Margaret waited until she felt her heart rate begin to return to its usual pace before untangling herself from the mass of fluffies, a smile on her face. “Thank you dearies.”
The ordeal had taken a lot out of Margaret. Not only was it a strenuous exercise for a woman nearing a century in age, there was a great deal of emotional strain as well. Margaret knew that appearing strong was necessary to cement her place at the top of the herd, but she hadn’t expected just how much it would hurt to see the fluffies fear her. The herd giving her hugs had lessened this pain, but it still lingered in a corner of her mind.
“Mummah?” Margaret felt a tugging on her pant leg, looking down to see Cider, suckling on a hoof. “Upsies?” Margaret smiled at him and picked him up, cradling him in her arms as the colt assumed a fetal position, suckling a hoof. The two were silent for a while, watching as the rest of the herd played together.
“Whewe meanie mummah gu?” Margaret sighed. “I sent her away.” Cider suckled on his hoof again. “Bu’ whewe?” Margaret smiled at him sadly. “Don’t worry about it. The important thing is she will never be coming back.”
Instantly, Margaret regretted her word choice, worried that she may have upset the foal. Cider appeared more concerned than upset, suckling his hoof harder as his brow furrowed. “Whewe fwuffy ge’ miwkies nao?”
Margaret smiled. “Don’t worry.” She gently parted the colt’s lips, softly tapping a nail against the unicorn’s teeth as he giggled. “You have big fluffy teeth now, so you can eat big fluffy food!” Granted, she would probably need to steam him and his sister’s food for a few weeks until their teeth were fully developed.
The two sat for a while watching the herd play and frolic. After a short while Grapenut approached. “Mummah?” He asked cautiously.
“Yes dear?” Margaret set Cider down, the unicorn sticking close by to the old woman’s leg. “Hewd nee’ nummies.”
Margaret had completely forgot about feeding the herd. Looking to the clock, she saw it was nearly ten, two hours past the usual breakfast time. “I’m so sorry dearie! Let me go get the food.” Margaret quickly walked inside, nearly hitting Cider in the snout when she closed the door, the unicorn slowly pawing at the door before being led back to the garden by Grapenut.
The supply of supplements was beginning to run low, Margaret making a note to pick up some more the next time she went into town. She would also need some more fresh produce, She looked forwards to the day she would be able to procure everything from the garden, especially the day she could teach the fluffies how to make their own spaghetti.
Throwing some water on to boil, she dug out the steaming basket from the cuboard, dumping the dead mouse out and giving it a quick rinse with water before loading it up with cucumbers, carrots and celery before popping it into the pot of boiling water.
After preparing the adults food as usual, Margaret brought the trays out. The fluffies lined up before she even had the chance to give the order, but she gave it anyways. “Line UP!”
The mealtime went smoothly. The foals, while they were initially worried about eating the unknown nummies, quickly grew accustomed to the veggies, each finishing their portion and earning a hug from Margaret.
Margaret was clearing up the remains of the ponies breakfast when she saw Button sadly staring at the stripped stems of the radishes. Placing the tray on the deck table, Margaret came over and sat by him. “Whats wrong dearie?”
Button sniffled a bit. “Meanie Candee an Punky gabe pwant fwiends foweba sweepies.” Margaret was a bit surprised. This was quite a lot of empathy to be coming from a former toughie. She leaned over, giving the fluffy a hug. “Its okay dearie.” It was too late to replant radishes, and the chances of being able to revive these ones were slim to none, but luckily, Margaret heard a sound that she hoped would put the fluffies minds off the events.
Thomas hopped out of his truck, the gravel crunching beneath his feet as he jogged up to the fence, a bulky, cloth wrapped package in hand. “Hey Margaret, hows it going?” Thomas smiled. The fluffies cheered a chorus of “Mistah Thomas!” running over to hug the mans legs as he carefully entered the yard. “Hey guys!” Thomas smiled cheerfully, placing the package down gently as he wrapped up Jackson, Button, Bullet, and Grapenut in a big hug. He looked around the garden, with a growing confusion.
“I see we are short two fluffies.” Thomas said coolly, sitting down as the herd converged on his position, Clementine and her babies claiming their place on his lap as he absentmindedly stroked her mane. Margaret was a bit confused. “You should have seen them out by the trash when you drove up.”
Thomas looked back at her, equally confused. “No, there was nothing out there. Maybe a coyote got them.” Margaret frowned. Maybe, but that seemed a bit odd. She shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. They aren’t a part of the herd anymore.” She put her hands on her hips. “So, what did you bring me?”
Thomas smiled. “Check this out.” He opened the package to reveal a harness mounted watering system. Two waterspouts snaked down the sides from a main reservoir tank, the flow apparently controlled by a spring loaded chain, the end covered in a soft ball, that hung down in front of the tank. Most strikingly, the entire thing was mounted on four wheels, small wheels in the front and large wheels in the back, easily moving when the young man gave the rig a slight push. Thomas smiled energetically. “Let me show you the features!”
Thomas began to give her the run down of the machine. “The frame is made out of recycled HDPE, reinforced with steel wire.” He pointed at the harness, a repurposed dog walking harness that had been padded with foam. “This should prevent any discomfort from extended use, and is probably going to be easier to clean than the fluffies are!” He said jokingly as he ruffled Jackson’s head.
“And the big thing you have probably been looking at, its wheels. I was trying to think of a way to increase the amount of water available, as fluffies aren’t the strongest and my best calculations came up with them at one point five, MAYBE two liters of water as a maximum. They can reasonably move around five liters when they just need to pull it, especially on these wheels.”
Margaret smiled as Thomas excitedly laid out the features. “The fluffy operates the machine by pulling the chain down, which starts the flow of water.” He filled the reservoir from the spigot, then pulled down on the chain, a soft shower of water streaming from both sides. The herd backed away from the water, their programmed fear still deeply ingrained in their bodies.
Margaret gave Thomas a hearty pat on the back. “You really out did yourself this time Thomas!” She motioned Archibald over. “Archibald, will you come over here?” The gray unicorn dutifully trotted over. “Archibald dear, would you be alright demonstrating the watering machine?” The fluffy nodded. “Yus Miss Mawgawet!”
Thomas gave him instructions on how to operate the machine as he hooked the harness around the fluffy. “Alright, so what you are going to do is pull this little ball down as you walk. When you reach the end, come back to the hose so we can refill the machine, alright?” Archibald smiled and nodded. “Otay mistah Thomas!”
Archibald struggled to overcome the initial inertia of the rig, but soon was moving steadily through the yard to the garden, jolting to a stop as he lined up the rig. Thomas gave him a cheerful rub on the back. “Alright buddy, MUSH!”
The fluffy stared at him blankly. “Wut ‘Mush’ mean?” Thomas sighed. “It means go.” Archibald cocked his head to one side. “Den why nu say go?” Thomas was silent for a bit. “Fair point, guess I just got a bit excited.” The unicorn nodded compassionately. “Dat am otay.”
“Let’s try this again, shall we?” The young man grinned at the fluffy. “Alright buddy, GO!”
Archibald strained against the harness, the contraption slowly beginning to roll forwards towards the garden. As he entered the field of radishes, Thomas signaled to him to pull the chain. Dutifully, Archibald did so, the two spouts on the side streaming forth water onto the rows of radishes as he passed.
Reaching the end of the row, Archibald seemed a bit fidgety, but otherwise fine. The rest of the worker fluffies were amazed. What usually took them a good ten, fifteen minutes had been accomplished in a little under four. “WAOW!” Jackson exclaimed excitedly, doing a small happy trot over to Thomas. “Jackson wanna push wawa fwiend!”
Thomas appeared to ponder it for a second before smiling. “Of course buddy, let me just unhook Archibald first and then you can go.” As Jackson cheered happily, Thomas leaned down and unhooked Archibald, who took off running to relieve himself at the compost pile.
Margaret smiled. “Seems like the running water doesn’t do them any favors huh?” Thomas grimaced in reply. “Could be worse. Due to the fluffies weakness to water and just base stupidity there were rumors that they could drown themselves just by hearing rain.” The old woman scoffed. “Look, I don’t care how dumb they can be, that’s just plain stupid.” Thomas nodded, hooking the excited Jackson into the harness.
The worker fluffies took turns pulling the ‘wawa friend’ through the field, each having to run to the litterbox to relieve themselves after their turn. They had cycled to near the end of the field whena problem occurred.
“Mummah?” Grapenut cried from the middle of the field. “MUMMAH!” Thomas and Margaret raced over to the pony, finding him knee deep in thick mud. “Shit.” Margaret murmured as she and Thomas pulled the pony out of the muck, his entire bottom half thick with dirt. Neither of them had considered that, due to the slight incline of the field, water tended to pool at the bottom of the field where Grapenut had just plowed.
Thomas crouched down, deep in thought. “Maybe I could create a pair of fluffy horseshoes.” Margaret stared at him blankly. “What?”
“Horseshoes, you know, to give them more traction?” Thomas took a mini caliper from his back pocket, sizing up Grapenut’ts dirty hoof. “I don’t mean nail them in, probably just secure them with a little bit of sticky tack, or velcro.” Margaret laughed. “Alternatively, I could have them start from here and go the other way.”
Thomas froze, sheepishly putting the calipers back in his pocket. “Yeah, I guess that would work too.” Margaret gave him a pat on the back as she dragged out the wash basin. “Don’t worry, I wont hold it against you.”
Grapenut got a quick bath, the fluffies happily chattering amongst themselves as Thomas showed Margaret how to fold up the watering rig for compact storage. The two sat back and had a cup of coffee and watched as the herd played together, giggling, laughing, and cooing to each other as they played.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Bumbler snuggled up with his three foals, holding extra tight to Cider. The colt still hadn’t gotten over the harsh rejection by his mother, still occasionally crying. He hadn’t stopped suckling his hoof except to eat.
Bumbler blamed himself. It was his fault that Punky had been so bad. He had been too easy on her, only really forcing her to feed the foals. And now he had to deal with the consequences.
Cider began to sob again, Bumbler cooing and holding the foal to his chest. “Nu cwy babbeh, nu cwy, meanie munstah mummah am gone!” Despite his pleadings and platitudes the foal continued to cry, large sweet tears falling from his face. Bumbler began to sing his ‘Daddeh Song’
Daddeh wuv babbeh,
Babbeh wuv Daddeh,
Eat wots an’ wots of nummies,
Gwow up big an’ stwong!
The gentle song and the reverberations seemed to work, lulling the colt to sleep. Bumbler licked the tears away, placing him down among his siblings, watching as they curled together into a fluffpile. Bumbler laid down again, pressing his ear against the ground and preparing to fall asleep, when he heard a distant rumble in the earth, followed by a familiar heavy clunk, clunk, clunk. The hornless unicorn waited. Eventually he heard a quiet voice call out to him. “Hey, buddy. Come over here.”
Dutifully, he trotted over to see the dark maned human again. “Hewwo nice mist-” his voice was cut off as the human clamped a gloved hand down around his mane. “SHHHH! Remember! If the rest of the herd finds me there will be MUNSTAH attacks!”
Bumbler attempted to gasp, any noise still stopped by the humans hand. “Alright, now I need to talk to you for a bit.” Bumbler nodded silently, the man relaxing his grip as the fluffy flicked his tail nervously.
“I came to take back the blockie.” Bumbler felt a great sense of relief. He had been worried for so many forevers that another fluffy would find it, unleashing a group of barky monsters. Jackson had come close to finding it when he chased a butterfly towards the rose bush, but luckily he had been quick enough to stop him from rushing straight into the roses.
“Can you bring it to me?” Bumbler nodded, trotting over to the rose bush and carefully pushing his head through the spiny stems, with the occasional yelp of “owwies!” to which he received a quiet reprimand from the human. Managing to extricate the blockie, he carried it back to the human, receiving a sketti treat in return.
The man turned to look at the fluffy, a not nice smile on his face. “So what happened to your special friend? I don’t see her.” Bumbler immediately scowled, much to the surprise of the human. “Dummeh meanie munstah mummah wet bestest babbeh num da pwant fwiends, den twy bwame odda babbeh.”
“Really? So she was a bad mummah?” The pony nodded angrily. “Wowstest mummah ebah.” The dark maned human nodded. “And the bestest babbeh?” Bumbler turned to look at him, the best scowl he could manage on his face. “Wowstest babbeh.”
The man smiled, passing Bumbler another sketti treat. “Alright, get back to your babies, I gotta go… Protect another herd.” The black unicorn smiled. “Tank ‘ou mistah!”
The nice mister jogged away, Bumbler returning to his foals, curling around them and falling into a peaceful sleep for the first time in a long while.