Sun Mote Copse trucks don't wreck themselves

I have no idea where this thread is gonna go but here it is for when y'all get the chance!
edit: @Finley because he never actually thinks of her with her name XD

He'd had a hard time finding the right time, but finally, Colt had resolved to corner his sister and brother in law.  He'd assume the mantle, was runnin the motions, and now felt he'd gotten to the point where he'd earned a measure of allowance.  He didn't want to disrespect the paws he was fillin in for, but he also felt the pack Wildfire had built was ill-fitting when it fell on his shoulders.  

If he was going to keep this up, then he'd need to do it his way.  He waited until dusk, when he figured both Frog and El would be around.  He was just finishing up a round anyway and their place was a stop on his way home.  Hey, Fin, @Elwood.  Can I have a minute?  Surely they could leave the kids, and Eljay was stayin with them too.  He didn't really want to pull too many into this conversation; he wanted to get a read on it first, and he felt if Frog accepted, then it had to be a pretty okay idea.

Y'know, Fin did love and appreciate the hell out of Wraen, but she was not feeling very grateful towards the girl for introducing the idea of dragons to her youngest. Pox had been insufferable ever since, going on and on about dragons this, dragons that, and how they were going to steal all of his stuff and don't get me started on all the times he'd snuck up on her while she was trying to sleep in the name of practicing for dragons!

When Colt arrived, she had just convinced her son to quit pestering his siblings to quote "play the dragon", as he called his newfound game. He settled down grumpily, which she knew meant they were in for a long afternoon of huffing and whining, thus she was the first one out the door to greet her brother when she was summoned.

"Oh my god, please take thirty of them, or sixty, or whatever a year's worth of them is," Fin requested as she settled in for whatever Colt was feeling the need to discuss.

im going to vaguely assume Elwood is here just to give something more to respond to, I can edit this if you like though <3

Colt laughed, but at least he understood that feeling now.  Not to the extent; four, he still thanked everything for only two, but Bronco was enough of a handful for two or three.

He sobered a bit though when he prepared to launch into why he'd come, mainly because he had no clue how the fuck she was going to take it.  Pile on top of that the fact that Colt wasn't great at planning out what exactly needed saying and this could go a variety of ways.

I've been thinkin.  I don't want to disrespect or anything, but 'Sovereign' doesn't really feel like a fit, and it was Wildfire's.  Not mine.  Maybe if Kiwi had stuck around it would have suited her, but Colt felt like a leaf walking around and expecting everyone to call him a tree.  Pompous as hell.

And same with the other ranks.  I never really held with the idea that a wolf needed specialize, just so long as they were doin what they could to help out.  He'd done so, gotten a trade or two of his own, but he hadn't done it of his own will.  It had solely been because he knew how badly Niamh (and he) wanted kids, and doing so had seemed the only option.  It's hard for me to imagine holding up a system like that, and I'd like to switch it up some, if I'm going to be doing this.  Which, he was.

His bourbon eyes tracked them both, watching, waiting for a response.  What they thought would echo with the rest of the pack, he was sure of it, and he wanted to make sure they all knew he wasn't shitting on what Wildfire built by trying to move forward best he could.

Elwood followed Finley out at Colt's arrival, after disentangling himself from Avery. Pox might have been driving his mother nuts with his insistence of playing make-believe, but Avery had recently asserted herself as a daddy's girl -- and sometimes took it to the extreme with her clinginess. She gave a cry of protest as he stepped out into the fading sunlight, but a glance from Elwood silenced her (though not without thrusting her lower lip out in a pout).

Colt was quick to get to the bottom of things and elaborate as to why he was there. Elwood listened, of course, and almost as soon as the words were out of his brother-in-law's mouth, he found himself agreeing with him. There was no offense taken, and he didn't think Wildfire would have felt disrespected; a change made sense, and in a way it fit with Wildfire's vision for the pack.

"I think that would be fine," he said, with a sidelong glance at Finley to see what she thought before they continued the conversation further.

Fin listened as her brother explained his mind. On the one hand, she found it amusing because she 100% agreed that sovereign was not a fitting title for Colt. She'd found the title strange even when Wildfire had explained it to her, but she'd shrugged it off as just something odd she'd picked up from being part of Drageda whose rank structure had baffled her even more. She was a traditionalist and she liked things simple. But if Wildfire had wanted to call herself Sovereign and surround herself with a council of honorees, then Wildfire could call herself Sovereign and surround herself with a council of honorees.

On the other hand, it was Wildfire's pack. She'd lead it for only a short while, but it had been hers. It felt to her like one of her children should reign now. Or, in a more perfect world, Eljay would've stepped up as alpha in Colt's place. But that was not a world they were likely ever to live in--they lived in this one, and Wildfire had become a Blackthorn before she died, and Blackthorns were not exactly sovereigns. They were just wolves.

"But how will I make fun of you by calling you my liege all the time?" Fin asked, burying her sad feels like a pro, "Am I going to have to come up with a new way to mock you? Again?"

Colt flashed a (moderately relieved) smile as they both agreed, and he felt some of the weight slide off.  It might be dumb, alright, but the idea of enforcing a structure of ranks that he didn't jive with sounded awful, and if he could get rid of one or two of the stressful aspects, he imagined this whole leading thing might go a hell of a lot smoother.

I'm sure you'll rise to the challenge, he joked back, but good luck finding something, you know I'm damn near perfect.  

While he joked, however, his mind was going.  Ranks.  The entire idea of it was shit, couldn't he just put everyone up as 'pack' and be done with it? Who the hell paid attention to titles anyway?

You two have any ranking preferences? he asked, tail idly swaying.  Because if not I'll probably ask around a little more before I take a crack at it.  He wanted a system everyone liked, but that was simple enough he wouldn't have to deal with it much.

"He can still be your liege," Elwood jested, glad to have a little humor injected into this conversation. Slowly, they were learning to smile again after losing Wildfire, and even though they were discussing making changes to what had been her brainchild, he knew that she would be grinning and rolling her eyes down at them as they figured things out.

On a more serious note, Colt asked if Elwood or Finley had any suggestions for a new ranking system. The (former?) Honoree pursed his lips in thought, although he didn't have to ponder for very long. He, like Fin, was a traditionalist in every sense of the word, and when he thought back to his days of leadership at the caldera, they had always utilized basic titles in order to keep things simple. He saw no reason to make things overly complicated now, but would likely go with whatever Colt proposed.

"Simplicity is always good, especially if you're not keen on specializing everyone's ranks," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "When Fin and I were in charge, it was pretty basic -- the usual Alphas and Betas, etcetera. What are you leaning towards?" he asked; after all, it would ultimately be Colt's decision at the end of the day.

Fin decided to respond to her brother with an intense eyeroll that landed her are you kidding me gaze on Elwood. A smirk broke across her muzzle after only a moment and she prodded his shoulder with her nose before looking back at Colt as he posed his next question. She shrugged while Elwood answered, then nodded at the etcetera part. She was definitely not the creative one when it came to anything other than how to fuck shit up. Making up ranks was definitely not her thing. She was actually starting to think napping might be her thing, but she would sit quietly until Colt didn't need her anymore. Or until he bored her too much. Whichever came first.

He liked the simple plan, but even alpha and etc seemed a little... rigid to his taste.  Placing one person above the other in some sort of pissing contest wasn't his style either, and he had no desire to cause an easygoing pack to change their ways.

I was thinking simple, and similar, but without expecting anyone to pick a specialty.  So long as you stick around and prove yourself loyal, you got a shot at being respected.  He shifted, a little uncomfortably.  No sure what id call it, but I spose I got a little time to decide.  Just wanted to see if it sounded like a solid idea. And to dig for names so he wouldn't have to pull one out of his ass.  But he could; he had some creativity when he needed it, maybe.

Colt didn't have a rank structure planned out just yet, but had an idea of how he would like things to look -- and Elwood obviously approved of the simplicity of it all. There was no need to make things more complicated than they had to be, especially since he had been thrust into this leadership position unexpectedly. He nodded his agreement.

"Works for me. If there's anything specific you need me and Fin to do, you can just let us know," he said. The offer didn't really need to be verbalized -- Colt surely knew that Elwood and Finley were there to support him -- but he mentioned it anyway.

What Colt suggested sounded perfectly reasonable, so Fin merely nodded her agreement. At the end of the day, it didn't much matter what titles they gave to themselves or each other--Colt was in charge and the rest would file in after him. They were wolves after all, and they were pack. They did what they needed to in order to coexist and survive. End of story.

"Just don't ask for anything complicated," Fin added after Elwood, "Or like.. hard. Or or too strenuous. Something we'd only have to spend, like, five minutes on. And we don't have to stand up or walk around to do it."

Thanks. It was heartfelt, but as Colt turned to leave them, he felt a little overwhelmed.  He'd half expected argument, but instead he was being given both trust and agency to change how things were.  The fuck was he supposed to know what to do?

You got this, Colt, he thought to himself.  But to help more in sliding in that easy confidence, he began to run.  Just a quick jog out of territory, a peek around, and a breather.  He'd figure it out.