let sleeping babies lie

Zee stepped around the den lazily, circling the girl in her attempted puppy-wrestling and making sure none of them managed to actually escape. While Venom was busy with her back turned, Mort squirmed over to Zee and plopped himself down before her. The new mother smiled at him and then lowered her head to gently nudge him away, encouraging him to go play and explore so Venom would have more to deal with. "Most days." She responded with a chuckle. "You need to be careful with them, they're still quite small. Though if you let them have your way with you you'll never get them under control. And if you're unlucky they'll seem to work together to make it even harder to manage all four."

She eyed each of the roaming puppies carefully, looking back to Venom to see if she could gather them successfully. As she pretended to help, she continued to speak. "This will be good practice for if you have a litter of your own one day." Zee's voice was intentionally nonchalant, and rolled carefully into subtlety. "Or perhaps if you're to have little siblings. You never know." It wasn't her business to tell the girl of Deathbelle's life and potential plans, but she wanted to gauge the pup's reaction to the possibility.