Part 1
[Author’s Note: This part got really dark, and I believe it fully crossed the line into psychological abuse. If others disagree, feel free to comment.]
Sam’s plan was relatively simple, and was frequently used by others who wanted to test how good-natured a soon-mummah was, although most of the people she’d seen recommend the technique used it to determine whether or not they felt “justified” in tormenting the poor creatures. The test itself was harmless, of course, and could be easily adapted to test stallions as well. That being said, it would frighten the fluffies, and would likely make them fear or hate her, which was the entire point.
The best known indicator for a fluffy’s future behavior was its current willingness to sacrifice for those it cares about. The stereotype of the fluffy mummah running away and leaving her babies to die was, unfortunately, true to a certain extent, as most fluffies (and humans, but let’s not get into that) weren’t willing to suffer injury or death for those around them, even those they love. This was especially true of feral fluffies, not due to ferals making bad parents, per se, but simply because of the cruelty of the world around them frequently resulting in ferals losing both parents well because reaching psychological maturity.
So, Sam planned to test if the fluffies were willing to sacrifice everything for their babies. Of course, she had no intention of going through with any of the threats she was going to make, and even if they fluffies failed the test, as the majority did, she was still going to get them cleaned up, fed, and taken to a safe shelter. If they succeeded, she knew she could take them in without having to worry about spending weeks or months rehabilitating them. Cruel, yes, but still a far cry from leaving them to die in the cold.
“You have a choice to make,” she repeated, louder, as the still-running stallion hadn’t paid much mind to her first statement.
“Wut choice am dat?” asked the stallion, the mare still glaring sullenly at Sam.
“You can choose to stay here until your babbehs are born, then I’ll take the babbehs and you’ll have to leave, but the babbehs will grow up with a nice mummah fluffy I have, and will have a nice warm saferoom, and toys, and good nummies. Or, you can leave right now, and keep your babbehs, but they’ll be out in the cold, with no toys, no saferoom, and no good nummies. So, which do you choose?”
This elicited the normal cries of “Nu wan wose babbehs!” and “Babbehs need mummah!” and a fit of sobbing from both fluffies. The stallion started to answer, but Sam cut him off.
“Before you answer, I want you two to talk about it. Do you want to give me your babbehs, or do you want to take them and watch them grow with no toys, no saferoom, no good nummies, and in the cold? I’ll leave you to talk.”
Sam walked out of the room, shut the door behind her, and collapsed against it. God, she hated doing this, and doing this to a pair of fluffies who’d lost their herd to humans already was even worse, but she knew it nothing compared to trying to raise a family of fluffies with a bad mother or father; scraping a crushed chirpie foal off the floor was something she’d sworn she would NEVER do again. She knew it was excessive, but it was better to be excessive than to ever live through that hell again. But the test was only partway done, and she knew she had to see it through.
She walked into the saferoom and removed all the toys, and replaced the soft beds, one bought in preparation for Arch’s growth spurt which would now never come, with coarse, burlap beds. She had to be sure that the fluffies believed that she wasn’t interested in keeping them, and a well-stocked saferoom for the two would only make the lie less believable. The test wouldn’t be just today, but the entire time until the fluffies’ babies were born.
Having prepare the saferoom, she walked back to the room with the fluffies and awaited their response. After a few minutes more of frantic muttering, the stallion looked up at her, tears in his eyes.
“Pwease, nice wady, nu wan wose babbehs. Babbehs need mummah and daddeh, need huggies and wub.”
“No, you’ve heard the options. I’m not giving you another one.”
“Can fwuffies stay 'til babbehs awe hewe, den weave?” he asked plaintively.
“No. Either you leave now, or I take your babbehs.”
The two fluffies began muttering to each other once more, their inaudible words frequently interrupted by loud sobs, but eventually the mare turned to speak.
“‘ou nu am nice wady! ‘ou am munstah wady! Wan huwt soon-mummah an’ speciaw-fwiend an’ babbehs!”
Sam knew this was coming, and she noted that the mare listed herself first, which wasn’t a good sign. This was a subconscious indication that the mare was prioritizing herself and her mate over the babies. While not a sure way to tell, it was, at the very least, an indicator that the mare had gotten pregnant too young and was now suffering from the dreaded bitch-mare syndrome.
“So you want to leave, then?” she asked, prompting both the mare and the stallion to shiver as they remembered how cold it was outside.
They stood in silence for a moment, before the stallion moved closer to her. She prepared for an attack, perhaps “sorry-hoofsies” or “sorry poopies” but the stallion just spoke, in as close to a whisper as a fluffy could manage with their sub-par volume control.
“Nice wady, nu wan wose babbehs, bu’ fwuffy nu wan babbehs gu fowebah sweep fwom cowdies eithew. Can nice wady take soon-mummah wif babbehs when nice wady takes babbehs? Fwuffy nu wan be awone, bu’ nu mind if soon-mummah an’ babbehs can be togetha’.”
Sam was barely able to contain her surprise at the little stallion’s request. It was rare to see such selflessness from any living thing, let alone a feral fluffy. He was actually willing to give up both his babies and his mate to protect them. She was actually tempted to just give up and take the fluffies in and forego the test entirely, and if the mare turned out to have bitch-mare syndrome she’d just deal with it later. But then she remembered the last chirping gasp for air from those years ago, the look of utter betrayal on the foal’s face as her mother, the one who was supposed to protect her and care for her, instead crushed her for being a nuisance.
She could take them in, still. Even bitch-mare syndrome could be managed, if not cured, with recently discovered treatment. Horrible, ungodly treatment that would surely land the creator of it in the deepest circle of Hell, but a treatment nonetheless. But that would leave the mare in a broken state, not a danger to her foals, but definitely not the same as before. And that would be a betrayal she could not bring herself to commit. So she pushed harder.
“No, I can’t do that. And because you keep asking for more choice after I said ONLY TWO, now I’ll take your special lumps away after the babbehs are born, too.”
The little stallion emitted a tiny squeak, although she couldn’t tell if it was vocal or just the starved creature trying to defecate in fear. She could see his willpower was wavering, although not nearly as much as her own was. If this technique wasn’t so damn effective she’d have tried to forget it even existed, but she COULD NOT hear that chirping gasp again; it still played on repeat in her nightmares.
The stallion, tears streaming down his face, returned to talk quietly with his mate. They muttered, with Sam only making out the occasional heated word, for a few more minutes. The stallion returned, beginning to speak, but was cut off by Sam’s sharp interjection.
“I want to hear her say it.”
The stallion, unable to stand the stress anymore, simply broke down and sobbed. The mare glared daggers at Sam, her face a mask of hatred. But the mask suddenly broke, and instead of a defiant creature full of hatred, Sam saw a traumatized creature full of pain, forced to stand before one of the very creatures that killed the only family she ever knew, a monster that was demanding to take away the only hope she had for a new family.
Sam came to a sudden horrible realization. She wasn’t testing the fluffies, she was simply taking her own trauma out on them. She was taking these innocent creatures, which were horribly scarred by their own, likely recent, trauma, and she was making their wounds a thousand times worse. All because she was too afraid to take a risk, to try to restore a fluffy’s hope in humanity, a hope that was stolen not by the fluffy’s own actions, but by the actions of humans, and in no small part by Sam’s own actions here.
Tears began to pour down her cheeks as the dam broke. Memories of her own unfairness towards Milly suddenly rushed, unbidden, into her thoughts. Denying Milly babies, not because she was a bad fluffy, but because Sam was afraid that she hadn’t raised Milly well enough for her to be a good mother. Because Sam was still trapped in the mindset from years prior, unwilling, not unable, to come to terms with her own issues.
Even worse were the thoughts of Arch, how she’d adopted him to shut Milly up, not for his own sake. How she chose him from the shelter not on the basis that she thought he deserved a better life, but because she took an instant dislike to him, and knew it wouldn’t hurt nearly so bad if her worst fears were realized and Milly hid the monster she secretly feared in the innocent, childlike fluffy. How, even after the their deaths, she’d only really grieved for Milly, her mourning of Arch an afterthought.
Sam realized that she was a damn shitty excuse for a hugboxer. She suddenly knew that she didn’t avoid the name because of stereotypes, she avoided it because she knew, deep down, that she couldn’t see fluffies in the same innocent light as a real hugboxer could. That she allowed one incident, during her childhood, to poison how she saw these wonderful, unthinkingly-loving creatures. That taking fluffies to the shelter, instead of just chasing them away, wasn’t to help the creatures at all, but instead to help her cope with her dissonant self-image.
“You two,” she sobbed. “I’ll be your new mummah. You don’t need to lose your babbehs, I’ll take care of you all.”
“And-” she added as an aside to the stallion a few moments later “-you don’t need to worry, I won’t take away your special lumps.”
Neither of the fluffies stopped crying, although Sam couldn’t tell if they were still scared of her or were crying from relief, from losing the burden that she’d so cruelly placed on them. For the next quarter hour, the house stood empty and silent, save for the little padded room, full of the sound of crying.
She was taking these fluffies in, her trauma, and bitch-mare syndrome, be damned.
[Afterword: This part is to illustrate how a label like bitch-mare syndrome or smarty syndrome is so dangerous, how it dehumanizes (de-fluffy-izes?) those suffering from an issue they had no part in creating. In Sam’s case, her bad interaction with one fluffy as a child, along with the sort of societal dread of the bitch-mare syndrome, lead her to see it everywhere, and she and the fluffies she spent time with both suffered greatly as a result. I also hope it makes it more clear how, as a sort of blank slate, fluffies end up being the victims of not just their own issues, but also the issues of any human they come across. I originally wasn’t intending on it ending up with such a dark tone, but I think it’s important to try to write characters that are true-to-life, and part of doing that is recognizing the issues a character has.]
Part 3
