Fluffy “hooves” are supposed to be soft like kitten toes, leathery at their hardest, to mitigate their chances of survival and ability to harm humans or damage property. Quite a lot of work went into the miserably useless and debilitating digits, and when the mutation for a hard cuticle like a real hoof appeared the specialists remaining from the original project sounded the alarm. All that came from it was a sudden interest in breeders for this new mutation, and collectors for a more pone-like Fluffy.
Usually Fluffies with the Pan mutation themselves suffered from joint pain starting only in their third year of life on average and worsening to the point of constant agony unless treated carefully with care regimens, special wrist bracers, soft rubber applied carefully to the rear bottom of the hoof, and hard walking surfaces were avoided. Possibly worst of all was the rigid and unmoving nature of the hoof, preventing grasping anything which eliminated the use of most Fluffy toys, made life far more difficult for mothers, and generally worsened the ever-important hugging. The benefits were generally only yielded to Ferals who could then easily defend themselves against even predatory mutations of Fluffies, most small animals, and could make larger foes reconsider an attack. One strange notable example was the documentation via wildlife cam of a Pan Feral Filly being dropped bleeding and screaming into the nest of a golden eagle, whereupon it stomped the chicks to death and was fed by the eagle parents when they returned each time thereafter.
Natural selection eventually favored the inheritor generation, the Suina Fluffies who bore cloven hooves which although slightly less effective weapons would still be able to grasp objects with only slightly less dexterity than a normal Fluffy. Suinafluffs are far better adapted for survival, but between their religiously ‘unclean’ status and usually less fondness among Fluffy collectors they are relegated to primarily survival far from mankind.
Peppermint was a Pan son of a Suina, herself an inheritor of the recessive genes of the Mörderin-bäckchen breed which provided far denser bones and muscular bodies, popular for medium price Fluffies due to their superior durability. After his mother designated him ‘wowstest babbeh’ for his white spots in the otherwise red coat he was unceremoniously removed from the nursery pen and hand reared. She suffered no consequences as she was a good mother and reliable breeder who knew to care for any rejects until the humans chose what to do with them, and Peppermint had a generally happy, albeit lonely, life for his first year.
He was assigned to the young teenage daughter of the breeder before she was to help with the family business, to give her a chance to get all the mistakes out of her system on a low quality Foal. However she was far more possessing of patience and common sense than her father expected, and managed to produce a good-natured and healthy young Fluffy. But breeders don’t profit from peculiarities, intelligent product, or eccentricities, and the extra care imparted on him had left him with a unique personality that shone through after a short conversation on his ‘graduation day’.
He knew he was special, with his own name and a human mother that loved him and would always love him no matter where he ended up. He was proud that he was beautiful, and disliked ugly things but had been cleverly taught the idea that beautiful things are only beautiful next to ugly things or else they would merely be pretty, and that ugly things are made pretty in the presence of beauty. He went on at length on how proud he was to make the world prettier by existing and be all the more gorgeous for it, and had the audacity to grasp the breeder’s satin white cowboy boots in an uninvited hug immediately after saying so. He’d been taught to crack open almond shells with his hooves for himself and the girl to share, and pranced to make the clatter of his hooves echo in the small room once he was removed from the carpeted pen. He had surprisingly good memory, repeating back the silly memes his daughter referenced and lines from television they’d watched together.
Any one of those things was a death sentence. A good Fluffy is a stupid Fluffy. A good Fluffy is a Fluffy selfish but cowardly enough to be reliably predictable at all times, and get itself killed in short order so the breeder would make another sale before its lifespan was up. A good Fluffy has no survival instincts. A good Fluffy was ready for a new owner, and had never known real love but was aware enough of the concept to forever ache for more of it. A good Fluffy saw the world in white and black, with only humans and what the human liked as good and all other things simply bad. He was still unattractive, the spots giving him the appearance of paint-splattered red along with a long puffy mane like it had been groomed.
The breeder was no Abuser, but regarded the wasted Fluffy coldly. It shouldn’t be surprising to say he and his daughter had learned different lessons from Charlotte’s Web however. This Fluffy had cost money, only around $7 at this point of time, but was unsellable and would tarnish the family brand even if it did. So it would teach his daughter one further lesson; how to cull.
In retrospect he should have known that letting his daughter fall in love with the small creature, do things her own way, making it clear that he would only be proud of her if she succeeded without clarifying expectations, and letting her grow up on a diet of superhero movies and hockey would have a negative effect. He never forgave her for the black eye she gave him with the blunt end of the hatchet, and she never forgave him for turning her into the police at 13 for assault and intentionally raising and releasing a Fluffy into the wild with survival training.
Peppermint would go on to float from herd to herd, having an unusually happy young life for a runaway. Food was never scarce for a strong Fluffy who could climb and break open nuts, and he knew how to survive the seasons in forest shelters. Few threats ever gave him pause, and although he was rare to cripple or kill he never feared retribution; any Smarty dumb enough to hold a grudge against him was too arrogant to last long, nor could most catch up to a Fluffy who had no fear from large pieces of broken glass, ice, or hot pavement.
In his second year he encountered his first Foal-For-Skettie machine. It had been set up outside a farm where there had previously been a hole dug under the fence by an enterprising (and now extinct) Herd. A crowd of Fluffies were gathered around, formerly two small herds though the bloodied Smarty on his side with labored breath nearby indicated it was one now. The new Smarty was overseeing the sorting of Foals into two groups, a sight that Peppermint was familiar with. His mother had told him Smarties were bad, and he had seen little to prove otherwise. Within moments the Foals were reunited with their mothers while the Smarty was rendered into the same state as his rival, though the difficulty breathing was from the fool trying to breath through a bloody nose. Peppermint ignored the Fluffies hailing him as the new Smarty as he always did; another would step up to the position when he left, as they always did.
Instead he regarded the box, somehow both ugly and pretty at the same time as the cold metal glittered beneath the thin coat of paint and cheap decals. He listened to the voices that came from the lit device which promised spaghetti in return for babies. The nastier things it said about how no baby loves its mother when it grows up and has its own, so they should stay babies forever inside the machine and always love their mother. How ugly babies gave good spaghetti, but the best babies gave the best spaghetti. Once it finished its phrases and began repeating itself he spoke at the box, not expecting it to reply since he was familiar enough with the concept of radios, but voicing a thought which needed to be stated. “Buh if gib babbeh to sowwy box, babbeh nu hab skettie.”
In response the box replayed the earlier propaganda about love being temporary which he might have mistaken for an answer had he not already heard it.
“Skettie is babbeh. Mummah hab skettie, an babbeh be tummeh babbeh fowebah.”
The voice came from an elderly Mare who’s fat and skin seemingly hung from her bones producing the simultaneous appearance of both a desiccated skeleton and corpulent Smarty, with intense eyes that stared past Lucy. She was covered in scars and had only one ear.
He cocked his head in confusion.
“Num Babbeh?”
Only stares came in return. They were waiting for him to take command, and Mares were nudging their unwanted Foals towards him for sacrificing, favorites remaining on the back of each. From inside the box came wails of some Foals already inserted into the vent.
This would not do. Deep in the reservoir of his mind was the experience of watching a movie he poorly understood and was frightened by as a Chirpy with open eyes, and the girl who loved him explaining why the human in red, white, and blue that was the hero was her favorite after Peppermint had settled into her protective arms. The human hero never gave up and always did the right thing. It informed most of Peppermint’s decisions, and had activated the framework of unfinished roleplay programming in his mind and removed some of the artificial mental barriers that kept Fluffies in the NPC and secondary villain routines they were born into by default.
Peppermint pulled the Foal drop vent open. Behind him the Mares stiffened, hoping there would be something left after this new Smarty had his fill of precious sketties. There were gasps as he brought his hooves down on the vent, complaints and alarm as he continued to beat the cheap aluminum device. A panicked scream when the vent broke and three soft babies rolled out, squawking louder in the cold air at the jostling and sudden exposure again.
Peppermint circled around the terrible device, intending to beat it until its wicked phrases silenced. The Herd shivered in silence, watching the new Smarty destroy their only salvation in the winter. But his strength left him before his goal was accomplished, falling back on shaking legs and glaring at his metal foe, its blood-coated razor guts and green innards exposed. After a moment he reared up on his back legs like a human and relaxed the muscles in the depths of his abdomen, letting out an arc of urine from his sheath which steamed in the cold night. But instead of being silent the box whirred. Behind him the voice of the skinny Mare rang out in shock, but he ignored her while he caught his breath to resume the attack. But before he launched forwards came a wondrous sight: spaghetti noodles, the maximum serving size equivalent to two cans rather than the tablespoon the cruel farmer had set it to, spilled out of the dispensing vent onto the ground, the dispensing tray having been ripped off during the trampling. Sauce sprayed out the opposite side of the vent while a small metallic prong uselessly swung in a circle stirring phantom spaghetti. Four more times the machine dumped out a load of spaghetti, one giant pile of noodles and one of sauce, before it ran out and made its whirring noises impotently. Peppermint glanced behind at the Herd of salivating Fluffies being held back by Toughies. One simple mouthful of noodles and one of sauce he claimed, then told the Toughies to release the mothers.
When the Herd was sated they finally noticed the new Smarty was gone. The three Foals, now nearly frozen, were reclaimed by their mother and fed. The two Smarties attempted to reclaim their positions, but ugly broken snouts and obvious flinching when faced with an opponent ensured no Toughie would be loyal to them now. The three Fillies who had served as the older Smarty’s concubines when the Mares were pregnant or rearing his offspring found mates of their own in the coming days.
Peppermint eagerly sought out the wicked machines from that point onwards and punished them from that point on, cheap metal breaking under persistent hooves. The few that were expensive enough to survive his blows were filled with rocks, ensuring their destruction. Eventually he became clever enough to know the place to break the machine corners on cheaper models which let him tear off the front cover, accessing the uncooked noodles and sauce reservoir.
With his efforts the Fluffies of the wilds outside the towns enjoyed a population boom. Eventually he took a mate of his own, his children carrying on his mission of surviving and aiding those in need as they passed on stories from parent to child that switched on the persistent hero programming that Hasbio researchers had installed in the final days of the creation of the Fluffy generation 1 prototypes, as well as thick hooves and bones.
The story of ‘Pepmin’ has since entered into Feral Fluffy folklore, taking his place alongside the various other misremembered and mythologized events and figures. His descendants who tell his tale do not know they are his offspring, merely believing he gifted their ancestors (always just four generations or “Wong wong ago, wongew dan any Fwuffy knows” ago) with the strength needed to persevere and the wisdom to protect using magic spaghetti claimed from evil machines. That he resurrected three Colts using his magic and freed three Fillies to find Special Friends. The most elaborate stories claim he vanquished Bozdo and banished him to the cities where weak Fluffies live, though only the boldest Fluffies are brave enough to speak the name to tell the story, ensuring it is a rarely heard variation.