Golden Glade Another Meeting

Ayla nodded again, digesting this information. "But there are so many Inner circle ranks; so many that they'll never all be filled. 18 Inner circle ranks, 5 specialty ranks. They can't ever, logically, all be filled. Why so many?" Ayla said, mind working furiously as she contemplated the ranks. It would be very, very rare for all the ranks to be filled, why did Charley have so many?

The main point of confusion was clearly the number of ranks, but Charley stayed patient. Stopping briefly to pee on a rock, he spoke when they were again moving.
                   "I don't expect them all to be filled. They're all there to present freedom and make it easier to rise through the ranks."
With so many Inner Circle ranks, it meant that with hope there wouldn't be any Gentry wolves. He didn't want them to be kept at arms length, to simply be friends the entire time. He wanted them to prove themselves, enter the tunnels and follow their dreams to the top of the ranks.

Ayla nodded, it made sense when he spoke like that. Still, she thought the amount of ranks were, to her, perhaps a bit too many. Hard to keep track of, but luckily she had a sharp mind. "Thanks, Charley. I think I get it now." she smiled at him, eyes bright.

Ayla seemed to cheer up a little, brightening and giving a nod to show she understood. She said thanks, but Charley needed to know she was absolutely content: it was his job as a Councelor, of course. 
                "Anything else you want me to clarify? Im more than happy to give all the information you need."

Ayla nodded, pausing a moment to knead her paws against the ground, depositing her scent. "Yes. Thank you, Charley." She paused a moment, walking beside him in silence, before saying. "What of you? What made you want to start the Glade in the first place?" A forward question, but the nymph knew little of social interactions outside the Glade, and her upbringing led her to be blunt and forward.

The border was thick, potent, impossible to miss, and it instilled a sense of pride in the King to have his entire packs scents scattered here to ward off intruders. He barely heard her thank you, but it brought his attention fully back to her in time to hear her question. What made him want to start the Glade? A good question with a lot of good answers. 
                       "Well, it's always been a dream of mine, to rule my own pack. Never thought I'd do it, not till Aspen ran into me."
Smirking, the messy-furred man remembered the day they literally almost ran into each other. 
                                         "We wanted to live the life we thought we deserved: one of royalty. After lives of suffering and pain and betrayal, we wanted a place to call home, a place where only our family was allowed close to our hearts. And so, when Reek gave us the choice between bowing to his religion or leave, well, Aspen and I left. That's when we gathered everyone in Redtail Rise, and you know the rest from there."

They thought they deserved it. Ayla wondered at that a moment, the oddness of that statement. Lives of betrayal sounded horrid, Ayla could only imagine. Perhaps their friends had turned against them, their siblings killed, their pack running them out-pain and suffering and betrayal sounded bad. But she listened in silence, waiting to keep her questions until afterward. "Pain and suffering and betrayal? Your lives must have been horrible. Were you-" she stopped. Bad idea. "I'm sorry that you had such a horrible life, Charley."

Some might think them quite selfish creatures for the way they wanted to live, but it was just as much for those who helped them get there as for themselves. Anyone who put the work into helping, who pledged their lives to the Court, who proved themselves family to the pack was right there with them, living a life as close to pampering that wolves could get. 
                  "My mother had my father killed when we were barely of age, my twin sister and I traveled and conned for a while. Every day was a struggle. Reek abandoned us, and then when we found him, Emory vanished. All this shit with their religion was enough to make Reek hate me, drove us away. Aspen.... Well, I won't give her story away, you can talk to her if you really wanna know. We want our family and friends and, soon, pups to avoid all that. To live a fully happy life. What about you, Ayla? What's your story, if you don't mind my asking? A King should know his Court, yes?"

Ayla wondered at his story, the awful cruelty of it, but was silent. She only listened, offering her ear, but not yet her voice. He surprised her, at the end of it, by asking of her own tale. Ayla thought that it was hardly anything extraordinary, but did not refuse to relate. "I wasn't born in the wilds, as you probably all were. I was born in a place with fences. It was small, and it was just my mother and my father and my brother. We couldn't go anywhere, because of the walls, we had a very small territory. The way my family acted, spoke- was very different from the wolves here. I lived my childhood in a tiny little territory, surrounded by these walls, surrounded by forest and odd, odd distant sounds. But it was all I knew." She paused, glancing at him and wondering if she should continue her muddled story.

She didn't comment on his tale, but that was okay: he expected no pity or sympathy, only loyalty. The pale woman launched into her own history, speaking of walls and being trapped. What on earth did she mean?
                      "How do you mean, they acted different? And what were the walls made of?"
The word fences, though, was brought forward as strange. In fact, he didn't know what it was, which brought him to thinking that humans had something to do with this. Some wolves were unfortunate enough to grow up around them, luckily Charley and Emory had learned early on not to deal with the odd, furless, pink things. 
                                   "Were humans involved?"

Ayla nodded. "Yes, humans. That was what my mother called them." she hesitated briefly before continuing, saying, "I hated it. Being confined. The fences, they were made of hard, shiny stuff, with holes in between. It looked weak, but it was really quite strong. One day, they took me out of there, tried to force me into this tiny little den made of shiny hard stuff. But, somehow, I escaped...and came across these wilds. I escaped maybe...three months ago, now. I'v adapted pretty well, though I have no idea how to hunt large prey, and some social etiquette that comes naturally to everyone else evades me."

Humans, the entitled bastards. They acted like they ruled the entire world, and it made Charley happy that there were places untouched by the parasites. Ayla's story brought a twinge through his heart, and he realized that her family must still be there. 
                "I'm glad you escaped. Is your family there, then?"
For only being wild for three months, she was doing exeptionally well. So what if she wasn't the greatest hunter: she was going to be a Druid one day. Plenty of others could hunt for the pack, including himself if it was needed. Big game, though, it brought him to thinking that the Court would one day be big enough and strong enough to go out and do such a hunt. One day....
                                     "When we're more settled, I'll hold a pack hunt, and you can learn then how to hunt large game. If it isn't your trade, I wouldn't worry much about it. As for behavior, well, you seem pretty well off. I've never had a problem with the way you act and Aspen hasn't said anything otherwise."

Ayla nodded again at his first words. "They are. Though they seemed happy there, it was all they knew" she lapsed into silence, listening carefully as he spoke again. At his words, her eyes widened and she nodded vigoursly. "Thank you. Thank you so much, Charley" she said. She had found a true family in the court, she realized, as she looked at the king who had helped her so much, and promised to continue to do so.

She was happy, and in turn the King felt joy for being able to again help a packmate. Things were different here, never in his life had he been so kind, so helpful. In fact, he'd done just the opposite of it all, in conning people and manipulating them too. It'd been hard, surviving and teaching yourself most things about life, even with Emory there through it all. In fact, the King hadn't ever been alone a day in his life. Just as Emory had, for the first time, left him, Aspen had replaced her and given him something nobody else could: happiness, and hope. Nearly five years of life and it took his Queen only months to stir him into action and now here they were leading the Court. 
             "I'm gonna go find Aspen, if you don't have anymore questions. I'm glad you're a part of my family, Ayla."