a little. You approach it slowly, step by step watching the way it’s awkward, naked little neck and head flail about like its spine is made from jello.
“I’m your d-daddy,” you say, hating the word. “I’m your father, ok buddy? I’m your dad.”
Instantly the thing starts to wail again at the word ‘dad,’ and you can’t help feeling indignant. Hey, you’re no prize yourself kiddo.
You reach out to try to pick up the child, but it shies back away from you, its head whipping to and fro wildly. Suddenly, a beam of bright, neon, glowing green shoots from the nub on its forehead, ricocheting off of the overhead lamp, and impacting a table of doctor’s tools. The table promptly transforms into a strange, square shaped, disjointed rabbit that falls over and begins pathetically pawing its way towards the door, making creaking metallic, strained noises.
“JESUS CHRIST!” you scream, and jerk your hand back from the child.
“Kill…me…” the rabbit creature croaks as it pulls itself out of the hospital room.
Oh good. Your progeny has magic too. Weird, life-giving, horrifying magic. You weren’t prepared for this. None of the father books had ANYTHING about this! You didn’t sign up for this shit, you never asked to be father to a magical terror beast like what you see before you.
Before you can say or do anything more, your child straightens up on its gangly legs and charges you. The upper torso tips forward and back with each stride, the arms flailing through the air like they just don’t care. The creature bursts past you as you sidestep it like a champ, and skitters out into the hall. You hear nurses crying out in panic and the sound of ricocheting magic as the clattering of fresh baby hooves make their way farther and farther away from you.
The doctor gets out into the hall just before you, and by the shaking of his voice you’re slightly prepared for what you’re about to see. But not entirely. A nurse in the hall is clutching her face, which now seems to be a partially-formed seagull that’s trying to flap away from the rest of her body. Further down, you see a doctor pony without front legs, pushing himself across the floor like a dog trying to wipe feces on the carpet.
You make a strained noise of horror in your throat. What…what has your seed brought upon this world.
The doctor reaches up and grasps your shirt front. He shakes you firmly, and your watering eyes manage to train upon his face just long enough to focus.
“Anon, your baby is hurting people!” he says urgently. “It…it could be killing people! If you can’t calm it, then no one can! It…it must be stopped! Now! Before it does any more damage.”
“B-but-“
“Here!” the doctor says, and then he thrusts a rifle into your unsteady hands.
You look down at the gun, then back up at him. Does…does he…is he saying that you should…
“Where did you get a rifle?” you squeak out.
Really? So many questions to ask, so many things to say, and you say that? For fuck’s sake, Anon, pull it together.
“You know what you must do,” he says darkly. “I’ll see to getting these poor ponies medical help. You go stop your child.”
With that, he shoves you towards the door, and you suddenly find yourself running. Running with all the strength you have. You made a monster, and now the monster must be stopped. Never mind that you’re still not sure which way is up or how this crossbred atrocity came to be in the first place, the doctor is right. Your baby is hurting people, and it could kill someone.
You know what you must do.
——
It’s not hard to follow your baby. Once outside, you need only follow the trail of ponies with animals growing out of their internal organs and random objects groaning with reluctant and unwelcome life. Not to mention there’s the occasional droppings you find everywhere. You keep your pace high, keeping your rifle pressed against your breast as you track down your abomination child.
Before too long, you see a strange shape wiggling like a fleshy, armed dildo against the horizon. An occasional haywire flash of green confirms your suspicions. You’re closing in. The only problem is that you’re coming up on the Everfree forest now, and you know damn well you won’t be able to follow the thing once inside. You’ll have to take your shot soon if you have any chance of stopping it.
As the full, awkwardly galloping shape of your baby comes into view, you see how fleshy it looks, how awkward and mechanical. Like something wound it up as a toy and forgot to pick it up when it was done playing. It makes your stomach lurch, knowing that thing contains some of your DNA, knowing what it has done to ponies. You’re almost in range now, but you’ve almost reached the forest too. It’s now or never.
You stop and shoulder the rifle, pinpointing your target and focusing in. You calm your breathing, steady yourself, and line up the shot. It’ll be quick. You tell yourself. Right to the head. It won't feel any pain, it wont suffer. You’ve got this. You have to do this.
Then, as your finger slips down to find the trigger, you see the baby’s head twist and turn towards you. For a flash, as the pudgy human torso flaps in the breeze, you lock eyes with it. And it looks at you. There is a calm then, as you stare at each other, as you register each others’ presences. And for a moment you feel it looking inside you, finding your soul, and you look back, knowing it has one as well. A deformed, twisted, equine little soul.
It’s a moment, but it’s long enough.
You aim high. And pull the trigger.
You hear the crack of the gun as the shot sails way over the creature’s head as a warning. The shape of your baby quickly disappears into the woods and out of sight.
The moment it’s gone, you collapse onto the ground weeping. You couldn’t do it. Sure, it was an ugly little bastard, and it looked like someone spray painted a pony and stapled a baby onto it, but it was still your son. And fathers don’t kill their sons. Well…unless they really really deserve it or if they accidentally leave them in a hot car or something.
You’ll tell the doctors you shot it dead and buried it in the forest. You’ll tell Lyra it was stillborn or something. But you couldn’t kill it, it deserves a little chance at least. Maybe, somehow, your floppy-necked little child will survive out there.
——
As the months and years pass, you occasionally wonder what became of your grotesque offspring. If he’s happy. If he’s eating enough. If he has a nice winter sweater to wear when it gets too cold out. Sometimes you even catch yourself wondering if he’s still alive.
Then, every time you really start to doubt, you’ll come across some strange rock that has a frog’s face and belches, or spot a weeping branch that has cat ears and a tail, and you’ll know that somewhere out there, somewhere in the heart of the forest, your horrifying child still lives.
-End-
The picture that started it all:
