Next chapter! Hope it's worthy of the wait... ? hehe... :3

Portrait (Part 1)

What angers me most is that I must use my own supplies, my own precious few supplies, in order to sate Anya's war mongering desires. I take only three sheaves of paper for the portraits, one for their leader Bellamy, one for their princess Clarke and one for any other underlings I found suitable to sketch out in smaller portraits. I take the worst of my pencils. This is not for me, and these pictures will not appear in my book. I could care less how well they came out, as long as Anya could distinguish them as 'human' would be satisfactory to me.

My realization had only worsened me mood.

I shove my provision into my sack and set out in early morning, already dreading watching them for yet another day. Anya had assigned me a foolish mission and complete waste of time. I needed to hunt and prepare for the winter. I did not want to have to come slinking back to the village to beg a few of their precious provisions just because I had to baby-sit a bunch of sky children. I did not want to be dependent on them.

I take my usual branch above the sky camp, and recommence my surveillance. I study their moves, their habits, their protections, their way of life and even now my eyes are always scanning for her.

Gritting my teeth, I slip out the sheaves of paper and force myself to locate the blond, the one I should be considering. Pining was it? Lust and selfish desire more like, and I again warned my rebellious whims that it was incredibly stupid to even give her a passing regard.

My lines were angry. Too dark, too raged. Clarke's eyes turned too close and her hair to scruffy. But I did not care. Her picture was not meant to be lovingly cared for, with time and consideration. It was not my art. It was art for another, as ruthless as the lines I had sketched. I glanced up to note the edge of her cheekbones when a much darker haired girl caught the corner of my eye.

Whatever resolve I had constructed against her dissolved instantly.

My traitor eyes revolved to her, and instead of noting Clarke's cheeks I studied the way her bones curved about her eyes, and the creases that came from her exuberant expressions. My fingers curled about the pencil as I stared, memorizing each detail through an artist's eye.

Belatedly I realized she was not alone. She was leading a bay from the encampment; the one Anya had nearly killed. He looked terrified to leave, and yet she insisted, coaxing him with gentle words and a loose grip about his fingers.

I could not help but stare.

Pining. Interest. Intrigue. Lust. Disgusting. Cursed. Perverted.

I turned my gaze decidedly back to Clarke, repeating the words about in my head until they were all mixed about and I hardly knew which were the wanted and which were the unwanted. I sketched her blond hair, but my mind was upon the dark strands that fell about thin shoulders in sheets.

And she was suddenly there, all panic and pointing and the black haired boy was at her side looking even more jittery than before. I could not help the sigh that escaped my lips, one of frustration and a damnation upon my very existence. Clarke was being pushed away by Octavia, who was set on gathering Bellamy and gathering their little group into a tent. My two main subjects, gone. I glanced down at my portrait of Clarke, one Octavia had deemed finished when she had so abruptly taken away my subject. I smirked and with a quick movement folded the paper in half and stuffed it into my pouch.

When the group once more left the tent I knew instantly that there was trouble. I had spent days watching them, I knew the shifting of their princesses face and when she was angry. And she was angry.

I watched the brewing down below. I did not care to follow the events, someone was being yelled out, and there was talk of death. The princess and the king were fighting again and everyone looked quite flushed. More than flushed, murderous. Someone was going to die.

I was too unconcerned with the events to follow the mass as they left the encampment. This would not concern Anya, she would be pleased to hear there was discord within the ranks but the specifics of who died would not be questioned. My eyes caught on her, and I wondered at the fear of her expression and the uncertainty of her entire situation. I would draw her as she smiled, when her eyes were alive and her shoulders curved in laughter. The strokes would be soft and smooth and the blending well cared for. I would use my best pencils.

But I would not draw her.

I would not draw her because my breath had escaped me and my stomach felt hallow just from watching her get pulled away by that crowd. Everything within me was being torn apart by selfish desire and curiosity.

I was sick.

And I hated the portraits I had just drawn.

Their camp was a hive of activity.

All because another of their metal pods had torn through the sky during the night and now lay buried in the ground on my clan's terrain. Another sky child, a flurry of activity as they rambled on in a lingo of people and places I could not even begin to understand. Logically I could understand why this event would be worthy of note. It meant there was someone contacting them, someone keeping tabs, an ambiguous being in the sky that was sending these vulnerable children down to earth for no comprehensible reason to me.

But despite the obvious connections, I could not bring myself to care about this new development. It only meant that sketching portraits was quickly rendered a frustratingly difficult task. They scattered everywhere, tearing things apart, putting them back together in such urgency, their paths crossing between each other in a slur of movement and indistinguishable lines.

Anya wanted the portraits. Nyko had been vague about his next arrival, it depended on whether he was needed for a birth or not. Either way, I did not have much time to finish these drawings and the sky people were being none too helpful.

As I sketched out Bellemay's dark hair she invaded my thoughts with each stroke of the pencil. In each flickering gaze I cast upon the young boy leader I could see her features within his. Same dark hair, same long bridged nose and square jawline, all the definitive markers of siblings.

I grit my teeth and tried to finish Bellamy's strong jaw, trace out another's hair and a thirds hooded eyes. I followed back and forth as they traversed the land, the sunlight dimming too quickly and their rushing forms becoming even more muddled together.

Casting my eyes once more over the portraits I had completed I gave a firm nod and finally allowed me self to stuff them into my satchel. They would have to do for Anya. Crouched by my tree beside their camp I tugged out my book, flipping open the pages and squinted against the falling darkness.

Twinkling eyes winked up at me, mischievous smile turning their edges to crinkles.

I had told myself not to draw her.

Promised myself.

But I had dreamt of black hair and pale skin, and curving lips and a little sharp laughter and I did not have much choice. My hands had felt clumsy while tracing the lines, and in the half-black the sketch looked incomplete, unfinished and jagged. She was too undefined; despite my eyes searching for her nearly all the cursed time spent at their camp, my memory had not captured her form well enough.

Nothing substituted the real thing.

I turned my gaze once more upon their wretched task, ignoring my burning conscious and the oath I had taken unto myself. Traitor. Traitor. It whispered. But it was just a single picture. I ran my fingers against the bird feather I had stuck between the pages, something that had floated down beside me during my long watch.

She was not at the fire.

She was not around whatever contraption they had been setting up.

She was not at the drop ship.

She was nowhere.

And the whispered words of traitor, traitor were drowned by the rapid beat of my heart. They were all gathered, and I knew that she would never allow herself to miss this spectacle her people were putting on. I strained harder; scanning each body I came across, but quickly realized she was not at the camp. My mind cast back to the hectic day, trying to remember the last time I had found myself considering her instead of my subject. It seemed forever ago, in the bustle I had lost her.

I left.

Traitor. Traitor. Anya wanted to know what they were doing, not where Octavia had gotten to. But my heartbeat was loud and led my footsteps through the forest, slipping down the hill and following the trail that the sky people had been traipsing all day. She had left the camp with Bellamy, that was the last I had seen her, when her eyes were sparking with anger.

Wild animals, deformed by the air. My own people, driven mad by worry and intimidation. A spear to the chest and hung upon a tree, and her fiery soul would be extinguished so quickly.

I knelt upon the earth, marking out footsteps and trails. Each seemed to lead back to the camp, each made by a being that was not Octavia. In the failing light I grew impatient with these trails, more hasty in my movements. I was by chance, blessed chance that I noted a sloppy trail that veered away from the rest. It was certainly hers, or at least I desperately hoped it was. I followed her footprints and the broken twigs and trampled undergrowth along the ridge; eye's scanning and scanning until…

A loud noise cracked through the forest, accompanied by a sudden purple, blue light that illuminated the forest in a strange unnatural hue. I would have looked up, out of sheer curiosity, but in the illumination I caught sight of a small figure, stretched flat across the ground. Her hair was flipped across her face, and even from my higher vantage point I could see her leg was twisted. I slid forward, and my thundering heart suddenly seemed to quite to nothing. My breath rasps against my mask and I tugged it lower as I crouched, just staring.

Just as the consideration that she was dead began to creep into my mind she stirs, a light groan escaping her lips. She draws her arms beneath her and gingerly picks herself up, turning toward me as if sensing my presence, sensing my rapt attention.

Her pale eyes are wide with fear, mouth open in breathless panic. The strange lights paint her face pale and blue tinged, casting deep uneven shadows. I immediately ingrain this picture in my mind, this image of her.

This image of her fear, her panic, her utter despair.

This that is how she should feel. I slowly stand; keeping a firm even gaze locked with her and instantly banishing any gentle course of action from my mind. I am no fool. She should feel nothing but this fear, and I should not feel the emotions that tighten my chest when my gaze finds her. That wonder and want was not a part of us. I am her enemy, she is mine.

She should fear me. And she does.

Her breath escapes in a rush, not a scream but close enough. She tries to twist over, but she cries out in pain, she tries to stand but slams back against the earth.

"Please, please," She muttering between her pants. But she knows her fight is over. I slide down the rest of the embankment with a thud, feet planted right before her head. She jerks her gaze upward, teeth gritting in hopeless defiance. I keep my stoic mask as I watch her.

I am her enemy. She should fear me.

I grab the back of her jacket, jerking her upward and she screams. Her leg is broken, the bone can be seen through her torn pant leg and at the forced movement her eyes roll to the back of her head and she goes completely limp, dangling from my grip.

She was lighter than I expected. Gently I dip my arm beneath her knees, careful with her injury and let her head roll against my chest. And I stand there as the dyed sky shifts back to its natural black and the starlight illuminates her skin and I am holding the object of my keen interest.

Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.

But I cannot help but hug her closer, feel her in my arms and wonder if she can hear the beat of my heart.

Lincoln has Octavia! :D I've been looking forward to these next scenes, I always thought they'd be the more interesting ones to write compared to Lincoln's well... his stalker scenes... Sorry Lincoln. You're a creep.