The Fluffmart bristled with activity as staff opened for the day. Foals chirped happily as the nice humans came along to fill their food bowls with soft kibble and refill their water bottles with milk flavored formula. Each pen held no more than a single litter sorted by size and maturity as well as color among the older foals. The alicorns were kept at most as pairs in locked glass enclosures, both to protect them from other fluffies but also to also prevent theft. In the past there had been cases of people grabbing alicorns and running to avoid paying the thousands of dollars it cost for the rare biotoys.
At the front door, the manager, with a nametag that read John, propped the door open as the delivery driver rolled in reinforced carboard boxes filled with fresh stock on a hand cart. Cans of sgetti, bags of kibble, boxes of fluffy litter, various training products, fluff safe play toys, and three dozen chirping foals of assorted quality. The manager signed his inventory delivery receipt as he triple checked the count of foals. He had to keep track of all his stock for legal purposes and if one had escaped, he would be liable for environmental fines.
He looked down at a pile of three dingy cardboard boxes next to the door, the same sort of boxes the foals arrived in. They were like travel cages with holes in the walls like prison bars. They were strong boxes, they reminded him of the soda syrup boxes he had handled years ago when he worked in fast food. Inside of them was the return stock. Defective fluffies.
Each box held a single fluffy stallion. The store held onto them until they reached sexual maturity. After that, the likelihood of them selling dropped virtually to zero since customers didnât like buying childlike animals that constantly begged for partners to have sex with. It also hurt sales of foals to keep more than a few adult fluffies around since people could see what their adorable foals would grow up into.
The mares that didnât sell could be salvaged as with some hormonal supplements they would become nursing âmummahsâ and would be stuck in the pens to watch over and train the arriving foals. Exceptionally good mares would be paired with sensitive babies and were a hit with families as the âBaby and Nurseâ which drastically cut down on care for a foal for new fluffy owners while still providing them with joy of buying a chirpy baby.
The foal pens without âmummahsâ had begun to be installed with speakers that would quietly play âmummeh songsâ and rules for good fluffy behavior as they slept to subconsciously condition them. This was a godsend for the industry as it drastically cut down on the worst fluffy behavior and had begun to rehabilitate the image of fluffies after the series of controversies that they had faced over the past years. They also were able to sell stock younger than ever as they would still end up well-adjusted even in the absence of a mother mare.
The SRA passed last year, heavily neutered from the original Hugbox bill, and this forced a complete change in the fluffy disposal process. Where previously they were allowed to euthanize fluffies on site and send them back in industrial biohazard bags for waste disposal. Now to prevent abusers from getting jobs as euthanizers, defective stock had to be sent to a collective disposal center to be âhumanelyâ euthanized.
He knelt down and looked in the boxes at the scared fluffies, âNow remember what I told you. You are going to a new home. It is going to feel like forever but donât worry and remember not to make any bad poopies.â This made transportation less stressful for the drivers. It would take several hours to pick up defective stock from all the stores in the area and then still drive to âsgettilandâ as the drivers had begun to refer to the regional disposal center.
The delivery man came back from the stock room after dropping off the last cart full of boxes. He looked at the three boxes and signed the fluffy return receipt the manager handed to him before scooping them up from his cart and rolling them into the back of his truck. He had already made two deliveries before this, and he already had a nice collection of defective stock.
There were seven boxes stacked up behind the driverâs seat. Mostly brown stallions but from the first delivery was a purple unicorn that had managed to snap its horn off, through sheer misfortune, after sticking it in an air hole in his plexiglass display. This delivery was two more brown stallions and a green pegasus with deformed wings that wouldnât fold open properly. It was a type of developmental defect that unfortunately could not be discovered until a foal has begun to walk and talk. âDonât worry little guys, Iâll take you all to sgettiland as long as you donât poop or pee.â He hated driving the truck after one hotboxed it with a terrified shit.
He secured the boxes and began to drive away. The condemned fluffies were scared, but the sound of chirpy babies in the other boxes reminded them of the Fluffmart and that was enough to calm them as the truck bounced around on its route. It was only after the last delivery that the quiet began and was immediately replaced by the huu-huing of the stallions.
They would all behave, they all desperately wanted new families and the sound of chirpy babies subconsciously reminded them of the rejection that faced as the nice humans took all their brothers and sisters away to new homes. They clinged to the unbelievable promise of new homes that all of their nice managers had told them of having a big herd with new mommies and daddies at sgettiland. In their guts, they felt something was wrong. They didnât know humans could lie to them, but they still subconsciously were able to pick up something in the tone of their voice.
The truck made its way to the city outskirts. Without the constant starts and stops of each delivery, the tired defective fluffies, around thirty in all, began to fall asleep and dream of sgettiland completely and blissfully unaware of the fate that awaited them.
I hope everyone is ready for some suffering brown fluffies. The universe demands balance after Dakotaâs âhappyâ end. I will probably be releasing one of these chapters every week as I have the whole plot storyboarded and just need to actually put pen to paper. But just as a special treat I am releasing the first two chapters at once.