During the introductions Nanny approaches the assembled fluffies and plucks up Cato.
“Cato no wike bad upsies.” They add in surprised confusion
“Babbeh?!” Peaches adds shocked for a moment.
“This unit has violated rule number three and requires punishment.” Nanny adds with a gentle swat to the behind before proceeding over to the sorry box.
“Huuu…” Cato adds after a mild toot of fear doing their best not to poop.
“Nanny, pause punishment.” You add with a sigh as she’s mid placing of the foal in the sorry box. “Cato, did you parents teach you the rules yet?”
“Uhm, yus. . .” The foal add trying hard to remember the rules.
“Good.” You add aloud happy to see they were doing their due diligence. “Lets hear rules one, two and three.” You add deciding to pop quiz the foal.
“Good poopies ober dere.” They add gesturing to the marked place nearby the sorry box. “No meanie wowds. No huwties to oddahs unwess to stop huwties to othews.”
“Very good. I’ll accept that you were trying to protect your family since you didn’t know Hulk was a new member of the herd. Nanny, please put Cato down.”
“Ending sequence.” Nanny adds placing the foal down and returning to observation. Peaches rolls her wheels over to nuzzle her foal who hugs her face. Then promptly waddles over to the poopy place to defecate.
“Im going to make some food, feel free to have fun and relax until I get back.” You say getting a collective goodbye from your fluffies before dismissing yourself. You go and get some basins and boxes and start moving them into the fields for tomorrow. You’d see how well your fluffies could handle the low to the ground produce tomorrow. Worse case anything they damage they could probably still eat.
You spend a time picking corn ears for processing later and bring them into the house with you. You would probably take them to the garage later for processing but for now it was time for lunch. You check your cabinets and remember you were low on cornmeal. You flipped a coin and decided to take a shortcut since you didn’t want to keep your fluffies waiting for too long and made your way out the back of Sanctuary and up the hill to Vault 111. You had set up turrets and a pair of eyebots on patrol for blind spots for pests like radroaches and rats that managed to infiltrate the site. You were certain the infestation had been dealt with but as long as this place needed air vents there was always a chance of re-infestation regardless of how many poisons and traps one laid out.
You pushed an old world shopping cart you had rebuilt down the halls. A few of the crypods had been left intact in case you needed them for their original purposes, but the rest had been stripped of comfort and reconfigured into freezers for long term food storage which was a lot less resource and energy consuming then the pods original design. This was also done because in a practical sense you only had enough of certain resources to keep all the crypods running for another few months. So condensing that down to two and you could manage to keep up to two people preserved for fifty plus years. You still had it on your to do list to get enough for another two hundred years stint and rebuild everything from the ground up so if you lost hope or got bored with things you could awaken to a whole new world of issues.
The rest of the space was simply dry storage for cool/room temperature goods, effectively treating the vault like a root cellar. You opened a crate labeled ‘corn’ and got out a bag labeled ‘meal’, yes you were so original and inventive in your design. You opened the bag and checked to make sure it hadn’t become contaminated and shifted through with a metal scoop to check for worms and bugs. With none apparent you deemed the bag safe and took it with you. You picked out a few more goods the house was short on. You picked up some fruit preserved in alcohol, a jug of syrup you’d made from Sap from far harbor and various other things before pushing the full shopping cart out to the elevator. You ascended to the surface once again and back down the hill towards your house.
You unpacked your groceries and got to work. You make some cornbread in a cast iron skillet as you prepare the oven. You’d cut out the center for yourself and share the edged with your fluffies.
You open some pre prepared baked beans, you could eat them cold but you preferred warm. You pause while cooking. “I wonder if Hulk eats normal food?” You pause further pondering if you’d ever seen a super mutant eat food before… Surely, they had to. They didn’t just subsist on radiation or something right? Just in case, you’d make something with protein too.
You shredded and cooked up a pot with some radstag you’d recovered from the trappers with wasteland bbq glaze. You boiled some carrots too for some fiber and color. You proceed to take out the corn bread and gave it a sniff and with a nod of approval you brush on a slight syrup glaze while it cooled. After you ate your portion and the food was appropriately cooled you stepped outside and collected the bowls.
You smiled a bit watching Hulk sit there nervously as peaches foals climbed on and clung from them while Daisies foals slept between his front legs in a pile. ‘Curious…’ You thought picking up the bowls you investigated the tree and saw the two couples snuggling inside. “Cute. Rule five though.” You say to the couples who simply smile and continue leaning into each other. They were happy just being together for now. You head back to the house with the bowls, wash them and then pile them up. You Take out a dual water and food dog bowl and load both sides with food for Hulk. You’d gauge if twice the food was enough.
“So Hulk, what do you like to eat?” You add setting down the bowls and preparing to call the others over.
“Human.” You pause at this.
“When did you eat?~” You add being cut off.
“Gween daddies gib to Huwk. Tastey, tastey Weggies.” They add licking their lips as if remembering. You were about to say something, but they continued unprompted. “Den meanie machine daddies come and gib gween daddies pointy huwties. Gween daddies shwink to nowmal daddehs. Huwk wun way with bwudda duwing fighting, wan stay big and stwong.”
‘Ah so a squad of synths located a bunch of super mutants and began to force inoculate them with the cure. That explains why these two weren’t with other super mutants…’
“Well it’s very unlikely that daddy will feed you any more humans.” But not impossible. “Lets see if you like other foods."
You get the older foals off Hulk so he can move over to his food and you sit Indian style around the younger foals while the parents eat and take over as the climbing matt for Hulk. You occasionally paused to scoop up a falling foal or one that asked and lifted them into the air playfully. Star loved to ‘fly’. You inquire what Millie and Nimbo learned and answer their questions about the vegetables they’d spent most of the morning studying. Millie was a fan of Mato’s and most of her questions were about them. Nimbo had some questions about melons but was more curious about the architecture like the wire frames the mato’s gew on.
“Babbehs, come get ou’ miwkies.” Peaches adds sitting up against the tree. You spread your legs, scoot back and get up as Daisies foals begin to wake at the mention of milk so that she can take your place. You unhook Peaches wheel apparatus and set it down on the ground. “Nanny, scan this.” You add signaling her over as she comes and scans whats in your hand and then the fluffy. “You’ll help her put this on if she asks and im not around.”
“Babbehs, Phanes am new speciaw fwiend an ou’ new daddeh.” The foals were mildly confused. They had vague memories of their fathers scent and voice but Phanes had been so close to them since their first conscious thoughts.
“Siwwy mummah, ob couwse daddeh am daddeh.” Millie added approaching to hug their father causing a cascade of foals to dog pile in a collective glomp. Phanes was elated at his adopted childrens acceptance and that made you smile.
You hear talk from the front gate area. “Who is it now? Daddy will be back soon.” You add setting down the wheel bits of Peaches apparatus before dismissing yourself to go and check out who had arrived at the front since a provisioner had just visited.
‘Maybe I should put up a No Solicitiing sign? Ah who am I kidding, half the people these days cant read…’ You think to yourself heading back across the settlement to see who it was.
