“Fucking fluffies, man.” Jerry Ronaldo spat as he trudged out to the prison yard. A thin and wiry man, Jerry was an average 5 foot 8 with an athletic build. Doing time at A happy little fluffy family was just outside the fence. The lot of them giggling and teeheeing out there while he was stuck in prison wasting away.
“Mummah, wook! Daddehs!” said a tiny fluff from the back of its mummah as the inmates made their way to the yard.
“Hewwo nice mistah! Wan be nyu daddeh?”
Jerry rolled his eyes and smirked. Sneaking up behind the family was a groundskeeper with a big ol’ net. “Oh yeah, I’d love to. Daddeh of the year, right here.” Apparently they didn’t notice the giant fence between them. Fluffies man.
“Weawwy!? Su hap- HRUK” The mummah was netted and lifted into the air, “BAD UPSIES!” she yelped.
As her foals screeched, her stallion attempted to give the groundskeeper the worstest hurties to no effect. Jerry couldn’t help but laugh, he hated the damn things. The stallion was quickly rounded up too and the once happy family was now crying and pleading for their lives. He hoped wherever they were going was miserable.
Nice start for today’s rec time.
“Cute little idiots, huh.”
Jerry whipped his head around to glare at whoever said that. Great. Rick Jones. Biggest guy in the block and a bleeding heart. 6 foot 8, and more muscles than brains. Moron was doing time for aggravated assault; beat the shit out of two guys just for playing a bit rough with a herd of fluffies.
“If you call babbling balls of shit cute, sure.”
The giant man laughed and slapped Jerry hard on the back, “I do indeed.”
The rest of rec was uneventful save for going up against Rick Jones in a three on three. Absolutely destroyed, Jerry never had a chance. He was grateful to get to move about, at least.
Back to his cell for another night of drudgery and boredom. But in the center of the room was a comically large gift box wrapped in an even bigger bow.
“The fuck?”
“Bad wordsies!” exclaimed a muffled voice from inside the box.
“Oh hell no. No. No.” Jerry said in a panic. This was not happening.
“Oh this is happening my friend.” a tiny woman sauntered up out of the corner of Jerry’s eye, her heels clacking loudly on the cement floor. Black gray hair, pale skin, and a green dress. Small, but unnerving. She shot Jerry a dismissive look and authoritatively said, “Open the box, Jerry.”
“Open da box Jehwee!” the tiny voice added in from inside the present.
The ward was eerily quiet, like they were the only people alive in the entire prison. He looked at the woman. He gulped. The box. He walked up to it slowly. Something inside was giggling. He undid the bow. The ribbon silently fell to the ground.
“Pwease huwwy, ams scawwy in dawkie box…”
He knew what was inside. He looked back to the woman who was tapping her foot impatiently. Could he make a break for it? There were no other guards around… no, he’d still have to get past the rest of the prison. He had no choice.
He turned back to the box. He lifted the lid.
A burst of confetti hit his face as a tiny foal blew a party streamer with a jaunty pffvvvvv. Balloons labeled, “It’s a girl!” and “Congratulations!” streamed out and up into his ceiling , “Hewwo daddeh! Ams yuh bestest mostest bwavest fwuffy! Namesies ams Zippy!” The lavender purple unicorn was staring up at him with adoring blue eyes. He glared back with a look of complete contempt.
Jerry grimaced and looked around the massive box. Litter, food, water, blocks, a ball, and a padded bed. Everything he’d need to keep a fluffy happy and healthy. “You’re kidding me. Please tell me this is some stupid joke because I’m not laughing.”
Jerry reached down and grabbed the foal by the scruff, ignoring the protestations of ‘bad uppies’. “You expect me to take care of this little moron?”
The woman had already started sweeping up confetti, muttering to herself that it sounded cooler in her head, “…Yeah? You meet the criteria for a trial program. Non-violent offender, low risk of you wigging out and hurting poor little Zippy here, and a fairly well documented like of fluffies.”
Jerry raised an eyebrow in confusion. He was fairly certain his file said the opposite, especially considering how he wound up here.
She emptied out a dust tray into a trash can that Jerry could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago, "Zippy gets a daddy, and you get an early parole. All you need to do is keep her alive, happy, and healthy. Easy peasy.”
“Easies peasies!” Zippy giggled in agreement, squirming in the air.
“And the warden signed off on this.” Jerry said in disbelief. The warden was a piece of work and probably a worse man than anyone locked up in here. A fucked up sadist who rose through the ranks above every other would be tyrant that worked here by sheer cruelty alone.
“Oh, I got the county board to approve the program. I’m sure he’ll play nice, seemed like a nice enough fellow when I talked to him.” The woman was letting air out of the balloons and putting them into the trash, “Definitely going to skip these on the next delivery. Zippy, you behave now. You’ve got a very important mission!”
The foal saluted as she dangled uncomfortably from Jerry’s hand, “Ams on misshun! Wiww sabe daddeh!”
The woman, having cleaned up the mess from the box, tapped Zippy on the snout and smiled. “I believe in you, you brave little baby. Toodles!” and left the cell with the bars rolling shut after her. The regular cacophony of the ward returned soon after as if it was waking up from a nap.
“…I guess I should get you sorted?” Jerry asked the foal as he placed her on his bed, “Stay put.”
“Otay daddeh!” the foal said as she zoomed around in a circle.
Jerry saw where she got her name, at least. Not so good at listening. Aaaand she piddled on his bed. Great.
She was bouncing about on the bed, twirling around and stopped with a gasp, “Nu! Ams bad babbeh!? Made bad pee pees! Huu huu sowwy sowwy daddeh jus wub su muches an hab biggest heawt happies an- an-”
Jerry picked her up by the scruff and put her back in her box. “Pwease daddeh ams sowwy!”
“Probably can’t return you, can I.” Jerry thought to himself.
He placed the lid back on and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gapsies! Nu tuwn housie intos sowwy boxies! Pwease! Nu wike sowwy box!”
“You and me both, kid.” Jerry thought to himself as he took the sheet off his bed, “Guards!? Could I get a new bedsheet? My uh, fluffy just wet the bed.”
"Sowwy!”
“You’re staying in there until you can figure out how to unpiss my bed or until I get new bedding.”
“Zippy wiww twy!” the foal pleaded from the box, “Pwease, nuh wike dawkies.”
Warden Lymar was seething. Watching through the cameras at a safe distance he saw the woman who had intruded on his fiefdom waltz through his domain. This prison was a castle and he was the goddamned king. Freaky little bitch made his skin crawl just looking at her. Being in the same room as her made his brain *itch*. He had to make sure she stayed as far away as possible.
All he had to do was make sure this idiotic game of house failed and he’d never have to deal with her again. A few edits to Jerry’s file made him the perfect candidate to act as a trojan horse. Loves fluffies? The man’s here because of a fluffy, idiot. A quick search could have told you that.
He pulled up the first result for Jerry McRogers and chuckled. “Hero fluffy stops burglar! “Wuz suh scawwy buh gots mistuh powicemans””. Seriously, it was the first result. And the second, third, and fifth.
Zippy was distraught. She was told that her new daddy loved fluffies and that she’d help him get out of the sorry box. Instead, she messed up and got put into a sorry box herself. And it was made out of her nice nestie!
She just got here and her daddeh was already mad at her. She sniffled and fought back tears, trying to be strong as she tried to navigate in the darkness. “Nee be cawefuws… huu…” she said aloud. She immediately bonked her snout into one of her blocks, the soft rubber making a squeak as air pushed out of it. “Huu… nee find mewgencies boxie…”
Jerry had removed the soiled bedsheets and was grateful that it wasn’t much pee, just got the top layer. He sat on the bare mattress and listened to Zippy’s ongoing troubles with a half smirk.
“Dummeh babbeh nuh cans eben wawkies wight…” Zippy said despondently as she felt around for a special box hidden in the corner of her nest. She followed the walls of the box, tripping over the ledge of her litter box and face planting into the material. “…ams gwad awweady mades peepees…”
She got up and followed the wall again. She found it. Her old mummah said that this box was for when she had the worst saddies and that she hoped Zippy would never need it. Zippy needed it real bad, whatever it was.
She pulled back the lip of the box and cried. The smell of her fluffy mummah filled her nose and her heart. She got closer and booped into the source, a stuffy friend. She hugged it tightly, “Mummah, ams suh sowwy… ams bad fwuffy… just wan hewp daddeh su muches! Buh daddeh aweady hates Zippy… nu knu what tu do…”
Jerry was leaning closer to the box, apparently this fluffy didn’t have much of an inner voice. Probably not an act, either. He wondered just how the hell he was going to work this mess out. She seemed like a good enough kid for a fluffy, but she’s still a little idiot that he’s now in charge of. The woman didn’t say anything about consequences if anything happened to the thing but he got the distinct feeling he really didn’t want to find out.
“Zippy wub mummah smeww… wiww be good babbeh ans… ans… nebah be bad babbeh!” she said to her new stuffy friend in an attempt to psych herself back up. She had a job to do, surely she could win over her daddeh somehow!