Sam looked out into the living room from the kitchen, waiting for the water to heat for her morning tea. There in the corner of the room, sat a large chair with an even larger man asleep in it. All around the Old Man were six fluffy ponies, two grown and four talkies, all sleeping comfortably in little mini fluff piles. In the Old Man’s hands was a book, still open to the page he left off on during the night.
Sam couldn’t help but smile, when she’d first moved in after her parents kicked her out, the Old Man had been hesitant to let a fluffy into his house, to say the least. Since then, he had not only started reading bedtime stories to Blaze, the fluffy she’d kept since childhood, and in many ways, her only real friend until recently, but he had started making a small amount of “sketti” for her every evening, built an addon to his house so that she could have the best saferoom possible, and, when Blaze started asking for babies, he even imported a black and white kitsune alicorn from Brittain to be her mate.
Admittedly he hadn’t known at the time that most fluffies are scared of even just “regular” alicorns, and was incredibly confused at the miniature panic attack that Sam had upon discovering what he’d done; but it ended up working out well since Blaze, rather than fearing her new special friend, instead started gushing over how beautiful he was. The kitsune was named, rather fittingly, Yojimbo, and was fiercely protective of his new family, Sam included. The soft whistle of the tea kettle broke Sam out of her reverie and as she turned to go and prepare her morning caffeine, the Old Man, seemingly roused from his sleep, called softly after her, “A cup for me as well, peppermint.”
After the tea was brewed, Sam sat across from the Old Man, each sipping their tea in amicable silence. After a moment the Old Man set his tea down and fixed Sam with a somewhat appraising gaze before asking, “Any plans for your day off?”
“I was going to go into town and take a walk through the park with a friend,” Sam replied, slightly evasively.
“Dimitri?” The Old Man knew her better than that, and she never could keep a secret from him.
“Yeah,” she admitted, bashful.
“Just be careful alright. Dimitri’s a good enough kid, but he hangs with a rough crowd,” the Old Man sighed. He knew better than to try and keep the two separate.
“Okay,” Sam agreed, smiling.
Alright, have fun then, I’ll watch the fluffs while you’re out.” The Old Man couldn’t help worrying though. He knew how easy it was for young men, especially young men like Dimitri, to let things get out of hand. After all, he had been one.
- I think that’s an acceptable format for the name?
- Am I using the tags correctly? I looked through all of them and picked the ones I thought fit best.
- I apologize for not posting sooner after the first thread, my life kind of imploded for a bit there.