InsaneJournal

Regan: Let it rain
[OOC: Regan has a fling, the skank. :P as yet unfinished. Solo's parts played by Ruuki on MG.]

The rain was beginning to pick up as Regan approached the stretch of wood that led to the sea. Normally she would not have strayed so close to human habitation, but in this weather, at night, there would be no humans about, and it would be possible that she might find and steal some tidbit that they had so carelessly dropped. They were always dropping perfectly good food and then leaving it for anyone to pick up. The bitch smiled in satisfaction at the thought. Humans. What foolish creatures they were!

There was nobody here, all right, and the setter-hound set about to sniffing here and there with her keen nose, seeking any interesting thing that she could possibly unearth, rain or no rain. Her ears rose slightly as she came upon the fresh scent of another dog - a male, too, at that. Very interesting.

As she put her head up again, she caught sight of a shaggy figure through the rain, sitting on the docks. Well, why not? There were no humans here anyway, and Regan was feeling particularly... friendly. Her fringed tail swaying alluringly, she made her way towards him.

Solo had driven deep and hard into his thoughts as he sat there at the edge of the dock. Blinking and breathing seemed to be the only movement that befell the large dog as his chest cavity rose and fell in slow rhythmic motion. With small ears pinned back against his head, he hadn't noticed the sounds of another.

He was too lost in his thoughts to really give any care in the world to whom else might have collected at the dock. Though he had figured that the rain would keep most away from the place and safe in their homes. However a noise soon alerted him that someone else was there as the wood creaked under the movement. Then there was vibrations.. and finally, a smell.

Cropped ears perked up atop his skull, but he resisted the urge to whip around to face the female. Whoever she was. Instead he drilled himself into the wood, keeping paws firmly planted. Sometimes being a male was a pain.

"Quite the evening to be exploring the docks, my dear... Shouldn't you be some place warm and dry?" That baritone voice boomed from deep within his chest as he continued staring straight ahead, only speaking once the other was close enough. Good thing he had such a tiny tail, or she might have seen it twitch and wiggle.

Regan drew her lips back in a wolfish grin at his words.

"If by 'warm and dry' you mean a human dwelling, I have no interest in such things. Humans bore me, and I dislike the way they smell." She wrinkled her nose. "I would not step into one of their dens again, warm and dry or otherwise."

Stepping around the large shaggy dog, she settled herself beside him, casually letting her tail brush him as she swept it back and forth. Turning to face him, she cocked her head, a quizzical look in her light clear eyes.

"You talk of being warm and dry, but you yourself are out here in the downpour," she remarked, deadpan. "What's your name, stranger?"

Solo held back a smirk to the smooth tone of the female's voice as curled around to flank his side. Only once her haunches touched the planks did he tear his attention from the sea and sky beyond. What he saw actually surprised him.

Brows rose in mild surprise to the striking creature that sat beside him. However, he couldn't quite place her lineage.. not that it mattered much, for he surely didn't look much like his breeding line. Not all wet and flat like that, of course. His nostrils quivered as he inhaled that divine scent and allowed himself to smirk to her remark about the rain.

"I like the rain. It's... soothing. Besides the smell of humans isn't one I'd like to get used to either." A deep, short chuckle was given as he briefly thought of the Vet Tech that saved him, but now wasn't the time for the past.. A brief glance was given behind to the long fan of the female's tail as it brushed up against him. Huh? Oh.. Looking back up to her, he spoke, "Solo. And yours?"

"It's Regan," replied the red and gold bitch simply, sweeping her tail back and forth again. "I liked the name, so I kept it. It's about the only thing the humans gave me that was of any worth at all."

She regarded him a moment, since he seemed to be sizing her up. Regan had no eye for the finer points of dog breeding, since she herself had been born on the streets, and she couldn't have told a Bouvier from a beardie. The dog might have been rather plain - all shaggy fawn fur, now wet with the rain and plastered to his skin. Regan preferred a more showy dog, as a rule. But she could tell this Solo was fit and strong, and older than she. He was also a dog that didn't spend a lot of time with humans either, by the smell of it. And there was something in his voice, in what he said, when he spoke of the rain...

The setter-hound lowered her chest to the ground and let herself relax, curling her tail around her haunches. She looked up through the curtain of drops, blinking as some of them fell a tad too close to her eyes. The soft sigh of water meeting water as it fell into the ocean, the cooling texture of the wood beneath her paws, the scent of the rain mingling with the smells of brine and damp timber and the dog beside her. She closed her eyes, drinking it all in, and saw the world as if for the first time.

"You're right," she murmured finally. "It is... soothing."

Solo reveled in the short seconds of silence that she granted him between their speech. It gave him ample time to watch her as she moved. His attention locked on those golden eyes, catching reactions to the elements as they splayed across her face.

Regan... The name sunk deep into his memory as he repeated it once, twice, perhaps even a third time. His whiskers twitched and he'd lower his skull, watching her with ample interest and a growing appreciation for the fetching creature beside him.

The corners of his lips curled slightly with a smile as the female settled down beside him, and he couldn't help but relax further. Leaning back, the Bouvier pushed himself against the wood. Brushing up against her, either intentional or otherwise, he lay beside the female.

Regan did not move as the other dog settled beside her. She felt oddly lulled into a state of quiet peace, and she marvelled at the strange sensation for a minute.

Then she laughed at her own wonderment, shaking her head so that drops of water flew off her fine ears. How silly.

"Mmmhmm.." He let a pause settle there as he turned back to the sea, only shifting minutes later to break the silence again with a low whisper. "Although it is a nice... rainy evening, I do think it's getting a bit chilly out here. Perhaps we should find a place that's a bit dryer?"

If he meant what she thought he might mean... well. The bitch had only really been in for a quick and harmless flirtation - plain dogs didn't interest her, normally - but this dog, this Solo, held some sort of fascination for her. She decided that she would like very much to spend more time with him - at least until the rain let up - and she laughed again, girlishly, as she curved her body against his, letting her sleek shoulder press against his shaggy one by way of answer.

Solo had been well too enveloped in the attentions of Regan laying beside him to notice the approach of another dog until the other had practically stepped on them. Small ears swiveled backwards and the muscles in his shoulders tensed as he nearly jumped up in surprise.

However, Solo was a master at keeping his cool and held back the urge to show interest in the male. Especially when the darn skinny beast wouldn't even look at him. Lazily, Solo had torn his attention from the female to watch the other as he walked past, paused and then walked on again. Hmm.

Yet his attention was pulled away from the male as Regan brushed up against him and he'd look back over to her with a hearty grin. He, of course, had just been toying with the idea of slipping somewhere dryer.. It had been a purely innocent request. Hadn't it?

A quick movement behind them caught the corner of Regan's eye, and she turned her head to see the long-bodied shape of another dog trotting quickly across the docks to a pile of old boxes. The young bitch's long feathered ears perked up at the sight.

"That look dry to you?" she inquired, getting to her feet and letting her body stiffen into a point - a trait from her setter father.

As Regan spoke and rolled up to a stand, he once more tossed his attention in the direction of the male and the boxes and almost groaned. Females. Mustache twitched a bit to the curl of his upper lip, but he pushed himself up to a sit and shrugged his shoulders rather nonchalantly.

"Looks a bit crowded, if you'd ask me.. Though there might be enough room for you... and him." No. Solo wasn't really in the mood to fight for a pile of boxes. There were plenty of other places that held a more cozier atmosphere, and without the unwanted company.

Regan whirled around to face Solo in some puzzlement at his words. Did he want her to go away, then? Emotions whirled in her deep chest. The wanderer in her told her lazily to leave the side of this scruffy mutt, and to go and see what this other dog was about. Another side of her nature was affronted that he should want her to go away, and bade her to stalk off in annoyance. What, was she not good enough for him? But still another part of her, a part she could not define, compelled her to stay.

"No," she replied simply. "I'd much rather spend my time with one whose company I can be sure of appreciating."

Well, Solo honestly wasn't expecting that sort of reaction. For as Regan whirled around to face him, he leaned back for fear of getting bitten. Who knew with some females.. Brows lifted in some surprise to the reply. It was also something he wasn't expecting. Though that was a pleasant surprise and the Bouvier managed a growing smile.

She sat beside him again to assure him that she wasn't going anywhere, and gazed right into the dog's clear eyes beneath his unkempt tufts of hair. She put her nose up to his to puff a short breath into his nostrils, and her tail swished.

"Where do you say we go, then?"

As the Setter bitch leaned in and pressed her nose to his, something lurched inside Solo and broke open a cage of butterflies. They filled his insides and sent electric sparks though his limbs. It took him a second or two to recover with a few rapid blinks. Regaining his composure as she spoke once more, this time of getting out of the rain, his smile returned as shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug.

"Do you feel lucky, Miss Regan?" was his only repose as he playfully pushed his nose against hers. Then, in a display of brazen boldness, that rough tongue of his flicked out and placed a small 'lick' against the space between Regan's nose and upper lip. Immediately after, the canine was up on his feet and trudging away.

He seemed startled by her advance - as if he should be, she thought privately, she had certainly been brazen enough already. But he soon returned the gesture - with a lick, and it was Regan's turn to be taken aback. She certainly hadn't been anticipating that from him - he who a few minutes ago had seemed so solemn and pensive.

Looking at him sidelong, she grinned suddenly. "I feel very lucky indeed," she called back, suddenly filled with a strange playfulness, and her tail wagged faster as she watched him sniffing along the docks. Drenched as they both were, he still cut a fine figure, she thought privately, smirking to herself. The fleeting glimpse of the longbodied dog that had passed them by was now thrown to the winds, and she kept sitting, watching him until he leapt off the wooden structure and onto one of the boats floating there in the water.

He didn't get more than a few feet before he was sniffing around a side railing of one of the sparse sailing boats that sat connected to the dock by a few random ropes. Without a second thought, hind leg muscles coiled and tightened before releasing and launching the soaked Bouvier up over the edge. Now... let's see if he was lucky enough...

Moments after slipping to the middle of the boat, Solo returned to the edge with a lazy grin plastered on his face. Short ears perked atop his skull and tail nub lifted, he attempted to look rather regal while standing there.. whether or not it worked, he wasn't sure. Rain had a funny way of making everything rather disheveled.

"It's much more comfy up here.. if you'd like to join me. The cabin's unlocked. I guess you are pretty lucky to have around." He continued to look over at her and wait for her response.

Regan's ears pulled back, reflexively, and she almost snarled. No... oh no! Not a human contraption, what a terrible thing. Coming slowly towards the boat upon which she could still see him standing, she paused on the edge of the dock, looking across at the shaggy dog. She wanted to go to him - oh yes, of that she was sure. Her tail rose. But that thing... oh why?

"There are no humans aboard?" she called imperiously, unwilling to let him see how uncomfortable she was with the whole idea. By Canis, if there were none... then perhaps she would attempt the jump. Perhaps.

Solo was, indeed, a male, and in turn wasn't the most observant creature on the face of the planet. So of course he hadn't noted her uncomfortable reaction to him leaping into the boat. Though when he did stop and think for a moment, it did seem rather silly to ask another up into a human's retreat. With or without the two-leggeds around. Onyx nose twitched as sparse rain spackled his muzzle and he'd stare down at her before cocking a smirk.

"I wouldn't be so foolish as to risk our safety by being up here with humans present. It is very nice inside.. But if you wish to find some place else.." His last sentenced trailed as he felt a sense of failure to impress by finding them a better place than a box or crate, however, she might just like it. If she tried.

That nub of a tail rose and twitched a few times before he added a somewhat comical lopsidedness to his skull. Maybe he could scrounge up some food inside. Maybe...

Well. He certainly seemed sure enough. The rain was getting heavier, making rivulets down Regan's red and gold coat, and she felt again that odd sense of puppyish delight rising up in her deep chest, that need to throw caution and inhibition to the winds and do what she felt like doing. She laughed aloud, throwing her head up so that water flew off her ears and ruff, reared on her hind legs, and raced back along the dock, leaping through the puddles in the uneven wood. Once she felt she had gone far enough she wheeled and turned, running the other way and picking up speed until she reached the end of it and pushed off with her hind legs.

Both breeds in her heritage had awarded her plenty of agility and strength, and the young bitch's leap described a graceful arc through the air, taking her onto the moored boat with wonderful ease.

Solo was still there waiting for her, and her feathered tail, now wet and draggled by the rain, waved sinuously over her back as she looked at him. She trotted up to him, a provocative look in her eyes, to press her nose once more against his, to breathe in his scent. If he stood still, she'd flick her tongue lightly, teasingly across his nose before snuffing along his muzzle.

"Well then. What now?"