When last we saw Sorbet, he became the older brother to a tiny chirpy bat fluff. And he was given the high honor of giving his new little sister her name: Astra. Let’s check back in and see how Sorbet is handling being a big brother.
Sorbet loved Fridays. Friday meant Mummah wasn’t at work and he could play with her for three whole days. And Friday mornings meant long sleep-ins in his warm fluffy bed with his Stuffy Friend: a bright orange T-rex he’d named Wexie.
He was finding pretty quickly, though, that there wasn’t much sleeping in being done now that they had adopted his little sister.
Astra was still only a chirpy, but the inky black foal did rise early and begin to “sing her morning songs” as Mummah would say sleepily as she shuffled from her room to the safe room. She’d very gently lift Astra from her own little bed in the fluffy incubator and quietly sing a “mummah song” to her, which would wake Sorbet.
Betty found it very interesting that the song would soothe both of them. As Sorbet, it turned out, was not a morning fluffy and would be grouchy when woken up too soon. But the song, combined with being picked up to sit on Betty’s lap in the room’s armchair soon had him cooing and singing quietly with her while she fed Astra her foal formula.
Astra was growing so fast from the tiny, scrawny thing they found in the hay. Her belly was getting round and chubby and so were her cheeks until she resembled any healthy foal her age. Her wingies were sleek black, like new leather, with a slight red lining to them underneath. Her coat was midnight black with faint points of what looked like glitter. And, to their surprise, she had two horns on her head, the same sparkly silver as her hooves.
Betty had worried when they discovered this that Sorbet might find her scary. You never could tell what a fluffy might consider a “munstah”, after all. The average fluffy seemed afraid of everything that wasn’t sweet and cuddly. But not Sorbet, it seemed. When he saw her horns, he’d giggled and clapped his hoofsies and said Astra was “so wucky!” to have two hornsies.
On this Friday morning, he was once more cuddled up on Betty’s lap, watching sleepily as Astra drank her miwkies as though she’d never eat again.
Halloween had passed and they’d all gone to Betty’s mom’s (who Sorbet enthusiastically named Mummahmum) for Thanksgiving and had gone to sleep early from eating too many nummies. But Astra was still hungry, it seemed.
“Am Astwa gwoing big an’ stwong, mummah? Soon be big fwuffy?” He asked, wondering for the dozenth time when she’d be big enough for him to run around and play with him and their kitty bwuddas.
“She’s got some catching up to do, Sorby.” Betty answered quietly, reaching down to pet him. “Her mummah was very mean and wouldn’t feed her. The vet says she was really small. But she’s doing her best. She might even open her eyes soon.”
“Open her see pwaces?” Sorbet repeated Betty, smiling sleepily but happily. “If open see pwaces then come tawkies!”
“That’s true. I wonder what she’ll sound like.” Betty replied, shutting her eyes and dozing just a moment. Ben had mentioned the other day that he hadn’t thought of her as maternal and she’d given him a smack for it. But here she was, taking care of two Fluffies like they were her own children. Maybe he was right. Maybe something had changed with her since that day at the park.
Having Sorbet depending on her had made her feel less angry at the world. Something about him had made her want to be better. And with Astra added to the mix, she found that making sure they both had great lives had become incredibly important to her.
“Mummah?” A tiny voice cheeped and Sorbet gasped, bringing Betty’s eyes open to meet a pair of slate gray eyes gazing up at her from the palm of her hand. Astra’s eyes were open and trying very hard to focus on Betty.
“Astwa opened her see pwaces!” Sorbet said happily, scrambling up to get a better look. At the sound, Astra looked towards where the sound had come from and giggled.
“Wub mummah! Wub bwudda!” She said in a soft, whispery little voice. Betty watched her, noticing how she wouldn’t look at Sorbet until he spoke. And that she was listening very hard when he did.
To test something, Betty put her hand in front of Sorbet and then moved it to see if Astra would follow her movement. But she didn’t.
“What mummah doing?” Sorbet asked and Astra’s attention went right back in his direction. Worry knotted up in Betty’s chest as she looked closer at Astra’s eyes. Was this just part of her biology as a batfluff? Or had it come from something more serious.
“I’m just making sure she’s okay.” She answered as she cuddled them both and mentally made a note to call the vet later.
Not that she expected them to tell her any differently than what she suspected:
Astra was blind.
