Hi everyone, lurker is lurker no more. I’ve had an idea for a story for quite some time now, but never had the guts to actually write it until now.
As a quick disclaimer to know if this story is for you, it is from the perspective of a doctor conducting psychological research trials on fluffies to find out how far he can push their cognitive abilities, I would primarily classify it as neutralbox and bleakbox with a potential hugbox ending if I ever finish it. There will be disturbing descriptions of sensory deprivation, mental manipulation, and a lot of clinical speak.
It will not contain much gore, if at all, and is really just supposed to be self indulgent for me and anyone else who finds psychological research real fucking cool.
Read Chapter
Are fluffies animals? No. Are fluffies alive? Yes. Are fluffies intelligent? Dubiously.
If you ask an average person that question, they will most likely call fluffies dumb as rocks, burdens of nature— and civilization, but I found myself taking a step back and contextualizing things a bit more.
The world’s smartest birds and apes take years to communicate, and even then it’s not even close to efficient. Fluffies, on the other hand, are able to comprehend language almost immediately after being born and with very little stimulation.
I don’t know how Hasbio did it, but I’m excited to find out. Can they be taught? Can they be molded? Can you take a creature infamous for being a Darwinian nightmare and turn it into something halfway competent?
My first couple of grants were denied, my proposals were not impressive to the powers that be and what they consider important to science, but I eventually got approved. I assume they only put me through just to shut me up, and it’s not like I was asking for a lot of money anyways.
And ethics laws be damned, I’m excited about it.
While I have a myriad of trials I want to perform, it all boils down to figuring out the cognitive capabilities of fluffies, and what happens to their intelligence upon different stimulation.
“Dr. Corbian? The clinical staff have just finished setting up the dark rooms, so I believe everything is all set,” a soft spoken woman peeked through my door, “Do you have an appointment with Mrs. Mitchell any time soon?”
Mrs. Mitchell was the one outside factor in our experiment. With psychological research comes the need for very specific test subjects, in this case we wanted to begin with newborn foals with no genetic medical issues, average temperament parents, and no history of abuse to either parent.
We offered Mrs. Mitchell 50$ to utilize her pet fluffy, Sprite, for the trial. Sprite was bred carefully with a male that belonged to one of our lab techs, and throughout the short gestation period we periodically saw Sprite and her owner to make sure things were going smoothly.
Today was the day where we would take over Sprite’s care for a period of 90 days starting from birth— of course, not all of her foals were going to get the good end of the deal, but we assured Mrs. Mitchell that no harm would come to Sprite physically or psychologically, and if anything, our trials may improve her behavior.
“Yes,” I replied after a moment, “Yes, I believe she is actually due to arrive in about a half hour? I’m actually all ready to get started so if she happens to show up early feel free to send her in.”
The assistant nodded with a neutral smile and shut the door behind her, it was only five minutes later when the door was cracked open again.
“Dr?” Asked Mrs. Mitchell, “I was told to come right in, hope that’s okay.”
Mrs. Mitchell was a middle aged woman with a kind disposition, Sprite had been well taken care of since she was a baby. I motioned for her to come in, so she gently pressed the door wider to fit both herself and the crate through.
Sprite herself was a perfectly fine Fluffy, with bright seafoam fur and a pastel yellow mane that hung to the left. She was nervous the first few times to our clinic, but eventually we grew on her.
“Yay! Fwuffy wuv nice wab coat mistuh,” she giggled, pawing at the grate of the carrier.
“You can let her out if you want,” I commented, pulling out some paperwork, “we just have to go over the last couple consent forms, won’t take long.”
Mrs. Mitchell nodded and unlatched the door of the crate, allowing the very pregnant mare to hobble out and explore the office. I sat down with Sprite’s owner and pulled out a couple of documents.
“So as we discussed, the trial will start as soon as she gives birth, we will notify you of her labour but not the status or amount of foals,” I highlighted a couple of stipulations as I talked, “When the trial concludes, the foals will be well of age to be sold or discarded, and you do have the options to take them if you wish. There may be a chance that there is a standout that we would like to keep for further testing, and in that case we will offer an extra 100$ as compensation.”
The woman nodded, “and…you’re sure nothing bad will happen to Sprite?”
“Nothing, we have measures in place to ensure her comfort throughout the trial. Of course, she may become distressed at some points due to normal fluffy disposition, but never to the point of long lasting trauma,” I continued, “In the event of a medical emergency, the trial will be immediately halted and you will be notified. This contract is legally binding of course, so you have nothing to worry about.”
Mrs. Mitchell looked down to her pet, who was calmly poking at a plant I had in the corner of my office, “Alright,” she grasped a pen in her hands and wrote down her signature on the bottom of the paper. I shuffled away the documents into a vanilla folder and turned to face her again.
“I’ll make sure to mail you a copy of those,” I stood and brushed off my wrinkled coat, “You’re welcome to spend a few minutes with her before we onboard her.”
I strolled a couple of rooms down to across our copy machine, and when I came back the owner was gone, leaving Sprite gentle weeping near her crate with a small stuffed animal in her mouth.
“Huuuhuhu…mummah weft Spwite, wab coat mistuh, why did mummah weave?” She sniffled through the fabric of her plush.
I hesitated for a second, while I wasn’t an abuser by any means, I did not like these things. I had no compassion for fluffies and only found interest in this experiment. Mrs. Mitchell, however, clearly loved Sprite with all her heart, so I knew I couldn’t just ignore this. I knelt down and ran a hand through her soft fur.
“…Don’t worry, Sprite, your owner has to go on a vacation, so she’s leaving you here for a little bit, it’s dangerous to take a pregnant mare out on a cruise you know…” I lied.
“Mummah is not ownuh, mummah is mummah!” Sprite corrected, I cleared my throat and nodded.
“Yes, your momma, sorry.”
Sprite looked down to the floor, “Wab coat mistuh wiww take cawe of Spwite?”
“Yes, my name is, Corbian—”
With no time to finish my sentence, Sprite quickly waddled over and pressed her head against my leg “Fank ou wab coat mistuh! Spwite wiww be best fwuffy and mummah wiww be suuuu pwoud!!! And Spwite wiww AWSO be mummah! And get to show humin mummah Spwite’s babbehs!”
I awkwardly placed my hand onto Sprite’s head and nodded along to what she was saying, while picking up my phone to call in our lab techs.
“Hey, Peter? Yeah, Mrs. Mitchell just dropped off her fluffy, I’ve got her here, we should get her set up in the safe room,” I spoke, Sprite didn’t seem to process what I was saying, simply cooing to herself and flapping her little wings.
Peter came in a couple minutes later, I told him to come in wearing a similar coat to mine in hopes to acclimate Sprite to the new people.
While she clearly recognized we were different people, she didn’t shy away from Pete, instead watching him curiously.
Pete was our fluffy guy, he liked them— to a reasonable degree. It was actually his personal fluffy we used to impregnate Sprite. Needless to say, he was going to be the main one interacting with Sprite and her foals in a more day to day sense. I would be regularly communicating with them, but only in a clinical context.
Pete hoisted Sprite up gently and stroked her mane, “Hi there, your mummah is out for a bit huh?” He asked, Sprite nodded sadly, “Well…this just means that we get to be your dads for a little bit! Isn’t that fun? You get to do all sorts of fun new things you couldn’t have done with her!”
Sprite seemed receptive to this, giggling and idly chatting with Pete as we both headed to our improvised safe room. It had fairly muted but pleasant colors, a large TV was mounted on the wall across from the door. Various toys and pet beds were scattered throughout the room, some as simple as plushes, but others as complicated as puzzles or Simon says.
There was also a large blue button on the wall, Pete and I approached it and set Sprite down near it, “First, this is the most important thing ever, see this pretty button?” Pete asked.
Sprite had no hesitation in reaching out and pressing the button, causing a light to flash on both my and Pete’s PDA’s and a loud chime to play from the speakers.
Pete pet her a couple times, “Now, this button is very very serious, okay Sprite? You can only press this button when you feel your babies coming, we will come over right away and help you.”
“Otay…Onwy pwess when babbehs…” She nodded to herself, “But…what if Spwite gets wonewy? Fwuffy wants to pway wif nice mistuhs…”
“I’ll play with you for a bit tonight, and a bit tomorrow, and the day after that too, you’ll have lots of friends come to visit you, and when you have your babies they can play with you too!” Pete continued. It as almost fascinating how engrossed the fluffy was in his words. I often hear about smarties and other disobedient fluffy types, so it’s easy to forget that there are a select few who have the capacity to follow directions.
By the end of the conversation, Sprite was exploring the safe room and messing with toys. Pete switched on the television, which broadcast a curated selection of educational content, some specifically designed for fluffies, but others that were intended for human children as well.
We tried to collect shows that contained similarly bright and colorful animal characters in hopes that the fluffies would acclimate to human TV, but not shows that were so human centric that Sprite would complain. Pete also explained to her that this was her own “extra special fluff TV” in an attempt to frame it like it was something she always wanted.
I hovered around for about another hour as Pete played with Sprite and acclimated her to the new environment. She did attempt to engage with me a couple times, but I awkwardly avoided the requests until Pete scooped her back up.
Eventually I had to go, I reminded Pete to call me if anything bad happened and gave Sprite a couple of pats as I made my way out.
She shouted “BUH BUYE NICE MISTUH!” On my way out, and I timidly smiled in return.
I had no obligations at home, so for the duration of our trials, I decided to set up a small living space in my office. It contained camera feeds of several different rooms we would be using for testing, including one of the safe room. I was able to watch Sprite wander around, interact with Pete, and finally curl up in one of the pet beds to sleep.
Pete dimmed the lights as he exited, taking one last look around the room, and gently shut the door on his way out.
I sighed in relief, I had been waiting for so long for this trial to come to fruition and finally it was about to start. I was excited to perform tests without moral restrictions, but part of me was hoping this experiment would lead to some sort of breakthrough, something to help humanity, as unlikely as it was.
Days passed and we all got into our routines. Pete fed and watered Sprite, entertained her, and answered her silly questions. Occasionally as I idly listened to the camera feed, I heard her request for me as the “other lab coat mister”, though she was always gently shut down.
As each day passed, I waited with bated breath for the day we could finally start.
And one soft dawn, I heard my PDA chime.
I hope you enjoyed this so far, you’ll have to excuse me if I missed any specific posting/lore etiquette. Feel free to let me know if I missed anything, but please don’t be a dick. This first chapter was intended to start out slow, it’s a prologue, the next one is much, much more intense.
