Silver Moraine I'll learn the names of all the termites that eat my wooden teeth.

Willow thought eating a bug had been a bad feeling, but he could tell by the way the stranger moved that she was experiencing something much worse. The girl tripped on the edge of one pool and nearly face-planted in to it, but Willow saw the moment coming and tried to move closer, hoping the timing worked out and he could save her from the plunge.

That isn't exactly how it happened, though.

Quick as he was, the momentum of the girl's sudden collapse was much faster; he'd just reached her when she went in, and while Willow knew the pool was there and thought himself quick enough to avoid his own blunder, he slipped nonetheless.

His front-end went in to the pool and the water shot up his nose. Fortunately he could backpedal and escape the grip of the pool readily enough. The girl, on the other hand, was soaking and bobbing in the center. A plume of bugs erupted from where both wolves had landed, buzzing around them both.

As awful as that had felt, Willow could only spit a fountain of water from his mouth and sink back in the mud on his ass, and began to laugh.