Part Three
Wayne lay in bed, exhausted. It had been a long, long day. After finding and adopting not one but three fluffies he hadn’t been planning on, moving furniture, setting up a saferoom, hearing Sandy’s heart-wrenching story, and finally getting a crash course in fluffy care and how to identify if a fluffy was hurting, Wayne was just about completely out of energy. Thankfully, he still had one day off work, so maybe tomorrow would be a bit more restful and he could get everything, including his head, in order.
He heard soft sobbing from the saferoom, but at Bjorn’s advice didn’t intervene. It was best to make sure that Sandy developed independence at this age, regardless of what she’d been through, or she’d develop crippling separation anxiety. It sucked, but it was for the best that they be apart at least during the night. Wayne also suspected that Sandy would probably be unable to sleep in the same room as him, as she still had a lot of distrust to work through, understandably.
Wayne flinched a little as he recalled the reprimand Bjorn had given him for inadvertently convincing the filly that she was only wanted as long as she was caring for the newborn foals. Not quite as much at what Bjorn had said, which had been equal parts gentle reminder and gleeful ribbing, but mostly that he, Wayne, had been such as idiot in the first place. The poor creature was suffering and he’d made her think the only place she had to stay was conditional on her utility.
He could understand what the poor filly was going through, even if she didn’t know it. Wayne, like almost everyone else, had lost people before. But Wayne wasn’t a young man anymore, and he’d buried the hatchet and forgiven the grudges he had against the world a long time ago. Maybe that was a sign of maturity, or maybe time had just made wounds ache less, and he’d grown too weary of self-pity. Angst, perhaps, was for the young.
He tossed and turned for a bit, but ultimately the warmth of his bed and the slight chill of the room lulled him to sleep. His last thought before succumbing to dreams was that, even if it wasn’t quite the same, this was his chance to be a father again.
Bjorn woke up before dawn, as he did most days. Normally, he’d have gotten to work immediately, since it was far easier to exterminate a herd if they were all still asleep. Today, however, he had no exterminations book, and after last night he suspected today would be as quiet as the grave. Maybe he’d get a few calls to clear out come herds dead from hypothermia, but he doubted it. It often took a few days before people noticed the smell enough to care.
That meant that he really didn’t have much to do for the day. Well, nothing much to do for work, anyway. Bjorn was the type to let side projects and hobbies languish for months at a time for the sake of work, only to pick them up again when work slowed. He liked to think it was his good business sense and expert prioritization skills, but realistically he was probably just a workaholic. Still, if today wasn’t busy, he might get around to painting his newest (three-month old) set of miniatures after he checked up on his breeding warehouse.
His business phone rang, much to his surprise. Well, he wasn’t going to complain about work, not when he wasn’t going to get much over the winter. He did grumble a little that his plan to just relax for a change was out the window though. Such was life.
He answered the phone, giving occasional short responses but mostly just listening. Well, wasn’t today just his lucky day. He got to do his least-favorite job. For a moment he considered refusing, considering he didn’t need the relatively small amount of money he’d be paid. Then he did what he always did, and got ready to leave.
He drove the short way to one of the local shelters, muttering to himself the whole way. He was internally thankful that Wayne wasn’t here to see what he was doing. He had an image to maintain, and lately he’d been even more of a softy than Wayne. He had to toughen up a bit, or he’d never hear the end of it.
With a sigh, he greeted the other staff, mostly volunteers, and went back to the medical room. Of course, even medical professionals needed help, and he was on fairly good terms with the shelters in the area, so it was only logical that he work as their temp fluffy technician. Or so everyone said, keeping the quiet part to themselves. Someone has to handle the euthanasia cases.
Bjorn would rather it be him than most of the people who would choose to work at a fluffy shelter. It was better for both the workers and the fluffies this way. Shelter work tended to have high attrition as a baseline, as the things volunteers saw a lot of the time could be more than a little scarring. That and, well, squeamishness and indecisiveness could be just as damaging as cruelty when doing what had to be done. A botched euthanization would only leave a fluffy suffering more.
Thankfully, today most of the cases were actual medical care. Not that it was for the faint-hearted, of course. Pulling a fishing hook out of a foal’s scrotum or unwinding wire that’d had flesh grow around it from a muzzle took a certain mindset. It was rewarding, to be sure, but also bleak in a lot of cases. For every easily-fixed dislocation there could be two or more fluffies that’d never be the same, physically or mentally.
He worked through the cases, most accidents but more than a few survivors of abuse. The latter tended to need mercy more than treatment. There was only so much you could do for a fluffy with missing limbs or eyes or crippling mental trauma. Sometimes, making sure the death they begged for was quick and painless was the most he could offer.
Whether a fluffy was given medical care or the other option was largely, or rather entirely, up to his discretion. The other staff didn’t want to touch that subject with a ten-foot pole, and Bjorn wouldn’t have it any other way. Soft-hearted hugboxers couldn’t be trusted to make the right call in these cases. Cruelty done with good intentions was still cruelty.
Finally he arrived at his last patient he looked over the notes. Feral, newly-weened, no family, traumatic injuries, low likelihood of recovery. Shame, the blue mane on purple fluff would probably have given the poor girl a good chance at finding a loving home. Well, he saw a dozen cases like this already today.
He picked the semi-catatonic filly up, noting that she’d already been fairly heavily sedated. He wasn’t going to complain, but it solidified his decision that euthanasia was the right choice. If she was in that bad of a state that the staff believed that taking the high risk of the sedatives killing her was necessary, then there was no way she’d be recovered enough to be adopted in a reasonable time frame. Time spent housing her was time other fluffies that might stand a chance froze outside.
He was reaching towards the euthanasia kit when he had a sudden suspicion, and looked over the filly once more. Back legs dislocated, trauma to reproductive organs, one ear bitten off, bruises from kicks or stomps, probably a few broken ribs. Well, shit.
Sandy played with her shiny, mostly-new ball and tried to convince herself that she was happy. She was clean, and warm, and the saferoom floor was soft and nice for her hoofsies, and she even had toysies! But, more than anything, she just wanted to cry. Seeing the little babbehs in their incubator, which she checked on frequently mostly out of instinct, constantly reminded her of her own family. Her own mummah and daddeh and siblings, all gone. It wasn’t fair!
She suppressed a sob, not wanting to upset her new siblings, but the lump in her throat and the weight in her chest made it so hard! She wanted to play with the new toys, but they just made her wish she had her siblings, her real siblings, to play with her! She wanted to curl up in the nice warm nesty, but it reminded her that she’d never, ever be able to snuggle into her family’s fluffpile again! More than anything, she just wanted to go to sleep, sleep for days or weeks until she just stopped hurting!
Finally, it was more than she could take. She couldn’t stand to be alone with her thoughts and her memories anymore. “DADDEH!” she wailed.
Wayne jerked awake, realizing he’d overslept. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was almost certain a noise had woken him up. With a jolt he realized that maybe something was wrong in the saferoom, so he quickly made his way out of his room. Sandy was standing in the saferoom doorway, the gate stopping her from leaving, and sobbing in a heap on the floor.
“Are you okay?” he asked, heart racing. “Did you get hurt?”
“Daddeh!” the little filly wept. “Sandy hab wowstest heawt-huwties!”
Wayne picked up the wailing fluffy, cradling her in his arms. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, old habits reasserting themselves.
“Wai famiwy gu fowebah-sweepies?” Sandy asked. “Nu am faiw! Nebah huwt 'nywun! Wai hab huwties? Onwy wan wub! Onwy wan wib!”
Wayne flinched internally, though he was careful not to let it show. He didn’t want to have to explain the injustices of the world to a fluffy, especially not one so young and in so much pain. But he also knew that lying or trying to sugarcoat things wouldn’t help at all. That left the truth.
“There isn’t a reason,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you want there to be, and I wish there was one too, but that’s just the way it is. Things happen, bad things, and sometimes there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Nu wan weasons! Wan famiwy! Wan mummah an’ daddeh! Nu wan heawt-huwties! Nu wan be awone!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sandy hatchu!”
Wayne tried, mostly successfully, not to be hurt by the filly’s words. He’d heard that, outside of smarty syndrome, that expressing hatred towards someone was about the worst thing a fluffy could say. Of course, he knew she didn’t mean it. She was just hurting and lashing out, which wasn’t unexpected. He’d have been more concerned if she hadn’t lashed out.
That being said, rules were rules, and they’d both be better off if he enforced them from the start instead of trying to break bad habits later. “Sandy, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” he reprimanded. “You’re going to have to go in the sorry box for a while.”
“Nu cawe! Nu wan be nice! Hatchu! HATCHU!”
Wayne sighed, feeling like a piece of shit, and shut the weeping filly in the sorrybox. He turned to leave. He’d let her out once he’d eaten breakfast. A bit lenient, but the goal was discipline, not rubbing salt into existing wounds. She’d be fine for a few minutes.
“Sandy am sowwy!” she wailed. “Nu gu! Pwease! Nu weabe Sandy tuu! Nu wan be awone! Pwease! Wub Sandy!”
Sandy curled up into a ball in the sorrybox. The darkness only made things worse. Here, with no distractions at all, she couldn’t even pretend to herself that she wasn’t thinking about how much she missed her family. All alone in the darkness, just like she’d be all alone forever. She whimpered softly in regret. Pwease, daddeh! Nu weabe Sandy! Sandy nee’ 'ou!
After what seemed like forever passed, the lid of the box opened, and she was lifted out and set onto the saferoom floor. Frantically, she dashed over to daddeh’s leg and wrapped her front legs around it as best she could, biting into the fabric of his pants. Anything to stop him from making her leave.
“Sandy,” daddeh said. “I’m not going to abandon you. I’m not angry at you. You don’t have to be scared.”
“Ebewywun weabe Sandy! Nu-wun wub Sandy! Sandy am onwy fow huwties an’ fowebah-sweepies!” she shrieked, convinced the moment she let go he’d replace her with a good fluffy. A fluffy who didn’t say she hated him.
“No, you aren’t. Sandy, I promise I won’t leave you. You can stay here as long as you want, even if that means forever. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Bu’ Sandy am bad babbeh! Sae meanie wowds!”
Daddeh picked her up again, hugging her. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean that. I know it’s hard not to say things like that when you’re hurt. I’m not upset.”
“Sandy am sowwy. Sandy nu wan be meany! Hab tuu many heawt-huwties! Nu nyo wut tu du! Onwy wan huwties tu gu 'way!”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
Bjorn was about to do something very cruel. He could try to justify it, but there really wasn’t any justification. If he was consistent, or even just kind, he’d be treating this filly the same way as all the other fluffies he’d deemed beyond salvation. Let her pass away before the pain and the misery came back.
Well, at least he’d done what he could to fix her up physically while the sedative lasted. The dislocated legs would hopefully function normally now that they’d been corrected, although subtle fractures or damage to connective tissue was more likely. As for the other injuries, her ribs had turned out to be intact, the bruises were superficial, and whatever fluffy had raped the filly must have either been a foal himself or unusually poorly endowed. Overall, she was lucky to have as few injuries as she did.
“Lucky” being a relative term. Seeing her family massacred, being violated and beaten, and then being left for dead in a puddle of blood and piss was just about as unlucky as it was possible to get. It could have been worse, God knew it could have been worse. Still, that would be worth exactly nothing when the filly woke up in a few minutes.
As if on queue, not more than three minutes later, the filly jolted from her stupor with a shriek. If not for the remaining sedative she’d probably have tried, and maybe succeeded, to run away. The edge of the table was high enough off the floor that running would have meant her death. Instead, she just kicked feebly and made incoherent screams of pain and terror.
Bjorn waited. Either she’d relax a little, or her mind would snap and she’d fall into the wan-die loop. If the latter happened, there really was no recourse but to put her down. So Bjorn waited as the filly’s conniption continued until she went limp with exhaustion. Well, time to be an evil son of a bitch towards a traumatized fluffy infant.
“Hello,” he said, in his softest tones. It would shock anyone to hear the voice coming from the mountain of a man, but Bjorn had had a lot of practice.
The filly froze in terror and stared at him, wide-eyed. “Pwease nu huwt.”
“I won’t,” he assured. “How are you feeling?”
The filly gave him a look that really said it all. “That bad?”
“Wai babbeh nu gu fowebah-sweepies?”
“Someone found you and brought you here,” Bjorn explained. “You got some treatment so you-”
“Nu mean wike dat.”
Oh. “Well, I was going to…help…you with that, but I have to ask you something first,” Bjorn said, mentally preparing.
“Pwease, jus’ wet babbeh die. Famiwy gu fowebah-sweepies. Huwties. Saddies. Nu wan mowe.”
Pretty sharp for a fluffy of her age. Bjorn’s suspicions grew a little at that. Maybe it ran in the family.
“About your family. Do you have a sister? Gray, wingie-pointie babbeh, blue mane like yours?”
“Sistah wun 'way. Fowebah-sweepies nao.”
“Well…” here came the bad part. This was going to be way too close to guilt-tripping for Bjorn’s taste. “I think she’s alive. A friend of mine found a filly like that who described having a sister a lot like you.”
“Nu gu fowebah-sweepies?” the filly perked up a bit at that.
“Well, I’m not certain, but it seems so. Would you like to go with me and see?”
The filly slumped back down. “Nu. Nu mattah. Babbeh jus’ wan die. Bu’…” she trailed off.
“NU WAN GIB SISTAH SADDIES!” she wailed, seeming torn between her own loss of will to live and not wanting to cause her only remaining family more grief.
Well, Bjorn wasn’t a total monster. He’d satisfied his curiosity, and apparently the filly was too far gone. “It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t tell her you were alive. She already thinks you’re gone, so I won’t say anything that’d hurt her more.”
“Babbeh ny nyo!” she sobbed. “Wai nu jus’ kiww babbeh? Wai wan gib mowe huwties?”
Bjorn shrugged. “I was curious and thought you should at least know before you decided.”
“Babbeh…gib babbeh wiw’ mowe time? Wun bwight-time?”
“That’s fine. Would you want to stay here? If not, I can take you to stay with some fluffies I’m taking care of until you decide.”
The filly sniffed the air, the smell of numerous other fluffies, antiseptic, and more than a little fresh death making her shudder. “Wan gu.”
“Alright.”
Bjorn picked up the filly, placing her in one of the padded carriers he used when taking fluffies from the shelter to his store. The shelter employees never minded if he took some; they knew he was probably the best of the limited options available to stray or feral fluffies when it came to adoption. Sure, he wasn’t always nice to them, but it was better than a 50/50 or worse chance of ending up with an abuser.
He mentally shuffled fluffies around, trying to decide on the optimal setup for the filly to stay with. Lotus, obviously, but no males. Oak would just have to deal with the general population alone for a bit. Might as well make sure that the filly would feel safe in what was likely her last day.
He did feel like an ass, though. It would have been kinder, both for the filly and likely for Sandy as well, if they both never knew the other survived. Being kind isn’t always the same as doing the right thing, he rationalized. It probably wouldn’t matter.
At best, he gave the filly a one-in-ten chance of deciding to live.
Part Five
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While he wanted her to express her emotions, he punished her for speaking harsh words.
Feels rather clumsy and overly adherent to conventions.
This is sure to cause additional harm.
I think he was just setting rules, and letting her know that her trauma doesn’t mean he is willing to be her emotional punching bag.
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But wasn’t he hoping for her to vent her emotions?
If emotions aren’t allowed to be fully released, doesn’t it become meaningless?
Even expressing heartfelt feelings results in punishment.
So, won’t this lead to hiding emotions in the future?
A negative action indeed, this meaningless punishment.
You can’t trust fluffies to work like humans, if they’re given free reign to say and do as they please you end up with BMS, bestest babies, smarties and the like. Boundaries are important for a shitrat.
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It’s important to remember that if she had been left to stew in her own hatred, those feelings may have amplified further. Being in the sorry box those few minutes was a harsh reminder of what being alone again entails, so I think in the long run it’s better for her than being left in the saferoom or physically harmed. Especially since she couldn’t grieve properly in the presence of the babies anyway.
A very nice twist that her sister’s alive though! I hope the two will get to meet, the poor things deserve it.