Gus stood outside in his back garden, taking a final cigarette for the night. Inside Florence tended to the wounded Rosie and Snapdragon, both hurt physically and mentally by Scumfuck’s invasion.
Taking stock of the workshop, 7 of the 19 foals inside the box had been crushed, unfortunately the survivors were too traumatised by the events to be of any use, with most of them being chirpies the influence of sexual violence and brutality had imprinted onto them, they would have nightmares for the rest of their lives without ever knowing why. Worse still, none of them would ever want to breed again, essentially making them worthless.
Gus took the survivors into a cloth sack and tossed them into the Chikahiro river earlier that day, it was either that or sell them as snake-food and that felt like too much hassle.
Snapdragon and Rosie stayed behind, mostly because Florence hadn’t left their side in hours. Snapdragon’s missing leg wasn’t a major concern, Scumfuck’s attack had at least cut the leg off fairly cleanly. His issue was psychological, the guilt over being unable to save his sister and the chirpies had thrown the Toughie babbeh into a spiral of depression.
Although he was a ray of sunshine compared to Rosie.
Rosie’s injuries were numerous and severe, her back had been broken from Scumfuck’s assault meaning there was no feeling below her waist, her back legs refused to move and she had no control over her bowels, resulting in numerous ‘bad poopies’ where Rosie had no idea she was even shitting. Worst still, Scumfuck’s assault on the filly had split open her special-place and busted her hips into the wrong direction, Rosie was now officially barren with her young body unable to heal properly against some violent wounds.
The embarrassment, trauma and pain both physical and emotional was pushing Rosie to the edge of the wan-die loop, Gus reasoned it was only a matter of time before she fell, even with Florence’s care.
Part of him wondered if the right thing to do was euthanize Rosie now and save her the pain, or give Florence a hopeless chance to save the filly’s mental state.
Cursing under his breath, Gus stubbed out his cigarette on the brick wall of his house and went back inside, heading straight for the spare bedroom where he’d set up a place for the Fluffies to sleep since none of them could be in the workshop without bursting into tears.
It would take a long time to scrub the stench of death out of that room.
Inside the bedroom, Gus found Florence curled up around a sleeping Rosie and Snapdragon, both foals were crying in their sleep, trembling from unseen nightmares, all the while Florence sang to them.
“Babbehs am gud, babbehs am bwave, nu-wun huwt babbehs, neba again.”
Gus didn’t know if her singing was doing anything to help, but it made Florence feel better.
“Florence? You want to head downstairs for a bit?”
Florence looked up and nodded. “Yeh Mistah Gus, babbehs am sweepies nyo. Fwowence nu fink it gud sweepies, bu stiww am sweepies.”
Carefully Gus lifted Florence out of the bed and carried her down into the basement, he had to smile when he saw the hungry look in her eyes as he took her downstairs.
As soon as the stairs started creaking, the screaming started.
“NUUUUUUU, MUNSTAH GU WAY, SMAWTY NU AM NUMMIES, NU WAN BE NUMMIE NU MOWE!”
Gus ignored the crying and placed Florence on the ground, instinctively she sought out her prey, her mouth and her sense of sweet justice both salivating at what was to come.
Left abandoned on the cold, course concrete floor, lay Scumfuck, or more appropriately what remained of him. After several feedings Florence had taken three of his legs, one of his ears, part of his cheek, both his cock and his balls and had repeatedly munched into the flesh of his back, being careful not to bite too low and risk disembowelling the monstrous fuck.
Although judging by the deep cuts on his belly, Scumfuck was in danger of doing the job himself.
Using his one leg, Scumfuck dragged himself across the ground, trying to escape Florence’s drooling maw, part of him knew there was no escape, but he couldn’t allow himself to think that, that a great Smarty like him was trapped. Once he realised how fucked his situation was, then he’d have to accept that he was a fucking idiot.
Florence easily caught up to him and kicked him onto his back, the former Smarty wailed in fear as the hole where his dick use to be spray piss into the air.
“Pwease, nu huwt Smawty, am gud Fwuffy nyo, neba huwt anee Fwuffy eba gain.”
Florence scowled as she heard the empty words of a dead Fluffy, fed up of listening to the whining she dashed her neck forward and latched her teeth onto Scumfuck’s right eyeball.
“NUUU, NU TAKE SEE-PWACE, SMAWTY NU WAN FOWEBA DAWKIES!”
Florence punched Scumfuck in the gob, shutting him up and pushing him away so that she could rip his eye out of his skull. It was an odd appendage to chew on, too smooth and spongy to get a grip on at first but once it popped the liquid insides washed down her throat with a mildly bitter aftertaste, not her favourite snack but worst it to see Scumfuck’s reaction, blood pouring down his face as he used his one remaining limb to “hug” the wound better, inadvertently hurting himself even more.
Scarlett spat the broken membrane back at it’s owner and turned to Gus.
“Fwowence dun, can gu bak nyo Mistah Gus?”
“Of course we can.”
Gus lifted Florence off the ground and took his back upstairs, leaving Scumfuck to wallow in pain and misery for yet another day.
In his kitchen, Gus sat Florence by the sink while he wiped the blood from her face, a regular tasks for the two of them, made even more important by their shared wish not to scare the foals.
Of course it was the foals that were on Gus’ mind at that moment.
“Florence, I wanted to talk to you about Rosie and Snapdragon.”
“Du Mistah Gus wan babbehs gu way?”
“Yeah, I know it’s hard but they have to go.”
“Can babbeh nu stay wittew wonga, tiww nu hab heawt-huwties nu mowe?”
“That might be a long time Florence, they might never stop having heart-hurties. And if that’s the case, then this isn’t the right place for them, we need more foals here for my work and I can’t have any chirpies here if Rosie and Snapdragon are going to make them all sad.”
“Fwowence undastan, nu am sadies tu see babbehs gu bu…”
“But what?”
“Dis feew diffawent, babbehs hab wowstesh huwties, Fwowence wan hewp babbehs nu hab huwties.”
“Do you remember when I found you, your home had caught fire, your daddies had abandoned you and your family and you had to do horrible things to survive?”
“Fwowence wememba, wowstesh heawt-huwties finkin bout dat.”
“You don’t ever want to go back to that place do you?”
Florence shook her head and trembled. “Neba.”
“Well… Rosie and Snapdragon are like that for this place, living her will only ever remind them of what happened, at least outside of here, they have a chance to be happy.”
“Fwowence neba fink bout it wike dat. If Mistah Gus say it am betta fing fow babbehs den Fwowence twust him.”
“Attagirl, I know it sucks but it’s the best thing for them.”
Gus rustled Florence’s mane and smiled at her, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that the plan was to send Rosie and Snapdragon off to Vincent’s shop, admittedly under good intentions. The two of them would have a fun day with the store’s nursery before Vincent gassed the two of them in their sleep. A happy and painless end, that was as good as Gus could give them.
Gus wiped the last of the blood from Florence’s fluff and dried her off with a cloth. “There you are, nice and clean, you ready to go to bed yet?”
“Nu yet, can Fwowence wook at sky-wights fiwst pwease?”
“Yeah go on, you’ve earned it.”
Florence waved her hoofs in excitement and as soon as Gus placed her on the floor she toddled off to the Fluffy-Door leading to the back garden. Gus followed her outside with a cigarette, staying by the doorframe whilst Florence parked her butt and looked up at the night sky, spell-bounded by the shining stars.
Gus leaned against the door and watched her, he thought about when he found her, covered in soot and ash, the only survivor of the fire that had claimed her breeding pen. She was a young mare then, sharing a pen with her own mother and already having been bred numerous times, apparently she had been pregnant when the fire started, but when Gus found her there was no sign of any young.
Although what he had seen of her mother’s remains explained what had happened.
The foals were apparently stillborn, which made it easier for Florence to eat them, but it was her mother than explicitly told Florence to eat her when she passed, that she was willingly giving herself to her daughter’s survival, as her father had done when she lived as a feral. The much older, larger mare provided Florence with enough meat to keep her alive for several days, Gus could also guess that this was where Florence’s cannibalistic tendencies were unlocked, a genetic tick from her mother that kicked in during her first taste of blood.
Flicking away his half-finished fag, Gus walked across the garden to join Florence, he looked up and tried to see if there was anything he was missing, but all he could see was stars.
“You never told me why you like stars so much Florence.”
“Cos mummah say dat ebewy sky-wight am a Fwuffy dat gu foweba sweepies, dewe am su many sky-wights cos dewe am su many Fwuffies. Fwowence wike tu wook up an fink bout which wuns am Fwuffies she knyo.”
Florence raised a hoof and pointed towards two small stars close together. “Dat am Pwimwose an Pan-see, dey togetha in sky-wights su awways hab fwiend.”
Florence moved her hoof over to a big, bright star higher in the sky. “Dat am mummah Wuby, sky-wight am shy-nee wike she was”
Florence pointed slightly lower to cluster of stars just below the ‘Ruby’ star. “Am dey am Fwowence bwuddas an sissies, dewe am yewwow sissy Petaw, an owange sissy Citwus, an yewwow bwudda Dee-Jon, an…”
Florence stopped and lowered her hoof. “Fwowence nu see sky-wight fow wed bwudda Wex, Fwowence fink he am ok. Wan see him gain, teww him dat sissy stiww wub him.”
Gus knelt down and stroked Florence’s back. “Maybe you will someday, but not tonight, it’s time for bed.”
Florence nodded and waddled back inside, humming an off-key tune to herself. Gus took a final look back at the stars and chuckled, there was a lot of stars and there were a lot of Fluffies, maybe she was on to something.
As he followed Florence back inside, Gus did wonder about her missing brother, apparently her brother Rex had escaped the breeding mill to go look for their father and hadn’t returned. Whether he was alive or dead she couldn’t tell but she hoped he was alive. Gus himself would’ve liked to met Rex as well, if only to test his theory that Florence’s cannibalism was a genetic trait.
In the end he decided to leave it, finding one Fluffy in a city was damn near impossible and after so many years, Rex was likely dead by this point and even if he wasn’t there was no point putting that much effort into what was likely a dead-end hypothesis.
Gus closed the back door, turned to leave, then stepped back to make sure the Fluffy-Door was locked before heading to his bed, mentally preparing himself to clean the workshop and get a new batch of test foals in over the next week.
After all, he still had work to do.
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