Heron Lake Plateau Can't live without them, can't kill them with an axe

I have no idea how you do phone posts like that. XD I require at least a tablet's full keyboard.  Or just a real keyboard in general, haha.

Maybe the fact it was a few days old was a good thing.  No rotting corpse, after all.  Maybe he'd just wandered back some other way and was camping out somewhere on the plateau where he hadn't been recently.  Maybe the snow had faded his scent from where he did so.  This whole thing could be for nothing -- yeah, nothing sounded good.  Yeah, Quixote wasn't really convincing himself, because he really didn't remember smelling Ambrose recently on patrol.  Dammit.

Quixote was actually thankful she didn't come sprinting on up.  By the time she arrived, he'd realized his initial approach would probably be a little too harsh, a little too much like dropping a giant freaking bomb.  He sort of had a plan.  He wasn't Raven so it wasn't the greatest and most sympathetic one, but hell.  Again, better than his first thought.

Her words were more like a buzz to him, just this weird fuzz his brain wanted to fast-forward through to get to the point.  Sure, he probably did need to go talk to Colt and stuff and make sure they were on the same page, but not right now.  Colt theoretically knew what Quixote thought on the whole thing of dealing with leadership, but if it needed a little clarification, it wasn't a giant flailing emergency yet.  He shook his head, No, no.  It's not that.  --  When was the last time you saw Ambrose? Was it in the last couple of days?  First thing was first.  If she said that he was totally just out harassing local birds around the lake, then that'd be a weight off his shoulders and he could say it was nothing.  Sure, they'd want to go ask him about the cougar, but at least that wouldn't be a bad result.