“And once again our fearless leader seems to be behind schedule,” blurts Torna, breaking the brief, serene silence. The short woman is going to disappointedly shake her head right off her shoulders, Maude thinks. “You know the humanitarian thing would be to care for the time of your fellow mission member,” replies Patrice, as she clicks her tongue loudly in disapproval. To Maude, the clicking sounds like that from an opossum. The two women frown harshly at her when she says as much.
After a few moments of resumed silence Torna mutters to Patrice loud enough for Maude to hear, “I don’t know how this one made it In The Room.” Maude figures maybe she will be the one to knock Torna’s head off her shoulders instead of the coughing, actually. She can’t argue with them too much though, Lyla has been late to the last three meetings, though in her opinion it is completely understandable. With her brother gone, there is no telling what Lyla is facing on the farm by herself. Maude wishes she could help out and in fact has offered to do so, but she realistically does not have the time, a blacksmith starts work before the sun, just like a farmer. Still it wasn’t fair, someone like Lyla should not have to run a farm all alone…
All three women look up from their café as they hear a dull slam and subsequent thud from the other room. Their fearless leader has arrived. “Sorry I’m late, please keep your more colorful comments to yourself,” Lyla immediately commands attention as she storms in and spreads the large map of the Crown Inn out on the dining room table. Oh no.
“Are the kids asleep? Is Jasmine coming?” barks Lyla as she sheds her coat and pushes sweaty hair from her face. She also places an awkwardly full bag against the wall, of which Maude is sure each woman takes note.
“Yes, they have been in bed for the past hour, thirty minutes before we were meant to start, come to think of it. And no, Jas let us know hours ago she would be detained,” lazily remarks Patrice, never raising her eyes from her cup.
“Right. Yes. Sorry. Do you have any more of that?” Lyla’s tone gets a bit lighter, and she gestures to their glasses.
“No. As Vice President of the Ravha Humanitarian Mission, I hereby bring this meeting to be in order,” answers Torna, standing to give her speech and then immediately sitting back down. Lyla purses her lips and rolls her eyes, but stands up and says
“As President, I thank you all for coming. Let’s get through the standard agenda quickly, why don’t we?” Lyla then proceeds to run through the basic services and supply statistics from the time since the last meeting, at a remarkable pace. It’s truly impressive what Lyla can do with her mind when she puts her, well, mind to it. The woman was able to rattle off exactly where the tons of food went, down to the city section, and in some cases, the household. She does so nearly at the speed of an auctioneer, Maude assumes to make some sort of statement.
Anyone unfamiliar would think Lyla had diligently studied a record log or even had one right in front of her. Maude knows the truth. Lyla does extraordinary things out of pure passion, and in spite of intense disorganization. Since picking up her responsibilities, Lyla has been memorizing and learning the ins and outs of the Mission’s distribution channels, as much from need as want. When the woman feels she needs to do something then it gets done, no questions asked. Maude believes that deep in her heart, and has seen it time and again. The new President role is just a fresh obstacle for Lyla.
The Mission historically has focused on feeding the hungry of Ravhan, and they are effective, if Maude says so herself. They are able to acquire and distribute (mostly) legal food and supplies all across the city, to the point that their actions are unofficially considered when the City Circle makes rationing decisions. Of course some of their tactics are deemed less than savory by the Circle, and admittedly some of the general public as well. Accountability can be messy.
The members are mainly women, as they have always been, but that trend is changing. Or else it was changing, the past few years has seen men disappear from most areas of life in Ravhan. There used to be two In The Room (one was even the President, for the first time in mission history), but now Maude is not sure if they even have men left in their ranks, every name she knows is a woman. Of course no member of the Mission knows every other member's name, but as Secretary Maude feels she knows more than most. Also as Secretary, Maude is taking detailed notes of the information Lyla is laying out for them, though barely listening.
If anyone saw her page they would describe the site as complete gibberish, or absently doodled symbols. Maude’s notetaking and code writing abilities are but a few of her own impressive reasons she’s In The Room, despite what anyone here thinks. This part of the meeting honestly feels like little more than muscle memory, they are all eager to get through it. There is no question really where the food is going, there are waves of deserving families who have lost loved ones (and providers) in the fighting, and they have been feeding them for months.
There is almost even less question about where the food is coming from, with more than half of the food coming straight from The Farm and Lyla’s contacts that came through the place. The final portion was nearly always made up and exceeded through channels of other members, which is good, as they would feel a bit of embarrassment if they were not able to honestly. The sheer productivity from The Farm is undeniably a major reason Lyla is President, especially at her age, but Maude thinks it is ridiculous that some members would hold that against her. The whole point of the group is to do good and Lyla does more good than anyone. She does other less-than-good things too, but that’s not really the point.
As the young president is finishing up formalities, Maude silently pushes her own cup over to be in front of Lyla. Maude is given a grateful glance in return, but before Lyla takes a sip, Torna can apparently hold back no longer.
“So please may we know the meaning behind this meeting?” Lyla lowers the cup right before it reaches her lips.
“Is it not obvious?” She poses the question with the open map on the table, and of course they all know what she is thinking, despite their hope to deny it. The map itself honestly offers very little insight, Maude doubts they’ll need to know the actual ins and outs of the inn, it is a mostl;y symbolic gestures. She hopes.
The increasing thump of Maude’s heart is in the back of her eyes. She obviously agrees with Lyla on the detainment, they have to release the Everens from the Inn. Ultimately though it comes down to how exactly they could make that happen. The Mission’s position is that they obviously officially condemn the imprisoning of any innocent person, especially those who had clearly been sent in good faith to help Ravha. To help them from what, Maude is still not sure. So many believe they are fighting some fairy-tale war against the Devil Himself. Even the people who don’t completely buy the Governor's narrative of current events still hold that the fairy-tales themselves are true.
Stolen novel; please report.
They have members working everyday to get the prisoners free through the City-Circle. However, Conder and Pen have both been roadblocked ‘indefinitely’ as they put it in their last reports, and no other member Maude knows has any relevant leverage on the issue. It seems like they have exhausted most of their established avenues, which is what they asked Lyla to wait for, and they haven’t made any progress.
Lyla has been against peaceful operations from the start, but she was just a Mission Captain when the soldiers were taken. She was much more relaxed back then, but now she does have a certain sense of urgency, confidence. Still, her views are widely known and are concerning to many members, including Maude. The Mission is not scared of action, they put hammer to anvil quite regularly, but while they are pretty good at playing with fire they still get burned infrequently. Like herself, most believe Lyla will couch her more radical ideas given her new position as president, but their leader has made no such promise.
“We have to act, we have to free them by any means necessary.” Maude suppresses her groan, but makes sure Lyla receives her contempt through a pointed glare.
“Ridiculous!” predictably outbursts Torna, while Patrice lets out a snort and shakes her head as if listening to a humorous but nonsensical child. Maude wants to grab Patrice and show her a real shake, but she settles on gritting her teeth and sharing her glare all around. Is it ridiculous? Surely the Everen’s had come to either aid the magical battle, or less likely, they came to aid in the liberation of the people. Either way, they did not bring siege equipment, and there’s no reason to think they would even want to attack Ravha anyways, so the idea of them being invaders is weak to Maude. The issue is that when the Mission does important work, combat is not their forte. Most of their members, and leadership in fact, have never had any formal weapon training. They are much more experienced with organizing and protesting historically, and recently smuggling, spying, and the occasional destruction of property is not out of their wheelhouse. But the idea that they could drum up an entire battalion or something and storm the prison or an outpost or anything like that is extremely far-fetched.
So while the older women in the room may be right, Maude does not have to be happy about it. Lyla straightens her back and Maude can swear she sees the hint of a grin on her face. How can she be enjoying something so serious?
“How so?” says Lyla, still the only one standing, crossing her arms and slightly tilting her head to the right. “These soldiers, these people, came here from a place hundreds of miles away, which we only hear from every half decade, to help us! They came to do the job we are supposed to be doing every single day!”
Maude can’t help but grimace at the statement. While her sentiment is fair enough, Lyla is just patently wrong. Everen is maybe barely a hundred miles away from Ravha, and they almost always have yearly or bi-yearly travelers, they really only had one five year span with no visitors either way. However, that is widely attributed to the Hopping Infection, which has long passed. Torna says as much, and Lyla is forced to secede on the facts, but says it doesn’t change anything. Maude is beyond annoyed. Why is she saying this? It garners ill will and puts her, and her allies, on the back foot, she has to be smarter than that.
“It’s simple, let’s have a formal vote.” Lyla throws on a smile so innocently naive, it’s borderline sinister.
We can’t, thinks Maude, not everyone is In The Room.
“We can’t, not everyone is In The Room,” retorts Torna. The smile turns from naive to amused, and Maude can see Lyla is about to garner some more ill will, somehow.
“Technically yes, we don’t have everyone, but we have everyone we need. See here I have Jasmine’s written wishes that her vote be cast along with lil Ms. Maude Robin’s for this session, and any session she is unable to attend for the duration of the year, for that matter.” She brandishes the note and they pass it among themselves, each verifying Jasmine’s signature with varying levels of skepticism.
This happens sometimes, it can be hard to get the entire Room together and a written note is plenty to give someone your vote for a session or two. But out of principle they never call surprise votes, or hold mystery meetings, and they certainly don’t give away their vote long term, those are new developments. And to top it off she is putting the onus on Maude? Why would Jasmine give her vote to Maude? They were friends for sure, but they certainly had never discussed this. Maude feels guilty for the intrusive suspicion she feels for Lyla, and dismisses it. No matter how Lyla came into possession of the note, what she is doing to Maude is beyond embarrassing, not that she would ever let the other two women in on that. Maude nods and smiles, as if she was always expecting an extra vote.
“All I am putting forth is that we begin reconnaissance as soon as possible, and after we have gathered enough information, we can then make a decision on a course of direct action,” Lyla beams at each woman around the table before locking eyes with Maude. “All in favor, please say aye.” Maude’s jaw falls, but she quickly snaps it back. Lyla’s eyes narrow slightly, as if she is unsure what Maude will do. Well that’s good at least, thinks Maude, because Lyla doesn’t know, and Maude is far from predictable. Her teeth clench from frustration, and she holds the wooden chair with an iron grip.
“Aye,” says Maude, echoed far too quickly by Lyla, and she is met with a grin that for a second makes her want nothing more than to take back her vote. Or, votes. The other two women vote ‘No’ and then immediately fall over themselves to demand that all actions are planned In The Room, and that no direct action is taken without full approval of The Room. They realize they lost and are trying to make up ground. Lyla begins handing out reassurement, letting the pair know just how powerful they are and insisting that they would be allowed to help with all plans. It doesn’t matter though, Lyla has just proven to these women that things are going to be different, the Mission is going to live up to its mission statement, even if it takes dirty politics it seems. Maude should be giddy, this could be the first step she has long wanted, and it was her that made it happen technically. But she didn’t get to know beforehand, she was just a pawn. The idea of being played is not one that Maude can suppress easily.
The next hour consists of the three other women arguing and debating over the definition of ‘reconnaissance’ amongst other monumental debates. Maude mechanically continues her notes without really registering any of it, as is her typical Secretary state. She’s too busy gathering her own thoughts, and developing what she’s going to say to Lyla once this meeting finally finishes. The hardest decisions are where she should hold back, and what she shouldn’t say.
They will want to store all the supplies that Lyla brought at Maude’s cabin, since it is about halfway between The Farm and the city. That means Maude will have a good long walk without anything else to do except speak her mind. They were supposed to be a team, equals. They had an agreement going into all this. Maude understands that being President means Lyla has to deal with some responsibilities that Maude does not, and maybe that allows her some secrets. But this is beyond secrets. She has not only made Maude complicit in starting something incredibly dangerous and possibly equally stupid, but Lyla manipulated Maude’s trust to make the whole thing her fault. This isn’t going to happen again, they are going to get on the same page and that’s all there is to it. And after dropping off the supplies, the fearless leader can take the hike back to her farm through all that spooky darkness she’s so not afraid of. Maude’s cabin isn’t taking overnight guests.