Arinniti tried her best to play with the other babbies but she felt a looming dread as everywhere she looked at was right next to another ship in a bottle. Arinniti didn’t know the significance of them but given how they were covering nearly every wall of the entire house she thought they must be very important to Daddy Gregor. The unnaturally clean fluffies did not help the already uncomfortable vibes of the entire house. How were these babies running around without so much as a bump to any of the hundreds of bottled ships stacked floor to ceiling in the safe room?
It was then she felt herself being lifted off the floor. It was Daddy Gregor , Arinniti didn’t even hear the car pull in the driveway let alone the front door lock tumble open. Gregor had seemingly materialized behind Arinniti with not so much as a sound.
Gregor began carrying Arinniti around the house as he inspected each and every bottled ship . Gregor seemed less on edge during the process as if the mind numbing task was the most soothing thing in the world. He explained what each ship was, when it was designed, who captained it, so on and so forth until Arinniti literally felt nauseous from the information overload. Gregor just continued to go on and on about every little detail to the point well beyond obsession. It felt as if her brain was being smothered, her very senses of self buried beneath ship trivia. Gregor finally stopped to take a breath only to move on to the second wall of bottled ships continuing his lecture. Arinniti wanted to scream but all that came out was stifled series of chirps, which Gregor took as a request for a half hour Side tangent on the utility of piragua during the age of piracy. How could Gregor possibly know this much about every single one of these bottled ships?Gregor finished his long winded rant, only to take Arinniti to his ship bottling room.inside was a table neatly arranged with tools some factory made others crafted by hand. An old desk lamp was positioned over a glass bottle containing a half assembled model ship within its interior. A fluffy sized pen was placed on the table close enough that the one placed inside it could clearly watch the building process yet far enough away that they could not interfere with the process. Inside the pen was a litter box, a set of food & water bowls and a comfy bed facing the work portion of the table.
A bookshelf full from top to bottom with what she assumed to be ship related reading material sat directly opposite the fluffy pen’s position on the table , with the workspace in between them creating equal distance from either one. Gregor placed Arinniti in the pen, then immediately got to work working on the bottled ship. It was as if Gregor had entered a state of higher consciousness, effortlessly adjusting the position of individual pieces with the skill of a surgeon. It was both mesmerizing and horrifyingly boring at the same time, like the world’s most gentle train wreck. Hours go by without so much as a word from Gregor. The occasional slip up signaled by a gentle sigh muttered under his gentle breath, before carefully reversing the past several minutes of progress to try again. Gregor paid no mind to the growling of his own stomach, the weakness of his flesh was insignificant compared to the pursuit of his craft. The setting sun beckoned the moon towards the night sky, still Gregor wavered not. The beauty of the changing celestial cycle could neither charm nor distract him from his purpose, Gregor would choose when he stopped and not a moment before. The unwavering resolve for such a seemingly pointless thing boldly crossed the line between passion and madness with zero regard for the opinion of outsiders looking in. Arinniti slowly drifted off to sleep, waking up in the safe room not knowing how she got there nor for how long she had been. The other fluffies still engaged in the same tasks they were doing when Daddy Gregor removed Arinniti from the room countless hours before. The room itself still spotlessly clean and smelling of Pine-sol. Arinniti wandered out of the safe room eventually finding hirself lost amidst the hallways and corridors of walls densely curated with innumerable bottled ships, eventually ending up in the room where her pet carrier was. As Arinniti peeked inside she found everything spotlessly clean and smelling of pine-sol.
Arinniti correctly assumed her intelligence and whit were higher than those of the average fluffy. Her ability to be passive aggressive also came with a heightened sense of situational awareness making the already unsettling atmosphere of her new home feel incredibly sinister. Arinniti wasn’t some hyper intelligent being but even a 6 year old could tell that this place had bad mojo.
Arinniti didn’t like this place but her precious intelligence kept her usually assholery in check . She could tell whatever punishment received here would be far worse than a sorry stick.
Arinniti longed for Tammy to be her mumma again, sure she was a little strict but at least Arinniti could tell whether or not she was loved.
With Gregor everything was a guessing game. Did he actually love his fluffies? Hell if Arinniti knew. Was there punishment for asking to be Tammy’s fluffy again? Arinniti certainly didn’t want to find out.
For all she knew Gregor was one wrong question away from loosing his shit.
The safe room wasn’t locked ,yet none of the babies ventured out to explore. Arinniti retreats back into the safe room. There she once again tries to play with the other foals . One of the walkie babies has started talking, she demands that another foal give her a toy . Before the other foal could even reply ,the toy is yanked away sending the demanding foal tumbling backwards into a wall causing one of the bottled ships to fall from its shelf with a thunderous crash. The demanding foal stared in horror at the mess she had made. Jerath picked the foal up by her neck rolls and took her out of the safe room all the while the foal pleaded in vain for her mother and siblings to save her.
Jerath returned to the safe room never so much as mentioning the foal after that . Arinniti exits the safe room following the distressed chirps and pleas for forgiveness into the kitchen .
A sorry box sat directly opposite the front door. Gregor held the foal in the palm of his cupped hands. “Sigh. That ship took several months to build. How unfortunate.” “B…but Daddy! Babbie nu mean tu!”
“Regardless of if it was an accident or not, that’s nearly half a year of painstaking work gone . Time I can never get back.” Arinniti ran back to the safe room and simply curled into a ball. No one saw that foal for nearly half a year. Then out of nowhere a fully grown fluffy with the same colors as the Missing foal was brought into the safe room by Gregor along with the repaired ship inside a new bottle. The missing fluffy now known as Wendy simply sat staring at the repaired ship only moving to eat or use the litter box. Wendy wasn’t malnourished or missing limbs. Wendy would point at each part of the ship reciting its name, function and order in which it was placed in the bottle.
Finally it clicked for Arinniti ,what she had experienced in the ship bottling room was a warning .