Chapter Text
The Coyote hasn’t been around as often as he once was—and Road Runner would be concerned, but it isn’t that he’s not been around at all, he is still chased, if not so often. It happens sometimes that the Coyote will come up with another clever scheme to try to catch him—something with a lot of moving parts and testing—and he’ll spend more time hermited away in his cave and less time enacting his ideas on the roadrunner.
But it’s usually worth it in the end. Not for the Coyote, necessarily, not when they never end in his capture, but for Road Runner getting to see all the thought and time he puts into their game makes him giddy enough to circle the desert a hundred times. Even if at the expense of some time together for a while, he does appreciate the more complex ideas.
Still the extra time alone has him bored, restless and impatient. While he's pacing around the desert, over and over, he takes the opportunity to mark out their territory and check for trespassers at the same time. Stopping high up to coo out warnings to other roadrunners to stay away, that this area is for him and his Coyote. They know of him well, that he is faster and more capable than all of them combined, none would dare to intrude, but a reminder doesn’t hurt.
So when he spots the brown feathers marking out a trail, Roadrunner feathers which are not his own, he tenses. It could be a trap, but where would the Coyote have gotten them? From who? And did he eat them? The idea of it nearly sends him spiraling. Is that why he’s been away?
But no way would another roadrunner match him in speed, and surely his Coyote wouldn’t lower himself to such an easy target. Practically offering themselves for roasting up with no lead up at all, barely any chasing or gifting before settling down. He could just picture it, and the image made is infuriating. No, definitely not. It must be an intruder.
He follows the feather trail, more slowly than he prefers to move, and a clacking sound he’s only heard a few times in his life tumbles out of his beak involuntarily and doesn’t cease. Whoever it is will quickly realize their mistake, and maybe they have already gone, already crossed back over the border. He will let them go in peace if they don’t fight his claim.
The trail stops abruptly around a rock, not going any further and he chirps out as he approaches the intruder, his final warning, only for them to jump several feet in the air, fall back down, and then turn around to glare at him while peeking out the side of the rock. Hm, the intruder is sort of small, really—
Oh. Oh! It is a baby bird! Baby! Baby! Baby! Just a cute darling fledgling with a few adorable brown downy patches still trailing along her body. He immediately calms. There is no competition here, only a tiny child wandered too far out from her family's nest.
He used to do that, he recalls how much it had terrified his parents and laughs inside. He could never stop wandering away and getting into trouble, too near to predators they would say. Too curious and thrill seeking for his own good.
The little bird starts up her own soft clacking, mimicking the sounds he’d made earlier—defending her own bit of claim, and Road Runner moves back, hoping to make her feel safer, and she calms down.
Then he chirps, indicating she ought to go back to her parents, and she tilts her head, confused. “Who are you?” She asks out loud. Oh she’s a verbal toon! Still she should have been able to understand his chirping, she should have learned it from her parents' cooing.
An unsettling idea starts to take root. Her feathers appear neglected, that she is by herself, her lack of comprehension for his chirps—has she been abandoned? What monster would leave behind a baby?
Or maybe it was not by choice. Either way a child only just now ready to start hunting crickets by herself is alone. She must be starved!
He chirps once more. She narrows her eyes. “You’re a bird. I’m supposed to eat you.”
He feels a spark of affection, bolstered by the reminder of someone he cares about. Well, she’s welcome to try, but given her head only comes up to the feathered part of his legs—
“Don’t laugh,” she pouts, “I’m being super serious! I am!”
His chirps turn even more amused in spite of himself. He doesn’t want to embarrass or upset her—but it is really cute. Her eyes narrow once more. Wow, she really does share a resemblance to his Coyote, different creatures though they may be. Or more maybe that’s because he is always thinking of him.
A bump against him, a shove from her, that he pretends has more force behind it than it does, letting himself be moved, and pretending to chirp in exaggerated pain. It works—she appears satisfied, and he begins to trot off toward his nest, certain for some reason that she will follow behind, and maybe give him more information about the situation she’s in.
“Really, who are you? Because I’ve never seen you before,” the intonation is very proper for how old she is, “and this is my land. I know about everything here. Wait— how long have you been here?”
He holds up seven feathers and she counts them allowed. “Seven years,” she says, awed. He holds up a circle.
“Wait, seventy!?” He nods. “You're so old! But how are you not dead? Old people die, I saw it on TV!” Her voice grows louder in her excitement. Where did she find a TV all the way out here?
He shrugs at her question with a smile.
“You must be magical,” she claims. He tilts his head, a so so gesture and she smiles wider. “You are! Can you grant me any wishes?” He shakes his head
She sighs. Kicks out a talon, dejected. “Then what’s the point?”
Another shrug. Her mood switches once more, “my dad told me that most of what people call magic isn’t really. It’s science! I once thought explosions were magic, but apparently not. But I was a little kid then,” defensive, “not like now.” She waves at herself indicating her grown upness.
So she might have a living parent after all. Seemingly a bad one. But no, he cannot steal someone’s child.
Well. Maybe. He could, technically. It’d be quite easy to pull off, come to think of it.
“He thinks I can’t take care of myself, but I know what I’m doing! I’m a genius! Sort of. Or I will be very soon. Everyone says I’m very smart. Hey, where are we going?”
He plucks a sign out, ‘my nest!’
“Do you have food there? It’s been like, a thousand years.” Also concerning. He tilts his head.
“Well. Not really. I ate this morning. But it feels like a thousand years.”
Hmm, he might as well take the opportunity to show her how to hunt. She’s a little young for it, but she will need this skill throughout all the days of her life.
When they get close to his nest he nudges her toward cacti where the Road Runner is sure some mice have settled. Her eyes are curious and observant and he gestures for her to mimic him, wing to mouth to indicate they must be quiet, which she mimics—excited and catching on, absolutely adorable. If he wasn’t being quiet he’d coo at her and ruffle her head feathers.
Instead he glances at her to make sure she’s still watching and trots up to the cacti, waits for a shift or movement, and then quickly comes down, grabbing the first mouse he spots and then slamming it down several times until it dies. At the corner of his eyes he sees her flinch—she’s more sheltered than he’d initially assumed.
Still she gets over it quickly, attempting to pick one up herself—but the mice have realized what’s going on and start to scurry about her legs. The attempt is good though, she almost manages to grab one, before tripping and tumbling over herself fully. A jolt of pride hits him when she rises once more with a fierce little expression.
The Road Runner grabs as many as he can as quickly as he can, creating a pile. Then he leaves some alive but disoriented and sends them her way for her to try again.
This time she catches one, throwing it against the ground ungracefully a number of times before it stills, and trots over and adds it to the pile, with a small smirk, and he can’t help but nuzzle her affectionately, smiling widely.
“Stop, stop, you’re messing it up,” she whines, moving away and straightening her head feathers.
He pulls out a sign, ‘I could fix it!’ and then looks at the mice, turning it around. ‘After dinner.” The day really has gotten away
Eying him suspiciously, “alright, yours look okay, so maybe….” she looks around confused, “how are we going to cook them?”
Cook! He chirps, amused. How silly. How fancy. He picks up a mouse and swallows it. She gasps, eyeing the pile with fascination and disgust. Creeping closer toward it as if it might bite, until she takes one herself, hesitating, and then swallowing it like he did, immediately picking up another when she’s done, absolutely ravenous.
After they finish the pile together, he leads her to the nest. Now that she’s fed she seems tired, and it only grows when he starts combing through her feathers, working on fixing the breakage and relocking the barbules, then spreading oil throughout for protection. How did it get so bad? No wonder she’d made a trail of feathers behind her. It’s a miracle nothing swooped in and ate her before she was found.
She leans against him as he works, her eyes falling closed before fluttering open in a jolt, trying to keep herself awake.
When he finishes and moves away she mumbles, “I can’t go to sleep here, I’m a coyote, coyotes don’t sleep in nests,” but her eyes are already closing and she’s folding herself into a ball to fit inside as easily as breathing.
And all of the pieces click together at last. Of course, the knowledge of human technology, her lack of knowledge on the meaning of their chirps, her original thought of eating him, her father is the Road Runner’s Coyote! And he didn’t tell him! This secret is at the very least three years old!
The right thing to do would probably be to take her home now that he knows where it is. But he doesn’t want to when he wasn’t told something so important. The center of his universe hadn’t thought to mention having a baby! Road Runner could—should—have already been helping with her. Clearly the Coyote could use it! No wonder he’s been so haggard lately. And after he’d been looking healthier…..
No he’s not going over to the Coyote’s cave to give her back. The genius will find them eventually. In the meantime it’s his turn to take care of their nestling. He’ll stay up and watch out for them both—the shared warmth is just pulling—pulling—
A noise startles him awake to a night with the moon much higher in the sky, and yellow eyes much too close to his own. His mind goes ‘predator! Danger in the baby's nest!’ and he snaps out on instinct, clacking, until he realizes who the predator is. Laying across from him, fur frazzled, probably from worrying, and scuffed up like fell off at least one cliff on the way over, with pupils wide, but not exactly the same as when he's ready to pounce and devour him, is his coyote.
Trying to win at night while he’s in his nest? It’d go against their unspoken rules, so he isn’t that concerned.
And for some reason it seems too intimate to be eaten by him in front of a little one. He thinks his Coyote would agree.
The Coyote shakes his head, exiting his stupor, so Road Runner takes the opportunity to rise slightly and lean over the little bird, sleeping nestled between them, and lick his face.
He grimaces, then glares, eyes moving toward the baby and back to Road Runner, conveying his upset about her being taken. Road Runner responds with a rivaling accusing glower, and Coyote startles and immediately drops his anger, his ears settling back, a guilty frown tugging down his mouth. He was the one who lost her in the first place.
Speaking of, the Road Runner tilts his head, that was quicker than he’d thought it’d be. As if reading the question in his eyes, his Coyote nods his head toward a little loop around her leg. Ah—a tracker. He’d tried to trick Road Runner into wearing one of those more than a few times as part of his schemes, and failed, but of course he would give one to a wandering prone nestling.
Some of the anger he’d been gathering dissipates, as affection rises in its place. He’ll peck at the Coyote tomorrow for keeping this from him, but for now he let’s sleep pull him back in, feeling safer with him there, and warmer with her close.