Trauma. Something that fluffies as a whole were intimately familiar with in some form or another. Part of this is due to them being particularly fragile, both mentally, emotionally, but most of all, physically.
Shelters for fluffy ponies therefore must be adept in responding to and dealing with any and all forms of trauma a pony could deal with, from broken limbs to broken hearts. To this extent they were usually equipped with on site vets and heavy-duty incinerators. But mental trauma was a much harder thing to treat, or even diagnose.
Shelters in more rural areas mostly have to deal with minor mental trauma. Fear of dogs, storms, the dark, natural phenomena and the like. These were easy to counsel even fluffies through just by providing them shelter, hiding places, and nightlights.
Urban fluffies, especially those in cities, fared far worse. High traffic and the threat of being trampled underfoot has given many ferals a fear of crowds. Some develop fear of shoes, forcing some ferals to either break their teeth trying to tear shoes apart, or running away in fear at the sights of loafers, laying down a thick trail of excrement in their wake. Reliance on the mercurial whims of strangers and trash makes the idea of a regular feeding schedule feel too good to be true, with many city ferals becoming fiercely protective of their food bowls. Some will gorge themselves, eating as much as possible whenever possible, paradoxically others will starve themselves, creating stockpiles of stale, moldering kibble in the back of their kennel.
But most of all, urban ferals suffered from a distrust of humans, or what they saw as the âhooman faced munstahsâ. Fluffies could never see a human as a threat to their lives, Hasbio had made sure of that. Instead, a fluffy who watched a person commit full-blown abuse would think it was a monster who had disguised themselves as a person. But city fluffies saw hundreds of people every day. Pretty soon they saw every person as a possible threat. Many had also watched a human mercilessly kill a fluffy for no other reason than a smear of dirt on a pant leg. Rather than risk their lives, they would avoid humans until they chanced upon one who seemed friendly or sad. Their programming wouldnât allow that. If they encountered someone crying on a park bench, they would come to offer hugs of solace.
This was a method many abusers used to draw in potential prey. The North Street Fluffy Shelter and Adoption Services staff were aware of a few. A few on the staff had given names to them according to their modus operandi. There were the Sculptors, a pair of two younger men, approximately college aged with French Canadian accents. They would seek out mated pairs, preferably with a pregnant, immobile mare. They would torture, murder, and pose the male, trapping the female in the area through spreading of broken glass, filming the entire process. They had 1.4 million subscribers.
There was Stumper, an old veteran of Vietnam. He was missing a leg, lost in the line of duty. He hobbled around on a prosthetic peg leg, large Bowie knife on his hip. Not content on suffering alone, he would seek out fluffies and amputate their right legs, leaving the exsanguinating victim propped up against alley walls for the rats, the âonly real animals left in this shithole of a city.â The police wouldnât do anything, some even commending him for doing his civic duty.
âMr. Not-Hoofsâ was one of the most dreaded calls. Most of his stallion victims required immediate euthanasia. The rest sought out death themselves, bashing their skulls to mush against the wire bars of their kennels.
But by far and away the worst was a woman named Melissa. She was a young woman of European descent, short, shoulder length curly blonde hair, a slender build, pale skin, and bright, piercingly blue eyes. They had many eye witness accounts from her fluffies, all more than happy to recount their time with the woman. Physically, they were better off than any of city feral. Emotionally, they suffered slight abandonment issues.
Mentally, she had turned them into time bombs. And Jim was staring at an explosion. Fluffies screamed and ran in circles, searching for a spot to hide while scaredy poopies sprayed in arcs from their rears. The small indoor play area appeared as though a low lying brown fog had moved in, so dense was the effluent in the air.
A purple fluffy sat swishing his tail in the middle of the carnage. A full grown unicorn stallion. His glossy purple fluff and silky orange mane and tail were slicked with the blood of a small gray pegasus whose throat oozed from a series of stab wounds that had nearly decapitated him, a large smear of red nearly obscuring a cartoon Cinnamummah on the playroom rug. He looked up at Jim with a silly grin. âHewwo nummie man!â
Jim stammered, words catching in his throat. His tears in his eyes burned with shock and sadness, but eventually he managed to ask. âWhy?â
âWhaâ? Mummah Mewissa awways say dat wingie fwuffies am baâ fwuffies dat neeâ gu foweba sweepies. Wai nummie man makinâ siwwy wooksies?â
The fluffy was lifted by his scruff and carried off, screeching âBad upsies!â s he flailed under the tightening grip of the nurse. The shelter tried to euthanize any fluffy who so much as mentioned her. Jim had no clue how she had managed to sneak this stallion by the entry processing, but he had expected her to do so eventually. She was even more crafty than she was cruel.
Of all the abusers known to the staff, she was one who seemed to specifically try to fuck with the shelter. Through some combination of drugs, psychology, and positive reinforcement she would instill rules in them. Rules that usually involved infliction of pain on others.
A red colt had been given a trigger phrase. When he heard the word âJellyâ he would begin screaming and attacking any mares he could. A pastel green pregnant mare seemed normal, until a horrified worker saw her steal and eat a foal, biting its head off and slurping the blood down like it was candy. These were only a few examples. In total sixty seven of these Trojan horses had been encounter to this point. The purple stallion was number sixty eight.
Placing the stallion in the steel sorry box and closing the door, Jim collapsed in a chair nearby, ignoring the wails of the stallion. He sat, head leaned back, eyes closed, and waited for his heart to slow and his blood to stop roaring in his ears. Unsuccessfully, as it only spiked higher as Debra burst through the door. âJim what the fuck happened out there?â The nurse leaned forwards, running his hand through his hair, smearing blood across his face in the process. âAnother piece of Melissaâs work.â
The older woman swore, kicking hard against the sorrybox. The stallion inside shrieked and scrambled around, his hooves plapping like a drum against the thin metal walls. âHeâll have to be euthanized.â That was a forgone conclusion. The effort of deprogramming him was too expensive for what he was worth. Not to mention that Melissa really liked to add secret rules, so itâs impossible to know if the âtime bombâ is defused.
That was certainly the case with Floppy. The beige pegasus had been caught knocking foals away and pinning down nursing mummahs to steal milk. âHe was only ever fed this way his whole life,â Jessica, one of the adoption agents had said. âWe can still offer him a great chance here!â Debra had given the go ahead albeit reluctantly.
Then he killed a foal. âMummah Mewissa say dat gweenie babbehs am bad babbehs dat neeâ gu foweba sweepies!â He had proudly proclaimed, chest puffed.
Jessica quit. Floppy was thrown in the furnace. Jessica never had a replacement. Floppy had many.
The two staff members finally felt calm enough to deal with the sniveling mess in the metal crate, Debra opening the sorrybox and pulling the squealing unicorn out by the neck. âSCREEEEEEEEEEEE! WOWSTEST HUWTIES! Nu huwt fwuffy! Am gud fwuffy!â
âJim, go out to deal with that mess for me please. Iâll take care of his exit interview.â Jim nodded. Even if he knew it was necessary, he still couldnât stand watching violence committed on a living creature.
Taking his out, Jim left through the large swinging doors. Debra adjusted her hornrim glasses, chain dangling behind her as she held the stallion on a metal table. Making sure that Jim was out of sight, she quickly snapped the stallions neck. He jerked for a moment and then went limp, a rasping gurgle catching in the back of his throat. Debra lifted him and carried him through a set of double doors into the furnace room. It was the one room of the shelter not decorated in the remodeling. Ivory walls stained with soot, dull green tiles covered with ash. In a way, it was calming to escape the faux joy of the brightly decorated shelter. But Debra was here on business.
Tossing the unnamed unicorn into the furnace, she turned it on. The unicorn suffocated to death shortly before flames consumed its body.