Heron Lake Plateau Front porch lookin in

Sad days indeed!

Yeah, will do!  May want to check the thicket -- bunch of young and dumb grouse there still haven't figured out how to bird.  Even Qui had half a chance of catching them.  Will see ya soon, I'd imagine, he suggested, even if it turned out it was not to be so.

Because the world was not a kind place.  When the pack was settled, when he was finally feeling like he was past the initial rush of the new pups, when things had calmed, Quixote would find that the world had changed. He would find that the world wasn't going to give them the break he wanted: his short list of friends would have a hole in the roster, and those that had threatened them all in the past weren't content to stay a mystery.  One of these times, they had to catch a break...