You are Roller, the Smarty Friend for your herd, and you’re resting in your private nest. Only, you don’t feel like much of a smarty at the moment. Why, just earlier today, a barky-monster found your herd scavenging for forest nummies and just ran off with one of your toughies! Just picked him up in his teethies and ran! If you had been there, you’d have been able to get him back, but not without the rest of your herd getting some serious hurties (not you, of course). It feels like every other bright time it’s the same thing with a different monster. Life can just be so unfair.
Why can’t your herd have a monster of your own? A big, vicious, extra-meanie monster that did whatever you told it to. You’re broken out of your thinky-time by the shrill cry of “BIGGEST POOPIES!”.
“Soon-mummah’s babbeh’s comin’,” you mumble to yourself, as you get up and make your way to the communal nest to go find her. You like to be there for the birth of all babies in your herd if you can help it. Babies listen to their mommies and daddies 'cause they’re there when they’re born, so if you’re also there, then the babies should listen to you too.
Only a single baby has been born by the time you arrive, and you push the mare’s special friend out of the way to get a good look at the baby. A nice-looking green color. Promising, so far. You hand (hoof?) the baby off to the mother for licky-cleanies, and repeat the process for the three other births.
It’s the fifth baby that makes you pause. Dark red fluff, a horn… AND wingies? This baby… IT’S A MONSTER BABY!
Everything inside you screams at you to drop it and stomp it until its gone. Get rid of it before it can become a big monster. A scary monster… A monster like something you’ve been thinky-ing about…
Your thinky-time is, again, interrupted—this time by the special friend.
“MUNSTAH BABBEH!” He shouts, and the herd is thrown into chaos, the ones who see it run away, and the ones who don’t run into each other.
“SHADDUP!” The herd immediately stops at your command, and you hoof the monster baby to its momma “Hewe. Gib wicky cweanies.” The mare starts to protest, but you give her a meanie look and she stops, reluctantly accepting the tiny horror.
Her special friend speaks up instead. “But dat am munstah babbeh,” he whines.
“Yus.” you nod “Dis am munstuh babbeh. But Smawty hab big idea! Wet munstah babbeh gwow, get big and stwong. Smawty wiww MAKE munstah babbeh wisten to smawty. Den, when munstah gwows to bigga munstah, munstah wiww bewong to hewd!”
Your herd looks anxious with uncertainty.
“Hewd use munstah to scawe away uddah munstahs!” A look of realization hits a few of your members. “Hewd use munstah to gib fowebah sweepies to meanie fwuffies!” More and more of your herd break into smiles, excited at the possibilities of owning a pet monster. “Hewd use MUNSTAH to make DUMMEH HOOMANS wisten to SMAWTY, AND GIB HEWD TOYSIES AND SKETTIES!”
At this, cheers and shouting rumble throughout the small communal nestie. This has got to be your bestest idea EVER! In fact, its so smart, you bet no other smarty in the whole wide world has ever thought of it! You stay behind to make sure the momma feeds the monster baby, and as it feeds she starts naming the babies that have already had there fill.
“'Ou awe Wnky, and 'ou awe, umm… Pinky, and 'ou…” she drones on, and it occurs to you that your monster also needs a name. “Munstah namsie be munstah” she suggests. You call her stupid, and spend a forever straining your thinky-place. You thinkies of the biggest, hardest namsie for your monster.
“Wock. Munstah namsie am Wock.”
–
Rock grows well, but the problems start when it opens its see-place and starts talking. Your herd is very uneasy now that Rock can move around more easily and find other fluffies, and to be honest, so are you. You order some of the less important members of your herd to dig a shallow hole near the poopie hole, and after Rock finishes feeding for the day you pick it up, and move it to the hole.
Rock whines and cries “Wuh? Why babbeh be in howe? Babbeh nee’ mummah! And bwuddas an’ sissies!”
You frown, and remind it “Wock am munstah. Munstah no hab mummah.” Rock lets out a pitiful whine and starts to move out of the hole, but as it gets close, you boop it on the nose hard enough to send it tumbling back in
“Nu! Wock stay hewe. Dis Wock nestie now.” As it huu huu’s and holds its snout at the pain of being separated (and getting booped), you call over your biggest toughie and tell him that he’s in charge of Rock.
“Wock munstah onwy weave howe to make poopies, ow if Smawty say so.” Your toughie is not happy about his new duty, but he gives you a nod anyway and takes up his post in front of the hole
Before you leave, a nervous expression crosses his face “Wha’ if munstah get too stwong and twy weaving?”
“Come get Smawty. Smawty handwe it” You continue on your way back to your private nest, and it dawns on you the great risk your taking in keeping creature of mass destruction so close to home. As you lay down, you make plans to train the monster before it becomes uncontrollable and goes on a rampage. You have a long road ahead of you.
–
Many bright times of hard work come and go, and Rock grows into a nicely sized monster. On the surface Rock doesn’t look like much, as its always hunched low and trying to be small, but when Rock stands up properly, its bigger than any fluffy in your herd! You successfully straddle the fine line between controlling the monster and appeasing it so it doesn’t break out of your control. Almost all of your time spent teaching it your scariest meanie faces, how to stand to look bigger, and how to puff your cheeks so that they know you mean business. You teach it the honorable martial art of “Sorry Hoofsies” and the deadly secret to making the stinkiest sorry poopies.
Today is the day that it all pays off.
Far from your nestie is a grand place of great nummies called “Farm”. The biggest obstacle to these nummies are chicky monsters, which are as dangerous as they are scary. You gather your herd and your monster and march them to the gate, where you see that one of the chicky monsters is acutally outside. Perfect! Despite how tough your monster is, a good Smarty knows that fighting one monster is better than fighting all the monsters at the same time. First this one, then the rest.
You point a hoof at the chicky monster “Go Wock! Show chicky munstah who boss!” Rock approaches apprehensively, but straightens up as it gets closer.
The moment of truth. Rock gets into a battle stance, puffs up its cheeks, and declares “Go ‘way chicky munstah! Wock take dis wand fo’ Smawty!” The chicky monster clucks twice, then pecks the ground. Rock looks back to you, and you nod. As Rock rears up for a mighty sorry hoof, all hell breaks loose.
The chicken (rightfully) takes up the rearing fluffy as a sign of aggression and goes berserk, turning into a whirlwind of feathers, talons, and pecks. “SCREEEEEEEEEEE! SEE-PWACE HUWTIES! NO HUWT FWUFFY PWEASE!”
You can hardly believe it. Your champion brought down low. In the first fight too! You need to make a tactical decision. “WUN 'WAAAAY!” you shout, and your herd follows back into the forest. You stop your herd when you reach the edge and look back to see that the chicky monster has largely left Rock alone, and wandered off a ways.
You instruct your biggest toughie to go out and retrieve it. Maybe this was too big of a challenge. You probably should’ve started small, then worked your way up to a monster fight. When your toughie comes back with Rock, it’s covered in cuts and gashes, and has a missing see-place.
Hmm, maybe only one see-place will make it look scarier? You know what? Yeah, Rock definitely looks scarier. You didn’t get what you wanted, but its still a win. Despite this, your herd looks like they’ve lost a bit of confidence.
“No wowwy” you tell them. “Smawty come up wit’ bettah pwan tomowwow.” Your herd is unconvinced, but they follow you anyway.
On the way back to the nest, you hear talking. Other fluffies! The only other fluffies in the area is a rival herd you’ve clashed with before over nummies. Also, their smarty is a poopie head. You tell your herd to follow you, and sure enough, you find three nummie gatherers who’ve collected quite the haul. They notice you and your herd and look nervous, but are unwilling to leave behind the nummies. You put on you puff out your cheeks and demand “Dese nummies bewong to Smarty now!” You point a hoof towards the closest one “Wock! Get dem!” You hear what sounds like surprised movement behind you, but sure enough Rock moves in front you.
Rock then gets into a battle stance, puts on a meanie face of its own, and puffs out its cheeks. It’s at this point that the nummie gatherers notice that Rock is a monster.
“MUNSTAH!!!” They scream, and they run… towards Rock? The cry of “monster” also causes your herd to panic, and a few of your own members also rush Rock, and together with the nummie gatherers, they all start giving Rock sorry hoofsies in a frenzy of desperate panic.
This is YOUR monster! It belongs to you and the herd, why are they doing this?! “STOP! STOP! STOP!” All the fluffies currently beating Rock stop. “Dis ouw munstah! Why gib huwties to ouw munstah?!”
Your herd look ashamed at being dummies, and you continue to chastise and berate your them, unbeknownst to you that the nummie gatherers use the break in the action to take their nummies and leave. It’s only when you’re done that you realize that they’ve given you the slip. This was your bestest idea, why is it all going terribly?
To make matters worse, Rock is complaining about “huwties” and “boo boo juice”. Though now that you get a good look at it, Rock looks even worse than when the chicky monster was done with it. The tip of its horn is chipped off and the middle looks like it’ll break in half with a stiff breeze, and one of the leggies looks… wrong. Boo boo juice covers it, head to hoof and flows like wawa from where its see-place was. You certainly wouldn’t want to run into something like that at dark time… Which gives you an idea. “Otay hewd, back to Fawm. Smawty hab one wast idea!”
–
Bright time is almost over by the time you make it back to Farm. Instead of fighting the monsters in the back to control the land, you should’ve just gone through the front. Humans are made to serve fluffies, why not just demand the housie from them to begin with? This was obviously the easiest way to go about this, you can see that now. Besides, Rock looks the scariest he’s ever been. You’ll all be eating sketties in a warm housie by the time dark time comes!
You lead your herd to the front of the housie, and send Rock to go knock on the door. Ewwwww, you didn’t see it at first, but it looks like Rock also lost a wingie, and the other is kinda laying flat against its back. After a few knocks the door opens and strange looking human comes out. His not-fluff has red and black squares all over it, and his lip fluff curls upward.
Rock assumes the battle stance the best it can on three leggies, puts on its meanie face (made scarier with the missing see-place and boo boo juice), and puffs out its cheeks. “Hooman! Wock wan’ housie! 'Ou gib housie to Smawty and hewd!” The humans face looks scared, this could be it! No, wait, his face looks SCARY, a meanie face meanier than Rocks! In a swift motion, the human lifts his leg way high up, and brings it down onto Rock’s head.
You are stunned beyond words. How could your monster have been given forever sleepies so easily? You have little time to lament your failure, as the human noticing your herd snaps you out of your shock. “WUN 'WAAAAAY!” You cry. You’re a little ashamed to say that the poopies you left behind were not sorry poopies, but scaredy ones. As you and your herd run, you can hear “Godammit! More shit I gotta clean up.” And you all flee back into the forest, and towards your nest.
–
It’s well and truly dark time by the time you get back to your herd makes it back to the nest. A full day that could’ve been spent gathering nummies or playing, wasted. You rack your thinky-place, trying to make sense of it all. This was your BESTEST IDEA! Why didn’t it work? You tamed a monster and taught it how to fight, but it turned out to be as useless as any other dummy old fluffy. What did you get wrong? Were you just get handed a broken monster? Could it even be called a monster if it lost every single fight?
You snap out of your misery by one of the soon-mummahs shouting “BIGGEST POOPIES!” You slowly get up and make your way to the communal nest, as your heart is just not in it right now.
As you arrive, it looks like you’ve missed most of the babies being born, but as the momma’s special friend looks over the last one… “MUNSTAH BABBEH!” and the herd panics!
And is immediately shut down when you tell them all to shut up. “Dat nu munstah. Onwy dummeh babbeh. Wike Wock.” All the fluffies stop their panic and start to remember the miserable failure of a monster that was Rock.
You turn back to go to your own private nestie, not caring what they end up doing the dummy baby. If it lives, that’s just another mouth to feed, even worse if it ends up being as useless as Rock was. If they do give it forever sleepies, then you’re down a fluffy that could’ve been put to work. Either way, it’s not your problem anymore. Your problem is figuring out how to make up for today’s loss. It’s going to be a long bright time tomorrow.
The End