Well, this was unfortunate. Cafele scrunched up her nose, glaring lamplight daggers at the wiggling shape in the snow. It wasn't like she had never seen Doat puppies before. They were, as this one was, all oversized head and floppy paws. Little nubs of horns were just visible on the other side of down-turned ears, too small and soft yet to be good for anything. Just a rollicking pile of fluff, massive at the chest and tail, and white as the drifts currently stirred into frenzy by the hyperactive bundle.
No, Cafele just couldn't think of the last time she saw one so small. This puppy was barely the size of her paw, proven when the nan reached out to it. A flick of her wrist rolled the pup closer. She couldn't imagine it could have resisted, but it didn't even try; bright eyes gazed up at her with too much trust for any self-respecting wild creature. It was owned by another, then. She couldn't smell anyone on it, though - nothing more than the trees about them and the pleasing scent of milk-warm youth.
Ears covered over with dark fur, her shelter against the chill of the mountains, pressed back against her skull. As she sniffed it, warm breath whuffing pale, damp clouds over the babe's ears, the panting pup curled into her offered fetlock. It was no longer playing, and so - of course - it began to shiver. It may have had fur to spare, but it was still so small...
The nan heaved a sigh, sending a torrent of that white smoke gusting through her own protruding fangs. She had things to do, a patrol to resume. Yet she knew good and well that she could hardly live with herself, leaving such a scrap to freeze alone. "Very well," she breathed aloud, taking the silent forest as her witness. "I hope you haven't wandered far, whelp. Let's get you home."
She would have sworn the doat was too small to understand her. She was wrong. No sooner did the word 'home' escape her maw than the shaking puppy looked up - tilted it's tiny head - and bolted away from her, haring off through the trees.
"Wha-! Loki's horns, pup! WAIT!" Heedless of Cafele's bellowing, the pale puff of puppy tail vanished behind a frosted trunk. Cursing her fortune, the nan barreled off in pursuit.