Sunshine Feels Chapter 16 (Blork)

[Blork]

Doctor Lisa is a nice lady, and Sundae likes her soft voice and the delicate scent of lavender that clings to her clothes. She asks everyone to close their eyes and listen to her tell them what kind of thinkie pictures to make. A big field of green grass, on a nice day, with warm sun, where everyone is safe, and it smells nice. She tells them that if they get scaredies later, to think about that nice field, and feeling safe.

Once everyone opens their eyes, she asks how everyone is doing, and welcomes the new fluffies, like Sundae and the rest of her class. The others have been here long, except for little Valentina. She spent all yesterday in her mummah’s little for-now housie in the woods, but today she’s here, to get used to the place and the other fluffies, before she meets the stallions tomorrow. Her voice is very small, and she seems so scaredies. Poor little thing, she’s really hardly more than a talkie-babbeh, probably only a year old.

“Nicie stawwions hewe?” she asks, green eyes huge.

“Yes,” Dr. Lisa says. “Sundae, Terra, Dawn, Raincloud, and Sparkle met them all today. What do you think, girls?”

“Nicie stawwions,” Sparkle says. “No hurties, no chasies. Gud boys.”

Miss Heather nods, hugging Valentina tightly. “Good,” she says.

Sundae isn’t really sure how long they all talk together. Dr. Lisa asks anyone who is comfortable to share why they’re at Sunshine Feels, and Domino raises a hoofsie. “Domino can shawe!” she says, blue eyes bright and white tail wagging. Mr. Julio chuckles, and ruffles her mane. “Domino come fwom nu-housie hewd,” she explains, and nudges for her daddeh to let her go. All the humans are sitting on the floor, so it’s easy to get in and out of their laps. There are some toys in the middle of the circle, and Domino starts gathering some blocks as she keeps talking. “Hewd was meanie! Always sorry hoofsies, always call Domino monstuh, mummah no wub babbeh…” she sighs. “Wowstest saddies. But den hewd caught by FwuffWescue. So scawedies! But hoomans no meanie, an’ when Domino go big enough, daddehs started visiting. Sumt’in’ cawwed…” she thinks for a moment, then looks up at her daddeh. “Daddeh, whut cawwed?”

Mr. Julio sighs, affectionately ruffling her mane. “Halfway Fluffs, querida.” He looks around at the other humans, almost like he’s embarrassed. “It’s a program, you know. Get an ex-con a li’l fluffo of his own, see if it softens him up any.”

Boss-Mummah says, “I always thought that was a good idea,” and something in her voice makes Domino’s daddeh relax. Sundae is proud of Boss-Mummah, and coos quietly. “Go on, Domino,” Boss-Mummah adds.

“Domino go lib wif Daddeh, an’ Daddeh take Domino to daycawe, an’ nofwuffy caww Domino munstah, an’ Domino get huggies an’ wub, but…” she looks up at her daddeh again, and Sundae knows how it is, when you’re trying to explain something, but humans just have so many more words.

Mr. Julio ruffles Domino’s mane. “Alicorn-safe daycare helped a lot,” he says, “but once she got old enough to notice boys–” he whistles. “Panic attacks, yeah? Never seen nothin’ like it. It was like she forgot everything about not every fluffy thinkin’ she’s a monster.”

“So daddeh bwought Domino hewe,” Domino says. “Now Domino am feew bettews, eben hab speshul fwen’!” She giggles happily, and Sundae smiles.

“See, baby?” Miss Heather says to Valentina, almost too soft for Sundae to hear.

Domino and Mr. Julio talk for a little bit about Domino’s special friend, and then Sparkle shares about being here to learn that it really can be safe to have brown babbehs, and that makes Sunshine cry a little, because Sunshine is here for some of the same thing. She has to learn that it’s safe to have babbehs at all. She was born outside, and her first housie was a bad housie, with a monstuh-daddeh, who thought it was funny to let bad stallions do their worst to mares and talkie-babbehs and even just little chirpies! Sundae can see that making the whole room feel as sick as it makes her, and is glad when Miss Margaret says that Sunshine’s monstuh-daddeh had given himself forever-sleepies in the big human sorry-box called ‘jail’.

Somehow Sunshine’s monstuh-daddeh had liked her, though. He had yelled at her and hit her and left her in the sorry-box for so, so many forevers, but he, and hadn’t let the stallions hurt her. But he had thought it was funny to make Sunshine watch. She had seen more bad things than even a human can count, and it had given her terrible heart-hurties and left her scared of stallions, but more scared of having babbehs of her own. Her fluffy-daddeh had been a good fluffy, strong and brave, but never mean, and she had had special friends before, all of them good boys. It hadn’t been so hard to remember that stallions didn’t have to be that way, but she wants to have babbehs again, and that part is making her so scaredy.

“Hank sowwy,” Hank says, light gleaming off his yellow metal front leggies. “No stawwion shuud haf enfies wif babbehs. It wrong. An’ icky-gwoss,” he adds, nose crinkling up in disgust. He looks down at his hoofsies, which look like they’re made of the same stuff as a ball. “Bad enough when ‘ou a gwown-up fwuffy,” he adds. “Hank was ‘enfie-pal’, he says. “Took fwont weggies so nu could gib sowwy hoofsies.”

“Aw, li’l bro,” Mr. Julio says, sounding like he has terrible heart-hurties for Hank.

“Daddeh gib Hank new weggies,” Hank says, looking up at Mr. Daniel with so much love in his eyes that it gives Sundae the good kind of heart-hurties. “Hank am wearnin’… Hank am wearnin’ tu be safe again."

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