Pudding hadn’t exactly ingratiated herself to Andy and his fluffy, but as long as they stuck around to help her get settled in, Andy could claim compensation for his time and Brandon would get a free meal out of it.
The shelter was full of life and noise, well-behaved fluffies allowed in the communal pen squeezing in a little extra playtime before dinner, so none of them really even heard Pudding. A few of them caught a whiff of her bad poopies though, and spun around to check their own behinds.
Brandon followed on Andy’s heels, concerned for the upset baby as she was handed off to the girl behind the counter.
“Wow, she’s a porker, huh?” the girl chuckled.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “Owner spoiled her rotten and forfeited her voluntarily. She can’t even move on her own.”
Even with her worn-out old FPS t-shirt, Andy didn’t recognize this girl or her neon-green braids. Her name tag read “Marnie.”
“Tragic.”
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!! DUMMEHS NU IGNOWE PUDDIIIIIIIIING!!!” Both humans looked down at the carrier on the table. A good number of the fluffies playing went deathly quiet. Foals chirped in distress, and the stench of scaredy-poopies wafted through the building.
Marnie snapped on some gloves and opened the carrier, “Hey little one, we’re not ignoring you. Mister Andy needs to tell me what’s going on so we can help you.”
Pudding bit the finger that was extended to her. Brandon covered his mouth in horror.
“Hey, don’t bite! That’s not nice!” Marnie flicked Pudding once on the nose and she let go, but her responding wail of “WAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NU CAAAWE! WAN MUMMAAAHHHH!!!” set off a chain reaction of crying and whimpering through the whole shelter.
“It’s okay, everyone! Our new friend is just a little scared!” Marnie called out before cranking up the shop music. Most of the fluffies went back to playing or singing or sleeping, but a few came over to the side of their pens, concerned and asking if the new friend needed hugs. Marnie turned to Andy instead, handing him a clipboard with several papers attached, “Here, if you can finish getting her checked in, I’ll take her to the back and do the exam.”
Andy’s fluffy piped up, “Can Bwandin cum wif 'ou? Wan gib comfies tu babbeh.”
“Sure thing, sweetie,” Marnie smiled, then turned to his owner, “Watch the shop for me, will you?” Andy nodded and returned to his paperwork.
Back in the exam room, Brandon made his “uppies” pose and Marnie hefted him up onto the table. He cooed and tried to hug Pudding’s carrier, but couldn’t quite get his legs around it. Pudding on the other hand, was exhausted from her long tirade on the way there, and lay panting in a puddle of her own waste.
“Ooh nu! Babbeh aww yucky! Nee’ pwetty baffie-cweanies,” Brandon exclaimed.
“NUUUU! NU WAN NYU WADY BAFFIES!!!” Pudding’s voice was hoarse but no less adamant as Marnie brought both fluffies over to the sink and did her best with half a package of wet wipes and Brandon’s words of encouragement. It wasn’t a spotless job, but Pudding was as clean as she was going to get without the trauma of a soap-and-water bath. Marnie held Pudding over the drain and squished her belly, but all that came out were a few squirts of brownish liquid. Seems she’d expelled most of her stored poopies in the carrier.
Marnie turned away to grab the tools she’d need to perform Pudding’s initial exam while Brandon tried to hug her worries away.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEE!!! DUMMEH FWUFFY WET GU! HATECHU! STOOPIE NU TOUCH PUDDING!! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Pudding’s loud screeching startled Brandon and he nearly dropped her. Her stubby legs tried their hardest to kick him, but they couldn’t reach past the blubbery mass of her body.
“Brandon, just put her down. She doesn’t want hugs right now,” Marnie sighed, placing her armful of supplies on the table, “Why don’t you go ask your daddy if you can play in the playpen?”
Brandon was deflated as Marnie put him on the floor and, with one sad look over his shoulder, he let himself be ushered out the door.
Marnie rubbed her gloved hands together, “A’ight, lil girl. I’mma be honest, this is gonna suck.” She dipped her thermometer in a little jar of jelly and took Pudding’s temperature. The foal screamed bloody murder, but at least she didn’t have a fever.
Pudding spent the rest of the exam being as uncooperative as possible: closing her eyes when Marnie held up her pen light, gritting her teeth when Marnie tried to open her mouth, farting in her face when Marnie tried to check her rear end, struggling for all she was worth when Marnie grabbed her and turned her over, but even the most rancid little brat runs out of energy eventually. Finally Marnie set her down, panting and shivering, on the cold exam table.
“Ya done?”
Pudding sniffled and mumbled, “Hate meanie wady… huuu”
“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before. It’s about time for dinner anyway, whaddaya say we get some food in you?”
“Huu babbeh wan sketties…”
“Well, we don’t have sketties, but we do have fresh milk and soft kibble,” Marnie said, grabbing Pudding and bringing out the repurposed hotel cleaning cart laden with little plastic bowls, bottled water, and bags upon bags of fluffy food.
The whole shelter erupted in cheering at the arrival of the cart. Andy was sitting cross-legged in the big playpen with several fluffies piled on his lap and a few others gathered around him, “Alright guys, dinnertime! Time to go back to your pens!”
Each fluffy was individually returned to their enclosure and given a little pat on the head for behaving themselves that day. Andy went and topped off all the no-drown hamster bottles while Marnie dished out kibble with a splash of water to soften it up.
When all the other fluffies had been fed and watered, Marnie went to one of the resident nursing mares with a bowl, “Hey there, I need to get some milk from you for the new baby.”
“Otay! Pwease muv, babbehs!” she chirped. The nursemare stood and allowed Marnie to milk her over the little dish of kibble. The foals she was caring for circled around it curiously and lapped up any spillage. The older ones tried to catch the flying drops in their mouths, but they were too clumsy to be any good at it.
Marnie petted the mare’s head, “Thanks, girl. I’ll get you some extra kibble tonight so you can refill.”
“Fankyu Miss Mawnie! Tinkabeww nu wet anee babbehs hab tummeh-owwies, eben nu-hewe babbehs!” Tinkerbell sat back down and the foals crowded around her, some climbing over others to suckle and some hugging different spots on their surrogate milk-mummah, asking if perhaps they were going to get a new sibling for love and hugs.
The voices faded, and the shelter was filled with the munchings and crunchings of fluffies enjoying their meals. All the fluffies save for one. Pudding turned up her nose at the dish in front of her and snorted, “Puddy nu wan yucky nummies! Wan mummah! Wan bestes’ mummah miwkies!”
“Mama milkies aren’t good for you anymore. Don’t you wanna eat big fluffy food like a big girl?”
Pudding thrashed her head side to side and shouted, “NU!!!” utterly glossing over the fact that more than half of her dinner consisted of warm, fresh milk.
Marnie sighed, bracing herself to have to play Bad Cop, but Andy cut in first, “Well, it’s this or nothing. If you don’t wanna eat it you can go to bed hungry, lord knows it won’t kill you.”
“Nu wan! Nu wan!!” Pudding huffed and puffed her cheeks out so hard she shat herself, which triggered a whole nother barrage of yelling, “Mummaaaaah!!! Hab poopies! Nee’ cweanies!!! MUMMAAAH!!!”
The final thread holding Marnie’s patience snapped, “Your mama was fucking killing you, you little shit! She was going to force you to stay a baby forever! Look at you! You can’t do ANYTHING for yourself! Is that what you want to be? You wanna be a disgusting, miserable, unmoving blob for the rest of your life? No one, and I mean NO ONE, is going to wait on you hand and foot the way you seem to think! It’s time to fucking GROW UP!!!”
A hush fell over the building.
Miss Marnie never yelled. This new baby must be a real stinker if she managed to make Miss Marnie this mad. Marnie covered her mouth, tears in her eyes, and pushed past Andy out the front door without another word.
Andy finished his rounds by himself, cleaning litterboxes and collecting empty bowls through the uneasy air permeating the shelter. He left Brandon in charge and took the garbage bag of crap out to the dumpster, taking the opportunity to look for Marnie on the way there. He found her sitting on the curb, crying into her knees.
Andy brought an aura of a certain Odeure de Shitratte with him when he came to ask her if she was okay. Marnie hid her face and Andy barely caught her muffled, “Not really…”
Andy set the bag down and parked himself on the curb next to her, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder before retracting it again when he remembered the military-grade biohazard he’d been handling mere moments prior, and it ended up just hovering awkwardly beside her.
“You… You wanna talk about it?” Andy asked lamely.
Marnie lifted her head and ran a hand over the back of her neck, unable to look Andy in the eye, “Ha, I don’t even really know what ‘it’ is. Just… Most fluffies come to us out of the gutter and they’re so grateful to finally be taken care of. And we usually just put smarties down the moment they arrive, so I’ve never… I’ve never had to actually take care of any like her.”
Andy nodded, “Lucky you.” He knew first-hand how bad Pudding’s attitude was. In fact, he knew first-hand how bad the collective attitude of the fluffy species could get. Period. But he didn’t say that part out loud. Instead he said, “I’d guessed you were new, but I didn’t realize how new… I’m sorry this had to be your first experience.”
“I appreciate that, but it’s definitely not my first. That’s probably why I lost it so bad this time.” Marnie kept talking without thinking, filling the yawning silence, “I grew up in a big family. I was always jealous of my little siblings, getting all that freedom and attention while I was expected to basically raise them. It’s like I wasn’t even a child to them, I was just free labor.”
“Who’s ‘them’?”
“My parents. They adopted me 'cause for years they couldn’t conceive, but then my sister was born and suddenly it’s like I wasn’t a part of the family anymore.” Marnie stared off into the distance, teardrops rolling down her cheeks, “It would’ve been better if they’d just sent me back. Like an unwanted fluffy you drop at a shelter 'cause you got a newer, prettier one.”
Andy wasn’t sure what to say. He wished he’d brought Brandon out with him. Brandon was so much better with this kind of stuff.
“Did she remind you of one of your siblings?”
“Yeah. She was a spoiled crybaby from the moment she was born. She’d fall down and scrape her knee and turn on the waterworks and mom would come running.
“I had to share a room with her even though we had an entire empty spare bedroom 'cause i was supposed to “look out for her.” But as soon as she wanted her own room they were all gung-ho with the home rennovation. And she never cleaned up after herself. Even when she got her own room all to herself, she’d cry to mom if I didn’t clean hers too. And mom would agree with her. She was fucking disgusting and it only got worse with time. She didn’t even wipe her fucking ass and I know that because she wouldn’t even flush the fucking toilet after herself.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes! She would just leave her shit in the toilet and there was never any paper in with it.”
“Wow…” Despite already sitting, Andy felt the need to sit down twice as hard.
And Marnie kept going, “One time I woke up to her stealing the covers off my bed, but I pretended I was asleep 'cause it just wasn’t worth it. Just let her fucking take them. But then I heard her fucking Influencer Livestream Voice going “Look at my drunk ass hoe sister, she’s so loaded she’s not even waking up.” And like, I can deal with that. She’s been badmouthing me to strangers since she could speak in sentences. But then she said, “If we get enough donations I’ll post pussy pics.” So I got up and beat the shit out of her and smashed her phone. Mom called the cops on me and threatened to press charges unless I got a job and bought a replacement. Even though my sister had recorded literal video evidence of her intent to sell naked underage photos of me. I still remember the smug fucking look on her face, even under the crocodile tears and big ugly bruises. She was fucking evil.”
“Your foster mom sounds kind of evil, too.”
“Yeah. The whole fucking family was rotten. I was like sixteen when I found out their grandpa was a literal serial pedophile.”
“Jesus Christ, thank god you’re not actually related to any of them.”
“Yeah, that’s the one thought that’s kept me at least semi-sane. But no matter how many innocent fluffies I save from abusive homes, I’ll never get that time back. I’ve never had a real family, and now I’m on my own. Trying to fill the void with stupid fucking dumbass talking ponies.” New, fresh tears ran down Marnie’s face. The silence stretched out between them, across the city, over the pass, and out to pasture.
Andy wouldn’t be the one to break it. He didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say. So he’d end up offering trite little platitudes that were worthless on a good day, and actively detrimental on a bad one. That’s why Brandon was just as much an FPS worker as he was. But Brandon was stuck in the shelter playpen. Think like Brandon. Think like Brandon. Cute, comforting, compassionate. The first thing Brandon always did was encourage them to cry it out.
Except Marnie wasn’t even really crying anymore, just staring off into the distance. The hard lines of her expression held back a tidal wave of pain and anger. Andy’s heart broke for her, but also quivered in the face of her stoicism. Her stony expression eventally cracked however, and her words carried far more weight than they should reasonably hold,
“It’s not fair.”
Andy nodded his agreement and threw in his worthless two cents, “It’s not.”
Andy brought Marnie back to a bunch of hushed whispering in high-pitched voices that swelled and ebbed as she walked past them to the counter. Most of the fluffies asked about her as Andy made his final round, making sure each pen was clean and locked properly. Marnie made good on her promise to leave Tinkerbell with some extra food for the night, and the nursemare made sure to give Marnie’s arm as many huggies as she would allow, empathetic to her plight of an uncooperative foal.
Andy checked on Pudding last. She was already asleep, face-down with her stubby legs wrapped posessively around a plush toy. She looked like such an angel while she was sleeping, but all around her were reminders of her rotten attitude: a puddle of piss beneath her, with a fresh litterbox sitting pristine and unused in the corner. And she still hadn’t touched her food, the kibble having expanded to three times its size and beginning to break apart. Despite everything, Andy felt for her, knowing exactly what her fate was going to be. He reached down to stroke her head and whispered, “I’m sorry, little girl…”
Marnie and Andy both logged their hours on the computer and went about locking up shop. They said their goodbyes and Andy stuffed Brandon under his arm so his fluffy wouldn’t have to walk across the parking lot bare-hoofsied.
Andy sat behind the wheel of his car, staring at the phone in his hand like it would burst into flame at any moment.
Anyone would be tempted to bend the rules a little when presented with this kind of money, and Andy had been simmering in hot water for months, leaving him very, very bendy indeed. While he wasn’t about to try and pull one over on the biggest organization of militant hugboxers in the state, he did have one call to make.
Andy hung his head in defeat and pressed the phone to his ear, the outgoing ring like a heart monitor waiting to flatline.
“Hey Frank? Y’know how I owe you? We got one you might be interested in. Munchkin alicorn. Splatter-coat. Shelter on 6th and Main. Brought her in right before closing so no one else knows she’s here yet. With a big enough donation I’m sure you could call dibs. She’s six weeks, morbidly obese, surrendered by a neglectful over-indulgent owner. Kind of a crybaby brat but I know personality doesn’t matter to you. How uhm… How much would you say this’d cover?”
There were a few moments of tense silence before the phone went click and Andy chucked it into the backseat and crushed the heels of his palms into his eyes, “God DAMMIT! Asshole! Greedy fucking scum-sucker! Motherfucking piece of shit! FUCK!”
Brandon squeaked from his spot behind the driver’s seat, sitting straight up with his ass against the floor the way he did when he had scaredy-poopies and didn’t want them to come out.
“D-daddeh?”
“I’m sorry, boy,” Andy’s voice cracked, “Daddy’s angry at his friend, not at you.”
“Otay… Can Bwandin gib huggies?”
“Yeah, you can. I’d like that,” Andy grabbed his fluffy and pulled him into his lap, “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”
“Am otay daddeh, ‘ou bestes’ daddeh ebuh! Bwandin wub 'ou.”
Andy hugged him tighter, “Thanks, buddy. I love you too.”
In the morning, a few different people arrived at the shelter. One of them was a man with greasy, slicked-back hair and douchey sports sunglasses. He wore the kind of trashy, plasticky faux-leather jacket of a man desperately trying to recapture his glory days, and the impatient, menacing beanpole attitude of a wannabe gangster. He stood outside, tapping his foot and checking his watch until the morning shift were done with their rounds. He was one of those customers who managed to put the entire crew on edge before even stepping foot inside. The man burst in as soon as the employee flipped the “closed” sign to “open” and marched straight up to the counter faster than anyone could properly greet him.
The cashier jogged over but was already starting to sweat, “Um… Can I help you, sir?”
“Do you have any alicorns? It’s my niece’s birthday.”
“Uhhh… I don’t actually know. We have so many fluffies coming in and out all the time and the alicorns always get snapped up quick. I can check our system for you, but feel free to look around.”
“Thanks.”
The man didn’t leave the counter, instead opting to stand there tapping his fingers and forcing the cashier to break out in a nervous sweat while the computer system chugged.
“Hmmm… right now we’ve got two. One’s just started weaning and the other’s about eight or nine years old.”
“Can I see the small one?”
“Sure. The file says she’s morbidly obese, so she’s been recommended for hydrotherapy until she’s healthy enough for adoption.”
“That’s perfect, my niece loves to swim. She’d love a little pool buddy.”
“I’m not so sure she’d be a good fit, sir. Morbidly obese fluffies usually come to us with a lot of behavioral problems and she hasn’t had hers addressed yet. She’s only been here one night and she’s already been flagged in the system for poor behavior. Why not take one of our lovely rescues? They’ve all been thoroughly sterilized and vaccinated and vetted by our fluffy psychologist.”
“My sister’s had fluffies before, she knows how to deal with 'em.”
The clerk was silent for a moment before switching tactics, “She also hasn’t been fixed yet, which brings LOTS of problems down the road. She’s old enough for surgery but the fat around her organs makes it a rough job, so she needs to lose weight before we can put her under the knife. If you adopted her now you’d be paying out of pocket for her spay.”
“Not a problem. Money’s no issue to me, she’ll get only the very best care.”
“I’m… Um… Let’s just have you meet her before we make any final decisions,” the clerk was still clearly dubious and the man’s persistence was raising all sorts of alarm bells in their head, but they were running out of excuses and reasons to say “no.”
They led the man over to Pudding’s enclosure, holding their breath as he leaned down to peer over his glasses. She wriggled backwards, away from his leering face.
“Nu wan nu-pwetty mistuh be nyu daddeh! Nu nee’ nyu dummeh daddeh! Wan bestes’ mummah!”
“As you can see sir, not only is she physically unhealthy, but so is her attitude. Why don’t I show you our senior alicorn? He’s a very sweet, gentle former stud. And he swims, too! It’s better for his joints than–”
“I’ll take her.”
“E-excuse me?”
“This one. I’ll take her.”
“Wha… With all due respect, sir I–”
The man dug around in his inner coat pocket for his wallet, “I’m writing a check for $1500 as a donation to this shelter because I need a birthday present by this evening.”
The cashier was stunned into silence as the man grabbed a pen and dashed off a whole bunch of zeros before demanding Pudding’s adoption papers. The rest of the process was strangely normal despite the absurd amount of money being thrown around, all neatly folded and filed away to be forgotten about. Pudding left the shelter a mere eight hours after arriving, in a disposable cardboard carrier with her blanket and her plushie, complaining the whole time.
Mister Frank’s vroom-vroom munstah was nowhere near as nice as Mister Andy’s, and Pudding hated Mister Andy’s vroom-vroom munstah more than anything. Except maybe Mister Andy himself. Pudding hated Mister Andy more than everything else combined: more than she hated baths, more than she hated kibble, and more than she hated that stupid dummeh fluffy Brandon. It was his fault that Mister Andy took her away from her mummah! It was his fault that Pudding’s mummah didn’t love her anymore and sent her away!
What a joke.
Honey, you’ve get a big storm coming.
- Give Mr. Frank A Chance
- WAN MUMMAH
((doodles & previews))
Mr. Frank actually kinda looks like one of my aunt’s old friends who’s since passed on. and while it might seem disrespectful to have a villain reminiscent of him, i think he’d find it fucking hilarious. Dude’s sense of humor was as dry as it was LEGENDARY 
Gretta, who was gifted to me by gal-with-pastels after one of my many Bummer Life Updates. Incredibly sweet & generous & I am so SO sorry in advance for everything I’m going to do to her in this story ;;w;;
bramdomn bc someone in the chat asked to be cheered up (i cant remember what day it is today, let alone which of u chucklefucks asked for this multiple weeks ago so here, it’s for everyone now)
Yet Another Bummer Life Update Wheeeeeeeee
ongoing computer troubles ahoy. theyre probably fixable but ive been avoiding a bunch of big, scary tasks for multiple weeks now & its better for everyone if i get those done sooner rather than later. also if this next battery pack doesnt fit my computer im giving up & just buying a plastic cover for the hole idgaf anymore
been smoking pot, eating garbage, sleeping too much, and just generally feeling floaty & lost. at least my psychiatrist doesnt seem like she’s avoiding prescribing me stimulants for ADHD, just that there’s no guarantee i’d actually get the fucking medication bc of the shortage. they say it’s probably gonna last through the end of the year so i gotta keep myself going for at least 2+ months. and i think to qualify for transitional housing i need to be under 24, so i gotta get out of here in under 6 months.
also an update on my patreon: still havent gone live with it yet, i wanna figure out how to put together an annotated digital sketchbook before i jump into anything. this first practice one im doing is fluffy-themed so i may not even actually post it until i have some other things to bury it under lol
HOWEVER it appears that a lot of my early-days fluffy art is missing. could be an error on my part or something fucky with Windows 10 search function. i’ll have to plug some shit in & do some more digging to see what the issue is. it’s also possible i just straight up forgot to do it so whatever. we’ll see.
EDIT: yeah turns out i did just straight up forget to do it lol crises averted
on the bright side, i got to play Majora’s Mask 3D with my friend & we were both terrible at it. Yayyyy i’m not alone lmao
idk how much i should overshare on here, but i gotta build up my confidence to call my insurance about seeing an out-of-network therapist. man, i got so much fuckin’ shit i gotta do. i dont even know what im talking about anymore. later 
