Lake Rodney your fathers been calling

It was as she suspected: Towhee had terrorized the poor boy. In all fairness, she wasn't exactly wrong -- he had left them. Raven had been furious with herself and inconsolably heartbroken when he'd taken off way back when, fearing him dead until she'd later discovered his scent mixed with the scents of others (namely Liffey) frequenting the lands outside the Caldera. Towhee's judgement of him as a deserter was not at all unwarranted. But her way of handling things and Tit's ability to take criticism could not have been more incompatible. Raven couldn't bring herself to disagree with Towhee, but all the same, she still felt for Tit. The kid was a mess.

He buried his face in her fur, and she stroked his neck and shoulders with her tongue in a gesture meant both to clean and to comfort. She wasn't really sure how to approach this one. "Towhee can be really intense," she said after a moment of thought. "She's been through a lot and it's made her really hard. You did leave us, but I could never be mad at you. What've you been up?" She was careful to keep accusation out of her voice; she knew that if she put him on the defensive, he would just shut down again.