Bright Night Light
“Goodnight, Cheddar.”
“Gu’night daddeh.”
As John closed the door, the little saferoom - really just a closet, containing clothes but also outfitted with some fluffy necessities such as a pillow - fell into darkness, and Cheddar settled down. But then, it came to life; his worst enemy… The Light Stuffy.
It was a big stuffy-friend-like creature, made of soft plastic, and it glowed with an ambient light that prevented the closet from getting too dark. This would delight most fluffies, but… Well, the problem?
Cheddar was a bat fluffy.
This meant that unless it was dark enough he couldn’t sleep, and this horrible cruel fake-stuffy-friend made every night time a battle for survival. Cheddar had even tried telling his daddy about the meanie creature, but invariably got cut off with “it’s okay buddy, I know, I’ll fix it”. And despite every fix his daddy attempted, the cruel Light Stuffy was there again the next night, shining as if to say “stay awake with me”.
Cheddar growled, then whined. He was tired! He didn’t want to waste half his night fighting the Light Stuffy again. “Pwease, Wight Stuffy, jus’ tuwn dawk an’ wet Cheddaw sweep.”
The Light Stuffy glowed defiantly.
“… Meanie Wight!” Cheddar huffed and stomped his hooves in a tiny tantrum, but he already knew it would do nothing to intimidate his foe and instead gave the stuffy enemy a big thwack. It didn’t react.
Once, in the past, he had managed to darken a Light Stuffy by hitting it hard enouh - but the next night, it had been replaced with a new one that shone even brighter. Part of him wondered if he had given the previous stuffy forever sleepies and this was its child, out for revenge. It’d certainly explain its refusal to let him have just one night of peace.
Circling around the Light Stuffy, Cheddar looked for any obvious weak points - it wasn’t connected to the wall, so that was one avenue closed. He’d stopped another Light Stuffy by pulling it from the wall, and this one’s father had a cord. Though pulling said cord out had burned his mouth, so Cheddar had to admit he wasn’t keen on doing that again.
So what could he do? Cheddar bapped the stuffy again, knocking it over. “Meanie. Jus’ wet Cheddaw sweep!”
It didn’t listen, as always. Cheddar thought back to what he had done last time, although it was a bit hard due to the tired stupor of both that night and this one. Wasn’t there a switch…? On its butt?
Nosing at the stuffy foe’s bottom, Cheddar frowned. There was indeed a switch, but… It had been taped over! Now he remembered, the terrible Light Stuffy had covered up its weakness! He scraped and gnawed at the tape to get it off, as he had the previous night, but found to his dismay that it was now doubly taped and much too difficult to remove.
Why? How dare it be so cruel! There was a panel on its bottom too, but it was much too fiddly for Cheddar to open and no amount of hoof scraping could get it open.
Tired and upset, the fluffy lost his temper - he leapt upon the stuffy enemy, hitting it again and again. “Jus! Go! Dawkie! Wet Cheddaw sweep!!”
He knocked it into the wall, stomped on it, threw his thin pillow onto it to muffle the glow, but nothing worked. “Hatechu! Cheddaw hatechu! Wan sweep…!!”
Finally, as he threw himself onto the Light Stuffy and attacked it with all he had, the panel on its bottom was jostled loose. Cheddar didn’t realize for several seconds, too busy beating against his foe, but then he leaned down and peered through the little hatch - there was a single metal tube inside the Light Stuffy. Its heart? Its guts? Its …?
“… Tuwn dawk,” Cheddar warned a final time to no avail, then scraped at the tube and managed to knock it loose. The Light Stuffy’s glow vanished in an instant, drenching the saferoom in blackness, and Cheddar let his limbs give out. Finally, the darkness he needed. Having spent too much strength and time on defeating his stuffy foe once more, he only barely crawled onto the pillow still next to the Light Stuffy before falling asleep.
“Good morning,” John said as he opened the closet door, before frowning at the scene within. “Oh, no, Cheddar…”
His little bat fluffy was sleeping half draped onto his teddybear night light, pillow dragged to its side, looking utterly exhausted. John felt sorry every time he found this scene - Cheddar loved night lights so much, but he was so excited and clumsy he invariably turned them off. Whether it was trying to eat the cord and frying a circuit, pulling it from its outlet for better hugging, yanking it down from a high spot, or pouncing it so hard he damaged a component, every night it seemed like Cheddar turned the night light off and then spent hours trying to hug it back on before falling asleep from fatigue. He had no other explanation for why the bat fluffy always seemed tired and always lay at the night light.
“Daddeh…” murmured Cheddar, stirring almost unwillingly.
“Don’t worry, bud.” John gently pulled the night light away from Cheddar, inspecting what had happened. Seemed like the battery had fallen out, no doubt from a too-excited pounce hug. He’d have to tape it in place. “Go back to sleep.”
One day he would fluffy-proof the night light fully, so that Cheddar couldn’t accidentally turn it off. It was the least he could do for a fluffy so scared of the dark. “It’s okay, I’ll fix it.”