Owner: That Bloody CatName: Dria
Gender: Female
Status: Currently Unmated
Personality: While Haru is outgoing and relaxed, Dria is very shy and uncomfortable around strangers, sometimes becoming hostile towards them. She is also quite high-strung; sometimes the slightest noise can send her leaping several feet into the air.
It's not easy to gain Dria's trust, but once you have it, she will be a loyal and dependable friend. She is gentle and sensitive, and she loves to be around her loved ones, even though she's alone much of the time. She likes strange things; if you give her mints or tea, she'll be in Heaven. Give her spearmint tea (somehow) and she'll be your best friend forever.
- Intelligent for a Fasheea; good at solving puzzles
- Honest and thoughtful
- Slightly agoraphobic
- Dislikes hot weather
- Likes music, snow, and forests
- Likes to explore
- Not a skilled fighter, but has a lightning-quick bite
How we met: Winter had arrived three days ago, but the white skies showed no signs of snow. The trees were bare; all the leaves had fallen ages ago. For so early in winter, it was absurdly cold and windy.
So naturally it was the perfect time for me to run around outside.
By now, I had forgotten my humiliating little episode from Halloween night. I would take walks in the neighborhood forest every day, looking for adventure and finding nothing but dead leaves. Haru, the little black-and-red Fasheea, liked to follow me around and practice her hunting skills, testing how quiet she could be on the carpet of dry, crackly leaves underfoot.
All was peaceful up until three weeks before Christmas. That was when we found the abandoned cabin.
We took a random turn, and there it was, just standing there in the middle of the woods for no apparent reason. It was as if someone had built it and then completely forgotten its existance three minutes later. It probably belonged to someone, too.
So of course we were going to explore it.
Haru stayed outside the door, arching her back as she stared inside. Ignoring this obvious warning sign, I stepped through the entrance.
The wooden walls were creaky and worn; there was no furniture except for a warped cupboard on the back wall. The cupboard had some sort of nameplate on it, but most of the text was scratched out. All that I could understand was "__DR__I___A". How odd...
Suddenly, I noticed a strangely-shaped, dark green leaf lying under the cupboard. 'That's wierd,' I thought. 'All the leaves are brown and crackly now. Why's this one green?' Haru let out a low warning growl, but I knelt to pick up the leaf...
...and nearly jumped out of my skin when the leaf disappeared into the cupboard as if pulled on a string. Just then, I heard the same plaintive cry as before, only angrier. And louder. And closer.
I nervously opened the cupboard door, only to be greeted by an ear-splitting shriek. Inside the cupboard, covered in cobwebs, was a snow-white Fasheea with head-wings and tail-fins as dark green as holly leaves. The Fasheea bared her sharp black fangs at me, narrowing her bright green eyes into a furious glare.
She stared into my soul and let out another near-demonic howl.
I shut the door gently, backed out of the cabin as quietly as possible, and then ran home faster than a caffeinated cheetah.
Haru, right on my heels, gave me a look that said "Told ya so."
Haru and I stopped by the shack every day after that. I sometimes brought along snacks to leave for the Fasheea, since she was looking a little thin. After a week or so, the lone Fasheea stopped shrieking at us, realizing that we weren't going to attack her. Another week passed, and she began to greet us at the door. By the third week, she and Haru were play-fighting and chasing each other's tails around the trees. The little white Fasheea wasn't quite as fast or strong as Haru, but she was agile and wicked smart. It was so much fun watching the two Fasheea try to outfox each other day by day; they were so evenly matched and so happy to be running around in the cold winter air.
But on Christmas eve, something went horribly, horribly wrong.
Haru and I thought we had heard the last of the lone Fasheea's eerie wails, but the air was full of them when we visited the shed that evening. There was also some sort of scuffling noise and a flurry of high-pitched yelps that definitely did not come from a Fasheea. It sounded more like a dog.
The guess was close enough. It was a coyote. And it was attacking the white Fasheea like a mongoose attacks a snake.
She fought back, of course. She had managed to dart in quickly and give the coyote a few nasty bites on its nose and feet, but it was twice her size. She was growing exhausted from trying to fend off its attacks; there were heavy bite marks in her snow-white hide.
When we got there, it was almost too late. With one final cry, the Fasheea keeled over and fainted, too tired and hurt to fight back. The coyote let out a yelp of triumph. It staggered over to the fallen Fasheea, reeling from the effects of her venom. It was determined to have one more meal before it surrendered to the effects of the poison, whatever they may have been.
Before it could do anything, though, Haru let out a piercing shriek and hurled herself at the coyote. She clung onto its back and clawed out tufts of its fur, refusing to let go even when the coyote smashed its back against a tree to dislodge her.
Eventually, she leaped off and gave me a split-second glance that said, "I'll be okay. Get my friend to safety." Then she returned to her attack on the coyote. I scooped up the white Fasheea and ran away as fast as I could.
I never found out what happened to the coyote.
Somehow, Haru beat me home; she was scratching at the door when I arrived. I flung open the door and hurtled inside after her, calling for my parents. There was no way we could get a vet this late on Christmas Eve, so the best we could do was to bandage the worst of her wounds. Mom put her in a cat basket, Dad put her by the fire to keep her warm, I reassured her (and put ice on Haru's bruises), and we all waited.
On Christmas morning, I woke up so early that the sky was still dark and starry, but there was no time to watch the sky. I immediately checked the cat bed to see if the Fasheea had recovered any.
My stomach did a backflip. She wasn't there.
She had died for sure. My mom and dad must have buried her body so that I wouldn't see it.
I couldn't help it. I started sobbing pathetically. She didn't deserve to die. She was so young and so shy...!
I stumbled into the kitchen, wiping tears from my eyes like a toddler. Why did she have to...
...sit under the tree, curled up next to Haru and sleeping like a log?
I was overjoyed, but I tried not to wake them up. She was alive and well and, for the time being, she was staying here.
She was clutching something gold and shiny in her paws- the nametag on the cupboard from her old shed. The one that read "__DR__I___A". That would be her name from now on- Dria, in honor of the place where we found her.
Haru was cold to the touch. She must have gone and retrieved the tag as a gift for Dria.
When the sky lightened up a little, I gently poked the white Fasheea to wake her up. "Good morning, Dria."
The white Fasheea made a happy chirping noise and stretched. While Haru continued to snore, Dria limped over to a window and glanced pointedly at the sill, asking to be lifted up. I gently picked her up and put her down on the windowsill, and she immediately put her paws on the window and stared outside, smiling wide.
I glanced outside, too, and was met with a happy surprise. Those weren't stars in the early morning sky.
It was snow.
Lineage: None Known
