Heron Lake Plateau It's almost like a Hallmark movie, but with tentacles.

There had been quite a heap of drama lately, though Towhee didn't actually know the half of it (@Colt's and @Quixote's conversation with her uncle, for instance, or @Screech's and @Raven's tryst). In her world, the turbulent seas were smoothing out and she sensed her keel evening and the wind beginning to fill her sails. The Redhawks were settled—or getting there, anyhow—and she was going to stay at the head of the pack despite her doubts. In a few weeks, all of this melodrama would be put behind them, no doubt, and the pack could properly welcome summer from their little piece of paradise.

There was, of course, the matter of X's continued absence. Towhee was really beginning to worry that he might be gone for good. Following a quick morning patrol, she climbed up to the plateau and began to circle its edges. The heights afforded her a good view of the surrounding landscapes, from the thicket to the north to the river that wound along the entire breadth of the plateau. Soon she found her path blocked by the lake, so she began wending along the shore, though Towhee didn't pay much attention to her pretty surroundings. Her mind was far away, with her missing friend.

Despite Quixote's protests and his own misgivings, Colt was sticking to his guns in that Towhee deserved the chance to hear from him his misgivings.  Who the fuck knew? Maybe she had the answers that Elwood clearly lacked.  He highly doubted it, but it didn't feel right to keep worrying about it to the side like a coward.  Coward wasn't a word that the Blackthorn ever wanted to see applied to him (much as it may sometimes fit).

So he sought her out.  But, when he found her, it was to discover her preoccupied, and he was fortunate to come up behind.  He felt a moment's hesitation, knowing this was probably a mistake.  He'd be going into this already on her sore side, and lessen further his chances of coming out unscathed.  But the chance at a display, and a point to be made, was wayyyy to tempting an offer to refuse.  So he began to run straight at her from behind, wondering if he would reach her, and manage a lunge, before she noticed he was there.

As it turned out, X wasn't that far away, considering he dropped on Colt's head like some sort of feathered bomb right before he reached Towhee. He managed to latch onto the attacker's skull with his talons, though he didn't grasp hard enough to break the skin and released quickly. He let out an unearthly screech and beat his wings in Colt's face even as he bounced to the slope of Towhee's back.

The startled Alpha whirled with a peculiar, guttural cry, nearly unseating the bird. Her eyes widened and she made another strange noise when she sat Colt just feet away, looking for all the world as if he'd been in some sort of rush to reach her. A cold feeling speared through her as Towhee quickly put the pieces together, her ears falling back and disappearing against her skull as she snapped, "What the fuck?"

The fucking bird.  "Fucking hell," he exclaimed, equally startled as the unexpected ally dropped on his head and beat its wings in his face.  He'd been so intent on surprising Towhee he hadn't been watching the sky, and he backpedaled now, his momentum effectively stopped as he glared quick daggers at the hawk.

"If that bird wasn't around you would have never know I was coming," he said, his initial cockiness somewhat ruffled with the encounter but still set on having this conversation.  "I have concerns.". He stopped there, the pause a moment for her to call him out and refuse to hash it out.  He couldn't force her to listen, but he felt like he'd earned a say.

She sorely wished she could enjoy the relief of X's weight as he resumed his usual post on her shoulder, though Colt's presence was a serious problem in that regard. His lips moved and Towhee watched, though there was no change in her expression. If anything, it darkened. Suddenly recollecting her godmother's words about stepping up, the Alpha raised her head (keeping her muzzle low to protect her throat) and thrust her tail into the air, everything about her posture demanding submission.

His purported concerns did not surprise her. She rather expected them after all that had happened lately. Hell, she'd even shared in them. But if his solution was to approach not just with disrespect but an outright attack, Towhee felt she was well within her rights to put him in his place.

He wasn't immediately leapt on or told to gtfo, but it may as well have been the same to him.  He watched her straighten, her expression shifting slightly more towards, he wasn't even sure, but it didn't bode well for him.  Yet he felt no fear.. only a surge of righteous irritation.  Fuck this.  He was tired of being expected to bow to a wolf he didn't know, didn't respect, and hadn't agreed to follow.  If she was gonna lead him, she was gonna prove right here and now that she had what it takes.  Physical might wasn't all that made a leader, that was true, but it was a big part and he was fairly certain she wouldn't meet the requirements.

So he stood his ground, his own molten eyes burning into hers.  Show me you deserve it, he thought, a small, somewhat irate smirk turning up his mouth as he shifted slightly.  He'd even give her first move.

He refused to acknowledge his place, which earned a warning growl from Towhee. She felt X shift slightly on her shoulder blade as the noise reverberated through her lanky frame. Yet Colt didn't speak. He just stood there smirking at her. If she'd had a strong opinion of him before, it now veered directly into deep dislike. Oh, she wanted to jump him and force him to submit, yet she knew this was Finley's brother.

"If you have concerns, spit them out. Otherwise, get the fuck out," the Alpha rumbled.

It seemed she wasn't going to fight to make him submit.  Still, he remained at the ready, though the inviting smirk died from his features as he put together what he wanted to say.  He would be blunt; he got the feeling she and others wouldn't appreciate it, but if they weren't gonna give him answers, this was the quickest and best way to get them.

"I don't think you are fit to lead alone, and I think letting you is a mistake.  It's not the decisions; those you can learn, and I can chalk most of what just happened to shitty luck."  He looked at X. "It's the fact that without that bird, you are unreachable and isolated in your own territory.  We can't call you, and I don't know that you can effectively call us.  What happens if something goes down and your needed?  How do you lead hunts without communicating?"  Despite his earlier readiness for aggression, there was no edge to his words now.  He seriously was curious why she thought she deserved to lead with such a huge disadvantage, and he wanted to hear her argument.  If she couldn't defend herself any better than Elwood had been able to? He wasn't sure what he would decide. "There's things my sister and Elwood can't do for you."

She would have been lying if she said Colt's words didn't infuriate her, yet Towhee did her very best to keep her cool and let him air his grievances. She had expected him to complain about the rapid relocation and the big fight upon their arrival, yet his issues seemed more general—and much more personal—in nature. He barely mentioned recent events. No, he seemed really hung up on her disability, which of course made the Alpha prickle and curl her lip.

"X is here," she rejoined (with no small measure of relief, carefully hidden for the moment), "and he's proven extremely effective." Her orange eyes lingered on a tuft of fur on Colt's head that the hawk had disturbed and now it was Towhee's turn to smirk. She knew the hawk was watching and listening to everything happening here, and she silently hoped that her words would reassure him.

"I don't lead alone," she countered in the next breath, expression quickly growing stony again. "They may prefer the title of Betas but I look to Uncle Elwood and Aunt Finley as my equals and we share the workload. And not just with each other," she continued, "but with the rest of the pack. Deaf or not, I can't be reached for every emergency, so I rely on the pack to lean in. We all work together and support each other."

She leered at Colt, despising him in this moment for not being supportive and getting hung up on a disadvantage she could not help and tried so hard to overcome in order to prove her worthiness. At the same time, he seemed to overemphasize her role. "I don't lead hunts," she said frankly, "because I leave that to the more experienced hunters. My greatest strengths lie in fighting and defending my home and you can fuck right off if you don't think I've proved my abilities there time and time again. Seriously," she concluded, signing, -Leave,- since there was no mistaking its meaning.

Despite the dismissal, Towhee then abruptly demanded, "You said yourself that recent events came down to shitty luck. So where's this coming from? Do you have any specific instances of where you feel I'm not 'fit to lead'?"

Really Colt didn't have too much of a goal in coming here, and most of his grievances had started as him being butthurt that Elwood and Finley had handed over the reigns and not included them in the decision.  Her deafness was the main defect he could latch on, and it had escalated to where it was now.

But the more he'd thought on it, the more it had bothered him that such an imperfect wolf would be assigned to the head of the pack.  What did it make them look like?  He was a shallow asshole, and the fact that she spoke of the pack supporting her grated him.  Did she even hunt at all in group hunts?  Or did she leave that to 'experienced hunters' too?

"He's a bird, not a wolf." He pressed, knowing he was pushing it but feeling like Towhee was making a dangerous mistake not making that distinction.  "Who knows where their loyalty lies, and after this moving mixup, I'd think you'd be a little slower to trust him as much."  His ears tipped back.  "Maybe we have different ideas on this.  But in my mind, a pack's lead represents them.  Yeah, we all work together, but you do more and deal with more than the rest of us.  Strangers come knocking right now and ask for a leader, guess they aren't gonna get you less your bird happens to get the memo.  Let alone an attack."  

There could be a full scale skirmish on the borders and she would be happily in her own little world if X chose not to say anything.  She was ok with that?  He'd never seen her on the defensive, only the offensive.  How could she help defend effectively if she didn't know what was happening?

"I don't like the idea of calling a bird when there's trouble.  Maybe that's harsh but it's where I stand.  And I guess if I'm the only one who feels that way, maybe it's my problem."

She made no verbal response when he pointed out X's species, as if somehow Towhee had overlooked it. He had a point about the recent mix-up—she'd questioned her own judgment outright, along with the hawk's—but it was clear that he was here to stay. If Colt didn't like him, he could pound sand.

"I don't give a rat's ass about representation," Towhee admitted baldly. It wasn't exactly a secret, after all, was it? "I leave that to wolves who're better at it. Because the Alpha title doesn't mean that I'm suddenly master of all things, in any sense of the word."

Colt threw in another snide comment about X and she repeated herself, "X has been extremely effective with communicating." Towhee sort of wanted to sic the bird on him right then, maybe gouge out his eye so the pack could have a matching set (Screech and Colt). But she shook her head and dismissed that absurd thought out of hand.

"I don't give a shit if you don't like it," she finally snapped, growing weary of the subject, "deal with it or get out, Colt." She almost pointed out to him that he'd failed miserably at bringing up any specific concerns or incidents, but at this point, all Towhee could manage was another growl as she bristled at him.

His own fur bristled as she became increasingly defensive, feeling the tension increase as he danced closer and closer to the point of no return.  Well shit.  If he was gonna leave, he was gonna do it laying everything out on the table.

"You don't lead hunts.  You don't do representation.  I'm guessing you don't lead battles because how the fuck do you track what's happening.  So tell me, what the fuck do you lead?" He said, his tail bristling.  He didn't even know why he was so heated right now, but suddenly, he couldn't keep his damn mouth shut.  That right there was probably the nail in his coffin, sister or no.  But damnit, he'd come to like his family here and with half the pack full of youths who were obviously untried idiots (affectionately) they couldn't afford this.

He didn't want to leave.  He didn't know what he wanted, but he wasn't thinking much right now aside from his own pent up irritation.  Shit.  If he got kicked, that was one less capable adult to protect this place, and Finley would likely kill him.  But the words were already out, and now there was no taking them back.

It took every inch of willpower—plus a none too gentle squeeze of X's talons—to keep Towhee from flying off the handle at his accusations. She could answer to each and every one of his points, however, she knew it would be a waste of both their time. Towhee might be deaf but it was Colt who seemed unable to hear.

"Not you," she managed to grate out between clenched teeth, the implication clear: if he didn't support her and, by merit, the pack, then he absolutely didn't belong here. Her breath hissed out loudly. She didn't know if she would enforce his removal, especially because Towhee knew Finley would have something to say about it, surely, but the Alpha wanted her sentiment known to him.

"Get out."

Shit.

He wasn't surprised by her reaction; he was full-blown challenging now and essentially had two choices: comply or attack.  He had little interest in the latter.  Even if he kicked her ass, the pack wouldn't follow him.  And Finley and Elwood would be pissed as hell, since obviously they were more interested in letting this go on than dealing with shit.

Ok, he was out.  He nodded, turning to make his way towards the edge of the territory.  He felt gutted; he really had hoped to make something here with his sister, his nieces and nephews.  But he'd joined under Finley's reign, not Towhee's, and he couldn't sort it that a wolf with so little going for her was afforded respect simply because his sister said so.  No.

Too upset to stop and address any loose ends, he didn't stop until he was well beyond the new Redhawk claim, leaving them to it.

Especially after the showdown over the plateau, Towhee braced herself for literally any possibility. When Colt merely left without another word, it was almost anticlimactic. She remained rooted to the spot, orange eyes tracking him until he disappeared. She thought of going after him—or sending X to track his movements—but instead she just heaved a sigh.

"Sure good to have you back though. Thanks, buddy," she said to X, arching her neck around to bump her nose against his familiar feathers. Colt's confrontation had definitely rattled her and shaken the confidence that was already so tentative lately. But having her best friend back certainly helped keep Towhee's spirits from sinking back into the dumps.

"Now let's go tell Aunt Finley the, ah, news," Towhee said after a few minutes, steeling her jaw for the conversation before marching off along the lake shore. She had no idea how the Beta would react to Colt's behavior, though the Alpha needed to tell her just as much as she needed to hear another reminder that she deserved her station, whatever the errant Blackthorn might think.