Ten Years Ago…
She pressed her face against the cool glass of the carriage, feeling the rough bumps of the dirt road through the vibrations traveling up the wheels. Her posture was slumped and leaning against the plush interior of the carriage. Not really paying close attention, her eyes stared lazily out at the forest passing by, letting her mind drift towards sleep.
"Clarke," she almost didn't hear her mother speak from across the carriage. The young princess could hear the reprimand in the queen's voice, and Clarke wasn't in the mood for it. She ignored her.
"Clarissa Elizabeth, sit up please," her mother repeated, taking care to call Clarke by her given name. "You'll wrinkle your dress."
"I don't care," Clarke grumbled under her breath. At age ten, she was nursing a newfound attitude that was blossoming as she grew older. "I've got plenty packed away, and Nurse could always fix my wrinkles."
"Nurse has plenty to do without fixing your dresses," Queen Abigail rolled her eyes and smoothed her own skirt on her lap, aging hands passing over glossy purple satin.
"That's her job, isn't it though? To take care of me and my things."
"That doesn't mean you need to go out of your way to give her more work."
"But I'm one of the Privileged," Clarke wore her social status like a gleaming medal around her neck. "Better than that – we're royalty. The royal family."
"Clarke, you really should learn-" Abby was cut off by the carriage coming to a sudden halt. Clarke lurched forward, nearly sliding off her velvet seat. Abby propped open the glass of the window and leaned out to talk to the driver. "Why have we stopped? We're not there yet."
Clarke watched a single rider approach on horseback, wearing a disheveled uniform and an ashen face. He looked as though he'd seen a legion of ghosts and lived to tell the tale. The driver said something to the queen, and Abby gathered her skirts.
"Wait in the carriage please."
Abby stepped out of the carriage and shut the door, walking out of Clarke's line of vision. Something isn't right, Clarke couldn't help but feel it in the pit of her stomach. She clutched her hands together, rubbing her thumbs over each other. She couldn't make out exactly what was being said outside, just the sounds of indistinct, yet insistent, conversation.
Clarke had been nervously playing with a lock of her long blond hair when the carriage door was thrown open. She jumped, pressing her back flat against the cabin's interior before recognizing her mother's face. "Mom, what's going on?"
"Clarissa, come with me." She grabbed her daughter's forearm forcefully and pulled her from the carriage to stand out on the road. Clarke felt a chill in the air around her and soon found herself longing for the thick blankets back home at the palace.
"Clarissa, you need to listen to my instructions and follow them exactly." Abby spoke urgently, crouching down to look at Clarke in the eyes. She certainly doesn't care about wrinkling her dress, Clarke remarked to herself. "Something's happened, sweetheart. You need to go with Lemkin, here," she motioned to the pale-faced rider on the horse. "He's going to take you to a safe house. You must stay quiet and stay out of sight. Don't say anything about who you are or that you belong to the royal family."
Clarke's brows furrowed, confused. "What's happening? Why do I need to go?"
"Something has happened back at the palace, Clarke. I can't go with you, but you need to leave. It's the only way I can keep you safe for right now." Abby clutched Clarke's hands, tears filling her eyes. "Go to this safe house, you'll meet Vera and she'll take care of you. Vera is General Kane's mother. You know General Kane, right?"
"Of course," Clarke nodded, picturing the imposing chief of the royal guard, with his hooked nose and stony eyes. "When will I see you again?"
"As soon as I can come, I will. You have to be strong, my darling. You hear me? Be strong, even – especially – when I can't be with you. Remember: don't tell anyone your real name. You cannot say that you're a Griffin, or show them your royal mark. Understand?"
"Yes, Mom," Clarke bobbed her head rapidly, so that it started to hurt. She felt like the blood was pounding inside her brain, and her stomach seemed to be lined with ice. "I don't want to go."
Abby pulled Clarke into a tight embrace. "You have to, my princess. My brave princess. I will find you as soon as I can. But these are dangerous times to be a Griffin. You must hide your identity until it is safer. Promise me that?"
"I promise."
"I love you, so very much Clarke."
"I love you too." Clarke hated to cry, but she couldn't stop it.
Abby gently pulled Clarke's wrist over towards her. She turned her daughter's arm over, exposing the royal mark Clarke had received on her as a child – the sign of the royal family. Everyone in the direct Griffin line had worn that mark on their left wrist for centuries. Abby pressed a soft kiss on Clarke's wrist, on top of the tattoo. "You are a Griffin, Clarissa Elizabeth. You will always be a Griffin. Right now, you may not be able to share that with the world, but one day the world will need you. As a Griffin, and as a leader. One day, you will be queen of Ark, and you can be proud of your name. You understand me?"
Clarke's mind couldn't keep up. Surely Mom will come back, she insisted to herself, She said I would see her again. As soon as it would be safe.
"Alright," Abby pulled herself together and straightened up into standing. "You be a good girl to Mr. Lemkin, now hear me? Don't give him any trouble, I know you like to do that."
Clarke let the guard help her onto his horse. She saw weariness in his face, but something else in his eyes. Sadness. No, more than that. Pity.
He settled onto his steed behind Clarke, steading her as he gripped the reins. Stirring the horse into a trot, Clarke caught the last glimpse of her mother, giving Clarke a dewy-eyed smile as Lemkin led them deep into the forest.
Clarke didn't speak during their journey; she couldn't find the words to say. It was as if her throat had dried up, sucking any conversation out of her. She tried to process what her mother had told her, reading between the lines. What are they not telling me?
They rode for hours. At times, it seemed like Lemkin had no idea where he was going. Sometimes they rode on a faint dirt trail, other times the horse plowed straight through the undergrowth. They never came near a main road, and Lemkin stayed alert and awake, listening for other riders. Clarke, on the other hand, found herself slipping in and out of sleep.
Clarke was roused out of her rocky sleep when the horse slowed to a stop. Groggy, she took in her surroundings. They were in a thick, wild part of the forest, only broken by a small clearing hidden among the trees. In the center of that clearing stood a small, worn-down cottage, with moss climbing up the warping wood walls and a thin line of smoke floating from the chimney. Lemkin hopped down off his horse first, turning to lift Clarke off. She landed on damp spongy soil, her proper dress shoes sinking into the dirt.
"Tor?" A woman crossed from the doorway of the cottage, tugging a crocheted shawl tight around her shoulders. Her short brown hair was laced with gray, and deep lines of age marked her face.
"Vera, I'm glad you're home tonight," Lemkin said, leading Clarke over towards the safe house. "I don't know if I can stay for long before they notice I'm gone."
"It's getting dark, you can't possibly make it back to Station City in time," the woman said. Clarke put connections together, realizing this must be Vera, Kane's mother. Her soft eyes were nothing like his hard gaze. She looked at Clarke with curiosity, then sudden comprehension. "Is this - Her Highness?"
"Yes," Lemkin answered for her, his red beard dipping into his chin as he nodded deeply, almost reverently. Clarke wasn't used to so much respect, even as the crown heir to the throne of Ark.
Something shifted behind Vera's eyes, as if she was snapping herself awake. She addressed Clarke, "Come along inside, dearie. You must be hungry."
Vera led Clarke into the small, one-room cottage. It was about as far from the royal palace as one could get, but Clarke appreciated the warmth of the open hearth. She sat down in front of it while Vera and Lemkin remained outside. Over her shoulder, Clarke watched Lemkin whisper something to the older woman. She showed visible pain at the news, her hand falling over her heart. "God save us all," she murmured, shaken. "When did they find him? How?"
"He was found dead just after his afternoon meal, slumped over his desk. Poison, they believe. They claim to be investigating, but we know there's more corruption in that palace than anyone would admit." Lemkin paused, also obviously upset. "The moment we heard it was an assassination, we were instructed to keep the princess safe. His daughter, as the heir, would be the next likely target."
His daughter. The words rattled in Clarke's ears like two coins in an empty jar. Everything fell into place. Everything made sense. Clarke rose slowly, eyes on Vera and Lemkin.
"My father is dead?"
Clarke remembered seeing the pure pity in their eyes before blacking out. She hated the sight of it.
Numb. That's how she felt. She didn't cry. She didn't scream, or break down. She thought she would, but no tears would come. Her throat felt raw and bare.
It's not that Clarke didn't mourn her father's death. She did, she'd loved him with all of her heart. He was her best friend, her role model. He wasn't just the king of Ark: he was all that mattered to Clarke.
So when Vera told her that yes, her father had been poisoned, Clarke didn't know how to react.
Once, as a small child, Clarke hadn't been looking where she was going and ran full-speed into a wall. Before the pain of the collision settled in, Clarke didn't feel anything. It was like her brain didn't know how to respond to the crash. Like she was numb.
That's how she felt now.
Clarke drew into herself, not speaking or even bothering to look up when addressed. She did everything that Vera instructed her to: switching into the commoner tunic and leggings that she was given, eating the simple soup that warmed her stomach but not her heart. Mutely sitting by herself, she halfheartedly listened as Lemkin said his goodbyes to Vera.
"You can't really be leaving, Tor," Vera pleaded with him.
"I don't want to, but I abandoned my post. They know how close I was to the royal family, and they'll suspect that I was out searching for the queen and princess. I don't want to place them in any greater danger. Besides," he sighed, wearily. "My daughter is back in Station City without me. If they can't touch me, I don't want them going after Reese. She's all I have left."
"I understand," Vera nodded slowly. "Her highness will be safe here."
Safe. Clarke didn't feel safe, she felt isolated. Not just physically – they were miles from any nearby signs of civilization. No, she felt alone in her grief, simply because neither Vera nor Lemkin knew how Clarke was grieving for her father's death. How Clarke felt a part of her had shriveled and died with him.
After Lemkin departed, Vera tried her hand at comforting Clarke again. She settled down next to Clarke by the hearth, speaking in a calming tone. "They will find who did this, dear. They will smoke out the traitors, and soon it will be safe for you to return home."
There it was again. "Safe".
"I can't imagine what you're feeling right now-"
"You can't." Clarke cut her off with two blunt words, and Vera got the message. Instead of pushing the grief-stricken girl any further, she busied herself with making a bed for Clarke.
It wasn't long before Clarke was settling in for sleep. The sun had long since gone down, leaving the hearth's firelight as the only illumination in the dark forest clearing. Vera had placed Clarke's sleeping mat next to hers, and Clarke slipped under the covers in silence. Even the blanket seemed too rough and intrusive against her skin.
She tried to fall asleep, willing herself to give up to the weariness and exhaustion that physically weighed her down. But, even as she listened to the steady rise and fall of Vera's breathing beside her, Clarke couldn't calm her mind. She felt wide awake, despite how tired her body seemed to be.
Clarke couldn't lay still, legs twitching to run and jump and kick. Rising from bed, she crept out the front door for a quick walk around the clearing. But not before grabbing Vera's cooking knife from its peg on the wall: she wasn't up for getting attacked by some wild animal.
Clarke took slow, measured steps away from the cottage, trying to steady her racing heartbeat. She counted to ten in her head, then started over and began again. The exercise usually calmed her down in times of stress. She'd just made it to five for the second time when the world exploded.
A burst of heat and light and sound erupted from behind Clarke, throwing her down onto the soil. She was slow to rise, ears ringing and head thudding. Turning, Clarke saw half of the eastern wall blown clean off the cottage: right where the beds were.
Clarke dragged herself towards the burning cottage, ignoring the screaming pain in her head and limbs. Her eyes searched desperately for Vera's sleeping form, but nothing resembling a human remained. That entire corner of the cottage had been decimated by some hidden bomb, and the rest of the house was burning in angry orange flames.
Her brain was jolted from its numbing grief by Clarke's fight-or-flight instinct. There was no way she could get back into that cottage without burning to death herself. And there was no sign of Vera anywhere.
In more ways than one, Clarke was completely alone.
Keeping the blazing heat at her back, Clarke scrambled into the pitch black forest in a desperate fleeing dash. She held Vera's knife out protectively, amazed and thankful for her odd sense of premonition from before the blast. Her feet, wearing humble sandals, caught on every large root and twig that Clarke passed, sending her stumbling in the darkness. Her left hand groped out blindly, pulling herself along. She'd just clambered over a rotting log when her foot missed the ground and sent her tumbling. Clarke rolled like an overturned barrel, hitting rocks and trees and bushes before bottoming out at the base of a hill.
Hours must have passed in that suffocating darkness, for when Clarke opened her eyes she squinted into stark, exposing sunlight. She was lying in a small forest clearing, tossed in with a thick carpet of leaves and dirt. Her right knee and head throbbed insistently, and though she had slit her fingers on the knife during the fall, she somehow had held onto it. She was covered from head to toe in mud and twigs.
And two boys stood over her, looking at her like she'd grown a second head.
Clarke snapped to, sitting upright and holding out the knife. She'd moved too quickly, and her head felt worse for it. The pain almost sent her collapsing again.
"What the hell happened to you?" The first boy asked, eyes wide. He was the smaller of the two, with glossy black hair that fell over his perplexed eyebrows. His companion looked like a giant, long-limbed fly, staring at her face through a pair of muck covered goggles. As if he could possibly see any better through those grimy lenses.
"Get away from me," Clarke pointed the knife at their heads and did her best to appear menacing. "I - I'm not afraid to use this."
"Yes you are," Bug-Eyes said, speaking through a runny nose, "Look at you, you're shaking."
"Am not." Clarke stuck out her chin.
"Are too."
"He's right," his smaller companion agreed.
"It doesn't matter," Bug-Eyes straightened up and crossed his arms. He was taller than Clarke, with arms and legs that seemed too long for his body. Even so, his face looked younger than hers. "You're our prisoner now. You have to do what we say."
"Who says I'm your prisoner?"
"There's two of us, and only one of you. We outnumber you, so that makes you our prisoner. Right Monty?" His sidekick nodded, eyes still wide.
"Wait," Clarke stopped them, trying to think on her feet. "Who are you guys anyways?"
"I'm Jasper," said Bug-Eyes, "And that's Monty."
"I can't be your prisoner. Won't your parents wonder where I came from, then?"
Jasper pulled his goggles off his eyes, "We don't have any parents. And even if we did, it wouldn't matter. We've run away."
"Well, so have I," Clarke stood up and puffed her chest out. In a way, she had run away. "So there."
"We're bandits," Jasper said proudly. "We steal stuff all the time, and we're really good at it, too. Very sneaky."
Monty elbowed Jasper in the ribs, "You can't go around telling that to complete strangers. She'll blow us in."
Jasper cursed, rather maturely for his young age. "Now we can't let you go, you have to be our prisoner." He spoke about a prisoner like it was a casual thing.
"Or," Clarke tried to reason with them, "You could let me join you. We could be like a bandit troupe, the three of us."
"No, no no no," Jasper shook his head. "No way. No girls allowed."
"Why not? I'm just as sneaky as you guys, I'd bet."
"I don't care. We don't need any girls around."
"Yeah, but I'm really smart," Clarke insisted. "And I'm – I'm a healer." Part of that was true. Throughout her entire life, Abby had always been very interested in medicine and healing, and she'd decided that Clarke should at least learn the basics of first aid care. "That's pretty useful, especially if you're bandits living out here in the woods."
"She's got a point," Monty spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
Jasper remained unconvinced, "I don't know if that's a good idea."
Clarke sighed. It was time to bring out her biggest weapon of all. "How old are you?"
"We're both nine," Monty answered for them.
"Well, I'm ten. I'm older, so you have to let me join you. It's the rules."
Clarke could see that every inch of Jasper wanted to turn her away. But his eyes betrayed it all: he wouldn't dare defy the often-unspoken "big-kid" rule. He glanced over to Monty, who shrugged, before finally breaking down. "Fine, whatever. You can join us."
Clarke smiled triumphantly.
"But, you have to sleep on the other side of our camp, because you're a girl. And don't touch my stuff, ever, or I'll slug you."
"And I'll slug you right back," Clarke retorted, getting the hang of it.
"First you have to swear our oath of loyalty," Monty said, rolling up his sleeves. He and Jasper moved towards each other, spitting into their right hands. They placed one palm on top of the other, then waited expectantly for Clarke to do the same. More than slightly disgusted, Clarke spit into her hand and added hers to the pile, trying not to think about the saliva.
"Repeat after me," Monty instructed. "I… wait, what is your name?"
She hesitated, giving her nickname. "Clarke," she said, then added, "The First."
"Alright then. I, Clarke the First, do solemnly swear that I will always have both Jasper and Monty's backs." She repeated this. "Where they go, I'll go. What they do, I'll do. We will be a team. I will be their trusty companion and we will be partners-in-crime."
"I will be their trusty companion and we will be partners-in-crime." Clarke ended the oath. Her heart, still heavy and icy from the tragedies of the night before, felt a tiny flicker of hope at the notion of belonging.
.
.
And that's the beginning! I plan for this story to be a combination of my favorite fairy tale/fantasy story cliches, all set in the lovely AU kingdom of Ark. I'm really looking forward to writing this.
And writing young Jasper and Monty was just too much fun for me to handle
Please review if you want to read more :)