Lost Creek Hollow Two, Four, Six, Eight; Everybody Excavate!

Jet conveniently failed to hear her mother's first reprimand—not a hugely uncommon occurrence for the little miscreant these days—but the second, longer correction was harder to pretend her backswiveling black ears simply...missed. Jet made a face. No barging, whut. What fun was that?! But she did obediently back off from Ibis—a bit. Half a pace or so. She kept her brown-splotched white paw placed assertively forward though, as she gazed up at the stranger with shining eyes and widely-wagging white-tipped tail. This stranger didn't seem to want to play right away, instead peeking over at the authoritative figure of Mother for a moment as was probably understandable, but maybe she'd change her mind in just a moment. Any second now. Come on, come on... Jet was ready and waiting here and surely this older wolf just couldn't resist! Any reluctance or fakery on Ibis's part went right over Jet's head; the youngster took it all completely at face value.

Jet's tail turned into a frantic blur as the bigger girl greeted her and then lowered herself down to Jet's level. Yessss! Jet's forepaws immediately rocketed off the dirt and attempted to stick a landing directly on Ibis's conveniently-lowered muzzle. With a gasp, the baby's eyes went wide with delight at the older girl's next words. I 'ave a sister?! she said, thrilled enough that her voice went all squeaky on the last word. What amazingly good fortune! Jet had had her fill of brothers, goshdangit, and right here bowing down before her was obviously the perfect replacement. Sisters had to be so, so, so much better than brothers, right? And obviously a lot less bitey than Thief, to boot! Oh! Oh! Yer verreh big—'joo eat all your brothers? That was the only reason this Ibis could have gotten so big so very quickly that crossed Jet's mind right now. (And it also didn't cross her mind that any sister of hers would, naturally, have all the same brothers as she—or previously have had—but family trees were complicated things, okay? Jet didn't have time for such intricacies of botany when there were new sisters on the line, here!)

The prospect of a cannibalistic puppyeating canine probably should have given her a scare, but Jet seemed more enthralled by the prospect than anything. She reared up further and tried to wrap her small legs around Ibis's big furry ruff. The continued toweling-off of mud from Jetpaws onto Ibiscoat was uninintentional but likely to continue nonetheless, with so plushly tempting a magnetic target for all the mess to wipe onto. 'Zat why yer in trubble? Jet breathed to the older girl in a quite loud stage whisper that anyone within sight could readily have heard, as Jet rolled her eyes tellingly back in the direction of Treason. The two seemed to be exchanging some significant looks which were chilling the air to an icy thickness that even oblivious Jet couldn't quite fail to notice. Even if she completely misattributed its most likely source.

Jet rolled her whole head back further on its axis to give her mother a mostly upside-down look of her own, trying to make sure her own self wasn't about to get another taste of discipline. Nah' barj-ing! she said, trying to head off any criticism at the pass. M'only huggin', see!