Requested by @toofymunstah for my Christmas Requests, I’m getting back into them! Thank you for your patience!
At the first sight of light at the seam of your box you burst out, reciting the phrase exactly as you had been trained.
“Mewwy Cwissmiss, fwuffy wub yu!”
You grinned, ruddy wings and hooves spread, looking out on your loving new owner.
The old woman in the bed sneered at you in annoyed silence.
Unsure exactly how to respond, you held your happy pose and tried to keep the grin on your face. “Am nyu mummah, nice wady?”
With a small sigh, she crossed her arms in front of her. “Is this what those ungrateful bastards think is a good gift?”
“Nu wike bad-”
“Shut up.” She snapped.
You shrank back into your box, bottom lip quivering. Had you done something wrong? You thought you said the words right, and before you got put in the box the nice lady made your orange mane all pretty and shiny. You thought this was going to be the beginning of a wonderful life with your new owner.
The woman sighed again. “So what, am I supposed to take care of this? Clean up after it? Haven’t I done my time cleaning up after whiny shits?”
You pulled yourself further into the box, letting the lid shut atop you. Maybe you could do it again. Reopen it to a nice family, little humans happy to see you and ready to shower you in hug and love.
The box tipped and you tumbled out onto the bed, landing hard on your back. You looked up hopefully, but your heart fell as the same angry lady glared you down.
“I’m too old to be dealing with some…” She looked you over, disgust in her glare. “Mutated Cockerel. I’ve done my time caring for useless things.”
“Cockewew wike nyu namesie-” A hand slammed down on your throat, cutting off your words.
“I said.” The woman leaned over you. “Shut. Up.”
You trembled, far too scared to even struggle under her hand. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Tears flowed down your cheeks as you wondered why this lady hated you so much.
She released your throat but grabbed your muzzle before you could say anything.
“You godda understand, at my farm we didn’t keep anything that couldn’t pull its weight. Nothing, no creature human, animal, or… otherwise was allowed a free ride. You did your work, you provided for the family, or…”
Her fingers grasped the feathers of your splayed wing tightly. She tugged on them gently, and you realized what she was going to do. You shook your head as hard as you could under her grasp, unable to pull your wing back with it trapped under your shoulder.
“You ended up in the stock pot.”
With a loud rip a fistfull of brown feathers was pulled from you, droplets of blood on the end of each feather shaft. Your eyes bugged out of your skull, your pained scream trapped in your clenched teeth.
She stared down at you as she let the feathers fall from her fist. You watched them with bloodshot eyes as you tried to catch your breath, foamy spittle forming around the corner of your mouth.
“So you should find some way to be useful to me or I’ll come up with one you won’t like. Understand?”
You gave as much of a nod you could with her hand so tight around your muzzle. She released you as she shoved you off the bed, sending you tumbling to the floor. You bit your tongue to avoid a pained yelp and scampered behind the door to the room as she turned on the TV.
Tears dripped onto your hooves as you curled up against the wall. You didn’t know how to be useful, it wasn’t something you had ever even heard of. The bald patch on your wing stung with some of the worst pain you had ever felt, second only to the ache in your chest.
“Mewwy Cwissmiss! Fwuffy wub yu!!” You heard another shrill voice make its way into the hall.
Peeking through the crack in the door hinge you saw a blue fluffy pop out of a box at the end of a bed across the hallway.
“Well look at you, sweet thing!” A pair of hands scooped the smiling fluffy up, pulling her from your view. “Are you here to be my new friend?”
“Yus!! Fwuffy am su ‘cited to meet nyu mummah!”
Their happy words were covered by the lady in her bed behind you turning up the TV, angry voices of humans yelling at each other while she watched.
You allowed yourself a single quiet sob before curling up and trying to wake up from this nightmare.