She needs them. Sissy needs the no-babbeh-nummies.
That was the mantra repeating itself in Druxson’s head. Without it, he surely would’ve turned tail and fled as soon as he laid eyes on the beautiful flower boxes, preciously guarded by dense rows of parsley and wild garlic. Only fluffies new to the area ever made the mistake of setting foot on the spotless green lawn. Any mummah who ate from that garden would get the worst tummy hurties and have her babies then and there, no matter how small they were. Sometimes they were so small that they’d get lost in the grass. Tiny, fleshy pink blobs no bigger than a ladybug swallowed up by that evil garden.
And the tasty-looking plants behind the outer wall of herbs were even worse. Habenero peppers, bright orange and bite-sized with a faintly sweet scent no hungry fluffy could resist. Spicy mustard greens that stung tiny fluffy eyes, and tall, thorny artichokes that stab sensitive fluffy mouths, red rhubarb that looks like candy and potato greens with poisonous leaves. Latticeworks of morning glories and deadly nightshade bloomed from inside the oleander hedge that surrounded the garden. And under the oleander, the whole property was lined with thickets of blackberries, save for one spot, trimmed clear of brambles so fluffies who think they’re smart can sneak in and eat themselves to death.
That’s why Druxson had been staking out the place for days, timing the comings and goings of the mister inside. He knew all about this garden. He’d looked on in horror as stupid, unsuspecting fluffies met their end among the beautiful, deadly plants.
Finally, when he was sure the mister was away, Druxson took a deep breath and squeezed himself through the gap in the hedge. His fluffalo blood made it a tight fit, but thankfully nothing broke skin. The grass was even greener up close, and smelled even sweeter than the mushy, half-rotten blackberries he’d been eating off the ground for the past few days. But Druxson had already seen how the sausage is made. Knowing that the grass only smelled so good because it was fertilized with ground up fluffy carcasses turned that sweet scent unbearably sour.
He stepped gingerly over the sweet grass like it would burn him, and zeroed in on his prize. He braced his little hooves on the flower box and grabbed as big of a mouthful as he could, the taste was fresh and green and uncomfortably appetizing. The sound of the stems breaking was like a chorus of gunshots in the silent garden. He could pick the garlic out later, right now he had to get out of here before the scary mister came back.
Druxson bolted for the hole in the hedge and tried to squeeze through, but found he suddenly didn’t fit anymore. He thrashed and bucked as hard as he could, he had to get this parsley to Bossy. He HAD to. But all he succeeded in doing was embedding those thorns deeper into his flanks.
When the pain got to be too much, he stopped struggling and just… whimpered.
He was about to back up and try again when he finally noticed the scary mister standing right there. Hands on hips. Glaring.
Druxson’s bladder voided itself without his permission.
“What exactly is a male fluffalo like you doing stealing my parsley?”
Druxson’s whole body had gone rigid, including his jaw. He didn’t answer.
“Oh, for the love of…” Druxson never heard the end of that sentence. The scary mister’s hand was reaching for him and Druxson squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they would go and prepared himself for the end.
The end felt like the strong, callused hands of a gardener grabbing him by the scruff and pulling him out of the blackberries. Then it felt like fingers prying his mouth open and trying to take the little bundle of parsley, and Druxson started babbling. Nevermind that it sent the stems flying in all directions.
“Pwease, nice mistuh! Sissy nee’ nu-babbeh-nummies! Nu wan’ num yu pwetty flowahs ow weafies ow gwassies, jus’ nee’ nu-babbeh-nummies…”
The scary mister was looking at him with an unreadable expression.
“You’ve figured out that parsley causes miscarriages? Fascinating…” Druxson understood maybe four of those words, but the scary mister seemed… pleased?
“I’ve been watching you skulk around my house for the last few days. Tell me why your sister needs no-baby-nummies so badly. Why doesn’t she come get them herself?”
“Sissy hab bad weggie huwties, nu can walk dis faw. Meanie smawtie gib tuu many tummeh-babbehs aww da time. Sissy huwtie buh smawtie nu cawe. Sissy say nebah gib meanie smawtie babbehs ebah again.” As Druxson spilled his sister’s life story, the scary mister nodded along like he understood.
“Tell you what: I’m gonna go inside and grab my shotgun, and if you can gather up all the “nummies” you dropped and get out of here before I come back, I’ll let you go.”
Druxson didn’t know what a “shotgun” was and suspected he really didn’t want to find out, but the scary mister was offering him a chance to escape. He nodded frantically, and the scary mister smiled a bone-chilling smile.
“Ready, set, go.”
The scary mister let go of Druxson’s scruff and turned away, his leisurely pace somehow more frightening than if he’d been in a hurry. The clock was ticking and Druxson wasted no time squirming over shoving his nose in the corpse-fed dirt like a truffle pig, sniffing out each individual sprig he’d dropped. He didn’t dare try and grab a fresh bunch, the scary mister said to pick up the nummies he dropped, and Druxson wasn’t taking any more chances.
He probably missed a couple, but the ground stank where he’d pissed himself, and he was running out of time. He scrambled at the wet dirt with his front hooves, trying to dig himself a bigger tunnel under the hedge, but then he heard footsteps on the patio behind him. No time left to dig, Druxson forced himself face-first through the hole, but the harder he pushed, the harder the brambles seemed to grab him. He was bleeding, but the panic flooding his body numbed him to everything except the all-consuming need to flee.
The footsteps had stopped.
Ker-CHAK!
Oh no…
The explosion of adrenaline that launched Druxson through the brambles would surely have killed a lesser fluffy, and if it hadn’t, the thorns ripping open the flesh on his face and body would’ve finished the job. He barely had time to register the blood suddenly clouding his left eye before the ground behind him erupted with an earth-shattering BANG! And for the first time since he was a foal, Druxson made scaredy-poopies. But with the dirt flying around him and the gunpowder singeing his tail, he didn’t really have the mind to apologize, he just kept running.
The scary mister didn’t take any more potshots at him, but Druxson kept running until he couldn’t anymore. He collapsed into a pile of leaves in a part of the woods he’d never seen before, jaw still clenched around the wilted parsley like a lifeline.
He needed to find Bossy, he needed to give her the no-baby-nummies, he needed to see her, he needed to hug her, but everything hurt so much… Surely she wouldn’t mind if he took… a little… nap…
((in my head The Scary Mister looks kinda like a mix of McGonagall and Shaw from that one Dragonixa commission))
i tend to write in fits & starts, so im gonna organize my “chapters” into a timeline once i write enough of them (im still just gonna post them as i finish them tho bc i thirst for validation)
