Heron Lake Plateau Tyrants and kings both meet the same fate, strung up at your city gate

He didn't hear her at first, and given that he was this deep in the territory it was probably ok he wasn't paying too much attention.  Quixote finally realized someone else was around just before Towhee barked -- well, at least he didn't jump.  He paused his step and turned to look over to her, Oh hey.  Yeah, sure.  His posture was relatively neutral but his expression was a mess of all sorts of things, just lacking pride.  If he was some dude who liked messing around with RC cars, he felt more like he'd been told he now has to run the Mars rover -- oh yeah, and don't get it stuck.

Since Raven had told him all the details (theoretically) of what had gone down with their conversation, he knew that Towhee wasn't likely mad at him, but wasn't totally stoked.  That didn't mean that Quixote was necessarily actually angry at her, but kind of irritated would be more accurate -- and same at Finley too.  It wasn't the way things were supposed to be done, and some dark part of him thought they were lucky he was willing to step up and try and right this disaster, though that was mostly because he didn't want to let Raven down.

So here he was, top of the pile, faced with the wolf who was second in command.  It was something that would take getting used to -- Towhee had always been his superior 'til now and he didn't know what the flip side of that would be.  On the one hand, at least now he didn't have to worry so much about pissing her off -- she was no longer dangerous to his existence.  Hell, he didn't have to put on a facade of being all nice either, which he had certainly done at least the once post-war to make sure that he stayed in her favor.  He wouldn't have to lie or omit any more -- he could say what he wanted.

How would she act?  What did she expect from him?  How was he supposed to act to subordinates?  It's not like he'd trained for it, and his own perspective was probably warped from spending several years under those who definitely qualified as corrupt.  Maybe it was a good thing he'd run across Towhee over others, as she'd probably end up being a far more sturdy test subject than anyone else.  --  Screw it.  Quixote needed Colt back.  He'd be good to bounce things off of.

During all that thinking there had been a brief pause.  His brain then skipped ahead a few potential questions as he started walking again, It's weird.  No clarification, just that.  Because honestly, it was, and if she didn't agree, they were definitely on different planets.  It was a tangled mess and he had to work things out on the fly.