Heron Lake Plateau So there's this puzzle I work on endlessly

What did it even mean, that Quixote was the father of Raven's pups? Maybe she'd asked him to do it, but they weren't actually together. Maybe it meant nothing at all, and maybe he'd have nothing to do with the kids...But then again, maybe he'd see them and then fall in love with them, and fall in love with her too, and then what would Niamh do? She was in the middle of muddling through those thoughts- and the mud, too, when someone called out to her, but even so, it took her a moment to respond and realize someone was actually talking to her. 

She slowly turned her head, but her eyes took longer to peel away from the ground where she'd been raking patterns in the mud, lifting to Screech. "Oh, hey." She greeted, albeit somewhat flatly. She couldn't remember what he'd just said to her, so she instead responded with a question. "Screech. What's up?" Though she didn't exactly sound terribly convincing or interested. The frown lifted a bit, but the distraction was still clear in the somewhat vague tone in her voice, and look in her eyes.