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He was born a predator, just like Wile E, but unlike the unlucky Coyote he had been faster, stronger, and more determined than anything he had encountered in his youth.
Prey wasn’t fun to hunt when it didn’t even see him coming. Predators weren’t entertaining to evade when they gave up after one chase or, on occasion, became his dinner instead when their resiliency proved feeble. One by one the family he had been hatched alongside vanished until it was just him and the sprawling desert landscape that made up his days.
He hasn’t missed them, not really. Once the natal down of childhood had been shed his legs took him further and further from companionship with those who couldn’t keep up with him. It was hard to mourn a family he had only caught glimpses of in the distance while his whole body screamed at him to run. Run faster. Run harder. Run until his lungs were screaming and even then keep pushing until nothing existed but him and the pavement bending beneath his feet.
That was how it had been, for a while. For years probably. Days and nights blending together into an endless cycle of freedom and elation.
And… monotony.
Then, like a ACME bomb to the face, things changed. A coyote moved into his territory and began the hunt. First with claws and teeth and then, with fascinating acceleration, traps using technology he has never dreamed of existing. Missiles and pits were used alongside machines with purposes he could never exactly parse out (unless blowing up on the user was their intention. He had his doubts.)
At first he was sure the coyote would leave, a blip in his race along the buttes, but he never did. For the first time in his life someone was keeping up with him. Not in speed but in spirit and it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever experienced.
Gone were the days of empty running, fueling only his desire to move and exist as an immutable part of the landscape. Now there was something else. Someone else.
He lived for it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the coyote was trying to eat him. He would have to be the dumbest bird in the desert to miss his playmates’ desperate, hungry gaze every time they locked eyes.
It was that he just didn’t really care.
Each time his coyote got a little closer his heart fluttered. Adrenaline pushed him to greater and greater speeds now that he had something to actually dodge. Once, he considered what he would do if he was actually caught. If, one day, the ropes held tight and instead of skittering away he was met with piercing teeth and pain before he was consumed entirely by his pursuer. He hadn’t dwelled on it long. He didn’t want to be eaten but if that was the price he paid for this life worth living then that was that.
For a long time he thought they could live out eternity this way, him running, Wile E. chasing, and the world turning around them.
He would have been content.
But things changed again.
Others came to the desert and every time they brought with them disruptions to the hunt. Once the Others had even dragged the both of them off to play basketball against some aliens or… something. He probably should have paid more attention to the ‘why’ but the break in their routine had been entertaining.
It also permanently shifted something between them. Being forced onto the same team, against a common enemy, gave them the opportunity to view each other at rest. He got to watch his coyote’s mind at work as he drafted his plans, not just execution. He got to sit beside this other being that made up half his universe and see him through the lens of Others. It was fascinating and beautiful and, after a while, irritating. He had to share the predator’s attention with too many people and if anything motivated him to win those stupid ball games it was the promise of returning back to their isolation.
He had never been quite the same after. Wile E. never disappointed him in the hunt. His speed kept improving and his traps kept evolving but the hunger in his eyes was changed.
The desperate desire to catch him burned just as brightly as it ever had but behind it was something… different. Now, in those brief moments when he envisioned Wile E. catching him, there was a strange empty question where there had once been the promise of blood.
Maybe it had only been a delusion, he wasn’t going to slow down to test it, but the feeling persisted.
For decades.
A second basketball game and persistent clashes with Others as society pushed further into their desert created ripples in their tapestry. Moments of interest that didn’t overstay their welcome and, eventually, allowed him to be content again. More than content. Each disruption proved time and time again that their hunt was the core of both of them. That nothing was going to tear his coyote away and shatter the thing that made him feel alive like nothing before him had.
Until he didn’t show up.
At first it hadn’t been unusual. He didn’t expect genius level traps every day and even his resilient Wile E. sometimes needed a day or so to lick his proverbial wounds in peace. That day or two stretched into a week. More.
He ran over the last time he had seen him in his head. Some humans were in the desert with paperwork he hadn’t bothered to read. Something that hadn’t even registered as a trap (had it been?) before the Others had left. Had Wile E. gone with them?
Was he coming back?
The question gnawed at him as each progressive day slid into the next without a hint of his playmate. The cracking of asphalt under his feet, rhythmic, angry, was his only companion until Others arrived again.
They brought with them a lazy insult of a trap and no sign of his predator. Another day he might have played with them more. Another day when he wasn’t so aggravated by his missing half.
The fire had been, at least for a moment, a welcome outlet.
It had taken him days more before a slip of fate, a discarded newspaper, pointed him in the right direction.
He had been worried what he would find. Had his coyote moved on? Was this, this ACME with their walls and words and complex rules, the new hunt that would consume him? Would he have to accept Wile E.’s decision to change prey?
Could he?
Lucky him — always lucky — he hadn’t needed to find out if he would be able to walk away. Racing back to the desert with the coyote’s promise to return he had the nagging, deep, certain feeling that if Wile E. hadn’t agreed to come back the hunt wouldn’t have ended no matter what his playmate intended. It would have simply changed.
It would have been interesting to see how long Wile E. could evade him.
Once he had his coyote back in the desert where he belonged it was almost easy to pretend that nothing had changed again. It was easy to ignore the trips Wile E. took into the city. It was trivial to forget those Others who sometimes drove out to drop Wile E. back where he belonged. He didn’t even notice the change in his coyotes demeanor, peppy and invigorated, after each one of those visits. It was.
It was so frustrating.
He had never viewed himself as a jealous bird. In all honesty he didn’t think of himself much at all. Happy to let his whims guide him across a life that had once seemed so simple he had never needed to reflect on anything he did. Until now. Until he caught himself slowing down to let claws pull teasingly across his feathers. Until he started hanging around after each disaster of a trap — still catastrophic but with much less fire now that ACME tech was no longer involved — waiting for confirmation that the coyote was okay. Until he started hunting Wile E. down first in secret so he would be able to begin the hunt as early in the day as possible.
The closer he let Wile E. get the faster the next attempt happened. The faster the next attempt happened the more time passed between his trips into the city. It was simple pragmatism. The fact that it was dangerous didn’t matter. The feeling of being alive, actually alive, under the single minded obsessive focus of his coyote was the only important thing in his life. And he was going to be the only truly important thing in Wile E.’s.
The Others would fade away.
Only this primal chase was eternal.
The day it happened was unremarkable. A misty early winter morning that teased cool weather before burning off into afternoon heat. The trap, while clever, held no real promise of working. It had been just another perfect day in the endless hunt.
The claws, tight around his neck, had been a surprise. His feet tangling around discarded rope sending him sideways, limp and vulnerable, into his captor's grip was even more so. Twisting futilely to escape, unable to gain proper purchase to use his powerful legs to flee, he looked up into Wile E’s eyes. The hunger, always present, was warring with a panicked look of confusion so profound he couldn’t help it. He laughed.
So that was the answer then. After everything he hadn’t been the only one to forget the true purpose of their game. The claws around his neck tightened —reflexively? — and his vision swam with black dots and swirling specks of light before it released.
No longer propped up he crashed to the ground. Kicking his feet at the ropes he wiggled around until he could see the coyote slowly backing away. The war taking place across his face was delicious to see. Waves of conflicted desire crashed one after another. In every form Wile E.’s passion was something to witness.
“Beep?” Finally freeing himself, of course he had been caught by something left over instead of a true trap, he scrambled to his feet.
[ ] Wile E. held up a blank sign. The coyote clearly didn’t know what to do next. That wouldn’t do. They had broken something, some lingering facade of their initial relationship that had long ago shifted and bent until it became what it was today, but that was okay. He needed Wile E. to see that it was okay. Their hunt was different and it couldn’t end over something silly like victory.
Speeding forward, right into Wile E.’s personal space, once again risking capture and death should the predator choose hunger over their dance, he licked his nose. Tasty. With a cheeky Beep he spun around the coyote a few times before shooting off across the pavement.
Chase me, he willed.
Consume me.
After several moments when he started to really reconsider the idea that he might have to assume the role of the predator — maybe spending his days breaking through Wile E. defenses and traps — he heard the familiar sound of padded feet taking off after him in the distance.
“Beep Beep!” He screamed into the desert, elation filling his chest as he turned up the speed.
And it was everything.