You are Lavender, and you’ve settled in nicely on the fawm.
The first night in the new saferoom was a bit scary. Just before you could fall asleep, you started hearing loud SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK noisies, and it startled you awake. You could hear your uncle and auntie talking loudly too. Your uncle was going “Ungh! Ungh! Ungh! Fuck yes!” and your auntie was telling him to “do it harder”. Do what harder?
After a while, your daddeh came into your saferoom and took you downstairs, and made a little beddie on the couch, and went to sleep there. You asked daddeh what uncle and auntie were doing, and he said “Taking a trip to Pound Town.” You didn’t know what that meant, and daddeh wouldn’t explain. “Now please shut up and go to sleep.” You could still hear the scary noisies, but now they were muffled enough that you could fall asleep.
The next bwite time, uncle Leslie apologized to you and daddeh for making so much noisies. He said that they were used to having the whole housie to themselves.
It’s been a week since you and daddeh moved to the fawn. At least, uncle Leslie told you it was a week, and that a week is seven bright times (you can only count to three), and you trust him enough to believe him.
Today was a sad day, though. Today, daddeh left to go on a trip, and said you had to stay here with your uncle and auntie.
You asked him if he was going to Pound Town like uncle and auntie. Daddeh’s face turned red, auntie Helen started looking down, and uncle Leslie just laughed and laughed.
Daddeh eventually explained, after uncle Leslie stopped laughing, that he was going to somewhere called “Amm-stew-dam”, which is a lot like Pound Town. He said they’ve got a lot of… what did he call them? Hookies? Yeah, that’s it. There’s a lot of hookies there, and daddeh said that right now, he really needs a hookie.
Daddeh told you he’d only be gone for five bwite times, which he said is three, and then two more. He said he needed to blow off a lot of steam.
You’ve never seen daddeh blow off steam, and you giggled at the thought of steam coming out of daddeh’s nosie and earsies like the “kettew” he uses to make hot wawas for his “instawnt caw-fie”.
After you promised daddeh you’d behave for your auntie and uncle while he was gone, and told him to have fun in Amm-stew-dam with the hookies (uncle Leslie laughed again), daddeh handed the beepie-thing that tells him when it’s time for you to stay in your saferoom (and you still don’t understand why) to uncle Leslie, telling him something you didn’t hear because you happened to notice a passing butterfly, gave you one last hug, stepped into his caw, and left.
That was an hour ago, though like most fluffies, you aren’t good at telling time. You wonder if daddeh’s made it to Amm-stew-dam yet. And what exactly a hookie is. Nobody will explain it to you.
You like it here, you like your uncle and auntie, and the other hoomins who help them here on the fawm.
Who you don’t like, however, is your cousin James. He’s mean, and you think he doesn’t like fluffies a lot.
“There he goes, the horny bastard. Godspeed. Hope he catches something.” James sneers, waving his uncle off sarcastically. James is master of the sarcastic wave, and the sarcastic clap, and has a venomous wit. He would have majored in Sarcasm if it was an option. His father dope slaps him on the back of the head, and chides him for talking about his uncle like that.
James’ opinion on Chris was already low before James found out exactly why Chris had gotten kicked out of his house.
The little hypocrite! Chris had given him shit because he likes to abuse fluffies. Hey, college is stressful. Chris has his way of blowing off steam, and James has his way. And James’ way is a lot cheaper. A dollar for a Foal-In-A-Can, and those machines are on the campus for a reason.
But then dear old Uncle Chris goes and impales a bunch of them like he’s trying to defend Wallachia from the Turks! (History is one of the few classes James always excelled in. Like his uncle, he has an unhealthy fascination with the bloody and gory parts of history. The difference is, Chris is more subtle about it.)
James knows Lavender doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like her, either. He does like fluffies, but he likes fluffies in the way that Hannibal Lecter likes people. Not that James literally eats fluffies, even a warped little bastard like James has to draw the line somewhere. He’d love to spend some quality time with Lavender, but he’s sadistic, not stupid, and knows his uncle would actually kill him if James hurt Lavender. James is planning on sneaking out later and seeing if he can’t find some other shitrat to play with.
beep-beep beep-beep beep-beep
“Warning. P53 emission imminent.”
Leslie holds up the device that Chris gave him. Leslie and Helen were already aware of Lavender’s condition, and had accommodated for it, particularly by putting a strong lock on the new saferoom’s door. They plan to make sure that whoever is currently watching Lavender has the device on them at all times. And they plan to keep James as busy as possible while he’s here, far away from Lavender. They love him, despite his many flaws, but like Chris, they don’t trust him around her.
“Look’s like an episode’s starting up. Helen, you get her inside. I’ll get the oil burners ready.”
“Can’t it wait five more minutes? Look at her, chasing that butterfly. She looks so happy. There aren’t a lot of other fluffies in these parts, anyway.”
“Eeeeehhhh… Okay, just five more minutes, then she has to be locked in the saferoom. I promised Chris. It’s for her own good. I’m sure nothing can go wrong in five minutes.”
Leslie was right, but it was a close one.
Six minutes later, not far away, a lone unicorn fluffy hides in a bush, sitting on his bottom and sobbing like a fat kid who just dropped his ice cream cone.
A feral fluffy, former smarty of a herd decimated by a passing eagle, one of the few fluffies in these parts, as Helen said. And now, even fewer.
The fluffy’s special friend and chirpie babbehs, the only other survivors of the eagle attack until now, lie squashed and mutilated on the nearby road. She couldn’t cross faster without risking a babbeh falling off.
(Further down the road, Chris curses to himself. He’ll have to worry about getting the tires cleaned when he gets back. One of the chirpies got stuck to a tire.)
The surviving fluffy suddenly stops crying. His eyes swivel around madly, looking for something he can’t see.
Then, the ex-smarty gets up, and begins unwittingly walking towards his doom.
