Chapter Text
It was hight afternoon and the heat of the sun was hard to endure. In that desert the sand was schorcing as the atmosphere, which was hard to breath. It is a lonely place, no life form for miles, or at least as it seemed to the coyote that was trying to reach the top of a rocky mountain.
He had been wandering throught the desert for days and days without encounter any other animal, nor a prey to hunt. And now he was hungry. So in his desperation he was trying to reach the peak, hoping to find the den of some animal or a nest full of eggs.
With a lot of struggle he succeded. At the top, hidden behind a cactus barrier, there was a little lair, and in the lair there was a nest and it wasn’t empy. It must have been his lucky day since in the nest that he found there were four white-yellowish eggs. The coyote looked around the area, but it seemed to be no one else in that place.
The coyote licked his lips as he was approching the nest. He tried to catch one of the eggs to start, but suddendly, before he could even touch one of them, he heard a sound behind his back. It was as if a strong blast of wind had made the sand rise at full speed and then stopped.
“Beep Beep” he heard.
He turned back and saw the cause of that noise: a roadrunner.
The roadrunner that had appeared had blue and light blue feathers and was standing here with a silly smile, watching intently the coyote. It didn’t seem threatened from him.
”So it was a roadrunner nest then. They are fast as hell, but not strong enought” he thought.
He grinned, confident. He looked back at the eggs to eat one, so the roadrunner would try to stop him with the strength it would never had, failing.
The roadrunner, that was behind his back, now stood before him. Suddedly it runned at full speed towards the coyote and in the impact it pushed him down the mountain, violently.
The coyote slammed his head against the rocky cliffs of the mountain, then his back and his limbs, again and again. At the end, he arrived at the bottom, he it fell on the hot sand, and there he stayed for a while almost unconscious, dazed from the hight fall.
Above, on the summit, the roadrunner had been watched the coyote pitch to onto the ground with its usual smile.
With the coyote not quite conscious yet, the roadrunner went down and, with its beak and speed, dragged him far away and then dropped him down a ravine, carelessly.
A loud scream stroke the air like a thunder. Wile E. perked up his ears, listening. He stepped outside his cave for a moment. They scream stopped, but then he heard a familiar sound: “Beep Beep”.
Wile E. was stunned as he saw a raised dust trail spreading until it disappear into the distance.
It was him, the Roadrunner.
Finally he was able to see him, after how long? A month? Deep down he felt… relived: he seemed to be safe and sound. Of course, the Roadrunner was his prey and it would be a shame if him did not have the strenght to run from him for reasons besides his traps. But then the same feeling, that was eating him alive during this month, came back: the distress of not knowing, not knowing the cause of this sudden disappearance.
Why? What changed?
Well, actually a lot of things have changed after he went back from the court case, almost 9 months ago.
He was not lonely as before, now he has some friends: Kevin, Paige and… Road Runner himself. After Roadrunner’s affirmations in court, their relationship was not the same as before.
Their chases were less frequent, but more exiticing then ever. Wile E. also had gotten rid of most of his ACME old and new products and now his cave was a little more welcoming and much less messy. He couldn’t explain this feeling compleatly, but, despite his constant failuers to catch the bird, he felt a little lighter, as if he took off a burden.
Besides his feelings and morale, the interactions between them occurred only through the chases as it always as been. Until one day, a month ago, the Road Runner just stopped showing up. Even when he set traps up, nothing, no one came and fell for it.
At some point he even tried to search him throw the desert, but it was a impossible purpose. Well, grive and give up it was not like him; he never stopped he search, but he had never found any trace of him. He was starting to feel the despair surrounding him. But that day, that day he showed up, not for him, not for long, but he showed up.
By now the Roadrunner was far away from his cave, out of reach compleatly. Instead, he had decided to go see whose scream was and the possible cause. Maybe it can gave him a clue of what happed to the roadrunner.
Wile E. was quite sure that that loud noise came from nearest ravine from his cave in the mountain. Once there he looked down and immediatly saw who had been screaming, who had fallen into the ravine: another coyote was trying to crawl out, climbing the hight rocky walls. When he dragged himself out, Wile E. could confirm that his fall was painfull, very painfull; after all he was used to it and he knew well how mutch it can hurt.
The other coyote was taller and more muscular than him, but in that moment he was consumed from what had happened to him. His fur was dirty, full of sand; some parts of his body were hairless from the rubbing against the rock; his head was full of bumps.
Wile E. looked at other coyote with confusion at first, but then he grinned.
“First time?” he asked ironically.
The other one, dazed, did not catch the sardonic tone of his question: “That damn roadrunner! I have never fell down a mountain nor a ravine before.”
“So, what happened, fellow?” Wile E. asked politely.
The coyote raised his head and looked at him with a frown: “A fucking bastard of a roadrunner just dragged me here with force and let me fall down like garbage.” he replied with pure hatred.
”Obviously I know that the roadrunners are fast as hell, but damn that was mad. It must be a peculiar one, ‘cause I didn’t remember that roadrunners could be that cocky and aggressive.”
Wile E. was more confused than before. Could it be that the one before was another roadrunner? The roadrunner that he knew, in the past, it might have been a little… vindictive, but not that aggressive, not for nothing at least.
”Were you trying to catch him, by any chance?” He asked a bit annoyed, after all, that could it be his prey.
The other coyote grunted: “Not him! Not at first. No! I found its damned eggs and went crazy.”
“Eggs?” Wile E. asked “What did the roadrunner looked like? What about the color of their feathers? Describe them to me.”
The other one was stranged by his questions, but, willing to share, he replied: “It had blue feathers, darker ones on thewings and crest. Why are you asking me this?”
Wile E. ignored his question. The description matched with Roadrunner appearance, but… eggs? Wile E. couldn’t understand, when suddendly a strange idea came into his mind.
Could it be that Road Runner found a companion? Could it be that the reason behind his disappearance was he had to take care of the offsprings?
The more he thought about it the more a sickening and an uncomfortable feeling, that was crawling inside him, grew louder. He tried to ignore that feeling as much as he could.
“Ya know, I was just hungry, no, actually, I AM hungry! That chicken will pay for it.”
The coyote kept talking, complaning, hoping that the other would share his point of view. And sure, he could not say that he didn’t share some opinions, but however he could not help but frown and grin.
He had a plan: he could not allow another coyote to hunt his own prey, if it was really him the roadrunner in question.
He had to stop the other coyote, so, only this time, he had to guard over Road Runner.