You are Sam, spreading handfuls of leaves over your garden while the rest of the barn fluffies pull up the dead and dying plants. It was an abnormally warm day for how late into autumn it was, and the sunlight felt good on your back as you bent down to grab another armload of dead leaves. It was your preferred mulch, mostly through the benefit of being free, but it kept the weeds down in the garden and nourished the soil as they broke down over the winter.
The fluffies were going along the rows, pulling up the remaining plants, occasionally giving them a hug, and bringing them to the compost bin. You smiled, seeing them chatting and laughing as they worked. You had assumed that training fluffies to work out have been hard, but they really enjoyed directed tasks like this. You didn’t even have to incentivize finishing, all you had to do was tell them the garden needed help going to sleep for the winter. Fluffies had such a deep need to help that it was a joy to them. You rarely needed to force anyone to work, and even then it was usually just cleaning up their own messes. Fluffies that didn’t feel like working we’re free to do what they wanted, like the gaggle of foals running around in the back yard. Lilac lead the pack, playing with the older foals while Dust Bunny watched the newborns.
The blue and white foal, now named Bubble, pounced on Lilac, sending the two of them tumbling across the grass. She laughed, scraping the foal off as she got up and trotted back towards her foals on the porch.
“I’m gonna take a break. Bluebell, keep doing what you’re doing.”
Bluebell looked up from the garden, brown tomato stem in her teeth, and nodded.
You took your gloves off and tossed them into the grass, making your way over to the porch.
“Am du guud, Mistah Sam?” Leah asked from behind a small pile of pulled weeds.
“Very good! Bring those over to the compost so we can feed them back to the garden!”
“Otay!” She gathered as much as she could carry into her mouth and started slowly over to the compost heap, a trail of dropped plant sprouts in her wake.
You stepped up onto the porch just as Lilac settled back into her bed among the little foals. “How’s it going, momma?”
“Guud!” Lilac chirped. “Dust am guud fwend, watchin’ babbehs.”
“She is good, isn’t she. I’m glad we picked her up.” You plopped down in your chair as Lilac giggled.
“Nu wan mean wady hab!”
“Yeah!” You chuckled. “I’ll be sure to tell her what pretty babies you have when I see her in court.”
Lilac smiled, kissing the sleeping brown foal on the top of the head. “Hab pwettiest babbehs. Wady am dummeh, nu knu nuffin’.”
The foals slept soundly through their mother’s affections, at only a few days old they did little more than eat, poop, and sleep. You had noticed the alicorn starting to try to get her hooves under her earlier that morning, which was surely a sign that they’d be up and walking soon. “Have you thought about names?”
Lilac nodded. “Wiwac hab thinkies, but waitin’ fo’ Cwobah.”
“Ah, yeah. Daddy should get to name the babies too. Maybe when him and Tara are done today you two can talk about it.”
Lilac glanced at the back of the garage. “Cwobah hab du wotsa tawkies…”
“Yeah.” You leaned back in your chair with a sigh. “Court is lots and lots of talking, it’s very boring. There’s a bunch of fancy words you have to use, or you could get in trouble with the judge.”
“Wike… secwet wowdsies?”
“I mean… yeah, kinda.” You chuckled. “Seems silly when you put it like that, but yeah.”
Lilac shook her head. “Hoomans is siwwy. Jus’ say wowdsies.” She kissed each of her foals on the head, earning a small squeak from the green pegasus. “Am happy Cwobah am guud daddeh, nu wan babbehs hab to weawn secwet wowdsies.”
“It’s hard, even for humans. That’s why we hire people like Tara to say fancy words for us.” You replied.
“SHADDUP!!” Clover’s voice rang out into the sunny afternoon, turning every head towards the garage. After a moment of silence you saw the green fluffy stomp around the side of the garage, teeth gritted in rage. The barn fluffies watched him silently as he made his way over to the deck.
“…Everything okay, bud?” You asked.
“Fine.” He huffed. “How am babbehs, spechow fwend?”
“Guud…” Lilac nuzzled the brown foal, who lifted his head and made a small chirp.
“Hewwo, babbeh!” Clover said, expression softening. “Daddeh wub yu.”
You stood, leaving the happy parents to coo over their children while you went to see what pissed Clover off so much. As you crossed the yard you saw Bluebell start encouraging the barn fluffies to get back to work. She was moving fairly well despite her injuries, they seemed to have healed up as well as they were going to. She was still struggling to open her damaged eye, leaving her constantly winking through her scarred skin. The barn fluffies seemed to have adjusted to it well, though Dust’s foals kept a nervous distance from her as much as they could. You were pretty sure they would come around eventually as well, if they didn’t get adopted out.
Turning the corner to the open garage, you saw Tara organizing some papers. “Everything going okay?”
“Hm?” She spun around. “Oh, you. Yeah, Clover needed a break.” She set the papers down on the makeshift witness box you had built out of scrap wood and an old stool. It was shoddy work but exactly to Tara’s specifications so you assumed it was appropriate.
“What set him off?”
She sighed, clicking a button on her laptop. “I brought Lilac into it. He’s really good at not taking bait when it applies to him, but the second I bring up his special friend and foals he loses it.”
“Ah, that would do it.”
She pulled a crate away from the wall and sat down on it. “It’s understandable, but if we’re going to have a chance he needs to keep his head in every situation.” She hooked the strap of her purse with her foot, pulling it over to her and pulling a pack of cigarettes out. “Do you mind if I smoke out here?”
“Go ahead.” You pulled out another old crate to sit a few feet from her. “Do… you really think we have a chance?”
Tara lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke for a moment before exhaling to reply. “This is the kind of case I hate. If it was impossible, I could relax knowing that my job is to make sure the state follows the rules. If it was an unlikely case, then I just have to do my best.” She took another long drag, the cigarette burning away at a speed you’d never seen before. “Ones like these, where we have the tiniest chance makes me feel like I’m being tested. Like if I do everything perfect it will all work out.”
“Ah.” You watched her suck down the last half inch of tobacco in about three seconds. She quickly whipped out a second cigarette, lighting it with the still smoldering butt of the first. You didn’t even know she smoked at all until a minute ago, and now she was a smoke powered machine.
“I did some recon on the judge and our opponents.” Tara continued, starting on the second cigarette. “On one hand we got very lucky, Mrs. Carmine is being represented by one of those lawyers from a billboard. I’ve dealt with the guy before. He’s mean, loud, rude, but like any bully he’s an idiot. I can talk circles around him.”
“And on the other hand?”
She exhaled slowly, leaning back on the crate. “The judge is new. Never met him before, couldn’t find anything about his opinions on fluffies but he is an avid hunter.”
You groaned. “That’s not good.”
“Nope.” She sucked down the last of the cigarette. “All his social media is plastered with big bucks and rifles. No dead fluffies though, so we might get lucky there.”
“Doesn’t sound likely though.” You watched her tuck the cigarette pack back into her purse, a small glint catching your eye. “…Is that a gun…?”
“Yeah.” She pulled out a small pistol, holding it out to you. The handle was glossy and white, with some sort of metal contraption locking through the ejection port. “You a gun guy?”
“No, not at all!” You waved her off. “I mean, I have an old shotgun but that’s for like… bears and coyotes and shit. It seems like everyone out here is armed though; you, Cash, Dave…” you trailed off, thinking of your last meeting with him.
“Dave?” Tara asked.
You shook your head, clearing your thoughts. “An… ex friend of mine. Abuser, asshole, pretty aggressive guy. The sort I would expect to be always carrying, you know? He usually takes his shit out on fluffies but…”
“He threaten you?” Tara’s voice was low, serious.
“I mean…” you scratched the back of your neck, recalling the other night. “Not like, directly. I found him in an alleyway fucking up some feral fluffies, he was drunk and ranting…” You threw your hands into the air. “I’d like to say he was harmless, but he already snuck out here to release a fucked up fluffy that killed Sunshine so…”
Tara looked down at the pistol in silence for a moment. “You want some advice?”
“Sure.”
“As a lawyer, I’ll let you know that you have the right to defend yourself with lethal force if the situation requires it. As a woman that’s seen a lot of situations like this go bad-” she held out the pistol, aiming down your empty driveway, “-don’t wait to be sure force is justified. Keep that shotgun loaded. I hope you never have to use it, but I’ve seen too many good people not make it to trial.”
“You- you don’t think…”
Tara looked at you, her expression serious and somewhat sad as she lowered the pistol. “Like I said, I hope you never have to use it. I wish I didn’t feel the need to carry this. If it’s going to come down to a situation like that, though…” she snapped the metal contraption back into place with a loud click, “be sure you shoot first.”
You nodded silently as she tucked the locked revolver back into her purse.
“Awwight, Cwobah weady tu twy again.” Clover said, stepping around the corner.
“Great!” Tara stood, tossing her cigarette butts into your garage trash. “Let’s start where we left off then.”
Clover hopped onto the stool as Tara clicked on her laptop again. “Du yu wowst.”
“Let me know if you need anything.” You walked towards the door in the kitchen, trying to remember where you put the few shells Dave gave you for your shotgun.
You felt silly, loading that old antique, but you couldn’t deny that there was some truth to Tara’s words. Hopefully it would stay on the shelf where it always did, just with a pair of shells in the chamber rather than a ziplock bag next to it.