Unwanted (wholesome short, yinglets, oops)

All Characters and setting were inspired by the Out of Placers webcomic (OOPS) and world created by Valsalia
http://www.valsalia.com
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/valsalia/
https://www.patreon.com/valsalia
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Unwanted

The swamp air was thin, and the wind was shallow. The sounds of the enclave can be heard all around. Yinglets splashing in the swamp streams and ocean. Builders hopelessly building creaky structures that only a yinglet could come up with. Everything seems normal. Well at least as normal as a yinglet southern enclave can be. The sound of a rake scratching comes from inside the enclave's latrine. Inside the trench latrine is a brown yinglet with black tiger striping. Hes missing his left arm and scrapes the muck of the latrine with his right arm holding a shoddy rake. He sighs to himself. He looks up at the sky and wonders what it would be like to be able to fly in the sky with the chorps. All of a sudden, a group of three yinglets appears on the edge of the latrine. The tallest of the bunch looks at the brown yinglet and says, "hey Muckrake!". Muckrake looks up and frowns. It seems this is the same group that always picks on him. The yinglets laugh and start throwing fish bones at Muckrake. Muckrake gets hit in the head with bones and one even pokes one of his eyes. Muckrake picks up the bones and tries to throw them back at the bully yinglets but he slips on some muck and falls into the disgusting waste. The bully yinglets laugh and laugh as muckrake thrashes on the ground. The bully yinglets leave and Muckrake is left lying in the latrine covered in waste. He curses the bully yinglets and climbs out of the latrine.

Muckrake walks to the swamp streams and dives in. He furiously scrubs the crap from his fur and thinks about how Hes always had people picking on him. All because of being an odd one. He never thought he was really all that different from the other yinglets but the others had always made him feel like a second-class citizen. Someone to be pitied and bullied but never really seen as an equal. Muckrake cleans his fur completely and rests in the calming swamp waters. Suddenly he hears a crying weh weh weh not too far off. Muckrake follows the sound and pushes apart some reeds to find a younglet. The younglet is small with green fur and yellow eyes. He has no arms or legs and simply wiggles around in the reeds.

Muckrake looks shocked. He picks up the little odd one and cradles him in his arm. He rocks the little fluff ball and smiles as the child begins to calm down and eventually looks up at muckrake and smiles back. The child's smile warms Muckrakes heart. Muckrake wonders why someone would leave a child out here even an odd one. He climbs out of the stream and heads to the nursery.

Once at the nursery he meets the guards guarding the nursery entrance. He does a little bow to them and smiles "Can I talk to one of zhe nurses. It seems a child wandered away from zhe nursery". The guards nod and fetch one of the nurses. A nurse with yellow fur and green eyes comes out of the nursery and sees muckrake. "Where is zhis child zhe guards tell me about?". Muckrake shows the nurse the little odd one. The nurse frowns "Zhis child was purposely dropped off in zhe swamp to die". Muckrake frowns "How can you just leave a child to die who's already hatched?". The nurse sighs "he will never be able to feed himself or care for himself. it is better if he just passes and doesn't use up our resources". Muckrake frowns harder "Well if you're not going to take care of him I will". The nurse tilts his head "we're not about to give you food and shelter to take care of a lost cause". Muckrake grits his teeth "fine zhen I will just find an enclave who will". Muckrake storms off and the nurse just simply shakes his head.

Muckrake walks along the open swampy grass land of the southern tribes. He looks down at the little fluff ball in his arm sleeping. He smiles "I feel like I should give you a name. Your like me. We in zhe same boat. So, I guess zhat makes you my little buddy. Yeah i like zhat. Your name will be buddy. How does zhat sound?" Buddy wiggles his nose as a sign of acceptance of the name. Muckrake nods, "Just me and you against zhe world little buddy. We got to find you a new home. hopefully zhe next enclave will be more accepting of our kind." Buddy's eyes open and he immediately starts to wiggle. He gets a concentrated look on his face. Muckrake panics, "what's wrong little buddy? You scared of somezhing?" Buddy begins grunting and Muckrake holds out the child unsure if Buddy was going to puke. Buddy poops on the ground and lets out a little sigh of relief. Muckrake wrinkles his nose, "Eww." Buddy looks into Muckrakes eyes and gives him a giggle and a smile that immediately warms Muckrakes heart and makes him forget about the poop. He chuckles and nuzzles buddy against his face making buddy giggle even more. Muckrake smiles, "You just a baby but you bring me so much joy." For a second Muckrake thinks about the life he so easily left behind and wonders what the future holds. Muckrake laughs, "Good riddance to zhat awful place. I got nozhing keeping me zhere. A life wizh buddy is at least worzh living." Buddy giggles in agreement and Muckrake and buddy keep wandering through the grasslands together.

Hour's pass. The sun begins to dip down into the golden hour. Light shines through the tree line illuminating the area in a golden glow. Muckrake looks tired. He looks down at buddy who is sleeping once more. Muckrake bends his arm up and down a little to ease the tension in his elbow. Muckrake sighs, "Who would have zhought zhat carrying a little baby wizh one arm would get tiring?" Buddy lets out a little squeaky fart in agreement. Muckrake bursts out laughing enough to wake the little buddy. Buddy starts crying and crying. Muckrake looks concerned, "my laugh wasn't zhat scary, was it?" He puts buddy up to his ear and listens to his belly. Buddy's belly grumbles and groans. Completely empty. Muckrake frowns. He never considered that he'd have to feed himself and an infant through this journey. He looks around for the signs of any sort of food. He squints and, in the distance, he can see a group of small lizards making a burrow. Muckrake puts down buddy in a small patch of grass, "Wait here little buddy. Iam going to go get us some dinner." Buddy cries and cries for him to not leave but Muckrake sighs and heads off to the lizard burrow.

Muckrake hunches down, he carefully and stealthily walks over to the lizard burrow. The lizards seem too intent on their burrow making to notice him. When within a couple feet of the lizard burrow, Muckrake wiggles his butt and leaps at the lizards. The lizards screech and try to run into the burrow. Not before Muckrake manages to grab two of them by the tail. The two lizards screech and claw at muckrake. With one fast swing of his arm, he bashes both of the lizard's heads against a rock killing them instantly. Muckrake lets out a howl of victory and does little dance. The other lizards look out from the burrow flickering their tongues wondering what kind of crazed animal Muckrake was. Muckrake smiles and happily heads back to buddy as the sunlight begins to get dimmer.

As soon as Muckrake gets within twenty feet of where buddy is he notices a menacing four-legged figure standing over the crying child. A faint light shines through the trees illuminating the figure. A wild dog. Its teeth glistening with hunger. Muckrake is terrified but tries to get closer to the beast. He waves the two dead lizards in his hand, "Hey stupid! leave buddy alone. You can have zhese lizards" The dog takes a long look at Muckrake before scooping up buddy in his mouth and running. Muckrake immediately drops the lizards and takes pursuit after the dog. The dog weaves and dodges trees through the forest with Muckrake having a hard time keeping up. Eventually, they come to an open patch of ground surrounded by a wall of rocks. The dog tries to see if there is a way around the rocks but there is not. The dog knows its trapped. It turns around to face Muckrake. Muckrake shouts at the dog, "fekface! put my baby down!" The dog growls and squeezes his jaws causing buddy to scream even louder. Muckrake snaps and charges at the dog. The dog growls and holds its ground, it rears up on its hind legs and slashes at Muckrake with its claws. Muckrake gets a claw to his face causing blood to run into his right eye. When the dog drops back to all fours Muckrake leaps on the dog's face, plunging his shelltooth deep into the dogs left eye and pulling it from the socket. The dog howls in pain and drops buddy to the ground. Buddy screams louder and louder, wiggling the best he can to get away from the beast. The dog bucks and knocks Muckrake to the ground before running off whimpering and crying back into the forest. Muckrake scoops up buddy and nuzzles him to his face, "I am sorry. I am so sorry. I will never never leave you alone again I promise." Once buddy focuses back on Muckrakes face he smiles a happy smile. Muckrake nods, "Let's get some dinner and some sleep." Buddy blows spit bubbles in agreement.

When Muckrake and buddy finally get back to where the dead lizards were at Muckrake notices one of them is missing. He sighs, "Should have known having two lizards was too good to be true." Muckrake puts buddy down in some grass and picks up the remaining lizard. He uses his teeth to shred the lizard's meat from the bone. He sits down next to buddy and tries to feed him some, "I hope you like lizard zhis early in life." Buddy takes the meat, chews it and swallows it and lets out a happy little coo. Muckrake smiles and feeds him the rest of the lizard meat. Muckrake hears his own stomach growl but he tries to ignore it. As long as buddy was fed that's all that matters. Once the feeding was done buddy let out a happy little burp and Muckrake tickles buddy's belly, "Nice and full now. Zhat's good. Time for some sleep. I doubt zhat nasty dog will come back to bozher wizh us." Muckrake picks up buddy and lays down in a pile of grass. He holds buddy tight and curls around him to make sure no one can take his baby away, "Night night buddy." Buddy coos back and quickly falls asleep.

The sun rises and casts a bright light over all of the grasslands. The sweet smells of sweet grass fill Muckrakes nose. He opens one eye and looks out over the scenery. It was quiet and peaceful. Reminding muckrake that he was in the middle of nowhere with no enclave to protect him. He yawns and looks down at his arm, "good morning bu-." Suddenly Muckrake starts to panic as he notices that buddy is no longer in his arm. He frantically looks around only to see buddy a few feet away licking up ants coming out of an ant hill. Muckrake chuckles, goes over and picks up buddy, "Guess you can really wiggle away from me when your desperate for food." Buddy gets fussy at his ant meal being interrupted. Muckrake kisses his head, "we'll get some real food once we get to zhe ozher enclave don't be so fussy little one." Buddy calms down and quickly forgets about the ants. Muckrake sighs, his belly churning in pain from lack of food. He stretches and keeps walking down the grass lands towards the other enclave.

After several hours of walking Muckrake is on the verge of collapse. He struggles to keep upright and hold onto buddy in his arm. He trips one or two times on small rocks but manages not to fall. Muckrake focuses on getting one foot in front of the other but feels his head getting swimmy, his thoughts cloudy, and his vision blurry. He sits down on a boulder to take a break and sighs, "Iam sorry little buddy. Iam not as strong as I zhought I was. I didn't mean to bring us out here so we would bozh end up dead. But it was all worzh it just to help you." Buddy looks up and smiles at Muckrake. Muckrake feels a second wind of strength come back to him from the child's unwavering confidence in its caretaker. Muckrake gets back up and smells the air. He sniffs the air long and hard and catches a whiff of something familiar, "Bonfires! we must be close." Muckrake keeps pushing onward and crests a hill. In the distance he can see the ram shackle shacks of a yinglet enclave and plumes of smoke from bonfires. Muckrake is filled with new hope and he heads towards the enclave as quick as his weakened legs will take him.

As soon as Muckrake enters the enclave he can tell that all eyes are on him. He tries his best to ignore them but the feeling of being unwanted still creeps into the back of his mind. Muckrake goes from building to building until he finds what he assumes is the nursery with guards in front of it. He goes up to the guards, both are black furred. The one on the right has yellow eyes and the one on the left has blue eyes. Muckrake looks at blue eyes, "Can I see a nurse?" The blue eyed guard squints his eyes, "what for?" Muckrake sighs, "I want to know if zhe nurses will take care of my baby." The guards look at each other then look back at Muckrake, "Your baby? Why do you have a baby?" Muckrake snaps, "For feks sake! Just get a nurse you lazy feks!" The guards look at Muckrake with disdain. The blue eyed one sighs and goes to fetch a nurse. In the mean time Muckrake talks to Buddy, "Dont worry little guy soon you will have plenty of food to eat and space to roam." The yellow eyed guard looks extremely skeptical. The blue eyed guard comes back with a nurse. The nurse is a little chunky and has brown and cream colors swirled on his fur, he looks very excited, "You have a baby?" Muckrake shows the nurse little buddy and the nurses face quickly turns into one of disappointment, "Oh sorry, we don't raise odd ones here. Matriarch's orders." Muckrakes smile quickly falls into a frown, "what do you mean you don't raise odd ones? Do you let zhem all die?" The nurse reluctantly nods. Muckrake looks crestfallen. Suddenly an older Female appears from the nursery covered in elaborate green robes, white fur, and a beehive hairdo on her head. Muckrake falls in front of the female and begins crying, "Matriarch please please help me raise zhis child. I dont know if I can go much furzher." The matriarch steps back a couple feet and raises her nose at him, "Zhats matriarch Frufru to you odd one. What are you doing here?" Muckrake holds up buddy to her and buddy giggles and blows raspberries at the matriarch. The matriarch holds an arm in front of her face to shield herself from the sight of the odd one child, "An abomination." Muckrake gets mad but knows better than to yell at a matriarch. Muckrake sighs, "Where else can I go? I don't know if any enclave will take my child." Frufru huffs, "You could take it up norzh to valsalia with the rest of the outcasts." Muckrake looks intrigued, "I will do so only if you give me some food." Frufru laughs, "You are not in zhe position to make demands odd one." The cream and brown colored nurse runs into the nursery and comes back with a lump of meat and a small blanket sling. He goes over to Muckrake and hands it to him. Frufru looks pissed, "Zhat will be coming out of your rations Mica." Mica nods, "I understand matriarch." Muckrake feels a well of emotions and hugs Mica. He eats some of the meat and gives the rest to Buddy. With the help of Mica he ties the sling around his shoulder and then slides buddy into the sling where he rests comfortably against Muckrakes chest. Muckrake looks at Mica, "I can't zhank you enough." Mica smiles, "Just promise me you'll get your little baby to safety." FruFru rolls her eyes as Mica gives Muckrake one last hug. Muckrake smiles and feels hope that maybe there will be people out there who accept him and buddy. He turns towards north and walks out of the enclave and back into the grasslands.

Several days pass with very little food. Muckrake manages to capture some small fish out of a stream on their first day but after a couple days those fish are all but bones. Muckrake gets delirious and exhausted again though the sling freeing up his arm from carrying buddy is helping a lot. Eventually Muckrake finds a road leading north. He knows that caravans and carriages usually take roads so he decides to stay by the road and hope that someone will show up. He sits with Buddy and buddy cries endlessly from lack of food. All Muckrake can do is rock the baby and hope that he falls back asleep. After several hours of attending to a starving child a wagon pulled by tiplods appears over the crest of a hill. Muckrake gets up and stands in the middle of the road. He refuses to be ignored. Once the wagon comes within a couple feet of him, he can see a man and women riding in the front of the wagon. The man motions with his arms for Muckrake to get off the road. Muckrake shakes his head and yells, "Where are you headed to?" The man yells back, "Why does that fekking matter?" Muckrake shouts back, "I need a ride. Ive been walking for days wizhout food and I have a younglet wizh me." Hearing about the younglet seems to peak the woman's interest but the man scowls, "Fek if iam taking a dirty scav in my wagon!" Buddy begins to cry again enough for the two humans to hear it. The woman leans over and whispers to the man. The man shouts back at her, "You got to be kidding me!" The woman scowls at the man and the man relents, "Ok fine, come on scav get in the back and don't you think about touching my barrels of pendlefruits" Muckrake smiles and goes around to the back of the wagon and hops in. There's very little room in the back but just enough room for a yinglet, the rest of the back is filled with big wooden barrels of pendlefruits. The man looks back at Muckrake and scowls before cracking the whip at the tiplods and moving on again. After an hour Buddy begins crying loudly again. He cries and cries and the sound onslaught just keeps coming. The man leans back and shouts at Muckrake, "Can't you shut that fekking thing up?" Muckrake snaps back. "Fek you! Hes just a baby and he hasn't eaten in two days!" The woman leans back into the back of the wagon and opens one of the barrels. She takes out two pendlefruits and gives them to Muckrake. Muckrake smiles, "Zhank you for your kindness." The woman gives Muckrake a warm smile. The man is seething, "Lauren you know those are not ours to give away." Lauren nods, "Its fine. I will give the boss the two coppers he is missing. Have a little more compassion Mark." Mark just sinks his head into his shoulders and continues riding without saying a word to Lauren or Muckrake. Muckrake bites chunks out of the pendlefruit and feeds them to Buddy. Buddy happily slurps down the fruit and makes satisfied noises. Muckrake eats some pendlefruit himself and lays in the back of the wagon just happy to be off his feet and have some food. He looks over at the passing trees and closes his eyes.

After a couple more days on the road and a couple more pendlefruit (to Marks dismay) they finally reach the city of valsalia. Muckrake is overwhelmed by the size of the city. Hes never seen anything so big or intimidating especially the looming presence of the teeth. They get to the city gates and Lauren points Muckrake in the direction of the enclave. Muckrake thanks Lauren and Mark and hops off of the wagon. Buddy coos as Muckrakes sense of wonder goes wild, "Zhis enclave must be really special if it is so close to such a grand city." Buddy babbles a little in agreement. Muckrake heads towards the enclave and soon sees it for himself. Muckrake can't hide his disappointment. Compared to the southern enclaves this enclave was shabbier, less well built and smaller. Muckrake tries to keep his head high as he goes into the enclave. Most of the yinglets around the enclave seem to be fishing or relaxing instead of doing chores like a southern enclave would be run. He shakes his head and heads straight for the grand hall. This time he was going to be sure to talk to the matriarch instead of dealing with the nurses. Muckrake gets to the front of the grand hall and puffs his chest up at the gaurds, "I'd like to speak to zhe Matriarch. I have an abandoned child zhat needs her attention." The guards look Muckrake up and down before saying, "Zhe Matriarch is wizh zhe valsalian diplomat. Shes busy." Muckrake sits down infront of the grand hall, "Zhen ill just wait until she comes out." The guards look at each other and shrug. One goes into the grand hall to tell matriarch Vizlet about the situation. Hours pass and Muckrake sits there with a determined look on his face. Finally, matriarch Vizlet appears from the grand hall with Diplomat Kass at her side. She looks down at Muckrake, "What is zhis about an abandoned child?" Muckrake shows her buddy. Vizlet has a flat look on her face, "What is zhe point of raising a child here who can't help us and will only drain resources." Muckrake's heart deflates, "You sound just like zhe souzhern enclaves." Vizlet looks like she got slapped in the face by that comment. Kass puts a hand on the matriarch's shoulder, "Let zhe child stay. What is one more mouzh?" Vizlet growls at Kass, "You know nozhing about running an enclave diplomat we can't simply run like a charity." Muckrake speaks up, "I am good at cleaning. I could help clean zhe enclave in exchange for buddy's life?" Vizlet sighs and relents, "It will be a strain on us, but I guess you two can stay if you promise to help clean zhe enclave. "Vizlet rubs her face. Kass nods, "You're making zhe right choice Vizlet. Now I need to get zhe fek out of zhis hellhole and back to zhe teezh." Vizlet nods, "Ok diplomat, Zhank you." Kass walks by Muckrake and looks at buddy as he walks by, he gives a little shiver of annoyance and mutters, "Kids...." under his breath.

A year passes by. Muckrake is sitting under a tree relaxing, "I am getting used to a more laid-back enclave finally I zhink." He looks around at all the enclave's yinglets playing and fishing and smiles. He hears a small squeak to his right. He looks over to see an older buddy inch worming across the ground towards him. Muckrake smiles and waves his arm. "Come on buddy you can do it. Your getting so good at crawling." Buddy inch worms his way over to Muckrake and crawls into his lap. He Looks up at muckrake and giggles. He nuzzles muckrakes belly, "I love you dad." Muckrake tears up and hugs Buddy, "I love you too son"