Hushed Willows it's just be-bopulation

So look: maybe he'd made a special effort to avoid Reverie's brothers. He hadn't been terribly sociable with anyone other than Reverie herself, though he was generally polite when he ran into the others. The brothers, though — Dusty Rose was just a little confused by their presence. He'd been raised by two fathers himself, so their combined efforts to nurture Reverie's fatherless brood made sense to him. He only wondered how they could stand each other so far into their adult lives —

And he definitely didn't expect them to be able to stand him.

He froze when he became aware of his tail, black nose twitching furiously and ears on the swivel. He spun to face the man, stiff-legged and wary at first, but then with an appeasing waggle of his tail when he decided he was not in immediate danger of attack. Soon, perhaps, but not immediate.

He let his bundle of sticks drop to the forest floor. Though the rest of his body language was carefully deferential, he did place one possessive paw over his prize. He eyed him up, very briefly, and decided they were of a similar enough size. He could take him, right?

"Do you know the very worst thing about springtime?" he asked in that peculiar way of his; as if he was continuing a conversation that'd only just been set aside for a time.