Heron Lake Plateau Everything means something and something has occurred

Thanks for bailing on the kids you helped raise when they're being kinda nuts, Fin!  Or that would have been what he'd thought if he'd spotted her.  He was too busy being completely bewildered by Phox's out-there tirade.  His first thought?  'Oh god there are two of them.'  Towhee had been expected.  He stopped, politely, and certainly wasn't surprised by her response.  A slight tilt of his head when it seemed she didn't actually get the details from Niamh (woah), but he'd been about to reply when Phox came barging in with all the grace and respect of a derailed train.

He started to say something (again) stopped, thought better, then replied, Okay, we'll come back to unpack that in a moment, but first...   Perhaps six months ago, he would have snapped at him, but he'd gotten a bit more patient from having to deal with a pile of highly uncooperative pups, and if Phox was gonna act like one, he might as well get in that mindset.  Quixote looked to Towhee -- it wasn't necessarily a grim expression, but it was concerned for Niamh's well-being, despite being an awkward turtle. This part, at least, he'd sort of thought through before, but it ended up being trimmed in a kind of awkward way that left out half the juicy details, Niamh's got some stuff she's going to have to work through.  I'll go over the details with you, privately, because I don't think she necessarily wanted them to be shared, she'd never mentioned Phox so as far as Quixote knew, they'd only talked in passing, so she wouldn't want things shared with him, but the obvious part is because of what happened at the borders, I don't know if Colt's coming back.  And even if he comes back, he might not want to be with her any more, and she's going to have to go through whatever happens, and neither of those cases is nice.  You're her friend, she'll need you.

That part was so easy.  Couldn't Phox just go disappear again? That'd be great right about now if he was just gonna randomly be a hellion for no reason.  Sigh.  Quixote looked back, casually listing things in a purposely disordered manner, apparently completely unphased by either of them being rankled, Okay. Lemme just go over a few things.  The Caiaphas debacle was before she stepped down, so that's not it -- besides, I'm still trying to convince Raven to step back up again anyway... Uh.. The thing with Niamh hasn't really fully explained yet, and that involves no familial Redhawks so that's not the thing...  So what's the issue? Did you want me to tell Wildfire and family she has to go back to Drageda because Mister Grumpy Artaax said so?  Did you not want Towhee to get beta back again?  Do you just hate me patrolling the borders?  Are you flying disasters in on X's back so I don't know they exist?  What am I slacking on? By all means, I accepted the title to do the job, so let me know.  He may have been being a little facetious though some (most) of that, but given how out of left field that was, hoo boy.  If Phox had an actual point, maybe he'd take it a little more seriously, but just claiming somehow stuff was bad because the alpha wasn't a Redhawk was just silly.  Honestly, he was kind of hoping Towhee would interrupt and tell Phox to piss off so she could get the whole story about Niamh.