Rosemary felt like her world was falling apart. Everything had been so perfect just a couple of bright-times ago. Her daddy loved her more than anything, and he was the bestest daddy that any fluffy could ever hope to have. The bestest daddy ever! He gave her lots of huggies and love, gave her kibbles that tasted pretty, gave her lots of toys and a big safe room to run and play in! Plus sometimes he gave her sketties for being a good fluffy. She’d even learned to really like “bath time,” because sometimes poopies got in her fluff no matter how hard she tried to keep it from happening. Bath time was warm even if the water was kind of scary, and she always ended up smelling so, so pretty.
She was pretty sure that she was a good fluffy. She TRIED to be a good fluffy. But everything had come crashing down when she tried to meet the fluffies in the backyard. Now she’d broken at least one of daddy’s rules, and had probably broken another one when she kept asking for babies after he’d said no. There had been no huggies or love since they got back home from the vet; that, on top of her bruises and the bad special huggies, had given her terrible heart hurties. Rosemary didn’t know what it would take to make daddy love her again, but she was going to do whatever it took.
But…babies. Rosemary couldn’t stop thinking about babies. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about before, not until the smarty had mentioned special hugs. Not until she’d seen his no-no stick. Something had been unlocked in her brain and Hasbio’s programming had spilled out. Now she knew everything there was to know about babies. When she wasn’t thinking about how to make daddy happy, babies were all she could think about as she lay there in her safe room. Babies needing her milkies so that they could grow up big and strong. All the huggies and love they could give! All the huggies and love she could give THEM! Huggies and love fixed everything. Maybe they could fix things with daddy! And if there were babies to help, why, daddy would have the most huggies and love ever! Rosemary would be the bestest mummah ever with the bestest babies ever, and her daddy would be SO HAPPY FOREVER!
Babies. Babies, babies, babies.
But daddy had said no. He told her to not ask again.
Rosemary lay sprawled out in the middle of the safe room, despondent and exhausted. She sighed, her heart hurties worsening by the hour. Nothing made any sense and she didn’t know how to make her world better again. Hopefully she could figure it out.
===
John really didn’t like the idea of having a bunch of fluffies in his house. He’d never had one before, and one was okay. Two would be a stretch, but he was starting to think he was going to have to have two so that Rosemary would be happy. But a bunch of babies, running around and screaming and shitting all over the place? Fuck no. He’d read some real horror stories while he was doing his research. Best case scenario, he’d have to deal with a lot of screaming and crying and shitting for a few weeks until the foals could be raised and given away. He’d have to take care of Rosemary when she got too fat to move; apparently that didn’t ALWAYS happen, but it was common enough that people on the forums recommended taking time off of work during that final week of pregnancy. Otherwise he’d have to just prop her up in the litterbox and hope her foals didn’t come while he was at work.
Then there was the fact that pregnancy totally changed some fluffies. Once their foals came, some mothers would eat or maim their “poopie babies,” the babies with undesirable colors like brown or green. They’d almost always kill alicorns, thinking them to be monsters. Wings were okay, horns were okay, but wings AND a horn? He wondered if it was something deeply programmed, something Hasbio did on purpose to keep alicorn prices inflated. Even if they didn’t kill, eat or mutilate some of their babies, they almost always picked a “best baby” and set a hierarchy that left one or two babies treated like total garbage. The mothers became total assholes, defying their owners and calling them “dummy humans.” Sometimes it made them turn into smarties.
He didn’t want to lose Rosemary. He wanted her to stay just the way she was; sweet, loving, well-behaved, and eager to be a good fluffy that made him happy. At the same time he wanted her to be happy, too. Up until this point it hadn’t taken much to make her happy. Now, though, he was clearly going to have to make a decision. Try to get another fluffy and hope that fixed things, or let her have babies and hope she made it through the process without losing her personality?
John lay sprawled out on the couch, exhausted and not knowing what the hell to do. He sighed. Hopefully he could figure it out.
===
“Rosemary?” John opened the safe room door and peeked in.
She was still sprawled out on the floor, and she looked up at him hesitantly. “Yus, daddeh?”
“I think I’ve punished you for long enough. What do you think?”
“Wosemawy nu am bad fwuffy nao?” She stood up and looked hopeful. “Wosemawy twy to be gud fwuffy.”
“No, you’re not a bad fluffy, sweetie. You’re a good fluffy. You just made a couple of bad decisions, and I don’t think you’ll be doing that again, right?”
“Nu, daddeh. Wosemawy nu bweak wuwes nu mowe. Wosemawy onwy wan be bestest fwuffy fo daddeh. Wuv daddeh. Am bestest daddeh.” Tears were starting to form in her eyes. John was honestly surprised that it had taken her this long to start crying.
“Okay, okay. There’s no need to cry.” He leaned down and picked her up, cradling her in his arms. “I want to show you something. I want you to see why I have rules, why I’m so concerned with keeping you safe.”
“Otay, daddeh.” She wiggled and waved her legs around, sinking into his arms and getting comfortable. “Whewe am daddeh take Wosemawy?”
“We’re going outside.”
Rosemary briefly looked horrified, but didn’t lose bowel control. “Wo…Wosemawy pwomise wiww be gud, daddeh. Wosemawy nu wun.”
John carried her out of the house, using the front door and taking a longer route so that he could avoid the backyard. After what had happened just a couple of days earlier, he didn’t want to risk causing Rosemary any new trauma by making her walk through the scene of the crime. He walked along the fence; as he walked, Rosemary kept rolling her head back and looking around, babbling to herself about trees and bushes and pretty flowers.
It didn’t take long for him to reach his destination. He set Rosemary down next to the bush. Next to her namesake.
“Wha am dis, daddeh?” she asked, taking in the scene around her.
“This is where you almost died, sweetie. This where you first saw how dangerous the world can be for a fluffy. You learned that you needed someone to protect you. There are lots of monsters out there, Rosemary. Someo of them are animals. Some of them are humans. I don’t want you to get hurt, not ever again. That’s why you have your safe room. It’s why I have the rules you have to follow.”
She looked at the bush, tears forming in her eyes again. “Dis…dis whewe mummah twied to keep Wosemawy an bwuddah an sistahs safe. Dis whewe famiwy take fowevah-sweepies.” As the memories came back to her, she started sobbing. “Wo…Wosemawy nevah s…see famiwy again. Huu huu huuuuuu!”
He sat down on the ground next to her and stroked her mane, trying to comfort her. “Rosemary, when people take forever-sleepies, their family buries them in the ground so that they can go visit them and talk to them. Now, they can’t talk back. They’re gone forever. But it’s like being able to be with them, sort of.” He paused and realized exactly how it all sounded. “Okay, when I say it out loud it sounds kind of crazy.”
“Huuhuu…daddeh, Wosemawy wan visit famiwy. Wosemawy miss mummah and bwuddah and sistahs suuuuuu, suuuuuu much. Huu huu huuuuuu!” She was nuzzling his hand with her head, tears soaking into her fluff and rubbing off on his skin.
“Were you happier with a family, sweetie? With more fluffies around?”
She nodded, and the sobbing stopped as she thought. “Wosemawy wuv daddeh, wuv Sossa. Buh fwuffies nee udah fwuffies. Nee tawk an wun an pway and haf bestest huggies an fwuff piwe. Daddeh an Sossa am famiwy, buh…” She trailed off.
“Other fluffies would make your new family even better.”
She nodded again. “Das wight, daddeh.”
John pointed to the makeshift tombstone, his voice soft and soothing. “Your mother, your siblings. I buried them right there. I figured they deserved a decent burial, and a place where you could come to visit them.”
Her eyes widened. “Famiwy…famiwy am undah dewe?”
“Yes, sweetie. So they’ll never be completely gone. They’ll always be here. Just…sleeping, I guess. Sleeping forever.”
She trotted over to the tombstone and hugged it with all her might. “Wosemawy missoo, famiwy. Nevah fowget famiwy.” She turned and looked at John, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Fankoo, daddeh. Can…can Wosemawy visit famiwy some bwight-times?”
“Of course. I’ll bring you out here as often as you want.”
“Fankoo.” She curled up beside the tombstone and looked at him, both love and sorrow in her eyes. “Wuvoo, daddeh. Daddeh am bestest daddeh evah.”
“I love you too, sweetie.”
They sat in silence for a while, both of them processing everything that had happened, and trying to figure out what the future would hold.
===
“So, I need some more advice.”
John had decided it was time to call Rebekah. He didn’t know the best way to proceed with trying to make Rosemary’s life better, but he figured that Rebekah probably did. She’d owned fluffies before, and she’d been working in the shelter for a few years. Rebekah had way more knowledge than he did, period. Plus he really enjoyed hearing her voice. So, win-win.
“I’m always glad to help,” Rebekah said. “What’s going on?”
He laid everything out. How Rosemary didn’t seem to be pregnant since she wasn’t talking about tummy babies at all, which was something that always happened after the first day or two of pregnancy. He told Rebekah about the conversation he’d had with Rosemary, how she’d admitted to him that having other fluffies around did make her happier. He just didn’t know what to do. Get another fluffy? Let her have babies?
“So you actually buried her family behind your house, and you gave them a little tombstone?”
“Shut up. I know it sounds dumb.”
“Actually, it doesn’t. It’s really sweet.”
“Sure, sure. So what do you think? What’s my best option?”
“Probably letting her have babies, and telling her that they’re the only babies she’ll be allowed to have. Once they’re weaned you can adopt all of them out, but let her keep one. Let her choose which one, and hope it’s a male.”
“But wouldn’t they just have, uh, special huggies and make more…?”
“Nah, fluffies are dumb and weird but they’re not into incest. They’re programmed not to want to have sex with their own family members. You get her to pick a colt, you won’t have another fluffy on your hand talking about babies again. Assuming Rosemary is content to stop. But in my experience, once they’ve had babies AND they get to keep one of their babies forever, they’re usually happy with that.”
“So that’s the best option, then.”
“You could get another fluffy, but they wouldn’t be family, and you’d open up a whole box of potential issues unless the new fluffy is fixed. Want to make her happiest? That’s your best option.”
“And there won’t be an issue if she keeps a stallion?”
Rebekah laughed. “Oh, it’ll want to hump [i]something[/i. You can either get it one of those little ‘enfie mare’ toys, or you can stud him out if he’s got great colors.”
“Jesus. They…they make sex toys for fluffies?”
“Trust me, they’re necessary.”
John paused, speechless. “Okay, I guess I’m going to have to do some research on babies, then. I’ve already got a potential breeder lined up, I think.” He told her about Red, the alicorn, and how Steve had said he might cut him a deal.
Rebekah whistled. “An alicorn, huh? Maybe she’ll have a couple of alicorns, if you’re lucky. You could sell those for a lot of money.”
“Maybe so. Hey, thank you. I really appreciate the advice.”
“Glad to help. Feel free to call me anytime.”
“Hey, I…you know what? Would you like to go grab coffee or something sometime?”
Rebekah froze. “Are you…are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely am.”
She felt butterflies in her stomach. “I’d love that.”
“Text me and let me know when you’re available and we’ll figure something out. Gives me something to look forward to.”
“Me, too. I’ll text you in a bit.”
They said goodbye, and John went back to the computer to do a some more research. He was determined to fix things, to improve Rosemary’s life. Having fluffy babies around the house for a little while probably wouldn’t be terrible, right?
Right?