Sugarplum hadn’t started out as a feral. She’d had a good home with her own safe room. Her daddy had loved her very much and had taught her how to make good poopies and peepees in the litterbox. He’d taught her how to be a very good fluffy, and he’d rewarded her with blockies and balls and all kinds of toysies. Every Sunday night there was spaghetti! Oh, how Sugarplum had loved spaghetti!
It all fell apart when she saw the babies on FluffTV. BABIES! So tiny and full of love! Why, Sugarplum wanted…no, NEEDED to have babies of her own! They would be the bestest babies! Deep down she knew that she’d be the bestest mother ever and that she’d be able to give them the bestest milkies, which would help them grow up big and strong so that they’d be the bestest babies ever! She would give them all the huggies and love! Daddy would love them so, so much. They’d all be one big family!
Daddy said no, absolutely not. Sugarplum begged him, but daddy got really mad and told her that if she asked again she’d get the sorry stick so many times that she wouldn’t be able to walk right for a week. A couple of days later she did ask again. She knew the sorry stick would hurt, but babies were important. They were the most important thing in the whole world, and she had to help daddy understand that.
Her daddy hadn’t been lying. Sugarplum had never felt so much pain in her entire life. Afterwards daddy had washed her scaredy poopies and peepees off of her fluff, had cleaned up her wounds with some sort of water that hurt a lot, and had reminded her to never ask about babies again. Sugarplum promised she wouldn’t mention them again. But now she knew that daddy didn’t understand, and that he didn’t WANT to understand just how important babies were to her.
So she ran away.
Oh, she didn’t want to. She loved her home and she loved her daddy. But babies were more important than anything else in the whole entire world. Being a mother was better than ANYTHING. She knew her daddy left the door open whenever he brought in those bags from the food store every week. It wasn’t an easy thing for her to do considering her limited intellect, but she managed to actually come up with a plan.
While daddy was in the kitchen with the first set of bags, Sugarplum ran out the front door and sprinted to the side of the house where daddy couldn’t see her. She peeked around the corner and watched him come back out, pick up the next set of bags, and walk back into the house. As soon as he was in the door she ran as fast as her little legs would carry her, down the sidewalk and past more houses than she could count. After a few minutes there were no more houses, just a bunch of trees. Lots and lots of trees. Maybe she could find a new daddy in there? One who would let her have babies? It was scary, not knowing what was out there. But she had to try.
Sugarplum trotted into the woods behind her daddy’s neighborhood and never looked back.
===
Life happens fast, especially when you’re a stray fluffy. The first few nights were really scary for Sugarplum, but eventually she found a herd of mixed strays and ferals. The smarty didn’t want to take her in at first, but one of his toughies said he wanted Sugarplum to be his special friend, and that settled it. Sugarplum guessed the blue pegasus would be as good a special friend as any. He was eager to give her special huggies, and the sooner she got some babies in her tummy the happier she’d be.
A week after she ran away, Sugarplum finally had tummy babies.
“Speshuw fwiend,” she whispered to the stallion as the herd slept around them. “Sugawpwum am soon-mummah. Haf tummeh babbehs.”
“Fwuffy am su happies,” the stallion said, his voice full of pride. “Fwuffy fine bestest nummies fo speshuw fwiend, hewp speshuw fwiend make bestest miwkies fo babbehs.”
The cold times were coming, which far from the best time for her to be having babies. The herd was stocking up on food so that they could make it through until the warm times again, and her special friend always made sure to bring her extra food so that she could make plenty of milk for their babies. He lost a little weight because he was giving her some of his food, too, but he never once complained. Sugarplum was determined to find food for herself, though. Her special friend protested, but she insisted. So she started going out on hunting trips by herself. Soon she’d be too big to wander on her own, according to the mares who had been full of tummy babies before. Until then she was going to gather as much as she could.
Then one day she came back just before dark-time to find that some sort of monster had found the herd. A lot of them were just gone - there was blood on the ground, or a leg here and there, but something had taken their bodies away. Her special friend was gone, too. She saw a piece of bloody fluff that looked like it could have come from his mane. There were a few bodies scattered at the edge of the clearing, but Sugarplum didn’t know enough to be able to tell what might have killed him. She cried for the herd she’d just started to know. She cried for her special friend who hadn’t even had a name. And she cried for her tummy babies who would never get to know their father.
Sugarplum hoped the monster - or monsters - wouldn’t come back. She didn’t have enough time to find a new safe place yet. There wasn’t enough time to relocate to make a new den. So she set herself up in one of the food storage dens, one that wasn’t full enough that she couldn’t use the bathroom in there, too. She knew enough to not shit exactly where she ate. Until the babies came she didn’t have much of a choice. There would be water, at least - the smarty had built the den in a location where rainwater could collect, and a toughie had dug a small trench where it could collect and flow into the den. Hopefully it would be enough.
She settled in, right on the cusp of being too fat to move, and waited.
===
Her babies were all born healthy, and there was enough food to give them the best milkies for a couple of weeks. She made sure that they all knew they were the best babies ever. The little yellow earthie, though, was her best baby. Oh, she loved them all and corrected all of them when they did something bad. But as an earthie, she couldn’t help loving her yellow earthie just a little more than she loved the others. The green earthie just wasn’t as pretty as her yellow one. The yellow one was the bestest baby. That’s just how it was.
As soon as they were old enough to learn, she relocated her family to another den and taught them where they could use the bathroom. She also taught them about this thing called a “litterbox,” and sang them the litterbox song. Things like that were VERY important to humans, so everything she’d learned from her daddy seemed important to pass along. One day Sugarplum was hoping that her babies would find humans who would give them warm houses to live in, houses full of toys and love and spaghetti.
A few days before her babies were ready to be weaned, a group of squirrels came foraging for food. If the whole herd had been there then it wouldn’t have been an issue, but Sugarplum wasn’t able to fight a whole group on her own. All it took was a few bites and she was screaming, crying and running away with her sobbing babies desperately clinging to the fur on her back.
She managed to find a safe place in some bushes. She dug a new den next to a pretty-smelling bush right in sight of some human houses. Sugarplum figured that once her babies were weaned and half-grown that she’d start trying to find a nice human daddy who would take her and her babies in. Maybe if he couldn’t keep all of them then he’d be able to help find new mommies and daddies for her babies. Either way she was going to make sure that her babies would all have the life she’d had for a while. Just a few more days.
Then, two days after the babies were weaned enough to start eating soft grasses, the cat attacked.
It happened so fast that her little blue unicorn’s head was torn off before she even noticed that anything was wrong. Then, before she could even say a word, the cat’s mouth was sinking into her little pink pegasus. The pegasus was screaming as the cat pressed her to the ground and started tearing at her tiny body. Sugarplum ran toward the cat and shouted at her babies.
“BABBEHS! WUN! WUN AWAY FWOM KITTEH MUNSTAH! WUN WUN WUUUUUUUUN!” She launched herself at the cat, hoping that she could stop it with sorry-hoofies. Out of the corner of her eye she was able to see her bestest baby sobbing and standing in place. She couldn’t see her green earthie at all. The sorry hoofies weren’t doing anything but making the cat mad and the hissing, growling monster turned and started clawing and biting her. The pain was so, so much worse than that time daddy used the sorry stick on her until she couldn’t move. Sugarplum screamed and begged the monster to stop, but deep down she knew it couldn’t understand. Deep down, she knew she was going to take forever-sleepies with her babies. All of her plans, all of her dreams, dying next to this rosemary bush.
As her vision dimmed and the life drained out of her, Sugarplum saw her little yellow earthie start to run away. She was slow and awkward, but she was running.
Wun, wittwe babbeh, Sugarplum thought as her mind melted into darkness. Wun an be safe, bestest babbeh.
Then, nothing.
===
The little yellow fluffy, the bestest baby, woke up screaming. She’d been dreaming of the attack on her family. As she felt the cat’s teeth sink into the scruff of her neck all over again, she screamed and woke up in her cardboard box.
It was morning. The sun was shining through the blinds in the window. The nice human wasn’t there, and when she yelled for him he didn’t come running. She sobbed for a few minutes and worked the tears out of her system, looking around the walls of her temporary den. There wasn’t anything but walls here. Walls, her little saucer of water, and the litterbox.
“Fwuffy nu wan mo huwties,” she whispered to herself.
She dragged herself out of her nice, warm blanket and drank the last of the water from the saucer. Her bowels rumbled, but as she squatted to relieve herself she remembered - NO! Good fluffies make poopies in the litterbox! Smiling to herself, she trotted over to the litterbox and relieved herself there. All the poop, all the pee, all in the litterbox. She was so proud! The nice human would be so proud, too!
As if he’d been reading her mind, John opened the door and walked into the room. He peeked over the edge of the box to see a smiling fluffy. A clean, smiling fluffy.
“Nice mistah, wook wat fwuffy du! Fwuffy make GUD poopies AN’ make gud peepees wight in witta box! Fwuffy am good fwuffy?”
John couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a very good fluffy. Let’s get you some breakfast and, like I promised, you get a treat.”
He reached down to lift her up and she stood on her hind legs to up toward him. “Yaaaaaay! Fwuffy wuv upsies, fwuffy wuv tweats!”
John cradled her in his hand, and she reached over to hug his thumb with her forelegs. Same as she’d done yesterday, she nuzzled her face against him and cooed.
“Gif nice mistah bestest huggies,” she muttered. “Huggies an wuv, huggies an wuv.”
God, he thought. I’m going to feel like the world’s biggest asshole tonight.
John set her on the dining room table, right on a towel he’d set up as a little nest. There was food and water there, but no treat. The fluffy looked confused, but before she could ask, he told her not to worry.
“You have to eat all your food and drink all your water again,” he said. “Then you have to let me know if you need to make poopies or peepees again so I can take you to the litterbox. If you can eat and drink and not make bad poopies or peepees outside the litterbox, then you get the treat.”
“Otay daddeh, fwuffy w…”
“I’m NOT your daddy,” John said sternly. “Why do I keep having to remind you of that?”
“Fwuffy sowwy,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Fwuffy nu mean, fwuffy nu membuh nice mistah nu wan be nyu daddeh. Fwuffy sowwy. Sowwy, sowwy.”
“Okay, okay. Jesus. Please don’t cry. Just eat.”
She didn’t cry, but the tears didn’t leave her eyes as she ate. John sighed and wondered how a creature that was only as big as his hand could make him feel so guilty when - wait, had she grown since yesterday? He looked her over and realized that yeah, she absolutely had grown in just a few hours. That’s absolutely insane, he thought. But she had grown! Yesterday she’d been around the size of a hamster, not quite as big as his hand. This morning she took up almost his entire hand. It wasn’t a lot, but it was definitely noticeable.
Once she was done with her food and water she looked up at him and stamped her tiny hooves to get his attention. They made a little pfaff, pfaff sound on the table which John tried to pretend wasn’t completely adorable. “Hewwo, nice mistah. Fwuffy eat aww nummies, dwink aww wawa. Nee make poopies nao. Pwease take fwuffy to witta-box?”
John scooped her up and carried her back to the litterbox, marveling that the little feral was remembering things and doing exactly what he told her to do. If she could keep doing that, then surely she’d be able to find a new home at the shelter, right? Right?
The fluffy finished her business, kicked a little bit of litter over her tiny pile of shit, and looked up at John expectantly.
“Am stiww gud fwuffy?”
“You’re a very good fluffy,” he assured her as he picked her up again. “You’ve earned that treat.”
“YAAAAAAAY! BESTEST FWUFFY GET BESTEST TWEAT FROM BESTEST HOOMIN!”
“Come on now, I’m not the best human.”
She nodded her head as he sat her back down on the towel. “Am bestest hoomin. Onwy hoomin dat haf been gud to fwuffy. Keep fwuffy fwom fowevah-sweepies. Gif nummies an’ keep safe. Bestest hoomin. Fank yu.”
The guilt train continues. Great.
“Thank…thank you. Now wait here and I’ll bring you that treat.”
It was a small plate with a diced-up piece of strawberry on it, and the way the fluffy reacted to it you’d have thought it was an actual treasure. She wouldn’t stop thanking him for the “bestest nummies,” trying to talk around every mouthful of food. By the time she was done she was so full that her stomach was bulging slightly, enough to be felt through her soft belly fluff.
“Fank yu, nice mistah. So fuww, so fuww. Fank yu fo bestest nummies evah.”
“You’re welcome. Let that digest for a little bit, and then…do you think you can be brave for me?”
She nodded. “Fwuffy can be vewy bwave fo nice mistah.”
“Good, because you’ll have to ride in the car so I can take you to the shelter.”
Her face fell. “Nice mistah stiww nu wan keep fwuffy? Fwuffy twy be bestest fwuffy, twy fowwow aww wuwes nice mistah haf. But nu good nuf? Fwuffy sowwy.” The tears started to flow again, and even though John tried to calm her down, she was inconsolable.
Well, fuck.