Heron Lake Plateau Long in the tooth but harmless as can be

How did this get so long? >_>

So there was a whole side of Colt that he'd kept to himself, huh.  Obviously Qui wasn't really one to pry -- history was just history unless it could keep someone else from screwing up the same way -- but he'd definitely listen attentively when someone else felt like spilling some beans.  But that didn't stop him from making a somewhat barbed quip about Colt's worries, If you just accept it like that and walk away, yeah, won't happen again.  But that was it in that tone, back to something more normal since this was something Qui had Opinions™ about, Might just be my history, but I always saw that idyllic stuff as something you were gonna have to fight for, one way or another -- and you still might not win.  Then again, I'm probably not so likable to start with, a brief wry smile at that. If things had gone differently when Ray told Towhee... Well, probably was gonna mess things up more but I was expecting to have to rip up someone for the right, and I would've, no holds barred.  It still kind of threw him for a loop that it hadn't happened.  He'd been pretty passively bending to whatever will the leadership had to stay securely in a pack, but he had his limits and most of them were along the line of preventing him from having what he thought he couldn't.  Maybe all the later problems were just payback for fate initially being so kind to him, but honestly he would have preferred it to go to expectations.

On the other hand, if Colt had said something before, maybe back when they last talked Quixote would've tried to control his feelings a bit better.  He'd pretty much just assumed that nobody was going to understand his fears, really.  Instead, unless he was misunderstanding, Colt had lived through his fears.  And had just... Not said anything.  Quixote grasped for straws, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to, Look, I know just 'almost' messed me up pretty well.  I can't imagine how awful that must have been.  And just... Uh.  Yeah.  Loop back to that?  He was not good with that kind of thing.  If whatever trauma from that was causing the problem, then obviously there was the major hurdle.  If it turned out Colt didn't really want to go through with relationship stuff ever again, then that was a different thing entirely.  But either way, it'd give Qui a few moments to try to think of something a bit better worded.

Awkward pause. Regardless of what happened and the chick involved..  If you've got that chance for stuff to go right this time and to settle down, have kids, blah blah, is it something you want?  'Cause I think that's more the issue, since you'e got like six months to figure things out and work through the baggage and the details or whatever before the season hits again.  Quixote had been very keenly aware of nature's clock and had been for the most part pretty awful at actually taking advantage of it.  Yeah, it probably would have been good for the now-alpha pair to have had a bit more time to actually get to know each other better before having kids, but all things considered they seemed to fortunately be a pretty good match.