The walk to the palace is long, only made longer by the unfamiliarity of the sights between "home" and "away". The inner district is nothing like what Clarke is accustomed to, and she finds it difficult to power through the urge to stop and drink in the bustling of the crowds, the vibrancy of the colors splattered throughout the marketplaces she and her mother traverse, and the seemingly carefree nature of the people she encounters. She feels out of place among it all.
Town criers compete for attention, all attempting to be louder than one another, and most spouting news that Clarke's people will never have time to care about.
"Rumored Maunon sighting on the outskirts!"
"Trishana to host annual First Nation ball!"
"The Thieves' Guild strikes again! Food stores missing from across the city!"
Clarke can't help but smirk upon hearing that particular announcement, despite Abby's very clear discomfort at her daughter's very visible approval.
Bellamy and the others must have had a successful run the previous night, making Clarke even more eager to return to the Ark. As an apprentice to the guild, she was expected to log a specific amount of hours cataloging and distributing the spoils of their runs before being considered for full membership. It was one of Bellamy's many rules geared towards ensuring members were involved for the right reasons, and one Clarke didn't particularly mind. Distribution, especially, was something Clarke found herself enjoying more often than not. It provided a pleasant reminder of why she joined the guild in the first place, and kept her motivated to strive towards contributing to the cause in a more active capacity.
That this trip is inhibiting her ability to log those precious hours is merely one of the many issues she has with taking it.
"Are you sure I have to come?" the girl questions, for probably the third time since they began the trek.
"No less sure than I was the last time you asked." Between her own incessant complaining and her mother's long-standing distaste for royalty, Clarke knew that the woman wasn't exactly having the best of times either. It showed on her face, the creases between her eyebrows becoming more of a permanent fixture than Clarke had ever seen before. "Must you make this more difficult than it already is?"
Clarke makes an attempt at a light-hearted reply, "in the 13 years you've known me, I think you've grown more aware than anyone that I most definitely do."
Abby's smile, though brief, and the hand Clarke feels on her shoulder are indication enough that it worked.
The crowds thin as they make their way towards the innermost section of the city, and the roads eventually converge into one outrageously long paved pathway. Clarke grows uneasy with so few people around. People she understands. She can feel comfortable wherever there are people living their lives, trying their best to survive their conditions. They give her a point of reference. Something she can relate to, no matter where she is. She supposes that's what makes her so uncomfortable with royalty. They lack the particular sort of humanity, the sort born from the struggle to get by, that Clarke finds herself at home with.
As Clarke and her mother make their way towards the pathway and over the bridge bringing them closer to the tree line, a boundary that separates the common from the worthy, she's acutely aware of this vacancy. There are people, guards mostly, but the absence of the sort she understands is itself a presence she can't help but notice. The Ark is never quite as filled with the life she had just seen in the inner district, but the life that is there doesn't feel artificially constructed like it does here.
"Why are we doing this?" Clarke eyes each of the men and women in uniform as they march by. She knows she's yet to do anything wrong, but wariness of the royal guard is inborn where she comes from.
"The king needs a new doctor," Abby's voice is sure. The locking of her jaw and her rigid posture suggest she isn't. "When someone needs help, we help them, no matter our personal feelings."
"I know." It was the tenet upon which she was raised, and the reason her mother never openly objects to her thievery. The Griffins help who they can, whenever they can, by doing whatever they can. That's who they are. It just so happens that Clarke's methods have manifested in a much more unorthodox way than her mother's have, and than her father's did.
That's not to say that her mother is supportive of her guild membership, though. When Clarke admitted to her initiation, Abby couldn't look at her. "You don't have to put yourself in danger to be noble, Clarke" she had said. Clarke disagreed.
You can't heal someone without resources.
Yes, Clarke needed to be doing what she was doing. Her mother didn't see that, and that was okay. Annoying at times, especially when Clarke was being dragged all the way out to the royal palace in an attempt to get her more interested in healing, but okay.
She could play along for now.
For her mother.
To be supportive.
Clarke tries to steel her resolve and think optimistically. Perhaps the visits wouldn't be all that bad. Perhaps there'll be some small and shiny souvenirs to take back.
They stop just before walking through a set of the largest wooden doors either have ever seen up close. Two guards stand, one on each side of the entrance, stone-faced and eyes fixed forward.
Abby looks Clarke up and down for a moment before whispering, "I hope this goes without saying, Clarke, but please do not steal anything from the royal palace."
"Who do you think I am, mom? Of course I won't steal anything from the royal palace," Clarke replies, offended at the notion as well as at the skepticism written all over her mother's features. "Not without thoroughly casing the place first."
Abby's eyes just about bulge out of their sockets. She turns to face her daughter, no doubt to remind her of why saying something like that not twenty meters away from the nearest guards is the exact sort of thing she shouldn't be doing. One of the guards interrupts and spares Clarke the impending lecture.
"State your business."
"I'm Doctor Abigail Griffin. His Majesty King Roark requested my services. This is my daughter who'll be assisting me in his care."
"Enter."
When they do, Clarke releases an audible gasp she's much too astonished to be ashamed of.
Clarke hadn't even realized they could make rooms this large. She'd never considered smooth stone walls that wouldn't threaten to collapse every few months, so different from the splintered wood and flimsy metal she'd grown up around. That light might reflect in such a way against the crystal hanging from the high ceilings had never crossed her mind. That people could live like this had never before been within the realm of Clarke's imagination.
And they were still only in the foyer.
It's beautiful, and vibrant, and overwhelming. Clarke can't relate such an experience to any other before. Her eyes roam, her mouth agape, and she can't bring herself to look at any one thing long enough to truly process it.
Then she sees a girl in a pretty dress who couldn't be much older than herself walking down the marble staircase. Their eyes lock.
Hers a splash of green at war with a touch of gray.
And for a reason she can't quite put a finger on, suddenly nothing else in the room seems all that interesting.
And Clarke finds something her eyes can rest on, if only for a moment.
Especially if it's only for a moment.
Clarke realizes soon after that she's found something she can compare to seeing the foyer.
The first indication that Lexa made a mistake the previous night is the god-awful kink in the neck she wakes up to. She had fallen asleep reading an origin story that told of the sky falling in love with the earth, destined to meet her lover only at a single point, the horizon, for otherwise the power of their connection would consume all else. It was a lovely tale, truly, though Lexa remains unsure that it was quite worth the pain she's currently enduring.
She tries to massage away the ache her in neck, stretches out the bundled up and cramped form her body took on without her permission at some point while she was sleeping, and opens her eyes. That's when she sees the second indication that she should definitely regret last night's choices.
Having utterly failed to latch her balcony doors before falling asleep with her book, the morning brought with it an unwelcome guest. A songbird no larger than the size of her fist rests on the arm of the sofa directly opposite her, its head cocked to the side as if to mock her. The trespasser chirps as it jumps around, pleased with its success in breaching the impenetrable palace walls.
Lexa groans, setting her book aside, and attempts to stand. What she fails to account for is the third indication that her choice to read just one more tale was a poor one, and as she rises the stinging numbness in her left leg brings her right back down, and she falls to the ground next to the sofa with a thud and an "oomph".
The bird chirps, delighted at her misery.
There's a knock at the door, no doubt an overworked handmaiden sent to fetch her for not rising with the sun. She releases another groan from her spot on the ground. Perhaps staying there until tomorrow and trying again next time would be her best option.
"Your Royal Highness, do you need‒ Oh." Veira enters the room prepared to assist her princess with her morning routine. Lexa hears rather than sees her stop dead in her tracks as she takes in the disaster of a scene before her. There goes that plan. Another groan, for good measure.
"Please reserve your judgment until after you've helped me up and gotten the bird out of here" she says, extending her hand upwards and waiting. It's rude, but Lexa's on the ground and her morning's been absolutely dreadful. A little grumpiness should be warranted.
Veira rushes to her side and lifts her, making sure she's steady before she releases. "Of course, Your Highness. I apologize."
"Thank you, Veira."
"A bird?"
"Apparently so. Shall we?" Lexa gestures vaguely towards the obnoxious little creature with one hand and holds her sore neck with the other.
"Oh, you mustn't, Your Highness. I can do it on my own."
"Of course you can, Veira. But it'll be faster if I help you, and then you'll be free to ready me for the day."
The two stand awkwardly for a moment, both uncertain of how to go about escorting the unwelcome guest off of royal grounds.
Lexa takes an experimental step towards the songbird, and it immediately hops over towards the other end of her bedroom and further away from the balcony. A stubborn one then. Brilliant.
Removing the offender takes the two an embarrassingly long amount of time. The longer it remains, the more determined Lexa is to prove that she was absolutely not being outsmarted by a bird, and the more impassioned her attempts. She's on the brink of climbing over her furniture, standing on chairs, and physically snatching the bird from its new hiding place on Lexa's bedpost when Veira suggests she fetch a broom from the servants' quarters.
Upon Veira's return, Lexa takes the broom and immediately thrusts it up at the damned creature. It takes to the air, flapping around in circles and dodging Lexa's assault with practiced skill. The girl follows the bird's movements, attempting to direct it closer to the balcony doors. Its chirping, like a mocking war cry, steels Lexa's resolve to best it. Broom extended upwards, jaw locked in place, she charges at her enemy, all the while electing to ignore the snickering she hears Veira trying to keep within.
Be it a stroke of good fortune absent from the rest of the morning's events, or through sheer force of will, the princess triumphs and the bird dives down and out the doors to dodge her final thrust.
Veira's quick to latch the balcony, turning to Lexa with downcast eyes and a poorly masked smile.
Lexa drops the broom and tilts her chin upwards in celebration of her victory, an action she immediately regrets when it strains her injured neck too far. With no dignity left to preserve, she merely looks at her faithful handmaiden, shakes her head, and lets out a chuckle at the absurdity of what had just occurred.
Taking it as permission to laugh, Veira doubles over in her revelry of having witnessed Princess Alexandria, sole heir to the throne of Trigeda, in battle with a bird.
Struggling to calm herself, Veira wipes a tear from her eye and smiles at her princess.
"Shall we begin, Your Highness? Titus is already having a fit at your tardiness, I'm sure."
Lexa drags the hand not trying to soothe her pain down her face and sighs.
Titus.
Of course.
She could hear the lecture already.
"Punctuality is the politeness of monarchs, Your Highness"
Yes. Lexa definitely should have stayed on the floor.
Lexa feels human again for the first time that morning after washing, the warm water having soothed a bit of the pain and wiped the remaining sleep from her eyes. She thanks Veira profusely for her aid, recognizing that her being late that morning also put the servant behind schedule on her duties.
Titus comes to fetch her mere moments after Veira finishes brushing out her hair and straightening her gown, tarnishing what little peace she's experiencing. Upon entrance, Titus dismisses the handmaiden and Lexa shoots her an apologetic glance before she exits.
He's displeased, and it's evident through the deep crease in his brow and the thinly veiled accusation in his eyes. Lexa's familiar with this mood.
"I was up reading too late." She thinks it best to smooth things over now rather than later, if only in an attempt to spare herself more trauma.
"I see."
"It won't happen again, Titus."
Titus looks skeptical. Lexa doesn't blame him. It's almost certain to happen again. Reading is the only way she experiences life outside of herself, the only method through which she knows how to be familiar with what she doesn't see. She doesn't know how people expect her to rule over those she's never been allowed to understand. Lexa reads in the hope that, when the time comes, her limited firsthand knowledge of what's out there will at least be supplemented with what she learns in her books, if she is never to see it all for herself.
He doesn't speak, but turns to leave the room. Lexa follows, mentally preparing herself for the day's lessons. They move down her tower's steps in silence.
He speaks again when they reach the corridor at the bottom "if you must spend all your time reading, Your Highness, I'd prefer it to be histories."
"Are histories not just another sort of fiction?"
The question results in the exact outcome she knew it would, and the man launches into some tangent about the folly of man and the importance of proper documentation. Lexa's able to tune him out, knowing she won't be expected to contribute to the conversation for quite some time, instead attempting to focus on the path in front of her.
That task proves more difficult when a stranger in the foyer turns her head towards her and Lexa's gaze meets a galaxy of blue that challenges her desire to see the world. She's suddenly sure everything possibly worth experiencing resides here within this moment.
Perhaps Titus is right about proper documentation. If historians can't accurately capture the clarity she finds within that particular shade, then there's no point in describing it at all.
Something changes, if only for a moment, when Lexa becomes certain that everything she could ever hope to understand lives somewhere in a black cloak, yellow hair, and blue eyes.
Lexa realizes soon after that she's never felt closer to humanity.
The moment is ruined when Lexa notices Titus's presence beside her once again, and she forces herself to tear her eyes from the blue-eyed girl in the tattered black cloak. She should definitely be listening to what he's saying, or at least pretending to listen, but she's distracted. Between her still-sore neck, the awful morning she's had, and the mysterious pair standing in her foyer looking more out of place than the songbird in her bedroom, Titus's moral lessons seem more of a chore than usual to pay mind to.
It's the words "keep watch over your valuables, Your Highness" that draw her attention back to him.
"Why?"
"Your father's new doctor and her girl are Arkers." Her puts it plainly, as if that's the only cause necessary to warrant suspicion.
"I'm sure they're not all a part of the Thieves' Guild, Titus."
"You're correct, Your Highness, but all do profit from their activities. None would be remorseful should we lose all we have."
Lexa's mostly certain that's not actually the case, but has nothing to back up her supposition. She has no experience with the Arkers, and only hears vague descriptions of the Thieves' Guild's escapades once in a blue moon. What she is certain of is that the opposite scenario is absolutely true. No one in the palace would shed a tear should the Arkers lose what little they have. Some may pretend to care, some would celebrate the loss of the public nuisance and the eyesore of a district, but most would carry on, indifferent and unsympathetic to the loss of hundreds of people's livelihoods.
Lexa doesn't find it quite so dreadful, at least not as dreadful as Titus implies it is, to think that it's possible the Arkers feel the same about the royalty. She doesn't know that she'd blame them.
Naturally, those aren't thoughts she's welcome to share with someone like Titus. Or anyone, really. They defy expectations, and that's the least proper thing a princess can do.
"Come along, Your Highness. We're already behind schedule."
She follows him down the corridors to the Grand Library, and wishes she were still small enough to sneak away and hide among the stacks until Titus inevitably gave up his search and let her read on her own for the rest of the day. Now it'd be even more ridiculous for the servants to find the heir to Trigeda daydreaming of faraway lands without kings or queens or royal advisors while resting among piles of books.
Titus gestures to one of the desks and Lexa sits waiting for him to begin. He paces in front of her for a time, as he always does, as if he's just now considering how to start. Lexa knows for certain that he pours over his lesson plans weeks in advance, and suspects he's only hesitating for the theatrics of it.
"What are the three most important qualities a monarch must embody?"
"Wisdom, strength, and compassion" the answer is a reflex. This is how it always began.
"What happened to Queen Alexandria I?" Lexa should have known this would be the topic of conversation for the day; they only ever visited the Grand Library when Lexa was to be lectured on the mistakes or the virtues of her namesake. This question in particular was Titus's favorite to ask. Each time Lexa said the same answer, and each time he grew more frustrated that it wasn't the one he wanted.
"She was assassinated."
"Why?"
"Because someone wanted to kill her." Here it comes. Lexa's played this game before.
"Your Highness," Titus says, looking as disappointed as ever "she made a mistake."
Now there's something Lexa can agree with. Whenever she heard tales of her namesake, even the brutalities and crimes against humanity she committed were portrayed as heroic acts necessary to preserve the First Nation. Queen Alexandria I did much that ensured the survival of her people, but to paint even the atrocities as deeds to hold sacred and choices to aspire towards?
Lexa wasn't certain she could love her name as most others did. Titus held a similar opinion, but for vastly different reasons.
The atrocities aren't the mistakes Titus is referring to.
"She let her want to show compassion outweigh her wisdom and her strength, Your Highness. If she had been more heavy-handed in dolling out punishment, she would not have died as she did, and the First Nation would not have fallen."
There many things Lexa desires to ask in response.
"How is banishment of all social deviants compassionate?"
"Is it wise to value unity over human life?"
"Where is the strength in preserving the status quo?"
"Do you really think incessant repetition will make this lesson easier for me to accept?"
Titus looks at her expectantly. She stays silent. Anything she could say in response would be either a blatant lie, or taken as an affront to all he stands for. Anything she could ask has either already been answered to a degree that hasn't swayed her opinion, or would be ignored outright.
She's saved by the sound of footsteps and the clearing of a throat.
"I was hoping you'd be in here."
Anya has her arms crossed over her chest and a smug look on her face when Lexa breaks Titus's gaze and sees her mentor. The elation at having been saved in Lexa's expression matches the frustration at having been interrupted in Titus's.
"Anya."
"Titus." The woman regards him briefly before turning her attention completely on Lexa. "I came to fetch Her Royal Highness for training."
Lexa moves to stand, much too eager to get very far away from another confrontation with Titus on the morality of her predecessors.
"Princess Alexandria was late to lessons this morning. We've barely begun, surely you-"
"That has nothing to do with me" Anya deadpans, still looking at Lexa rather than Titus.
"Fine. I suppose we can finish another time, Your Highness. Please try to be on time tomorrow. Punctuality is-"
"Is the politeness of monarchs. Yes, Titus. We know." She gestures vaguely in what looks like a dismissal, and Lexa can barely contain a chuckle.
Titus simply shoots a glare at Anya, bows his head in Lexa's general direction, and stalks off.
"You know, if getting you out of Titus's lectures keeps involving me actually speaking to him, I might start charging you for my services."
Lexa can't help but smile at the woman. While she doesn't hate Titus like Anya does, seeing someone unafraid to challenge him is incredibly refreshing. "I'm sure there's surplus in the royal treasury I can allocate to one willing to complete such a noble task."
Anya shakes her head in amusement and gestures towards the exit. "So. A little bird tells me you went to battle this morning."
Clarke watches as the pretty girl moves down the staircase and into the large set of double doors adjacent to the entrance with the bald man in the black robes, and wishes she could suspend time. They maintain eye contact until the last possible moment, only breaking when the girl winces after trying to turn her neck too far.
She wants to tell herself that she doesn't care who she is, but the sneaking suspicion she has regarding the girl's identity makes her uneasy. She's bound to be royalty. And Clarke is in a hand-me-down cloak likely to fall apart any day now. Wonderful.
She was probably judging her manner of dress. That's all it was.
"Was that the princess?" She needs to know.
"I suspect so."
"She's… a person."
Abby gives her daughter a sad smile. "They all are, Clarke. That's the problem."
Finally, a frazzled attendant shows up to escort the pair to the king's quarters. They follow him up the staircase and through more hallways than should be able to physically fit in someone's dwelling, all the while being informed of all the things they should and shouldn't do in His Majesty's presence. Clarke should be paying attention, really, but the royal palace's many twists and turns are very tempting and Clarke is using all her willpower to avoid breaking away from the group and going off to explore places she shouldn't.
"Here we are. The king and queen wait within." The servant knocks on the door and, upon hearing permission from inside, opens the portal.
"Doctor Abigail Griffin and her assistant, Your Majesties."
The pair enter the room slowly, both bracing themselves for what will likely be an unpleasant encounter.
The king lies on the bed, his back propped up with pillows, sweat-drenched and almost unconscious. He doesn't look very kingly to Clarke. She doesn't know exactly what she expected to see, but a man who seems like he could easily be found dying in a random alleyway back home absolutely wasn't it. She averts her eyes out of respect for the people he reminds her of.
The queen, on the other hand, is almost exactly what Clarke imagined her to be. Long brown locks, each curl seeming to be held perfectly in place as if by some sort of magic. Steel gray eyes committed to hiding even the most nefarious of plots. Lips twisted upwards in a smile that's likely killed before. No, Queen Alyna does not look like a woman whose husband could be dying. She's the embodiment of power and control.
She stands as they enter, hands clasped in front of her, pointed chin held high. Clarke and her mother bow.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice. What started out as an innocent cough has escalated quite dramatically, as you can see."
"May I?"
"Of course."
Abby approaches the king's resting place, the classic composure Clarke always admired slipping onto her features and into her posture effortlessly. Her mother becomes a different person when she's with a patient. She turns into exactly who she needs to be. Level-headed, commanding, and certain. Clarke wonders if the skill is learned through many years of experience, or something inborn, the quality one possesses that tells them they're destined for healing.
She knows it's the second. Clarke is not a healer.
She wonders if it's a strategy used more to comfort healers themselves, the patient, or the loved ones who look on helplessly.
She thinks it could be the first. But that situation was more complicated.
She knows it's the third. Clarke's been the loved one.
Abby's voice is gentle when she rouses the king back to consciousness, "Hello, Your Majesty. My name is Abby, I'm here to help. Where's the pain?"
"He can't speak" Queen Alyna chimes in from her position across the room, still standing just as she was upon their entry.
Abby moves her hands towards the king's throat slowly, gently pressing against the sides. He winces in pain at the applied pressure. "Open your mouth, please, Your Majesty." He obliges, and Abby peers down the opening after pushing his tongue down with a flattened stick she removed from her bag. "Clarke, I need to listen to his breathing."
Clarke approaches warily.
"Lean forward as much as you can, Your Majesty. Clarke, help keep him held up." They do as she asks, the king moving forward and Clarke gripping his shoulders to ensure he doesn't fall. Abby lifts his tunic and presses her ear to his back. She listens to his labored breaths. "Cough if you can, Your Majesty."
It's the coughing that makes Clarke realize that she really shouldn't have come.
A rainy night, sweat-drenched pillows, a bloody handkerchief pressed against thin lips.
You can't heal someone without resources.
She does what she can to distract herself from the memories threatening to rush to the forefront of her mind, thinking of home, her friends, the guild, the Ark. Everything comes back around to her dad, and tears she hadn't let herself shed in years bubble to the surface.
She can't cry, she won't. Not when her mom needs her. And certainly not when the queen's eyes have been almost daring her to do something wrong, to be the vulnerable little Arker she's expecting.
The inner district, the town criers, the hand on her shoulder, Clarke tries to ground herself in the present. The doors, the foyer, the splashes of green at war with a touch of gray, the past is done.
She is here, in this moment, in the palace standing next to her mother, holding the king's shoulders. She is here, in this moment. She is here. She is here.
When Clarke comes back to herself, she's still holding her arms outward for two shoulders that have likely been absent from her grasp for far too long. She lets them drop, and closes her eyes briefly, tuning back into her mother's voice. When she opens them, the king has fallen back asleep and her mother's in the middle of conversing with the queen.
"… I'll return in two weeks' time to check his progress, Your Majesty. Unless his condition worsens, there's not much I can personally do outside of the treatment plan I've outlined. Should your staff need more clarification, I'm happy to return sooner if need be."
"I'm sure that won't be necessary, thank you."
Sensing the dismissal, Clarke and her mother bow before quickly exiting the room. The door's barely had time to close before Clarke feels her mother's hand gripping hers like it's her sole lifeline. She loses track of who is lending strength and who is receiving it.
Maybe Clarke was right about a healer's composure being just as much for them as it is for the loved one.
She thinks it still might be more complicated than that.
They don't talk about the coughing.
There isn't much to say. And what should be said wouldn't change what they both knew would happen.
Abby would continue to treat the king to the best of her ability, hiding all that his condition reminds her of.
Clarke would continue to accompany her mother, but she wouldn't go into the room again.
Clarke didn't realize before that what Abby needed wasn't necessarily help with his treatment, but rather a hand to hold in the aftermath. Clarke could do that, for her mother.
But she wouldn't go into the room.
Not when the coughing feels a little like a hammer at the walls Clarke built around those particular memories.
It's the lack of talking that makes the walk home from the palace long. Clarke doesn't mind. Not when even the anticipation of returning to the Ark fails to lighten the feeling of dread sitting at the pit of her stomach. The Ark is the last place she wants to be at the moment, but it's also the only place she can go. It's safe. It's familiar.
Maybe that's the problem.
They move forward.
Clarke notices the gradual shift between the area reserved for royals and that reserved for commoners. The homes get subtly smaller, the people just slightly less well dressed the further they walk. She thinks about the boundary back home. The narrow alleyway that separates the brick houses from the tin boxes stacked on top of one another, the children that have new shoes every winter that live on one side and those that run around barefoot on the opposite side. The line that separates the commoner from the other. She wonders why the gradual change stops there.
Eventually they make it past the line. Clarke hears her mother let out a breath she seems to have been holding for far too long. Clarke stops walking.
Her mother looks at her only for a moment before she understands. Clarke can't go back to the shack. Not yet.
"Be safe."
Clarke only nods before darting off. There isn't a single place in this district she can go without feeling the absence of her father, but there is one she can go to work through it.
She weaves through the twists and turns of the district, navigating the narrow pathways like it's second nature. The palace's corridors were elaborate and confusing by design, but this was different. This was the result of people making their place and building their homes wherever they happened to fall. There's no method to the madness, no organization to the chaos. And Clarke wouldn't have it any other way.
There's freedom in resistance to structure.
Soon she reaches the heart of the district. The establishment that keeps the Ark alive. The place the "other" can rely on when all else have turned them away.
Headquarters is disguised as any other complex of stacked tin houses. On the first level, there are about seven entrances that lead to what look like normal shacks: dirt floors, cloth doors, furniture on the brink of collapse. The second level has five of these entrances, similarly furnished, and the third has four. One of these shacks on the second level has a secret panel along the back wall adjacent to an old cot that the sentry rests on, often pretending to be either sickly or drunk, depending on who was on guard.
Today it's Murphy. A damp, dirty cloth is draped over his forehead, and he lays back on the bed with one arm covering half of his face. He cracks an eyelid when he hears Clarke enter the shack, and lets out a quick three-part whistle before closing his eyes again. Clarke waits, and soon the panel is opened from the other side.
Bryan smiles at her before letting her through the doorway and onto the makeshift platform. "You're just in time. They're about to start distribution."
Clarke grins before turning away from him and she sees the inside of the closest thing the Ark district has to a warehouse, and what's become her home away from home. It isn't large, by any means, but it's enough to house excess food stores, drinkable water, blankets, some clothes, and a few medical supplies that all help get the district through harder times.
Constructed through the clever use of false houses, all just slightly smaller than normal, and a hollow inner structure supported by beams connecting the roofs of the shacks bellow and the floors of the ones above, headquarters is her father's legacy. He was working on the plans just before he died, in an effort to protect the district should the royal guard decide to stage a raid. Jake didn't want the young people putting themselves on the line for the rest of the Ark to risk hiding what they stole in their own homes. It's saved the guild on more than one occasion.
Clarke moves towards the center of the room, where Bellamy is directing the younger members and checking through inventory one last time before heading out.
"You all know how this works. Households with kids, ill, and elderly go first. In that order. If there's any extra bring it back here. Anyone that hasn't received anything can come and request supplies" He waves his hand at her upon her entry.
Clarke nods to Monty and Jasper as they rush by her, each carrying two sacks containing food and fabric, likely racing to see who can make their deliveries and return faster.
She's definitely the fastest. When she grabs her own sacks and sprints full speed out of headquarters, proving it once again is her ultimate goal. Forgetting about her day and returning before the guards patrolling the district have a chance to see what's happening are merely pleasant corollaries.
Two weeks pass by with relative ease.
Clarke spends it training, mostly, working with the full members to hone her skills and get her ready for her initiation. Clarke spends hours of her days racing through the district with Bellamy, practicing lockpicking with Miller, and studying guard rotations with Bryan. When she isn't training with them, she's trying (and usually failing) to resist Octavia's pleas to pass on everything she's learning to the younger girl. Bellamy's forbidden her from a life of thievery, but it hasn't stopped the girl from trying.
She's also ventured into the inner district almost every day since the visit to the palace. She tells her mother it's to hear updates on the state of the nation. She tells her friends she wants to familiarize herself with the layout for future reference. She's certain neither of those explanations is the entire truth.
Her mother isn't summoned to the palace and she takes that as a good sign that her treatment plan for the king has helped his condition.
The guild hasn't attempted another run, waiting for the dust to settle from their last trip out before planning a new one.
Overall, it's a fairly uneventful set of weeks, which is likely why Clarke has a really stupid idea for their next trip to the palace.
She wants to explore.
And that's the goal she has in mind when Clarke and her mother set off for their second visit to the palace.
"Again!" Anya yells before tossing Lexa's "blade" back at her. "We're going until you disarm me."
Lexa catches it and widens her stance for another round. They've been going for what feels like hours. When Anya mentioned charging Lexa for rescuing her from Titus, she hadn't realized Anya meant the price would be paid in blood. Lexa's no longer sure missing a lecture here and there is worth the bruises she's acquiring from Anya's newfound hobby of knocking her down. She's tired, sore, and fucking starving, but Anya's really not letting up, and her only hope of not wasting away is besting her mentor. She wants to get this over with and quickly.
She lunges forward, slashing at the woman, who evades the tactic while looking thoroughly unimpressed. "Is that your best?"
She grunts in response, driving forward again with a jab, Anya easily parrying it while stepping backwards.
They continue like this for far too long, Lexa aggressively trying to finish the match and Anya effortlessly denying her the victory while spouting off some sort of one-liner about her crippled grandmother being able to handle herself better in battle. Her frustration grows, and in a desperate attempt to finish the match, Lexa spins around before slashing at Anya. Her weapon touches nothing but air, and the next thing she knows she's on her back.
Again.
Anya crouches over her, thin-lipped and disappointed "You know what your problem is?"
The girl pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes.
"You lack any semblance of balance in your strategy. It's either too passive or too aggressive. Your attitude dictates the moves you execute. You use defense when you're calm and indifferent as to who'll win, and exclusively offence when you're riled up."
"And how am I to fix that, exactly?"
"Do better."
Lexa just glares at the woman, propping herself up on her hands.
"You need to separate how you're feeling from the actions you take in battle."
"You sound like Titus" she accuses.
Anya flicks her forehead in response, clearly annoyed. "Statements like that and yet you still wonder why I take pleasure in knocking you on your ass."
Lexa moves to stand, rubbing the spot on her forehead Anya assaulted. "Again?"
"Are you sure you're up for it, Your Highness?" The tone is mocking, but she's pleased. Anya's left eyebrow is raised with the question, and a crooked smile is threatening to emerge, she'd been expecting Lexa to be done for the day. That she isn't quitting early is surprising.
"I have to do better."
Her mother knows her well, and realizes that Clarke won't be sticking around for this visit before they even arrive, making it easier for her to slip away before an escort comes by to take them to King Roark.
She mutters a quiet "be safe" before turning in the other direction, likely to give herself some sort of plausible deniability should Clarke get caught doing something wrong.
Clarke immediately takes off down one of the long corridors, not wanting to waste a single second of the exploration time she has.
It's astonishing how empty the palace is. Clarke can't wrap her mind around why so much space is needed for so few people to actually live in. She's certain everyone in the Ark could fit here comfortably, and there'd still be room left over for more.
She's also certain that if she hadn't been caught wandering by one of the royal attendants mere minutes after she left the foyer, she surely would have gotten lost and her mother would have had to send one of the servants after her before she starved to death in some obscure corner of the palace.
"You there! I don't recognize you" the servant takes a look at her clothes suspiciously "are you new?"
"I… yes. I've been assigned to the kitchen but no escort was sent to show me exactly where that is, or where… anything is, for that matter." Confidence is key, Clarke.
The girl squints at her, as if measuring the likelihood of her statement. Clarke sends up a prayer she buys it.
Someone up there answers, and she lets out an exasperated sigh before saying "all the escorts in the world for every foreign ambassador and their mother, but God forbid the help know where to find anything in this damned place."
"Yes, exactly!" Clarke's enthusiasm is more at having not been caught in a lie, but redirecting the excitement to build up more of a rapport with this girl isn't the worst plan she's had.
"C'mon, I have some free time. I'll give you a brief tour."
The girl, Veira, shows her everything from the Grand Ballroom to the servants' quarters, and Clarke is in awe of absolutely everything. No two rooms are quite the same, but everything is elaborate and regal and more than Clarke could have possibly imagined. There are more books in the library than Clarke knew were ever written, more unique paintings lining every wall than she had known images existed, and more rooms for more purposes than she had thought someone could ever be in want of, let alone in need of.
She wasn't envious of the grandeur, per say. She loves home and the people there too much to ever desire after elsewhere.
But there's nothing here that's been touched by anything bad that's ever happened back home.
Maybe that's why she feels so out of place.
You couldn't look at a place like this and immediately assume pain outside of these colored walls was real. It's an oasis. A place to hide. The crystal chandeliers and the tiled floors and the smell of fresh, hot food would make anyone forget that anything outside these walls exists.
Maybe that's what Clarke is envious of.
The freedom to forget reality lies here.
Their tour ends when they reach the kitchen. Clarke is endlessly grateful to her new friend for preventing her from getting lost, and expresses as much before Veira leaves her.
The kitchen is a long room with counters along each wall, doors on each side, and a long table in the center. The cook stands alone, stirring something into a pot when Clarke is led into the room. "The new girl?"
"…Yes."
She points to the counter next to Clarke, where a large pile of expensive silverware lie haphazardly, "Count and sort them."
Clarke, being the person that she is, takes it as an invitation that likely wasn't intended. The pieces are heavy, and valuable, and they're right there.
She does as she was asked, counting and sorting the silverware, only adding a step called "slip every tenth piece of each kind into your cloak's inner pockets".
The cook is distracted, humming along to some tune and completely oblivious, her back turned and facing the wall next to the door on the opposite side of the room. Clarke, on her end, is absolutely delighted. It's not often she's graced with opportunities like these. Silverware is easy to trade and, if too recognizable, easy to sell to a blacksmith willing to melt it down and repurpose the material. She's almost finished with as much as she can carry, and just about ready to rejoice in the uncharacteristic luck she's had today, when a voice coming from the doorway on the other end of the room stops her dead in her tracks.
"Ida‒" The princess enters the room, and looks wide-eyed at Clarke as she slips another piece into her pocket. Clarke's eyes flash in fear, she wasn't feeling particularly keen on the idea of losing a hand today, and she freezes. There's not much she can do at this point, she's been caught red-handed by the princess of all people.
Clarke is definitely losing a hand today. Hopefully they'll let her choose her right one.
Ida, confused at the princess's gaze and the dropped end to her sentence begins, "yes, Your Royal Highness?", as she starts to slowly turn towards Clarke‒ whose still holding a fork that hasn't quite made it into her pocket‒ following the girl's eyes.
"Ida!" The princess's exclamation stops Ida from turning, and draws the cook's attention back on her instead. "Father's doctor requests your presence. She… wants to go over some of the new restrictions she's recommending."
Clarke knows for certain that wasn't true. Her mother had already done that on their last visit, giving all the specifications directly to the queen to pass on. If it were physically possible, Clarke's eyes would have widened further upon hearing the princess lie for her.
"I see. Thank you, Your Royal Highness." Ida steps around the girl, and exits through the door next to her.
Clarke doesn't know why the princess just saved her, but she doesn't want to give her a chance to change her mind. She shakes herself out of her trance, and turns to bolt out the door closest to her.
"Wait."
For the second time that day, the princess's voice causes hesitation. She turns back to face the other girl, who's approaching her slowly.
Clarke notices that the princess looks very different today than she did the last time she saw her. Her eyes are more green than gray, her skin shows a thin layer of sweat, her hair is frizzy and kept in place with a braid, and she's traded in the pretty dress for a tunic, tightly-fitted trousers, and light leather armor.
She shakes her head, remembering the severity of the situation. She reaches into her pockets and takes out the silverware, pushing the pieces towards the girl. Clarke doesn't like begging, but it might just be the only thing that can save her at this point. She begins, earnestly "Here, take it back. Just please don't tell, my mom needs‒"
"No."
Clarke would have been annoyed at the princess's tendency to interrupt her if she wasn't too busy being afraid for her life.
"You don't understand, I can't… please, just take it back." Clarke shakes her head, and pleads with all she has.
"No, I mean… keep it."
Clarke is already preparing her next entreaty, while also considering the merits of sprinting away as fast as possible, when the princess's suggestion finally registers in her mind
"Wait, what?"
"That's the old set. Ida was to have them sorted and put into storage. No one will miss it. So, keep it."
Clarke tries her best to ignore the implication that the royal family regularly goes through sets of silverware as nice as what she hold in her hands.
"Really? You're not gonna have me thrown in the stocks? You're not gonna take my hand?"
"That can be easily arranged, if you'd prefer." The princess gives her a small smile, clearly trying to lighten the mood and ease the too-fast beating of her heart with a joke.
Clarke is dumbfounded. Mercy is not a quality she normally associates with royalty in general, least of all sarcasm. She didn't actually think they could exhibit either. The confusion is evident in her voice when she says "well then, thank you, princess."
There's a flash of annoyance in her eyes, and Clarke remembers you aren't supposed to address royalty by their actual titles. The princess surprises her again.
"Please. Call me Lexa."
"Okay." There's a lingering silence that's not entirely uncomfortable, and Clarke tries to read the other girl's expression. That's what she tells herself she's doing, at least. She doesn't normally look at people directly this long.
She remembers that the first description she came up with for her was "the pretty girl". It's still accurate.
"And you?"
"Me?"
"What can I call you?"
"I'm Clarke."
After a moment, Lexa extends her hand out to her. Clarke looks at it and moves to take it before realizing that her own hands are both still occupied with the silverware she tried to push into Lexa's arms. She considers her hands for a moment, not quite sure why her palms have gotten really sweaty even after establishing that she's home free. Finally she drops what's in her right hand, because obviously that's the best course of action here, and takes Lexa's in hers.
Lexa lets out a quiet laugh and Clarke knows that the effort of having to pick up what she dropped is worth hearing the sound.
"My mom might be done with your father by now." She says, leaning down to gather what she's been given. Lexa drops down to help her.
As she gets back up and hands the pieces back over to Clarke, she agrees, "it's likely."
"I should go."
"As should I."
"Right. It was nice meeting you, Your‒ Lexa." Clarke moves to exit, before turning back around to add. "I suppose I'll see you around?"
Lexa only smiles in reply.
Clarke starts off down the hallway, her pockets just a little heavier than they were when she entered the palace.
She's stopped by that voice for the third time that day. She wonders if it'll become a habit. She wonders if she'd mind.
"Clarke? Try not to get caught stealing anything again." Lexa's smile is bright and her tone is light and she's looking at her like this part is more of a hello than a goodbye.
"Don't worry. I never make the same mistake twice." Clarke smirks at the girl before turning away again, and starts towards the foyer.
Maybe it was simply that the way she was saved also felt a lot like being caught.
Maybe it was simply the way her heart kept thumping just like it did whenever Clarke would help with distribution.
Maybe it was simply the way her name sounded like it was new and sacred coming from Lexa's mouth.
But, for whatever the reason, she realizes that, if she were being completely honest, she couldn't find a single part of her that felt getting caught stealing from the palace by the Princess of Trigeda was a mistake.