The Life of Ivan - Chapter Three
“Operation Fluffy-rossa”
You are Ivan. Of all your adventures, this has been the most strange. You are 27 years old, born in a land far away and brought to America. You have travelled halfway around the world and back several times and this is by far the strangest thing you have ever done, of this you are certain. You stare at the mass of sopping wet fluff in your sink, you have just waterboarded a rather nasty fluffy using diesel fuel. Unsure of how to check a fluffies pulse, you give it your best shot and determine the fluffy has indeed died. You aren’t a vet tech, but you assume it was either a heart attack, or the toxic fumes of the diesel.
Bringing the washboard to which the fluffy was affixed to your burn barrel in the yard, you cut the zip ties, allowing the fluffy to fall unceremoniously onto the charred logs below. From chest height it didn’t make a sound, confirming it has died. With the washboard returned to its place in the sink and a beer in hand, you flick a lit match into the barrel and watch the whole thing go up in flames. Add ‘fluffy viking funeral’ to the list. Normally you bury animal remains, but have no desire to tear up your lawn for something as vile as a feral fluffy.
The next day!
Sitting on the back deck sipping coffee, you see movement along the treeline and immediately recognise the figure as a fluffy. Great, let’s see what happens. As you stand up, you see a familiar looking fluffy dashing out from behind the woodpile with several more in tow. As she gets closer you can hear her sobbing in between pained gasps for air, you then realise she isn’t leading them to you, she’s running like hell to get away.
You set your coffee down on the table and reach back inside the kitchen door for your baseball bat, then walk out onto the grass. The mare approaches you and collapses roughly to the ground, rolling halfway onto her back. Stepping in between her and the ferals chasing her, you wait for them to make the first move.
“Dummeh hoomin, gib dummeh fwuffy, dis am smawty wand nao! Wan’ mawe fo’ enfies fow smawty fwend.” The earthie leading the group puffs up his cheeks and lowers himself to the ground slightly, as if he intended to take you head on.
“But you aren’t the smarty friend are you?”
“Tuffie do wat smawty say! Say get enfie mawe!”
You feel the mare brush up against the back of your legs like a cat, in between sobs she begs you not to let her be taken by the other fluffies. You don’t see yourself as a fluffy rescuer by any means, but you would rather deal with a (reasonably) well behaved herd than one that makes demands of you. Besides, even if you culled both, another one would show up anyway. No sense in creating more issues for yourself.
Picking up the mare by the scruff, you set her at the top of the steps to your deck, “Do not move, understand?” She nods frantically.
You take two steps forward, and the third makes contact with the earthies chest, sending him flying. The spray of shit he releases barely misses your boots. His body makes a sharp crack as he makes contact with the woodpile. The two other earthies in tow begin to cry, one is hiding behind his little hooves in fright whilst the other attempts to run away. You grab the stationary one, unwilling to let him out of your sight, and catch up to the other.
“HEY! Stop, right now!”
“Huuuu pwease nu huwties nice mistah, nu wan huwties!” he cries as he rolls onto his back. He holds his legs close, appearing to hug himself as he pisses all over his belly in fright.
With all of your might, and risking being covered in shit, you swing the fluffy in your hand up over your head and down onto his friend. They smash together with a disgusting crunch and void what little waste is still contained within in their bodies. It suddenly hits you how terrible they smell. Kinda like a damp bathroom rug with a hint of pet waste. Gross.
Returning to the emaciated purple mare, she falls onto her back trying to scoot away from you, soiling herself like the others and cowering in fright. “Pwease nice mistah nu huwties, nu wan forebah sweepies! Nu wike munstahs!”
“Shhhhhh, stop. I won’t hurt you. What happened to your baby?”
Again, she returns to sobbing. “Meanie fwuffie make babbeh gu forebah sweepies and - huuuuuu huuu - twy to make fwuffy gib speciaw huggies! Nu wan munstah fwuffies babbehs!”
“Alright, alright. I won’t make you go back. C’mere.” You hold out your hands and she very cautiously approaches you, then sitting on her rump to hold her forelegs out. You pick her up carefully, bringing her through the house into the basement, which currently is completely bare. You set her down on a patch of scrap carpet in front of your washer and dryer.
Wiping the shit off of her face with a rag, you tell her, “Stay right here, and I will go help your herd. I will come back, I will feed you, everything will be fine. Do you understand?” She nods silently, save for the occasional ‘huuuu’ punctuated by short gasps for air. Before you leave, you crack open a can of store brand beef raviolis and pour it into a bowl. Serving her this feast does nothing to distract her from crying, however.
Unwilling to soil a good pair of boots, you don green rubber boots in lieu of your usual footwear. You throw a belt on your current pair of trousers and grab a .22 calibre semi-automatic pistol from the gun cabinet with its holster and several magazines. Passing back through the kitchen, you stuff a black roll of trash bags into a camouflage Army backpack along with as many cans of ravioli as you can. (Ivan is an absolute fiend for canned ravioli).
Onwards, to the feral hordes.
As you approach this clearing you see a handful of dead and dying fluffies. Despite the carnage you chuckle to yourself, amazed that they can even do this kind of damage to each other. Unable to identify one from another, you skip right over them, not that you’re terribly experienced in fluffy triage. Even more amazing is watching what you assume is the rival herd laying siege to the overturned metal container that the fluffies are using as a nest. They seem to be unsuccessful, and you see one of the attackers get kicked right back out of the nests opening with a bloody nose. A red fluffy with a brown mane sticks his head out of the nest and scream, “EEEEEE, deres a hoomin munstah! More munstahs!”
This draws the attention of the attackers to you, and most importantly that of the rival smarty. This one is a monochrome light blue, a very light blue, like a highlighter pen. “Dummeh hoomin! Dis smawty wand! Gib sketties and - “
You cut him off, “oh will you kindly fuck off you little shit?”
He recoils slightly at your swearing, and you notice he seems to have a collar on. Being considerably faster than a fluffy, you pick him up by the scruff and drop him into a prepared trash bag. You tie it closed and poke holes in it so the little bastard can breath, and set it on the ground behind you.
“Okay, who’s next?” You hang the backpack on a sturdy branch and remove another trash bag.
“SCREEEEE! MUNSTAH!”
“MUNSTAH GET SOWWY POOPIES!”
“MUNSTAH HAB SMAWTY FWEND!”
A pegasus fluffy turns and lifts its tail, ready to spray shit all over your legs. But you wont have that. You draw your pistol and fire one round at the creature, striking it just below the anus. It immediately collapses in pain, shitting all over its back legs. This causes several of your attackers to cower in fear, save for two that have decided weakly pummelling your shins was the best course of action.
Upon raising your right foot to give one of them a stomp, the toe of your boot catches its chin cause it to bite its tongue. “Huuuuu mo mowe, mo mowe!” it pleads with its new speech impediment. You bring your heel down on its face, ending its pain. Then turn to the second, now pissing all over itself and your other boot. Pistol still drawn you shoot it twice, and it falls over silently.
You turn the clearing into a fluffy shooting gallery. Shouts of “weggies hab wowstest huwties!” and “Nu huwt fwuffy! Hewp fwuffy pwease!” as they attempt in vain to assist each other. You allow the ones at the edge of the clearing to run away, unwilling to engage in cardio today to catch up to them. There are now quite a few technicolour corpses littering the clearing. Among them are many gravely injured fluffies.
You walk amongst the dead, picking up and placing bodies into the large, black, trash bags you brought from home. The ones that haven’t expired you finish off with your pistol, unwilling to be covered in more blood and shit than you already have been. In total, between stomping, shooting and tossing, you count 14 dead fluffies. Mostly stallions, two mares, and one of them appeared to be pregnant.
“Hey, smarty friend! Come on out!” you shout, understanding that they may ignore you for fear of “forebah sweepies.” but to your surprise, the smarty appears! You have to give credit where it’s due, the little guy has some balls.
“Hmmph, whewe hoomin? Oh, am munstah hoomin?” he asks, appearing to survey the carnage in front of him, and finally noticing you crouched in front of him.
“No, not a monster. One of your mares asked me for help with the bad fluffies.”
He gives you a look of confusion. Then asks, “Whewe am oddah mummuh? Mawe wun away when dummeh fwuffies stawt gibbing huwties to hewd. Hoomin make dummeh fwuffies go way?”
“Yes the purple mummuh found me, she is safe. And this ‘hoomin’ made the fluffies that hurt your herd go ‘forever sleepies’.” You raise one of the trash bags, weighed down by at least 30 pounds of dead fluffies and leaking blood and piss.
“Nu wike booboo juice hoomin.”
“I don’t either little guy. By the way, I have a present for you and your herd.”
Cue head tilt.
You don’t wait for him to respond, you remove a heavy duty paper plate and a can of raviolis from your pack and pour the whole thing onto a plate. Setting it in front of the smarty, you wait for him to react. “Not sketties, but big sketties for humans” you say. Eyes wide, he approaches the plate and practically flops onto it.
The herd slowly gathers, puzzled by this new development. As lifelong ferals, and probably many generations into it, they surely know they cannot trust most humans. But they watch you with interest, giving the smarty a scratch on the back as he greedily eats, You then get to work on supplying the rest of the herd with food. You almost have enough for each fluffy to get a full plate, but ensure the pregnant mares get their own regardless. Not one seems to complain, whether it’s out of fear or not is irrelevant. You can use this level of trust to your advantage.
The smarty, fat and happy, is now laid on his back with all legs splayed out to the side. He lets out an impressive belch, and rolls over to sit upright. “Hoomin!” he calls. “Smawty fank yu fow hewp hewd. Nu want to gib hurties?”
“No, no hurties. But I do want something in return.”
He looks taken aback by this, but asks what you mean anyway.
“You can live here as long as you like, but you have to keep other herds off of this land. If you can do that, and tell me when there’s bad fluffies around, I’ll even help you when you have trouble. Just like today. Does that make sense?”
“Smawty wike hoomin, nebah wiked hoomins befo’, aways gib fwends forebah sweepies an’ make soon mummahs be mummahs no mow.” He nods for emphasis. “Fank yu for gib hewd nummies, smawty teww tuffie to find hoomin when odda fwuffies come.”
You give him a scratch behind the ear, which he seems to enjoy, and take a look around at the other fluffs. There are now three pregnant mares, and only ten fluffies left besides, at least half are stallions. The two toughies leftover from the ‘Siege of Fluffygrad’ stand by the entrance to the nest, sharing a plate of ravioli.
You bid the smarty farewell, dragging two bags of dead fluffies, a bag of trash, and a fourth bag containing a wriggling and piss soaked mess of a fluffy. You intend to take a look at his collar for any ID, but before then you remember you have a distressed mare in your basement you need to assess. Oh well, one thing at a time.
So ends the Siege of Fluffygrad, the invading feral hordes were no match for a size 10 rubber boot and a handgun.