Runtyshy: Prologue

You read the tattered, crumpled scrap of paper one final time.

	The Emergency Animal Hospital stands before you, the address matching the one on the paper. You used to take your cat here quite a bit, especially when he started getting old. The two-story building isn’t intended for many recipients, but the recent discovery and/or creation of fluffy ponies has sent business skyrocketing; abuse, abandonment, accidents, and many other day-to-day things can damage a fluffy pony like it was made of wet tissue.

	Heading through the front doors breeds a familiar jingle as a bell above you rings, but the familiarity is soon lost amidst all of the meowing cats, barking dogs, and sobbing fluffies. The waiting room is absolutely packed; most of the owners here have large, more durable pets, a stark contrast to the fluffies also present. You’d expect there to be more of the fluffy ponies than anything else, but it seems that most of the fluffies are quickly put into surgery or medical consultation. Seems like they’re the ones getting the most help, but they need as much of it as they can get.

	You walk on over to the receptionist’s desk, where a short, stocky woman with glasses is leafing through some papers.

	“Excuse me.”

	She looks up at you and greets you with a warm smile.

	“Hey there, welcome to the Emergency Animal Hospital. How can I help you?”

	“I, uh, saw your advertisements about the adoption area opening up today. I was wondering if I could maybe take a look.”

	“Oh, of course! It’s just upstairs, second door on the right.”

	You thank her and head up the creaky wooden stairs. Despite all of the newcomers, it seems that the place has yet to be renovated. At the top, you can hear sounds of laughter and playing coming from, you guessed it, the second door on your right. Taking a deep breath, you open the door and walk inside.

	The adoption center is set up almost exactly like a daycare, but with glass cages on the three walls without a door on them. The entire place is painted in a baby blue, with felt decorations like a smiling sun and flowers scattered from the baseboards to the ceiling. Natural sunlight pours in from a nearby window, and you can very faintly smell lilacs.

	And shit.

	Yes, the reason you came here was to pick up a fluffy pony, if you hadn’t already guessed. Why? Well, you’re not entirely sure, to be honest. From what you’ve heard, they can be bratty, ear-grating, shit machines. Although, on the other hand, people have told you that they’re honest, loyal, loving creatures. Perhaps you just wanted to find out for yourself, and not knock it before you tried it.

	Every square inch that isn’t occupied is a massive playpen for the fluffies. Miniature stuffed animals and baby toys, such as rattles and teething rings line the floor. Several fluffies are tucked away in a corner, babbling and hugging each other, saying something about “spechaw fwends”, whatever those are. A few of them run over to you and hug your legs, beaming and giggling up at you.

	“Hewwo!”

	“Hi.”

	“Good afternoon, sir.”

	You almost jump. Was that a fluffy? No, of course not. Couldn’t be.

	Looking up, you see a man who looks almost exactly like a school janitor from an 90’s cartoon: he’s got a thicker version of the Freddie Mercury mustache, sideburns poking out from under his hat, and he’s in his mid-fifties. He’s holding a clipboard, and has a pencil behind his ear.

	“Sir?”

	“Oh, uh, sorry.”

	You extend your hand, and the man shakes it.

	“My name’s Anon. I was wondering if I could pick up a fluffy today.”

	“Anon, hmm? Is that Swedish?”

	“Uh, it’s Hebrew, I think. That, or Egyptian. I forget.”

	“Ah, no matter. Pleasure to meet you, Anon. Name’s Ted. And, to answer your question, of course. We get so many people in here trying to hand their fluffy ponies off to us that it gets overwhelming at times. People think that just dumping them off here might give them a better chance, or they just want the fluffies out of their hair, but that’s not how it works. We’re understaffed and far too under-equipped to handle a new species, much less at this volume. Feel free to look around, pick your favorite.”

	“Well, maybe we could narrow it down a bit right away. I was looking for a foal, maybe.”

	“Sure thing. Lemme just grab one, and we’ll see how it suits your fancy.”

	He opens up the panel for one of the cages. Inside is a fluffy mother, feeding about three foals. The mother is half-asleep, and the foals look about ready to pass out at any moment. Ted, deciding to ruin the Kodak moment, plucks a red foal right off of the teat.

	The entire cage suddenly becomes a flurry of sound and movement. The foal Ted picked up begins to cry, as well as the other two foals in the cage. The fluffy mother leaps to her feet, causing the two foals to fall by about an inch. She begins to bawl, begging, pleading to have her foal back, as Ted walks over to you and plops the crying foal into your hands.

	“Whoa, whoa. I, uh, actually meant one that was already weaned.”

	“Oh. Sorry.”

	He carefully places the foals back into the cage, where it’s greeted with an onslaught of cheers and hugs, and a few angry stares directed at Ted.

	“There’s only one fully weaned foal, but it that took quite a bit of help to geth her there. She’s going to be a hard case, I’ll warn you.”

	Ted leads you over to a group of cages that are completely unoccupied, save for a lone fluffy pony in the center of them all. Her cage is bare. Completely, totally bare. She’s clearly shuddering on the cold glass floor; her fluff is tattered, and several patches of bare skin can be seen on her tiny frame.

	She’s tiny. Holy shit is she tiny. Like, a single golf ball tiny. She looks even smaller than the average hamster. Her yellow fluff and pink mane are especially short, making her look even tinier.

	Wait a minute.

	Yellow fluff and a pink mane? Damaged fluff? Shuddering?

	You rub your temples. Your head is starting to pound.

	“Are you alright, Anon?”

	“Yeah, sorry, it’s just…I’m having some pretty bad deja-vu, here. Like I’m going through the motions again.”

	He nods, sympathetically. “She has a ‘Fluffyshy’ preset, I suppose you would call it. The fluff, the personality, the works. A very popular breed of fluffy, she is.”


“Wait, she’s her own breed?”

	“Well, not really, but I like to think of it like that. There’s quite a few with the same personality, and, oddly enough, they almost always seem to attract abuse.”

	“So, let me take a stab at why she’s so small. She’s a-“

	“A runt, yes.”

	You let out a long sigh.

	“I don’t know about this.”

	“Do you just wanna see? Like, hold her or something?”

	You remain silent, staring at the floor.

	“I’ll get her for you, Anon.”

	God damn, you’re not ready for this. You’ve spent so much time setting up your apartment just to safely accommodate a single, normal fluffy pony, and now you’ve got the prospect of a runt on your hands. You haven’t exactly heard praise for these things. Apparently, they die incredibly easily; most, if not all runts are singled out at birth, and are constantly refused nourishment from their mothers. Most of their immune systems, skeletal structures, and even lifespans are crippled, usually permanently.

	But Ted did say that she was fed and cared for by humans, but her shivering, sad, tiny body doesn’t seem to indicate much by way of health. Maybe she did get what needed. Maybe she can pull through and live. Maybe you’re just being a wishful thinker. Maybe you’ve seen a few too many movies with happy endings.

	Ted comes back, the tiny Fluffyshy – or, maybe Runtyshy, but that doesn’t sound like a pleasant name – cupped between his two hands. Motioning for you to cup your hands as well, he carefully slides the tiny foal from his palms to yours.

	The first thing you notice is that she’s just radiating heat, almost like a newborn (human) baby. Fluffyshy - yeah, you’re sticking with that, as generic as it may be - begins to squirm about in your hands, eventually snuggling up into the place where you hands are pushed together. She lets out a long breath, and seemingly falls asleep.

	Hnngh.

	“Ted, I…look, I have a lot of questions. About how she was raised.”

	“Shoot.”

	“Well, why is she all alone in the cages? Why isn’t she at least near the other fluffies or foals? I know that dams would reject her, but foals generally don’t discriminate.”

	“Anon, I’m going to tell you straight that most of your questions can be answered by saying ‘she’s a runt’. She can’t play with the other foals because she’s extremely easily damaged; even more so than the average fluffy pony. A simple flick on the nose could result in splitting the skin straight down to the bone. Even if we were to keep her from playing, all of the sound, movement, and all-around ruckus would, and has, driven her to tears.”

	Very prone to mild sensory abuse, wonderful.

	“So then, why is that cage of hers completely barren? She’s clearly got nothing to see, nothing to do, just to lie there on the cold glass.”

	“You can’t really tell now, but she hasn’t opened her eyes yet, Anon.”

	“What, like…ever?”

	He shakes his head.

	“While she is fully weaned, she still has the mindset of a fluffy about four weeks younger than her. Her vocabulary is still limited to little more than cries for help and chirping.”

	Your head starts to swim again.

	“Wait, so…her growth is stunted, her vocabulary is lagging behind by almost a month, she still hasn’t opened up her eyes, but she’s performing basic motor functions and eating like a normal fluffy her age?”

	“Only eating like a normal fluffy. She can’t play too much, or else she’ll hurt herself. She learned that on her own, none of us even had to tell her that.  Sometimes she walks around, but since she always just smacks into the glass, she mostly just lies on that glass floor and sleeps, cries, and shits, day in and day out.”

	“You didn’t even put in a blanket, though. She looks like she’s freezing.”

	Sure enough, you look down into your still cupped palms and see Fluffyshy trembling in her sleep.

	“Uh, no. We, um…we didn’t.”

	Ted suddenly finds the floor a very interesting place to stare at, and you drop the subject.

“Anon, she’s had a bad life.”

	Ted swings his head up, his face wearing a look of defeat, desperation, almost.

	“I’m not going to sugarcoat it; what life she has probably isn’t going to be a good one. You might be able to help her, and I truly, deeply hope that you can manage. But the problem with runts is that there are so many complications along the way that most owners either give up or fail. So, you can either take her now, leave, and I’ll throw in some supplies, free of charge. Or, you can leave her here. Go home, to another shelter, get another fluffy.”

	“And what if I leave her here?”

	“Anon, I’m sorry, but she’ll be put down. That might just be for the best.”

	You look down at the quivering creature nestled in your hands, depending on you for your warmth. Trusting that you’ll protect it enough to sleep in your presence. This thing, as corny as it may sound, has faith in you.

	Maybe you can’t give her a happy life.

	But goddamn, are you going to try.