Hey guys, I'm sure the premiere might leave you craving for some Clexa so feel free to indulge. I'm thinking of slightly incorporating it into a Game of Thrones AU. But even if you don't watch Game of Thrones, you can still read it as I don't go overboard with the crossover and I pretty much explain things in any case. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy. Feedback and comments are appreciated!
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Hard-steel settled upon a raw and soft surface; even the tiniest movement penetrated a narrow gap upon the malleable layer. A slight withdrawal, a hesitation lasting a mere blinking moment by the wielder was followed by a soft gasp escaping through the lips of another as the cold blade was drawn back to its latter positioning. The cracked lips parted in an attempt to let out an uncontrolled wheeze. Burning blood pumped fiercely through veins, sending heat throughout both bodies, and so, loud drum-like heart beats resounded in an ungovernable tempo. They escalated with each passing instant in an unmeasurable velocity as if attempting to desperately tear apart from both chests. Glares locked. Breaths clashed. At the outskirts of their bodies shadows danced to the rhythms of their respiration. And the heat shared between them bounced along their flesh.
"Is this what you wish for, Clarke?" The faint, barely stable sounds drifted into the atmosphere which caused rupture to the boiling physiological tension.
Clarke's eyes slightly widened from the familiar tone. She tried to carefully digest and filter out the spoken words. Her body swayed as her eyes narrowed once again and her lips partly spread, "It's because of you I am like this."
A bolt of lightning ran through the other woman's body. In parallel reflection to when she had restlessly imagined her hundreds of warriors being burned alive, a searing sensation was dispersing throughout her entire being. And she felt the scorching fire inside of her. It ate her up inside, leaving marks that could never be repaired. She swallowed her words because they were too, on fire. She swallowed her words because she would never dare spread the blaze-coated words onto the surface. Her eyes were melting, but she knew that she must not fall. She straightened her back even further and lifted her chin.
"Say something, Lexa!" Clarke's blurted out words ended up knocking upon each other, and Lexa felt their heavy impact when shock waves radiated throughout her body. Clarke's hand trembled until she decided to press her knife a bit closer to Lexa's neck in a desperate attempt to squeeze out an explanation out of her.
"I wish I had something to say." The tall brunette could feel herself shrinking as she treaded lightly, trying to control the burning inside her guts. "I wish I could tell you a reason of why I left. A reason that would erase all the pain, an explanation worth the sacrifice of your people. But there isn't one. And there never will be."
Clarke followed with a loud shriek. Her eyes sharply glared at Lexa before she dropped her gaze to the ground and exhaled deeply, her entire body was suddenly withering to resemble the rotting inside her. She launched the knife to the floor and wobbled away towards the nearest wall. Although she was very restless, Clarke would not succumb to her urges to collapse and languish on the ground. Not in front of her people, certainly not in front of Lexa.
Lexa's eyes pursued her path, never once looking away. Clarke's pain was her pain –unavoidable.
"I understand," Clarke whispered as she nodded to no one in particular, keeping her jaw clenched tightly.
Clarke's clothes were ragged and just as messed up as her thoughts. Dirt and sweat and blood was soaked inside her torn sweater and pants. The leather from her knife holster was heavily worn out. Her bare skin was bathed in layers of sweat and salt. She licked her lips and tasted the blood of hundreds crawling upon her skin, digging further inside her very spoiled soul. She shriveled further inside herself. The armor of her spirit was stained by countless flesh wounds, she felt her brain being scratched out and burning from countless rewinds and excuses and explanations of the Mountain. She had lost every bit of strength to fight it and her feelings were overwhelming her. The only bit of knowledge that she was certain of were of Lexa's words spinning inside her mind over and over again. This is war Clarke, people die. Victory stands on the back of sacrifice. She knew war was not fair, war was never joyous. She understood Lexa's decision, she related to it as soon as she stopped denying it at the Mountain. That is why she knew that she could not trust her any longer, not anymore, because in war promises are non-existent, the future is eliminated, what is left-over is only the present.
Lexa watched Clarke as if reading every inch of her life from the past three months. She studied every piece of Clarke: her clothing, her disheveled hair, her scraped nails, her exhausted expression, her broken spirit. Lexa stared at her mirror-image and she knew why, she mutually understood Clarke. That is why Lexa's faint frown was not a demonstration of pity but that of empathy. Lexa was aware that it was due to this that Clarke became stronger, similarly she knew what followed was the exponential wrapping of this acquired strength into a stone-like heart: the smallest holes which are seeping out innocence become covered by a layer of cement.
Lexa felt the weight of her presence drowning both of them, as if the ocean was swallowing them whole into its unimaginable depths. Despite the pressing load immobilising Lexa to her very fingertips she forced herself towards the door. Momentarily she paused and slowly looked over her shoulder. "I will arrange for someone to handle the bathtub for you. Get some rest. We will discuss further matters later."
Clarke felt herself trapped inside what seemed like a compressed aquarium cubicle. Her eardrums received the message completely water-down: barely audible and very dull. Her eyelids sunk heavier, her body staggered before relapsing back to reality. In which time felt to have dragged on for an eternity, she spoke through her breath, "We need to talk now." At the absence of Lexa's words Clarke shifted her narrow gaze towards what conveyed the impression of a familiar trace of a shady tall silhouette. Despite the blurriness of this image Clarke was aware that Lexa had removed her presence from the room. The warmth vanished, Clarke thought to herself as her eyelids involuntarily sealed shut into complete darkness.
Clarke shifted to her side until a beam of realisation drove her to fly open her eyelids and sit upright. A loud gasp escaped as she reached out for her knife holster whilst rapidly glancing at her surroundings. She felt a softness compressing around her legs and buttocks and fresh air seeping into her lungs. She snapped out of her thoughts at the sound of a soft whisper, "Clarke." Lexa pivoted her torso towards the direction of the bed.
"How am I here?"
"You were on the ground. The bed is always much better to sleep on, I find," Lexa replied with a blank expression.
Clarke scoffed and vaguely rolled her eyes as she motioned her body towards the edge of the bed.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Lexa pressured on with an emphasis in her voice. Clarke blocked out the suggestion from her mind and forced herself to stand up. A loud groan in combination with a swift collapse onto the bed became the result of her achievement. Lexa's expression revealed a hint of arrogance before glancing back at the slightly opened window in the middle of the room.
The horizon was painted in velvet, orange and blue; the colors were mashed together side by side, dancing around each other as in waltz, passionately embracing one another. The view paralleled the one from Lexa's room. The view she would witness every evening before retiring to bed. It provided her with different shades of feelings.
The sun enveloped its fire around her city, immersing its warmth into her people. In the same way it emulated in her eyes; she would feel its strength. But such a feeling would pass when she looked beyond the horizon, beyond the protection of her people, beyond her own powers. As the sun would set and the city would vanquish of its light, the tint of fire in her eyes would disappear. The room would be left in complete darkness. The cool air would glide along her body, stripping her off her armor. And she would feel her body crashing. Caged emotions would try to escape through the cracks of a broken heart, a broken soul which was once thought to have been melded in hard iron. The weakness in her limbs would whimper out in response to her shaking jaw, her slightly ever perked up lips reciting to herself a list of what ifs. The light reflecting from the moon would create shadows of her silhouette and Lexa would stare upon the spiral of its darkness, paralysed by the abyss taking hold of her, engulfing her inside. She would anguish over painful memories. The flashbacks in her dreams were illustrated in dark crimson with the shadows of people extending and branching out from her own. She would witness clear visuals of Costia's decapitated head, the plunging sword in Gustus's flesh, the pool of blood around Anya's body and a pair of desperate eyes at the Mountain.
Lexa would reawaken to the sun caressing her skin, mocking her to wake up. Lexa's eyes became fire once again. " Love is weakness," she would separately pronounce each individual word in her thoughts as if consciously trying to split her head apart from her memories, her emotions, herself. This was reality: she was the Commander, a leader, a ruler.
Clarke huffed annoyingly at the sight of dozens of bruises and cuts along her shoulder blade and left leg.
"You need to wash yourself. It will help with the sores and infections," Lexa urged nonchalantly. Clarke sighed in acknowledgement. "Bandages, some fresh clothes and ointment are on the stool beside the bathtub," Lexa pressed on before taking a last look at Clarke and turning away. "We can talk once you're finished here."
A moment of an intentional silence was broken by Lexa's unintentional slip up, "We can only try, Clarke." With her back still turned away she continued, "We gain new experiences with each passing day. We feel the pain whistling mockingly from within us, pulling us towards it; but in the end we can only try out of sheer will to reel out of it, harbor the demons inside us and move forward."
"What if you are becoming the demon?" Clarke's words clung to Lexa's back, clawing it ruthlessly. Lexa bit her lip to contain her gasp. The Commander straightened her back once again and tossed up her chin. "You never are the demon. But they will forever be a part of you and only you can control them." Lexa perceived an ominous silence stretching out into the middle of the room, clutching to the edges of the walls. She landed her hand on her sword and slid her fingers around it. Thoughts lingered with the motion. Lexa thought of the second sword which she wielded, one which was acquired alongside her birth as the Commander. This double-edged blade, stretched out as an extension of herself, pierces through individuals beyond their physical encases. It plunges into their core, inside their very existence and identity; drenched in ever-lasting poison it spreads and destroys. It is her people's protection and her curse.
That is why she knew that she had to leave, she knew of her inability to look back. She felt herself collapsing at the thought of looking into Clarke's eyes that had once burned with passion, now burning with distaste and anguish. Eyes once filled with innocence and hope replaced by despair and helplessness. In fact, she did not deserve to turn around and see within Clarke right now, while her defenses were left so vulnerable. Consequently, she had not deserved to look through her at this moment and tell her that she did not want it to come to this, to tell her that she does care, to tell her that some happiness does exist because Clarke had showed it to her. Because in the end those words would have carried no weight, they had lost their meaning ever since she had walked away. And in the same way, her weightless words would have also drifted away along a tide of wind. So instead Lexa decided to take in a big breath before pushing herself past the heaviness fluctuating in the atmosphere, towards the door.
Clarke stared upon the outline of Lexa's figure, she compared it and laid upon its image an image of Lexa drifting farther away from the Mountain. The outlines fit perfectly upon each other: Lexa's back, steady and guarded, was shaking weakly. And Clarke looked upon it with marvelled eyes yet knowing, surprised yet not. Lexa quickly retreated, but Clarke knew.
Clarke followed in response by shifting all her weight onto her feet. As she stood up, Clarke undressed.
Her body quivered upon contact with the fairly warm water and her head was full. It was buzzing and she was afraid to close her eyes in order to indulge in a bath she had not taken in months. She knew of the vivid tormenting images she would have witnessed once she did and she was aware of the buzzing being turned into screeching.
She felt uncomfortable in the absence of the blade she had stolen from one of Lexa's people, which was most likely returned during her slumber. Her nakedness made her feel disgusting. She could not rest, she could not afford this luxury, and she had to be on her guard. Yet only a moment ago she was in this same position except under different circumstances. She cursed her weakness. But likewise she recognized that ironically, the person who had hurt her most, understood her the most. The created swivel of thoughts and emotions lead Clarke upon remembering her mother's words, maybe there are no good guys, in the same way as there were no bad guys. Clarke sank further into the bath in an attempt of washing away her endless thoughts, but to no avail. She sighed as she sat back upright and decided to finally clean her physical vessel. She scrubbed herself off of the dirt and sweat and blood but treaded lightly upon contact of soap and cloth on her wounds. The result became so satisfying to Clarke that she yearned for all the pain she felt to be scrapped off and drained off from inside of her in a similar manner. Instead she clenched her jaw and took a hold of herself. Control your demons.
She got out of the tub after she had set her delusions aside. The blonde squinted sharply as she pressed ointment upon her wounds. She wrapped the bandages around her shoulder blade and left leg and bound her breasts as well. She slithered into somewhat worn out yet tightly fit dark pants and put on a slightly long, loose white shirt with dirt stains visible on it. She slowly slid her arms inside a thick red jacket and strapped on her empty chestnut holster.
Clarke walked towards the door and could not have helped but feel slightly refreshed as the wind blowing through the window fluttered through her golden locks and provided her with a cooling breeze. Even if for a single second, even if she was aware of this empty appearance which was just a moment ago cheaply imitating the dirt, the sweat, the blood inside of her; she had finally felt as though she had come back onto the surface of the shore, with the sun and wind greeting her, after a long, dark and excruciating dive into the ocean. That is why she could not have controlled her lips vaguely curving upwards. She hesitantly allowed herself this single moment of weakness.