Author’s Note: this is a continuation of Kaïs’s checkup by (that1hugboxer).
You are Duncan, today you received a call from the fluffy sanctuary on behalf of a woman in desperate need of your assistance in regard to training her fluffy. Usually you charge for this kind of thing but the woman in question is a teacher so you drop the fee. Bich Duc the owner of the fluffy, is at her wits end. Nothing she does seems to make a dent in her fluffy Sen’s behavior .
“All right Ms Duc let’s start from the beginning and work from there. Where did you acquire Sen from and how old was she when you got her?”
Ms Duc Looks too ashamed to answer the question.
“Ms Duc I can only help Sen using the information you give me. I’m going to ask again. Where did you acquire Sen from and how old was she when you got her?”
“She was 8 hours old when I got her from a fluffy mill .”
Ms Duc waits anxiously for you to yell at her. But you simply thank her for the information and move on to the next question.
“Was Sen always troublesome or did she Become troublesome at a certain age?”
“Sen was a completely different fluffy up until her first sketties.”
“And how old was she at that time?”
“Her first tooth had just come in.”
“Was the change immediate or was it a gradual transition?”
“The change happened about two days after that and was very sudden.”
“What made you realize something had changed?”
“Sen refused to eat her kibble and threw a massive tantrum demanding sketties”
“Did you give in to those demands?”
“Not at first….But eventually I had to.”
“Please elaborate Ms Duc.”
“Well at first I put my foot down telling her that she could either eat the kibble or go hungry. But she was hell bent on getting her way and refused to eat. I thought she would get hungry enough and eat it . But she wasn’t showing any signs of breaking 4 days in. You have to understand she was just a baby and my maternal instincts kicked in. She was so sickly and thin . Even a few hours more and she would have been too far gone to recover.”
“I bet you think I’m a doormat.”
“Ms Duc You aren’t weak. You clearly view Sen as a family member. And while under a majority of circumstances a healthy family dynamic would discourage caving because a child doesn’t want to eat something. This is very clearly one of the few times such actions are understandable.”
Ms Duc looks at you with tears in her eyes.
“Tha…Thank you! I can’t have children due to a medical condition and I don’t make enough money to adopt and properly provide for them!
Sen is the closest thing to a child I could reasonably provide for!”
Sen continues to vent. Though this meeting was supposed to be more about Sen herself. You decide to let her get this out .
“Im sick and tired of people telling me to just kill Sen and get another fluffy! I Raised her from before she even opened her eyes, I can’t just kill her because of some bad behavior! For Christs sake she has the reasoning skills of a fucking toddler!”
You place your hand on Ms Duc’s shoulder.
“Ms Duc I understand exactly how you feel. Within the fluffy community there’s a belief that abusers and hugboxers are supposed to be enemies. I but from what I’ve experienced both are crucial in maintaining a healthy ecosystem now that Hasbio unleashed them upon the world . Sen doesn’t have to die, no more than a perfect fluffy has to live. We can’t save every single fluffy even if we killed off all the bad ones the earth’s ecosystem was never designed to sustain a man made creature like fluffies. As a hugboxer it pains me to see fluffies have to die to maintain ecological integrity. A creature designed to reason like a toddler even after reaching sexual maturity is horrible. I personally believe that fluffies should not have been made. But they are here now and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I don’t hate fluffies, I pity them. I understand that left unchecked the entire ecosystem would collapse and human civilization would disappear along with it. It’s a hard pill to swallow but the silver lining in all of this is that we as individuals can choose to extend mercy to a few of them .”
Ms Duc stops crying .
“Does it ever get easier… knowing that for every one you save there’s a thousand more that get tortured to death?”
You smile at her and sigh.
“There was a short story I had to read in junior high, I can’t remember the name but the story goes like this. A man gets up early in the morning every day he goes to the beach and throws stranded starfish back into the ocean one at a time. A person comes up to him and points at the thousands of starfish on the beach saying that no matter how many the man throws back into the ocean a majority of them will shrivel up and die before he’s finished . The man ignores the person and continues throwing the starfish back into the sea. The other person becomes angry and shouts at the man that he will never make a difference. The man picks up a starfish and tosses it into the sea then turns to the person and says “I made a difference to that one.”
You look at Ms Duc and ask her a simple question.
“What are you going to do with your starfish?”
Ms Duc calms down and finishes answering your questions about Sen.
Now all that’s left is to talk with Sen.
“Hello Sen my name is Duncan.”
Sen looks up at you angrily.
“Go ‘way sen nu wan’ tawk wiff 'ou!”
“Unfortunately Sen you don’t have much of a choice.”
Sen looks up at you and sighs
“Am ‘ou gon’ teww sen how bad of fwuffie sen am?”
You sit down on the floor Indian style and sen hesitantly sits in your lap.
“Sen tell me about the time you didn’t eat for four days because your mom wouldn’t give you spaghetti.”
Sen’s expression changes from grumpiness to one of sadness.
Sen explains that she waited like a good fluffy for lots of bright times under the impression that she would be getting sketties every day after her teeth came in. And when it didn’t happen she felt betrayed. That mummah had lied to her and it wasn’t fair.
“Ah I see , and you thought if you just didn’t eat for long enough mummah would have to feed you sketties everyday?”
Sen nods her head.
“But it didn’t work out the way you thought it would did it?”
Sen shakes her head.
“Nao sen tummy hab owies aww dah time, eben when tummy am fuww , tummy hab wowstes’ owies!”
“And now when you try to not eat your kibble, you get the sorry stick and sorry box right?”
Sen looks down at the floor and begins making circular motions in the carpet with one of her front hooves.
“Sen your mummah fed you sketties the first time you refused to eat because you would have died if she didn’t”
Sen looks up and gasps in horror upon realizing she almost died.
“The reason you keep getting the sorry stick and sorry box is because your mummah wants you to know that not eating your kibble is bad.”
“Buh tummy nu wan’ kibbwe! tummy wan skettie!”
“If a fluffy eats skettie every day then they get really sick , they could lose their legs or even die.”
“Nu wan wose weggies, nu wan foweva sweepies !” Sen shrieks.
“Sen sketties are a sometimes food, it’s okay to have them sometimes but not more than once every seven bright times. And sometimes even longer than that.”
Sen begins to understand what you are saying if only from the perspective of a toddler level of reasoning.
“Sen you are a very very lucky fluffy, many humans are not as nice as your mummah. Many humans would have just let you starve to death the first time you refused to eat. Your mummah loves you very much and even though she doesn’t give you everything you want all the time , she does it to try and keep you from being sick.”
“Bu…Buh Sketties…huu huu!”
“Your choices are you can eat your kibble,be a good fluffy and have sketties sometimes. Or you can be hungry all the time ,get the sorry stick/sorry box and get no sketties ever.”
You place Sen’s kibble bowl in front of her.
Sen eats the kibble like a starving dog.
Sen looks up at you after she finishes eating, crumbs speckle her face.
“Sen num kibbwe! sen am gud fwuffy?sen…habe sketties nao?”
“No Sen you can’t have sketties right now.”
You wipe the crumbs off of Sen’s face with a napkin.
“but if you keep being a good fluffy you will get sketties sometimes.”
Sen looks up at you.
Buh if sen am bad fwuffie den sen nebah get sketties?
“That’s right.”
Sen sighs
“Bein’ gud fwuffie am hawd.”
“I know Sen…I know”