Heron Lake Plateau the heart

There seemed to be a lot of things that had deprived him of sleep since they got to the plateau.  Apparently this was another of those cases.  He was pretty sure it was the middle of the night still, Raven was asleep, the pups had been pretty quiet.  Peaceful.  Leaving the anxiety-prone father alone with his own thoughts.  A great idea.

When he tried to sleep he was haunted by a ying-yang of ghosts, jolting awake in the den.  Just a dream, but he wasn't sure if it was supposed to mean -- a threat, a reminder... Something.  He'd settled himself on the far side of the den from Raven, afraid he'd accidentally squish a pup in the middle of the night.  Now, though, he wasn't going back to sleep yet.  He'd get to stare into the darkness for a while.  Or would, until someone started squeaking.

Okay, what nonsense were the little munchkins up to now?  For little beans without the ability to do more than nurse, wiggle around, and poop, they seemed to cause an at times absurd amount of trouble among the lot of them.  Quixote belly crawled over to take a better look and see if he could sort out whatever their issues were without waking up Raven.

Owen seemed to be the troublemaker of the moment, but Quixote wasn't entirely sure what the little guy wanted other than to bulldoze his sisters, apparently.  It wasn't like Quixote had basically any training with pups -- but since everyone else seemed to be happily snoozing, he probably should be too, right?  Either way, he probably should break up their little 'fight' before Phoebe, who was tucked up against Kite, got another sister involved.  Quixote reached down and very gently scooted Owen back an inch or so, swiping first him, then Phoebe a few times with his tongue to try and soothe them into settling down without a fuss.  Yeah, sure, he wasn't mom, but he'd do his best.