Part 4
All continued as expected. The fluffies continued to be unbothered, dumb little creatures and Steven continue to come in every day and do his work. He never had gotten that assistant, though there was at least some discussion that he may get one if the project lasted long enough. For now, it seemed his little experiment had all but been forgotten by his department. Oh well. It wasn’t like he had anything impressive to report to them yet anyway.
They continued to mate, they continued to increase their numbers, and their baby boom generation was just over a week old now, with the two litters conceived outside of the habitat already being full maturity, or close to it. He expected though that this baby boom would be eclipsed when those same foals reached maturity and started figuring out special huggies.
The fluffies were fed a few hours ago, and he was taking it easy today. He was halfway through a series about some lawyer. He had to say, great show. Doubtful it was realistic when it came to the court stuff, but entertaining all the same. He’d glance over at the camera feeds now and again, but it was all the same. Fluffies playing, talking, and that Smarty pushing his weight around.
He wondered what would happen if another Smarty came into the picture. Would the younger Smarty listen to the current Smarty and carve themselves out their own power? Or would it end up with a dead fluffy? He didn’t actually know what happened when two fluffies showed up in one herd. He knew that Smarties of different herds would easily push their herds into conflict, especially any tuffies, but he wasn’t sure about the threat from within question.
He paused his show to note down that though in the Smarty’s file. Now he really hoped he got to see it. Then he gave one more glance over his feed, and got back to his show.
Red was a big fluffy.
Red was the biggest fluffy in the herd.
Red liked being the biggest fluffy.
Red liked protecting the herd from meanies.
Red didn’t like the Smarty, but he trusted him.
Red liked cuddling with his special friend alone a lot more than in fluff piles.
Red didn’t expect how much he loved being a daddeh.
Red was a simple fluffy. He wasn’t dumb, at least compared to other fluffies, but he really wasn’t smart. He was a big tuff fluffy that could get what he wanted. Might made right, and he was the mightiest! The world would give you nothing without taking it away when you got too comfy, so you took all you could get and looked out for yourself.
But Red was no bully. He could bully if he needed to, but that was part of why he didn’t like Smarty. Smarty was always a bully, and he used Red and his other tuffie, Grinch, to get away with it. They both knew it, but Grinch was worried about Smarty liking him, seeking Smarty’s approval more than anything else. Grinch took their abandonment a lot harder than he had.
They had been Christmas fluffies. Red only vaguely understood what that meant, but he knew it was because their colors were really pretty for cold times. He was a deep red unicorn with a bright white mane. That white had gotten dirty in time, and was more grey now, but it was white when humans took care of him. They said he was a Santa Fluffy, but no, he was a big strong tuffie fluffy! He didn’t know what a Santa fluffy was, but he didn’t care anymore.
Grinch was his brother, and the humans would play with them all cold time! Humans used to laugh about their names, give them attention, sketties, treats, play with them. But then cold times ended. They had a nice housie, but mummah didn’t pay much attention to them. Sometimes, the litter box got too full, and sometimes they got no nummies for days. Before hot times, Mummah said we were too big and not cute fluffies anymore.
Mummah didn’t want fluffies anymore, so they got brought to the park to play, and Mummah disappeared. Red knew mummah didn’t want them anymore. Grinch still hoped Mummah would find them one day. They had eachother for a long time before they met the herd, and once they had the herd, they were the bestest tuffies! They protected all the fluffies from meanies and helped Smarty be in charge.
Red hadn’t expected to find a special friend. When he found his special friend, he expected her to leave him when he got too comfortable with her. But instead, they had babbehs! When his babbehs were born he expected dummeh humans to come take them away like they took Red and his brother from their mummah, but instead, they all stayed happy and healthy in their nestie! Red had never been so happy, and it made him suspicious.
So, while he kept bringing nummies to his special friend so she didn’t have to move their babbehs, he also started hiding some kibble in the back of their cubby, behind their blankets. He knew kibble wouldn’t go bad for a long time, even if it got yucky tasting. He would make sure his babbehs had nummies no matter what.
“Hewwo Wed!” Lemon called happily into his cubby, snagging the red tuffie’s attention. “Yu wan pway baww?”
“Nu wite nao Wemon. Got be daddeh, watch out fo widdle babbehs.” And he was. He’d been standing guard religiously since his babbehs had been born, only occasionally letting himself relax a little to play when he really couldn’t help himself. But only if his special friend said she was sure!
Lemon looked over at his babbehs, “Su pwetty babbehs. Dere so many babbehs in fwuffy wand nao! Can’t wait hab babbehs wif Fwower!”
Red stood there, not worried about Lemon but making it clear Lemon wasn’t allowed to come near his babbehs. “Wed stiww say Fwower bad at be mummah. Onwy hab one babbeh weft.”
“Was assident!” Lemon was quick to defend. “Fwower no mean wose babbehs. And so much mow safies in Fwuffy Wand!”
Red just looked at him, and nodded. He thought Lemon might be a bit of a dummeh, but he was a nice dummeh. He was fun to play with. “Okay. Gu way nao.”
Lemon nodded, and went off to ask someone else to play. Red noted that even though Flower could still walk around just fine, he didn’t seem to want to play with her specifically. Flower was always weird since the munstah took her horn. But he didn’t think more on that. He turned back to his guard duty, giving a glance to his babbehs and having the bestest heart feels.
He was a little chirpy baby, and he was so cold. He heard his siblings chirping nearby, but when she tried to crawl closer, he got stopped by something. He eagerly clung onto that thing, only to get owwies! He was pushed away and chirped louder, which made his siblings chirp louder in fright.
“Sowwy poopie babbeh. You haf go wast fo milkies.” She told him, but he didn’t understand! He was cold, and so hungry…
He heard his mummah start to sing, calming down him and his siblings. “Mummah wub babbehs. Babbehs wub mummah~” It was so pretty! He loved his mummah! And mummah loved him! But why was she not giving him huggies? He needed huggies and milkies…
He kept trying to get closer, and he did find one of his siblings at least. He hugged his sissy and sissy hugged him, and he was so happy! But then he was pushed again. “I say wait poopie babbeh. Dummeh.” It was said gently, but with a level of disgust that confused him! What did he do? What did poopie babbeh mean? “Otay babbeh, you turn fo milkies~” she pulled his sissy away, and he peeped, left cold again, and still so hungry.
Finally, after so many forevers, his mummah pulled him over forcefully and brought him to her belly. By instinct he found her nipple quickly and eagerly began to drink down milk.
“Otay dummeh poopie babbeh. Mummah hab nuff milkies fo you dis time.” His mummah told him, but he was just so happy! He loved his mummah!
But before he could even really sate his gnawing hunger, really get warmed by her fluff, he was pushed away! He peeped unhappily, still so hungry and cold again!
“Otay, dat nuff fo poopie babbeh. Nee mow fo bestest babbeh!”
He was left alone again, and this time, he didn’t try to find one of his siblings to hug. He didn’t like being pushed away. Why was mummah mad at him? He curled up cold and hungry, and just peeped in hopes of eventually being able to feel mummah’s warmth again.
Eventually, a new voice came. A familiar voice! It was daddeh! “Wuby, how is babbehs?”
“Babbehs is drink milkies and gib mummah huggies!” his mummah happily told daddeh. But what about him?
“How bouw bestest babbeh?”
Mummah giggled, “Bestest babbeh is dwink lots of milkies! Be big and stwong wike daddeh Smawty! Buh stupih poopie babbeh twy dwink too much milkies.”
He crawled towards his daddeh. And finally when he found something, he hugged onto it, that being his daddeh’s hoof. Daddeh didn’t react to him. “Stupih Wuby. Hab wots of nummies. You hab wots of milkies. Poopie babbeh is gud fo bestest babbeh. Hewp make him biggies. But nee milkies too.”
Mummah gasped, “Weawwy? Otay, poopie babbeh get widdle milkies den. Smawty special fwiend is so smawties!”
He was sudden kicked away! He rolled onto a soft nice blankie, not knowing what it was, but he was still hurt! What happened? Where did daddeh go?
“Smawty know. Special fwiend Wuby gud at make pwetty babbehs. Be bestest mummah to bestest babbeh, otay?”
“Yes! Be bestest mummah!”
And then daddeh was gone, and mummah happily continued to sing to his siblings, but what about him? He curled up again, sucking the one thing he could, his hoof. His mummah wouldn’t give him more milkies that day, and he’d only be warmed at the edge of their fluff pile in the night. Barely included. But mummah loved him, and he loved mummah. He fell asleep hoping for more milkies next time.
Steven hadn’t expected to be surprised when cleaning a litter box, but he was. He was doing the rounds to clean them once every few days, something he knew would unpleasantly get more frequently needed in time, when he reached the last one and found a living fluffy inside. It cowered in fear, looking up at him with wide eyes. It had blood on his face, was caked with litter, and looked close to dying from starvation already. Considering the boom of fluffies wasn’t that long ago, it had barely been given a chance to live.
It didn’t take him too long to figure out what was happening, or what foal this was, but he’d later check his footage to confirm. The unwanted ‘munstah babbeh’ that he’d seen excluded from the nest had been unceremoniously hurt and dumped in the litter box when it wouldn’t stop chirping for attention.
This was the second time he’d found a foal in a litter box, and he decided to note that down in case he kept seeing this behavior. Though, the last one had been the dead one he put back after putting it out of its misery.
Not exactly sure what to do, since he couldn’t exactly return it to the experiment now that it knew what happened to things in the litter box, he set it aside in a nearby sink, which it didn’t care for and chirped loudly at first, then very weakly about, finished cleaning the litter box and putting it back, then went online to look into the issue.
After some looking, he learned Alicorn foals with good colors could go for good money! This one was too young to know what its second color would be, not even walking around yet, but its coat was a nice orange. More money to put towards his project, or so he liked to tell himself. He started doing all the research, looked into where to sell it online, and finally went to give it a bath to clean it up. He had a lot of plans to get it healthy again to sell.
Those plans fell out the window when he saw it had tail bent wrong from being broken, and one leg with bone sticking out, already infected from the litter box. He hadn’t seen that stuff when he took it out, and now that he did he knew he didn’t have a payday, he had a pain in his ass.
That footage he would then go check also showed him the stupid thing’s daddeh gave it some really bad stomps when it wouldn’t shut up. It worked, for a time, but when it started again he finally just stomped on its head, trying and failing to give it, ‘forever sleepies’ and tossed it in the litter box before pissing on it for good measure. It stayed there like that, being ignored or sprayed with kicked litter for over a day before he pulled the box out. It was amazing to him how easily these ‘loving and adorable’ fluffies could get ruthless with their own offspring. It started to make him understand the hate for ferals especially.
He looked at the alicorn, considered his options, and tried a shelter. They were delighted by the idea of an alicorn foal, until he brought up the state it was in. Apparently, broken legs could just lead to a pillow fluff which was plenty adoptable, but an infection was too much trouble, and a fucked up tail just didn’t look good to most folks. It went from happy to, he’d need to pay them! The fucking nerve.
In the end, while he felt a bit bad, he took the little guy outside and left him under a tree. What else did you do with animals you got from the wild? You put them back where they came from, like releasing a squirrel trapped in your house back outside. But really, it was just not something he wanted to deal with. It chirped after him, having felt the warmth of his hand and cuddled into it as he brought it out, only for him to take that away from it.
The next day, it would be gone.
10 days later, the counter updated rather unnoticed down to 45/100, the boom of fluffy foals had gotten a lot livelier. The time had seen early stage foals go through their beginning walking and talking stages, playing with their siblings and dancing for their mummahs and daddehs. Hugging and talking in their little baby voices. Now, they were entering the next stage, and he’d noticed a few of the foals started to take a little sketti and start eating kibble, more each day for the last few days.
It was finally time to move the tray and fully fill their feeding trough, before they starter getting close to the bottom to find it had a lot less food than it seemed. So he removed it that morning, and finally mixed up his concoction of lower layers of kibble. He layered it down like a cake. A base of punishment bitter kibble, a mix of half that half bland ordinary kibble, mostly ordinary kibble and a bit of bitter, and then the layers he’d been using, ordinary, sketti flavored, sketti layer. From now on until the experiment ended, this was what they’d be given.
And it didn’t take long that day for a fluffy to find the not yummy kibble scattered within. They’d had no problem eating their fill, every bit of kibble, if not delicious then at least fine. So when one fluffy, some pink mare leading around her foals as she made her way to eat after the rush, started to dig in only to get something new and not at all pleasant, she was surprised and spit it out immediately on the floor.
“Yukkies! Nummies no taste pwetty!” she exclaimed for all nearby fluffies to hear. She kept spitting out what remnants of the kibble she could, “It no taste pwetty! Is bad nummies!”
This was absurd of course, and another fluffy eating looked at her funny. “Nummies is so yummy! Mawe is siwwy.”
“Nu! Is no taste pwetty!”
“Stop wyin.”
“I not wyin!”
The exchange went on with a few more fluffies calling her ridiculous and stupid, and happily eating more kibble right in front of her to prove it. None of them dug down deep enough to even risk getting the bad stuff, and quickly the mare was left ostrasized for lying so blatantly. Even her babbehs started telling her she was a liar as they ate at the kibble. Her special friend and the daddeh of their babbehs getting it for them and giving her weird looks for saying the nummies were yucky.
When even the Smarty showed to chastise her for lying, she broke down into tears and just kept trying to plead her case.
“Stupih mawe. Fwuffy Wand has bestest nummies. You is just dummeh wiar!”
“N-no! N-not am wiarrrr Huuuhuuuu!” she bawled, just a complete wreck that no one would believe her. “I-is y-yuckyyyy huuuhuu!”
“Nu waste gud nummies. Eat you kibble.” He pointed a hoof at the gross mess of mushed up half chewed kibble, a mess of good pieces and a bad one.
She huhued more at that, “B-bu-bu dat is yucky!”
“Nao!” He stomped a hood demandingly, and she seemed to buckle under the threat.
“S-speciaw fwiend! Helpies! Teww Smawty no am wiar!” she looked over, only to see her special friend looking away, not about to go against their smarty one bit, even for her.
The Smarty stomped once again, “Nao, or Gwinch gib stompies!” He glared daggers at her, and in that moment, always at the Smarty’s call, the big green tuffie ran over to stand menacingly next to his Smarty.
She huhued more, but finally bullied into submission and given no support, even her babbehs staying over with their daddeh over her, she began to force herself to eat the horrible mush. But the flavor hadn’t exactly improved, and the dirty floor mixed with the gross flavor of the bitter half eaten nummies, and she only forced half of it down before she spit it out on pure reflex, “Nuuuu! It no taste pwetty! Huhuuuu!”
“Stupih wiar. You get no mowe nummies.” Smarty looked to his tuffie, “Gib kickies!”
Without hesitation, and only with enough time for the mare to huhu more, not quite realizing what she’d heard ordered, the tuffie turned around and gave her an awful kick to knock her down on her side. It knocked the wind out of her, and she made a quiet gasp for air.
The Smarty turned his backside to her, raised his tail, and have her sorry poopies. A horrible, vile slurge of poop all over her belly that left her wailing from the icky smelling liquid and the pain. Then she was left there, the daddeh bringing the babbehs away, and the Smart leading his tuffie away, done with her.
Steven watched, and made sure to bookmark this part of his recording. He was fascinated just how poorly the first piece of bitter kibble had gone over with the fluffies. It was just pure dumb bad luck she’d even chosen a spot where the kibble was low enough to get to the bad stuff. And no other fluffies had any, so she was immediately an outcast.
But that wouldn’t last long, he knew. As soon as the adolescent foals just starting to eat solid foods got a proper fluffy appetite, a lot more fluffies would start running across the unpleasant surprise bites. He had to wonder what that would do.
For the rest of his time that day, when he glanced over the screens he’d make a point to check in on that mare. She spent a long time sulking, only to eventually get up and eat more food. Unlike before, this time she didn’t get any bad tasting bits. It was enough to gaslight the dumb thing, as now even she looked like she was doubting herself. He could almost feel bad for her, if this weren’t a perfect place to make a little bit of focus in his report on the project. “The introduction of negative variables in food supply and the aggressive reaction against deviation from normalcy by fluffies.” He decided on to himself.
The poor mare was kept a good distance from, if not because she was a ‘big dumb liar’ then because she was covered in vile sorry poopies. Even cleaning them off didn’t seem to help, and was something he couldn’t bare to watch himself, though the cameras of science never stopped their recording.
When finally she tried to return to her room to see her special friend and babbehs, she was barred from entry. ‘Gwinch’ which he assumed was supposed to be Grinch, stood guard near both doors on that side of the enclosure, not allowing her to get anywhere near the two doors. She was desperate to be with her babbehs, but as the clock ticked and time was running out, she desperately ran to the other side to try and get in there, anything to get out of the room before scary dark munstah time, as they all now considered it.
Red stood guard opposite of his brother, and refused to let her in. “Sowwy. Smawty say no wet you in woomies. Poopie mawe stay in woom wid munstah.
She bawled and cried and tried her best to get past him, but just got pushed back. Red only stopped when the doors started to close, and he sprinted to get back in his own room, scared of being locked in the dark with a munstah himself.
She tried to get up and run into the other room, but she stopped when she saw fluffies crowded inside watching her. “Hewp! Hewp mummah! Nu wan be munstah nummies!” she cried, but they didn’t move for her. The door closed with them watching her, and she was left in a sudden dark, munstah noise filled room, where she collapsed and huhuued so loudly, it would even get through the doors, though not far through them.
He wrote up a quick hypothesis and figured it would make for a good talking point.
‘When the bitter elements of food were introduced to fluffy food supply, first subject to experience bitter food reacted negatively as expected. However, fluffies around her reacted far stronger to the idea of bad food in their so far perfect food supply in a very negative fashion. Reaction led to complainer being forced to recant, and on repeat of food being bitter, was ostracized from the herd. Drawing from this, it can be expected that the next to find bitter food will not so readily admit to its taste, and it may be some time before fluffies admit openly to finding bitter kibble in their food trough.’
He got the fan turned on, the screen turned off, and the poor fluffy was left to suffer the night like any other stuck in the room. Meanwhile, he ordered himself a to go order, happy with today enough to get himself some takeout, and shut down the room for another night. Steven was going to enjoy himself a good old chimichanga.