Stand Upon The Wreck

There was no way to explain the familiarity he felt, stepping over bits of metal and wood that at one point, unbeknownst to him, had been the means to old soldiers' ends. He hadn't a clue that the hint of death in the air was just as much exactly that as it was the stench of minerals and creeping webs of rust as the earth reclaimed its resources. Perhaps if he'd been born with two legs and hairless skin, he'd have been one to man a cannon or send a tank roaring through the field, one of the youngsters pulled too soon from his family to fight for a more superior man's victory...but alas, he was born of fur and fang, thus fur and fang were all he knew. And in his current state, that was probably for the best.

Nose trailed gently, curiously almost, over shrapnel before rising back up to sample the air. Before he could even think to smell for company, though, Mikko saw her there in the distance, a pale figure lying upwind from his own. If not for her lax posture, he might have been taken more off guard, but his patchy hackles rose for only a moment before falling again with a blink of his eye; she was no threat--at least, not for the moment. His moment of pause was enough for him to notice something else about her: off-white bandages against a purer white pelt, possibly fresh, though he couldn't tell from the distance between them. Whatever she wanted, he could practically feel her gaze boring into his, but he quietly figured to himself that this was as good an opportunity as any to indulge a nosy mind's curiosity. She was hurt, tired. He was at least feeling a little bit better than that.

"You've chosen a curious place to rest," he finally said after a time, words tumbling out of his ragged maw like gravel as he narrowed his eye at her. What business did a crippled woman have, staggering through a place like this?

"