On the day before Thanksgiving, everyone was busy with cooking. There were a lot of mouths to feed and many of them had specific dietary needs. There were a lot of vegetarian dishes that needed to be made for the herbivores. And there was a lot of meat to be prepared for the carnivores. As such, the butcher shops were busy to the point of often being standing room only. Fortunately, most were just there to pick up the turkeys they already bagged.
Tom walked into the butcher shop, rubbing his arms. The sudden drop in temperature and the snowfall was hitting pretty hard. He wasn't cold-blooded, but cheetahs don't live in places where snow falls. He didn't even grow winter fur. But he wasn't about to freeze too soon. He just had to pick up one last thing before heading home. "Is my turkey ready?" he asked at the counter.
"Just give me a minute," said the butcher before going into the back. Pretty soon, he brought back a very big bird. It was practically the size of a small child. "This might be the biggest bird I've ever seen," said the butcher, "Well, the biggest non-Animalian bird. You must have had a heck of a time bringing it down."
"Actually, it was my daughter that did it," said Tom.
"Wait, I thought your kids were just cubs," said the butcher.
"His adopted daughter," said Eugene, also here to get his turkey, "She's a teenaged cheetah uplifted in Africa."
"I guess you haven't heard about how she got this turkey," said Tom.
"I've been a little too busy to listen to local news," said the butcher, "It sounds like an interesting story."
"It is, but I'm pretty sure the other customers want to move along," said Tom.
"I can wait," said Eugene, "A story sounds best when it comes from someone who knew it firsthand." The other customers murmured agreement. They didn't seem to be in too much of a rush yet.
"Ok, I'll try to make this brief," said Tom, "So me and Brittany had gone out to get our own game for Thanksgiving dinner. Our cubs were being looked after, but Kiya wanted to come along. So we went to Camp Sun..."
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"How are we supposed to hunt with all these big trees in the way?" asked Kiya, looking at the woods around the camp.
"They're a good place to ambush prey from," said Tom.
"Tom, we're cheetahs, remember?" said Brittany pointedly, "We're not ambush predators. We chase them down on wide open plains."
"Ah...well...think of this as working on your agility," said Tom.
"You know how hard it is to turn when you're going top speed?" asked Brittany, "I think you need to learn how to hunt like a cheetah does."
"Oh, can we go to Maelewano?" asked Kiya excitedly, "There is a lot of good places to hunt over there."
"Maybe in spring," said Tom, "But right now, we're hunting right here." His fur seemed a little ruffled from his ignorance of hunting being pointed out. But Brittany was sure she could smooth him back down later.
Some time later, Kiya had split off from her adoptive parents. She had been hunting by herself before she uplifted, even if she got in trouble for hunting livestock. She was confident she could hunt here. The deer reminded her a lot of antelope. She was pretty sure she could find and bring down a small one.
Just then, Kiya smelled something she never smelled before. Not long after that, she heard a weird gobbling noise. From out of a nearby bush came a strange-looking bird. It had brown feathers all over except its head, including large feathers on its tail that were all fanned out. There was also a weird-looking wattle hanging from its beak and what looked like a black beard growing from its chest. Kiya assumed it was a male bird, only males looked this flamboyant.
But the bird didn't seem to like Kiya at all. It was flapping its wings aggressively and making its weird gobbling noise at her. Kiya was pretty sure it was telling her to get lost. Back in Africa, Kiya never particularly cared about birds. Most birds flew away when she chased after them and weren't worth as much meat as a goat or a gazelle. The one exception was the ostrich, but that took more than one cheetah to bring down. But Kiya didn't like being bossed around by this weird bird, it wasn't like this was its own forest. She hissed and growled at the bird, giving it one chance to leave her alone.
Apparently, the bird took that as a challenge and charged her. Kiya wasn't about to let it use its beak and spurs on her. She dashed around the bird and swatted at it. The bird turned to go after her again. Cheetahs were built more for hit-and-run, not close combat. When the bird got closer to her, she lashed out with her hands. The bird barreled into her, nearly knocking it over. She struggled with the fowl before getting one good blow to its head. There was a 'crack' before the bird fell over, its legs twitching with weakening spasms. One look at the bird's neck told Kiya she managed to break it. She hadn't been trying to hit it that hard. But she still felt pride. She managed to get her first kill as an Animalian, and it was a big bird too. She struggled a little bit with picking it up before she went to find Tom and Brittany.
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"I can't believe a turkey would attack a predator like that, especially an Animalian," said the butcher.
"Well, it must have been a very territorial turkey," said Tom, "After growing so big, it must have decided it wouldn't take any shit from anyone. I bet it would even charge at coyotes or pumas."
"Well, turkeys are pretty stupid birds," said the butcher, "You know, they'll stare up at a rainstorm with their mouths wide open until they drown."
Eugene cleared his throat and said, "Actually, that's a myth. Wild turkeys aren't that stupid, even if they are reckless. Even farm-raised turkeys aren't dim enough to drown themselves like that."
"Well, they're not the brightest birds either," said Tom, "Why Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the turkey our national bird instead of bald eagles like you, I'll never know."
Eugene shrugged and said, "I'm just glad the other Founding Fathers had more sense."