Preamble: Hi. So I've been writing compulsively since the season 2 finale like most of you here. But I have a mind that hates to work methodically. I have notes scattered all over the place with ideas that don't go with one another. It is frustrating but I thought sharing publically (which I've never done before) might give my mental organization a push greatly needed. So far I've sketched out the first 5 chapters.

NB: it took me several attempts to figure out how this site works so, sorry if the content display is bad. Also, I don't have a plan about updates because of work, life and a stubborn creativity that won't work when needed!

PS: English is my second language. Be lenient for grammatical mistakes and syntactical/lexical errors. Critics and corrections are more than welcomed. Here is a piece of my mind. Enjoy!

EDITED: 09/01/2015

'Of old was the age ere aught there was,

Sea nor cool waves nor sand there were,

Earth had not been, nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.

The sun, the sister of the moon, from the south,

Her right hand cast over heaven's rim;

No knowledge she had where her home should be,

The moon knew not where their stations were.'

Norse mythology.

Voluspa: the wise-woman's prophecy from the Poetic Edda

And then, Clarke fell form the depth of the sky.

Prologue

Year 2149. Her name was Clarke Griffin. She was born and raised on the Ark, an ensemble of several space stations that took off before a thermonuclear war wiped out the Earth. As far as life went, space was all she'd ever known. She was the fifth generation of Griffin's living on the Ark and the fourth to have been born on it. Earth was nothing but a foreign sight, a distant and unreachable painting on the other side of the pressurized walls that constituted her orbital home. Clarke had always dreamed of the ground, ever since she was a little girl. She would fantasize about the stories her father narrated to her. She wished to taste the salty air from a stormy beach, touch the dirt of a rain-deprived day and hear the sounds of a luxuriant forest. Inside the Ark, everything was grey, metallic and tasteless, even the food was dull. There was no real silence to appease the mind, either because of the constant chatter of the amassed population or the incessant buzzing of the air vents.

The buzzing and the view were all she had in her cubicle.

Clarke had been born in the privileged class on the hierarchy of the Ark, which made her life a little easier compared to the working class, and more complicated in a way. Everybody had a role to play. As everything was scarce, there was no room for uselessness. From a tender age, children were taught about the history of the world, about biology, mechanics, physics…a well-composed curriculum for the survival of the stations and the perspective of life on Earth in a near but uncertain future. The higher you were on the hierarchy, the more people looked up to you. Clarke was the offspring of a doctor and a chief engineer, both members of the council. Needless to say, her parents had great expectations for her. She was trained by her mother in the Medical Bay after class and would tinker with her father once back in their quarters.

Being the daughter of two renowned citizens had its perks. They had bigger quarters, movie nights and access to restricted areas.

Her father would take her outside the Command Deck where there was an entire wall made of reinforced glass. It was the best view from the Ark. He would sneak her in with scraps of papers, plastic sheets and handmade pencils so she would draw the surface of the Earth and imagine the rest.

Her father was one to bend the rules, especially when it came to Clarke. But never did he show his worries about her future, and the rest of the population's. Clarke wasn't blind though. She was smart enough to know that the Ark wasn't meant to last this long. They had lived on the Ark for decades and life support was bound to be stretched to its breaking point.

Water was some days distributed sporadically. They even could go several days without it. They had to relocate hundreds of people from a section to repair the air system. And every time, her father's mood grew somber.

She didn't mean to eavesdrop but once the discussion between her parents started, she couldn't run from it. Her father was a genius and he was admitting his helplessness.

Clarke was there when the guards took him away. She tried to fight them off, supporting her father in his belief that the people had a right to know. A few hours later, she was hugging him for the last time and watched, crushed, as he was floated, sucked into the infinite void of space. Under Ark's law, added to the Charter under the Population Control Section, every person above eighteen years of age who had committed a crime, even minor, would be reviewed by the council and sentenced to death. Juvenile offenders would serve their sentence locked up until they were old enough for a re-trial or a one-way ticket to the stars.

Clarke didn't make it back to her quarters that night. It would be the first night of her eleven-month solitary confinement in the Sky Box, the juvenile prison. She had been found guilty of being an accessory to treason, becoming prisoner 319.

She spent most of her days drawing on the walls as a reminder that she still existed. Until one day, her door opened and guards forced her out. There was nothing scheduled for her that day so she panicked.

Before collapsing to the floor, she was held by her mother. She hugged her tightly until she lost consciousness. When she woke up, she wasn't in space anymore.

They were hundred juvenile prisoners sent to Earth as both a mean to lessen the load on the Ark's system and a test for survivability. It felt like her final journey and she was given a second chance to live.

Clarke was loyal to a fault, fiercely determined to save her people's lives, even if they did not deserve it. Clarke was benevolent and an idealist. She didn't believe in torture or violence to achieve peace. But the ground had often forced her to betray her beliefs to protect those she cared for. She took it upon herself to be the voice of reason but reality took a toll on her moral compass.

For Clarke was strong, wise and headstrong, she was equally vulnerable. Clarke was never prepared for what expected her on the ground - everyday brought a new challenge. Clarke relied also a lot on her feelings and it was a double-sided blade. She realized how much of a danger it was with the connections she's made with the fellow survivors. It was a downward spiral from bad to worse.

When Clarke was sent down to Earth, it was a month before the review for her sentence. It was one month before she turned eighteen. In thirty days, she had been threatened, beaten, poisoned, captured and imprisoned.

In thirty days, she had had to grow up fast, take unwillingly the lead and make life or death decisions. In thirty days, she had to face death countless times, kill and survive, for Earth was inhabited and life was thriving.

And then, without giving it a second thought, she realized she had turned eighteen. It didn't mean anything anymore. She couldn't stop and think about the tragedy of it. Age didn't matter on the ground. Only survival. And she would never remind anyone, not even her own mother, that the day she turned eighteen she was asked to deliver Finn to the Grounders, who started off as enemies then turned unlikely allies. His death was her gift in the name of truce.

Clarke was quick to give her trust. However, she usually gave it thoughtfully. She didn't give it to anybody.

There were only a handful of people she trusted with her life and all of them came with the drop ship. Lincoln, a rebel Grounder, later proved to be trustworthy when he helped them in the war against his people.

But Clarke should have never given it so blindly to Lexa, his Commander whom she had grown close with, for Clarke has been betrayed the worst possible way.

Lexa was named after her mother's birth village, Alexandria. Alexandria was a day trip south of Ton DC. It was the village of the River Clan. Her mother had met her father as he was on his way to the capital to trade thread and fabric. Lexa's father was from the Cotton Clan; a nation that lived farther in the south around a city called Atla where the soil was red and the fields were white. Her father never made it to Polis and lived a happy life by the river.

Life was bountiful in Alexandria and it made the village the main market place for fish. The village was prosperous but made other Clans envious. Her mother and father had fled it when her mother was pregnant with Lexa. The Ice Nation, excluded from the commerce, had raged war in time of its own people's starvation. They destroyed the village and everyone in it. Her father fought valiantly but there was nothing more to be done except die. He had to accept defeat and retreat to live another day and protect his family.

They were heading to Harris, home of Maungedakru – the Mountain Tribe also known as the Stone Clan – where they would seek the Commander's protection and a place in her village. But on their way, they met warriors from the Woods Clan who had heard about Alexandria's fate. Her father told them that it was too late for their village but others might need their help. The General of the Gonakru (group of warriors) tasked her Second, one called Indra, to escort them back to Ton DC where they could find shelter. Impressed and relieved, her parents decided to stop their exodus at a small village on the outskirts of the warriors' town. And, as if it were their destiny, Lexa's mother gave birth to the baby girl a few hours after they stepped inside the gate.

Her father never forgave himself for fleeing, so when the Ice Nation came to the Woods Clan years later, he was among the firsts in line in the battle.

He fought until his last breath. The Ice Nation was defeated and went back to their territory. Lexa was five years old when he died.

Grounders were taught to grieve and then to never speak of the dead again. She was given his dagger when the pyre was lit on fire. She branded it proudly as he burned.

Her mother would tell her stories about faraway lands and tales of a brave man who traveled the Earth to find love. Lexa would find her mother waiting for her, after a long day of some grounder training, with a hot meal, ready to snuggle under the furs of their tiny bed. The stories stopped when Lexa's mother was taken by the Blood Cough during her eighth year. She became a ward of the Commander, along with many other children.

Lexa grew up and was trained on the art of archery, swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat but also strategy and warfare. At ten, her peers thought of her as a prodigy. She was the youngest of the Clan to be called as an apprentice. At ten, she became Anya's Second. Anya was a General to the Commander and the leader of the village that saw Lexa's birth. It was a great honor to the young Lexa. By the age of thirteen, at the death of the Commander, the spirit chose her and she became the youngest Commander ever to lead, though the mentoring and intense training did not stop before she turned sixteen – the official age for a Second to become a warrior on their own.

During her second year as Commander, Lexa saw people from Floudongedakru, the Boat People that flanked the capital of Polis, arrive in Ton DC, scared of the proximity of the Ice Nation that was still trying to gain land and power. Polis – previously known as Philly – was caught between Boston, home of Azgedakru, and Ton DC. Among the refugees was a girl Lexa's age that attracted the Commander's attention. The girl had dark brown hair, brown eyes with golden flakes and sun-kissed skin. It took several weeks and multiple attempts for Lexa to learn who she was – Indra and Anya keeping her well occupied with their mentorship. She heard from gossips that the girl had been Luna's Second and the leader herself had asked the girl and her family to leave the shore.

Anya had taken the girl under her wing and presented her to Gustus, Lexa's newly appointed General, who was in need of a new Second. Anya was the one who introduced her to Lexa. Costia had become part of the Woods Clan and keeper of Lexa's heart.

Costia had been a constant in Lexa's life, balancing the duty and the personal.

She was her beloved and her comfort, supposed to be bound to Lexa in the spring of their sixteenth year – after she was to be officially marked as Commander – in front of the eight Clans Lexa had managed to ally and make peace with so far. But the Ice Nation had struck again, even more villainous now. Their new leader, self-proclaimed Ice Queen, was envious of Lexa's territory and her position as Commander of a growing coalition. Commander Lexa sent word that the Ice Nation would either be taken over or cease to exist if the Ice Queen would not surrender herself to the Coalition in the plains of the Horse Clan, near Pittsbur, their ruler's village. The plains were a strategic battlefield that would not allow surprises and keep the war away from Ton DC and Polis.

Costia did not like war but, as a Second, she was supposed to be part of the second wave. But the war never happened, not the one Lexa thought of. Costia had been kidnapped by the Ice Nation's spies. She had become a pawn in the hands of the Ice Queen.

Two days after Costia's disappearance, the cruel leader summoned Lexa. And when they came face to face, Lexa and her closest Generals, Anya and Indra, were distraught to recognize Faora. It was tradition for Generals to have several Seconds, as there were more potential warriors than leaders to train them. Faora had been Anya's Second for two years before young Lexa came along. Faora wanted to be Commander but resented Lexa for her natural abilities. When Anya called Faora out on her rage and jealousy, she took a swing at her mentor who knocked her to the ground and told her she was dismissed as a Second. Faora had left the village and nobody ever saw her again. Lexa wished she'd never seen her again.

The Ice Queen shot the Commander a dirty look while Lexa looked daggers at her. These two had always hated each other's guts.

Lexa scanned the crowd but could not see Costia's whereabouts. Not until one of her enemy's Generals reached for a satchel and threw it in Lexa's direction. Indra was the one to catch the bag. Gustus and Anya fought for Lexa not to look inside it, to keep her where she stood. Lexa would have slain the Ice People right there and then.

But the Ice Queen proclaimed, before any step was taken, the surrender of her nation and her wish to enter the Coalition. Faora smiled in victory. Revenge was sour.

The death of Costia had hit Lexa hard but being unable to avenge her lover, her promised, the woman she loved and gave her heart to, was what truly broke her. Lexa put up walls around her heart and a mask of indifference on her face. Gustus had asked to be Lexa's personal guard, as he felt compelled to redeem himself, compensating guilt with over-protection.

Lexa relocated to Polis after Costia's body had been brought back to Ton DC. She had waited for the ashes to be scattered by the wind before packing up a few belongings and relinquishing authority and leadership upon the village to Indra. Staying in Ton DC was too painful and Lexa did not need her mind to be clouded by her emotions, by loss. Lexa decided that Polis would become her home as it had been to previous Commanders. On her way to the city, Lexa swore to herself she'd never let anyone in again.

The next three years of her leadership were quite uneventful, by ground standard. She was visiting Ton DC and perched in the tree, where she secretly drowned her unquenched sorrow, when the sky burst with fire. She did not know it then but that box falling from the stars would be her undoing, and it would bear the name Clarke.

Lexa grew fonder of Clarke the more time she spent in her company, planning the take down of the Mountain and the rescue of both their people. Lexa was reluctant to the closeness at first. Clarke clearly did not have the same views on decorum and personal space. Lexa tried to deny herself the proximity with all her will but, she was affected by Clarke and it was a fight she could not win. Her heart had gained a mind of its own.

Lexa, leader of the Trikru, Heda of the twelve Clans, heir to the warrior's spirit and protector of her land, had been brought down by a shooting star.

She had grown close to the girl and had betrayed her the worst possible way.