“Alright so that’s the procedure, get ready to go when the sun starts going down. The vermin don’t like the dark so we can get them all at once as soon as they go to sleep.”
Victor had finally finished explaining how the job was supposed to go and left the room to his employees: Simon, Dylan, and Angela. Dylan was the first to speak up, “Fluffies, the new age rat. But hey, at least they’re easy to deal with.”
Angela responded, “If you don’t count the amount of excrement they produce that is.”
“True, but it’s not like a little bit of fecal matter is gonna deter us. After all, in this line of work you tend to need to take multiple showers when you go home.”
“I guess you’re right… hey Simon you okay? You’ve kinda had this thousand yard stare all morning.”
Before Simon could respond Dylan intervened on his behalf, “Oh you know him, always been a bit of a bleeding heart, tends to get a bit melancholy on jobs with fluffies.”
Simon retorted while rubbing the back of his neck, “Look, I just have some trouble when they start talking to me.”
“It’s okay man, most people have their grievances about how fluffies get dealt with. Don’t worry about it though, once you’ve done it enough it’ll just become another routine.”
A small part of Simon deeply wished for just that to occur. It was excessively draining to feel the amount of quilt and regret that he did after ever job involving fluffies, but the majority of him held on to these feelings. He almost felt that if he gave up these feelings he would also be giving up a vital part of himself that he couldn’t get back.
Angela clapped her hands to get the twos attention, “Alright, I think we should go ahead and start preparing for this evening.”
“You’re right, come one Simon! Let’s go!”
With that the three shuffled out of the room to make sure everything was prepared and in working order for that night.
“Bu’ fwuffy wan gud feews an’ speciaw-fwend wan babbehs!”
The exasperated stallion was desperately trying to get the red smarty to understand why he and his special-friend should be allowed to have babies.
“Nu! Cowd-times am soon! Dewe nu gon be nummies fo’ nyu mummah, an’ chiwpie-babbehs nu hab wawm fwuff! Smawty nu wan chiwpie-babbehs gu foweva-sweepies su smawty say nu!”
The stallion reevaluated his stance on the matter when he learned that his children would most likely die in the cold-times and went back to his special-friend more or less content. Spike had watched the debate as part of his smarty training and was just as surprised as the stallion with what the smarty had described. He never realized that there could be a time that more babies was a bad thing.
Spike had learned a lot from the smarty in just a few days, the most important of which was how to manage running a herd. He learned how to dictate a poopie-pile and a nummie-pile, and that they shouldn’t be close to one another. He learned how to direct toughies and punish bad fluffies (usually by taking away their nummies or toys for a day).
However, it was now time to go see his brother and sister off for the day as they each had their respective tasks to do and learn. As he neared the sleeping spot a very excited brown foal jumped up and down frantically calling, “Smawty bwuddah am hewe! Smawty bwuddah am hewe!”
The brown chirpy-baby had grown into a strong and healthy talkie-baby filly in the past few days, and it had immediately designated the black mare as her mother and the foal trio as her siblings. Initially the brown filly was terrified of the green alicorn for obvious reasons (to a fluffy), but was quickly taught the pointy-wingie-friend truth by Spike and the red smarty. As the filly got its first growth spurt it was discovered that she was a pegasus, it wasn’t apparent before due to the wings being small and malformed.
The truth of the matter was that her wings were perfectly fine when she was born, but the idea of a poopie having wings angered her mother. So her mother approached the newly born chirping foal and stated “Dummeh poopie-babbeh nu desewbe wingies! Nyu-mummah nu awwow poopie-babbeh tu fwy!”
With this declaration the fluffy mother bit down hard on the distressed newborn’s wings and tugged, this action caused the wings to become irreversibly crippled. While the foal would have never gotten anywhere close to flying even if its wings were in working condition, it caused the foal discomfort and sometimes pain to flutter her wings which would happen automatically every time she felt joy.
Berry and the brown filly had bonded almost instantly, and when she wasn’t feeding she was usually riding on Berry’s back as he went about his day. However, this arrangement worked in Berry’s favor as the extra weight allowed his legs to become stronger than they normally would have. Berry used this newfound strength to perform the strongest ‘sowwy-hoofies’ against the green alicorn in their sparing matches (although what counts as a sparing match to a fluffy is just a bunch of light taps in quick succession back and forth). As things were Berry was looking to be one of the toughest toughies the city had ever seen.
Spike, Tulip, and Berry would always hug before they parted ways for the day. They would mutter “wuv bwuddah” and “wuv sissie” between themselves as they hugged, sometimes they would be joined by the brown filly or the black mare. Once the trio had separated Tulip went to the tan fluffy’s sleeping spot, although Tulip had begun calling the mare ‘bestest-nummie-findah’.
“Tuwip am weady tu find mowe nummies!”
“Dat am gud, bu’ nummies am faw awa’ naow. Nee’ du wots of wawkies fo’ nummies naow.”
The nummie-finders had been doing a good job finding food recently, but this meant there was less food nearby and they would need to venture out further in search of potential food sources. Tulip was ecstatic that they were broadening their search zones as she still had a desire to see as much of the world as possible. The other nummie-finders had already left to search, but the tan mare had to go with Tulip to make sure the little foal didn’t get lost.
The duo searched high and low for quality food: from trashcans and dumpsters to begging every passerby on the sidewalk. They occasionally found something edible which they would bring back to the nest but none of it was of the quality the two were looking for. That’s when they found it, behind a building emblazoned with the visage of a mustached man sat a dumpster; and in that dumpster was held the holy grail of all foods sketti! The tan couldn’t remember the last time she tasted it and Tulip had only been told tales by her mother. However as they went to go retrieve the heavenly sustenance a cat appeared to block their way.
“Gu awa’ meowie-munstah! Dose skettis am fo’ fwuffy hewd!”
Before Tulip could charge the cat the tan mare grabbed her
“Wha am bestest-nummie-findah doin’!? Hewd nee’ skettis!”
“Meowie-munstah gib Tuwip wowstest huwties, den Tuwip gu foweva-sweepies! Fwuffy nu wan dat! Nee’ smawty, smawty knu wha du.”
Once Tulip had calmed down the two backtracked back to the nest and found the red smarty and Spike playing with the green alicorn and Berry in the main room. The black mare laid to side and watched as the brown filly drank her fill of milk.
“Smawty! Fwuffy nee’ smawty hewp!”
The smarty perked right up as soon as he heard that someone needed help, “Wha happen? Wha nummie-findah nee’?”
“Fwuffies find bestest nummies eva! Bu’ meowie-munstah keep fwuffies fwom nummies!”
“Den find oddah nummies.”
“Bu’ dese am bestest nummies eva! Dey am skettis!”
With the mere utterance of the word the eyes of every fluffy in the room lit up.
“Dat am dif-fe-went. Smawty make meowie-munstah gu awa’!”
“Bu’ meowie-munstah am munstah! How smawty beat munstah?”
“Fowwow smawty, wiww show smawty babbeh! Toughie babbeh come tuu! Babbehs wiww weawn how beat munstahs! Bwuddah stay an’ pwotec nestie wifout smawty.”
The plan was all set: The smarty, tan fluffy, Tulip, Spike, and Berry would go defeat the cat and retrieve the coveted skettis. However, before they could leave the nest a small brown figure stood in Berry’s way “Bwuddah nu weave babbeh!”
“Sissie nu can come, dewe am munstahs!”
The brown filly began to pout, “Nu cawe! Wan be wif bwuddah!”
The smarty saw the commotion and rather then try to argue with the young filly, he decided to bring her along.
“Bu’ wha if babbeh get tummie-huwties an’ nee’ miwkies?”
“Den babbeh mummah come tuu!”
So it was that the new band of fluffies included a small brown filly and a black nursing mare (not before saying goodbye to her special-friend). Finally with no more interruptions the fluffies departed on their search for skettis, leaving some very excited fluffies behind in the nest to imagine the wonder of the coming skettis.
“Alright the area’s cordoned off. The only people coming near this building are professionals, people with a death wish, idiots, and/or a combination of all three.”
Dylan had just finished setting up the flimsy barricade around the abandoned building to keep people away while they worked.
“Alright, everybody ready for this? It should just be standard fluffy procedure this time, nothing too fancy.”
Victor was going around doing last minute adjustments on the gear and suits. While Simon was usually bothered by jobs concerning fluffies this one rubbed him the wrong way even more-so. This mostly originated from the fact that he could hear the voices of fluffies from the building, even though they were supposed to be asleep by now.
“Uh, what if they aren’t asleep?”
Victor scratched his chin at the question, “Not much, though if they are sleeping they should be dead before they know what’s going on. So I guess it would be a relatively more peaceful way to go for the fluffy.”
Simon felt the chill along his back again but suppressed the shudder, he had a job to do no matter how unsavory it was.
“Any other questions?.. No? Then let’s get to work!”
