/
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
- e. e. cummings
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Chapter One:
An Endless War
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[ 431 B.C. ]
/
She was bathing in the river when the war cries rose like ravens over the moon. They were a warning smoke of a wildfire, a pack of wolves howling in the night. Sparta was steeling itself for the hunt. Tomorrow, they would invade Attica.
She breathed in deeply, the kind of steadying breath she took when she was about to let an arrow fly.
Focus your thoughts, Lexa told herself.
Focus, echoed the words of her teacher, the goddess Artemis. Focus, and accept a warrior's fate.
She would die tomorrow.
/
She was braiding her hair when word reached her house. A cry sounded from downstairs, and Clarke pictured her mother in shambles on the floor, knowing what this would mean for them. Sparta had lain waste to the coastline of Attica. The long-dead war had risen from the ashes and caught fire once more. The flame between Sparta and Athens, it seemed, would never go out. The only solution was death.
The Senate would call for soldiers, and Clarke's family hadn't one to give. Clarke's father had died fighting in the First Peloponnesian War when Clarke had been just a toddler. And now they would ask for her adopted brother, Wells, whose fragile body wasn't made for war and violence.
Steady, Clarke chided herself as the blade shook in her grip. Resigned and thin-lipped, she brought the dagger to the back of her head, holding her braided blond hair firmly against it.
For Wells, she thought as she sliced the blade upward, sheering off her braid in one fell swoop.
Athens didn't let girls fight, so from this day on she would no longer be a girl. She wrapped yards of fabric tight around her chest, tucking her breasts away and trying to flatten them out as best she could. Skirts billowing out behind her and catching the gods' fingers of morning light streaming through the curtains, she fled to her father's old room, a place that had been left untouched for almost sixteen years.
The room made her heart sink. Dust danced up toward the ceiling. Her father was dead, but some part of him still dwelled inside this room. His soul lurked under a rusted vase of invisible flowers he once watered, in the sheets of the bed he once slept in, under the rug he once paced upon.
She approached the wooden chest in the corner of the room and lifted its heavy lid.
Inside: armor, a shield, and her father's prized sword.
As soon as she was dressed and packed, she would go to the gathering at the square and sign her name on a scroll. She was a soldier now.
/
Lexa awoke to the sounds of a battle going to sleep: heaving breaths, hushed whimpering, and heartbroken sobs that rang out into the setting sun. Or maybe it was morning. She didn't know. She felt the back of her head, her fingers coming back flecked with dried blood. She grimaced.
As always, Sparta had taken its rightfully-earned victory, but Lexa didn't know that yet. There was no way she could know who had won. She only saw the bodies: some alive, some dead.
For a long while, Lexa lay still on the bloody ground, unsure if it was safe to move. She listened to the dull rhythm of the waves, threatening to lull her back to sleep. The sand of the beach was gritty against her skin.
Suddenly above her, she saw the blurred outline of a girl, a girl like her. Lexa, despite how much she was in pain, smiled.
"Costia?" she asked hopefully.
"No, not Costia." The young woman pressed a palm to Lexa's cheek, gentle. And Lexa knew who it was.
"Ah, Zoë." Lexa got to her feet, refusing Zoë's arm when she offered it. "I'm fine," she insisted. Her mind then returned to where it had been before—in between when she'd opened her eyes and when Zoë had appeared above her and was not Costia—and it lingered there, in that moment, when she thought that her love was alive after this fearsome invasion. Worry consumed her. "Where is Costia? Is she hurt?"
"Lexa…" Zoë's face fell. Lexa's stomach lurched with dread.
Just then, as she became more aware of her surroundings, she noticed a group of women, her women, crowded around in a circle.
They were crying.
Lexa, in a daze, started over to the group. She only made it three steps before Zoë grabbed her arms and pulled her back. "Don't go over there," she said.
Lexa fought against her iron grip and broke free. She ran to the gathering of crying women, steeling herself for the inevitable.
Zoë called after her, begging her to stay back. But Lexa ran and pushed through the crowd to see what they'd gathered around. Zoë pleaded, "You don't want to see—Lexa, stop!"
But it was too late.
Lexa had seen it.
Costia's head, apart from her body. Her mangled black curls drenched in blood, her expression impossibly peaceful. How did this beautiful, vibrant girl full of light become something so disastrous?
This was war. This was loss.
Lexa sunk to her knees and screamed out to the setting sun. Costia was gone.
Eternal heartbreak, Artemis had once warned Lexa.
That is a warrior's fate.
/
429 B.C. (3 Years Later)
/
Clarke resented the echoes of war. The clanging of metal swords were children's screams to her ears, the battle cries the deafening howl of an impending storm.
The echoes of war, the lamenting screams of peace undone. Like oil and water, Clarke and combat did not mix. She shivered before another's blade; she mourned when she killed another by her own. All this time, she'd been forced into a battle she never wanted to fight. And here it was unfolding in front of her, a mirage of lost hope and crazed eyes. Hungry for blood, the soldiers' unwavering determination frightened her to no end. Did they not doubt their actions as she did with her every breath?
This is the end, General Bion had said when he saw the Spartan troops approaching on the horizon. And this is how we will burn.
The battle was a bloody one.
Right before her eyes, Clarke witnessed a Spartan soldier slice a blade through the chest of her most trusted friend, Kyros. Tears in her eyes and frustration boiling in her veins, Clarke turned to a soldier that was coming at her from behind. There would be time to mourn later.
The soldier was a girl, like Clarke was a girl. The clear mark of Spartan training: she was allowed to fight. The top part of her hair was in braids, and the rest of swooped out behind her in a sparrow brown curtain. The soldier's eyes were so large and fiercely green that Clarke felt she was drowning in them.
The girl struck, and without thinking Clarke raised her blade to clash against hers. They spun around each other, a game of back and forth. Clarke was entranced by the fight; she'd never met another soldier who fought the same way that she did. Every move she made was mirrored in the girl's striking green eyes, every strike anticipated by her blade. She dodged whenever Clarke thought she had the upper hand, and every time the girl aimed for her, Clarke instinctively blocked her.
They moved in a constant circle around each other, one never quite overpowering the other. Clarke became the girl's partner in the dance they were performing, and soon the battle fell away around her hand she saw only the girl's eyes, heard only the clanging of their swords. Clarke saw a smile on the girl's face and was surprised to feel a faint one growing on her own. This was mesmerizing.
And then it was over.
In a blink of an eye—almost by accident—Clarke had struck her blade across the girl's middle. Stunned, the girl stared at Clarke as if betrayed. But why should she feel that way when they were on opposite sides of a raging war? And why did Clarke feel so terrible about hurting her?
They were evenly matched in every way, in skill and in spirit. They could have kept fighting forever without either of them winning if Clarke had not moved her sword a little to the left.
Groaning, the girl doubled over to the ground. A surge of guilt overcame Clarke.
"Pretend that you're dead," she yelled over the deafening howls of the battle. "Then you might live."
Clarke then remembered with a start that in all physical ways, she still looked like a man. She'd made sure of that. Three long years of war, of living among men, and she'd maintained her carefully-crafted masculine identity. Even though she felt a connection with this girl, a connection that she couldn't quite describe, this girl still saw her as a man.
The girl spat at her feet. "I don't need your help, Athenian."
"Then don't take it," Clarke seethed back.
Shield out, she went out in the sea of blood to defend her people.
/
When the end of the battle came, nearly all of the Athenians were dead. The stench of dead bodies was unbearable to Lexa. She covered the lower half of her face with a cloth as she walked across the field with the other surviving Spartans in the direction of their camp. She had to walk slowly—the wound the Athenian had given her wasn't as deep as she originally thought, and the bleeding had since stopped—so she was one of the last of her group, walking in the back all alone. Usually after a battle, all of the Hunters found each other after a battle, but Lexa didn't know how many of them had made it out alive. The battle may have been a win for Sparta, but were there any true winners in war? They had lost a devastating number of men and women. They were only hanging by a thread. How was Lexa to know how many—if any—of the Hunters had survived?
Twilight bathed the field in red, the light like blooming flowers over the bodies and blood-flecked grass. The night was rolling in, and with it came crisp, sweet air. Lexa hoped the moon would wash over this damned field and lead the fallen souls up into the stars where they belonged. She was lost in her own thoughts, reliving the pain and bloodshed of the last day, when there came a groan from her feet.
The light was fading and the ground was so dark that at first all Lexa could see was a pair of startling blue eyes, full of life when this dreaded field was drenched in despair. She knew those eyes. They shone in her memory through a haze of aching muscles, spraying blood, and gleaming swords.
They belonged to an Athenian. Not just any Athenian—the Athenian.
"Watch your step," said the Athenian. There was surprising strength behind the voice, Lexa thought, especially for someone too hurt to stand up.
"Why should I?" Lexa said. The Athenian was would probably soon die. Lexa was tempted to finish the job.
The Athenian sighed. Lexa couldn't see her blond hair through a mess of darkness, blood, and discarded armor and body parts belonging to other dead Athenians. The field was a mass grave, but this soldier was somehow alive.
The Athenian was silent. Lexa could hear shallow breaths becoming steadily more labored.
She touched the Athenian's leg with her toe, eliciting a wince from the blue-eyed face. Lexa said, "I know your secret, you know."
The Athenian's eyes sharpened. "I don't have a secret."
Lexa knelt down closer to the wounded soldier. "You're a girl," she said.
"Go fuck yourself," the Athenian said. But her defenses were down; she was too hurt to deflect the accusation, too tired to keep up the façade.
Lexa didn't try to argue with her. "Why did you enlist?"
The Athenian girl sighed, as if giving up. "It was either me or my brother. He was sick — there was no way he'd survive if he was a soldier. I had to go in his place. I just had to."
Noble cause, Lexa thought. For an Athenian.
Just then, the Athenian winced in pain and started to shudder. Her breathing grew even more shallow. A shock of alarm went off in Lexa's mind. This girl was dying.
Lexa took a closer look at the girl's wound, which was long and menacing across her middle.
"What are you doing?" asked the girl in a faint voice. She was fading fast.
Lexa pushed aside her armor to find the wound on her skin. It was ugly. The girl was losing blood fast.
"Don't… touch… me," the girl barely got out before her eyes fluttered closed against her own accord.
Lexa made a split decision with her heart. Artemis always advocated against making decisions with your heart. Ever since she learned this lesson the hard way when she fell for Orion, costing him his life, Artemis did her best to make decisions using only her head, and to never love again. But for Lexa it sometimes couldn't be helped. You have a fierce heart, Artemis had once told her. You need to learn when to listen to it, and when to ignore it.
Even though she knew she ought to ignore it, Lexa was listening to it now.
She squatted to the ground, sighing at what she was about to do but still not stopping herself from digging her arms under the injured girl's limp body and slowly lifting her off the ground.
/
The cruel fingers of sleep slackened enough for Clarke to see light dappled around her. So it is morning, Clark thought. Or Elysium, possibly.
Then she felt a pile of soft silk pillows under her body. She opened her eyes enough to see the burlap siding of a tent blowing slightly in the gentle wind. Enough to see the wide, curious green eyes of a warrior Clarke knew.
So she wasn't dead. Clarke wasn't sure if she was glad for it.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked the girl. She sat on the floor of the tent beside the Clarke's bedroll. Her face was clean of war paint and without the smears of red blood on her cheeks, Clarke saw that she had freckles. The girl was very pretty.
She's a Spartan, Clarke remembered with a sudden burst of fury. Her life had been saved by a girl who belonged to the enemy, the one enemy she would hate for all eternity for killing her father.
"Where am I?" she said. Her hair was sweaty against her scalp; she felt utterly awful. A bad taste was in her mouth, and she was in enough pain to last her three lifetimes. On top of it all, this girl was looking at her like she was the sun: too bright to look at too long. She kept glancing at her, then glancing away. Was Clarke that hideous or was the girl afraid of her?
The girl's green eyes narrowed at her sharp tone. "Spartan camp just outside Corinth."
"Let me go back to my people," Clarke demanded, struggling to sit up. Pain erupted across her stomach. She feared she would explode with frustration. How dare this girl save her life, treat her wounds? And giving Clarke no choice in the matter?
"I'm afraid I can't do that," the girl said. "And you can't sit up yet. Phoebe says you need to rest for at least three more days. You almost died."
Clarke abandoned her efforts in trying to sit up when the green-eyed girl tried to help her. Clarke shook her off. "Who the hell is Phoebe?"
The green-eyed girl sighed. "One of our healers—daughter of Apollo. She's very knowledgeable, and has saved my life on more than one occasion. I'd trust her advice."
Clarke scoffed. "Never trust a Spartan."
The green-eyed girl only smirked. "Funny. We say the same about Athenians."
There was a brief silence. A bird's song caught on the wind and blew into the tent.
Clarke looked at the green-eyed girl. Her sparrow brown hair was brilliantly bright in the morning sunlight that snuck in through the openings of the tent. Clarke hardened her stare when she remembered why she was here. "How dare you bring me here?" she said in a hushed voice.
"It was the right thing to do," the green-eyed girl said. "I'm Lexa, by the way. What is your—"
"You don't get to know my name," Clarke snapped.
"I saved your life."
"Go fuck yourself."
"That's the second time you've said that to me in the past two days."
Clarke clenched her fists. "And I'll keep saying it until you understand that I don't want to be here. I didn't ask for your help."
Anger flashed across Lexa's face. "You were dying—"
"Don't you get it? I'd rather die for my people than be saved by yours."
Something like respect took over Lexa's eyes as she examined Clarke. "It's important to me that you live."
"Why?" asked Clarke through clenched teeth.
"Because I think you'd make a valuable addition to our army."
"Fucking hell."
"No, not the Spartan army. We may fight on the side of the Spartans, but Sparta is not our people. We are our own people. We are the Hunters of Artemis."
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A/N: i have never written a fic before but ashley ( smolgayheda on tumblr) proposed a hunters of artemis AU for clexa and we talked about it an i just had to write it i had no choice it was too good.
i'd be open to any advice! i usually write my own fiction (i'm afterlightt on wattpad if you're interested but i'm hardly ever on wattpad anymore) and i'm currently struggling through the second draft of my second novel, which i kind of hope to get published? maybe someday?
anyway i'm bluebirdsargent on tumblr too so if you want to fangirl about the 100 or anything else really my askbox is always open