Author’s note: I’m not sorry.
Dave tapped his foot impatiently on the floor of the vet’s waiting room. He’s always home, why bother setting up the safe room camera to be viewed online, that’d just be extra work for no benefit. At least that was how it had seemed when he had set the system up. Given recent events, he was reconsidering those decisions. Long story short, he’d pay a stupid amount of money right then to be able to see what was going on in that safe room. He’d even considered trying to hire someone or something, but concluded that he’d be back home long before anyone could get to his house and start streaming things to him. As such, he’d just have to wait.
The Veterinarian had told Dave that while she couldn’t meaningfully save the brown filly’s leg, beyond simple amputation, there was the option to graft a different fluffy’s leg onto the filly. Since the filly was not yet walking, it would likely have little if any ill effects on the filly, as she would be learning to use the other three legs at the same time, and so could be expected to do just fine with the grafted leg. This made good enough sense to Dave, so he had told the vet to go for it.
Dave’s train of thought was finally interrupted by the vet calling calling him back into one of the examination rooms. There on the exam table was the little brown filly, going to town on the nipple of a milkbag fluffy. Even though the milkbag’s mouth was sewn shut, it could still be heard complaining about ‘nu wan gib poopie babbeh miwkies’ albeit rather muffled.
“Jave pulled through it just fine and should be, at most, maybe a day behind the rest of the litter developmentally. As you can see, even though we had a perfect color match, we put on a mismatching leg of a different color brown, as per your request. Normally I’m apologizing that the match isn’t better by this point, so this is actually a rather pleasant departure from the norm.” The vet quickly gave her chart a once over. “Right, almost forgot, on examination I found that Jave here is actually a little underdeveloped on a structural level, her liver’s undersized, and she only has one functional kidney- the other one is so underdeveloped that it’s really just taking up space more than anything else. Long story short, she’d never have survived as a ‘poopie fluffy’ in the wild, her kidney would have shut down from a diet of feces after maybe two weeks tops. But with an even slightly attentive owner, or parents for that matter, she should be able to live a normal life, even though she’ll always be a bit fragile, even for a fluffy. It’s really a good thing she has you.” Behind her, the scream of a fluffy could be heard “SCREEEE! WEWE AM BABBEH WEGGIE GON?” The vet chuckled softly to herself and sighed before she headed further back into her clinic.
Dave put little Jave into a fluffy foal carrier, paid at the front desk, and made his way out to the car. He hadn’t meant to name her, but when they asked for her name at the front desk, he just blurted out Jave, presumably his brain short circuited somewhere between Java and his own name. While Dave was perfectly aware that he could simply ignore that it happened and tell none of the fluffies, fluffies always gave their kids stupid names, so he figured it was his turn to give one of their kids a dumb name.
When he got home and opened the door, he got on the floor and Dave and Jave walked the dinosaur.
When he got home and opened the door, Dave was surprised at the almost perfect silent calm within. He had expected yelling, or at least huu-huu-ing, but as he approached the safe room, the only thing that could be heard was the gentle, sporadic peeping and mumbling of peacefully sleeping fluffies. In the kitchen, Dave transferred Jave from the foal carrier to a small hand towel, somehow not waking her in the process. He set her down in a spare bedroom on her little towl. He then made his way to the safe room, where he saw the entire fluffy family, sans Red, sleeping in a large fluffpile, the foals flanked on either side by Sally and Pistol. He poked Pistol gently in the side a few times before Pistol awoke silently, and when Dave made the shush signal and indicated that he wanted Pistol to follow him, Pistol nodded, quietly stood, woke Sally, and once Dave pushed the override button on the fluffy door to let Sally through, they both followed followed Dave to the otherwise as yet unused bedroom several doors down.
“Am brown babbeh okay?” Sally asked quietly the instant Dave had closed the door behind them.
“She’s fine, they managed to find a new leg for her, although it’s not quite the same color as the rest of her.” Dave answered, gesturing to the now awakening filly on the floor. As Jave started peeping, Sally ran over to her and offered the filly a tit, which she promptly accepted. “The veterinarian however, told me that her organs are underdeveloped, and she’s always going to be more fragile than other fluffies her age. Also, her name is Jave.”
“Dat gud name fow fiwwy,” Pistol said, nodding his head in agreement. “Am widdwe Jave stiww gwow to be big fwuffie?”
“The vet thinks so, everyone just needs to be gentle with Jave and she should have a pretty normal life.” Dave said before momentarily flashing an evil smile which flashed into a sustained look of worry. “Now, what did you do about Red?”
Oddly enough, at least to Dave, Sally spoke up first. “Pistow ate Wed’s face.”
Both Dave and Pistol looked at Sally like she had grown a second, somehow fluffier, head.
“Ackshuwee, dat nu happen, Sawwy wa’ confused by biggest heawt hewties, an by da auffa bweakin’ da fouwth waww.”
Dave and Pistol stared at her a little longer until Jave burped, loudly for her size, and cuddled up in Sally’s fur. “Pistol, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“Kay” Pistol said a bit distantly, still looking at Sally before he shook his head clear and, looking at Dave, began, “Pistow put Wed in sowwybocks befowe Pistow wan tu daddeh. Wen Pistow got back tu safewoom, Pistow used tinkies an’ tawkies an den Wed nu wan be smawty nu mowe.”
Dave was sure he had misheard. “Sorry, what happened with Red?”
“Pistow put Wed in sowwybocks, den Pistow used Pistow tinkie-pwace an made tawkies tu Wed an’ now Wed nu wan be smawty nu mowe. Bu 'cause Wed nee be pun-ished, Pistow teww Wed dat Wed stay in sowwybocks 'till da stawt ob da next bwight-time. Pistow wouwld hab said tiww tomowwow mowning, bu nu no if Wed no dat wowd yet. Den Wed nu awwowed in fwuffpiwe tiww bwown fiwwy, now Jave, wet Wed come back.”
“What?” Dave said flatly, his brain blue-screening.
Pistol sighed, “Wike Pistow said-” But Dave cut him off.
“Nevermind Pistol, I understand. You two should bring Jave back to the other foals and go back to sleep.”
“Okay” Sally said as Pistol gently placed Jave onto Sally’s back. The two headed out of the room while Dave stared a thousand miles through the wall.
“Daddeh?” Pistol had returned a few minutes later, but as far as Dave was concerned, it could have been seconds or months just as easily.
“Pwease gib Sawwy da oo-va-wide su Sawwy can gu back to babbehs.” Pistol said politely.
“Yeah, sure,” Dave said, absentmindedly activating it on his phone.
“Tank Yu.”
AN UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF TIME LATER (45 min, but Dave never figured that out)
“Did my fluffy fix a smarty?”
