Heron Lake Plateau machines just got workings, and they talk to me

From his limited run-ins with Finley, she'd always seemed like a reasonable sort, but maybe he'd just never crossed paths with her in a short term conflict.  And she had gone and literally ignored Raven?  So much for Quixote's opinion of the former beta.  Maybe that's why they'd ended up in a war in the first place -- she'd gone and done something dramatic to the wrong person, then just hid those tendencies behind a reasonable facade.

But here they were, two wolves who never really wanted to be leaders that now seemed forced to take the job because nobody wanted it.  Where were all the power-obsessed brown-nosers?  He sighed and nodded.  Running through the list of those in the pack, he couldn't think of a single wolf that would do a half-decent job and had been around long enough to be trusted by everyone.  Hell, Quixote wasn't even sure if he fell into that latter category yet.

His ears tipped back as he watched her gaze wander.  In a weird sense, he was resigning himself to a promotion, wasn't he?  By then, his voice had lost its frustrated edge, On the other hand, I guess we get to do whatever the hell we want now.  If they were going to freak out about ranks instead of dealing with the issue at hand, they didn't deserve an opinion about, let alone the right to deny, any pups that might be in their future, regardless of the ranks they now held.  

Still, it was an additional weight he didn't quite know what to deal with.  He was greedy, and at his core had previously cared only for himself.  Raven had been a recent addition to his bubble of "things to gave a damn about," but he didn't really want to add the whole pack to that exclusive corner.  Especially if tantrums were more important than dealing with stuff that happened.  But here they were, trying to figure it out and questions were already starting to sprout.  Alpha or not, Quixote had his priorities, and though he was looking at some nondescript piece of ground when he started speaking, by the end he was searching Raven's face for an answer, I...  Even just maybe having a family was going to be a huge change for me.  How am I gonna be able to protect you and maybe-them, and now am gonna have to worry about everyone else while not having a clue about that too?