Strayed from the Light
Edward hummed an old tune to himself as the rain came down, spattering against the black nylon of his umbrella before trickling downwards. He smiled, despite the dreary day, for he very much enjoyed his work and didn’t mind traversing the cold or the rain.
The twenty something med school graduate owned and operated his own adoption center and breeding facility for fluffy ponies. Where most looked down upon the colorful creatures as equal to parasites or vermin, Edward Wilson saw opportunity. Despite the growing number of abusers, there were just as many, if not more, individuals who wanted them as pets or companions.
Do as you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s how he saw it.
He was lost in thought, nearly passing by an alleyway when he heard a soft whimpering.
Could it be?
He turned on a heel and slowly crept into the alley, stopping just short of a soaking wet cardboard box turned on its side. Alongside a higher pitched, almost childish whining was the sounds of chirping and peeping.
Edward stopped in front of it, and knocked on the top of the wet, crumbling box, eliciting a cry of surprise and fear from its feral occupants.
“Anyone home?”
He kneeled down, smiling as he pushed his glasses further up his face with his index finger.
“N-N-Nice mistah nu huwt babbehs…”
The small, purple and pink fluffy looked up at him with sad, scared eyes. Her fur was matted and dirty, soaked through with rain and leaving her shivering in the cold. A pile of small, palm sized foals rested in front of her, pressing against her for warmth that, from the looks of her, she could barely provide.
Edward smiled, shaking his head.
“Oh no, dear, I’m not going to hurt you. Sincerest apologies for frightening you.”
He reached a gloved hand into the box, causing the stray pony to flinch.
“My name is Edward Wilson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
His voice was gentle and calm, his hazel eyes meeting with her pink ones. She didn’t respond to his attempt to shake hands (or hooves, in this case), so he opted to gently stroke her purple mane.
“May I have your name, madame?”
She seemed to grow melancholic at the thought.
“Fwuffy cawwed Gwape.”
A little generic, but fluffies aren’t known for their creativity.
“Mummah giv fwuffy namsies befoh fwuffy wun ‘way.”
Oh.
Edward’s smile dropped slightly. Poor thing, he thought as he gently petted the creature. He wondered what kind of home she decided to flee from?
“Well, Grape, it’s a pleasure to meet you…I’m deeply sorry that you’ve been treated so cruelly.”
She sniffled and leaned into his hand as he rubbed between her ears. It must’ve been awhile since she’d been shown kindness like this.
“It otay, Ewward. Gwape stiww haf babbehs.”
He looked down at the foals, all in shades of purple, pink, or a darkish green. Feral father?
“A dirty, wet alley is no place to raise babies, little fluff.”
He reached down to stroke one of the small foals, eyes still unopened and chirping as it sought out a teat.
“How about this…would you like to come with me?”
Grape’s eyes opened wide, jolting upward slightly in excitement.
“Ewward wan’ be nyu daddeh!?”
He chuckled soft, running a gloved hand across her back. She sure seemed to like the sound of that.
“Well, that depends…” Her head tilted slightly, quizzically as he stroked his chin, “Do you like friends and toys?”
She shook her head enthusiastically, her sudden change in mood clashing with the shit caking her legs and underbelly, the smell of wet fur and feces wafting off of her.
“Gwape wub toysies an’ fwiends! Can hab sketties fo’ bestes’ miwkies foh’ bestes’ babbehs?”
“We’ll see, little one. Good fluffs are rewarded appropriately, of course.”
He looked down at his watch, clicking his tongue.
“Well, we’ll have to get going sooner rather than later. I have to open up shop soon, and we really need to get out of this rain.”
He began to lift the fluffy pony up and out of the soggy, poo stained box, her babies chirping and squirming as their mummah was lifted up and over them by her mane, squealing “bad upsies, bad upsies!”
Grape began to panic as she was uncomfortably lifted up and away from her foals, still sitting in the dirty alley box.
“N-Nyu daddeh fowgot babbehs! Babbehs nee’ mummah!”
Edward chuckled soflty, beginning to stand and wrapping his arm around the fluffy as he clutched it to his chest, like a snake coiling around its prey.
“Grape, dear, I believe we have a…miscommunication, of sorts.”
He held her tighter, soft hooves pressing into his chest in a futile attempt to turn around.
“It otay, babbehs! Mummah here! Mummah sabe babbehs!”
“Look at me, Grape.”
Edward’s voice had changed in tone from a warm, friendly demeanor to a colder, harsh tone. The smile on his face was gone, and the purple fluffy’s fright grew as the situation suddenly changed without warning.
“Buh nyu daddeh, fw-”
“Quiet,” he snapped. She obeyed almost instinctively, shaking slightly from the cold and fear.
“I never said your babies could come along. After all, I only have one free arm…you wouldn’t want us to get wet from the rain, would you?”
“N-Nu…Gwape nu wike sky wawas…”
She spoke quietly, trembling and squirming as her babies chirped and squeaked below.
“Pwease nu weabe babbehs…”
“How about this…I’ll give you a choice; a simple one.”
Edward held her tightly still, watching her expressions like a hawk spying a rodent. He was like a different man
“Your first option…I take you home, and your babies stay here.”
Her eyes went wide as she heard option A, shaking her tiny head back and forth rapidly.
“Nu, nu weabe babbehs!”
“Let. Me. Finish.”
He paused for a moment, and in the silence between them there was only the steady patter of the rain and the chirping of babies desperate for warmth, milk, and love.
“Option two,” he finally said, “I take your babies, and leave you behind instead.”
“Nu sketties? Nu toys? Nu nyu fweinds?”
“None for you. But your babies will be taken care of, loved, and will live long and happy lives because of you. They wouldn’t even know you existed.”
She had already begun to cry by now, realizing what would happen to her or her foals, her ‘huuhuus’ adding to the bleak chorus of the alley.
“You have to choose, and you have to do it now. There are no other options, and I won’t wait forever. Choose, or I’ll leave all of you here and go home alone.”
She cried harder, staining Edward’s jacket with tears. He felt something warm trickling down his jacket as he realized that she must’ve pissed herself from the stress.
“You’re dirtying my jacket, Grape. Hurry up and choose who goes with me, and who doesn’t.”
She merely whined and cried, going limp in his arms as she considered what he had to say. At least, he hoped she was considering it.
“Gwape hab speshuw fwend?”
“Yes. You’ll be free to play and have babies with one of my stallions.”
She tried to clean her face with her hooves, though the snot and tears soaking her snout and cheeks was too much for her stubby limbs to handle.
“Gwape…Gwape…”
“Yes? Hurry up.”
“Gwape…wan’, wan’ nyu d-daddeh…w-weabe b-b-babbehs hewe…”
Edward’s expression soured, bending his head lower.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you. Speak up.”
“Gwape say, ‘weabe…babbehs’…”
“Louder.”
“Weabe…Babbehs.”
“LOUDER.”
“WEAVE BABBEHS HEWE,” she shouted in her shrill voice, throwing her head back as tears flowed freely down her face, “GWAPE WAN’ NYU DADDEH!”
He shook his head, looking at the dirty fluffy in his arms as though he was gripping human waste.
“I knew it. You’re just a selfish, stupid piece of shit.”
“Huuhuu…mummah su sowwy…”
“No you aren’t. You don’t care about your own children at all. Only when it’s convenient to be a mother do you even acknowledge them.” He held her tighter, pinning his umbrella in his armpit so he could pinch her face, forcing her gaze to meet his. “The second you get the chance, you leave them to die in their own shit so you can get fat and have more babies to replace them.”
He twisted her around bodily, letting her see the foals that would die alone and afraid because of her.
“I can’t stand pieces of shit like you. But I’m a man of my word, and I’ll bring you back home with me…and only you.”
Grape cried and cried, watching her foals crawl around in a blind, shivering pile, wiggling her hooves uselessly towards them.
“Say goodbye. Or don’t. Whichever makes it easier for you to sleep at night.”
She couldn’t muster up anything more than ‘huuhuuhuuuu’, going limp in Edward’s arms as he shifted her under his arm and carried her off like smelly, limp luggage. He didn’t say anything else to her the rest of the way to the shelter, only carrying on with his contempt barely contained.
Mr. Wilson made it back to the office, standing in front of a two story brick structure, a large sign over it’s door marking it as “THE HUGBOX”, alongside several smaller signs posted at eye level depicting children and adults uniting with a new fluffy of their own and various statements about the facility contained within. He fished the keys out of his pocket, unlocking the door and stepping inside for the first time today.
He took in a breath, though quickly let it back out again when he realized the smell of the lobby was tainted with the smell of wet fur and matted shit.
“N-Nyu housie?” The wet, smelly fluffy looked around the clean, neatly arranged room.
Closest to the door were a few chairs, enough for a handful of customers to sit and wait until they could receive service. Edward was the only person working there, and being the only employee of a pet store would normally seem like a Herculean effort, but he’d sunk enough time and effort into his business that it allowed him to do so with minimal stress. He merely needed to make sure the fluffies obeyed the rules, that customers were satisfied with their adoption, donation, or purchase, and that the systems in place worked as they should.
“No, this isn’t it. But we’re almost there.”
Grape was confused, but Edward didn’t elaborate further.
Little did the dirty purple and pink fluffy know, she was standing above a marvel in modern engineering; an old, abandoned parking structure leftover from a commercial zone that went belly up years ago converted into a multilevel habitat for fluffies of all sizes and colors. From heavyset Earth fluffies to tiny microfluffies, from unwanted domestics and ferals to specially bred fluffies in all colors and breeds.
Edward Wilson was so proud every time he walked through those doors. This place wouldn’t exist without the time, money, and effort he put into the creation and design of just about every aspect of the facility, consulting with experts on the subject of fluffy care and structural engineering to ensure his Hugbox would be a safe, functional environment for his fluffies to play, breed, and live in.
The facilities floors were divided into categories, each refurnished and decorated with their health and happiness in mind. Protective padding to the concrete walls and floors, child-proofed electrical coverings and wiring, rows of beds, troughs and dishes for food and water, litter boxes, and toys neatly arranged on each floor. Posters of happy fluffies obeying the rules adorned the walls (though it was unlikely they could actually understand what any of them said), and TVs were mounted in several places tuned to Fluff-TV. He’d thoroughly tested the facilities with different groups of fluffies to make sure they worked fine and that it’s occupants wouldn’t be able to accidentally hurt themselves, at least not without serious effort on their part. The most important (and expensive) part was the ventilation system to keep the structure livable (and tolerable, considering the smell).
One of the aspects he was most proud of was the lights. It had taken some effort, but he’d managed to install lights wired to dimmer switches that automatically dimmed and brightened depending on an internal clock, or manually if need be. Alongside the day lights were several smaller night lights meant to help fluffies find their way to the litter box at night to avoid bad poopies at bedtime, and to keep the resident fluffies from becoming stressed out from the darkness. To top it off, intercoms were installed in high traffic areas to play either soft fluffy music or announce special orders or notices to the fluffies.
He flicked on the OPEN sign, and stepped towards an elevator behind the front counter, pressing the DOWN button and stepping inside the metal box as the doors slid open. Grape covered her eyes with her hooves, whimpering about the ‘sowwy box’, though she was ignored as Edward selected a destination from the four options, which were labeled as such:
1: NEW ARRIVALS
2: BREEDING/CARE
3: SPECIAL CASES
4: STORAGE/WORKSHOP
But he didn’t press the first button. Instead, he selected the fourth floor, descending past the happy but recovering fluffies waiting for new mommies and daddies and going further into the earth.
“Nyu wike mobin’ sowwy box,” Grape whimpered as the elevator slowly passed the first three floors.
Edward stroked the top of her head, calming her with a gentle ‘shhhh’.
The elevator came to a stop, and the fluffy caretaker carried his new acquisition into a sterile, cold concrete room lit with clinical fluorescent lights.
“Where am Gwape an’ daddeh?”
“Welcome home, Grape. This is your new…safe room.”
“Safe woom? Gwape hab safe woom?”
She seemed to perk up, though she looked around somewhat confused.
“Whewe am toysies an’ stawwions?” It didn’t look anything like Caroline’s closet, though it was much, much larger.
He simply carried the fluffy to a large, metal sink and set her inside carefully as to not hurt her hooves.
“If we’re going to introduce you to your new playmates, we’re gonna have to clean you up. Understand?”
“Daddeh gib Gwape baff?” She shuddered, standing at the edge of the sink and shaking her head furiously. “Wawa am bad fo’ fwuffies!”
“Sit down,” he ordered, “you wouldn’t want to get sick, would you? Or get your new friends sick?”
She thought about it for a moment, sitting down in the sink sadly with a quiet “Nu.”
“Good.”
He turned on the water, wetting the fluffies back as Grape peeped in surprise, taking hold of her and wetting her with warm water before applying soap made for fluffies, rubbing her down from mane to tail, back to front, top to bottom.
If Grape didn’t like the water spilling across her body, she at least appreciated the bathing. It reminded her of simpler times. Times when she was still loved by a little girl who cared for nothing but her, to which Grape did her best to match every ounce of care and love she was given with huggies, dancies, and good poopies.
That was, until she met that strange stallion in the park. He was green, darker so in his mane but a minty shade for his coat. He didn’t smell pretty, and she didn’t see any mummah or daddeh with him either, but she wanted to be polite and make a new friend.
Caroline took her eyes off Grape for just a minute, losing sight of her just long enough to find her bent over by a dirt and shit caked green fluffy on top of her, pressing her face into the dirt while she struggled to escape.
The steady “ENF, ENF ,ENF” lead her mummah right to her, screaming as she watched the feral stallion cry out “GUUUD FEEEWS”, running off to find her parents as tears blurred her vision.
“Oh for fucks sake!”
Caroline’s father came around the tree to investigate, angered at the sudden impregnation of their daughter’s new toy, wishing he’d just gotten her a stuffed toy instead. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about it being cummed in.
He argued with his wife the whole way home as Caroline sat in the backseat holding her fluffy close to her chest.
It was a week later when her parents tried to get her to give the thing away to a shelter, or get her fixed. But she (and Grape) didn’t want that.
“Nuuuu gib babbehs foweba sweepies! Pwease mummah, nuuu huwt babbehs!”
When her parents left to run a few errands, Caroline set her plan into motion. The hard part wouldn’t be getting Grape out of the house, but getting to leave. She promised that they’d see each other again someday, that she’d find her little friend and visit her when she found a new place to stay.
But she never did. Once the pregnant fluffy disappeared into the city streets, she never saw Caroline again. Weeks later, she’d give birth in a discarded box just days before a strange man would bring her here…without her babies.
She thought about them as days worth of filth was wrung out of her fur, though as much as she wished, no matter how hard daddeh scrubbed her the heawt huwties wouldn’t go away. Some things will never wash away.
Edward finally lifted her out of the sink, shutting off the water after plopping her on her rump onto the counter next to it.
He grabbed a towel from a cabinet overhead, wrapping her in soft fabric and rubbing her down until her fur was puffy and dry.
“Fank ‘ou fo’ baff, daddeh! Gwape smeww su pwetty…”
“You’re welcome,” he said as he threw the towel into a bin, bending down with his hands on his knees to meet Grape at eye level.
“Ready to meet your new friends?”
She shook her head, managing a smile on her tiny face.
“Gwape am weady tu see nyu fwuffies!”
“Alright,” he said, lifting her up from under her front legs, “Let’s go then!”
He had a smile on his face, which made Grape feel better, certainly. He led her towards the other side of the room, towards a concrete cylinder with an empty top, like a tube leading straight down. She wondered where the other fluffies were, and didn’t see or hear them at all.
“Whewe fwuffies, daddeh?”
“You’ll see.”
He held her straight out, right over the cylinder, letting her body dangle as she craned her neck to look down.
It was nearly pitch black, the shaft leading straight down into the earth and causing Grape to kick and squeal, accidentally letting out a squirt of scared shit that zipped down and into the dark pit.
“D-D-Daddeh! Bad upsies, daddeh, bad-”
Edward let go, and she plummeted straight down, her tiny screams echoing up from the shaft as she sunk out of sight. He heard her plump body smash into the ground below, leaning against the lip of the hole and straining his ears to listen for sounds from below.
He heard the faint, distant ‘huuhuus’ of the purple fluff echoing up towards him. He grinned, imagining the bad mummah splattered across the bottom of a near pitch black pit, crying for huggies as her blood soaked into the thirty earth.
“Fucking whore.”
A dozen feet or so below, Grape lay in a slowly forming pool of her own boo boo juice, whimpering and trying to look around despite the near zero visibility.
“Nee’ huggies…wostes’ huwties, huu huu huuuuu…”
She heard something, not so far away from her. It sounded like…like…
“Yay, nummie time!”
She saw the shapes of fluffies coming towards her, like technicolor wolves closing in on a wounded deer.
Behind them was the steady chirps of something behind them, something she could barely make out past the boo boo juice clouding her see places, the intense pain wracking her body, and the hungry looking pair of green and brown fluffs closing in on her.
“B-Babb…ehs…?”
She cried out in pain as teeth sank into tummy, tearing at her flesh until her guts spilled out onto the cold ground.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
One of the two turned around as the other tore into her with teeth and hooves, calling out “Babbehs! Skettie time!”
“Gwape…nu…nummies…”
A hard hoof crashed down on her snout, it’s owner puffing their cheeks at her.
“Stoopi nummy fwuff, wet babbehs git tummeh sketties!”
She watched as a small group of tiny brown and green foals came towards her, looking excited to see a new fluff in their nest, happy to chew on what passed as sketties in a godless place like this.
“B-Babbehs?”
She sobbed as they crawled into her like maggots, dragging her guts out with teeth and hooves, eager for more.
Her pink eyes clouded over long before they were finished, but not soon enough to escape the pain and fear of disembowelment and being eaten alive.
Edward walked away before the end came, going back up in the elevator and leaving the fourth floor near totally silent once more.