Luna woke up with a yawn and flopped around on her fluffy bed. Glancing up to a novelty clock that hung up on her wall (the time always read FUN and both hands always rested on it), she gasped.
“It am su eawy!” Why was she up so early? It wasn’t cartoon day. Now, her little furry body was naturally attuned to knowing when that was so she could run in and bother mummah for cereal. Hooves scrabbling at the air, she rocked and rolled herself up to a standing position.
Hmm. Something was happening. She just didn’t quite know what yet. Stepping over to her teebee, she nudged a VHS into the tape player and started her (usual) morning routine.
Watching Baby Einstein, she just sat there with her tongue sticking out as the media equivalent of shaking keys in front of a baby played on screen. Colors. Funny noises. THIS was peak entertainment. Zoning out, she let her tongue stick out the corner of her mouth as she tried to think about what could be different today.
“Uhmm…” Looked to the ceiling. Drooled a bit. Thinking hard was very difficult to Luna. Maybe leaving her safe room would make a difference?
Trotting out of her safe room, the ‘what was different’ scenario became explicitly clear. The mare’s safe room was directly near the kitchen and there was a large sliding glass door leading to the outside. What was out there?
Snow. LOTS of snow. It was a winter wonderland! There was so much of the fluffy white stuff that Luna could barely even see her colorful toddler play equipment outside. Most of the rainbow plastic slides and tunnels were covered in out, jutting out of the powdery brilliance like artifacts from a lost civilization.
Gasp. Gulp. Another deep gasp. Luna went cross-eyed with excitement and also tooted a little but that was natural when seeing something as big as this.
“CWISMAS!?”
+++
Now, she didn’t understand calendar dates. Numbers? Those were for NERDS like her sissy, who could allegedly count to 4 but Luna was too busy living life to be caught up in that rat race.
You know what signified Christmas, the bestest day of all? Reindeer. Cookies. Santy. SNOW. Rushing into the living room, Luna didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Hewwo? Santy Cwause?” She asked in a soft voice. Their Christmas tree had already been set up around Thanksgiving. Hung with classic rainbow lights, lots of tinsel, ornaments that Luna had helped picked out. Most of them were of fast food items like cheeseburgers or tacos, because those things were very cool.
There weren’t any presents currently under the tree. Glancing back to the kitchen, she could see that there was still in fact snow on the ground. Hmm. Inching out of the living room slowly, she disappeared back into her safe room and came back out with her butterfly net.
Now this was technically for catching bibfoot but Luna hadn’t seen him around lately. Mummah said he migrated to Mexico at this time of the year, which she fully believed. Despite being made to catch sasquatch, Luna was sure that her net could also catch Santa Clause.
“Hewwo? Santy? Ams Wuna. Pwease come out.” She said sneakily, glancing around. If she captured Santa Clause, maybe she’d get all the presents ever. Those had to be the rules! Or she could BECOME Santy. After all, she’d watched a movie where that happened.
Santa didn’t show himself. Maybe he was hiding in the tree? Mummah had told her to STAY OUT of it and to not eat the tinsel. There had to be an exception for dire times like these.
Poking her face through bristly plastic branches, she looked for Santy while in the festive jungle.
“Hewwo?” She asked, chewing on just a bit of the tinsel because these were extreme times and you had to break rules sometimes. Well. He wasn’t in here. Or was he? Rocking against the tree a bit, the fluffy caused it to topple over with a crash of jingling ornaments. The pretty vintage angel tree topper went spilling out to the floor with a sad twinkle of it’s halo. Popping up on top of the tree, she looked side to side. Still no Santy.
“Cwismas?” Luna asked in disbelief, chewing on more tinsel. Well. Mummah would definitely know what was going on.
+++
Ah, a Sunday morning. One of the times that Valerie could reasonably expect to not be bothered. Not by work. Not by Luna (at least for awhile). Not by anything in the world. Of course she had Saturday off too but her fluffy was supernaturally attuned to the day and always woke her up for cereal and cartoons.
It was safe to sleep in. To have pleasant little dreams of her own. Little did the poor woman know, Luna was lurking right next to her face. ‘Fwapped!’ her butterfly net down onto her owner’s head.
Waking up with a screech, Valerie just about pissed herself. Tossed, eyed her pet with bleary eyes. “What the Hell, Luna!?”
What Val would receive was less of an explanation for what was going on but a rambling, nonsensical flood of words. Also known as: Communicating with a fluffy.
“Ams Cwismas, an’ dewes snow, an’ weindeews, Fwosty! An’..an’…snow!” Luna babbled out, telling at least two lies. She KNEW she hadn’t seen a single reindeer or a Frosty but she needed to spice her story up to make mummah pumped up for Christmas.
Valerie groaned. Oh. Right. The snow. Yay. Having to shovel out her walk, hope that her car battery hadn’t drained in the cold, oh and did she leave the faucets running last night? Likely not. Eugh.
Rubbing at the bridge of her nose and dragging herself up, Val shook her head. “No, it’s not Christmas. I haven’t even sent Santa your Christmas list yet.” To prove it, the woman took the crayon scribbles up from her nightstand and showed her mare. Like most fluffies, Luna sucked doodles at illustrating. Despite that, she’d spent enough time with her to know what was being conveyed. Bigfoot candy bars, ballerina shoes, and her sister Sunshine being abducted by aliens.
Huffing a bit, Luna bristled her fluff up. “It ams Cwismas mummah! Pwease bewieb Wuna!”
Narrowing her eyes, Valerie suddenly had a bit of foresight of what she’d see when she got into the living room. “Luna…tell me, is the Christmas tree still standing up?”
Luna hiccuped. Went cross-eyed. Smoothed a hoof against the comforters. “Dewe was bad boyz an’ Wuna twied tu stahp dem an’…dey knocked Cwismas twee downsies!”
Sigh. “Come on, Luna.”
++++
Starting the coffee machine, Valerie went to pick up the mess that Luna had caused in the living room. Just another bit of work in a day that would no doubt have much of it. Indeed, she hadn’t let the faucets run. Running the thermal gun near the exposed pipes would help. But then there was snow to shovel…
Meanwhile, was Luna helping to right her wrongs? Of course not. You couldn’t expect a fluffy to do much but she was chewing on a plastic gingerbread man and stamping all over the fallen ornaments and tinsel, flicking her tail side to side in a bossy manner.
“You know what, Luna? Why don’t you go outside to play. The snow is fun!” Her owner offered. Luna already KNEW the snow was fun. Rushing over to the sliding glass door in the kitchen, she scrabbled her hooves against it.
Shaking her head, Valerie got a puffy coat made especially for fluffies out from the hall closet. “Come on, Luna. You have to wear your coat! I paid like fifty bucks for it at Fluffmart…and YOU kept begging for it.” She grumbled, trying to maneuver the coat onto her critter.
Writhing side to side, Luna shook her head. “Nuuu! Nuuuu! Dun wan cowt! Hab fwuff!” Valerie was determined though and got the article of clothing onto her mare, who know looked like a puffy pink marshmallow.
Looking up to Val grumpily, Luna’s regrets over her own poor decisions were completely forgotten as the sliding door went open. Slowly, with Val grunting as it was frozen the fuck over.
++++
Trotting out into the yard with a shuffle of her hooves, Luna pranced and skipped about the powdery paradise. It was cold but her excitement let her forget about it for now at least.
Nosing snow into a big pile, she took a running start off the raised porch and went sinking down into it. Disappearing into all the white stuff, she eventually poked out the side and wormed her way out.
Next was making a snowman. This was an especially difficult task for fluffies to do alone but she managed…Kind of. Rolling snow along until she had three lumpy clumps of it, she built it. It wasn’t tall. It wasn’t pretty. Of course it’d toppled over several times before she got it placed precariously together.
“Hewwo.” She told the snowman after putting two misshapen twigs as arms. For the eyes she used two walnut husks that were found on the porch, luckily out of the way of the snow which had fallen.
Of course the snowman didn’t answer. Just looked to her with it’s walnut eyes.
“Ams Wuna. Ams gud fwuffy. Wub yew?” She offered the snowman, which didn’t answer. This was no frosty. And it was really cheesing her off. Huffing and puffing, she sent a hoof out to knock off the top snow clump and then trampled over the rest.
Stomp stomp stomp! “Wuna haechu! Wan be fwends buh NU FWEND NU MOWE!”
After ending the newly created life of her snowman, Luna trotted under the porch and looked up to the icicles. Oooohhh. They were so big and the early morning light shone off them so brightly.
Standing transfixed with the beautiful display, she was snapped back to attention by Valerie suddenly opening the sliding door.
By now Luna was covered in snow. Absolutely. From mane to tail.
“I made you some chicken noodle soup.” She told the fluffy, knowing that offering to brush her off would only get a small pouty tantrum.
Trotting inside, Luna giggled. “Wub soop.”
++++
Standing there lapping up chicken noodle soup from her pink princess bowl, Luna had large clumps of snow falling down from her fluffy body and puffy coat in great melting chunks. More work for Val but what else was new?
Today had been so fun! Though she hadn’t but woken up a little while ago, she was exhausted from all of the excitement.
Once there was nothing but dregs of noodles and a few splotches of broth left in her bowl, Luna sank down to her bowl and gave a happy coo. Scooted next to the heater vent and plopped herself on top of it.
Time for a snowday nap and the end to this story!
