You – A Letter of Love Written in my Head

Author's note:

Let's pretend Clarke first sees a horse shortly before they ride back to Camp Jaha from TonDC in 211 after she rescued Lexa from Pauna (and masters to learn riding it in 5 secs ;) ) and not after she killed Finn and they ride to TonDC in 209.

You pace and I rest.

Your mind is on survival. It's always running. You can't lean back and relax.

Everything on Earth is still new to you. Your body and mind are overloaded. You needed time to learn to walk on uneven ground. To build a camp to protect yourself and your own. To sleep in a silence that is only accompanied by the wind rustling through leaves while tickling your skin. An occasional crack mixed in when animals scurry around sounding their sounds. Crickets chirping in the evening and birds towards the morning.

You must have learned a lot up until here. And I know I must be patient with you, because you are still learning.

If there is a moment of rest, and you are able to notice, you smile when you are seeing something new – the corner of your mouth tipping up, blue eyes sparkling. Amazement runs over your face then and it might enrapture your whole body. I saw it once and it captured me like the horse captured you when you stroked the white line of fur that ran down its brown head between its big brown eyes.

I wanted to touch you then – the corner of your mouth – your joy – and live in it. So innocent. So unconcerned. So opposite you. And yet that must be you. You caught yourself, once you remembered me, the stable men and our guards watching. But I still saw you.

In the gaps between actions, when we wait, you are pacing around my tent. You are restless. Your mind is running. Everything about war is still new to you, too. You care and protect and care and worry and care. So much. Too much. It's annoying and infuriating and yet I can't help but wonder how it would be to be on the receiving end of that. Your restlessness, your care and your willful head all seem to enter into your strength and I like to see your strength. I like to think yours matches mine. You don't give up and you don't give in. I see your strength plenty. But even more than your strength and your pacing I would like to see your joy again. It's what keeps knocking at the back of my mind. I want to conjure up a moment of it for you. But I'm not sure what you haven't seen yet.

I close my eyes and imagine stopping you in your stride. To touch your bright hair – its shade darker in the dimness of the candle light than in the day – and braid it like mine.

You might enjoy that.

I'd sit you down and keep you still, so that I wouldn't have to worry about you disappearing as quickly as you have arrived – in my tent, in my life, on my earth – anymore.

I would lean down, massage your shoulders, murmur sweet nothings in your ear and thus fight all of your tenseness away.

I would like to bring peace to you. And I am planning to do so if life lets me.

I open my eyes when you say my name. I watch you talk, wondering what exactly concerns you, when I know that all that concerns me is that I assigned a guard to you. I officially brought you under my protection. I agreed to a truce with your people and am about to walk my men into the biggest and riskiest war of all time - because of you. Because you make plans and have resources and somehow, anyhow have gotten my trust. Somehow you have gotten my whimsical, treacherous, vulnerable belief and hope, and thus all that concerns me is you.

Because if you fail, I fail.

And I might not even care about failing anymore.

I stand up when I can't go on listening to you worry about someone else.

I fear you know nothing of this. In fact I know that you don't. You have no mind to take a step back and see – see me. You're on survival. You can't turn it off. Have not learned to see and use the fleeting moments in which you are not in need to fight. And yet I am thankful that you don't. Because love is weakness and I can't be seen.