The children were giggling. Again. The quiet kind that resorted din furtive glances at the adults and then descended into tittering. It was amusing, but also alarming the longer it went on.

Ashborn scanned the area, eyes tracking over each relative, and counting each child that was present. There were absences, of course, because they couldn't always all be in the same area of the territory. Not now when they'd grown so large, so many. But that didn't account for this amount of merriment. The foursome were up to something and she would know; they were her children after all.

She rose from her place of watch, her trio of wolves whining at the loss of their bed, as she walked quietly towards the group. She didn't have to sneak up on them. She was their mother, after all, but she always wasn't going to alert them, either. She flicked her ears up, steps soft, until her daughter kimeti noticed her and froze. Ashborn smiled slow; oh, yes, they were planning to cause trouble or had caused it already.

"Children," she greeted as she forced her way into their group. It was all she needed before the acha puppies began throwing out snippets of explanation and blame and really everything they could think of. If anything, they were adept at creating headaches for her. She blamed their twin acha parents for that.

All in all, the children had seen or heard of a monster on the border. She was skeptical, as all mothers were when it came to their own children (full-grown or not, they would always be children to her), but if it turned out to be nothing, punishment was easy enough to dole out. A long walk to the border in search for a monster would give her plenty of time to think of something, too. (Four sets of ears twitched and swiveled back, at this.)

Which is how she had found herself nearing the border now. In search of a monster that could have been nothing. But it was her duty to keep the family safe while her parents were busy. It was all of their duty, but she felt especially keen to ensure it was done. She'd caused enough heartbreak and they were her children. But that didn't make it any less annoying when she found nothing disturbed at the border's edge.

"Would it be cruel to send them through an obelisk?" she asked herself with a sigh. Maybe a day in the mountains or the desert would introduce them to real troubles.