It has been approximately three weeks since Smokie and his herd had stumbled upon Belladonna’s cavern home during the late summer of 20XX. Initially, Smokie was convinced he would be killed in his sleepies, but for one reason or another Bella has spared his life so far.
The cave is pitch black during the night, as Bella dozes off into slumber, so do the bioluminescent fungi on the walls. Smokie is terrified of the dark, but he fears the wrath of a grumpy and groggy Bella more, so he does his bestest to cry silently as to not wake her. Just as Smokie is finally starting to fall asleep himself, he can hear Bella tossing and turning in her makeshift bed of moss, grass, and leaves. Her tail thumps and smacks against the stone floor as it hangs off the bed, and her breathing audibly picks up. Smokie cautiously starts to approach her bed, ears drooped downward, tail tucked between his legs.
“…M-miss bewwahdonnah?..awe yu habin…uhm…bad sweepies?..”
The fluffy rears up on his little hind legs and uses his front hooves to gently place them on her arm. Before he could get out a squeak Bella shrieks, quickly lunging at Smokie, grabbing a small dagger that she has hanging from the wall beside her, eyes wide full of an instinctual and primal fear. Fear? What does someone like her have to be so afraid of?
“I WONT GO BACK!! YOU CANT TAKE ME-”
Smokie stares up at her with confusion and fear in his eyes. It takes a moment for her to realize what she’s doing and where she is, sighing and sitting back in bed. She wipes a bead of sweat off her brow while she regains her composure.
“wh…wuh…m-miss bewwadonnah?..am yu otay?..h-hab…bad sweepie?..n-nee…nee huggies?..”
Despite the obvious fact that Bella almost stabbed Smokie after waking up from a nightmare, his programming in his singular braincell tells him to try and give affection. After all, “huggies an wub” fix everything right? Belladonna glares at the creature initially before softening her gaze. She sighs, grabbing Smokie by the scruff to plop him down onto her bed beside her.
“smokie can…gib huggie?”
Belladonna says nothing, only looking forward at the wall while one of her hands trace the numbers tattooed on the opposite shoulder. Smokie doesn’t know much, but he does know what it looks like when someone is sad or scared, or both. The fluffy slowly places a hoof on her lap to gauge her reaction to his touch. She tenses at first before relaxing, which seems like enough of a greenlight for him to put another hoof on her and essentially lay his front end on her lap. The small creature looks up at her despite the cave’s darkness. Neither of them say a word for the rest of the night, somehow in some odd way, they did not need to. Bella allows Smokie to sleep in the bed with her for the rest of the night. When the sun rises Smokie finds the bed empty, so he curiously hops down, stretching and yawning.
“gud sweepies…”
Belladonna walks into view and whistles to get the fluffy’s attention.
“Hey, I got something for you to do. Come with me, quick.”
Smokie tilts his head before scurrying to catch up with her and follow her outside. The warmth of the sun washes over him, his eyes squinting from the change in light.
“I found another herd nearby again.”
“Mowe fwuffies? Hewd? oh nu…”
He already knows what he’s in for, and he already doesn’t like it.
“du smokie hab tu?..”
“You will if you want to keep living with me. Or living in general.”
Smokie frowns, but knows what must be done.
“Otay…”
“You have an hour. I’m going to fetch some water from the river and freshen up. If they aren’t in the corral by the time I get back you’re sleeping outside tonight.”
Smokie nods, then starts to walk off into the wilderness, occasionally stopping to nibble on some grassies before he starts to hear the familiar sound of fluffy babble.
“Bestwest gwassie nummies!”, says a mare. “fwuffy hab itchies! deese weafie nummies meanie!”, another whines.
Smokie takes a moment to get himself together before walking out from the shrubbery to meet this new group of fluffies. There seems to be seven of them on total, three mares and four stallions, one of the mares are very obviously pregnant and ready to burst any day now. One of the larger stallions is first to notice Smokie and doesn’t hesitate to confront him.
“…h-hewwo! Fwuffy am Smokie! nyu fwens?”
“wha? wewe fwuffy com fwom? teww toughie nao!”, says the toughie with a stomp of his front hoof.
Smokie recoils, but sheepishly responds. “S-Smokie wib wit mummah in housie cwose by…Smokie jus wanted tu make nyu fwens!”
The toughie’s eyes widen a little then looks back at the herd before looking back over to Smokie.
“Smokie hab housie? An mummah?”
“Uh-uh! Mummah wubs fwuffies! gibs nummies ebwey day an wet Smokie sweep on same nestie! Toughie wan bwing hewd bak tu housie wit Smokie?..”
A few of the other fluffies pipe up and get excited at the mention of a housie with nummies, love, and a new mummah. The toughie is a bit cautious, but the aspect is all too alluring.
“wets gu! fowwoe Smokie, teehee!” Smokie excitedly starts to trot back towards the cave, keeping a slow enough pace to allow the herd to follow him. The soon mummah is at a point where she basically needs to be rolled around with the help of the other mares. While they walk, it slowly sets in on Smokie that these fluffies wont actually grow to be his friends or herd and that he’s leading them to their certain doom. He remembers Lilly, his almost special friend from his old herd. She was the only one to really like him. He’s snapped out of his thoughts by the toughie shouting at him.
“Hey! Smokie! how much mowe wawkies hewd nee tu do?! fwuffies gettin tiewd!”
Smokie comes to the realization that these fluffies are yet to grow accustomed to this much walking. While Smokie has only been living with Bella for a few weeks, he’s consistently been dragged out the house to accompany her when she goes out to get water or foraging for small things like berries or fruit since he can carry a few things on his back in a makeshift basket like a mule. A very tiny mule. A few of the fluffies whine about being tired or hungry.
“uhm…no wowwy fwens! awmos’ dewe! jus a wittew mowe wawkies!”
The fluffies groan, but press on nonetheless in hopes of a new housie. When a corral made of branches and vines comes into view, Smokie hurries over to tug the gate open with a rope like a dog that’s been trained to open the fridge with a towel tied to the handle.
“fwuffies gu in hewe tu wait fo mummah tu com homb!”
The fluffies blindly oblige, wandering into the corral and not wasting any time when it comes to grazing on the lush grass that’s intentionally been grown inside its confines. They happily babble and chat amongst themselves while eating nummie grassies, shittin n pissin, etc. While they aren’t paying attention, Smokie pushes the corral’s gate shut and picks up a stick on the ground to use to lock the gate.
Smokie watches them for a little while before sneaking off back to the cave to see if Bella had come back yet. As he enters, he can see Belladonna sharpening sticks with her dagger, a small pile of them beside her.
“Ah, there you are. Did you bring them?”
“y-yus miss bewwadonnah…”
“Did you lock the gate?”
“uh-huh…”
“good. Here’s your reward.”
Bella tosses him a couple of fruits. A few strawberries and a ripe apple! His eyes widen and a big smile appears on his little face.
“fank yu mis bewwahdonnah! bestes fwootie nummies!” The creature is unable to hide his excitement and starts to scarf down the sweet treats starting with the strawberries.
“Yep, eat up Smokie. I’m gonna go greet the latest batch of meat.” She walks out to find the herd in their corral like a bunch of multicolored sheep. Very stupid sheep.
The fluffies see her approach, and immediatley start to panic.
“m-munstah! Hewp soon-mummah! aaiiieee!! nu can moobe!1”
“scawy munstah!!”
“Toughie pwotec hewd!! stoopie munstah gu way!”
Bella says nothing, just casually making her way over, picking up a sturdy stick with her tail while she does this.
“Alright lets see…seven of them, one of them is primed to pop at any second it seems…hm…could keep that one around I guess till the foals get big enough to process…eh…nah, their bones are soft enough when they’re still in development, i can stew them…” She reaches into the pen of panicked fluffies and grabs one by the scruff.
“SCREEEE MUNSTAH!! PWEASE NU HUWT FWUFFY!!! TOUGHIE HEWP!! SABE FWUFFY!!”
the toughie hears the pleas of its friend and goes to bap the wooden fencing, giving it the biggiest sorrie hoovsies.
“hmph! toughie gib-wowstes ouchies!! munstah gib bak fwen! gib sowwie poopies!!” The toughie proceeds to turn around and spew liquid shit through the fence and onto Bella’s leg.
“ugh-disgusting! looks like you’re the first to go, vermin.”
Bella tosses the fluffy she was holding back into the pen and roughly grabs the toughie. She then shoves its head into the dirt, grabbing the stick and putting it longwise against the back of its head. If any folk around here raise rabbits or something similar for meat, then this is commonly referred to as the broomstick method. Its quick and easy, and keeps the meat in tact as opposed to a more “fun” way to dispatch. The fluffy squirms and screes, whining about wowsest owwies. She grabs the thing by its back legs while putting a foot on either end of the stick, then stands and quickly yanks upward, snapping its neck instantly.
The other fluffies in the pen screech and cry witnessing such an event. To Bella, its just another Thursday, more meat to process. after the fluffy is dead, she brings it to a tree and hangs its body upside-down by its back legs. She grabs her dagger from her hip and slices its head off to let it bleed out for a moment, her tail pulls an old plastic cooler she found at a far-off campsite closer to her, which is filled with water. When its bled out enough, she starts the skinning process, taking her knife and cutting only though the skin around the back leg’s “ankle” roughly, then carefully makes a cut down the middle of its leg to the groin. She does the same to the other side before starting to pull the skin off. Fluffies are significantly easier to skin than most small game it seems, it pulls right off like a candy wrapper.
Belladonna discards the skin onto the ground for now and makes a shallow cut into the abdomen to gut it, careful to not burst the innards and get shit everywhere, tainting the meat. She keeps the liver and kidneys, tossing them into the bucket of water. They aren’t as good as ones that come from more “natural” animals, but they still contain enough nutrients to make them worth keeping at all. Once all the guts go, she reaches in and extracts the heart and lungs, the trachea, tossing those aside too. Once the not so toughie has been processed, into the cooler it goes. Smokie watches on from the cave entrance, feeling bad about it all, that its his fault these fluffies are getting forever sleepies and becoming his mummah’s nummies. Though it does help to keep him in her good favor, plus he hopes that she’s starting to actually like him. Last night was the first time she had let him be that close to her, let alone touch her. Maybe if he keeps doing this, she’ll actually be his mummah and give him all the “huggies and wub” he so desperately desires.
The Soon-Mummah in the corral shits all its stomach contents onto the fluffy behind her in a panic, screeching for somebody to save it. Bella decides to process this one next so she can get the stew going for tonight’s dinner, so she grabs it and dispatches it similarly to the previous one, its screams stop instantly and the forest gets a little quieter.
End of Part 3
Please give me your thoughts and input! trying to get back into drawing more in general and writing is still pretty new to me.