Heron Lake Plateau have you ever felt the warm embrace

Speak of the devil, Qui was just arriving on the scene.  He was moving at a pretty good clip but Towhee had been way closer than him so it was no surprise that so much of the conversation had gone down.  Hell, the bird probably tipped her off -- early warning system or something.

Tegan's especially delayed return had been pretty weird.  Sure, Qui wasn't as worried as Towhee might have been, partially because he figured that maybe Tegan wanted to stop a few places along the way and hang out or something.  You know, stuff just came up sometimes.  He hadn't really doubted that Tegan would come back eventually.  Or that was at least the case until it turned out he'd gone to Firebirds and not finished the trip (assuming Qui heard) then he was just plain confused. It didn't really make sense.  But what was he to do?  At least it meant Tegan was ok, so... It was just a matter of patience or something.  It wasn't like he'd consider going out there and forcibly drag him back -- he wasn't a child, so he deserved the freedom to make his life the way he wanted, even if that wasn't here.  Better than keeping a pissed off person around.

Things weren't exactly a party here, even an emotionally stunted weirdo like himself could see that.  Quixote slowed to a stop, Sorry for that.  You're back?  Was there a 'but' floating around or something?  He assumedly also knew that Bat had stayed with another pack by this point.  Who knows.  Also the visual of a floating butt was amusing.  Maybe with some tiny wings flapping to keep it aloft.