Tender Vitals 2: Rabbit Run

Tender Vitals 2: Rabbit Run

by Headley Hauser

“Ha!” shouted Dancer, “beat you again!”

“Putrid Peeps!” cursed Skittles, as she dropped Mopsy’s ears. She knew she could have gotten more speed out of the rabbit if she’d applied the hard thistle on the heel of her slipper, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. It didn’t matter anyway. Mopsy was a quick little bunny, but she could never hope to match Sneaky Pete, Dancer’s mount.

The two fairies were at Spriteful Intent 2016. It was quasi-military training convention set up by the Imperial Military Protectorate, or IMP, for short. Dancer and Skittles had spent all their frequent flitter miles to travel to the event in the brush lands of York. With all the feral cats patrolling the American east coast, they felt their lives might depend on such training.

“Soldier!” shouted Puff’n’Pout, their drill gnome, “that thistle isn’t on your foot for a little late snacking!”

Gnomes were uncommonly fond of thistle though Skittles couldn’t imagine eating the hard wood-like fibers. Gnomes were a hard folk – so hard that they were frequently mistaken for ceramic statues.

“It didn’t matter,” said Skittles. “Even if I hurt her, Mopsy couldn’t beat Sneaky Pete.”

“Didn’t matter?!” shouted Puff’n’Pout. “Didn’t matter? Maybe it wouldn’t matter if tabbies were eviscerating you and your mount right now! Then your squad would have to decide if they want to put their wings on the line to pull your tushy out of food dish!”

Skittle blushed at the word, tushy. Drill gnomes used such salty language!

“I don’t see why we train on rabbits anyway,” Skittles complained later in the fairy barracks, “foxes are faster.”

Dancer laughed. “You want to trust your life to a fox?”

“Or maybe a badger,” said Skittles, ignoring Dancer. “They aren’t fast, but at least they’re strong and hard to kill.”

“Fairies don’t survive by armor,” said Dancer as she cleaned his thistle of fur. “It just slows us down. Rabbits are fast, and they do what they’re told. There are no better beasts for fairies to ride.”

“What about swans?”

Dancer tested the point of her thistle on Skittle’s hiney. “Airborne tactics are next week. Face it; you’re not going to find a ground beast better than your little Mopsy.”

“I bet I can,” said Skittles.

“What do you want to bet?”

“How about a whole package of SweeTarts?”

“You’re on!”

The next day at training it looked more like Skittles was riding a flowering bush than a rabbit. Her mount was encased in a weave of branches so thick with flowers that the only thing visible was the twitching bunny nose.

“What’s this then?” barked Puff’n’Pout.

“I decided my mount needed some armor.”

“Waste of flowers,” said Puff’n’Pout, who as the son of a garden gnome was very sensitive to wasting flowers, “all it will do is slow you down.”

“Why don’t you start us and see?” said Skittles.

Puff’n’Pout lined up Dancer and Skittles on the large oval path and struck the wind chimes – tinkle-tinkle, and they were off.

At first, Skittles ran zig-zagged and Dancer pulled ahead on her very fast Sneaky Pete.

“C’mon, Jack,” said Skittles. “I’ll let you eat your armor if you win.”

Zoooom! Skittles and her mount took off, just barely catching Dancer and Sneaky Pete at the line.

“I win!” shouted Skittles.

“I don’t believe it!” shouted Puff’n’Pout.

“I don’t believe it, either,” said Dancer, “but I still owe you a package of SweeTarts. That’s no regular bunny under all that shrubbery, is it?”

Skittle’s mount leapt into the air and twisted so that the weave of branches broke. As he came to earth on his long back legs, and dipped his head with long ears, he began to eat his armor.

“That’s right,” Skittles admitted. “Sneaky Pete is fast, but I beat you by a hare.”

And now for educational purposes...

Tender Vitals

Tender Vitals

by Headley Hauser

"Look!" said Dander. "There it is again. They named a candy after you, Skittles!"

Skittles pouted. "It's not named for me. There are lots of fairies named Skittles."

"But not near this Seven Eleven! Look, some of the candies are green like your eyes, some of them are yellow like your teeth, and some of them are red like the color your cheeks get when you're angry."

"Stay back in the flower bed!" scolded Skittles. "A human will see you - or worse, a cat!"

Dander gave a little jump at the mention of the C word. There were a lot more of them now, and they weren't staying in houses and getting fed small cans of meat and meat byproducts; they were out hunting for birds, rodents... and fairies!

"A-ha!" laughed Skittles, "worried about your tender vitals, I see."

"The humans never should have named their cat food that. The cans turn every content calico into a fairy hunter."

"The humans named the cat food Vittles," said Skittles.

"Close enough!"

"And they don't think cats can read, or even understand their language."

"They don't think cats can read," said Dander. "They don't think cats can turn door knobs, or drive an SUV, or load and fire an M16. Humans aren't very bright."

"Most cats prefer Uzis. They're easier to carry."

"It's not like the old days when we twitched our wings and flew out of the cat’s reach."

Skittles bobbed her antennae. "It's hard to out-jump a nine millimeter bullet traveling at four hundred meters per second."

"I'll give the humans one thing," said Dander, "Their veterinarians help slow the rate of fairy-folk genocide."

"Yeah,” said Skittles. “They get those cats right in the bob-o-links.” Like most fairies, Skittles chose her euphemisms from among the names of small flowers and birds.

"Shush," said Dander in a whisper. "There's a tabby at five o'clock."

"What's she packing?"

"It looks like a Kalashnikov."

The two fairies hid among the marigolds. Marigold scent was unpleasant, but it masked their fairy airy from the hunting feline. The cat must have heard them, or seen movement because she was staring at the marigolds. Three banana clips hung from the cat's collar, and she wore a small medal with the word, "Neverland" inscribed at the top. This was no casual Sylvester, but seasoned campaigner. A lot of Tink's best fairies bought it in the catastrophe of '07.

A mole scampered across the path, catching the cat's attention. The calico released the Russian-made automatic weapon's safety and followed after the small rodent.

"You know," said Dander after the danger had passed, "maybe we fairy-folk should consider a new career as house pets."

"Like the canaries? You want to live in a cage?"

"We could avoid cages by using a litter box, and making ourselves useful. We could help them find their house keys after the imps steal them. They might even feed us Skittles!"

"Very funny," said Skittles, "but count me out. Humans claim to love their pets but how is it that the world is filled with homeless cats? Remember what happened to Charlotte’s 4H friend, the pig. Instead of feeding us sweets, the humans are more likely to feed our Tender Vitals to their cats."

“You’re right,” said Dander. “We should stick to fairy stuff. You go paint a water stain of the Virgin Mary on that Seven Eleven, and I’ll grab the candy while the humans are staring at it.”

The moments before that cats landed in Neverland 2007.