The Sun, Moon, and Stars
By Kitsilver
That is what Clarke would mean to Lexa.
-o-
As a girl Lexa had often looked up at the stars and dreamed. Of life beyond these woods. Of the legendary people the very first Commander came from, the one who fell from the sky. What kind of people were they? What did they know? As a girl she had dreamed of flying past the clouds and into the stars.
Then her Nightblood was found and she was taken to the capital, and all of her dreaming ended. At least for a time.
-o-
Endless days of training her body and mind for the position that might one day be hers. Hours of running, and fighting, and shooting her bow. Of war games and strategy and lessons on what it meant to be a leader. Lexa was always good, if not one of the best, and her blood thrilled every time her sword clashed with an opponent or she won a battle of strategy.
But in the silent moments of an early morning, when the sky was still dark and the stars still shone, Lexa would often walk alone amidst the trees for which her clan was named. She would sit with her back to a tree and then, with all the constellations of stars above her, she would close her eyes and dream. Of what her life was like before this. Of the family she had left behind and now barely knew. Of the Commanders that had come before her and who would guide her one day. Because that was her destiny, Lexa knew. The little girl who had once looked at the moon and stars and dreamed of flying beyond the clouds was gone, but deep inside some part of her still dreamed, of something out there she had never seen and could not name. Something beyond duty and destiny.
-o-
She was never supposed to fall in love with Costia. But it snuck up on Lexa like the fog melting away in the early morning. Just a feeling every time she looked into Costia's brown eyes that something was changing. She could hear Titus's voice in her ear: that love was weakness, that she was the Commander, and there was no room in a Commander's heart for anything but her people. All of her people, and not one in particular, with bright brown eyes and hair as dark as night, whose smile made something in Lexa brighten, and whose touch awakened something in Lexa that she never knew was there. When they touched, it seemed to Lexa as if she could see the stars behind the lids of her eyes. With Costia she found something beyond duty, beyond destiny, who made her dare to believe in a future beyond what was ordained for her. Lexa would hold her and dream.
-o-
Every dream was shattered when Lexa held Costia for the last time.
No. Not Costia. This headless shell of a body that Lexa held in her arms was not Costia. Not this cold, and battered, and horribly wounded body. Costia was gone.
And Lexa felt every hope and dream die. She closed her eyes, feeling her heartbeat slow, the grief that threatened to tear her down slowly being shut out of her heart. She would survive, and she would do what she must. There was no room for love in her heart.
Titus had been right all along. Love was weakness.
-o-
There was no time for dreaming. Forcing the Ice Nation to bend the knee and subduing all the other clans took all that she had. Was it only a few years of war? It felt as if it would never end. But Lexa knew, with every life she took and every battle she won, that this was worth it. To unite her people for the first time, to stop the senseless violence and bickering among the clans, and unite them against their common enemy.
The Mountain.
This was her duty and her destiny. Nothing else remained.
-o-
And then one day, Clarke of the Sky People walked into her life.
Her tent, rather. Lexa had not known who would be walking in that day. She was angry about the deaths of her warriors, and those deaths would have to be paid for, but she was also curious. Who were these strange people and their strange weapons? Her scouts had told her they had fallen from the sky. Were they the people she had once dreamed of?
She had not dreamed of this.
Lexa knew when someone was afraid. She could see it in their eyes, in the drop of their head, in the way they folded their body. This girl was afraid, but she kept her head high, her gaze unbowed, refusing to bend or break. She met Lexa's eyes as an equal, and despite herself, Lexa was intrigued.
"So you are the one who burned 300 of my warriors alive."
Author's notes: I missed Lexa, what she meant to all of us, and what she meant to Clarke. This is what I imagine might have been going through her head through the events of seasons 2 and 3. I hope you're there with me for the rest of it.