>You are a worker for the State of New Generica, Department of Fish and Wildlife's Division of Fluffy Pony Management.
>Otherwise known as the 'Fluffy Pony Judgment Squad'.
>You've just gotten an odd call from a farm outside of Neutralville.
>It's odd for two reasons.
>First, it wasn't the farmer or his hands that placed the call.
>Second, the description of the herd is strange.
>It's a fairly small group, thirty fluffy ponies.
>The caller described them all as midgets.
>The caller also said that he doesn't think the farmer knows there are any fluffy ponies around.
>Since he's a friend, he was reporting the herd in case they started making trouble.
>From the description, it seems like the herd is hunkered down in a stand of oak trees in the corner of a huge carrot patch.
>You have to call the farmer to confirm the report.
>He heads to the area in question and indeed says there's a fluffy herd in the trees.
>Doesn't seem too annoyed by it, but he doesn't object to you coming out and making an assessment.
>You drive out to the farm and dispense with the considerable walk to the unfenced carrot patch.
>When the caller said 'midgets', you thought he was joking.
>They are smaller than regular fluffies.
>Once you get into the oak stand, you see why.
>Besides a few younger and older outliers, all of these fluffies appear to be the same age.
>That age, based on their size, is roughly one week old.
>It's a herd completely made of foals.
>Thirty foals in a clump by themselves is extremely strange.
>While it isn't unusual that all the foals would be together in a set area, there are always adults around to play with and supervise them.
>The foals are very young, and dams are extremely protective of their kids until they wean.
>There should be dams and attendants everywhere, but only foals can be found.
>Where are the adults?
>Assessing foals is much harder; they know fewer words and are easily scared by even gentle tones and gestures.
>Better find a big fluffy to find out what's going on.
>”Wan' mikkies...”
>If it weren't for the noise, you'd think they were asleep huddled together in a smaller than usual clump.
>Their eyes are closed, but they're babbling quietly.  They're 'hiding'.
>”Wan' mumma, babeh scawed, when mumma come back?”
>Most of their speech is not developed as it should be.
>Constant chants of 'wuv', 'mik' and 'mumma' bombard your ears.
>Since they haven't even seen you, you quietly creep away and look for the rest of their herd.
>Experience tells you they would be sheltered in trees to avoid the daytime heat.
>The oak stand juts into the carrot patch for a hundred yards, but connects to a larger forest.
>They've gotta be in there.
>You walk into the trees, searching for signs of fluffy activity.
>After a few minutes, you finally find an adult.
>It's dead, its skull having been crushed in by something.
>After a few more steps, you see three more adults that have met the same fate.
>The trees thin out ahead, forming a grassy triangle shape that opens into a large clearing.
>What grass hasn't been grazed has been trampled flat.
>Dried piles of shit litter the ground.
>You navigate through them and find a sizable pond.
>It is choked with the floating corpses of a large herd, at least sixty in total.
>You have no idea what kind of predator could have done this.
>Whatever it was, it so frightened the fluffy ponies, they ran themselves into a watery grave.
>It even drove them to abandon their children.
>Perhaps a foal has the answer.  You walk back to the clump.
>After listening for a few seconds for the most advanced speech, you gently pick up a dirty green earth foal.
>”Mumma am hewe fo' ba—NUUUUUUUUUUU, MUNSTA!  MUNSTA HAF BABEH HEWP BABEH HEWP!”
>The foals all shit themselves in nearly perfect unison, the tone of their speech becoming shrill and panicked.
>It's not much shit; they've not eaten in a while.
“I'm not going to hurt you.”
>”Pwease mumma hewp babeh babeh goo' fwuffy fwuffy no wan' owwies owwies ba' fo' babeh no wike dis babeh scawed babeh scawed!”
>You wait for it to wear itself out a little before trying again.
>Good thing you put on the gloves, because a thin dribble of feces comes from the green fluffy.
>”Munsta come, yewwa fwuff come, huwt babehs, huwt daddehs...”
>Yellow fluff?
“Did it have four legs?”
>”Hooman munsta...”
“I'm not a monster.”
>”Hooman haf yewwa fwuff...”
>You certainly don't have yellow 'fluff'.
>Should have known a foal wouldn't make any sense.
>With a sigh, you put the foal aside, separate from the clump.
>You spend the next few minutes sorting the foals.
>The vast majority have failed to develop correctly.
>Picking them up results in broken squeaks and trickles of piss.
>A few try to say words, but they simply come out as clipped syllables like 'wu', 'mu', or 'hew'.
>There are four normal-sounding foals in total that can probably be saved.
>The rest will be damned to lives as stunted, undersized fluffy ponies that will suffer greatly as adults.
>The cleanest way to deal with them is to let them starve.
>You call the farmer back, explain the situation, then ask if he wants the foals to be removed.
>To your surprise, he says no.  He'll collect them for compost later.
>Very well.
>You also ask if there have been any foxes on his property, since that's the nearest to yellow animal you can think of.
>He replies in the negative.
>You put the four chosen foals into one cage, and put the cage in the truck cab so they can be cool.
>The rest of the terrified foals are left behind.
>While driving out, you get a little lost.
>You end up driving past the farmhouse.
>The farmer waves from the front porch.
>Two young women are out there with him.
>Neither waves at you.
>One's a blonde, the other an oddball purple dye job.
>You catch a glance of the cars in the driveway as you pull out into the road.
>Farmer must be doing pretty well for himself.
>He's got a black Porsche.