Part One
Wayne set down the unconscious gray alicorn, still damp from the thorough bathing. The poor creature was so exhausted that’d she’d slept through the entire bath. He couldn’t imagine how much of a relief it must have been to finally be safe, finally be able to live in a place without predators and the constant fear of starvation. No wonder she’d fallen asleep as soon as he’d rescued her. He couldn’t imagine how fatiguing it must be to live like that.
Well, that was one of his problems dealt with, at least. Now the foals, or rather the newborns, since the gray alicorn was technically a foal herself, would have someone to watch them while he was away. It wasn’t really fair to give her that much responsibility at her age, he knew, but it was still a far better life than she could hope for out there. Wayne figured it was worth a shot, at least, asking the filly to stay. If not, he could just drop her back off where he found her, one bath cleaner and a few meals less malnourished.
Babbeh slowly drifted from deep slumber into a light doze, then finally to wakefulness. She felt warm, warmer than she had for weeks in the steadily-cooling outside air, and she smelled something wonderful. The wet-animal stench she’d been surrounded with her whole life was gone, even though she barely noticed it anymore. Instead she smelled something floral, but given her early-autumn birth, she had nothing to compare the smell to, having never encountered a flower before.
She shifted into a more comfortable position, then began to drift off once more. Just a bit more sleep, and she would-
Recollection hit her like a thunderbolt from the blue, and she jerked fully awake with a peep of terror. No! The human-munstah had caught her! Her family was gone! She was going to die, die horribly, die in a way she couldn’t even imagine. Instantly, her sleepiness gave way to panic, and she desperately searched for some way to escape.
She was in a room, one a human might find relatively small but that was huge for a foal. Looking around, she saw a door, but her hopes were dashed when she saw something blocking it. Despite knowing it was useless, she ran over, trying to suppress her chirps of panic, and tried to climb it.
It was no good at all. The smooth material offered no grip at all, and it was far, far too tall for her to hope to jump over it. But it was the only way out, the only possibility, however remote, of escaping before the munstah returned, before she would lose her leggies, her tail, her wingies, her seeing-places, her everything. She remembered one of the fluffies that’d been in one of the adjoining alleys when she was smaller, remembered the horrific scars, the mindless pleading for death. That was going to be her, soon.
The thought made her retch, empty stomach letting only bile into her mouth, and she redoubled her efforts to climb the smooth barrier. She wanted to lie to herself, pretend she was making progress, but she knew she was just hopping pointlessly. In a fit of desperate frustration she began battering the barrier, sobbing hopelessly as the impregnable wall ignored her feeble attack.
“What are you doing?” a voice came from far above her, and she realized the human had returned while she had tunnel-visioned the barrier.
“Eep!”
Wayne returned from moving the last of the miscellaneous items he’d tossed haphazardly into what was now the saferoom to more suitable locations around the house, and saw that the gray filly was awake. He’d expected her to rest a while longer, but for whatever reason she was trying to kick down the saferoom gate, crying and occasionally chirping.
“What are you doing?” he asked in confusion, drawing a chirp of surprise from the filly. She turned and began to run, in that strangle slow half-waddle, half-run that fluffies did. Wayne would have burst out laughing at how comical it was, but clearly something was wrong.
Had something frightened the filly? Had she had a nightmare? Well, it would make sense if she had. A fluffy her age had no reason to be alone in the world unless her family or herd had died or rejected her. It made sense that she’d have bad dreams for a while after that. Maybe that was something he should have taken into consideration before picking up the filly, but it was too late for that now.
“Pwease…peep…pwease nu huwt! Babbeh nu wan huwties an’ fowebah-sweepies! Nu wan wose weggies! Nee’ weggies for wun an’ pway! Pwease, nice mistuh, nu huwt babbeh!” the filly finally managed to vocalize, and Wayne realized his mistake. Of course, given how many people abducted feral fluffies for their own sick enjoyment and the way he’d just randomly picked her up…the poor creature thought he was going to torture her, or worse.
“It’s okay,” he said, trying to make his voice soothing. It didn’t really work, since Wayne’s voice was of the gruffer sort and until recently he’d mostly used it to bellow orders over the howling arctic wind. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe.”
That seemed to help a little, but the foal still cowered away from him. Well, of course she wasn’t going to accept him that easily. An animal that was so easily tamed would never be able to surviv-
“Nu huwt babbeh?”
Scratch that. No wonder people liked to torture fluffies. If they’re trust was that easy to get, it’d be easy enough to trap them. Hell, Wayne wouldn’t be surprised if all it took to capture an entire herd of feral fluffies that’d mysteriously invaded someone’s lawn, and even more mysteriously survived all this time in spite of that gullibility, was the offer of a bowl of spaghetti.
“No, I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“Wet babbeh gu?”
Hmm…well, this was something else he should have considered. Just because feral fluffies lived short miserable lives, as was nature’s intent for prey animals, didn’t mean that the foal didn’t have anything to get back to. Sure, he’d assumed that she had no family or herd, but maybe she’d just gotten lost.
“If you want, I can let you go. Do you have a family? Maybe a herd?” he asked, and saw the foal’s face contort with grief.
“Nu…munstah smawty gib famiwy fowebah-sweepies,” the foal said, sobbing even more intensely.
“So…why do you want to leave, then?” Wayne asked in confusion. “Do you want to get revenge or something?”
“Wut am wevenge?” now the foal looked confused.
“Do you want to try to kill that smarty or something? I mean, I can let you leave but I don’t think you’ll survive too well on your own out there.”
“Hao babbeh gon’ kiww smawty? Am onwy wiw’ babbeh! Nu wan die! Pwease, nu huwt babbeh!”
So, back to this. Eh, fuck it. Wayne was just going to cut to the chase.
“Well, if you want you can stay here and I can be your new…daddeh. I have two other babbehs that need a big sister to keep an eye on them.”
“Wai babbehs nu hab mummah ow daddeh?”
Hmm, this foal seemed a bit more suspicious than Wayne had first believed. Reasonable suspicion, to be fair, but it was getting a bit annoying. Maybe picking up a random feral fluffy hadn’t been the best choice.
“A smarty kill-gave her forever-sleepies, so now I’m taking care of them. They’re very young, though, and I can’t always be here to keep an eye on them, so I was hoping you could. If not, you can always leave.”
“Wan gu. Nu wike. Nu twust.”
Yep, that was about Wayne’s luck. Oh well, he’d just have to find another fluffy to take care of the newborns. “Come on then,” he said, opening the gate. He led the filly through the house to the door, fumbled with the lock a little, then opened it wide.
The cold front had come in full force, now, and even Wayne shivered a little at the blast of cold wind that hit his face. The foal, on the other hand, froze in horror.
Babbeh withered a little when she felt the cold air outside the nice warm housy. It cut right through her fluff, chilling her and making her shiver. She still wanted to leave, but couldn’t force herself to take a step towards the door, into the cold dark night. She knew she wouldn’t last the night out there, not all alone with no fluffpile or nesty.
She looked up at the mistuh, and wavered. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her. Would a nice-mistuh who’d saved two other babbehs really want to hurt and kill her? She was a munstah babbeh, and a poopie babbeh too, but…there was just the tiniest chance. Maybe she could stay?
She struggled to decide. She didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to be near the munstah mistuh any longer than she had to, but the soft warm nestie was calling for her, and she also didn’t want to die freezing in the cold dark. She shivered, mostly from the cold air but partly from the internal battle.
Finally, she decided. She was going to die for certain if she left, and only probably be tortured to death if she stayed. Might as well accept the uncertain death of staying over the certain death of leaving. “Can…can babbeh nu gu?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t too late to stay.
About fifteen minutes later, Babbeh was sitting in front of a bowlful of some…strange brownish pellets. It smelled good, but it didn’t look like food. She glanced up at the mistu-at her new daddeh in confusion.
“I’m setting realistic expectations,” he said, seeming to misunderstand her confusion. “Not gonna give you spaghetti on day one and then be upset when you get disappointed by kibble every other day.”
“Am nummies?” Babbeh asked.
“Oh.” Daddeh smacked his forehead. “Yes, it’s food. That’s kibble, that’s what you’ll be eating most days.”
“Otay…” Babbeh said, still doubtful, and picked up one of the pellets in her mouth. It was firmer than she’d expected. Still soft, but not as mushy and slimy as the “big-fluffy nummies” her daddeh had given her the night before the smarty-she cut off the line of thought.
“Wub kibbwe!” she exclaimed. Truth be told, she’d been dreading eating big-fluffy nummies, her first encounter with them being some lump of rotting refuse. This kibble was must tastier than that.
“That’s good,” daddeh said, seeming relieved. “Well, eat up. Then you can meet your new sisters.”
Bjorn was a strange man, in more ways than one. First was his build. From a distance, you might think he was a rather lean man, but that illusion would be shattered once you got a little closer. Bjorn was, in fact, very muscular, but that muscle was stretched over a frame that, by some freak of genetics, was just over seven feet tall.
Second was his accent. Most people heard the name and expected a certain accent, and the accent they expected wasn’t a faint mid-western one. That was partially Bjorn’s fault, at least, given how hard he played up the viking image. It was good for business, and just because he’d been christened Aidan at birth didn’t mean he couldn’t play up part of his heritage.
Third was his general attitude towards his work. Bjorn was a fluffy exterminator, and a good one at that, but strangely enough he held no hostility at all for the creatures. Sure, he killed them by the dozen on a regular basis, but there was no malice involved. It was just something that needed to be done, and if it wasn’t done by him it might be done by someone who enjoyed it, which was unacceptable.
Bjorn thought of himself as a wolf. Not in a spiritual or metaphysical sense, but in an ecological one. He was a wolf and fluffies were the deer. Predator and prey, in a relationship that was, if not mutually beneficial, at least required for their mutual survival.
Fluffies, like deer, were prone to overpopulation, and when there was overpopulation there was disease and starvation. Bjorn helped prevent that, helped the resources avoid being spread to thin. Some fluffies had to die so that any could survive. Which is why Bjorn didn’t feel guilty about killing them.
After all, the fluffies he killed were dead as soon as the scenario was proposed. All that changed was how they died. A slow, agonizing death by starvation or disease, being torn apart from predators, or caught and tormented by people who did enjoy that sort of thing. So, if death was the only option, a nice clean death was obviously what was best for the fluffies.
That fluffy extermination paid handsomely also provided plenty of motivation, especially given that ethical exterminations were a rare service, and many people would rather not have to clean up the gore left in the wake of his more…enthusiastic competitors. So they went to Viking Bjorn’s Fluffy Control.
Right now Bjorn was driving his big exterminator’s van, although not to its normal destination of some fluffy herd’s nest. Wayne was an old friend, and Bjorn intended to help out how he could. To that end he’d scavenged up some nearly-new fluffy raising equipment from his side gig, and was driving them over to save his bud a few bucks.
Wayne was being too soft, at least in Bjorn’s opinion, but Bjorn was willing to humor Wayne’s new pet project, in the same way Wayne had humored Bjorn’s…Bjorn-ness. However, Bjorn was going to make sure that Wayne’s softness didn’t backfire too hard. One part of that was using the bulk discount he got as part of his connection with the various fluffy supply stores in the area.
See, Bjorn was savvy. Not only was he one of the most successful fluffy exterminators in town, he was also one of the most successful “breeders.” When people wanted a nest of fluffies gone that’d been shitting in their walls for the past week, they didn’t care if one of the foals was a rainbow alicorn, they just wanted them gone. To that end, Bjorn had adopted a policy of incapacitating the fluffies first, taking those he could sell, and giving the rest just enough of his special gas to make sure they rode into the dark beyond on a wave of euphoria.
So even now he was housing a few dozen fluffies of various ages, awaiting new lives as pets or, in the rare case he could find a buyer he was willing to sell to, breeders. One bed, an incubator, and some toys and bottles wouldn’t impact his business, and it would save Wayne from getting fleeced at some fluffy supply store. So he was going to drop them off, and while he was there, take a quick look at the foals in question, just to make sure they weren’t likely to shuffle off this mortal coil of their own accord.
“Babbeh wub babbehs!” Babbeh chirped, and Wayne could tell this was going to get confusing unless he nipped this in the bud. That presented a dilemma, however; Wayne was bad at coming up with names, and that without taking into consideration that the name had to be something a fluffy could pronounce. Sure, a fluffy might not care that it wasn’t able to pronounce its own name, but deep down something about it made Wayne a little uneasy. It felt…wrong in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“I think it’s about time you had a name,” he said, wracking his brain to come up with something, anything that wasn’t just a foodstuff, flower, or derivative of the color gray.
“Namesies!” the filly shouted, ecstatic.
“How about…Sandy,” Wayne offered, randomly settling on the name of some cartoon character for the living cartoon of an animal.
“Sandy wubs nyu namesies!” Sandy beamed, and although Wayne knew the reaction was pre-programmed, he hoped in this case it was genuine.
“That’s good,” he said, when he heard his doorbell chime, and left Sandy to get acquainted with her new sisters. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew who was there, and he was vindicated when he opened the door to find Bjorn carrying at least a hundred pounds of assorted fluffy food, bedding, and toys in a large plastic bin.
“Not. One. Word.” Bjorn warned as he stepped inside, and Wayne snorted.
“Softy.”
Part Three
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Awww Wayne and Bjorn are going to likely be my favorite goobers
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Oh I love all these characters. Bjorn’s good at his job and as a friend! And Sandy’s a clever girl with proper amounts of suspicion! Also I love how Bjorn’s section makes it sound like he’s just bringing a few essentials, but it turns out to be a huge moving box worth of stuff.
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