Listen to Smarty 5

>You are Listen, a Smarty Friend
>After the scary noise and the Hooman yelling, you and your stallions ended up scattering and hiding in the forest
>After a long and tireless search (about 2 hours) you think you've managed to gather up all fluffies you started with under one bush
>You perform one last roll call to make sure
"F-Fweddy." "Sky." "Twevow." "Spawks." "Swugga." "Steben." "Cindew." "Mint." "Hi, fwuffies!"
>You give Rover an annoyed look, at least he's still with you
>You're pretty sure you've recovered your whole group, the roll call sounds similar to the one you got when you left the play place, though you think Rover said "fwiends" instead of "fwuffies"
>If you are missing a fluffy, none of the others seem to remember him, which is the best you can hope for
>You peer out from under the bush and look around, you don't see or hear any munstas, but now you have to be watchful for hoomans too
>You end up taking a long and circuitous route back to the cave, partly to avoid bringing back humans, but mostly because you couldn't find any of Trevor's guide pictures
>The glowy ball is over halfway along its trip through the sky by the time you reach the field
>You're greeted by a stampede of mares, at least the ones not weighed down with babbehs, all eager to reunite with their special friends
>You shout at the mares to cease their charge, then order the males to unload the nummies into a pile before getting huggies
>Soon you have a pile of food and a bunch of happy fluffies, everyone glad to be reunited with their special friends…
"Why dummy speshal fwiend tek su wong?! Pwincess nee' nummies fow babbehs!"
>Well, almost everyone
"Buh speshal fwiend, Sky hab fowwow Smawty…"
>As usual, Sky, a light blue pegasus with a brown mane, is being berated by Princess, a particularly heavy looking pink unicorn with a magenta mane
>Sky is an alright fluffy, but he becomes a total wuss when Princess is around; if you hadn't seen the monster that damaged his right wing, you'd have sworn that Princess did it
>You've strangely had few problems with Princess, and those only happened when you talked to her about Sky; You're curious to see how big she'll get when the babbehs she keeps talking about actually begin to show
"Hmph. Speshal fwiend nu wan' be daddeh, wan Pwincess an' babbehs tu stawbe!"
"Nuu! Sky wuv Pwincess, Sky wuv babbehs!"
>You shake your little fluffy head, you just don't know why those two are together
"Grrr, Cindew gunna ged yuu dis time!"
"Hawdew, speshal fwiend! Hawdew!"
>You look over and see Cinder knocking over his special friend, Holiday, and then roughly stomping on her fluff as she giggles uncontrollably
>Cinder is an earth fluffy with yellow fluff and a dull red mane, he's almost as tough as Slugger and way meaner; you consider him about one dummy idea from being a serious problem
>Holiday, a red unicorn with a green mane, is weird; she plays too rough and giggles at boo-boos, though she is usually the first to give huggies if another fluffy is hurt
>You grimace a little, you understand why those two are together a little too well
>Deciding to bring some nummies to the less mobile mummas, your interrupted by a tug on your fluff
>You turn towards it and are greeted by the confused gaze of the heavily pregnant Heartstrings, a mint unicorn mare with a lime mane
"Smawty, whewe speshal fwiend?"
>You panic for a moment, fearing you left a stallion behind, until you remember Heartstrings' special friend
>And then you feel a lot worse
>Heartstrings' special friend, Shiny, once left the cave during the dark time
>You punished him by making him sleep outside the cave until the next bright time
>But when the glowy ball came back up there was no sign of Shiny
>Ever since then, whenever you return from some trip outside the field, Heartstrings asks about her special friend, convinced you'll bring him back to her
>Every time you don't, she cries herself to sleep
"No fin' dis time, Heawtstwings. Mebbeh necks time."
>You see the small amount of hope in her eyes sink into despair
"Otay."
"Cum on, wets tek sum nummies tu fwuffy mummas."
"Otay."
>You trot over to the berry pile and stuff some nummies into your fluff
>You are soon joined by Barney, no doubt gathering some food for Peach; you notice he is covered in cuts and scrapes
"Wha' happen tu Bawney?"
"…Bawney twip."
>You look at him doubtfully
"Bawney twip?"
"Yes… A wot."
>You shake your head a bit but drop the subject
>You've got too much to worry about to waste time with clumsy Barney
>After delivering a large pile of nummies to immobile dams and their attendants, you return Heartstrings to Greenie's custody, netting yourself a bunch of "Thank 'oos" and a hug from Greenie
>Seeing that Barney is too busy feeding Peach and being weird, and with Ice too busy rolling around the field hugging Freddy, you go looking for Raindrop to find out what's happened while you were gone
>You find him by the cave, grooming Moss while complaining that he just cleaned her
"How hewd, Waindwop?"
"Hewd fine, nu fites."
"Moss see pwetty fwowa!"
>You smile a little at Moss, she means well
"Dat nice, Moss, mebbeh show watew. Waindwop nu see munstas?
>Raindrop looks at you questioningly
"Waindwop nu see munstas. Waindwop heawd stwange noise, buh soft an' hawd heaw. Smawty see munstas?"
>You debate sharing your fears with Raindrop: you don't want to panic the herd, but you would feel less anxious knowing there was another set of eyes watching for the hoomans
>You whisper into Raindrops ear
"Heawd hoomans in fowest. Need Waindwop tu watch fo' hoomans. Nu teww hewd yet, nu wan scawe fwuffies."
>Raindrop's eyes grow wide and he gives you a little nod
>Looks like he understands the danger your herd is in
>You slowly waddle back to your rock
>You've got a lot of smarty-type things to think about
---
>You are Raindrop, an ex-Smarty Friend
>Your herd's current Smarty Friend, a dummy fluffy called Listen, just gave you some great news!
>There are hoomans in the forest!
>You thought you'd have to go back to the city to find hoomans for your herd, but now they're in the forest!
>Maybe they came looking for good fluffies to give homes to?
>You look around at your herd, covered in berry juice and rolling in the grass
>But your herd is so dirty!
>No hooman would want such filthy fluffies
>Listen is too dummy to see that, won't make dummy herd take baths or groom selves
>You'll have to take your herd back, make them be good, clean fluffies
>You remember back to when Listen took the herd from you, you start to tremble remembering the owwies he gave you
>Can't fight Listen, he's too mean, too scary
>You'll need to out-smarty him, make the herd drive him away for you
>You tell Moss to go play with some of the other fluffies, you need to be alone for awhile
>You've got a lot of smarty-type things to think about