Hideaway Strath Gretchen, what color is the sky on your planet?

Tags for reference! Kids don't have to appear if you don't wanna, open to whoever wants to deal with a gloating Dingo! Kinda looks like this but with lots more trees, around 20ft in an irregular egg shape cleared up; a wolf-sized crater somewhere in there.

It was sitting duty, again, but on the heels of the formation of the grove all official-like, Dingo was in good spirits. He'd taken the initiative prior to meeting up with the children and scouted out a segment of the forest where the trees grew close enough together that even the rambunctious @Figment couldn't squish himself through.

Then he'd busied himself in clearing some of the larger and more dangerous branches off the forest floor, and had spent a good hour uprooting a sizeable boulder equipped with a sheer edge, and with a few shoves of his not-so-brawny shoulder, sent it rolling off a ledge in to a dense carpet of ferns. The resulting crater was nothing special to Dingo - but he left it alone afterwards. He made sure to patrol the edge of the clearing as he worked, and on the off-chance he found something interesting to save for @Fennec to play with, he'd toss it towards that crater. The end result of a couple hours of work was: an open expanse for the kids to romp in if they chose to.

There was enough cover for it to still feel mysterious - Dingo had made sure of that, as well as giving himself a good corner portion all to himself for naps. Whoever was watching the kids could do so comfortably from a ledge of stone he couldn't have changed no matter how hard he tried. He was a bit muddy by the end of things, but felt invigorated and content with what he'd build. The true test would be: do the kids care for it? He bayed in to the grassy gnoll which served as an entry point, calling for @Towhee or whoever might have had the kids with them, and waited.

Fig looked up sharply from the rock he'd been peeing on, his ears perking to catch Dingo's call. He had been marking the rendezvous site again, trying to do a good job of patrolling like his parents had asked. If any intruders made it this far into the heart of the territory, they'd stop dead in their tracks once they reached his clearing. Because obviously that's how border markings worked, right? They physically couldn't be passed if they were strong enough? I think it is.

Anyway, Fig felt his pee bucket was running on E, so he happily abandoned his task to go see what was up. He found his sometimes-sitter in another clearing, standing alone and looking a bit proud of himself. The boy canted his head curiously as he glanced around before settling his gaze back on Dingo expectantly.

When Figment arrived - without an adult to escort him, and again without his sister - Dingo was a bit perplexed but it did not show on his face. All he could do was smile and pace a bit, and when the boy got closer he froze and then bowed with a flourish. Welcome to your training grounds, Squire Figment! He announced this without missing a beat, and then rose up and spun on the spot, excited to be showing off all of his hard work for once.

Come on, look around. He motioned for the boy to come closer and whether he did or not, Dingo went off on a bit of a diatribe: We've got lots of space for you to run around, some toys for chewing, but most important -- and it was here that he side-stepped, leading the boy towards the small pit of dirt, A sparring circle! I can show you how to fight! Judging by how swiftly the boy had arrived on the borders and eagerly defended them.

Dingo did not disappoint. Figment's excitement grew as the Magnetar declared these to be his "training grounds" and began to give a little verbal tour of their surroundings. The boy padded forward eagerly, poking and prodding his nose here and there to inspect the place. He liked running around, and he liked chewing. And he SOOOO liked sparring. This was seriously awesome.

-"Yeah!"- Fig barked happily, moving his little limbs to ptero while he spoke aloud, -"I wanna fight! I kin be a... a... a Choir!"- Or whatever it was Dingo had called him. He was down with that if it meant being the most best and most powerful wolf in the world! Well, except for Dad. No one would ever be stronger than Dad. Except Mom. Oh, and he and Fenn needed to be equals so there was that too. But everyone else--watch out!

With that, the training began. And it didn't end until Dingo was so bone-weary tired that even Fig had been forced to relent. When he sped off to let his mentor take a well-deserved rest, it was with every intention of finding Fenn and showing her all that he'd learned. But in the end, his weariness had caught up to him, and all he'd done when he found his sister was to collapse at her side and fall straight to sleep.