Really, it’s not so bad. No one else gets as big a reaction from Sundae, for good or ill. After Crystal has made the rounds (Dawn just stares at him, wide-eyed, still getting used to alicorns, and Raincloud cuddles up to him like a foal in a way that honestly makes you want to cry) it’s Phaeton’s turn. He’s a rough-coated sea-green pegasus, with a diamond blaze and a contrasting muzzle that match his wings, his dainty little hooves, and his curly, mauve-pink mane and tail.
“Hewwo, nyu fwens,” he says in a soft voice, much more subdued than the average fluffy. You get the feeling that if he were human, he would wear a lot of black and write poetry, and he wouldn’t even be doing it to make girls think he was sensitive. He doesn’t seem to be immediately alarming to anyone, and while Sundae doesn’t end up cuddling with him, they do have a nice conversation and roll the ball back and forth, which is way better than Sundae tends to do at the fluff park. You see Phaeton’s nostril’s flare once, and realize that Sundae probably does smell just as pretty to him as she does to all those idiots who come running up to her everywhere, but that this boy really has got discipline.
Dawn is adorably shy with Phaeton, but with a bit of encouragement from Sunrise, she manages to step up and talk to him. He is awfully pretty, that’s probably part of the problem. Raincloud trots wild-eyed circles around him, and you really wonder what her damage is.
He just stays as still as Arrokoth had, and she comes closer at last, bridling a bit and quietly asking, “Nyu fwen?”
“Nyu fwen,” Phaeton says, resting his nose near hers for a moment in one of those genuinely equine little gestures fluffies sometimes pull out that only shows up their unhorselike nature.
Sunkist is the next prospect, a night-and-day different from Phaeton. As might be expected, he’s a bright orange, rough-coated alicorn, his extra-long fluff and neon green mane both fading out to the same dark raspberry red as his wings and his horn. He has the same sweet, stupid look on his face that Candy does, bless him. Empty head, no thoughts. Only wub.
He beams at the mares. “Hewwo!”
Terra giggles, and you can feel Sundae doing the same in your arms. Raincloud hangs back, seeming honestly confused, but Dawn is willing to go up and roll the ball with her new friend, and then Sundae asks to be set down, so she go and amaze him with her blockie-stacking prowess and then even form kind of a fluffpile, like she did with Arrokoth! You’re so goddamn proud of her that it’s stupid, and you hug her tightly when she comes back to you. Terra does just as well with him as she did with Crystal. You’re not sure what’s up with any of your fellow humans here, but it looks like Terra had at least one alicorn parent, leaving her with bone-deep knowledge that they’re just pointy-wingie friends. If the chubby girl is a breeder, you hope management knows about it and has checked up on her.
The last stallion before the break is Marron, an adorable little velvet-coated unicorn. He’s dark brown all over, with just a few shades different between his body, hooves, and mane, and has the same teddy bear style ears as Sundae. He seems a little bit shy, himself, and no one seems to be intimidated or put off at all… except for Sparkle, who actually looks like she might cry, and cuddles up in her human’s arms, hiding her face in her shirt the whole time the others talk, play, and even snuggle a bit with Marron. The girl sighs, eyes sad behind her enormous glasses, and pets Sparkle, telling her again and again how good she’s being. You can tell that Marron is worried about her, but he knows better than to ask.
It’s definitely a good time for the fluffies to take a play break in the main part of the room and decompress, while the humans get some coffee and settle around a table, gathering themselves enough to supervise some outside time in a minute. Raincloud’s daddeh looks like a quarter mile of bad road. Now that you’re looking at him across the table, you can see how young he is, maybe not even old enough to drink, with big vulnerable eyes that are much darker than you’d expect, compared to the pale hair that he keeps pulled back in a low ponytail. He’s so scrawny and pallid that he kind of tugs at your maternal instincts, especially knowing that he’s dealing with a very young and very screwed up fluffy. He introduces himself as Mark, in a quiet, sad kind of voice.
Dawn’s gwampa has been kind of a nonentity this entire time, another vintage strong-and-silent type. As befits his title, he’s elderly, probably a fit seventy or so, a dark-skinned Black man in round silver wire rims, with silver hair cropped short and neatly lined up. He’s eyeing Mark dubiously, like he might also need to feed him. He looks like he never took any shit and doesn’t intend to start now, a type you’re pretty familiar with from your own family. He’s slight, never a big man in his prime and aged down to wire and bone now, but you wouldn’t want to fight him. His name is Walter.
The girl with the glasses wears her extra weight well, round and cute and perky, and she seems crisp and wide-awake, well-dressed and with her dark hair neatly clipped up, where you’re wearing fleece pajama pants printed with HUGGIES NOT DWUGGIES, a Thrash Dogs t-shirt, and the battered leather biker jacket you’ve had for the past twenty years, Mark is swathed in a worn old grey sweater at least two sizes too big, over torn jeans, and even Walter, who clearly has more self-respect than either of you, is only in a pair of old khaki slacks, a t-shirt, and a flannel shirt over it for warmth. Meanwhile, this girl has makeup on, has put together a whole ensemble of two layered dresses and carefully coordinated leggings, and now that you’re looking, you can see that the frames of her glasses match her purse, slay. Her name is honest-to-god Euphemia, so you guess she’s got no choice but to be extra.
“But you can call me Mia!” she adds, taking a sip of her milky coffee, and looking around the table at all of you. “So, what brings everyone to Sunshine Feels?”
Mark sighs. “I just want Raincloud to have a chance at a normal life. I got her when a friend of mine was fostering some foals after a fluffy welfare organization got a small, unregulated shelter—really a cover for someone’s hoarding, and well… there hadn’t been any real saferoom, the stallions hadn’t been evaluated for temperament or fixed, and some of them…” he grimaces, “got to some of the foals, Raincloud among them.”
Yuck. Enfie-babbeh shit. “That sucks,” is what you say out loud, because it’s inarguable truth.
“They better have put those pissants down,” Walter grumbles. You’re gonna like this guy.
“Well, they definitely weren’t adoptable, that’s all I know,” Mark says. “When Raincloud was still a baby, she seemed pretty well-adjusted, but now that she’s growing up…” he shrugs helplessly.
Mia nods. “It only makes sense. I’m a breeder, I would know.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” you say, self-fulfilling prophecy that it is, “but I’m kind of surprised this place is cool with that.”
She just laughs. “Oh, I get it! If we have to talk in terms of product, I think in quality over quantity. I breed for temperament and health, with psychological health included in that. So, after a look around my place to make sure I wouldn’t burst into flame if set foot here, they let me start booking appointments. I actually have three of my girls here, but Lucky Star just needs more socialization in general. Poor Terra was a low-status feral being sexually abused by her herd. She wants babies, and to not be too scared to have a special friend of her own, which is why we haven’t just gone with AI.”
“Poor baby,” you say, “Sundae is in the same situation, but she’s a mill rescue. I run a little fostering and rescue operation, so we have foals in and out, but there’s room for Sundae to have one litter of her own, and I want that for her.”
“That’s sweet,” Walter says. “I’m here so Dawn can have a normal life. She was little when she seen what she seen, but it was enough to mess anybody up.”
He goes on to tell you, in mercifully elided detail, about pulling up to his late brother’s farm to remove a few last things the family cared about, only to hear the desperate screeing of fluffies. Same old story, three shitty stallions form a little gang and find a lone mare with a litter to terrorize. Between deliberate cruelty and accidental trampling, Dawn had been the only one of her siblings to survive, and while Walter had killed all three stallions, the mare had been sick and malnourished before the attack, meaning that relatively light injuries had finished her off, and left Walter alone with a little purple baby that could fit into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt.
“Poor baby,” Mia croons. “I’m so glad she has someone to take good care of her.” You and Mark both nod in agreement, and Walter just shrugs.
“What about Sparkle?” you ask. “She was so calm about everyone until Marron.”
Mia sighs. “That’s a color thing. All of those shiny designer traits seem to be recessive, and so while her past breedings themselves haven’t been traumatic, she always produces the so-called ‘poopie’ colors, with a heavy tendency toward brown. I have some clients who really enjoy the aesthetic of brown fluffies, but want them bred and raised to my standards, so Sparkle will make a fine broodmare for me, but she has had all of her prior babies taken away and killed while people yell at her like it’s her fault, so seeing Marron made her sad, because he looks like if one of her sons had managed to grow up.”
“…I fucking hate people,” you say without really meaning to, and drain the rest of your coffee.