>Your name is Ted.
>You’re a gray earthie fluffy with green mane. Because of your colors, you grew up in the shelter without ever getting adopted.
>Your mane and tail finished growing just one or two forevers ago, and the nice humans at the shelter told you that grown up fluffies almost never got adopted. This gave you the biggest heart hurties.
>But today, a human came in and adopted you! New daddeh said his name was “Colin” and he needed a fluffy big enough to walk and talk, but not as big as a real big fluffy. And he even wanted a fluffy with no horn OR wingies!
>From how long you lived at the shelter, you learned all the things good fluffies do. So you were very nice and polite to your new daddy, and walked right into the carrier. You have sooo many questions for daddy, but you know good fluffies are quiet, so you’ve just been sitting in your carrier in his movie-box. Hopefully your new house is close.
-–
Fuck, he’s actually pretty damn cute. I thought these things were supposed to be shit-gremlins or something!
Colin had a particular plan for his fluffy. He had a job that needed doing, and something that a fluffy might actually be good at. It was something that would be, at best, terrifying and uncomfortable for the poor thing, and at worst, lead to an excruciating and terrible death. From what he read online, though, fluffies were horrible little brats and bastards, so if one faced an agonizing end because of him, who cares?
But Ted was anything but that. He had been perfectly obedient, and Colin could practically feel the gratitude the little fluffy had for him. Apparently, they had told him over the weekend that he might never get adopted, and started training him to help around the shelter instead.
He wished they hadn’t told Ted that.
He wished they hadn’t told *him* that.
…okay, Colin thought, okay, let’s just try one trip. Just a test run. Then I can take him home for real and we can figure it out from there. Just a test run.
Colin pulled up to the trailhead. Ted, feeling the car come to a stop, couldn’t contain himself.
“Ted am at new housie?”
Colin sighed at the poor bastard’s innocent question, “No, Teddy, not…not quite yet.”
As he got out of the car, he opened the carrier and picked up Ted, “We’re making a stop before home. You’re gonna help me, uh, at work today.”
Really, this was more of a hobby, but fluffies probably wouldn’t know the difference.
“Otay…” Ted failed to hide his dejection, “Ted am best hewpew fwuff! Wiww hewp new daddeh at wowk, and den go to new housie?” He looked up at Colin with his big eyes, “And den…mebbe…Ted get…”
>What you really wanted, what you wanted more than ANYTHING in your WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE…
>“…sketties?” You think.
>You never had sketties before, but you just KNEW they were the bestest of all nummies.
>But the nice humans at the shelter would never make any.
>“Your first sketties,” the nicest lady would say, “is a magical moment between a fluffy and their daddy or mommy. We can’t get in the way of that momentous occasion.”
>You weren’t really sure what those last words meant, but you think you got the idea.
>And one of the biggest, most important rules at the whole shelter, was that you never, ever ASK for sketties. It’s up to your daddy or mommy to decide when you get sketties.
>You think it’s only fair that if you help your daddy with his workies, you get sketties. But you know you can’t ask, especially not before you’re even at your new housie.
>So, instead, you just say…
“Mebbe Ted get bestest nummies wif daddeh?”
Motherfucker, Colin thought, as if he couldn’t make it any harder than this already is. Just one test run. One run. And then?
“Sure, Teddy. We can have dinner when we get home. I’ll make, uh…”
>You feel the biggest, brightest hope in your heart. Is he gonna say…?
Isn’t there something fluffies like?
“Eh, whatever, I’ll make something. We’ll figure it out.”
>The light in your heart dims a little, but you still feel it. Maybe he’ll make sketties after all.
>You just have to help him with his workies today.
“Alright, Ted. Follow me.”
>You hop out of the car. The jump is a little scary, but you’re a very brave boy so you manage, and you even land with all four of your leggies.
>You look around and this is definitely not even close to daddy’s new housie. All you can see are the biggest trees you’ve ever seen, they must be big enough to almost poke the moon. And the ground is just covered in teeny tiny rocks. But your new daddy points you towards a spot between the trees where you see the ground is dirt and leaves.
“Stick close behind me, li’l, uh, Ted. Don’t want you getting lost before we’re even there.”
>Getting lost out here in the forest… that’s just about the scariest thing you can think of. No mommy, no daddy, not even any other fluffies…you cling right around daddy’s legs, before you remember the time you got scared of the sky flashies and tried to give huggies to one of the nice mister’s leggies to make you feel better and he fell over and said some very bad words, so you back up just a little.
>You walk through the tall and long grassies, and the plants that look like grassies but aren’t, and the flow-flows, and on top of the soft and mushy grassies…sometimes you can’t even see daddy, but you can always see his hoofsies, so you just follow those.
“Alright, Ted, here we are.”
Colin had led the fluffy to the location of his latest obsession. He had been getting into caving lately. Nothing too extreme, not yet anyway, until he found this little cave off the trail. Far as he could tell, no one had found this one before. He couldn’t find anything about it online, he asked if there were any caves in the area and no one said anything… It seemed like he had honestly found a cave entirely unexplored by man. He had spent his free time the last few weeks going in and out of the cave, mapping it and seeing how far he could go. He had only told his close friends about it, because he wanted to make sure that if there was anything cool in there, it would be discovered by Colin Floydson, dammit.
Of course, he hadn’t found anything particularly interesting so far. Most twists and turns just led to dead ends- although he did see a neat little mini-waterfall at least- until his latest adventure.
After squeezing through a passage just barely wide enough for him to fit in, Colin had found himself at the mouth of yet another tunnel. This one was way too tight for any human to possibly fit through, but he could just feel it, there had to be something on the other side. Literally, there had to be- he felt a draft through it. And as the saying goes amongst cavers- if it blows, it goes.
But, again, way too small. So tantalizingly out of reach. It was while lamenting this fact to one of his friends that they gave him the idea:
“Why not send a fluffy in it?”
It was honestly ingenious. Their tiny, squishy bodies could fit in holes humans never had a chance in, and most importantly, they had full, human language. Well, full enough, anyway, to relay whatever was on the other side.
Honestly, it left Colin’s mind racing- this could be big. If this works as well as he thinks it just might, maybe he could even enterprise it. “Colin and Co. Caving Coalition,” or “Floydson’s Fluffy Spelunking Service…” It’d be one hell of a niche, sure, but that just means he’d have no competition!
…but, he was getting ahead of himself. Before he could dream of his ground-breaking (lol) industry ambitions, he had to make sure this plan was even feasible. And that meant poor, innocent Ted had to be the guinea pig. And very possibly, the lamb at the altar.
“Okay, Teddy,”
I really oughta stop calling him that, I shouldn’t get attached…
“Now you REALLY have to stay close to me, okay? We’re going down there.”
>Your heart dropped into your tummy when your daddy pointed into the cave.
>You may not know much about this world, or even about what life for fluffies is like outside of the shelter, but you know this.
>Fluffies are NOT supposed to go in big, deep, dark caves. Fluffies are for warm housies!
>But good fluffies don’t complain, and your daddy needed your help. Which is awful scary…what kind of thing could scare a human so much they need a fluffy’s help?
>You need to be brave, you think.
>Your daddy needs you.
>And maybe…
>Just maybe…
>When you come home…
>Your daddy will make you a big bowl of sketties.
>He starts walking into the cave.
>At first, it’s not too bad. You can walk right in next to him. But then there’s a spiky cliff.
>It must be… a bigger jump than even if you jumped out of the car as many times as all of your hoofsies AND your tail.
>Thankfully, your new daddy just plays with some weird toys, like tying a leash to the rock, then picks you right up and walks down the wall.
>You didn’t even know humans could walk on walls.
>Maybe only daddies can?
>By the time he reaches the floor, you realize how dark it is.
>Before, you had the light from the sun. But now, it’s all dark.
>Your daddy saves you again by making a big beam of light shoot out of his head.
>Daddies have all sorts of powers!
>As he helps you get deeper into the cave, you cling to that light.
>That same night, with the sky flashies, a biiiiiig sky flash turned of ALL the lights at the shelter.
>Not just the lights in the ceiling.
>Even the lighty-friend who kept the scaredies away.
>That was the darkest dark you had ever seen.
>And it was the scaredest you had ever been.
>So you loved daddy’s head-light. It was way way brighter even than lighty-friend!
As Colin reached the base of another wall, he saw the first real squeeze ahead of him.
“Mkay, Ted, I need you to go first for this one.”
This was a tight squeeze for Colin, but it shouldn’t be that bad for Ted.
“I’ll shine the light behind you, okay? Just walk to the other side, and I’ll be over in no time.”
>You didn’t like going into the dark without daddy, but you didn’t want to disappoint him, so you did what he asked.
>The walls pinched you a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad. Your fluff got tugged on by the rocks, and some of them even took little bits of it, but that was as bad as it got. You knew your fluff wasn’t all that pretty to begin with, anyway
>When you wiggled loose on the other side, you instantly flipped around to wait for daddy.
>It took him a lot longer to squeeze through.
>You guess it must be because he’s so big.
>But after he pushes himself through, he looks down at you, bathing you in that light.
“So? How are you feeling, li’l guy?”
>You nod.
“Ted feews otay, daddeh! Squeezy-spiky rocks nu feel good, bu’ Ted can handwe it!”
Damn, this fluffy’s actually a little tough, Colin thinks, maybe this really will work out.
There were a couple more squeezes on the way, leaving both of them with a few nicks and scratches, but in due time, the dynamic duo found themselves in the small chamber facing the tunnel Colin had bought Ted for.
“Alright,”
>Your daddy put you back down in a little room in the cave.
>He had to make himself small just to fit, but you had a little bit of space.
>You sat down as your daddy squished himself into the room. He had a bunch of little ouchies on his face and front leggies.
“Does daddeh want lickie cweanies fow owies? Mummah’s lickie cweanies awways make Ted feew better!”
God damnit man, that’s just adorable. Honestly, Colin wanted to say yes, humor the little guy and have some bonding time after all that squeezing, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“No need, Ted, these aren’t real wounds. Thanks, though.”
>Wow… daddy didn’t even need lickie-cleanies for his owies. So cool!
“Alright, Ted. You see that?”
Colin pointed to the entrance of the tunnel, shining his head light on it. Looking at them side by side, Ted could definitely fit in it, but it would be more than a little snug.
Still, this was the dream, the vision- anything could be on the other side. Riches, fame, discovery… Ted may be too simple of a creature to appreciate this, but that’s okay. Maybe that simplicity was a virtue.
>You didn’t like this. That hole was way smaller than the ones you had crawled through to get here. Daddy probably couldn’t even fit!
“…I need you to climb in there and tell me what you see. I can’t fit, but I think there could be treasure waiting for us down there. I’ve got big plans…but I can’t act on 'em until I know what’s on the other side.”
>You started shaking. You had to be brave for your new daddy, but you didn’t want to go in that hole at ALL. No way! So dark and cold and scary and spiky and scary and cold and dark and spiky!
“D-dadd-”
“Teddy,”
>Your daddy started talking right before you could say anything.
“You’re the only one in the whole world who I know I can trust with this.”
Colin felt awful guilt-tripping the poor thing. “It’s just motivation,” he thought, “I just need to get Ted to WANT to see the other side.”
“Can you do this for me, Ted?”
>You still didn’t want to go in. You may not be a widdwe babbeh, but you’re still not a big strong grown-up fluffy! And you couldn’t think of a single fluffy you EVER saw at the shelter who would be strong and brave enough to go through this scary scary hole.
>But.
>You were a Good Fluffy. You had spent your whole life trying to be the best. Not the bestest, bestest babies are actually bad babies (a complicated and difficult concept to wrap your head around, still), but just the best. And good fluffies listen to their mommies and daddies. Good fluffies don’t complain. And besides, daddy said there could be treasure! With treasure, you could get all the toysies and nummies and maybe, just maybe, even sketties, that you could ever hope for!
“…otay…”
>You barely whispered.
"What was that, buddy?
“…Otay, daddeh.”
>You steeled yourself.
“Ted wiww go in howe and find bestest tweasuwe fo’ daddeh.”
>Daddy made a funny face and then smiled.
“That’s a good boy,”
>He said as he gave you scritches and petses.
“I’ll be waiting right here. All you have to do is see the other side of the hole, and then come back to me, and we’ll go home and have dinner. Okay?”
>You tried to stop shaking and smile back,
“Otay, daddeh.”
"Ted wiww be bestest cabe-espwowah!
—–
My first actual submission! I had this loose idea and started writing it in the middle of the night while trying to fall asleep, and ended up getting into such a groove that I thought I’d actually finish it and post it, as opposed to all my other ideas and drafts that never get this far. Although this first part is certainly meant to be ominous, I avoided explicitly using tags like impending-doom because I honestly don’t know how this is going to go. The ending of Ted’s story depends, at least partially, on what the audience wants to see for him. I haven’t committed to much of anything in my mind. I did intend to leave this off at more of a suspenseful cliffhanger, before it felt like it was getting too long already. But, if you picked up on the vibe, and more explicitly, on why I chose the names “Colin Floydson” and “Ted,” you should at least be able to tell that this certainly won’t be a trip to Sketti Land for our intrepid heroes…