Once upon a time, in a world not unlike our own, there lived a smarty.
He was a tough and streetwise smarty. He knew that humans were dangerous, more prone to give a kick than a home or nummies. He knew that other fluffies were dummies, and that they needed to be told what to do.
He also knew that they were afraid of him, because in spite of his dark green fluff, he had wings, as well as a horn. They called him “Munstah Smarty!” but none of them dared oppose him. He had a bunch of toughies who loved the food that only he knew how to find, and loved the mares that he and his toughies kept as their personal harem. Over time, though his herd feared him terribly, they also came to love and respect him.
His name was Balzac.
Over the years, Balzac’s herd has grown. Though many babies were born, even with Balzac leading them, the natural inclination of fluffies meant that the death rate was also very high, especially in winter. Fortunately, Balzac managed to save some of the smarter and stronger fluffies, making sure that they kept away from humans and wild animals, ate safe foods, and didn’t go wandering on the highway. Over time, more pointy-wingy babies were born. Whenever possible, Balzac saved these babies from being stomped by their terrified mothers. By now, Balzac had three Alicorn sons, fully grown and with mares and babies of their own. They were part of his vanguard of toughies, and he met with them to discuss ideas and plans, making the herd safer, and helping them to find food.
Other fluffies called them the Munstah Herd, but that didn’t bother Balzac. It just kept other herds well away from them.
Balzac prefered things that way.
One sunny morning in early June, an excited young filly came trotting up to the fluffpile where Balzac was sleeping with his mares and foals. She was half exilarated and half terrified, and clearly eager to share her news with the herd leader.
“Munstah Smawty! Munstah Smawty! Daffodiw am found bestest nummies! an babbehs!” the young filly squeaked, practically dancing in her excitement and fear. The young filly was turning into a pretty mare, and Balzac made a mental note to add her to his harem if she had really discovered a good source of food.
“Wut nummies am dis?” he asked her, looking up from the other fluffies who were stirring with excitement.
“It am Sketties!” cried the fluffy, jumping for joy, her pink fluff practically glittering in the sun, “Daffodiw can smeww da sketties! In da tawky machine!”
Balzac raised an eyebrow. He had heard stories of these so-called “Sketty machines” but he didn’t think they could be true. It was just another fluffy dream, like Skettyland, or the hope of one day finding a mummah or daddah that would truly love them. Balzac didn’t know the word for it, but life on the streets had made him cynical.
The other fluffies were less cautious however - “Sketties! Sketties!” they began to yell, waking and running and jumping and skipping with glee. Some of the younger fluffs began to piss themselves with excitement. Fortunately, Porthos, one of Balzac’s largest and fattest toughies saw that the herd was becoming “Dummeh” and shouted for them to shut up and sit down.
“DUMMEH FWUFFIES! WISTEN TO POWFOS! SHUT DA NUMMY-HOWES AN SIT DOWN! WET DA SMAWTY FINK ABOUT FINGS. HONOWE DA BAWZAC!”
The rest of the fluffies quickly settled down, whispering eagerly to one another about the sketties, and wondering what kind of plan Balzac would come up with to get them.
“Whewe am dis nummies?” Balzac asked the trembling young daffodil, once the other fluffies had settled a little.
“It am in da hoomin maww. Down da woad!” she chirped.
“Da maww? Da new one?” Balzac inquired.
“Dats it smawty!” Daffodil exclaimed.
“An fwuffy towd Bawzac about tawky-machine, an… babbehs?”
“Es!” Daffodil continued, “Dewe am tawky-machine, tawk about babbehs, an sketties! An it smeww of sketties! an den, on da ovva side, dewe am machine wid babbehs inside! In wittew fings. Can Daffodiw hab babbehs? Pweeeease?”
Balzac scrunched up his face. He would need to think about this. It sounded almost too good to be true. Perhaps it was some kind of trap? Humans used traps sometimes. Balzac had lost one of his best toughies to a baited fluffy trap last winter.
Balzac decided to investigate.
“Put in babbehs, get spaghetti!” the machine was singing. Over and over. The same song. An endless repeat.
Balzac starred long and hard at the machine. It was brand new, still shiny, and with a cellophane wrapping still on one side. The humans must have put it here very recently. The machine was large, but with holes at a fluffy’s height, almost as though it had been made for them, rather than for the humans. It was covered in writing, and pictures, none of which Balzac could understand. In one picture, there was a human soon mummah, inside a red circle, with a red band crossing over her. Balzac had no idea what it meant, or what the writing meant:
WARNING: NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION - CAN CAUSE PERMANENT STERILITY AND SPONTANEOUS MISCARRIAGE
All Balzac knew was that the machine smelled simply delicious.
Even stranger was the babbeh machine. It was situated on the other side of the entrance to the human mall, now closed and shuttered for the night, but still lit up, showing all the human toys that they seemed to like so much. This machine was human sized, and had row after row of foals, wriggling away in little glass jars, drinking milkies from little rubber teats. Some of the lowest foals could see Balzac looking at them, and cheeped and chirped at him, no doubt desperate to escape the horrible machine.
Why would humans put baby fluffies inside a machine?
Balzac had no idea, but then, he heard a group of humans approaching. He quickly ran beneath the foal machine, squirming on his belly, and hid there, out of sight.
As Balzac hid in the shadows beneath the machine, he heard the humans talking. He had long ago learned to listen to humans. Humans knew things that fluffies did not, like how to work their mysterious machines and vroom monsters. Balzac listened carefully.
“Dude! What the fuck do you want a fluffy for? They’re fucking vermin man!”
“Oh I’ve gotta show you this. Hey, do you have a quarter? I can’t believe these things only cost a buck.”
“But why do you want it dude?”
“Just wait, these things can be highly entertaining!”
Balzac listened as the human put one, two, three, four of the “quarter” monies into the machine. Then, it clicked, whirred, and eventually, Balzac heard the scaredy cheeping of a very young foal.
“Chirp! Cheep!” the foal cried in terror, but then, “Daddah?” it asked.
“Yeah, that’s right little guy, I’m your new daddah, for the rest of your very short life!”
Peering out from under the machine, Balzac could see that the humans were holding the baby fluffy, passing him from one of their monstrous hands to another.
“Hey fluffy, you wanna fly?”
Balzac watched as they started to throw the tiny, chirping foal, between one another. Every time they threw her, the foal wailed in terror. Mostly they caught her, but sometimes they did not, and Balzac heard the foal impact with the hard concrete floor more than once.
“SCREEEE!” the foal shrieked, as its little legs snapped in half at the impact.
“Dude! You fuckin broke it!”
“It was never gonna last long anyway, these things are fuckin fragile. Hey, you wanna try smokin it? I hear you can get really fuckin high from these things?”
“Naw thats BS dude. You ever smell one of these things burning? Like when the fluffmart caught fire last year? Burning hair ain’t got nothing on burning fluff. Its fuckin gross dude.”
Balzac remembered the Burny Times well. The flames. The horror.
“Ah well, lets just set his cock and balls on fire then. I wanna see this fucker scream.”
Surely they wouldn’t? They couldn’t? But Balzac had learned long ago that there was no level of depravity to which the human monsters would not stoop. He witness their barbarity as they held a cigarette lighter to the foals no-no stick and special lumps, and burned them to ashes and red, charred meat.
“SCREEEEEEE!” the baby fluffy wailed, “SCREEEEEEEEEEE!”
After what seemed an age, the human monsters departed, leaving the crippled foal huuing pitifully on the sidewalk.
“Huu huu huu… daddah am munstah… wowstest buwny owwies… chirp… speciaw wummmmpss… huu huu huu huu huu…”
Balzac waited for a long while, until he was sure that the humans had gone. He felt his own lumps clench in sympathy for the baby fluffy, and had to listen to its crying for a long time, before he was sure it was safe enough to investigate.
“Hewwo fwuffy,” he sighed, gruffly.
“Huu huu,” the baby fluffy wept, looking up at him, first in terror, then in relief, “Hewp babbeh! Pwease gib huggies? Babbeh hab wowstest owwies!”
Balzac gave the baby huggies, but he was no fool. Balzac knew that huggies didn’t really make anything better. Except for heart hurties, and sometimes they didn’t even make those go away. No, Balzac needed the baby fluffy, just as it needed him.
“Nyu daddah?” the baby was asking, nuzzling Balzac’s fluff as Balzac kept his wings folded and hidden. It wouldn’t do for the crippled baby fluffy to start wailing about “pointy-wingy munstahs!”
“Yes, fwuffy wiww be nyu daddah, if babbeh hewp daddah,” Balzac explained.
“How babbeh hewp? Weggies nu wowk, an speciaw wumps an no-no stick hab wowstest owwies!” the baby huued back at him.
“Fwuffy am cawwed Bawzac. Am smawty of hewd. Wiww wet babbeh join hewd, an find nyu mummah fow babbeh, if babbeh hewp Bawzac.”
“Join hewd? An hab nyu mummah? Fow fwuffy? Weawy?” the burned little fluffy asked, wide eyed with wonder.
“Yes, if hewp Bawzac,” Balzac repeated.
“Babbeh wiww hewp - wat Bawzac need?” it asked, desperate to survive.
“Bawzac can nu fit inside dis ovva machine. Need babbeh to craww inside. Hab a wook. Maybe find… sketties?”
“Sketties!” the half-dead baby cried, jumping up and limping along with its two unshattered legs.
And so the first part of Balzac’s plan came to fruition.
Balzac was stuck.
The machine. The wonderous machine did indeed make spaghetti. Balzac had feasted on it after the half-dead foal had crawled inside it and made it work somehow. It had been… delicious…
But then the baby hadn’t come back out again.
Maybe it couldn’t crawl back up the funnel? Maybe it had died inside? Balzac had tried yelling for it for over an hour, but had only silence in response.
Next, he had brought one of mares from his herd to the machine. One by one, he sent in her smartest and bestest exploring babies. Each time, they managed to find more spaghetti! He and his toughies feasted well that night. Unfortunately, even the bestest, smartest, strongest, most exploringest babbeh never managed to get out of the machine afterwards.
Balzac eventually left the crying mare by the machine, consoling herself with mouthfulls of delicious sketties as she wept for her lost foals, and begged them to come back out of the machine. But they never did.
Unwilling to lose more of his herd’s babies to the dangerous machine, and not wanting to lose the love and respect of his mares, Balzac realised he needed another source of babbehs. The solution was obvious - the foal machine was just a few yards away. If he could work out a way to get the foals out of the machine, he could send them in, one by one, and his whole herd could feast upon spaghetti… FOREVER.
Now he just needed the magical “Quarters” which he knew were a type of human “Munnies”.
Balzac assembled his smarty council. He spoke with his sons, and some of the brighter toughies and mares, including his bestest nummy finders. What they needed was a plan.
“Hoomin machine make sketties, but needs babbeh to go inside to get dem. Dewe nu ovva way to get sketties,” he explained to the smarty council. “Da babbehs go in, but nu come out. Smawty munstah hewd cannot use own babbehs. Hab nu babbehs weft.”
As clever as the smarty council was, they stuggled when Balzac used long and complicated words like “cannot”. This meant that there was lots of arguing.
Surely they could send in one, really smart babbeh, who could make lots of sketties?
“Nu, it am wun babbeh, wun sketties,” Balzac explained.
Maybe they could steal babbehs, from a nearby herd?
“Maybe, but den hewd wun away fwom Munstah Smawty Hewd. Dey awweady afwaid of hewd,” Balzac sighed.
Maybe they could break open the foal machine, with sorry hoofies?
“Nu, it am too stwong fow sowwy hoofies. Porfos aweady twied dat, an just huwt hoofies.”
“Huuuu huu huuufies!” Porthos cried, licking his swollen hooves.
What they needed, Balzac explained, was some of the magical human munnies known as “Quarters”. Four of them would be enough to get a foal from the machine. But where to get the quarters?
The human was lying on the sidewalk, right outside a human store. Much like the fluffies so despised of by his fellow human beings, the human was begging. But instead of begging for a new mummah or daddah, and a nice warm homie, the human was begging for “munnies”.
Balzac and his toughies watched as other humans ignored him, but occasionally, one of them would give him some paper or metal “munnies”, which he kept in a large and battered paper cup. Oddly, none of the humans ever kicked the human, or gave him any kind of owwies. Balzac was very confused by this.
Balzac and his gang of toughies waited for a long time, until the human had lots of metal munnies. Then, they enacted their plan.
“Naow, Poopie, do it naow.”
Poopie was one of the lowliest fluffies in the herd. He had dark brown fur, and a vomit yellow mane. He had been a poopy baby, and had only survived by being very sneaky and stealing milk from his mummah as she slept. His mummah had been going to stomp him, when Balzac stopped her, recognising the need for sneaky fluffs. Ever since that day, Poopy had become one of Balzac’s most loyal and trusted nummy finders. Balzac promised him, that if he was a good fluffy, and did as Balzac told him, that one day, Balzac would give him a mare of his own. Poopy loved Balzac.
Balzac watched as Poopie trotted up to the human monster, turned around, lifted his tail, and sprayed horrendous liquid sorry-poopies all over the confused human’s head and face. The human simply couldn’t believe that a fluffy had walked up and shat all over him for no apparent reason, and soon his disbelief turned to abject rage.
“Ppsfjsgjtfhft! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!?!?” the human yelled, stumbling to his feet. Crazed blue eyes widened with fury as he spat globules of shit from his mouth and tried in vain to wipe the hideous diarrhea from his matted red beard.
“WHY?” he simply yelled, “WHY? FUCKING TELL ME YOU SHIT-RAT!”
But Poopy was no fool, he turned tail and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, unable to outrun the human, so scurrying under a sleeping vroom monster, with the enraged human chasing after him.
“I WILL MAKE YOU EAT A PLATE OF MY SHIT YOU FUCKING TURD-GOBLIN!” the incandescent shit-covered monster screamed “AND THEN I’LL ROAST YOU ALIVE!”
The plan had worked. Balzac ran over and grasped the paper cup in his mouth, managing to drag it away before the distracted human noticed what they were doing.
“It am soo high up,” said Daffodil, stating the obvious, yet again.
Balzac was not sure that Daffodil was as smart as he had first thought. He was not sure that she was deserving of his special huggies after all. All she had done since the herd gathered around by the machines after the mall closed was whine and state the obvious.
Of course it was high up! The machine was made for humans, not fluffies. Humans were big. None of this helped him to think of a plan, and her whining was distracting him and giving him head hurties.
“Shut up dummeh fwuffy!” he yelled, bopping her hard on the nose with his hoof.
“Aiiee! Why huwt fwuffy? Am gud fwuffy… am onwy wittew babbeh…” Daffodil began to huu. Balzac made his toughies drag her away, as pitiful huuing would not help him to concentrate one little bit. The distant roasting fluff smell of the nummy finder previously known as Poopie was not helping him to concentrate either.
“Smawty counciw, assembew!” he yelled, gathering his bestest smarties to help him think things through.
The whole herd could smell the sketties! They were so close. They could not fail now.
“Dat’s wight, just a wittew bit cwosew,” yelled Balzac, balancing on the back of the toughies, who in turn were balanced on the backs of the largest toughies. On top of Balzac’s back was another young filly, most definitely NOT Daffodil, who was holding the munnies cup in her mouth.
“Steady… Steady…” Balzac commanded, as the tottering pyramid of fluffies groaned and squeaked with the effort. The mental effort of coordinating this many fluffies was also considerable, and Balzac swore he could feel the head ideas creaking against on another inside his brain.
“Steady…” he said again.
“Fwuffy nu can weach… it am too smaww!” the young filly said, slipping on Balzac’s back.
“Stay on Tawget… Stay on Tawget…” Balzac commanded her.
“Fwuffy can… yes… fwuffy can neawy weach naow… fwuffy can… Aiiieeee!”
And then, for the third time that evening, the tower of fluffies collapsed into a squabbling, yelling, huuing and shitting fluffpile of angry, upset and exhausted fluffies. The money cup spilled, yet again, and fluffies complained about worstest owwies, nursing their swollen hooves and blaming each other.
Balzac was exasperated. The damned fluffies just wouldn’t stay still! Didn’t they know how close they were to getting the sketties? Balzac wondered again if he couldn’t be the top fluffy, but no, it was too high, and the fluffies at the bottom were practically crushed by the weight. No, it had to be a smaller fluffy. A lighter fluffy.
“Huu huu huu…” began the pitiful weeping again, “Fwuffies can nu sabe babbehs, nu num sketties… Huu huu huu huu huu…”
Balzac was about to discipline the weeping fluffies when out of nowhere, a human voice was heard.
“Whats the matter fluffies? Why are you crying?” a lady human asked.
“HOOMINS! WUN!!!” Yelled Porthos, following the training that Balzac had so patiently instilled in them.
“MUNSTAHS! WUN!” the herd cried, fleeing as fast as they possibly could, waddling away at 2mph as the monster lady laughed at them.
“Don’t worry fluffies, I won’t hurt you,” the lady explained, smiling kindly, “I’m from the American League of Hugboxing Faggotry, from the local shelter. I can give you a home there if you want, and nummies. And maybe find you mummahs and daddahs?”
Balzac had heard of the American League of Hugboxing Faggotry before. It sounded far too good to be true. And that meant that it was a trap, in Balzac’s book. Not that Balzac had a book.
“Oh wow,” the lady human exclaimed, “Are you an Alicorn?”
Too late, Balzac felt the foul beasts hand-claws reach under his belly and scoop him up into her arms!
“Bad upsies!” Balzac declared, before emptying his bowels all over the woman. But she seemed prepared for that, and was wearing some kind of not-fluff apron.
“Oh yuck, that’s not very nice,” she declared, “I picked you up very gently. Hey, are you the smarty of this herd?”
“Yes. Put Smawty down naow ow get wowstest owwies!”
Balzac knew that he was powerless to harm the hideous monster, and that the worstest owwies, or worse still, forever sleepies, were only moments away. But he had to say something, to try something, anything, to protect his herd from the foul beast.
“Haha, yes you’re hooves won’t hurt me little smarty. What were you doing here anyway, by this horrible Foal in a Can Machine?”
Balzac narrowed his eyes. Was this some kind of trick? Why was she asking him questions. Balzac decided to play along for a while, eager to buy himself some time, to come up with a plan of escape somehow.
“Smawty hab hoomin munnies. Put in machine. Sabe babbehs,” he told her simply.
“You want to, save the babies in the Foal in a Can Machine? Why thats… that’s adorable!”
To his surprise, the human lady gave him a really nice hug, then gently placed him down on the floor.
“You’re by far the nicest, smartest and kindest feral smarty I have ever met!” the lady said, beaming with happiness. She leaned over and scooped up the human munnies that had spilled from the dropped paper cup, and one by one, began feeding them into the foal machine. As each can dropped to the bottom, she opened them and freed the chirping, desperate foals, giving them first to Balzac, and then to other member’s of his herd, placing them on their belly fluff, or high up on their backs. This delighted the babies and all of Balzac’s herd. He had never seen them so happy.
“Yey! Babbehs! Fwuffy hab babbehs!” cried one young filly.
“Fwuffy WUB babbehs! Wiww be bestest mummah!” wept Daffodil, shedding tears of pure joy.
“Hewwo babbehs,” grunted Porthos, letting them snuggle in his fur.
All of the fluffies crowded around, as the nice lady fed quarter after quarter into the machine, until all of the babies were free! No fluffy had ever seen so many babies before.
“Fankyu nice wady! Fankyu!” cried Daffodil, hugging the human monster’s leg.
“Aww… that’s OK little fluffy. Now, would you like to come to the shelter with me? Its warm, and safe, there are lots of nummies. And every day, mummahs and daddahs come to give new homes to good fluffies!”
The human lady was overwhelmed with a chorus of cries, “Nyu mummah?” “Nummies?” “Safe an wawm?” and the ever present “Weawy?”
“Yes fluffies, you can all come with me, I’ll just get the van.”
“NU!” cried Balzac, stomping his hoof on the floor, and stunning the herd into silence.
“HONOWE DA BAWZAC! HEWD WIWW NU GU WIF HOOMIN MUNSTAH. WIWW STAY WIV BAWZAC! BAWSAC AM SMARTY!”
The herd was suddenly sobered by his words. Humans were monsters, and dangerous. All of them knew that. They knew that humans would trick people, promising nice things, but then giving the worstest owwies in their place. But still, something inside the fluffies hearts made them want to believe. Could this nice lady really be a new mummah for them all? And give them huggies, and love?
Their contemplation was broken by something strange, the human lady started laughing at him!
“Ball-sack? Is that really your name? You must have had a very mean daddah to give you that name!” she giggled, holding her hand in front of her mouth in embarrassment.
She was insulting his daddah! This enraged Balzac even more.
“NUUUU! BAWZAC AM GUD NAMIE! BAWZAC AM NAMED AFTER FAMOUS FWENCH NOVEWIST AND PWAYWIGHT! DADDAH AM GIB DAT NAME TO BAWZAC BEFOWE DADDAH HAB FOWEVEW SWEEPIES! HOOMIN WADY AN MEANIE-MUNSTAH!”
“Oh…” the lady exclaimed, “Oh I’m sorry Balzac… I didn’t realise. I’m sorry your daddy had forever sleepies. I didn’t mean to…”
“NU! MEANIE-MUNSTAH WADY GO WAY. WEAVE BAWZAC HEWD AWONE. OW GET WOWSTEST OWWIES!”
“Oh… I um… OK. Well look, you guys take some time to think about it. I’ll come back tomorrow morning with the van, OK? It really is a nice shelter. You’re all very welcome to come with me.”
The human monster got back up from the floor, where she had been squatting down next to the excited herd. She dusted herself off a little, and turned to leave.
“Oh, one thing fluffies, don’t eat any sketties from that machine over there, they are very bad for you.”
But Balzac ignored her. He was too smart for her tricks. The sketties were his at last!
The herd was trembling with anticipation. One by one, the new foals had been placed into the funnel, that led inside the Spaghetti machine. Balzac had told them to ignore the foals cries, wails of “Scawy!” and “Dawk!”, “Nu wike dis game!” and “Miwkies!”. He had made sure they ignored the foals screams, and the whirring of machinery, and the sudden silence that followed. He had gotten his most loyal toughies to pluck the remaining rescued foals from the mares and fillies that had adopted them, having them pin down a wailing Daffodil, who didn’t want to give up her new babbehs, even though she wouldn’t be able to feed them.
They were all fed into the machine.
The machine was hungry, but so was the herd. By now, it had dispensed a small mountain of sketties, but Balzac had insisted that no fluffy was allowed to start eating before he said a few words for Poopie, the bravest fluffy of them all.
“We fwuffies awe gavvewed hewe today, to wemembew Poopie. Da bwavest fwuffy. Da Bestest Fwuffy. Da Nummy Findew. Da Hewo of Da Munstah Smawty Hewd. Even though his fwuff was cowow of poopies, he was a good fwuffy.”
The other fluffies mumbled with approval, and the feasting began.
It was glorious! Delicious! Delectable! Such wonderful, incredible, nomlicious delicacy! Balzac and the others ate and ate and ate and ate and ate. They stuffed their faces with sketties. The toughies ate, the smarties ate, the mares and big babbehs ate. Little babbehs licked sketty sauce from the faces of their mummahs. Having bellies full of the bestest nummies made fluffy mummah’s milk places swell with bestest milkies. It also made mares without babies become very receptive to special huggies, and soon the whole herd was engaged in various fluff-pile orgies. Balzac even relented and gave Daffodil special huggies after all, so happy was he.
But then, cruel, uncaring fate took a turn against our feral fluffy herd. From the edges of the fluff-piles, a lowly nummy finder noticed a strange smell floating on the air. It was a smell of… burning fluffy! Then, the nummy-finder saw him, a towering red-bearded monster, with crazed blue eyes, and a smattering of fluffy shit all over his face. In his right hand he carried a bottle of Old Turkey Whiskey, and in his left, he held a long, sharp stick, forcibly impaled into the rectum of Poopie.
Poopie, who they all thought was dead, had met a far worse fate. He had been burned, horrendously burned, and now, instead of brown, soft fluff, there was nothing but a layer of blackened red charred flesh. It smelled like bacon, but Poopie wore his new flesh in total and complete agony.
“Huu huu… Poopie wan die… wan die… wan die…” he gasped feebly.
“MUNSTAH!” cried the nummy finder. But it was too late for the herd.
“I WILL FEED YOU ALL MY SHIT! THEN ROAST YOU ALL ALIVE!” The human monster cried.
And so ended the story of Balzac’s Monster Smarty Herd.
