It felt like nearly all of her children had taken after their father's wanderlust and try as she might she simply couldn't deny their pleading gazes as they asked to get away from the castle walls and see other parts of their world. Perhaps it would have been easy enough to be a more stern parent and tell them they had to wait until they were older, but as long as they didn't go far and she or Artorias were with them then she didn't see too much harm in a bit of adventure. After all, Artorias' adventurous spirit was one of her favorite things about her husband so she certainly didn't want to discourage that in their pups. She only wished that perhaps they waited until they weren't so tiny to crave their adventure!

With the little black cloud that was her precious Dusk in tow, Briar made her way out toward the sloping valleys of Fossil Ridge. She had a feeling that the massive bones that poked out of the ground and the nearly unearthed skulls might just keep her daughter's interest for at least a little bit and if she was lucky the walk out here and back might tire her out before it was time for a nap. "Oooh, look at this one," she said as she pointed out a large, toothy skull that was partially exposed, the massive creature clearly forgotten and lost to time, leaving just its bones behind. Marigold tailed just behind the pair of wolves and Willow patrolled the sky, helping to be extra sets of eyes while they took a look around the unusual landscape.

"Briar Carpathius"

Dusk was overjoyed to be out and about with her mom. Adventure ran through her veins and she came by it honestly. Her dad loved to explore and so did her aunt Bowen. Some of her siblings did as well. Sure, the darkly furred girl enjoyed tagging along in groups, but there was something special about being out alone with just her mom. It make her feel special and not just another one of the puppies.

The pair went out to a wide expanse of rolling hills, the ground dusty and spattered with dry grasses. From the edge of the ridge, Dusk could see white spires sticking out of the ground and she tilted her head in question before her mother led her down and into the forest of bones. The child's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped as they walked through the gigantic bones. Briar pointed out oner particularly toothy skull and the black puff of fur bounded to it, wasting no time in diving through the wide eye socket and disappearing inside.

Dusk snuffled around inside of the skull for a moment, then popped her head out again, the red dirt tinging her dark fur. "What kind of animal is this? The teeth are huge! Are my teeth going to be this big some day? How big are they now?" A million questions, Dusk flashed her teeth at her mother, waiting for the antlered woman to tell her that her teeth were huge.

"Dusk"

Briar grinned and chuckled as Dusk immediately launched into exploring the massive skull, making her internally cringe a touch as her daughter got all covered in red dust in the process. She had forced herself to accept almost immediately after the pups were born that pups were just going to be messy little things and no matter what she did they were just going to find a way to make themselves dirty—no matter how much her compulsion to be clean and tidy disagreed with this fact. Ah well, that just meant she would need to wrangle Dusk into a bath when they got home. For now she focused on her daughter's many, many questions—starting with how her teeth compared to the massive set of teeth beside her. Briar pretended to gasp like she was scared of Dusk's ferocious fangs, replying, "Oh my, those are some big teeth! Maybe your teeth will end up being even bigger than these!" It was all in good fun of course, but she loved playing along with her children and their fanciful ideas.

She grinned and glanced up at the skull, pondering what it could possibly be. "I'm not sure what kind of animal this is," she replied, answering Dusk's first question honestly. "There are all kinds of animals and creatures that lived here a long, long time ago, way before any of us were here, but none of them are around any more." She gave a small shrug and added, "Whatever it was must have been really big!" She nodded then for Dusk to follow, continuing the stroll through the hilly land that was dotted with various remains of creatures long since extinct. They reached the top of one of the ridges, opening up a new portion of the area to them with a good view of the land at the bottom of the slope ahead of them. "Which way do you want to go now?" she asked, turning her gaze down to Dusk as she waited to see where her adventurous daughter would take them.

"Briar Carpathius"

Briar's reply brought a giggle from the girl. Her teeth were big and she was surely very scary. Of course she was. Dusk was a Carpathius! The best of the best. The biggest and the baddest and the scariest. Rawr! Lost in her own mental musings, the girl growled at the giant skull and pretended to fight it, bouncing around the old, dead thing.

As her mother continued to speak about things that used to be alive, Dusk again looked at the skull. Her head tilted and she wondered what this big thing might have looked like. "I think dad is bigger," the inkblot spoke aloud. Nothing was bigger than her dad. Together, she and her dad could have brought this thing down. Easy easy easy.

Pulling away from the skull, Dusk followed her mother across the hilly landscape, eyeing the various bones that stuck up out of the ground. When asked where she wanted to go, the girl's tail swished back and forth over the grass. Without another moment wasted, Dusk slid down the slope, little pebbles and other debris clattering down behind her.

"Dusk"

All of her children had various levels of that puppy energy she had expected and some had more chaotic tendencies than others, but Dusk certainly tell on the more side of the spectrum on both accounts. As she asked her little shadow of a daughter where she wanted to go, Dusk didn't respond with words and instead just went sliding down one of the nearby slopes. Briar sighed gently and grinned with a little shake of her head. "Don't go too far!" she called after her before she began to pick her way down the slope to catch up to her, having to take a little bit of a detour to walk down a less steep section of ground. Perhaps she could have made it sliding down like Dusk, but even at three years old she knew she wasn't nearly as bouncy or resilient as her pups so it would probably be better to be safe than sorry.

When she was a little over halfway down the slope, however, she looked up to make sure Dusk wasn't running off somewhere and her turquoise gaze landed on a wild dog that was creeping out from behind one of there large bones and was sneaking up behind Dusk with a snarl on their lips. Her eyes widened and she called out to her daughter as she started to hurry down the hill far more quickly. "Dusk! Look out!" she yelled to get Dusk to jump out of the way and she bolted over, immediately reaching for the dog's tail and yanking the canine back and away from her girl. The dog of course snarled and twisted around to snap at her, but she danced out of the way as she dropped into a defensive stance with a snarl of her own on her lips. She wasn't too worried about one dog, but if there was one thing she knew about wild dogs like this one was that they tended to run in packs and that's where they got dangerous. As if reading her thoughts, she heard barks and yaps coming from near by, clearly hearing the snarls and barks from their friend.

"Briar Carpathius"

Sliding down the slope, little pebbles followed Dusk. As they rolled, the dark child pounced them, not really paying attention to her surroundings. It was only when she heard her mother's voice call out to her that the girl stopped and looked up from her pouncing. A bunch of weird looking, flop eared wolves were coming in close. As she looked at them, the girl decided that maybe they weren't wolves. No matter what they were, they didn't look friendly.

Briar snapped at the tail of one dog and pulled it away from the girl, but her mother was only a single wolf. The dogs began coming in from different directions. Thankfully they weren't all huge. Some were close to Dusks height. Confidence overfloweth from the Carpathius child and she stepped forward to meet one of the smaller creatures, keeping herself back to back with her mother so that they couldn't get ambushed from behind.

Jaws opened as she was rushed by a small, smooth coated brown creature. It seemed as though the dog thought it was a match for her, but it surely was not. It bit at the girl, but only got a mouthful of her thick fur. Dusk, on the other paw, bit into the dogs shoulder, its smooth coat doing nothing to act as a barrier against her strong jaws and teeth. The creature yipped and squealed, pulling away with its curled tail hung low. It spun and ran off and Dusk grinned, her maw bloody. She couldn't pat herself on the back for long though. More were coming.

"Dusk"