/
They took Leksa from her, once. They'd been told it would happen, assured it will be just for a week, maybe two, long enough to get Onya set up as legal guardian. Leksa and her had agreed, privately, to cooperate. No skaikru home for lost youngons could hold Leksa if she ever wanted to leave, and it's worth the wait not to be looking over their shoulders for skaikru authorities for the duration of their exile. Onya thinks it will be fine, until someone in a cheap suit takes Leksa by the upper arm.
The next thing she knows Leksa has pinned her against the wall and she's panting, straining at Leksa's arm across her chest. The man is lying prone, eyes shut, arm at an unnatural angle. Kostia bends over him, feeling for a pulse. Another man grabs Leksa across the waist and she shouts, kicking out and throwing her elbow back with a wet crunch. Tris twists and bites the arm of the woman pulling her away, and everyone is shouting, mixed languages and thumps as the men with guns force Onya face first onto the floor, wrenching her arm behind her. Onya twists and smashes her forehead into the soft part of the man's face. He recoils, his blood flung out warm and sharp on Onya's cheek, and she-
/
Onya wakes before Reivon. They're still sideways across the bed; the flask is still dangling from Reivon's fingers. Onya rolls to her feet without stirring the sleeping girl and shakes her arms out. Her left hand throbs and she cracks her wrist to alleviate some of the pressure.
Reivon stirs. "What time is it?" she mutters, croaking. Onya looks out the window at the height and brightness of the sun.
"Seven," she estimates. "You should sleep more."
"Mm." Reivon rolls over, planting her face into the pillow. "Yeah."
Onya goes into the bathroom. The faucet squeaks when she turns it on, and the water is slightly tepid, but it still feels good against her skin. She blots her face on her sleeve and goes back out, crossing to her jacket tossed over the cheap table. She peels the orange with her nails and nudges Reivon's shoulder. "Are you asleep?"
"Yes," Reiven grunts. She snuffles against the thin fabric and Onya dangles a segment to the side of Reivon's head, nose level. Reivon turns, blinking sleepy eyes. She opens her mouth and Onya slips the fruit against her tongue. Reivon's lips brush her fingers and she steps back, unnerved. Reivon sits up, flushed in her cheeks. "Uh. Thanks."
Onya nods. She shifts on her feet and casts her gaze to the wall. "I will leave now," she decides.
Her boots are strewn against the wall and she steps into them, leaning to do the laces quick and tight. "Wait," Reivon says, when her hand is on the doorknob. "Wait."
Onya waits. Reivon scrambles up, scrubbing at her face and hopping as she tries to keep her weight off her bad leg. She tries to take a step and curses, knee buckling. Onya watches, face impassive. "Do you require assistance?"
Reivon takes another, dragging half-step. "Yeah," she admits, screwing up her face. "Don't rub it in." Onya takes her arm and presses her back. Reivon yelps when she lands on the bed. "Hey!"
Onya kneels on the floor at her feet and slides fingers up her calf, around her knee with gentle, soothing pressure, and up her thigh. Reivon makes a noise, high and squeaky. "Hush," Onya says, impatient. "You do yourself no favors," she mutters, and massages, varying the pressure, starting slow and ramping up.
"Ohh," Reivon breathes. She flops back against the mattress and stretches her arms over her head. "Fuck. That's good."
She's not looking and Onya allows herself a small smile. "There are stretches," she says, digging her thumbs into a particular spot and watching Reivon arch faintly, little sighs, "it would help."
"I usually do." Reivon props herself up on her elbows. "I was going to ask you something, before."
Onya tilts her head, acknowledging. "Yes."
"I have a truck. Well, it's not mine, per se, but. I have a truck, and a few places to hit. Another beach, a few parks. I wouldn't hate having someone to go dutch on gas with, split the driving. The truck bed is big enough for your bike." Onya's fingers pause and Reivon twitches.
"I am not good company," Onya says. She watches Reivon's face.
"I know," Reivon says. Her hair is mussed on one side, her makeup smudged from the corner of her eye.
Onya starts massaging again. "Alright," she agrees.
/
Onya's lawyer tells her to keep her mouth shut. He takes pictures with his cellphone of the burns on her chest where they sparked electricity through her body. He says he will take care of everything, and murmurs low before he leaves we burn for Heda. Onya shuffles back to her cot, and lies on her back, watching the girls size her up from the corners of her eyes.
Someone pushes her in line for the bathroom, testing. Onya breaks two of her fingers and the collarbone of her friend who tries to sucker punch Onya from the side. The guards shove her against the wall and walk her in heavy chains to a small dark room. She sits in the middle on the cold concrete floor and is able to meditate for the first time since Trigeda burned.
/
Onya likes the truck. She rolls the window down and leans the chair back, propping her feet on the door into the cool air. Her sunglasses sit on her nose just right and it's cold in the best way, a chill that keeps her awake and ruffles her hair. Reivon drives slow, muttering about old trucks and something about gears and cylinders Onya doesn't bother trying to understand. The radio crackles with static and Onya tunes it out, preferring the sound of cars passing and the rumble of the engine, tires crunching over the road.
"Tell me something about you," Reivon says. Onya stays silent, eyes hidden, face tilted away towards the window, and Reivon rolls her eyes. "The radio's shit and if I fall asleep we both die." Onya slouches a little lower and Reivon sighs. "Okay, fine. I'll go first-" she slaps the horn and shouts something out the window in a gonasleng Onya doesn't understand. She mutters, dark, then brightens. "Okay, so. The first time I met Clarke, she was kissing my boyfriend."
Onya's head jerks to her, surprised. Her glasses slide slightly down her nose and Reivon flicks her gaze at her, their eyes meeting.
"Yeah. So you know, screaming and shouting and all that. And then! We find out we're roommates." Reivon casts a smug grin her way. "Yeah. Bet you thought this would be boring. Anyway, she spent most of her time in Octavia's room. And I hated her almost as much as I hated him." She pauses to clear her throat. "And then I got sick. Walking pneumonia." She half shrugs. "Clarke took care of me. The day after I could breathe deep without coughing, we did tequila shots and burned his picture on the basketball court. Campus security wrote us both up and we threw up together the next morning. We've been friends ever since." She stops. She bites her lip, watching the road, and Onya gropes for something to say.
"What is pneumonia?" she asks.
"Sickness," Reivon tells her, looking pleased at the evidence Onya was listening. "Like a cold, but a million times worse. Oh! And then Clarke caught it from me, and we got drunk with Octavia and tried to infect her partner from Stats because he was roommates with Finn's frat brother, but-"
"I don't care," Onya tells her.
Reivon pretends not to hear. "But then Bellamy got it, and started spilling secrets during his fever dreams, and suddenly the boys soccer coach is knocking on doors trying to decipher the great Pneumonia Conspiracy of the Century-"
"If I tell you something," Onya asks, "will you stop talking?"
"Absolutely."
Onya frowns out the window. There's a long dragging moment of silence. "I met Leksa when I was seventeen," she says, slow. "She was-she is-the greatest fighter I have ever met." She shifts in the seat. "An excellent strategist. A born leader." She falls silent, satisfied with her response.
"Lexa," Reivon says, very carefully, "is all of those things, I am sure. But I want to know something about you." Onya frowns. She crosses her arms over her chest. "I could tell you about the time Clarke stole sixteen office chairs from the anthropology department and cried in the bathtub because she thought she was going to go to federal prison."
"I was born in a river," Onya blurts. She blinks at herself. "I was born in a river," she repeats, soft.
"Yeah?" Reivon looks at her, brief. "Is that-good?"
"My nom-my mother thought so."
"Nomon," Reivon says, and grins. "I learned a little from Octavia, you know. Roommates."
"Rivers are a good sign," Onya says, unsure why she's offering more information. "For my people."
"Because of farming stuff?" Reivon's voice is bright and genuinely curious. "Like… water for the crops."
"Perhaps, as the origin. My village was near the largest river in Trigeda. We used to have festivals on it, when it froze." Onya smiles, caught in memory. "Candles on lilypads in the summer." She remembers learning to swim in that river; she remembers sitting on its grassy banks with a stem of wheat in between her teeth and Tris and Leksa sharing fresh honeycomb, their poles dipped in the water to catch fish for lunch.
"It sounds beautiful," Reivon offers. "Your mother must have planned that well. A good omen, right?"
"It was a surprise." Onya drums her fingers on the door, her face creasing slightly as she tries to remember the old stories her mother had told her. "She felt the pain and waded in. My father was away. My eldest brother cut the cord and dipped my face beneath the surface." She clears her throat, shifting. "It is a good omen," she agrees.
"Raven means dark," Reivon says. "My mom was-here, sometimes, if you're dark skinned, you can get some shit. My mom wanted me to be proud of my heritage." She smiles, fleeting. "She was cool, in the beginning."
"Reivons are clever," Onya says. "They have long memories." She'd known the little family of reivons that lived near the silo in her village. They used to swoop the boys, screeching, and bring the girls little pebbles from the forest.
"They can fly," Reivon says, wistful. "I used to wish I could fly away."
Onya studies her. "You are not close with your mother."
Reivon's hands jerk on the steering wheel. "It's not-it's better, now. She tries."
"But you're not spending Kristmas with her."
Reivon's fingers flex. She breathes quietly. "No."
Onya feels as though she may have overstepped. "I miss my mother," she says. It feels inadequate, and she drops her hands to her lap, unsettled.
"Me too," Reivon says, after a long moment. They don't talk again for forty miles.
/
Leksa and Kostia come to visit, hands linked. Leksa has a black eye and Onya growls. "You shouldn't leave Tris alone."
"Shof op." Lexa glares. "Stop picking fights. We're getting you out of here."
"I don't pick fights. I end them."
Leksa rolls her eyes. "I'm going to put some money in your account. Buy a comb and a sweet, and play nice." She stalks off, but not before dropping a hand to the double layered plastic separating them. "Ste yuj."
"She worries." Kostia slides into Leksa's vacated seat. "We both do."
"I don't matter. Only Leksa matters."
"Not so," Kostia says, sharp. She softens. "Your lawyer says you're being held in solitary. I have read it is the cruelest punishment." She touches the tabletop, gentle empathy. "I'm sorry."
Onya has felt her fingers broken at every joint, slow and twisting. Nia dragged her youngest bro before her and slit his bruised throat; she can still taste the ash of her village on her tongue. Solitary is quiet, and cool, and dark, and Onya sits on the floor with her nails against the stone and thinks and thinks and seethes.
"I do not mind it," Onya says, and calls the guard to take her away.
/
They stop at a gas station and Onya buys Reivon a pair of sunglasses and a soda. Reivon is leaning against the side of the truck, watching the the gas counter tick, and Onya offers her the glasses. "I will drive," she half-states half-asks.
"Okay."
They climb in and the doors thump shut, heavy. Onya turns the engine over and listens to Reivon's murmured instructions. "Where are we going?"
Reivon does up her seatbelt and slouches low. "A national park. There's a river I like, shouldn't be frozen over yet."
Onya nods. The radio is off. She taps her fingers on the wheel, quiet. "I fell out of a tree once," she says. "When I was five. I broke my collarbone."
Reivon slips the sunglasses over her eyes and presses her head against the window. "I'm gonna take a nap."
Onya turns the radio on. It crackles, sharp, and bursts out a string of sound, jarring, garbled guitar, before falling back to steady white noise.
/
Onya stepped out of prison into the sun and felt its warmth on her skin. Leksa clasps her forearm and Tris hits her chest in a hug. She has grown a little, and Onya holds her close for a second before pulling away.
Onya stands in front of a judge and says what her lawyer tells her to. The judge says many things she doesn't understand, but at the end she signs the papers and the lawyer says she is free, and Leksa and Tris and Kostia are hers. He drives them to an apartment with broken window and creaky floors. Onya can hear the rats in the walls, skittering. He shakes her hand the skaikru way and wishes her luck. They watch him drive away and when Onya turns they are looking at her.
"Now what?" Tris asks, and Onya doesn't know.
/
The park is beautiful. Onya didn't know there were such places in this country. She flies out of the truck, not bothering to remove the keys, shoving her sunglasses off, and takes a deep breath. She kicks her shoes off and peels her socks away and sinks her toes into the cold rich earth.
Reivon walks to her shoulder. "So you're a nature girl."
Onya looks out at the trees and the flowers and the bright blue sky. The air is sweeter here, the colors more vivid. "Yes," she says, soft, "I think I am."
Reivon takes a camera from her bag and they walk on the faintest trails, the grass on their legs and the birds chittering from their branches. Reivon pauses every so often, to get just the right angle, sometimes taking long minutes, and Onya ranges around her, impatient to feel the small stones under her feet and the tree bark against her palms. She scales one, barefoot and sure handed, and when she slides down Reivon is smiling. "It looks good on you," she says.
Onya brushes dirt off her palms. "What does?"
"Happiness."
Onya doesn't know what to say to that. There is a flutter in her belly, just below her chest. She touches Reivon's wrist and turns. "Do you want to climb with me?"
"What?" Reivon stares. "No, I couldn't-"
"It is a sturdy tree. And I am strong."
Onya climbs a tree with Reivon on her back and a camera around her neck. They sit near the top, Reivon's fingers tight and nervous on the branch and Onya's legs kicking lazily, and eat the sunflower seeds Reivon had fished out of the glove compartment. Onya spits the seed shells at a curious chipmunk and coaxes it to sit on her arm.
"Christ," Reivon says, her camera snapping, "it's like you're a Disney Princess."
Onya wonders if Reivon would smile that little soft smile if she knew how many people Onya has seen lain dead at her feet, by her hands. She lowers her hand and watches the chipmunk scamper away.
/
Onya got a job in a grocery store. She stocks shelves in a green apron, brow furrowed as she struggles to become fluent in gonasleng's squiggled written letters. The manager calls her slow and once tried to kiss her near the loading bay. She kneed him in the groin and opened a knife at his throat and told him, very soft, that she will be receiving the pay raise and transfer to the night inventory shift.
She walks the others to the school Leksa had enrolled them in every morning and collects them in the afternoon. She brings discount food home from her job, dented cans and ripped boxes, and Tris learns how to work their mercurial stove, Leksa hunched at the table over her books. Kostia starts a tiny garden on the windowsill, and Onya touches the little green sproutlings before she locks the windows up, drawing the curtains and barring the door before she goes to work. She reminds them to be careful and turns off the lights, and Leksa sleeps with a knife in her hand.
/
Onya lingers just outside where they parked. The sun is setting and the air is cold and she loves the first sparkle of the stars in the sky. "We could sleep here," Reivon offers, from behind her.
Onya turns. "We could?"
Reivon shrugs. "Move the bike out of the back and lay out the blankets. It'll get cold, but it's possible."
"I would-" Onya faces her fully. "I would enjoy that."
Onya rolls her bike out of the truck and Reivon lays out the blankets and they put on their coats and take off their shoes and curl up under the moon. "I fell down the stairs when I was six," Reivon says, lying on her back. "My mom was drunk. I was trying to help her to her bedroom."
Onya rolls onto her side to face her. "I did not mean to cause you discomfort."
"Not your fault. She really is better now." Onya doesn't say anything. She knows actions in the future can never negate decisions in the past. Reivon clears her throat, dragging one hand across her face. "Anyway. I also fell of the swings in fourth grade." She wrestles with her sleeve, dragging it back. "Look."
Onya looks. There's a jagged line of white skin, a scar about the length of Onya's smallest finger. Onya pulls her collar down, exposing a small lump on her breastbone. "From the tree."
Reivon wiggles, pushing the blanket off. A slicing curved line across her ankle bone. "Kicked a window out and the glass got me."
Onya shows her two dark spots on her ribcage, the air making her shiver as she lifts her shirt. "Taser."
"Damn." Reivon leans close, peering in the light of the stars and the moon. She touches two fingers to the dots. "A badass," she says, teasing, and her teeth glint in her smile. Onya smiles back.
Reivon shivers, and Onya hesitates for only half a second before touching her elbow, feather light. "It will only get colder… if you'd like-?"
Onya falls asleep with Reivon's breath on her cheek and their shoulders pressed tight, the blankets tucked around them both, ankles brushing. Onya can't remember the last time she ever slept so close to someone. She thinks it might have been in the county jail cell, Leksa tucked against her side while they waited for their lawyer, her shoulders shaking in silent sobs of violent grief and consuming rage, Kostia and Trish dead in the morgue beneath them.
/
The first time Onya woke screaming she was still in solitary. Her shouts echoed in her tiny room and a guard banged on her door until she slapped her palms over her mouth and shook. The second time was the third night after Tris and Kostia died and she woke to find herself pinning Leksa to the wall, her fist pulled back and Lexa's lip bloodied. The last was their first night in the house with Klark sharing a wall, and Leksa woke her after only one shout, quiet and comforting, her hand on Onya's shoulder.
"A dream," is all she said when Octavia asked the next morning, tentative. Leksa walked into their room a day later and tossed a tin at Onya's chest. Some kind of tea, and Onya sniffs the top and makes a satisfied noise.
"From Octavia," Leksa had told her, arching an eyebrow. "They are not so bad."
Onya had scoffed and rolled her eyes. The tea lay forgotten near her pillow as she rose to for her run, and she found it there the next night, waking with a jolt and controlling her breathing so she doesn't wake Leksa, who doesn't sleep enough as it is. She sprinkles the dry loose leaves under her pillow and lets the smell remind her she's in the only place she's slept without having to spill blood.
/
Onya nudges Reivon while it's still dark. "Come," she whispers, and takes Reivon's hand to help her walk across the uneven rocky ground to a large stone overlooking the river. They sit and watch the sunrise, and Reivon naps with Onya's jacket under her head while Onya finds a tree branch and a few worms and rips her sock into strips to fashion a fishing pole. She catches two fat trout and sinks small rocks into a circle with her feet to start a fire.
"Well," Reivon says when she wakes, bemused to find a fire crackling and the smell of cooking fish heavy in the air. "At least I've got a solid answer for who I'd want to be deserted on an island with."
Onya smells like morning fire and cheap coffee from a tin cup and river water and she smiles big when she drops the fish, wrapped in big leaves, into Reivon's hands. She stretches out in the grass and feels her pants dry in the sun, listening to Reivon eat and murmur appreciatively. "I like it here," she says, watching the clouds float across the sky. She touches her chest, above her heart. "I think I am happy, in this moment."
"Me too," Reivon says, leaning over her and looking fond. "Although just so you know, I think every single thing about what we've done here today has been illegal."
Onya shrugs.
"Hey," Reivon says, standing. "Look." She kicks off her pants, leaving her in boyshort underwear and socks. "I win." She sits next to Onya and pokes at her injured knee. "Car accident. Mom was blitzed."
Onya reaches over and hovers her hand over the surgical scars. Reivon exhales, soft, and Onya traces the white lines with a single finger. "Does the cold make it worse?"
Reivon shakes her head. "The heat, actually. It swells." She lays her hand over Onya's and presses down. "There's metal screws in, feel them?"
"Yes." Reivon drops her hand and Onya rubs the back of her neck, hesitating. She strips her shirt off and turns around. She knows Reivon has seen when her breath catches. She looks at the ground and breathes, even and quiet, and when Reivon's fingers touch her she jolts.
"Sorry," Reivon says. "Do they hurt?"
"No. It's-I can only feel pressure, around them." Onya turns around and Reivon's hand is still hovering in the air. Her eyes look wet. She crowds forward and her nose bumps Onya's.
"What happened to you," she breathes, and Onya kisses her, closed mouth and open eyes, sleep dry lips. When she leans back and licks her lips, she tastes Reivon, instant coffee and woodsmoke.
"Life," Onya tells her, "the same thing that happened to you."
"Yeah," Reivon says, and surges forward. Onya's fingers slip beneath her shirt, trailing over warm skin, and Reivon slides into her lap, bearing her down. Onya feels dew under her back on the blades of grass, and the heat from the fire flickers on her toes. Reivon's thighs are bare, bracketing her hips, and their warmth seeps into Onya's sides. Her mouth opens under Reivon's tongue and she makes a noise in her chest, half-broken. She pulls away and Reivon sits up on her hips, blinking.
"We should go," Onya says, looking away. "If you want to make it to your beach by nightfall."
Reivon is silent, and Onya pulls her shirt on with fumbling fingers. "Yeah," Reivon says finally, and they pack up the truck in silence. Reivon gets behind the wheel and Onya closes her eyes with her head tipped back in the passenger seat until she falls into an uneasy doze.
/
Onya's first sparring partner had been a boy born the same year as her. He was politely respectful and soft spoken and his equipment always shone, but when their teachers weren't watching his eyes glinted and he aimed his strikes to injure. He wrapped his training weapons in cloth and hid pointed thistles in their tips, and breathed harder every time he made Onya bleed, even as he spoke his fake apologies.
He'd been with Nia, in the end, and Onya thinks it's less of a want for power than the opportunity to slaughter mindlessly. He'd come into her cell with a crown of thorns and a whip and hadn't checked to make sure her feet were bound-she'd snapped his neck with her legs and watched him die on the floor, a thorn embedded in her eyebrow. The blood dripped over her eye, blinding her, and the last thing she saw was his hate, carved into his dying face.
/
Reivon reaches for her shoulder and Onya grabs her by the wrist in mid-air, eyes snapping open. It's dark outside, and Onya feels disoriented. "We're here," Reivon says, and gets out of the car. Onya shakes herself. She slides from the cab of the truck and smells the ocean, sharp and salty. "I thought we could sleep on the beach," Reivon says, stretching a short distance away. "Still illegal and we could both use a shower, but." She shrugs. "If you want."
"I do," Onya says. She helps Reivon carry blankets onto cool sand and they walk in the surf, their pants rolled up and eating beef jerky out of a gas station package. "I could start a fire," Onya offers, and Reivon shakes her head.
"I'm tired," she says. She sits on the blankets. "If you don't want-"
"I do." Onya slides beside Reivon and draws the blanket around them. There's sand between her toes, gritty, and Reivon's back is warm against her chest. She lays an arm across Reivon's waist, hesitant, and Reivon slides a foot between her ankles. "There's something," Onya whispers against the back of her neck. "Tomorrow. I'd like your help."
"Okay," Reivon whispers back. Her body goes lax against Onya's, relaxing. "It's a date."
/
Onya's first love was a fisa trainee, a boy with summer sky eyes. He'd practiced his stitches on her arm and talked quietly of the fruit orchards in his village. The day he'd partnered with her to teach her which herbs numb pain and which flowers have poison petals, he'd plucked a wildflower from a vine and tucked it behind her ear. It had fallen out when they'd kissed, his back against an oak tree.
They'd snuck out at night to hold hands in the forest and touched each other with eager fumbling fingers in a meadow, the stars shining on their skin. Onya shivered when she came for the first time, all her words stopped up in her chest, and he'd breathed wetly into the side of her neck, her legs drawn around him, and they trembled together as one, under the moon.
He left for a posting in the next largest city, a full day's walk away, and Onya had squeezed his fingers when they shook hands goodbye. It is a good first love, Onya realizes, when she hears the others talk late at night in the warrior barracks. It has remained, in her mind, a good memory. She wonders if he's still alive. She hopes he is.
/
Reivon watches her dig through her bike's saddlebag, and obediently held her hands out for the things Onya passes her. A small bundle wrapped in a cloth and held shut with leather straps, a bundle of newspapers, a smoothed stick she'd found in the park two days earlier, the length of her forearm.
"It's early as hell," Reivon grumbles, shivering as she follows Onya down to the where the water laps at the land.
Onya squints at the horizon. "Yes," she says, absent. The fire is crackling and she tosses a final twig into it. She plucks the bundle from Reivon's hands and unwraps it. "This is from my land," she says, crouching. "It is the only thing I have brought from-from home."
Reivon hunches next to her. "Yeah?" Her voice is curious, and interested, and Onya nods.
"There are bone needles." Onya shows her the tool. "From turtle shells, and boar tusks." She touches a fingerpad to the edge of one and feels the prick of pain. A drop of her blood wells up, dark, and she smears it gently across the row of needles. "To wake their hunger." She dips it into the surf. "To sharpen their thirst."
"At sunrise? And always at the ocean?"
"Yes." Onya lets the water rush through the needles, numbingly cold on her skin. "The only time I've seen the ocean was when I received the tattoos on my legs. Would you like to pray with me?"
Reivon takes Onya's free hand in her own, the bundle and stick and newspapers behind them in the sand, and the wind ruffles their hair, the sun breaking over the water, and Reivon says the words after Onya does, stuttering over the unfamiliar language.
"You're making me nervous," Reivon says, when Onya stamps the fire out and draws the stick through the hot ash before drawing on the skin on her upper thigh, pants cast aside. "You're sure you know what you're doing?"
"My skill should not be your concern." Onya finished the pattern and blows, gently. She takes the square piece of wood, the needles embedded deep, and touches their teeth. She offers it to Reivon. "I cannot do it myself."
Reivon recoils, hands up. "Oh no, I don't think so."
"The pattern is there. Hold it over the line and tap." She nudges the stick closer to Reivon. "Tap there first-" she points at the smoldering newspapers "-for ink."
"This is some prison shit," Reivon protests. "How about I open yelp on my phone, and we just-"
"Reivon."
Reivon takes the tools from her hands and then stops, shaking her head. "No, you want Clarke for this, the artist. Or Octavia, she always wins at operation, I-"
"I don't want Klark. I don't want Okteivia." Onya lays back on the sand and bends her knee, raising her thigh up. "I pick you."
Reivon licks her lips. "Okay." She runs the needles through the newspapers and rests them on the first line on Onya's skin. They prickle. "Just-don't be mad if I fuck up."
"Little taps," Onya tells her. The first one is tentative, and Reivon winces. "Harder," Onya says, and then- "yes, like that. I'll tell you when to stop."
The gulls are calling to each other and the sun rises huge and orange and the sea roars and glitters and Reivon breathes, soft, and the needles taptaptap into her skin. Reivon's hair tickles her where she's bent close to her work, using a cloth to wipe the blood and ash away. It takes a long time.
It's a simple pattern; Onya is no artist and neither is Reivon. It is Tris' clan name, in the old runes, blocky. If Onya had truly been her fos it would be sacrilege, to honor her this way. Something with vines, Onya thinks, done by a true kakau, or maybe a broken arrow, to honor a warrior's death. But Onya never got to say her oath or bind their blood, and Tris never got to die with a sword in her hand, and they all have to do the best with the hands they're dealt.
Onya washes her tattoo in the ocean and welcomes the sting. She lies on the sand and Reivon wanders around the beach, taking pictures. Onya puts her pants back on and they walk up a quarter mile to a taco truck and eat on a pier, legs dangling. Onya leans back on her hands and tilts her head into the sun; Reivon snaps her photo with a smile leaking out from behind the black body of the camera lens.
Onya stands with her feet sinking into the sand and the water on her toes and Reivon builds a sandcastle, sticking a leaf into the top tower. The surf takes it away.
"C'mere," Reivon says, when the sun starts to hang low, and Onya takes off her pants so Reivon can check her tattoo, faintly red. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes." Onya watches Reivon's fingers linger on her skin. "It should."
Reivon lowers her head and kisses the center of the design. She looks at Onya through her lashes. "I think you've had enough hurt."
Onya swallows. "Oh?"
"We both have." Reivon kisses her, slow, and waits until Onya's arm curls around her shoulder, pulling her closer, before slipping her tongue in Onya's mouth. There's sand on her lips, gritty, and their noses bump, awkward. Reivon stands, shucking her jeans, and Onya pulls her shirt over her head. Reivon settles behind her, kissing Onya sideways, slack open mouth and panting breaths, before running gentle lips down the map of scars on Onya's back.
"Your leg," Onya says, turning fully and tugging Revin's shirt off. She kisses above the cup of Reivon's bra and Reivon fumbles to undo the clasp and bare her chest.
"It's fine," Reivon says.
The sand slips under them, tangling in their hair, and sea spray droplets mist their skin. Reivon speaks in soft noises, encouraging and pleased, and Onya murmurs only one word, please, just before she comes, spine arched. Reivon is smaller under her than Onya thought she would be, and softer, drenched velvet around Onya's slim thrusting fingers. Her hips rise and fall with the movements of Onya's wrist, and when she comes with a gasp it's drowned out by the crashing waves.
/
Leksa drew the design the summer before her final year in high school. Kostia has a job at a local restaurant and Tris is buried in books, trying to jump a year in math. She has spoken, hesitantly, about hoping to work with Leksa on the education system. "When things have settled," she rushes to assure them, and Leksa and Onya trade fond proud looks.
"A fine idea," Leksa tells her. She pulls Onya aside into the kitchen, and hands her the crumpled notebook paper. Onya looks and immediately knows.
"You are very young," she says, hesitant. "As Heda-"
"Do you know what they taught us?" Leksa interrupts. "What one of the pillars of being Heda is?" Onya looks at her, suspicious.
"Nou."
"Compassion." Leksa takes the paper back from Onya's hands. "I cannot do this without her." She looks through the window to the fire escape, where Kostia is watering her seedlings in one of Leksa's shirts. "She is in my heart."
"Then I approve." Onya clasps Leksa's shoulder. "Congratulations."
Leksa blushes, faint and pleased. "I am going to ask her in the winter." Her face goes sappy. "She loves the snow."
Onya makes a noise of agreement. "I will send word for a kakau. There must be at least one in this land."
"I thought you could do it," Leksa says, deceptively casual. Onya gapes. "Things are changing, Onya. There is no one more important to me than Kostia. And no one I would honor more to link us than you."
There is a lump in Onya's throat, bittersweet joy. "Sha," she says, and they smile at each other. "In the winter."
Leksa buys candles and hides them around the apartment. She means to set them up in the front yard, after the first snow, and ask Kostia on bended knee, the way they do in skaikru movies. Onya cleans the bone needles and readies the ink. She saves up a little money and Tris plans to bake a cake. Nia finds them before the snow does.
/
Onya tucks the blanket around Reivon's sleeping form and leaves a note on the truck's dashboard. She walks her bike up the road for a long while, until the noise won't reach Reivon, and rumbles away with sleep still in the corners on her eyes.
She stops at a gas station and charges her phone. There are six missed calls, and when she dials Leksa picks up on the first ring, furious. "Onya."
"I am well."
"I will call," Leksa says, mocking and accusing all at once, "I will text. I will not disappear for days without a single word after an argument."
"It wasn't an argument." Leksa growls. "I am well. How is Klark?"
There's a brief, faintly embarrassed silence. "You always know," Leksa sighs, affectionate. Onya feels her lips quirk up.
"I learned all your tells as a youngon. Can't hide it now."
"Kristmas is in two days." Leksa pauses and Onya can hear her swallow. "Clarke is having people over. Raven and Octavia will be there." Onya is silent. "It is-a day for family."
Onya looks at her arm. There a soft bruise blooming in the mark of Reivon's teeth on the inside of her wrist, where she bit down when Onya rocked against her. "I will see you at the memorial."
Leksa makes a noise, small, but her voice doesn't shake. "Sha." She hangs up before Onya can say goodbye.
/
The police release them and give them a voucher for a motel room. Leksa hasn't spoken since she gave her statement, monotoned, to the detectives. The younger one pulls Onya aside and gives her a pamphlet on grief and free counseling sessions. Onya tucks it into a pocket and has to pull Leksa out of the car, her eyes flat. She walks her into the room and pushes the cheap desk in front of the door, drawing the blinds and throwing the blankets and sheets from the twin beds onto the floor. There's blood on Leksa's face and under her nails, and Onya sits her on the closed toilet to clean her, wetting the towel at the tepid sink.
She's washing her own hands when Leksa shudders and collapses in on herself, imploding silently with clenched fists and jagged breathing. She drags at her own hair, too hard, and struggles when Onya catches her hands. They topple into the shower curtain, ripping the cheap aluminum pole out of the wall. "Leksa," Onya says, her own grief a hole in her chest, and Leksa hits her across the face, splitting her lip.
Onya retreats, not raising her arms, and lets Leksa hit her twice more, high on her cheek and once in the chest, Onya dropping her shoulder to avoid injury. Then she grabs Leksa around the waist, falling into the shower stall and lying sprawled against the cold moldy tile, Leksa shaking in her arms, her fingers clawing at Onya's leg. "No," she whispers, head hanging, and it's so quiet in the room, their breathing the only noise. The air conditioned kicks in, humming and clanking, and Only closes her eyes and holds Leksa close. "No," Leksa whispers again, broken, and Onya presses her tongue into her lip until it bleeds, the small hurt chasing the rest of her thoughts away.
/
Onya parks her bike and walks into the park. Chairs are being set up, the pyre is being built. Linkon nods at her from the small stage, arranging a podium, and she raises a hand in acknowledgement. Quinn is smoking a cigarette to the side, and quirks an eyebrow at her when she plucks it from his mouth. "Do we have peace between us now?"
"As much as we ever do." Onya finishes the cigarette and puts it out in the snow before tucking the butt into her boot. "Heda is coming today."
"And you'll kill me if I speak wrong?"
"No." Onya takes the pack from his hands tucks them into her coat pocket. "She will."
Linkon helps her darken her eyesockets, and Onya lurks in the treeline, on edge, while people filter in. She knows several of them, and they nod to each other. Leksa arrives just before it begins, and Onya doesn't miss the flash of blonde hair in the audience. She arches an eyebrow and Leksa looks back, challenging.
Onya finds her after the speech. "Heda."
"Onya." Klark is standing there, eyes wide.
"I'll wait in the car," she says, but Leksa catches her by the wrist.
"Stay. Please." She takes a step sideways, towards Onya. "Did you enjoy my speech?
"It was incendiary." It had been, full of promises for blood and vengeance.
"We will have our blood. Then we can rebuild; stronger, better. But not before they've answered for what they've done."
"Jus drein jus daun," Onya agrees.
Leksa kneels before her and Onya draws the Heda wings over her face, around her eyes, the ash hot on her fingers. She hesitates at the last part, and Leksa looks at her, head tilted. She nods, and Onya beckons to Klark.
Klark's hand shakes, and she doesn't understand what it means, what she's doing, and Onya guides her into the smoking ash and over Leksa's skin, staining, and wonders if this, too, will end with Leksa alone, hunched over in grief, blood on her knuckles. She wonders if she will be alive to see it end.
/
Onya's nontu had been a baker. She remembers sitting in the window with flour on her clothes, listening as he told her stories between thumps of his hands in the dough. Her bro ran through, shrieking, tracking mud onto the floor and clambering at his feet for the sweet pastry balls he keeps in his pockets. They run off as soon as they receive what they want, and Onya likes it better when they're gone. She listens to him hum, and the hissroar of the oven. She smells rising bread and watches him grind the meal.
"My quiet girl," he calls her, fond, and dips the heels of the loaves in the spiced butter before giving them to her with a wink. They leave her fingers shiny.
Her teachers tell her parents she is too quiet. They encourage them to make her play in the games every weekend, races and sparring and agility in the clearing just fifteen minutes away. Her nomon agrees. Onya comes back from her first day at the games with bruised knuckles and a bruise the side of her palm on her cheek, and her nomon clucks and mutters.
Her nontu gives her a sweet and holds a finger to his lips before mussing her hair. "My quiet girl," he says, but his face is slightly strange. "You will never be a farmer."
The gona come to her village a month later. When they leave for the capital, Onya goes with them.
/
Onya joins Leksa for the New Year. She sips her beer and watches Leksa and Klark move around each other in increasingly small circles. She's in the bathroom washing her hands when Reivon steps in, closing the door behind her. Onya looks at her in the mirror. "You are angry with me," she guesses.
"Yes. You did a shitty thing."
Onya turns, leaning against the counter. "They are not my secrets to tell."
Reivon rolls her eyes. "I don't need your deep dark past. I just needed you to tell me to my face, instead of running off while I was sleeping."
Onya crosses her arms. "Tell you what?"
"Whatever. It was a mistake, you regret it, I'm far, far too much for you to handle, whatever." Onya steps forward but doesn't respond, mouth open, throat working, and Reivon huffs. She throws her hands into the air, exasperated, and turns to leave.
"I am not a soft person," Onya says, looking at the floor. Reivon pauses with her hand on the doorknob. "I am not ashamed of it, but I will not deny it."
"I never asked you to be soft. I don't expect it."
"Perhaps you deserve more than what you ask for."
Reivon makes a noise, frustrated growl, and spins. Onya retreats, bumping against the counter, and Reivon steps close, nose flared. "Perhaps I can make my own goddamn decisions," she snaps, and kisses Onya, tooth and snarl. She bites Onya's lip when she pulls away, and Onya sways to her, pulse pounding. Her thigh throbs where Reivon had bent over her body and carved new lines into her skin. Reivon blinks. Her face softens. Outside, her friends laugh, muted cheer. "Happy New Year, Onya." Onya blinks at her, and Reivon drops her hands from where they'd fallen to Onya's waist. She turns away.
Onya catches her by the wrist after her first step, pulling her back. This kiss is soft. Careful sliding of gentle lips, beer and cranberry juice, vodka and the cigarette Onya had smoked in the driveway, the smallest touch of their tongues. "Happy New Year, Reivon," Onya says, and stands very still while Reivon leaves, the door clicking shut behind her.
