Here is chapter three! Sorry it took a little while: I meant to upload this last night, but it was my birthday and I ended up hanging out with a few friends and watching "The 100" (perfect, right?), so by the time I got home it was late enough that I needed to get to bed. :P But thanks for the feedback so far; I've got a few ideas from readers about how I should go about figuring in the Trigedasleng and am taking all of those suggestions into consideration. Luckily there isn't any in this chapter, so I still have time to think more about it. So thanks for that, and I hope you enjoy chapter three!
The sun had risen above the treetops by the time Lexa awoke, her mind rising moments before her body. She remained against her tree for a long minute, her eyes closed as her mind worked. She did not need to remind herself of where she was: the tree at her back was reminder enough. Nor did she need to remember what it was she was doing there, her muscles all protesting as she shifted, trying to get some feeling back into limbs that had gone numb after being in one position for too long. The ache of her muscles was not a new sensation for the young leader: she had learned as a young child the trials that go hand-in-hand with putting the dead to rest, had long since known this ache. She shifted again, feeling the pull against her limbs, the dull pain in her back and neck from spending so much time the previous day hunched over, but banished the aches from her mind. They were not worth thinking about. They would pass, as all pain did, but she had much more work to do before that could happen.
Finally opening her eyes, Lexa frowned, her gaze subconsciously going directly to the tree Clarke had leaned against only a few hours before, getting her own rest. Now the tree remained, but the blonde was gone, as was any trace that she had been there, and Lexa felt a pull of worry in her gut. She could not have been attacked or injured: Lexa was a light sleeper, and nothing had stirred her slumber. Still, the worry pulled at her, and it was that worry more than anything else that got her to her feet, her blanket now slung over her arm as she slid her sheathed sword once again across her back. Her face remained blank as she walked back to the horses, merely nodding to any of her people she came across, but on the inside she feared, the missing blonde never leaving her thoughts. As she tucked her blanket once again into her saddlebags that fear subsided slightly when she noticed the blanket Clarke had used already folded neatly and returned to the bag, and next to it Clarke's pack. Still, her worry wouldn't completely leave her until she found the blonde, could assure herself that the other girl was safe, so she walked as quickly as she dared back to that giant iron door that led to so much terror.
Breaking through the trees, Lexa had to clench her jaw. She had only slept for a couple of hours, and yet the pile of bodies on the ground waiting for their turn in the fires had increased, one piled on top of the other so that they were again difficult to count. Even as she walked forward, she watched as her people in their pairs continued to slowly trickle out the door, bodies held as carefully as they could be between them, only to be placed among the pile. Again Lexa was reminded of how different everything would have been if only she hadn't been forced to take that deal the Mountain Men had offered, and again the guilt she felt sprang up, eating away at her. She would not let the guilt destroy her, had learned long ago that actions have consequences, and that life and leading meant living with those consequences, but even knowing that she could not completely quell the guilt within her. Still, she would not let her people witness her guilt, instead holding her head high as she looked around.
Another pyre was almost completed, meaning that soon they would be able to burn the pile even now still growing as another set of her people gently laid another body among the rest. She made her way over to the pyre, her gaze drawn to the large piles of ashes and scorched bones that lay on the ground from the previous burnings, not allowing her eyes to linger long. She wished to find Clarke, yes, but at the moment she had to be the Commander, had to see to the work that still needed to be done, and so would have to put off her worry for the blonde for the moment as best she could. So with just a simple nod to her people building the pyre she bent down, grabbing one of the large logs they had cut down, wrapping her arms around it before she stood, carrying it with her. She didn't say a word and none of her people tried to speak to her, all of them working in a solemn silence as they worked to finish the pyre. In a short while they had completed it, and then they moved over to the pile of corpses, breaking up into twos and carefully lifting the bodies to be transferred to their final resting place.
As they moved, her people working inside the mountain stopped when they stepped outside the great iron door, watching their Heda and her crew set up the next pyre. Lexa paid little attention to them, her focus not leaving her work until she saw a flash of blonde out of the corner of her eyes. She looked up even as she and one of her warriors carried the corpse between them to the pyre, and found Clarke working with Ryder to add the body they carried between them to the now somewhat diminished pile. The two stopped along with the rest of the warriors, turning to watch as the next burning was set up, and Lexa could feel Clarke's eyes following her. She knew it was really the bodies that she carried that held the other girl's attention, but she couldn't help but hold her chin up higher under that watchful gaze.
At last they had piled as many of the bodies on the pyre as they possibly could, and once again Lexa was handed a burning torch, the girl accepting it without even really seeing who handed it to her. Her back straight, head high, she once again stepped forward and lit the structure before her, the wood quickly catching, and again she and her people all watched as the bodies of their enemies burned before them. Only when these bodies had also turned to a pile of ashes and bones did they move again, all either returning to the mountain or beginning to build the next pyre.
Lexa handed the torch to one of her warriors and turned, finding Clarke still staring at what now remained of the burned bodies. Her forehead was drawn, eyes overly bright, the pain in them obvious. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her back just as straight as Lexa's. Finally without a word she turned around, once again disappearing into the mountain, and Lexa followed, choosing to return to the work of carrying bodies rather than to help with the next pyre.
At least, she had planned to return to carrying bodies to the surface, but when Clarke, once again inside the mountain and walking down a concrete corridor, took a sudden turn where before they had gone straight, Lexa frowned and followed. She kept her distance, understanding the blonde needed her space, and kept her footsteps even, not trying to hide her presence from the other girl. If she wanted to, the blonde could turn and tell her to stop following her, to leave her alone, and she would, but until that moment she would remain behind Clarke. The younger leader never turned though, never told her to go away, so Lexa continued to follow her, her confusion evident as they continued down new hallways and steps the brunette hadn't taken before.
They turned a corner and Lexa's eyes were drawn to a couple of bodies on the floor. These were not the bodies of children or the innocent: these were warriors, the guns lying on the floor beside them as much proof as the wounds that had killed them. Their bodies had not been burned. Instead they had been killed in battle, obvious sword wounds the cause of their deaths. Lexa believed Clarke would stop beside them: she didn't.
She didn't stop, simply walked by them, and so Lexa did not stop either, instead making a mental note to have her warriors get them and take them to the surface along with the rest of their people. She walked by them, and continued to follow Clarke as the blonde made her way down the hallway, turning every now and then to a new hallway, and soon Lexa had lost track of where they were, too much of her focus on the blonde. These concrete walls all looked the same to her, and she hoped that the blonde knew where she was going.
Lexa soon found that she did, the blonde finally stopping by a set of doors. Hesitating for just a moment Clarke reached forward, pushing the doors open, and then she stepped inside, Lexa following her. The brunette's gaze swept around the room they were in, taking in all of the details at once. A battle had been fought in this room, but this was not a room that had ever been meant to see battle. Beds were set up, a couple turned over, furniture spread everywhere, much of it in broken shambles on the floor. Splashes of blood painted the concrete beneath their feet and as her eyes flickered to the corners of the room she saw a few more bodies hidden amongst the damage.
"My people lived here," Clarke stated suddenly, her tone hard, eyes straight ahead. Lexa looked to her, but the blonde did not turn to meet the look. "The Mountain Men told them, told us that we were safe here, and they gave us this room. And then when my people realized what was going on, this is where they first fought back. I'm told they won, for a while. They were able to hold their own, only losing a couple. For a while." She went silent again, and Lexa had no words, nothing to say to the blonde, so she remained quiet. For another moment they stood there, taking in the sight before them, before Clarke turned and left the room through the same door they had entered from. Lexa followed, letting those doors swing shut behind her, and once again Clarke led down numerous halls that left Lexa wondering just how deep into the mountain they were going. Finally they reached another door, and this time Clarke did not hesitate. With her teeth clenched tightly together she pushed the door open, and Lexa followed her into a new room.
Warriors laid among the dead on this floor as well. They too had guns lying beside them, their clothing the uniforms that had not been worn by the innocent, but these bodies had not been killed in battle. The burns riddled their bodies, covering their skin just as thoroughly as they had covered the dozens Lexa had already seen. She let her gaze linger on the bodies for just a moment, before she took in the rest of the room. It was a prison of some kind, that much she could tell from the hooks and shackles on the walls, and this room too had blood splattered along its floor. Mostly the blood was on the table in the middle of the room, and it was this that the blonde stared at.
"This is where they took them," she said, her tone trying to remain even, but Lexa could hear the pain and fury behind her words. "Once they were captured, this is where the Mountain Men took my people. They chained them to the walls," she pointed to the small cuffs, as though the brunette hadn't seen them, "And then they picked one person at a time to strap down to this table." Clarke walked over to the table, and this time Lexa didn't follow her, instead remaining where she was even as her eyes followed the blonde's every movement. The blonde moved to the other side of the table, where a tray lay with various items on it, and picked one of the items up, her finger pressing against a button and suddenly the tool came to life, a whirring noise hissing from the instrument as its end began to spin impossibly fast. Clarke didn't take her eyes off the tool as she continued. "When the person was securely strapped to the table, one of their doctors would take this drill and use it to dig into their flesh, going into the bone so that they could get the marrow. They would go through the hip, the leg, the knee, wherever they wanted to, they didn't care, just so long as they got what they wanted. The person was awake for the entire thing. Until they died, at least. They felt it all." Clarke's finger moved from the button and the tool stopped its whirring, but she didn't put it down. She looked at the table as she said, "Raven was on this table." Her voice shook slightly when she added, "My mom was on this table. Cage put her there after I shot his father. My mother was tortured because the leader of the Mountain Men wanted to get revenge on me." Suddenly she dropped the tool as though she couldn't bare to touch it anymore and it crashed against the floor. The sound that it made as it hit the floor was the only noise for a moment, Clarke too lost in the memories of what she had seen to say anything, and Lexa not knowing what to say.
Lexa saw the blonde's jaw clench further, her eyes closing briefly, and she took a single step forward, needing to say something, so she simply murmured, "Clarke..."
"No," Clarke growled, her tone rough, but part of that the brunette knew was just her trying to keep her emotions in check. She opened her eyes and met Lexa's, and the Commander saw the anger and shame in them. "No," she repeated, her voice quieter this time as she shook her head once, moving away from the table and back towards the door. "There's somewhere else you need to see." Lexa merely nodded, closing her mouth and holding her head high once again before she followed the blonde back out of the room.
This time as they walked Lexa paid even less attention to where they were going and more attention to Clarke. The blonde's back remained straight, rigid, and her shoulders were squared, but Lexa could practically see the guilt she was carrying on them. She wished desperately for something she could do to ease the other girl's burden, but she knew it was a burden that no one could lift but Clarke. Her heart ached for the other girl, and the guilt gripped at her gut, but there was nothing she could do but to follow where the blonde led.
After a number of turns they once again passed the warriors lying on the floor in the hallway, and this time Clarke stopped just briefly, bending down and searching through their pockets, her fingers withdrawing with a small rectangular card gripped between them. She stood back up, and without another look at the bodies she began again, Lexa following along behind her. They turned another corner and then stopped in front of a door where Clarke scanned the card in front of a little box on the wall, and then Lexa nearly jumped when she heard a humming and groan, and then the door before them opened on its own. Clarke stepped inside and a moment later Lexa followed, her head still held high. Once she was inside Clarke pressed a button on the wall and the metal box groaned again, and suddenly it was moving. Lexa felt the muscles in her calves clench just as her jaw did, but she did not let her nerves show. Finally the box stopped and the doors opened again and Lexa gladly stepped out of the small room after Clarke, her jaw only then loosening.
They did not walk far this time before Clarke stopped in front of another door, and when she held the card up once again to another little box on the wall, Lexa felt her muscles tense up again, but this time the doors merely opened to another, larger room. This room was not metal, as the one that had moved had been. Instead this room had a concrete floor just as the rest of Mount Weather had, and its ceiling sloped above them, creating almost a dome. Beds lined this room, but unlike the first room Clarke had showed her, these beds remained upright, well-made still, clearly well-kept. As they stepped inside lights flickered on around them, and Lexa heard a quiet humming come on. Her eyes scanned the room, noticing all of the equipment lining up beside each bed and the pipes that ran along the walls.
"This is Medical," Clarke spoke quietly, her words carrying easily across the room. She walked further in, moving between two of the beds, and Lexa followed, still keeping her distance from the blonde. "This is where the Mountain Men came whenever they were hurt. Whenever they were burned." She stopped for a moment, closing her eyes, and when she opened them, Lexa could see the other girl working to control her expression. "They called it their 'treatments,'" she informed the brunette, for the first time looking directly at Lexa, and Lexa met her gaze and then followed the movement of her hand as she pointed various things out as she continued. "When someone had radiation burns, they would come in here and lie in one of the beds. They would be put to sleep, and then the doctors would hook them up to these tubes." Clarke's hand moved, her fingers raising to point at the plastic tubes hanging beside the bed, and while Lexa's eyes followed the movement, the blonde didn't take hers off of Lexa. "They didn't feel anything, but their blood would filter through the tubes, to be replaced with the blood of your people." Lexa felt her nostrils flare, her brow suddenly turning down in a harsh frown. She followed Clarke's fingers as they rose again, pointing to the metal pipe hanging off of the wall. "The tubes run through there, out of this room, and into the Harvest Chamber, where they kept your people. Your people would be knocked out, hung upside down, and then be attached to the tubes as well, and their blood would be used to treat the Mountain Men."
Lexa's fingers clenched together into tight fists, the intensity of the action causing her fingernails to dig into her palms painfully, but it was just one more pain she pushed aside. "Show me," she ordered, no longer content to simply follow Clarke. The leader within her had been awoken by the blonde's words, and she needed to see for herself the horrors that had just been described to her.
"You won't like it," the blonde warned, her tone almost soft, but she stepped out from between the beds and returned to the end of the room, passing Lexa. Her eyes moved to a large, heavy looking iron door at the end of the room. "Once you see it, you can never unsee it."
"Show me," Lexa ordered once again, her tone that of the Commander of the Grounder Army, and then Clarke turned away from her, her entire attention going to the door she now stood before. Again she held the card up to another box and with a beep Lexa heard the door creak, beginning to open. Clarke reached out, her muscles heaving against the heavy door, and pushed it the rest of the way open, and then stood back, this time letting the Commander go first. The brunette did, her head high once again and shoulders squared, and she passed Clarke quickly, stepping into a new room.
The moment she did, she felt the fury within her take over. It gripped her heart, the heat from her anger melting away any of the cold guilt she had been feeling up to this point. Her nostrils flared again as her eyes burned, pure hatred now consuming her. She stepped forward, and it was all she could do not to wail out her anger and grief.
The room was lit by an unnatural blue light, and yet the horrors of the room were all too clear. She stepped forward, eyes drawn to the thick chains hanging down from the ceiling, some kind of binding hanging from the end of each, and it was clear that these were the chains that her people had been hung from. Below the chains, sticking out of the bottom of the walls were the other end of the plastic tubes, the chains clearly placed so that they could be near enough the tubes to make it all easy for the Mountain Men. Her eyes swept away from the chains as she stepped forward, her fury only building with every step. Before her were cages: countless, small, metal cages. She did not have to ask to know that it was these cages her people had been kept in, and as her angry gaze looked around the room, she had a hard time breathing past the fury burning in her lungs. Her eyes were pulled down, finding another body lying between the cages, and for a moment she felt a sense of satisfaction in seeing her enemy lying dead before her in this room that had been used for so many years to kill her people.
Her people had been placed in cages. For as far back as any of them could remember, they had been hunted like prey, and this is where those unfortunate enough to get caught had been kept. They had been beaten, broken, tortured and then used as blood supplies, hung upside down and drained until there was nothing in them to drain. Used until they became useless.
"This is where I found Anya," Clarke murmured, coming up behind Lexa, and this time it was Lexa who could not look at Clarke. The blonde moved between the line of cages before them, her eyes falling to the man on the floor, stepping around him carefully, before she stopped by one of the cages, kneeling down in front of it. Her hand moved up, fingers curling around the thin metal of the cage. "All of these cages were full," she continued, still looking into the empty cage before her. "The people inside them..." she trailed off for a moment, closing her eyes. When she spoke again, she did so quietly, obvious pain in her voice. "I'd never seen anyone look so defeated before. They were all dying. I knew they were Grounders by their tattoos, but Anya was the only one I actually recognized. When I saw her here..." she trailed off again, this time speaking again sooner. "When I saw Anya in this cage, I realized that our people weren't so different. We were all just human. All just scared. She was the only one I could save though. I didn't have any choice; I couldn't help anyone else."
Lexa wasn't listening to Clarke. The blood was pumping too loudly in her ears, her rage taking over completely. Everything around her caused her heart to cry out. The chains. The cages. The metal hooks hanging from the never-ending ceiling. For generations her people had ended up here, locked away in these cages. For generations her people had been turned into monsters or drained for their blood. Warriors. Healers. Hunters. Innocents. The children of her people had grown up fearing the very real stories of the monsters living inside the mountain, and now Lexa was finally seeing what those monsters had been doing all those years. There wasn't a person she knew who hadn't been effected in some way by the Mountain Men. All of her friends growing up had known someone taken by the Mountain. Gustus's brother had been taken. Indra had lost countless of her people to these monsters. Anya had been taken. Even her-
With a snarl of fury Lexa drew her sword in one quick, fluid motion, and then she quickly moved to the tubing sticking out of the wall, bringing her sword down on them all one at a time. The slice of her blade bit through the smooth plastic easily, the tubes all falling to the floor below with barely a sound. Without a look back Lexa stormed back into the other room, her rage making her momentarily forget about the blonde behind her, keeping her distance from the ferocious Commander. Lexa stepped back into the peaceful looking medical area, but her fury caused her to see nothing but the pain her people had suffered. She moved to each bed, going straight for the tubing hanging from the wall beside each, her sword again easily slicing through the plastic and causing it to all fall around her feet. With each swing of her sword, Lexa merely felt her heart cry louder, the pain and fear of generations running through her. She got to the last bed and cut through the tubes, and then because she still had so much anger inside her she swung up at the pipe sticking out of the wall, her strength merely denting it at first. She kept swinging at it, and soon she could see the dent growing, before she finally pierced through the metal and the tubing inside it. She stormed back over to the first bed, again swinging at the pipe and the clangs rang out in the room as the metal of her sword came into contact with the metal of the pipe.
"Never again," she snarled, almost as though she was talking to the room itself. Her sword came down on the metal again, piercing it much in the same way as she'd done at the other end of the room. "Never again will my people endure this. Never again will I allow my people to be used like this."
"You're right," she heard Clarke call from the door, and only then did she stop swinging her sword, her eyes still glaring into the metal before her as she looked at the damage she had caused. It still wasn't enough. She wanted to destroy it all, everything the Mountain Men had used to hurt her people, she wanted it broken beyond repair. Her chest heaved, her breath coming in short gasps more from her anger than having tired. "Your people never will have to endure this again. But it's not because you cut up their equipment. It's because these people are dead. These people, the ones you made a deal with, are dead, and that's because of me. You didn't destroy your enemy, Lexa; I did."
The Commander's eyes fell closed, her brow drawn as her lips curled down. She opened her eyes again only as she turned, finally facing the blonde. She found Clarke staring at her, an accusation written across her face that Lexa had seen hiding away every time she had looked at her since that fateful night when she had walked away. It was no longer hidden as it had been before, only escaping every now and then. Now it was clear, an obvious blame that the blonde placed on the brunette, and Lexa felt the fury grip at her chest once again. Because it was her enemy that had caused that accusation to arise in those blue eyes. As a last desperate and calculated act, her enemy had presented her with an option she could not refuse no matter how much she had wanted to, and with that option they had severed any bond that could have formed between the two young leaders just as entirely as if Lexa had been hung by her ankles and drained of her blood until dead. Her enemies had lost, but they had also won, and that knowledge was easily eating away at the Commander.
After a long moment, Lexa replied quietly, her tone still hard with her anger, "I did not wish for that, Clarke." She closed her eyes again, and this time didn't even bother to try to hide the pain on her face. The only one before her was Clarke, there was no one else to see her weakness, and with all the fury inside her from this place and the knowledge of what had happened to her people, she did not have the strength to try to hide her pain from the blonde. She opened her eyes, directly looking at Clarke as she did so, and she saw the blonde's brow crease, her eyes still hard even as she shifted slightly under Lexa's gaze. "There is nothing I wish more than for that deal to have never been offered to me. There is nothing I wish more than for you and I to have been able to take down our enemy together."
"Wishes don't come true, Lexa," Clarke snapped, her tone hard. "Not on Earth, at least." All Lexa could do was nod, because it was true and she knew it. "Now come on." Clarke turned, once again walking into the room with the cages, and Lexa almost snarled again just thinking about the room. Nevertheless she followed the blonde, shoulders squared as she once again walked through the doorway, her back rigid and sword still in her hand. She stepped through and saw Clarke already leaning over the body between the cages. Again Lexa nearly snarled, because while before she had felt guilty in seeing all the bodies piled up around her, now she could feel nothing but her fury for all of these people who had used her own people so cruelly for so long. Still, she stalked over to the body, remaining upright. In so many ways now all she wanted was to leave the body here along with the rest, no longer caring about putting their souls to rest. They cared nothing for her people, so why must she care for theirs?
Clarke looked up at her, seeing the brunette glaring down at the body. She pointed to the man's forehead, telling her, "Look." Lexa did, her hard gaze following the movement of the blonde's finger. "He was shot. That means that his own people killed him. He was trying to help my people when his own shot him. Maybe trying to help both of our people. He was innocent."
"None of them are innocent, Clarke," Lexa growled, her glare never wavering. "They are all guilty."
"The enemy does what they must to survive, just as we do," Clarke echoed, the words hitting Lexa and reminding her of the time she had spoken those same words to the blonde. At the time they had been at war and now they were at peace, and yet in so many ways that time had been so much simpler.
Finally Lexa just nodded, giving in to the lesson she herself had taught the blonde, and then she re-sheathed her sword across her back before she leaned over also, carefully wrapping her fingers around the man's ankles as Clarke did the same with his wrists. Together they lifted him, carefully carrying him into the medical room and then quickly turning to the hallway. As they left the two rooms, Lexa closed her eyes again, those images forever ingrained in her mind as Clarke had promised they would be, and the only thought that gave her any relief was the knowledge that those cages would never again hold any of her people in them. At long last her people were free of the nightmare that had haunted them for generations, and it was that thought that managed to break through the fury still gripping Lexa's heart. The rage was still there, but it had lessened, and she knew that while it would never fully leave her, at least she would be able to set it aside in order to continue this work she had led her people to accomplish.
They had to once again go in the moving metal room, and once again Lexa's muscles stiffened as the floor below her feet began to move, but soon it had stopped again and Clarke led the way out, soon turning down a hall and leaving it behind them. They had farther to carry this body, the room with the cages much farther away from the iron door than the majority of the bodies were, but finally they were stepping through it again, the sun finally hitting their skin, and Lexa closed her eyes once again, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air. Just that was enough to calm her down, and she felt her face falling back into its neutral expression, hiding away any lingering traces of fury or pain.
While they had been gone the pile of bodies had grown once again, and the next pyre was nearly completed so the two stayed at the surface after gently placing the body amongst the pile. They would have helped finish the structure, but Lexa's people seemed to be in a rhythm, each knowing what they needed to be doing, and getting involved would only disrupt that rhythm, so they merely stood and waited, Lexa's other people moving to stand around them as they too returned to the surface, many with bodies to add to the pile. Finally this pyre too was complete, and then Clarke and Lexa helped the warriors move the bodies to the pyre, once again unable to completely transfer the entire pile over, and once again Lexa was handed a burning torch. This pyre went up as easily as the ones before it, and soon a new pile of ashes and charred bones littered the ground along with the rest. This time however the small chill of guilt that ran down her spine as the flames engulfed the bodies before her was barely noticeable, the heat from her fury and satisfaction nearly matching the heat from the burning pyre. Those flames shone in Lexa's eyes, and as she watched the bodies burn before her all she could think about were the hundreds of cages somewhere below their feet that had been used for generations to lock away her people, all of whom were only now getting their justice.
It was years late, and she had not been the one able to give those souls the justice they deserved, but she hoped they all could rest easier now, knowing that their enemy had finally been destroyed just as thoroughly as they had destroyed them. Her people, both alive and dead, deserved that justice, and even though that justice came at a steep price, she was glad that they finally had it, and she would pay it again if she had to; her people would always come first, no matter what her heart wished for.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter! As always, I love hearing what you think, so please feel free to leave a review or message me! For those who don't know, I'm on tumblr as clarkethewanheda, and love hearing from people there as well. Thanks!
