Heron Lake Plateau she's tore up plenty, but she'll fly true

When Raven looked at her pleadingly, Towhee's expression remained mostly blank. "Tegan, Colt, Quixote, hell, even Fiadh... they're all disrespecting me at worst or, at best, questioning my leadership lately," she replied, voice uncharacteristically soft for once. "I get that I was probably—hopefully—the last thing on your mind when you two..." She wanted to laugh at the dry joke, though she couldn't manage it. She rolled her shoulders restlessly. "Then this, on the heels of the whole confrontation with Screech's gang. I just—" A flustered breath blew out of her mouth.

But when Raven offered to abort the pups, Towhee looked at her sharply, appalled. "Fuck no!" she blurted, pulling back from the kiss to scan the medic's face. "I didn't get a say in the conception but I'm getting one now: I forbid you to end it. How could you even think...?" She trailed off and shook her head, her heart in her throat. Even if they were unsanctioned babies, they were still babies: innocent and precious lives.

There was a stretch of silence before Towhee spoke again, her words slow. "I was thinking of promoting Quixote to Alpha male. Maybe he's mentioned it to you, if he's your—?" Raven herself hadn't labelled it properly, though semantics didn't matter much to the Alpha right now. "Anyway, maybe I should just go through with that. And maybe..." Her ears laid back completely before rising atop her head again as she looked the caregiver straight in the eye. "Maybe I should just step aside and you should be the Alpha female."

It was an unexpected plot twist, sure, but it sort of made perfect sense. Raven was Peregrine and Fox's eldest living child and a proud, staunch Redhawk. She had been part of this pack for years, its loyal medicine woman. And she had flown under the radar much of the time, yet nobody—least of all Towhee, who'd fed at her breast once upon a time—could argue that Raven wasn't an idyllic matriarchal figure, especially now, if she was carrying the latest batch of Redhawks (because those kids sure as hell weren't taking Quixote's surname, even if he even had one).