Chaos in a Cupcake

Mikko couldn't remember when he'd last seen a child. In fact, he'd done his best to avoid them after how things had gone over with his own. He by no means hated them--far from it, really--but there were certain ideas that he refused to entertain these days, as if he didn't deserve any of them. Because as far as he was concerned, he didn't. He'd been a horrible husband and an even worse father. His children had rebelled against him, disappeared, died, all right along with their mother. There remained a concern after his time as King that everything he touched would end up cursed. Alive or not, young or old.

But this was where life liked to test him. He'd been hearing faint echoes of a quiet hum for the past little while, even kept an ear out for anything that sounded suspicious, like a pup getting into something it shouldn't. However, Mikko's attempts to keep to himself--while, of course, attaining credit for looking out for the youths--were quickly thwarted by the odd sounds of cracks and breaks. They summoned him like a dog to its master, rousing him from his resting place with a tired scowl on his face, but upon following the sound and finding its source, his hackles bristled, and his features smoothed into a rather innocent display of panic.

He bounded forward, his one eye locking onto the jumping puppy as he seemed to be testing the stability of a charred tree. Below it, bits of ash and blackened bark popped off to float downward toward the ground. Mikko paused a few steps away, out of the child's sight, watching and gauging his movements until he lurched forward with open jaws to catch the boy mid-air. As soon as fur hit tongue, he jerked his head upward and back, using the momentum of his lower jaw to scoop him away from the cracked ground without having to clamp down too harshly on his small body. From there, he let his canines cage the boy's trunk as he lowered him to the ground.

"You have a death wish, boy?" he snapped. "A fall like that would kill someone my size."

""