William and Conway (WIP)
A tale of bunnies, adventure, and flying hats.
This is a work in progress, has been on my shelf for a bit and i've been recently nagged into working on it. I would looooove opinions.
Yes, even mean ones. Mean spirit heart breaking ones. Just not ones that poke too much.
William and Conway
Meeting
The sun was out and bright, a gentle breeze was rolling across the landscape, and it urged Conway to pull his jacket closer to him. It was a cold breeze, as was much of the air this time of season. It stole the badly needed energy from his small body, and it was something he should protect himself from. He grumbled a quiet insult to the wind, to which the wind took great offense and sent yet another gust towards Conway as retribution, removing the cap from the bunny's head and sent it into the sky. Conway watched with disbelief, he had never in his life seen a cap fly so vigorously, and only counted it as severe badluck. Karma catching up to him and giving him a soft kick in the rear for his transgressions.
Within a few minutes he had already claimed a new hat.
Conway was a thief, and he made his living stealing small things. Never big things, or wide things, or things that could not be stuffed into a pocket or slid into a sleve. This meant that Conway was a poor thief, but an alive thief, and sometimes being alive was better than being well-off. Of course to Conway this didn't mean a thing. He took everything day by day, each morning squinting out at the sun like it was his arch nemesis and he was a superbunny, vowing to one day finally defeat its cruelty in waking him on a daily basis. This day was no different, he crawled out of the place he had slept the previous night, this night it was a little nook in a hill, some small distance out of town where he could properly sort through the spoils of a hard worked (stolen) day. Not much of value, but perhaps things he could get some coin (and coin meant food, gloriously decent food) in the next town when he found the ever present shady pawn dealer who didn't ask where things came from. Business was business, and business bought from honest and dishonest alike.
Our thief walked his way out of his hole, into what some would call a gloriously awkward day; not a cloud in the sky, a bright shining sun, and a bitter cold wind from the north. You kept some part of you towards the sun if you could help it, avoiding shade to stay warm. And this is exactly what Conway did. He learned a long time ago that people didn't pay much attention to you if you didn't put extra effort into being hidden, and this was true most of the time. Occasionally, someone just sniffed him out, and he was scurried along before he could get his mits on something valuable. Today would be no different, except that value is generally in the eyes of the beholder. If Conway had a value he thought, or liked to think to of himself, it would be quite high. His skill for swiftly liberating people of their shiny trinkits and bits was quite admirable, and might have been a highly praised skill in another time and another age, but this was the age of trade and industry. Thievery was that of documents, that of large quantities of coin, that of land and that of life. Conway found that kind of stealing despicable, and tried his best not to get involved in it.
He looked about, his eyes still adjusting to the bright sunny day as he worked his way towards town. He was not what most people expected in a thief. He blended in, he was clean, well kept, and for someone that didn't have a regular home, that was quite impressive. His clothes were generally slightly wrinkled but never dirty. He had developed almost a sixth sense for avoiding dirt and grime, and always tried his best to keep it that way. A clean thief is a healthy thief he always said, or at least he thought so on the rare occasions he actually did say that. In all truth, he never said that. He was just silly, and it showed at times when he was drunk and loose lipped. Of course those days were more rare than they used to be, but he tried to enjoy a bottle of fine beer or wine occasionally, and generally freely.
As Conway moved about, something perked his ears. A slight arguement in the distance by the road that he was intentionally avoiding. Why announce his presense to local authorities, if there were any, by coming in by the main road? Best to avoid it he thought, but stick close. People lose many many things on the roads when they aren't looking where they should be. Being a good sumaritan had fed Conway many nights when he would otherwise have gone hungry, and he considered what he lifted from his fellow rabbits to be just a fee for being a decent bunny being. Of course, there were the off occasions where he was offered a fee for his services, and generally he felt a large rush of heat into his face and, after a mild pause, generally accepted. Modesty, even in thieves, is a universally good trait. This time however, Conway would get more than he expected for being a good sumaribunny. Whether or not this was a good or bad thing would probably be something that he would spend many many nights considering, as it would linger with him for some time.
As Conway approached the road, the arguement became clearer, and into focus. His large ears, almost disproportionately large ears which often found him the target of a tease of some kind by the local youth, picking up the sound easily, twitching back and forth to best focus on the conversation. It sounded heated, it sounded verbose, and most importantly, it sounded wealthy. Something inside Conway could always smell, or hear for that matter, wealth. This was no different as he approached what appeared to be a carriage and a lesser wagon. From his keen eyes he could surmise that the carriage, mechanical in nature, as things were becoming more and more these days, had rear ended the wagon and severely damaged the backside wheels and their various components. In fact, it was smashed in with some force, many of the belongings of the owner of the wagon laying strewn about on the ground from the impact. These items beckoned towards Conway. Save us! Take us with you oh great bunny, for our previous owner surely knows not how to take proper care of such good as ourselves! Thats what they would say, if they could speak, but thankfully they could not and did not utter a word. The sight of so much loose luggage made Conway stammer. He wasn't sure as how to approach this particular situation, and even less sure as he spotted what appeared to be the wagon's owner.
The owner of the mechanical carriage (Which looked like some strange large black egg with windows, why anyone would want to operate such a monstrous thing was beyond Conway) was a very -very- well dressed and fat rabbit. He screamed of wealth that he didn't properly appreciate and would have been a particularly nice target for Conway had this been under different circumstances.