Heron Lake Plateau Troy, this is Midsomer

The only side of a Redhawk he'd seen was that of business -- Towhee preparing for war, chiding him for taking initiative later.  Okay, taking that back, Orca had seemed much more well-balanced in their meeting, but it wasn't like they were splashing through mud puddles like a couple of pups like he and Raven were now.

Speaking of which, her dive gave him a nice coat of speckles as well though much finer than hers -- probably mostly just water with a little bit of dirt as a bonus.  As he turned around to say something else to her, she flung a new spray of mud at him. Hey! he said with a laugh, pausing a moment to look down at the 'damage' done.  If it was blood, it probably would have been a perfect effect in an action movie, tracking from his shoulder across his chest.

But of course, he had to retort in kind, kicking a nice glob of the stuff her way before he went after her with as jaunty as a step as he could while it tried to hold him back.  So, continuing up the shore now, or..?  But it wasn't quite entirely his full suggestion.  As he finished the question, he darted forward with the last step, swinging to leave a muddy pawprint on her and this time not aiming to miss.  The alternate of making this all a game appealed to him, it was a good excuse to get closer to her.

His lonesome status was probably mostly his fault.  He was used to keeping a low profile, and maybe to a point it had cost him a few things -- friendships with pack mates for one -- but at this instant he didn't care. He was happy to forget that Towhee screwed up, that Elwood didn't think anything was wrong or that stuff should change. There would always be things Quixote regretted, things he thought too much about.  For now, for once in his life, he was saying screw all that and was happy to live in the moment.  Happy to be a fool chasing a girl around like he'd never seen a bad day in his life.  He could get used to it.