I may have posted this before - if so, my apologies!
Sage was sitting on the dock with the sea wind in her fur. She had her eyes half closed as she watched the antics of a human crew trying to unload their cargo. It was obviously a pirate's booty since it had been badly loaded, rifled through and packed worse when they'd gotten it aboard. She wasn't quite sure why any pirate would steal a piano, of even why one would have been shipped in the first place, but it did provide plenty of amusement.
"Why hello there belle," a smooth lapin greeted her, nose wriggling ear at attention as he came up beside her.
Sage glanced over her shoulder at the black and white Dutch who had a bandana jauntily tied around his neck. No blaze, but plenty of attitude. She replied with a yawn and a stretch and looking back at the antics of the human sailors.
The buck wasn't deterred, if anything the disinterest of the silver and white doe seemed to interest him more. "And why is a beautiful lady like you sitting here alone?"
"Because I choose to." Sage replied with a sniff. He smelt of sea-salt and drowned rat. Probably either off a riff-raff ship that didn't clean its bilges nearly often enough or floated up on some driftwood.
"Waiting for someone, perhaps?" he continued, sneaking just a little closer.
Sage eyed him again over her shoulder and snapped her teeth in warning in case he was about to get any ideas. "No, just watching the humans." She gave a head toss towards the ship that had been entertaining her so.
The buck looked beyond the sleek silver and white dutch doe to the ship beyond and then shook his own ears in amusement, "Humans. They're a bunch of no-brainers."
"But they have the rum." Sage replied, intrigued by the strange accent despite of herself.
"Now, if it's rum the doe wants, it's rum she shall get." He raised his head above her's in the bunny equivalent of a bow, an offer to groom. Sage wasn't sure she was ready to have the brash foreigner groom her, but she'd certainly drink his rum.
The black and white rabbit bounded off down the dock and turned up the other pier, weaving between seamen, dock workers and the occasional lady of trade.
Rabbits, no matter their size or colour, could be very stealthy. Sage agreed that rum would definitely worth the effort of stealth.
It seemed no more than six nose twitches later than the buck had reappeared from the bilge leaking ship with a bottle of rum in his mouth. His gait was altered by half-carrying, half-dragging the bottle the same size as himself but he seemed to have no problem with the weight. Sage was impressed with his strength and his audacity.
Soon he was back beside her nibbling off the wax seal of the bottle. Sage did her part by donating a couple of half shells to use as dishes. With an ease that bespoke practice, the buck poured rum into each shell.
"The humans call me Jonny." He introduced himself.
"I'm Sage." She'd chosen her name, she'd just had to get it through her thick human's skull. "How'd you make it here?" she asked.
The bunny called Jonny seemed more than happy enough to regale her with stories of his adventures on the seas. Sage was sure even one or two of them might have a hint of truth to the fish stories.
The sun was nearing the horizon when she let out a delicate burp, a trick she'd learned from Janice. She leaned forward and gave Jonny a lick on the cheek. "Thanks for the good time, sailor." Sage turned neatly on her hindquarters and hopped back down the dock. There was only a *little* lateral movement to her forward motion.
Jonny sighed as he watched the view. "Hate to see you leave, but love to watch you go, darling." He muttered before turning back to the shells and bottle of rum. The shells were empty and so was the bottle! The girl had milked him and left him to the winds! A broken heart and nothing to show for his troubles. He sniffed, normally the answer would be to drink more rum.
"But why is the rum gone?" he wondered, his first choice of first-aid prevented.
Sage did a binky, almost falling over in her inebriated state, at the end of the docks and hopped off to find her human. She hadn't even had to slap the pirate to keep him off her!
