Runtyshy: Part 1

Pain.

	Pain cuts through darkness, and all you can really sense is a dull throbbing in your arm. You try moving it, but it feels stiff. Every part of you feels stiff. You’re paralyzed, that’s what it is. Oh fuck, no, no, no. You can’t be paralyzed.

	You feel the pain again, and a bright light slowly comes into view.

	Why do you feel so heavy?

	Something starts to fade in.

	Something.

	You can’t make it out.




	You jolt upwards out of bed, your arm aching like there’s no tomorrow. Looking around, you see your familiar bedroom. Everything is placed as is; your dresser is still slightly ajar but still pushed against the wall, your papers are somewhat neatly stacked on your desk, a yellow Pegasus fluffy sitting in a cat’s bed, resting on your nightstand-

	Wait a minute, that’s a bit different.

	You tenderly rub your temples as you slowly begin to remember what you did. It’s hazy, but you can recall Runtyshy- what the hell, you’ll call her that in your head, but it’s ‘Fluffyshy’ out loud- chirping when she was sitting on that cat’s bed on the floor. When you pet her, she calmed down right away. When you rolled over to get some sleep, she was back at it in only a few minutes. You couldn’t blame her, though; if you were blind, weak, and, well, a fluffy pony, you wouldn’t want to be away from your lumbering caretaker much, either.

	Opting not to run the risk of squashing her by placing her in your bed, you moved the cat bed onto your small nightstand. Unfortunately for the both of you, simply being close to your bed didn’t quell her separation anxiety; you ended up having to hang one arm off of the bad and just let her snuggle up to it. While it was, admittedly, fucking adorable, it’s probably to blame for your arm hurting so much.

	Speaking of, that dream you had was odd. Sure, the pain in your arm probably was what woke you up, but you’ve never experienced sleep paralysis before, nor have you panicked that much in a dream of all things. You remind yourself not to read too far into things and deal with the problems at hand.

	First and foremost, your arm is asleep. Poking it gives you that pins-and-needles feeling that you just can’t seem to shake. You’re reminded of that one television show that was on the Innovation Network, about the torture devices. The name passes you at the moment, but you’re almost surprised that you’ve heard hardly any fluffy abuse cases using these relatively simple machines, considering their potential for anguish and…wait, why did you jump to that? Regardless, you remember one where the victim ended up getting septic blood. Did that happen to you? Nah, no way. Your paranoid side is really starting to show, huh? You need to stop asking yourself so many questions and just wake up. You’re still groggy, and your thoughts are hard to place.

 	Suppressing your urge to go back to sleep, you move on to the second issue: Runtyshy. Your stirring and generally shuffling about woke her up as well, and, from what you can tell, she’s hungry. Maybe. Sometimes a chirp sounds a bit weak, sometimes it’s a bit desperate, other times –well, there haven’t been any ‘other times’, yet – it’s hard to tell one from another, especially at 6:30 in the morning.

	Scooping her up into your arms nets now what’s almost a familiar sigh, followed by her going a bit limp, and sighing again. While it’s practically routine for her to do that by this point, it’s still ‘hnng’ worthy nonetheless.
	You trundle down the second floor stairs, taking extra care not to trip or stumble. Of course, while you’d normally try not to fall down the steps, you need to take extra caution with Runtyshy. A simple misstep could result in you fumbling her down the staircase, and well, that wouldn’t be pretty.

	The floor is ice cold under your feet as you head into the kitchen, but you press on ahead without slipper or socks. Tough as nails, you are. Taking a quick glance out the window gives you a pretty obvious reason for why it’s so cold today; it snowed last night. Quite a bit actually, well over an inch or two of the icy white powder. You’d let Runtyshy have a little romp in it, but you’re worried she’d find a way to either drown in the snow or contract hypothermia. Maybe you need to loosen the proverbial leash a little bit in the future, but, at least for now, she needs to stay as far away from anything that could pose a threat as possible.

	Runtyshy lets out yet another chirp, reminding you that she still need to eat. The only problem is, you don’t have a single clue what she can eat. While Ted did say that she was weaned and eating normally already, what you’ve seen so far doesn’t seem to prove much by way of her eating solid foods yet. What does a fluffy even eat for breakfast, anyways? They can’t have spaghetti or kibble for every meal, so there’s got to be something else she can eat. Something she would have a hard time choking on, but something with a bit of the nutrition and carbohydrate values of a bowl of spaghetti noodles.

	A lightbulb goes off in your head.

	Oatmeal.

	Most, if not all equines eat oats, not to mention the fact that it fits the criteria that you just made up on the spot. Even if she doesn’t eat it, at least you’ll have given her an option.

	You gently place Runtyshy on the countertop, making sure not to wake her up again. When she finally slides off of your hands and onto the granite counter, she shivers and chirps, but curls up and remains otherwise quiet.

	Luckily for you, you still have an old pack of ready-to-eat oatmeal hiding away in the very back of your cupboard. Equally lucky is the fact that it won’t expire for another two years. According to the packet, it’s got honey in it. Or, in their words, “our prime oats are mixed with the finest of bee’s honey to bring you a breakfast you won’t forget”. Well, they got the whole ‘not forgetting’ part right, since you have nary a clue of how Runtyshy’s going to feel about it, if she can even stomach it without being sick.

	The oatmeal only needs a bit of boiling water added to it, and the smell of –oddly enough- maple, floods the room. It’s not like it smells bad or anything, but you’re worried that the expiry date may have been wrong, or there was a mislabeling. You take a generous spoonful of the oatmeal and give it a taste.
	Yeah, that’s definitely maple flavored. You’re not sure how they could mix up labels that badly, but it tastes and smells fine regardless. You turn around, hearing Runtyshy sniffing at the air. She shakily stands up and starts quickly inhaling as much of the sweet smelling air as possible, before letting out another tiny chirp and laying flat on her side.

	You spoon out a tiny amount of oatmeal into the cleanest shot glass you can find, and place it next to her head. Maybe you should’ve used a thimble or one of those fast food ketchup cups, since the shot glass is almost, if not a hair larger than she is. You gently tip the glass over, spilling the contents into a thick, tiny puddle on your counter. She sniffs a few times more before she can kind of locate the puddle. You say ‘kind of’ because the first thing she does is stick her hoof into the food. While it is strangely funny, like watching a toddler stick their foot into a birthday cake, she doesn’t seem to like in much. She chirps again and holds her entire leg out, moving it up and down, up and down, as if trying to shake it off. You just tear off a sheet of paper towel and wipe it off, to which she happily chirps at you.

	She moves towards the oatmeal puddle a second time, albeit much more cautiously this time. She’s moving towards it millimeters at a time, at best, and she’s not nearly as excited to taste the saccharine oatmeal as she seemed before. You give her a pat on the head, and encourage her to give it a shot.

	“C’mon, Fluffyshy. Give it a taste. It’s good, trust me. Tasted it myself, as a matter of fact. It’s maple. May-pull. It’s great, you’ll love it.”

	The sound of your voice combined with the pat on the head seems to instill a bit of confidence in her, and she quickly darts her head down and flits her tongue towards the oatmeal. She manages to lap up a tiny amount, and she smacks her lips a few times before swallowing.

	“Well? How was it?”

	While she pretty obviously can’t understand you, she still responds with another happy chirp, and a slight bounce before ducking her head back down for more.

	Within a few minutes she’s managed to finish the small bit of oatmeal you’ve given her, and she licks the bare counter a few times before standing still. She gives a bit of a grateful chirp, and then two, quick, short chirps before tasting the counter again.

	Taking this as a sign that she’s still hungry, you spin around, grabbing the shot glass, and head back on over to the still warm pot of maple-flavored oatmeal. As soon as you start to fill it, you hear a noise behind you.

	“Nuhhh…”

	Runtyshy is groaning, and you can clearly see why. She’s shitting on the counter.
	By the time you dangle her over the kitchen sink, she’s already all crapped out. She shat a lot less than a regular fluffy, only about the size of a chocolate chip, but it still doesn’t exactly smell like roses and daffodils. The maple scent is drowning out the pungent odor, thank God, but it’s still unsanitary. You quickly wipe it up and throw out the square of tissue that you used, and look at Runtyshy.

	You want to be angry, but you can’t. She’s blind as a bat, and you haven’t explained the concept of using a litter box. Hell, she probably doesn’t even understand what shitting is. You decide to explain what it is sooner, rather than later.

	“Alright, Fluffyshy. You need to…”

	Your voice trails of as you look at her. She’s scrunched up into herself, trembling, as tears trail down her fluff, starting at her eyes and rolling past her chin. You’d normally expect a “huu huu, fwuffy sowwy” at this point, but she’s not even sobbing openly. She’s just weeping silently, unmoving, like she’s expecting something bad to happen and she’s powerless to stop it.

	“What? What did I say?”

	You softly stroke her mane, and quietly tell her to calm down, and that she’s not in trouble. Again, she obviously can’t understand a word you’re saying, but your touch and composed reaction seems to work wonders, as she slowly stops shaking and eventually just lets you scratch behind her ear.

	As soon as you start to pull away, she nuzzles her head into your fingertips, and chirps twice, quietly.

	“Apology accepted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”

	You grab your home phone off of the charging stand, and try to recall the number for the Emergency Animal Hospital. 1-800-555-PETS, if you remember. You punch in the digits and hold the phone up to your ear. One ring. Two rings. Three ri-

	“Thank you for calling the E.A.H., this is Janet speaking. How may I help you?”

	“Hey there. I was actually wondering if you could connect me to a man named Ted.”

	“Ted? Ted…ohhhh, you mean Mr. Burgum! Of course, please hold.”

	A soft piano tune begins to play over the phone. You’re trying to remember what it’s from, but as soon as you put your finger on it, Ted picks up.

	“H’lo?”

	“Hey, Ted. It’s me, Anon.”

	“Anon? Oh, no, what did she do?”

	“How did you know Fluffyshy did something?”

	“Fluffies always get into trouble; she’s definitely not the first. Besides, I imagine you’re not calling me up to take me to a fancy restaurant. So, what is it?”

	You sigh.

	“It’s kinda complicated.”

	“Shoot.”

	“She shat on my counter.”

	“That’s what you call complicated?”

	“Well, I mean, that’s not really it. I need to figure out a way to get her to use a litterbox. Obviously she went to the washroom in the six weeks she was over there with you, so I was wondering how you handled it.”

	There’s a few seconds of silence before Ted decides to speak again.

	“We just squeezed it out of her.”

	“Wait, you what?”

	“Oh, come on; don’t pretend like you’ve never heard of squeezing it out of them.”

	“Well, I mean, I have, it’s just…I never really figured I’d do it.”

	“Anon, until she opens up those peepers of hers, it’s what you’re gonna have to do, sorry to say.”

	“…Sure.”

	“Oh, and Anon? If you need to call me again for more advice, you can use my direct number.”

	Ted rattles off his phone number, and you quickly jot it down on a nearby notepad with a pen with too little ink in it. You thank him, and hang up.

	You look at Runtyshy, who’s now asleep.

	“Well, shit. This is gonna suck for you and me both. Tell you what, I’m gonna go grab you some pity toys before I go through with this, alright?”

	She doesn’t respond, but since she’s napping, you’re not exactly sure what you expected.

	Hold up a minute. If you’re going to go get pet toys, you’re going to need to leave her home alone. There’s no safe way that you could possibly take her with you, there’s just too much danger. But you can’t leave her at home by herself, either. She could fall down the stairs, trip and break a limb, and, going by most fluffies, you wouldn’t be surprised of she walked into a wall and snapped her neck. So, what could you possibly do?

	Ding, there goes another lightbulb.

	You cradle the still slumbering Runtyshy in your free hand, while opening the door to the garage with the other.

	The garage is pretty low-lit, with a bare concrete floor and insulation poking out from the also bare walls. You don’t usually do in here, and when you do, it’s usually just a place to throw an empty box or an old school project inside. But now, you have a few things you need to find: your old cat’s oversized cage, and your goalie pads from back when you used to play ball hockey as a kid.

	The cat’s cage is probably the first thing you find, since it’s so close to the door. Your cat only passed away recently, so you figure that the oldest things are going to be furthest back. Going by this logic, you stagger your way over boxes and other assorted items until you reach a small corner filled with a hockey puck or two, a tiny orange ball, a hockey stick, and, right there, your goalie pads,

	You grab the two items under one arm and push the door open, heading back inside. Runtyshy somehow managed to stay asleep during all this, amazingly enough, and it doesn’t look like she’s dead or anything, so that’s a plus as well.

	Working identical parts quickly and quietly, you set up the cage, which stands at a perfect three foot by three foot cube, practically a runt mansion. You jam the goalie pads into the inner corners of the cage. Of course, with what you have, you can’t cover the entire lower perimeter of the cage, but you try to get as much of it as you can with what you have.

	Looking at your work, you realize that the cage could use a pillow lining the bottom, as a sort of mattress. Grabbing a spare from the linen closet, you slowly fill the entire bottom portion with the pillow. Hopefully, your runt Pegasus isn’t allergic to the feathers inside the pillow, despite having them on her back.

	You know what else the cage could use? A fleece blanket. You just saw one when you went to go and grab the pillow, so you know you have one. Damn, you don’t make YOUR own bed with this much care. It’s pretty big, so you fold it a few times, and place is somewhat haphazardly into the cage, and place the incredibly STILL resting Runtyshy onto the blanket. She shuffles about in her sleep, before wrapping her front hooves around a tiny part of the bedspread, before nestling a bit further into the blankets and following it up with a long, slow sigh. And, while you’re almost certain your imagining things, you can almost see the faintest trace of a smile on her face.

	You’ve said this before, and you’ll say it again: Hnngh.

	With Runtyshy currently wrapped up more snugly than an insect in a carpet, you tie up your boots and grab a sweater off of the coat rack. The local pet shop isn’t too far of a walk from where you live; only a block or two, and you really could use the exercise, tubby.

	An alarm system beeps once when you enter through the front doors. The store is set up like your basic pet shop: a aisle of actual animals, and pretty much everything else is toys, food, and other pet accessories. You instantly head for the ‘Fluffy Pony’ section.

	The aisle is pretty tiny, but it is relatively crowded. Stuffed animals (‘Stuffy’ brand fluffy pony toys, act now and get two for the price of one) flood the shelves, and little baubles such as teething rings and milk droppers are in tiny baskets for less than a dollar. You pluck two of the ‘Stuffys’ up: a fuzzy orange mare named Tangy, and a grey foal named Coal. They seem to be at an almost 1:1 scale, almost making you question if they were the result of some horrible taxidermist experiment or something, but you’re not quite that paranoid yet. You also decide to pick up a tiny yellow ball with purple stars all over it, intended for foals. Well, maybe it’ll work for runts, too.

	As soon as you start to head for the cash register, something catches your eye. In a tiny clear basket, off to the side, is a bucket full of hair bows for fluffies, not unlike the one Apple Bloom wears in Friendship Is Magic. The colors come in an assortment of colors, and you decide pick a nice shade of pastel blue. If you were an old, crazy cat woman, you might say it was “simply darling”. But you’re not, so you won’t.

	The total only comes to around $5. You gladly pay the clerk, and head on your way.

	As soon as you walk in the door, you can hear Runtyshy already chirping to be let out of her cage. Toys in hand, you head on over to the living room, where you set everything up.

	“Hiya. I brought you some thi-“

	Runtyshy, still chirping, looks up at you, her large blue eyes almost studying you.

	“No fucking way.”

	Runtyshy opened up her eyes.

	It takes a little while to process, but it eventually hits you.

	Her eyes are wide open, and they’re looking right at you.