Warning: Gore
Edited: 04/03/15; 11-07-15 with about 4800 words added.
267 A.F. (Activation: Day 01, Early Morning, Underground)
Lexa came to face down in water. Her lungs were full with a foreign weight.
I'm drowning!
Reflexively, her hands clawed at her throat and chest until she could pull in air. She reared back her head, then gagged and vomited up water.
It took a moment to understand that she was not actually drowning.
I cannot see!
Darkness permeated everywhere she looked as she jerked her head around. The sound of water running could not cover her panicked breaths to her own ears.
Pulling herself up onto hands and knees, she reached hesitantly for boundaries to give her an understanding of the trapped, but open space all around her. Finally, she bumped something soft and out of place in the water.
Clarke!
Lexa nudged her, and there was no response.
She pressed more insistently until she rocked Clarke's limp weight to the point of tipping over.
Clarke remained unresponsive.
She slid closer and rested her thigh against Clarke's body, eyes closed, panting in air that did not seem to satisfy her lungs.Lexa fought the growing urge to panic as her body trembled and she felt light-headed and unreasonably hot in the cold wet darkness.
She opened her eyes. In this new position she detected a small weak beam of light coming from above and behind where she had woken in the water.
Relief and hope surged up her throat upon seeing it.
We need to get out of here!
Hands still unsteady, she traced up Clarke's body, over her torso until she reached her throat.
Clarke's skin felt as hot as her own did despite the water lapping against it, and Lexa's muscles relaxed minutely at the certainty that Clarke lived. Her pulse was steady and strong.
She finally noticed Clarke's chest raise and lower slowly, as though she were in a deep sleep.
Still light-headed, Lexa consciously fought to bring her own labored breathing down to a normal series of inhales while keeping a hand against Clarke's shoulder, as much for reassurance as to keep her balance in the dark. She leaned forward onto the balls of her feet and pivoted until she faced the place she had found light moments ago and covered the sliver of light as it made its way dimly through the ceiling.
The tiny opening was far too small to fit her hand, let alone a whole body.
Her chest tightened with the fear of being trapped and she fought against the sensation by taking inventory of what she knew for certain about her circumstances and her own body.
They had been chased by the Pauna and had sought the only means close enough to escape in time. Down through the hole and into darkness they had fallen.
She recalled the pain of catching on the metal.
Reaching up, she touched her chin. A small soft ridge of flesh greeted the tips of her fingers.
Already healed?
She flexed and rotated her wounded arm carefully. The pain in her shoulder was gone, and slowly she dropped her arm back down to her side.
Surprised again, she continued with her internal investigation.
Her body felt whole, but she was tired, still light-headed, hungry, and strangely thirsty considering how much water she had just cleared from her body. It felt similar to a successfully fought battle in which she took no damage.
She lowered her face close to the surface of the water and smelled it to be sure that she could detect no foulness. After finding no taint, she cupped water and drank until her thirst was quenched, then scooted close to Clarke's unconscious body.
The inability to see anything but the false glimmer toward freedom brought her awareness into sharp focus upon her body again. The sound of her own harsh breaths and water moving over rock did nothing to keep the sense of entrapment from building again.
Her head began to pound, and her breathing sped up. The light-headedness increased and her equilibrium tilted the tiny light source sideways.
Frantically her hand went back to Clarke's body and she gripped fabric between her fingers.
An internal pressure grew inside her mind and slid down her throat.
No!
Panic triggered a reaction that a sound warrior was normally well past, and even as she recognized the fact that it was happening to her, there was a familiarity to it. She knew what was coming and it seemed that it had gone past the stopping point, so rather than continue fighting it, she gave in. Lexa had not experienced this slippery loss of control since she gained control of the Commander Spirit memories.
The world around her faded into darkness.
Lexa collapsed onto her back, panting hard again and it made the light-headedness worse.
A blurry slur of colors lit the void.
Recalling herself the the task of managing her fear, despite the fact she had no body to feel the symptoms with, she quit working against the anxiety of having little control, and accepted the shift to the place where visions of Commanders lived on in the great darkness before her.
A short tug pulled her toward a particular pattern of light and she was sucked down sharply into the visage.
She surged into awareness within a gasping, seizing body that was not her own.
The woman's abdominal muscles clenched down against pain and pressure. Her chin tilted down to meet her chest and looked at a swollen stomach. A moment later, a spasm tore through her body with hard bands of pain over her belly. A ripping pain struck the insides and between her legs. The woman fought through another contraction and then her body bowed inward, her eyes searched and landed on a tiny body forcing its way from her own.
Hands reached between her legs to catch the emerging child as her body writhed and clenched down to finish.
The woman's mouth opened and she fought to keep the muscles in her throat tight, but sound escaped in a sustained keen of pain between locked down teeth.
Lexa's being filled with empathy, and she ached with her inability to share it with this woman who was probably long dead now. She had been in the bodies of women while they gave birth before, but this felt strangely more significant since she had not searched for this vision on purpose. Why did she need this knowledge now?
A hand squeezed the woman's arm from the right of the bed, she heard his voice, low, and reassuring to her, but she could not stay focused on the sound.
The woman took a deep breath and pushed with everything on the next exhale and she felt her body give way.
She opened her eyes and looked down to see the hands lift her baby up. In moments, there was the sound her entire being craved.
Delirious relief swam through her while she panted. When it finally cleared, she turned her head to look at the man.
Lexa recognized him. She was looking into a younger version of her father's eyes than she had ever seen before, and was seeing him for the first time in fourteen years.
His eyes were glistening as he looked back at her, then looked to his child again. The baby's angry cry rang through the room, and her father let go of her mother's arm and scooted down to the end of the bed to take the child into his arms.
The hands that caught the baby tied off the umbilical cord and a knife was handed to her father.
He looked back up at the woman on the bed. "Alexandria," he whispered in awe, then he cut the cord.
Her reality blurred back into a kaleidoscope of colors as she retreated from them within the vast darkness. Lexa was stunned and hovered without direction on the brink, but then she was drawn to another set of lights and that meant another place and body to fill.
She braced against the pull with nothing but her will to stay, needing to give herself a moment longer to understand.
Never had she experienced a memory from anyone but the previous Commanders. While she did have experiences of births through borrowed bodies, this moment left her overwhelmed as she tried to process why she needed this vision and at this time.
She still had no answer to the puzzle her own birth presented.
An insistent tug yanked her presence toward the waiting lights.
Her will to resist weakened and she acquiesced to the demand then fell toward the mass of lights.
As she neared, they separated only a small amount, lining up deeply, one stacking haphazardly behind the next.
If she had lungs to breathe with or a body to resist, she would have braced for it because she had not seen such a configuration since her first experience, and it meant she was about to receive several consecutive visions very quickly. Thankfully, she was no longer terrified of the speed with which she would be moving.
She dropped down toward the first and rushed toward the body, but did not enter it as she had always done before, instead she found herself to be an unsettled tag-along with the body.
The vision in the new body zoomed all around her as she experienced it second hand in a disjointed fashion from the source of its origin. She did not get to experience the actions taken while having the awareness of the person's usual senses and feelings and the entire vision zipped by too quickly to process.
The pull to exit the body wrenched her being out and then she flew toward the next light.
Body to body, she connected with great speed, forming brief incomplete impressions of each one, barely able to concentrate upon anything other than a generalized understanding before she moved on again.
In between each vision, Lexa floated free for only a moment in darkness before she was pulled through emptiness and followed a different person's life to an end.
The visions blended into one another in indistinct chaos but filled Lexa's mind with overall impressions.
The same foods shoveled into disinterested mouths, over and over.
Monotony.
Always returning to windowless rooms and sitting in muted light, time after time.
Isolation.
Climbing up ladders to small brightly-lit places where plants grew the wrong way and without any dirt to anchor them.
Long enclosed twisting tunnels where tools she had never seen fixed things for purposes she did not understand, all while the body panted in cloying heat.
Claustrophobia.
Standing in lines to have needles enter arms.
Looking through glass windows leading to complete darkness as people were ripped from the room and shot into the darkness to die.
Sleeping bodies cut into as they lay on metal tables while pieces were removed or things placed inside them.
Nothing is sacred.
Clinging to metal rungs, and tied precariously to rounded walls with ropes to keep the body from floating away into endless darkness.
She did not have a word for it but knew that feeling to a certain extent from the place that held the Commander visions, only she had no body to lose, just the fear that she could disappear within it and the cease to be herself entirely.
The language spoken changed and finally, the visions slowed.
She sensed the end was close.
It was a familiar place though she was seeing it from a different angle. The oldest and final vision surged into being of a woman handing over her metal box. This time the body she was attached to was the one who cried, turned, and ran to a sky ship.
The pull to travel further stopped abruptly and she disengaged to float, there was nowhere left go within a colorful mess of slowly rotating visions suspended all around her. They were places she had just passed through and she was definitely not ready to explore any of them again now.
The last vision still felt more tangible than all the others had.
She had already experienced it from another vantage, inside the woman who handed her metal box away, she recalled the panic, sadness, and pain felt in doing so. In another life, lived by someone she knew from the inside out, that Commander had given over that metal box…that…briefcase to the woman who ran for the shuttle.
Shuttle?
She was accepting things learned without understanding already. It was an unconscious understanding, much like the language shifts she witnessed and processed without knowing how with her own Commander Spirit's visions.
These are not mine.
This was all history from a different line of Commanders, and that should not be possible.
Only one Commander Spirit is awake at a time!
She knew it had always been this way, but this set of visions suggested that was not true.
Her thoughts spun with the strangeness of it all, not knowing what to do with this new knowledge, but for now, she was done and there was no need to stay in this place.
Lexa gathered her consciousness together tightly and focused upon her own body by sending out the mental signals to stimulate muscle movement.
Distantly, she felt her hand respond from tightening tendons in her wrist and until she formed a weak fist. With self-taught mental discipline, she bridged the final gap between her mind and form under the sense of short nails digging into her palm and dropped back into awareness with the feel of gravity against her body.
She reset the mental safeguards created to keep herself separate from memories that were not her own and broke the connection. All the deeper implications from where she had just traveled would have to wait.
Her eyes opened and the panic that had taken her away was completely gone, and again she took stock of her situation to discover that she herself was fine.
Her gaze landed on the woman next to her.
Clarke!
Lexa wanted out of this hole badly, too much had taken place, and there were no satisfactory answers available while she remained trapped in darkness. Yet, she would not leave Clarke.
Leaning over the prone woman at her side, she began to shake her awake.
Clarke felt something pushing insistently against her arm and side. Gradually, a muffled sound was making its way into her overworked mind. Her body felt heavy and unresponsive. A voice urged her to wake up, hovering right over her and the pushing against her body became hard shoving.
Suddenly, her entire body twitched like it startled awake, and then she was upright, crashing her forehead into Lexa's face.
"Shit!" Pain throbbed from the unexpected contact but helped her wake up immediately. Clarke faced Lexa's silhouetted figure and just over her shoulder, she could make out a dim ray of light casting her face into deep shadow.
Clarke looked around. The world was beginning to make sense as she took in the underground environment and the running ankle-deep water.
She was not alone. This, more than any other cues helped Clarke fight off the stress of dark otherness.
"Clarke." Lexa lifted a hand and placed in on her shoulder, bringing her around to stare at the angular features she could barely make out.
"Clarke, you are safe. I am here with you." Lexa reassured her, then Clarke felt the hand upon her shoulder slide down and touch her arm, thumb rubbing gently across a tear in the fabric of her clothing to reach skin.
The repetitious movement, meant to soothe, caused the opposite response. Tingles turned sharp as they crept down both her arms and up from the point of Lexa's touch until it hit the back of her neck. A shiver shimmied down her spine and goosebumps sprang up everywhere, even across the back of her skull. She shuddered hard and shifted away from her.
Lexa quickly dropped her hands as if sensing something equally unsettling.
"What's going on?" Clarke's voice croaked and an edge of fear crept in at her body's responses to Lexa's touch. "You felt it too," she accused.
"I do not know, Clarke." Lexa stated solemnly, and dropped back onto her heels, while Clarke continued to stare at her. Lexa shifted her weight oddly from heel to toe, as though she wanted to bolt up and take off. Finally, she settled and sighed then spoke with the obvious discomfort of discussing the strange sensations between them. "Yes, I felt something, but not what it means. I do know that we need to get out of here, and for that, I will need your help."
Clarke watched Lexa's shadowed hands move to her belt and a moment later, a sliver of light glanced off the metal blade before Lexa turned away from her and positioned herself underneath the feeble luminance.
Without Lexa directly in front of her, she suddenly felt released from the growing unease and could take a personal inventory of her body. Her hands reached up and ran along her chest, where she knew she received deep tearing lacerations and encountered healed lines of raised flesh. There was no pain whatsoever.
What the hell?! How long have we been down here?
She could find no injury anywhere on her body. Scratches acquired at the feeding ground were gone, and her ankle no longer ached. What was increasingly apparent was a strong thirst and hunger as if she had not drunk or eaten anything all day.
"Lexa?" She turned back to her. "Can we drink the water?"
"Yes."
Clarke bent and reached into the water bringing cupped handfuls to her mouth and guzzling it down as quickly as she could.
Finally finished, she looked over at Lexa to see she was standing under the light and pushing against the ceiling with little result but a slight shifting of a rigid mass and the light beam growing and dimming from the shifted weight.
"Is that the Pauna?" Lexa nodded, but kept her focus on the task of trying to shove the weight of the beast over. Finally, she stopped.
Clarke could see that the woman did not have enough leverage to move the body aside when she was standing directly underneath it.
Again, there was a flash of light glinting off metal, right before Lexa's arm stabbed upward and into the underside of the gorilla's body with the blade.
She heard the sound of flesh giving way and an unpleasant suction noise accompanying the removal of the metal before reentry.
Lexa worked methodically, plunging her knife and pulling it out before planting it in different sections of flesh.
Clarke was not normally squeamish, but the unfortunate scent of feces wafted across the water to her as nausea hit her gut and tingled up her throat. This kind of gore was not something she had ever experienced on the Ark and she was not prepared for it.
Turning her head away from the opening did little good except to give herself nothing to look at while she worked to settle her queasy stomach. Many calm, slow breaths later, she thought she had it under control until she was assaulted by the sound of irregular splashing. Clarke registered fleshy chunks hitting the water, and shuddered in revulsion. Finally, angered by her own weakness, she stood up and made her way closer to Lexa's sickening task.
"How can I help you, Lexa?" Clarke caught the motion of Lexa's head turning, evaluating her.
Clarke squared her shoulders with a resolve to do whatever was asked of her.
Finally, Lexa carefully stretched out a gore covered fingers toward her to settle the cold slick handle of her knife into Clarke's now more hesitant hand, but did not let go of the handle right away. "Have you butchered a kill of your own before, Clarke?"
Clarke tried not to look directly at the gaping hole of flesh. "No." She swallowed as subtly as possible. "The guys-hunters-made a big deal out of preparing the animals they killed on their own."
"At least they took that responsibility seriously." Lexa spoke dryly, and removed her hand from the handle of the knife then stepped back a foot to give her room to use the blade.
Clarke registered the absence of Lexa's touch against the palm of her hand immediately and felt the need to release a breath of tension she had not realized was building until now, so looked away for a moment then quietly exhaled before stepping into the vacated space.
"Do you need suggestions, Clarke?"
Turning her head back to regard her, Clarke could see that Lexa was not making fun of her lack of experience, but simply considering their situation objectively.
"I think I've got it." She hoped the same principles of dissecting a cadaver applied. Her thoughts flashed to the single instance of hands on autopsy training she had received on the Ark, of her mother hovering over her shoulder and the cold press of dead flesh under her fingers. The memory increased her urge to be sick and she swallowed carefully.
Lexa accepted her word at face value and reached up with free hands then grabbed at a partially severed section to pull down.
"We didn't have any animals on the Ark to kill and eat," she said, to distract herself.
Lexa readjusted her grip before pulling. "What did you eat then?"
A tight coil of intestines suddenly gave way and spilled down toward Lexa, just missing her face.
She scrambled back at the same instant Lexa did, almost losing the water she just drank, and grimaced at her own squeamishness.
Deep slow breaths! Damn it, you can't be weak about this, it won't change anything!
She observed, sickly, the intestines lift up and try to float away on the surface of the water with the current, but still managed to croak out, "We grew everything we needed."
"And now that you know what it is like to eat an animal?" Lexa queried with curiosity lilting her voice.
She stared at the disgusting pile slushed by water at her feet and she nudged it on its way while trying to remember the taste of an animal that had nothing to do with what she was seeing, but came up blank. "Uhm...not bad?" That was the best she could manage at the moment. "Do Grounders eat Pauna?"
Lexa glanced at her briefly before she stepped back to the carcass. "I do not, but some Clans believe that wisdom is gained from eating their hearts or brains." She glanced back at her. "Do you want to try it, Clarke?"
Hell No!
"I think I'll pass on that." She stated roughly and felt the beginning of a headache coming on, which was an unwelcome addition to her already oversensitized system.
She took a step back and forced her mind to see past the gore and began picturing the gorilla like one of the transparent layered diagrams she had seen in a zoology book on the Ark. It helped her focus and then she stepped back into the potential line of falling body pieces.
Reaching around Lexa's hands, she sank the knife into the expanding cavity of flesh Lexa created already and felt it rub against bone before the blade slid between them. Then she shoved upward with a twist to feel a corresponding bone close to the one the blade struck first.
The stench of feces...intestines…ribs.
Thankfully, the smell was lessening now that the most offending pieces had finally floated away. As she continued to work, she guessed at the length and curve of the bone and imagined seeing the gorilla like a three-dimensional diagram. It was a relatively short distance for an animal of this size, at least by her mental calculations, so it had to be one of the lower ribs.
Lexa's hands slipped past her sawing when she paused, reaching into the cavity created by the missing intestines. She grabbed at organs, pulling then yanking until something big gave way and landed with a splash. The beam of light increased in size with that removal.
Clarke glanced down to see a large dark mass tugged at by swirling water and determined it must have been the animal's liver.
Okay, lower body confirmed. With organs gone, we might be able to squeeze through it.
Her bile rose again.
Don't think about that!
Clarke continued to make as many strategic cuts as she could in the patchy darkness while Lexa worked around her. With every pound of flesh hitting the water, the light above them widened and brightened.
They sank into an easy rhythm and increased their speed with the repetition until Lexa briefly tapped her arm with an elbow. "Stop."
Clarke stared up at the opening. It was finally big enough for them to look through and she could see two sets of lower ribs, the front and the back of the gorilla's abdomen and lower chest.
Lexa peeled back the hide, then grasped the shortest bone with both hands. Her hands wrapped around the bone and threw all of her weight against it with hard jerk down.
Crack! And the body above them rocked to the side with the motion only to resettle in place.
Still nauseated, the pain in her head escalated, but she tried to ignore it and crouched down to rinse off the knife in bloody water before pressing it back into Lexa's hands. "Let me help."
Lexa quickly sheathed the knife and then they both reached up to wrap their hands around the exposed rib.
"On three?" Clarke asked.
Lexa nodded and they counted down.
On three, Clarke jumped up as high as she could to lend her full weight, then yanked down with Lexa's weight bearing down at the same time.
Heavy bone splintered against the hard edge of the metal rim.
Clarke let go of the rib, stumbling back first, and Lexa tossed it away from them.
A short wave of dizziness hit as she stepped back in place.
Only three more to go.
The second rib was thicker and longer, requiring a second tug. It gave way suddenly, and they both landed on their backs in the water, hanging on to the broken rib.
Clarke let go and looked up into a section of pelvic bone, gore, and the upper ribs as light poured through the opening of the carcass in stark relief after operating in the dark for so long.
"This is surreal," she muttered under her breath, though the stench had lessened and was no longer triggering the need to vomit, something else was definitely wrong.
Her head throbbed hard again and she squeezed her eyes shut against the sharpening sensation, then pressed her wrists to her temples to make it stop when it did not ease up. The pressure inside her head could no longer be ignored, now that it was constant stream of agonizing pain and pressure.
She released a strangled laugh and dropped her hands to her sides.
"Clarke?" Lexa called softly.
She could not focus on Lexa right now. This was just too much all of a sudden and she did not know why.
The sensation of painful pressure traveled from her head down to her chest, filling with it, then dropping to hit her gut.
Pain pushed outward from the very center of her muscles and bones, while her body seemed to act as an ineffectual container, trapping the building pain from escaping confinement that could not last.
She felt herself begin to pant in fear, and that made her angry. There was no controlling it, just as she had no control over anything else in her life.
No, nothing in my life is ever easy. I'm going to have to push and shove and take to stay alive no matter where I go and today...I get to cut my way out and crawl through death.
Feeling completely unhinged, she laughed again and turned to stare into Lexa's eyes.
Whatever Lexa saw when she returned her gaze caused her to step closer and a hint of fearful concern for Clarke softened her angular features. "Clark, what is wrong?"
"Don't know!" She managed in a hoarse rasp.
The pressure inside her expanded past her skull and turned into noise that rang deep in her ears and then outward past her head, and it continued to reverberate the full length of her body along her skin.
Her senses felt scrambled with the bombardment, and then the thrumming buzz ate away at the exterior world around her, and she felt her awareness slipping like her mind was trying to detach from her body.
"Claust-", her throat closed over the word.
The feeling of being trapped, the buzzing sound, and her inability to handle it all exploded through her mind and body, all she could do was fixate upon what was directly in front of her, the carcass, to stay present.
Squeeze.
Her shallow panting sped up and her vision blurred.
Cold flesh.
Her vision righted, and she found herself staring on the pelvic bone with the dangling bits of internal tissue surrounding the beast's frame swimming into focus. Two small pieces hung upon thin tubes.
Ovaries.
With the recognition made, the noise bombarding her head resounded down her body to return and resonate with some internal and personal vibration, causing a certainty to surge into her consciousness.
Everything is…
She started to turn her head and her vision blurred again, so she stilled the movement with the ovaries in front of her.
She quit laughing.
"Connected." She mumbled. It made no logical sense, but she knew her life was mirrored somehow in this place, situation, and within this moment.
The resonating buzz came again in a wave and bounced hard against her skull, louder than it had before, and it made her knees wobble and she spread her arms wide, fighting to keep her balance. She wanted to vomit again but now it was for the lack of equilibrium.
On the next wave, the sound altered to modulate roughly like voices and turned the maelstrom of noise within her head into a muted roar.
Cyclic vibration bombarded her inner ears, as though she was in a room filled with too many people talking all at once, though nothing they said could be understood through the din of their combined chatter.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lexa reaching her hand out to her and held up her own to stop the anticipated touch. She did not think she could handle anything else added to what she already had going on with her body. "Do you hear it?" she asked urgently, wanting to know if she had honestly lost it or not.
Lexa looked startled for a moment, then tilted her chin to the side and regarded her with an expression Clarke recognized as a person who was indeed dealing with a someone who belonged in the psych ward. "I hear the sound of water at our feet, and I am watching you panic over-" Lexa made a point of looking around carefully before finishing, "nothing."
She was on the verge of panic.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Concentrating on the sounds building inside her head, Clarke took several deep slow breaths and waited for this desperate effort to be enough so she could calm down and function like a normal human being, but it did not work.
The roar split into several distinct sounding voices in her ears and she lost contact with Lexa, with the water lapping at her ankles and the stink of Pauna guts in the air, with the world altogether. Even the sound of her own breathing disappeared, and she slipped away entirely.
She could see nothing, but felt as though the nothingness was everywhere.
She tried to let go, to release the scream accumulated by being in such a place of otherness, the deep black of this space, but she no longer had a mouth. There were no lungs to fill with air and no chest to squeeze against them to release her need to scream.
Nothing more happened for several long moments. With no change in her circumstances, she gradually calmed.
Where am I?
No immediate answer came from her asking this question, but simply thinking it, and voicing it within her mind, allowed her the opportunity of realization that the essential part of who she was remained intact.
Light abruptly sprang into being as pinpricks of distinct points of color and smears of dim colored lights tangled throughout the void.
She was drawn to them and felt a sense of motion, as they gradually grew vibrant in patterns of intensity until one shape grew close and then became a voice. With the transformation of patterned color changing into to sound, the other luminosities fell away, or maybe she simply fell into the space that had become a series of obscured auditory words.
The cadence and tone was familiar.
Grandmother?
It was her father's mother. The woman who had died when Clarke was six years old, and she never thought she would hear this voice again. Her fear dropped off and she found herself curious to hear the words now.
Like someone changing the channel on a radio and finding the exact frequency to hear clearly, Clarke felt her sense of self pick up and focus upon the sound of that voice in the darkness.
"You are wrong in your assumptions, if you gave the matter further thought, you would see the path for women has always been different as a species. A false path was set through the course of storytelling."
Clarke felt an awkward sensation of her mouth moving without her direction, making the words she was hearing but had not meant to speak.
She grimaced in distaste as a derisive male voice responded, "I suppose you will give me an example then Ruth. I can see you intend to share your point of view regardless of the topic change."
Light burst into existence and the black of the space around her disappeared to be replaced a face that must belong to that male voice she just heard.
She struggled to take in everything but soon discovered that she had no control over turning her head, not even her eyes, so continued to look right into the sneering, long male face.
Righteous indignation built in her chest.
'That is so wrong!' Clarke did not even know what was going on, how could she suddenly develop indignation?
Her mouth opened and her grandmother's voice left it.
"John, I would not bring up something that has no value. You still have much to learn and need to do so for the sake of everyone on this station. If we expect you to lead well, you need to know the mistakes of those you replaced. Alexander did not see the lessons of his predecessors, and where ever did he-"
Her head was turning left and right, looking for the errant Alexander, then she was meeting John's eyes again.
"Ah yes, he took a brief and permanent trip outside." Her grandmother's voice dropped and slowed to a harsh whisper.
Full realization truly began to set in then. None of those words spoken came from her. Somehow, she was inside of her long-dead grandmother's body, though she was not sure why or how it happened, but that was the only conclusion that made sense to her.
"Why do you think he found his way to that end, John?" John's expression grew stoic, but underneath that, was fear.
Ruth's words and the way she acted did not seem like the same woman who had come to read Clarke bedtime stories before going to sleep at night. 'Just who the hell was her grandmother anyway?'
John's jaw clenched, "If you have something to say-some story that will teach me the lesson-then just share it already."
Her grandmother's voice responded, "I could tell you any story of old and it would lead to the same place, with the same people making the same mistakes. If you want a few examples, try the stories of Pandora and Eve."
John snorted, "Mythology and the outdated Book of Books? Really, Ruth?"
Ruth settled back into her chair, one hand cupping the armrest while the fingers of her other hand smoothed over her nails absent-mindedly.
"Yes John, and I need you to listen carefully beyond the morals of men and hear mankind's lessons. The voice of reason is hiding amid the masses you think you have power over, but you don't. When they finally refuse to be ignored any longer, you will see that they were the ones who endured. They will be the real victors. The stories shared always conclude before they finish because the ones telling them are afraid of the ending. Not a single one of them was a woman."
John frowned at that. "Early cultures placed men as the victors more often than-"
"Of course John, of course, you are seeing the part of the problem." John's frown turned sour.
She was mocking him.
"Ruth, if we are using Pandora and Eve as an example, they both lost in the end."
She was unruffled by his statement. "Did they really lose the long game?"
His expression became guarded. "What exactly are you implying?"
Ruth leaned back and crossed her legs, then made a point of examining her nails before coolly looked up into John's eyes. "Everything we've worked for, all of alteration required to grow and change is coming from the source of the members in society that have been disregarded as weak since mankind became civilized."
John shifted uncomfortably in his chair at where Ruth seemed to be going with this.
"None of the adaptive measures taken by men, and for men alone as the victors they made themselves out to be, have ever worked without the women they disregarded to free them from their own brand of slavery."
"Are we still discussing Pandora and Eve, or are we talking about genetics now?" His tone was wary.
"The issue of genetics is the byproduct, not the causality. You cannot lead people who are so disillusioned by lies or betrayals of the past that they never see a future free from them. You cannot expect those same people to understand real sacrifice."
"Seriously Ruth, are you really going to bring up-"
"No John, you already know the ending to that story because we're living it." She deliberated for a moment, "John, they still haven't learned. You haven't either and it's going to be the death of you."
For a moment, Clarke felt a tenuous connection to her body interrupt this reality because she vaguely felt a sudden pain in her jaw. Startled at the jarring sensation, her being began to separate from her grandmother's body and she could no longer see through Ruth's eyes. Darkness filled her vision, now interspersed with chaotic swirling colored patterns infinitely closer to her than before she had sunk into the body of her grandmother. She watched the luminescence she had just inhabited become a simple beam of fading light trailing between her consciousness and that of Ruth's capsulized essence.
Frantically, she clung to the connection, not knowing where she would wind up if she lost it completely. The movement away from her grandmother tilted but finally resettled and she was pulled in again, inside her grandmother's body.
Ruth walked slowly down a corridor, approaching several men wearing somber expressions with eyes tearing and salty moisture dropping quickly down her cheeks.
The place and situation was different and Clarke could tell the tears rolling down her grandmother's face meant nothing because her grandmother literally felt no sadness at all right now, just an oddly nervous and tense anticipation. At least, Clarke believed it was so, based on her new understanding that she was genuinely feeling what her grandmother felt within her body during these moments and the ones she had recently experienced.
"May I say goodbye?"
The men turned to glance at one another for a long moment and the one in the center addressed her with a brief nod before stepping aside to allow her passage through the group.
Ruth looked up. John was standing by the doorway with a guard to either side of him.
She approached slowly and looked them both in the eye consecutively until, with confirmation from the men she that she may pass, they stepped aside to give her a small false privacy.
Ruth regarded John's fear slackened features and then leaned in close to whisper in his ear. "You would have been a father soon."
Shock broke over his face as he looked into her eyes, then down at her stomach. Cuffed hands trembled as they rose in a futile motion toward her belly.
She encroached into his personal space again and put her lips against his ear this time. "You should have listened to me, John. I tried to tell you. I tried to show you through the science and the night we spoke about the long game and how it's all connected," she paused to let that sink in, "but I don't want you to worry about your son, he'll pass the ability on to someone who can use it."
Ruth eased away slightly, laying her dry lips against his cheek for a moment and whispered, "Pandora's name meant 'all gifted' before it came to mean 'all giving'."
With that, Ruth stepped away and watched as the guards moved back into position, placing a hood over John's head and escorting him through the doorway.
The airlock closed.
She turned and walked away.
Clarke just met her grandfather for the first time. She had no idea who he was until this moment.
Grandmother had never talked about him or kept a picture of him and now she knew why, the woman hated him for some reason.
It obviously had to do with what she was trying to tell him that night and things that Clarke was not privy to so could not string them together.
'The nature of stories regarding the history of women or possibly the future of women?'
Ruth continued walking slowly down the dim corridor on the Ark, filled with a disproportionate sense of relief in her chest to the set of circumstances she just experienced.
While Ruth walked, Clarke reflected over what she could put together of the two different, but related occurrences she had witnessed in such a unique way.
She had a vague sense of the two characters talked about by her grandmother of Pandora and Eve, but never remembered hearing the specific tales of either of them, and had no way to apply that information to what was going on specifically. Yet, there was another connection that had to do with the differences between men and women for genetic purposes tying everything together. She was not aware of any historical genetic related events that had been inferred during their conversations and was at a loss in making sense of the message her grandfather had received but still died for because he had not taken it to heart.
Suddenly the her reality tilted, the dim corridor of the Ark she was walking down disappeared into darkness with those colored swirling patterns having multiplied in the time she was away. They began to move with increased speed, spinning faster and then closer together while migrating toward her, or maybe she was the thing spinning toward them. Gradually the unique patterns overlapped to create a deep and loosely formed stack directly in front of her.
Suddenly, she merged into the first one and was thrust into a body.
Unlike the two experiences she had just gone through with her grandmother, the first awareness was not a voice, but a sensation; this body was experiencing a deep gnawing heavy pain in the lower abdomen and shooting up the person's spine.
'Are they sick?' Clarke wondered while she struggled to keep herself separate from that sucking agony, still not seeing anything from within the body yet.
Then she heard her mother's voice calling out to someone.
"No! I don't need it! I can do this!"
Clarke watched the room take on blurry shapes of people moving around her location, chromatic colors and stark contrasting shadows sporadically erupting with more vibrant depth of metallics as they bled through the haze.
A hypodermic needle suddenly came into focus not more than a foot from her face and the sterile room on the Ark popped into complete existence around her.
Her knees bent sharply before abdominal pain spread across her enlarged belly.
"Abby, breathe through the contraction."
Clarke found herself attempting to bear down, responding to a voice that offered encouragement.
That is when it hit her.
'Mom?!' She was in her mother's body.
Several voices were counting aloud.
She heard her mother's voice and felt her body movements and pain. Just like with her grandmother, she had no control over what was happening.
Another spasm radiated across her stomach and Abby panted with greater effort.
Clarke watched through her mother's eyes, looking down with her occasionally at a contracted belly.
"Keep going Abby! One last push!" Abby bore down as hard as she could. The pressure was immense and then-
A bloody head and body came into view between Abby's legs and was laid swiftly across her stomach.
'Me?' She looked down at herself and felt her mother's wonder mix with her own disbelief.
A moving pair of hands holding surgical scissors reached for the umbilical cord and cut it.
Clarke was yanked out of her mother's body fast, reeling in the dark and had no idea why this was happening to her.
With no warning and only a moment to register the darkness and her own bewilderment, she was thrust forward and landed inside another body.
Disoriented, she had no time to comprehend the circumstance before the scene played out in rapid motion and then she was yet again ripped from that body.
It felt like only a single second passed in the dark before she was thrust forward again.
Very little impression was left of who these people were before she slammed into another body, and another one, until she lost count of how many she entered and left. Finally, the rushing sensation ceased and she experienced a connection within a body moving at a normal pace.
A woman was handing her a case.
She watched her now empty hands drop down to her sides and her eyes glaze with a frantic range of emotions whipping across her features. Love, longing, fear, loss, and finally hope.
Their hands brushed briefly, and then she herself was crying almost too hard to see at all. She could no longer stand the pain of separation, so turned and ran for a shuttle.
In the distance, Clarke could see the section she knew as Medical on the Ark surrounded by moveable platforms. They were pulling away from it in preparation to launch.
She made it to the shuttle and checked herself into the register by swiping her card over a handheld unit held by a man standing at the entrance. He reached out for the case to check it.
"Do we really have time for all of this?" Her voice was terse and she fought to keep the panic out of it, while shifting her case from one hand to the other. Her empty hand was now blocked from view by the case and the angle of her body. Slowly she slipped her hand into a front pocket until fingers curled around something cylindrical.
Clarke recognized that same pounding of her heart and the feel of her rapid pulse throbbing in her temples.
Someone came up behind her and pushed her in a controlled shove carefully to the side, and a deep male voice demanded. "She's with Medical. Get her checked in, NOW! We have one fucking hour before they carry out the first threat!"
Her head turned and her body relaxed as her eyes skimmed a name embroidered upon the dark stiff uniform and took in the number of bars upon the man's sleeve.
The man at the entrance straightened to full attention and saluted sharply. "Please move to section 4b and prepare for launch, ma'am."
She moved past him quickly and scanned the section numbers at the top of each doorway she passed.
Finally, she arrived. Section 4b.
Edgy, she looked down the corridor in both directions, and then walked quickly to the nearest air duct, then reached into a side pocket and pulled out a multipurpose utility tool.
Her head lifted and she continued scanning the corridor while she detached the grate. The metal suddenly popped off and she scrambled to catch it before it fell to the floor. Her pulse raced and she panted with the fear of being discovered.
Finally, she slipped the case inside and screwed the grating back to its framework before walking as calmly as she could manage into Section 4b.
Seated, she reached for straps to secure herself to the chair. Tears filled her eyes again and spilled down her cheeks. as she took in a deeper calming breath to control the crying.
Clarke was not sure the woman had ever really stopped.
Something suddenly hurt again.
Clarke felt a sharp pain connecting to her jaw repeatedly, continuing until it finally tore her from the body of the woman. Reaching with heavy limbs and numb hands, she tried to defend herself from the painful point of contact as the latest one caught the edge of her mouth and she tasted blood.
Clarke suddenly sank into an uncoordinated heap in the water and Lexa caught her around the shoulders and gripped her tightly before she fell all the way down.
Lexa shifted under her to support Clarke's head as she dragged them towards the center of the underground room where the water was deeper. The body in her arms shook uncontrollably.The collapse made her think of what they had gone through when they both lost consciousness hours earlier; she had never had the opportunity to observe in another what she suspected Clarke was also experiencing.
"Clarke?!"
There was no response from the slack body in front of her.
She examined Clarke's face minutely and saw her eyelids fluttering over quick rolling eyes and then noticed the darkened wet strands of her blonde hair clinging to her forehead. Shakily, Lexa swept them back from Clarke's face, brushing fingertips over her skin, feeling the high heat radiating from it.
She reached up with her hand and felt her own forehead then, confirming that her skin was, in fact, just as hot.
Are we the same?
Clarke's arm muscles jerked harder suddenly, drawing Lexa's attention to her again and she felt a rare moment of helplessness. Was there anything that she could really do for her without truly understanding what was actually wrong?
She sat holding Clarke's spasming body and focusing on the sound of her breathing.
Should I even try to wake her?
She did not know if any of the Elders had ever attempted to wake her during her own ordeal, but Lexa was alone here with Clarke and without guidance. After deliberating for a while, she pulled one hand out from under Clarke's neck and reared back to deliver a carefully placed strike upon her overheated cheek.
Clarke quit her thrashing for a moment, and then a more subdued trembling began.
Was this really the same thing she had just experienced or only something like it? Or some kind of sickness of the body instead?
Lexa still experienced the lingering effects of her own physical illness and felt as though she had little control over her own body to correct it.
She panted again and became light-headed so easily, as though she could easily pass out at any moment just from breathing too hard. Her chest tightened and finally she coughed soundly, but that made her increasingly light-headed with every desperate pull of air into her lungs.
She could not catch her breath.
The panic that had clawed at her earlier returned and built a sense of slow entrapment she could feel but not avoid. Turning her head to the side she continued to hack in desperation. The more air she took in, the more light-headed she became and the room began to spin dizzily about her.
She placed Clarke's head in the water as gently as she could, making certain that her mouth cleared the surface before she scooted away to let go completely. Once she created some distance between them she gave in to the need for her whole body to spasm with coughing until she was gasping too hard and on the verge of unconsciousness.
Hands fisting in riverbed rock, she pushed down with all her remaining effort to clear her lungs, finally feeling the blockage loosen and leave her chest before clearing her throat. Startled, she spit the small mass of dark matter into the water and watched as it was tugged away. Though her eyes still watered, her labored breathing eased and the light-headed feeling passed completely. Her pounding heart slowed and she regained the control she had sorely missed over her body.
After the brief moment of relief, Lexa's attention was brought back to Clarke's prone body when she suddenly twitched violently in the water and started to mumble. Her words were meaningless for the first few moments until she heard her say quite clearly, "Push, Mom! You're almost there!"
Lexa froze at the words. It was a strange encouragement to hear from Clarke.
Her mother needed to push…something?
Her thoughts returned to the vision she just had of her own mother.
She scooted through the swirling water back to Clarke's side.
Why would she say that, unless…
Lexa eyes widened with realization and she cupped the back of Clarke's head, lifting it from the water and slipping her leg underneath to rest it upon.
No more than an hour ago, she had experienced the memory of her own birth through her mother's body.
Not certain what she should do now, she sat there holding Clarke up while she tried to reason through it.
If Clarke received a vision of her mother as I did, what did it mean?
Lexa did not know why she had gained that piece of her own history with her parents, but she did receive it through the Commander Spirit bond.
Was a Commander Spirit choosing Clarke in this very moment?
She glanced down and scanned Clarke's features in the semi darkness with wonder at the idea.
What do I do? What did the Elders do for me?
Clarke's twitching and mumbling lessened as she debated internally on a course of action.
Eventually, she slipped one hand underneath Clarke's shoulder to draw her closer to her chest and then shuffled them both into the brightest part of light shining down. There she cradled Clarke against her chest, her chin resting upon the top of her blonde-haired companion's head.
Someone else was Chosen.
Her grip tightened as she held her, heart filled with a desperate kind of hope along with the enviable despair of the being Chosen. For the first time since she received the Commander Spirit, she allowed herself a moment to entertain the selfish possibility that this tenuous connection could grow into something more, that she would not be alone now.
She brought trembling fingers to Clarke's face and grazed them softly over the smooth skin of her cheek.
Was this real? How did it happen?
Lexa recalled the moment they lost consciousness the first time. Clarke had convulsed, and she had followed her soon afterward, but before she fell away she remembered her bloody chin falling against the wound on Clarke's chest.
Her considering gaze slid over Clarke's face again and then down to her torn shirt. Slowly, she moved the shredded fabric back and exposed the wounds that looked days healed.
My blood did this.
She dropped the fabric.
Lexa was almost certain she had instigated this change in Clarke. Though the children she shared her blood with had, to her knowledge, never showed any signs of her own fast healing, she could still feel the connection. She suddenly wondered if she would be able to sense Clarke the way she had with them.
Lexa focused upon the partition she had built to protect her mind from this connection with the little ones who could and did die indiscriminately on her, then dropped the barrier to feel Clarke waiting on the other side.
There Clarke resonated, first skipping along the surface of her skin and then penetrating it deeply; it vibrated as though she felt it move through some kind of interference keeping her from Clarke's full presence.
Was it a kind of self-defense or self-preservation? Something like her own barrier that acted as a shield? Why can I feel her so close, but not be allowed to reach her?
Her throat closed up. The crushing ache of loneliness returned harsh and cold.
So close!
She tasted the possibility of this intimate connection to another human being and reeled back sharply at the bitter sting of denial. It felt like a cruelty she could barely abide. Her own blood awakened Clarke, yet this felt like a personal rejection between them, and it hit her on a fundamental level that she was somehow lacking.
Her shoulders tensed at the internalized offense, then sagged with defeat because some part of her anticipated it.
Lexa could feel the quiet hum of Clarke's static signature, penetrating as deep as the backside of her breastbone, somehow far louder and yet less distinct than the children's currently here.
Will I always feel her, but never be allowed to connect?
Her heart sank to her stomach.
Another kind of punishment for being what I am?
The feelings long buried of Kostia's death rose and stung her throat suddenly.
All the Commanders before me provided the signs to know...I should have ended it as soon as it began.
She tensed under the onslaught of jaded regret and forced several measured breaths to fight against the ache spreading down to burn the space containing her heart.
I failed her.
Water gathered behind her eyes and she blinked rapidly to keep them from gathering enough momentum to fill and fall from aching eyes.
None of that.
She could not afford to delve into that pain too for long. Being a Commander changed everything. It was not just the responsibility for her people, it was the need to keep those closest to her safe; they would not be measured upon the same standard that she herself was, they could not be held to the rules of bleak silence and isolation required of her. She could not help what she had become any more than any one of her people could become what she was now, she accepted the Commander Spirit's gifts and curses as her solitary obligation. She protected them all by keeping herself separate from them, yet she could not help but long for the missing pieces others took for granted.
I have NEVER had a choice.
Resentment took the place of aching loss, setting her chest afire, and her hand reflexively tightened slightly underneath Clarke's neck before she consciously had to ease her grip.
She caught strands of Clarke's dripping wet blonde hair between her fingers for a moment, then let them go.
If all of this really was happening to Clarke the way she suspected it was, Lexa knew she would do whatever she could to allow Clarke as many chances as possible to choose what she wanted for herself.
Maybe we can find a better way to be what we are...together.
Lexa sighed deeply, trying to let go of such foolish thinking, and her gaze slid down once again to the torn shirt.
If Clarke can heal the way I do, would she also be able to sense me?
Clarke stilled, her body calm and her features slack. Her breathing was not strained and she no longer mumbled.
Lexa began to worry again, not knowing how long being Chosen actually took, and she wanted to get out of this hole in the ground "Clarke!"
She shook her shoulders and waited for a sign of reaction, but Clarke did not respond.
After waiting as long as she could stand it, Lexa gently placed Clarke down and away from her in the shallow water and brought her hand back to deliver a slap.
Smack!
Clarke's eyebrows twitched, but otherwise her face remained still.
Lexa sucked in a breath and braced herself internally to hit Clarke again, she had to wake her up to get out of here.
The slap turned into several more and they steadily became more forceful as her desperation grew. The last strike caught Clarke's upper lip and teeth and a spot of blood bloomed at the corner of her mouth.
Lexa cringed in regret at the sight.
Suddenly, Clarke's eyes flew open as her arm reared back and her hand flew forward striking Lexa hard across the side of her face.
Lexa's her head jerked to the side with the force of the blow, her nose and mouth stinging. She took a deep breath, hurt and anger blooming in her chest, dropping her chin down sharply to see Clarke looking at her in wide-eyed shock, her hand still raised and shaking.
Rejection.
It sat heavy and thick in her chest, curling tightly inside her as a resentful anger, making her pulse pound in her temples.
She found herself suddenly tasting blood and licked it from the corner of her mouth, then her eyes went hard as she stared down at the woman in her arms.
How DARE she!
Thoughts of Clarke and choices disappeared. Her mind stopped thinking altogether as outrage coursed through her entire being. A tangle of suppressed emotions took her over then, and she reacted under the chaos.
Her hand shot forward and before she knew what she meant to do, she was yanking Clarke's face up toward her own roughly and connecting their mouths in a punishing kiss.
Clarke's hand trembled and her palm stung as she slowly lowered it. It finally registered in her hazy mind that she had just struck Lexa, who was now staring down at her in angered shock.
She caught only a moment of the riotous emotions flashing through Lexa's eyes before Clarke watched her tongue slip to the corner of her mouth and pull a bright smear of red away, before disappearing back inside. Lexa's expression hardened and her gaze landed on Clarke's own mouth.
Suddenly, she was being pulled up towards Lexa's face and felt the harsh press of roughened lips on her own. The taste of iron and something else registered on her burning cut lip.
Clarke tried to reject the pull and taste. That sensation she felt earlier, the one that had been caused by Lexa's unexpected touch, hit her firmly again and her hands scrambled against nothing in an attempt to move away from the demanding mouth. Lexa clutched her face harder and tingles hit the back of her neck and traveled down, zinging through her like the aftereffects of a rung bell.
Her entire body filled with vibrations.
Even as she fought to push Lexa away, the radiating waves within her own body melded with the thrum of those coming from the woman kissing her and together it created a resonance.
Pleasure rose from the modulation between them.
Clarke stopped pushing away and instead found herself gripping Lexa's dirty clothing into tight fists, keeping her from leaving.
At the added contact, Lexa shuddered against her.
There was nothing left for her but the complicated taste of Lexa's fevered mouth, demanding her increased reciprocation.
Clarke met that hunger head-on.
The kiss changed as Clarke fought for more and submitted to it at the same time. The slant of Lexa's mouth upon her own stung her split lip and the continual sweep of her tongue against Clarke's created a rhythm between them that she could feel syncing to the pulse throbbing in her throat, resonating with her heartbeat next to her oxygen deprived lungs.
Suddenly, they both breathed hotly into one another's mouths.
Lexa gradually turned the authoritative touch into a supple dive, changing the contact from penetrating to an incessant brush of their swollen lips together, before stilling hers upon Clarke's to pull in a deep breath.
Abruptly, she jerked her head away and slackened her grip, moving back as much as she could without dropping Clarke completely in her sudden desperation to disengage.
Clarke opened her eyes to stare into a face filled with longing that quickly morphed into shame.
"Please forg-"
"Sorry-" She hurriedly cut in.
They both spoke almost at once and stopped.
Clarke was not even sure why she was apologizing. How could she regret the most complete kiss she had ever experienced?
Lexa's gaze continued to slip away from hers before returning, glimmering with shame at her actions as though she could not resist checking to see how much damage she had caused.
They both looked away, still breathing too hard.
Lexa got her bearings first, letting go carefully and clambered to her feet once she was physically free, then moved away from her in the most ungraceful movement Clarke had ever seen her make.
She remained crouched in the water, and simply stared after her.
Lexa moved stiffly several short steps back before pivoting around, head turning to look wildly about her as though she sought a fast means of escape. Finally, she settled and came to a standstill, looking at the water swirling about her ankles.
She watched Lexa become distant, but it was not just physical. She felt the discord like a sound traveling just under her skin.
Lexa raised her head slowly and squared her shoulders, becoming the Commander again.
Clarke could feel the emotional gap between them widen drastically.
"We need to talk, Clarke." Lexa approached and reached out her hand to Clarke hesitantly, as though she expected her to reject it.
Clarke slowly slid her hand into Lexa's and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, the warmth of Lexa's palm against her own radiated all the way up her arm as she moved upward. Her face came within inches of Lexa's and they both froze with the proximity.
Lexa dropped her hand quickly and stepped back. She cleared her throat. "But first, we will get out of this hole in the ground."
Clarke sighed in relief at this decision and nodded emphatically. It was something to focus on other than what just happened between them and how her body had not stopped responding to Lexa yet. She thought she might choke on any words she could think to say, and needed out of the hole in the ground to put some space between them. She needed more room to breathe and see more than a carcass shedding light.
They worked together again in silence to finish removing enough Pauna flesh to climb through its complex set of bones.
Lexa refrained from touching her in any way, and her movements remained unnaturally stiff.
Clarke felt an aching awareness between them now, continually vibrating just under her skin. She had to force her thoughts away from it, even if her body could not let go.
The visions…but they weren't visions, they were memories.
She made the connection of Lexa's Commander Spirit visions to her grandmother's memories immediately.
No wonder she doesn't talk about it.
If hers were remotely the same as Lexa's, anyone Clarke might venture to tell them to would assume she was having a mental breakdown.
That's one way to take a vacation.
She pictured herself forced into a sterile room for the rest of her stay on the Ground. They would tell her it was for her own good, of course, unless she told someone who thought like her grandmother. Somehow, Clarke knew that Ruth would have believed her. But still, she did not understand something crucial about the memories of her grandmother.
Clarke shuddered as she considered the memory again, of how the sweet gentle voice that had amazed her with stories as a child could turn so utterly cold and unfeeling in an instant, how her compassion had completely dropped away.
They both reached and grabbed bone, their hands brushing accidentally.
There. She did it again.
Lexa had jerked her hands away and had taken a step back, positioning herself further away to keep it from happening again.
Yeah, we definitely need to talk.
She let her have that distance, but her eyes flickered up to see Lexa also carefully avoiding eye contact.
Her eyes narrowed at the avoidance tactic.
You're not untouchable, Lexa.
She did not say it to her face but desperately wanted to call her out on it. That kiss was not the action of a person who did not care, and she now doubted Lexa's philosophy on refusing to care for others.
Her eyes closed briefly at the memory of how Lexa had moved so profoundly against her mouth, and goosebumps ran up her arms. Her tongue swept across her lips. She could still taste her there.
She glanced at Lexa quickly from the corner of her eye to see her steadily focused upon her grisly work, then she herself returned to the task, but could not quiet her own thoughts.
The kiss was nothing like how she imagined a first kiss between them would be, but it certainly was not without feeling.
Recalling the flashes of shame in Lexa's eyes, the conflicting reaction still puzzled her, yet it did prove to Clarke how affected she really was underneath her detached words and attitude. Lexa may believe it was weakness to feel, but Clarke now knew she still secretly and desperately wanted that too.
She sighed as quietly as she could so she would not bring any attention to her irritation with the woman she needed to keep peace with, both here, and out of this trap in the ground.
Trap…
Her gaze swept over the carcass of what once was a strong and vibrant beast, able to rip limbs from a man with one yank while it raged at the intrusion to its territory. But even a beast like that could be easily caged with a single blade to bar the means to escape.
The remains of the Pauna rested above her, barricading the way much like the blade had that kept the Pauna contained for a short while. And now, they were literally cutting their way to freedom through the barrier.
She reached up and pulled more cold meat away from bones, noticing the ovaries still dangling down from the body. Thoughts of watching herself entering the cold world for the first time spun in her head, the image of herself as a newborn crying out in indignation in greeting.
Indignity
Climbing through a carcass definitely met that term, and it reminded her of others she knew were trapped, others who had probably screamed out their indignation and longed to release their rage at being trapped.
Caged rage turned loose...
She caught her breath at the thought forming, and her eyes darted quickly to Lexa, still moving methodically and still studiously ignoring her.
Irritation was replaced by excitement buzzing in her head, but she resisted the need to blurt it all out. Now was obviously not the time, first she needed to get back to the surface as soon as possible.
Clarke knew how they could take Mount Weather, and once they were out of this damn hole in the ground, she was going to run it past Lexa.
Chapter 04 Memories Summary:
Lexa - believes she drowned. Loss, hope, and outrage.
Clarke and Lexa experience claustrophobia.
Clarke is pulled in, and in more than one way.
Pandora and Eve, Symbolism, Connections, Birth, Death, Memories
267 A.F. (Activation: Day 01, Early Morning, Underground)
Check my tumblr for a Word Cloud specific to this chapter if you want to.