"Oh for the love of..."

Cursing softly to myself and rushing after the three runaway pups, I swiftly hoisted them up by the scruff of their necks and stared at each of them, wondering what I had done that somehow allowed them to escape.

Camilla, Samara and surprisingly Zariah all stared back at me in shock, like they couldn’t believe that they had gotten caught; Camilla immediately flopped and tried to be pitiful, Samara just huffed and looked away from me a moment later, while Zariah took a few seconds to process everything.

Her two larger sisters were quick to realize that they could also potentially shift blame, with Samara’s gaze landing on the pup beside her and causing her to snarl as she pawed at Zariah’s face, like she was trying to blame her for everything.

That caused my eldest to perk up, no longer limp in my left hand as she instead snarled and tried to swing herself over towards Zariah, who had begun to shiver and whine as she pushed Samara away... rather unsuccessfully, since Samara was still so much larger than her.

"What am I going to do with ALL three of you?"

Emphasizing that it was all of them, I looked between them and leaned closer to Samara, growling softly at her when she tried to smack her sister yet again; all that did was make my second eldest snarl at me instead as she raised her little hand, but thankfully Anput was nearby, snickering to herself as she waddled on over.

"How’d they get out~? Here, let me just..."

Taking Samara from me and giving a smile to her clingy pup, Anput worried me for a moment since I thought she was about to coddle her, as did Samara; she even tossed me a triumphant little smile as she nuzzled against her Mom, only for her eyes to widen when she felt Anput give her bottom a firm smack.

"Bad, Samara. You don’t hit any of your sisters, not unless you’re sparring them. Yeah, I’m telling you no. Don’t you-!"

While Anput dealt with the sharp claws of her clingy daughter - who seemed to think that something had happened to her Mom that caused her to not take her side, and therefore needed to be hit - I looked between my eldest and the fourth pup, just letting the silence do the work for me.

Camilla let out a pitiful whimper before she waved an arm at Zariah, who was crying now as she was dangled from my hand, stuck in the air with no way out; I looked between them a few more times before sighing and murmuring "All of you... so..."

Even though I had just been afraid that Anput wouldn’t discipline Samara properly I realized that I couldn’t really bring myself to spank them for being so troublesome, though that didn’t mean I was going easy on them.

"You all should know this by now! It’s been two months of you crawling all over the place! You know what you can and can’t do!"

I had been relieved a month and a half ago when I realized they were so much smarter than ’normal’ babies, and when I realized they could understand words rather quickly I did my best to teach them a lot.

Both the good and the bad, ranging from what they could and couldn’t do, what they liked and didn’t like, to what would happen if they were good or bad; that was why the moment I sadly said "I suppose that means no ball for the two of you..." they both looked at me with those adorably wide eyes and a shocked expression.

The tears came a moment later, and although making them cry brought along its own set of problems I felt that it was needed... even if it made my heart thump painfully in my chest as I looked between them.

"If you hadn’t tried to escape when your Mother finally manages to get a quiet moment to sit down, that wouldn’t have happened now would it?"

Walking slowly back into the playroom and setting them down atop the pillow chair, I yawned and lowered myself onto another one nearby and watched them both cry and cry while Nicoletta crawled over to me with a triumphant smirk.

"Kat..."

Mother was currently feeding Astra, and upon hearing the crying coming from the two pups she peeked into the room and shook her head, though she didn’t try and tell me to do something else nor did she reprimand me; she just shook her head, stared at them for a few seconds and then walked away again, taking Astra around to explore despite the pup being glued to her breast.

Lifting up Nicoletta and hugging her to my chest, I hummed softly and let them cry for a minute before I used some Wind Magic to hoist them up and bring them over, stifling their cries for a moment as they looked around in confusion.

When they landed on my belly both of them blinked a few times, that moment of uncertainty causing them to forget what they had been crying about, and after a moment of just sitting there Zariah sniffled and plopped down on my stomach, her ears drooping as she clenched her eyes shut.

Camilla meanwhile was more focused on how close Nicoletta was to me, and seeing that the other pup was curled up happily against my breast while rubbing her cheek against mine, my eldest got a little... indignant.

She raised her little hands and prepared to slam them down before stiffening when I raised a brow at her, so instead she let out a huff and spun away from me, refusing to look at me; when she saw Mother come back around and then noticed that Samara was being allowed to drink from Anput’s tit, she struggled with her stubbornness and her sudden hunger, which amused me a lot.

Seeing the little gears in her head turning as she calculated her options was funny, and when she sniffled, scrunched up her nose and looked down at me like a ruler staring at a subject, I couldn’t help but laugh.

That wounded her pride a little, but she ’magnanimously’ decided to forgive me so long as I offered a tribute of milk to her, so after a moment of watching her face closely and finding amusement in how those gears continued to spin I pulled my dress down and let her drink, though I did regulate how much since she was still being punished.