Warning: spoilers for the Resurrection of Dehak Saga.
A couple of weeks after the Liberation of Drakonia, Dr. Erwin Stahlberg arrives at his beloved branch of the Faucheuse Foundation, founded for the sole purpose of providing a safe refuge for fluffies across the planet.
Because no one else will.
While fluffies have spread to other planets too, abusers and ferals are two things you’ll mostly find only here on Earth, but the Faucheuse Foundation has begun opening branches on other planets. Lumix was one of the first.
The Intergalactic Federation has been working to prevent the mistakes of Earth’s past from repeating themselves across the universe.
And on the magical side of the universe, there aren’t fluffies, but rather, woollies. Fluffies created by magic instead of science, in a nutshell.
Erwin, as a member of the ChaotiX, has been studying woollies with the Nerd Squad, and they’ve also been studying flooffies, the hybrid offspring of the two races.
And the Kingdom of Drakonia is recovering from the brutal reign of Dehak, a lich necromancer who despises fluffies and woollies alike, and passed anti-woolly law after anti-woolly law after taking the throne by force.
The rightful ruler is back on the throne, the anti-woolly laws have been repealed, the kingdom is being rebuilt, and Korkea Bros. Construction and Mal’s team of builders from another world of dragons and quests are pitching in.
Kirk, Erwin’s first cousin once removed, recently started working at Korkea Bros. Construction.
And Asimov, Erwin’s robot fluffy, is at home, keeping an eye on Hershey, Erwin’s flesh and blood fluffy.
But things aren’t back to normal yet in Drakonia. Things may never go back to the way they were before the Festival of the Rising Tower. Many woollies have been displaced from their homes, their owners having sent them into hiding for their own protection.
A lot of woollies didn’t live to see Drakonia liberated.
And a lot of woollies who survived don’t have a home to go back to anymore, for several settlements were destroyed during Dehak’s reign.
So Faucheuse Foundation branches may be opening on Magicca soon too.
As Erwin arrives at his trusty examination room, he finds his first patient of the day waiting for him outside.
A rather nervous young woman in a robe, and a fluffy whose legs are currently longer than a human’s, the poor mare almost bumping up against the ceiling.
“Dok-tow… pwease hewp.”
Immediately, Erwin knows how to deal with this.
“You’re in the wrong place. Go to Saint Alice’s, they can fix this.”
“Oh, thank you. I was so panicked, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Saint Alice’s is a hospital in the Magical Quarter, the city’s magical neighborhood, specializing in treating magical maladies and mishaps.
The amateur mage carefully leads her long-legged fluffy out, and Erwin enters his examination room, shaking with suppressed laughter.
When he’s sure they’re out of earshot, he starts laughing.
Erwin calms down by the time his next patient is brought in, by Iyatagg, Iku, and Inyako, three fellow ChaotiX members, assigned to the IntergalactiX, all of them wearing universal translators on their ears.
Iyatagg is carrying an unconscious, heavily bruised stallion, while Iku and Inyako are suspiciously glaring at each other behind his back.
Iku and Inyako are a Pekka and Nyah respectively, two alien races who have never gotten along.
That Iku defeated Inyako in the first round of the Intergalactic Tournament doesn’t help.
Calvin recruited them to do something about that, and Iyatagg volunteered to keep them from arguing on missions.
Erwin leads them into the regeneration room, and five minutes later, the stallion is safely slumbering away in a vat.
“What did you do with the abuser, Iyatagg?”
Erwin is just assuming that an abuser did this, not an unreasonable assumption to make.
Iyatagg grins as he answers the question.
“Dropped him into a portal. He’s been falling for the last thirty minutes.”
“You will let him out, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure. Into a police station.”
Iku looks up at Iyatagg, pointing at Inyako.
“Don’t suppose you could drop this jerk into a portal too?”
Inyako huffs.
“If anyone should be dropped into a portal, it’s you, rodent!”
“Rodent?!? How dare you, pussy?!?”
As the two of them start slap-fighting, Iyatagg pushes them away from each other, the anthropomorphic mouse and cat still trying to slap each other.
“Enough. I’ll drop both of you into portals if you don’t cool it. Cal told you: in the ChaotiX, there are only ChaotiX, and he expects you two to be civil, at the very least. What do you have to gain from perpetuating this grudge?”
“Well…”
“Er…”
“Exactly. Cal believes that you can be better than this. That’s why he recruited both of you. Do you want to let him down?”
Iku and Inyako shake their heads, their expressions not unlike those of schoolboys being lectured.
“No…”
“Then I suggest that you both say sorry, and shake hands.”
They begrudgingly do so, but not without grumbling, and not entirely sincerely.
“Sorry. Iyatagg can’t keep an eye on us all the time, pussy.”
“Sorry. Better sleep with one eye open, rodent.”
Iyatagg chooses to pretend that he didn’t hear the muttered threats, but makes a mental note to tell Calvin about this later.
This isn’t the first time they’ve started bickering on the job.
And it probably won’t be the last.
When Iyatagg, Iku and Inyako leave, Erwin gets his examination room ready for the next patient, several mechanical arms with white gloves popping out of the ceiling to sterilise everything the stallion touched.
Not five seconds after the mechanical arms retract into the ceiling, Mark enters the examination room, carefully pushing a cart with a basket of foals, still blind.
Erwin sighs, as he gently places each foal on the Stahlskanner, his medical scanner. There’s at least a dozen foals, and Erwin guesses that they’re not all from the same litter, based on their colors.
“What happened, Mark? Another underground mill?”
“Not this time, Erwin. Couple of idiots playing foalf out in the Nevada badlands. These are the foals the ChaotiX could save in time.”
Erwin sighs sadly.
“Die armen Dinger. Unglaublich, was manche Leute alles tun, um zu lachen…”
Foalf is a game played by abusers.
Basically, it’s golf, but with no holes, and foals instead of golf balls.
Naturally, foalf has been banned in pro-hugbox areas, and even golf courses in pro-abuse areas will ban people for using foals.
If only because the cleanup is a bitch.
But more and more places are banning abuse. In more and more places, fluffies are being recognized as a sapient species with rights of their own, and those who see fluffies only as playthings are a shrinking minority now that their actions have actual consequences. Even sorry sticks are being banned.
Especially because it’s well known that the strongest man on the planet doesn’t abide fluffy abuse.
The abusers left just can’t stop doubling down, however.
It’s like they want Calvin to kick their asses.
Fortunately, the litter is healthy. Just in need of a bath and a meal, and, of course, lots of love. Or, as they call it at the Faucheuse Foundation, the Standard Package.
“I think Cleo and Julius can take care of these foals, Mark.”
Since being brought to the Foundation a few years ago, Cleo and Julius have raised a lot of healthy, happy litters, and are recieving a cut of the profits from Dr. Deston Faucheuse’s latest book, Tales from the Foundation.
The money’s been placed in a trust fund on their behalf. If they need some cash for something, they just have to ask Erwin.
What, you’ve got a problem with fluffies having money?
You should be aware of how expensive owning fluffies can be.
For many fluffy owners, having their fluffy help pay for their own upkeep is a dream come true.
Mark wheels the foals out to get them the Standard Package, and Erwin gets his examination room ready again.
Ten minutes later, Gilda wheels in Del and Phyllis, another fluffy couple living at the branch.
Despite the feminine names, they’re both stallions, brought here after being saved from a homophobic abuser by Samuel the angel.
And like Cleo and Julius, they’ve raised a lot of litters, and are recieving their own cut of the profits from Tales from the Foundation.
It’s actually raised awareness of fluffy homosexuality. A lot of people didn’t even know that fluffies could be on the LGBT spectrum.
Of course, a lot of people know of Slayer, the horny half-demon fluffy.
But he’s something of an outlier, and refuses to be defined by labels.
When asked if he is gay, or straight, or bi, or something else, his answer is usually “Swayew am Swayew.”
This is just a regular checkup. Erwin, as the boss of this branch, strives to keep tabs on the health of every fluffy living under this roof.
“Alright, gentlemen, who wants to go first?”
Del raises a hoof, so Erwin carries him onto the Stahlskanner.
ping!
A green light lights up, indicating that Del is healthy, the screen displaying all kinds of information. Del’s name, age, medical history, his blood type…
Yes, fluffies have blood types too.
“Looks like you’re good, Del.”
“Fanks, dok.”
Gilda places Del back onto the cart, and Erwin lifts Phyllis onto the Stahlskanner next.
ping!
“And so are you, Phyllis.”
“Did Fiwwis see coh-wek-wee, dok-tow? Am dewe nyu babbehs?”
“We saw mistah Mawk awn da way hewe.”
Erwin smiles.
“Indeed, Cleo and Julius will be taking care of them. And you’ll help them, won’t you?”
Both stallions nod. They’re usually on the same page.
Cleo and Julius share a saferoom with Del and Phyllis, both couples having befriended each other upon their first meeting.
Of course, making friends is one of the few things that the average fluffy excels at.
And the Foundation tries to ensure that each saferoom has at least two occupants.
Most fluffies are happier when they have company, after all.
With a regimen of No-Foals Treats, it’s easy to keep the Foundation’s fluffy population under control.
They don’t sterilise the fluffies here. It’s cruel, a violation of their rights, and should they be adopted out, their owners might want to breed them.
Erwin understands that not everyone sees things that way. He knows that there people who see fluffies as vermin, and killing them as pest control.
A lot of fluffy exterminaton firms have been forced out of business, as their jobs were redefined as murder. Such as the firm owned by the father of the extremely late Gary Mathews.
However, Erwin also knows that this universe is home to beings who see humans the exact same way.
And Igor, one of the other doctors working at this branch, has an old family saying:
What goes around, comes around.
But Igor was lisping a lot when he said it, and he was referring to something else. An old Igor family tradition.
When a member of the Igor family says that he has his grandfather’s eyes, it is not a figure of speech.
Once Gilda wheels the happy gay fluffy couple out, Erwin summons the mechanical arms yet again, and heads out too, feeling like it’s time for a break.
On the way, he bumps into Dr. Stronginthearm, who is a dwarf.
He’s wearing a lab coat over a chainmail vest, as dwarves consider not wearing armor to be the same as being naked.
“You heading out too, Merry?”
Dr. Merry Stronginthearm nods.
“Going to the dwarf delicatessen down the street. And you’re off to Starbucks, I assume?”
“You know it. How are Jewel’s children doing?”
“Last one got adopted out, but Cal’s got people monitoring the little guys, just in case. And Dr. Phoric and Asher are coming in later, just another checkup. Asher seems to be normal.”
Jewel was impregnated by Zebediah, the purple stallion with the power of persuasion who is currently unaccounted for.
He fled this timeline with M-62, a big-brained Marley from another timeline.
Jewel and Zebediah’s offspring are being monitored in case they turn out to have inherited their father’s power, and weren’t available for adoption for a long time because of this.
They’re all purple like their father.
So the ChaotiX is right to be worried about this.
Should one of the purple fluffies prove to have inherited the power of persuasion after all, the ChaotiX has a plan ready.
But they’re hoping that none of the purple fluffies become smarties too.
As the ChaotiX has already witnessed, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Had Zebediah not wandered onto a certain military base in Arizona, he wouldn’t be purple nor persuasive.
And that military base might still be standing today.