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She didn’t know why the hell she had to be there. She didn’t know why the fuck she was forced to go. The last place she wanted to be was in a city surrounded by the people who tortured her. Okay, well, so she was generalizing, but so what? She was pissed. She hated them, all of them, even the innocent ones and the ones who didn’t exist yet. She wanted all of them to die, all of them to burn. She could do it, she really could. She could build a bomb, a million bombs, detonate them in all the villages, leave behind nothing but their singed shadows in the dirt.
She hated them but most of all she hated Clarke for making her go. “We have to go. All of us. Right now, the alliance is strong and we have to keep it that way. It would be disrespectful for anyone to stay here.” The blonde had preached, though she was mainly talking to her. Raven didn’t care, she really didn’t. Fuck the Grounders. What the hell did she care if she disrespected them or not? That was the last thing she was worried about. And why the hell would she want to celebrate the Winter Holiday with them, anyway? She didn’t care about their traditions, didn’t care about how they celebrated.
They’d argued for a while, she and Clarke, back and forth, Raven spitting hateful words and Clarke just taking them with a neutral face. It ended with both of them crying, hugging on the floor. How it got to that point, Raven didn’t remember; one minute she was screaming and then the next minute she was sobbing and Clarke was holding her and she let her, welcomed the comfort.
After their little hug session, Raven was still pissed about Clarke making her go, but she kept quiet about it and just let her inner monologue run free instead. Sleeping in the same place as hundreds, maybe even thousands of Grounders made her fearful and sick. Sure the Sky People were getting their own sleeping cabins, but that didn’t make her feel any easier about the situation; they would still have to interact with them and eat with them and drink with them through the whole week of being in Polis.
A week. A whole fucking week with them. Why didn’t I just die in that explosion back at Mount Weather? Raven thought absentmindedly, swaying back and forth on the horse as it trotted behind Clarke and Lexa in their large group. Lexa, Anya, Indra, and Clarke were leading the group of Sky People and Grounders to the city. Sky People were in the middle of the group while the Woods Clan took up the back. Most of them were walking, except for the “important” people. Raven didn’t know whether she got a horse because she was important or because of her leg; it was functional, of course, but she couldn’t walk on it for hours without it throbbing in pain.
“Are we almost there? My ass is starting to fall asleep.” Murphy asked, propping his chin up on her shoulder. She shrugged him off, groaned internally. The world was punishing her, she knew, because the second thing worse than being stuck in Polis for a week was being stuck on a horse with Murphy of all people for the ride there.
“You said that an hour ago.” Raven grumbled.
“Yeah, but it was only half asleep then, it’s fully asleep now.” He whined. She wanted to push him off the horse. It wouldn’t be so bad if he would just shut up with the complaining. Her ass was asleep, too, but no one heard her complaining about it. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t so bad; they bonded over their mutual hatred for the Grounders and their internalized anger towards their mothers. They got along, sometimes. Mostly they just bickered about nothing, which drove everyone crazy and amused them immensely.
“I don’t care about your ass.” The dark haired woman snapped, turning to glare at him a little. He mocked her, rolled his eyes, then looked away from her. They were silent the rest of the way. Murphy continued to rest his chin on her shoulder after a while and she gave up pushing him off after the fourth attempt.
The rest of the trip took two more hours. To say that Polis was beautiful would have been an understatement at best; large buildings that were once part of the city, which stood strong after the bombs and a hundred years of toxic weather. They were decorated in moss and roots and flowers, which were dead, of course, because of the winter, but they still hung on the buildings, covered in frost and ice and snow, which gave them an otherworldly feel, like they belonged in one of those fairy tale movies Raven had watched as a child up in the Ark. The roads were a mix of gravel and snow. Little wood and stone houses were placed carefully between the large ones, some in little clusters. Snow covered the foot tops of the buildings, ice hung from the broken windows. It looked like a winter wonderland. So, yes, Polis was gorgeous, but Raven would never admit that aloud. She couldn’t; she’d never give those assholes credit for anything.
The first few nights of being there, she tolerated it; she mostly drank and ate, being sure to keep her distance from everyone, including her own people, except for Murphy; the asshole went wherever she did. She complained, but secretly she liked his company; they both bitched about the same things, so it was nice, mostly.
The fifth night they were there, there was a festival going through the city. Grounders from different tribes all marched in it, dancing and singing and beating drums and playing string instruments Raven had never seen before. That time, she was forced to participate. “Watch it, at least. You still don’t have to talk to anyone.” Clarke had begged. She agreed, silently but objectively. Speaking of Clarke, she’d tried looking for her during the parade, but she was nowhere to be seen. She was bunking in the same place as Lexa, she knew, in the largest building in the city, as were the other Grounder leaders, but she assumed she’d be at the parade, at least, since it was mandatory.
She’s probably getting laid. Raven thought in mild disgust. Then her face fell and she crossed her arms, staring at the ground, immediately feeling guilty for the thought about her somewhat (but really) friend. She deserves to be happy, after everything. But…
“You have a secret admirer.” Octavia mumbled, walking up to Raven and handing her another drink. That was the third one she’d had that night. She was told that Grounder alcohol was strong, but she wasn’t feeling anything; Monty’s Moonshine was a hell of a lot stronger; it could put her on her ass after one cap full.
The dark haired woman looked in the direction of Octavia’s gaze and saw a pale, tall, slim woman with dark brown hair staring at her. Her hair was decorated in many small braids, pulled up in a half bun on the top of her head with the rest falling in tangled waves down her back, other braids accented it here and there. She was wearing dark grey and white clothes, which suggested that she was from the Ice Nation, as those Grounders wore the same colors in the same layered fashion. She was beautiful, Raven noticed, but there was also something deadly about her that made the dark skinned woman want to know more about, but she stopped those thoughts the instant they came into her mind.
No fucking way.
“Her name is Echo.” Octavia added, bumping her hip against Raven’s.
Raven shrugged, turned her nose up and looked away. “I don’t give a damn.” She said simply.
Octavia snorted. “Well you better give a damn; she’s walking over here.” With that she walked away, leaving the older woman to fend for herself.
“Octavia,” She hissed, but the tan girl had already disappeared into the large crowd, probably to find her boyfriend no doubt. Bitch. She thought, downing the rest of her drink, her face turning sour from the bitter burning taste as it washed down her throat. Octavia knew the contempt Raven held towards the Grounders, so she didn’t understand why she would leave her. Well, it’s not like this was new; people had been leaving Raven all her life. First her father, she never knew the bastard, then her mother, getting floated for getting caught with moonshine, she dumbass, then Finn, murdered by the woman he claimed he loved, then Clarke, falling for the goddamn Commander, and now Octavia, one of the only friends that she had. So maybe she was being a bit overdramatic; technically she still had Clarke and Octavia, but it still felt like she didn’t sometimes. And of course she had Murphy and Bellamy and Jasper and Monty and some of the other delinquents, but she didn’t have someone the way they had their someone.
She was lonely. She was lonely and she was jealous that the people around her had fought their way out of their loneliness.
But that didn’t mean she wanted to shack up with some Grounder of all people. Speaking of said Grounder, she was still maneuvering her way straight towards her.
Raven’s eyes grew wide as a flood of anxiety swept through her body. She looked around, tried to find an escape route, but Grounders were all over the place, blocking any exit that might have existed.
Shit. Damn it. Fuck.
“Hello,” The woman greeted pleasantly. Raven froze, looked at her with wide eyes like she was a mouse caught by a cat.
“Uh,” Raven mumbled, all words vanishing from her slightly buzzing head. “Hi,” She said stupidly.
The woman smiled slightly. It was beautiful, Raven noticed, but she tried to not think about it. “I’m Echo.”
Raven nodded. “Octavia told me.”
“Ah, well, who are you?” She questioned, waiting expectantly and a little eagerly if Raven had to guess.
“Raven,” She answered shortly.
“Reivon,” Echo repeated in Trigedasleng, her native tongue. The way she spoke it, the way it rolled out of her mouth like it belonged there caused Raven to go hot all over. She mentally smacked herself, blamed it on the alcohol finally getting to her. “Do you want to see something beautiful?” The woman asked, hope shining in her eyes. She held a hand out to the dark haired brunette, who instinctively flinched away. It wasn’t that she was scared of the other woman, it was that ever since getting almost slashed to death under false accusations of poisoning Lexa, she’s been skittish towards any and all Grounders.
Echo recoiled her hand, an expression of hurt her passing over her face. Raven felt instantly bad for some reason. All the contempt she’d felt to the other Grounders didn’t seem right to feel for this woman, too, and she didn’t know why.
So Raven nodded slightly and hesitantly said, “Okay.” Echo held her hand out again and this time Raven took it.
Echo led her out of the mess of Grounders and Sky People and into one of the tall buildings. They went up several flights of stairs, slower towards the end because of Raven’s leg. Once they got to the top of the building, Echo sat on the edge of it and waited for Raven to take a seat beside her before she spoke.
“I love it up here.” She admitted a bit dreamily.
“It’s freezing.” Raven mumbled, zipping up her jacket. Back on the ground it was a slightly warmer because of all the bodies meshed together and the fire pits scattered around the land, but up there in the open, with the wind blowing freely, the woman was sure she would turn into an icicle.
“Of course someone not equipped to these temperatures would think so.” Echo replied, untying her thick jacket and offering it to Raven.
“But won’t you freeze?” She wondered, but still accepted bulky coat. She slipped it on and instantly grew warmer. Whatever the thing was made of it made it feel like a personal heater.
Echo shook her head. “I’m from the Ice Nation; we’re all adjusted to the cold.”
Makes since. Raven nodded, stuffing her hands in the deep, fur lined pockets. It was a few minutes before she wondered, “Why’d you bring me up here?”
“You looked like you wanted to jump someone.” The pale woman replied smoothly. Then she turned to her and gave a coy grin. “I couldn’t let you disturb the peace.”
Raven looked away, her face growing hot. In some odd way she was thankful that Echo was the one who noticed instead of someone else. Like she needed Anya or Indra to recognize a hostile Sky Person at their event. She didn’t want to get tied to a pole and tortured again.
Both women were silent for a while after that, looking up at the stars and watching the festival down below. For once in the days that they’d been in Polis Raven actually felt at ease. The anxiety had left her body, not completely, but mostly. It was odd, sitting there with a Grounder and feeling this wave of comfortableness. And it was even odder that she was enjoying the company of this mysterious woman.
She wanted to talk but she didn’t know what to say, so after a while she blurted, “What are the other names in Grounder?” It wasn’t the most eloquent way to start a conversation, but it was the only think she could think of to ask.
Echo didn’t look at her as she spoke, her voice clipped, “Trigedasleng. That is our language. Grounders are who we are, not our language.”
She could have smacked herself for her ignorance. “Oh, right, sorry.” She mumbled sincerely.
The other woman relaxed, looked at her from the corner of her eye, the side of her lip quirked up. “It’s okay.” She said softly. “Give me names in your language and I’ll repeat them to you in mine.”
“Bellamy, Murphy, Monty, Jasper, Anya, Lincoln, Echo, Raven of the Sky People.” She ticked off the first names that popped into her head.
Echo thought for a few moments and then replied, “Belomi, Mofi, Monti, Jaspa, Onya, Ekou, Reivon kom Skaikru.”
It was pretty, their language. Though Raven supposed all foreign languages were pretty. That reminded her: “I can speak Spanish.” She perked up suddenly. Granted she hadn’t said anything in Spanish since her mother had died, but it was still fresh in her head.
Echo furrowed her brows in confusion. “What’s Spanish?”
Raven scooted closer to her on instinct, explained with a bit of excitement, “Before the bombs, there were different languages. Not just one. There was English, that’s what we’re speaking now. There were also Asian languages like Chinese, Tibetan, Hindi, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Japanese, and many, many more. Then there were the South American languages, like Spanish, Portuguese, and French. It’s a long list, really, of all the many different languages the world used to speak. I don’t even know all of them.”
Echo nodded, tried to not go into information overload. “I wonder if they’re all dead now.”
Raven shrugged sadly. “Most likely…we tried to preserve as many as we could up in the Ark. Twelve nations made it up there, so we saved what we could; Spanish, Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, and Swahili. Other people from those nations spoke one or more languages, too, but most of them died out as the years went on.”
“What can you say in Spanish?” Echo asked, her curiosity shining through her voice.
Raven closed her eyes, thought for a moment, pulled all of her locked away knowledge of the language out of the deep crevices of her mind. Finally, she said, “Esta es mi primera vez viendo la nieve.”
Echo’s eyes grew wide in amazement and awe at the tongue she’d never heard before. “What does that mean?”
Raven looked back up at the sky, held her hand up, caught a little puff of white in her palm.“This is my first time seeing the snow.”
“Say more, please.” The brunette urged, her voice giddy.
She cocked her head, thought for a second, then went on to say, “Estar aqui con ustedes no es tan malo. De hecho, este es el major momento que he tenido en mucho tiempo.” Echo waited patiently for Raven to translate. She closed her eyes, remembered the order in which she said the words. “It means ‘Being here with you is not so bad. In fact, this is the best time I’ve had in a very long time’.” She opened her eyes, smiled slightly at the woman, who, from the light of the stars and the bright moon, Raven could tell was blushing slightly and gawking a little. She went on to add, “And it’s true… It’s peaceful up here. I can breathe.”
“This is the best time I’ve had in a long time, too.” She admitted softly, running her hands through her long hair. She looked down towards the ground, clutched her elbows tightly. “The Mountain People…” Echo’s voice cracked a little, though she tried to cover it with a cough.
Raven asked hesitantly, “How long?”
She shrugged, slumped her shoulders. “Months, I think. I’m not completely sure. I was here delivering a message to the Commander from the Queen when they snatched me. It was nightmarish.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.” Raven said quickly, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable or that she had to share her trauma. They’d just met; they weren’t expected to share their whole life story. Echo looked up at her, question in her eyes, so she added, quieter, “We’ve all had horrible things done to us. We don’t have to share our scars.”
“Maybe one day we could.” She offered.
Raven leaned forward, nodded, “Yeah, maybe.”
There was a moment of silence before Echo asked in a tiny voice, a little ashamed, “Were you really scared of me when you flinched away from my hand?”
Raven ran her hands through her hair, avoided Echo’s eyes. “Not scared of you, just scared in general. Part of the whole scar thing.”
“Well how do you feel now?” She asked nervously.
She looked at her then, an easy smile on her face. “No ounce of fear at all.”
“No negative feelings?” She questioned, an eyebrow raised.
Raven shook her head confidently. “Not towards you.”
She smiled shyly up at the sky, gave a pleased nod. “Good, I’m glad. Could you say one more thing in Spanish?” She asked curiously.
“Sure.”
“Echo of the Ice Nation.”
Raven put the right words together in her head before she spoke them, careful to make sure she got them right. “Eco de la Nación Hielo.”
“It sounds prettier in your tongue.”
“What is it in yours?”
“Ekou kom Azgeda.”
Raven scoffed, went to slap her shoulder but stopped herself midway because she didn’t know what that meant to the Grounders. To the Sky People it was…affection, but to the Grounders it could have meant something else entirely. Raven brought her hand back in her lap, played with a little fringe of fur. Echo gave her a confused look as she cleared her throat and muttered, “I think it’s pretty in any language. So after the end of the Holiday you’ll go back to being enemies with the Commander?”
Echo nodded. “That’s how it works, usually. The Queen is content when she’s here, only making passive comments here and there and the Commander says some back, the tension and malice is there, but they don’t act on it. They can’t. It’s the law during the week.”
“How far away is the Ice Nation from here?”
“Five days travel.”
“So far. Very far.” The thought of never seeing the woman again was scary and weird. Scary because she actually liked her. Weird because she’d known her for a few hours, so she shouldn’t care if she ever saw her again. But she did. Strangely, she did. And that terrified her most of all.
“You would like the Ice Nation, I think.” Echo said carefully, calculating her words thoroughly before she spoke them. “It’s much like Polis now, though snow and ice all year except in the warmer days when it’s just rain and mist.”
“That does sound nice.” Raven mumbled earnestly. Since being on the ground she learned that she loved the rainy weather, and so she figured being in it most of the time wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Echo opened her mouth, then closed it quickly, stopping herself from saying whatever it was that she was going to add. Raven cocked her head to the side, waited for her to gather her thoughts. When she did speak, her words caught Raven completely off guard. “You would have a place there, should you ever come.”
“How would I have a place?” Raven questioned wearily.
“You’ve done nothing to the Queen. Yes, you are an outsider, but you know me, and I am the Queen’s Second.”
Raven’s eyes grew wide, her mouth hung low. “Holy shit, you’re her Second?” She asked in surprise.
Echo nodded in amusement, a big smile on her face. “Like I said, I am her Second; she trusts me more than anyone, so if I say that you are not a danger, then she will take my word for it, and so will everyone else.”
“You’ve know me for only a few hours.” Raven pointed out skeptically. “How can you be so quick to say that I’m not a danger?”
Echo turned to her, said seriously, “I can read people very well. And you haven’t tried to kill me so that’s a good sign.” She added with a playful grin.
“I would have a place in the Ice Nation?” She repeated, more so for herself than anything else.
“You would.” She said with certainty. It made Raven feel a mix of emotions, thinking about that. She hadn’t felt like she had a place to belong in a long, long time. Sure, they needed her at Camp Jaha, but they didn’t actually need her, not the way she wanted to be needed. They used her for her brain and then they forgot about her until they needed her again. Yes, she had friends but when one feels as though people could get along just fine without them, then there was something very wrong with that picture. She liked the idea of having someplace to call her own, and she liked that Echo was the one telling her this.
“I will…” Raven trailed off, debating what to say. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” Echo nodded in satisfaction. Knowing that Raven would think about it was good enough for her.
They talked about random things after that; Raven asked more about the Ice Nation and Echo asked about life on the Ark. They treaded lightly over the topic of the Mountain Men and what happened there, and the days that followed after the Drop Ship landed on earth. Talking to Echo was easy, and it caused Raven felt a mix of everything because of it.
Raven thought she would have been relieved when the week was over, but standing in front of the Grounders as she and the other Sky People were about to set out to return to Camp Jaha, she felt a bit empty. The last two days they were there she and Echo spent most of their time together, talking and actually smiling and laughing, and now that it was over Raven wanted to rewind time and go back to it. She couldn’t remember the last time she was carefree like that.
Echo came up to Raven before she saddled her horse. She grabbed her forearm and Raven grabbed hers back. Then she leaned in and said in a low voice, “Rimema, Reivon kom Skaikru, yu don ei pleis en Azgeda.”
Raven understood this. ‘Remember, Raven of the Sky People, you have a place in the Ice Nation’. Raven stepped closer to her, whispered, “Meet me near the border here in seventeen days and I will have an answer.” When she pulled away the woman was smiling ever so slightly, her eyes glistening. Then she said, “Theink yu, Ekou kom Azgeda.” Echo nodded, then walked away to join a dark skinned woman wearing nothing but white. Her long onyx hair cascaded down her back and a headdress that resembled jagged ice sat on top of her head. A large silver sword was sheathed at her side. She was sitting on a snow white horse with several other Ice Nation Grounders flanked beside her. The Ice Queen, no doubt. She stared at Raven as she rode by her, and Raven could have sworn there was a tiny smirk in the corner of her mouth.
“What was that about?” Murphy asked, stepping up beside Raven and watching as the Ice Nation took off.
Raven shook her head slowly, a little dazed. “Nothing. Just…making a new friend.”
“Well come on; let’s get the fuck out of here.” Murphy grumbled, then helped her up on the horse and then followed suit, positioning himself behind her and preparing for the long, uncomfortable ride back to Camp Jaha.
Was she going to leave camp and the people she’s known her whole life? The possibility hung in the air; she was heavily considering it. She figured in seventeen days she would have a solid answer, and no matter what, it would be the one to decide the rest of her life.