Hey there everyone, here’s chapter 2 of Work of Madmen. Hope you guys enjoy.
Fun Fact: Pretzel nibbled on things as a baby that terrified the entire herd.
. . .
You’re Mabel, and you were currently planning out a big change. The herd seemed to enjoy each others company, but you decided to get another fluffy for the herd. Maybe Odin could actually get a mate instead of focusing on protecting the herd. The fluffy was a good smart, dedicated to his herd, but he seemed to put others before him too much. You let the herd know you’ll be out for a while, and head to a local fluffmart.
. . .
Gazing upon the fluffies, you immediately see a depressed looking fluffy. You turn to one of the workers.
“Hey, what’s with that one?”
“Oh yeah. Had to be separated from it’s owner, too expensive to take care of. She refuses to talk at all ever since.”
“Poor thing.”
You decide to take that fluffy, but you first grab the essentials. Kibble, more litter, everything like that. But then you stop at the abuse section. The colors on that fluffy were pretty nice, and it worried you a bit. White with a lavender mane, you look very carefully. Not to mention that Acorn was expecting foals, and that could go any possible way. You look at the sorry sticks, and shudder at some of them. One of them came with a poison that would make the fluffy incredibly itchy. Another one seemed to have sharpened fluffy bones on it. You pick the basic sorry stick, and a bag of punishment kibble that simulated the feeling of a child after thanksgiving when they have to eat potatoes for another month.
Then you go pack to the pens, and all of the fluffies rush at you.
“NYU MUMMAH?”
“PWEASE TAK’ FWUFFY!”
You gently push them back, and grab at the depressed fluffy. It looks at you. “Nyu mummah…?”
“You guessed right. I’m going to take you home to a nice herd.”
“NYU MUMMAH! YAAY!”
. . .
“Mom. Why do I hear screaming from the carrier.”
“Come with me, Odin.”
“Alright.”
You pick him up and set him down on the table, and take the carrier into the other room. You drop off the fluffy, named Lavender, in the safe room.
“Alright everyone, I got you a new friend to play with! Be nice, she lost her owner before. I’m going to go talk with Odin.”
And Lavender creeps out as you walk back to Odin.
. . .
Your name is Pretzel, and lately you’ve been feeling down. You awoke from a dream after your mummah came home, and it was still haunting you.
. . .
All you heard was someone saying sorry. Blood bathed the walls and multiple figures were scattered across. You look closer, and it’s the mutilated bodies of your herd. All have bite marks, and you see yourself in the center, standing over the corpse of Seashell, still chewing. It can’t be real. It’s just a nightmare, it’s not real…
. . .
You attempt to block it out of your mind, and look at Lavender. After mummah left, she had a look of disgust on her face.
“Wai am dewe ugwy poopie an munstah fwuffies?”
“Wha’? Hewd am not poopie an munstah. Yu am meanie.”
“NU! WAVENDEW AM NYU SMAWTY!”
Seashell looks at Lavender with anger. “Wavendew am nu Smawty. Bwuddah am smawty, yu jus’ dummeh poopie meanie.”
“NU! YU GUN HAF WOWSTEST HUWTIES!”
Lavender immediately barrels into Seashell’s flank, knocking her over. The injury would be hidden, so nobody but you would know what happened. But you felt weird when it happened. You began to tremble, and your jaws hurt. It felt like you wanted to bite something, and needed to bite now. You look at Lavenders leg. You could sink your teeth into it, tear the flesh off, and keep chewing. No… You can’t. You charge as fast as you can, and plant your hoof directly into her face.
“OWWIES! TEEFIES NU GU WAY! HUUU HUUU!”
Little white things fall out, and she starts crying on the floor.
“M-meanie poopie fwuffies teww mummah abou’ dis, an’ Wavendew wiww gif poopie mawes tummeh babbehs fowebah sweepies!”
You hesitate. She would kill your mothers unborn foals. Your siblings. Acorn starts crying, and the rest of the herd comforts her. Mabel storms in, with an angry look on her face. “Pretzel, what the hell did you do?”
You look down, and can’t stop yourself from clenching your jaw.
“Pretzel, if you don’t answer then you get the brand new sorry stick I got.”
You try to stop the desire to sink your teeth into soft flesh. Luckily, Mabel picks you up and carries you to another room, but you know it’s for punishment.
. . .
You’re Mabel, and you just had to punish one of your fluffies for the first time. Ever since the fight, Pretzel has been a little jumpy, but you didn’t expect him to attack your new fluffy. He didn’t even cry when you whipped him (lightly, you know he was going through some tough shit), but he complained about his mouth hurting even though you didn’t hit him near there. Oh well, Odin’s probably sorting it out now.
. . .
“Hey there, I’m Odin. Their Smarty. You alright?”
Your name is Lavender, and the herd’s smarty showed himself. And he was scary. He only had one see place, and he was huge! He also spoke like a human, which creeped you out a bit. But you felt something else, but you pushed it aside.
“Y-yesh… meanie fwuffy gif sowwy hoofies. Gif hewd scawies.”
“I’ll make sure Pretzel gets punished, but don’t push his buttons. He’s going through a hard time, and if you aren’t careful he might… take a chunk out of your leg.”
That poopie fluffy was so much of a monster he would eat another fluffy? What was with this herd? But you knew that you could only be the smarty when Odin wasn’t around. You play along, and for the rest of the day, the cannibal didn’t show up.
. . .
You’re dreaming, you can tell that. And a weird red monster appears.
“I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. YOU WILL REGRET IT. HE WILL KNOW. AND YOU WILL BE REDUCED TO NOTHING BUT A LIVING MEAL.”
. . .
You didn’t get to respond, because your mummah came back and put the meanie fluffy back down. The rest of the herd woke up, and the smarty went over to him.
. . .
Your name is Pretzel, and you feel terrible. It’s getting harder and harder to control your urges, the desire to just bite something over and over again until it stopped moving. Odin came up to you, and you can’t even look him in the eye.
“Pretzel. We need to talk. Nobody has told me why you hurt Lavender. I know that you’ve been feeling unstable after the fight, but you need to tell me.”
“Mouthie huwties…”
“What? Did Mom hit you there?”
“Su sowwy smawty… haf wowstest mouthie huwties wen neaw fwuffies. Nu wan num fwuffies, bu’ feew angwy…”
“Damn. I’m sorry Pretzel, but we can’t do much about it now. Just do your best. But did Lavender provoke you?”
“Fwuffy nu knyo…”
“Fine then. I know you’re lying. But I will find out.”
. . .
Nobody will tell you shit. It’s annoying. The herd kept lying about Lavender provoking Pretzel, poor Pretzel, the cannibal that doesn’t want to eat it’s own kind. Oh well. In a few hours you’ll be meeting up with Scourge.
. . .
“She probably threatened to do something if they told on her.”
“Like what? Not much she could do without us finding out.”
“Lavender probably acted sad for a new home, but she’s likely a Smarty, and tried to take your herd. She took it back when you saw one. You’re a scary bastard to most fluffies.”
“Thanks. But back to that question, what could she do? Wait… oh god, Acorn…”
“What about her? If Lavender hurt her, then I’m pretty sure the rest of the herd would maim her.”
“Scourge, she’s pregnant. What if that’s why?”
“Then Lavender threatened to kill her foals. Seashell is too kind and stupid to tell Mabel, because she doesn’t want to risk them. Peanut would rather die than put his foals in danger. And Pretzel is having too many problems because he’s trying to suppress his cannibalistic urges.”
“But we can’t be sure. What if it really is just Pretzel going crazy? Think about it, he’s hungry as hell for fluffy flesh. He sees a new fluffy that isn’t his family or his crush. I bet Kipling would agree that would make him hungry.”
“Maybe. But then again, she has good colors, right? I bet it was some little girl who wanted a pretty fluffy so her dad bought one and she became too expensive to care for because she was spoiled and became a brat. You should deal with her. Maybe ask Mimir. Who fuckin knows.”
. . .
Your name is… yeah, you don’t have a name and don’t care. All you had on your mind were two things. The first one was hope. Hope of finding a new herd, one that accepted you, and the second one was food. You were tired and hungry, and weren’t too keen on eating leaves like a giraffe. You heard barking, and tensed up. You dashed into the bushes, until you realized it was inside somewhere. A house.
A fence blocked your path, but you could see bowls of food through the gaps between the posts. Looks like whoever lives here has dogs, and there’s a lot of kibble and water. You looked for a way in, but you couldn’t see anything. You could try digging under, but it might make noises. Until you realized that the kibble wasn’t just for dogs. It was fluffy kibble. And right there, a fluffy stumbled out. It started to eat the kibble, and you decided to put on a show.
“Uhm… H-hewwo, nice fwuffy wet fwuffy in? Tummy huwties…” It was hard and made you lose all dignity, but you had to keep up the act. The fluffy looks over, and it’s eyes go wide.
“Pwetty mawe…”
It bashes it’s head into the fence until a small part comes off. You crawl through, and the fluffy stares at you.
“Pwetty mawe wan be speciaw fwen?!”
“Fwuffy haf tummy owwies. Wet fwuffy haf nummies, den be speciaw fwen.”
He seems to accept this, but you made sure to look over your shoulder before eating. You didn’t want him creeping up on you. Shoving mouthfuls of kibble into your mouth, you eat as much as possible and turn back.
“Pwetty mawe wan be speciaw fwen nao?!”
“Nice stawwion wook away.”
He giggles and turns away. You don’t hurt him, you aren’t that horrible, but you simply sneak out, and run as fast as you can.
“PWETTY MAWE!? SPECIAW FWEN? WEWE SPECIAW FWEN AT?”
You hear a door slide open. “Hey, Kite! I thought I said no special friends, and here I find you yelling about one! You’re going to get the sorry stick!” You hear metal clinking. Oh shit. You run away as you hear the cracking of a sorry stick, and unfortunately crying about special lumps. At least he isn’t dead.
. . .
You were full, so you decided to keep traveling. Until you hear another fluffy.
“Mummah, Kiwping smeww mawe.”
“Really? Well then, bring her out.”
You dash into a clump of bracken to hide, knowing that its a bad idea, your fur wasn’t suited for camouflage. A big fluffy comes out, with wild spirals in his eyes, and comes straight to you. It sticks it’s head into the leaves.
“Hewwo mawe.”
“AGH!” You slam your hoof into his nose, and run away.
“GAH! KIPWING GUN NUM YU FOW DAT!”
“GO AWAY! YOU FREAKISH CANNIBAL!”
“Hoomin tawkies? CUM HEWE NAO!”
A human walks up this time, and picks you up. “Now then, why do you talk like my brother’s fluffy?”
“LET ME GO!”
She didn’t lift you up that high, so you jump out and land in a bush. It hurts, but your fall was broken. You ran for it, as fast as your legs could go.
“Kipwing can nu smeww mawe!”
You decided to lead them on a chase, so you suddenly stopped running, and ran in place to create the illusion that you were still running. The pair ran past, and you let out a sigh you didn’t know you were holding. The bushes shook behind you. You whip around, and it’s Mimir.
“I really hope you didn’t know that the cannibal knew the fluffy you were looking for.”
“You’re… you’re kidding, right?”
“No. But they’re likely long gone, and likely going to kill you on sight. So you should rest up for now. They’ll give up and go home.”
“Why can’t you just take me there? Why do I have to do all of this?”
“Traveling with me for too long could damage you. I am not risking it. So far, you’ve had it easy compared to him. He lost an eye, then had to have it removed in a fight, and has to manage with an entire herd all by himself.”
“…fine. Can you give me pointers on where to go next though?”
“Go through that alleyway. It will lead you to a place he has been. But rest now. You’ll need it.”
“Okay.”
You hope you find him. You really do, because your only other option is to just find the nearest wild animal and let it tear you to shreds. Oh well. You lay down and begin to sleep.
