Judgment: Generation Lost

>You are a worker for the Department of Fish and Wildlife's...

>Oh, forget the spiel.  It's the weekend and you're off.

>You're busy tending to your backyard.

>It's not fenced in, and given your work schedule, you don't have much chance to maintain it.

>Fluffy herds wander through and eat your grass, leaving foul-smelling piles in their wakes.

>Sure, the grass loves it, but the neighbors don't.

>By the time you're done removing shit, it's after noon.

>Time to water.  You go fetch the hose.

>Before you can even start walking that way, however, you nearly trip over a fluffy pony.

>”Owwies!  No huwt fwuffy!” he says.

>This is a pink unicorn with an orange mane and tail and shining red eyes.

>He shrinks back when you look at him.

“What are you doing here?”

>”Fwuffy sowwy, pwease hewp fwuffy...”

“I don't take in strays.”

>”Fwuffy no wan' daddy, fwuffy wan' hewp fo' fwuffy fwiends...”

>You become a little suspicious.

“Are you a smarty friend?”

>He nods emphatically.  “Smawty fwiend!  Hooman pwease hewp fwuffies?”

>You fold your arms and look down at him.

>He trembles, but doesn't budge.  “No huwt, onwy wan' hewp hewd...”

>Well, he's being fairly polite about it.

>He must not have been able to penetrate the fences of the adjacent houses, and came to the only human he could see.

“What's wrong?”

>The smarty suddenly looks sullen, more sullen than you've ever seen a fluffy pony before.

>He starts trot-waddling toward the woods past the end of your property, stopping to look back at you.

>”Come wif fwuffy?” he asks.

>Hell, why not.

>You follow the pink smarty through the trees.

>For him, the going is slow; his fluff keeps getting caught on small stones.

>After a few minutes, you finally reach a large rock outcropping.

>Eleven other fluffies are huddled underneath it.  They look up at you fearfully.

>”Pwease no huwt mumma!” a greenish-grey pegasus cries.

>There's a problem with this small herd, however.

>It's summer, prime breeding season for a fluffy.

>'Season' is a bit of a misnomer, anyway.

>They're fluffy ponies; their propensity is to mate whenever they feel like it, which is all the damn time.

>Despite that, there's not a single foal to be found here.

>You can distinguish the mothers from the rest.

>There are four including the pegasus, lying on their sides and panting with worry and pain.

>Their teats are swollen visibly, full of milk for foals that aren't here.

>”Hooman, pwease hewp fin' babehs?” the smarty pleads, joining his herd.

>”Wuv babehs!  Why babehs go 'way?” another mom asks, this one a dusky blue earth fluffy.

>”Babehs no wan' miwkies?” a reddish-orange unicorn dam asks.

>You look around, up in the tree branches and down at the forest floor.

>There is no telling what happened to their foals.

>”Pwease hewp, nice hooman!  Fwuffies wan' babehs!” the smarty begs again.

>With a slight sigh, you start walking past the herd and into the woods.

“Fine, I'll be right back.”

>”Yay!  Hooman hewp fin' babehs!”

>”Wuv nice hooman!  Gif huggies!”

>You ignore the happy clamor of the ponies as it fades behind you.

>You'll just walk around for a few minutes, not find anything, then report back to the herd.

>They'll throw a fit and cry, but there's nothing you can do anyway.

>As you walk, you find that it's been raining enough to refill the small stream bed that runs back here.

>Since they're fluffy ponies, you check the stream first.

>As you have no idea the age of the foals, they may have wandered off.

>It's very possible that they drowned trying to drink water like the big ponies.

>There's a collection of rocks in the stream off to your left that you examine.

>It's free of corpses; if they'd fallen in, the current would have sent them here.

>Okay, so they didn't drown.

>There's no way in hell you're going to find them, these woods are massive.

>After waiting for a while, you start back to the herd to tell them the bad news.

>That's when the flash of color catches your eye.

>Above you, the branches bear tufts of brightly colored fluff.

>The trail of tufts proceeds back the way you came.

>The fluffies never saw them because they can't look up that high.

>You didn't see them until the sun was at your back.

>You follow the fluff trail slowly.

>A green tuft, upon closer examination, is not a tuft at all, but a shredded corpse.

>The foal this used to be couldn't have been more than three days old, barely walking age.

>It's been picked apart by something.

>You scan the trees again.

>Almost directly above you is another dead foal, this one a rich tan color.

>The foal's body is clutched in the talons of a small screech owl, which idly looks back down at you.

>In nearby trees, other owls roost quietly, waiting for the sun to disappear.

>That would explain that.

>Fluffy foals are easy prey for the owls here.

>If they were walking age, the parents would have taught them to use the bathroom away from where they slept.

>They complied, and got eaten for their obedience.

>You walk back to the outcropping, trying to figure out a way to frame this so they'll understand.

>”Hooman fin' babehs?” the smarty asks.

>You scratch your head and sigh.

“I'm sorry.  Fly monsters ate your babies.”

>The little herd huddles together with the childless mothers at the center, babbling fearfully.

>”F-fwy munsta?  Babehs no nummies!  Why fwy munsta take babehs 'way?!”

>The smarty is bitterly angry, at least as bitter and angry as a fluffy pony can be.

>You wonder which of the dams was his mate, and how many foals he lost.

>While the rest of the herd tries to console the heartbroken dams, and the smarty vents his frustration, you walk back toward your house.

>Just as you reach the edge of the woods, something drops in front of you.

>It's the head of a white unicorn foal.  You look up.

>Another screech owl gazes silently back at you.

>You look back for a moment before continuing on.

>No matter how many resources the State puts into controlling the fluffy population, one thing is very clear:

>Eventually, nature will figure out how to do it far better than humans will.