Author's note:
This is another chapter about the new character I introduce to the show. Feel free to skip you don't want to learn about her plans.
Happy Reading!
Veda tilts her head to the sky to let the raindrops splash her face. She breathes in deeply through her scarf, inhaling the wet pine smell around her. She allows herself to feel the cool air as it seeps its way into her clothes.
Calm, she reminds herself. Calm, control...
Images flash into her mind: a face with unmoving eyes, blood, a scream. She pushes the memory aside, not wanting to relieve the nightmare once again. Instead, she focuses her hearing on the clanking of the tools coming from the village nearby.
Calm, control, calm, control, she reminds herself repeatedly.
The town sits at the base of a mountain, with a small waterfall pouring in from the east. They have managed to construct an impressive wall of cedar, rock, and scrap metal. She tries not to notice the familiar pattern on one of the flat metal rectangles.
That used to be a road sign, an inner voice hisses but she shake her head. Calm, control...
Upon seeing her, the two guards at the gate leap to their feet, lift their spears and hunch over in a threatening stance.
"Hod op!" one of the guards shouts.
Without slowing her stride, she raises her arms as a peace offering. She sighs slightly as she grabs her scarf and yanks it down swiftly to display her face.
"Ai laik hir gon dina, non els" she announces with her best attempt at a smile. They sway nervously, rocking from foot to foot while passing each other side-glances.
She senses their fear and stops in her tracks. "Beja," she cries, "ai na gon fou sundaun".
They grip their spears tightly, unmoving. Their uncertainty is irritating but she takes a deep breath. There's no need for this to escalate, she reminds herself. She hates the small part of her that is disappointed with that, but she has a better idea. Her throat is dry and she clears it before speaking again.
"Hir," she calls out as she throws a small bag in their direction. It lands at their feet and they eye it cautiously. "Gon klir gouthru."
Finally, one of them decides to bent down and open it. He rummages through its contents briefly before standing up and stepping aside with an affirmative nod.
She passes a quiet sigh of relief as she enters the village quickly, wrapping the scarf around her face once more. She had gotten in without a fight, that was a start, but it was getting her supplies that would prove to be a challenge.
After walking through the village for a few minutes, she picked the building that looked like a shop. It was a small tin hut with pelts and swords hanging near the entrance. A few crates of fruit and herbs were laid out. This was her best bet.
She passes a group of laughing children as she approaches it. The sound makes her stomach lurch and heart race. She picks up the pace.
At the hut, she knocks on the door once and quickly ducks inside when the door swings open.
A wave of heat hits her as she enters. An overpowering smell of spice and fur clings in her nose and she is grateful for her neckwear. The man who let her in shuts the door behind her and grunts. Veda faces him, eyes narrow.
"Chit yu wont?" The grounder grunts.
This was it. She had a plan and so far, everything had gone off without a hitch, but this is where it could fall apart. She was running out of villages so she needed to make this count.
"I need Skaikru clothes," she says sternly.
The grounder who had his back to her stops in his tracks to turn at her. His narrowed eyes analyze her from head to toe.
"Yu laik Skaikru?" He snarls with disgust.
Veda shakes her head, "No."
"Den why yu spek dem teina?" He pulls out his sword, "Why yu wan dem colers?"
Veda expected this, but now is the moment she was waiting for.
"Kom kill em," Veda says loudly, taking a step towards the approaching grounder.
He freezes and looks at her for a moment before laughing.
"Little girl," he shakes his head, "how will little girl kill our greatest enemy?"
Veda hears the threat behind the question and takes a breath to let the insult slide through her. Still, she persists.
"Enter the beast from within and squeeze its heart until the life bleeds out of it," Veda whispers.
The man lowers his sword as he contemplates Veda's words. She keeps her eyes locked on his.
"Big plan," he nods and Veda thinks she's got it, but he adds, "for a little girl."
Veda frowns, feeling the anger beginning to boil over, pulls her scarf off her face. "I am not a little girl."
The grounder chuckles before turning away from her. "Bants, nau," he waves her away.
"I have payment," she insists. "More than you ask for."
"I only deal with Azegda, Podakru, and Floudonkru," he sneers.
"I am Podakru," Veda insists, picking one of the names at random.
The grounder turns to her again sighing. At this Veda pulls out a small bag of coins from her satchel and throws it on the table.
"Mo," the grounder raises his chin.
Veda grabs another bag filled with fine clothes and tosses it beside the coins.
The grounder raises his chin again.
Reminding herself to stay calm, she reaches in her bag until she feels something hard. This ought to close the deal. She pulls it out of her bag and drops it on the table. It hits a metallic ding!
The grounder examines the loot and finally nods lightly, scratching his beard. He walks passed her, to enter a small back room she hadn't noticed before. He returns, dropping a big leather bag on the table.
"Em ste hogeda der," he grunts.
Without another word, she opens it, plunges her hand inside and pulls out the first item she grabs: a jacket from the Sky People. She inspects it closely, carefully turning it over, as if it was made of glass. Its fabric, color, and lightweight all brought her old world screaming back to her. Grounders may use scraps from the past, but the design and technology that went into this was familiar and comforting.
Veda hasn't encountered anything like it since the lab and is taken off guard when anger, joy and sadness wash over like a tidal wave. She clutches the coat tightly and reminds herself of the plan. She needed to find the Sky people, and now, she was one step closer.
The grounder clears his throat, bringing Veda out of her thoughts.
She nods to him quickly before seizing the bag filled with Sky People clothes and making her way to the door.
"Hod op," the grounder grumbles.
Veda's stomach sinks. She turns to look at him just in time to notices his eyes flicker to the bag slung over her shoulder.
The grounder doesn't move for a long time, instead keeping eye contact with the girl. She senses something mounting in him, but before she can say anything, he grabs the finely crafted sword Veda had put there moments ago and points it at her.
"I will need more payment," he grumbles, lightly swaying his new weapon.
"I have given you enough," Veda returns immediately.
"It is required," he hisses, "when I deal with liars."
She frowns. "I am not-"
"You may not be Skaikru," he cuts her off, "but you are not Podakru."
Veda clenches her jaw and gulps to herself.
The grounder tilts his head to the side, approaching menacingly. "Give me your bag."
The girl takes a step back, unconsciously grabbing it to make sure it's still slung over her shoulder. The grounder's expression softens and it looks like he's about to back off, but then he takes a deep breath and lunges for the strap.
Her instincts kick in before she can stop them, jumping back and grabbing the grounder's arm. He immediately tries to smash her head with the bud of his weapon but she easily grabs his wrist before the hit lands. She barely hesitates before twisting his wrist, disarming him of the sword in a yelp of pain. Once she releases him, he steps back to clutch his injury. Anger flashes in his eyes and this time he comes at her out of anger. She slides out of the way and he slams into his workbench.
The thick wooden desk smashes to the ground and his tools clamber to the floor, filling the hut with metal ringing. The grounder curses and grabs a rusted spear that has landed at his feet. Enraged, he charges her, thrusting the spear forward. She avoids his blows, but is unfamiliar with the surroundings and bumps into a chest nearby. She catches herself from falling and the grounder takes advantage of her imbalance. The spear's blunt edge cuts her right arm deeply before she spins away.
Seeing a weapon nearby, she grabs it and holds it in front of her defensively. It feels heavier than a sword, but she could still use it to protect herself.
The grounder turns to charge her again and freezes when he sees what's in her hands. He glances between her and her newfound weapon repeatedly, his eyebrows pulled together in a strange grimace.
The girl finally looks at the item in her hands. It's a thick, cast iron hammer. She doesn't understand why it's causing such trepidation in the grounder.
He sways in his stance, continuously examining the girl in disbelief. He walks closer and lowers his spear, his eyes softer than before.
"How are you doing that?" he demands, all forms of anger now replaced with a thick mire of confusion and fear.
"Doing what?" she asks, still clutching the weapon in preparation for an attack. For some reason, he slowly kneels to place the spear on the ground before rising, hands held upright in a surrendering motion.
"How do you hold this tool with such ease?" the grounder juts his chin toward the hammer.
Veda looks at the tool once again and quickly understands his confusion. With her size and stature, a 4 foot metal item like this one should have her struggling to keep it upright, though she was wielding it like a longsword with ease.
This just blew her cover and was going to attract far too much attention. She immediately releases it, letting it crash to the floor. The grounder frowns, still trying to make sense of it, but Veda knows he would not understand, even if she explained the details of the experiment to him. Instead, she chooses to shrug and feign confusion.
The grounder stands there, staring at her for a long time and Veda isn't sure if she should bolt or wait it out. Finally, something adds up in his brain and he smirks.
"I know what you are," he whispers.
Now it's Veda's turn to be confused. She opens her mouth to say something but closes it when she sees his evil smirk.
He turns suddenly to search for something in the wreckage that was once his shop. He tosses items aside, quickly scurrying to and fro until he finally finds what he wanted: it was the sword she had given him as part of her payment.
"May you bring death and destruction to Skaikru," the grounder smiles cruelly as he offers he the sword.
Veda, being completely stunned at this point, takes the weapon uncertainly. The grounder backs away nodding happily and partly bowing to her. She turns on her heel, before this becomes any weirder, but then has an idea.
"What do you know of skaikru?" she asks, keeping her voice steady so it doesn't betray her uncertainty.
"What do you wish to know?" He grins darkly.
"Everything," Veda whispers.
It takes him a while, but the grounder eventually tells Veda all he knows.
Wanheda, it would seem, has finally been caught and has been successfully delivered to the Commander in Polis. A summit is taking place soon where the Sky People are to be joined to the Commander's coalition.
Skaikru; the people who fled to the stars as her world burned. How could they flee? How could they let billions of people die? They must have known of the oncoming danger and hid like the cowards they were. That's the only reason they're alive; because they saw trouble and ran, leaving everyone else behind.
Thinking about Skaikru immediately ignited the hatred and rage that Veda desperately tried to keep buried. It also added to her confusion. Millions of questions swirled in Veda's mind, creating a hurricane of confusion and it showed on her face as sweat covered her brow. Veda needed answers and she would get them one way or another.
The grounder had been sitting there for a while, watching the young brunette. With her lost in thought, he takes the time to examine her. After all, it wasn't every day that you got up close to a demon and lived to tell the tale.
He notices her strange lilac eyes darting around the room, not focusing on anything in particular. The light from the fire dances in the girl's thick hazelnut-colored hair, and he watches the girl sway from foot to foot. She looks positively ordinary, he realizes. If he hadn't of just seen her holding his hammer, he would have never believed she was a demon.
She absentmindedly brushes her hand over the left half of her head, where her wavy hair was kept short, with maybe only an inch in length. He becomes aware that he is staring at her, but he is so intrigued; she is young and beautiful, not at all like what the tales say about her. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was being fooled.
Questions and doubt begin to infiltrate his mind and he opens his mouth to say something but she suddenly bursts into action; swinging her reward onto her shoulders with a stern face as she marches towards the door. Her other hand is gripping the doorknob when he speaks out to her again, making her stop in her tracks.
His black eyes peering out from behind his thick beard, his voice is barely a whisper, as if he doesn't want to ask the question at all, "chon yu bilaik?"
Veda stays motionless, staring at the shimmering knob in her hands. In an attempt to avoid the question, her mind reaches out. Her inhuman hearing catching a multitude of sounds around them: the soft rain beating against the tin roof, the grounder couple arguing in the cabin next door, the children playing in the puddles around the bend, the crackling fire in the pit a few feet away, the man's quickening heartbeat beside her…
"I am a ghost," she whispers, pushing the barrier open to exit without a backward glance. Stifling the stinging sensation that was creeping into her eyes, Veda knew where she could get answers: Wanheda.
Ch.2 - Translations
"Hod op!" – "Wait/Stop!"
"Ai laik hir gon dina, non els" – "I am here for food, nothing else"
"Beja" – "Please"
"Ai na gon fou sundaun" - "I will leave before sundown"
"Hir" – "Here"
"Gon klir gouthru" – "For safe passage."
"Chit yu wont?" – "What do you want?"
"Yu laik Skaikru?" - "You are a Sky Person?"
"Den why yu spek dem teina?" - "Then why do you speak their tongue?"
"Why yu wan dem colers?" - "Why do you want their colors?"
"Kom kill em," - "To kill them."
"Bants, nau," - "Leave, now"
"Mo," "More,"
"Em ste hogeda der" – "It is all there"
"Chon yu bilaik"- "Who are you?"
"Em ste skai kru" – "She is Sky crew"
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