Maude stands at the top of the familiar small hill looking down on the Farm, with the sun shining bright into her face. Her eye twitches after she wipes sweat from her forehead, and she turns to take a look back at the long trek she made from their designated meeting spot. Maude normally does this when Lyla is late, as she would rather be in motion than stuck waiting, but she does not usually make it nearly this far. She thinks it may be partially her fault,her response after the meeting may have been a bit harsh in retrospect. She pushes that feeling down, she is righteously angry after all.

Maude throws down the large backpack she is carrying and falls next to it in a huff. She’s certainly not going any further out of her way. She reaches into her pack and pulls out a small notepad, and starts to sketch the farm below her. After a couple of poor lines and some lopsided squares, she sighs and flips the page, and starts to write instead. Maude likes to journal, but she’s always too embarrassed to go back and read what she wrote, so she’s not sure it does her any good. Either way, the gist of most entries follow the pattern of ‘This or that happened, because Lyla made me do that or this.’

Think of the devil herself, Maude erupts in a silent cheer as she sees Lyla coming from below. She notices from this distance that Lyla is not moving with her usual grace, and on closer inspection Maude concludes she actually looks worn out and has a grimy bandage wrapped around her hand; she looks like shit.

“You look like shit,” Maude informs her, as she walks up.

“Yeah. Thanks,” is the muttered reply. It was rare for Lyla to avoid eye contact, usually the worry for Maude was very much the opposite.

“What’s the bandage about?” Maude tries to adopt the lightest tone she can, as she questions. Lyla does not stop as she passes Maude on the ground, forcing her to quickly collect all her things and pull herself to her feet. It takes longer than she would prefer, but she has to make sure everything goes correctly into the bag, it is an intricate puzzle to store as much as she does. Lyla is two dozen paces in front by the time she finishes repacking, but Maude is able to quickly catch up to just a few behind her, with her longer strides. She has to walk fast, but not that fast, Lyla seems to already be losing steam.

“Lyla, what happened, are you okay? Why do you have that bandage on your hand?” Maude is met with silence. “Talk to me!” Maude starts to feel heat rise behind her eyes, and she has no urge to hold back “Okay jackass, if you want to keep quiet, I’ll do the talking. What should we talk about? Hmm, I don’t know? What do you think, Mrs. President?” Lyla does not turn around, but Maude is sure she did not miss the exaggerated salute. “How about how you completely abused my loyalty, and forced me to be a part of a scheme that could very well end with us dead or in jail or I don’t know, something worse, and on top of that…”

“I know! I’m sorry! We went over this! Extensively! I just didn’t realize you were scared of doing a real revolution, it’s not a big deal, please let’s just move on now.” Lyla cuts in with a raised voice.

“What happened to your hand?” Through gritted teeth it is the most polite Maude can manage after the attack from Lyla.

“It’s a fashion statement.” Lyla responds over her shoulder and then picks up speed once again.

What is this? Maude wasn’t the late one, she was the one who walked out of her way. She wasn’t the one having fun playing politics with their lives. She’s the righteously angry one! Stomping forward with her head down, Maude goes directly behind Lyla and swiftly sweeps her right leg out from under her, as Lyla takes the next step. With no anticipation of the assault, Lyla completely falls face forward, legs in a tangled mass. She hits the ground hard, refusing to catch herself with her bandaged arm. A high pitched cry puts Maude’s heart in her throat. Lyla quickly flips to her side and holds her bandaged hand off the ground, face betraying her attempt to hold back tears. Maude’s heart drops to her toes, that might have been too much, she could have sworn the grass looked softer.

Wordlessly, Maude moves and stands over Lyla, grabbing the wrapped arm as carefully and firmly as she can. She bats away the other arm as it attempts to pry Lyla from Maude’s firm grip.

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“Stop. Listen to me. This looks disgusting, I am helping you.” Maude is not sure where she found that tone, but it seems to work and Lyla silently stops struggling, but does roll her eyes quite loudly. No more words are exchanged as Maude pulls off the raggedy piece of cloth Lyla is passing off as a bandage and rebinds her hand with a proper one from her well-stocked bag. As she is carefully wrapping Lyla’s upper wrist and palm, she smells both shine and cologne but Maude, in an admittedly rare moment of self-awareness, decides she does not think it’s a great time to comment.

With each round of the bandage Maude can see Lyla checking if her winces are noticed. After she is done with the wound, she softly pulls Lyla to her feet and apologizes for the harsh treatment.

“To be clear, I am not scared of doing what needs to be done. Maybe I'm a bit worried at the worst,” she throws in at the end of tending to the wound.

“You’re always maybe a bit worried.” She turns with a smirk and another eye roll, and marches on.

Maude follows, and she can’t help but feel w… concerned. Lyla has always been slightly unpredictable, it’s one of her best qualities, but since Dev left she’s been getting a little too erratic for Maude’s comfort. She came into a lot of responsibilities all at once, and she’s barely talked about it, well with Maude at least. Maude is not sure who else Lyla would possibly talk to, maybe Jasmine it seems after the other night, but she doubts that, highly. She could ask around, but within the Mission Maude is very openly directly associated with Lyla and she would not want to create distrust in their ranks. She would never go around questioning her to other members, and anyways Maude cares first and foremost about the woman, not the President.

Lyla has to learn to take care of herself and stop acting like a petulant child, and that includes treating a simple farm wound. She won’t be of any use as a leader or farmer if she can’t keep herself healthy. Dev used to always protect and look out for Lyla, Maude isn’t sure how things are going to go without him long term. She’s not so sure Lyla can resign to the necessary lifestyle. Last year the whole incident with the fires could have been disastrous without Dev to step in. Not that it excuses how they treated Lyla at all, but he was the saving grace that made peace.

It’s just not right honestly, even the Mission, the group who is supposed to be most dedicated to actively fighting the oppression of the Ravhan public, ‘don’t fully support’ physical conflicts for their own liberation. Whatever that means. They need to deliver justice by any means necessary, and the Mission needs to hurry up and realize that. Huh. Maude keeps the sentiment to herself, but she suddenly is a bit less critical of Lyla’s erratic behavior.

The pair walks most of the way in continued heavy silence, even wordlessly sharing a piece of Maude’s hookfruit bread. It was a new recipe and she honestly would have enjoyed some feedback, but she settles for watching Lyla try not to scarf down the dessert too quickly. As the city comes into view ahead of them though, Maude has to speak up, she’s walked too far today.

“So what exactly is it that we are actually going to do? Sneak around the Crown, poke at the nooks and crannies with these massive bags on our backs, and take some notes? We should have been more thorough with the planning.” She wishes she could take the last sentence back. Lyla had insisted they needed to go over some ‘plan details’ the night of the meeting, which Maude saw through.

Maude had inspected the bags packed by Lyla, and it was honestly mostly weapons and rope, which is more puzzling than anything. It’s not like they are trained soldiers, and even if they were and armed to the teeth, then what? Two brave heroes infiltrate and break free an entire prison? What would they do with all the rope anyways. Hell Lyla’s never even trained with a sword, Maude just gave her that dagger the other day, if they tried to actually fight she’d probably end up hurting herself… Oh. Maude has her realization, and at the same time it becomes clear Lyla was attempting to answer her.

“I’m so sorry, what did you say?” Maude’s own voice brings herself back to reality.

Lyla recoils and gives her a sharp look, a mix of annoyance and confusion, and lets out an exasperated breath.

“I said we are going to the safe house first to drop off the supplies, and then we will go over the rest of the plan from there.”

Maude nods tentatively but furrows her brow tight… Right… the supplies. They are going to drop off the rope and weapons they've lugged all the way here? She’s making this up as she goes, Maude decides, there’s no other real option. Lyla’s being reckless, which means there is something secret that she wants. Nothing can be easy or simple, or not a game of half-truths with this woman. Maude concludes that step one in averting any of the many, many potential disasters that can come from whatever this escapade turns out to be, is finding out what it is Lyla really is after, and why on earth she is keeping it to herself.