Arthur’s eyes opened exactly three seconds before his alarm went off, exactly as they did every morning. He stood up, stretched, and then began his morning ritual, moving through his tasks like a well-oiled machine. First, a shower, warm but slightly too cold to be comfortable, to help rouse him from his slumber. Afterwards he folded his pajamas with care, before placing them in a basket of similarly-folded dirty laundry, before striding out into his kitchen: Spotless, as every inch of his home was. It was saturday, so he cooked eggs benedict, as he did every saturday, eating his meal quickly before setting about restoring the kitchen to its prior immaculate state.
He was wiping the counter down when he saw something, something that made his ice-blue eyes narrow and his brow furrow with frustration. There, defiantly clinging to the countertop he had just wiped, was a speck of grime. A taunting, arrogant speck of grime, mocking him with its presence.
“We’ll see about that.” Arthur muttered to himself.
Still frowning, Arthur held the dishcloth beneath the faucet and turned it on, turning the temperature all the way to the right, until the water was flowing so hot it was painful to hold the damp cloth. Then, switching it off, he grit his teeth, wrung the boiling cloth, and wiped over the spot again, scrubbing it vigorously before pulling the cloth away.
The speck was still there, leering up at Arthur triumphantly. A single speck of dirt on the otherwise immaculate perfection of his countertop. His teeth clenched. Arthur felt his shoulders tighten, his stomach contract. A hot spike stabbed upward from deep within his gut, creeping up his spine. He gripped the cloth so tightly his knuckles began to turn white.
“I’ve got just the thing for you.” he said, enunciating the words clearly, deliberately, through gritted teeth. Opening the cupboard door beside him, he withdrew a large plastic bottle: Phosphoric acid-based detergent, industrial grade. Taking a deep breath, he uncapped the bottle and poured a capful of the liquid onto the offending speck, before taking a scourer from the dishtray. He took to the speck with a ferocity unbefitting his usual calm demeanor, scrubbing the bench with barely-controlled fury, before taking up the dishcloth again, and wiping the suds and chemicals from the countertop.
Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, feeling his entire body relax. The counter before him was spotless again, a pure, unblemished white from top to bottom.
“I sure am carrying a lot of stress lately.” he mused to himself, replacing the chemicals with care in their spots, rotated so the labels faced out, before rinsing out both dishcloth and scourer and hanging them from the faucet to dry. He stopped to consider, how long had it been since his last stressball had expired? Weeks? Months? It felt like a lifetime.
“Perhaps I’ll pick up a couple. Treat myself. I’ve been working so hard, I can’t say I don’t deserve it.”
Arthur drove as he did everything: Methodically, deliberately, and with great care to blend in with those around him. He indicated well before a turn or lane change, always kept at least one car-length from the car in front of him, and when the other drivers sped, he sped too. As much as it irritated him the way others treated the speed limit as something only observed when a patrol car or speed camera was nearby, the idea of sticking out and making a scene by adhering to it irked him far more. It wasn’t long before the whitewashed walls and gaudy sign of Fluff-Mart loomed into view above the bustling traffic, and for a moment he contemplated stopping in, before making up his mind and driving on to his original destination: Bargin-Fluff.
While the two stores sold the same products, they had diametrically opposed business strategies. Fluff-Mart was known for its emphasis on quality: It sold well-trained, well-behaved fluffies, sturdy equipment, and nutritious treats, and its prices reflected it. Bargin-Fluff, on the other hand, wore its business strategy proudly in its very name—It sold cheap fluffies, often purchased directly from disreputable breeders or fluffy mills, and while there was the occasional diamond in the rough, their products were typically poorly trained, if given any training at all. Most smart owners would opt for the former, they knew full well the money they’d save would be outweighed by the time they’d need to invest to turn a Bargin-Fluff fluffy into a well-mannered pet, but the discount chain still turned a tidy profit from their ruthlessly low prices, oblivious first-time buyers who hadn’t bothered to assess their options, and last but certainly not least, people like Arthur.
There was one more perk to the discount chain that made it all the more attractive to Arthur: The high employee turnover rate. Bargin-Fluff employees were as overworked as they were underpaid: It was a busy, stressful job, and one that took an emotional toll most didn’t anticipate when applying for the position. It was rare for any member of staff, even a manager, to stay on more than a few months before moving on to greener pastures, such as fast-food chains, and this suited Arthur perfectly. The last thing he wanted was a reputation as a frequent customer. While his tastes were by no means illegal, there was a certain social stigma attached, one Arthur wanted to avoid at all costs. While Fluff-Mart purchases certainly had their appeal to him, being far more trusting and obedient than their discount brethren, no matter what one put them through, he deliberately limited his purchases there to one or two a year so the staff wouldn’t come to recognize him.
As he pulled open the door and stepped into the dingy, run-down store, Arthur couldn’t help but smile at the sounds he was met with. It was standard practice in Fluff-Mart to play ‘the mamma song’—an infamously irritating jingle that almost all mother fluffies sung to their babies on instinct—through speakers mounted in each enclosure, soothing the foals that had been seperated from their parent for purchase. Apparently, some enterprising Bargin-Fluff worker had had the bright idea to do the same here, but with the trademark Bargin-Fluff half-measures. Instead of going to the effort and expense of installing speakers in each fluff-pen, they’d simply set up a pair of speakers on the counter and played it through those, and this ingenious corner-cutting measure had given it the exact opposite of the intended effect. The sound of the song came through muffled and distant, so instead of the blind foals being soothed by the percieved nearby presence of their mother, they were distressed by how far away she sounded. Thus, the music was drowned out almost entirely by the frantic chirping and crying of distressed fluffy-foals desperately trying to reunite with the mother they thought had wandered off without them, and the louder the din rose, the louder each foal chirped in an effort to make itself heard above the cacophony.
The moment he crossed the threshold, Arthur was assaulted by the stench of fluffy feces. It was a familiar smell, though no less unpleasant for it, and for a moment he found himself yearning for the sterile, sawdust-and-vanilla smell of the local Fluff-Mart. It still amazed him just how noxious the odor was: a by-product of the inefficient fluffy digestive system. One of the many so-called ‘kinks’ Hasbio hadn’t quite eliminated before their accidental release into the wild, a fluffy’s body would absorb at most 50% of the nutrients in their food before converting it to waste, a factor that contributed to their constant need to eat and void their bowels alike. The average house-fluffy needed a minimum of four meals daily to avoid the slow onset of malnutrition, and shat near-constantly, their waste system apparently seeing little point in completely emptying the tank when it would be full again within hours, and instead opting for frequent small evacuations instead of infrequent large ones—unless they were startled. Or frightened. Or scared. Or panicked. Or excited. In fact, almost any sudden, strong emotion could prompt a fluffy to reflexively empty its bowels. They were the one creature on Earth, to Arthur’s knowledge, capable of shitting themselves with sheer happiness. Even worse, their tiny, exceedingly fragile bodies often opted for liquid over solid waste. While most commercially available kibbles and feeds were specifically designed to aid in the formation of solid stool, almost any emission was accompanied by at least a small amount of noxious brown sludge, and it wasn’t uncommon for fluffies that weren’t kept on specialized diets to be able to produce a forceful spout of diarrhea, which they sometimes used as a defense mechanism colloquially referred to as ‘Sorry-Poopies’.
“Welcome to Bargin-Fluff, sir.” a pimpled teenage boy greeted Arthur with all the enthusiasm of someone who’d given their two weeks notice a week and a half ago. “How can I help you today?”
“Are they always this noisy?” Arthur queried, feigning ignorance, a concerned look on his face.
“No, they’re real worked up today for some reason.” The teenager drawled, before dropping the more casual tone and adding a ‘Sir.’ “I thought the mumma song might calm them down, but if anything they’re more upset than usual.”
Well, at least Arthur now knew who the genius who’d set up the speakers was.
“Perhaps it’s too loud?” Arthur suggested, trying not to smirk at the idea of the foals growing even more distressed as the sound of their mother’s singing grew even more distant.
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll try turning it down a bit, see if it helps.” the teen smiled, no doubt eager for any advice that would salvage his ill-fated attempt at making his workplace slightly more tolerable. “Are you looking for something specific today?”
“No, I think I’ll just browse for a bit.” Arthur replied, before adding one of his usual excuses: “It’s my little princesses’s birthday this weekend, and she so adores the little things. I know, I spoil her, but it’ll be worth it just to see the look on her face when she sees her present.”
“Su- uh, Alright, Sir. If you need any help or advice, just ask me or one of the other staff.” the teen indicated the uniform he wore, before hurrying back to the counter the moment Arthur gave him a polite nod and turned away.
Arthur began slowly stalking along the rows of pens, taking his time carefully inspecting each and every enclosure. True to his word, he had nothing specific in mind, in fact, it was quite the opposite. As he prowled down the isle, he was on the lookout not for any particular type or temperament of fluffy, but rather, something, anything, that piqued his curiosity. As with many adult abusers, the quick, cheap thrill of mindless violence had long since lost its lustre for Arthur, and above all, he craved novelty. Something fresh, a new experience that brought back the feeling of those long-distant first times, if only for a few moments. The very nature of such novelty meant he couldn’t possibly know what he was looking for: a gateway into some new, exciting branch of his hobby was seldom premeditated, but rather something one discovered in the moment, often where they least expected to find it. So, for the moment, he simply wandered around, observing the various fluffies and waiting for something to pop out at him.
Luck must have been with him today, because it wasn’t long until something did.
Unlike Fluff-Mart, which carefully curated it’s enclosures by colour and temperament to encourage good social development, Bargin-Fluff typically simply threw all foals of a particular age bracket into an enclosure together, or failing that, wherever there happened to be room for one to fit. It was in one such enclosure Arthur found a situation that immediately captured his fickle attention. Within, there were six foals, three ‘good’ coloured foals, and three brown ones. Fluffies often discriminated against one another on the basis of ‘pretty’ or ‘not-pretty’ colours, and these six were no exception: The three ‘pretty’ foals, it seemed, had formed a clique, and when Arthur came upon them, all three were ganging up on one of the hapless browns, surrounding and stomping on the weeping baby with all the strength their tiny, underdeveloped legs could muster. Not that they’d done any significant damage—they were only a few days old, by Arthur’s estimate, barely into the ‘talkie-baby’ stage, and their juvenile hooves were about as hard as marshmallows. It was likely the brown baby was weeping less from any real physical pain, and more from the emotional rejection: Fluffies were deliberately programmed to be highly social creatures, with an emotional need for love and acceptance, and they typically overreacted to any form of rejection, denial, or neglect.
As he leaned in for a closer look, the four fluffies immediately noticed, and all four of them sat up on their hind legs and lifted their forelegs above their heads in the ‘upsie’ pose, even the weeping brown foal, who continued to sniff and sob as he did so.
Cheep “Hewwo mis’da, be nyu daddeh?” Peep
“Fwuffy wan’ nyu housie, wub nyu daddeh!” Chirp
Sob “Nice mis’da.” Sniffle “Wan tak’ fwuffy home?” Sob
Chirp “Fwuffy be extwa gud fwuffy for mis’da!” Cheep
Arthur smiled warmly at the four eager foals, studying them each in turn. He had little interest in the sobbing brown one, at least not for its own sake. Such foals fell into the infamous ‘Wan die’ loop all too quickly, limiting the enjoyment he could extract from them, though the instinctual bigotry they inspired in others sometimes made them useful tools. He fondly remembered one instance where he’d adopted a ‘pretty’ foal and its ‘ugly’ brother and given the brown one preferential treatment, using it as a lure to bait bad behavior from its brother—which had given Arthur an excuse to ‘punish’ him. By the time he’d finished with the two, the ‘pretty’ foal had been so terrified of his ‘poopie’ brother it would begin screaming and shaking in fear any time the pair were so much as in the same room. The other three, on the other hand…
“Hello, little fluffies. I’m looking for a fluffy to adopt.” he began, eliciting an immediate din of foals begging and shouting over one another for his attention. “Quiet. All of you.”
The four slowly calmed down, not instantly as a Fluff-Mart foal would have, but quickly enough. Arthur noticed the red foal carried on for a full second after his pen-mates had fallen silent, and mentally ruled him out.
“Before I pick which of you I’d like to adopt, I want to ask each of you a question, okay?” Arthur said, slowly, as if speaking to a dimwitted child. He turned to the red fluffy first, sure that the first he asked would fail to answer to his satisfaction, and opting to set the one he’d already ruled out up to fail as an example to the others.
“You, with the red fluff.” he said, lowering his hand through the open top of the enclosure and pointing directly at the foal he was addressing."
Chirp “Dank’ouh nyu daddeh, fwuffy gonna be bestes-” the fluffy began, mistaking the gesture for Arthur having made his choice.
“Quiet. Aren’t you listening? Good fluffies listen when potential daddies are talking.” Arthur said, an irritable tone creeping into the warm voice he was affecting. He’d make the right choice to rule this one out immediately.
The red fluffy opened his mouth, but a frown from Arthur gave him reason to rethink that idea, and instead he simply nodded and hung his head apologetically, still wobbling back and forth in the ‘upsie’ pose.
“Good. Okay, I want you to tell me. Why were you hurting that brown fluffy? Think carefully before you answer.”
The red fluffy opted to ignore Arthur’s advice, replying almost before he’d finished his sentence.
“Becow’ he am poopie babbeh, an-”
“Wrong answer.” Arthur shut him up before he finished, having heard enough of that rhetoric that he already knew how the foal planned to finish the sentence. He swore it was like a broken record, the same canned responses every time. The red fluffy lowered his forelegs, his eyes watering as if he were about to cry. Arthur heard a soft ‘splat’ noise, and didn’t need to look to confirm the red foal had just soiled himself.
“You next.” Arthur continued, indicating the yellow foal beside him. “Think carefully. I don’t want to hear anything about the brown baby. I want to know why you decided to hurt him.”
The yellow foal rocked back and forth on his hind legs for a moment, clearly starting to ache from holding the pose, but nonetheless stared off into space for a moment, seemingly considering the answer carefully.
Chirp “Fwuffy am sowwy fo’ huwt poopie babbeh, fwuffy wiww be gud-” the yellow foal began, in an admittedly surprisingly smart attempt to preempt what Arthur was thinking. Misguided, but smart nonetheless.
“Nope.” Arthur cut him off again. He turned his finger to the third, a foal with deep, navy-blue fluff. “Let’s see if you can do any better. Why did you decide to hurt the brown baby?”
The blue foal looked up at Arthur, then at each of his ‘pretty’ brothers in turn, before turning his gaze to the ground at his feet.
“Becow’…” he began, then trailed off. One of Arthur’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. The foal had gone to answer on instinct, then realized it was the wrong answer and stopped himself. That was impressive for a fluffy, let alone a foal: Most of the creatures simply spouted their every thought by habit, lacking any real censor or capacity for introspection. It was a rarity to find one capable of thinking before it spoke or acted, though not entirely unheard of. Already, Arthur was intrigued. The blue foal closed his eyes, scrunching up his face with effort as he pondered Arthur’s question.
“Becow’…” the blue foal began again uncertainly, before continuing in a questioning tone: “Becow’ wen’ gib sowwy-hoofies to not-pwetty babbeh… fwuffy feew gud?”
“Oh…?” Arthur’s expression didn’t shift an inch, but his pupils dilated ever so slightly, as he fought down the urge to smirk. He remained silent, looking at the blue foal expectantly. For a moment neither of them moved or spoke, Arthur staring down at the blue foal, who ventured a glance into his eyes before turning his head away. At last, unnerved by the silence, the tiny fluffy continued.
“Fwuffy…” Peep “Fwuffy kno it bad to huwt odda fwuffy…” he corrected, fearing he too had given the wrong answer, before going on to justify himself: “Bu’… fwuffy wike feew wen gib sowwie-hoofies to bad babbeh…”
Despite himself, Arthur felt his smile twist into a smirk, his eyes widening with newfound interest. Had the foal given an honest answer, or was it simply telling him what it thought he wanted to hear? Ultimately, he decided, it didn’t matter: What mattered was that it had come to the answer on its own. Even if it were lying, Arthur could use that fact to convince it the lie had been true all along, its own indecision and uncertainty would be quickly forgotten. And if not… well, it would still be entertaining to see the foal wrestle with the lie, if nothing else.
The foal’s forelegs had begun to droop with dejection when Arthur’s hand lowered over its head, and with one finger, careful to be gentle with the fragile near-infant, he began to stroke the fluff on its head. The foal looked back up at him, wide-eyed with surprise, before gingerly closing its eyes and pushing its head up lightly against Arthur’s finger, letting out happy little peeps and chirps.
“Good fluffy.” Arthur praised, the little foal immediately resuming the ‘upsie’ pose. Arthur carefully wrapped his thumb and forefinger around its tiny body beneath the forelegs, and squeezing just enough to ensure the diminutive foal wouldn’t slip from his grasp and fall, lifted it out of the enclosure and set it down in the palm of his other hand.
Chirp Cheep “Mis’da wan’ be nyu daddeh?” the foal asked politely, and Arthur patted it on the head, taking great care to do so as softly as possible. Fluffies were notoriously frail, especially as foals, and he didn’t want any harm to come to his newest acquisition—at least, not yet.
“Yes, I want to be your new daddy.” he confirmed, his hand delving back into the enclosure, and with slightly less caution he also withdrew the sobbing brown foal, who immediately fell quiet as Arthur hoisted him out of the pen and placed him next to the blue foal. “And I think I’ll adopt your brown brother here, too. In fact, I think I’ll take all three of them.”
The blue foal’s face fell as, one by one, Arthur scooped up the other two brown foals, until all four were in the palm of his hand. The brown babies clung to one another, acutely aware of how high up they were from the ground, and the first even tried to cling to the blue foal who’d been trying to stomp on him moments ago. The blue foal, however, clung to Arthur’s thumb instead, visibly uncomfortable with his brown brother’s arms around him, but unable to move away given how little room there was for all four of them in Arthur’s palm.
Chirp “Nyu daddeh!” Peep
Cheep “Wub ouh nyu daddeh!”
Peep “Babbeh get housie?” Cheep
“Yes, you’ll all get to live in daddy’s ‘housie’.” Arthur confirmed, lingering a moment to observe the heartbroken looks on the faces of the red and yellow foals, and deciding to rub salt in the wound. “With a nice safe room, and toys, and if you’re really good fluffies, spaghetti.”
All four of the foals in his hand began chirping happily at this, though Arthur’s eyes were fixed squarely on the two remaining foals. The red one had broken down in tears, but the yellow one had pressed himself up against the perspex wall of the pen, as close as he could get to Arthur, hopping up and down on his hind legs in the ‘upsie’ pose.
“Can daddeh be fwuffy’s nyu dad-” he begged, his voice wobbling as if he, too, was on the verge of tears.
“No.” Arthur simply stated, watching intently as the yellow foal’s pleading face slowly twisted into one of despair, a brown pool forming beneath his hindquarters.
“B-bu fwuffy wiw-”
“No.” Arthur repeated, his voice practically dripping with disgust, and, having had his fun, turned his back on the sobbing pair and strode to the end of the aisle.
He strolled slowly down the aisles, both to ensure none of the foals clutched gently in his hand were jostled loose, and to peruse the signs that listed their contents as he went. Halfway down the row, he found the one he was looking for and turned down it—‘Aisle 6: Containers’.
The shelves on either side were piled high with fluffy containers of all shapes, sizes, and purposes, each one as reasonably priced as it was cheaply manufactured. There were carriers—both the usual, enclosed variety that were also used for dogs and cats, and the specialized fluffy carriers with a transparent upper half that made the claustrophobic creatures feel less like they were in a ‘sorry box’. Then there were the sorry boxes themselves—ranging from tiny plastic cubes sized for foals, to much larger, sturdier ones for full-grown fluffies, all of them more or less identical in function. The sorry box was a popular method of punishment unique to fuffies: While most pets disliked being kept in cramped, dark containers for extended periods of time, fluffies were absolutely terrified of it, a useful by-product of their biological programming. As part of the cutesy, cuddly image Hasbio had designed the bio-toys to conform to, they were designed to enjoy things like bright days, the sun overhead, the presence of other fluffies, and large open spaces—‘large’ being relative to their own diminutive size. However, this had also had the undesired side effect of most fluffies possessing mild to intense fear of the dark, cramped quarters, and being alone. No one of these factors alone was enough to upset them, but a sorry box combined all of them at once into a universally dreaded experience for a fluffy. While some felt the use of sorry boxes was a cruel practice, and indeed, the overuse of them could prove traumatic to even the most resilient fluffy, most responsible owners saw them as a helpful disciplinary tool if used sparingly. The mere threat of time in a sorry box was a powerful deterrent to undesirable behavior, provided the fluffy believed the owner was willing to follow through on that threat.
As for the boxes themselves, there were several versions, starting with the appropriately named ‘Sorry Box Lite’ models, which were tall containers that had a plastic window in the top, used by owners who felt regular sorry boxes to be too cruel and wanted to remove one of the distressing factors when punishing their fluffies, all the way up to more expensive ‘Deluxe’ models that used air filters instead of holes, preventing any light from entering the box at all.
Arthur strolled past them without so much as a glance—he already owned numerous sorry boxes in various shapes and makes, even a couple ‘special’ ones he’d constructed or converted himself. Instead, he wandered further up the aisle until he found what he was looking for, foal trays.
When transporting foals it was almost always ideal to move them with their mother. While a mobile ‘mamma’ could be clumsy, especially if startled or scared, an immobile one in a carrier was typically quite adept at keeping her babies safe during transit. With the cushioning of her fluff and mane, and with her maternal instinct putting the safety of her babies above even her own, it wasn’t uncommon for a bumpy car ride to end with a bruised and battered mother, but her babies in pristine condition. She would instinctively shift and adjust her position to shield her children from the worst of the jostling, even if it meant taking the brunt of it herself. For situations where one had to move foals without their mother, or when purchasing a litter of foals without an adult, foal trays were the tool of choice. They were small rectangular cases, similar in shape to a pizza box at about a quarter of the size, and slightly taller. The walls and floor of the tray were cushioned and padded to minimize the force of any knocks or bumps the tray received, and the lid was a transparent plastic sheet with two clamps to secure it when closed, allowing light in and the foals to see out, while keeping them secure. Some long-distance models came with an electric heating system to keep the foals warm, and a milk reservoir that could be filled with milk or formula, allowing the foals to drink via a series of plastic nipples within the cushioned box. Arthur’s home was only a short drive away, so he moved past these to the more conventional models. For a moment his hand hovered over the ‘Bad Baby Box’, a model with several optional translucent and opaque dividers to separate foals from one another, but then he shook his head and selected a simple ‘Mummah’s Choice’ model without any of the optional extras. It was a less than reputable brand, but Arthur only needed it to last the trip home.
With one hand he tore off the cardboard slip wrapped around the tray, stuffing it into his pocket to use at the register. Then he unclamped the lid, opened it, placed his hand inside, and slowly tilted it, letting the foals in his palm tumble into the cushioned box—all save the blue one, who still clung to his thumb, his tiny underdeveloped forelegs wrapped tightly around Arthur’s digit.
“Hey little guy, it’s only for a little bit, okay?” he cooed in a calm, paternal voice, gently prying the foal loose and lowering him into the tray with the others. The blue foal glanced over at his brown brothers, then up at his new daddy, before nodding once.
“Otay nyu daddeh.” he said, a hint of disappointment in his voice, but making no attempt to argue or bargin. Arthur’s smile broadened. He was sharp for a foal, not the sharpest Arthur had seen, but certainly above average, and with no sign of the disobedience or selfishness characteristic of ‘Smarty Syndrome’. Not that ‘Smarty’ fluffies were actually smart, most of them were quite stupid: The dreaded syndrome was more the product of spoiled fluffies receiving too much praise, and not enough discipline. Nonetheless, smarter ‘pretty’ foals were generally at a higher risk of developing it, as their higher-than-average intellect (by fluffy standards) often earned them copious praise and preferential treatment, both by their owners and other fluffies.
“Good fluffy.” Arthur said warmly, before closing the lid. He didn’t secure the clasps yet, though, as he planned to add a few more foals to it before he was done. This lot were all colts, and variety was the spice of life, after all.
Keeping the tray upright in one hand, Arthur made his way back over to the fluffy section of the store, wandering slowly down the rows of chirping, crying fillies, debating his options. He had his plans for the blue foal and his brown brothers, and already knew he wanted to add a brown sister or two to their ranks, but wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to pick out a partner for the blue one or not ahead of time. If he wanted to breed it later, it would certainly be a better option to pick out and raise a filly himself: it gave him more control than if he opted to purchase a full-grown ‘special friend’ later, with a personality already developed. The question was, would the blue colt last that long?
As he plucked two brown fillies nonchalantly from an enclosure and added them to the litter in the tray, he decided it was better to be safe than sorry, and turned to a pen full of fillies around the same age as the colts he’d already picked out.
The moment his eyes were on them, the foals gathered against the front wall of the box, making ‘upsies’ poses, excitedly gasping, gushing, and begging, but Arthur knew better than to pick out a fluffy that begged for his attention, especially in a filly. He’d had his reasons for picking the blue foal, and of the six in his pen, the blue one had been the most polite and withdrawn. But when it came to a filly, Arthur was far more discerning. Even the most obedient, well-behaved mares turned into selfish, demanding, intolerable little cunts the second the prospect of motherhood was on the table, and so if there was a possibility he’d breed her, Arthur wanted only the most demure, subservient filly he could find.
Scanning the bouncing, peeping menagerie, he was starting to think he’d need to stop off at Fluff-Mart on the way home when at long last, he spotted the pale violet foal, curled up in the shadows at the back of her enclosure while all her pen-mates clamored for Arthur’s attention in the front. For a moment, her eyes met his, and Arthur expected the filly to get up and wander over, but instead she turned her head away and curled tighter into a ball, the tiny little wing-nubs on her back giving a faint shudder of discomfort. Perfect.
“Hey, little fluffy.” he called, eyes fixed on her, but the foal didn’t respond, and he doubted she could even hear him over the din her pen-mates were making. He slowly reached into the pen—pausing to bat away a particularly insistent white filly that cantered after his hand and reached up in an attempt to grab it—and gently placed his finger against the violet foal’s back, making long, slow stroking motions from neck to haunch. The foal shivered as his finger touched her, but as he began to stroke her she visibly relaxed, before turning her head back to regard him with a sidelong glance. Her kept stroking her, watching her eyes close as the gentle affection soothed her, until she clumsily clambered to her feet.
“Would fluffy like upsies?” he asked, not wanting to scare the filly by giving her ‘bad upsies’, and was immediately answered by a chorus of chirps and peeps from the foals gathered closer to him, which he ignored. The foal gazed uncertainly at him for a moment, before sitting up on her hindquarters and raising her forelegs.
Resting the foal tray on his knees, Arthur carefully plucked the violet fluffy from her spot at the rear of the pen, cautious to keep his fingers clear of her rear in case she let out a ‘scaredy-poopie’, though fortunately she must have gone recently, and his fingers remained blissfully clean. Lifting her up and out, and placing her on the palm of his hand where they could better hear one another, Arthur brought his face close to her. The fluffy looked up at him, then back down, studying the palm of his hand intently.
“Hey little girl, why are you hiding at the back of the pen?” Arthur cooed in the softest voice he could manage.
The fluffy hesistated for a moment, shifing one of her front hooves nervously, before answering in a quiet voice: “…fwuffy scawed.”
“How come you’re scared, pretty fluffy?” he asked. The mere mention of the word ‘pretty’ seemed to draw her out of her shell a bit.
“Odda fwuffy aww so wowd, an… an mummah so faw awa’.” she answered, looking anywhere but at Arthur. Probably for the best, as he couldn’t quite suppress the smirk that crossed his face, but by the time she did look up at him, it was gone, replaced with a gentle mask.
“You’re a good, quiet little fluffy, aren’t you?” Arthur smiled, gently tracing the curve of her skull with his finger. “Would you like a new daddy?”
Instantly the fluffy’s eyes lit up, but she didn’t say anything, seemingly still to frightened to speak. Instead she simply let out a quiet coo at the sensation of his finger stroking her.
“Did you hear me, little fluffy?” Arthur asked, and a few strokes later, she finally found her words.
Peep “Fwuffy… fwuffy wan nyu daddeh, nice mis’da.” she answered, looking away again as if she were scared to even admit her desire.
“Well, I’d love to adopt a polite, pretty, well-behaved fluffy like you. How would you like me to be your new daddy?” Arthur pressed, buttering her up with physical affection and praise, until she was practically melting in his hands.
Chirp Cheep “…Fwuffy wan.” she admitted shyly, unable to even voice the words, though she began peeping and chirping despite herself, clearly excited by the idea but too reserved to say so.
“Okay, I’m gonna put you in the tray with the other good fluffies I’m taking home with me today, alright?”
Arthur waited for her to nod before opening the tray and gently setting her down with the blue and brown foals within—seven in total, counting her, the blue foal, three brown colts, and two brown fillies. Then, with one last stroke to settle her, he closed the tray and locked the clasps. He noted with a grimace at least two of the foals had relieved themselves in the tray already, and from the near-liquid consistency, he doubted Bargin-Fluff was feeding them well, nor nearly as often as they needed. There was nothing he could do about it for the moment though, save grinding his teeth in irritation, and grabbing a box of Abso-Clean Foal-Safe wet wipes on his way to the counter, along with some other essential supplies: some sketti-flavoured soft treats fit for foals, a broad and shallow, gravity-fed water bowl to minimize the risk of drowning, and a handful of other assorted products. On impulse, he also grabbed some blue, brown, and pink dyes, matching the colours to those of the foals as best he could, deciding he’d probably find a way to entertain himself with them at some point. Such dyes were typically used to combat the insistent ‘best baby’ behavior some mares developed, which could result in not only neglected foals, but sew the seeds of ‘Smarty Syndrome’ in the chosen ‘best baby’, thought Arthur had much more amusing plans for them. At long last, he heaped his purchases onto the counter, making sure to produce the torn cardboard slip from the foal tray for the cashier to scan.
“You like the brown ones, huh?” she mused: A teenager, like the one that had approached him before, with less pimples but no more enthusiasm for her job than he’d shown.
“Not really, but the wife loves them.” Arthur lied again, rolling his eyes theatrically.
“Yuck.” she commiserated halfheartedly and entirely unprofessionally.
She was scanning the last item when Arthur realized he’d forgotten something vital.
“Oh, uh, you guys got any milkbags for sale?” he probed, feeling sweat bead on his forehead in anticipation of an odd look from the teen, but she simply shrugged casually. It was an unexpected response, but not an inexplicable one: Most people found the practice of ‘milkbag conversion’ somewhat distasteful, but Arthur imagined working in a place like this would desensitize you to such things rather quickly.
“Nope, the ones we got are pulling double duty at the moment.” She smiled apologetically. That explained why the fluffies weren’t being fed enough, Arthur mused to himself.
“Formula it is, then.” he muttered, grabbing a few packets from the shelves beside the counter and passing them to the cashier.
“No kibble today?” she asked nonchalantly, and Arthur shook his head. If there was one thing he wouldn’t skimp on, it was kibble. He knew full well what the off-brand stuff they sold here would do to his fluffies, and above all, Arthur abhorred messes. He would order it himself, the usual stuff, direct from the supplier. It would take a few days to arrive, he thought, but the foals could make do with formula in the meantime. And if there were any accidents, well, they would learn a valuable lesson about how Arthur dealt with bad, messy fluffies.
“Sure. Let’s see, that’s five browns, one blue, one pink… you want them pillowed? Ten percent off if you get it done while purchasing.”
“No, that’s fine.” Arthur shook his head, withdrawing his wallet and collecting the foal tray and his various supplies. “Though I could use a bag.”