Part Seven
You’re a little gray foal, and you’re the coldest you’ve ever been. Your brothers and sisters are sleeping contentedly in the fluffpile, but not you. Not the poopie babbeh. The other fluffies complain if you get to close, as if the way you smell wasn’t their fault. But still, you can’t join the fluffpile, and so you lie on the floor alone and shiver.
The den is barely warm enough for you to survive, outside of the fluffpile. The grown-up fluffies worked hard to insulate it for the cold-times, and gathered a huge pile of food so they wouldn’t have to spend much time out in the cold to scavenge. Not that you got to eat any of that food.
Life had seemed so bright when you were born, full of mummah-songs, even if you were alone and cold. Even if the milkies you knew were supposed to be the best thing ever were disgusting mush that tasted worse than anything you could imagine. Then you opened your eyes and realized that the songs were never for you, they were for your more colorful siblings. That the “milkies” you’d been given were in fact the poopies the other fluffies wanted you to eat so they wouldn’t have to clean. That had been a bleak day.
Since then, you just survived. You didn’t know why you didn’t just give up, why you couldn’t just lie down and die. So every day you go out and follow the herd, licking their filth off them when they say and getting kicked if you dare try to eat anything else. Every day you die a little more.
Sometimes, you dream of what life should have been like. A loving mummah, good nummies, brothers and sisters who play with you instead of just kicking you when they want you to clean them. But each day you wake up to the cold, hungry reality that is your life.
You fall asleep hoping for death and wake up every morning disappointed.
…
Sam was startled by the soft tapping at the door. Normally, during weather this cold any feral fluffies would be hunkered down against the chill. It could be a moderately large herd, which would move together in a tight huddle to retain warmth, the least favored on the outside.
She had no intention of taking in a feral herd, or even just letting one stay in her back yard. She’d learned a long time ago that that was a big mistake. Usually, she trapped them until she could get a shelter to pick them up, but in this weather it was just asking to have them freeze to death. So in this case she’d just scare them off, since they’d be better off in whatever den they’d been hiding in than wandering around.
She geared up, as usual, then opened the door. She was greeted by the sight of, indeed, a herd of fluffies. Well, the sight of a herd and the traditional cry of a smarty that hadn’t learned what was good for it.
“Dummeh hoomin! Dis smawty wand nao! Gib housie an’ nummies ow smawty gib wowstest huwties and forebah-sweepies!”
Sam sighed. This was one of the great trials of the hugboxer. Not this event in particular, but dealing with this kind of thing multiple times per year without just stomping the smarty and being done with it. Sometimes, she genuinely envied abusers.
“Has this ever worked? Clearly not, since you’re still wandering around. You’re lucky, though.”
“Wy am dat?”
“Because one door to the left and you’d be dead, and one door to the right you’d wish you were.”
Sam wasn’t lying. They said you couldn’t pick your family but you could pick your neighbors. Clearly whoever “they” was hadn’t dealt with the housing market’s whims. Her neighbors weren’t the kindest to fluffies, especially not smarties, but at least they respected Sam enough to not try anything with any of her fluffies.
The smarty looked around, clearly not understanding. Well, “smarty” wasn’t always accurate, sometimes it merely meant the only fluffy arrogant enough to make such demands after seeing the past three smarties get stomped.
“Gib housie nao or smawty gib sowwy poopies!” the horrible little creature cried.
“No.”
The smarty turned, preparing to unleash his assault, only for his battle cry to turn into a wail of horror as Sam grabbed his back legs and lifted him so his sorry poopies covered him. The tuffies rushed forward, but stopped after considering their options and realizing that picking a fight with Sam probably wasn’t a good idea.
Sam reached up to the hook hanging by her door and grabbed her anti-smarty spray bottle, which was just a normal spray bottle filled with water and a little bit of vinegar. The smell drove away fluffies fairly quickly, but sadly in this case the bottle was frozen. I should have stored it inside.
She was about to resort to more drastic measures, in this case picking up the smarty and carrying it out of her yard by hand, when she noticed a small, sodden gray foal cowering some distance away from the rest of the herd. The brown stained fluff and emaciated frame told her all she needed to know, and she suddenly lost all empathy for the herd. Rebecca’s always telling me I need to unwind more often. Maybe I should have some fun with this, she thought.
“I know!” she said in a suddenly chipper tone. “I have some food for you, some sketties-” the word sent murmurs through the herd “-you can have. But if you want them, you have to let me take one of the fluffies in your herd FOREVER.”
The smarty barely hesitated. “Otay! Take dummeh poopie babbeh. Nu cawe wut dummeh hoomin du tu poopie babbeh.”
“Okay, let me go get the sketties, then!” Sam cried with faux joviality. She went into her kitchen and grabbed one of the leftover cans of Skettilands spaghetti. Realistically, there was no way his was was contaminated as well, but there she wasn’t about to feed any of her fluffies that tripe again. A feral herd that treated their own foals as garbage for being the wrong colors, on the other hand…
When she returned to the porch the gray foal was pinned down in front of her by the two tuffies, struggling madly to escape and crying, begging for mercy. Well, that made what she was about to do a lot easier and more entertaining. She reached down and scooped up the foal, triggering a bout of gas that was probably the only thing the starving foal had in his bowels.
“Here you go,” she said, setting the can down in front of the smarty.
“Dat nu am sketties!”
“The sketties are inside. The can is made so only the bestest, smartest, strongest smarties can open it. If you can’t open it, it means you’re a dummeh fake smarty! Now, you better go home before the barkie-munstahs come.”
That was enough. The smarty could never turn down a chance to prove his superiority to the rest of the herd. As quickly as they could while rolling the can along, the herd left. Sam smiled, thinking about how miserable the smarty’s life was going to be when he couldn’t get the can open. Served him right for abandoning one of his herd to easily.
Well, I guess I’ll see if Knight and Hope want another foal. If not I guess I can take him to the shelter. Better than freezing and starving with that herd, anyway.
“Pwease, nu huwt poopie babbeh! Pwomise wiww be gud fwuffy if nu huwt. Nu need nummies, ow toysies, wiww num poopies. Jus’ nu wan huwt, nu wan cowd!”
Do I attract scarred fluffies or something? Sam wondered as she brought the little foal into the saferoom.
“Wut am dat?” Knight asked as she brought the foal into the saferoom.
“He’s a foal that a herd abandoned. They made him a poopie babbeh, I’m afraid.”
“Nu! Aww babbehs am gud babbehs! Nu poopie babbehs!” Hope cried, clearly agitated by the use of the term “poopie babbeh.”
“It’s okay, Hope. He’s safe now. I wanted to ask if you and Knight would want to adopt him, since you already have foals and his herd left him.”
Knight walked over, and sniffed the foal. “Smeww wike meanie hewd.”
Sam stiffened. Now she regretted not stomping the smarty after all. Hopefully this wouldn’t affect how the pair viewed the foal. She knew fluffies were very sensitive to smells, to the point where some mothers would discard foals that smelled wrong.
“Do you want me to take him away to the shelter, then?” she asked, silently praying.
“Nuuuu! Wan hewp babbeh!”
“Wiww keep babbeh if dat am otay. Odda fwuffies nu am nice tu babbeh, nu wan babbeh tu git huwt.”
Sam silently released a breath she’d been unconsciously holding.
“Okay, I’ll give him a bath and bring him back.”
“Wawa nu am gud fow babbehs. Wiww gib wickie-cweanies.”
“Hope, he’s filthy. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“Pwease, mummah?”
Sam relented, and Hope took the foal, beginning to lick him down, murmuring about how the stains “nu taste pwetty” but continuing nonetheless until the foal was mostly clean. Sam knew she’d have to give him a bath at some point, but for now she’d let Hope take care of him.
…
You’re a little gray foal, and you’re dreaming. You’ve been dreaming for so long, but you haven’t woken up! You hope you never do. You want to stay here, where the world is how it should be.
You finally get milkies. Real milkies, as much as you want. You don’t feel hungry for the first time ever. You hear mummah songs, and when you open your eyes you see that they’re for you, too. The fluffpile is warm, and nobody kicks you or complains about you. You have a brother and sisters, who play with you and never kick you. You even got namsies! Smokey!
Maybe this is forever-sleepies. Maybe if you’re dead you can stay here in the dream forever. Maybe…but you drift off, tired from the only happy day since you opened your eyes. You fall alseep, hoping you’re dead, and for the first time, you aren’t disappointed when you wake up.
36 Likes
Yay Smokey!
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Smokey got a home! But so sad he thinks he is dead due to the good stuff he had. 
Looks like Knight and Hope litter getting bigger. I pray for the good not bad 
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I’m a little disappointed about the lack of punishment for Smoky’s previous family, but it checks out with Sam’s personality, so I can’t be too upset. This story is very engrossing so far.
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oh sweet baby 
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Sam, you lucked out so hard with this pair, wow. I really do like reading fluffies just being good kind creatures.
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That is something that I have never seen in any story on this site. A foal so broken that even though something good happens to him he thinks that it must be a dream.
+100000 points to you MuffinMantis
Amazing story so far btw
Yep how i feel every god damn day!!