The Way Home // Chapter 14: Rescue Operation (by: Beast)

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"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?.."

Spike was confused, why wasn’t he in pain? He had been viciously attacked by a ferocious ‘barkie-munstah’ and yet he didn’t hurt at all, in fact he felt an entirely different sensation altogether. Spike felt something warm, soft, and wet brush against his back, it reminded Spike of when his mother or the black mare used to give him ‘lickie-cleanies’. Spike carefully and slowly uncovered his hooves from over his eyes and looked behind him, and sure enough the large dog was happily wagging his tail as he licked Spike’s back over and over. Spike couldn’t believe it, this terrifying behemoth was a friend as well!? He kept learning so much after leaving home; His mother Lemon used to tell him and his siblings about the dangers of the outside world all the time, but she never talked about all the friends out here too!

The tan mare had just caught up and was distressed to see the foals under attack, “NUUU! Bawkie-munstah pwease nu num babbeh! Babbehs am fo’ wuv an’ huggies, nu am nummies!”

“Am otay! Bawkie-fwend nu wan num Spike, onwy gib wickie-cweanies!”

The tan mare stopped in her tracks and reevaluated the situation, the ‘barkie-munstah’ was being very gentle with the foal and wasn’t showing any aggression. However, what stood out to the mare the most was the act of ‘lickie-cleanies’. ‘Lickie-cleanies’ was one of the most heartfelt showings of love fluffies could do to one another; The cleaning process would almost always not ‘taste pretty’ which meant it would only be done by mothers to their babies, ‘special-friends’, or best friends (or the fluffy equivalent).

Spike wanted to show his appreciation to his new found friend, so he turned around and stood up on his hind legs so he could use his front hooves to hug the dog’s snout. The dog didn’t seem to mind and continued to the give the foal licks (now on the stomach) while his tail kept wagging at an ever increasing rate.

“Tank yu bawkie-fwend fo’ wickie-cweanies, Spike wuv yu!”

Spike was slightly surprised by the cool, wet feeling of the dog’s nose but decided not to pull away and offend his new friend. Almost as if the dog could sense Spike’s trepidation he began to let warm breath escape his nose onto the foal, which elicited some happy soft coos from the recipient.

While Spike succumbed to huggie bliss the tan mare determined he was safe and went to go look for where Tulip had run off to. It was rather easy to figure out where Tulip had gone, even for a fluffy, as she had left behind a trail of ‘scardie-peepees’. The tan mare followed the trail back into one of the alleyways where she found Tulip hiding in a discarded soda cup beside a dumpster. Tulip was shaking so much that the cup looked like it was preparing to go rolling off to who knows where. The tan mare approached the cup and lightly tapped it with her snout causing it to shift slightly.

“Am babbeh otay?.. Bawkie-munstah nu am hewe…”

A firing of ‘scardie-poopies’ erupted out of the cup’s opening in response to the mare’s tap, however the constant shaking stopped as soon as Tulip heard the older fluffy. Tulip slowly popped her head out of the opening and surveyed her surroundings, for all she knew this could be trap, perhaps the ‘barkie-munstah’ had learned to talk and was trying to lure her out of her impenetrable fortress. These thoughts were quickly swept away as Tulip spotted the tan mare and waddled full speed at the beacon of safety.

“Huuhuuhuu! Tuwip am sowwy! Tuwip nevah, evah gon’ spwowe awone nu mowe! Huuhuu!”

The little filly’s eyes were cascading tears as she buried her face into the older fluffy’s side. The mare’s astonishment at the sudden outburst was quickly replaced with a desire to comfort the distressed little foal. She repositioned herself to a sitting position and hugged the crying filly into her soft chest fluff, the mare didn’t even mind that Tulip’s fluff had been recently soiled from her constant scares.

While the tan mare comforted Tulip, Spike was startled by the dog quickly pulling away from the foal backwards, causing him to fall and make a pomf sound as his little rotund tummy hit the grass. However, the dog was just as surprised and let out a small choked yelp as he was tugged backwards by the leash around his neck, a leash that Spike had just now noticed. The leash led back to a very disinterested looking younger man with earbuds stuck in both ears and tapping away at his phone in his other hand. The man refused to even look up once as he continued to sharply tug on the leash, causing obvious discomfort to his dog.

“Stop messing around, it’s time to go.”

Spike hadn’t known the dog long (quite literally just a minute or two), but he had shown to be a loving friend and to witness his mistreatment upset Spike greatly. So the little foal without a second thought made his stance wide and puffed his cheeks in a threat display that would make any (baby) fluffy wary. However, the impact was lost on the human as he continued to ignore both his dog and Spike’s valiant attempt at intimidation.

Spike decided to change his strategy as the tugging became more rapid due to the owner’s patience waning. scare tactics didn’t work, meaning Spike would have to escalate to actions! The little foal pumped himself up and then waddled headlong at the owner with a thunderous fluffy war-cry: “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Spike furiously peppered the human’s right shoe with powerful ‘sorry-hoofsies’ that would make even the most stone-faced of foals cry. However, for the human it felt like a light tapping as if someone had bent over to lightly pat his shoes. Normally the human would have just ignored this, but as it was happening directly under him he was able to witness the angry foal tapping away at his right shoe in his peripheral vision while still looking at his phone.

“Eww, gross.”

With the least amount of effort possible the human lightly kicked the foal away with the side of his foot before going back to looking through his phone. While the kick wasn’t strong enough to break anything, it still was able to knock the wind out of Spike and roll him onto his back. Spike uselessly flailed his legs in the air in a vain attempt to right himself as quick as possible. Most fluffies were able to reorient themselves off of their back but it tended to take time as the flipped fluffy would typically freak out and cry for help for a majority of the time. Spike reoriented himself just in time to see the human walk away while jerking the leash every few feet to get his dog to start moving again.

“Come on boy, I want to meet up with some friends so I need to get you home.”

Even as the owner talked to his dog and walked he continued to watch his phone. His dog watched Spike and whimpered as each yank pulled him farther away from his new friend. Spike felt his eyes well up with tears as the two receded into the distance. if he were a normal fluffy he would have chased after the pair and tried to defeat the human once more, but he was a smarty and that kick let him know that there was no way he was going to win against the human. A part of him still wanted to blindly chase after the human and attempt it once more, to save a friend and be a hero. But the smarty side of him knew that he couldn’t, and that made him sad.

Spike thought to himself: Was this what it had been like for the red smarty when their nest had been destroyed by monsters? The curse of being a smarty was realizing how powerless you were. No matter how much a herd built or how many friends one made, did it even matter if you were just going to lose it all to a meanie or monster?.. All of these thoughts hurt the little foal’s head, it was just so much for a fluffy to take in.

The headache these thoughts gave wasn’t helped by how hopeless they made Spike feel, but then a different sort of thought entered the saddened foals head: The red smarty was still trying, he had undoubtedly experienced these thoughts before as well and yet he kept leading his herd. He cared about his herd, enough to keeping leading after all the meanies and monsters and heart-hurties. It was a solemn form of inspiration to the growing smarty, he couldn’t give up! His brother and Sister still needed him!

The feelings of hopelessness and inspiration mixed together in Spike’s head and strangely resulted in reinvigorating the foal in his goal of protecting those he loved. Spike’s eyes went wide as he suddenly remembered why he was there in the first place. He had become so enamored by huggies (and really what fluffy could blame him) that he had forgotten to go make sure his sister was okay.

He quickly backtracked until he was back where Tulip had ran past him, then Spike was able to identify and follow his sister’s unintentional ‘trail’. The ‘yellow brick road’ led to beside a dumpster where the tan mare was tenderly hugging and comforting Tulip. Tulip was no longer bawling her eyes out and simply clung tightly to the bigger fluffy’s chest while letting out a few small sniffles every now and then.

“Sissie?.. Am yu otay?..”

Tulip stuck her head out of her soft chest pillow and looked at Spike. A range of emotions crossed the filly’s face in an instant before settling on shame. Her ears and little wings drooped as she began her apology speech, “Bwuddah… Tuwip am sowwy… Nu tink ‘bout munstahs… Tuwip wan make hewd pwoud… bu’ awmos’ gu fowevah-sweepies!”

Spike wiggled his way into the fluffy and filly embrace before bestowing his own hug on Tulip.

“Spike wuv sissie… hab wowstest heawt-huwties if sissie gu fowevah-sweepies! Bu’ hab bestest heawt-happies naow dat sissie am safe!”

Tulip returned the hug and cooed, doing things in a group was much better than trying to do it alone, after all you couldn’t get such great huggies while alone. Spike didn’t coo even as he receiving such an exceptional hug though, he was thinking about what would happen when they got back to the nest: Tulip had just apologized for past mistakes, now it was his turn to apologize…

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