Hushed Willows Once more, I climbed up to the bones of Moscow.

He'd been (perhaps foolishly) distracted, so missed the footballs of a stranger as she too roamed beneath the willows' crystalline branches. Artyom only took note of her as she came tumbling through snow drifts in his direction, though he managed to escape a collision by scrabbling awkwardly to the side.

The gilded ranger sucked in a breath to sooth his little burst of anxiety, which was quick to subside as the she-wolf pulled herself upright and turned to him with a fumbled greeting. "Hello to you," he answered, amusement in the glimmer of his eye as he glanced to the gathering of snow between his new aacquaintanc's ears. "That was quite an entrance."