Heron Lake Plateau Everything means something and something has occurred

It was later the same day he'd given Niamh the boot from leadership.  Confused?  Go read Quixote's previous thread.  By now the whole pack knew from his howl (unless they just plain didn't hear, but Towhee probably had been told by now anyway) and he'd relayed the whole ordeal to @Raven, of course, making sure to mention that if she had the chance, she should really talk to Niamh and see if she could maybe help her through whatever lingering trauma was haunting her.  Quixote was maybe doing a little better at wrangling the emotions of others thanks to Raven's experience, but he was still pretty much a dunce at it in comparison.  But since both he and Niamh survived without being chewed to bits, it was a victory, right?

Despite the remnants of a headache, he felt better.  It took a certain weight off his shoulders to know that maybe the reason Niamh had seemed kind of crazy recently was because she actually had some kind of issue and the responsibility was just a bit too much to put on her before she could properly heal.  If he'd known how much those events had effected her, he wouldn't have agreed to her promotion to leadership to start with. Just thank god she wasn't an alpha or they'd have been in a world of hurt as a pack.  And as Niamh had continued talking in their conversation, he'd gotten a little less worried that Towhee would come flying out of nowhere to bite off his head for daring to demote the other beta, but he'd taken some time to figure out roughly what he was going to say (with some assistance) just in case.

He'd wandered back towards the southern part of the territory, not really wanting to do a patrol, but definitely wanting a change of scenery and something else to think about.  Given the recent news, he wasn't exactly expecting to get that luxury, but hey.  Maybe someone would want to talk about the snowfall instead.  His path was pretty directionless, but at least his silhouette was pretty neutral -- an improvement over the last few days, for sure.