A week rolled by. April gave way to May and Spring desperately clawed its way towards Summer. There were more warm days than cold now, but the mornings still carried with them the memory of the prior season’s chill. Screaming Beaver Farm carried on with its day-to-day business the way it always had. Near sunrise, the fluffies in the barn would rise. They’d shit, have breakfast, shit again, then receive their daily work assignments from Moon. Zombie, Igor, and Creature would help the rest of the herd get into their safety gear and the assigned teams would make their way to different parts of the farm to start their chores. At roughly around the same time, Emrys would wake and start in on his own early morning routine: coffee, shit, shower, shave, and the on to the day’s work. Today was a little different, though. Today, Emrys made for the clinic, where Dylan had been keeping vigil over Frost’s foals.
He’d received the professor’s e-mail and the instructions on how he was to prep her black foal, along with a few accompanying audio tracks to play for it. The message came in almost right away but Emrys had delayed actioning the instructions for the last few days, considering how he was going to handle Dylan when it came to light that the foal had been spoken for. He’d probably grown attached by now. That was only natural. If Emrys told him the truth, he’d be upset. That, too, was natural. On the farm, though, the university sponsors helped pay the bills and the price of one foal out of five for their continued patronage wasn’t a bad deal as far as Emrys saw it. Especially not when it concerned the offspring of a, technically, stolen domestic fluffy.
Emrys paused on his way to the clinic. What was he going to tell Dylan? He’d already told him about the research barn. He figured if Dylan pressed, he’d just lie and tell him that they wanted the foal for a behavioral research study and he’d be adopted by a student afterwards. It wasn’t really a lie, per se. More a convenient, cherry-picked part of the overall truth. Anyway, that was a conversation to be had later and he still had some time to consider how to play things. Carrying on to the clinic, Emrys made his way inside where he found Dylan just starting to rouse from the cot that had been set up for him.
“Hey, Dylan. How’s it going in here?”
“Emrys, hey.” Dylan responded wearily. It was clear right away that he hadn’t had the benefit of a full night’s sleep in quite a while. “It’s good. Real good. They’ve been great. Super cute.”
Emrys looked in on the foals. They were bigger now and their fluff was a little more filled in. They’d also started to show hints of new color in developing manes and tails; their secondary colors a little more obvious. He’d have to add those to the notes in his journal later. His gaze fell upon and lingered on the black foal. Its mane and tail were both a shade of deep grey. Frost’s renewed, alternating babbling and softly crying pulled him from his thoughts and he turned away from their pen to give Dylan a pat on the shoulder. “Good work and good news. I’m here to relieve you. Just in time, too. Man, you look like shit.”
“Yeah? That tracks. I feel like shit. Just when I start feeling like I can get some sleep, they start chirping to be fed again. I’m exhausted.”
“No doubt. Why don’t you head over to the farmhouse and crash in the guest room for a while? I’d tell you to go home but I don’t want you driving like this.”
“Thanks, Em. Jesus, I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
“Heh. Go for it. Take as long as you need.”
Dylan merely nodded and blundered out of the clinic unsteadily while Emrys watched him go. Once he was on his way, Emrys turned and walked back to look down at the foals, all snuggled up in a fluff pile against their derped mummah. “Four out of five ain’t bad,” he murmured to himself. While they were sleeping, he started prepping a separate pen using equipment retrieved from the clinic’s cupboards. There was the Simu-Fluff Snuggle Mat™ and the Mowe Miwkies Foal Feeder 300X™, was well as a Weltschmerz Digital Incubator™ with built-in babbeh monitor. While he gathered everything, he made a mental note to tell Dylan he was proud of him. Once his friend had a good night’s sleep under his belt, of course. The man had stood vigil over five foals and a derped mare for days and received his battle scars of exhaustion as a result. Dylan might just make a good fluffy parent yet.
Emrys, however, had been through that same ordeal more than enough times to have lost patience for it and to have discovered plenty of shortcuts. Now that the foals were old enough to shit by themselves, he didn’t have to maintain the same level of oversight. With the incubator, mat, and auto-feeder, he could largely leave them to their own devices and fulfill their basic needs. Hell, more than the basics. The Mowe Miwkies feeder played mummah songs when it detected its faux-teats being tugged. Super fucking creepy, but it got the job done. The incubator’s babbeh monitor was paired with an app on his phone so he could keep an eye on them remotely. There was only one last, outstanding matter to take care of before he’d be able to walk away and get back to work.
Up until now, the foals’ little bottoms had been carefully and lovingly wiped by Dylan’s caring hands when they messed themselves after being stimulated. Emrys was neither careful nor loving in his approach. He had a row of Poopies Plugs for Foals with attached waste collection tubes lined up on a tray, lubed up and ready to go. Reaching into Frost’s pen, he wrapped his fingers around the tubby middle of a foal, which immediately started chirping and peeping in distress, starting a chain reaction among its siblings. With an eye and hand as practiced as a those of a seamstress threading a needle, Emrys pushed the plug and companion catheter into place. No waste left uncollected. The foal’s chirping shot up in volume briefly before returning to normal. Once the deed was done, Emrys placed it onto the faux fluff mat and reached for the next panicked chirpy. It took him a few minutes but, once all was said and done, the four were huddled together in their new pen, shivering and chirping to each other in their mutual discomfort.
That’d take care of them making a mess of the pen. Not the kindest solution, but a practical one. He didn’t have the luxury of sitting around all day like a nursemare. They’d never know the difference between their new accommodations and their real mummah. Not until they opened their eyes, at least, and by then the black foal would hopefully have been relocated and the other four could be returned to their mummah. With the bulk of the litter safe and sound, Emrys turned back to Frost and her remaining foal. After checking both to make sure they were in good shape, he set up the player that had been pre-loaded with the professor’s audio tracks nearby. He adjusted the volume, pressed play and walked away, letting the professor’s hypnopaedia drone on.
Later that same day, Emrys was walking the farm and taking care of the chores that the fluffies were too small or ill suited to help with. He was just in the middle of checking on the state of the apiaries when the radio clipped to his belt squawked to life and Speed’s voice came across the speaker. “Maiw’s hewe! Mistah Emwys nee’ tu sign fow bawksies. Obah.”
Emrys put down what he was doing and picked up the radio. “Thanks, Speed. I’ll be right there. Emrys over and out.” He clipped the radio to his belt and finished his work with the hive before walking back towards the farmhouse. It was a beautiful, sunny day out and he took a little bit of time to get back, knowing the courier would wait for him. As he strolled, he pulled off his beekeeping hat and took in some of the farm’s sights on the way. One of those was the wildflower garden. The flowers there were all native to the area and a major attractant to the bees and butterflies, his best pollinators. Passing by, he saw Creature and Malbec hard at work pulling weeds. He smiled and waved to them as he passed by, prompting them to pause in their work and wave back.
When he got the farmhouse, Emrys saw a familiar truck parked in front of the house. It was from a local courier company the university folks used to deliver sensitive items to the farm. The driver was an amiable, older man by the name of John that Emrys had dealt with regularly. He was supposed to be retired but got bored with sitting around the house all day, so he signed on with the courier company on the down low to earn a few bucks under the table and keep active while still collecting a pension.
“Hey, Em.”
“Hey, John. What’cha got for me, today?”
“Kick back and relax. I brought you a couple cold ones,” he joked as he pulled a cooler from the back of the truck and popped the top. From inside, he retrieved a pair of small parcels with refrigeration labels plastered on them.
Emrys chuckled, signed for the packages and took them from John. “Tease. It’s a warm one, today.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Gonna be a warm week. Summer’s on the way.”
“Don’t jinx it. We’re not out of danger, yet. Barely into Spring and, remember, it always loves to snow at least once in May.”
“Ah, you just need to stay positive,” John laughed as he climbed into his truck. “See you next time!”
Emrys smiled, nodded, and waved. While the truck started up and pulled out of the drive, he headed inside to stick the boxes in the refrigerator, careful not to make too much noise. He didn’t want to wake Dylan. The man needed sleep badly.
Once the sensitive items were squared away, Emrys slipped back out of the house and returned to work. The bees were taken care of, there was a fluffy team working on fertilizing the orchard so he didn’t need to check up on that, the garden had another team looking after it, and there were other teams tending to chores like grazing the lawn and pulling weeds elsewhere. He knew Moon would be doing his rounds and keeping everyone on task. For the moment, the only thing he really had to check up on, personally, was the brewery.
There wasn’t much to be done in the brewery. It was just a lot of hurry up and wait. Calling it a brewery was a bit overly kind. In its current incarnation, it was more like an oversized shed with a lot of shelves in it, all of them supporting a number of carboys. Emrys’ cottage winery license let him sell right from the farm, but he had to produce a certain amount of product. It was a chore and it would continue to be so until he could build more capital to both expand the building and the brewing equipment. Distillation equipment was expensive. For now, he was stuck with borderline home brewer methods and gear. Hopefully for not much longer. The carboys contained a current run of pear and blackberry mead that he was working on refining. A few more days and they’d be ready to bottle.
With the brewery checked in on, Emrys headed back to the house with the intent of transferring the refrigerated packages to the research barn. Before he reached the house, though, he stopped by the clinic to check in on Frost and her foals. The black one was doing well enough. He’d soiled himself, of course, which required some minor cleanup with a few wipes. The rest of the foals seemed to be doing fine in their separate pen, none the wiser for their relocation. As for Frost, herself, she was still doing fine given her condition.
Emrys let himself out and headed back towards the house, stopping only when a high-pitched voice rose up from the vicinity of his ankles.
“Mistah Emwys! Mistah Emwys!”
Emrys looked down to see Speed prancing near his feet. He crouched down closer to the level of the little pegasus. “What’s up, Speed?”
“Speed tink dewe odda fwuffies past da boundawy. Nu smeww pwetty. Neaw big fawwen twee,” she pulled a face to emphasize her disdain for the smell.
Emrys chuckled at her expression. “Good job, Speed, thanks for telling me. C’mere.” He held his hands out to trigger her upsies position. When she did, he picked her up and spun her around while holding her over his head.
“WheeeEEEEEEeeee!” She squealed with delight.
Emrys smiled and set her back down. “Keep up the patrol and let me know if that not pretty smell gets closer, okay? If there’s a herd out there, we need to be careful.”
Speed practically pranced after being spun around up high. “Otay!” With that, she shot off like a bullet.
It wasn’t long after her departure and Emrys’ continued trek to the house when he was stopped again, this time by Moon sidling up to him.
“Hey, Moon. What’s happening?” Emrys stopped to bend over and rub the little stallion under the chin.
Moon lifted his chin and cooed appreciatively. “Moon makin’ suwe aww fwuffies wowkin’ hawd. Moon came to check on Mistah Emwys.”
“Aw, thanks, buddy. I’m doing okay.” He crouched down. “You’ve been doing great. I know I haven’t been around too much and Dylan’s been busy, too. You’ve had to look after the herd all by yourself. I’m proud of you.”
Moon couldn’t help but raise his head a little proudly with the praise, unable to suppress a little smile.
“Don’t tell anyone but, tonight, I’m going to come to the barn with a big batch of spaghetti and we’ll all do a movie night together. How’s that sound?”
The little stallion’s eyes widened. “Weawwy? Dat gib fwuffies biggest happies!”
Emrys grinned. “Good. Keep it a secret, okay. It’s going to be a big surprise.”
“Otay!”
“Awesome. I gotta get back to work but I’ll see you later tonight, okay?”
“Otay, Mistah Emwys.” Moon bobbed his head and briskly trotted off to resume his supervision of the work crews.
Emrys watched him go. As he resumed his walk back to the farmhouse, he couldn’t suppress a smile. He had such a great bunch of fluffies. He really was lucky to have them. Of course, he’d poured a lot of work into obtaining, training, and providing for them, but the end result really made him happy. The dynamic he’d built with them and that they perpetuated really was something else. Like with all things related to fluffies, though, it was fragile and had to be safeguarded.
When he got back to the house, Emrys changed clothes into something more appropriate for the research barn: hospital scrubs. There was a certain dress code that was required for that particular building and its occupants. Once he was finished changing, he grabbed the boxes from the refrigerator and headed out to the research barn, mentally preparing himself.