It was mere rumor and conjecture at first, a couple of sightings in Bravil, one or two skooma fiends weaving fanciful tales of Khajiit’s feasting on a new “exotic” dish best eaten alive, and yet not a single person took this seriously…until today that is.
Erendor was coincidentally enjoying a drink at the Bannered Mare when he heard it. He swore it was Lucia at first, and being the charitable thief he was, he reached into his coin purse and reached behind him, not bothering to look at the girl as he carried on trying to bed Ysolda, and then he felt a moist something on his hand, a spitting noise, the drop of a septim hitting a wooden floor, and then, “Fwuffy nu wan’ shiny nummies, fwuffy wan’ sweet woww!”. Silence followed this shouting as everyone looked at each other, concerned by the possibility that their mead had been tampered with…this small, ungodly fluffy horse had just waltzed in here and demanded food, if only the patrons knew what was in store for them.
The next few days were a confusing blur of some residents of Skyrim seeing these things as adorable pets that should be taken care of, others seeing them as aggravating pests, and the Khajiit and Argonians selling and eating them alive, in fact if one were to have the misfortune of camping near a Khajiit merchant’s caravan, they’d be kept awake for hours with screams of “Screee fwuffy nu nummies, pwease nu gib buwny huwties whiskah munsta!” As the carvaneers cooked them just enough to burn the fluff and sear the flesh before downing the creatures with a bottle of mead or in the most delicious circumstances (Khajiit’s words not mine) a bottle skooma.
Then some dipshit had the idea to breed the things and sell them for profit, Nazeem had decided that they’d make great house pets, even replacing dogs in the near future. Several cities followed suit, some selling bright colors, others specializing in darker ones, and soon fluffy breeding was a massive business, with even Jarls having their own fluffies, usually the most lavish that money could buy, sitting by their throne in their throne rooms.
Some problems arose with this, first off, fluffies hardly grew above the size of a house cat, second, after a few weeks to a month from birth, the things started screaming about “Fwuffy wan’ babbehs nao! Fluffy wan’ be gud mummah!”. So tell me dear reader, what do you think happens when a group of small house pets obsessed with shitting, eating, and popping out children, also have the ability to take off from between their owner’s legs when they open a door and hide in the many holes and bushes in these cities?
Let’s take Greyhound’s story for example, she was a fluffy that was adopted by a family of nobles in Anvil as a foal. At first she was adorable and adored by the family, cooing and chirping, she’d chase the a small ball around all day and cuddle with their daughter at the end of the day. When she began to talk it was small demands at first, “Gweyhound wan’ sweet woww an’ nu toysies pwease mummah!” Which, while a bit annoying, was never outright infuriating.
Then she hit the “babbehs” stage, constant screeches of “Gweyhound wan’ to be mummah! Meanie daddeh an’ mummah wet fwuffy hab speshuw huggies nao!” Which very quickly got infuriating, especially when she seemed to outright ignore her owner’s telling her no and even began to give them “Sorry Poopies” where she’d turn, lift her tail, and spray them with rancid shit when told no to her demands of toys and sweet rolls.
Finally the family had enough, and abandoned the gray and white fluffy outside of the city’s walls, assuming she’d just die to the elements. But stupidity has a way of attracting more stupidity, and like a giant to a pile of delicious mammoth cheese, these stupid little bastards began to find fellow abandoned fluffy’s in the wild, and Greyhound was no exception. “Gweyhound gon’ be mummah soon, gon’ hab pwettiest babbehs ebew!” She sang, her fat body having to be rolled by the rest of her new herd that had been slowly forming for weeks, to where their leader, who’d taken to calling himself the smarty, had claimed to have found, “Dah pwettiest nummies ebah dey had shiny nummies, an’ eben fwuffy cowowed nummies! Some of dah nummies eben made pwetty noisies!”
When the herd arrived a cacophony of gasps erupted, a few of them even shit and pissed in excitement. There were purple flowers, red and blue ones, even bright ones that were making a soft shimmering noise and felt warm in the cold dark night! It was a massacre of plants and a total fluffy buffet, the number of herds wasn’t massive (yet) but farmers and apothecaries alike had heard enough stories about them that they had the foresight to cover their gardens to keep them from getting in, this person hadn’t been so intelligent as the herd began feasting, Greyhound munching on the pile of purple and shiny leaves below her as she sang “Mummah gon’ num wots of nummies su tummeh babbehs hab wots of miwkies an’ get big an’ stwong!”. It seemed that the herd was finally somewhere where they’d never run out of food.
“What in Talos’ name…” The mage murmurs as he approaches his poison garden, all of his flowers and plants were gone and in their place was a mural of multicolored death. Some of the fluffies seemed to have died more painful deaths than others, it seemed one of them had particularly enjoyed the nirnroot as his corpse was still twitching, foam and bile dripping from his lips as he turned a hazy eye and mouthed wordlessly at the wizard. He looked down and saw a fat gray mare who seemed to have enjoyed a bit of all the plants, as her legs were twisted at all angles, bile, urine, and feces had flowed out of her body. A small multicolored slime flowed out from her as well, upon closer inspection they seemed to be premature foals, only a day or two early but they were all dead and shriveled, no doubt from the Jarrin Root’s capabilities to completely stop breathing…gods be damned, Jarrin Root was exceptionally difficult to come by, he’d have to spend ages looking for another seller. He waved his hand and the fluffy corpses littering his garden began to rapidly decompose, hopefully they’d at least make good fertilizer.
“And that lad…is the end of my tale, what do ya think?” The hooded man asks as Erendor finishes off his mead and, almost like magic, another one was in front of him, “Well…it’s impressive I won’t lie but, how do you know so much about these things, and more importantly how do you know such a specific story?” The wood elf asks as he takes another sip of his drink, the grey haired man finally meets eyes with the elf and gives him a mischievous smile, an almost playful glint in his eye, “Well lad, I’d say it’s because I’m the bloody Daedra that made’em!” He exclaims as he sets a coin purse down on the counter and slides it to Erendor who looks extraordinarily confused “You mortals will give your arm and a leg to help an innocent creature in need sometimes so I wanted to see just how far you bastards could be pushed so I created the most aggravating creature I could think of…total coincidence it came out the way it did! Well, I must be off, lots more mortals to ‘foal’ around with, toodaloo! By the by, you should try the cheese here lad, it’s the best on Nirn.” Sheogorath calls as he heads toward exit to the inn, leaving Erendor to wonder just what the hell he’d just heard and who in the hell would believe he’d spoken to Sheogorath. He took another long drink, at least he had Nazeem’s execution to look forward to tomorrow, they decided to execute the bastard for starting the fluffy breeding business in Whiterun, which had led to a massive increase in invasions for food.
This is just sort of a one-off thing I’m trying, hence the rough world building and use of the pre-existing Elder Scrolls universe. Just sort of a personal test to see if I could write fluffies into a fantasy setting for future stories I want to write.
