Here’s the continuation for Spiky Beginnings [by A-S]
I have a teensy tiny announcement to make, but I’ll put it at the end of this chapter.
Also usual disclaimer, yadda yadda not a great writer, yadda yadda hit me with a giant sorry stick if I mess something up. And color text. Hope this makes it easier to understand who is speaking.
Thanks to anyone who actually takes the time to read this! 
“Meanie! Meanie! 'Ou am a bad fwuffy!”
Spike felt so small in that moment. Smaller than when he was a chirpy babbeh. Every foal in the room had started berating him, calling him the worst thing a fluffy could ever be called: a meanie.
“Fwash am gud fwuffy! Nu am munstah! Wai 'ou say meanie things?”
He tried to explain himself, to say that he only wanted to warn them about the monster hiding amongst them, but it was all in vain.
They didn’t let him talk, his voice drowned out by the incessant accusations. But why? Had he been wrong all along? How?
He felt hopeless, defenseless. Not even when the monster human had put him on the table to give him the worstest hurties ever had he felt like this. So little. So weak. He covered his eyes with his hooves, as if to shield himself from the barrage of voices. That’s when a fluffy’s voice rang throughout the room.
"STOP IT NAO!"
Every foal stopped yelling immediately and turned around. Spike opened his eyes just to peek. He saw the monster fluffy approach him slowly, a look of anger on his face. This was it, he thought. So he stood up, determined to put up a fight, as Flash stopped just a few inches from him.
“What am fwuffy namesie?”
Caught offguard by the question, as he expected an attack instead, the foal blurted out his name.
“Uh…am…am Spike”
“Am Fwash. Wai Spike say Fwash am munstah?”
An actually good question. The small earthie thought about it, then gave his honest answer.
“Uhm, bee-cus Fwash am munstah! Hab pointy AN’ wingie, bu’ fwuffies hab pointy OW wingie”
“Otay, den wai am Spike nu pointy ow wingie?”
“Bee-cus Spike am eawthie!”
“Den eawthies hab NU pointy ow wingie, bu’ stiww am fwuffies, wite?”
“Uh…dat…”
“Den dewe am fwuffies with nu wingie ow pointy. Fwash am fwuffy with bof”
“Bu…bu… nu can hab…”
“Mawy, Jane, cum hewe pwease”
The two green foals trotted over to the blue foal, their angry glares still focused on Spike.
“Mawy hab pointy, am pointy-fwend. Jane hab wingies, am wingie-fwend. Wite?”
“Yes, dat twue…”
“Fwash hab pointy AN’ wingie. Dat am pointy-wingie-fwend!”
Spike’s little head was basically smoking by now, until it finally clicked. It made sense. He was not a monster trying to look like a fluffy. It was a real fluffy! Spike himself had no horn or wings, Flash had both! It was so simple! How could he have misjudged him so bad? The poor earthie felt even worse than before. He knew he could never be friends with anyone after that scene.
“Spike am sowwie. Am bigges’ dummeh. Fwash nu munstah.”
With that, he turned around to leave, barely holding his tears back. Until something grabbed him. It was Flash, who had trotted up to his side and hugged him.
“'Ou nu am dummie. Ow meanie. Spike nu knu 'bout pointy-wingies. 'Ou say sowwie. Fwends?”
The following minutes were a chaos of emotions. Every foal had ran over, happiness and regret having already washed their anger away. A large group hug was had, with proclamations of love and forgiveness and bawled apologies.
“Huuhuu! Gee’gee am sowwie tuu! Nu shud gib owwies tu Spike!”
“Mawy an’ Jane am sowwie fo’ sayin’ Spike am meanie!”
“Ada am sowwie… nu shud yeww at uddah fwuffies!”
While this was going on, Jake had silently kept watch. While his immediate reaction had been to move over and whip out the sorry stick, he quickly realized he was probably part of the feral family Veronica had mentioned. It was likely he had never seen an Alicorn before, thus making his reaction understandable. The foals themselves had been a lot less understanding. Then, something beautiful had happened. Flash himself had confronted the foal, using the simple logic all domestic Alicorn foals were taught once they became talkie-babbehs. This usually worked best on other foals, as the younglings were even more prone to believing things told to them with sufficient certainty than adult fluffies. For some, however, further measures had to be taken to avoid them hurting other people’s pets. This time, however, the simple matter-of-fact tone used by Flash had been quite enough.
After the group hug, Jake had still been unsure whether to punish Spike, Gigi and the others for their various misdeeds. However, he ultimately decided against it, as doing so might have achieved the opposite goal if he had punished them after having solved the problem on their own.
"Okay guys, now that you’ve all apologized, hear me out. This time, you will not be punished for misbehaving. But I don’t want to hear any more insults, Spike, no more hurting each other, Gigi, and absolutely no more ganging up on a single fluffy, everyone else, because next time it’s gonna be the Sorry Box."
Whispers of “Scawy…” and “Nu wan sowwie box…” signaled that the message had been received by the foals.
"That’s better. Now, who wants to eat?"
Later on, Jake was sitting in Veronica’s office.
"So, how did Spike’s first day at the daycare go, Jake?"
"He had a rough start, soon after you left him."
"Is that so? I swear he looked like he had kicked off well with one of the outside fluffies…"
"Well, once he saw Flash, he called him a monster. As a result, he got a bit of flak from the rest of the class. Luckily, the “Alicorn Acceptance Classes” paid off. The little blue rascal himself managed to convince Spike he was not a monster. It all ended in apologies and hugs anyway…"
"That’s a relief. Did he interact with you at all?"
"Only during the lesson. We were going over the basics, you know. Litterbox, milkies and kibble, yadda yadda. The poor thing didn’t know what a litterbox was. Luckily, it seems either his herdmates or his mother had taught him about ‘poopie places’ already, so it wasn’t hard to make him connect the dots. Other than that, he was really wary of me, he kept tracking my movements. That douche really did a number on him, eh?"
"Yeah… but still, his progress is actually impressive. He is clever, for what would have likely been a future toughie. And he seems to be opening up a bit already."
"From what little I could gather from him telling some snippets of his past to the others, he had to grow too quickly. But despite that, he is still a baby. I am positive he’ll be fine."
Meanwhile, in another room, Spike laid awake in the middle of a multicolored fluffpile. After eating the not so tasty “kibble”, the gray feral had to sit through a lot of ‘splainin’, before they could play again. Now, the foals were sleeping the day off while waiting for their human owners or Veronica to pick them up. There were so many new things to learn! He didn’t trust Mister Jake yet, despite the others vouching for him. The scarred foal had seen first-hoof what humans could do. For now, he’d keep his eyes peeled. Right now, only two things mattered. Keeping his family safe and happy, while also protecting these smaller babbehs who had so quickly and innocently accepted him into their life.
As a feeling of sleepiness finally overcame Spike, he thought of what the future would hold for him, his new friends and his family.
So, announcement time.
To better practice working a bit faster, I have decided to try and join in the flufftober-palooza. Fwufftobuh 2021 (TWO Versions!!)
Of course, since the best I could ever draw is a circle using a cup, I’ll have to stick to text.
I plan to use the various different keywords to make some slice-of-life short stories about our good Spike and his new friends, but also to provide some information about the other characters I have introduced (or will introduce!). The abuser, the thief, some new faces…
That of course means that for this month I’ll probably struggle to churn out daily short stories, so further chapters of Spike’s misadventures will be likely on hold until november.
Hope this isn’t an issue for anyone.