She felt the pinch at her shoulder and it caused her growl to grow a little louder though it was far from aggressive in nature. He started to laugh, saying her batting at his ear tickled before he attempted to make her stumble, and her footing faltered for just a second, using her front paws to lean against him to rebalance herself right before pushing on her haunches to apply force to try and knock him over so she could tackle him, a grin splitting across her face as her nose crinkled and a mischievous glint grew in her eyes, her paw going to bat at his ear again since he found it so ticklish. “Good!” She finally teased at his comment with amusement showing in her tone.

See! She wasn’t all work! She could play too! She found that assumption to bother her from time to time, just because she was mostly focused on surviving rather than playing around and goofing off… but then again, that had been Kael and with the loss of their siblings, she’d always had a no-nonsense policy with him. Their mother had agreed right before she went crawling back to those who had turned her away when she needed them most. It was still something that Maera would never forgive. “Fear the tickle master!” Okay, maybe she was taking that a little too far now, but it was off her tongue before she could even think about it.

She laughed as she picked herself up, her tail wagging still "But we should probably finish the den before we have to sleep in the snow again." She pointed out with one last glance at him before she started to dig again, working closer to her goal.