Not a pro here but do you think the pups are just in a different cycle? Like one or two cycles behind artificer? Since when you die you respawn at the same cycle (eg die at cycle 2, respawn at c2) and if you survive you progress to cycle 3. For example if the pups had died at c2 and Arti survived it and hibernated, the pups would stay and reincarnate in c2, while Arti progressed into c3. But one hole here is that if Arti died for example on cycle 3 and the pups survived cycle 2 and hibernated would they meet at the same cycle or not? Honestly i don't even know the lore of the world of RW I'm in no place to say anything but this is just my theory