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“But its not fair, Auntie O!”
Octavia smiles, and continues walking through the section of forest that leads them back to her brother’s.
“Jupiter, you can drag your feet if you want, but warriors do not pout; they figure out a strategy around their obstacles,” she advises her niece.
“Uggghhh,” the young girl groans. “Why does everyone always talk in riddles? I like Uncle Lincoln and Aunt Indra, they say everything easy.”
Octavia scoffs. “Not always, kid.”
She halts her movement and turns to her niece in one swift movement. Jupiter, having grown up on the ground from day one, reacts instantly to her movement and adjusts her own position.
“What I’m trying to tell you,” Octavia continues, looking at her niece with a seriousness that they’ve always shared, “is that even if your parents do not let you have your own physical sword, you can still learn how to wield one so you’ll be a badass once you do get one. I mean, more badass than you already are.”
Jupiter stares at her aunt for a couple of seconds, before her eyes light up and she inhales sharply in excitement.
“Oh, Aunt O! Can you teach me? I swear I’ll learn just as good as if I had a sword!”
Octavia laughs, and reaches out to muss up Jupiter’s curly brown hair, which is already windblown and a mess from the last few days spent with her aunt and uncle on their side of the valley.
“Yeah, I’ll teach you, kid. But you gotta keep it a secret from your mom and dad, okay? I’ve still got some guilt trip stored up, but not enough to save both our butts if they find out,” she warns Jupiter, before leading them both back to the path to Bellamy and Clarke’s cabin.
They’re not very far from the edge of the clearing that surrounds the cabin, almost at the spot where Octavia usually lets Jupiter run home free, when they hear a loud crash followed by a softer thump coming from inside the cabin.
Immediately, Octavia’s sword is in front of her and she’s pushing Jupiter behind her while slowly inching forward. Jupiter is silent, gripping onto the back of her aunt’s shirt, and resisting the urge to peer around her.
Only when Octavia hears a noise that has more to do with pleasure than pain does she lower her sword and relax her stance. Having grown used to the body language signal for all clear, Jupiter starts to move forward past her aunt, but Octavia stops her before she gets very far.
“Uh, let’s wait here for a second,” she tells her niece, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking down at her. Then, before they’re witness to anything else, she turns to announce their presence.
“Hey, big brother!” Octavia calls out, working to amplify her voice so it reaches the cabin without getting any closer. “You working on making it so that you’re not the only older sibling in our family?”
Octavia hears another loud crash and some muffled muttering, and while she can’t make out any of the actual words, she knows Bellamy’s gruff voice well enough to know that he’s most likely cursing (cursing the wall, whatever he knocked over, the ground in general, but never the day she was born).
A few seconds later, Bellamy appears at the door of the cabin, shirt slightly askew and hair in more of a disarray than usual, but composed enough to avoid any suspicion from Jupiter. His hand moves to scratch the back of his neck as he makes his way out to the open area of grass towards where Octavia is still holding Jupiter by the shoulder.
Jupiter breaks free and rushes her father. He bends his knees to catch her and lifts her up, in a familiar motion that hits Octavia hard in a way that she hasn’t felt in years.
“Daddy,” Jupiter says earnestly, looking at Bellamy with wide eyes in a way that is such a spitting image of Clarke that Octavia has to shake her head to clear the vision. “Am I gonna get a baby brother or sister?”
There’s a cough, and then Clarke is stepping out into the sunlight, fully clothed, and cheeks slightly pink. Octavia appreciates that there are still things that can provoke this almost bashful response in her sister.
Bellamy looks over at Clarke, face softening, before murmuring almost absently to his daughter, “Not yet, baby girl.”
Clarke looks at him pointedly. He seems to realize what he’s said, and glances over to Octavia to see that she’s watching them with a smirk on her face.
“Come on, kiddo, let’s go get dinner started,” Clarke tells Jupiter, as she takes her from Bellamy and walks back into the cabin.
“Auntie O says that older siblings are some of the best people in the world,” Jupiter informs her mother, her voice carrying back to the Blake siblings outside. “If I get more than one baby sibling, does that mean I’ll be the bestest best person in the world?”
Bellamy grimaces at her. “Thanks, O.”
Octavia snickers. She may be a grown warrior, but finding joy in the thought of her brother’s discomfort will always be a part of her.
“No problem, just trying to do my civic duty to help get the ground repopulated,” she says, pulling him down with the hand not holding her sword so she can kiss him on the cheek, before turning to head home.
“That better be the only way you’re doing that particular civic duty!” Bellamy calls after her.
Octavia raises her sword to him as her only reply while she walks away.
Just for that, she decides, she won’t tell him till the festival next week.