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Coming of Age: A Family Tale
By C
The faycat is admirably suited to bringing down all manner of fays. A fully-grown faycat is about the size of a lion, but with endurance more like a wolf's: it can chase prey for miles without breaking a sweat. Its tawny, black-spotted hide gives it admirable camouflage in the sunburnt grasslands where it usually hunts. Though it is a cat, more or less, its mouth--long, wide, and shovel-shaped--resembles an alligator's more than any feline's. It is perfectly constructed for seizing and holding even the largest landfays until the venom of its many sharp teeth can take effect. Once it has subdued its catch, a faycat can carry even an adult landfay in its powerful jaws for many miles, if need be. . . .
Faycats are perhaps unique in hunting without either instinct or parental training to guide them. They have to teach themselves how to hunt. Not only must they acquire all hunting techniques on their own, but they also must learn by themselves the magic that enables them to hunt at all . . . .
From: Mythican Predators, pp. 35, 36.
Part I
It was mid-morning when Mama announced that her milk had given out. Argus was thinking to himself how nice his next drag on one of her dugs would be—just a brief suck to keep him till lunchtime, when he heard Mama's shrill voice: "All right, you little monsters, come to attention right now!" Argus ran so fast to her that he almost tripped over himself. Polly, Connie, Mavis, Boris, and Clovis all came up at a more leisurely pace; but unlike Argus, they weren't perpetually hungry.
"Do I have your attention, you ungrateful whelps?" They were almost as big as Mama now, but she still had a height advantage, and she used it for all she was worth. Pulling herself up as far as she could, she favored them with her toothy, wide- mouthed grin. "I checked my milk just now, and there isn't any. The well has gone dry. The spigot has been spiked. Do you catch my meaning?"
"Mama," said Argus, "it's almost my between-breakfast-and-lunch feeding. Where do we go for milk when yours runs out?"
"Ah, count on you not to catch my meaning. You don't go anywhere, you little fur brain! Having put up with you and your irritating siblings for the better part of a year, I've dried out. And no one else is going to take my place. (I mean, I can barely stand you, and I'm your mother.) So, six little parasites must now cross the threshold of adulthood—or starve. It's time for solid food!"
"Mama," said Argus. "Do you mean you're going to teach us how to hunt?"
"A good question for once. No, I'm not! You're going to do what I did: learn how to hunt unaided, with no resources but your native wit to fall back on. For some reason, I'm not optimistic, but since I don't much care, I can live with it."
Polly now spoke: "Wh-what does Papa have to say about this?"
Papa stepped out from behind his wife at this point and said: "Papa concurs with Mama on this one, kids. It's the way of our species: survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw, and all that rot."
"But Papa," said Molly, "can't you at least give us some pointers?"
"'Fraid not. It's just not done, you see. No cheating, scout's honor, conspiracy of silence, and suchlike. Look kids, if your mother and I could figure it out, don't you think you might be able to pull it off, too?" The six cubs looked at one another doubtfully. "It's like this," he said. "There's a magic to our hunting: Darwinian magic, you might say." (They stared at him blankly.) "You know, Darwin? Bushy British fellow? Oh never mind. Anyway, the magic won't work unless you figure it out yourselves. If you can't figure it out . . . well, try not to think about that."
"One more thing," said Mama. "You all must leave. Now. I'll give you one pointer, and even that's stretching the rules: the nearest fay covey is two miles that way. I suggest you practice on them. Goodbye. Oh, and it's quite all right: no need to thank me." She turned her back on them and stalked away.
"So long, kids," said Papa. "Kiss, kiss."
And so, sniffling a little but trying to be brave, the six cubs wandered out into the veldt. To look at them, one might have expected more confidence. They were nearly adult faycats, after all. But they knew literally nothing about hunting, except that it sounded like a lot of work. Mama and Papa had always gone out to hunt together without ever taking the children along. They never brought their prey home, and they only rarely mentioned the subject. But nothing could be done now, except to go in the direction Mama had suggested
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