Rainbow Game, Room 1
Patience
Viola stirred to the sounds of tapping and fluffy yells. “Muh-whah…?”
This wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t soft grass, either. When she had fallen asleep, wasn’t she in her yard? The violet mare slowly opened her eyes and moved up to a sit, blearily taking in her surroundings. She was on a metal-grated floor, cold steel and stone making up a cell-like room lit with harsh lights. The yelling was coming from a group of fluffies, busy with a water-filled hole in the corner, and next to her slept an indigo-furred filly - now Viola herself wasn’t old, her daddy had said just recently that she was grown-up enough to get a new owner, but this foal was only a talkie babbeh!
The noise of a mop hitting rock drew her attention back to the scene at the corner, where a sopping wet blue unicorn had just been thrown to the floor.
“Dummeh!” cried a red earthie mare, stomping her hooves to get some stress out. “What yu thinking!? Wawa am bad fow fwuffies!”
“Uhh… um… fwen,” the unicorn answered, dazed and making no attempt to get up. Viola couldn’t tell if it was a mare or a stallion, with how wet and frizzy it was, but the fluffy that had hauled the unicorn out of the water was much easier to identify: a black stallion twice the size of anyone else who had two curved horns and a mane that covered his eyes.
“Be mowe cawefuw,” he said, his tone surprisingly kind for his imposing frame. Nearby, a yellow mare whose wear and tear betrayed her age let out a weary sigh without bothering to comment on the whole situation.
“… Oh, yu am awake,” she instead said, noticing Viola. “Dat’s awmost evewyone.”
“What’s going on …?” Viola asked hesitantly. And what was that tapping? It wasn’t ending, even though the situation had been resolved.
“Nu one knows.” The old mare shook her head. “Nuthin’ gud.”
“An’ what am … tapping …?” Her eyes scanning the rest of the room, Viola answered her own question. Having placed himself far from the others, a green fluffy with too-long ears and too-long front teeth was anxiously tapping his hooves at the floor, murmuring ‘nu wight, dis nu wight’ to himself and glancing about as though the shadows would swallow him whole. He wasn’t the only one separated from the group, either - a white stallion lay in the corner, hooves laid across his eyes so tight he had curled himself into a ball.
Viola had lost count of how many fluffies there were, but even so she couldn’t help but realize they all had different colors. As she noticed an open doorway, she opened her mouth to ask why nobody had left yet, but the question didn’t even have time to come out before she saw the charred corpse of a gray unicorn collapsed just two steps into the exit.
Oh.
“Oh! Yu am awake!” the red earthie called, finally noticing Viola, and hurried over. “Quick, what do yu wemembew?”
“W-Wuh?” What kind of question was that? “Viowa nu undewstand…”
The other mare faltered. “Oh… Yu nu know eithew, then.”
“Know what? What am happening?”
The other fluffies were gathering around her save for the green and white ones, just in time for the indigo filly to yawn and stir. As the tiny foal looked around she perked up, beaming with delight at the crowd. “Hewwo! Wots of nyu fwens! Am Indigo!”
That eased the tension a bit, and the old yellow mare gave a quiet chuckle. “Weww… Otay. Aww fwuffies am awake now, su wet’s shawe namesies an’ stowies. How dat sound?”
“Otay… Um, fwuffy am Viowa,” Viola introduced herself.
“Am Wowo,” replied the yellow mare. “Nu know whewe hewd is. Fwuffies wewe wooking thwu twashies behind hooman nummy pwace, when suddenwy stawted fawwing asweep. An’ then, woke up hewe.”
So Lolo fell asleep with her herd… And woke up alone here? Viola furrowed her brow. Now that she mentioned it… “Viowa, too … Viowa was in daddeh’s gawden, an’ mummah was thewe, but then Viowa got sweepy an’ went sweepies in gwass… An’ then woke up hewe.”
“Wed mawe am Snaggwe,” said the red earthie, glancing to the doorway where the gray unicorn lay. “Was in hewd wif Siwvew, ovew thewe… Siwvew woke Snaggwe up an’ said tu weave an’ find west of hewd. Bu’ Snaggwe nu wan weave othew fwuffies behind, su Siwvew twied tu weave an …”
Realizing there was a foal with them, Snaggle stopped short. “… Onwy Snaggwe weft nao.”
The big black fluffy sat silently for a few moments longer, ensuring the others were done speaking. “Wowk on fawm,” he then said, indicating a yellow tag in his ear. “Ownah said woud haf nyu ownew. Woke hewe.”
“… Yu haf namesies?” Viola asked carefully.
“Duffew.”
“What about yu, Bwue?” Snaggle asked. All eyes now turned to the blue unicorn, awaiting his … her … account, but when the wet fluffy looked up it became clear that it had missed the entire conversation.
“… Cowd,” it squeaked. “Whewe fwen?”
“Fwens am hewe…”
“Wawa fwen?”
“Wawa nu fwen!”
The group quickly resolved to just keep calling the unicorn ‘Blue’, and Viola moved on to the two separated fluffies, pointing a hoof in their direction. “What ‘bout gweeny an’ whitey fwuffies?”
As if on cue, the long-eared green fluffy looked over. “A-Am Bunny,” he answered quickly.
“How did yu get hewe?”
Bunny shook his head, turning away. “Nu say, nu can say. Am jus’ Bunny.”
Strange… Was something wrong? Still, he seemed too distraught to say anything further, so Viola moved on. “What abou’ yu, Whitey fwuffy?”
The white fluffy didn’t reply so Viola begun to walk over, only to stop as a new flash of color caught her eye. There was something orange in the water hole from before - was that a fluffy? An orange snout with big red eyes was peering out from the water, making her gasp.
The orange snout vanished as quickly as it had appeared and Viola rushed toward it, calling out. “Fwuffy in wawa! Hewp fwuffy!”
Snaggle reached the water first, but just stared into the hole without pulling out whoever had fallen in. As Viola caught up and looked inside, her fears were confirmed; an orange fluffy was in the watering hole, staring up at them. That said, its limbs were flat and floppy, and it didn’t seem too worried about being underwater…
Lolo caught up to the two at a leisurely pace, looked into the water, and let out a knowing ohh. “A sea fwuffy.”
“Sea fwuffy?” asked Viola. “What dat?”
“… Gif Wowo a momen’.”
It took a little bit of encouraging, but then the orange ‘sea fluffy’ had swum back up to the surface. Lolo explained the concept of subspecies to Viola; that sea fluffies lived best in water, for example. And not only that: Duffle, the extra-big black stallion, turned out to be a Fluffalo. An extra-big extra-calm type of fluffy that was good at manual labor, Lolo explained.
The third subspecies in their group was Bunny. Lolo called him a bunnyfluff, a fluffy that could gnaw things up and hear extra well. To be honest, it was blowing Viola’s mind a bit to have so many different fluffy types! She only knew of the basic four!
“So yu am Bwue’s wawa fwen?” asked Snaggle who was using Lolo’s explanation to befriend the new arrival.
“Um… am Toy Boat,” the orange sea fluffy replied, resting at the surface of the water. “An’… an’ haf widdwe hooman daddeh, but den widdwe daddeh put Toy Boat in big bwue sea, an’ weave wiffout Toy Boat. Su twied tu fin’ nummies an’ safe pwacey, but den got caught in meanie hook twap, an’ then was hewe. Am su sowwy if Bwue fwuffy saw Toy Boat sweepies.”
“It otay. Bu’ pwease nu wet Bwue dwown.”
So many fluffies! Viola had to do a count on them all. There was Snaggle and Toy Boat and Lolo and Duffle and Indigo and Blue and Bunny and - and White? Ah, she’d never even gotten White’s name! The white fluffy was still in his corner, but his hooves were lowered now and he was watching the group with gray eyes, his pupils somehow a lighter shade than his dark eyeballs.
It was scary, but… maybe it just meant he was a subspecies, too? Viola swallowed her worries and approached him carefully, extending a hoof from a respectable distance away. “Hewwo… Am Viowa. Nyu fwen haf namesies?”
“… othew fwuffies say am Ghost,” the white fluffy whispered. From this close by, Viola could see the scars of where wings had once been, wincing in sympathy. She’d never lost anything, nor did she have wings or horns to lose, but the mere idea of losing a limb was painful enough.
“… Am fwuffy ghost?” she asked.
“Nu…” There was a moment’s pause. “Bu’ am used tu dat namesie.”
“Why am Ghost hewe an’ not wif othew fwuffies?”
“Tuu bwight.” Ghost indicated the harsh lights above. “Wights huwt eyesies…”
Hmm. That was hard to solve, and Viola pondered the issue for a little bit before realizing an easy solution. “Oh, what if ask Duffew fow hewp? Duffew am weawwy big an’ bwack, can bwock out wighties easy!”
“Dat… dat sounds nice,” admitted Ghost. “Otay.”
Before long the group was gathered near Toy Boat’s watering hole - even Bunny had broken away from his anxious isolation to sit with the others, though something was clearly still bothering him. Lolo looked around at them all. “Su nobody knows who bwought fwuffies hewe, ow why.”
“Weawwy?” Indigo asked, the little filly tilting her head to the side. “Nyu fwens nu meet Daddeh?”
Everyone’s attention turned to the foal, but it was Snaggle who asked first. “Who dat?”
“Daddeh!” Indigo repeated. “Taww Thin Daddeh! Daddeh got Indigo at big Fwuffy-mawty an’ said woud haf big fun pwaytimes, an’ was aww bwacky wike Duffie bu’ wots wess fatty!”
It was an awkward description, but Viola kind of understood. It was like her daddy when he wore all black and had his hat on. Tall and black but not rounded like Duffle. It was another part of the foal’s account that truly caught her attention, though: “… Pwaytimes?”
Was this all a game of some sort? How could they play it? Bunny begun to tap a back hoof, apparently to expel some of his anxiety, and the others seemed to have the same question as Viola.
Except for Blue, who went to hug Toy Boat and fell into the water, holding onto the distraught sea fluffy and preventing him from shoving it back out. It required Duffle to get them both out, placing both Blue and Toy Boat onto the floor.
“Yu be otay?” the fluffalo asked quietly so as not to interrupt the conversation. Blue didn’t answer, but Blue also wasn’t the target of Duffle’s question. “Need wawa?”
“C-Can be outside wawa, just nu can mowe gud,” assured Toy Boat. “At weast fow now…”
All questions and interactions were halted as a buzzing noise rang out from speakers along the ceiling, causing Bunny to cry out and folding his ears into themselves to cover them with his hooves. A tinny voice spoke through the near-static sounds: “Hello all Fluffies!”
“Daddeh!” Indigo gasped in delight, waving in the general direction of the voice. “Hi Daddeh! Wuv yu!!”
“I see nine of the ten survived, that’s a much better batch than last time I’ll tell you that! It’s no fun game if half the fluffs die before we even kick off,” continued Daddy. “And now then, let’s begin… the Rainbow Game!”
The bright lights dimmed, much to Ghost’s relief, as a projector screen lit up the far wall from somewhere unseen. The words “RAINBOW GAME” were emblazoned onto it, each letter in RAINBOW a different color, and a little mascot-like figure drawn at its side.
“As you’ve no-doubt noticed, you all have different colors,” explained Daddy. “That is because of the Rainbow Game’s rules: Whichever color survives the longest gets to escape!”
Survives? Did this game have forever sleepies? No, that was a stupid thing to ask - Silver’s corpse lying in the doorway was proof. Viola’s breath hitched and the unease from Ghost and Toy Boat was palpable, while some of the others seemed more concerned.
Indigo, too young to understand the concept of death, raised a hoof to the sky. “Indigo haf kweshun! How pway Wainbow Gamesie?”
“You will go through challenge games,” continued Daddy, making it unclear if he had heard Indigo or simply read from a pre-made script. “And at the end of each challenge game, you will hold a vote. Vote for whichever fluffy you feel is the least useful to your continued survival, and it will be removed from the game. If two or more fluffies gain the same amount of votes, there will be a tie breaker game.”
It was a lot to take in, but… Viola hoped she understood it properly. Lola was nodding with grave seriousness, while Snaggle looked around hesitantly for confirmation on what they were just told. Bunny whimpered to himself that this wasn’t fair, and unease had filled the rest of the group; only Blue and Indigo seemed oblivious to the dangers they had just been told.
“Remember,” Daddy spoke again, cutting off their distress, “follow the rules always. It may save your life. Rule One was not to leave the room until the game had begun, and you’ve seen what breaking it caused.”
Viola glanced to the doorway, where the gray unicorn Silver lay dead. Warning noted and underlined, do not ignore rules.
“You have all cleared your qualifying test. You may now leave the room,” Daddy finished before the speakers and image cut off, leaving the group in a dimly lit stone-and-metal cube of a room. Everyone glanced to each other, wondering if it was really that easy - if they could actually leave without harm or death.
It was Indigo who spurred them into action - oblivious to the nature of the game she went for the door, only for Bunny to snatch her up and hold her tight in shaky hooves. “Wah! Wha’ Bunny doing? Gamesie am thwu doow, wess go!”
Snaggle jumped a bit as she realized something. “Oh - wait! A momen’, Snaggwe nee’ cweaw path!” She hurried off to drag her old smarty out of the doorway and to the side, to ensure Indigo didn’t have to climb across a charred corpse, and as she did Blue hoisted Toy Boat onto its back.
“Wess go, adventuye!” the unicorn proclaimed clumsily, heading to the entrance with its uneasy rider. Bunny grew more fretful, trying to snag hold of the duo and in the process dropping Indigo, but surprisingly enough old Lolo was the one first through the door.
“It’s safe,” she called. “Exit nu gif huwties.”
That was enough proof, and the rest of the fluffies gradually filed through as Lolo returned and sat by the door. Viola, going right in the middle of the group, paused to look at the mare as she passed. “Why Wowo go thwu doow? Nu scawed?”
Lolo shrugged. “Am owd fwuffy,” she said casually. “Haf owd bones an’ fwuff. If any fwuff am tu die fwom a siwwy twap wike dis, it’s bettew Wowo go than a widdwe babbeh wike Indigo ow Viowa.”
“Oh…” That was where the conversation ended as Duffle’s massive frame nudged Viola to move onward, out the door and into the new, unknown dangers of the next room.