AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well... here it is :) My first ever "The 100"/Clexa story. This is AU'ish... and by "au'ish" I mean it remains in the world of the tv series, but it happens (at least for now) before the original 100 landed on Earth. Also... and this is importatnt... in this story many "deceased" characters still lives. It means that such characters like Gustus, Anya or even Costia are good and well. Lexa is of course alive too and of course she is The Commander. As for Clarke... well... in my story Clarke is a Grounder and a warrior :) (and right now I'm not telling anything else because I hope to explore her past, present and her connection to Sky People later in the story) :)

But the most important thing is... THIS is pure Clexa story with (...drum rolls...) h-a-p-p-y e-n-d-i-n-g because there's no chance in hell that I plan to kill one or both off my beloved tv characters. Who am I? J-the-douchebag-Rothenberg? Nope!

Oh, and don't get me wrong - THERE WILL BE LOTS OF ANGST, violence, hurt, etc... (the idea of the story demands it) - BUT I promise You All that there will be also many sweet and fluffy moments that we all know and love.

IMPORTANT: Using different variations of character names is deliberate... (for example: Clarke/Klark, Lexa/Leska, Anya/Onya, etc...) - this is important for me and will be addressed later in the story. Also fair warning - first chapter is quite… well… GORY, so please keep it in mind.

Sooooooo... without further ado. Here is is. Oh! And the last thing: English is not my first language :/ So forigive me for any idiotic miskates.

PROLOGUE

The guttural scream echoed through the woods making the riders instantly stop their horses. They looked at each other in confusion couldn't quite believe that such sound could escape from a human mouth. And they were sure it was human because there was no animal who could express in it's voice that amount of sorrow and anguish. It was so powerful that even the most seasoned warriors felt a cold chill travelling down their spines.
The scream was full of pure agony, torture and immeasurable pain. It almost took a life of it's own growing and growing until it exploded making the listeners in awe dreading how anyone could even try to endure such amount of hurt.
The scream was hurting them, cutting and stabbing their souls until it left nothing else but overwhelming emptiness.
That was something entirely else...
This scream was a herald of Death.

The army of sixty warriors looked at their Leader and even if she was still and composed almost like she was made from chiseled marble - they all saw from her rigid posture that she was affected as much as all of them. Those who were close enough to her - they could see her eyes - and those eyes told them that Heda was boiling in fury.
Internally The Commander was shaking like a leaf but years and years of concealing her emotions did not allowed her to openly react to it.
When the first scream slowly died down it was quickly followed by another...
...and another...
...and the one after that.
Lexa's emotions reached the all time high when the feeling of dread filled her soul in anguish and worry.
The quiet whisper made by one her most trusted generals mounting the horse on her right - reached the commanders ears affirming only the fact what she already knew.
"It's Klark" - Anya growled with so much anger that her whole body was shaking with it.
On Heda's left side - Gustus, another trusted advisor nodded sharply in confirmation.
Lexa embraced her anger which rise to havens. She could almost taste it's sourness on her tongue.
Letting her emotions fly she swiftly drew her sword.
"Prepare for battle!" - she screamed to her warriors.
She kicked her horse immediately entering into the gallop and her warriors followed her without a second of the hesitation. It took them another two minutes to reach the place where the screams were originating from.

The army entered the clearing with purpose of revenge and destruction in their eyes. They wanted to kill. They wanted to feel blood. They wanted to get the justice for their Heda to pay the traitors what was due to them... and pay in kind. Their rage was overwhelming their senses, their fingers was clenching the hilts of their swords and all they were thinking was to finally meet their hated enemy.
The army entered the clearing with the purpose of seeking death and... and the death was waiting for them there...
...but not in the way they expected it to.
The battle screams fell silent and risen swords dropped down.
The horses stopped once again and the sixty warriors blinked couldn't quite believe what their eyes was showing them.

They did not arrive to participate in the battle.
They arrived here to bear witness to the carnage.

Gustus grinded his teeth so hard that he almost chipped them. His eyes shone with absolute bewilderment and awe and his heart swelled with something that only a warrior could feel for another warrior. Like a man dying from thirst in the desert looking for a drop of water his eyes devoured the view in front of him. The low growl escaped his throat and he could feel how the blood coursing in his veins started to sing to him this all too familiar song.

Anya's eyes took the sight in front of her with wonderment and amazement. Her battle heat calm down in an instant replaced by the feeling of incredible pride. She did not understand how it happened... what she saw... no, scratch that... She could ever explain what she was seeing right now but all of that followed to one simple conclusion and her heart was singing a song of victory and pride. it was one of those moments that you would be lucky to see once in the lifetime. It was a moment that rejected a person and created a Legend. In this moment she saw her... she felt h-e-r... and her own heart swelled with an amazement of the young warrior standing lonely but victorious.
She saw it all and appreciated it, but at the same time she was conflicted with the feeling of immeasurable worry. The general cast a quick glance to her leader and froze because what she saw never ever happened before.
There was no Heda at her side anymore.
There was no fierce leader standing above all the mere mortals.
For a few quick moments...
For a time to take a single breath...
For this blink of an eye...
The Heda was gone and who remained was simply... Lexa.

Lexa on the other hand - for the first time in her life - was lost.

The Commander faced in her life immeasurable dangers. From the moment she was called to lead her people her life was in constant danger and she quickly learned to live with it because she simply had no other choice. She accepted it and started treating it as a part of her life as much as breathing.
She also never felt uncomfortable with giving orders and sending her warriors to battle - knowing that many of them probably would not return to their families.
Her sole purpose in life was to serve her people. To fight for them and to protect them at all cost and if necessary - to die for them.
She did not fear death knowing that it was her destiny and when the time will come her spirit will choose another vessel in the same manner when previous Heda passed her spirit to her and the many before her.
But now... In this moment while she was standing in the edge of the battlefield she felt something that she did not feel for a long time.
She felt weak.
She was scared.
All those unfamiliar emotions was circling around her and for a moment she almost felt like she couldn't breathe.
It was not tied to her, but to the lone figure standing in the middle of the forest clearing surrounded by the sea of bodies.

"Klark" - the quiet whisper escaped her lips while her eyes was glued to the silhouette of her most faithful warrior.
The warrior whose body was covered with blood and viscera from head to toes.
The warrior who was standing tall with her arms spread to the sides, with head tilted back and who was screaming into the skies with so much anguish and sorrow that Commanders heart was breaking with her as if it was her own pain.

Heda blinked getting rid of the tears that threaten to fall and took a deep breath.
In the corner of her eye she saw Anya looking at her and in instant she put back on her face a familiar mask of indifference. She knew that Anya wasn't fooled by it but hopefully no one except the general saw her momentarily crack in her armor.
She sheathed her sword and dismounted from her horse.
"Heda?" - Gustus voice broke everyone from their stupor.
"Everyone stay here" - she addressed her warriors and then looked at the man. "I will talk to her."
His eyes quickly fell on the still screaming warrior and went back to Lexa. The worry in his eyes was clear.
"But Heda..."
She silenced him with one look.
"It's Klark. She is not a danger to me."
He bowed his head but she could see he was still conflicted.
Anya dismounted from her horse and took a step closed to her commander. Lexa saw her eyes were filled with pain when she whispered quietly for leaders ears only.
"Word of caution Heda... Yes, she is Klark, but... She may not be o-u-r Klark anymore."
Lexa gaze didn't waver even a little when she met the eyes of her former mentor.
"She's Klark" - she repeated.
Anya bowed sharply accepting her answer and watched warily when Lexa turned and entered the battlefield.

The whole world stilled when she walked in the direction of her warrior.
Deep and lush grass of the clearing was usually soaked with the morning dew. The moisture quickly entered her shoes and she had to hold back an involuntary chill caused by her soaked shoes.
She ignored the lack of comfort but she hold her breath when she took a quick step over the first body laying on her path.
The dampness from water turned into the one from blood but her step never faltered and her eyes was carefully scanning the whole area.
Lexa fought many battles in her life. That was a way of her people and that was her life.
Lead and fight... fight and lead... hoping that someday it will all be worth it... it will bring them all - peace.
Lexa was a warrior.
She knew the price of death and sacrifice and she also fought the battles with way bigger kill count than the one in front of her eyes... but this time it was so entirely different that even an experienced commander like herself felt like she was seeing everything for the first time.
Body after body.
One fallen warrior after another. Every single one of them wearing brands and colors of the Azgeda.
She tried to count them but many of them were laying on each other so it was impossible to sum it all up with one quick look.
The death took them all quickly and swiftly.
The cuts on the bodies made so clean... so precise... so f-a-m-i-l-i-a-r.
She stopped counting when she reached thirty seven - deciding it was not really that important at this moment.
Her eyes fall on her warrior once again and then she come to halt a few paces from her.

She instantly recognized the body laying at Clarke's feet. All too familiar pale skin marred with tattoos and battle scars.
The unseeing eyes of Nia, the Queen of Ice Nation were looking into the sky - her face frozen in grimace of eternal pain and defeat. The only clean cut on the body was on it's neck which severed the head from the flesh. The rest was simply mutilated almost beyond the recognition which indicated that Clarke must have took her time with her for some reason.
The smell of death was overwhelming.

The Commander and her Warrior surrounded by death.
Standing together in the sea of blood.
Over the dead body of their enemy.

How fitting.

"Klark" - her voice was calm and steady and in quite contrast to all of the emotions boiling beneath commander skin.
The girl in question apparently did not hear her - so she tried again.
"KLARK!"
She shouted hoping for the reaction and this time she was successful.
The new scream stopped mid tone and the warrior turned around to face her Heda.

Lexa almost shuddered when she took a closer look of the state her warrior was in.
Holding two swords in her hands and almost completely covered in blood Clarke looked like a presence from nightmares that the parents tells their children while wanting them to behave.
She was bleeding.
She was bleeding so much.
The commander noticed one arrow sticking from her thigh and another one which was embedded in her side. Both shafts were broken - probably during the battle - and the wounds was still oozing life out of her.
There was also many others... sword and dagger slashes from every direction imaginable... those begin on her calves and went through thighs, arms and torso - ending on the left cheek. The last one was a clean cut - probably made by the throwing knife. Her own blood was mixing with the blood of her enemies in the grotesque mosaic of death.
How Clarke was still able to stand with that amount of wounds was beyond Lexa's understanding but for her the worst were the eyes.
The eyes of her warrior, often so full of joy and mischief now was filled with absolute anguish and sorrow.
The Commander swallowed a bile in her throat waiting.
"H... Heda?"
A choked whisper escaped from her lips and Lexa watched in shock as her bravest warrior fell on her knees in front of her with two streams of tears falling from her eyes.
"Kla..."
"I... failed... you... Heda..." - Clarke's voice was almost a whisper but to commander it was almost like she was screaming.
Her chest tighten and as she watched her kneeling warrior.
"Why do you think you failed me, Klark?"
She asked her voice calm and soothing.
Tears fell from Clarke's eyes smudging the blood covering her cheeks.
"I... could not... protect... her..."
"Klark..."
"I failed... to... to protect her... Heda. They... took her. I... I couldn't... I tried... but I failed."
Lexa's heart broke.
"Klark" - she tried again but her warrior wasn't listening lost completely in her own world.
"She was... she was here... right behind me... we were fighting to... there was so many... so many of them... but than she... she was just... GONE!"
The last word she screamed and the new bath of tears flew from her eyes.
Lexa also felt the moisture in her eyes but once again she willed it away.
"I looked for... her Heda. I swear. But... but she was... gone. And than... and than... Nia... S-H-E laughed!"
Clarke's voice broke with venom and hatred.
"She laughed... and she told me that she took her!"
The scream returned in full force.
"She told me she... took her... and killed her! SHE'S GONE HEDA! SHE'S DEAD!"
Her voice changed once again and this time it sounded defeated.
"I failed her Heda..." - she whispered. "I failed... You."
Clarke dropped one of her swords on the ground and took the second one by the blade and pressed it to her neck drawing a new stream of blood. She the hilt pointed in the direction of her Commander her eyes unwavering and full of remorse.
"I failed you Heda"
She declared with steady voice.
"I failed Costia. I deserve death. "
Another whisper fell from warriors lips.
"I... am... sorry... Leska."
On the sound of her name on her lips Heda's mask fell away like it never existed. Tears fell from the commander's eyes and she took a step to stand over her suffering warrior.
She extended her hand and grabbed a sword by the blade taking it off Clarke's thorat.
The blue eyes blinked in pained confusion but never left a shining green ones.
"H...Heda?"
Lexa dropped a sword to the ground and gently placed her own hands on the blood stained cheeks.
"You did not fail me, Klark" - she whispered.
"Wh...what?"
Her confusion was clear as day but Lexa never stopped caressing her face.
"Costia is alive, Klark."
The warrior jerked suddenly but Heda's hands was keeping her in place.
Sheer confusion shone into her eyes but Lexa could also see in them a tiniest sparkle of hope.
"It's not... possible. Nia... She told me... she laughed."
"Costia is back in Tondc."
"Really?"
Lexa raised an eyebrow.
"Do you think I'm lying?"
The hard shake of Clarke's head was answer enough.
"Never Heda!"
"Then like I said... You did not fail her and... You did not fail me."
Warrior closed her eyes for a moment.
"How it is possible?"
Lexa smiled gently admiring the fact that Clarke was one of the few of her warriors who were able to straightforward demand an answer from her Commander.
"After the treachery of Azgeda I took the army and followed your tracks. We were still several leagues from the war party when suddenly Costia appeared on the horse that was covered in Ice Nation markings."
Clarke furrowed her brows but remained silent.
"When she reached us - she pointed us to this direction. She told me that during the ride you somehow were able to get rid of the bonds keeping you immobile and then attacked one of the raiders near you."
Lexa's touch on her face eased a little but she was still holding her with utmost reverence.
"She told us that you killed him and you took his sword. Then the war party had to stop and it gave you a chance to reach Costia. You killed another two guards near her and then stayed between her and the rest of warriors. You were all just entering this clearing and you took the chance to use the most narrow path of it."
Clarke trembled a little but Lexa continued.
"You screamed at her to run... to escape and return to Tondc... but then they attacked you once again. Only three at once because of the narrow corridor you were standing in. They managed to wound you... but according to Costia you still were able to kill them. Than you turned to her and with your sword made a quick cut to the horse she was sitting on. Not hard enough to disable animal but painful enough to send it in the full panic gallop."
Lexa took a deep breath while Clarke trembled.
"I... do not... remember any... of that."
Commander's eyes shone like a two stars in the sky.
"Probably because you were in full battle rage... You went so deep into it that you couldn't register anything around you except of your enemy. But don't worry... it will return to you sooner or later."
Clarke exhaled loudly and Lexa continued.
"That was also the last time Costia saw you because the horse took her through the woods in full speed and when she was able to finally get him under control once again - she was too far away from you. Then she decided to ride to Tondc for help."
Commander fingers touched a still bleeding cut on her warrior's cheek.
"Twenty minutes later - she found us and pointed this way. I sent her with two warriors back to the village."
Clarke was crying and Lexa felt a wetness from her tears on her hands.
"She's alive." - the warrior whispered.
"She's alive."
The whole body of the blonde was shaking like a leaf.
"I did not fail her."
Lexa nodded her head.
"You did not fail her."
The blues met greens once again.
"I did not... fail... you... Leska."
The Commander felt her heart break but she answered her calmly.
"You did not fail me, Klark."
The blonde smiled.
"Good."
And then blood loss and sheer exhaustion won the battle, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and unconscious body of the commander's most faithful warrior fell into the waiting arms of her Heda.

tbc...