On his way out of the store, something in the corner of Arthur’s eye caught his attention. It was one of those foal-in-a-can vending machines, adorned as they usually were with garishly bright colours and sickeningly cute, idealized cartoon foals, a far cry from the still sickeningly cute reality. Arthur grimaced. While most people were indifferent to the foal-in-a-can craze, treating it like any other consumer product, Arthur of all people found them somewhat monstrous. He was about as far as one could get from an advocate for the ethical treatment of fluffies, but nonetheless, he saw the cans as such an irksome waste. Sure, he was cruel to fluffies, he abused them, but at least Arthur used them. The thought of the hundreds of thousands of foals that would ‘expire’ in these vending machines daily, as they outgrew both the physical confines of their containers, and the limited source of milk and waste storage within… Arthur found the whole thing bitterly distasteful, a tragic, senseless waste. He had no illusions that he was a monster, but to Arthur’s reckoning, whoever was responsible for these things was orders of magnitude more monstrous than he. It was an entirely different breed of cruelty: Arthur was cruel, but on a personal, one-to-one scale. This, on the other hand, was a dispassionate, industrial-scale type of cruelty, detached and impersonal, and devoid of any of the satisfaction Arthur took from his own predilections. It was the cold, greedy cruelty that only someone who valued profit above all else could conceive of, and monster-to-monster, Arthur lacked any respect for it whatsoever.
Examining the machine, he noticed at the very bottom, beneath the stock, lay a single can that had fallen free of it’s hook at some point and rolled all the way to the back. The entire space within the clear plastic tube was engulfed by a mass of bright orange fluff half-saturated with the familiar brown liquid of fluffy feces. As he looked on, the fluff inside the can shifted slightly, and he realized with a mixture of horror and fascination that it was still alive in there, all but drowning in its own waste, and having grown so large the can visibly bulged outward as it struggled to contain the hapless, slowly dying creature within.
For a brief moment he considered asking the staff to retrieve the can for him, and putting the fluffy within to some use instead of allowing it to die senselessly like this. But a second look at the muck that had soaked into every tuft of fluff was sufficient to change his mind. It was a shame, but he knew full well no matter how hard he scrubbed such a creature, no matter how many chemicals he bathed it in, he would never be able to shake the disgust of this moment. It would always be a dirty, filthy source of frustration to him, no matter how clean it was.
Instead, in a moment of whimsy, he popped a coin into the machine and punched in his selection. There were a couple different types available—the traditional ‘Foal-In-A-Can: Classic’, the standard everyone was familiar with, took up a good half the stock. Then there was ‘Lucky Foal’, which was mostly the same as Classic with one major difference, the container was opaque, with a guarantee that one in every hundred cans contained a foal with either rare colouring or features, and one in every thousand contained an Alicorn. Naturally, the remaining 998 foals were all the more likely to be unpopular colours, or at least it seemed that way, despite the fine text on the label stating that the company ensured an even distribution of all dominant coat colours. There has also been some controversy over the distress the opaque cans caused the fluffies within, to whom they were no better than sorry-boxes, although in practice, many customers had found this only made them all the more grateful to be released, and only occasionally resulted in anything more than minor trauma. Finally, and incrementally more expensive, was the latest innovation: ‘Foal-In-A-Can: Suspense!’. Produced and distributed by the same company originally responsible for Classic, ‘Suspense!’ was their answer to the common complaints levied at the ‘Lucky Foal’ cans produced by their major competitor, one of the most common being it was impossible to tell the age—or mortality—of the foal within prior to purchase. More than a handful of customers had bought Lucky cans expecting a newborn, and instead found themselves with something resembling the hapless orange foal-in-a-can stuck in the bottom of the machine. Suspense cans, on the other hand, came with a built-in refrigeration unit. Despite how fragile fluffies were in many ways, in others they were surprisingly hardy, having been designed, if imperfectly, with the aim of withstanding rough play, sickness, and disease. One of the more recent discoveries in this field was that under the right conditions and with a carefully maintained temperature, infant foals could actually survive being frozen for short periods of time and make a full recovery, most of the time without any significant lasting damage. Arthur didn’t understand the science behind it, of course, any more than he understood how his television or microwave functioned, and he had little interest in learning given his distaste for the canned foal phenomenon. Nonetheless, with this discovery, Suspense had taken the Lucky Foal concept and perfected it, guaranteeing an infant foal kept in crude suspended animation that would only begin to grow and develop when the can was opened, a slightly more involved process than opening a normal can which involved a thaw cycle, though initially many customers had failed to read the instructions or perform the procedure in the correct order, nor had they allowed the full 24 hours for the thawing process to complete. Either way, the result was typically the same: A soggy, dead foal, and no possibility of a refund. While it was a sound concept, in practice Suspense had proven less popular than either of its predecessors, owing largely to the larger price tag the miniature refrigeration unit incurred, and the less immediate gratification. Given the choice, most people simply opted for a Classic can with a colour they liked that they could open immediately, rather than a more expensive, riskier choice that they needed to wait an entire day to safely open.
Arthur had made his choice with the same methodical logic he did everything: He’d studied the selection of Classic foals, and quickly noticed that almost all of them were infants, which indicated the machine had been restocked recently. Given what he already knew about Bargin-Fluff, it was likely they were recycling most of the unsold stock back into their own pens, and while the staff were lax and lazy by principle, there was little reason to replace the near-expiry Classic cans without doing the same to the Lucky cans as well. So he decided to take his chances. More likely than not it would be a brown foal that would join the small herd he’d already purchased in his plans for them, and if not, well, once in a while it was fun to wing it. Take a chance, roll with the punches, and improvise as he went. Either way it would be young, and having been torn away from its mother at the moment of its birth and spent the entirety of its short lifetime in what equated to a sensory-deprivation sorry-box, the foal would be a veritable blank slate. While he wouldn’t have a chance to inspect its temperament, as he had so carefully done with the blue and pink foals, he would still be able to mold its personality and behavior to suit his purposes, whatever those ended up being.
The machine whirred to life, one of the cans sliding forwards on a mechanical arm. The hook that held it in place released, and with a metallic ‘Cha-gunk!’, it fell into the collection scoop at the bottom of the machine and rolled down into the bin, from which Arthur promptly collected it.
The drive home proved short and uneventful. The foal tray and newly purchased can had been carefully placed on the passenger seat beside Arthur, with some scrunched up newspaper serving as makeshift cushioning to keep them relatively stable in the event of an unexpected bump or brake, neither of which ever came. He turned off into his driveway, pulled into the garage, and promptly set to work unloading his purchases. First came the supplies, each of which found a place in his kitchen, the labels facing out for easy identification. Then, he brought in the foal tray and the can.
The can, he placed on the kitchen counter, deciding to delay opening it for the moment—both to give the foal within time to calm down from the sudden, terrifying drop and roll the vending machine had subjected it to, and to allow his own curiosity time to build, so as to heighten the satisfaction of finally cracking the can open and seeing what was inside. That was, after all, the type of man Arthur was. He saw little value in the instant gratification that was all too common in modern society, rather, he preferred to cultivate these little moments, milking the anticipation for all it was worth, so the result was all the more satisfying. It was an attitude he took to his favoured form of stress relief, too: What good was simply taking a hammer or a hacksaw to a fluffy right away? No, Arthur preferred to take his time, to raise them, to let himself grow to care for them even, and to allow his inevitable frustration with them to reach its zenith, for that only made their ultimate suffering all the sweeter, and all the more bittersweet.
Arthur placed the foal tray on the floor of his saferoom, which had sat unused, yet no less spotless than the rest of his house, ever since his last fluffy had finally ceased to amuse him. It was a small room, yet still quite spacious to a fluffy, and had originally a second bedroom that he’d repurposed. The carpeted floors had been replaced with the same firm, yet springy foam mats that one found in gyms, which in addition to serving as a safe padded surface for fluffies, had the added benefit of proving much easier to clean. In a corner of the room, divided from the fluffy pen by a small barrier that was easily stepped over for Arthur, but an insurmountable wall to even a full-grown fluffy, he had installed a low sink and a shallow tub. The base of the walls and the fence had been padded with the same material as the floors, a precautionary measure against overeager fluffies colliding with them while playing. In one corner of the pen sat a comfortable, cushioned pet bed, large enough for several adult fluffies to form a fluffpile on, and beside it, a plastic box which contained the usual blocks, balls, and other toys the creatures loved. In the opposite corner sat a large, low-set litterbox, freshly filled, and with small foam slopes installed to allow even foals to reach it without having to climb the edges. Both the walls and foam sheets were painted in bright blues, yellows, and reds, as much to appeal to the creatures’ notable love of bright colours as to make it easier to spot accidents. A single window overlooked the backyard, and Arthur had installed a shelf directly in front of it, accessible from the floor via a short ramp that ran up the wall, padded with foam like everything else in the saferoom, with both shelf and ramp bordered by fences to prevent falls. It was one of two such specialized rooms in his house, though he planned to put the other—his ‘playroom’—to use soon enough.
Kneeling on the padded floor, he threw back the clasps and opened the foal tray. Immediately he was greeted by a chorus of high-pitched fluffy voices, peeps, and chirps, though he noted both the pink and blue foals remained silent, the pink having curled up in one corner of the tray, while the blue looked around with an untempered curiosity, taking the room in.
Peep Chirp “Wub nyu daddeh!” Chirp
Cheep Chirp “Dis nyu housie?” Peep
Peep “Upsies, daddeh, upsies!” Cheep
“All right you lot, quiet down now.” Arthur waited for the foals to all fall silent, taking note of which did so immediately and which took longer than the others, before continuing. “Welcome to your new home. This is the safe room, where you’ll be staying most of the time. However, we have some rules. Rules are things which you have to do or not do, no matter what. If you break a rule, daddy will have to punish you. Do you all understand?”
The confused looks on some of the foals faces gave away that they didn’t, but all seven nodded their heads all the same. Arthur didn’t mind. They would learn soon enough, the easy way or the hard way, it was up to them.
“First rule.” he said, indicating the litterbox in the corner. “That is the litterbox. All poopies and pee-pees must be done in the litterbox. No exceptions. If you are playing and you need to go, you must stop playing and go to the litterbox immediately. Poopies and pee-pees done in the litterbox are good poopies and good pee-pees, and good fluffies make good poopies and pee-pees. If you are a bad fluffy and make bad poopies and pee-pees outside the litterbox, you will be punished. Every time you break the rule and make bad poopies or pee-pees, you will get a worse punishment than last time. Understand?”
The foals gazed up at the warm, friendly face of their new daddy, nodding and chirping again. A chorus of voices began to answer, but Arthur cut them off.
“Good.” He said, his warm eyes suddenly burning with a cold fire. “Because there is nothing… NOTHING… your new daddy hates more than bad poopies and pee-pees. Daddy understands that accidents happen, but you must always, always try your best to make sure not to make a mess. If daddy even thinks one of you is deliberately making bad poopies or pee-pees, he will punish all of you.”
As quickly as it had appeared, the cold fire vanished, and the soft warmth in Arthur’s eyes returned in its place.
“Second rule.” he said, rotating the tray and pointing at the food bowls stacked by the bed, the water bowl he’d purchased already set up beside them. “Daddy will feed you four times a day, when it is time to feed you. If you are well behaved, daddy may reward you with treats at mealtime.-”
Several foals gasped at this, and Arthur could hear one of them already starting: “Daddeh, can fwuffies hab sk-”
“HOWEVER.” Arthur continued, letting this one slide as he hadn’t explained the rule to them yet. “You are not allowed to ask daddy for treats, or for more food, or for food when it isn’t mealtime. Any fluffy that does is a bad fluffy, and daddy will have to punish them.”
As he spoke, Arthur fixed his ice-blue gaze squarely on the foal that had spoken up, as if he were addressing it directly. The last thing he wanted was them pestering him constantly for ‘sketti’ or other treats.
“Third rule.” he announced. “Whenever daddy tells you to do something, or not to do something, that is a rule, until daddy says otherwise. Good fluffies obey their daddy. If any fluffy doesn’t do something daddy tells them they must do, or does something daddy tells them not to do, that fluffy is a bad fluffy. And daddy will have to punish them.”
He knelt in silence for a moment, before deciding to test if they’d been listening or not.
“You.” Arthur said, pointing his finger at a brown filly. “Do you remember the first rule?”
The filly let out a surprised cheep, looking back and forth for a moment, before answering: “Umm… fwuffy gotta mak’ good poopies in da wittabawks?”
“That’s right. Good fluffy!” Arthur praised, reinforcing the behavior. He placed his finger on her head and gently stroked her fluff for a moment, eliciting a series of satisfied chirps.
“Now, you, what was the second rule?” he asked, pointing at a brown colt.
“Uhh… fwuffy no wememba, daddeh.” the colt admitted.
“I’ll give you a hint. It was about mealtimes.” Arthur prompted him, pointing at the food bowls again.
“Uh… oh, fwuffy wememba nao!” the colt gasped. “Fwuffy no awwow’d ask daddeh fo’ nummies ow tweats!”
“Good, very good fluffy, well done!” Arthur praised again, stroking the colt as he had the first foal. “Remember, that doesn’t mean you won’t get food or treats. Daddy will feed you when it’s time to feed you, and he will reward you when you deserve it. If you’re well behaved and follow the rules, there will be plenty of treats. But you must not ask or beg daddy for them. Now, you.”
Arthur’s finger was pointed directly at the blue foal. He’d been saving this question for this foal in particular. Between the blue foal’s sharp mind and Arthur’s plans for him, there was a lot of risk of smarty syndrome developing in this one. Arthur knew he’d be walking a fine line as it was, and he had to instill this particular rule into him as early and profoundly as possible.
“If daddeh says fwuffy gotta do somefin, fwuffy awways hab to do what daddy towd dem.” the blue foal recited.
“And?” Arthur prompted him.
“An… an’ if daddeh say no do somefin, fwuffy no awwoed to do it.”
“And what happens if a fluffy breaks the rules?”
“Den dey a bad fwuffy.” he said, with a visible shiver: “And daddy hab to punis’ dem.”
Arthur suppressed a smirk at the ‘have to’. He was glad they’d picked up on that, it was an important detail, one he’d been sure to repeat so it sank in. He needed them to see his punishments as the consequences of their own actions, as something he had, not something he wanted, to do. That one-word difference was the linchpin of his ability to manipulate their behavior, the difference between them perceiving him as a loving ‘daddy’ who they had forced to hurt them, instead of the monster he truly was.
It certainly didn’t hurt the way they responded to the mere words ‘good fluffy’ and ‘bad fluffy’. When Arthur said the former, they all sat up a little straighter, all held their snouts a little higher. When he said the latter, they all shrank and shivered, as if the simple idea of being a bad fluffy terrified them. They didn’t understand, but these responses were encoded into their very DNA, quite intentionally, by Hasbio. The notion of being a good fluffy triggered a reward response in fluffies, the same way eating, play, and ‘enfies’ did, and likewise, the notion of being a bad fluffy activated a fear response. It was a useful tool, but by no means absolute—just a human could deny themselves the pleasure of eating out of fear for their weight or health, a fluffy could willfully deny himself the pleasure of being ‘a good fluffy’ for any number of reasons. But if used—or abused—properly, it made them far easier to condition and control than they’d have been without it.
“Now.” Arthur said, reaching for the blue foal, who immediately assumed the ‘upsies’ pose, and plucking him from the tray. “Do you promise to be a good fluffy and follow all of daddy’s rules?”
Cheep “Fwuffy pwo’mis, daddeh.”
“Good fluffy.” Arthur praised, before setting him carefully down on the saferoom floor. He repeated this process with each of the foals in turn, asking for a promise, and rewarding them with praise when they did so. A few minutes later, all of the foals were sitting or lying on the padded floor, and the tray sat empty.
Arthur looked at the tray, and felt something seize in his chest. It seemed there’d been a few more accidents during the car ride, and now the viscous, slimy brown sludge of fluffy waste had seeped into every crevasse of the cushioned interior. He grit his teeth, turning away and taking a deep breath, before closing the tray, immediately depositing it in the garbage bin beside the sink. It had served its purpose.
“Alright, first things first, all you little fluffies are filthy. I think baths are in order.”
Immediately, there was a symphony of scared chirping, and mutters: “Wawa am ba-”
“And if you’re good fluffies and take your baths without a fuss, then I think, daddy will have to give you all names.”
CHIRP “NAMESIES?” PEEP
Arthur let out a chuckle at the immediate change in their demeanor. He’d expected them to balk at the idea of a bath, fluffies were terrified of water, a result of both the cat DNA that made up parts of their genetic code, and their clumsy penchant for drowning in almost any quantity of it. There was a reason both the bath he’d installed in the saferoom and the water dish he’d purchased were both shallow. Nonetheless, the prospect of being given names gave them something to look forwards to. And with Arthur’s borderline obsession with cleanliness and the not-so-gentle, thorough baths they were about to endure, they’d need it.
