Part 2: Moving Forward
You got back to the yard maybe 2 hours later. The ounce of shrooms you just ran ensured you had some spending money, all the better for the task now at hand. The fluffies had not moved from the backyard, the relative openness of it preferable to the dark and dangerous forest. They noticed your return and many promptly defecated upon remembering what you did to their former leader, others clung on to your decision to keep them and began babbling all kinds of cutsie nonsense.
“Excuse me.”
The herd fell silent immediately, an odd thing for fluffies but not unheard of.
“I will allow you to stay here in the yard, I will make sure you get food, I will keep the monsters away, and I will tend to your other needs as best as I can”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-”
“BUT, only good fluffies are allowed to stay. If you are a bad fluffy you will be kicked out and will not be allowed back in.”
The glorious celebration became slightly more somber now that a stipulation was added to their stay. Now it was time to sort and name. It’s hard to efficiently selectively breed without proper categorization.
“All right guys, soon-mummahs come to me, mares and fillies go over to the deck, stallions and cotls go to that corner. It’s time to meet you guys.”
The idea of getting personal attention from a human was something very intoxicating to fluffies. They quickly scrambled about the yard, getting in their perspective sorting areas. There were 5 soon-mummahs before you. Bright red with a purple mane, forest green with a brown mane, pink with a white mane, and a fluffy that was white with black spots and a black mane. You knelt down to the bright red one, her stomach already leaving her partially incapacitated. The cow patterned one had rolled her over. Her royal-looking purple name reminded you of Phoenicia. Looks like the Ancient History Minor you got in school was worth it.
“Hello there, pretty fluffy! Your name is going to be Dido.”
“Die-doe wuv nyu namsie! Be bestest mummah!”
“I’m sure”
You next focused on the pink one, her belly was still pretty normal-looking so she must’ve gotten pregnant fairly recently. She was a very pretty looking fluffy as she obviously took care of her fluff beyond what you would expect from a normal fluffy. That’s when the name came to you, you would name her after the woman who started the Trojan War over her beauty.
“My pretty mummah your name is Helen.”
“Hewen wuv namsie, gib upsies?”
“Not now, I still have to give the other fluffies names.”
“Otay”
The process continued with the green and brown dam. You gave her the name Gaea because of her earthy tones. You named the cow patterned dam Tomyris, after how individual her pattern was which back in your lab often indicated a more unique personality. Basically the same responses from the other two mares. “Wuv namsie”, “bestest” whatever. The mares were next. You stode over to the side of the back deck and found both mares and foals along with the fillies who were frolicking around in the grass. Maybe you should have separated the foals and the mares? You suppose it was a good call because foals and their mothers experience extreme separation anxiety, which was an intentional feature that you of all people would know as it was your team that added that feature. From the looks of things the smarty had kept his herd numbers under control, whether it was intentional was a different thing. If any mares had foals they had a max of 3 and the ratio of adults to young signified that purges had occurred incrementally or otherwise. You went up to the mare who was still snuggling the dark red filly foal who had survived prolonged impalement by the smarty. The mother had a blotched dark blue coat and a red mane, on her back I saw a single light green foal nestling in her fluff. The name popped into your head as you tried to think of something poetic.
“Hello mummah, your name is Boudicca”
“Boo-dica wuv namsie daddeh, tank fo’ sabin babbeh.”
“You’re a good mummah Boudicca and your daughter is a really strong foal. Let me know if she has any problems okay?”
“Otay daddeh.”
Next up was an orange mare with 3 foals on her back. Her mane was the same color as her coat which is pretty strange. The foals were black, red, and yellow. You’re gonna be lazy with the name and just throw out a historical figure. She was christened with the name Livia after Livia Drusilla. She made the name noises as the other ponies made before her as did the next mare. You gave her the name Agrippina as her light grey coat and white mane reminded me of a statue of Agrippina. She had no foals with her but seemed to be paying attention to the fillies playing nearby. The last mare was also watching the fillies play, her coat was purple and she had a gold mane. You could call it yellow-brown but gold sounds much better. You gave her the name Locusta because of how her and Agrippina were obviously the two mothers of the fillies playing and presumably some of the colts. Motherhood is a sisterhood after all, especially once the young are able to walk. The two mares did correct me when you presumed that all the fillies were theirs.
“Sum babbehs bewong tu pwettiest mummah” Locusta seemed to be referring to Helen judging by her body language. It seems the smarty had an established hierarchy before you came and while these fluffies didn’t have names they definitely had their place in the herd. You turned back to Locusta and she pointed a hoof at two fillies, one neon pink with a bright red mane, and one white with a light blue mane. You walked over to the neon pink filly and bent down to get more on their level and to make yourself less intimidating.
“Hey there girl! Do you want a name?”
“NAMSIE FO’ FLUFFY?”
“Yep your name is Inanna”
“Inanna is namsie?! YAAAAAY!!
You gave the other filly that belonged to Helen the name Nefertiti.
“Dat hawd name tu say daddeh…”
“I guess we’ll just call you Titi then”
“Titi wuv namsie! Go pway nao?”
“Yes, you can go play”
Titi bounded off after her sister and you moved on to the fillies nearest Agrippa. I gave her a glance and she motioned to two of the fillies indicating that they were her’s. You walked over to the one closest to you, an orange filly with a blue mane. You thought to give her the name Olympias and naturally she was absolutely overjoyed. As was her sister with a gray coat and green mane when you gave her the name Zenobia. The only females of the herd without names were Locusta’s single filly. She had a black coat with an orange mane. You gave her the name Ishtar. She was really happy that she could pronounce the name so easily. “Ishtaw”
Next were the stallions and colts. You half-expected some problems with this crowd as fluffies are very impressionable when it comes to role models in their life, and their last role model was a baby-rapist so that didn’t bode well. Hopefully they had some good dads but maybe that was an assumption best not made.