Title: "Hunger of the Pine"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13/Light R
Character/Pairing: Clarke, Indra, Lincoln, Lexa, eventual Bellamy/Clarke
Spoiler: N/A
Length: Part I of III
Summary: 85 years after a nuclear war, Jake Griffin discovers that Earth is habitable and sets out to prove it. He takes his daughter with him. Clarke survives the trip and grows up Trigedakru. She becomes Trigedakru. But then, another dropship lands and she has to make a choice. Or, a reimagined version of seasons one and two where Clarke is raised on the ground and all roads still lead to Bellamy Blake.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Author's Note: Many years ago, when I still had time to read fanfiction, I stumbled across this "Veronica Mars" fic that reimagined a season one where Lilly Kane didn't die. To this day, ten years later, it remains one of the best fanfics I've read, and I've always wanted to try something similar, to take the major talking points of plot and character but spin them into a parallel universe that has the same outcomes but tells the story in an entirely different way. And so, despite having written half of the next chapter of "We Own the Sky," I present an experiment in fanfiction writing. Chapter titles courtesy of "Daredevil." "The Night of the Falling Stars" story courtesy of N. Scott Momaday – "The Man Made of Words" is a very powerful read. Title and quotes courtesy of Alt-J. Enjoy.
"Sleeplessly embracing, butterflies and needles…"
Clarke's first memory – her first real memory – is the sun on her face. It's bright, so she has to squint through the glare, but she can feel it, warm on her cheeks when she raises her face to the sky. It's better than she ever imagined.
She takes a moment to enjoy it, but just one moment because she still needs to find her daddy. There's blood in her eyes that makes it harder to see and her head hurts but she pushes to her knees and then to her feet. The dropship is on fire and she knows that she needs to get away. Her daddy is an engineer. She knows how things work. But she has to find him first.
It doesn't take long. He's in the grass a few meters away and lying on his back. "Hey there, kiddo," he says. "Guess we made it."
She kneels down beside him. "There's a pole in your belly."
He smiles and blood leaks from his mouth. "I know."
"I don't know what to do." Clarke angrily brushes back tears. She rode in a dropship all the way to the ground. She's not going to be a baby now.
"Sing me a song. All the Pretty Little Horses, sing it to me."
She swallows her fear, the blood in her eyes and the blood staining her daddy's shirt, and lifts her chin the way her mom always does before a council meeting. "Okay," she says softly. "I can do that."
Gently, very gently, she rests her daddy's head in her lap and brushes his hair from his forehead. She's seen her mom do it a thousand times when he's had a bad day and even with the pounding in her head, she remembers the steps. She hums until her daddy's eyes close and his breath stops rattling in his chest, until he's still in her arms with a hint of a smile on his face.
It's how they find her, a little girl cradling her dead father under a bright summer sun, blood on her cheeks and tears in her eyes but courage in her heart.
Gada bilaik triip kom skai, they call her. The girl that fell from the sky.
They give her to Indra because she has a son the same age and because they think she's the only one with any hope of turning the skai gada into a gona. Clarke's first night, Indra watches her coolly.
"Yu ste kwelen. Ai na klay yu yuj."
Clarke stares at her blankly. "I don't understand.
Indra jerks Clarke to her feet. "Who are you?"
"I'm Clarke Griffin."
Indra's eyes narrow. "You are Trigedakru now. Here, you fight or you die."
She holds out a knife with a short blade that Clarke thinks will be sharp to the touch. She stares at it with wide eyes. At home, they lived off protein paste and recycled water. There was no need for knives outside Medical. It's the first time she's seen one up close. Indra makes a disgusted noise when she doesn't take it, but Clarke has always been a quick learner, realizes this is her only chance. She's only five and without Indra and her people, she won't survive. She wants to live. Before Indra can pull her hand back, Clarke snatches the knife out of her grip and holds it in front of her.
"I fight."
A hint of a smile curves Indra's mouth. "You're not as weak as I thought." She takes back the knife and sheathes it in her belt. "Go to sleep. Your training begins at first light."
Clarke's bed is a lumpy mattress but she obediently crawls beneath the ragged blanket and closes her eyes. Sleep doesn't come. She can't stop thinking about her mom. She didn't make it on the dropship, doesn't know they landed. Her mom probably thinks she's dead.
Tears burn her eyes and she curls into herself, buries her wet cheeks in the scratchy pillow. She waits for Indra to sing her a song or brush a kiss over her forehead, but when she opens her eyes, the tent is empty.
She's completely alone. It's her first lesson on the ground; she never forgets.
They give her to Nyko.
Clarke trips over a rock and slashes a gash across her knee, tears a hole in her pants too. It hurts but it's not bleeding much and she pauses behind the latrines, tries to figure out what to do. Her mom always cleaned her cuts with rubbing alcohol and a kiss, but they don't have those things here. They do have water and bandages, and she quietly wipes down the wound with boiled water and wraps it up, tries to hide the damage before Indra sees. The warrior woman already thinks that Clarke is weak and she doesn't want to give her an actual reason. Still, Indra spots the tear in her pants and then her secret's out.
"Who did this?" Indra demands and examines the wound. Her touch isn't gentle like Clarke's mom's and it makes Clarke wince.
"I did," she says and raises her chin. She keeps her eyes on Indra, even though she expects the other woman to slap her across the face for ripping her pants.
"Come with me," Indra says instead.
Clarke follows her to a small hut with dried leaves hanging from the ceiling and clay pots all along the walls. There's a man too, bigger than her daddy, with dark, tangled hair and tattoos on his arms. Clarke hides behind the door while Indra and the man talk, eyeing the enormous pot hanging over the fire. It reminds her of the stories her mom used to read before bed, witches and wolves and breadcrumbs to mark the trail home. She isn't sure if the man will give her candy or boil her for his dinner.
Indra tugs her inside. "Ai gif yu a fisa." You are a healer.
The huge man crouches down and Clarke boldly meets his gaze. She knows better than to let him see any weakness, but when he looks at her, his eyes are kind. "Heya. Ai laik Naiko. Lei na kom hei yu." Hello. My name is Nyko. It's nice to meet you.
Tentatively, Clarke smiles at him, feels like she can breathe for the first time since her daddy buckled her into the dropship. It's not the free air, even she knows that. It's someone being kind to her. It's someone reminding her that she matters.
She gives herself to Kolya.
It's the easiest choice she's ever made.
He has skin the color of her daddy's coffee after he's mixed in the powdered milk and eyes the same shade as Wells', a deep dark brown that reminds her of fresh soil beneath her toes. The earth is not just their home but also their responsibility. She's learned these things from Nyko. Without it they will die and they must always protect it.
"Ai laik Koalya," Kolya says when she comes back from gathering roots and finds a strange boy in her tent, shoulders straight like a warrior even though they're the same age. She knows he's Indra's son – she can see it in the familiar shape of his eyes and slant of his nose – but she's not sure how she should act around him. She lowers her eyes and studies the ground, gives him the respect she assumes he deserves. It was always how she greeted the chancellor back on the Ark; it can't hurt to try it here.
Kolya surprises her, takes her hands and grips them in his. "Yu laik nu sis." You are my new sister.
"Ai laik Klark," she says in halting Trigedasleng that makes Kolya laugh.
"You have much to learn," he says in English and grabs her hand, pulls her out of the tent and towards the cook fire. "I am hungry."
With Kolya's help, she chooses a piece of roasted meat and manages to swallow it without wanting to throw up. She's growing used to the strange food, just like she's learning a strange language and living in a strange land.
She looks at Kolya, eating his dinner with smiling eyes that remind her of Wells', and for a moment, this place doesn't feel so strange. Maybe if she's lucky, one day, it might feel like home.
Clarke spends the winter waiting.
There were no seasons on the Ark, just endless months of chilly, processed air, and she isn't prepared for the weather to change. She doesn't know to wear a sweater or thicker socks, but Kolya doesn't mock or tease, only helps her find her way through a world she doesn't understand.
She's with Indra three months when the air grows colder. The days get shorter and the nights get longer and one morning she pushes open the flap to their tent and all she can see is white.
She stands in the doorway and watches the flakes fall lazily from the sky, layer upon layer of bright, icy white. Kolya comes up behind her and stares into the yard.
"Snow," he says slowly and she repeats the word, lets it linger on her tongue. She does the same with the flakes when she turns open mouth to the sky, lets them turn to ice inside her mouth.
"Come," Kolya says and tugs on her hand. "I will teach you how to build a snowman."
It's the first of many snowmen they build that long winter. In tonDC, there's always work to be done, but every now and then, Indra remembers that they're children and lets them build forts from the packed ice and carve angels in the endless fields of snow.
One night, Clarke stares up at the sky and watches the stars, quickly finds the Big Dipper before moving onto Gemini. Kolya has been teaching her the stars and she's excited to find the twins on her first try. Castor and Pollux, she remembers, one mortal and one born of the gods, but it never dimmed their love for each other. In the sky, she had a brother of her heart, a loyal friend that chased her through the halls and brought her art supplies from the market. She'd once heard her mom say Wells went without dessert for a month just to buy her a single crayon.
Thinking about Wells makes the tears come again, makes the stars shimmer so they're a glittery blur against the dark sky. He's up in that sky, in the Ark with his dad and her mom and all the people she's ever known. Her eyes burn from trying to hold back her tears.
She wonders if she'll see anyone she loves again.
They let her keep her father's watch.
"From your nontu," Indra had said and thrust a flaming torch into Clarke's hand, cocked her head at the pile of branches and twigs in the center of the yard.
A small group of Tree People were there too, with bowed heads out of respect for the dead, because Clarke's daddy was lying at the center of the pile. He was wearing a new shirt and had symbols painted on his face, but he was still her daddy, even with his eyes closed. He'd looked calm and happy, like when her mom snuck up behind him to give him a kiss. Clarke was glad that the pole wasn't in his stomach anymore, that there wasn't any blood at all.
She'd followed Indra's lead and touched the torch to the branches, watched the fire get bigger and bigger, so big that the only thing left of her daddy was ash and dust. She'd cried a little too but Indra hadn't yelled and Kolya had let her rest her head on his shoulder. They let her have an extra ration that day at lunch.
She cares for the watch like it's the Eden Tree, even though there are trees everywhere she looks. The Eden Tree was the most important thing on the Ark, the only piece of the earth they had left.
It's too big for her wrist so she wears it around her neck, tucked close to her heart where her daddy still lives. Her daddy and her mom and Wells and the life she used to have. She has her memories and no one can take them from her.
The days grow longer and Clarke stops searching the sky. It's been months and no dropships have come. Her mom, Wells, they think she's dead. No matter how long she waits, no one is looking for her.
The night of the first thaw, Kolya pulls her into a dance and patiently teaches her the steps. It involves something called a grapevine and skipping in circles and she lets herself go, long braids whipping around her face.
This is her life now and all she can do is live it.
Days turn into months turn into years and Clarke throws herself into becoming a fisa. A healer. There are daily weapons training sessions with Indra, but she spends most of her time with Nyko learning the names of plants and roots and weeds and shrubs, practices her letters in the hard packed dirt of his hut. She would have started kindergarten the year she fell from the sky, learned her letters on a tablet she'd charge beside her bed each night. Few Trigedakru can read and write – it's a useless skill in a world without a written language – but Nyko insists she learn so she can identify the pots of herbs and potions, label the drawings in her journal. It's hard work without books or paper but she pushes through. It's one more thing that links her to the girl she used to be.
One morning she wakes up and can't remember her mom's face. It makes her heart pound against the watch she still wears around her neck. Indra has been good to her, kept her clothed and fed and taught her to wield a spear with deadly accuracy, but she's not her mom. Her mom is dark hair and warm eyes and a gentle voice singing her sleep. Her mom is in the sky and she's forever trapped down here.
But that afternoon, as she's practicing an incision on a hunk of boar, she sees her mom in the careful motions of her hands. She sees her mom in all the lessons she's learned, to slice people open and sew them back together, to hold a blood vessel between her fingers and stop a bleed with homemade clamps. She sees her mom everywhere in Nyko's hut.
After work, Clarke looks at the stars and realizes how wrong she's been. Her mom is in the sky and she's down here, but it doesn't mean she can't carry her with her.
She's ten when she meets Lincoln.
He's fifteen, almost a man grown, when he pokes a shaved head into the medical hut and says her name.
"Klark kom Trigedakru," he says in a low growl. "I hear that you draw."
She stares at him wide-eyed. She's heard of Linkon kom Trigedakru. He was born in tonDC, but after his parents died, raised by his mother's people by the sea. He's only recently returned to train as a gona amongst his father's kru. None of this is news, but his knowledge of her art is worrisome. Indra has little patience for hobbies and she's made her preferences known. It worries Clarke how Lincoln knows her secret.
He smiles and opens his hands to show that he holds no weapons, that he means no harm. "Nyko is my friend and he told me of your skill." Slowly, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small book filled with a series of crude drawings. "I am hoping you can teach me."
Lincoln is even bigger than Nyko but his eyes are also gentle, so Clarke smiles shyly and pulls her sketchbook out of its hiding place. "What do you want to learn first?"
They start with trees and rivers, lakes and streams, the mountain looming dark and sinister in the distance, and when they've sketched Lincoln's world in charcoal, they move onto hers. She shows him a moonrise and a solar flare, the mess hall and med-bay and little apartment that was her home.
Remembering her old life doesn't make her cry anymore but it still makes her chest ache thinking of her mom alone in that apartment, always wondering and never knowing what happened to her family.
"I left my people too," Lincoln says, eyes fierce with solidarity, and some of the ache eases. It's easier, knowing she isn't the only one that feels this way.
"You're my people now," she says and beneath the drying herbs, the air heavy with the scent of lavender and cloves, she feels a little more like she's home.
Clarke sees Polis for the first time the year she and Kolya turn twelve.
There's a yearly gathering of the ten Trigedakru clans and Indra finally agrees to bring them, rolls her eyes at the squeals that fill their tent, but when she ruffles their hair on her way to sword practice, Clarke knows she's pleased.
The journey is long and hot, mosquitos buzzing and sweat matting her hair to the back of her neck, but Clarke doesn't mind. For five years her world was a metal box, and since, she's only seen a mile or two beyond tonDC's borders. Purple frogs dart across the path and the trees have pink leaves, bright red squirrels scampering up their trunks. At night, she sketches beneath a half-moon, a sea of glowing insects swarming around her head. Kolya keeps lookout but Clarke thinks even Indra wouldn't care. It's summer and their people are at peace and Polis is less than a day's ride away. Life is good.
The capital comes upon them without warning, an urban sprawl at war with the encroaching forest. tonDC is a huddle of thatched roof huts and pine log storehouses, but Polis still clings to the old world. The buildings are made of metal and concrete, like the picture books the Chancellor would read Clarke and Wells on the Ark, and there are burned out shells of automobiles lining the broad roads. She stares open-mouthed as Indra leads their small party into the heart of the city.
It's there that she meets the Heda.
Clarke has heard of Leksa kom Trigedakru her entire time on the ground, the breaker of ice, the leader to rule them all. She expects a mighty woman but the Commander is a girl with bright eyes and an impish smile. She's Clarke's age, maybe a year older, and while she understands the grave responsibilities resting on her shoulders, she can't quite hide the twinkle in her eye.
She steps forward when Indra presents her children, a red-haired girl trailing behind her. Clarke will later learn that the girl's name is Costia, the Heda's most trusted attendant, and then, so much more.
"Heya, Indra," Lexa says. "Chon laik goufas?"
Indra pushes her son forward with a grunt. "Ai non, Koalya." Clarke steps forward without prompting. "Ai nona, Klark."
The second name piques Lexa's interest. "I've heard of you, Klark kom Skaikru –"
"Trigedakru," Clarke interrupts. "Ai kom Trigedakru."
For a moment the world stops, a hush falling over the court as they wait for the Heda's reaction, but Lexa doesn't slap Clarke for her insolence or remove her from the hall. She nods slightly, admitting her mistake. "I've heard of you Klark kom Trigedakru," she says. "You have much skill as a fixa."
Clarke manages to meet the Heda's eyes while her cheeks flame with embarrassment. Later, Indra will probably kill her and she'll deserve it. She and Kolya begged for weeks to attend this meeting. They've been there three hours and she's already humiliated her family. "Nyko is a good teacher."
"Come," Lexa says. "We have much to discuss."
Clarke can feel Indra's eyes on her as she exits the hall with Lexa and her entourage, dark eyes boring into the back of her skull, pleading for her daughter to remember her manners, to remember her place. Clarke tells Lexa of how she arrived on the earth and her life in tonDC. She's more vigilant with her answers than before, choosing her words carefully and never saying more than necessary. Costia keeps their wine cups close to overflowing but Clarke manages to keep her wits about her.
She wakes the next morning with a pounding headache and eyeslids that feel like sand is trapped underneath them, but Indra isn't glaring at her. Clarke learns that Lexa has offered her a place in her inner circle when she comes of age, a great honor for a girl that wasn't born Trikru.
"You did well," Indra says and brushes a quick kiss over Clarke's cheek.
They don't talk about it again, but Clarke feels the press of Indra's lips long after they've returned home. It reminds her of her mom. It makes her think she's finally found someone to fill that empty place in her heart.
She loses her virginity when she's fourteen.
Penn is her age, tall and muscled, and he's been giving her looks across the campfire for the better part of a year. Clarke knows what those looks mean and she doesn't understand the big deal. Sex is a natural part of life amongst their people and one night they share a cup of dandelion wine for courage and get down to seeing what the big deal is about.
Clarke doesn't get it. It's awkward and painful and over practically before it starts. Penn lies next to her on the blanket, panting heavily and staring at the woven branches that make up their roof.
"Good, right?" he asks but Clarke doesn't answer, stares at the ceiling and hopes they did it wrong. What happened couldn't be all there is to it.
The next morning, Indra shakes her awake before dawn and pushes a steaming cup of tea in her face. "Drink," she orders, lips pressed together so tight they're practically white.
Clarke's a woman grown, a healer in the service of the Heda. She's too old to be taking orders. But she's apparently not too old to fear the knowing look in Indra's eyes. She reaches for the cup and gingerly takes a sip. The tea is hot and bitter and burns her tongue, but she's a healer – she knows better than to stop drinking. Indra watches her until the cup is empty in her hand.
"You are too young," Indra says.
Clarke bristles at being told what to do. "I can make my own decisions."
Indra's jaw tightens. "Do you want a goufa?"
Clarke suddenly doubts herself. She understands where babies come from, but it never crossed her mind that it could happen to her. "No," she says softly. "I just wanted to see what it was like." She can't hide her grimace. "You don't have to worry. It wasn't worth repeating."
Indra's expression softens and she takes Clarke's hands in hers. "I was once young and felt the same, but I grew up and I learned. It's fine to be curious, but it's better to be prepared. Many things can happen when you are not ready. You could get a disease or suffer a broken heart. You could die." She holds up the cup. "Do you understand?"
Clarke thinks she does. Not why the sex was so bad, but why she shouldn't have done it. She doesn't care about Penn beyond a fond affection. She isn't ready for a baby, and she doesn't want to die bearing one. So much could have gone wrong and she never thought about the consequences. "I understand."
Indra smiles, a rare smile that takes years off her face, and wraps Clarke in a tight hug. She's never felt closer to her.
The year she turns sixteen, a horse arrives in Polis bearing Costia's body, her head stowed in a saddlebag and the Ice Clan's sigil carved into her spine. She was born in tonDC and her grieving mother wants her buried amongst her ancestors. Clarke stands in the yard between Indra and Kolya to watch the heda burn her heart. Her dad's watch feels impossibly heavy on her wrist.
Gone is the girl the commander was, leaving a hard-eyed woman in her place. "Yu gonplei ste odon," Lexa says softly and the village responds to her call. Mourners have come from all ten villages for Costia's funeral and their yells fill the yard. To Clarke, it sounds very much like a war cry.
"It is a sad day," Indra says, eyes never leaving the burning pyre. "When we fear our own more than Maun-de."
Clarke shivers even though it's the dead of summer.
The world changes.
The Mountain grows bolder and the Trigedakru grow stronger.
Lexa is ruthless and inexhaustible, and before the year is done, there are twelve clans united under her sword.
They celebrate the Winter Solstice with a melee and war games and Clarke watches the festivities with a heavy heart.
She was born into a world forged by war. She didn't fall from the sky to live it all over again.
There's a story that Penn's Aunt Kiwa tells around the campfire.
Clarke heard it her first night in camp, beneath a blanket of stars that shone so much brighter from the ground. Kiwa was young, but gifted with a song for her voice, and most nights she held court by the fire, her voice lilting and musical as she spun tales that were nearly lost to the wars.
"They were awakened by the light of the falling stars. And they ran out into the false day and were terrified. They thought the world was coming to an end. They took the falling stars as a sign. It was an omen and bad things followed. From that day forward, they knew nothing but sorrow."
Kiwa tells the story again on a late summer night, with fireflies dancing though the muggy air and laughter riding on the breeze. There's wine and song but when Kiwa speaks, everyone falls silent.
"You can imagine something like that happening directly overhead, this havoc in the sky," she says, eyes deeply shadowed by the dull light of the fire. "It became part of their blood memory, the winter when the stars fell from the sky."
In the distance the mountain roars and then the alarm sounds, a low, throaty warning that has the village scrambling underground. Clarke sits with Kolya in a corner of Nyko's root cellar, knees pulled tight to her chest while a shower of fire and brimstone falls from the sky.
That night, a star falls from the Ark. It brings nothing but sorrow.
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