Departure

It was late summer already and my coat stopped changing colors, same as the rest of my littermates, but we were still much smaller than the rest of our family. Mom finally decided it was time she properly taught us to hunt.

That morning, after she we ate what was left after the last hunt she sat all four of us down at the entrance to the valley.

"So, let's start off with explanations, can you tell me the rules of the hunt?"

"The hunter is only allowed to use magic to defend themselves or to sharpen their teeth," Cyante said, shuffling as behind Mom the rest of the family started to play-wrestle, turning into a chaotic pile of paws tails, and heads; he wanted to join in.

"Anything else?" Mom continued.

"When picking a target in the group, be it in a chase or ambush always try to pick out the oldest or weakest one," Janym added.

"Why?"

"Because they are least likely to injure us?" I asked.

"That's one of the reasons. What is the other one?"

We all looked at each other, none of us knew.

If Mom was annoyed, she didn't show it and continued. "Because if we go for the strongest ones then bears and manticores will have easier time hunting the same prey we do. Also, it might also happen that they would get so weak they would die out on their own. It already happened here once in the past, you can ask Fertam how her health was, and how long it took her to get better. And Fertam herded the ones responsible to fix it the moment she realized, but it was no quick affair. Never forget that we can live long enough to feel the consequences of our fuck-ups." Mom finished with an amused grunt. "Any exceptions to the rules?"

"They can be ignored if following them means death," Xerio said.

"Good, and the other one?"

"Dealing with invasive species?" I asked.

"Yes."

"But Mom? What are invasive species?" I asked.

"In short, animals that aren't from this forest or area. Though Fertam only calls them that if they are causing trouble. Like the sheep we ate a month ago. Wolves don't hunt them, bears don't want to deal with that fur, from what Fertam told me so they would only go for them as a last result, can't say I'm a fan of dealing with it myself. Also, they stay in herds so the cats won't hunt them either. If something like this comes up Fertam asks everyone near to deal with it quickly so they don't cause a lot of problems. They still ate that area down pretty much to dirt... Most of it is still the fact that nobody knows much about those animals so they avoid them in case they were stronger than they look. It all falls down to us in that case." Mom explained. They didn't take us with them there since other families would be joining and it could become chaotic and we could easily get hurt.

"You're not afraid of getting hurt when dealing with them?" I asked.

"When we are allowed to use everything only the dragons and forest spirits can take on us once we've lived through twenty winters. And once you're as old as Yalo then not even dragons pose a threat, but he was always much stronger than his age would tell you. Any other questions?"

"No." All four of us said.

"I'll be taking you to hunt fish tomorrow, you all can swim well so it's low risk even if it's tedious. Dismissed for now, let's go show them." Mom said already running to join the fray.

***

The last hunt was three days ago so besides the scraps from that and some berries that grew around our densite, we didn't eat and were starting to feel hungry again. Mom always gave us at least two days after each hunt to play and relax, sometimes even the wolves whose territories overlapped with Mom's came to play with us in passing. Mom always gave the scraps to them because we made hunting the large prey harder for them and thus they couldn't spend days at a time playing around as we did.

At noon we all stopped with the games and lay down panting, it was a really hot summer. Once we settled down for a nap flocks of small birds descended on us from the surrounding trees. They always combed our coats for any ticks and fleas. They seemed to know well they weren't worth the energy we'd need to spend to eat them and sometimes got annoying because of that, climbing on our snouts. The only thing going for them at times was that the fleas were more annoying.

Laying my head on Trumpet's back I closed my eyes and soon fell asleep, ignoring the birds.

***

We woke up as the sun was starting to decline, there was still some time until it set, but the evening chill was already spreading. I quickly ran to take care of my needs, then returned to the family. Iala and Sweryx got up together and approached Mom. Curious, I followed.

"Mom? Can we talk?"

"Sure, what about?"

"Would you mind if we left?"

"This late into the summer? Well, it's your decision you didn't need to ask me." Mom said.

"I thought..."

"What? That because you didn't leave after winter I would hold you here?" Mom let out an amused grunt. "If that's what you want I won't hold you back, no rules were broken."

"Thanks, Mom," Sweryx said.

"For what? If you don't find a place to settle down you are welcome to come back anytime. Nobody will bite off your tail for that." Mom said, "Are you leaving right away?"

"We'll be gone by the morning, if we went after the hunt I know everyone would want to see us off and I don't think I could leave with that," Iala said.

"Best of luck then, and stay safe." Mom said and ran off to help Dad who was piled by everyone else and struggling. I wished them luck too and went to help my siblings.

In the morning it was as if Sweryx and Iala never lived here. They went to find their own way in life and nobody worried about them. What everyone worried about at that time was how we would fill our empty stomachs as quickly as possible.