The smile grew a little stronger as her cousin opened her arms, and the smaller, older wolf tucked herself into the embrace, locking them there briefly with sturdy, skinny arms. She released not so much to fall short of affection, but to find eye contact and take in the happy face before her. At least until she noted the dirtiness, and Poe’s gaze fell to absorb the full extent of the damage. The dress was long enough to nearly graze the ground, and made of light fabrics that had snagged and dragged on anything above dead flatness, and readily drank up the puddles she had so mindlessly walked through in this broken rain. “Mmm,” Poe hummed while surveying the sad state of the once pretty child’s dress that she had found months before. “I only ever notice how much dirt there is in the world when I wear white. Rainy walks are so much tidier when they blend in to your pelt,” she observed and shrugged dismissively, as if the fault was far more on the shoulders of the dress than her own below.
Returning her gaze to Naniko, briefly wondering how she as a child might have managed a white coat, Poe replied to her first question second, “I’m alive.” Vague as it sounded, it was a very honestly significant answer in Poe’s current state than anyone would be able to guess. “What about you? It’s been a long time.”
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