Arrival 3

Every warren has a place like this. A place for bunnies who managed to drop out of the cutthroat world of bunny politics without having their throats cut. The size varies, depending on the roughness of the politics and the warren's size of course. At StateHouse warren it wasn't terribly large or terribly crowded but it suited Fuzzy's purposes. A place to spend the night. A place where bunnies not only didn't like to ask questions but also didn't like to answer them. He knew he'd arrived when he caught the smells, stale dandelion smoke, bad food and fear. A potpourri of despair and longing for the times before. Small knots of bunnies watched him warily while he hopped past them, looking for a scrape. He found something towards the back edge, a small room with only one entrance. Not the best thing for quick escapes but good in terms of defensiblity. He snuggled down in a corner of the dusty burrow and fell asleep.

"You take the left side, I'll go through this way."

Fuzzy woke up, beams of pale light swinging to and fro in distant doorways. He couldn't remember where he was. A dusty office in an abandoned warehouse or factory by the look of things. Suddenly he remembered.

"Pellets, I can't believe I'm still in Rhode Island."

Fuzzy shook off the remnants of his strange dreams, dreams of the Lady and hungry wyrmdoes. Dreams of his death, maybe. Whoever woke him was moving around in the next room, coming closer to the doorway. He sat still, flexing his claws and tensing and relaxing the muscles in his legs. When the stranger came in, a long leap, a quarter turn and the back claws raking across the throat or eyes. Fine blood mist spraying into the air, sudden squeal of surprise and pain even more suddenly cut off and then... Fuzzy blinked, he could actually smell blood in the air and traces of a doe. He looked at his paw and saw the small cut, weeping tears of blood untasted into the dust of the floor. He let the last remnants of dream float back into the aether and remembered he hadn't come to Rhode Island to kill anyone. He was a harmless aging regbun, lawks.

"Hey what are you doing? Come out of there you."

The doe scent had resolved itself as a large grey doe with an officious bearing and sleek muscles like the coiled steel under the skin of a crowd control baton. Fuzzy twitched his ears and tried not to stare. He could hear her heartbeat, a persistant backbeat to the blood singing in her veins. He swallowed involuntarily.

"Am sleeping, Is no good to sleep?"
"You're trespassing, this is a restricted area by council orders."
"You owsla?" Fuzzy squinted into the light at the outline of the doe.
"What? I'm Lt. Fuzzpaw, council police. Come with me. You're under arrest."
"I Mudpaw, I courier, make delivery be gone tommorrow."
"I have my orders, come on you."

Fuzzy looked past Lt. Fuzzpaw in the entranceway. She was alone at the moment, and probably in charge of the operation. He put on what he hoped was a winning smile.

"Don't want no trouble. You want present maybe?"

Fuzzpaw turned off her light and hopped forward into the room.

"Are you trying to bribe me, little bun?"
"No, no. Trying to make friends."

Fuzzy moved closer and lowered his voice even more.

"You like dandelion maybe? Or some toe?"
"How did a regbun like you get toes?"
"I give you toe, maybe you forget you see Mudpaw, tell other bunnies you check this area?"
"I might just confiscate it from you and drag you in anyway."
"No, not you, nice doe, pretty doe. Mudpaw be gone tommorrow. No trouble for you."

Fuzzy pulled a small styrofoam carton out of his bag. He trembled a little as he pushed it over with his nose. Her bulk loomed darkly over him. Her eyes shifted focus from the regbun to the box. Fuzzpaw opened the box and looked inside. A fresh pinkie toe, packed in dry ice. Wisps of steam flowed out of the box, streaming toward the dust. As much toe as she saw in a month, maybe more. There was something funny about this regbun, but for a fresh toe...

"Alright, you stay back here and keep quiet. I hear anything about you again, I'm making you my personal squirrel, understand."

Lt. Fuzzpaw closed the box, shoved it into her rucksack and hopped away.

Sunflower sat at her desk in the reception area of the council offices idly dragging a shaper across her claw. Some fluff had settled while the clearcoat was drying, creating a blemish on the perfect surface. She watched the phone ring with one eye and the lobby with the other. Finally she reached out and tapped the flashing light on the phone. It might be an important call after all. Not as important as her claw polishing of course. Any doe worth listening to would tell you the importance of personal grooming.

"State House Warren Council, How may I direct your call?"
"I'm sorry, Mentat O'Hare is in a meeting, can I have his assistant call you back?"
"No, Thank You."

Important bunnies hopped in and out of the lobby. Their status was reflected most accurately in Sunflower's facial expressions. The higher status a buck had, the warmer the smile. Does got smiles too of course, part of her job, but a tight-lipped smile turning into a slight frown should the doe have the temerity to be prettier than she was. Suddenly, her face turned to stone.

"You're not supposed to be in here. <icyfluff>"
"No, S'OK, I courier."

A regbun had somehow managed to elude security and wandered as far as the lobby. He had a floppy ear and a scar running across one eye into the grizzled fur of his muzzle. It was sitting right there, actually talking to her. Like it somehow deserved to. She went back to buffing her claws and looking at Wynn's Fashion Tips.

"I look for Sunflower Ashwood."

Sunflower looked over the top of her magazine.

"Is you?"
"Courier, you say? oooh, that's me! <gigglefluff>"
"<noddle> From Atlanta Warren."
"Is my order from ... Atlanta Warren?"

Sunflower tilted her head.

"I didn't order anything from Atlanta Warren... ooh, is this from Wynn?"

Fuzzy slid out of his disheveled backpack and rummaged around in it, finally withdrawing a velvet covered box and a beat-up looking pawtop.

"I bet she's vacationing there... Oooh, Gimme!"
"You gotta sign or they thump me."

The pawtop is slid across the desk and examined.

"What is this, where do I sign?"
"Paw on screen, is good enough."

Sunflower delicately put her paw down on the grubby screen. She pulled it away far less delicately when it beeped at her.

"Hey! What was that? Why did it make that noise at me?"
"Noise says, 'got signature'"

The doe's attention quickly turned to the velvet box which she snatched up and sniffed at.

"You got nice paw, make good print."
"Yeah, well... what is this? Who sent this to me..."

Sunflower opened the box with fuzzy looking on. Inside was a pair of black silk earbows. Shot silk with silver threads in a sort of moire pattern.

"Somebun with lotsa toes, I bet."

Fuzzy scratched his ear with a hind foot.

"oooh, MY EARBOWS!... Oh, wait, I didn't order this... but it's better than what I did order. Lotsa toes, you say?
" "Mus' be. Is ver' nice earbows."

Fuzzy hopped back out of the lobby and into the warren streets while the doe exitedly put on her pretty new earbows. He slipped around a corner and switched his pawtop on. All that wandering around trying to find Woodsorrel hadn't been a total waste. He's managed to build up a fairly good map of the warren. A fairly good map with a little red blip on it in the council lobby. Sunflower would go home sometime and the transmitter had enough power for a day or so. Judging from the general level of security, there wouldn't be any bug sweeps before he got what he needed. Fuzzy settled in to a dark corner to wait.