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- > In a white meadow covered with windswept snow sits a mighty tree
- > Barren and cold only icicles hang from the branches
- > Buried in burrows fluffies slumber in partial hibernation
- > Adults with their full winter coats sleep soundly beneath layers of fluff, fat, and companionship
- > Single mares born earlier this year aren't as lucky
- > Their winter coats are only just starting to come in
- > Though their foals cuddle with them the whiny squirming fluffies do little to help their mother sleep
- > "Mummah... hungee... tummee huwtie... mummmaahhhh..."
- > Constantly waking up mares with foals can do nothing for their children
- > "Jus sweep bebbehs.. *yawn* Nuu nummies yet... tuu cowd..."
- > Without thick coats or adult companions to warm one another mares and young fluffies tremble in their icy homes
- > Young colts and fillies won't survive the winter without large fat reserves
- > Most of whom didn't bother to gorge themselves instead playing in the "pwetty weaffies"
- > Now they regret with all their aching bodies
- > Emaciated fluffies in desperation try to dig out of the snow blocked burrows seeking food
- > Colts, fillies, lonely adults all long for the outside world
- > Those that aren't crushed or suffocated beneath a wall of snow find the outside as barren as their stomachs
- > With no visible landmarks, save the tree above them, the fluffies try to return to their burrows
- > Many are trapped outside when snow collapses behind them
- > Unable to return to the relative warmth of their burrows
- > They shiver and slowly fade in the face of icy winds and blanketing snow
- > Others are struck down by falling icicles or buried by falling snow
- > Their tree friend provides no protection
- > Those that don't escape their burrows to a slow cold death face starvation
- > With no food reserves to share from earlier this year nearly all the fluffies born in Autumn die
- > Desperate mothers, fathers, and siblings consume their fallen kin
- > Choking back bites as they fight back tears
- > Constantly mewling for forgiveness though disgusted mouthfuls
- > The cat however sits happily in his hollow covered with fluffy carcasses
- > He snuggles the warm fluff as he occasionally goes down into the white landscape to pick up another corpse for a winter snack
- > In the largest burrow beneath the tree sits a lone fluffy
- > Gray fluff sits in the food storage
- > For nearly six years he has watched over this herd
- > With the silly nummies all gone along with most of their reserves the herd starves
- > He can hear their mewling and begging, but can do nothing
- > Even with his slim diet and warm burrow there isn't enough food for him let alone a herd
- > He sobs alone in his small hole behind a false bark wall
- > All of his friends taken by the summer downpour and ensuing chaos
- > The last gray fluffy slowly wastes away as he begs the tree, sky, ground, sun, moon, and all other forces of fluffy nature to help
- > His prayers go unanswered
- > In one final desperate attempt he sets out to find any surviving fluffies
- > His weak arthritic bones tremble as he searches out survivors in the snow
- > Wispy fluff floats in the biting cold as his body is exposed to freezing temperatures
- > Yet through herculean effort he finds survivors
- > Gathering stragglers outside and fluffies in burrows he manages to find a quarter of his herd
- > The rest are either dead or still clinging to life in their shallow graves
- > Gathering in the great burrow once used to store food the surviving fluffies pile up
- > Gray fluff at the center surrounded by his children
- > They all desperately hug and cuddle to keep the cold at bay
- > Even after the entrance is filled with snow and the winds stop nipping at the pile they are freezing
- > Energy once provided by food stores to keep their body temperatures warm is unavailable
- > And fat reserves are used up within another week
- > Gradually the mewling from hunger, cold, sickness, and pain fades away
- > A barely surviving fluff pile begins to go cold
- > From the outside in fluffies die leaving only corpses to warm their children and friends
- > Illness spreads rapidly and the already weak fluffies succumb one by one to the cold , hunger, and sickness
- > For weeks the fluffies have gone without food
- > The pile doesn't engage in cannibalism still trying to outlast the cold
- > At the center of the pile Buzzy and Rosy hug their only surviving child
- > Before him, his oldest father and friend watches despondently
- > No words have been spoken by this herd for nearly a week
- > All of the fluffies too tired to speak or even mewl unhappily
- > They simply lie in a motionless pile
- > Soon Rosy silently slips away
- > The first words spoken are soft and sorrowful
- > "Wowsee... wowsee.. nuu... Wowsee... Buzzie wuv ouu.... nuu... pwease wakies... Wowsy..."
- > Overcome with sadness Buzzy draws the foal beneath his stomach cradling the frail child in his legs
- > Protecting the small malnourished fluffy with his whole body he sobs
- > As tears stream down his face he trembles at the cold now penetrating his body
- > In his final act of love he dies trying to keep his only living child alive
- > The cold seeps in around the small filly
- > Fatherly fluff doesn't stay warm long and soon he is as cold as the rest of the fluffies
- > Her whole body aches with hunger and pain
- > She has long since lost the energy to shiver only occasionally peeping quietly for daddy and mommy
- > With one last movement she takes a shallow sniff of her father and smiles
- > As tears roll down her face she too goes limp still embracing a father that gave everything in vain
- > Surrounded by his herd all silently embracing one another the last gray fluffy lays motionless
- > His friends, children, their children all lie still in the silent hollow beneath the tree
- > All of them asleep forever
- > As the only surviving fluff lays in the center of this mass grave he begins to think
- > About what could have been
- > About how he could have saved everyone
- > About his wife Wingie that he gave for the herd
- > About his brother Bark who was taken from him
- > About his old friends swallowed up by the watery meadow
- > About his favorite son Buzzy and his wife Rosy who gave their lives in vain
- > And about the frail little hope beneath Buzzy that was slowly snuffed out
- > Tears have long since stopped flowing from this old body
- > Hooves damaged from exposure and exposed frost bitten skin stings his withered body
- > For what seems like an eternity he lay in the wooden crypt surrounded by former friends and family
- > Then the cold slowly reaches his body
- > Thin gray fluff offers no protection
- > The thin skin is pierced by the icy knives of winter
- > To the very bone his is chilled
- > And as his heart gradually slows
- > And his mind wanders off
- > He slowly breathes his last
- > His eyes widen as the realization of death reaches him
- > With no heartbeat in his body
- > Tree slowly closes his eyes for the last time
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