Part Two
Sam wasn’t sure how long she sat crying on the floor, letting all of the emotions that she’d been keeping bottled up loose in a torrent of tears and sniffles. Eventually, she began to calm, and was overwhelmed by catharsis. Although her determination did not waver, she still felt part of the old paranoia, unable to fully let go. She new that this was not a problem a single epiphany could solve, that she would have to make a concentrated a long-term effort to gain a healthier perspective towards fluffies.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a soft nudge against her leg. Rubbing the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, and saw that the unicorn stallion was looking up at her, a mixture of relief and concern on his face.
“Am wady otay?”
Sam winced internally. The hesitance to call her nice or mummah was a reminder of how badly she’d messed up. Well, at least he hadn’t called her a meanie or a munstah, there was that. She’d just have to work on rebuilding the lost trust, if the fluffies chose to stay. For all her claims that she’d be their new mummah, she wasn’t going to keep them here if they didn’t want to stay, and they’d probably choose to go to a shelter after what she’d done.
The blue mare’s stomach suddenly growled loudly, and Sam realized she’d forgotten to feed the fluffies, let alone bathe them and show them to the saferoom. She slowly stood, partially out of a desire to avoid startling the fluffies are partially because after that crying fit she was physically exhausted, if more emotionally refreshed than she’d felt in a long time.
“I’m so sorry, I forgot to give you food. I really am terrible at this, aren’t I? Wait here, I’ll bring you some food.”
Sam went by the saferoom to grab Milly’s old food and water bowl, and by the kitchen to grab a pair of bowls for the other fluffy to eat and drink out of for the time being. Bringing them back to the room, she set them down on the floor and poured a small amount of purified water into two of the bowls for the fluffies to drink from. Tap water would probably have been fine, but Milly had always said it tasted strange, and Sam wanted avoid giving the two new fluffies any reason to doubt her further.
She went into the pantry to grab one of the bulk bags of fluffy kibble she kept there. While it would be easy to try to bribe her way into the fluffies’ hearts with spaghetti, she knew it was generally unwise to give fluffies treats on their first day, as it tended to set unrealistic expectations for the future. She didn’t have any kibble formulated for soon-mummahs, but the kibble designed for foals who were just starting to eat solid food was nutritionally pretty good for unborn foals as well, and she had several bags of the stuff that wasn’t going to be put to its intended use.
She also brought a bag of special kibble that she’d kept just in case she ended up needing to help a starving feral. While most hugboxers would immediately give a starving fluffy normal food, this could be counterproductive, potentially fatal, depending on the time since the fluffy had last eaten. Like humans, fluffies could suffer from refeeding syndrome, a condition where eating too much food after starving for a significant time could have negative effects. The kibble she’d bought as a just-in-case would probably be unnecessary, since the fluffies weren’t especially underweight, but it paid to be safe.
Bringing the food into the room, she turned to the stallion. "How long has it been since you’ve had nummies?
“Hmm…fwuffy nu hab nummies in…many bwight times.”
That didn’t particularly narrow it down, but when she’d be holding him to treat his leg, she hadn’t noticed that much of a lack of body fat, so he was probably just bad at counting. The mare was less of a concern, since the stallion had almost certainly given all of the food he’d managed to scavenge over the past few days to her, since she needed them for her pregnancy. Still, things were looking good enough for them to be fed the normal kibble.
Sam poured a moderate amount of kibble into each bowl; probably not enough to make either fluffy feel full, but enough to take the edge of their hunger without them vomiting it up, which would only leave them in a worse state. The fluffies’ reactions were guarded, but Sam could see they were clearly excited about the food. She took a step back so they would feel more comfortable eating.
Immediately, they launched themselves towards the bowl, eating so quickly that they both choked and burst into fits of coughing, but even with the interruption they managed to empty the bowls remarkably quickly. Eventually, after pushing his bowl around for a few seconds, as if looking for more food in the clearly empty bowl, the stallion returned to looking up at Sam.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Bettah dan gwassies! Fwuffy wike nummies!”
“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll give you more in a little while, we don’t want you throwing it all up from eating too much too quickly. In the meantime, how about we get you two cleaned up a bit? Afterwards I can give you some more food.”
Sam knew that she’d have to forgo the bath, at least for today and maybe for a few more days. Even a fluffy that trusted its owner could feel betrayed and hurt by being forced into the water they’d been engineered to fear. However, she couldn’t let them stay as they were; smell aside, dirty fluffies were much more likely to become sick or die from disease.
She went to the kitchen once again, opening her dish towel drawer and looking over her dish towels for the one that was to be the sacrificial lamb. Eventually, she pulled a garish orange-and-teal checkered cloth from the drawer and filled a bowl with warm, soapy water. While not nearly as effective as an actual bath, this should at least make the fluffies a good bit less filthy.
“Alright, you two. I’m going to use mister cloth here to take away the dirt and make you smell pretty again, but to do that I need you to stand in the tub here. Can you do that for me?”
The fluffies murmured that they could do as she asked, so she carefully picked them up and placed them in the tub. Starting the with mare, she gave both of them a thorough wiping down with the damp dish cloth, causing them to mutter about how nice the warm cloth was. Fortunately, neither of the pair seemed to suffer too badly from the common fluffy fear of water, which could cause the more afflicted fluffies to panic even from contact with a wet cloth.
Once she was convinced that they were passible for the time being, she took them from the tub and poured them each a smaller serving of food, allowing them to eat and relax further, but not leaving the room. Eventually, they both dozed off, the mare partially hiding behind the stallion. Sam knew that fluffies rebounded quickly, but she’d expected it to take a least a few days before they were willing to fall asleep while she was nearby, particularly the mare. Maybe Sam’s tears and care towards them had made the fluffies see her as not a monster, or maybe they were just too exhausted to stay awake any longer. Either way, it renewed Sam’s hope that maybe the fluffies would choose to stay and that, in time, she could convince the fluffies to accept her as their new mummah.
She stood, careful to not wake the pair as they mumbled their sweepie-tawkies, and went to go find her phone. She had to set up an appointment to go get the fluffies a check-up, cancel a trip she’d planned so she could be sure to be here for the foal’s arrival, and talk to a friend about how to regain a hurt fluffy’s trust.
And she had to do one more thing, on the hill with the white-and-yellow flowers, at the pair of tiny graves. She needed to tell Milly and Arch that she was sorry.
[A bit of head-canon here is that fluffies narrate their dreams while they sleep, like how a dog will sometimes bark in its sleep. Listening to these “sweepie-tawkies” is exceptionally helpful for telling what’s going through a fluffy’s mind.]
Part Four
33 Likes
Whoa, very nice story! Looking forward to the next part, I really like your headcanon
3 Likes