In the national forests of upstate new york there lives a thriving population of fluffies.
Sure, it’s a wild land of “munstahs” and the snowstorms take many foals and fluffies alike, especially when the “munstahs” get desperate, but the fluffy dens lined with fluff get insulated enough and the forest has a rich supply of white clover “fwoweh nummies” that keeps its nutritional value under the snow all winter. If even eighty percent of the fluffy population dies from November to March, its still replenished by three generations when the following November hits. Such is the life of an R-selective prey breed.
And prey the fluffies certainly are.
The critters have become a stable ecosystem thanks to the rise of smaller carnivores gorging on the forest’s supply of thriving fluffies and spreading out into the nearby mountains whenever their population booms, pressed away from each other by urine-claimed territory. Still, a feral/runaway fluffy living past its first winter would more than likely survive a few more years after learning the basic tricks.
- Hold onto their “sorry poopies” until morning to push back the “wed munstahs” (foxes) that dig in at night.
- Stay in safe nests underground to avoid the “hootie monsters” (owls) at night.
- Block nest tunnel-bends with daddeh fluffies so “stwipey munstahs” (skunks) can’t get passed them to steal foals.
- A big herd is a dead herd.
A one-year old fluffy, a cream pegasus with cream mane and tail named Rover, learns rule #4 the hard way. He thought there were only as many rules as his mummah had weggies (3), but learns from experience that there’s actually as many rules as he has weggies (4). He doesn’t know what hits him, but in the middle of the night the ground itself opens up above his entire herd’s safe nestie in a flurry of massive of fangs (coyotes). His smartie is the first to go, ripped up through the ceiling while thrashing and screeching, his eyes bulging and his mouth stuck wide open as the fangs pierce into his nape. He swats his front and back weggies twice before he’s ripped up and gone forever.
“SCREEEEE!!!” Calls the toughie to his left, pulled up immediately after.
“MUNS-” Calls the fastest nummie finder pegasus, ripped through the collapsing ceiling next.
Next is a soon mummah, and then Rover’s bruddah, and bruddah’s special friend. Two toughies glare at the ceiling and try to smack it with their hoofs only to have the dirt cave in and coyote mouths to close in on their offered hooves to rip them out into the night sky and start tearing pieces off.
Rover never makes it out on his own after the dirt caves in on him, knocking him out.
Instead he awakes hours later when his own daddeh, a cyan fluffy with yellow mane and tail named Sky, digs him out and together they dig out the last survivor, Rover’s special friend, a white on white earthie with no name. They’re the only two who make it, even the foals aren’t spared, but Rover still can’t believe his luck. He’s a feral, losing fluffies is a part of life. More than anything he’s surprised to be proud of his daddeh.
Sky Daddeh wasn’t a very good daddeh for Rover growing up, always watching after his ducky fwen (a rubber duck) in his own isolated nest and ignoring his duties to the herd and his babbehs, refusing to help Rover’s mummah find nummies because she took some of ducky friend’s nummies once upon a time, but in Rover’s eyes he redeemed himself when he saved the love of Rover’s life. Sky Daddeh must have known about big herds. He is a good daddeh afterall.
“Wover suuu happeh!” Rover cries into the shoulder of his father. “Sky Daddeh sabe speciaw fwen! Tank you Sky Daddeh! Tank you suu much!”
“It otay.” Says Sky Daddeh calmly, balancing his ducky friend on his back. “Sky aways wub gud babbeh. Nebah wan nuffin bad for awmost bestest babbeh.”
Rover wipes his tears off on his father’s fluff and pulls back. “Nu am babbeh no mowe. Am…” He looks back to his all-white special friend and smiles.
She smiles back. “Say it, speciaw fwen!”
“Am soon daddeh.”
Sky Daddeh smiles with a stupid amount of joy and the three hug over the good news after such a bad night, but days later the fluffies still go their separate ways. Sky Daddeh says things aren’t safe around here anymore for ducky friend so he needs to go somewhere else, and Rover, well, Rover needs to find his soon babbehs a nest!
“Dis way speciaw fwen!” Shouts Rover after a ten hour cross-country march (one mile, with snacking breaks and naps) the next dawn, “Wover fine such a gud nestie pwace!”
“Speciaw fwen so smawt!” Replies his special friend, eating grass next to her mate while he digs. “Mhm, yus! Gonna be bestest daddeh and mummah!”
The small rock he was struggling with finally wobbles out from the bottom of Rover’s hole and he digs it out before wiggling through, bringing himself under the fence and to the other side where he has wood protecting him on one side and nummie bushes blocking sight of him on the other side! Bewwy nummies even! “Speciaw fwen, dis way! Pewfect nestie wiff bewwy nummies!”
“Bewwy nummies?!” His special friend shouts back, pulling herself through the tunnel with great effort. “Smawtie AN tuffie AN yu am nummie findah too?! Wover am bestest speciaw fwen eva! Eva!” She hugs Rover tightly and he feels like the most powerful stud on Earth. Little does he know he’s close to someone who actually is.
You are Chad Bradford, and your life is perfect. Besides your hot and breedable redheaded wife you also have three gorgeous children by now, several rental properties hidden behind shell corporations for tax “avoidance” (it’s evasion), a good unassuming house with two acres surrounded by a national park, and you’ve recently been promoted. All your socializing with the execs at work finally has gotten you into the illustrious ranks of the (many) Vice Presidents at your overpaying corporate job.
To celebrate, the executives have gathered at your house for a good old fashioned barbeque, insisting on enjoying your hobby of impersonating a normal life. Sure, it’s insulting as hell that they think your amazing life is “roughing it”, but hey, fuck em. Being out-of-touch levels of rich is why you’re hanging around them in the first place; you can’t hold it against them. In a way it’s flattering that your height and perfect jawline have them convinced you can’t actually be a normal guy, likely helping in your promotion, and you decide to just let the old rich bastards enjoy the closest to camping these rich types get, unless they’re Bushes and buy entire ranch towns. You don’t know if they’re Bushes. You should ask.
Something awful happens before you can.
You’re working the grill while the execs enjoy imported scottish whiskey out of Baccarat glasses, sitting in overpriced Koket chairs around the campfire, when an intruder shows up on the scene: a fluffy. Two of them, in fact, coming through the wall of strawberry bushes that lines the eastern side of your yard’s fence. Must have followed under a hole something else dug.
Not wanting to ruin your impressions with the execs, you obviously are planning how best to kill the things in a dignified or entertaining manner before they have a chance to shit everywhere.
“Damned shame, Bradford!” Announces the CIO, “If you check your six, you’ve got a good old fashioned yard invasion on your hands! Should we call for the Help?”
“I should say not!” Protests the obese CFO, “look at the colors on the one on the left, white on white! And the other is almost just as white too!”
“I wouldn’t let the harpies in HR hear your color preferences.” Replies the CIO.
“Dohoho!” Laughs the CFO, gut jiggling as he takes another hard sip “Not so firm as you might think my good man, I’m referring to the rarity of those fur colors!”
“Colors, Gronson?” Asks the CEO, an elderly but spry southern man with a colonel sanders mustache. He stares at the fluffies in disgust. “The abominations look like my wife’s winter mink scarf dropped in a mud puddle.”
“That they do, that they do! Dirty, yes, but pure white! A rarity. A lot of money in those, relatively speaking.”
The CEO rubs his chin. “Hmmm. How much money are we talking?”
You flip the wagyu steak kabobs and decide to prove your worth. “One to two hundred, sir. Pennies on the dollar compared to their options value.”
All three heads turn to you. The CEO props an ankle onto his knee and leans an elbow on his leg, resting his face on his raised fist. “I’m all ears, Bradford. How would our new VP turn profits out of invasive pests?”
“Zoning laws.” You plate the kabobs onto Bernadaud goldware as the fluffies start devouring your strawberry bushes, the white mother singing some off-key song while the ‘stallion’ brings the fruits to her. “Fluffies are caught between animal and toy, all you need is the right voters with the right messaging and you can turn protected real estate into private real estate to protect local fluffies, then reverse it after the land’s protections are already gone.” You hand the plates out to each executive and sit down, looking over at the fluffies in disdain as they cheerily destroy your wife’s garden.
The CEO nods along. “I’m well aware the rubes will be rubes, Bradford, what I’m asking is specifics. Find me one good plot of real estate that you can trick the big wigs into handing over to us just by using those godless toys as a legal loophole.”
You motion your hands all around you, to the national forest abutting your yard beyond your fence. “Look around, sir, we’re in it.”
The CEO smiles and purses his lips. “Well Heaven’s bells, Bradford! You’ve got some stones on you, is that why you’ve been hiding in this unassuming bland household for so many years? Just to show off a business model and prove your acumen?” He gasps. “And you had the little rats walk in at just the right time, ohhh I do declare I am impressed something painful. We’ve fallen for your devil’s pitch, haven’t we Bradford?”
You smile a charming white smile and try not to cringe. It shouldn’t be this easy. “Yes sir, all part of the plan long in the making.”
“Impressive! Seems I walked right into your trap, but do you have the specifics to follow through? Let’s say I wanted to invest four, no, five hundred thousand in a plan, today, to turn THAT-” He points to the white and off-white fluffies now shitting on your lawn. “Into, hmmmm, two million dollars?”
“Two million?” You ask with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to make money? They’re 3d printing fertilizer right now, we’re looking at at least four.”
The CIO slaps his knee and the fat CFO chuckles at the CEO’s face. “He’s got you there, Reginald!”
“Alright, son, alright. I like your fire! But I’m a man of the plan, if you show me a well drafted business model be get FIVE million by the end of one fiscal year with some stupid children’s toys, and I can get my men to make it work, I might even make you CFO.”
The CFO stops laughing.
You shake your head and think through the hypotheticals. “No can do, playing politics takes time. It could do be done in three years, probably. With the operation funds and bribe money we could lobby for a fluffy sanctuary or farm special permit built into the other side of the forest, owned by a Delaware-based LLC, expand that ownership to the size of a small town through metric-based growth clauses, then make a fake animal rights charity to sue the town government into removing its farm designation since fluffies are toys. Lacking any new designation, one of your shellcorps could lobby separately the next election year to have it rezoned to commercial while maintaining the LLC’s private ownership.”
“That’s what I like to hear!” The CEO takes a checkbook out of his inner jacket, writes a check to a blank name for your future LLC, and rips it out of his checkbook with flare. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Show me some green, Bradford, and I don’t mean green fluffies.” He looks back to the two pests starting to dig into your mulch and giggles. “Well, I suppose I do.”
It takes incredible willpower to hide an internal scream from showing on your face. You’ve been talking out of your ass, just for fun, and forgot the CEO is exceedingly drunk on your overpriced whiskey.
You just signed up for the fluffy business.
You are Sky, a cyan fluffy with yellow mane and tail. You’ve lived almost as many winters as you have “weggies” and you’ve learned what to avoid. All the four rules of survival, and even a one-more rule to avoid humans. That’s why you made sure to stay away from that house with all the berry nummies where everything went so wrong so many forevers ago.
Unfotunately you’re a fluffy and as a fluffy you’ve forgotten how retarded you are. You’ve dug into a good nestie for yourself this time, finding a hole under a fence with berry nummies on the other side! However, being a little older and wiser, you’ve learned to avoid holes. (Chad would call it good advice, but you don’t know why) You came through a hole near the fence, so something else can too! You follow the fence for four forevers (minutes) and find yourself on the other side of the yard (not that you know that, only seeing the bushes and fence) where you dig a little nestie after soooo many forevers (an hour)! Through the rock hard dirt (fresh mulch)!
You curve the bend in your nest and dig up a little more, gently putting down ducky friend, your longtime ward and the only companion who’s always got your back. You are too stupid to know he is just a rubber duck, but oddly, talking to him about your problems makes you consider the solution just by imagining what he’d say.
You can’t tell him about this problem though.
This problem can hear you if you do.
Right as you walk through the bushes to get some nummies to celebrate you see none other than your now-bestest babbeh, Rover, with his new special friend. They’re eating berries on the other side of the yard and you realize all too late that you stayed between the fence and the bushes ever since coming under the hole. You never saw that the bushes hugged the fence but didn’t take up the whole area. You never saw there was a human house inside the fence too. Not just any human fence, but the ebil mistah’s house.
The human who killed your first herd.
You’ve come back, after all these years (2), and somehow your own son has too.
You take one slow step forward, nearly frozen with fear as the bad human approaches your wastest babbeh, but it’s too late. Your tiny brain freezes for too long and before you know it the ebil mistah is standing over Rover with a bad stickie raised over his head. You try to scream, try to close your eyes, but you can only stare on in horror as the man turns to the side with his hurtie stick and whistles for Rover’s attention.
“Nyu fwen?” Asks Rover’s special friend to the human.
Confused, Rover turns around from his digging just in time to get knocked in the head by the broad side of a shovel.