Part Four
Bjorn left the foal in Lotus’s care for the rest of the day, along with a few chirpy foals, chosen on the basis that they wouldn’t understand anything said around them so there was no concern of them hearing something they shouldn’t. While he would have liked to have cared for the foal himself, he lacked the training and expertise required. Fluffy psychology wasn’t a well-developed field, and what little he’d seen of it had been more exploitative than caring. Better to leave her in a safe environment with another fluffy, one who could hopefully ease the pain of her loss.
He spent most of the day working on maintenance and improvements to his breeding operation and storefront, before deciding on a whim to go to a common fluffy gathering spot, just to see how many survivors there were after the freeze. There weren’t many, which was about what he’d expected. Oh well, he’d be less busy than normal for a bit, but it was always wise to confirm rather than assume.
Sandy hugged the stuffy-friend and quietly sobbed. She tried not to be too loud, tried not to disturb the little chirpy babbehs, so she pressed her face into the stuffy-friend’s belly. Daddeh had gone away, had abandoned this morning with barely a word! Why had daddeh left her all alone? Did he not love her anymore? Of course, he’d never cared about her. She was just here to keep the chirpy babbehs safe and happy. Besides that, she was just an obligation, a nuisance.
Night was different, at least then she could try to sleep. Being alone all day, though, was unbearable. The warm nesty might make for a poor imitation of a fluffpile, might let her lie to herself and pretend she was sleeping with her family, but during the day…during the day she could see how alone she really was. All alone. All by herself. Nobody to love her, or care for her, or comfort her.
“Wai daddeh nu come back? Wai daddeh nu wub Sandy? Am Sandy bad babbeh? Sandy nu mean tu be bad! Huuhuuhuu! Sandy am sowwy! Pwease nu weabe Sandy! Wai am daddeh su mean? Sandy am wowstest babbeh ebah! Sandy am sowwy! Sandy hatchu!” On and on wept, self-recrimination and loathing her only company as the hours dragged on.
Wayne arrived home after work the next day. He hadn’t been away long, if he was being honest. He wouldn’t start teaching until the next semester, so really it was all just paperwork and formalities. Navigating the web of bureaucracy was exhausting, in its own way, but Wayne still felt physically energetic even if he was mentally drained. Well, it was as good a time as any to get the myriad tiny tasks he’d been putting off done.
With a sigh he set aside the briefcase he hoped never to use again and kicked off his shoes. Damn, but he hated the formal bullshit. He never remembered it being so obnoxious, but maybe he’d been too long away from it, had lost his tolerance for the bloated gears grinding away honesty and kindness into the gray sludge of protocol.
Enough soliloquizing. First things first, he had to check on the fluffies. By all accounts, the little creatures didn’t need much engagement, since they were easily enough entertained by their own devices and only the most simple of toys, but Wayne figured he should at least spend some time with them before he got started working on the million minor chores that was the peace of home life. If he’d wanted to just refill food and water and otherwise ignore them, he’d have gotten a houseplant. That is, if any of this had been planned, anyway.
So it was that he was fully expecting to see the chirpy foals sleeping, which was pretty much all they’d do for a couple more days yet, and perhaps see Sandy running around playing with a ball or sitting with some blocks or maybe even watching the carefully-edited snippets of FluffTV running on the old television he’d hung up on the saferoom wall. What he hadn’t been expecting, was a pair of terrified chirpy foals huddled in their incubator, with Sandy in an unconscious heap beside them, head fluff matted with blood.
Nearly tripping over the saferoom gate, Wayne rushed to pick up the bleeding filly. The corner of the incubator, the only comparatively hard object in the padded saferoom, had left several long gashes along the filly’s face and forehead. From what he could tell, she’d had to have hit the corner dead on, several times. With a sinking feeling in the put of his stomach he realized what had happened.
She was still breathing, at least, he noted. Gently picking her up, he relaxed a little when she groggily spoke. What she said he couldn’t tell, but at least she was able to speak. Plans completely out the window, he quickly carried the filly out, ignoring the blood ruining his hated suit jacket.
Babbeh snuggled up to Lotus and seethed. She regarded the little saferoom, half loving the wonderful room and half loathing it. The colorful toysies, the warm soft nesty, the bowls of delicious food. All of it would have made her so happy so short a time ago. Now, she hated it.
She hated that she enjoyed being hugged by Lotus. Hated that she’d enjoyed the food so much. Hated that she’d slept so well in the warm nesty. Hated that she felt so nice with her fluff clean and smelling pretty. Most of all, she despised that she couldn’t help but feel grateful.
What had she done wrong? What had her family done wrong? What had the little chirpy babbehs she was sharing the room with done to deserve to live like this while babbeh only had pain and grief? What had her parents and dead siblings done to live a life of struggle and never get to know how good life could be?
They’d been good fluffies! Her parents had done their best, had been fair and caring and loving! They were good parents, the best, but now babbeh realized that they’d had so little. They’d tried, but why was it that she only learned what it was like to not be hungry today? Why was it that the only time she ever got to stop eating, not because she ran out of food but because she didn’t want to eat more, NOW? What had her brothers and the littlest sister done to deserve to die never knowing what it was like to not be hungry? What had her parents done to warrant living a life of desperation, trying so hard to hide how bad things were from their babbehs?
They’d never had much of anything but each other, and now even that had been taken from them. Taken from her. More than anything, she wished she could have gone back and changed things. Maybe if things had worked out a little differently they could have lived in a nice saferoom like this one, still laughing and playing and living a happy life. Maybe if she’d just died on the dirty asphalt she wouldn’t be here with this new perspective poisoning her only happy memories.
Bjorn arrived at his store relatively late in the morning. He had little to do, since he had no new stock to get settled and hadn’t gotten any calls or appointments for his extermination services. Every once in a while, he liked to take a day slowly, spend some time at home before getting the day truly underway. Putting off having to put down a friend’s fluffy’s sister a more major consideration, in this case.
After doing a few things here and there around the place, things that could have waited if he wasn’t procrastinating, he finally went to the new arrivals room where Lotus was watching over the new foal. Glancing at Lotus, he saw her hesitate, then shake her head. Bjorn made a mental note, seeing the mare’s expression. Well, all good things came to an end.
“How are you two?” he asked, not bothering to fake joviality; it would only come off mocking.
“Wotus am otay,” Lotus said. “Nu nyu hao babbeh am.”
Bjorn crouched down to be closer to the pair’s level, looking directly at the little filly. She stared back. “Babbeh am weady.”
He was careful not to let his expression shift. It wasn’t the result he’d hoped for, but it was the one he’d expected. Fluffies, pegasi in particular, were fragile, and while the filly hadn’t quite broken into the wan-die phase, she’d been close. It was a shame, really. Catatonia would have made this easier for both of them.
“Weady fow wut?” Lotus asked, and Bjorn could tell she was playing dumb. She knew. He hadn’t kept what happened to fluffies that didn’t make the cut secret from her or her special-friend. They knew what he did, and they knew why he did it.
“Weady…weady fow fowebah-sweepies…” the filly said, barely over a whisper. Lotus sagged. Maybe she’d hoped making the filly have to say it would break her resolve. Or maybe she really had been just lying to herself.
Well, now’s as good a time as any to get a replacement, he thought.
“Alright, that’s your call,” he told the filly, and gently picked her up.
“Nice mistuh?” she asked as he carried her to the departure room.
“Yes?”
“Wai nu jus’ gib babbeh fowebah-sweepies wike odda fwuffies at shewtew?”
He considered lying and just saying curiosity again, but thought better of it. It’s not like it’d matter in fifteen minutes anyway. “The fluffies I put down, gave forever-sleepies, they…didn’t have a chance. Nothing short of a miracle was going to give them a loving home, so if I didn’t give them forever-sleepies they’d just be stuck in a shelter. They’d never be loved, or have their own nest, or toys, or a chance to make a family. Just a little cage in a crowded shelter watching the other fluffies get adopted. A life of loneliness, feeling more and more worthless every day. That wouldn’t be letting them live, that’d be forcing them to survive.”
“Babbeh nu am wike dat?”
“Normally, a fluffy with…baggage like yours wouldn’t find a good home. Honestly, had things worked out a little bit differently we wouldn’t be talking. But for you, I know you can have a home, if you just ask. Sandy’s daddeh would take you in, for sure. Maybe it’d be more out of pity than love, but you’d be safe and well-cared-for, and Sandy would love you.”
Babbeh thought about that for a moment as Bjorn opened the door to the departure room and carried him inside. “Wut am fowebah-sweepies wike?” she finally asked.
“Nobody knows. Some people like to claim various things, but the truth is that we have no idea,” Bjorn replied. While he could probably have swayed her one way or the other with tales of skettiland or eternal damnation he decided not to. This was her decision to make.
“Otay. Babbeh am weady tu gu,”
“First, there’s something I have to do. I think you should have a name.”
“Otay.”
“How about Anne?”
“Anne wub nyu namesies,” she deadpanned, and Bjorn could tell she just wanted to get this over with.
He set her down in the chamber, furnished like a miniature saferoom. “This won’t hurt,” he reassured her. “You’ll just feel warm and sleepy and that’ll be it.”
“Otay. Tank 'ou.”
Anne watched as the nice mister began doing things with the strange machine. After only a few moments, she began to feel warmth creeping into her hoofsies, then up her leggies, then into her chest. Soon it enveloped her and she flopped over onto her side. She felt so, so tired…
Part Six
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