Heron Lake Plateau Shadows alive.

To a certain point he just really didn't want to deal with any of this right now.  Just let him go on his way and try to figure out how to convince his mate that the crazy coywolf chick was likely deranged and high on mushrooms or something.  It wasn't like he was totally against Towhee's idea, but it just wasn't a good day, and some of that would probably end up leaking into anything he said through the rest of the whole conversation.

Probably related to this, something about the way Niamh was trying to talk up Towhee's skills rubbed his fur the wrong way, and he gave her a bit of a side-eye at that.  Like what was she pushing at? Towhee had been beta (and before that alpha), so it wasn't really much in question that she'd do okay in that rank, even if it was for the short-term... So why the heck was she so eager?  He didn't like that.  Perhaps he was being a little paranoid, but maybe it was just because Niamh hadn't been privy to what Towhee had said when she'd stepped down and thus felt the need to state her case?  Really, only her last statement was relevant, but if anyone's motives for any of this was in question in his eyes, it was Niamh's more than Towhee's.

Another strained sigh as he put that thought aside and looked back to Towhee, Your leg's up to it, then?  Since it was your choice to step down in the first place, I don't think Ray would even have any problems with you sticking around as beta if you wanted when she comes back to leadership.  Raven freaking better step back up, at least -- no ifs allowed.  He just needed to try to figure out the right thing to say, the right thing to do, and things would totally go back to the way they were.  Hopefully.