wonderland.

[Hemming]

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!       Hemming had managed to run fairly gracefully through the snow for a while, his long legs making it slightly easier than another might find it, but it was exhausting work. As Ember made her way away from him he admired the way the snowshoes kept her from sinking down and made plans to attempt to make a pair of his own. If that didn't work, he could look around the city for a pair pre-made by the humans. In the meantime, he stood almost hip-deep in a snowdrift he had been unfortunate enough to find himself in, and rolled snowballs out of the stuff that trapped him. He was a poor shot, but that didn't stop him from sending many snowballs towards the dark female as she escaped. Eventually, the sheer number that he had thrown would make it inevitable that he should hit her, but despite the growing odds he was immensely surprised when one of his projectiles made contact with Ember's head. He paused in his snowball throwing for a moment, eyes wide in a rather pleased sort of surprise. As she fell, he struggled to escape the snowbank and hobbled towards her. "Uh, sorry!" he exclaimed, but she was up and walking away before he had even shortened the distance between them by a quarter.       He hustled to catch up to her, leaping above the snow rather like an elephant attempting to pirouette. He reached her side just as they climbed the crest of the hill, and spotted the other almost immediately. It had caught the male off guard; had they really reached the borders so quickly? Then again, the wolf felt as if he had been wandering for days, the effort of lifting his feet out of the snow during the snowball fight much more than he had expected.       This other wolf was unfamiliar to Hemming, but it was clear that he was from Phoenix Valley. The last time that the Gatlvska had been to the borders was when the puppies had been dropped off by an old coyote - it had been a strange time. Smiling a little and raising a hand to the air in a tired wave, Hemming called across the bit of snow that separated them, "Hello!"

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