Heron Lake Plateau Eat your potatoes

Set the same day Nashoba is killed, whenever that'll be, vague about what happens in the end of that thread. :P  Tag can just be for reference, all welcome!

The events earlier in the day had thrown him off his schedule.  Obviously he didn't know if @Raven noticed since he was only returning to the den now, but he'd skipped the normal visit he'd do in the afternoon to avoid the sun. Instead, he wandered and checked more of the borders -- it gave him time to think.  It wasn't the fact that a trespasser had been killed that gnawed at him, but his own reaction at the start.  He'd made the right choices, that he was sure, but he'd been ready to kill whoever it was before he'd even found her.  Why?

It was now late in the evening -- the world getting dark but the sky still partially lit for a while longer.  He'd washed off before heading home, but since it was Quixote, he hadn't done a super amazing job at it.  Though most of the blood was visibly gone, there were still flecks in his fur and  few superficial scrapes he didn't even bother to deal with.  Maybe he'd just gotten into a fight with a thornbush.  Okay, yeah, not really.

He approached the den quietly but didn't enter, choosing to place himself beside the entry without saying a word.  Quixote was still a little bit wired from the conflict, wary of some new danger randomly showing up -- it wasn't like the borders had made much of a difference today.  Nah, he'd keep an eye out for a while, just in case.

Because Quixote was a creature of habit and usually maintained a fairly consistent schedule, Raven did notice when he failed to show up earlier in the afternoon. She thought little of it, though, figuring he'd just gotten sidetracked with something. She had spent the day playing with the pups, teaching them what she could, and even allowing them to venture outside the den's entrance a little. When they'd finally tired out, she had fed them and now they slept like tiny corpses near the back of the den.

It was then that she noticed the presence of someone outside her den, and a few concentrated sniffs revealed it to be her mate. Was that the faint scent of blood she detected on him as well? Concern well inside of her as she quietly emerged from the den's opening -- after first making sure the kids were all still asleep for the moment. She licked Qui's face in affectionate greeting, her tail wagging behind her heels as she did, and then backed away to sit down facing him. "You okay, love?" she asked him, the look in her eyes making it clear that she wasn't oblivious to the fact that he'd had an Interesting Day^TM.

He'd had a few moments of peace, but it hadn't cleared things up any more than the latter half of the day had.  It still left him questioning his normal apathy towards a lot of things.

Raven, though, was definitely not on the apathetic list -- she could probably help him figure out whatever the hell his issue was just by existing.  Though he almost started to stand as he returned the greeting, Quixote quickly settled back down on his haunches, his mental restraint probably pretty obvious given his more typical behavior -- it was more like he'd been leashed there on a very short tether.  At least until he was sure he could trust himself.

Physically?  Yeah, fine.  Awkward pause as his gaze drifted away.  He realized he was back to looking for more trouble and dragged his attention back to her, Someone trespassed, going after.. Uh.  Svalinn?  We killed her.  Quixote was also not very good at telling stories, and kind of had left out a few key details.  And the delivery of the whole killing someone thing?  Kind of blunt.  Qui was probably more afraid what Raven thought of it than its effect on him, so wanted to rip that bandaid off before anything went further.  He was pretty sure that new ghost wasn't going to be joining the other two, anyway -- nah, it'd be more likely that Hyde was joining the ying-yang crew, even if their appearances had become slightly less frequent.  Not that he'd mentioned them either.

He might often be an open book to his mate, but someone smeared a bunch of it and some sections probably looked more like something out of the Voynich manuscript.

Sometimes Quixote danced around the point, but today, he went straight for the throat. His words were sudden and surprising, hitting her like hammerblows, and for a moment her eyes went wide with shock and concern. Those emotions were not for the deceased — anyone who trespassed and threatened a child deserved what they got — but rather, they were for him. He was a bad-ass, sure, but he had a lot of conscience as well. There was no doubt in her mind that his conscience had a lot to say on the matter of the day's events.

But she never professed to know his thoughts. He was a complicated guy, after all. "Are you okay with that?" she asked softly as she settled alongside him, her tail curling around his hindquarters.

Well, that was sort of the range of expressions he was expecting to see, and if she'd had a more negative reaction, he might have happily taken any blame.  But no, Raven came closer and he shifted his weight to lean towards her even if he otherwise kept himself kind of detached.  Yeah, think that was the right choice.  Might be more an issue for Ceara -- she got the killing blow.  Dunno her background.  She'd bolted from the scene pretty quick, but he didn't know if that was something that she'd get over in a few hours or if in a few days she'd still be screwed up.  It depended on the person.  Quixote at least had seen enough stuff that even if his squad wasn't around to see someone actually kick the bucket, some probably had on both sides of that ongoing war, if it could even be called that.  Desperately slow self-induced mutual extinction might be more accurate.  It was all for a lot less reasonable of a reason than today's execution.  Even without Caiaphas or Ceara there, he would have done so himself anyway -- justice was kind of a thing sometimes.

But if he was totally fine with everything, it'd just be like nothing happened, wouldn't it?  A pause again before he had to drop the other shoe. I was willing to kill her before I even got there, and that was the part that was irking him -- that in reflection it didn't seem as much like himself when he was operating with only "some idiot crossed the borders" as his full hand of information, without the pup, without the dive to attack.  He didn't know if that response made him more of a danger than a help.

Raven listened without comment or judgement, feeling a brief pang of concern for Ceara. She'd have to make a point to find her friend in the coming days and see how she was doing. Quixote's next words were, she felt, the root of the issue though, and when he had finished speaking, she was quiet for a moment as she contemplated how to respond.

"Maybe on some level, you knew without realizing it that she was a threat?" she ventured, wondering if she would have reacted the same way if she'd been the one in that situation. There was no question that she would commit murder to protect a puppy — she'd been fully prepared to slaughter Screech, no holds barred, when he'd attacked her and endangered her unborn pups. But the circumstances under which those feelings arose could be confusing sometimes, if things weren't as reactive and spur-of-the-moment as they had been the day that Screech had pulled his shit. "Maybe things are different for you now that you're a father. Instincts and all that?"

He snorted, She waltzed on in past the borders -- anyone that oblivious is at least a threat to common sense!  Apparently he couldn't avoid taking a jab at really stupid people, so he wasn't too screwed up necessarily, just yet again lost in the minefield of his own brain.

But was it just because he was a father?  Kinda sounded a little reasonable at least, but he still liked to think of himself as a calm and rational person that wasn't going to jump to conclusions.  This had all kind of gone against it.  I dunno, maybe.  I just don't want it to turn out I'm somehow a danger to you or the pups -- I know I'm kind of messed up.  It's not like he had a ton of ex-girlfriends lurking around who would have had a good clue to his psyche and would be able to start screaming in the distance if Quixote was actually a bad person.  And I don't want it to turn out I'm going down the same path as my parents, either.  Who, from a salty teenager perspective had seemed quite happy to  comply with whatever they were told, even if Quixote thought it was obviously wrong.  He was paranoid, but if it kept everyone safe...

Raven shook her head in response to his words, refusing to accept that he could be any sort of danger to her and their pups. The most dangerous she could picture him was maybe rolling over and squashing one of them, or stepping on a tail or something similarly ridiculous. He was too cute and goofy with them. Heck, they beat him up on a daily basis!

But she knew there was more to his story that she didn't know, for he'd hinted at his background at times before and it had never been in a good way. There were a lot of layers to this onion she called Qui, and she wondered how many he might let her peel back...if only to get a glimpse into the mind and soul of the wolf to whom she'd given her life and her heart. "Tell me about them?" she asked after his comment about his parents, wondering how two wolves who had seemingly done things so wrong had managed to create this man who was so right.

She might not believe it, but he still wasn't sure if he wanted to take the chance that he'd ruin what few good things that happened to him.  Quixote fell silent for a moment, ears slowly folding back on his head, eyes drifting well away from her.   He didn't like talking about his past other than in broad brushstrokes, dismissing most of it as unimportant.  On the other hand it was Raven asking.  He didn't know if it actually would explain anything, but he'd focus it more towards what he'd previously mentioned.  

Oh, I guess they'd probably seem pretty normal at first.  Just... Actually so desensitized to people fighting and dying that they didn't care whether one of their kids was sent off to get beaten up and maybe die too?  Like they just decided after I was assigned to the fighting group that I was totally on my own.  I don't know if they ever got their paws dirty.  His thoughts were a little disjointed on the matter -- he didn't know how much were from the equivalent of a disappointed teen-Qui and how much were a poisoned retrospective.  At best it was cursory.  Even now he still kept asking why, because he really didn't understand.  Thankfully he'd had a normal enough puphood (maybe?) and there had been just enough outside influence from those like the original Owen (then throw in a few fairy-tale-esque stories for good measure) that he just knew it wasn't the way things were supposed to go.

We were in the same pack, and I barely saw them or Panza after that.  He always said that nah, I had to be wrong, but how else would you explain it?  There'd been a period of time when he'd been intensely jealous of Panza over the fact that he was still kept around and seemed to be loved, but Quixote eventually redirected his anger back to those he believed deserved it. They were compliant with whatever bad ideas there were to win, without thoughts to people being people instead of pawns.  Since they weren't willing to do anything, they were lumped in with the completely bananas leadership.   All they'd done was made him incredibly insecure and socially inept.

She listened to him, interrupting only to ask for clarification on who Panza was -- Qui confirmed it was his brother -- and the more he spoke, the more Raven began to understand why he had so many issues related to his background. His parents sounded totally bonkers. Who abandoned their kids to fighting and death? Who totally turned their back on their children with little regard for whether they lived or died? Raven couldn't even wrap her head around such madness. There was nothing in this world that she wouldn't do to protect her children from harm. The thought of sending them off to fight someone else's meaningless battle was just incomprehensible.

She leaned forward and nuzzled her mate's cheek, appreciating the glimpse he'd given her into the past life he worked so hard to keep firmly stuffed away in a closet with all the rest of his skeletons. "Thank you," she said softly, looking into his eyes as she kissed his chin. "For helping me understand you better." She leaned back, thoughtful, and added, "The good thing about it is that you know your parents were crazy. You know that what they did was wrong and cruel. And that's why I don't think you'll ever repeat their mistakes. You know better."

Do we wanna wrap up this one, maybe get one a bit more up to date? :D

There were a lot of things in the world that he still felt like he didn't really understand, and a lot of it probably did creep through to his interactions with others.  He was used to hiding away in dark corners, and now that he wasn't, there was just a lot where he was left uncertain.  He hoped he did the right thing in so many cases, but that question always lingered.  He didn't know if he'd ever end up being "normal" after everything in his past.

Ending up with Raven had been a step in that direction, and he still even now found it baffling that she put up with his eccentricities.  Though he normally was quick to reciprocate her affection, he was still a little lost within his own head and this time it didn't come so quick.  It's still a shadow that follows me, and I don't want to end up under it.  Ever.  One that still lingered like the badly-cleaned spatters in his fur.

A pause, a sigh, and a slight shake of his head.  Quixote tried to peel himself away from those darker thoughts, finally turning again to Raven, softer, awkward,  You and the pups are probably the best thing that could have happened to me.  More than I could have dreamed.  He bumped her chin with the bridge of his nose.  Yeah, Quixote did seem at least somewhat happy but still not entirely himself.  Give it time.