OMG gasp! Something besides pictures of dolls? 0o0
Crazy I know! This is the beginning of my story "Girls Best Friend" which I'll be updating at random when I get the chance and time to work on it. I'll also be illustrating parts of it, so i'll probably edit this post again later with a few pictures to add in at random.
Comments are very appreciated and lets me know if it's even worth writing. Thanks!


Chapter 1
In which a young woman rescues a dog

The sun was falling below the horizon beyond the reach of a large, sprawling, modern city. One could hardly tell this was so, though, as the sky was blanketed in heavy, dark rain clouds that blotted out the typically beautiful sunset. Thunder rolled in the distance as a young woman stepped out the door of her first floor apartment, her shocking magenta hair tugged into a tiny stub of a ponytail, her face framed by rebellious stray hairs. Her bright green eyes, currently focused somewhere off in space, were fringed by thick lashes; the faintest sprinkling of freckles dusted her cheeks as soft full lips set below a dainty nose voiced quiet, incoherent words as she spoke to herself.



A bag of garbage in hand, the young, slight woman rounded the corner of the apartment building, her bare feet padding softly against the concrete sidewalk. Dressed in a white tank top and blue calf length pajama pants, it was obvious that the girl did not get out in the sun much, as her skin was quite pale. She paused in front of the large dumpster at the back of the building, kneading her forehead with her knuckles, no longer muttering. She looked around in surprise for a moment, as though she had only just realized she had arrived at her destination. With a grunt and a heave, the bag of trash flew through the air and landed neatly inside the canister with a resounding crash. Dusting her hands on her pants, she turned and started back to her apartment, to distracted too even notice that she was being watched.

Not long after the girl had vanished around the corner, door snapping shut behind her, a low whine came from under the dumpster. Blue eyes, which had been watching the girl so avidly moments before, were now dulled with pain. The large dog began to laboriously wriggle out from under the dumpster, panting heavily as it did so, only making it halfway before collapsing to the cold, unforgiving asphalt. Its eyes shut tiredly, as though completely exhausted from over exerting itself. Upon closer inspection, great gashes could be seen along its sides and back, as well as it's neck and head. All were bleeding sluggishly -- who knew what other damage had been done to the other half of it, remaining under the dumpster. The poor filthy hound, the color of it's fur barely even discernible under the muck and blood that coated it from snout to tail, barely even twitched an ear as the ominously dark clouds above it released their load in the form of a thunderous downpour that could've been enough to drown a fish.

It was there that our quirky, magenta-haired young woman found him the next morning, half dead and soaked straight through -- even the half of it that was under the dumpster. Her bright green eyes widened and she dropped the large, flattened cardboard box she had been preparing to dispose of, and ran to the animal. She crouched down and hesitantly reached out, touching one of the dogs ears, wondering whether or not the thing was still alive.

“You poor thing...” she murmured in a quiet voice. Her eyes brightened, though, when one of the ears twitched at her touch. It was still alive after all! She looked around and then down at herself. Dressed in a nice white turtleneck sweater and black slacks, she was hardly dressed to be lifting a wet, filthy dog...Her attention landed on the flattened box and she got an idea.

The pale woman settled the flat box beside the dog as best as she could before stopping to roll up her long sleeves. She crouched down once more and slowly pulled the dog out from under the dumpster, grunting with the weight of it. It was certainly a large creature, bigger than most wolves she had ever seen at the city zoo or on tv. The dog stirred slightly during the maneuver, but other then that, did not react. Pausing to brush a few stray strands of hair from her face, the girl didn't even notice that she had smudged grime all along her cheek. Setting back to work, she gently rolled the dog onto the box.

“Whew, there,” she huffed. “You certainly are a heavy thing.” Making a face, she reached down to grasp the corner of the box as best she could with her pale, long-fingered hands, and began dragging it -- and the dog -- back to her apartment. It took her a solid five minutes of huffing, dragging, and groaning to pull the large animal around the corner of the building and to her front door. She opened it and paused, debating on what to do. She didn't particularly want such a filthy, smelly dog in her house...but on the other hand, she could hardly just leave it outside. With a sigh, she stooped once more and dragged it through the threshold.

She stopped in the entryway and let the cardboard drop from her hands. She stood back as she caught her breath, kicking the door shut as she did so. She looked around at her entryway critically. It was tiled floor for the first few feet, and then a ledge that led to the rest of the room, all hard wood and scattered rugs. She didn't see how she would be able to get the dog up the ledge without it rolling right off the cardboard, and so she decided to leave it. There wasn't much she could do about it until it woke. She kicked off her black shoes and walked into her kitchen, attempting to find something that a dog could eat. Finally she settled on some left over rice in a Tupperware. She tugged off the lid and brought it over to the dog and set it down in front of it's nose, hoping it would wake at the smell of food. It did twitch a little, but other then that, remained unconscious.

The girl only sighed. She looked down at the pathetic creature, lost in thought. She didn't have a car, so she couldn't bring it to the vet, nor did she even know where the nearest vet was.

“I suppose all I can do is wait for you to wake up, is that it, my filthy friend?” she said aloud to the dog, but received no answer. Not knowing what else she could do, she went and flopped down onto the couch, pulling a book off her coffee table, and settled back to read.

The book couldn't hold her interest for long though, her green eyes continually straying from the text of her novel to the motionless form of the wretched dog by her front door, leaking mud and dumpster juice on her clean tile floor. The increasing filth wasn't what kept distracting though, so much as the dog itself. How had the creature become so beaten? Who did it belong too? What kind of dog was it, anyways? She couldn't even tell from all the dirt and blood that covered it's coat, and, in any case, she was no dog expert.

She sighed impatiently, distractedly brushing a few magenta locks of hair back from her round, pale face. Finally she got up, unable to continue reading, and for the next two hours, fiddled about in the kitchen, tried working on her laptop, cleaned the bathroom, and was debating on taking a nap on the couch when a quiet sound reached her ears. Peeking around the corner, she saw that the dog was no longer passed out on the floor of the entryway, but was hungrily choking down as much of the leftovers as fast as it could.

“Hey now, no need to gorge yourself.” She murmured gently, walking over to the dog to get a better look at it. “No ones going to steal your food.”

She reached out to pick up a few stray grains of rice that had escaped the bowl, but froze when the dog abruptly growled at her, making her look around at it from where she had crouched. Her eyes locked with the dogs, and oh what eyes it had. Such deep blue eyes, seemingly as vast as the ocean itself. The young woman suddenly felt as though she were in danger of drowning in them. She pulled away her gaze with such force that she abruptly fell over backwards onto her rear. She winced and watched as the dog turned its intense gaze from her and back to it's food.

'What strange eyes for a dog...' she mused to herself, watching the dog continue eating. They had been fierce, intelligent eyes, she'd never seen any animal with eyes like that, no person either. 'How bizarre...What kind of mess have I gotten myself into, I wonder?' she thought to herself as she brushed off her rear and stood.

“Now you listen here, dog.” She said firmly, looking down with a strict look on her face. The dog hardly payed her any mind, but after a moment she did notice that it had cocked an ear in her direction. It would have to do.

“I won't have any of this growling business, do you hear me? If you want my help, you'll have to play nice or you can just take your bleeding carcass right on out of my house.” She crossed her arms over her full chest and gave the hound a firm stare.

The dog looked briefly up at her, and the girl could have sworn that it raised a quizzical eyebrow at her as if thinking she were quite mad. The pinked haired young woman shook it off. Dogs didn't look at people like that, she was just imagining it.

She crouched down next to the animal and said, “Well dog, my name is Cheena. What's yours?” As she examined its neck, searching for a collar or tag of some sort. There was none though, making Cheena sigh. Of course there wasn't, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?

“Well, even if I can't find your name, you're still coming with me to take a bath, do you understand that, dog? A bath. B-A-T-H, because you smell worse that week old garbage.” The girl rambled to the dog, though she knew it couldn't understand her at all. She'd lived alone for quite awhile now, so it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if it was just a beaten old dog.

“Come along then,” she said, nudging the dog to try and get it to it's feet. It had dried sufficiently that she didn't worry about it dripping all over her apartment, though his stench was getting worse as the minutes ticked by.

The dog shot her another look and pointedly tried to ignore her poking and prodding until the point that she was surprised that it didn't just turn around and bite her.

“Oh come on! I'm in charge here and if you expect to get any food tonight you're going to take a bath, do you understand, dog? And I'm serious!” Cheena said with a frown when all her prodding proved fruitless.

The dog flicked an ear back her way again and seemed to be considering her pleas. Finally it huffed audibly and hauled itself tiredly to its feet, and stood waiting for direction. Cheena stared with wide green eyes at the filthy, brown, muck covered dog. Had it truly understood her? Or was it just coincidence? Perhaps it was just the tone of her voice that had finally gotten it to move...The dog growled slightly as though telling her to hurry up, making her snap back to reality.

“Good. Glad you see things my way,” Cheena said as she recovered and guided the dog along to the bathroom towards the back of the apartment. The poor creature followed slowly, clearly still in pain; Cheena's eyes fell to the ground in front of her in pity. They arrived at their destination and the dog regarded the bathtub rather warily and seemed about to turn back when Cheena appeared behind him and snapped the door shut, cutting off all escape.



“Don't even think about it, doggy.” Cheena rolled up the long sleeves of her sweater as she spoke. “You stink and you're taking a bath. That's that.”

Arms outstretched, she herded the dog up against the bath until finally the only place it had to go was into the tub itself, which he finally did, much to Cheena's relief. She hurriedly turned on the water, making sure it wasn't too hot, and then turned a third nob, turning on the shower. Oddly enough, the dog didn't seem terribly surprised or frightened. He simply stood there looking dejected, letting the water run across his filthy coat as Cheena began to tentatively scrub away the muck as best she could with her hands. She carefully cleaned grime from the nasty gouges in the dogs back and sides, doing her best to ignore his alternating angry growling and pained whines.

Gradually the muck came away from the matted fur, revealing that the dog wasn't brown at all, but bright gold and white. Using liberal amounts of her own shampoo and conditioner, Cheena eventually got the dog clean, at which point she realized that the dripping creature in her bathtub was no mutt, but a handsome (though injured) gold and white Siberian Husky.

“Well, that's a surprise. And here I was thinking you were just some mutt! Who on earth would abandon such a handsome pooch as yourself, hmm?” Cheena asked her furry guest idly, almost laughing as the dog growled slightly, though he seemed more sulky than anything.

The young woman set about carefully drying the dog off, taking extra care not to jar his wounds. She pulled out the blow-dryer she normally used on her own hair and set to work on his fur. The dog, not much liking this, scrambled away, claws skittering on the tile floor of the small bathroom, leading her on a merry chase about the room until she finally got him cornered and finished him off.

Cheena sat back, huffing after their little chase. She wrapped up the hair dryer and put it away again before once more casting her critical green eye to the dog, who seemed to glare right back at her for putting him through such an uncomfortable ordeal.

“Don't you look at me like that.” Cheena said, making a face at the dog.

The dog snorted and whined a little through it's nose as the magenta-haired woman turned to the medicine cabinet, opening the mirror-fronted door and looking inside to see what she had that could handle her guest's injuries. During his bath, she'd found that most of them had already started to close up and scab over, though some of the deeper ones had not yet. She reached in and pulled cotton balls, hydrogen peroxide, and a little tube of Neosporin, though she wondered if it would be enough. Turning back, Cheena saw that the husky was eying her warily with those strange blue eyes of his.

“No making a fuss, do you hear?” Cheena said, cornering him before he could flee again. “If you sit through this like a good boy, I'll let you out and you can get some food and water, hmm?”

The dog still eyed the things warily, but stopped fleeing. When she began to apply the peroxide though, he snarled savagely, making Cheena pull back in surprise, afraid he would bite her with those long white fangs of his that he flashed every time he growled. Nothing came of it, and though he growled and snarled every time the peroxide burned the infection from his wounds, he never bit her.

“You're a good boy, dog.” Cheena said with the beginnings of affection in her voice, though she still did not dare reach out to stroke his silky golden coat. When she was done, she opened the door and the dog eagerly shot out of the bathroom and weakly wandered off to investigate the apartment, sticking his dark nose in everything in his path. Cheena only giggled and headed towards the kitchen, pulling out a bowl, filling it with water, and setting it on the floor for the dog. She turned to her refrigerator and was once more at a loss as to what she had that she could possibly feed the dog without having to worry about upsetting its stomach; it was too late to try and find a store nearby that would sell dog food...then she spotted the lasagna she had made herself a day or two previously. It was mostly cheese, red sauce, noodles, and ground beef. She'd had it with a rather delightful salad the other night, and supposed that it would have to do for both her and the dog. Retrieving both it and a pair of plates, she dished up the remains of the lasagna onto the two plates and then put the empty dish in the sink. After warming up the servings, she set one plate on her small, round dinner table, and the other on the floor nearby with the bowl of water, and then sat herself at the table.
She had just begun to eat when the dog, having smelled the food, came over, sniffed the dish, and then began eating with gusto. She looked over and smiled bemusedly.

“Glad you like it. Made it myself.” Cheena commented between bites, though the dog did not answer, she didn't exactly expect it to.
The pair ate in silence, one staring off into space between idle bites of food, and the other unable to speak anyways. Eventually Cheena finished and looked at the dog from across her small table and wondered, 'What on earth am I supposed to do now?'

END Chapter 1

Editing done by the wonderful h_u_s_h_e_d

Edited to include illustrations