Part Three
[Author’s Note: It’s been a while since my last post in this story, but here’s part 4.]
The brown unicorn stallion awoke and instantly knew, without opening his eyes, that something was different. He remembered falling asleep on the soft padded floor after eating, compelled to sleep by the first cessation of hunger and the first feeling of real warmth in far too long. But it hadn’t been this soft, hadn’t been this warm. He sniffed the air, as silently as he could, and noted the different scents in the air; warm smells, comforting smells, scents of food and cleanliness.
He opened his eyes. The room was dimly lit by a single faint lamp, but he could still see. Abstract shapes, a ball and some cubes, were reminded him of the round moon and the boxes he’d seen other fluffies take shelter in. Was he in a dream? If so, he’d like to stay a while, in this comfortable vision before he woke to the cold and the hunger again.
Memories earlier snuck into his mind as he awoke more fully, memories of the munstah wady who maybe wasn’t a munstah after all. Memories of the first good nummies he’d had in a long, long time, since even before the herd got forever-sleepies. A mixture of foreboding and hope filled him, apprehension and happiness swirling into a turmoil.
He suddenly noticed an absence beside him, a lack of a feeling that was as much a part of sleeping as dreams were. His special-friend! He looked around as wildly as he could without moving his head, but in the dimness he couldn’t see her. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head, gaining a more full view of the room.
There she was! Sleeping peacefully in another warm nest. But why had they been separated? It didn’t make sense, they should be sleeping together as they always did. This was wrong! Something was wrong!
He tried to calm, forcing his breathing to remain even as his heart raced. Moving his head once more, he looked for an exit, a way out of this strange, alien place. A doorway stood in one of the walls, a darker rectangle against the gray dimness around him. He stood, as silently as possible, and walked over to it, but was suddenly stopped by a barrier across the doorway. It was too tall for him to jump and too smooth for him to climb, even with his leg functioning once again. They were trapped!
One thing feral fluffies knew more than anything was to never let yourself become trapped. Too many stories circulated the herd about fluffies who got captured by humans and never returned or, worse, returned broken and scarred. He was stupid! He should never have trusted the munstah wady! He should have found a way to survive on his own!
He began pacing frantically, his mind conjuring horrors of what the munstah would do to him now that he was trapped. Images of the humans who’d murdered his herd raced through him, flashes of violences, torment, and death. Now he knew all hope was lost, that he’d fallen for a trick and now he and his special-friend would pay the price.
Unable to hold his terror in any longer, he began to wail.
Sam awoke to the sound of shrieking from the saferoom. Groggily she got out of bed, glancing at the clock. Just past 3 A.M. She quickly walked into the saferoom, turning on the hallway light to see the unicorn stallion standing in front of the saferoom gate, wailing. The pegasus mare, startled from her sleep, began to cry, adding her voice to the din.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” She asked, confused and a little frightened.
“Why munstah wady trap fwuffy and speciaw-fwiend in hewe? Fwuffy nu wan huwt, nu wan forebah-sweepies!”
Oh God, here we go, Sam thought. She always forgot just how skittish feral fluffies were. “I’m not going to hurt you. I moved you in here while you slept because the other room was getting cold and there wasn’t a bed in there for you. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you up first, but I thought you needed the rest.”
She opened the saferoom gate, which seemed to confuse the stallion. The mare continued to sob softly and cower in her bed. “Munstah wady nu huwt fwuffy?”
“No, I won’t hurt you, I promise. I understand why you’re scared, I know I would be if I’d been through what you have, but I promise I won’t do anything bad to either of you.”
“Why wady nu wet fwuffy sweep in nestie wif speciaw-fwiend?”
“I didn’t have a bed…a nestie…big enough for two adult fluffies. Don’t worry, I went to the store while you were asleep and got a new nestie that should fit both of you. I just didn’t want to disturb you while you were sleeping. I’ll bring it in here.”
Hurrying into the other room, she grabbed the large dog bed that she’d purchased earlier. While in theory there were beds made specifically for fluffies, in most cases fluffy-specific products were of higher cost and lower-quality than products made for other pets. She brought it into the saferoom and set it down as far from the gate as she could without entering the saferoom; right now the fluffies would almost certainly panic if she moved into the room with them.
The gesture seemed to slightly calm the fluffies. Most feral fluffies couldn’t wrap their mind around the concept of humans actually buying anything specifically for them, as they usually only got scraps or garbage, so the minor act likely carried a vast amount of significance in the fluffy pair’s minds. Now was the time to convince them that she meant no harm and wouldn’t keep them against their will.
“If you want, I can open the door and you can leave. It’s still cold outside and it’s dark, but if you want to go I won’t stop you.”
“Fwuffy wan go outside.”
“Alright then, follow me.”
Sam lead the fluffies to the back door, making sure to avoid sudden movements. She’d seen this kind of behavior in feral fluffies before, a reasonable aversion to being trapped. Opening the door, she was unsurprised to see them shiver as the cold early-morning air hit them. Neither fluffy seemed interested in actually leaving, which was what she’d expected. They simply wanted the assurance that they could leave if they chose to.
“Do you want to leave?” she asked, even knowing the answer.
“Nu! Too cowd! Bad for tummeh-babbehs!” cried the mare, and the stallion nodded agreement with the sentiment.
“Well, how about you go back to sleep and we talk again in the morning?”
The fluffies murmured affirmation, and she lead them back to the saferoom. Before she closed the gate she decided an explanation was in order.
“This room is safe, it’s made specially to keep fluffies from getting hurt. But the rest of the house isn’t made like that, and if you wander around you could get hurt, maybe badly. So I keep the gate shut at night so if you have sleepie-walkies you won’t get hurt. If you want, though, I can leave it open.”
“Fwuffy nu wan git huwt, nu wan speciaw-fwiend git huwt. Fwuffy otay if gatie am cwosed.”
“How about you?” Sam asked the mare.
“Fwuffy am scawed, bu’ nu wan git huwt. Pwease cwose gatie.”
“Alright then. Good night.”
Sam knew this was the likely outcome. While sleep-walking wasn’t exactly common in fluffies, they found the concept to be terrifying. After all, a sleeping fluffy can’t protect itself from danger, so walking around while sleeping was likely to result in injury or death. Not that a conscious fluffy was terribly capable of avoiding injury to begin with.
To be entirely honest, there wasn’t actually anything in the house that was at all likely to cause injury to an adult fluffy. The house was mostly fluffy-proofed, a project that had been part of an experimental collaboration with a friend who ran a local shelter to try to devise a way to bring down the premature mortality rate of domestic fluffies. The gate to the saferoom was mostly to keep Arch from wandering around the house and leaving messes when he got lost and couldn’t find his way back to the litterbox in time. But for now it’d work to keep the feral fluffies contained in the saferoom until she could teach them the basics of domestic fluffy life.
She went back to bed, almost staggering with exhaustion. Yesterday had been a long day, as preparing for new fluffies always took a lot of work, especially preparing for new foals. Well, that and the emotional rollercoaster she’d been on. Still, it had been a good day, and as physically drained as she didn’t regret her choice.
She watched on the foal-cam she kept in the safe room until the two fluffies fell asleep, a feeling of warmth permeating her chest as she watched them snuggle up adorably to each other before quickly sleeping once more. It was tempered, however, by a pang of guilt over the foal-cam, as she’d kept it so long into Arch’s development mostly due to her paranoia. She’d have to uninstall it tomorrow, at least until the pair’s foals were born.
Lying back down in bed, she let her mind wander. Then, almost as quickly as the fluffy pair had, she fell into her own dreams.
She was awoken by birdsong and the playing of light across the wall as the sun shone through her bedroom window’s curtains. Groggily, she glanced over towards the clock once more. It was almost ten in the morning, later than she usually got up, but by much. Still, after yesterday she deserved to sleep in a little.
Walking into her kitchen, she realized that with all the chaos of the previous day she’d forgotten to make a full breakfast for this morning. Oatmeal it is, she thought. Usually she’d feed her fluffies while food was warming, but in this case she knew that it was better to eat first. Neither of the fluffies she’d taken in were trained to use a litterbox, and she knew that there’d be a mess to clean before she could feed the fluffies.
As she ate, she considered her long-term plans for the new fluffies. Of course, she still didn’t know if they’d decide to stay, but she still needed to weigh her options. If they chose to leave, she’d probably take them to the shelter, as she doubted their ability to survive on their own in the current weather; neither of them were woolifluffs and they would likely die from the cold eventually without a herd to keep them warm as the nights grew colder. But she knew that their lack of trust in humans, compounded by their age, meant that they would likely never find a home if she took them to the shelter or become comfortable living there.
Still, there realistically wasn’t anything she could do about that. She wasn’t going to let them freeze to death, and living at the shelter was definitely better than dying. But the knowledge that the fluffies would surely see taking them to the shelter as a betrayal and a theft of their freedom gnawed at her.
Best to consider the things she could change, then. In the long-term, she planned on keeping at least some of the foals, as taking them all away would drive the fluffies into depression. Maybe three, possibly four, depending on how well-behaved they were. Hopefully, the litter was comparatively small and she could keep them all, but she knew that litters could reach as many as eight foals and usually exceeded four.
As for the parents, she’d try to get them to be well enough adjusted to be able to spend time around humans without becoming too stressed, both to allow her to take them to the park and for the sake of her own social life. While fluffies didn’t have the near-instant psychological recovery many people falsely attributed them with, they were still fairly resilient. The stallion’s nature would probably help with their recover too, though she wasn’t sure that the mare would ever fully trust humans.
Then there was the issue of names. While naming them would probably help establish trust, Sam knew that pre-named shelter fluffs were much less likely to find new families. Part of the magic of keeping fluffies was the childlike joy they took in receiving names, so pre-named fluffies were viewed by many like a secondhand car; still a car, but part of the experience was lost forever.
So, to offer them names first, thereby increasing their chances of staying but hurting their chances of finding a new family, or ask them if they wanted to stay first? It wasn’t an easy decision to make, as either choice could hurt the fluffies’ odds of having a good future. Ultimately, though, it naming them after they chose to stay seemed like the better option.
Sam finished eating, and went to clean the mess in the saferoom. She was surprised to see only one small puddle of pee-pees, near the almost-immobile mare. She was fully expecting to have to clean far more than that, and cleaning up after soon-mummahs was something that had to be done even with well-trained fluffies. Still, these fluffies were full of surprises.
“Hewwo, nice wady. Fwuffy need make poopies and pee-pees, bu’ nu wan make mess. Pwease wet fwuffy out.”
“Here,” Sam said, indicating the litterbox. “You can make poopies and pee-pees in here and cover them with the sand.”
“Wai fwuffy make poopies in box? Make woom nu smeww pwetty. Wan make poopies outside.”
“It’s okay, I’ll keep the box clean so it won’t make the room smell not pretty. It’s too cold for you to go outside right now, it’d be bad for your tummeh-babbehs.”
Apparently seeing the reason in this statement, the mare trundled over to the litterbox and relieved herself in it. The stallion, however, seemed reticent.
“Nu wan make nice wady haf cwean box,” he said uncertainly.
“Don’t worry. I’m happy to clean the box if it means you and your family can stay safe. Outside is too dangerous in winter for fluffies.”
The stallion, still a little hesitant, also used the litterbox. After he finished, he turned once more to Sam and spoke.
“Fwuffy hungwy. Nice wady gif nummies?”
“Yes, I’ll give you food. I have special nummies here for soon-mummahs to make sure the babbehs grow up big and strong, and nummies for you. I’ll go fill the bowls.”
Sam went to go get the bowls from where she’d left them in the other room. She’d bought four new bowls, two for food and two for water. Not strictly necessary, she’d felt that feeding them from Milly’s old bowls was somehow wrong, almost disrespectful. She’d also bought a water bottle for them to use once the foals were born, as newborn foals couldn’t be left near even shallow water bowls without a substantial drowning risk.
Filling the food bowls, she brought them into the saferoom and set them down in front of the fluffies. As they began to wolf down the food, she filled bowls with water and placed them down as well, a few feet away from the food bowls. Fluffies were notoriously messy eaters and a stray bit of kibble in their water bowls would be a choking hazard. Then, she cleaned the little puddle the mare had left and emptied the litterbox.
Now came the important part. She sat down near the fluffies as they ate, but they were too busy eating to react. Long-term mild starvation didn’t go away with just a few meals, and they were likely trying to make up for weeks of undereating. Reaching out, she gently stroked their manes as they ate, causing them to stiffen for a moment before relaxing once more. Ideally, she would do this each time they were fed to help build up trust.
Soon, however, the food was gone, and the fluffies turned their attention to Sam again. While not nearly as frightened as they had been last night, they were still on-edge due to her presence. This was to be expected, and would likely remain the case for at least a few more days, possibly a week or two. Hopefully they’d overcome this before the foals were born, as foals born to semi-socialized parents were much harder to take care of.
Sam thought for a moment, trying to find a way to pose her next statement without bringing back memories of the previous morning. Finally, she settled on a method and began to speak.
“I need the two of you to listen. Although I said I’d be your mummah, if you’re scared or don’t want to stay here I won’t make you stay. But I don’t want you to go outside and die from the cold, so I can’t just let you go on your own. I understand you don’t trust me, and that’s okay. But I want you to know that I want what’s best for you. If you decide you want to leave and not go to the shelter, that’s fine. You’ll just have to wait until the weather’s better, so you can be warm after you leave. I’m not asking you to decide if you want to stay here forever, just until the next warm-time comes. If you want, I’ll take you to the shelter instead of staying here. The nummies won’t be as good, and you won’t get as much love from people, but there will be other fluffies there and you’ll be safe.”
“NU!” A sharp cry from the mare surprised Sam. “Nu wan be wif odda fwuffies! Dey say speciaw-fwiend am poopie fwuffy! Twy make eat poopies!”
Confused, Sam turned to the mare. “What fluffies did that?”
“Aftew owd hewd gu forebah-sweepies, fwuffy an’ speciew-fwiend meet new hewd. Bu’ dey meanies! Twy make speciaw-fwiend num poopies an’ gib lickie-cweanies! Wan make fwuffy enfie-mare! NU WAN!”
You two really have been through Hell, haven’t you? Sam thought. It wasn’t terribly surprising, as brown fluffies weren’t usually treated particularly well by their own kind. Sam herself had been somewhat surprised when a fluffy with “good” colors had chosen a “poopie” fluffy as a mate. Perhaps they’d been raised by a particularly well-functioning herd.
“So what do you want to do?”
"If muns-"The mare corrected herself “-nice wady prowise nu huwt, fwuffy wan stay. Wan hab toysies, an’ nestie, an’ gud nummies for tummeh-babbehs. Nu wan hab babbehs gwow up cowd an’ hungwy. Wan stay!”
“And how about you, little guy?”
“Nice wady nu caww fwuffy poopie. Nice wady gib nummies, an’ toysies, an’ wawm nesties. Wan babbehs hab too! Wan stay!”
“Okay. You two can stay. When it gets warmer, I’ll ask again if you want to leave. Now, I’ve been thinking, it’s about time you two had names. Would you like me to give you names?”
“Fwuffy…can hab namsies? Weally?”
“Yes, you can have a name, and so can your special-friend and your babbehs, if you want.”
“Fwuffy wan!”
“Soon-mummah wan namsies tu!”
“Alright then. I’ll name you,” to the stallion, “Knight.” The name was suited to such a brave and selfless fluffy, Sam thought.
“Knight wuv namsies!”
As for the mare, Sam wanted to give her a back a token of what Sam had almost crushed in her. Something that Sam hoped would come back, in time, despite her initial betrayal. Something that had barely survived those few moments as the mare saw her herd die.
“And your name will be Hope.”
[Woolifluffs are a fluffy variant that, unlike normal fluffies, had thick, sheep-like wool that enables them to survive far colder weather than their non-wooly cousins. However, their ability to handle hot climates is very limited, resulting in most feral fluffies found in colder regions being the Woolifluff variant.]
Part Five
please continue seems Hope ol herd is a good one having no issue bout their color.