Oddment had been wandering alone around Glasgow for a few months, from nesting box to nesting box, avoiding trouble where she could.
Due to the city’s growing Fluffy population, this was slowly becoming more difficult without trespassing either where Humans didn’t want a Fluffy presence, or where stray herds had staked a claim; indeed, Oddment ended up pregnant after an accidental run-in with some smarty-stallions from one of the herds that lived in the Ruchill Park Fluffy Roam Zone.
Life alone in a city, even one converted for Fluffy Compliance, was not easy, and for a pregnant mare it was all the worse; a recent trend among humans who abused Fluffies was to stomp pregnant mares and film the foals flying out for views on social media.
Oddment had so far avoided such a fate, but many like her had not.
When she had happened upon Tickle and the remains of his family, she’d known what had happened. On any other day, she would have simply mercy-smothered the deathbound foal, but the weight of her own foals in her tummy had stayed her hoof.
As she plodded down another unfamiliar street, she could feel the little blue foal nuzzled deep into her neck fluff, gently breathing and squirming in his deep sleep. She’d become a mummah a little earlier than she’d expected, but she didn’t mind so much- in a way, she thought of him as being ‘practice’ before her real babies were born.
The street before her was like all the rest: smelly, run down, small piles of trash and Fluffy feces here and there, and a scant number of humans lumbering along and paying her no mind.
A light mist-like rain made things even more drab.
She knew where to look to find safety at this point, where to find the unseen nooks-and-crannies, how to avoid the Humans’ anger or, sometimes, find their momentary kindness in the form of food scraps or a brief hug.
Skirting along the bottom of a row of semi-detached brick houses, she eyed up the walls for holes or pipes or even an unoccupied nesting box (though, those were rarer in the residential areas). A bushy garden with a gap in its fence would be good. An old shed wouldn’t do badly either.
Eventually, she spotted something with potential: a little stone enclosure for the street’s bins to be stored. It was built up against the garden wall of the closest house and, more importantly, had a small wooden roof over it.
She approached quickly, darting under parked cars and back up onto the pavement, and peered inside.
It was crowded, but there was enough room between the bins for even a pregnant mare to squeeze through. At the back of the enclosure, there was a slight recess into the base of the wall going back about 3 feet, and what’s more: an old wooden pallet leaned against the entire back wall, meaning Oddment would be hidden in the recess should any Humans come snooping.
Yes, this would do.
Shelter from the wind and rain, food from the bins, and hidden from prying eyes… Maybe not a permanent or even warm home (and oh did Oddment long for one of those), but at least until she had given birth and her foals were grown enough to do walkies an’ talkies, this would do.
Thus, she got to work.
First, she pushed the stones, mud, and other debris from the recess, packing it around the base of the wooden pallet to help further hide the opening.
Next, she scouted around the bin enclosure for some bedding materials, and while she couldn’t get into the wheelie bins due to their height, she could scavenge through the shorter recycling bins which were where most of the common bedding materials usually where anyway.
With a few mouthfuls of newspaper, she padded the back of the recess, then carefully plucked some tufts of the loose fluff from her chest and sides to form a thin bed on-top of the papers such that she could comfortably lay down- which she did, for dusk was approaching, so the rest of the homemaking could wait for bwight-time.
She chewed on a discarded banana peel brought in from under one of the bins as night fell and the horrible orange streetlamps hummed to life.
Oddment loved fruit. It was tasty and sweet, unlike most of the nummies she found, and she often wondered why Humans would throw it away. She intended to name her own babies after the fruits whose names she knew.
Banana. Apple. Redberry. Blueberry. Yellowberry. Squishyberry. Spikyberry…
Well, the names she thought she knew, anyway.
As she finished her meal, she heard a little hunger-chirp from inside her neck fluff. The mendicant was awake.
Oddment rolled slowly onto her side, and delicately pushed aside her mane and neck fluff to reveal the blue baby. He sleepily giggled in pleasure at the sight of her face while unfurling his hooves from his fetal sleeping position. He gripped her hoof as it came to lift him out, his chrips for milk quickening in excitement.
Before he could have his fill though, Oddment examined him, turning him to-and-fro. He was still stick-thin but noticeably less than when she had found him. He was also rather dirty and smelly, but she was going to clean him after he was fed anyway.
Tickle did not enjoy being examined, however, and gave a few annoyed chirps before innocently demanding with his limited vocabulary and a funny shake of his hooves, “gib miwkies!”
Oddment was both surprised and amused. Surprised that a baby so young and small could talk, and amused that despite her charity he was so fussy. Would all of her babies also be this testy?
“Whud am yu namsie, Babbeh?” Oddment asked him.
He stopped squirming, “n-namsie Tickwe…” her sudden addressing of him had reminded him of his situation. She was not his Mummah. He did not know anything about this mare, really. What if she had rescued him just to eat him? Reflexively, he uttered, “whewe Mummah?”
Oddment chuckled, “Oddmen’ gon be nyu Mummah, Tickwe…” her other hoof came up and lightly flicked him on his rump, “bud onwy if Tickwe am gud, otay?” she said with a stern smile. Tickle nodded. Foals innately agreed with anything their mother- or perceived mother- requested.
“Pweez miwkies?” Tickle asked quietly, hugging her hoof.
Without a word, she brought him down to her teats, which he latched on to as soon as they were close enough. Now that he actually had some strength, he was able to suckle properly and even knead the area around the nipple.
Slowly, his belly filled until it was once again distended and plump, and he rolled backwards into Oddment’s hoof, gratified. This time, however, he also needed to… empty himself as well.
After a few little burps and farts, a thick, brown paste of feces began to leak from his rear- but because he hadn’t used these particular muscles in just over a week, and had only used them a handful of times previously, he found himself unable to evacuate correctly, which was quickly becoming painful.
A few strained chirps escaped his mouth and he clutched his stuffed belly.
“Tickwe haf tummeh huwties? Nu dwinkie su much miwkies, siwwy” Oddment chimed, bringing him close to her face, nuzzling him. As she had never had foals before, she didn’t realize quite how much of a mistake it was to then begin rubbing his belly at that exact moment.
At once, all of the shit within his bloated body exploded out in a spluttering, wet eruption. A steaming hot flow of viscous sludge slopped all over Oddment’s face and chest, and splattered all over her newly made nest.
Tickle’s expulsion ended with a big satisfied fart and sigh as he flopped back across the hoof supporting him.
Oddment could only stare forward in silent shock- but she wasn’t angry, not really anyway. Some kind of motherly tenderness was keeping any anger at bay. He was just a baby, he couldn’t help it.
After a few moments, her parenting instincts took over and she lent forward and began to lick the foal clean.
It was a foreign thing to her. She felt as though she just kind of had to do this, even though she knew that it was gross and that it tasted and smelled awful. Yet, this thing that would normally make her retch in disgust was now… bordering on relaxing, in a way. It made her feel strangely delighted, knowing that she was able to help this helpless baby.
Once Tickle was clean (and she’d wiped her face, too), she pushed her muzzle into his belly and kissed him. He sleepily hugged her nose, mumbling, “wub…” before she placed him back into her fluff, cushioning his return to dreaming.
When he was safely packed away, Oddment shuffled about a while, removing the soiled bedding and cleaning herself off before she too settled for the night.
She sat with her head resting on her forehooves, staring out between the slats of the pallet and the wheelie bins at the dim light outside. Glasgow was nothing like the stories her herd in the countryside had been told by those other country-Fluffs on their way to the city.
“Da Big Nestie hab nummies ebywhewe! Hoomins gif huggies an’ toysies aww da time!”
“Wotsa wawm nesties an’ big pway pwaces in Da Big Nestie!”
“Suuuuuu many fwends an’ speshuw fwends an’ wotsa babbehs tuu!”
Not that Oddment knew, but those stories were in fact true once upon a time, back when Glasgow was newly converted and the nuisance of constant fluffyisms hadn’t yet bothered most of the Human population… back before the disposal black sites were constructed.
Today, the nesting boxes were all full or unusable, the food dispensers were quickly emptied by every nearby stray (if they even functioned at all), and the Humans were uncaring most of the time. As for other Fluffies, well… “gang warfare” would accurately describe how the city’s herds operated- especially those who lived in the parks that were converted into Roam Zones- while the loners were all skittish and untrustworthy.
Yet, for the first time since coming to Da Big Nestie of Glasgow, Oddment was somewhat content; Tickle’s presence reassured her that, maybe, things weren’t all that bad. Maybe she was just a bit unlucky before. Maybe Tickle was the beginning of her luck turning around.
As her eyes became heavy and she began to drift off to sleep, she pondered one other tale her old herd had been told, her favorite one.
“Mistah Skettihead am da Daddeh of Da Big Nestie, an’ gif wawm homsies tu any Fwuffy dat nu hab homsie! Mistah Skettihead gif aww Fwuffies dat see him da bigges’ heawt huggies an’ chasie away aww yu head huwties fowebah! He da BESTES’ DADDEH EBAH!”
In her imagination, she always pictured Mistah Skettihead as a big fat Human Daddeh with an uncountable amount of long, soft arms to hug as many Fluffies as he could, and he also, of course, had a giant smiling head made of spaghetti that dripped big tummyfuls of sauce for them all to eat.
When she’d been able to ask other city-fluffs about it, though, she received mixed responses.
Some of them simply disregarded it as a “widdwe babbeh stowy”. Some of them became quiet and even anxious over the subject, which they quickly dropped. Some said that Mistah Skettihead wasn’t real but also was, that ‘his homsie am in yu dweamies’, but not one of them could explain what they meant by that. One rather strange and unkempt Fluffy insisted that they had indeed met Mistah Skettihead, and that he showed them ‘ebwyfing’ but Oddment thought that this Fluffy’s head-voice was just being silly.
Personally, whether Mistah Skettihead was real or not, Oddment liked the story because it made her heart happy when she thought about it, and besides: it was the one thing about about Glasgow that, unlike everything else, she had yet to confirm was a lie.
