This is the first of three short stories about various members of the Care Bear Family and how they interact with each other. Enjoy!

I do not own the Care Bears, if I did, I wouldn't be so gloomy all the time.

Short Stories of the Care Bear Family

Part I of III: "Like Cats and Dogs"

"Pleeeaase Proud Heart?"

"For the last time Loyal Heart, no!"

"Don't make me beg." Proud Heart Cat sighed. This wasn't how she had planned to spend her day off. A day at the beach seemed like a great idea, Loyal Heart Dog joining her at the last minute hadn't been in her initial plan, but wasn't a problem. The fact that he was constantly interrupting her grooming so she could play fetch with him, however, was.

"Loyal Heart," she said, looking at him over the top of her sunglasses. "Does it look like I'm about to play with you?"

"Please?" He tried once more. "Don't make me use the puppy face, you know you can't resist the puppy face." Loyal warned.

"Why do you think I brought the sunglasses?" Proud Heart asked rhetorically. It was no use though. Loyal Heart puffed out his lower lip and started to pout, whimpering like a dog locked out in the rain scratching at the door. As bad as that was, nothing could prepare Proud Heart for the huge, sickeningly adorable puppy dog eyes.

"Eraagh! Alright, alright!" Proud Heart relented. "You win, okay? Just…cut…that…out! I'm getting cavities, that face is so saccharine!"

"Nothing can stand against the puppy face!" Loyal Heart boasted proudly, as though he had just scored a major victory.

"Maybe you should try using it on No Heart sometime." Proud Heart grumbled as she left her sunglasses on her towel, taking a minute to sit up and stretch in a cat-like manner. "Might as well get this over with."

Picking up the Frisbee Loyal Heart had brought with him—decorated with his own tummy symbol, Proud Heart noticed—She threw it out over the beach. Loyal Heart dashed through the sand, leaped, and caught it…in his teeth.

"Typical." Proud Heart commented pointedly as he brought it back, still in his mouth. "If you expect me to handle a drool covered Frisbee, you're sadly mistaken."

"Sowwy," He apologized around a mouthful of Frisbee. He spat is out and hastily wiped the offending saliva off. "Again?"

"Fine." She grabbed the Frisbee and, not looking first, threw it as hard as she could. Loyal Heart chased it, his eyes fixed on the spinning disc and little else.

Proud Heart managed to see the problem before he did. "Loyal Heart! Watch out! You're about to fall into that-!"

"WHOA!" Loyal Heart yipped as he fell in.

"-Tide pool." She finished lamely as she covered her eyes. Peeking, she looked through her fingers to see Loyal Heart sputtering in the waist deep water and then, laughing.

"Canines." Proud Heart sighed. "No dignity, no class at all." If it had been her that fell in, she would've been furious and would spend the rest of her day off getting her fur back the way she wanted it.

"Come on in Proud Heart!" Loyal called, finally retrieving his Frisbee. "The water's great!"

Proud Heart just sniffed. "If you think for one minute that I'm going to join you then you're crazier than Playful Heaaaaart-!" She yelled as he pulled her in by her paw.

Sputtering, she pointed her finger at him angrily. "You…you…" Unable to find the right words to describe just how furious she was, she just shoved Loyal Heart, who tripped and went under. Worse, when he came back up he was laughing, which just made Proud Heart angrier. In fact, she was so angry that she…that she…started laughing too.

"You…you, creep!" She said in between gales of laughter. "I ought to clobber you!"

Loyal Heart laughed too, holding his damp head fur out of his eyes; which, incidentally, made him look so ridiculous that Proud Heart started laughing all over again.

"Glad to be of service, my lady." He bowed, a gesture that was coming from a pint-sized drenched blue dog waist deep in water, should have looked equally ridiculous, yet it didn't.

"And I thought chivalry was dead." Proud Heart said.

"Not dead, just drenched." Loyal Heart corrected, deadpan. Proud Heart laughed. Just when had she grown so fond of the honorable "Knight of Caring," as he was often called, only partially in jest?

Thinking back, she supposed that it started with one of their earliest caring missions, back when the Care Bears and the Cousins weren't that widely known or respected. Proud Heart had been paired with Loyal Heart and sent to help a boy from a broken family that had turned to bullying.

It had not been a pleasant mission. At first the boy had been very stubborn and angry, suggesting that Proud Heart go lick herself. Loyal Heart, as angry as Proud Heart had ever seen him, had defended her honor and took the kid to task. Apparently anger worked where conciliation hadn't and the mission ended up being a success.

Proud Heart was amazed because up till then she had gone out of her way to be something of a tease, constantly making jokes that Loyal Heart marked his territory, drank out of toilet bowls, sniffed butts, chewed his own, chased his tail, shredded newspapers, drooled, and so on.

She stopped after that, well, mostly anyway. Proud Heart had to admit that he was sort of cute. If anyone asked her she would have vehemently denied it, but under her bed, where she kept her diary, she kept the flower Loyal Heart had given to her so long ago pressed inside.

Her inner musings were cut off when Loyal Heart decided to dry himself off in a typically canine manner, namely by shaking his fur out and wetting everything in a ten-foot radius.

"Loyal Heart…" Proud Heart growled, mostly in mock anger as she shook herself off in turn. "I'm going to get you-"

"You'll have to catch me first!" He laughed as he dashed off, splashing water as he ran through the tide pool. Proud Heart chased after him, laughing as well as the two of them frolicked in the surf.

To be continued…