A meeting!

Maude had learned that there were few things that got her as excited as a gathering of her herd mates, even though the last time had resulted in all of them being attacked by vicious griffons. All healed up, however, the girl was loathe to let her fear of hungry creatures ruin the joy of seeing all of the Edge gathered together, and quickly scampers out of the greenhouse, towards the Queen’s call (though she does glance upwards along her way more often than she once had).

The tent is already beginning to fill up with people when the little ginger and cream darling arrives, her pelt glistening with rain, and her lungs exhaling a sigh of relief that she hadn’t been bombarded by malevolent animals today. Shaking the water away from herself on the outskirts (cautiously away from the others), she cheerfully prances under the protective awning of the tent, her spring green eyes seeking out her family, or friends. If they are here, however, doesn’t really matter, because as she searches, the girl finds, instead, the most pitiful looking woman she has ever seen (aside from her mommy in the meadow, of course).

A similar ache to what she’d felt looking at her mom clenches into the girl’s breast, and she cannot help but sweetly sympathize aloud, "oh!," before she is winding her way through the crowd, towards the haggard stranger.

Settling in alongside the gray unicorn, Maude only now realizes she hadn’t a clue what to say, or do. Looking up at the woman, her youthful eyes are wide with the horror that, perhaps, she should have come up with something before now, forced to delve into a conversation she hasn’t a clue how to have without a set course of action.

"Hello!" she begins, her worry swallowed up in a warm, cheerful smile, "I’m Maude, and I’m training to be a nurse someday. Are you okay?"

Before she knows it, though, the meeting is started. Looking about at each person as their name is said, or looking for them, to find them missing, the young healer feels a wealth of emotions about it all. For one, Evangeline is missing, which makes her very sad, and her father’s friend Glasgow had left, too; yet, at the same time, it was very wonderful that so many people were being given a chance to show how much they loved the Edge. That there is a new Doctor, too, causes the child’s neck to crane out into the crowd, seeking out the handsome stallion who’d earned the rank. Doctor Sacre, she’d have to remember, giggling because it sort of rhymed.

Literally beaming at her mother’s promotion, Maude proudly states to the woman alongside her, "That’s my mommy!," before quieting back down to listen to the rest.

When Oizys speaks up, however, her good mood falters slightly. What does she mean, they don’t do a lot? Lifting her head, the cremello and rust filly wonders just what the intimidating, older girl is talking about. She certainly was almost always busy in the greenhouse! Between pulling weeds, tending to each plant’s needs and learning what each herb or sapling was called, and used for, Maude had spent at least a few hours every day practicing to be a healer. Frowning, her brows furrowing down, the studious herbalist decides that the only reason the older girl is bored at all, must be because she lacks the drive to find her own lessons, and tasks. Sure, the cremello fawn had her father to thank for seeking education on her own, the stag having raised his daughter with her future career in mind, taking the time when she was very small to foster a seed of self reliance, and an eagerness to learn. Regardless, no one made Maude go to the greenhouse every day, and no one made her study, either, and so she expects others to take the same initiative in order to achieve their dreams, too.

Maybe this girl just didn’t want to be a soldier as bad as Maude wanted to save lives, and deliver babies.


MaudeHow should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.