Fluffing Off - Lucky Colors (By Thk)
Dancing Fluffy’s life had gone poorly since her mother had told her to leave or be eaten. It had been cruel for a two month streak starting that day, her twenty eighth in life. She hadn’t yet been weaned but there were barking monsters roaming the city streets more and more, so the Fluffy mother had made the pragmatic decision to prioritize half her litter to cut down on roaming time. She was not cruel, having fed her dirty green Foal and refrained from calling him Poopie, and Dancing had not been forced to dance before getting milk time so much as asked to do it while waiting her turn. Runt had not been treated as kindly, having last access to teats and thus had stayed small, but was given extra hugs to compensate which nourished his will to live despite his failing health. An additional two weeks would have given them the best chance at life but she decided to try and ensure her best three had the best chances.
Runt knew he couldn’t make it. He had the prettiest coat of them all, black with blue flecks, which he hoped would make his mother take pity as she had always done, but Dancing with her orange mane on purple coat and Green with his brown mane knew not to push their luck. They had seen their mother consume remains of Foals before to provide them with milk. They had already been dead, dried blood and writhing insect young had been the evidence of that, but that meant there was only the aversion to killing between their life and death.
They found nourishment two blocks over from a dish of milk left each day for a similarly abandoned Meowing Monster Foal. He ignored them as they lapped at the milk, more bitter than mother’s but nourishing regardless. They ignored the cramping and grumbling in their stomachs from the different nutrient concentrations (and artificial hormones) as the two young Fluffies settled in for sleep in a nearby box, making a Fluffpile with the kind Monster. Four more days of this, letting their Monster friend beg from the humans and coming out when they were gone, proved enough to keep her alive.
One day she felt hungry looking at a discarded bit of apple just outside their box while waiting for Meowing Monster Brother to get the milk by meowing. Green looked on in amazement and praised Dancing for being so big and strong when she bit off chunks and chewed them. It was sour and made her gums go a bit numb, but it was good. She continued eating in bliss without noticing Green had gone. Suddenly he ‘Scree’d’ and she looked up to see a human holding him just under his chest while allowing his squirt of terror feces fall on the ground. He began to babble a plea for mercy, repeating the words that entered his mind from a deep place of instinct like many of the words and phrases they used. The human simply grabbed his head between his thumb and index finger and snapped Green’s head backwards before lifting the lid of a garbage can to drop him in. Dancing backed away quietly into her box. Meowing Kitty Monster hissed at the human, who turned his head to look at him. “Oh shut up, I was just getting rid of this rat drinking your mi-FUCK!”
Meowing Brother had launched himself at the human, sinking his claws into the ankle. The human shook him off and sent him rolling back with a kick then threw Green’s body at him. “FUCK OFF, YOU UNGRATEFUL FUCKING STREET TRASH!”
He kicked the pan of milk then turned and went inside, slamming the door behind him. Meowing Brother bolted from the alley. It had only take a few moments for Dancing to be completely alone in the world. She watched her brother’s body for a short time, and didn’t see him move. She turned away from him to quickly finish the apple and leave.
Dancing tried to return to her mother after that, bringing food with. Her siblings were growing and she was happy to see that Runt was not only alive but looking stronger. Mother had accepted the food but denied Dancing the request to stay, or even have a hug. She claimed it brought too much heartache and it was understood to mean she was referring to Green’s absence and the possibility of Dancing similarly not coming back some day. Seven more times Dancing brought her food, the last four earning a variation of “Wub ‘ou Dancie Babbeh. Mummah’s Bestest bwave Babbeh, been vewy stwong fo bwuddahs. ‘Ou wiww be gud Mummah.” On the fourth day, carrying a smashed cherry tomato in her mouth and very much enjoying the oddly familiar taste of the juice that ran as she walked, Dancing found only an empty box. She began to weep while she investigated, but found no hoof-marks on the ground to indicate a struggle or sudden escape. She smelled no blood or fear-urine, just the fading scent of the fluff of her mother and brothers. She sat there for a while staring at the box, no longer wanting to cry but with a pained heart regardless. Eventually she ate her tomato then despite it still being the middle of the day she laid down in the groove left by her mother during feeding times, breathing deeply to absorb the quickly fading mixed scents of her family. Tears welled up again as she drifted off to sleep.
Dancing woke suddenly, hearing loud human voices and sharp bangs. She stood in her box with muscles full of tension, trembling from her heart racing, eyes dilated, prepared to run as soon as she felt a threat. The sounds kept going on, many shouts and pops and the sounds of metal monsters slowly creeping past the alley. Sensing she wasn’t in any immediate danger she crept out of her box then raced forewords, hugging the walls and slinking behind trash. She was hungry but violence was the bigger threat today. She wove up and down alleyways, crossing back streets and bounding over the legs of a homeless man. There was less safe places the further she got from her home alley, and every route carried her closer to the noises. She stopped a moment to rest, her legs collapsing out from under her as she finally felt the exhaustion take hold. Her whole body bobbed up and down as her belly forced fresh air into her lungs, legs prickly and uselessly splayed out. Before she had even regained the strength to lift herself up a sudden pressure came about her middle and she was jerked upwards and spun around to stare into the cruel smile of a human. Looking around she realized she’d made the mistake of stopping to rest in the front street where the clean humans walked!
The man, wearing fluffy (but thankfully not smelling like Fluffies) cloth all over his body in yellow and red colors, smelled like the bitter mud water she’d licked from a brown bottle once. There was a second man next to him wearing black and blue, with a picture of a grinning yellow and red Barking Monster on his chest.
“Looks like the Chucklebucks even dye the vermin.”
“Hey, be nice! This is their team mascot I’ll bet!”
Both men laughed very loudly. Dancing knew she was going to die, but flailed her hooves and twisted her body trying to squirm out of his grasp. When he tightened his grip she voided her bowels, running down her tail and legs as she grimaced and began to cry.
“Aw, we made it cry! How about we give you a nice massage to calm you down?”
The second man grabbed Dancing’s hoof with his thumb and index finger while putting his other thumb and index on her shoulder. Pushing forward on her shoulder slowly while gently jerking her leg back brought a dull pain that she knew would blossom into agony at any second. The men were laughing, she screamed wordlessly as loud as she could.
“OI! THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE?” roared a new voice distantly. The two men chuckled as they turned to see the speaker before the laughter died in their throats. Coming out of a bar was seven men and two women. They were clad head to toe in purple and orange, the symbol of a rearing stick-head Monster on their clothing. The speaker was a young man who wasn’t wearing much clothing at all, just shorts and sandals with his skin painted the team colors. The two yellow and red men looked at each other, dropped Dancing, and ran. She landed hard on her side and yelped as something cracked wetly in her hip causing sharp pain. Before she could react beyond that she was buffeted by the gusts of air caused by the humans chasing after the two men. Dancing stayed still, hoping they would think she was dead and whimpering under her breath for her mother. She realized quickly she was still in the shadow of a human and looked up to see one of the men, a fat one with the deer symbol on a flag he was wearing as a poncho, stoop down to look at her.
“Pwease mistah, don’t gib fwuffy owwies! fwuffie am scawedy an’ awone ‘cos mummah an’ bwothews am gone an’ fwuffie am tiwed an’ hab tummy owwies an’ ebewythin’ hab owies an’ dah sounds keep chasin’ fwuffy nu mattah how faw fwuffy wun an’ fwuffy just wan’ fwuffy’s mummah, pwease. Fwuffy just wan’ fwuffy’s mummah.” She collapsed into sobbing after that, surrendering to fate as the inevitability of doom washed over her. She felt him pick her up, and opened her eyes when she felt something strange on her lower body. As she sobbed uncontrollably she felt like the man’s hand was giving her clean licks on her legs and poopie place! When he pulled it back she saw he’d wiped her off with a wet white cloth before walking over to put it into the garbage. He looked at her, and she looked at him while she trembled in his gentle grip.
“I’m not sure about your mother, but if you’d like I can keep you safe for the day.”
Not knowing what else to do she nodded her head. Phrases about daddies and houses, toys and a pile of long strips of food called “Spaghettis” came to her mind, but she ignored them because she felt too frightened at her coming fate and tired by her struggle to survive to bother.
“Hello? Little Fluffy? Are you okay?”
“…Fwuffy huwt. Top weggie hit gwound, huwt weal baddies.” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, my buddy has some Fluffies. We’re gonna spend the dat with him, he’ll know how to make you feel better. But there’s something very important you have to know if we’re going to have a good day, little Fluff.” He lifted her to eye level and looked straight knti her eyes, and said very seriously to her; “There are stupid humans wearing red and yellow. They are the Batchville Biters, or the friends of the Biters. They are terrible. But there are people who are colored like you and me too! They’re the New Odgenville Buckeyes. They’re good, and are our family kinda. The whole city is family today because the Biters and Buckeyes are going to play a game. So say bad things about the red and yellow Biters, and good things about the purple and orange Buckeyes. Okay?”
“Y-yes mistah. Dah Bitews am bad hoomins, an’ dah Bucky-eyses am gud an’ nice hoomin famiwy. Fwuffy wan’ dah Bucky-eyses to win.”
That night the Buckeyes, the local hockey team, went on to win after six intermissions of overtime periods. In the ensuing celebration three city blocks burned to the ground, eleven cars were turned over with two of them lit on fire, and looting occurred throughout the city. There were eighty two hospitalizations but only one death, a man that stumbled over a bridge guardrail while drunk during the celebrations. The most iconic photograph that ran in newspapers throughout Michigan that gave space for the story was the team lifting a cup in which a small Fluffy with pipe cleaner horns on her head cheered. Dubbed “Dancing Doe” she was the team mascot from 1986-2002 when she died of natural causes. Since then a small squad of the Dancing Doe cheerleaders have been present at games, along with prerecorded (due to needing multiple takes) interviews a Dancing Doe with a microphone in her antler hat conducts with the players being played before games on the big screen. Dancing Doe stuffed toys on car dashboards or attached by suction cups to back windows remain iconic of southeast Michigan to this day.