You roll out of bed, stretching with the morning glow of a well-earned sleep. Sapphire only woke you up twice last night for feedings, and was quickly back to sleep. She sure slept a lot for a foal…
After breakfast, you continue with your new morning routine; Washing your dishes, greeting your new unicorn foal, feeding and cleaning her, and tidying up around your home. Once you were finished, you decided that it would be a good time to look over Sapphire for any physical health issues.
You pick up Sapphire and take her into your bathroom, setting her down onto a towel gently. You clean your hands before carefully combing over her.
“Cheep cheep!” she gives you in protest as you not only disturb her sleep, but begin to forcefully stretch her limbs out while poking and prodding her to test her strength.
You feel a wave of relief wash over you. The little blue unicorn seems to be doing very well, rebounding quite remarkably. She’s put on some weight, her muscles feel nice with tension, her bones are fairly strong – well, as strong as a healthy fluffy foal’s bones can be anyway, reflexes seem on-point, and she’s growing well. The only thing you couldn’t check for was most internal diseases or illnesses… But that can wait until you can get a chance to see another vet.
After finishing up with the examination, you decide that an outdoor day might be good for you both. Your garden needs some tending to, and it hasn’t rained in a little while. You put Sapphire on her old, folded up blanket and take her outside.
You set her down on the patio table in the shade while you worked in your garden. You had your sun hat, gardening gloves, and gardening jeans on so you wouldn’t get burned or too dirty. Thankfully, your garden doesn’t usually get many pests or weeds in it…
As you weed out your garden you hear some grass shuffling behind you. You decide to shrug it off as some insect buzzing around until you hear someone, or something, speak…
“Mummah… When nummies?” a high-pitched voice quietly rung out.
“Shh, babbeh. Nu wan munsta hoomun tu know fwuffy am hewe.”
You take in a deep breath before sighing heavily. Fuck. Other feral fluffies have decided to pay you a “visit” – no doubt to try and raid your garden for “pwetty nummies”. You feel that you need to shoo them away before they disturb Sapphire… Or worse, leave a bad imprint on her.
You stand up and turn around. There’s a lone, grass-green mother fluffy, and a pink filly following her. They take notice of you and immediately become terrified.
“N-Nuu huwt fwuffies, pweese munsta hoomin! F-Fwuffies onwy want nummies!” she stammers out.
“Pwease nuu huwt mummah ow babbeh!”
You sigh and massage the bridge of your nose with your fingers in frustration.
“Look…” you start, squatting down to near their level. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yew not?”
“No, I’m not–”
“Fank 'oo nicest wady!”
“–But, you can’t be here.”
“Buh… Buh why not? Fwuffy onwy want nummies fow mummah and babbeh…” she says, her ears folding down in sadness.
“Because, I don’t have fluffy-friendly flowers in my garden, and I don’t want you two around my baby fluffy.”
“Nicest wady haf fwuffy babbeh?”
“Yes, I do. She’s a special baby and you two can’t be here. I’m going to give you two choices, either leave here on your own, or I’ll make you leave.” you tell them sternly with a serious glare.
The mare puffs up her cheeks in defiance. “Dummeh hoomin! Fwuffeh onwy want nummies! Fwuffy nu weave until nummies hab!”
You feared this would happen. Being feral, they have a high temperament, which makes them strong willed… You’ll have to evict them yourself. You stand up and walk toward your house.
“Alright, I gave you two the option of going peacefully. You leave me no choice…”
“Yay! Does dis mean fwuffeh hab wun?”
You come back outside with the box from yesterday and begin to approach them.
“Time for the sorry box.” you say, looking over them menacingly.
Both feral fluffies begin screaming in terror and run from you. The mother tries to run for the garden and jumps… But gets stuck between the pegs of the small, wooden fence.
“Nuu-huu-huu! Dummeh waww, wet fwuffeh goo! Wun bestest babbeh, wuuun!” she cries out.
Her foal just runs square into the fence without looking where she was going. An audible crunch is heard as the foal lays there, holding her nose and sobbing.
“Buu-huu-huu! Meanie waww huwt fwuffeh! Bigges’ owwies!”
You flinch as you watch her ram the wall and hold her now bleeding nose. As much as your conditioning medical training is urging you to help them… They were defiant, almost aggressive, ferals that invaded your yard. You look over at Sapphire who seems to be stirring from all the commotion, rolling over and whimpering some. It’s time to act.
You walk over the two feral fluffies and pick them up. The earthy mother wriggles in your grasp.
“Nuu! Wet fwuffeh goo! Bad upsies!” she cries out as you gently drop her into the box.
You reach down and grab the injured foal who just sobs in your grasp. The mother begs for you to give her the foal back and to let them go.
“I gave you two the peaceful option, now you have to leave.” you tell them before putting the filly on top of their mother.
You close the top of the box, but not securely. Remembering your time with mental and visual afflictions, you gently shake the cardboard box in a circular motion, just enough to make them dizzy, but not enough to hurt them. All you get out of the pair is “Huu huu huu, nu can see!”
Once you’ve done the motion a couple of times, you gently release the box over your large fence and back into unclaimed land. As the box hits the ground with a soft “thump”, the top flaps open and both fluffies stagger out in a state of dizziness. You watch them try and run away, all while bumping into things like a dysfunctional alcoholic, but can’t help feeling bad for them. At least what you did was more humane than most things you’ve seen or heard while on the job…
You return to Sapphire and calm her down by scritching her belly and letting her suck on your ungloved finger for a few minutes. She seems to have been woken up by the commotion. You take a break to hydrate and sit in the shade for a bit while you read your book.
As you flip the page and take a sip of your water, you suddenly hear Sapphire cry out.
“Chirp! Chirp!”
You lower your book to look at her. She rolls over from her side onto her stomach and rubs her eyes some. You’ve seen this behaviour before in Fluff-a-Palooza. It’s a foal that’s trying to open their eyes, but the crusty “sleep” caused by tears is keeping them shut. Normally, you teach the mother mares to clean it for them so that can open their eyes for the first time… Or another, more experienced mare will teach them… But you don’t have a mare around.
Thinking on your feet, you quickly dash inside to grab one of the cleaned out syringes as Sapphire fusses, chirping loudly. You fill it with lukewarm water and bring it back to her.
“It’s okay little one, momma’s here… Just let me see…” you tell her, bringing the syringe close to her face.
Carefully, you moved her little leggies out of the way and squirted a few drops of water on each eye before letting her fuss with it again. After a few cycles of this, her eyelids break free of the crusty bindings and open up. You make sure that when she looks at you, she isn’t looking toward the sun so she doesn’t get blinded.
The sight of her opening her eyes for the first time makes your heart melt. They’re a glossy, marine blue that matches with her light blue coat. An absolutely beautiful color combination.
“Cheep! Cheep! M-Mummah?” she calls out softly, looking up at you in confusion. “Wh-Where am mummah?”
You give her a warm smile before gently petting her tiny little head. “I’m your mumma, silly baby.”
“'Ou am mummah? Cheep…”
You’re surprised at how well she’s talking… She must have been a little older than you thought, but still picked up on what Gemstone, the feral fluffies, and you have been saying around her. You not at her.
“That’s right. I’m your mummah. Mummah loves you.” you coo to her.
Sapphire coos back before grabbing your finger with her hooves and wrapping herself around it lovingly. “Wub mummah. Babbeh wub…”
Your eyes well up with tears. You never felt this intense of a feeling, even when working with the newborns at the shop. Your first foal managed to bounce back from starvation, and not only has just opened up her eyes, but also recognizes you as her mother – and loves you.
You quietly dote on her, and help her back to sleep. For the afternoon, you finished your weeding, watered your garden, and cleaned up the… Unwanted leftovers of those feral fluffies.
During the evening, you made sure to keep Sapphire fed and read to her from your book. Now that you know she’s able to hear you and learn, even while sleeping, you wanted to be able to leave a good impression on her.
Sadly, tomorrow was Monday. This would mean you’d have to go back to work. Sapphire wasn’t quite ready to be separated from you, as she still depends upon you for her feeding. But you don’t think Steve would allow you to keep her with you while at work…
You remember back to when a fluffy owner tried to bring their fairly well raised fluffy into the store to find a compatible mating match for them. Steve stopped them just inside the door, and got into a heated verbal argument.
“I am sorry sir, but we do not allow ferals inside of our store.” Steve says sternly, pointing to the “No Ferals” sign.
“But sir, my fluffy is well trained and healthy! I have their papers right here—” the owner says, starting to rummage through his jacket.
“No Ferals means No Ferals. We don’t know what illnesses may be hidden in them, and their behaviour may cause us major problems for our domestic fluffies.”
“But I just–”
Before he could even get another word out, Steve pointed to the door. “Please leave before I have to make you leave. You can come back without your feral fluffy. We have to protect our herd.”
Defeated, the owner gently tugged on his fluffy’s leash. “Come on, Ace. Let’s go. They don’t want you here…”
His little pegasus stallion looked up at him and nodded before walking out with their owner. “Otay daddeh. Sowwy am bad fwuffeh…”
…Just remembering that little scuffle made you shudder uncomfortably. You worry about what the next day may bring.
–End of Pt.4
I love how putting them in “sorry” box and spin them is a hilarious but great idea.