Echo flushes at the praise, but he meets the General's gaze steadily and dips his head in turn. "He's all I have, sir... all any of us have." Which isn't true in the most literal sense, they have their lives and each other, after all, but of all the pups he and Fives and Cody and Rex were forced to sire, Dronebait's the only one they could save. The only one they even know for sure survived.

Tup presses their shoulders tightly together and squeezes his thigh, and Echo breaks the General's gaze to smile gratefully at his younger brother.

"It's, uh, it's probably dinner time, General," he adds, and as he pushes back to his feet DB scampers up from his spot on the General's lap and bounds over to him. "Are you going to join us, Dogma?" he asks, and Dogma's tail does a slow sweep of the roof as he licks the General's chin with a grumbling whine.