The pair of you walked slowly across the pasture, Sunshine trying to keep himself behind your leg as much as possible. It was a drizzly sort of day, so the herd sat in the doorway of the barn rather than playing out in the pasture. Unfortunate for the guilty pegasus, as the entire herd was gathered like a jury waiting for him rather than scattered and distracted. You stopped just under the awning of the new barn, feeling Sunshine press himself into your calf.
“Sunshine is back, and has something to say to you all.”
“Nu cawe!” One of the fluffies shouted back, flipping her mane over her shoulder. “Sunshine am meanie! Nu wan bak!” The herd shouted their agreement, stomping their hooves.
“Guys! C’mon, at least let him apologize!”
“Sunshine gu way! Gu tu sowwy fawm!” Leah yelled, pointing an accusing hoof. “Nee’ gu way foebah!”
The sorry farm, the lie you told them when you sent off their herd mates to Dave’s torture dungeon. Your throat went dry as the gathered fluffies tried to sentence Sunshine to a long and painful death. You couldn’t even begin to think of what he did to them, you’d usually bowed out of his gruesome stories back when you used to drink together. From what you heard some of them deserved… well, something, but not Dave. Nothing deserved what Dave did.
The angry fluffies parted slightly to let Bluebell through. She held her scarred head high as she approached. “Sunshine nu wuz nice to hewd. Hewd nu wan smawty.”
You could feel Sunshine’s sobs against your leg, his tiny hooves wrapping around your calf for comfort.
“No. No more sorry farm.” You said.
“Buh meanie Sunshine-”
“No!” You cut Breezy off. “That wasn’t okay!” Your outburst silenced the herd, and you carefully sat down on the damp ground, pulling Sunshine into your lap. “I shouldn’t have let Dave take them. The sorry farm isn’t something we do anymore.”
“Buh Mistah Sam, wha’ do wif bad fwuffies?” Bluebell asked.
You sighed heavily. “Bluebell, what do you think happens at the sorry farm?”
“Fwuffy gu way.” She replied.
“Yes, but what happens to them there?”
She squinted for a moment, thinking. “…Nuffin? Wike wen sowwy box?”
You shook your head. “No. When Mister Dave took those mean fluffies away he did… bad things to them. The worst.”
“Smawty desewb!” A fluffy from the back yelled, and a few others chimed in with agreements.
“No, they didn’t. I don’t mean isolation or beatings or denied sketty I mean…” You trailed off, unsure of how to make this clear to them. “I mean bad things like what happened to all your friends that couldn’t get out of the barn.”
You gave them a moment to process that, rubbing Sunshine on the back soothingly.
“…Sowwy fawm gib… buwnie huwties?” Leah asked quietly.
“And worse. The worst owwies that never stop. I…” You swallowed heavily. “I shouldn’t have let him take them. Your old smarty was a monster, and his toughies as well. But we didn’t give them a chance to be good. Maybe some of them would have been good if we let them.”
The herd mumbled quietly among themselves. Bluebell began to nod slowly. “Wike Bwuebeww.”
“Nu, Bwuebeww am guud fwuffy!” Breezy cried.
“Bwuebeww nu awways guud.” Bluebell replied darkly. “Wuz Smawty’s sissy, nebah stop him fwom du meanie tings. Dat am meanie tuu.”
“Right.” You stood a shaking Sunshine up in front of them. “We need to stick together. Even if he did some bad things, Sunshine is a part of this herd.”
“…Sunshine am sowwy.” He mumbled, staring at his hooves.
“See? He’s not a smarty after all. He’s still your friend.”
“Stiww nu wan!” Another fluffy yelled, and the rabbling began again. You put your head in your hands, this was such a mess. Maybe you should give Cash a call, see if Ranger still needed a playmate.
“Sunshine wan be guud!” He shouted. You looked up to see the tears streaming down his face. “Wub hewd! Wan’ be guud fo’ hewd!”
Bluebell put a contemplative hoof to her chin. “Mistah Sam, wha’ hoomans do wen fwend am meanie?”
“Hm.” You pondered the idea yourself. “Sometimes we forgive them right away, but when they do something really bad we… have something very complicated we call a legal system that decides what to do for us.”
“Can wegaw sis-tem hewp fwuffies?” She asked.
“Not really.” You chuckled, they certainly weren’t helping you solve the murder of your fluffies. Then it came to you. “Sunshine could be on probation, though.”
Bluebell tilted her head. “Pwobation?”
“It’s kinda like being in the sorry box. We could come up with some extra rules that only Sunshine needs to follow so he can show us how sorry he is.”
“Dat sound guud. Can du dat?”
You looked up to the rest of the herd. “How does that sound to all of you? Sunshine will be under probation for… let’s say two weeks, or until the herd decides that he’s sorry for what he did.”
There was some small mutterings, but no outright refusals. “Hewd agwee.” Bluebell said.
“Great.” You stood back up. “Sunshine, for the next two weeks you are on probation. You will not get to share food with the herd, or play with their toys, or sleep in the fluffpile. You will only eat the sorry food I bring you and grass. Every bright time while the herd is eating breakfast you will need to make sure everyone’s nest is clean and every dark time you will make sure all the toys are brought back to the barn before you get your dinner. I’ll come up with some other chores for you to do as well. Understood?”
He nodded. “Sunshine be bestest Sowwy-fwend.”
“Good boy. To the rest of you,” You looked up at the herd, “you need to be kind to Sunshine while he’s on probation. You don’t need to play with him, but I don’t want to see any sorry hooves or mean words, okay?”
Bluebell shot a glance across the crowd as they all slowly nodded. “Hewd be guud.”
“Good.”
“Daddeh, Phone gu buzzy-buzzy.” Lilac said as you came back in.
“Oh, thanks.” She nodded and went back to cooing at Dust’s foals.
You had a missed call from Cash, just a moment before you came in. You hit the button to call him back, and only waited two rings before he picked up.
“Sam! Good to hear from you!”
“Yeah, sorry, just came back inside. What’s up?”
Cash sighed heavily on the other end. “We, as in the hugboxers, need to ask a favor of you. There’s an illegal mill getting shut down today and normally fluffcontrol just puts them all down but we like to swoop in before they can and rescue as many as we can get.”
“Yeah, I think I have some room in the barn.”
“Oh, we have space for them but our trailer has a flat and time is of the essence. Can we trouble you to help us with some transport?”
“For the people that rebuilt my barn? Of course.”
“Hey, that was a favor for a friend! But we’ll take it. I’ll text you the address.”
“No problem, I’ll head out right now.”
“Thanks, Sam. See you soon.”
You hung up and turned to the fluffies in front of the TV. “Today is going to be a long day. Cash needs me, I don’t know when I’ll be home. If I’m late I’ll get us something fun for dinner.”
“Sketti?” Lilac asked, and the foals playing at her hooves gasped.
“Babbehs hab sketties??” The little blue and white foal chirped.
“Nu ask fo’ sketties, babbeh. Daddeh gib if guud, nu compwain if nu.” Dust chided.
“Listen to your mummah, but I wouldn’t fill up on kibble tonight.” You smiled at the excited foals, happy that your impulse purchase turned out to be so well behaved. You had no idea what designer fluffies were like until her, and she was certainly making a case for her triple digit price tag.
You pulled up to a suburban neighborhood, looking for somewhere to park. Cop cars lined either side of the street, and you squinted over the steering wheel looking for a place to park. You saw Cash wave you down and point to a space in front of a large white house. You just barely fit the trailer in, trying your best not to hit the cop cars on either side.
“Thanks so much, Sam, you really saved the day.” Cash said as you stepped out of your truck, clapping you on the back.
“Happy to return the favor!” You recognized a few of the hugboxers league that came to build the barn carrying wire crates filled with fluffies across the well manicured lawn. You unlatched the side door of the trailer to give them access to the inside.
“YOU!!” You turned to see a blonde woman in a very familiar burnt orange sweatsuit being dragged across the lawn by a pair of police officers. “WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?!” she screeched.
“… Do you know her?” Cash asked.
“Ugh, I ran into her at fluffmart yesterday, she was a raging cunt to Lilac.”
“Ah.” Cash watched impassionately as she was thrown, still screeching, into the back of the police car. “She seems like a… lovely… person.”
“Just call her a bitch, Cash.” Dan said, passing a cage of foals into the trailer. “We all know what you mean.”
Cash sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “In front of so many tiny ears? No thank you.”
“Hey, got a special case here.” Officer Freedman stepped up to you with a solid sided plastic kennel. “This one is technically evidence, and I’m supposed to bring him to the station but he’s just going to be neglected there. If one of you can promise me he’ll be available when we need him you can take him once we do the proper paperwork.”
“We should have room at the shelter with the others-”
Cash was cut off by the carrier screaming “NU NU NU NU NU NU NU WAN NU WAN NU WAN NU WAN-”
“Yikes.” You muttered as Officer Freedman struggled with the shaking carrier.
“Yeah… He, uh, isn’t okay.”
Cash knelt down to look in the wire door. “You don’t have to go with them! You can come home with me, if that will work for you! I only have one other fluffy, Ranger is really nice.”
“…nu wan gu wif Bwossom an’ babbeh…”
“You don’t have to. I’m Cash, and I’ll have my friend Sam here take you back to my place, okay?”
You opened the car door so Freedman could put the carrier in the back seat. Peeking in you saw a mottled blue and yellow unicorn, his eyes wild and terrified, huddled in the back of the carrier.
“What happened to him?” You asked once the door closed.
The officer sighed heavily. “I came in to see this bast- I mean individual with his pants down getting ready to… y’know.”
Yikes again. “That’s fucked.”
“Mhm-hm.” Cash shook his head. “Some sick people out there.”
“At least he’s going away for it, yeah?”
The two men looked at you in silence, pity in their eyes.
You swallowed heavily. “He… is going away for it, right?”
“Sam…” Cash started.
“It’s not technically a crime.” Freedman finished for him.
“What?!”
“They’re not legally animals. You are free to do whatever you want with the toy you own.” Freedman stated coldly.
“…No…” You felt like you were going to vomit. “Then… then why are you here?!”
“She let her license lapse and wasn’t disposing of biowaste properly. I’ll admit, the door kicking we did may have been a little overkill, but the call we got from one of the neighbors said she was armed.”
“So… she’s just going to get… like a fine?”
Freedman sighed again. “I’ll do my best to be sure she gets the book thrown at her, the testimony from the one I just gave you should get the judges sympathy but… yeah. A fine, probation, and some community service.”
“Oh, so you can take a fluffy’s testimony now?!” You snapped at him, your fists tightening at your sides. “Useless fucking-”
“Sam!” Cash grabbed your shoulder and turned you around roughly. “It’s horrible, I know, but its the reality of the situation. Focus on what you can do, on the ones we can save. That little guy isn’t going to be abused anymore, he’s going to be okay.”
You blinked slowly, feeling your rage ebb slightly. “It’s just…”
“Fucked, I know. Focus on the good.”
“The good…” You looked over as the last few cages were loaded into your trailer. The hugboxers were high fiving each other as they finished. Dan whipped out his phone to show a few of the women pictures of Strawberry and Tempest, they cooed over them together. You could see one older man cuddling a speckled foal to his chest, letting its snotty sobs soak into his shirt while he patted its back.
“The good in this is that these ones are safe. You can’t save them all, and you can’t stop horrible things from happening.” Cash released you. “Officer, why don’t we go do that paperwork, give Sam here a moment.”
“Sounds good.” They left you there on the sidewalk as the rain picked back up. You looked up into it, blinking as the droplets hit you in the eyes.