You approach the game barn, three fluffies crying and one standing at the edge of the fence watching you. Before you can give an introduction the one in front utters. “Meanie human, why you gib toughies new daddy forebah sweepies!?” If not for the horn you would have thought this fluffy was an earthy with its build. This was the first pattern you had seen, it was a splotchy pattern that you would have Called Calico if the orange wasn’t a rust color. Maybe a cow?
“Well hello to you too.” You add your eyes narrowing in annoyance. “Gee I don’t know, why would I do something like that?” You add patting the flayed fluffy to rotate its open chest towards the toughie. “Maybe to keep them from eating you?”
“Dummy. Daddy no eat toughie, daddy wan toughies babies. Maybe eat dem doh’.” They say this so matter of factly. This fluffy was bleeding adoption potential by the second.
“Toughie no mind, get aww dah mawes with dem eating dummy dere.” As he says this the group of crying fluffies had simmered down to a whimper but a Pastel orange mare with a may green mane began bawling again. Likely the widow.
“No bad daddies weft to feed soon mummahs. Can nice Mistah hewp fwuffies?” An olive yellow mare with a tomato red mane and tail asked.
“Perhaps. I have a safe place nearby I can take you. With plenty of food and a few fluffy friends. Or if you’d prefer, I can send you back to the institute.” You decide not to list the third option of you exterminating them.
“Insta-toot? Dat pwace with white fwuff humans, soft fwoows, toysies and music?” An Azure blue mare with Opal green mane and tail asks.
“I see you remember the safe room.” You decided to call it that compared to ‘observation chamber’.
“Pwease send fwuffy back.” The pastel orange widow adds. “Wan see mummah again. Too many heawt huwties.” The other two mares nod at eachother. “Fwuffy too pwease!” They say in unison.
“NO!” the cow patterned fwuffy exclaimed angrily. “Dis toughies hewd Nao and you toughies enfie mawes, no can weabe!” He added stomping his soft hooves to the mares for emphasis. The fear on their face was not for the toughie but he assumed it was as the human’s hands trembled as their fingers extended as if he was about to wring the fluffies neck but stopped himself an inch from the toughies fluff and took a single breath.
“Weww? You undahstand?” The toughie adds gesturing to the mares until suddenly they felt a forearm under their neck and a hand on the back of their head.
“Go to sleep… Go to sleep~” You add forcing the toughie to the ground careful not to utterly destroy their windpipe. After a short struggle the toughie goes limp. “There we go…”
“Is Toughie?” the Azure blue mare asked wondering if they were dead.
“Just a short nap. Hopefully next time you see him he’ll be a good fluffy again.” As you say that you look around the barn and grab a large wooden box and put some hay in it before tying a rope around the toughies chest and front legs like an impromptu harness.
“This’ll be loud, if you need to go poop, please do it now.” As you say this the three mares head over to the side/corner of the pen. You turn around and step away to the doorway to give them some privacy as you prepare the relay grenade.
“Weady!” The three fluffies say in unison after a minute as you drop the grenade a few steps away from your feet and a Gen 2 synth appears adjacent to you.
“Follow me.” You say as you step in and open the gate. “Would you prefer to travel in the box, or would you like to be on a leash when you go back?”
“Nu wike sowwy box.” One of them grumbled while the others also seemed reluctant.
“I doubt me saying it’s not a sorry box would help huh?” You add cutting some more rope from the remaining coil to make some impromptu leashes and pad the inside of the hemp rope with some fabric so it’s not too scratchy and a little cushioned.
You hand the end of the three leashes to the synths primary hand and attach the toughies leash to the offhand as you hand it to him to carry underhand initially. “Allright darlings, please give the synths legs your best huggies, close your eyes and you’ll be back in the institute before you know it.”
“Make note for retention to reformat that one.” You add gesturing to the toughie.
As the mares hugged the emotionless machine the collection of synths vanished in a flash. As you turned around you sighed. “Forgot one.” You add remembering the one hanging. As you pause to examine the area a bit of color catches your eye amongst the hay. A collection of premature foals that were probably a week from birth lay. Along with signs of a struggle. As you continued to sleuth an image appeared in your head between evidence and previous verbal ques of the toughie likely violating a pregnant mare into abortion. “Hmm, maybe I should send a vivisection request instead…”
You get a smaller box for the foals and handle their partially smashed bodies with care and make a note for dissection on the exterior. You then proceed to the partially disassembled fluffy corpse and pick up where the trapper left off as you pick out the choicest cuts for yourself before tossing the remains in the box and sliding in the foal box next to it and closing the larger box. After wrapping up your cuts of meat you toss in your last relay grenade with a mental note to grab a few from storage before heading out again. You task the Gen 1 to deliver the crate to synth retention and it disappears box in hand.
Part of you felt like it was just asking to get ambushed by trappers returning to camp but you didn’t know whether fluffies could recognize the smell of their own meat, uncooked or otherwise so you’d have your grim feast here. The campfire setup wasn’t the best but you made do.
You took some thin slices and cooked them on a pan treating it like pork, one slice plane and one with some salt from your mess kit. Once it looked crispy you ate the unseasoned first and were surprised. It had a mild sweetness to it but
otherwise reminded you of bacon. You felt a little bad the first thing you wanted to eat bacon from regularly could speak and think… At least you weren’t a cannibal, though in your mind you assumed you’d potentially consider if things were bad enough. Thankfully with enough practical skill and knowledge you’d never even been close to that desperate yet.
The salted piece was even better, it was like if bacon and kettle-corn had a baby, though that might have been because the pan wasn’t thoroughly clean and something transferred. You’d make sure to get some sap from far harbor to try some in the future with a syrup glaze.
You scavenged the camp and aside from the normal things like ammunition, caps, medicine and the like you had found some choice ingredients. As well as the skinned fluffies hide amongst the other hides which you made sure to grab. While you heated a pot of water you removed the corn kernels from a cob and grated some down and set half aside. You opened a box of blamco mac and cheese and took the cheese powder out and mixed it into the grated corn along with a little dry instamash for certainty before setting the old noodles and the remaining dry mash aside with the whole corn kernels. After chopping and prepping your Mato and carrots and removing some siltbeans from their pod you were ready.
You stepped some blood leaf in the boiling water after removing the room system which you proceeded to dice up while it steeped. After three minutes you removed the now dull flower and tossed it aside as you added in the ingredients for the stew as needed as some needed more time than others to cook. This would be a slightly sweeter variant of the classic wasteland recipe squirrel stew since you’d be substituting fluffy meat for squirrel. After adding the carrots, tato, siltbeens and corn you gave the stew a stir and put the lid on.
While that was going on you coated the fluffy cuts in the corn/breading mix and proceeded to cook them up like breaded pork chops. The artificial ingredients mellowed out the sweetness so you barely knew you weren’t eating cheesy pork chops. You began to wonder if the institute had pre war pig dna in the bio science stores and they never told you.
You took time to drag the bodies to shore knowing mirelurks would find them after the sun went down. Normally you didn’t condone feeding them but having some well feed mirelurks nearby would be good for egg collecting. Having eaten lunch you were now bringing home the pot of stew for dinner and a few leftovers to reheat after spending a few hours at the camp. You toss the fluffy hide on a table near the garage on your way by to your house.
You cleaned up, wiped down and brushed your teeth and took a swig of strong alcohol to try and eliminate the smell of fluffy meat on your breath.
“Lets see how the kids are faring.” You add with a slight buzz having decided to swallow your vodka rather then rinse your mouth.