Warning: spoilers for the New Tenneb Saga, the Stranded Saga, and Ugly Sweater Guy up to “Going To A Sweater Place”.
Note: maybe also read “Jester 'nother Day” first.
A few days after Calvin and Marley returned home from their adventures across the magical side of the universe following the disastrous New Tenneb mission, Dr. Erwin Stahlberg arrives at his branch of the Faucheuse Foundation, the first of many branches across the globe to be founded.
It will be assumed that you are familiar with Erwin, and the Foundation, and what Erwin does at the Foundation.
If you aren’t, well, you know what to do, yes?
As Erwin walks into the lobby, he sees Dr. Stronginthearm, but the dwarven doctor looks different today.
Because Dr. Stronginthearm is wearing makeup. Lipstick, eyeshadow, a bit of blusher. A tad amateurishly applied, frankly. But that’s understandable.
“Morning, Mary.”
Dr. Stronginthearm greets her boss.
“Morning, Erwin.”
Yes, her boss.
Traditionally, dwarves only had one gender, that being dwarf. What a dwarf’s biological gender is used to be a very private subject, which made dwarven courtship a complicated matter.
Since dwarves also traditionally wear armor, and both dwarven men and women have beards, their biological gender isn’t as immediately apparent as it is for humans, and many other sapient races.
But in modern times, more and more dwarf women are openly presenting as women, wearing chainmail skirts and sipping appletinis instead of quaffing ale.
Dr. Mary Stronginthearm, formerly Dr. Merry Stronginthearm, is one of those dwarves.
However, most dwarf women draw the line at shaving their beards off, including Mary.
There’s saying that you’re not a man, and then there’s saying that you’re not a dwarf.
Naturally, there are older dwarves who don’t approve of things like openly female dwarves. They have a word for such dwarves who, in their eyes, have fallen, or rather, risen from grace.
That word is ha’ak. And it is not a nice word to call a dwarf woman. It’s as offensive as calling a human woman a whore.
Sadly, Mary has already heard that word several times, including from one of her own grandfathers. All four of them are still alive, because dwarves live longer than humans, and good luck getting them to tell you which two of them are actually Mary’s grandmothers.
Many older dwarves think that all dwarves should live underground, work as miners and smiths, and hate trolls for being trolls. Naturally, they aren’t happy that so many younger dwarves work with trolls, and are friends with trolls.
Mary’s got a relative who was disowned for marrying a troll, around the time steam engines became the hip new trend on Earth.
But times change, people change, and moral standards change.
No one can stop that.
After Erwin arrives in his trusty examination room, his first patient of the day is brought in by Calvin and Marley.
Calvin still has the beard he grew while he was stranded. He hasn’t decided whether or not he’s going to keep it yet.
And he’s carrying an unconscious mare, covered in bruises.
“Sup, Erwin. Got another battered fluffy for ya, all the way from Portland.”
Erwin nods, having seen this many times.
“Let’s get her into a vat.”
Erwin leads Calvin and Marley into the regeneration room, filled with rows of vats, and they place the unconscious mare in an empty vat.
A few of the regen vats are already occupied. On the mare’s left, there’s a stallion who got half of his face burned off by a blowtorch.
The abuser who did that to him is behind bars.
These wonderful vats can restore a myriad of injuries. Even pillowing can be undone with ease here at the Foundation.
Before the vats were upgraded with Lumixian technology, it took about a week to heal a fluffy to full health. Now, however, it only takes a few hours.
Of course, the vats still can’t resurrect dead fluffies.
The Nerd Squad, of which Erwin is a proud member, are studying the magical Hermit Beans, native to Magicca, because those beans have potent healing powers too, and work even faster than Lumixian regeneration technology.
Valerie, the leader of the Nerd Squad, has theorised that the regeneration fluid used by the vats could be upgraded further, by incorporating Hermit Bean extract into the formula.
Perhaps, in time, those beans could render the vats obsolete altogether.
Unfortunately, Hermit Beans are prohibitively expensive, due to it being very difficult to cultivate them. They require soil with specific qualities to grow.
So until the ChaotiX can find the means to grow more Hermit Beans, that upgrade will have to wait.
With the mare safe and secure in the vat, a breathing mask on her face, Erwin watches the vat fill itself with fluid.
“What did you do with the perpetrator, Cal?”
Calvin shrugs.
“Eh, nothing fancy. Just decked him in the gut and left him there for the cops.”
“Daddeh nyu fowm wud be oba-kiww.”
“Yeah, and so would Luminaire.”
“Wai did daddeh nu yoos dat wen we wuz stwanded?”
“Well, it has its drawbacks. I can’t move while I’m charging it, for one.”
As the trio walks out of the regeneration room, Erwin turns to Calvin.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you bring that mare to the Foundation branch in Portland?”
“Because you’re one of the best damn fluffy doctors there is, Erwin.”
A cheerful, flamboyant voice chimes in.
“I couldn’t agree more, dearest Cal!”
Suddenly, Chaos is in the examination room too. He’s in his usual jester form, and he’s brought Loki and Eris, his fluffies, with him.
“It’s so good to see you getting back to work, Cal.”
Calvin nods.
“It’s good to be back to work, Chaos. After that whole ordeal, it’s nice to do something simple, like busting abusers.”
He waves at the rainbow-colored fluffies.
“Hi, guys! Me and Mar have gotta go, but we’ll see you at the park later!”
He’s not telling them where he’s going with Marley.
They’re going to go have a word with a group of gentlemen about a certain incident involving a feral stallion and the Potion of Femininity/Masculinity.
Calvin didn’t have time to do so before the mission to New Tenneb.
Marley nods.
“Su be gud fow Kay-ohs, otay?”
Calvin and Marley leave, Chaos, Erwin, Loki and Eris waving goodbye.
When they’re gone, Chaos waves a gloved hand, and his fluffies float up onto the table, next to the Stahlskanner.
“It’s just a routine examination, my dears. Erwin, take it from here!”
Erwin nods.
“Who wants to go first this time?”
Loki raises a hoof, so Erwin places him on the scanner first.
ping!
A light on the scanner flashes green, the screen displaying various diagnostic information.
“Looks like you’re fit as a fiddle, Loki.”
“Wut am a fid-uw again?”
Chaos chuckles, pulling a solid gold fiddle out of his pocket.
“This is a fiddle, dear Loki.”
He starts playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia, sawing on the fiddle and playing it hot just like Johnny.
“And no, not all of them are gold!”
Music is part of Chaos’ cosmic portfolio, as is creativity in general. He’s played the part of a muse on many occasions in the past.
A world without chaos is a world without imagination, or innovation.
It’s a world without change.
The Deaths, however, aren’t very creative. They can’t create anything new. Everything in the domain that the Death of Humans shares with the Deaths of Fluffies, Woollies and Rats is a copy of something the Deaths have seen in the mortal realm.
So only one of the Deaths has any musical talent, and the Death of Trees can only really sing one song.
If you remember what the Death of Trees looks like, you know which song.
Erwin’s already placed Loki back on the table, and he lifts Eris onto the scanner next.
ping!
“And you’re just as healthy, Eris. Ah, you’re expecting again.”
Chaos nods, still playing the golden fiddle.
“I was starting to miss the pitter-patter of tiny hooves in my domain, Erwin.”
Loki and Eris’ last litter were all adopted out after they grew up, but because Chaos is Chaos, and the list of places he can’t go is short enough to fit on a Post-it note, making sure that his fluffies stay in touch with their progeny is hardly an inconvenience.
“I’ve offered to let Jeff adopt one of the foals, and he said he’d think about it. But he’s not planning to adopt another fluffy until he’s got his own place, he said.”
Suddenly, Loki and Eris are standing on the floor next to Chaos.
“We should probably go see how him and Electra are doing.”
Erwin unwraps a couple of skettie treats.
“Don’t forget these, Chaos.”
As Loki and Eris happily num their skettie treats, Chaos leads them out, still playing the golden fiddle.
He sterilises the examination room for Erwin on the way out, so Erwin doesn’t have to summon the mechanical arms to do that.
Ten minutes later, his next patient is brought in.
Mark wheels in a pillowed stone fluffy, the leg stumps still oozing golden blood. The poor thing has passed out from blood loss.
Erwin sighs in dismay.
“What happened, Mark?”
“Get him in a vat first, Erwin.”
“Ja, Sie haben völlig Recht.”
Five minutes later, the stone fluffy is sleeping in a vat, next to a garden fluffy who was used to play She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not.
Yes, the vats work on stone fluffies and garden fluffies too. They work on all subtypes of fluffy, and woollies, which aren’t technically fluffies, but check a lot of the same boxes.
“So what happened?”
Mark scowls.
“The asshole who did this wanted a doorstop, and couldn’t be bothered to just buy one. The Warriors Four are seeing to him, and Kobul’s reading him the riot act before the cops drag him off to jail.”
Naturally, the troll community does not approve of stone fluffy abuse.
Erwin shakes his head in disbelief.
“Tsk. Going to all that effort to saw a stone fluffy’s legs off? Really, buying a doorstop would have been easier.”
Especially because cutting a stone fluffy’s legs off requires a concrete saw.
Mark shrugs.
“Eh, you know how abusers are. They always do things the hard way, because it’s not about being practical.”
“Idioten, jeder Einzelne von ihnen.”
“Hey, Jeff got a clue. It was funny when we rinsed Electra off and he saw her real colors, though.”
Erwin chuckles.
“But it was so hard to hold my laughter in for so long. I don’t know how you managed.”
Yes, they were in on it. From the very beginning.
And Jeff doesn’t know that yet.
Mark heads out, so he can go help Rosa bathe Cleo and Julius, and with the push of a button, Erwin summons the mechanical arms to sterilise the examination room.
He tries to do that after every patient, unless Chaos does it for him.
His next patient is brought in by a panicked young woman.
“Doc, you’ve gotta help me! Damon’s whizzing red!”
Damon, a white and purple alicorn stallion, winces in pain.
“An Day-mun gut no-no owwies tuu.”
Erwin carefully lifts Damon onto the Stahlskanner.
bzzz
When the light flashes red, Erwin looks at the screen.
“Nichts Ernstes. Just a urinary tract infection.”
He explains what a urinary tract infection is in ways Damon can understand.
“I’ll prescribe some antibiotics, you can pick them up at the pharmacy, and I recommend lots of fluids. If it doesn’t clear up in a few days, let us know.”
“Wai am Day-mun makin wed peepees, mistah dok-tow?”
“Well, you probably won’t understand this, but a UTI is usually caused by E. coli bacteria. You don’t use a catheter, and the scanner says you don’t have diabetes or any kidney stones. So I’m not sure what exactly caused this.”
Diabetes is less common in fluffies than it is in humans, but not unheard of entirely. Chunky was at risk of diabetes before the Spirits of Sin debacle finally motivated him to lose weight.
“Let’s just see if the antibiotics help.”
“So, uh, which way is the pharmacy?”
“Follow me, miss.”
After leading Damon and his owner to the pharmacy, Erwin makes his way out of the Foundation, heading to Starbucks.
When he walks in, he sees Jeff Robinson sitting at one table with Electra.
Jeff grins. He’s not wearing his sweater today, which is why none of the other customers have recognised him.
“Relax, Erwin. I’m not here to serve coffee. Chaos said we might run into you.”
He holds his paper cup up pointedly.
“I’m, uh, still looking for a job and a place to live.”
At the moment, Jeff and Electra are guests at the School.
Actual guests, unlike the “guests” with quote marks down in the cells.
They’ve left Detroit behind for good, but as Jeff said, they don’t have a place to live here. Without Chaos footing the bill, staying at Faucheuse Hotel again isn’t an option.
So Calvin generously offered to let them crash at the School until they’ve arranged something more permanent.
And Erwin, as a ChaotiX member, was already aware of that.
Erwin grins back at Jeff.
“I can’t help much with the housing situation, but if it’s employment you seek, perhaps we could schedule an interview.”
Jeff hesitates for a second.
“Y’know, I’m not 100% certain about working for FauCorp. I didn’t even think they’d have me. But Cal suggested working with Kyle at Flufftopia, so… I’ll think about it. No promises.”
Erwin waves off his concern.
“And no pressure, Jeff.”
Then Jeff lowers his voice.
“Honestly, I’m wondering if Cal will let us crash at the School until you-know-who is dealt with.”
Electra raises an eyebrow.
“Yu meen De–”
“Shh. I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about him in public.”
Erwin shrugs.
“Not many people on this side know about you-know-who. But I fear that may change in time, and I’m not the only one in the ChaotiX who worries about that.”
Then he points towards the register.
“But let me get my drink first before we continue this conversation.”
Jeff sips his coffee. It’s black, that’s how he always takes his coffee.
“We can’t spend all afternoon chatting, Erwin. You’ve probably got a lot on your plate today.”
Erwin looks out the windows, seeing ChaotiX members suddenly blipping into the Foundation parking lot, carrying injured fluffies, and he sighs resignedly.
“Oh dear. It looks like another mill was busted. I think I took my coffee break too soon this time. So you correct, Jeff.”
He hurriedly runs out of the Starbucks, waving goodbye to Jeff, Electra and the employees.
“Das war’s mit meinem Nachmittag…”