Toy dreamed for a long time. In her dreams, her body still hurt. The resolve of the past few days had finally worn off and now the huwties really began to show through. In her dreams there were the herdmates who had betrayed her. They made long shadows in her thinking-space. Lurked around and scared the babbehs. She wanted to wake up. There were things to do. Yet she couldn’t just yet. No matter how much she tried to make her weggies move or eyes open, it just wasn’t possible.
Basil had squirmed out of the access panel when the fight had ended and the traitors of the herd had scattered. There were still the ones who had never resisted her around, now standing over their fallen hero.
“Sissy am hab fowebba sweepies?” One asked tearfully, attempting to gently nudge her with a hoof.
“Nuuuuu….!” Another lamented, not wanting to accept the fate that had befallen her.
The stallion which had been abused so readily looked down to the torn up orange mare. He barely knew her but she had saved him just like she said. He could see the gentle rise as she breathed.
“She am nu fowebba sweepies. She nee’ nummies, wubs, sleepies.” He said, feeling an obligation to help. Having just been delivered from a life of poopie place poundings and mouth enfings would engender a feeling of kinship in anyone.
“Hab numies when sweepies?” One asked quizzically.
Basil had an idea. Chirpies couldn’t see, they barely even seemed awake when they had milkies. So he asked the group of mummahs kept away in the makeshift saferoom if they would share their milkies with Toy. They all agreed as long as they could get enough nummies to make it. After all, they were in no way involved with what the stallions had done and had a lot of love for their smarty mare. So the first one would lay down beside Toy and offer her access to her teats, the mare not doing anything at first and then slowly wiggling over even while sleeping to latch onto the teat and drink greedily.
This exchange carried on for quite some time. Basil wasn’t the best at getting nummies but the fluffies who hadn’t joined in against the herd were fine at it. Getting enough food was somewhat difficult, and the nummies weren’t the best, but nobody was going into starvation. In that time they had dragged Pretty’s stinky corpse outside, and the derped poopies she kept had followed. They stood beside her the entire time before eventually they had laid down beside her and gotten forever sleepies too.
Eventually Toy woke up. She wasn’t being fed milkies at the time but Basil was there curled up next to her, giving her huggies and sleeping. Gently nudging herself up, the mare gave a swish of her tail. It was hard to stand but she would make herself do so. Walking over to the access hatch where the babbehs were kept, she got low and poked her head in to peek at them. There they all were, bathed in the soft glow of a maintenance light and safe with their mummahs. Withdrawing, Toy looked to the exit of the overpass and began to walk out.
Glue, the former lookout for the herd, had returned to the same place Toy had found him before he’d joined up. It was a small nest dug into the side of a hill near the overpass. Fluffies had lived here before him, but when he found it there was nothing there but a few bones. It was miserable here. Buggies crawled all over, water seeped down from above, it was cold, the nummies were bad. Lonely too. The white turned black furred stallion shivered in the cold and listened as rain fell heavily outside. He was scared of munstahs. Munstahs came when it was dark and raining. It was the scariest of times. The stallion could hear something. The suction of mud as something dragged through it. Breathing. The traitor curled up deeper into the hole that served as his lookout before there it was. A munstah.
Toy looked into the hole and there he was. This was where she’d found him before, and here he was again. Dragging her body through the rain and muck, she had found the first of her runaways. Glue saw her face through the darkness, one half normal, the other half a roadmap of pain which Pretty had wrought onto her with her horn.
“Nuuuu! Pwease! NUUUUUU! SOWWY! GWUE AM SOWWY! SCREEEEEE!” Glue tried to scrabble against the wall behind him, Toy coming in through the hole and seizing him by a hind leg. Dragged screaming out of the hole, he was tossed to the mud in front of it.
“Yew am munstah! Gib WOWSTEST huwties!” Toy slammed her hooves down on his legs, pummeled them until she was she that they couldn’t work any longer. Even tried, but could do nothing but wiggle uselessly in the mud and get further stuck with each attempt.
“Weggies pwease mobe! Su huwties!” Nothing could help him. There wasn’t a chance in the world. “Smawty mawe Toy pwease! Gwue su sowwy! Huggies ‘n wubs ‘fo huwties! SCREEEE!” He continued to scream and plead for forgiveness but Toy had already turned away and continued back to her friends.
By the time morning had rolled around, the herd was surprised and delighted to see Toy standing. Though she was slightly covered in mud. The cluster of remnants all gathered around her, and even the mummahs and foals who could walk made their way out to see her.
“Wub sissy!” A foal cooed while hugging onto one of her legs.
“Bewwa gib smawty mawe bestest miwkies ‘fo feew beddah!” Exclaimed a yellow and pink mare, smiling at the sight of Toy apparently rescued from forever sleepies and maybe thinking her teats flowed with magical milk now.
Basil stood there with the rest of the herd somewhat awkwardly. Toy slumped over to him, a gaggle of foals following behind her and still cheering, crawling all over her. She didn’t mind.
“Dank yew, wittew bwuddah.” The mare said, acknowledging him with a lick to the cheek. Without him keeping the babbehs and their mummahs safe, none of this would have been possible.
“Basiw am bwuddah?” He asked, and those present would chime in.
“We all bwuddahs ‘n sissies tu Toy!” Bella noted, apparently quite talkative today.
“Am in hewd?” Basil asked, and Toy nodded.
So it would be that Basil would join them. Toy taught him how to find the best nummies, patiently walked him through the process of avoiding the natural dangers of the world. He was a house fluffy originally, after all. There were things that would never occur to him that a feral knew for a fact since they were practically born.
He slept beside her every night instead of in the fluff pile with the others who didn’t have a special friend. Eventually even this had stopped once he had found his own special friend when more fluffies started to replace those who had fled.
Every night, Toy would go out while others were sleeping in search for those who had betrayed her. Fluffies, especially those who had lived in houses previously, were creatures of habit. It often wasn’t too difficult to find them. They had gone to places familiar to the herd or where they had lived before. in each instance she would give them forever sleepies, and they never seemed to put up much a fight. It didn’t take long to make the munstahs which made it hard to sleep go away. With each one she stomped to death, the mare felt closer to being whole again.
When there were no more enemies it was time to focus on teaching the other fluffies and gathering the bestest nummies again. Oh, there was the occasional challenger or small band of meanies who came around to bother them from time to time but nothing which they’d seen when Pretty had arrived. So time passed. A lot of time, really.
Eventually she didn’t move so well anymore. It was difficult to go out and get nummies for everyone, but it didn’t matter anymore. Everyone was good at finding things to eat, and they all shared with those who couldn’t do so for themselves. With her greying fur, stiff weggies, and one eye going blurry Toy couldn’t be the smarty anymore. Everyone still loved her and went to her for advice but Basil had taken on the responsibility, since he’d grown so much and was more beloved by the herd as each day passed.
Even if Toy couldn’t move around as well as she used to, all the babbehs still loved playing with her and she loved playing with them. Some were scared initially by the munstah side of her face, but these were the offspring of foals she had personally watched grow up themselves who would eventually come around to the idea after seeing their parents and friends so warmly associate with her. It wasn’t an uncommon sight to see the old mare be practically covered in a rainbow of fluffy foals, each of them babbling at her about what they’d done that day or whatever was on their simple little minds.
It made her so happy to see them all cooperate and protect one another. This was the family she had always dreamed of. One where everyone could be happy.
She had done her best and now, they were too.
