It was somewhat ironic that on the Ark Clarke had all the colors in the world to draw with while everything in her environment had been shades of grey. Now, on earth, her world was filled with vibrant shades of every color and Clarke had only one black pen to capture them all with.

Life was like that, it seemed. It didn't like to put all the pieces in one place for you.

Clarke had dropped by Finn's secret bunker before heading up the mountain for some supplies. That had been a punch in the gut, but luckily she had been too numb to feel much of it. A month ago, she had sacrificed Finn for an alliance with the grounders, and what had it gotten her? If Clarke counted what she'd just taken from the bunker, then she'd gotten a lost soul, a backpack, a blanket, a meal's worth of food, some extra bullets, and a pen and notebook out of the deal.

Not exactly the trade she'd been looking for.

Nothing would have been a fair trade for Finn's life, but what went down at Mount Weather definitely gave the shaft to his legacy. He deserved more, and he never would have died at all if Clarke hadn't been with him. If they hadn't been a couple, Finn never would have gone looking for her, and ended up in Tondc. He wouldn't have lost and killed those "innocents."

Innocents? Yeah, right. Clarke was beginning to think that there was no such thing as innocence on planet earth. The grounders could talk all they want about how the people who died weren't soldiers, but Finn hadn't been a soldier either. He'd been a scared kid with a gun, and Clarke knew from experience that the people of Tondc had no hesitations when it came to killing. They'd been willing to slowly slice Raven to bits, and hadn't blinked when they'd been handed Gustus—one of their own—to kill instead.

Innocent? What a joke. They were all killers. Every single one of them.

Knowing what she knew now, Clarke would have negotiated for Finn's life very differently, if given a second chance.

Instead, she was sitting under a grouping of trees drawing in a notebook she'd taken from Finn's bunker. The sun was inching toward the horizon, and Clarke tried to ignore the chill. The days were getting colder. It reminded Clarke of her days on the Ark…that bone-cold chill that saturated the air and steel until it seeped into your core. Clarke had only spent a few months under the sun, but her body had already adapted. It liked the heat and instinctively shivered against the oncoming night chill.

She needed to get a fire going, but given her iffy skills at getting a fire going, it was hard to know whether she should get started while there was still light, or wait a bit longer. She couldn't be sending smoke up into the sky while it was still light out. It would be like putting up a flare to show her location. She needed to wait, but not wait so long that she couldn't see what she was doing.

Clarke's hand made the decision to delay a few more minutes for her, sketching out the face she couldn't get out of her mind. Her current sketch was of Octavia, sitting solo at a campfire, body tense and eyes betrayed. It was the moment just before Clarke had confirmed Octavia's suspicions about Tondc.

Clarke hadn't known Octavia long, but she respected the girl. Octavia was loyal and honest. Clarke wasn't.

As Clarke hand used multiple strokes to ink in Octavia's grounder war paint, Clarke realized she felt envy for Octavia. Yes, there was Octavia's obvious beauty, but more than that she envied the black-and-white lens Octavia viewed the world through. There was right and there was wrong, and Octavia always fought for what was right. Death didn't faze her, and neither did injury. Octavia would fight an opposing army solo if she had to, then give them all a single-finger salute before she drew her last breath.

How could Clarke not respect that?

Octavia was fearless. She was brave, and she always led with her heart and stuck with her pack.

Clarke was none of those things.

Fear plagued Clarke. Every moment that passed was a moment where a small miscalculation on her part could lead to the death of everyone she knew. Clarke couldn't be loyal—Finn's death was proof of that. She had to be smart first and loyal second.

Like Lexa.

Clarke's hand stopped moving at the thought of the Commander, her body filling with a mix of rage and shame. In all the things Clarke had been betting on to go right, she had been most confident in her alliance with Lexa.

She'd completely miscalculated.

In a way, Clarke still couldn't believe how things had played out on Mount Weather. Everyone present had approved of her plan. All the grounder leaders had shown their support and shown up ready for a fight. Then they'd all left before the fight really even began.

On Lexa's orders.

Once Clarke got the grounders what they wanted, they had all taken what Clarke and Bellamy and Raven and all of the Sky People had handed to them, and abandoned them all to die. Every last grounder had been willing to use and abandon not only Clarke, but everyone from the Ark.

And Clarke hadn't seen it coming. It hadn't even been a blip on her radar.

Now, in retrospect, Clarke could see how she didn't see it coming. It was all so clear in hindsight that Clarke couldn't imagine how it could have played out any differently.

Of course Lexa took the win. Duh. She'd done the exact same thing with Clarke after Clarke had cooked 300 of Lexa's warriors alive. Lexa had come to Camp Jaha with the intent to slaughter them all, but the moment Clarke proved the Arkers had something the grounders needed, Lexa had extended peace. The dead were gone, and Lexa was quick to move on to protect the interests of the living.

The Mountain Men knew that. They'd been spying the whole time, which was why they'd used Clarke's exact same tactic with Lexa the night of the siege. They knew it would work because they'd just seen Clarke pull it off.

Clarke had literally taught the Mountain Men how to handle Lexa.

How had Clarke not anticipated that? How had she been so blind?

Clarke gazed down onto Octavia's likeness on the page. "You're lucky," she said, not caring that she was talking to herself. "You don't think about things like this. You just act on what you know to be right, no matter the consequences."

Clarke really wished she could be like that.