You are Hank, a manufacturing consultant that works from home. As a hobby, you keep fluffy ponies.
You sit up from your computer in your basement office, and stretch. Today was a busy day, but it is over now. You have wrapped up your current projects and now you have several hours to kill until your wife gets home tonight. You walk down to the other end of your office, and open the latched door to the right of your TV.
The heavily-padded door opens into a small room. To the left as you enter are a pair of large wooden shelves, each shelf containing one or more large plastic tubs. Some contain fluffy’s, but most are empty at the moment. Continuing clockwise around the room, there is a wide workbench under a basement window. The bench has tools and various boxes stored underneath on a shelf. To the right of this is a waist-high shelf, on top of which is a large, clear plastic tub. The tub has several water bottles, food trays, and litter boxes in it, and is scattered with abandoned toys amongst the shaved cedar bedding. The tub is empty. Yesterday, the last of your foals was picked up by their buyer, as well as the mares and stallions you decided to sell. You like to keep things interesting by rotating your breeding stock on a regular basis. Other than a few ‘reliable’ fluffys, you buy and sell your biotoys regularly. After all, variety is the spice of life.
You walk over to the plastic tubs. Each of these cheap plastic tubs serves as a cage for one or more fluffies, but for now, only two are occupied. You inspect the middle tub first. Inside, two mares are curled up asleep. You pull the tub out on its sliding shelf and the mares awake.
“Wuh habben?” A white earthie mumbles, blinking her eyes awake. She smiles when she sees your face. “Hewwo daddeh.” She beams up at you and you reach down to stroke her pretty blue mane. The other mare has awoken now, and she smiles as well.
“How are you, Piglet?” You ask the scarred pink pegasus. She nuzzles your hand appreciatively as you give them both a cookie.
“Pigwet an Snowfwake am gud, daddeh Hank.” She answers quietly. The two giggle as you tickle their noses. Piglet and Snowflake are the only two mares you kept from your “spring cleaning” this week. Piglet is your oldest fluffy, and one of several you have rescued from the streets. Her bright pink fur and pastel mane are lovely, but she is covered in patchy spots where a dozen scars from knives or cigarette burns marr her fluff. Piglet is quiet and obedient, and she makes pretty foals for you to trade with other fluffy hobbyists. Usually, at least half of her brood will have some color of pink, and even the ones that don’t are rarely ugly. You can’t imagine ever giving away Piglet, nor Snowflake either. Snowflake, with her white fur and blue mane, is an earthie mare that you picked up at a vet’s office. Despite her sunny disposition and lustrous fur, her owner decided that the operation she needed to remove her gallbladder would be too expensive. You were feeling generous that day when you came in to have some new breeders checked out, and the happy mare came home with you for a few hundred dollars. She has been churning out lovely white-mixed foals ever since then. The two of them are pregnant right now. It will be a few more weeks, but soon you’ll have plenty of new foals to tend
You fill their food and water, and scoop out the litter box in the opposite end of the cage. As you put them back in their shelf, you can see them playing gently with a bright blue ball, batting it back and forth. Their game is fairly sedate, as they are pretty sluggish at this stage of pregnancy, dragging their swollen bellies. They are such good mares, you think to yourself. Even your wife likes them, but that is something that cannot be said of the fluffy you visit next.
Midas has his gold snout pressed to the plastic when you kneel down to check on him.
“Daddeh, Midas nee mo nummies, nee pweddy mawes for gud feels.” He whines, straining his tiny hooves for hugs.
“Not right now champ,” you explain, with very little sympathy. “Piglet and Snowflake are already pregnant. You will have to wait until I get new mares.”
“Huu Huu. Meanie daddeh nu wet bestest stawwion gib speshul huggies.” Midas turns everything he touches to gold, like his namesake. There is something in that deranged jigsaw puzzle of a genome he has that gets any mare he mates with to drop bright, shiny foals, typically gold or yellow, always popular colors. You try your best not to spoil your fluffies, but apparently being the ‘last stallion standing’ has given him a bit of entitlement. You finish cleaning and filling his water and food, and push him back in his tub, shutting the lid firmly as he whines for more attention.
After dealing with the surly stallion, you go about cleaning the room. All the empty cages need to be cleaned out, wiped down and sanitized. The carpet that lines the bottom of each pen needs a good wash as well, as do the water bottles. You shovel up the soiled wood shavings in big foal pen, as well as the much larger play pen in the corner. You can hear your mares singing to their tummy babies as you finish up the play pen. Oh, you almost forgot the other foal pen.
You bend down to the bottom shelf and slide out the two pens you use for foals destined for future breeding. They are both very clean, but you pick up the toys inside and throw them in the toybox. As you pick up a blanket wadded up in the corner of the tub, a purple foal tumbles out.
“Owwie! Nu wike hurties!” it chirps, licking its tiny feet. You could have sworn you moved all the foals for sale to the holding pen. You reach down and pick up the tiny unicorn.
“What are you doing in here?” you ask. The tiny purple creature is visibly confused.
“Fwuffy am pwaying hide an seek wid bruddahs and sistahs. But dey all go way, weave fwuffy all awone. Fwuffy am wonwy and cowd, so fwuffy sweep in warm bwanky. Bwanky smew wike bwuddah an sistah.” It sobs into your palm. It is noticeably skinny, its fluff hanging loosely. It’s been several days since the feeder in that pen was filled. It is completely empty now, and you suspect the fluffy has licked the whole dispenser clean in search of food. The little thing’s stomach gurgles loudly.
“Fwuffy am suuuu hungwy! Hab biggest tummy owwies!” it mewls as you carry it over to the workbench. At least this is a problem you can solve. Wrapped in the blanket, you set the little fluffy on the table. From under the benchtop, you grab a small bowl and fill it with soft kibble. The second it smells the food, the fluffy dives head first into the bowl and begins to eat voraciously.
“Slow down, you little shit.” you admonish the fluffy, pulling him back from the dish for a second.
“Nu am shit, am fwuffy!” it squeaks, returning to the dish, but eating more slowly now. You chuckle, and stroke its soft purple fur as it eats.
“Are you a Colt or a filly?” you ask.
“Fwuffy am Cowt!” He mewls proudly, lifting his chin to the sky with pride. His tiny horn just barely flickers with effort, and the hunger compels him to once again tuck in to the kibble.
“Well, little colt, I suppose I had better name you.” You look at him and his dark purple fluff. His mane and tail are just filling in, and are a slightly lighter shade of purple.
“Grape. Your name is Grape.” you say. The foal looks up from the last of his kibble and burps loudly.
“Daddeh gib name to fwuffy?! Fwuffy am Gwape naow?” Its tiny eyes tear up as it hugs your nearby hand. “Gwape wub nu name, wub daddeh suuu mush.” It grasps your hand warmly and coos. You pet the cute little guy. You needed more stallions anyway, and in a month or so this colt will be ready for action, so this is fine. Once Grape has finished his nummies, you take him and his blanket and put him in the pen with Midas.
“Wut daddeh doin?!” He asks, eying the colt with suspicion.
“This is Grape, Midas. He is going to live with you now.”
“Nuuu! Daddeh, Midas nu want dummeh babbeh, nuu wan shawe sweepy pwace, an toysies!” he moans. For fuck sake, you think to yourself. Reaching over, you boop the uppity stallion on the snout.
“Grape is a good colt. You had better be nice to him, or I will give him all your toys and put you in the sorry box.” you threaten. Midas sniffs back fresh tears.
“Pwese daddeh, Midas be gud fwuffy, wub nuu fwend for daddeh. Nuu take toysies!” He waddles over and hugs Grape softly, looking up at you with a weak smile plastered on his mug. Grape hugs back, burying his face in Midas’ tummy.
“Gwape wub nuu fwend. Grape gib suu many huggies to new bwuddah.” He chirps softly.
You smile. You guess Midas’ can be good afterall. Now that your remaining fluffies are settled and the room is all clean, it’s time to go cook dinner.
“Goodnight fluffies!” you say to your charges, flipping the lights off, the nightlights winking on in their place…
“Gud night daddeh!” The fluffies respond, and you leave the saferoom.
Some days are better than others when you are a fluffy breeder.