****

Snowy the Snow Leopard steals Val’s puck, as he tries to practice in Chelyabinsk.
“Hey! Brings back puck! No! Drop it!” Val yells out.

Snowy bounds across the ice with the puck in his mouth. He tries to skid to a halt but ends up skidding across the ice right into a snow bank on the other side and vanishes from sight.

“Snowy!” Val exclaims. “Что я буду делать с тобой? (What am I going to do with you?)”
He skates over and reaches into the snow bank, finding the puck. He snatches it back.
“Go play with yarn. I need practice.”

He resumes in his skating and swivels the puck back and forth in his blade and then shoots at the net. Before it can cross the imaginary goal line, a flash of white and black shoots out from the side. The small black disc vanishes.

“Oh, that was gonna be goal!” Val complains. He drops his stick and gloves and sits down on the ice, pouting. “Hockey practice ruin.” He folds his arms and pouts his lip.

Snowy trots over to him and drops the puck by his side. He looks up at Val with big blue eyes and cocks his furry head to one side. Then he nuzzles against the hockey players arm.

“Oh, I no can be mad at you!” Val sighs, breaking his tough exterior and temper tantrum. “Okay. I play with you.”

Notes

Just a short little one-shot because I was "having fun with Valeri and a Snow Leopard!!"
*in a soft voice* “Rawr!”
Val’s got a new hockey buddy!!
:P <3
Is it bad that I do things like this to myself? Probably. I mean, I got major heart eyes going right now! :)