This story is a sequel to https://fluffy-community.com/t/yeller-ace/71409
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When Shirley came home from the diner and found her trailer home even more of a wreck, she didn’t feel much. At this point what more could she expect? Men had been like this ever since she was a kid. When her father did badly, he’d be right out of the jailhouse before supper even got cold.
Yet she felt so stupid. So cowardly and small. When she found Yeller’s crumpled, beaten corpse all she knew at that moment was sorrow. Something so full and ripe that it felt like it’d wrap around her body like a boa constrictor and drag the life right out of her lungs.
Sinking down to her knees, she brought her hands in to sink against his now cold fur. The woman couldn’t even cry. It was all she wanted to do, yet her body wouldn’t allow it. Crying was for victims. In her mind, she was no victim. It was her fault that Nicolas had even been in their lives to begin with.
“My boy. My poor boy…” She whimpered out, dragging him up close. Yeller loved hugs more than anything. Now his front legs, splayed in unnatural angles, bobbed uselessly as he was pinned against her apron.
Without thinking much about it, she went to pick up the now scuffed and bloodied plastic deputy’s badge the sheriff had given him for protecting her the other night. Clipped it against his collar.
The thought stabbed across her brain like a cold icepick. No…
“Please don’t tell me you tried protecting me.” She whispered to the corpse. In her heart, she was sure he had. Without even thinking it possible, she felt the agony in her soul deepen.
Taking Yeller out into the backyard, she buried him under a tree. There wasn’t much else to do.
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Yeller’s entire world had been pain before slipping away into darkness. In the darkness, it didn’t hurt. Fact was, he didn’t think of anything. That darkness was like a dreamless sleep. Yet things pulled through the slumber. Flashes of things.
Mummah. Mummah’s kind, smiling face. All of the warmth and love she could provide. Remembering Shirley made him feel restless. Though he couldn’t even feel his body anymore, it was like…like he could. As if there were tinglies all over his weggies.
Something else was there, too. Meanie Munstah. What he happened to refer to Nicolas Ditch as. His murderer, but even more the one who made his precious owner sad. Hurt her so badly. Made every single night one where she cried helplessly. Nick’s snide, rat face drawn back with a sneer burned through the darkness of his sleep. Something began building up inside him. It wasn’t more than the love burning inside of him for Shirley, but almost equal. This was a thing that fluffies, even those found in the worst of situations, never found themselves weighted down with.
Hate. Pure, oily, black hate. Like a snakebite burning with venom, it spread throughout him. Now he felt more than tinglies in his weggies. He felt a great bit of cold. Something heavy on top of him. The darkness was still there, yet it seemed different.
Struggling and wrenching himself around, Yeller tried to screech with anger. There was only one thing he wanted in the world right now: To keep his mummah safe. To make her happy. Pulling and twisting, heaving himself up against the weight, he ripped up out of the darkness to expose the world above him.
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Yeller looked up to the bright moon. So full and heavy, it’s light powerful and enough to easily see everything around him. Looking below him, he found that he was trapped inside of freshly dug dirt. Giving a yelp, he scrabbled his hooves against the soil and fully brought himself out of what had been his grave.
First, of course, his eyes flit over to the trailer. Giving a waggle of his tail, his first instinct was to run up and slam his hoofsies up against the door. Yet something told him not to. To look in a different direction. With a dazed feeling, he pulled his eyes over to look at a strange presence.
A blue foal. Nothing really out of place about it, honestly. It’s back was turned to Yeller and it started to crawl forward.
“Wewe am yew goan?” The stallion asked this stranger in a confused voice. Something in his think-pwace told him to follow along, so he did.
Strangely enough, no matter how fast Yeller made tracks toward this espowin’ babbeh, he never seemed to get close. It didn’t even appear that he was crawling fast, either. The same steady pace yet he always seemed out of reach.
Once they’d gotten further along, Yeller turned his head slightly. His trailer home out on Fiddle Road was a speck. How fast how they been going?
“W-Wha…” Everything was so strange. Regardless, the blue foal had stopped. Back still turned on Yeller, it seemed to be sitting there waiting for something. Feeling a strong urge, Yeller turned to a nearby roadside ditch.
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Her name had been Callie. Fiery orange with a dark red mane and tail. Once beloved by a little girl, now she lay here in a lonely ditch. While she and her owner were playing out in the front yard, Callie went chasing after a pretty butterfly. Happily prancing onto the country road, she hadn’t ever seen what hit her. Smacked by a car and sent sailing through the air, she died of a broken neck. Now she rested on her tummy, the chirpies she’d been so proud of nestled all around her. They hadn’t died from the impact but, instead, starved to death while trying to helplessly pull sustenance from their deceased mummah.
Callie’s eyes had been open this entire time, staring up locked in the haze of death, yet now they could finally see once more. Moonlight flooded her vision, so bright it caused her to squeeze her eyes shut. Cheeps and peeps sounded from all around her, and suddenly a strange new face was looking down to her.
“Am Yewweh. Wan hewp fwuffy? Nee’ hewp.” He didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to be doing, but he could feel that he needed all the help he could get. This thing was burning in his mind. Hopping down into the ditch, he began lifting up withered chirpies from where Callie lay. Helped them nuzzle once more at their proper position on their mother’s back.
It was confusing making sense of all this, but Callie knew something special was going on. That this fluffy needed help. He had a thing to do. Important, huge. Bigger than any fluffy could dream of. What was it? No idea.
“Cawwie hewp, nyu fwend.” She murmured, following Yeller who assembled once more behind the blue foal who had appeared at his grave.
So began the night procession.
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The murky bottom of Culvers Pond was the resting place for a stallion named, most unfortunately, Piddles. In life he’d been a scared blue unicorn. Only friend to an old woman out in town. Awhile ago, a group of teenagers decided to get rowdy and pulled him from his fenced in yard. They said they wanted to play and of course, a fluffy didn’t think twice.
They beat him. Broke off his bestest horn. Spat on him, called him every mean name you could think of. Were they content to just let him off with that? No.
One of them had tied a brick to a length of rope and knotted it around one of his back weggies. Tossed him out into the pond. It’s not like fluffies could swim anyways, the brick was overkill. Sinking down to the algae rich mud, dirty water had filled his lungs. His last moments had been nothing but burning pain and terror as his dying brain pleaded for help.
Yet strength flooded through his body once more. Hooves scrabbling, finding purchase against the muck, he began dragging himself out from the pond. Surfacing, Piddles found himself in front of two new fluffies.
Yeller and Callie should have been (rightfully) terrified by this sight. Being down in the pond had meant fish had eaten right through the soft flesh of the stallion’s face. A skull with only a few scraps of fluff stared out at them, water beetles crawling through it’s filthy fur.
Instead of being scared, Yeller and Callie met him with a big hug. Lacking a tongue, Piddles couldn’t speak. A rasping rattle issued from his throat.
“Hewp, nyu fwend?” Yeller inquired hopefully.
Of course he’d help. Another fluffy joined the procession.
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As they walked across a deserted field, others began joining their ranks. There wasn’t enough time to meet them all.
This was Farmer Green’s property. A no-nonsense old fella who despised fluffies getting into everything. It brought him no joy but he’d have to go put them down with his .22 every so often. Entire small clustered herds began rising up from the cold ground where they’d been left behind to rot. These were the least damaged of the procession thus far: Most had been put down cleanly with a single round to the heart.
Bright orange will-o-wisps began forming in the air as the night procession gained more followers. They didn’t need to be told what was going on. Something powerful had lifted the veil of death from them and filled their hearts with an unknown purpose. Each of them were driven forward, Yeller’s powerful love for his owner sparking a fire in each of them.
Out in the old barn and silo, crowds of micros began spilling out to hurriedly join the line of their much larger bretheren. These colorful little guys had been, largely, the victims of poison bait. They were after all vermin of the greatest sense who could get into just about anything.
“Su many fwends…” Yeller marveled, looking behind him. Those who followed gave a loud cheer, the sound rippling across the field.
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The local animal cemetary didn’t normally allow fluffies to be interred on their grounds. Outright banned them, in fact. Yet they hadn’t been able to deny a war hero.
Sherman was his name. Once olive drab fluff with a bright yellow mane and tail. Perfect colors to be a mascot for the military. He’d been snuck into Iraq when he was still a foal in his owner’s boot, had grown up beside a bunch of fighting men.
He hadn’t shown fear in the face of danger, not even when a roadside bomb tore through a vehicle he’d been traveling in with his friends. Despite having one of his weggies torn clean off and having a bit of his head shorn off in the explosion, he’d kept cool and did the only thing he could. Even as fires raged around him, Sherman pressed himself like a makeshift compress against a dying man’s wounds. The pressure was said to have kept the man alive.
After that, Sherman was retired from the military and went back to his owner’s hometown to stay with his parents. A new metal plate in his head and a prosthetic, too. His retired life had been one of working to help local veteran fundraisers, being a pretty good mascot for that too.
Sherman died of old age in his sleep. Given a full send-off at the cemetery. Yet now he felt himself once more being called to action. Wrenching himself out from the soil where he’d been put to rest, the fluffies of the night procession helped drag him out by his prosthetic leg.
He’d been in the ground for too long to have the proper organs to speak any longer. Worms seethed through his fluff, and clumps of grave soil were caught in his mouth.
“Hewwo nyu fwend. Wan hewp Yewweh?” The mustard yellow stallion asked.
Of course Sherman would never deny it. Years under the ground hadn’t dulled his spirit of duty one bit.
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Meanwhile, Nicolas Ditch sat hunkered down on a sofa. Hanging out, hanging low. A friend was out of town so he was free to use his trailer as a base of operations.
What did such an esteemed man as Nick do when he wasn’t beating and robbing women? Why, getting drunk. Eating Doritos. Yelling ‘nigger’ at 8 year olds on Call of Duty.
It was summer time though a cool breeze curled up against the trailer. Shook it slightly.
“Yeah? Well, I fucked your mom. How about that? I fucked your mom, and your dad!” He screamed into the headset he was wearing, ratlike features really coming out when he got angry. His lips always curled back too far.
Little would he know, these would be his last words to a human being. Etch that on your tombstone.
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The night procession trailed out long, the will-o-wisps truly feverish against the night sky. No cars seemed to be out. No humans were there to witness them.
It was very curious. Yeller had been trailing behind the espowin’ blue babbeh this entire time. Where to? To a trailer. Not his trailer with mummah.
“Bwue babbeh? Wry am hewe?” He asked curiously, tilting his head. Glanced up. One of the windows were open though, and he heard words being screeched out into the world.
‘NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER!’
That was the Meanie Munstah. Nick. Eyes narrowing, it all came to him. All of his nyu fwends. What they were here to do.
They were here to protect his mummah. These fluffies who had gone fowebbah sweepies just like him were made awake again because of his need to help. Puffing out his cheeks, Yeller nodded. Turned to his friends.
“Meanie Munstah am in dewe! Pwease nyu fwends, hewp Yewweh! Am omwy fwuffy, nee’ hewp.” His strong desires rippled across all of their souls like a stone tossed into a pond. They knew what they needed to do.
Before, the night procession had been a single uniform line. A neat row of fluffies dragging themselves along to their destination. Yet now it began to form up into a frothing crowd, each of them shoving against one another. Fluffies were small. Powerless. Scared. Yet they were all together now. Had nothing to be scared of. After all, they’d denied death itself and were here to help Yeller’s mummah.
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Nick was about ready to throw his friend’s PS5 controller right into the television monitor he was in front of before the door to the trailer bust entirely off of it’s hinges from the sheer force of the many fluffies who had piled and pushed behind it.
“What in the fuck!?” He cawed out, eyes going wide. Was he scared of fluffies? No. Yet these weren’t normal fluffies. They were, well, quite dicked up. Rotting.
At the front of the great wall of decaying meat was something he recognized. It took him a moment, but the dull glint of that stupid fucking deputy’s badge glinting on his collar left little to the imagination of who it could be.
“Back for more, huh, Yeller?” He asked, thinking he was going insane. Must be. That fluffy had been beaten so badly there weren’t a chance it could have survived. Yet here it was.
Giving a nasally sniff and thrusting a shaking index finger out, he beckoned to the fluffies. “I’m gonna kill all of you! And then YOU!” Glaring at Yeller, nervously laughing, Nick cocked his fingers up to mimic a gun.
“I’m gonna kill your fat fuck of an owner.” Well, he was clearly going off the rails. Might as well engage in a little homicide right?
Bodies split off from around Yeller. Zombie fluffies threw themselves at Nick’s legs in hugs, squeezing up against him. He tippled, toppled, screeched, clawed his hands at them. Those that were flung away were quickly replaced by another.
Sinking to the floor under the growing weight of corpses massing up on him, Nick found his arms being held down. Light of the room was beginning to be blocked out. Terror seized at his heart.
Yeller himself was the one to wrap his weggies up around the man’s neck in a hug. It wouldn’t strangle him. No, fluffies weren’t strong enough for that. They were so weak. There were so many of them though.
“Haechu. Weab mummah awone fowebbah.” Yeller hissed to his biggest, wowstest enemy as light faded away. More and more fluffies were piling in on them, drowning out the light. Nick pleaded, coughed, screamed.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Yeller refused to let go until it stopped.
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By the time Yeller opened his eyes once again, he found that all of his nyu fwends were gone. Where? Back to their fowebbah sweepies places, maybe.
Weggies drawing away from Nick’s neck, the fluffy only looked down to him for a moment. He didn’t want to see it. Seeing a hurt human was too much, even if they had been awful.
There was a crinkling sound. Ears perking up, Yeller gave a tilt of his head and watched as the blue espowin’ babbeh who’d led him out here toppled out of the Doritos bag that Nick had been scarfing down. Fluroscent orange nacho cheese dusted his chubby little face.
“Bwue babbeh? Wha naow?” The stallion asked with confusion. Giving a waggle of his little tail, the foal led Yeller over to a coffee table where a plastic baggy filled with crumpled money lay.
Something in his mind told him it was mummah’s, and he snatched it up with his teeth. Glancing to open doorway, Yeller watched the blue foal crawl out of it and decided to follow him once more.
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Time passed quick. Far more quickly than should have been possible. It didn’t seem long at all until they were right back at the trailer on Fiddle Road. Perking up a bit, Yeller ran toward his home. The door here was broken, too. Seemed where Nick went, broken doors followed.
Something told him to be quiet. That…that mummah would find him ugly. Be scared. Quietly walking to the bedroom where his owner and him had slept in, he found the woman laying with her face buried into a pillow. Tear tracks darkened her cheeks, and she was clutching Yeller’s favorite stuffy fwend to her chest.
Shirly loved him a lot. Carefully climbing up onto the bed, he went to give her the gentlest of hugs so as to not wake her. Dropped the baggy of money down onto the blanket beside her.
“Yewweh wub yew. Pwease dun be saddies.” Nuzzling her for a moment, he straightened up and saw the blue foal out of the corner of his eye. Something told him it was time to leave. That he couldn’t stay. So once more he was following the espowin’ babbeh out, giving one last look to Shirley.
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Out in the back yard next to an old crabapple tree. That’s where he’d been put down to rest and it’s where the blue babbeh was standing now.
Knowing he had to do it, Yeller crawled back down into the hole where mummah had put him. Wanting nothing more than to remain with her, he knew that this was a special thing. That he’d been given something unique and this was what had to be done.
Eyes closing once again, he drifted off to a peaceful sleep this time as the blue babbeh above carefully nosed mounds of soil on top of him.
He’d done it. He’d saved the day. Him and all his friends.
Yeller had the heart of a lion and tonight he’d had many fluffy bodies.
