Warning: spoilers for “Hell on Earth”, and the Demonic Doppelgangers, Alien Invasion and Fiendlord Sagas.
Just a couple of blocks away from the apartment building where the legendary Calvin Korkea lives, there is a fluffy daycare.
This is the daycare that Calvin and his friends in the area all bring their fluffies to.
Despite everything that’s happened, they still bring their fluffies here, just like they still hang out at Harry’s Place. Or, in Zephyr’s case, they still perform at Harry’s Place, when they can.
None of them have forgotten where they came from.
This daycare is part of FauCorp’s Happy Fluffy chain of daycares, and they intend to live up to the name.
FauCorp’s goal, for now, is to be a part of every stage of a fluffy’s life.
To have fluffies eat Überfluff brand kibble every day, to play with Bestest brand toys, to be raised by the Faucheuse Method.
Most other companies in the fluffy market are content to sell miserable, ill-behaved, short-lived fluffies, and shoddily made products that, more often than not, end up killing the fluffies who use them, and not always accidentally.
Those companies honestly do not give a single fuck how many fluffies suffer and die, as long as they make money.
But since FauCorp is owned by the richest family on Earth, profit isn’t their primary concern, and their other business ventures more than make up for the profit they could have been making off fluffies.
FauCorp’s long-term goal is to draw out the hidden potential of fluffies.
So that one day, fluffies can truly be equal with humanoids.
So that fluffies can live their lives their Way, and don’t have to be completely dependent on the whims of any human they may meet.
So that, whether they wish to live with humans or not, they can do so, knowing that the Way they choose is the right Way.
Because someone’s got to clean up the mess that Hasbio made.
And if nobody else will do it, FauCorp will.
It’s a pretty ordinary day at Happy Fluffy Daycare.
Well, what passes for ordinary these days.
In one of the playrooms for adult fluffies, Marley is drawing with crayons, and Ziggy is watching his daddeh work. Fluffies, not having hands, hold the crayons in their mouths, or between their front hooves, and are surprisingly good at drawing for a species with so many physical handicaps. Though, at best, they draw as well as a child.
Which they pretty much are in many ways.
But it must be said that Marley is one of the better fluffy artists.
He still struggles with drawing hands, however, and many human artists could relate.
Of course, if hands were easier to draw, you wouldn’t be able to draw with them.
How Zen is that?
Those crayons are another of Flufftopia’s products: Bestest Crayons. They’re a bit thicker than crayons made for human use, making them easier to grip in a fluffy’s teeth or hooves, and they’re a bit more sturdy, preventing doing so from breaking them.
They come in a wide variety of colors, are absolutely non-toxic, and are also formulated to be extremely bitter-tasting. If a fluffy tries to num one, they’ll spit it out immediately.
Most fluffies can’t stand the taste of bitterness, although Scarface can attest that it isn’t always the case.
They tried making scented crayons, but the fluffies testing them out just wouldn’t stop trying to num them.
The picture Marley is drawing is of Calvin and Marley, both wreathed in flames, flying above the city.
Had Marley drawn this picture before the events of the Demonic Invasion, it would have been regarded as nothing more than a delightful fantasy.
But with everything that’s happened, the staff at Happy Fluffy Daycare know damn well that what Marley is drawing is something which he and his daddeh have actually done.
Though Marley has been asked by the staff not to use his more dangerous powers while at the daycare unless he has to, and he obliges them.
The staff doesn’t mind Marley levitating the other fluffies if they’re having fun, as long as Marley puts them down gently, which he does. He’s copied Chakra’s telekinesis now, too. He could use that to draw, but he’s used to holding the crayon in his mouth.
And his healing hooves definitely come in handy when a fluffy isn’t careful enough and winds up with an owwie.
Marley puts down an orange crayon and turns to Ziggy.
He’s been giving Ziggy art lessons.
“See, Ziggy, yu nu wan tu dwaw tuu manee buwnies, ova-wise yu nu can see wut haf buwnies.”
“Dat bwue sky an owange buwnies wook gud tugeba, daddeh.”
Marley nods.
“Dat am cawwed cowow cawn-twast, Ziggy. Dat meen dat suw-tun cowows wook bettah tugeba, cuz dey am awp-oh-sits. Wike bwak an wite, ow…”
He turns to look at his Soul Brother Piccolo, who is giving Dende some constructive criticism.
“Nu, Den-day, fwuffy weggies am fikkew den dat, yu hab weggies, wook at dem…”
Marley smiles.
“…ow gween an puwpwe.”
Ziggy is impressed by his daddeh’s artistic wisdom. Most fluffies don’t know anything about this kind of thing.
Of course, it was Calvin who told Marley about this.
Meanwhile, Candy, one of the trained caretaker fluffies, leads a chain of foals from one of the playrooms for foals to an outside play area.
One of the foals is gently grasping the caretaker’s tail with his mouth, and the foal behind him is gently grasping his tail with her mouth, and so on.
The group stops by a litterbox, so some of the foals can make poopies.
After everyone who needs to make poopies has done so, Candy notices that the litterbox is getting rather full.
Next to the litterbox, at fluffy height, there’s a button on the wall, big and soft, designed to be pressed by a hoof. Above the button is a sign, indicating via pictograms that the button should be pressed when the litterbox is full.
Candy presses it, and then leads the group outside.
A minute later, one of the human staff comes along and changes the litterbox.
Meanwhile, in another adult playroom, Snowball is chatting with Chapman, who hasn’t been going to this daycare for very long, and felt a bit starstruck when he met Marley.
These days, Marley is just as famous among fluffies as Calvin is among humans. And fluffies.
“Su Mawwey can du a wot of ah-may-zin fings nao, Chapman, but Mawwey am stiww awso jus a fwuffy. Mawwey num Mawwey sketties wun meatie-baww at a time, jus wike anee udda fwuffy.”
“Wiww Mawwey du–”
“Mawwey nu du da buwnie fing at daycare, Chapman. Dat am jus awskin fow twub-buw.”
Chapman thinks about it for a moment.
“Oh poopies, Chapman see wut Snowbaww meen. Chapman nu wan fwuffies tu git da wong ai-dee-yuh.”
“Yus, it am onwy da buwnies come-in fwom Mawwey dat am safe, but dewe sum dummeh fwuffies hu mite make ass-ump-shuns, an den dey pway wif buwnies, an git buwnie owwies, an it am Mawwey fauwt.”
“Chapman git dat. But wut am Mawwey an Snowbaww daddeh wike?”
Snowball smirks in a rather Calvin-esque manner.
“Wut du Chapman fink daddeh am wike? Fwuffies caww daddeh da Bestest Hoomin fow a wee-sun, Chapman.”
Chapman brought his favorite toy to daycare with him. Wario is currently playing with it, with Chapman’s permission, and Wario is trying to treat it with respect, because he knows it’s not his toy.
It’s a plushie of Calvin.
Wario squeezes the belly with a hoof.
“Call me Cal! Everyone does!”
Yes, those have voiceboxes in them too.
They brought Tara Strong in to do the voices for the fluffy team members’ plushies, because she can do fluffy voices so well, and she’ll take on damn near any voice acting job.
Wario is impressed.
“Dat soun jus wike daddeh. Wah!”
He says “wah” a lot, another trait little Wario has in common with his namesake.
Meanwhile, Caelum, Magic and Slayer are playing ball with Cheech.
Cheech has grown into a handsome stallion, but because he’s still the baby of the bunch, the others are going easy on him.
Slayer doesn’t use his demon powers at all at daycare, and they didn’t even need to ask him not to use them.
He’ll use his demon wings, though, but not to cheat in games.
Slayer actually really enjoys flying. He’s openly admitted to his daddeh and Robert that being able to grow a pair of leathery bat-like wings and soar through the sky is his favorite part about being a half-demon.
Sometimes, he’ll show off to the other fluffies at Happy Fluffy Daycare by flying above the outside play area, doing loop-de-loops.
If fluffies had hands, they’d all give him a round of applause every time.
He can do a barrel roll, too.
Back in the playroom where the fluffies are currently drawing, one of the human staff members watches Marley draw.
Well, she’s not actually human, she’s a vampire. One of the nice ones, don’t worry about the fluffies. They all know she’s not going to hurt them.
She’s currently drinking a can of NuBlood, so you know she’s on the right side, and she’s also wearing a Sun Pearl.
Deston only gives those to vampires who he knows can be trusted, especially after the Bran Castle incident. Which absolutely nobody holds against little Harley Renard.
The vampiric caretaker, who was black in life, beams when she sees Marley’s latest masterpiece.
“Very good, Marley! I like the color contrast.”
“Fank yu, miss Ewica.”
Marley turns to Ziggy, looking a bit smug.
“See, Ziggy? Mawwey towd Ziggy abowt da cowow cawn-twast.”
“Ziggy knu, daddeh.”
Erica, the vampire, finishes her can of NuBlood, and decides that she’s still a bit thirsty.
“I’ll be right back, guys. Gadzhi, keep an eye on them, okay? I need to get another drink.”
Gadzhi, a dwarf, nods.
“I love these little fluffballs. My brother Gilius got one recently. Gold’s an absolute sweetheart. I might just get one myself.”
Erica makes her way to the staffroom. They put a NuBlood machine there, just for her.
And she’s grateful for that.
Before NuBlood was invented, Erica fed on a lot of fluffies, just like Henry Morris did.
And like Henry, Erica deeply regrets it.
Which is why Erica is working at Happy Fluffy Daycare. So she can atone for it. So she can prove that she doesn’t have to be a monster.
She didn’t want to be a vampire either. It’s a long story.
And since Henry has been a vampire for much longer than Erica, he’s been doing whatever he can to counsel her. To be her friend.
Maybe even something more.
Vampires are entirely capable of feeling love, including romantic love.
And while they usually aren’t attracted to the living, that can happen. As can vampires having children. Some of them were born as vampires, or in cases like Jackie’s, as dhampirs, half-vampires.
It’s just that, for vampires like Ianos and his twelve children, they just don’t see the point of love, especially love for bloodbags, as they insist on calling the living.
Ianos and his clan also knew that they didn’t have to be monsters.
But they chose to be monsters anyway. They showed no mercy.
So they didn’t deserve mercy.
Henry, Carmilla, Harley, Jackie, Alfador and Erica definitely see the point of love. They do show mercy.
So they deserve mercy.