The pups tumbled and played and ran about, and Saga was content to just exist behind them, watching quietly. She thought nobody seemed to care if she watched or joined or kept on sleeping, but the moment Laurel spotted her --despite getting just a smile in return-- she was off like a shot. Frustration welled up in Saga, and she very nearly turned inside to jab Jaxxon awake to fetch the brat instead. She wasn't a yeller. She barely had rules, just the gentle expectation to stay where you were in sight and to go to the nest when corralled. Why did this asshole of a kid think she was going to... what, holler? Drag them back by the tail like she'd never once done? They had never even been actually outside to know the boundaries she might lay, she thought resentfully. Maybe it was just the Fox instinct to make things as hard as possible for no more reason than being an annoying cunt; It's what they were good at, after all.

Sleep loss was starting to get to the poor new Mother, but it was often her own anxiety that kept her awake late into the night, or drifting lightly like tonight. How could she sleep, though, when her kids were so unpredictable? How did she rest, or take her eyes off them, when they just decided to do the most annoying thing just to grind her gears?

Laurel, she called sharply, a tearful warble to her tired tone as she continued to wonder why, Stay in sight! She didn't have time for this. She'd just wanted to let the little fucks outside to stretch their apparently cramped legs, and this was what she got -- hellions who had no reason to be fucking hellions. It was the middle of the night and these kids wanted to test her patience? Fine -- she knew better than to sling threats they might be starting to pick up on at least soon, so she held her tongue, but a more permanent eye on the den entrance had just been sealed. Hell, she'd follow Laurel more closely, specifically, to be able to snatch her up if this was how she was going to behave. Why, why, why? Wasn't Saga a good Mother? Did her kids fear her, like she'd always feared her own? Or did they just inherently hate her, the soft, the broken, the wilted rose of the Fox clan? Did they think it was all just some fun game?
Why did nobody tell her that parenthood itself was more nerve-wracking than the chance Joxer could come back?
Saga never thought Magnolia would be the good one for once, but she suspected her eldest simply didn't care enough to run.

Laurels burst of speed, of course, was only matched by the other excited puppies. Saga sighed and picked her heavy paws into a fast lope, not actually fussed to keep all three in her sights but heart beginning to thrum with anxiety. They didn't need to be so far from the den for their first real time, they didn't need to be wandering alone in the night, and she most certainly didn't need Dulcie waking and deciding she'd stolen one of the damned kids. She lengthened her strides and arched away, apparently leaving the puppies alone.

The silver waif just wanted to head them off, and hopefully seem as if she was joining the game to run them back along home with a convenient change of direction once she popped out dead ahead. And if she could snap up her silver daughter while she was at it? Even better.

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