Vivarium

Packer woke up first, humming contentedly as Gamma pulled him closer to her with her legs. He liked being cared for, just as any other stallion did, by his mare. He scooted around and turned over, kissing Gamma on the lips before nuzzling her. “Good morning,” he said quietly.

Gamma opened her eyes and kissed him back, opened her mouth, then shut it quickly. She scrambled from the bed and rushed from the room leaving a confused stallion behind her. A few seconds later she loudly vomited into the toilet.

Packer got up and hurried to the bathroom and used his forehooves to pull Gamma’s mane back as she heaved. After a moment, she flopped back to her furry haunches and spat in the toilet. “What the… ugh,” she held her belly and cringed. “It hurts.”

“Are you okay?”

“It hurts, my tummy. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Gamma moaned and reached to pull the flush chain. The water washed away the contents of her stomach and she leaned against the wall to hold herself up.

“I’ll get you some water, stay here.” Packer rushed from the bathroom and left her alone to think of her pains. She had a terrible suspicion, but refused to accept it. When Packer returned she sipped the water and sighed. “Better?”

“I think so. I just,” she paused and leaned over the toilet again to dry heave. Her body pushed mucus from its depths for nearly half a minute before she fell back and leaned against the wall again. “We have to get help,” she groaned into the cup as she took a sip of water. Packer moved her mane to frame her face and she couldn’t help but love him for it.

“Why? Are you getting worse?”

She shook her head and forced herself up, then flushed the toilet again. She wobbled to the shower and turned it on after she’d gotten in. “I don’t know what I think right now, but I shouldn’t be throwing up. We didn’t eat anything different and you’re doing just fine. I’m months away from my estrus, too.”

There was a curious expression that crossed Packer’s face that Gamma appreciated at boyish ignorance for a moment. “Wait, you don’t think you’re pregnant, do you?” He asked.

Gamme lifted her head to let the water wash over her face and fill her mouth. She spat the nasty water to the floor and coughed. “I… don’t know. It started yesterday after we got back from trying to walk out, after you thought I’d leave you. I had some cramps.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re pregnant. It’s barely been a day, and you were walking a lot. There’s no way a mare can tell she’s pregnant a day after… is there?” Packer asked.

Gamma shook her head. “It takes weeks to find out. Usually three weeks after the end of the cycle, to be exact. But, there’s something weird about this whole place, don’t you feel it? I know my body, and right now I feel something…” She trailed off.

“Something, what? You have to talk to me so I can help you.”

“I feel it, I think.” She said quietly as she turned around to face him. “It’s in my belly, growing too fast. I’m starving and I feel weak, like there’s something taking everything from me…”

Packer looked at her, then moved to the side to look at her belly. “I… don’t see anything, are you sure you’re pregnant?”

She laughed, more like a cackle. “I might just be going crazy! Please, Celestia, let me be going crazy.” She sobbed quietly and Packer stepped into the shower to hug her. “Please, I just wanna go home.”

Packer hugged her tighter and then moved beside her, rubbing her side. “If you are pregnant, we’ll be great parents, right?”

She sniffled and nodded. “You’ll be a terrific father.”

Packer blushed and nuzzled her. “You’re gonna be mom of the year.”

Gamma giggle snorted, spraying water onto the floor. “You dork.”

They spent the next half hour in the shower, comforting one another, then washing each other. They helped dry one another before they went downstairs and ate a quick breakfast of hay and eggs. The shock came when they left the front door. “What the fuck happened to my cart?!” Packer screamed as he ran to it.

Gamma watched him run around it and try to lift it from one end. “The wheel’s missing,” she finally said as she approached.

“No shit the wheel’s missing! Who steals one wheel off…” he stood tall and inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. “It’s okay, this is okay. It’s just a wheel. I can figure something out… I can use stuff from the neighboring houses, I’m sure. There’s more than enough wood in the stairs to make a,” he grit his teeth. “Darn it!”

Gamma used her magic to lift the low end of the wagon and looked at the height from the ground to the base of the cart. “With rectangular wooden panels instead of-”

“Shut up!” Packer shouted in frustration. “I know what I need and what I need to do, I just… have to figure out a way to fix my baby.”

The cart dropped and Packer looked at Gamma. “This is your baby? What about what might be growing inside of me?”

“You’re just sick, you can’t be pregnant. You might have some constipation, too,” he grumbled, “that’d explain your cramping.”

“Fuck your cart, and fuck you!” Gamma shouted as she returned to the house. She stopped when there was a noise behind her. They both turned to the trunk in the middle of the street.

“Great, what now?” Packer asked as he moved to the trunk. “Maybe it’s parts to build a wheel.”

He opened the lid and hopped back, looking pointedly to Gamma with shocked, wide eyes. She moved to the trunk and her mouth dropped open. She looked down at the little colt only a few months old on a bed of hay. She looked at Packer, who was still staring at her. “What? Don’t blame this on me.”

He moved forward and carefully scooped the colt up and held him close. He sniffed the little one and frowned. “Smell him.”

“What?” Gamma asked.

“Just, do it.” Gamma moved in and smelled the colt, jerking back quickly. “I know, right. He smells like honeysuckle and hay.”

“That’s what you say I smell like,” she said, pawing at the ground. “Do you think…” She reached back to pat her side.

“No way, you’re not pregnant, and this isn’t our baby,” Packer stated as he sat and held the foal at legs length. “Who are you, what do you want?”

The foal looked at the stallion and then turned slightly so he could see the mare, then looked back at Packer. Without a sound he stared.

“This is silly, give me the baby, Packer, while you worry about your cart wheel.” She gently gripped the colt in her magic, but it didn’t move to her.

“No, way. This little tyke is gonna learn how to fix a cart wheel like a stallion,” Packer said with pride as he hugged the indifferent colt to his chest.

“You have got to be kidding me. What are you going to have him do, hold the hammer?” Gamma snarked.

“Maybe, or maybe we’ll plan how to escape this place with you and start a real life together.”

Gamma blushed a little. “That’s very chivalrous of you, but we have one problem.”

“What’s that?” Packer asked, setting the foal on the ground.

“We don’t have any milk for the foal, what are we going to feed it for the next several months, if we’re stuck here that long?” Gamma felt another pain and grimaced. “Damn cramps.”

The foal stood on shaky legs and took a step before stopping and cocking his head.

Packer moved to Gamma’s side and gave her a nuzzle. “I’m sorry you have cramps.”

“It’s fine, it’s not like you can do anything about- eek!” Gamma yelped and hopped a step to the side. The colt looked up at her with some fresh white milk on his chin. He moved quickly under her again to resume nursing but Gamma stepped away. “Keep him away from me!”

Packer looked at the mare trotting away from the colt with curiosity. “What’s going on? He’s just a baby.”

“He’s nursing off me!”

Packer snorted and shook his head. “I think you’re both confused. There’s no way-” Packer started and his smile wavered as the colt caught up to the mare and sucked his head under her.

Gamma blanched as she let the foal suckle, just to prove her point.

“What in Celestia’s name?” Packer breathed as his smile fell. “Is that colt nursing off of you?!”

Gamma’s horn flared and she took a paint roller from the cart to throw at Packer. “I told you!”

“What do you expect me to do?!”

Gamma winced as the colt bit down too hard, but it was more of an annoyance. “Help me!”

Packer laughed. “I can’t exactly take over for you on this, babe.” He moved to the colt and sat down, picked the colt from her nipple. The foal swallowed loudly then inhaled deeply before shrieking in the loudest, shrillest, constant tone they’d ever heard. After ten seconds Gamma took the colt in her magic and replaced him under her.

When he quieted again and only the sound of suckling could be heard, the couple shared a tight hug. “I’m so sorry,” Packer finally said. “If I hadn’t gone out to surprise you with our dream house, this never would have happened.”

Gamma sighed. “Don’t blame yourself, anypony could have been taken in by Clipper. At first look, this place is actually kinda nice.”

Packer gestured around them. “Yeah, except the lack of neighbors, inescapable prison curse, and random baby that starts nursing five minutes after appearing in a random trunk.”

Gamma laughed. “Yeah, except for that. Oh, and the horny wine. Can’t forget that.”

“There’s no way I’m complaining about that, there wasn’t even a hangover,” he said, bumping his snout to hers. They shared a laugh. “Is he… almost done?”

Gamma shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t usually get foals until they can talk and feed themselves.”

The colt stepped away from her and swallowed, licked his lips, then burped. He turned and began to walk awkwardly toward the house. Packer hurried to stand behind him and help stabilize him as he walked while Gamma bit her bottom lip in worry. She looked under herself and used her magic to give a test pull on her teat. She stood up tall and canceled her magic when she, indeed, had milked herself.

“Sweet Celestia,” she whispered to herself before following the males into the house and closing the door.

…

Standing in front of her, the colt cocked his head. “Mommy?” The colt asked the ragged and strung out looking mare.

“What?” Gamma replied flatly as she lay on the couch, staring at the blank television.

“Where is daddy?”

Gamma shrugged as best she could. Her mane dropped into her eyes and she brushed it away with some magic. “Go check the cart.”

The colt walked from the room and left the house and tired mare behind him as he saw Packer working on the cart. The remaining wheel was off so it was lying on the ground with the stallion working beside it. Packer looked up at the sound of the door opening and his smile fell. “Hey, colt.”

The colt trotted to the cart and stood beside Packer as the stallion measured the wheel for the umpteenth time. “What are you doing?”

“Measuring.”

“What are you measuring?”

Packer sighed. “The wheel.”

“Didn’t you measure that yesterday?” The colt asked.

Packer stood up and looked down at the colt. “Isn’t there something else you can be doing?”

The colt shook his head. “Mommy is watching the black screen and you are here. You offer more interest and have not called me a mutant, yet.”

Packer glared down. “You are a mutant. No pony ages a few years in a couple weeks.”

The colt finally smiled. “I did, because I’m a freak!”

“And you nearly drained my girlfriend in the process,” Packer stated as he tossed the measuring stick into the back of the cart.

“What is a process?”

“Go play in the hole I dug you,” Packer snapped and pointed back to the house.

The colt looked the way he was being directed and then turned to go to the back yard. On his way he crossed Gamma and stopped to stare at her. He inhaled deeply and then shrieked in a steady tone. Gamma got up quickly and picked the colt up in her magic, moving him to the table where she pulled some hay from the fridge and set it before him. He didn’t stop so she added a glass of juice and then hurried to stand beside him. She lifted her hind leg and he turned, moving his head under her to start sucking at her breast.

Gamma cried softly as she set her leg down. Packer rushed into the room and frowned at the colt. “You can’t just give him food every time he screams for it. You’re rewarding bad behavior.”

Gamma blinked her eyes clear and looked back at the colt. She stepped away and the colt made a couple slurping sounds before he looked up, then he shrieked again. She stepped closer so he could resume and she let out a sob.

Packer shook his head.

“What am I supposed to do? He’s still only a baby, just in a foal’s body,” Gamma said with a wince as the colt bit too hard, again. “Please, don’t bite me so hard,” she asked the colt.

The colt pulled his head free of her and smiled with wet lips. “Okay, mommy.”

“I’m not your mommy,” Gamma replied, coldly. The colt smiled and returned his muzzle under her. Gamma yelped and reached back, biting the colt on the neck. “I told you not to bite me, you little monster!”

The colt jerked back and cocked his head. “I’m a monster!” He happily chirped and licked his lips. He then leaned down to nibble some hay and loudly chewed it while looking blankly ahead.

Gamma walked to Packer and nuzzled him, desiring the affection. “I can’t keep going like this, he’s drinking more than I can make with the supplies we’re being given,” she said.

“Then stop letting him drink!” Packer snapped back, making Gamma grimace. “Stop giving in when he asks for it, drop some hay on the plate for a snack and leave him to scream until his voice breaks, don’t let him kill you.”

Gamma wiped her eyes and quietly walked past Packer to the living room, where she lay on the couch again. Packer glared at the colt and stuck his tongue out at him. The colt replied the same, partially chewed hay stuck to his tongue. Packer left the house again, returning to his cart and slamming the front door as he went.

Packer stopped just outside the door and saw another trunk and he hurried to it, opened it, and then shut it. He hefted it onto his back, barely being able to not drop it, then carried it inside. He let it fall in the living room with a loud thud. “More food, just like you requested,” he grumbled to the startled mare.

“I thought… you were going to hurt me.”

Packer blinked at Gamma. “Why in Celestia’s name would I do that?”

Gamma looked back at the deactivated television. “It would be something different, and you’re different.”

Packer hesitated, then went back out to the wagon and looked up as he went. Exactly twenty five perfect cloud shaped clouds hung unmoving in the sky from where he stood by the cart facing north. He pulled the pipe from its cubby in the cart and packed some tobacco into it, then sat and sucked. Without a match to light it, it was the best novelty and reminder to the outside world he had.

Time passed and the sun moved in its axis as he watched the unmoving, unending reality churn around him. Packer started when there was a spark just outside his vision. He looked around to find Gamma behind him wearing a very snug fitting schoolgirl outfit. Socks of white climbed her legs and her tail was docked with a pink ribbon.

“Let me light that for you,” she said, lighting her horn. A second later smoke began to flume from his pipe and he greedily sucked a lungful of tainted smoke into his lungs.

Packer held the breath and slowly exhaled, smiling as he did so. He looked at her from front to back and his smile waned. “I thought you were mad at me.” He spoke with the pipe at the corner of his mouth, then took another two small puffs.

Gamma used her magic to pull the pipe from his lips. She used a spell he couldn’t understand to put the smoldering embers in the pipe out and set it down, then waited a moment for the smoke to clear his face before she approached him. She kissed him, wrapping a foreleg around his head to pull him closer.

They kissed, rolled around, and made love in the back of his cart, outside of the house with the colt inside, until they couldn’t anymore. Gamma lay beside him, her head on Packer’s chest, listening to his fast heartbeat. She wondered if it matched her own at that moment. She lifted a partially socked foreleg into view to pull his muzzle down to meet hers.

“That was amazing,” Gamma said.

“You’re amazing. I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier about that thing nursing off of you. I should have just--”

“No,” Gamma interrupted. “You’re right. The food we got was enough for a couple days and had some dried fish in it. Great source of protein and,” she rubbed a circle into his chest fur, “energy for what I just did. What we just did.” She giggled. “I’m glad I’m not with anypony else, you’re the only pony that could go through this with me.”

Packer didn’t know what to say, so he nickered.

Gamma nuzzled and cuddled closer to him, her body heat was higher than his, it felt like, because she didn’t notice him sweating nearly as much as she was after everything they’d done. “I love you, and thank you for being here with me.”

“I love you more than the stars in the sky,” Packer said, pulling her closer with a foreleg.

They heard a noise and they both looked at the end of the cart to see the colt staring at them. “Oh, Packer. Right there, put your hoof a little… oh, yes!” The colt mimicked the mare, making her blush. “Gamma, tighter, squeeze them tighter with your naughty magic.” He said, looking at Packer.

Packer got up quickly, shoving the blushing mare off of him. He reached the colt and raised a foreleg and brought it down at a sharp arc across the colt’s muzzle. The colt looked at him and Packer seethed. The colt spoke. “Pull me deeper inside you,” he said in Packer’s voice. “I want to make you my broodmare.”

Blood dripped from the colt’s muzzle as Packer whinnied in his little face. The stallion picked him up and tossed him onto his back before running to the next house over and bucking the door in. He tossed the colt inside and pulled the door closed leaving the colt alone in the strange empty, dark house.

Gamma watched her stallion returning to her and she clambered from the cart to rush to him. “What are you doing?! You can’t just hit a foal and lock him away.”

“He watched, listened to us make love. He mocked us, you! That little monster should be locked alone until-” he went quiet for a second as the foal started screaming and baning on the closed door. “Until he learns some manners.”

“How will he learn if we don’t teach him?” She said, walking past him to the house.

“We tried that, but it’s like he’s programmed to be a weird jerk,” Packer called to her.

Gamma opened the door with her magic and the colt stopped screaming, walking from the house to stand in front of her. Gamma pulled off one of her socks and pressed it to the cut on the colt’s cheek, then she sat and looked down at him. “I’m sorry about my boyfriend, but you were out of line.

“Do you understand what you saw was private between two lovers and shouldn’t have been repeated?”

“Then why were you outside if it was private?”

Gamma blushed brightly and looked back to a smug looking Packer. “Because, nopony is out here to see us and it was just a little fun way for me to make up with him. It doesn’t make it right, just like you don’t have any reason to mock us for what we said or did while we were doing it. Do you understand?”

The colt smiled and shook his head. “Will you eat me out, like a predator?”

Gamma gasped and her heart jumped. “That is out of line and-” she glared at the chuckling stallion behind her. “That’s something only mares say to stallions they love, it’s not something little foals like you should say.”

“I’m a weirdo,” the colt replied with a toothy grin.

Gamma got up and pulled the silk sock from the colt’s cheek, it’s white stained red. “You’re also a cute and nice little colt that should be learning more from us than what insults we make about you.”

The colt giggled and walked past her, past Packer, and to the cart. He climbed onto and began sniffing around. Gamma rushed over and removed the foal from the cart before he found any remains of their love making and placed him on her back. “How about we play a game!”

“Games? I like games. Hide and seek?” The colt asked.

“How about,” Packer suggested, “where’s the exit?”

The colt laughed loudly, then stopped suddenly, looking at the stallion with a darkness in his eyes. “There is no escape,” he said with a dark timbre to his voice.

Gamma shivered and tossed the colt from her back and stepped to Packer’s side quickly. They both watched the colt and stepped back as he got up and looked at them. “What are you?” Gamma asked.

“I’m a mutant freak!” The colt replied happily and began trotting around the cart chanting what he’d said.

The couple rushed into the house and shut the door, locking it behind them as they hurried to the living room. They both paced back and forth as the colt’s voice came from outside. “We have to get out of here, that thing knows how to leave,” Packer finally said.

Gamma nodded and moved to lay on the couch, her tail moving to cover her privates as she did so. “I know, he’s the key. But, we don’t have a cart and he won’t stay still on either of our backs. He won’t point us out… what the hay is that thing?”

Packer stopped to look out the window at the prancing, chanting colt. “Exactly what he said he is. We have to trick him, somehow. There’s gotta be something we can do to get him to tell us the way out, or show us. Maybe a game?”

Gamma shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of game would work, I’ve tried talking to him and asking him about games he might know, but he never answers; just asks. And even then, he barely plays before he gets hungry or has to go to the bathroom.” She glanced to Packer. “Did you ever notice how little he uses the bathroom compared to how much he eats?”

Packer shook his head, looking back to Gamma. “No, I didn’t. I’ve done my best with taking care of him, but I don’t really pay attention to when he’s not around me. Does that make me a bad father?”

“Not with a think like him in our lives,” Gamma said. Her ears perked and both of them listened. “Why isn’t he still chanting?” She asked. “He usually goes on for a few minutes before he starts staring at us again.”

Packer moved to the window and looked out, seeing the colt was gone. “I don’t know. He’s not out there, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could be doing anything…” he looked back to Gamma and smirked. “You know, you’re still dressed really sexy…”

Gamma used her magic to pull the outfit off her body and tossed it at him. “You want to wear that skin tight outfit while we have sex, go for it,” she smiled, “I’d love to play stallion.”

Packer tossed the sock from his head to the floor and lightly kicked them away. “I’m fine, thanks, though. I was just hoping for a little fooling around, especially now that we’re alone.”

Gamma lay back into the couch with a sigh. “We don’t know where he is, so we’re not alone. Not only that, I’m already full of your happy milk,” she patted her belly, “any more and I might pop.” Packer licked his lips and looked along her body, lingering at her swollen breasts. Gamma blushed and lifted her leg a little. “Oh, fine, you big baby,” she giggled and watched him trot over.

“Maybe you could pretend to be my mommy one of these nights,” he said as his muzzle nuzzled against her teats.

“She’s not your mommy,” the colt said from the living room doorway, scaring both adults. “That’s my milk, not yours.” He said, looking at the stallion with narrowed eyes.

Packer faced the colt and pointed up. “Go to your room, young stallion.”

“Go to your room, young stallion,” the colt repeated.

Packer moved forward and raised a forehoof, threateningly. The colt cowered away and fell back to his haunches, holding a little hoof to his healing cut. Packer froze and looked at the little one and then moved quickly to expose the injury he’d given him. “Gamma, he’s already healed from earlier.”

Gamma leaned over to see the colt’s face and nodded. “Yeah, looks like we can’t even hurt him if we wanted to, not that we want to, right?”

Packer gave the colt a shove hard enough to knock him over, then left the room. “I’m getting some juice,” he said as the colt got up to his hooves and moved to stare at Gamma.

Gamma closed her eyes and shook her head fervently letting her mane fall wherever it did, then she closed her eyes and rested, knowing she was being stared at by a colt that wasn’t hers.