“Alright Rascal, you ready to go? Said all your goodbyes?”
The excited Green colt nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh! Weddy fow nyu famiwy!” The Mason Adoption Center was a local charity that specialized in raising and adopting out good natured grown fluffies. They lost some business refusing to sell foals, but Rascal was as young as they went. He’s expensive and lacks certain guarantees (he would undergo Alicorn training next week, were he not being adopted right now, for instance) but this is a rich part of Miami so off he goes.
The whole daycare crew is there to say goodbye. The shelter socializes the young fluffies with their daycare fluffs, to the benefit of all involved. A couple dozen fluffies and babbehs are cheering and crying happy tears for their friend Rascal.
Hes almost one year old, and in another year he’ll be full grown and ready to breed, if his new family decides to go that route. Emily, the soft spoken daycare manager, helps him cinch up his tiny backpack. It contains his things. A blanket from when he was a babbeh, his stuffy friend Froggy, and a photo of him and his brothers with their mother from back before they all got adopted. He was the last to go, having been the youngest brother and only survivor of his mother’s last litter.
The nice lady who adopted him picks him up and his heart fills with joy the way it always does when he’s given good upsies by a new friend. He starts hugging and cooing, still too excited for words. She cradles him and pets his head while she quickly walks to the car. Once he’s strapped in the carseat next to her, he feels comfortable enough to ask questions.
“Am nice wady Wascaw nyu mummah?” The woman winces a bit. “No, I’m not.” Rascal is confused, the very nice lady at the shelter told him she was to he his new mummah. They do background checks against known abuser databases at fancy places like the Mason Center. “Den hu nyu mummah ow daddeh fow wittwe ow’ Wascaw?” He sounded truly pitiful. He was hamming it up a bit, but frankly Rascal is just a very emotional fluffy. He gets really happy and really sad. It’s a blessing and a curse, really.
“I work for a family with a little boy who’s very lonely and needs a pet. You’re going to be his now.” She was being cold and curt to hide her guilt. The kid was a spoiled shit with a mother and father who thought material wealth and mandatory church attendance were a substitute for childrearing. Kid seems sad? Buy him something he wants. Just so long as that thing isn’t a free Sunday or his Dad’s attention outside of dinner and the ride to and from church.
Even then he’s second fiddle to either “food” or “driving a car” in terms of attention paid. This fluffy was just another attempt by two committed Capitalist profitchasers to subsidize love via the acquisition of gifts. In this case they unintentionally created the perfect metaphor for their failures as parents and as human beings: They care more about money and business than they do about loving their son, so they spent some money on a warm toy that will dynamically love him. Easier that way. More time for late night crush sessions and jet setting to make deals.
Meanwhile, their son spent most of his time neglecting things he’d been given. The maid cleans his spaces. His mother hasn’t been in his room in six months. His father hasn’t been in his room since they moved in three years ago. Max was a pudgy kid, the sort of doughy 13 year old who would have bragged about his dad working for Nintendo and showing him how to unlock Goku in Smash Bros. In other words, he was an insufferable pest.
And the maid was a maid, not an au pair. She did some light gopher work, thank God her union had held strong when the hoity toity rich dickheads in the area all tried to hire scabs. Got new contracts drawn up and showed the strength of workers advocating for each other. Ensured that things like this fluffyfetching wouldn’t end up being pro bono. She’d just report all outside activities to the Union, they’d have their egg heads calculate a value, then every month they submit those requests, itemized, as invoices to clients. The clients can dispute, in which case an investigation can begin, but most just pay whatever is on the bill. It’s usually cheap enough to be worth it. After all, who wouldn’t want a maid who can run to the deli? Besides, rich assholes can afford it.
All this is to say that she observed the kid. She didn’t interject, but she didn’t have to play along either. The nanny does that stuff, she’s got her own union contract, she’s way more expensive, and so she doesn’t live on premises. She’s here from just before Max gets home from school each weekday until dinner, and she does all the homework stuff a parent ought to do.
Or she should. It’s a posh gig, and the kid won’t snitch. Seventh grade Social Studies is easy for a 56 year old mother of three grown children. So she does it for him in exchange for his cooperation on all the other bullshit. The other bullshit is, of course, the stuff he doesn’t want to do that he isn’t shit at.
She does his civics work because he hates it. Then he willingly does math and science because he’s okay at them, and English he handles on his own time. He’s not half bad at it. Then she gets him all set for the following day, and leaves after dinner with the family and the house staff.
…
Rascal has been taken to a saferoom with what apoear to be all brand new toys and furniture. A little fluffy bed with a vibrating heatpad and an LED strip of soft color changing light around the perimeter, a tiny chaise lounge for watching teebee and numming nummies, a little ball pit with a small foam rubber fake tire swing over it to play on. It was a genuinely great saferoom, and it had the vibe of a McDonald’s Playplace that’s just opened.
“Okay little guy, Max ought to be in here in a bit, he’s having dinner now. I’m gonna go up and grab mine, then head to my quarters. See you tomorrow when I clean your litterbox, kid.” She turned and left. He was saying something, but overtime had her fried. Only thing kept her going was the knowledge she’d be getting paid time and a half. She couldn’t wait to get LaVerne’s meatloaf and hominy grits and scurry down to the staff quarters. Old house might be creepy, but living in a basement built for twenty full time staff but only inhabited by like ten (some of whom are just three shifts of the same job) is surprisingly comfortable. Even if the basement was constantly dealing with groundwater. Rich assholes kept paying some dude to fix it, he’ll keep fixing it.
But Rascal didn’t know any of this. Rascal didn’t know much of anything. The nice lady who is not his nyu mummah was pretty checked out and never explained anything, so he was confused and a little nervous. To calm his nerves he went and unpacked his little backpack.
It took him a couple minutes to get it off, as he was still a fluffy and therefore a backpack is the height of complication he can handle. Once he’d twisted free, he pulled out his Mummah Bwanky that smelled like bestest mummah, his best buddy Froggy the Keroppi doll, and the resin embedded photo of his family. The shelter knew fluffies are awful with keepsakes, so they go the extra mile to make these things easy to find and to display, as well as hard to tear up. Coating a photograph in three inches of resin has a certain toughening effect, due to it becoming a hunk of fucking plastic.
He set it on the little shelf by his bed. His space was all set up and he felt a bit better. He started playing with his ball, and before long, Max arrived.
“So you’re my new fluffy, huh? Mom and dad bought you for me?” He was actively eating a Nestle Drumstick as he walked into the room, letting the door slam shut behind him. “Das wite! Ou am Max? Wittwe hoomin am nyu daddeh? Hooway! Wascaw wub ou nyu daddeh!” Max was unmoved and kept eating his drumstick as he stood staring at the eager young colt. Rascal sat back on his haunches, tail twirling excitedly as he waited for a response from his new best friend and God King.
“Why’re you just sitting there?”
“W…wha?”
“You’re just sitting there. Do something. I’ve never had a toy that could talk and move around and whatever, so do something cool or whatever.” He took another big bite of the drumstuck. It was down to the cone now. His dead eyes hadn’t wavered or changed since he entered the room. Aside from blinking, they were as still as a doll’s eyes.
Rascal on the other hand was getting nervous. New daddeh was just sorta…asking him to…what exactly? “Wascaw nu unnastan, wat nyu daddeh wan Wascaw du?” The boy exhaled beleagueredly. “I don’t know, do a trick. I could be playing Weaver MLB '31 right now, so be more entertaining than my Sega Pluto.”
Rascal stuttered and stammered as the anxiety built. “Uhhhh Wascaw am pwetty gud at huggies… Nyu daddeh wan huggies fwum Wascaw?” He leaned back into the “huggies” pose and made a hopeful face. Max took a couple steps forward and without warning nudged Rascal with his cool sneakers that had Knuckles the Echidna on them. The little fella wasn’t expecting it and tumbled over backwards with a “Wuh oh! Wascaw faww obah! Babbeh down, tee hee!” He flailed his wegfies in a mock show of helplessness hoping to entice nyu daddeh to play.
“Okay, so you’re more like an interactive thing. Got any emotions other than creepily happy?” Rascal was getting more confused. “Weww dewe am happies and den hungwy but dat wun awways gu way when hab nummies an babbeh am su su fuww. Ou knu nummies, wite? Wike gu in tummeh?” The boy sighed again, impatient as ever. “Okay I get it. But what about sad? Can you be sad?”
Rascal didn’t understand what this hoomin was getting at. He’d been sad, sure. But does little daddeh want him to be sad? Does he not know what sadness is? “Weww…wen Wascaw hab heawt huwties, make wotsa saddy wawas wif see pwaces, an suuuu manneh huhuhus.” He shudders a bit remembering the last time one of his friends got adopted. It’s not a pleasant memory or emotion to recall.
“No no no, don’t tell me. Show me. Be sad.” Rascal pondered for a moment before giving up. “Sowwy nyu wittwe daddeh, Wascaw nu hab saddies ow heawt huwties wite nao. Tuu happies fow meet nyu daddeh! Wub housie an nyu wottwe daddeh su muchies!” Momentarily forgetting the task at hand, he excitedly tried showing the room to the plump human. “See? Obah hewe am whewe Wascaw gunna sweep an an an obah dewe am wittabocks an dis am Wascaw favwit bwanky fwum mummah an-”
“Oh, perfect. That’ll work.” The boy reaches over Rascal and snatches up the blanket, finally manifesting a frown from the bubbly young fluff. “Ummm can…can Wascaw hab bwanky backsies daddeh? It am bewy speshul fow Wascaw an smeww wike Wascaw famiwy an mummah dat Wascaw wub an miss ebbyday…” He was nervously tip tapping his hooves while new daddy held his blanket.
“No, I’m going to take it. It’s mine now, and you’re never gonna get it back.” Rascal was thrown for a loop. This isn’t how hoomins behave! He’d had blanky temporarily confiscated for bad poopies or “laundry” but he always knew blanky would come back. Never again? No! It smells like mummah! What if he forgets what mummah smells like? The formerly unflappable colt begins crying.
"Huuuuu daddeh pwease nu take bwanky! Babbeh wub bwanky! Nee bwanky fow memba mummah! Bif bwanky bak tu wittwe babbeh Wascaw daddeh, peeze!" The boy finally laughed. “Hahaha oh man yeah that’s pretty funny. Wow, you just cry at the drop of a hat, huh?” He balled up the blanket and tossed it on top of the tv where Rascal couldn’t reach. “There. You get to have it still. I’m gonna go beat Ronny at Weaver so bad he’ll wish he had a Playstation so I could beat him at NFL: The Big Dance instead. See you tomorrow I guess.”
He turned and left Rascal in the saferoom, belly pressed against the wall as he strained to reach his beloved blanket. He was all up on his hind weggies stretching up with his front weggies as if the blanket were inches from him. It was a good five feet higher up, but he’s a fluffy. Cut him a fucking break. As the saferoom door closed, the last sound to escape was Rascal’s soft weeping.
“Huuuuu mummah bwankey pwease cum backsies tu babbeh Wascaw! Su wonewy! Nyu daddeh nu be nice tu gud Wascaw! Sabe babbeh!”