a/n: chapter title from . . . oh i think it's mine. oh would you look at that. it is. i should really know what's mine and what isn't.
i shouldn't be posting but I am because I'm trash who hasn't finished writing this story yet.
also I felt guilty because that prologue wasn't much.
so this is going to be a double update lolz.
comments give me life.
enjoy.
also, apparently i never posted these two chapters here, so. here you go.
i'll upload the third chapter . . . eventually. if you really wanna read it, it's up on my ao3.
"Incoming!" A guttural voice roars just moments before a gargantuan cart hurtles through, giving Bellamy only a hair of a second to jump out of the way. He lands rather ungracefully on top of sacks of wheat and flour and groans as the world tilts on its side.
Before his world can straighten itself out, the haggard baker storms out of the bakery, baring his broken, yellowed and pointed teeth at Bellamy, "Get your damned ass out of my product!" Bellamy can barely focus on the wicked curl on the baker's mouth but he scowls and rises from the flour.
Bellamy really hates the marketplace.
In all of his ten years of coming to this particular rat-shit of a marketplace, it's only gotten bigger and busier and more boisterous and all the more detestable. Bellamy swears that the larger the marketplace grows, the more the residents resemble the slaughtered cows for sale—all gutted and revolting and rancid.
He finishes off his errands, barely restraining himself from snapping back at the caustic vegetables vendor with the beady, snake-like eyes. He stalks out of the marketplace, clenching his teeth as their whispers dig into his back like starved teeth, like burning claws trying to take pieces of him like they dragged his mother and sister away.
When he's fully encased within the woods, he can breathe freely again.
It's raining and that probably should have been his first clue. It's thundering and the lightning scorches the sky. He's running but the rain keeps crawling into his throat, his nose, his eyes and he can't breathe, he can't see. His body feels inexperienced, unused and terribly unsuited for running this fast (it feels young and naïve). It's like he's a stranger in his own body, everything feels foreign and wrong.
But then he sees Octavia and he feels sort of right again.
He's reaching for her, her name is ripping from his throat. The lightening bends around her figure like a deadly omen, like she's something too fierce, too sacred for even lightning to burn.
That's his little sister.
He sees his mother next and the world feels so very wrong. Some man has wrapped his gnarled hands around her beautiful hair, some man has his bloodshot eyes trained on her beautiful face, some man is touching her and he wants to break the man's bones.
That's his mother.
He hears her shrieks and he thinks that the lightning must have hit him because he feels electrified, paralyzed with fear but somehow he keeps running.
He feels his feet slapping against the muddy ground, he can feel his feet losing traction against the slippery ground. He can feel his heart slip with the look on his mother's face.
Protect Octavia.
He smells the wood and the bloodlust pouring from the men. They're going to burn his mother and he has to save her. But he can see the pleas in her eyes, begging him to save Octavia first.
His mind is a battlefield and the clamors of his doubt resonate within his chest like the growls of the men resonate in his heart. It's loud and it's bloody and every scenario he can imagine, he's losing either a sister or a mother or both and they're his everything.
He keeps running but he can never reach Octavia and all he can register is his mother's screams and his duty to protect Octavia.
Octavia turns towards him, her eyes are hollow.
"What's going on, Bell?" And then she's consumed by the fear of the men. She's engulfed in their bloodlust, their ignorance. Her pretty face is darkened and twisted as they pull her apart. They're surrounding her like hungry demons, their mouths biting and sucking and draining her of everything pure and righteous about her.
The thunder is thundering, deafening.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
He tastes the regret, the hatred, the despair burning a hole in his heart.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
His mother is still screaming. His sister is wilting. He is running.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
They're cackling, they're grunting, they're animals tearing his kingdom to the ground.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Please, is anyone there? I need help!"
Bellamy startles awake shooting up, chest heaving. He's in his bed at the cabin, the moonlight pours through the windows and all he can hear is the frantic pounding on the front door. It's loud and disorienting and he can't breathe with all of the pounding. He stumbles out of bed towards the door, tripping over pots and books on his way.
He yanks the door open and comes face-to-face with a girl with glowing hair (she looks like a girl made of sunlight, an ephemeral image of a girl from a different time).
"What the hell do you want?" He growls. No one has visited the cabin since that day- at least, not for the magical reasons people usually came. Now if anyone were to stumble upon his property, it was mostly by mistake and they were promptly chased off of his land by a very perturbed Bellamy.
(And it's not that he wouldn't help someone who needs magical assistance, it's just that for all of his years watching his mother practice it, he never produced a drop; also, magic itself is his mother and Octavia and he can't even think about it without feeling the holes in his chest, the wounds that never really closed.)
He belatedly realizes her hair isn't actually glowing, that it's just the moonlight dancing off of her blonde hair and that her eyes are puffy and rimmed with red. Her back is ramrod straight and her shoulders are squared; her fist is frozen in the air, ready to knock again and her knuckles are torn open. Her mouth is hanging open, like a scream was trying to escape. She looks like something is trying to escape from inside her and he thinks she looks like a disaster.
Her eyes narrow and he swallows at the determined fire he sees there.
"My mother killed my father and I think you have the answers to my questions."
A pregnant pause.
"And you are?" He finally drawls sleepily, the words falling from his mouth like molasses—thick and viscous and heavy.
She bobs her head like she's surprised he even answered her at all and didn't slam the door in her face (it's still not out of the question) and then steels her gaze into a molten sea that threatens to drown him
"Clarke Griffin and you're the witch's son. I believe we have some things to discuss."