NOTE: Oorah; chapter two. 8)
SUMMARY: Before the world ended there had been an interesting curse; "May you live in interesting times." Chaotic, and turbulent, and dangerous. These are such times. Before the 100 crashed on earth there was a whole society fighting for their right to exist every day. A world where children go to war, mountains devour villages and stars fall from the sky.
"Maybe it makes us both villains," it's a sad thought, without heart and without soul, "maybe there are no heroes."
(or)
We know the commander who united the twelve grounder clans, who made choices with her head, and not her heart. But how did she get like that? She found victory on the back of sacrifice, but belief was a little harder to grasp.
"Go back inside, sky girl." Some rebellious shard inside howls stay, but it is one impulse amongst many—and it will not win this night. "There's nothing out here for you tonight."
You don't speak for two moons, glowering and angry; coiled tightly in the corner of spacious rooms and grand halls. You've only ever known cramped carts and filthy taverns. Thin soft servants flit in and out, using soothing tones like you're some type of rabid animal. Cornered and dangerous, as if all you needed was a considerate hand offering food and safety. No—safety would be your caravan, would be your men, and would be the darkest corners of the woods. You knew the whole world; because no particular part of it was your home. You knew the mountain passes of the north, the salted isles of the south, the harsh deserts of the west, and the lush forest of the east—your shelter was open skies, and your craft was selling pieces of yourself to people who would never really know you.
When you woke that first night your dusty travel clothing was replaced with pale loose silk and soft flowing cotton; dirty fingernails itching at the fabric because it was too comfortable. Soft adults years your senior speak to you like a child, spinning words in both your native tongue andEnglish, which you understood only sparsely. They called you heda always, as if not a single one of them knew your name. You were just a fulfillment to them, something they'd been looking for—even though you hadn't been lost. At least, you didn't ever feel lost.
You refuse dinner for the fifth night in a row, no longer even picking at the lavish meals left near the door, your body is weak, and your mind dulling. The walls depicting pictures of people you did not recognize growing fuzzy and inarticulate—you don't know what you intend to accomplish, and some logical, adult part of you know you're being childish. Acting your age. But you don't want to be here, you want the familiarity of open space, of control, and familiarity—you don't want to be lost anymore, because it wasn't until that found you that you lost your grip oneverything
You're half-asleep when she slips in, pressed into a corner, fingers wrapped loosely around a metal utensil—too dull to do much damage, but it had been presented with the bread from when you were meant to break your fast. She's a shadow slipping from dark patch to dark patch, utterly silent and united with the lack of light—hoisting you up with sure hands and a brutal grip, a strangled sound erupts from your throat and you thrust your dulled bread knife toward her mass. You know what warriors are capable of—those with blue and purple sashes are hard enough to manage, but a golden one? You'd never stayed long enough to worry about their ability.
"You have them all fooled." She's hissing like a disturbed snake, rattling off words with a vibration in her throat. Your feet don't touch the ground when she holds you against the wall—you've never been the tallest, or the largest, but you're quick, and you know how to take a blow. Thick headed, your father had said it like a compliment. "You're not him." Him. The last commander, the man who had the heart of a nation nestled comfortably in his hands—who was loved more than he was hated. A man who had been dead for as long as you've been alive. Mention of him made you bristle because so many people spoke to you with a familiarity that they hadn't earned—because they assumed you were this heda.
It's with frustration that you kick off the wall and thrust what slight weight you have into her superiorly muscled body; she hardly wavers, but you're quick. And unpredictable. Twisting from the grip on your collar, you drop a thin bony shoulder and lodge it in the center of her chest—she didn't wear armor, and it was a relief that she released her hold and staggered back a step. You scamper away to the far side of the room, and hold her in your sight—she was still beautiful, this Anya, but you didn't care anymore. Because she was dangerous, and you hadn't lived this long by being careless.
"I'm not." You agree, because it is the one thing you have in common—everyone else gives you this man's reverence, his honor, but you aren't him. No matter what they say. And this scorned beautiful warrior is the only one that agrees with you. You feel claustrophobic and alone; and for a stashed away orphan, that was an accomplishment. Your fingers tighten around the tarnished silver of your dull knife, and you slowly move toward the door, away from her lengthening shadow—the hall is silent, and you know she'd dismissed those who typically linger in the long passages. They think you safe with a dead man's second.
She doesn't move to stop you, only watches you with hidden eyes—you wonder what had changed, she'd been the first to say you were a dead man, but after the rituals that would prove their claims, she'd backed away and refused to be a part. You think you know why—you're a body seer, after all, a merchant wolf with a silver tongue and a golden smile. You toyed with the golden molar you'd gotten to honor your father, cold and metallic in your mouth, always reminding you faintly of blood. You watch her with inscrutable eyes and tip your chin.
"He was gone long before they found me," you supply, breaking the silence like a snapped cord; you know you've gotten it right when she reacts. Like a bull catching a glimpse of red, she barrels forward and it's only a quick decision to dive to the right that saves you. If you were who they claimed—some sacred figure of leadership—the man she loved would be dead, completely and wholly. You can see it in the clench of her jaw, and the flare of her nostrils—she had hoped beyond hope to never find the next in line, because that allowed some lingering possibility that he had lived. This nameless commander that you were supposed to have been.
You are quick, but she'd quicker, snagging two fingers into the loose fabric of your collar and drawing you into her curled fist. Stars erupts more readily than the dark spots, and you're proud of yourself for keeping your feet—even more proud when the dull knife you've kept curled to your forearm lashes out and digs a harsh blunt line of red down her bicep. The red is sluggish—and not yours—which is the best kind. Without question that is the last blow you land.
But you refuse to stay down, even when your body aches, and your mind is foggy, you mindlessly—and sightlessly—stagger to your feet despite the weeping wounds littering your body. The crimson soaking into the pale fabric of your clothing; your feet are heavy, a thousand pounds each, but it isn't until you attempt a step toward her that she husks, "Stop." All you can see is the gold of her sash, she's cast into darkness from the moon lingering at the top of the trees. There's something in her hand, a piece of fabric coiled tight around her fist. She tosses it toward you, it had just enough weight and shape to tumble across the ground at touch the toes of your bare feet.
"Go, goufa." She's sneering, but even in the dark, her face doesn't match the tone. How could someone hold so much sadness? "You don't belong here." And you never will, seems to linger unsaid, but she doesn't move toward you again. She's stoic and untouched, ruby glinting on her arm where you caught her with your dull blade. This isn't a retreat, you promise yourself, as you grab the bundle—eyes never leaving her, ears listening for any movement in the hall.
It isn't running, you tell yourself.
You've always had a fascination with legends. The tall tales of people long dead who had done extraordinary things. Men who conquered the world, and women who enslaved the sky—the commander has always been a legend. A spirit more than a person, a feeling more than a truth—the people need something to believe in, when their kin are swallowed by ravenous mountains, and their warriors frozen in ice fields. You've heard your fill of stories involving the leader; of grand battles, and risky tactics—failures glorified just as readily as the victories.
It hadn't taken word long to trickle through the villages, each version slightly different, each tale taller the further from Polis you trek—heda had been found, marched on the capitol with an army all their own, a hundred kill marks and a reaper's hook rusted with blood. You stand in a paltry market in stolen clothing; listening to warriors eagerly gossip, their eyes bright, their smiles hungry and wanting. Life is pouring into the gray that had lingered in every gaze you've come upon. Everyone is bustling around as if it was the first day of spring, and not the bitterest day of autumn.
It takes you a month to reach the northern border, closer to your home village than you'd have liked, but you hadn't known where to go. The living you'd poured your all into had been crushed by a forced destiny—one that you didn't even believe was your own. That night in the beacon of the capitol, Anya had given you two things—the wood handled knife you'd always kept with you, and a pale blue sash. The mark of a warrior just beyond a second, one who had proven themselves, but was still just an able body—until merit garnered a sash of a much darker, richer blue. Inside the deerskin pelt was the other sash she'd given, absolutely hidden from sight—the vibrant bright crimson tangled with golden pendants. The mark of the commander.
You don't intend to find the battlefront, not truly, but the cold addled your mind, and the dark turned you around until there were campfires and hunched bodies. A man easily twice your size thrusts a sword beneath your chin when the first hint of light crosses your face; his dark eyes calm, his expression hidden by a full beard and curling tattoos. His brow furrows, but he takes you in—pale blue sash, dark tanned skin, and dark curling hair. This close to winter, none of your father's northern blood shows.
"Gada," he rumbles, his lip twitching just a little—you don't like how he looks at you, like he knows things that he shouldn't. That he can tell your years too young to have this colored sash—not even old enough to be a second. "Get more wood." He releases you and thrusts you toward the wood again, toward the axe lodged edge first into a stump. Even though you can hardly feel your fingers, you curl them around the handle and heft it up and over your shoulder. You crave the heat of the fire—two candle marks in the wood, and a night in the warmth of the fed flame. It seemed the only course of action.
The man who had put you to work that first night is Gustus, his accent southern and his words few—despite his gruff countenance, he shepherds the younger warriors. Giving them tasks and pushing them beyond what they'd previously thought their limit—he seems to enjoy knocking you to the ground when you spar. Sweeping your legs clean out from underneath and leaving you heaving for breath in the snow. You don't know why you stay—you fall asleep every night aching and exhausted, you wake up too early every morning, but there is the same sense of belonging as there had been in the caravan. Men and women who worked together for a common goal.
You don't even feel like you're in a war zone until the middle of winter—night falls and the fires blaze, but you've had a buzzing sensation in your bones all afternoon. Growing more agitated as the sun sank toward the horizon; something feels wrong, but Gustus pushes your head to the side and tells you to water the horses. It is when you're ensconced in their pen that you feel the eyes on your back, crawling up your spine. You've always had a sense for this, for the disturbance of air, which had allowed you to survive through your childhood of bandit ambushes.
You aren't playing at warrior anymore, this game has gone too far, especially when a cold blade it notched under your chin, and a face riddled with scars presses into your temple. "What've we here?" A whistle through obviously missing teeth, the rough white fur of an ice nation warrior obvious at the corner of your eye. "Sending their lambs to war, are they." It wasn't a question, though his voice tipped and slowed—he inches the blade higher, which brings you to your toes. Fear thundering through your veins, pushing down logic and courage, and anything that had kept your alive before.
You don't know how to die—you wonder if it is some moment of acceptance that allows such a fate. You know that if you close your eyes, you'd feel the cold blood on your cheeks, and Anya's small hands cupping your face as you died. Tumbling clumsy words falling from your lips—but it wasn't you. Neither was it you who had stopped your loud metal cart in the center of a towering forest of metal and glass—burning clouds chased across the sky, and harsh boiling winds poured through streets. People screamed, everyone died—even you. Until you lived again.
"I'm not a lamb." You don't know how your voice doesn't shake, but you maintain the detached tone you'd practiced quietly into the fire—when it was your turn on watch. "I'd much rather be a horse." With a sharp rotation, and a bark of manic laughter, the herd of stallions start and rear. You've been around stubborn animals your whole life—beast and monsters that'd stomp you into the ground if you weren't careful. The ice nation warrior stumbled backward, just barely avoiding a set of hooves. You're not moving away, you're moving toward the largest of the animals—he pulls the carts because he bucks anyone who's tried to saddle him.
He fights, dancing in a tight circle, but you match him, sure in a way you can't understand—like you've done this before, like he could recognize the bright intentions in your eyes. You turn him toward the full moon and swing onto his wide back, fingers curled into the coarse hair of his midnight colored mane. You see the red blood of the ice warrior's head against the broken gate—his gaze vacant and upturned. His lonely set of footprints drag through the snow—a quiet man with only a short blade and a threat. A scout. Your monster is the first out of the gate, only half controlling his direction—not through camp, which is now loud with activity, but back the way the man had come. To the east, toward the half frozen river—a quick running thing that was foolhardy on the coldest of nights.
You try to quell his gallop, but the beast has his own direction, his own desire, and he wishes to run—churning up snow and flying past bare trees, you don't know if you've ever been more scared. Or more alive. Both hands curl into his mane, and you spy the herd of war horses close on your steed's hoofs—of course, he was their lead. He banked sharply and broke into an open field—snow was falling, and you can make out the gathering specks of torch light. A hundred, a thousand, a million—it seems unnecessary to count past a handful. Especially when you're riding right toward them—war horses don't fear fire, and are trained to charge enemy lines.
The first sharp crack of your mount's hooves makes you hunch closer to his back—another, louder this time. The river. You can practically hear it rushing beneath the snow covered ice. The herd is weakening the ice, threatening it in such a way that you don't think you'll make it to the other side. The first few warriors throw spears, shattering the breast plate of two horses—their thousand pound bodied crashing ungainly to the ground, and the ice spiders outward. You want to feel remorse, but your mind is sharp—tracking the shaking lines of snow, and with effort, you bank your monster to the right, toward the harshest crack of ice. You trample men who try their luck with blades and arrows, and it isn't until a glancing blow curls against your beast's side that he rears and you roll from his back.
Shoulder blades curl in pain, and you just roll out of the way of a dancing hoof—you need to move, you need to keep going. Ducking below a wild swing, you shove a foot into a man's chest, pushing his back enough that you can wretch his blade from the fracturing ice, and slam it two handed through the pale leather pelt of his armor—his eyes are green. Like your fathers. Like yours. He would be your kin had you been raised like a normal northerner. You think you cry louder than he does, your eyes wide, your mouth worrying sounds that didn't belong in a warrior's throat—but you aren't a warrior, are you? You're just pretending—you're always pretending. Shoving yourself backward and back toward your panicked horse, you clamber back onto the beast's back and shoot for the opposite shore—half the herd had been downed, and with each equine body thumping into the loosening ice, it began to break.
Large fissures raced under the scattering army, chaos rolling through already shattered ranks as men began falling beneath the ice—as large disks of what had once been solid ground upended—tossing entire groups into the frozen coffin that the river had become. Ducking your body low, a bloody sword tucked close to your side, you imagine you're going to die—that no one will really know what happened this night. A tragedy that saved your kin—the men and women who you care about, despite the claps to the back of the head when you miss a block, or the ridiculous tasks you're asked to do just because they say so.
No one calls you heda, no one is soft—no one treats you like a wounded animal. Just a thick headed girl who stumbled into a war she'd pretended her whole life didn't exist.
The hard sound beneath your beast's hooves grounds you, straightening your spine, and tightening the grip on his mane. The pilfered sword is raised, and with a control that seems only possible because of the quiet, you turn to face the river from this opposite shore. Its madness, the trashing bodies between the dancing isles of ice are somehow quiet—very few manage to balance on the moving drifta, and there are no more horses. They'd all slid lifelessly below the quick current. The fast moving water dragging men beneath the unbroken ice, and you can see the feeble scratches of dying men dig at the prison of their death.
What had once been an army, was now a graveyard, a moving, roiling pit of death that still held barely living men—trying to drag themselves out of the freezing water. You're stupefied, until a blazing arrow punches through the skull of an ice nation warrior who had almost escaped—almost dragged himself to safety. You look to the opposite shore, to the tree line harboring easily a hundred of your kin, bearing torches and weapons glowing in the firelight. You want to yell at them to stop, to not kill the men who manage to escape the vicious water—but you don't make a sound.
You are death.
The number is different each time someone tells the story. A dozen men, those who hadn't reached the shore say with disdain—like they'd rather not be bothered with tall tales. A hundred is a common one, though it usually only begins that way—as the telling goes through the motions, reeling in their audience, more and more ice nation warriors get thrown into the water. Your teeth ache when you hear a thousand, something inside roiling and flinching away—unable to tolerate the possibility of just how many people you had killed. The boys you'd trained with whispered about how your whole back had been scarred with killing marks—too many to leave even an ounce of skin untouched.
It isn't until almost a moon later that Gustus corners you in the pen that holds Trikova—Shadow—the monster of a horse who had brought you safely across the river of death you'd created. You still see them at night—their skeletal fingers breaking through the ice and curling around your ankle, dragging you beneath the rushing water. It buffers at your ears, until you jolt awake too suddenly—equilibrium lost to the heartbeat in your ears and the ragged breath escaping your chest. You know that it isn't a secret; you know that eyes linger on you when you ghost through the camp as it is broken down.
This battlefront has been won because of you—because you decimated their entire force in a single foolish night. Actual warrior's clap you hard on the back and jeer cruelly at those dead under the ice—you just feel numb. Cold and untouchable, and dead despite the fact that you still live. The largest northern village offers you sanctuary—ChMond—and there is to be a celebration; revel and drink, music and dance. You can't be part of that, you can't glorify the death of so many. You are honored, your story murmured to people who couldn't even fathom what a thousand dead men look like—they watch you with widened eyes. You are death.
"That is the commander's horse." Gustus is never particularly quiet, but you don't hear him regardless; spinning with an outstretched arm, your father's dagger held in a bruising hold. He is dressed in his best armor; his golden sash that is usually absent crosses his chest, and wraps around his waist. The metal of his armor is burnished, and the fabric of his clothes are washed. The kohl dragged down one of his cheeks is significant of something, and you wonder what. "None have been able to tame him since heda's fight ended." You squeeze your eyes shut, and press your forehead into the strong flank of this animal; another connection to a man so many insist that you are.
"You lot are branwada with mounts," you want to sound strong, but you haven't spoken in days, and your throat is dry, "It shouldn't be a surprise no one can ride him." This horse was supposed to be your, he'd looking into your eyes and found something you still couldn't locate. Your true self, whoever that is. Gustus walks closer as your dagger lower, and finally clatters to the ground. You feel the hot huff of air as the stallion gnaws on a braid of your hair.
"He is old and stubborn," he agrees, though she has the feeling he's placating her; he exhales and you hear him turn, like there is something yet to fight. Looking up, he is a broad shouldered barrier between you—and Anya. She hasn't changed much in the seasons you've been gone, her face streaked with kohl, her armor grand and her jaw tight. She's looking at you with some unknown emotion, one even you can't pick apart—Gustus stands between you as if he doesn't wish to move, doesn't wish to allow this woman any closer. He's protective; you've managed to miss it over the last while, the way he put himself in front of you, the way his hand lingers on the hilt of his blade.
"Gostos, she's yours no more." You don't like the way she says it, like you're something to be passed between them. You don't know the silent conversation they're having but Gustus clearly falters because he's turning away. Stopping just before you with the softest eyes he's ever offered you, his massive hand rests on your head and shoves you like he always does murmuring gada.
She watches you quietly. The fire of the hut splashing across her face, throwing her eyes into shadow so that you can't make out the sadness that always lingers there. You hadn't expected to see her again; you set out toward the furthest border, away from her capitol, the place you'd never belong. But here she is; sitting stiffly in her regalia, her hands tightly grasping a metal tin between them.
"You're not him." Unlike last time, she says it softly, like she doesn't have the strength to believe it anymore. She's looking for something, now you can recognize the darting eyes and the purse of her lips. "He was brave, and dangerous, and hopeful." You're sitting on the edge of a bed of furs, body curled inward because your layers had been removed—taken from you and you're left in next to nothing with the woman who commanded everyone.
"They say you killed a thousand men," she doesn't grin like everyone else when she says this, if anything the sadness in her eyes deepens and she moves closer to you, her knees hitting the ground and she seems more human like this. Looking slightly up at you with sad eyes. Her fingers are cold when she grasps your wrists and turns your forearms upward. She reminds you of your father the night you asked him if he thought you a sheep—he'd been sad, and resigned. Like despite everything he'd hoped for, you would never quiet be what he wanted—or expected.
"I don't see hope in you." Your eyes spark and your spine straightens, because this wasn't what you'd expected—you expected her to mock your prowess as a warrior, about how easily she'd toss you against wall and to the ground. But she didn't question your bravery or danger; just your hope. "You're so small, and already impossibly broken—and you don't even realize." Your lips purse because you don't like that word, broken. You jerk to pull away from her, but even despite the season of training you'd undergone, she is still so much stronger than you.
You thrash and fight, eventually catching her in the hard armor with a bare foot—you feel satisfaction when she releases you, but you know she'd done it of her own accord. You're heaving breaths, and crouched on the far side of the bed.
"I'm not broken." You're not some toy that had been discarded, not something less because you weren't a dead man, not something unwantedbecause you'd been a man's apprentice, and not his daughter. Maybe you were making her point, whatever it was—but tears are catching in your lashes, and they gather threatening to fall. "I'm whole. I'm whole. I'm—," you can't talk anymore because your narrow chest is buckling under the weight you'd been trying to hold for days. A thousand dead men linger in the corners of the room, looking at your with your father's green eyes and heads tips slightly to the side. Asking you why.
Your vision is blurry, and at first you struggle against the cold hands pulling at your wrist. Thrashing and twisting, but when you're curled under a delicate chin, wet cheeks pressed into a warm neck, you stop. Sobbing silently into Anya's shoulder, fingers trying to find purchase in the fabric of her clothing. Fingers curling and tightening as you shatter. She's murmuring useless sounds in your ear, quiet and soothing, and you should be mortified, but you can't be anymore more than you are now. Tired, and drowning, and lost.
"I have you, strik heda." Little commander. You don't want to be this person they're telling you that you are, but you can't fight it anymore. You can't pretend to be anything else. Maybe you are broken. But the way Anya sooths fingers through your hair makes you believe that maybe you can be fixed. Mended, like a broken bone—something that is stronger for the damage caused.
"You bear the weight of your people." She'd told you to close your eyes, worrying fingers smudged in kohl over your eyelids and up to your brow—she'd commented on how the shadows gathered below your eyes to darkly. How that had to be hidden. The commander did not show such common weakness; she stroked blackened fingers over the sleepless marks and made them a part of your armor. "You've existed for a thousand seasons, and will for a thousand more." Her marked fingers trail off into your hair, and you fuss for a moment, only to be stilled by a strong grip on your chin.
"Of all born, you were chosen. And the spirit is never wrong." Why had it been you? Opening your eyes, she seemed taken aback, as if she was seeing you for the first time. She'd taken the time to buckle and belt your into ceremonial armor that was perfectly tailored to your body—aged leather, and bronze metal. Battle worn cloth and time tested gauntlets. Your feet seemed small and delicate when slid into metal rimmed boots. "We were—I was supposed to find you, I was supposed to keep you safe until you could bear this weight." This is why she always looks sad—not only because the man she loved with all her heart was dead, but because she had failed you. She had promised to find you, and she hadn't—and you'd gotten by on your own without her.
"It isn't so heavy." This weight, because it feels like it had always been there—if not on your shoulders, in your soul, in places you couldn't reach, but knew existed.
Dragging three fingers down either of your cheeks she steps back as you stand—the armor is heavy, and it weighs you down. But this isn't war, this is ceremony; this is what Anya had postponed at the capitol because you hadn't been ready. Because you hadn't belonged at the capitol, and you never would. In the shadows cast by the trees, and the glow of the enormous bonfire; you were presented to the people.
"Leksa kom gouthru, en trimani.." That is who you are now—Lexa of the path, and forest. You didn't have a village, at least not yet, but you were somehow expected to know what these people needed. The firelight dances of the bronze of your armor, and the bright crimson of your cape, it drapes down your chest, and across your back. Gustus and Anya stand behind either of your shoulders, towering in their height and importance. The warrior's you'd spent the last seasons with look at you like they've never seen you before. Marked for command, spine straight—with the hidden aid of Anya's hand, forcing your shoulders back—and face impassive.
"Geda," your voice was quiet in comparison to all those gathered, season warriors and front line fighters. But they quiet, like a command had been issued—they search the green of your eyes, lost in the black of your painted armor. Looking for their commander. Pulling out your father's wooden handled knife, you flip it one time arrogantly. "Ai jus ste yun." Gustus had told you the ritual, what was needed—and though your hand shook, you grabbed the blade of the dagger, and pulled. Crimson spilled from between your fingers, the torn skin gaped when you raised the hand to show the utter red of your palm.
"Heda" They chanted, the word getting louder, becoming a single voice as you pull your bloody fingers across your face. Red mixing with black, your vision dancing, but both Anya and Gustus kept you upright unnoticed to all gathered.
Blood must have blood—they spilled their blood for you, and in turn. Your blood belonged to them.
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