Week 9
Monday- outdoor footage, 9am to noon, assorted clips.
All four of the demonfluffs seem highly excited by the outdoor run, trotting out the open door over the cement patio to stare at the blue sky overhead. Three of them freeze at the edge of the grass to stare inquiringly back at their handler as if for permission, with Aurora charging forward to sniff and roll luxuriantly into the grass. “Everywhere inside the fence is okay, kiddos. Have fun.” Shadow strolled forward herself, settling at the small metal table with a book.
The moment she’d finished speaking, the other three ran forward as well, tumbling over each other in the grass. The happy squeals started the moment they found the yard toys. “Pwetty wock housie?” Foxfire exclaimed, running to the largest of the playsets. It was sturdy grey plastic, with two mock castle platforms on top of open sided ‘dungeon caves’, one a foot higher than the other, with a tightly bound imitation of a rope bridge running over the windowed tunnel between the undersides. Briefly too excited for words, she kept racing along the side, goggling at the small stairs and the three slides of varying heights and curves.
“Am castwe, dummeh sissy,” Aurora contradicted in a superior, but still excited tone. “Wike Cantawwot.” She scrambled up to the top, using her longer legs to best advantage on the stairs and staring smugly around from the lower platform by the smallest slide. “Am pwincess now, wike Sewestwia. Dis Auwowa’s castwe.”
“Oh. If sissy pwincess, den Fo’fia pwincess tu, wike Wuna?” the smallest of the pack asked, ears pricking up eagerly. Both the boys looked up at this, ears flicking almost nervously as they glanced at each other and back at the playcastle.
“Nu. Auwowa pwincess. Fo’fia tu wittw an’ stupi’ fo’ be pwincess, an’ Wook tu nu pwetty.” the golden and silver alicorn declared. “Gwowy be udda pwincess.”
Rook’s snort at this was audible, and his wings flared out in indignation. “Wook nu wanna be pwincess, su fwuffy nu cawe,” he declared in a less than convincing tone. “Fo’fia can ‘spwowe unda castwe wit’ Wook den, an’ Gwowy du wha’ Gwowy wan.”
A quick flickering look between his siblings, and Glory made a show of taking his time nibbling at a loose feather and a tiny tangle of fluff on his hock. As if just noticing it when he finally looked up, he trotted over to the little playhouse about ten feet away on the grass. “Pwetty housie,” he announced. “Pack wanna pway hewe? Wook, wittwe windo’!” Cheerfully, he pushed the plastic shutters open wider before finding the short tether bolted to the inside, just right for a large fluffy to grab with their mouth. Three repetitions of opening and shutting later, Foxfire had bounded in to join him and was endeavoring to figure out how to work the fold down table. Rook finished his cursory sniff around the base of the large playcastle and joined them, sitting outside the window and poking his head in every time Glory opened it.
Alone on the lower half of the larger playset, Aurora stamped her hooves, wings flared and tail swishing furiously. The stamp catches Shadow’s attention. “Everything good over there, kiddos?” she calls, barely looking up from her book.
“Ebew’ting fin’ mummah Shado’!” Aurora yelled back before any of the others could answer. “Jus’ pwayin’ castw an’ pwincess’s”
“Please don’t make me regret showing you all that shit even more,” the blue haired woman mutters, still smiling tightly over her book at the playyard. “How about the rest of you? You kiddos still having fun too?” There’s a chorus of only slightly less confident “yus, mummah Shado’”’s from the playhouse, and with a resigned sigh and a shrug at the camera, she went back to reading.
Ears sullenly pinned back, Aurora slunk to the edge of the shorter slide, cautiously edging forward onto the ramp. Her hooves went out from under her, sending her skidding to the bottom in a ruffled heap. Glory abandoned his game and scrambled over to her, nuzzling at her and nudging feathers back into place until she got back to her hooves. “Auwowa hab owwies? Nee’ huggies?” he asked, plopping back on his haunches.
“Nu hab owwies. Jus’ supwisies. Castw hab funny swippie wamp.” Aurora returned the nuzzle and draped her foreleg over his neck fondly. “Stiww wan huggies.”
“It’s called a slide. It’s meant to do that and be fun, kiddos,” Shadow dryly informed them, looking up again as the other two joined them. Foxfire ducked easily under Glory’s legs, wrapping her own around Aurora’s wing.
“Fo’fia gib sissy huggies tu,” she said firmly. “Den aww Pack can pway swidies?” Glory had pulled her into his side of the hug the moment she got there, and Aurora caved and hugged the smaller bat-winged fluff moments later. Rook sidled up behind them, arching a wing over his siblings and rubbing his shoulder against the outside of the three way hug like a cat.
“Den aww Pack can pway swidies an’ castwe cwimbies,” Rook agreed, stretching. “An’ ‘spwowin’!”
About half an hour of ungainly but evidently exciting sprawls later, the quartet had more or less mastered the art of scrambling up the little stairs and skidding down the smallest slide. They had even added a fast run over the tiny bridge to the other end with all the squealing and nerves due a rickety set of planks over a chasm. Foxfire was the first to launch herself onto the slightly higher, curving slide, shrieking joyfully as she tumbled off the end into the grass. The others followed her with only shreds more dignity, before Rook led them into the ‘dungeons’ and through the short tunnel with all the bold gravitas due a spelunking expedition.
A cheerful human laugh sounds out from the other side of the fence as the demonfluffs make it out of the far side and charge up the stairs again, and Shadow sets down her book.
The sound of a camera panning, and a second clip pops into the corner of the video. “Looks like you have a happy little handful there,” an elderly man in a suit remarks, leaning on the fence as Shadow crosses the patio to greet him. “Seems like a bit of a set up for a fluffy shelter.”
“We’re a bit of a specialty breeder, actually,” she informed him in a nearly chirpily sweet tone. “Just getting started, but we should have a litter available by Christmas, maybe sooner depending on what you’re looking for.”
“Ah. My daughter was just saying the other day that she’d heard a rumor about a new breeder in the area.” He smiled over her shoulder at the alicorns watching them from the castle platforms, glancing past them at the rest of the play yard and the outdoor runs with sulking normal fluffies. “It’ll be nice to tell Gracie she doesn’t have to worry about tracking down a fluffy mill, not with as nice a place as you have here. Not sure I’m in the market for a third alicorn yet, myself.” He chuckled ruefully. “Hard enough trying to find a daycare or fluffsitter that’s safe for the two I have. Suppose I was half hoping I’d wandered past an alicorn safe fluffy daycare.”
“Hard to find, I guess, the way most fluffies treat them. There’s a reason ours have separate runs and playrooms…”She glanced back at the outdoor runs, a clearly speculative look on her face. “If you’d like, I could give you a quick tour, show you the main playroom and all. We aren’t really full up on anything yet, and I’m pretty sure my boss wouldn’t mind adding a bit of daycare in for the right price, at least temporarily. Boarding would be a bit much, but a few extra alicorns for a couple hours a day wouldn’t add that much work to my load.” She waved vaguely back at the door to her left, a relentlessly perky smile on her face. “Bare minimum, you’d be able to tell your Gracie about what you saw and really put her mind at ease. Fluffymills are bad news, and I wouldn’t like to think…”
“You know what, I’ve a bit of time to spare on my walk. Why not?” He made as if to shake her hand, stymied by the chainlink between them. “I’m Marty, and always pleased to meet another fluffy lover. The way some people treat them these days….”
“Shadow, and very pleased to meet you.” She glanced back at the pack, a more warning tone creeping into the customer service patter. “Hey, kiddos! One more slide down, and then you have to stay by the little playhouse until I come back, understand? The big toys aren’t safe without a human watching you.” There was an only slightly unhappy chorus of “Unnastan’, Mummah Shado’” and the four demonfluffs skidded down the twisty slide and trotted over to the other playset. “Randy? Would you mind keeping half an eye on the pack while I give this nice gentleman a tour?” A slightly unkempt teenager poked his head around the edge of the kennels with a hose in his hand, turning a knob and shrugging.
Monday- indoor footage-
Cameras pick up in what looks like a loosely set up office or reception, as Shadow scrambles to unlock the front door and let Marty in. “This is going to be our grand entrance, but mostly it’s just where I get paperwork done right now,” she informs him in that peppy voice, gesturing around at the large desk and aging computer.
“No company signage yet?” He asked, sideeying some of the unpacked boxes, and Shadow shrugged, neatly sliding a stack to one side.
“Have to talk to my cousin Dave on that. I don’t even know what the boss man’s officially naming this place yet, I just look after the fluffies,” she remarked lightly, opening the door into the facility proper. “Through there is the inside of the kennel runs and the quarantine cages, which currently hold a few strays one of my coworkers brought in,” she waved idly at the room of stainless steel and scrubbed floors to their left. “We have two small saferooms for fluffies that need to be isolated from the rest,” she added, brushing past the hosed down near closets to point him at the larger playroom, “But this is what I wanted to show you.”
He pushed open the door she indicated, blinking at the soft carpeted room on the other side. There was a pair of litterboxes in the corner, a few small water cooler style refilling bowls, low baskets filled with bright colored balls and blocks, rugs and cushions everywhere. A low plastic barrier separated out a smaller section as a scaled down version floored with washable foam padding. Tvs were mounted out of fluffy reach on the walls, the soothing sounds of Flufftv playing over them. There were even a few small toddler playsets in here, if only in the larger area. “This is the main playroom for our stock, the foundation of which you saw outside. For sleeping, they’re kept in those first two rooms on the right down the hall, one for the boys and one for the girls. We have crates for them to make their own nesties in, so they have their own spaces, but we don’t lock them in at night. When they were still weanlings they actually just all stayed in that little pen together, they were so cute at that age.”
“Oh, aren’t they always? Not that grown fluffies aren’t precious, but foals…” he sighed happily, clearly very impressed by the clean, well furnished surroundings. “What are the rest of the rooms down there?”
“Well, the grooming room shares space with the exam room our on-call Fluffvet, Katy, uses. Most of them don’t seem thrilled about anything that happens in that room, but…”
“But hard to do anything about that,” he laughed with her.
“Pretty much. Beyond that, we have the kitchen, breakroom, and laundry, the bathrooms, and my room as the live in caretaker. It’s not so very much space, but I’m rather proud of it.”
He patted her shoulder fondly, turning back to the entrance. “It’s a fine place, you should be, honey. And it is much nicer than any of the daycares around here. How does 50 bucks a week for each of my sweethearts sound? I’ll recommend this place to as many of my Alicorn friends as you think you can handle.”
“Well. it sounds good to me, but I’ll talk to Dave tonight and give you a call?” she offered, digging a dusty rolodex card out of a drawer to take down his number. The sweet, patiently cheerful smile she gave him as he headed on his way remained until the moment the door shut behind him. “Patronizing old…” she muttered under her breath as she headed back outside. The teenager had taken her spot at the shaded table, scrolling through something on his phone.
“What did the old dude want?” Randy slid over on the bench far enough to let her join, phone still open to a half typed reddit post.
“He was hoping we were an alicorn safe, high class daycare, and he’s willing to shell out 50 bucks a week each for a couple hours a day. I’m gonna put a bug in Dave’s ear about the idea, since if we can stick enough Alicorns in the playroom it’ll pay most of the utilities on this place until we’re further up and running.” She grabbed the soda she’d left under the shade umbrella, swishing it to check for wasps before she took a sip. “More importantly, the rumors that we’re a fluffy mill have to be countered if we want to avoid hassle from local fluffy welfare groups. The demonfluffs being invested in by a third of the county’s abuser forums is going to be enough red flags if it ever comes up. Everything visible needs to be bright, clean, and aboveboard. If you see Kal tonight, tell him we need privacy slats for the yard as soon as possible.”
“Will do, oh queen of the fluffmonsters,” he snorted mockingly, before Shadow made as if to tip the bench out from under him. “Sorry, sorry! Everything you said makes sense, I just think you’;re taking this a little too seriously. They’re fluffies.”
“Fluffies that cost a great deal for Bill to develop, modify, and implant into surrogates, whose offspring are expected to run about what early alicorns did to the right market, and who have taken entirely too many batches to get even this far,” she informed him dryly. “We don’t want them to develop aggression patterns against alicorns, so teaching them to get along with them in the playroom is a good exercise, with the fact it will ease the margin we’re working on a bonus. We also don’t want the locals to start petitions, blockades, or zoning issues against us.” Randy spread his hands appeasingly, and she sighed. “The kids weren’t any trouble while I was gone, were they?”
“Nah. Pretty sure they’ve just been playing tag around the playhouse. Their neighbors noticed they’re in here, though.” He waved a hand absently at the kennels.
In the far end of the yard, a handful of fluffies can be seen with their noses plastered against the chainlink fence, soft hooves occasionally digging futilely at the grass under the gate. They’re focused on the lush green grass on the other side of the fence, the bright colored playsets, clearly upset. Everytime the running demonfluffs came into view, the fluffies pawed harder at the gate, shrill protests rising in the air.
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