Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

-William Butler Yeats


Clarke Griffin's journey to the ground began with her locked in a cramped cell awaiting execution for treason. It was fitting, she thought, that it would end the same way.

Maybe some would find her resignation disturbing, but she was never supposed to survive her eighteenth birthday, and that knowledge had hung over her head since the day had come and gone in the months after the Mountain fell. Maybe she had just been living on borrowed time.

It wasn't that she was ready to die; no one ever is. There were so many things she had read about Earth; good things, beautiful things. she longed to take in with her own senses. She wanted to experience the raw power of the ocean, to feel the sea spray in her face and warm sand beneath her toes. She wanted to see the land blanketed by winter's first snowfall, to see the exquisite symmetry of a snowflake up close. She wanted to see the children she led grow and realize their potential, to be there when they started families of their own. She wanted more time with those she held most precious. More than anything, she wanted to live, but if this was to be her end, she could at least be comforted by knowing it wasn't meaningless.

She weighed her heart on the scales of judgement and wondered whether her good deeds would be enough to counter the blemishes on her soul. She prayed this last act would tip the balance in her favor, but she had carried the burden of too many terrible choices for too long to know if she had a chance of redemption.

Unknowns, doubts and fears had haunted her since that fateful day she had chosen her father's side in a decision that would rock the foundations of their society, and tear her family apart forever. In the end, had she truly changed things for the better? Would this, her swan song, really make the difference she hoped it would?

Ah, there it was, the word that had her putting one foot in front of the other, which had her rising to meet her fate: hope.

There were many things she would never know for sure, but there were enough things she believed in to make everything worthwhile.

She believed the darkness wouldn't always surround them, that one day her people would turn their faces to the light.

She believed in the strength of those who had fought alongside her, those brilliant souls she felt honored to call friends.

Most of all, she believed in Bellamy Blake.

And those beliefs were worth dying for.

This was her story. She was a girl born to privilege who felt more at home with a group of delinquents than she ever had amongst her peers in the clean confinement of Alpha Station. The same deft hands she had used to save lives had also taken them. She had an iron will, a broken heart, and unwavering loyalty.

Love had never been a weakness; it was her greatest strength.

She was Clarke of the Sky People, and she only had one thing left to give them.


Author's note: Thank you for taking the time to read my first attempt at a multi-chapter story involving these wonderful characters! Any comments you have would be more than welcome. Just in case anyone was confused and thought I owned this particular universe, I must tell you with a heavy heart that I do not own anything associated with the 100.