Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One: And Tough Unseen, The Moon Guides Me Back Home

   In the space between her last breath and the next, under the dying light, Clarke is hit with an epiphany of sorts. One that has been evading her fractured mind, letting her live in the mist of tomorrow and the blood of yesterday. Living meant nothing. Her empty breathes, restless nights, and lonely mornings, they meant nothing. The kills haunting her, the hair falling in her eyes, the scars and the curves of her skin, mean nothing here away from everyone with only broken breaths and forgotten ghosts to accompany her. Away from life, hidden under the cover of trees, Clarke Griffin meant nothing. And she wonders if realizing that should worry her, if it was the sign she was looking for to turn back and try to find what once was home. She wonders while she smiles at the thought of her worth, and why that smile, though small, is the truest it has been in years. She wonders why clouds drift with knowing smiles and secrets they promise she’ll learn. 

 She wonders when Earth started to mean living to her again.

  Home means nothing to her either. It had once meant everything but she lost pieces, walls and floors until all that was left was her standing in the ruins of her once warm safe haven, hugging herself for even a glimpse of warmth. Wells was her home, her father, even the hundred was her home once. Rolling her eyes at Bellamy, learning second-told tricks from Octavia, teasing Monty and Jasper, laying beside Raven and pretending not to notice their connected hands, swapping insults with Murphy, that had been home. Home had been tense shoulders and war, but it had been home nonetheless. It had been living with eyes casted behind her, with fear keeping her heart beating, but it had been living.

  Clarke stops, snow settles on her lashes and clothes. She stares at her hands, curled and covered in blood she can only feel, she is hit with another epiphany. Another hit to her rusted walls and fractured armor. The cold air nips her skin, the thinly made cloak she traded at Niylahs a few nights ago doing nothing to protect her. She welcomes the cold, the distraction it brings. She welcomes the reminder that Death has not claimed her, despite her desire for it to.

  She tore down her home. She, with her own pale fingers and panicked mind, somehow managed to tear down the bare walls she had just built back up. Calling them walls was generous, they were not sturdy and had more holes then she could fill, but it was structure, it was a frame to something she wanted to see so badly it burned. It has been months since she left Bellamy, the others, yet all this time was filled with blank minds and haunted nights. Her only thoughts were of putting the other foot down and running from monsters she made. She didn’t think of the betrayal on his face, the understanding on Monty's or even the anger on Octaivas, she just saw melted bodies and nothing else. She saw the accusations, even if she was gone long before they spilled out.

 Tears spill down her cheeks as shame fills her. Her chest heaves though she can’t get any air in long enough to actually breathe. She destroyed things. She destroyed people, homes, lives. Her hands were trained to mend, to heal, yet it was better at hurting, breaking. Her arms ache from the weight on her shoulders, her wrist burns with shame for carrying her hands. Hatred has never quite felt like this.

 She was a monster in a thin cloak and entirely of her own making. 

 Her jaw clenches, this isn’t what living was supposed to be like. This was surviving in what is probably the worst way she could. This was isolating herself, tearing down her mind so her body could go without a fight. This was dying. And she didn’t want to die anymore. Her mind shows flashes of dim light tents, stolen looks, and soft brushes of hands. It shows traded blows with Octavia and leading with Bellamy, laughing with Monty and Jasper, smiling through hurt at Raven. It shows her living.

 With a broken exhale her head lifts from her hands and up to the world around her. It is hard to recognize where she is, the snow is so white it’s almost blinding, but tall peaks that look a few miles away help. Her feet have carried her far in these months, but they could never take her over the invisible line she walks by. Something tethers her, pulling her in more directions than she could walk. Sometimes, at night when it was harder to clear her head, her arms thug the stings, the air where they should be, and snarl. Can you cut lines only you can see? Can you deny what only you can feel?

  “I am going to live.” Clarke says to the ground, to the snow and the sun. “I am going to live.”  Stepping forward she smiles, and for once it is free and wide. Her body is heavy, her head pounds and her eyes burn, but since landing she feels no worry.

  And she’s not foolish, she knows healing isn’t smiling in the snow with what could turn out to be empty words, she knows she has a lot to work through, learn, and experience. But this time she welcomes it, wants it, and that has to count for something. It has to, for she’s starting to fear what will happen if it doesn’t.

  Night falls quick now, the day’s grow shorter and shorter the longer winter lasts, but it's not the encompassing darkness that worries her, it's the growl of her stomach and the ache in her limbs. Weeks upon weeks of berries and small critters have left her weakened. Leaning against the nearest tree she glances down at herself.  Any weight she had has all but disappeared, her arms feel strangely light when she lifts them, her pants fit looser around the waist and thighs. Reaching up she touches parts of her face, feeling the more prominent cheekbones and the hollowness of her throat. She’s a skeleton, painted with pale flesh and covered in dirt. Her bones are stained, and no water will clean them out here.

 Clarke curses, she might die of starvation long before she reaches the place in her mind. Her eyes dart around, looking for anything that could be edible. All that catches her eye is a bird, which she stares desperately at. Its beady, dark eyes pierce her in a way no animal should. It unnerves her, the silent intelligence, the way its eyes are focused on her. It reminds her of someone, which only serves to make her all the more angry. 

 “Mind sparing me a wing?” She whispers, part joking and part not. She sighs when it just stares. She drops her head back while her mind races. It is too late and she lacks everything, so she can’t set any traps. With the cold most animals are more than likely hibernating, and any plant or flower has seemed to wither away. Her hands clutch rough bark and tears pool in her shut eyes. Hopelessness fills her lungs and weighs her down. 

  A soft sound a few away makes her open her eyes. The bird has flown closer, its eyes still studying her. She knows, somewhere deep and hidden, that its looking for something. That it is dissecting her, pulling part muscle and veins to reach the heart. She scoffs, it wont find anything worthwhile there. Just bitterness and bleeding.

 “Go home, or to your nest or whatever you sleep.” It stares, and something in her cracks.

 “Leave before I destroy you too.” Maybe this is insanity, pleading for birds to fly away and thinking they understand her murmured words. Maybe it’s bleak hope she could save something, no matter how small, from her fatal caresses and useless speeches. Maybe it is just words without meaning or thought. 

 The bird caws, flying to one of the branches above her. She slides down and wonders if the bird would let her eat it. Then huffs when her thoughts turn to naming. She absently wipes her face, swiping away tears and snow. She marvels at how fast her mind can move from killing to loving.

“I bring death with me.” She admits, the words spilling out before she can think of them, or who they are directed to. “I don’t want to.” It feels shameful, wrong, to admit she hates what she is most good at. To detest what she is made to do, what is expected of her.

“I want to heal, to draw, to help. Who am I supposed to help if I am what they need saving from?” She sobs with broken words. “ I tried so hard to be the good guy, to find ways to help everyone, but I still killed them. I’ve killed everyone.” Her voice grows as it breaks, an ember sparking, fuel to a fire long since gone out. 

  She opens her eyes, glaring at the space before her. Hate fills her, leads her. “I DON’T WANT THIS!…i want…i” She wails, unrelenting. The clouds hide her from the rising moon and the stars, and she is alone. Alone in the world, in her heart and in her mind. She is alone in this moment.

“...I’m eighteen and yet I've killed almost a thousand people…” She lifts her head, not remembering when she dropped it to her propped up knees, and locks eyes with the bird again, “What kind of person, daughter, am i?” The bird stares, a gleam in black eyes that resembles something. Something that is familiar yet unknown, something that soothes her as much as it makes her breathing pick up.

 She drops her head when snow starts to fall and land into her eyes, sighing as the strain of looking above her fades away. Her head rests on her boney knees, watching the world grow darker and darker. She blinks, her eyes getting harder and harder to keep open. The sky opens up to shine again, the stars twinkle though she can’t see them. The moon comforts though she can not feel it.

 “I don’t want to be a monster anymore.” Sleep is hard to fight off, and beneath the starry sky and a blanket of white, she doesn’t even think about trying to. The bird flies off its high perch and up into the sky. She is, once again, alone.

Chapter Text

  The rhythm of the Earth matches the beating of her heart. Painful skips and defeating pounding as her feet carry her closer and closer to her own personal hell. Her heart screams at her, berates her, for doing this, for returning. The images are harder to shake now that she's aware, now that she is forcing herself to remember them. It is the least she can do, her mind rationalizes, remembering the unmourned dead. To remember the power of her desperation and what pleading hands and bleeding hearts can accomplish with just a whisper of 'please, let us see tomorrow.' Her body feels like it's splitting apart from the very binding of her DNA with each passing second, agony in the highest of forms. 

 The sound of rushing water jerks her away from the breaking inside her. She stops, memories of waterfalls and leaps of fate pass by. With a frown, she picks up the pace again, this time her legs taking her to the sound. The clear river takes her breath away, she doesn't think she will become desensitized to the beauty of Earth. She stares in awe, feeling like a child again, one who just put their feet on the ground for the first time. The water flows gently downstream, fishes of different sizes and colors following the current, and the river stones gleam in the noon light. Her feet are wet before she even realizes she's moving.

Her head turns, looking at the trees before she lets a grin replace the frown. She steps back, removing her shoes, and then, with an uptake of breath, runs into the water until she is almost completely submerged. She laughs lightly as something tickles her foot, spinning in place with outstretched arms. The air is clean, smooth, and healing to her sore throat. The water cooling and relaxing to her almost permanently tense body.

 She leans back and lets the water take her under.

Clarke digs her feet into the ground and opens her eyes. Water fills her as she gazes at the sky, watching it blur and wrap. 

Eventually, the freezing water sends her away. And she curses herself for not removing her clothes, praying she could reach her destination soon to get some new clothes before dark.

  Clarke walks for hours in her soaked clothes, her feet ache beyond belief but she refuses to stop. She feels every bump or rock within the dirt through her ill-fitted boots but she clings to them, to her determination, even as she curses herself for not trading a new pair at Niylahs, and for not stopping to dry at least some of her clothes. She lets her mind drift as the trees bend into one, green fading into blue or brown as her eyes lose focus. It’s not safe, not here on Earth when even the air is out to kill her, but right now she doesn’t care. She needs to think, plan, and distract herself from the biting cold. She can’t just walk in there, unannounced, with dreams and pleas, not after what she’s done. There’s a good possibility she’ll be struck down before she even reaches the place, but it’s a chance she’s willing to take. The outcome far outweighs the dangers.

 She stumbles, over what may have been an old bone or a strangely light-colored branch, but either way, it sends her falling to her knees. Snow seeps into her wet pants, making her shiver. Her mind clears as the slight pain in her legs registers, feeling the familiar feeling of blood on her. She struggles to push away the unwanted thoughts it brings.

 “Great,” She curses slowly, pushing herself up. “And now I'm soaked and fucking bleeding.” She stands still, eyes narrowed as she debates finding somewhere to patch herself up, and maybe find something to eat. A snap, different from the natural sounds of the woods she’s been slowly learning, makes her head shoot up. Taking in her surroundings she curses again. It is either a grounder or an Arker, and she’s not sure which would be worse. Both want her dead, but only one will be harder to escape. Exhaling through her teeth, she blames her growing fear of her new title for her next, quite frankly, stupid move.

 She climbs a tree, with almost no knowledge of how, barely any strength left, and with wet clothes weighing her down.

  She knows she’s not close enough to any of the trikru villages, so it's either hunters, she doesn’t want to even think about what they may be hunting now that she’s a choice, or a lost arker who will probably shoot first and ask questions never. 

“Shit, shit shit-” She scales up higher, hissing as a branch cuts her hand, and doesn’t stop until the ground is barely visible. She wipes the dark red blood on her pants, frowning at the even more dirty piece of clothing, before leaning down. She searches what is visible below her with a bated breath. She freezes, spotting a small red patch in the blinding white, melting snow. Horror drowns her. She prays, to the spirits, to the old gods, to the Earth and the stars. She prays they do not think it is from her. Her eyes count the footprints, wondering if how she smudged them in her panic will help her allude them or if it will help them find her.

 “I know I saw her around here.” Someone, a female she thinks, mutters. Her body tenses, talking means there are multiple people. She tries to stay still as she pushes her mind to conjure up any escape or resemblance of a plan. She can’t fight anyone, not in this state, not when she’s still struggling to keep her soul firmly on the ground. Her body feels so light under the weight it carries, death so close but so far.

“If you did-”

“I did!” They insist, interrupting their, male she assumes, partner. They’ve been tracking her. Clarke breathes herself, she’s been running around barely noticing her surroundings, and someone has been tracking her. She shifts, trying to think back on any signs of someone following her but no sound, or smell, stands out. Whoever these people are, they know how to remain unseen.

She took a dip in a river while someone was tracking her. She's shocked no animal has snuck up on her with how unaware she has been.

“Then she is gone by now.” They stop close to the tree she’s in, but all she can see through the leaves is dark hair and dark clothes. Her shoulders slump, it’s trikru clothes they’re wearing and she hopes Niylah is right and they weren’t ordered to hunt her down. Her title holds meaning, power, and some may wish to seek it. She recalls her saying in hushed whispers while their hands explored. She needed the distraction, but now she wishes more than anything she didn’t shut her up with a kiss and instead listened. Wanheda means something to these people, she just doesn’t know what yet. She burns with self-hatred, sparking under the cool air.

“We were loud with our approach, and even louder now as we speak.” The man reasons. He’s calm, steady with his words. She knows that he fully believes they will find her, it’s only a matter of when. Using every scrap of knowledge she has, she tries to slow her breathing again, matching it to the soft wind. 

The girl kicks at the ground, sending dirt and rocks flying to the side. She distantly hears her mutter something she can’t hear before they let out a deep sigh. They are noisier about their frustration than any grounder she’s seen, but she wonders if that is because she’s only seen them in war. She's only seen life as it's dying, she muses if it is because death follows her or if it is because she brings it. 

The hand bearer of death, dipped in the misfortunes of life and soaked in the souls of the past.

“Okay, she isn't here.” They sound so defeated, so tired, so crushed, it hurts to hear. Clarke’s mind goes over everyone she knows, trying to guess who this is because if they care this much about finding her she has had to at least talked to them once. Her mind draws a blank, the only options she has are thrown out when she remembers how much they seemed to hate her before she left. Her eyes water at that. Her people, those she loved, and protected, hate her. She tried, she tried so hard to be better. To save everyone, to keep their minds intact as well as their heart. They hate her, and nothing has seemed so crushing than that.

 She inhales sharply, freezing as the man stills. He knows. He has to. 

 She screams at herself, her hands turning into fists. Frustration fills her as tears start to overwhelm her. She just decided to live. She just decided that she wanted to fight for the future she had just begun to hope for. She had hours of hope, but now it’s gone in an instant. She wants to rage, to rick, to scream, to break, and to mend. She wants to let lose the destruction tearing her apart, to tear apart mountains and to build them back up. She wants to rest, love, and mourn. She wants more than what she will be given, than what she believes she deserves. 

She sits still, a mess in her mind and in soul, but she is still and she is quiet. Grief destroys her, but it is silent and it is unrelenting.

“We can return here tomorrow when there is more light to track her footprints.” The man offers, speaking louder than he did before. His voice sparks something in her, even as it confuses her. The other one doesn't say anything, but after a few tense moments, she hears them walk away. She furrows her brows, they’re leaving? He knows she’s here, he knows where she is hiding, but they’re leaving? Why didn’t he say anything? They gave in too easily. They were so firm in their belief that today they would find her, and they almost did. But they are leaving. They are leaving and he knows and Clarke is lost to the whirlwind of her thoughts.

 Confusion has her leaning down even further, her hands unclenching to grip the bark, ignoring the crescent marks in her palm. She has to know, she has to. She has to see, to take in their features, name them, remember them, mourn them. She burns holes in their backs, and she knows they feel it. She knows her gaze sends sparks of uneasiness in them as she glares, she knows they feel it. Feel her. They have to, she has to affect them as they have affected her. 

 And just before they are out of sight, like he heard what she wishes for, what she is calling for within her mind, the man turns his head around and they lock eyes. 

Lincoln.

She reels back. It's them. It's her. Lincoln and Octavia went looking for her, they worried for her, about her. They searched for longer than she has been active in her own mind. She can’t wrap her head around it. That one of her people that seemed to hate her the most, that despised her even before her decision at the mountain, is looking for her. She doesn’t understand why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t point her out. She hates she couldn't recognize their voice. She knows she should have.

Her breath comes out in rugged pants, panic working its way through her body as it holds her mind hostage. She doesn't want to be found. To be seen, to hear their accusations, to witness their hate. Clarke feels, distantly, the burning fire in her chest that has kept her moving extinguish with that one second of eye contact. What she was walking towards, the future, the dreams, the love, seems so far out of reach now. She feels it slip from her fingertips as the world melts away. Everything falls into shades of gray as it swirls together.

“No, no…” Clarke repeats, swaying back and forth to the rhythm of her internal chaos. “They didn't...they aren’t..” She denies, she shakes her head, she breathes and she cries. She mourns like she has always needed to but never has been aloud to. She breaks like glass, fragile, sharp, and utterly unrepairable.

 It is so heartbreakingly easy to set back the progress she has only just gained. 

Time passes in each forced breath until she is once again covered in the light of the Moon and in accompany of the stars. Her eyelids are heavy and hard to keep open, but the glowing white of the snow that has made a home on her legs helps. Her clothes have dried to slight dampness, they stick to her, surround her. It is like a suffocating hug, but it helps ground her. Something pokes her, small but sharp on the side of her leg, making her startle.

The bird is back, in all its dark, searching glory.

Clarke scoffs, even as her body slumps. She is exhausted, beaten down, she is the same as she was a few months ago. Nothing has changed, just this time she can feel, understand, the way her body begs, how her mind screams, how her soul sighs as it resigns itself.

"You're back." She states simply. "Why?"

It does not answer, and Clarke wonders why she expected it to. She knows it's the same one, it has the same glint in its eyes, the same shine in its black feathers, the same curve of its beak that resembles a smile of someone who knows something the other does not. Maybe it does, know something. Maybe she needs more help than she thought. She laughs at her thoughts, quickly falling into a coughing fit. Her hands pat down her side as they look for her water can. 

"Want some?" She offers, bringing the can down from her chapped lips. The bird tilts its head and then does a small hop to the side. It's farther now, just by an inch, but it feels different now.

"Did I fail? The little test you're giving me?" The searching look is back, directed at her bitter smile. "Are all birds like this down here? Or is it just you?" Question after question spills out like she has broken the dam keeping them contained. "Why are you watching me? Do you plan on pecking my eyes out after I die, I don't think that would taste very nice but who am I to know."

Silence reigns as her questions remain unanswered. She wasn't looking for anything, but even a caw to show its listening would have been nice. It hurts, unexpectedly, how it is ignoring her. Her eyes trace the trees, the snow as it loses its brilliance as the sun lowers. Her mind mulls over the bird, wondering why it only seems to come at night, or at all. The quiet feels weighted and meaningful in a way it shouldn't.

"I'm sorry." Clarke apologizes though she does not know for what. She feels guilty, like a child caught with their hands in some stolen rations. She feels like she is a child again, wilting under the disappointing weight of her parent's glare. Her jaw clenches as she works it side to side. Nothing is said, nothing is heard, not even the rustle of leaves. Her body squirms, revolts at something she cannot hear or see.

"What do you want?" Clarke asks, defeated. Any fight that has been building up evaporates.

"Is it because of what I did? Are you some defended of souls here to punish me?" She snorts as the hair on her arms and legs stands up. She stares into its beady, accusing, pity-filled eyes and snarls. "What are you gonna do, follow me around til I drop dead?"

It does not answer, but it feels as if it did.

She shifts around until her back is against the tree, staring at the side of the bird.

"Do you have a name?" This time the bird looks at her. She feels the bemusement more than she sees it. "What about Coronis?" 

"Coronis it is." She says as the bird continues to stare at her. Her mind plays back memories of learning bits of history, mythology, from Well's mom. She remembers her kind smile as they chanted for more, the tremble in her arms as it held the tablets and books, the way breathing seemed to tire her. The words spill out before she can stop them, fueled by the memories of someone dying but still filled with so much life.

“I want to die.” She admits to the world, to the stars and the moon, to the sun and the clouds, to the coming rain and the sand, to herself like it is not the truth she has kept hidden under an unbreakable lock. She admits it freely, like she is not trembling, like her voice does not break or quiver with every syllable like her lungs are not on the verge of collapsing. Like the memories fueling her aren't warpping to cruel eyes and a mountain of bodies.

She admits it like she would admit she wanted to live. She did, want to live that is, just not as much as she wants to die. 

And it never changes, does it? The comfort, relief, of hating yourself. Of looking at the people that you have surrounded yourself with, the food that you eat, the air you breathe, and wondering if it would be the same if you didn’t exist. If life would be the same, if you had the effect on others like they did you.

“I want to die.” She repeats with a smile. “But I am going to live.” She nods, determined, resigned, a ball of mess she can’t sort through. The bird flies away, scared off by her sudden movement as she scurries back down the tree. She thinks she sees something in Coronis' dark eyes, something proud, waiting, and hopeful but she plays it off by the high filling her.

Her feet hit the ground, and this time she uses the comfort of the moon and stars as a guide as she travels through the lonely night. A little lighter, a little more determined than last night. 

And though Clarke does not see it, feel it, her home forms a wall from fading memories of a life she could not live again but loves just the same.

Chapter Text

  Indra glares across the tent, her dark eyes burning with frustration. She watches as the others wilt under her accusing gaze, and if she were in a better mood she would have been fighting off a smirk. She always liked when others were weary of her. The shadows in the large tent twist, listening, waiting with impatience. The people standing around with their swords and their slumped shoulders do not see how they flick from one corner to the other or how it gathers around the door even though that is the source of most of the light. The shadows wait, and smirk with secrets only they will ever know.

"Heda will return in a week's time, how do you believe she will feel about our lack of progress?" She snarls, standing. The others shift as the candles flicker. Indra draws herself taller, fury sparking in her tone. "Tondc is our home, and it is in ruins." 

They flinch, eyes flicking to the floor. Shame lines their bodies as they listen to her rant without interruption. 

"It has been months since the missile, yet we have barely rebuilt anything."  She forces herself not to throw up her arms, trying to seem calmer than she is. "This is part of our home, why have you tried your hardest to fix it?"

"We have, General." One spits out, their own frustration leaking through as the silence buries them beneath the dirt and holds them. "We have tried for months to rid ourselves of the destruction but with winter being harsher than normal we lack everything."

"Do you think I do not know that? Our allies have sent supplies, men, yet what have we done with them?" No one answers.

"We have sat around and watched as life reclaimed what was once theirs. Heda wants to see us returning to our former glory, so make it done."

"We wouldn't have to be doing this if it weren't for the sky people." One mutters, sending a glare to the dirt. His voice is low, almost unheard.

"Repeat yourself." Indra demands, seething even if part of herself agrees with what they muttered. "I will not ask again."

"We wouldn't have to be doing this if it weren't for the sky people." They repeat, stronger, more firm. 

"We would have been DEAD!" Indra snaps, her control quickly slipping away. She tries to hold it back but the memory of finding out her people were held in cages keeps rearing its ugly head. The people are quiet, and so are their shadows. They do not dare to breathe, and the shadows do not dare to flicker. The tent is still, from the dirt to the air.

"Skaikru, despite their faults, gave us a way to defeat the mountain. And they did! Our people were freed, we no longer have to live in fear, to fear for our children. So spirits help me, place away your hate and help us rebuild our home or I swear-"

"General Indra!" Someone shouts, breaking into the tense tent. She turns her withering glare to them, almost smirking as they flinch.

"What?" She snaps when they just stand there, staring. Normally her people are more helpful, less irritating. She watches them swallow as they try to bury the fear and awe in their eyes. She watches, and she frowns.

"She has arrived." They say simply, making Indra and the others still.

"Heda?" They shake their head, swallowing again. Their mouths open but nothing comes out.

"Who has arrived, seken. Answer me." She pushes herself away from the central table and makes her way in front of them. 

"Wanheda."

 The shadows jump, glee filling them as they jump widely around the room. The candle's flame grows in height unnoticed, reaching out to the shadows as they delight themselves in the path the world has taken. The room, away from the frozen inhabitants, screams in joy.

"Take me to them." Indra whispers, quiet and loaded with questions that will be left unanswered. The light of the flame intertwines with the shadows, whole but fractured as it remains unseens, unfelt.

"Are you su-"

"Take me, Ivar."

"Clarke." Indra states, walking into another tent. The blonde sits slumped at a table off to the side, she looks nothing like how she did before the mountain. Her head is down and her face is covered by dirty, fading pink hair. "I did not expect you here. Heda has already left." She watches her early, looking for any signs or tells on why she is here. She hopes it is not for what she thinks it is. Clarke does not answer.

"I will not help you in your revenge." The air stills yet the blonde still does not speak. Indra draws closer with a frown, quickly losing patience."Did you not hear me? I will not help you seek whatever you are looking for." She stops in front of her, separated by only a table. She places her hands down and leans forward, trying to see her face. 

"Why are you here Clarke? Nothing is waiting for you here." Her voice grows quiet, not with worry but also not with fear. The girl in front of her unsettles her, she is too still, too quiet when she use to be so loud. "Lexa is not here, Clarke."

She waits with tense shoulders to see how to girl will react to hearing her name but as the minutes pass and nothing happens she can't help but to grow concerned. "I am busy, if you are not here for a reason I ask that you leave." She absently remembers Heda's demand that if found, the blonde is to be taken to her unharmed. But when she looks at the quiet, slumped girl she cannot find it in herself to deliver her. Not unless she knows it will not harm her Heda, at least.

Indra walks around the table, coming to a stop beside Clarke. Her hand reaches out and just as it touches her shoulder, Clarke falls to the side. She watches with wide eyes as she falls and lands with a small crack. Her breathing stops, only for a moment before she springs into action. Yelling for a healer as loud as she can, she practically dives to the other side of the chair to grasp the blonde. She pulls her head to the side, the other hand patting her down in search of any injuries. She finds nothing. She yells again and the tent's flap is thrown open.

The healer stops at the sight of them but jumps back into action when Indra throws him a glare. He hurries forward, replacing Indra's spot.

"What is wrong with her? I saw no cuts." She demands, pacing behind him. The healer grunts but doesn't answer. He peels her eyelids open and sighs.

"What?!"

 His hands rest on her forehead before retreating. He opens his back and searches through it.

"What?!" She asks again, "Is she..." She trails off when he shakes his head.

"Nyko, what is wrong with her."

Nyko pulls back, looking at her with a haunted face. "I do not know."

 The shadows draw back, quiet and waiting.

  It is hot, unbearably so. It's what Clarke noticed first, the layers of sweat on her skin, how her clothes stick uncomfortably, and how she wants to arch off whatever she is on until she has left her skin. It is hot, far too hot for it to be this late in winter. She feels drowned out, the sounds around her muffled, her head stiffly and heavy. She feels like she is dying like she is burning alive in one of the pyers she has seen done.

 A hand touches her forehead and she jerks away, part because of how it makes her skin crawl and part because she does not know who it is. It comes back, slower and light on her skin. It pulls her head to the side softly and whispers too quiet for her to hear float above her. She thinks she catches her name, but as she turns back away she slips into the comfort being asleep offers.

The next time she wakes it's darker. She didn't notice how bright it was earlier until now when everything was hard to see and blurry on the edges.

"Wanheda." Someone mutters. Her eyes flick around in panic, trying to locate the deep voice. "I mean you no harm, you are sick." It tells her, assures her. She wants to fight, to thrash and to break, but all she offers up is a small whine and closed eyes. She sleeps again, not knowing where she is or if she will wake again.

She sleeps, not knowing if the voice is lying, or if it was even real at all.

"-RE" Someone shouts, followed by the sound of something breaking. "No not disobey me." She thinks she frowns, but all she really knows is she's still hot and the dark is still too hard for her to fight away for long. She slips away just as glass shatters, curled up and away from the anger around her.

"You must wake soon."

"Fight Wanheda, do not let this be what claims you." The voice is different, lighter, harsher, worried. More familiar than the comforting deep one, more like the one who was yelling. But it does not matter, for she slips once more.

 Clarke blinks awake.

Chapter Text

  Warm, gentle but calloused hands push away the sweat beading down her face. She follows them as they slip away, whining just a little. She shifts closer to where she thinks they came from, a silent plea to place them back. They don't listen, her face stays sweaty and the comfort the hands offered is already gone. She is like a child at that moment where her mind is surprisingly quiet, the expectations of the worlds having not settled back just quite yet. 

 "I see that you have awoken, Wanheda. " Someone murmurs beside her. Her eyes flick open slowly, her lids almost too heavy to move. An unseen force pushes them down as she fights to keep them open. She just wants to know where she is, just wants to know whose hands were on her. She wants to see if it is one of the voices before, she hopes it is. Her lips tilt into a frown as she struggles to keep her eyes open. Wanheda , a title she's been called countless times but still doesn't know what it means. She wrenches her eyes closed quickly once they open fully, wincing into herself. The light inside the tent is bright, her body faces the entrance which was pinned open. Clarke hears movement and tries to place where she is. Everything comes back slowly, soaked clothes, dirty hands, panicked breaths, and unseeing eyes. She came with a plea but fell before she could even open her mouth. She purses her lips, shame and disappointment raging within.

 "You contracted a fever," Someone, male and familiar, informs her, "You broke it fully early this morning." He draws closer and tries as she might she couldn't bring herself to place the walls she's been building. The man, even as he looms over her, is gentle and soothing. He speaks like she is not broken, just simply a girl who was sick but is getting better. She didn't know how much she needed that until hearing it. She doesn't know a lot of things these days.

 "It was a simple one," He continues when she just stares, filling the silence with pointless but much-needed chatter. "Everyone has gotten in once, easy to contract and easy to break. A cold, a flu." He stops moving across from her, turns away from his table, and meets her confused eyes. "You were sick, and now you are getting better." Something in his own dark eyes tells her he isn't talking about her fever. She swallows, face contorting to try and keep the sudden tears at bay. She wants to ask him how he knows, to ask him why he thought about even mentioning it. Because mentioning makes it real and she doesn't want it to be real right now. She wants to fall away, hide in the body of a girl who knew her place, hide in her mind with the memories that she won't ever let fade. She doesn't want to face anything right now, not her health, not her mind, not the man with kind eyes and strong hands.

 "Why-" She breaks off to lick her lips, coughing. "Water?" Her eyes have adjusted slowly to the bright light streaming in but she still squints, just to hide her wet eyes. Clarke pushes herself up on weak, bandaged wrapped arms and rests against the pool beside her bed. She wants to say she could hold herself up but she doesn't want to lie anymore. She doesn't want to fight anymore, she needs help. She swallows. She'll face that and only that. She needs help, and right now she'll let herself get it.

 "Careful Wanheda, the fever has you weakened." They say, moving closer. She remembers him from before and fights a sad smile. She didn't know he was still alive. It helps, knowing that at least someone she knew is alive and doesn't seem to resent the very air she breathes. But then again, he could just be better at hiding it. She shakes her head, trying to rid herself of her thoughts.

"Hello, Nyko." She whispers, taking the cup of water he's offering. The cool water soothes her throat greatly. She looks around, taking in the empty healer's tent. Not much has changed and it's emptier than she's ever seen it. She trails her eyes over the various jars, books, and plants, anything not to look him in the eyes.

"The general will be pleased to know you're awake." He sits on the bed beside her. "May I?" He gestures toward her. She nods and tries not to seem eager. His hands come up and feel her head, he tilts her forward to look into her eyes, and as he checks over her the motions come automatically. The general. Unwanted memories of a stoic, but caring general she once helped come to mind. She thinks of Anya, her dark blonde hair, sharp features, and wicked eyes. She thinks of rushing water, trackers, and cages. She thinks of burned bodies and shudders.

"Do not let the mind wander too far, you might get lost." She hears him whisper, distant like he is below the rushing waves she's trapped inside her mind.

'You got her killed.', her mind repeats over and over. Dirty blonde hair, careful cut braids, sharp features, morphs, and morphs until nothing is recognizable

' Spare me.'', she pleas, ' Spare me just today.'

"When will she be here?" Clarke asks as soon as he pulls back. He pauses before he answers, looking at her, searching her for something she doesn't know about. Something she wants to know, even if it is to hide it. She absently mourns the loss of his hands and wonders if she is so desperate for any form of affection that the hands of a healer are the best thing she has ever felt.

"As soon as I alert the guards you are awake if she is not already on the way here." he stands and walks towards the door. Stopping he turns, he looks at her again with the same searching eyes. "The first step is admitting." He tells her softly, like fresh snow, and just the same it freezes her whole. The first step. She exhales, she knows what he means. She knows what he was looking for. She knows that Nikko knows how close she came. She knows, and this time she does not cry. Her eyes are dry again, uncomfortably so but they are dry.

She exhales slowly and nods. He is gone before she could even blink. Her eyes blur as she draws into her mind, memories of horseback rides, and green eyes, blend together before being washed away by the sounds of screams, the smell of burnt flesh, and the rubble of a home she was familiar with.

"I will not help you." Indra greets, startling her. The stoic woman is sitting in Nyko's seat on the other side of the tent, bent over to rest her arms on her knees. She didn't even hear her enter. Her dark eyes pierce her, searching. "I will not." She swears, spitting the words out like they are an Azgedain poison. Clarke smiles faintly at her venom, even though she does not know what Indra speaks about.

"You do not know what I am here for." 

"I do." The general stands suddenly, stalking closer. "I will not aid you in your quest for revenge. You have no business here Klark Kom Skaikru, leave." There is nothing but a burning certainty in Indra's eyes, a gleam of determination but a hint of sympathy. Like Indra has been through this before with someone else.

"I am not here for..." Clarke swallows, eyes watering, "revenge." She wants to be. To scream and rage until this ball of self-hate smooths out and until her flesh feels like home again. But she can't, she tries and tries to be angry, to be resentful, to be all the negative things people expect her to be but she just can't. She is just hurt, she isn't angry or resentful, she isn't burning with a need to kill. She is young, hurt, and so utterly desperate for comfort she doesn't deserve.

"You are not?" Indra demands, like she does not believe her. She doesn't, Clarke knows that and it doesn't hurt as it might once have. " Why are you here then? To trade? You have nothing of worth. To spy?" She leans closer, glaring harder as new dots connect in her mind. "Your people have been quiet lately, perhaps too quiet." She offers nothing else. She does not need to. She needs to check on her people, because they still are. Her people that is. Just because she left and they hate her does not mean she won't look out for them.

Clarke files that away for later, now is not the time for them, and straightens her back. She sits up straighter, reigning in her emotions to face Indra calmly. "I wish to learn the ways of the Gona."

Indra stops and stares. No words come out though her mouth opens and closes. She has surprised her.

"No." She says with a nod a few minutes later, after the silence had grown tense and thick. "No." She repeats, less sure, and the look in her eyes is far away now. The hate that once burned is replaced with something she can not name. "You do not know of what you seek. You do not know what you are asking."

"Please Indra. Beja." Clarke begs, shifting forward. She winces once she hits the edge of the bed, her body is sore, more than it has ever been. But she leans further and further off the cot like closing the distance will get her to change her mind.

"Beja Indra, beja." She watches with a bated breath and tense shoulders as the older woman eyes her. She lets nothing sure but how sure she is about this. She needs this, down to the broken pits of her soul. "Train me."

Indra spins, the sudden motion making Clarke lean back so she is not hit with her swinging sword. She marches out of the tent, leaving the blonde alone.

"Oh." She whispers, shifting. Her eyes dart around, her certainty wavering in face of such rejection. Clarke feels her eyes water again and curses, angry as she is hurt. "Fine."

The shadows dim, watching, waiting. They do not flicker with the gentle breeze or dim with the blinding lights. They only wait.

"Are you coming or not, Sekon?" Indra shouts from outside, sounding annoyed. Clarke snaps her head up in shock. She slips off the bed, slowly limping towards the tent's flap. Her leg hurts and when she glances down she spots red-stained bandages around one of her knees. "Do not waste my time, Klark." She pokes her head out, locking eyes with the older woman.

Her dark eyes, once filled with hate, hints of respect, and a promise for something painfully, are now warmer, amused at the blonde's confusion.

"Do you wish to see where you will be staying or not?" Amusement bleeds away to real annoyance, sounding like the stoic woman she knows. Her feet move without a thought, bleeding hope almost within reach. The first step is admitting, after all.

Shadows twist, whispering to its brethren, secret-spilling. Their plans are set in motion, their forms flickering until they blend with the strings of fate. Distantly, are the sounds of birds.

Chapter Text

  The moon, bright and crescent, stares down from its lonely spot above the world. It halts its descent back down, resting for just a moment. Just one moment, just one second of rest, one second of illuminating the faces of hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children as they work through the night, cry, scream, kill, and love. Just one moment, frozen in time. Clarke wants that, to stop in the sky and freeze time until she is ready to join it. But living is relentless and it is cruel, time does not stop, not for her. Clarke, lone and sore, sits against a tree just out of sight of her new home. Her body melts into the snow, her trail of footprints a beacon to one who sleeps out of reach but is seen by everyone else. Her face, normally closed off and narrow is as soft and open as her eyes. The moon calls to her, beckons her just one last time. A pale siren, laced in ivory lace, lures her close, singing a song of old.

“I have served my time with you.” She tells the moon, the clouds, and the melting snow, “I do not belong with you anymore. I am the Earth’s now.” The words have weight, one that slips off and shatters against the solid dirt and splinters her body. Her lungs, clogged with hate, choice after choice, and drowning from her tears, expand and expands until they burst into the white clouds of her breath. She is different. She is not seventeen trying to juggle the survival of over a hundred kids and the guilt of her father. She isn’t the girl who looked at the Earth with wonder and the ache of a missing lover. She is Clarke, not of the sky but of the ground. She is Wanheda, a title that she is only just learning of. She is a sekon, a healer. She is not a star, she has long since fizzled out.

“I am not yours .” She whispers, quiet but loud enough to reach past the trees, the clouds, the atmosphere and breach the endless void she used to drift in. Her voice carried away from Earth and rang within the stars. “I am not yours.” Simple, but enough to change everything. A small flap of a wing in the moment of time.

Her body aches, from her heart to her arms and legs. Indra has been relentless this past week. Once she had recovered enough, (which only took a day or two really, who knew Earth colds were easy to overcome?) Indra had slipped past the flaps of her tent and started barking orders. Wake, she ordered before the sun broke past the trees, again, she ordered when her arm starts to tremble after each movement, eat, she ordered every few candle marks, remember, she would whisper over the fire and under the night as she taught her the language of the ground. Become one of us, she never said but was heard with each word. Prove yourself, loaded with thousands of different meanings. Demand after demand she sought to see her better, to see the girl who has felled the mountain. She can only seem to find a child, but like before that has not stopped her. A child can be great.

She is not one of them yet, that she knows for a fact, their eyes though laced with awe are still distrusting and hard. Warmth was felt only from fire nowadays but damn the spirits did she feel alive. Her body cracked with embers of the pryes, her spine straightened with each nod, she was different. Different in ways she couldn’t explain. The shadows, the ones hiding the ground in front of her, they knew. They knew but won’t tell. They never do, they wait, watch, mourn and celebrate. But they never speak. Their voices ring louder than the secrets they hold, so every word is lost, a pitch louder than any could hear. They are but a small child, deaf to the world and the tales it tries to share.

Growing, learning, is for her to do. It is not something she can be told. So the shadows do not try to speak louder, quieter, they just wait. Wait with every flicker, every rise and fall of the sun. Time does not move where they rest, but it is felt all the same.

Clarke stands, her new dark, patch-filled pants, stiff against her legs. It makes her wince, the added pressure. ‘ You’ll grow into them, mold them.’ She remembers back on with a scoff. Mold them her ass.  She presses her, for once, fitting boots onto old tracks, and makes her way back to her tent. Her mind racing with ways to sneak back past the guards, ways to go unnoticed as she retakes her spot in Tondc. She walks and walks, past the guards, past painful rubble, behind her tent, and into her bed. She walks and then rests, alert and away from the clouds. She sleeps, fully, through the rest of the night. She drifts in the arms of the shadows and dreams of tales that aren't hers to learn yet. She dreams, and for once it is not of monsters.

Cold water seeps into her clothes and bed, a heavy weight on her back. Clarke jumps up, startled, and pulls the knife our from under her pillow. Indra stares back, unimpressed but amused. The glint of amusement softens the sudden tension in her shoulders.

“You’re shaking arms and weak blade scare me greatly, Klark.”  She tells her with a smirk. Clarke, still soaked and shaking, falls off the bed and forces herself into a standing position. A snarl on her lips but it lacks any heat.

“I’m wet.”

“Your observations get better every day.”

“I hate you.”

“Most do. Get dressed and meet me in my tent, quickly.” She stresses, cautious. She’s gone before Clarke can get her questions out.  Blue eyes stare at her retreating form, a frown growing. Her feet hit something on the ground when she steps forward.  Armor, the one she was fitted for the other day. Worry fills her, hurrying her movements as she struggles to pick up and put on the complicated armor. Straps are done, then redone, then snarled at, as she rushes out of the tent. Some of the villagers stare, some outright chuckling as she finally gets the last strap in place. Hopefully. She has given up fixing them for the moment. Indra will correct her, she always does.

“They get easier!” A child calls from the training pit, pulling laughs from everyone around. She glares at them playfully, fighting a smile but it dims quickly. The air is no longer as tense as before the mountain, the people live without that fear. They are not afraid, even as their home lies in ruins around them. They show joy and she has only seen their hate. Her feet carry her toward one of the large tents and she pauses. Guards litter around the post, more than there normally is. One sparks something, a familiar face of worry and wonder. She files it away, she has been here before it is not unexpected that she has recognized someone. Even if this someone sends her heart beating uncomfortably. 

“General Indra is expecting me.” She offers at their dead stares. The ones blocking the door tilt their heads before the one on the right slips into the tent. They stand in tense silence, her eyes not flicking away and theirs trying to force them to. Fear is a comment static in war but they are not at war, not anymore. Their judgment, their need to make her feel fear does not scare her, it worries her.

“You may enter.” They say a moment later, slipping back out of the tent with a hint of pity in their eyes. “But no weapons can follow you past this point.” Pity, her mind focuses on. Why pity?

Clarke nods, confused. Indra has never bared her weapons, relentless with her teaching of always being armed. She grabs the dagger strapped to her side, a training one she’ll return once Indra deems her competent enough, and hands it over. She mourns its loss, however short. She has grown used to having one by her side with it gone she feels bare, incomplete.

“More?”

She shakes her head and they fall to the side. Indra has tried to get her to carry others but this is the only one she feels comfortable having so far.

The tent's entrance seems daunting all of the sudden, a danger unspoken. She hesitates before she enters, a breath stuck in her throat. Her spine shivers and the hair on her arms raise. Something is not right. Something is not right, she repeats and repats in a loud panic. But her face gives away nothing, even as her mind screams and reaches for her missing weapon. Something is not right.

She steps in and the cards of Fate stack and stack and stack until it is unstable, tilting. The gentle breeze sends it tumbling and then nothing is left. Nothing at all, as blue eyes, lock with a familiar green.

A week has passed and Heda has returned to her people once more.

Something is not right, her mind repeats. But it is, isn't it? Her heart cries.

Chapter Text

   The world slips away, stumbling over her skimmed knees and breaking with each beat of her failing heart. The world slips away, gone the colors, the soothing breeze, the feeling of eyes prickling against her skin, the figures she has yet to register. The world slips away, and her mind quiets. It is like her whole body stops, her blood does not pump, her lungs do not take in air, her ears fill with cotton and her head becomes laced with lead. She is a carcass, lone, rotting, and waiting for her body to be prepared for burial. She waits in the space between the future and the past.

 The world slips away and shatters on the frozen ground, the pieces exploding across the confided room and piercing through worn armor, thick braids, and into the failing heart of the person who has the world on her shoulders. The world dies and restarts just as quickly, all in the clashing of blue and green. Clarke waits in the space between the sky and the passing of time, but she does not wait alone. 

 "Klark..." Lexa whispers, so soft, so fragile, so unlike the girl who can bend gods to their knees and demand grown men to die for her. She whispers like she is a girl, like the child she is. She whispers as if she so much as dares to speak any louder the world would shatter and laugh as they reveal all of this to be a dream, a nightmare, a promise. "..you...I.." Lexa waits, stuck between the sharp hands of agony and the gentle caress of love.

Lexa is stuttering, that is all she can focus on, all she allows herself to focus on. Lexa is stuttering and she shouldn't be. Someone that strong should not break like this, so easily, like she is sand shifting through the ports and shells of the old world beaches. That isn't how it was supposed to go. This isn't how she wanted it to go. This is wrong, something is fundamentally wrong. Clarke inhales, confused and angry, loving yet scared. Anger is not the synonym of love, it is fear. The kind of fear that makes your heart beat without blood, the one that raises your hair and sends shivers down hunched spines. It is the fear that last and infects all it can reach.

Clarke opens her mouth, she goes to say something, everything, spill the secrets she has kept hidden, confess till her heart collects all of its spilled blood and beats whole and unafraid again. She opens her mouth and nothing comes out. Nothing, not questions, not demands, not secrets, nothing. She breathes and her mouth stays firmly closed.

"Clarke." Someone says, different, less affected, tinged with more anger but still hurt. Octavia is here and she hasn't even noticed. She hasn't noticed anything really, not that Indra stares at her with something she can't dissect, not that Lincoln is also here, not the worry on their face or the look on Lexas. The look she won't name, can't name. Because if she does then this is real, then all of this is real. The bubble she has been in will break, then she can't deny anything more. It can't break and she can't name that look because the bubble won't be the only thing to break. She can't do this. She can't break, not when living is starting to make sense. She can't break, no matter how much her hands yearn to.

Something is wrong, her mind supplies, but why? why is it still wrong? her heart whines like a child, a child who only knows pain and loss, who only knows the harsh way of life and not the peace of living. Her heart whines and whines but her eyes do not cry.  Clarke does not cry.

"Hey." She says, quiet, scared, cold, hurt. She says with more emotions than she could possibly name. A mess she is, in fitting clothes and with the glow of someone who is starting to realize hurt does not have to be the default.  "Hey." She tries for a smile, but it breaks just as quickly and sharply as her heart. She smiles something befitting a prisoner on their last day. For is that not what this is? An execution?

Octavia stares, they all are staring really, but she only focuses on her. She knows what to expect, any second now her dark-haired friend? will surge forward and hit her, breaking her face like her heart has been broken. And she is right because not a moment later her friend becomes a blur of dark hair, dark clothes, and a storm of braids. But she does not feel pain. She feels something she could argue is worse, worse in so many, biased, faulted, ways. 

Octavia is hugging her, and it is so heartbreaking familiar she can physically hear the remains of her battered, fractured soul recoil in the face of affection. That, affection that is, is something she has not felt for a while. The trees only offered hiding spots, not warmth, not love, not acceptness. The ground does not coddle, it burns, melts, destroys, and molds. Love is human, and is very rarely given these days. Octavia hugs her and all is right in the world because she is once again home. She is with her people, no matter their hate or awe. She is home, a home lacking something unreplaceable but home.

Clarke stands still, like a statue that has yet to be carved into anything. She waits.

"Hug me back, dammit," Octavia mutters, rough against her neck where she has tucked her head. And so she does. Her arms come up and cradle her head like a mother comforting their child and whispers apologies and I love yous all the same. She hugs her back because that is what she needs, and Clarke has always given her people what they need. No matter the price. No matter the sacrifice. That is just who she is.

The world slips away, and all that is left is love, anger, the beating of two damaged hearts, and the joy of returning home. The world slips away, but it leaves tenderness in its wake.

I've missed you." She mumbles into Octavia's hair, savoring the moment. She tries her hardest to commit everything down, the smell, the texture, the wetness leaking onto her neck she won't mention.

"Yeah, me too."  Just as quiet, just as loud, and just as loving. It is all she has ever needed but nothing she has ever been given.

"...we have matters to discuss," Indra informs them, softer than normal. "You two have the rest of the night to reunite if you don't mind?" She seems reluctant to break them apart, to separate them. Maybe she is, maybe she knows this is important, that time has stopped just for them to reunite. Maybe she knows this moment has been weaved in the blanket of life by the string of fate and is hesitant to cut it. Maybe, just maybe, she cares for them and wishes to see them happy. 

Clarke pulls back slowly, nodding. She doesn't want to leave the warmth, the closeness but she does. Her mind clicks into 'leader' mode easier than she expected it to and she hates it just as much. It has been so long since she has had to be a leader, to decide, to play god she is scared at how familiar she still is with it. She eyes her friend, who has moved to stand beside her and is clutching her arm like a lifeline. She'll have to ask. Soon. She turns her head away, careful to avoid Lexa's. The look in those haunted, soft, green would be it. It would crack her armor, rip open healing skin and reach into the empty spot where her heart should rest, looking, searching, making sure its treasure has not been returned. Clarke doesn't look at her because if she does she'll know. She'll know how she has been living without a heart for months now.

"What is this about?" And the world returns, fully this time, as politics, and rebuilding, take focus instead of everything else. If Clarke makes it through the meeting with a small, barely there, smile, no one says a thing. Because this meeting is about life, not death, and that is always a reason to smile.

  It is night when they are finally released from the meeting, the moon well over the trees, ever her watchful guard. Clarke stands at the table littered with paper and odd trinkets, trying her best to ignore the pleading eyes behind her. Octavia stands with Lincon and Indra in the back of the room, close to Indra's sleeping chambers, and if the look on their face is anything to go by she is grateful she isn't over there. The thought makes her smile.

Someone clears their throat behind her, and she wants to take back what she just said. She listens as they hesitate before stepping closer, then closer, til they reach the empty spot beside her. A calloused hand rest in the spot beside her own, just a breath apart. Clarke stares, watching the hands like they hold the answer to what she should do. They don't, she knows, the only thing they hold is her tender heart and it holds it tight. Unwillingly to part with its greatest gift. She watches their hands because that is all she can take.

"Klark."

"Leska." The girl beside her inhales sharply, the very air around them shifting, waiting, mixing with the joyful, anxious shadows. Fate leans in, their blanket pushed to the side, and they wait with eager eyes.

"Can we talk?" She doesn't answer, instead letting her mind focus back on their hands. One hard and cable, the other learning and steady. A warrior, a healer. A girl and another. Two kids, oh so young, with death stained upon every surface of them. Leaders, they are called, children they correct in the dark corners of their minds where death has yet to touch. Children they scream and yearn and beg, children they wish to be just one more time.

"Bej-please. Please Klark." She listens as Lexa swallows, feels more then sees the nerves starting to overtake her. She doesn't like that, even when hate ruled her she didn't want this. She wants to go back. Back to stolen looks, secrets held under the stars that could break or make everything, back when life was looking up even in the face of its destruction, back to growing and yearning mixing together to form agony and fondness. She wants to return to her hate, her rage, and wallow in its deceptively soft hands. She wants to scale back up her walls and watch her from afar instead of meeting her at its gates, waiting to let her in without fighting. She is tired all of the sudden.

"I have a tent." She offers eventually. Quiet, scared, a mess almost entirely of her own making. "I-if you come by, I won't send you away." And then she is gone, slipping away as the world did to her a few hours before. She is gone, leaving hope and fear in her wake.

Clarke hurries to her tent, excited but terrified. She might not come, she might think Clarke is running away again, she might see this as goodbye. She stops, just inside her tent, and reels back. This isn't running, it isn't. Her heart beats out of her chest, leaping until it reaches her dry throat and makes itself home. This isn't running, it's waiting. Foolish maybe, but Lexa left. It is on her to return. 

Clarke is done running.

The next hour goes slowly, each second ripping her heart until nothing but a bleeding mess is left. She spends her time putting away her little amount of things, taking them back out, then repeating. Until once she has stopped, once she sat down and buried her head into hardening hands, that is when...

"Klark?" Hopeful, raw, and right outside her door, making Clarke jumps up with wide eyes. Clearing her throat she glances around in a hurry, absently wondering why she is so worried about the state of her tent.

"Come in." She tells them once she decided her room is presentable enough. Lexa enters and the world slips away but for a very different reason. A dress, Lexa is wearing a dress. It is a dark red, almost black, and stops half past her knees. Lexa is wearing a dress and suddenly she can't breathe. Lexa enters her tent in her night gown, and the world seems bright as for that one moment Clarke can pretend they are just two kids sneaking around in the dark of night.

"Klark-" Lexa whispers once she's fully inside. She speaks first like she is the first in everything for them. The first to believe, the first to admit they care, the first to kis-

"Lexa." She whispers back, her voice weak and cracking. The dryness of her throat like a traitor, reveals how affected she is. She wants to speak again, louder, more sure, but her heart and mind are in agreeance for once. If she speaks louder than the armor she constructed, the one keeping her semi-ground will unattach. She will be left without an anchor in the middle of the sea and all she can think about is how she can't swim. She will sink, deep into the ocean and become lost in its vast trenches. She will sink and she will drown all in the breath of her own voice.

"You- why are you here?" Clarke jerks back, just a little, and Lexa's eyes widen. "Not that I don't want you here. It is just they didn't tell me- I thought...I thought you were still gone." She admits in a hurry. She admits like she is scared, like Clarke is an injured animal that shouldn't be frightened. She admits freely, unguarded and that is everything.

Clarke thinks for a minute, about why she came here and not to her people. "I helped cause this. I will help fix it."That is all she can come up with, but it's true. Truer than she wishes it was. It was her decision not to tell them about the missile, it was her fault TonDc is like this. Her mother always told her, if you break it you fix it. So fix it she shall. She needs to fix this, it is an urge she can not break, a whisper in the night that keeps her up, a cut against her palm that won't heal. She has to help, that is who she is.

 “They really didn’t tell you I was here?” Clarke turns, she has to, she can't look at her anymore. because if she keeps looking she’ll break and she’ll scream and she’ll love. Each more devastating than the last. She turns like it will protect her.

“No, I was told they accepted a traveler into the village, a nomad, not…not you.” 

“Would you have come? If you knew it was me?” She can’t help but ask, it slips out as a broken whine. Sad, weak, and breaking with every rise and fall. She asks because the answer will mean everything. She asks because she is compelled by her heart's desperate whine to know.

“Instantly.”

Clarke spins around with wide eyes, her breath forgotten in her throat as her mind blanks. All that is left is 'Instantly.'.

“Even if you wouldn’t be welcome?” She sees Lexa fight a small smile and has to stop her own eyes from rolling. She knows what’s going through her head and she’s thankful she doesn’t let the joke out. Lexa would be welcome here because this is her home, her village, her people. She is Heda, and Clarke is glad. Glad they can joke, even though it is unintentional because that means there is hope. Hope for more than unintentional moments.

“I would let you kill me Klark if only to touch you one last time.”  The world slips away, agnoy left in its wake. A beautiful, painful agony because no, that isn't what she wants. 

They stand still, quiet and waiting but neither willing to break the fragile peace. Stuck between love and hate they grow and grow until they reach the sky, the moon, and the sun until time has restarted and stopped again. They grow and they wait, until-

“I waited. Outside the door, I waited.” She clarifies at Lexa's confused look. “I waited for you to come back.” She watches, through her now gray lenses of the world, as Lexa's heart beats once, twice, then breaks into a thousand pieces right on her floor. 

“Kla-“

“I waited,” She spits out, suddenly angry. “ I waited for you and you never came.” It is wet anger, one of stinging eyes, burning veins, and denial. The anger is back and it is untouchable in this moment.

“I waited for you.” She doesn’t shout but it's close. “But you never came, not when I got in, not when I looked for you before pulling the lever because I didn’t want to do it alone, not when I haunted the trees as the mountain haunts me. I waited and waited.” Sobs break through her speech, tears falling down her cheeks and throat. "...and you never came..." 

“… I’m here now.” Hands reach out to touch, heal, love, but they stop not knowing if they are welcome. Oh, how they wish to be welcome, to be able to touch without thought or restraint, oh how they crave to love something for once.

“And how long will it be? Before you leave again?” She mutters, sitting on the floor ungracefully. “How long?” The world is still gone, still seen in gray and the floor is cold. It makes her huddle up, drawing up her legs until she can rest her pounding head on her knees. The ground is cold, in so many awful ways, and her heart is starting to match its vile, repulsive, way of living. She cries frozen tears made from a frozen heart.

Lexa steps, rushes, forward until she reaches the spot in front of Clarke. She sinks down, bending until her own wet eyes can connect with Clarkes. She started at her pleadingly, letting everything little, ugly but perfect part of her visible. She kneels beside the Commander of Death, one who knows not of their titles meaning only of their doings and lets herself fall apart. She lets her heart reach out to try and warm Clarkes.

“I will only leave when you tell me to go.” She says quietly like if said too loud it would be misheard. And there will be no miss hearing here, what is said will be understood. 

Clarke's breath shutters, her eyes dropping. Her fight is leaving like her anger, and now she is only tired. A tired child who is done running, hiding, raging.

“...yeah?” 

“I am patient, I will wait for our someday even if it is not in this life. I am not leaving.” Lexa promises and Clarke? She smiles, small but there and it is infective. 

“But you are tired,” She pulls back, both now frowning from the distance. “We can eat in the morning together if you want? We still have much to talk about.” Worry is present, not all has been said or forgiven, but it is not overtaking. Like a balm, this conversation has soothed the raging wounds and now all that is needed is time. But time is not always granted.

Clarke doesn't speak, she doesn't breathe, she just sits and hurts. Hurts from the ache in her feet to the pounding in her head, she hurts and slips away into a world still stuck in the past. Lexa stays, waits, always waiting. She lets Clarke collect her thoughts, let her plan, replan, work through the ghost. She waits and Clarke hurts, just as always.

"...we can do that." Stay, please she wants to scream but she can't. Lexa is not hers, and her pain, rage, keeps her mouth closed like it was stitched together. She wants to scream a lot nowadays, to see if her voice could reach the cosmos and make the stars glitter as she adds heat to their colorful flames. "I'm still mad." She says, low and half-hearted. She isn't, not really, she is hurt, she is aching, she is lost in gray and whites, and an icy rage that blisters worse than the Earth's snow, but she isn't mad. She just simply is.

"I'll come." She softens, worn down, and too tired to close the gate of her walls again. She lets them drift in the wind, creaking with every movement, swaying to the beat of their hearts but she makes no move to close it.  "I'll come." She repeats more for herself.

And Lexa stands, letting her face blank, and the tears dry as Clarke watches from her place on the floor. She lets her watch as Lexa slips away, out of reach but still there. A constant, small but visible gleam that she won't admit she finds comfort in. She watches and the world spins as it always has done. She sits there on the frozen ground when Heda marches out of her tent after giving her a timid smile, she sits as the noise outside quiets and stops, she sits as her candles melt away, and she sits and she sleeps right there. Right on the ground, right where Lexa left her.

She sits and wonders why this feels more like Lexa running, not fighting. She sits and wallows and stares. She sleeps and dreams of secrets both told and untold, just as Lexa does a few tents away. They sleep and they dream and they love and they hate all as the night slips into the morning. 

Above the village, above the fire's smoke and the cover of trees, a bird with knowing eyes watches. And it smiles and plans, and tells secrets both known and unknown.

Chapter Text

 When the ground is cold, when the air nips at your skin and your heart beats at a rhythm your body can't function at, what do you do? What do you do when the world slips away into something you can't recognize, something dark that infects your joy until it becomes a murky mess of blood and tears and pain and the hollow absence of love?

What do you do, when waking in the morning is the hardest thing you can do? You cry and you mourn and scream and you stay quiet. You let the sun blind your eyes, you the air seep into the blankets and freeze your body, and you let everyone think everything is okay. You pretend and pretend until you can't anyone. 

When Clarke wakes up, cold and hollow, she finds that she is not alone and that pretending might not work anymore. Pretending does not help when the monsters of your mind begin to infect the living after all.  The shadows in the corner furthest away twist and trick her early-morning mind. They flicker out the far corners, ignoring the growing light, and loom over her waking form. Like a monster bathed in the dark, they loom and they scare but that is not what they mean to do. Thin, wispy fingers form as they reach out, caressing her numb face. They ache to touch, to love, to sleep, to make her what she is meant to be. 'Sleep', 'love', remember' they coo, a gentle whisper that embeds itself deep with her chest. Like a nail, it pierces through her chest like wood, their fingers the screwdriver. She is becoming undone. She is the monster and her shadows has come alive.

Her breath shutters as they tuck hair behind her cold ears, as they wrap the fur tighter, as they mother her like she is their child. But she is not the monster's child, is human and whole, visible and not condemned to a life in the dark. She is not a shadow. Her mind stops as a smile forms from the murky, scary dark. Remember, her mind screams. Wake her heart yells. Yells and screams swirl together and make her ears ring, gone is the sound of the trees, the caw of birds, and the soft footsteps of guards. All that remains is her terror and their attempts to soothe. The monster is overwhelmed by her Shadows, beings cloaked in the darkness and now out of bounds. Her stings do not control the puppets of her corrupted mind.

Fear has never felt so alive, here in this tent where monsters and Shadows live as they are mortal and not creatures of Death and hate.

"No!" She jerks awake (but she has always been awake, why can she not see that? why can she not see how her mind is not playing tricks?), chest panting. "No, no, no..." She repeats in a broken mumble. Her hands come up from where they were frozen by her side and clutch at her head. She shakes head to toe, the faint, broken, whispers slip away until they return to the still shadows. Gone they are now, watching from their prison as their treasure breaks into pieces from their own doing. Hands pry at her arms, panicked, but she struggles. Her legs kick away as her body curls into itself. She kicks and she screams and struggles but it is not enough. She shakes and pleads and tries to ignore the now silent shadows. Oh, they regret their words, their touches, they regret their impatience as if they would have done differently should time reverse. They wouldn't, they know in their distant minds, monsters do not regret and life has molded them to be monsters long ago.

Life has cruel plans, cruel sadistic plans and they are all helpless against them. They are all but children, shaking and hidden from the cruel hands of their parents. They are the monsters of their creation, and the Shadows have lost the part of them that could scream and beg. They have lost all but what makes them Shadows.

"NO!" She screams, louder, scared. Her body fights as her mind slows. Her foot hits something hard and is caught a second later. Hands clutch any spot they can reach. "Please, stop..." She mutters, the dark of her mind reaching up and up until her mind knows no more, until the dark bleeds from her mind and into her unseeing eyes. She is gone from the world, just as the shadows reach out to help free her. The whispers, below what she could hear, words meant to soothe but simply become lost in time.

And when Clarke wakes again, not knowing of what happened earlier, she finds that she is once again, not alone. She finds her body wrapped around another, a hand latched onto her ankle at the end of her bed. Clarke, for once, is not alone. She lifts her head from the sea of hair, letting oxygen fill her lungs and settle her nerves, she looks down at something, someone, and marvels. She is not alone in her bed, even though she does not know when she moved to her bed in the first place, Octavia is beside her. The younger girl is wrapped up in the blonde's arms, free from dreams, from pain, she sleeps soundly and safely. A man, tall and older, laying half off and half on the bed at the bottom, one of his hands are wrapped around her ankle and the other arm is hugging Octavia's legs and using them as a pillow. Octavia and Lincoln are in her bed and she smiles and she does not see the creases by their brows from unsmoothed worry, or the Shadows watching with hurt and shame.

She grins and loves and settles back down. She does not sleep, she just lays and listens to the sound of the village waking as calms as the sun begins to light up her tent. And the Shadows watching, forgotten at the moment. The steady stream of noise, low but alive, draws her back into her mind one more time. Sleep tugs her arms and lets her fall peacefully into its waiting arms.

The shadows, remorseful and afraid, stay far away from the sleeping blonde. They stay tucked in the corner like a child being punished and they wonder with hurt hearts, will this be what makes her become undone? Did they land a hand in her destruction? Have the tables turned and now they are the monster scaring the child? Shadows are not supposed to hurt just as they are not supposed to feel, but they do and they feel more than anything else. For shadows are always there, watching, absorbing, taking, treasuring pain and pleasure so they may feel alive once more.

Shadows aren’t supposed to move and birds aren’t supposed to know the secret of the world and lives aren't supposed to end but they do and life similes as they do.

"-know! She just started screaming." Someone whisper shouts, concern bleeding from their tone. She hears someone pacing, fast breathing, and her chest freezes. She is not alone. Her mind slows as they continue to talk, faint memories drowning them out. Dark figures with no face or name comforting her makes her eyes rip open, the lingering taste of warmth from hands holding her does nothing to calm her this time. The shadows moved and she is not safe. She is not alone.

"She seemed fine when I left, tired maybe but not..." She hears the voice, different from the other, swallows, "She wasn't like this." They finish. The voice pulls at her mind, distracting her from the shadows for just a moment. "What could have happened?"

Her eyes stay locked onto the darker than normal corner as eyes pierce her back. The shadows don’t move but they make faces to her in hope she can forgive. They plead with no eyes or mouth for forgiveness they have not earned. Regret does not pour off their misty form, does not clog their missing lungs or still their evaporated blood. They plead for forgiveness they almost believe they should not plead for. Can you blame the Shadows? Can you blame them for not feeling as a mortal would, can you blame them for actions meant with good intentions? Do monsters deserve to be forgiven?

"I really don't know." No, no they don't know. They don't know how her heart leaped from her chest and has yet to return. They don't know the chill in her veins or the fear in her eyes. They were not here when the unliving became sentient and cruel. They do not know the dreams that haunt her or the feelings that drown her.

Clarke wonders if the Shadows are what is hurting her, or if it is something else entirely now.

"Who-" Her voice cracks, "who were they?" She mumbles, barely heard. The beating of her heart matches the pleas dripping from the shadows, alive and burning. Do they know, the people watching her? Do they know shadows and move and feel? Do they know her terror and the shadow's remorse? Do they know? Are they willing to admit it? Is her mind just giving thoughts and actions to the what is incapable so she can focus on something other than the confusion bred from hate and agony? 

Is this real? Is anything?

"Clarke? Are you awake?" Someone walks closer, their voice still so familiar but no name comes forth. "Clarke, what has happened?" She doesn't answer, she just stares at the corner and wonders. A hand, faint and heavy, rest on her back and she jumps away. She rolls off the bed and lands harshly on the floor. She jerks her head up, glancing at the corner before pushing herself away. The shadows retreat from where they reached out, saddened by her movements. Clarke stares and wonders if she has finally lost it. If her missing heart has finally stopped beating and her brain is suffering. Is her body failing? Is that why she can not breathe? Can not look away from the shadows? Did she imagine it? Did her terror come from nothing? Her thoughts repeat and the world continues to spin. Her mind takes different paths though they lead to the same spot.

"...clarke?"

"I can-...what?" She questions, so confused, so scared. Her mind seems shattered, broken parts littered across her aching skull. The pieces laugh at her, call her names, and rejoice as they lay helplessly. The shadows morph and wish to collect her pieces, to explain but they stay distant. They stay away.

"Clarke, did someone come in here last night?"

"I- I think?" She asks more than tells, still not knowing who she is talking to. "I don't think they ever left." The air stills, the shadows cry, and the world slows as it spins. Her words are a whispered death sentence, but for who she is yet to know.

"The corner." Someone whispers and suddenly someone charges past her. Lexa, her mind reminds her, as dark clothes and glinting metal stop in the furthest corner. She watches as she searches, rips apart the flaps of her tent, lifts clothes, and pushes away chairs, but she does not find anything. No trace of the figures remains but Clarke still sees them. She still feels the slender hands and hears the raspy, layered voices. Lexa finds nothing, and Clarke clutches at her memories like they are clues.

"Nothing," Lexa mutters, confused, as she turns back around. Her dark eyes lock with Clarkes and they seem so worried, so confused. "Nothing is here." A comfort, a denial, she doesn't know what the words were meant to be but she figures it doesn't matter.

"I saw them, felt them, heard them ." She insists, feeling more than seeing Lexa and the others walk closer. "They were here but I- how?"

"Clarke, who was here?" Octavia asks, crouching beside her, her hand stopping just above her arm. Pretending has always been a secret friend. A person she can not see in the depths of her mind that is steady and ready to be used. One made from desperation and hatred. Pretending has never failed her.

"No one." She says instead of screaming what is in her mind. No one, she answers as her mind screams 'The Shadows, O.'  Sleep, Love, Remember, her mind repeats as a desperate reminder.

Sleep, Love, Remember, an order, a demand, a command she is terrified to follow. Sleep, Love, Remember.

“…Clarke,” Octavia murmurs, shifting closer and finally placing her hand down. “Are you sure?”

Clarke doesn’t answer, she can’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Her heart is tucked away and pretending has once again taken the reigns of her traitorous mouth.

"Yea, O. I'm sure." 'Sleep, Love, Remember.'

"Can we just.." she trails off, leaning back until she hits the bed. " go eat or something?" She watches out the corner of her eyes as they trade looks, as the Shadows grin like they are forgiven, as a set of eyes stare at her like she knows what is being kept hidden.

She sits, the world spins, and her mind repeats 'Sleep, Love, Remember.'

I'm not crazy. She insists to herself as the shadows warp, I'm not.

 But Clarke, The world whispers with a sneer, aren't you?

The others decided to leave, to let her and Lexa talk over someone's food they bring. They left and the Shadows look smug like she has chosen them. Which she did, in a way.

There is a river, Clarke thinks a few moments later after the others have cleared out for the last time and Lexa sat in front of her again. A river that is a rich blue so dark you couldn’t see the bottom, or the way it never seems to end, or the creatures with sharp teeth and gills that don’t work. A river that separates them, a deep cavern with a broken bridge, a rope severed in two. Clarke sits on one side, buried in the sand the same color as her hair, choking on the salt in the water and watching birds fly like the world wasn't ending. Lexa sits on the other, soft dirt beneath her legs, silky grass drifting in a breeze she can’t feel. They are on two different planes, one rocky and the other deserted.

The shadows are forgotten as the world morphs into a place in her mind they can not reach.

"I did what was best for my people, at the time," Lexa tells her, not with regret but with something close. "They needed to be away from that place, they needed to be safe."

"What about my people?" About me, she wants to add. She wants to leave, to deal with this another day but she had promised and she doesn't want to break anything anymore. Not even a promise.

Lexa closes her eyes, looking pained. "My people were more important to me at the time, Klark you must understand. They were hurt, dying, yours-"

"Were fine." She says flatly, unimpressed and a little hurt.

"Better. They were being treated better at the time, they weren't dying like mine."

"They were drilling them, taking their bone marrow. My people weren't fine." She spits out.

"...They weren't," Lexa nods, "but I cannot tell you I would pick any different, Klark, my people.....I never meant for this to happen."

"I know. But it did, and now we must suffer. Perks of being a leader." She shrugs, her mind a distant place as the water continues downstream. Her feelings distant, her thoughts and her rage.

"I was going to come back, once my people had moved far enough away," Lexa admits. "I was going to come back so we could...I wasn't expecting you to go in."

"I just needed my people to be away so they weren't at risk, Klark i was going to come back." She begs through her words for Clarke to believe and maybe she does but Clarke is too busy watching the river stones to look for hidden guilt. A choice, made with good fate, had the power to crush someone once seen as uncrushable. 

"Well, I did." Lexa recoils, just a little at that, and the pain in her eyes matches the one Clarke feels in her heart. "If you didn't think I was going to go in then you don't know me that well." Clarke doesn’t say anything, her mind a mess of burned bodies, melted eyes, and endless pools of blood. Death, what a fitting name for her.

"I'm hurt." She admits. "I'm angry and I just really want to hate you...but I can't." She sighs as a weight has settled onto her. "I would have done the same if I were you."

"No, you wouldn't have." Lexa argues but Clarke just shakes her head.

"I thought about, it a lot and I would have. I would have hated it but you're right, my people would have been more important to me." They sit in silence staring at each other from across the invisible waters, letting the sound of imaginary storming waves and rolling thunder ease away the silence.

"We're leaders, we protect our people and my people have never been your people. I don't blame you for leaving but I'm hurt by it...I thought I has meant more to you."

Lexa flinches, "You are important to me Klark." But the words unsaid were still heard. But not enough.

A small thing, a creature she has not seen this far from water, breaks the surface, its face a picture of blank eyes and demented smiles. It is a creature she never wishes to see again but Lexa stares at the spot it broke from like she could see it And the look in her eyes resembled mourning.

Lexa stares and frowns, contemplating what to say, what to feel or do. "Can we," She starts, "can we move on from this? Heal?" Clarke can see the hesitance in her voice, how her shoulder hunch and her hands begin to tremble.

"I think, one day we can." She offers eventually, and they both let out the faintest of smiles. They don't talk about the mountain anymore, not right now. They explained, they looked in the darkened eyes across the river and took apart the walls until they found their answers. Their talks have never been filled with words but more with looks. And it is not over, both are still hurt or ashamed, but it is not sharp and cruel anymore. It is more a cut, long and deep but healing and forming the smallest of scaps.

"I think one day, I could trust you again." Lexa's heart breaks and Clarke can see it just as she could see the clouds in the sky if she were to poke her head out of the tent. 

"I will do whatever I can, Klark, to help you trust me." Lexa reaches across the angry creatures and the jagged rocks until her hand clutches Clarkes. There is a river between them, one deep and seemingly endless but it can be crossed. It can be walked across, the dangers are no longer what they were.

Clarke watches her hand clutch Lexas, watches as her thumb smooths over bruised knuckles, and frowns. 

"I will get you to trust me again, I never wanted to hurt you." Lexa squeezes her hand as her voice rises, then one second she is leaning over the river and the next she is beside her like she had always been there. Like she was always meant to be.

They sit, on one side of the river and watch the stream flow, they ignore the Shadows and rejoice in the fading hurt. Their food lies forgotten but that is okay, their hands are finally together and that is what matters.

"Where do we go from here?"

"Wherever you want, Klark. Wherever you wish for us to go."

'Sleep, Love, Remember.' The bird thinks from its nest high above the rebuilding village. It sits in its throne of sticks and leaves and cloth and watches with beady eyes as the world spins until it is wrapped in more of fates blanket. 'Remember, Klark.'

Chapter Text

Time is sand, it is small and easy to move, to split apart. Time is water rushing down a stream, holding life and death in its cold, wet hands. Time is the sun setting and rising. Time is dirt and the trees, the clouds, and the birds. Time is everything slipping through the cracks, it is small and barely there but it pokes your side like a knife and leaves you pained on the floor. It is thick and suffocating an light and free. It coils around hearts and ties them neatly together. Time is Life. 

And life doesn’t mean much anymore. To Clarke, it means monsters that invade her mind, it means decisions that haunt her, the phantom feeling of her heart shattering on the icy metal, ground. To Clarke life doesn't mean much, it means doing what's right despite the damage it causes her, it means letting go and loving from afar. It means stained hands and bleeding hearts, but sitting here, in this moment, life switches its meaning out for something kind and cool and loving. Time shifts like sand here under the winter trees. Clarke does not know the fleeting meaning of Life or Time, but here she can pretend. It's easy to pretend.

Her back rest against the rough bark of a tree not too far from TonDc, surrounding her are the pieces of her old life. Octavia leans back beside her, back to Lincions chest and it aches her to look at them. Lexa sits across, watching, always watching to see what she could do, what she could fix. She watches like the bird high above, the one she refuses to remember and the one that watches her too. Lexa watches her with dark, targeted eyes, and it makes her feel alive. 

Indra, her temporary mentor, a stubborn friend in the making, paces the gap between her and Lexa, arms thrown out as she rants. Time shifts to something pressing, something important.

"-him!" Indra pants, face drawn in a sneer. "The rebuilding of Tondc has been our priority for months and is what we should be focusing on. I agree with his fear of attack but we have had no threat from them yet, just shame as they fumble around like b-"

"Indra." Lexa interrupts, eyes darting away only to return a second later. They always return, almost as if they never want to leave their mission of mapping her face. "Both of you have valid concerns, TonDc is vital but we should not overlook any threat to our people because our possible enemy is still trying to ground themselves." Octavia snorts, and everyone sends her deadpan looks.

"What?! It was funny." She pouts, leaning back even more. Clarke catches the hint of a smile on Lincions face before her eyes drift back to Lexa's. 

"For now," Lexa glances around, seeing if anyone had anything else to say, "we focus on rebuilding. We must get the majority done before the wet seasons come upon us."

"And of the sky people?" Indra questions, her stare directed solely at her Heda. Clarke wonders before Lexa could answer if Indra refuses to look at them because she doesn't care how her suspicion would affect them, or because she fears it.

Time quiets, for it to wants to hear the whispered answer.

"We watch." She says simply though her face tells another story. That is enough, it shouts, quiet, and worry about it when the time should come. Lexa doesn't look at her. Not a glance or a twitch in her direction since she answered. Lexa doesn't look at her, and Clarke desperately wishes she would, if only to show her where she sides in this possible war. But she doesn't look and Clarke doesn't tell her, for her mind is not as sure as her heart is.

Time grows again, letting the call of birds and the sounds of wind return to them.

"So," she draws out, shifting so her head faces the two beside her, "I feel like there is a story I haven't heard yet." 

"...Of what? Clarke, I'm not a mind reader." Octavia answers once it's evident Clarke wasn't going to explain, making her sigh.

"You're in Tondc, people there greet you, last time I was here that was different."

"Things change when you leave someone."

Clarke won't apologize for leaving, even though it hurts and she carries guilt like she does the weight of her people. She won't apologize but she does regret it, if only because if hurt her family.

Octavia sighs, but she scots forward. 

"We.." She trails off, not entirely sure how to explain it. Her face scrunches up.

"I revoked their banishment, it was...hastily done. I should have waited until things had calmed down some before deciding on a course of action." Lexa still won't look at her.

"You revoked it? I thought..."

"Lincon was banished for trying to disobey orders, he tried to stay back for..." Lexa swallows, breaking off and picking up her voice somewhere she couldn't reach yet, "He was not able to disobey as Indra stopped him, and Octavia was Trikru, and if she had not been inducted yet. It is not wrong to go back for clan members, even if they are unofficial and going against orders." 

"They came to me one night, sneaking in Tondc on one of my check-ups, and pleaded their case. They went against my orders, yes but that…” She trails off, eyes locking onto the clouds as their arms folded in front of them. “A lashing, the stocks, that would have been more fitting. But I sent them away.”

"I sent them away so I-" She stops suddenly, like whatever she was going to say was too much, was wrong and ill-fitting for the moment.

Time waves its invisible hand, splashing water and ignoring its ripples. A butterfly floats by, the flapping of its wings louder than everything else.

“I was biased. I…I care for him, them.” They watch as they struggle, as they open a gate that has been closed for years. It creaks and rust drifts to the floor but it is steadily opening. Maybe it is the trees and the privacy they offer, maybe it is the air nipping at hot, burning hearts and letting the truth spill out. Maybe they want to love openly, maybe they just want to say what has been weighing on them for summers after summer.

Maybe it is nothing but words.

“I did not think it through, fully and so when they came I corrected myself. I stated they earned their place back and everyone believed me.”

“Did they? Earn their place back? “ Clarke asks.

“They never left it.” Lexa cares for one of them, the other sits close by and falls into their caring claws before they could register they shouldn’t be there. Proximity, hope, bleed together until one would think they had been there all long. 

“They never left it.” She whispers again, and Time starts new.

They sit in the quiet for a while, finding comfort in the silence and the presence of others, before one of them asks, hesitant but also not.

Octavia turns to her, hands out and eyes hopeful. “Spar?”

The sun still rests high in the sky, lighting the melting snow and the leaves beginning to grow again. A soft breeze ruffles fur and hair alike, as animals and humans enjoy the last few weeks of cold. Spring is back again thinks the world as flowers grow buds and the world turns green. Spring has come and with it a fondness undeniable. 

A grin stretches across Clarke's sweating face, whole and bordering a smirk, as a fist sails by. It hits her cheek, an accident she knows, but it hurts. It hurts like a dull sting, and her grin just grows and grows. They step closer, arms up and ready but a concerned, apologetic look on their face. It melts her heart, that someone is concerned for her. That someone worries when they hurt her. She never expected to see that type of worry again.

“That all?” Clarke taunts as a desperate distraction, not wanting this to end and she knows it will if they teach out their arm and rest it upon hers. She inches back, light on her feet and her arms raised. Don’t stop, her look begs. If they stop then they will have to talk and can you blame her for wanting to savor this moment? The moment before everything glued together shatters beyond repair? Can you blame her for wanting to hurt her body instead of her mind? The shadows don't, nor the bird or the wind but do they ask them? No, they don't ask the shadows or birds or wind at all. They let them be forgotten, they let them be distant watchers. No one asks and Octavia lets her hands tell the story of her hurt when she learned that Clarke had left her.

They lock eyes, a smirk on their lips and understanding in their eyes as they throw their weight at the other once again. A fist to the arm, a kick in the legs in return. A stumble and a fall right after. She jumps back, out of range and panting, as they flip themselves back up. Her heartbeat picks up again and the colors of the world begin to narrow down to red. Her eyes see as if this is war but this isn't war, this is love. Funny how the two could be so similar. 

“Impressive.” Clarke smiles playfully, her heart a beating mess of adrenaline and fondnesses. She fills so whole, so utterly like before when she was just a girl exploring a new world with kids as clueless as her, that she wants nothing more to exist in this moment forever. To relieve each punch and fall, to relieve the thrill of eyes tracing her form from behind, the gentle weight in her heart as it begins to sink from all its love. She wants to live in this moment where the shadows cannot reach. She wants to live where the bruises forming on her are from playful love and not hate.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” They wink, sending out their leg in hopes to take out the blonde's feet. Clarke slides back quickly, their foots connecting almost painfully. A dull pain spreads in both of their legs. A connection, a shared feeling, but Clarke shakes that away. Her mind reaches for closeness that does not exist, not anymore.

“Neither have you.” She lunges forward, a flurry of punches and blocks blending together as they form a dance of sorts. One punch, one that holds more weight than it is meant to, lands on the lower part of the other stomach, making them hunch over in part surprise and part pain. Shame and pride rage together at the sight of them.

Clarke glances up and locks eyes with a pair of dark ones a little away, and she watches with a frown as they give a small nod. Clarke breathes in and before they can fully stand from their hunched positions she darts forwards and pins them to the hard ground below. She settles her weight on their stomach, trying to pull the struggling arms down. The sun beams down on them, warm on her back, the wind moves their hair like a gentle caress, and the melting snow cools their flush skin. The moment is a haven, a warm hug, a thick blanket. It is a balm on a burn.

She grunts, a head reaching forward and hitting her hard on the chin. She lets go, pulling away and the figure below flips them before she could blink. Her arms are crossed and pinned above her dizzy head before she knew it.

She groans, loud but with a hint of laughter. It was always going to end like this, she knew when she agreed. Her loss doesn’t deter her but it does make her give a secretive grin. Plans for revenge blend together.

“That all?” They joke mockingly, letting her arms go as she nods. Clarke laughs, the sound ringing in the trees and scaring all the birds but one. That bird stays and it watches with a sad smile, knowledge in its eyes and sympathy in its tiny heart.

“You win.” She says, squinting up at her spar partner. “Now get the hell off me, O.” Octavia fires back a playful glare, leaning down to whisper something with a gleam in her dark eyes. Eyes that used to send glares of hate but she won't focus on that not while they are warm and inviting. Hate is not allowed in her haven there is too much of it everywhere else.

“Why, want someone else on you instead? Maybe a certain leader?” Clarke chokes off with wide eyes, Octavia taking over in the laughing. With a huff, she pushes herself up and knocks Octavia off her. The dark-haired girl lands with a dull thud, making Clarke laugh past her shock. She ignores the implications of her words, now is not the time to dwell on that.

“Ow.” They whine, followed by a scoff from behind them. They both ignore the muttering that comes after.

“You deserved that.” She replies, pushing herself up and offering a hand to her dramatic friend.

“No, I didn’t.” She whines as she stands. “I’ve been perfectly good.” Her innocent look needs work. Clarke deadpans, looking at her for a long second. 

“Liar.” She spins on her feet, the word not even fully off her lip, and heads to the people watching. 

“Klark.” Lexa greets her with a nod once she's close enough again. The sun breaks through the trees, lighting up Lexa from behind. Clarke has never believed in anything, no old god or any ground spirit, but if the sun keeps shining on her she just might start to.

"Leksa." She nods, coming to stand beside her. Indra and Lincon linger behind, talking lower than she could hear. She and Lexa stand still, quiet, as they watch the clouds roll across the sky.

"It's getting warmer." She states to fill the loaded air, stretching. Her mouth opens again, to continue her pointless words but someone stops her.

"Now." Indra demands, stalking forward and even Lexa looks confused. They watch as she stalks her way back to the clearing Clarke just left from and as she stands tall above her motionless friends.

"...Am I the only one confused?" And Lexa, who is quick and beautiful, puts it together.

"Indra has taken on a new second...or  an old one?" Lexa tilts her head, thinking. Clarke twirls to face her, ignoring Lincoln's growing grin. She has never seen him smile so whole, so even as she looks away she files down every detail to look back on.

"What about me?! I don't have a first anymore." She does not whine but it sounds like it. Lexa frowns, their eyes locking for the first time since before the talk, and she smiles like the world is worth saving. The sun illumines her, and the world spins off course.

"It is unheard of but I can train you Klark, if you'd like?" She asks strongly at first before quieting as her offer has finally caught up with her.

"...you want to train me?"

"I would be honored Klark, if you are willing." Lexa hides her nerves well but Clarke will always be able to see them. Be able to see her.

Clarke jerks, cheeks burning and her smile matches the sun. 

"I'd love for you to be my first."

"Lincion stop laughing! Why are even laughing?!"