Fulfilling promises

Ever since his return, Mikko seemed to see little of Shiba aside from glimpses of her that he caught around the pack lands. He knew why, of course, after the discussion they'd had upon his arrival--and merely because he'd been the reason she'd sacrificed so much time she could've spent at home in the first place--but there was only so much he could do to remedy her discomfort. She'd treated him and taken him in on her own, hardly giving him room to protest; she'd chosen to take on the challenge his once emaciated form had provided her. He couldn't be the one to convince them to accept her back into their fold.

Unless he acted indirectly, that is. With his newfound strength, he felt like he could and would do just about anything to prove his rank, not even necessarily because any of them considered him family but because he yearned to move. To fight. To protect, as he'd always been driven to do. To stretch his limbs without his flesh screaming at the tension was, to him, a luxury. But by putting this new energy toward something productive, perhaps he'd be able to prove, both to Shiba and to her family, that her efforts hadn't been in vain. Especially in light of...recent discoveries about the dark side of his family, he had little to distract him, or keep him, from any desired pursuits.

These thoughts went through his mind as he slipped into the crowd. He first noticed Shiba followed by Eraithus, the two faces he'd interacted with the most, before padding quietly up to the former and sitting down beside her. There were fresh wounds upon him from his spar with the boy, but after everything else he'd been through, they hardly made him falter. He'd experienced worse, and he was sure that between his own injuries and those the blue male bore, those who questioned it would be able to infer what happened. He observed the gray woman from the corner of his eye, perhaps hoping for acknowledgment, before turning his attention back onto her niece.

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