Octavia
I didn't mind venturing out into the woods for the second time that day. I certainly didn't mind helping Clarke disobey my brothers' wishes.
'He deserves it, the tight ass,' I thought to myself.
I did mind the newly stitched wound dull pain that shot up my leg with every step farther away from camp. It would likely leave a nasty scar, despite Clarkes best efforts. Luckily it wasn't too deep so my ability to roam the woods wouldn't be all that encumbered by my injury, I just had to keep the grimace off my face and maybe slow down a little.
If I were being truly honest with myself, I enjoyed the feeling of being unencumbered by barriers and archaic laws. The freedom I'd come to experience on the ground had been an addicting feeling. It was immediate, after stepping foot from the drop shift entry ramp, settling firmly into my gut, refusing to budge for anything and ready to throw me into the path of the next most exciting thing.
Best of all, it drove Bellamy up a wall, which was something he certainly, desperately needed to experience as recompense for acting like a power tripping, pantie raiding, egomaniac on the ground.
It was a great irony that the brother who had seen me through years of hide and seek under the floorboards, in constant fear of legal repercussions, saw fit to try hiding me away from the rest of the world still, despite that secret having been blown wide open long ago.
Lincoln led Clarke and I through the woods in relative silence and for the second time that day I felt the familiar rush of excitement bubble as we passed each tree, trekking further away from camp and even deeper into the woods. Unadulterated freedom was something that would never get old for me. In an attempt to curb the desire to bolt ahead, I decided to break the comfortable silence that had settled amongst our party.
"So what are you going to tell my brother when he realizes you no longer need to make a seaweed run?" This was something that I was genuinely curious about.
"No clue, do you have any suggestions for letting him down easily?" She joked.
I thought on that for a moment, "I know of one way to get him to unbunch his briefs a bit, but I'm not sure it will work too well on him if you do it." I looked back towards the blond and quirked my eyebrow at her mischievously."
"I'm all ears, Octavia."
"The one thing my brother loathes as much as failing something he's taken personal responsibility for is disappointing someone he cares about."
"Go on."
"Growing up was a constant tug of war between keeping me safe from the Ark's policies and keeping me happy, our mother was incredibly stern about the things we had to do to keep me from being discovered, no wiggle room there. Bellamy, on the other hand, was a bit easier to sway. All I had to do was play up the adorable little sister act a bit, wide eyes, pout face, produce a tear and suddenly he was all set to play a game of laundry ball with me."
Clarke snort laughed, "Somehow I don't think playing the part of an adorable little sister with your brother will work for me, your brother barely tolerates me as is."
"Yeah, I don't get that," I said, there was no real reason for Bellamy to dislike Clarke in actuality that I could think of. In actuality, it perplexed me that he didn't try to be more collaborative with her given her medical experience. Clarke was the person you wanted to have on your side more often than not if only to draw in more of a following. The camp needed Clarke and her skills more than the others and that was the simple truth of it.
"Really?" She asked.
"Well you guys bicker with each other incessantly, but it's like how I would with Bellamy. Just with higher stakes." I clarified.
"The difference is we're not related Octavia, he has no obligation to like me."
"I guess," I said considering that. There was no real reason why people had to like each other down here unless they were related or friends. But then there was also no real reason for people to dislike each other down here either unless they'd personally offended anyone.
Sure, there was still residual tension between Clarke and me, Lincoln's torture had soured that relationship some, but that had been a tense day for a lot of people. Everyone had had their own motivations for doing what they did, Clarke had needed to save Finn, I had needed to save Lincoln. Those motives had made sense to me. But my brothers' actions had been less about helping anyone outright and more about his own paranoia of outsiders. I didn't understand it, and it seemed he didn't understand me. As a result, we found ourselves at an impasse.
"Plus," Clarke continued, breaking me from my thoughts, "It also doesn't help that we came from worlds apart on the ark. Most of the camp also barely tolerates me." This was something that I had noticed as well. Not a lot of people went out of their way to talk to Clarke, but there was a number that went out of their way to talk about her, not usually good things. She handled the disrespect with far more grace than I ever could and it was impressive.
The fact that she never reacted only gave rise to more harsh criticisms from her dissenters. She was caught in a vicious feedback loop for the others, and from what I gathered it seemed to stem from what had been her previous status on the Ark.
I wanted to know more but I got the feeling that Clarke didn't feel like being forthcoming at the moment. That and Lincoln had cast me a warning side glance. Living under a floor most of my life had defiantly been a detriment to my social skills.
Clarke flawlessly redirect the conversation, "So whats laundry ball?"
"If you stuff enough socks into one another eventually you get a decent sized sock ball, soft enough that it won't cause enough trouble but hard enough to play with, make enough of those for everyone playing and then you can play laundry ball. You try to hit the other players with your sock ball while they try to do the same to you, all while avoiding getting hit. It's pretty fun." I explained.
"Sounds like a good time."
"Oh definitely," I remarked. Laundry ball had been one of the highlights I remembered from my life on the ark when relegated to the four walls of our small quarters. It had been one of my favorite pastimes, that is until I realized my brother had been letting me win more times than not. That realization had soured my memories of the game some.
I busied myself with the needle in front of me, desperately trying to thread the eye and finding very little success. I'd licked the end of the thread no less than 18 times thus far but there was no taming the loose strand of thread that stuck out a few millimeters from the end of the rest. It would have been SO much easier just to snip it off altogether and start from a fresh end, but mom hated when I did that. So I had been stuck for the last 15 minutes of my life desperately working to pass the thread through the eye to little avail.
I had found that if you turned the thread in a leftward slope that the stray end would find the base of the eye and be forced upwards and through. It would work if only I could get my hands to stop their slight twitching at inopportune moments.
Almost there! I thought as I carefully positioned the materials a breath from my face, hardly daring to breathe. It was nearly there. Just a half a millimeter more and I was free-
"O, heads up!"
THWACK!
The needle and thread fell to the table as huffed in frustration.
"BELLAMY!"
"I gave warning."
My eyes narrowed at him, annoyed, "A half of a second is not a warning, you jerk."
All good natured laughter he brushed it off, "Still counts."
In a flash I grabbed the laundry ball he'd throw at me from where it had landed on the floor and lobbed it at him, aiming for his stupid face with all the force my small body could muster. He managed to catch it with ease before it could get close. I raised my eyebrows in shock at the response time of his reflexes. He only smiled, "Up for a game O? You look like you could use a break."
I huffed, annoyed and turned away from him, "No."
"Awe come on, you can thread needles later, I'll even help if you like, I have to be at cadet training in an hour and we could both use the fun."
"No Bell, I don't feel like playing," I said grabbing the thread and sticking the end in my mouth, preparing once again to thread it.
"Why not?"
I really didn't feel like playing, to be honest. I'd been in a mood for a while now, something akin to my usual cabin fever, only it had been growing much worse of late. It likely had something to do with mom and I not getting along.
Where once our small disagreements had ended with me inevitably accepting whatever she said with little pushback, recently I had grown bolder and more often than not our minor skirmishes seemed to evolve into the nastiest of fights. This had changed the dynamic of the household somewhat. I felt myself nestle into a deep state of bitter, our mother was in a constant state of absent and all the while Bellamy was just there, trying to mend our breaking family.
There was a question that hung palpably in the air around the three of us, growing less ignorable with every week that passed and with every inch I grew. No one wanted to broach the topic, because it would mean facing the consequences of a 14-year-old mistake.
What is the rest of Octavia's life going to look like?
It wasn't a complicated question to answer, it was just one that was best left unanswered because we all knew what HAD to happen and what would result as a consequence.
Mom would have to continue life on half rations, lonely and prostituting herself until she passed away naturally or got floated. And Bellamy would likely live out the rest of his life fulfilling his obligation of big brother and protector. He'd never find anyone, settle down and become a father because I was a secret too important to share and too dangerous to impart on anyone else.
As for me? I would have to remain kept behind these four walls for the rest of my life. I would never know what it felt like to meet anyone for the first time, I would never see the rest of the ark. I would never fall in love. Never see space, or earth, never-
"O?" Bellamy's voice broke me from the hold of my thoughts, pulling me back to the present day.
"Bell," I responded, a new thought occurs to me. "Bell, how come you can never beat me in laundry ball?" I asked looking at him expectantly.
"You're smaller than me so you can dodge better." He shrugged, his feigning nonchalance as he averted his gaze.
"Bell," I pushed, "what's the real reason I always beat you in laundry ball?"
He bit his bottom lip, his face now an expression I didn't quite recognize…
Pity.
He'd never actually said it out loud, but that's what it was. It was a feeling that I recognized well, only years later after having managed to land myself in the Arks skybox alongside actual other living and breathing human beings that weren't my closest relations. I was the girl who was a criminal, just because I was born, met everywhere I went with looks of pity.
Apparently that had never been unique, however, I soon found that once I had left the small confines of our quarters on the Ark, I was met with not only pity but also looks of curiosity, as if they were waiting for a bomb to go off or watching an accident happen. They all knew I was guiltless, but that didn't stop them from watching and waiting to see if the girl who'd grown up under the floor exhibited any strange quirks as a result of her upbringing.
That riled me up more than anything. We'd both come to the same conclusion about me, that I would never be normal.
I waded through the shallow water, arms outstretched in search of the Red Seaweed that Clarke needed and treading carefully through the water. A warning from Lincoln, first-hand experience and a completely submerged head had taught me the hard way just how slippery the bottom was. Neither Lincoln nor Clarke had laughed at my misfortunes, both solemn and stony-faced as ever. All I got was a "you okay?" From Clarke and the slightest of eyebrow raises from Lincoln.
These were quite possibly the only two people on the face of this godforsaken planet right now that I could tolerate being near for a prolonged period of time without giving in to the urge to hit someone or disappear. And the fact that I had either of those options at my disposal was astounding to me, whose prospects had been fairly limited until recently.
Just as I was about to drag the last of the seaweed to the shore, a wind began to kick the water into whitecaps, whipping my wet hair flat across my forehead and sending goose-pimples up the length of my arm as a horn in the distance sounded its warning. The sound bounced off the trees and echoed in all directions.
"Octavia," Lincoln, his voice composed, but for the slight edge to it, "leave the Seaweed, let's get to cover."
I didn't need to be told twice as I saw in the distance a large flock of birds take flight, pursued by the familiar orange acid fog.