CAW-CA-CAW-CA-CAW. Henry’s song crashes into Lyla’s head waking her from a familiar wonderful dream involving a delicious pastry and its equally delicious baker. But like everything good in life it is gone far too soon, and she means that literally. Henry is a great rooster, but he’s always at least fifteen minutes early for the sun. Mere moments later light breaks from above the trees outside of her window and Lyla has to give a point to the old rooster, just this once. She abruptly sits up and puts her feet on the ground, as though suddenly spurred into action. Lyla finds it is best to keep even herself guessing.
After fighting off a round of dizziness and collecting herself she makes the momentous step of standing up. From there, getting dressed and throwing herself out the door is trivial. She stumbles out and starts her way down the short path leading from her front door towards the main road. The dewy grass reminds her of recent, literally brighter days where she could wait until noon to get up before she had to do this walk. For many of those days, the walk to the Drop-off basket was her only real routine responsibility. Back then she would sometimes dread the oncoming workload that could be waiting in the waist high wicker basket, nowadays she knows she is resigned to mundane nothingness when it is empty.
Hopefully that should not be the case today after what she left last time. Guilt touches the back of her mind, but she brushes it away as quickly as she can. This job, this burden, will never be clean and easy. As she approaches, she quickly removes the thin lid and peers inside, hoping and confidently expecting her package to have been retrieved. Inside there is a small bronze coin which gives her a slight rush of satisfaction.
She snatches the coin, then places the lid back on and stands to the right of the basket, with her left leg touching the right side. Lyla takes two big steps backwards and three to her right before crouching down and scratching at the dirt with her fingers. Working past the top layer of dirt takes little effort, confirming that it has been loosened recently. She pulls away dirt until a carefully folded cloth is revealed. It is secured by a piece of beige string. She unties the twine and unfolds the cloth to see the handwritten note inside. She reads the message on it two times, and then two more just to be safe, before refolding the paper and placing it in her pocket. She takes off back towards the house nearly at a jog.
As she gets back, she has to take a second and lean against the house while the world reorients. With a grimace she pushes herself off the wooden side and starts to go around the back of the house. It’s times like these, when the world is slightly spinning and pulsating, that Lyla realizes her past mistakes and yearns for her lost sobriety. But then again she has to wonder if there has ever been a truly sober farmer. That makes her stop in her tracks. Farmer? Is that what she was now? It’s actually a hilarious question she realizes, she has been a farmer for as long as she can remember. It’s just now things are different, more permanent… Worse. With a deep breath, she grabs her thoughts before they get away from her and turns them towards animals and crops. Why wouldn’t she? She is a farmer after all.
Initially she deals with the animals, they need breakfast after all. She handles the chickens first, as she likes to get them out of the way. Lyla appreciates the eggs, they are essential in getting all the orders out nowadays, and she loves a roasted chicken as much as anyone. Still, when she looks in the eyes of the birds she does not see any warmth or acknowledgment, only an empty head desperate for grain. Before tossing the grain, Lyla takes a second to scold Henry, he almost made her late after all. She doesn’t understand the chickens, they will frantically bump and fight each other in an attempt to get as much of the grain from the ground as they possibly can. Yet the whole grass pasture is open to them, they have no shortage of food.
She feels similarly about the pigs, but to a lesser extent because she thinks the pigs are smarter than they let on. Lyla’s favorite animals, and the only ones that will keep her doing this, are the sheep and cows. The beautiful thing about them is they will graze and share the pasture with no issues, no squabbling. She has to rotate between the three pastures twice a week and that is a big effort, but at least these animals act civilized.
She continues her rounds, spreading grain, refilling the large buckets of water, and walking the chest-high wooden fence that surrounds the pasture. Dev had said the worst thing about being a farmer was the dread, and not just about harvests. He would describe walking around the fence, watching over the farm just as she is doing now. But he would include commentary on how anxious he would get, how on edge he would be just hoping that he does not come across a section of broken fence or a leaking water container, or anything at all. It was the dread of responsibility that Dev hated. There’s nobody that will make you fix the broken length of fence on your own pastures. Why would they, it’s your fence?
But if you give in, if you just leave the hole, well the obvious happens. Your animals escape. You have no farm, you have no livelihood. Then everyone who is expecting you to provide for them will really care about the hole in the fence. Lyla thinks about her other job and isn’t so sure that what Dev felt is exclusive to farmers. Thankfully the fence seems to be in fine condition, and Lyla just needs to do a sweep of the crops. She is proud of the hookfruit in a way, as they were initially her idea. She had stressed to Dev how well they would do, though not even Lyla had realized just how successful they really would be.
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The thick green-yellow outside gave way to a soft, firm fruit that is much more convenient and filling than many others that they have ever been able to make at this scale. They are basically perfect for the Farm’s goals. But now here she is with rows and rows of trees, and harvest season nearer by the day. They have always focused on growing the size of this place as fast as possible, but now she sees herself hitting a real limit on how much growing can be done, unless she starts hiring some help, or something. For now Lyla essentially just goes through tree by tree and checks for any visible issues. She tries to slow herself and really pay attention, but she’s never found plants interesting and she hardly thinks she can be blamed for that. Tree after tree she finds no issues, a waste of time after all she decides.
Before packing in it, Lyla makes the final stop at a small section of the land near the house. This area is fenced in by a miniature picket fence, which almost rises to her shins. There is a small sign that reads ‘Lyla’s Garden’ in dark paint. When she was a girl, this was where Lyla learned to cultivate crops, and eventually began testing techniques and new crops to grow. Prior to pivoting to hookfruit, her biggest breakthrough had been a selection of particularly potent cafe beans, but they offered much less value in terms of the Farm’s overall goal. The new crop had been more of a fortuitous fruit find than anything else, a merchant from Everen had simply thrown a batch into a deal for shine Lyla was already brokering. Heis was looking down on her that day at the market, she concludes.
Now the garden is covered in a single type of plant, small white flowers dot the many inter tangled vines. She reaches down and feels the thick petals on flower after flower. Finally she finds one that seems brittle enough to be of use and she plucks it, before quickly pocketing the plant. The Powder-Tufts are much, much more in line with the cafe beans, but Lyla is not giving up on them in terms of finding a use. Unfortunately, she has to keep her own exposure to an absolute bare minimum, she knows a potential catastrophe when she feels one. Maude told her to burn the whole garden, but Lyla has every intention to do the opposite. She plucks two more of the drier petals, and stands up satisfied.
The sun is high in the sky when she finishes her morning duties, and she wishes she had remembered to wear that large straw hat, but the dim morning fooled her. Lyla gets back to her house, and after a quick meal and change of clothes, she is pouring herself a cup of café, and pouring herself over the massive hand drawn map sprawled across the floor. She considers a glass of shine, but with the rest of the day she has before her, better judgment wins out. With her upcoming presentation in mind, she retrieves a large rolled up sheet of paper she has stashed away. She unfurls it carefully, laying it on the ground with a book placed on each corner so she can study it from above, without it rolling back up on her. She’s dealt with that before.
She sighs and thinks to herself that it unfortunately is study time, as she takes in the blueprint below her. The diagram is an approximation of the Crown of Ravha Inn. She notices that The Crown is laid out in a U shape and understands its naming. In fact the name is actually misleading, but it has nothing to do with the ‘crown’ portion, it is the inclusion of ‘inn.’. Sure the Crown was an inn, and it may be an inn once again. Currently though, to call it anything other than a makeshift prison would be deeply disingenuous. In her head she tries to run through scenario after scenario, but she can’t figure it out, they are missing way too much information. She almost feels unsure about whether they are planning a good thing here. If she did not trust that reliable feeling in her gut, she may have already backed out.
She thinks about the other women, and how they are going to react. The attempt to steel herself falls to anxious exasperation. Lyla is not a convincing woman, but she has to convince some very skeptical and smart women. The speech plays out on repeat, her speaking out loud to the empty room. Her mind drifts to a small sack sitting in a wicker basket, and the guilt rises up the back of her neck. Forgiveness from herself is beyond the pale at this point, she knows her evil too intimately. But she doesn’t need to be accepted by herself.
She looks up at the windows and evening sky outside, then looks down at the empty mug in her hands and laments that her and father time have such an abusive relationship. Lyla does not stop sprinting as she rushes out the door to feed the animals for the night. She is covered in sweat when she bursts back into the farmhouse.
She hurriedly, but carefully rolls up the map and starts to get her pack together. If a passerby is to see the size of the pack she is bringing tonight, they will assume she is likely leaving Ravha, ready for a multi day trek, but suspiciously without a horse. That would be awkward if she was stopped and questioned, but she doubts there will be any fellow travelers out at night and going in her direction, and she wants to get as many supplies to Maude’s as possible. If things go the way Lyla is planning, she will need to bring even more supplies tomorrow night.
She looks at the packs and has a fleeting moment of sadness. Four years ago if she had looked in this large brown bag she would have seen it filled with food and basic medical supplies, but now what stared back at her was almost entirely combat equipment. A large assortment of arrows, knives, rope, and other tactical gear is accompanied by a couple rations and a few bandages. The tools of the trade. After tying up the sack, she laces up her boots and heads out for the main road. She lights her lantern as she steps out into the evening, she can tell it will be dark before she gets halfway to the meeting. Like anyone with a sensible head on their shoulders, Lyla is a bit wary of the dark. Not scared per se, but it definitely isn’t comforting. Still, she thinks as it sets in around her, at least she’s not a farmer at night.