AUTHOR: Elegy
PAIRING: Clarke/Lexa
RATING: M for a few scenes with verbal and physical violence and a few sexual scenes.
SPOILERS: Seasons 2 and 3 are restyled... Mount Weather doesn't exist and some of the characters are still alive.
NOTE: This story is my tribute to the most badass lesbian warrior ever, and to one of the most interesting and strong representations of lesbian relationships I could discover, the relationship which allowed me to write again after 12 years of creative void.
Thanks to Broody and Timinou, my faithful friends for beta-reading me for the French version, and thanks to Lia Weisflog for the English version.
The Sound and the Fury
"[...] no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."
William Faulkner, The sound and the fury
CHAPTER 1
Night had fallen on the hill and in the valley tens of fires were lightning the Skaikru camp. Careless laughters and shouts were carried by the wind, strong and freezing, which hardly moved the long edges of her black coat. From the top of the hill, her eyes encircled by war paint embraced the view with impassiveness. Only the reflection of the moon on the two swords worn on her back could have revealed her presence to the Sky people.
A pout of despise appeared on her lips in front of the arrogance and recklessness of this people who, barely arrived, had decimated a Trikru village populated with modest and defenceless farmers.
They have to pay.
Jus drein, jus daun.
Blood must have blood.
She closed her eyes for an instant, restored calm inside herself in order to better face the roar to come. Then she turned away and mounted her horse to reach the main path.
Concealed in the dark of the forest, hundreds of warriors were waiting for her.
Octavia had disappeared for four months and the extensive research conducted by her brother Bellamy in the company of Finn, Monty and Murphy had remained unsuccessful. Worse, it had proved disastrous. The only clue they had found was her bloody coat in a Grounder's house in a village.
They had questioned the Grounder and the other villagers, but whether they did not know their language or they did not want to reveal anything, they had stayed stubbornly silent.
A desperate rage had seized Bellamy, and he had begun to relentlessly hit the man who seemed to be their leader. Some had wanted to defend him, and chaos had started.
An assault rifle had spewed death for endless seconds, slaughtering men, women and children in a deluge of fire. When silence had returned, they could only fathom the magnitude of the disaster, dazed, their ears left half deaf by the shots, only perceiving a strange mechanical sound.
The sound made by Finn while pulling the trigger of his unloaded weapon, his eyes mad and his body shaking.
When they came back, Finn had been locked up in a room of the shuttle while waiting to find what to do with him.
Murphy and Bellamy would visit him every day, but they could only observe his mind was tipping into madness. Only the sedatives that Abby, the doctor of the colony, administered to him managed to make him pronounce a few coherent sentences.
Recently, a part of the adults from the space station had succeeded in joining them on Earth, and Marcus Kane had taken command of Arkadia, formerly known as Camp Jaha. Subsequent to the massacre, he had forbidden Bellamy to undertake further research and the latter was champing at the bit. To contain his anxiety, he participated in the fortification of the camp and supervised the operations. A two-meter high outer wall now bordered their camp of tents and small buildings made with wood and recovered metal which surrounded the shuttle. Raven was still working on the production of bombs to protect it.
Bellamy got closer to the central camp fire placed in front of the shuttle around which the survivors of the hundred would meet each night, away from the adults. Many had already gone to bed, but laughters and talks persisted despite the late hour. He greeted Murphy and Jasper who were sharing a bottle of alcohol, and continued on his way.
Bellamy headed for a greater and farer of the center building. When he entered, he saw Clarke stitching a cut on the belly of an injured person. She seemed to be exhausted.
"Hello. You're not gonna sleep?"
Focused on her task, Clarke did not even look up.
"Unless you know how to suture, I don't think I can allow myself.
Somewhere, a man began to moan. Bellamy realized he was one of the Grounders they had rescued. Some had survived Finn's bullets thanks to the combined treatment from Abby and her daughter Clarke who had learnt a lot alongside her when they still were in the Ark.
"Nobody can replace you? How long haven't you slept?"
Exasperated, Clarke abruptly rose.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to fix your screw-up, Bellamy! So, if you have nothing more important to tell me, you can get lost!"
"Okay, okay, sorry..."
Bellamy retreated hurriedly, not without a last guilty look at the Grounders. When he left the infirmary, one of the guards posted on the surrounding wall called out to him.
"Bellamy, there's something strange there."
"What's up?", he asked when he arrived next to him.
"I'm often assigned here, and, at night, at the end of the path over there, usually I can see stars through the trees... now, everything is black, it's weird..."
Bellamy scrutinized the darkness in the direction the guard indicated to him. When at last he understood what screened the trees, it was already too late.
The Commander unsheathed one of her swords and slowly turned to her warriors waiting for her orders.
"Jus drein, jus daun!"
While the shout was repeated over and over as a haunting prayer by her army, she nodded at the two women riding at her side, then rushed forward in full gallop, yelling, her eyes filled with rage.