Updated: 01-21-16 (2500+ words added)

Mid-Morning, October 28th, 2334 - 267 A.F. (Activation: Day 02)

Hooves thudded along the widened trail outside TonDC and Clarke felt each percussion along her spine as her backside made contact with the saddle. Ryder was ahead of her by twenty feet on his horse and they moved at a trot.

As she had been shown earlier, Clarke held the horse reins in one hand, and her other rested on the saddle horn while she tried to follow all of his instructions. The way she sat caused her leg muscles to burn because she was certain she did not have the hang of sitting correctly on a moving horse.

The path ahead was clear, and though she had to continually adjust her body's position to Trubel's unfamiliar movements, she allowed her mind to wander.

Clarke ruminated over the time Ryder had already spent with her and Trubel. For the most part, she had learned how to provide the general care, grooming, feeding, and use of horse tack. He had told her that this was only enough instruction to keep her from hurting the horse or herself and they would go over more after they made it to Camp Jaha.

She glanced down at Trubel.

Her ears rotated back toward Clarke, alert, almost as though she listened for her to need something. Trubel seemed to know exactly when and what needed to be done.

It gave her one less thing to worry about though, but for some reason it clearly upset Ryder. The entire experience of learning to ride a horse was overshadowed by his weird reactions.

Clarke had not expected the process to be so stressful.

Every time Ryder had given her instructions and she acted on them, Trubel had also responded immediately, which really seemed like a good thing to her.

Yet, it made Ryder tense up every time.

If Clarke was learning and Trubel was cooperating, why was this a problem? It had thrown her off, and once she became uneasy she had started hesitating before starting tasks, only to be prompted with a bump of a warm insistent nose or a dipped head to accommodate or encourage her.

Ryder had reacted progressively worse with every helpful nudge Trubel given.

Clarke could only act on what she saw and had become more uncertain as she tried to figure out what was going on.

Finally, Trubel had seemed to take pity on her and had started pushing between them, blocking Ryder away from her when his expression would freeze upon his face.

Clarke had felt like she could not take anymore of it and had finally asked what was wrong, but had only gotten a frown from him as an answer. Maybe she was still not asking the right way. Grounders were prickly about all kinds of things that she did not understand, but no matter how she hinted that she wanted to know why this was a problem, she got nothing out of him.

Clarke fervently wished she understood Grounders better than she did. She got the idea she always missed a great deal when they talked between one another and felt as though she was observing a game that had secret hand signals. Clarke had no clue what they meant, but if she was going to be a Grounder, she would have to learn.

She finally decided that his issue had to be about Anya's past training of Trubel, because as far as she could tell, she was doing what he asked of her and Trubel stepped in to help if she screwed up.

Clarke eyed Ryder as he rode his own horse with ease, in his element ahead of her. Quietly, she huffed out her exasperation with him, then reached down and gave Trubel's neck a couple of reassuring pats while she tried to ignore the pain in her legs.

Even if Trubel never says a word, she's a far better conversationalist.

Suddenly, the burning ache in Clarke's legs intensified, gasping quietly aloud, and gripped the saddle horn hard while gritting her teeth. As quickly as it came, the pain dissipated and the heat eased before disappearing completely. She let out a long deep breath of relief.

Cramps?

She glanced up at Ryder, but apparently he had not heard her over the sound of their riding.

After a few moments, she realized the muscles in her legs no longer stung with the fire of strain from misuse. Shocked, Clarke stiffened and bounced hard in a counterproductive rhythm against the saddle.

I just healed!

The excessive heat was gone, but Clarke's bottom still bounced awkwardly against the saddle several more times before she relaxed.

Lexa never said it would be like this.

Just thinking her name caused Clarke's pulse to speed up. It felt anticipatory, like the wait of a person on the verge of touching what they most longed for, for the first time. Though she was no longer pissed off at Lexa over the horse fiasco, she now found herself focusing in on the other woman as the person she ached to be close to, but had no business even thinking about in that way.

Clarke relaxed her tight grasp from the saddle horn, and pinched the bridge of her nose as squeezed her eyes shut.

I need to get a grip.

She squinted into the sunlight, then glanced at her father's watch on her wrist. They had a few hours left for her training if midday meant sometime between 12:00pm and 1:00pm. It was hard to guess how Grounders kept exact time. She had noticed they looked at the position of the sun, but she had not seen any of them use a timepiece so far.

With her legs no longer in pain, Clarke moved almost comfortably with Trubel. It led her to believe she could stay on a horse well enough to make it back to Camp Jaha now, and because of that, turned her attention to the other things promised to her by the Commander.

She looked over at Ryder, eager to begin. He had not talked about training her in hand-to-hand combat since he had first mentioned it in the mess hall. If the myriad of tasks she was required to know to care for a horse were anything to go by, it would take forever to get trained in any of the Grounder skills. Though it was obvious fighting was not something that you could learn in a day, Clarke knew there was very little time. She needed to be as ready as possible to help take down the Mountain when and if Bellamy got the acid fog down.

I'm going to have to take the lead with this.

Clarke landed two solid taps of her heels on Trubel's sides to urge her to catch up with him. She did not even have time to blink before the horse's muscles tensed beneath her and Trubel lunged forward.

Clarke caught sight of Ryder's bushy eyebrow cocked high in her direction as they flew past him on the trail.

Heart pounding, she leaned back in the saddle and pulled up quickly on the reins in an attempt to slow them down.

Trubel's ears flicked back toward her right before she came to a dead halt, but Clarke's body continued forward until her chest flattened over the horse's neck and an explosive grunt of surprise and all the air in her lungs rushed out.

Heart racing from embarrassment, she caught her breath and eased upright, and then arranged her backside correctly again in the saddle.

Trubel's front right hoof struck the ground twice, head high as she nodded up and down, and snorted in irritation.

Okay, so I need a little more practice.

Ryder's horse slowed down to a walk as they reached them, and Trubel stepped into the pace of his walk before she reached over and nipped at his long face.

Ryder's horse jerked his head up and to the side, while Trubel high stepped forward to gain and maintain a nose lead.

Clarke leveled her breathing, and shot Ryder a side-glance.

He looked at Clarke with the disdain of an adult for a child who did something completely pointless, but he did not say a word.

She was glad he did not say anything. She still felt out of her element with Trubel's strange behavior and it was embarrassing to not understand why things were unfolding the way they were. However, he was also pissing her off with his attitude. Clarke was now eighteen years old and done being a child.

She huffed out a breath of frustration but decided to let it go and recalled her plan to take charge of her own situation. "Lexa said you would teach me hand-to-hand combat."

Ryder nodded once.

Clarke waited.

Ryder said nothing.

Clarke sighed quietly. At this point, she should know better. "When can we start?"

"After we are done here, we can begin."

Her mother would see her practicing if she waited for them to return to TonDC, and she knew she could not have that. She had no idea how bad she really was at it yet. Winning her fight against Anya had seemed more a matter of luck to her than anything else. If Clarke did not look like an absolute beginner, it might make it easier to explain to her mother why it was necessary. "Could we start now?"

He looked up at the position of the sun, then pulled up on the reins and his horse came to a stop.

Clarke tentatively pulled on the reins gripped underneath her fingers.

Trubel stopped immediately with ears twitched back toward her, shifting her weight back and forth to either side, and snorted loudly through her nose. Clarke wondered if she was still irritated with her for stopping their headlong gallop. Maybe Trubel just wanted to run.

Ryder scanned the area and gestured to his right. "Over there in that clearing." He dismounted, swinging his leg in front of him and over the saddle horn.

That was not the way he had told her to get off a horse earlier.

She unhooked her feet from the stirrups and made an attempt to swing her leg in front of her too.

Trubel raised her head just then, and Clarke's heel caught on the ridge of her neck.
Suddenly, she slid to the side, dropped the reins, and then scrambled with her hands for the horn to make it back onto the saddle.

She cringed at herself for making yet another idiotic move, but put her foot back into the stirrup and carefully eased her leg over the back of Trubel to dismount correctly.

Trubel craned her neck around and looked at her with judgment gleaming in her intelligent brown eye.

Clarke looked quickly to see if Ryder noticed, but thankfully he had not seemed to notice and was still walking away from her. Rubbing a hand over the back of her neck self-consciously, she started to follow him.

He went over dismounting twice before he let me on her back!

She knew she really needed to obtain and keep Ryder's respect. Not only was she stuck with him, but she also needed him to share his skills. Clarke closed her eyes for a moment, forcing her anxiety down by breathing deeply.

Please don't let me look stupid right now.

She opened her eyes and headed with quick steps toward the clearing.

Trubel caught up with her and softly bumped her shoulder with her nose.

She continued walking, but turned her head and whispered. "Look, I'm sorry I screwed up."

Trubel nosed her again harder.

Clarke took an extra half step forward under the force of the nudge. Exasperated, she whispered. "What?"

Trubel lowered her head over Clarke's shoulder and stopped her in place. That is when she noticed Trubel's reins dangling from her pinched lips.

"Oh." She breathed out, then reached up to take the leather cord in her hands. She turned back to the clearing to see Ryder staring at them.

Trubel managed to get her lips free and lifted her head over and behind Clarke.

An uncertain look crossed Ryder's features, and then his face fought to settle on an expression, appearing to struggle to decide what the right thing was to feel.

The entire experience just looked uncomfortable.

Finally, stoicism won.

She did not bother asking him what was wrong. It was obvious he had already chosen to ignore whatever it was that bothered him, and she knew there wasn't anything she could do to change his mind.

Clarke sighed and moved to the line of trees where he tied off his horse, and then she pulled out the lead rope from the saddlebag on Trubel's side.

"Thanks for the save." Clarke whispered to Trubel after she finished, and patted her neck affectionately before walking over to stand in front of him.

It looked like he had set aside his earlier confusion because he immediately eyed her up and down as he spoke with judgment in his gravelly rumble. "You are standing wrong."

Clarke had the sinking feeling this was going to go just as badly as it did with Lexa.

Sometime later, she decided she was wrong.

While he was clearly irritated with Clarke and continued to speak down to her as though she was a backward child, at least he went slow enough for her to catch on while he showed her to how to block with her hands.

Ryder demonstrated in careful precise motions how to keep her hands moving in front of her to cover her openings. While the movements made sense, she did not really understand why she had to keep moving until he showed her how to attack. Once it was properly demonstrated to her it turned out that fighting was not simply pounding on someone, which is now what Clarke considered had happened between Anya and herself.

The skill of fighting like a Grounder required holding her hands in a certain way to avoid injury when she struck, which she had not actually gotten to do yet because he kept evading her. But most importantly, all the motions were connected and a natural progression of the one she just learned.

All of it came together when defense flowed into an attack. There was no backing away after protecting herself or giving the opponent the chance to recover. Block or deflect, then strike. The right defense led to an offense that incapacitated the enemy.

Clarke only landed touches on him in the slow motion of practice as he continued to move too quickly out of her path for her to land a punch or the ridge of her hand anywhere on him. She realized she would have to earn any hit that got past his defenses.

To start, he directed her to aim for several areas, behind and below his ear, midway down his neck, the solar plexus, temple, and the nose. He had not struck her with any real strength either, as everything up to that point was about getting the motions right.

After Clarke became comfortable with a handful of defenses and counterattacks, a theme developed for her around the areas he directed her to strike.

If she had not spent hundreds of hours studying human anatomy, medical files, and hands on training, she doubted she would have made the connections. The places he wanted her to strike were points within the body where tendon met bone, where vulnerable joints were most accessible, and the easily breakable bones across the back of hands that would shoot debilitating or even incapacitating pain up a person's arm.

However, Clarke saw several more places that he did not point out specifically for what they were, nerve clusters and major blood vessels. While all of them were places that could cause a great deal of pain, she also knew from her training that, if hit hard enough, damaged nerves and blood vessels sent signals to the brain to shut down the body, causing it to believe that the body was having a heart attack or respiratory arrest.

The injuring potential of that kind of violence actually caused small amounts of brain damage, and it made her wary of how much force she attempted to strike back with, despite the fact she had not landed a single hit on the large man circling around her.

Clarke could tell she was making progress in defense, at least, as he increased the speed of his attacks after they ran through the motions several times. Then the moment came when he decided to advance the lesson. Throwing a person off balance was added to Clarke's training, and it meant she got to land on the ground.

A lot.

He was not exactly gentle, but she had not yet landed jarringly hard on the packed earth of the grassy field. Her attempts to get him on the ground continued to fail, or he recovered before she had him completely incapacitated and could do any of the follow up moves. Whatever she tried, he was back on his feet in seconds, backing away and ready to go again.

Clarke was growing increasingly frustrated and losing patience with herself. She felt like she was still missing something, and then she remembered Lexa's words from last night.

"Control your emotions." And, "you are not breathing correctly."

She knew she had not been trying to keep centered, so inhaled deeply and worked to become calm again.

"Do not stand flat footed. Always be prepared to move." He walked around her and tapped the underside of her right elbow. "Too low. You do not move fast enough yet to get your hands into position before I attack."

He stepped back. "When I come at you this time, I want you to grab onto my wrist at this point and pivot like this." He demonstrated how he wanted Clarke to rotate his weight off balance, by directing his mass past her and to the ground with the guidance of one hand on his wrist and the other pushing against the inside of his elbow.

This was new. A scenario designed to handle an attacker who was running at her to strike.

Ryder stepped several feet back to begin the attack.

More words from last night surfaced, she raised her hand quickly. "Wait."

Ryder dropped his hands to his sides. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing. Lexa told me to visualize in my head what I need to do first so I can see myself doing it right."

He huffed loudly and his mustache hairs splayed around his mouth as he pulled his face into a barely contained grimace. "Begin when you are ready."

He still doesn't respect me.

If his reaction was anything to go by, this entire exercise was undoubtedly childish to him, but she trusted Lexa's methods. Clarke needed to prove to herself that she could do this as well as him.

When she was certain he would wait, Clarke closed her eyes and tried to imagine the way it would feel to move her body in the correct pattern to take him down. Though she was no Monty with the math to back it, or Raven with the ability to make use of schematics to fix machines, she knew this was all about the motions of physics.

It was pretty straightforward really. Throw the ball. The ball bounces. Clarke could see the "how" in her head in a series of cause and effects.

It doesn't matter how strong and fast he is, or how much he outweighs me, this is about using his momentum against him.

Clarke opened her eyes and gave him a nod to begin.

He came at her quickly. Faster than what she had just rehearsed in her head.

Her hand reached for his wrist, but the moment was lost as his wrist zipped past the tips of her fingers.

In the next second, he wrenched Clarke around until her back was against his chest and his forearm crossed her throat, squeezing sharply before letting her go and stepping back. "Try it again. You reached for my wrist but missed because you were too slow."

Clarke's pulse pounded sharply in her temples with the release of pressure from her throat.

He was pushing her harder now, and she was not sure if it was because she had interrupted him or because he thought visualization was something that even children should know how to do already.

She took several breaths and calmed, but eyed him warily.

He was still holding back on her, and Clarke wanted to be ready for when he stopped doing that completely. She was determined to be faster or she needed some other advantage. Rather than beginning again, she signaled for him to wait once more.

Clarke closed her eyes and ran through the scenario in her head again with a greater sense of understanding of the dynamic motion guiding his attack, then sped the scene up. Clarke saw herself react fast enough to make contact with a solid grip at the wrist and a decisive clamp into the radial nerve just below his elbow.

She opened her eyes and took up the defensive stance he showed her earlier. "Okay."

He came at her quickly, but this time she reacted just as he stepped into her space.

Clarke's right hand caught his left wrist as it came at her throat, and her left clamped down on the nerve as she pivoted and dropped him to the ground.

Ryder sprawled out heavily in front of her.

Clarke stared down at him in open surprise at her success. She uncurled her fingers and let go of his wrist. The realization settled in then that his weight and height really did not matter, it was what she did with it that counted.

I can do this.

His arm swept out and caught her across the back of her calves and she went down. Clarke's ass hit the hard ground first with a hard thump and the air whooshed out of her lungs. Pain shot through her tailbone, followed by an immediate flush of intense heat.

The sting of pain faded almost instantly to a slight ache. She blinked, shocked at healing so suddenly.

"Better." He got to his feet and stepped back. "You did not use the same move I showed you."

Clarke pulled herself back to the situation, and clambered to her feet, "Sorry?" She was not sure if she was supposed to apologize, but thought it could not hurt.

He eyed her in careful consideration. "It is not wrong to change your defense if you believe it will protect you."

She frowned. This was the first time Clarke had ever slipped passed his defenses.

Is he saying I should improvise?

What she knew for sure was that she did not want to land on her ass again if she could avoid it. Clarke needed greater distance from him when he landed or he could reach out and drop her in a counterattack.

She knew there was a nerve cluster in the armpit she could strike if she wanted to send him over her and gain the distance she wanted, but that might knock him out. It seemed extreme to use a disabling move like that and she had not attempted anything so complex with him yet. All Clarke really needed was to send him farther away from her.

I'll go for the bicep, it's still better leverage.

She ran the scenario through her head.

"Again."

He's going to come at me faster.

Clarke assumed the stance. She would try it.

No, I will do it.

He rushed her.

Clarke did not wait for him to close the distance completely. She stepped into the space between them and engaged.

Her right hand shot out and clamped onto his wrist and her left hand clamped onto the meat of his bicep, grasping just over a major nerve.

Clarke pivoted in her stance and dropped low, pulling his wrist close and diagonally across her torso, before his body loomed above her and she surged upward.

He tumbled past her as she let go of his wrist.

He landed on his hands and knees, a body length away from her, but quickly got to his feet. He raised his eyes to meet hers, head tilting slowly to the side, as he seemed to reconsider her. "Again."

He backed up, but not as far as where the last attack began. There was less distance between them and therefore much less time to react to an incoming threat.

A picture of him flying farther away flashed through Clarke's mind and she realized she would need to launch him higher as he moved past her or she would not get the distance or the leverage she needed.

He's too close.

Adrenaline buzzed through her system as the air around her seemed to thicken with tension.

Suddenly, the anticipation of his attack pulled the world into sharp focus; within a couple of heartbeats, a series of stark details stood out, and she saw his body mapped out clinically.

It was almost like the internal images she had conjured as they had fought their way through the mangled body of the Pauna, but this time it clung to him as he shifted in place. His weaknesses lay graphed over his body as though he wore a three-dimensional diagram across his flesh.

Every vulnerable nerve cluster stood out as though highlighted by faint white lit dots.

Places to strike.

Lines of white translucent blood vessels pulsed faintly as though she could see them projected through the layers of his chest and arms.

Where to shut him down.

Underneath the superimposed sight was his natural body; the stark line of muscle and bone represented in graduating grays with darker, denser, and therefore more developed on his right side.

His strength and balance to exploit.

The position and reach of his limbs to block or defend himself.

The paths to slip between them.

The space between his solar plexus and his center of gravity.

How low she would need to drop.

He shot forward.

She felt no fear, but the pulse of adrenaline doubled and surged through her body. The air between them felt charged, a throbbing reverberation counterpoint her own will to take him down. It did not distract her at all, it honed her intent to make this happen.

A thundered heartbeat inside her chest rang in her ears, and the world slowed down.

The angle he leaned into with his momentum was the entry angle for her strike.

She saw the man for exactly what he was.

A target.

Clarke did not wait for him to close the distance to her.

She stepped into his trajectory before he could reach her and dropped low as she grabbed his right wrist with her left hand and pivoted through the momentum. Clarke's right hand slammed into his armpit as her shoulder rammed into his solar plexus. Then, with the force of her whole body beneath it, she heaved upward, jolting upward with his movement over her and released his flying body.

He flipped partially in the air and his back and legs arched behind him to complete the rotation before he would hit the ground.

She stumbled and righted her off-kilter posture.

He landed with a heavy thud several yards away from her, his arms and feet barely making contact before the rest of him hit the ground. He curled to his side, laying there desperately gasping futilely for air from the sudden decompression of his lungs. Slowly, he seemed to be catching his breath again, so she did not worry that he would pass out.

During those moments she waited to see that he would recover, her adrenaline rush settled and faded as she pulled in several streams of slow steady air.

It was so fast. I'm not even breathing that hard.

Then her mind played catch up and she reeled.

She was not a target. She was never supposed to think of herself as one, and doing so made her a victim. She had not understood the idea before, and it had held her back. Clarke realized she could not afford to think of anyone, be them friend or foe, attacking her as anything less than the enemy, and thereby, they became her target.

A minute later, she noticed Ryder's breathing was under control again and he unsteadily got to his feet, facing away from her. Suddenly, his shoulders jumped in tight short jerks, and he shook his head.

Was he laughing?

Clarke did not know what to make of that reaction. "Are you okay?"

The motion of his shoulders stilled and he straightened taller, before he started muttering.

She caught a only few of his words but clearly understood the odd irony in his tone. "Unskilled…but resourceful…smart horses."

Clarke could almost see him slip on his "stoic face" by the change in the set of his shoulders in the moment of silence after he was done talking to himself.

But, she was wrong again.

He turned and met her gaze, a curious gleam in his eyes she had never seen before. He shook out his dead arm while surreptitiously rubbing tentatively just beneath his solar plexus with his left hand, and gave her a slow smile.

It was small, but it counted.

Pride burst in Clarke's chest, but she managed to suppress a grin and gave him a smile just as slow and small in return.

This is what I need!

She thought that maybe he was taking her seriously now, and there just might be some actual respect growing between them.

"Good." The smile disappeared abruptly. "But you let me leave your control." He stepped toward her slowly. "I am the enemy that knows what you can do, and I am free to try for you again."

Clarke was suddenly aware of how alone they were standing in the grassy field, miles from anyone else, and a zing of fear ran up her spine.

With a gleam in his eyes she could not decipher, he continued to press forward with short stalking steps.

She felt her breath came faster, but she remembered herself and forced it to slow. "What are your orders, Ryder?"

He paused in his predatory stalking toward her and spoke as though they were discussing the weather. "I am to train you to protect yourself in hand-to-hand combat. You are learning how to engage the enemy now, but you do not know how to disengage." His tone changed, deep and deliberate. "This is the next lesson. Do not disengage until you are certain you have won. Do not ever trust an enemy, Clarke of the Sky People."

He rushed her.

The world slowed within the space of Clarke's inhaled breath and sharpened again. The air hummed about her and the grid of his weaknesses appeared sharply, quickly superseding the defining texture of his skin.

She exhaled and spun low, one hand on the ground to brace as she swung her legs around his leading knee, trapping it between hers, then twisted her entire body horizontally to take them both down.

He tumbled past her, his hands shooting out to catch his fall.

Clarke continued the twist of her body after they hit dirt, keeping his leg hooked and bent between hers, before she rolled diagonally over the top of his back. She hooked one of his arms at the elbow and jerked it to her chest.

He dropped flat under their combined weight and his large body stiffened as he fought her grip.

Clarke worked her hold to grip high on his wrist with both of her hands, keeping his arm straight, all the pressure at his elbow against her chest in a tight painful hold behind him.

Her heart pounded in shock at her own attack, but she managed to speak low and carefully. "You don't know everything I can do Ryder."

For that matter, neither did she. Clarke had no idea why that was the attack she had used. There had been no thinking involved, she had just done it. The important thing right now was that it worked.

His body suddenly went limp below her, but she did not trust it. He had only just accused her of not being able to disengage with the enemy correctly.

He finally spoke after seeming to realize she was not going to let him up without a verbal confirmation. "I submit."

Clarke pulled his arm tighter. "I don't just need submission from you, I need respect."

His chest shook, and she felt herself bounce along with it.

What the hell?!

Clarke's eyes widened, and she turned her head to catch a look at the side of his face.

He was laughing again. It was silent like before and just as unnerving.

What is with these Grounders?!

This was only the second time she had seen a Grounder laugh, though she still was not seeing it since most of his face was pressed into dirt and grass. She could not help thinking that she really did not understand them at all.

He stopped suddenly. "And what do I get from that?"

Clarke's mind scrambled for an answer. He wanted to negotiate. She finally settled on the simple truth of what she wanted him to have from her. "My respect. Someday my trust. We can work up to it."

He sighed, and in a disgruntled tone, he answered. "You are earning it right now."

It took a second for that to sink in. "Well…good then."

Clarke released his arm and rolled off his back, and to her feet, looking down at the prone man still on the ground. Then she thought better of his proximity and stepped several feet back just to be on the safe side.

He clambered carefully to his feet and noticed her cautious distance from him. He gave her a pleased smirk, as if proud that she still considered him dangerous, then he looked at the sky. "It is almost time for the meeting." He looked down at her. "We need to return."

She nodded decisively and did not mention the dirt on his shirt or the grass in his bushy beard.

As she pulled herself into the saddle, she felt the brush of Lexa's Thrum against her own and it ran its way around hers several times. The sensation made her hands tremble and her stomach feel like it was ready to fly up her throat.

Lexa's strokes stopped abruptly and receded, but she could still feel her, an echo of a touch removed.

Clarke was surprised by the unexpectedness of the contact and shocked that she seemed to have no control over how it made her react. She sighed out a long breath.

Clarke had no idea it could be that strong from several miles away, and just why was it so suddenly strong anyway? She had no way of knowing the answer to that.

As the horses returned to their easy trot, her body settled down, and she shoved her reactions to the back of her mind.

Trubel pushed in front of Ryder's horse to be in the lead again.

Clarke was amused. It appeared that the horse was not about to give up her position of leadership unless she was forced into it. She could relate, that was exactly how she herself felt right now concerning her own circumstances. She had made progress today, and she did not want to give an inch of it up after all she had gone through to earn it.

Clarke glanced over at Ryder.

He was not the enemy, but he had needed her to see him that way in order to understand the kind of fighting that kept Grounders alive. She was certain she did now. Clarke had made herself see him that way because it was necessary, but how she had done it finally sank in.

She swallowed down her unease and tried to think it through.

It was not normal. She was sure people did not just create a three-dimensional grid and lay it over a person to see their…weak points, but she did. Every vulnerable place on his body stood out in stark relief. All of those pinpointed dots of light and faint lines like an afterimage of blood moving through his body had provided the means to maim and even kill him outright. Looking for vulnerable points in a normal fight was already a disturbing thought, but having such ready access the way she had, made her feel a little sick.

There was no doubt in Clarke's mind that this was a Commander thing. Though Lexa had never spoken of it before and she had to wonder if it was something that they shared as a gift...or a curse? It was too big of a deal to not mention it from her point of view, and that would mean that she was alone with it. A new consequence of sharing their...gift.

Clarke remembered Lexa's reaction to the Compulsion, her claim that it was different from her own, and recalled the lines of real blood as that had slid down from Lexa's nose and past her lips the night before.

Was this another danger to us both that would be my fault?

She gripped the saddle horn harder. The steady plodding of hooves pulled her back to her surroundings.

Does it have to be a bad thing?

She glanced over her shoulder to look at Ryder and saw he was positioned off to the right and behind her by a few yards.

Can I do it again?

Clarke tried to pull up the visual grid again, but nothing happened. She had no idea where it had even come from inside, and found she could not make it suddenly pop up.

Ryder caught her watching, and she jerked her head around to face the trail in front of her.

Trubel had carried her without any real directing since she got back in the saddle and seemed to know the trail and where they were headed. Clarke's direction was not needed to guide her, so she gave her attention back to the problem at hand.

It didn't have to be a bad thing. Just the possibilities to help diagnose circulatory problems would-.

Lexa touched her Thrum again and curled around it, setting sparks off down the length of her spine.

Clarke lost her train of thought and sank into her own startled reactions.

Dammit!

She huffed out in irritation.

It stopped abruptly. The contact did not last nearly as long as the first one.

She sighed out another relieved breath at the quick reprieve, but her body still buzzed from the touch. It was the same kind of response she had experienced earlier, physical, and…sexual. Butterflies in the stomach, a tingle still running down her spine, and now a lump of longing welled up in her throat to accompany those.

Clarke pushed the sensations away the best she could and rubbed tiredly at her eyes while she tried to pick up her train of thought where she left off.

Aside from healing applications, the three-dimensional grid reminded her of an organic version of the display for the targeting system the Ark had used to destroy space debris before it could hit the station.

She was jerked out of her thoughts again by Lexa's Thrum, as it touched hers and wound around lazily, lingering and clinging, until it stopped and locked onto her.

She inhaled sharply, pulling stray hairs about her face into her mouth, while every nerve in her body suddenly felt like it stood on end.

Lexa was somehow gripping her in an insistent and intimate contact that Clarke had little desire to let go of, but somehow knew she should and find a way to stop.

Clarke managed to spit out the strands of hair still caught in her mouth before her body responded to the bombardment with a shot of hot pleasure that spiraled all the way down her spine and into her seat. It caused a steady pulse of arousal to build and express at her clit and a fainter sensation echo within her nipples.

Fuck!

Almost lazily, Lexa continued caressing all the points of contact along her Thrum until she could feel it meld with her own expanse and fill the inside of her body. The resonance of their union was an insidious touch, and it reverberated underneath her skin, making her feel entirely too full with sensation.

Clarke panted and her knees gripped the saddle while she fought the urge to fold over.

What the hell is she doing?

She squirmed, but the rolling movement against the saddle did not help the issue.

After a very long moment, Lexa backed off slowly.

Shit!

Her skin still prickled and she finally noticed the excessive warm wetness between her legs.

Shit, Shit…SHIT!

Clarke gasped out in relief and slumped forward in the saddle, gripping the horn with clenched fists.

She worked on simply breathing like a normal human and not drawing Ryder's attention any more than she could help it.

Once she thought she could keep her features under control, she glanced back at him nervously.

He was staring off to the left just then, seemingly unaware of her struggle.

The muscles in her shoulders loosened a little, and she turned back around.

Now Clarke was pissed.

If she thinks this is some joke

Her thoughts had nowhere to go with that.

So far, Lexa had showed very little tendency toward humor, let alone the coarse and cruel kind. It led her to think of the brief display last night, and that brought up her embarrassment when she acted so juvenile because of…

Her scent.

She smells like…

Clarke struggled to find words.

Earthy?

It was not the scent of dirt or grass.

Like the forest in bloom?

There was no flowered scents she had come across to compare it with and she floundered. It made Clarke think of heat against her skin…underneath her skin.

Warmth?…

None of those were really specific scents at all, and the last guess did not even make sense. Yet, it was the closest in description somehow.

She could not even describe it, now that she tried to put words to it. It was subtle. It almost did not register as a scent at all, now that she thought about it. It was just…she somehow knew it was uniquely Lexa's scent. Clarke was not sure how exactly, but the sensation hit her olfactory senses first.

Clarke recalled the rush of air she felt she had desperately needed last night in response to it.

That means…it has to be scent!

Not knowing for certain bothered her. What else was connected to the sense of smell and could explain why it impacted her so strongly?

She searched furiously through her mental inventory before finally stopping at a diagram of nerves that she had studied for hours on end for a medical exam and thought she may have stumbled upon a possibility.

There was a slender and often overlooked nerve nestled in the brain, the Cranial Nerve Zero. It ran along the olfactory nerve and connected to the nose and sinus cavity. Though it was not supposed to be as acute in humans as it was in other animals, such as whales and elephants, it did have the ability to register and respond to the chemicals known as pheromones. Those chemicals traveled from the nose to a different part of the brain than the olfactory nerve did.

Of course it wasn't a damn smell!

The pheromone signal would be sent to the part of her brain that handled the need to reproduce, the same place that generated the drive to have sex.

Clarke's mind raced as she pieced together the implications of pheromones if they were really at play. She huffed out in both relief and exasperation with herself.

She knew that everyone on the Ark was a descendant of the genetically modified humans who had first boarded the twelve stations. They had needed to be altered to withstand the stress and radiation of space. What if those genes were not the only things that had been changed? What if it was unintentional?

Clarke grit her teeth in frustration. This was another subject for which she had no way to gain the truth about now. The people with any answers were long dead, and gene therapy had not been employed after the stations left Earth…at least, that is what she had read in the data files. Now, she thought she should probably question that as well.

What Clarke really needed to know right now was what picking up pheromone signals from the other woman meant for her.

Clarke's reactions to Lexa were already a nightmare, and it was dawning on her that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She experienced incredibly strong involuntary responses to Lexa, no matter how the Commander acted toward her. Chagrin suddenly struck with that line of thought.

Well...they were unintentional anyway.

Thinking about the sensory nerve diagram and "unintentional" things brought her back to what she had set aside before she had been sidetracked by Lexa intimately touching her.

Clarke blew out a breath and refocused her mind on something she could at least try to fix.

She still did not understand how she had been able to project a three-dimensional image and place it over a moving person, just to give herself a visual roadmap in order to take them out.

After several minutes of mulling over a repetitive series of questions about targeting systems, she realized she was getting nowhere.

Something else pestered its way into her thoughts and Clarke caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

How and why did I pull that last submission move on Ryder?

She scoured her memory, searching intently for a time she had seen anything like it, and finally flashed on the old world sport of wrestling. Clarke remembered watching it with her dad as a kid on the Ark, though she recalled that she had never really liked it and only ever saw a few matches. Her takedown of the much larger Grounder warrior certainly seemed like a wrestling move, but she was not completely sure.

Her body finally settled from the last bout of Lexa's attention, relaxed as much as it was going to with the discomfort of wetness still pooled between her legs, and she was able to pay greater attention to her surroundings for the first time.

The trail sloped upward and Clarke leaned forward in the saddle to catch a better view of the horizon as they crested the hill and she could see TonDC over the next ridge. The city was spread out as a patchwork of tents and old buildings pushing back against the dense wall of the forest, and they were only about half a mile away by her estimation.

As Trubel stepped up onto the last slope, Lexa's Thrum touched hers again.

Clarke's shoulders hunched automatically, tense, as she waited for the onslaught of feeling.

Instead of the anticipated bombardment, she got light caresses.

They floated along Clarke's insides and made goosebumps prickle on the surface of her skin. Butterflies still took flight in her stomach, but she did not feel out of control this time, as though her mind and body were better able to handle the connection.

She sighed out in relief.

As Lexa began to retreat, an emotion hummed over their connected Thrums, warm and spiralling around her.

It felt like… peace.

Clarke's jaw dropped.

Lexa…

She just…

Out of all the weird or unexpected things that had happened to Clarke since she woke up this morning, Lexa sharing her feelings along the delicate thread of their connection surprised her the most.

Lexa has peace?

That was the strangest part of it, and she found she could not even picture Lexa as peaceful. The Commander demonstrated patience, stoicism, a calm demeanor, but Clarke never got the idea that Lexa was ever actually at peace.

Their connection dimmed as Lexa retreated.

Why didn't I feel her like this before?!

Clarke was flabbergasted. Had Lexa purposefully held back emotions from traveling along the Thrum…or did she not have any control over it now?

Could she feel me too?

Clarke cringed at the idea.

Am I an open book to Lexa?

She wondered if maybe she should just ask her when she got back, but then again, Clarke considered her own embarrassment with the idea that Lexa had already felt her emotions.

She debated with herself while they rode steadily onward and trees blurred to either side of the trail as she stopped paying them any attention. The last hill was just up ahead before the statue marking the entrance to TonDC would be in sight.

Lexa's Thrum sought her out again.

Clarke did not immediately tense this time, but felt her whole body come alive to listen like an antenna.

A series of complex emotions flowed through the touch, and it startled her into sitting bolt upright in the saddle. Lexa sent longing, humming deep and desperate as though it traveled through the center of an emptiness so vast that it made Clarke want to weep.

She only had time to exhale once before it slipped away and was replaced with a bittersweet sadness instead. Clarke's chest burned with the hollow resonance of emotion she had felt, her eyes teared up involuntarily; she swiped at them self-consciously, then glanced behind her to see if Ryder noticed.

His head turned to meet her gaze with no apparent awareness of her awkward emotional roller coaster.

Trubel's body angled back, and she faced forward.

They were cresting over the last hill. At that moment, Clarke wanted to see Lexa in the worst way. She wanted confirmation of what she just felt second hand.

Her feelings were for me.

Joy lit up Clarke's body with the knowledge that Lexa wanted her that way. It was not just a sexual thing, or a byproduct of their necessary alliance. She could tell that Lexa found her attractive, and that they needed each other to fight a common enemy and strive for peace. But this was different, it resonated deeply within her and drew out longing for connection and comfort that she wanted to return. Lexa wanted her to be the one that took away…a profound emptiness.

The only thing she could compare it to was the loss of her father, the person who had provided the emotional support in her life, and how she was left hollow when that comfort had been torn from her and flung out into space. Her mother had tried, but it had always been less than he gave her and truly seemed more than her mother was even capable of giving.

Before Lexa, no one else had ever made Clarke feel this alive or awake.

Finn…but…it's not the same.

Her eyes widened as the reality sunk in, and her mind juddered with the possibility that something could actually happen between herself and Lexa, sending her into an emotional tailspin.

Fear struck the joy down, and Clarke's eyes teared up for herself this time. The lesson had been learned the hard way just a few days ago.

She looked down at her hands, now clenched around the saddle horn with white knuckles. She could still feel the tacky sensation of Finn's blood on them that had made her fingers stick together before the blood had dried completely.

I'm not ready!

The Statue came into view.

I won't say anything.

Trubel rode past the stone man, and Clarke inhaled deeply, trying to calm her racing thoughts and pounding heart.

I don't have to do anything.

She tried to convince herself that she was resolved to this decision.

I don't have to confront Lexa.

The path widened into the dirt road that ran through TonDC, and she could see the crumbling cement profile of Lexa's building as the road curved around at an angle northward.

Suddenly, a sharp pain hit Clarke's lower abdomen and then a rush of fear coursed through her, jolting her in the saddle and making her double over the horn of the saddle.

She clutched her stomach in shock until it receded.

Not again!

But this time there was no fiery heat. It was a tingling burn that ended as soon as the pain had passed. Clarke looked up at the entrance of the building, not more than fifty yards away.

If Lexa could share her emotions, what about physical sensations?

Fuck!

She jerked her head around to Ryder, who was still slightly behind her. Clarke's tone was harsh when she spoke. "I need to talk to Lexa right now."

Trubel halted without a prompt from her and stood rigid on the path as she scrambled to dismount.

Ryder frowned deeply as his horse carried him forward, bringing him abreast and he pulled back on the reins to stop. He nodded his acquiescence and dismounted as well.

She was already stumbling away on unsteady feet before he came around to take Trubel's reins.

As she approached the corner of the building, the searing pain shot through her gut again, and the fear surged with it. The second wave was stronger than the first, and she nearly groaned aloud in agony.

Clarke grabbed the rough cement on the corner of the building, and tried to lean against it as casually as possible while she panted quietly through the pain. She knew this bout could not be hers alone.

The pain suddenly ended. There was no build up to it; it was abrupt and then gone again, unlike hers.

It's definitely not me.

She raised her head and glanced around. There were not many people on the road or outside of buildings close by.

Clarke gulped in a few desperate lungfuls of air, but then managed to get her breathing under control.

Count of four!

This is not my pain.

She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated.

This is not my fear!

If Lexa was in her throne room, she was maybe only forty feet away now.

Clarke inched along the outside wall to the entrance, trailing her fingers along the crumbling facade just in case she needed to brace against it again. By the time she reached the outer door, she thought she had control.

As she made it to the middle of the tunnel, Lexa hooked into her Thrum hard.

Clarke's body lit up, every nerve ending blazed and she bit down on her lips to stifle a moan in pain. But then desire suddenly coursed through her as well, magnified. She teetered upon her feet before slumping back against the wall and scrambling for something to grip onto.

Fuck!

Fuck!

FUCK!

Gone was the concern and the empathy she for Lexa's emotions, the sense of wonder she had felt to be connected to the other woman so intimately.

Clarke was tired of this!

She slammed back down on Lexa's Thrum angrily and made her feel it back as she pulled herself forward.

The result was pain.

Six feet from Lexa's door, she slumped again against the interior wall, almost whimpering.

It finally passed.

She pulled herself upright and kept her hand pressed firmly against cracked cement as she gingerly walked toward her goal.

Clarke throbbed in intimate places. Her underwear was wet, her skin flushed with the rapid cycle between pleasure and pain. The entire day was fucked up, and she was miserable. She was still furious, but more than that, Clarke was simply exhausted by the emotions running back and forth over a connection to another human being she had never asked for.

Lexa still sat upon her throne, collected and alone in the room. It seemed like half of her existence was spent waiting while the rest was a mad dash to balance a rush of problems. Normally she was fine with this as she had no choice regardless, but now she waited for news of Clarke and she could not help but feel impatient.

The arrangements for the representatives of the Tribes within her army were set and they were ready to meet as soon as she gave the signal. All of them were taking the time to eat an early meal right now, except her. She was hungry again, but busied herself with waiting and pretending patience instead.

Her mind went over the plan to attack the mountain, but it took only a matter of minutes. Action and implementation was required to decide if something would or would not work, and it meant there was nothing she could do for now, so she needed to set it aside.

This only left her with thoughts of Clarke to fill the void of tasks she was willing to focus on.

Was she doing well?

Lexa reached out gingerly to Clarke's Thrum and found it steady but distant. She touched it and reveled in the sensation as she spiraled several rotations around it, though she resisted the sudden urge that bolted through her to mesh them together.

Her pulse quickened and her breath came faster and Lexa backed off, disconnecting as much as she was able.

The connection was infinitely more sensitive than she had understood it to be before Clarke had met Trubel this morning.

What happened between Clarke and Trubel?

The thought had come up several times over the course of the morning and had interrupted her focus, but Lexa had pushed it aside to get other things accomplished. Now she had time to consider what it could mean, and she was growing jittery at the lack of ready answers.

Sitting and waiting was suddenly unbearable. She needed to do something while she mulled it over and decided to do another walk through TonDC to evaluate the state of her warrior's readiness.

Lexa nodded to warriors as she passed them with a blink of her eyes and a terse down thrust of her chin, evaluating them quickly and then dismissing them even faster. She did not want to engage in an actual conversation with any of them right now, and she kept to the outskirts as she found herself walking toward the fields for the second time that day. Her guards trailed behind her until she reached Solon's lone paddock, but Lexa dismissed them to go eat now before she would need them again.

After they had left her, she remained outside Solon's gate, studying him with searching eyes. He was a beautiful specimen of horseflesh, and she knew Trubel had not produced another quite like him since. He was the epitome of horse pride.

Across the field, he eyed her right back with a certainty about him that, after seeing Clarke and Trubel interact, now meant something completely different to her.

Can he sense me the way Trubel seems to do with Clarke?

Lexa entered the gate and latched it behind her, then went to the three-sided stall and collected a brush hanging from the wall. Before this moment she assumed he only tolerated the attention of his rider, but now she waited for him to approach her first as she had seen Clarke do with Trubel.

The thought of the other woman had Lexa reaching out again before she could help herself, and she touched the connection. The spiral effect repeated itself and she savored it a few moments, then disconnected.

Solon's ears perked up, and he stood proud and tall at a distance from her.

Did he just respond to the act of connecting?

She deliberated over the likelihood and decided if that was true, his reactions must mean something. Lexa considered if there was ever a time she could have known this type of thing was possible before... waking Clarke, but came up with nothing.

She delicately reached for Clarke's Thrum again and spiraled slowly around it, but then found herself firmly anchored within it.

Lexa sighed out a stuttering breath at the feel of Clarke resonating beneath her skin, letting herself savor it and her eyes sliding shut. She felt even more drawn to that intangible part of Clarke than she ever did before. The unseen essence she touched was so addictive to connect with, and a light shudder traveled down her spine in reaction to her own acknowledgement.

After a lingering moment, she was able to regain her control over her body's reactions to their connection, and opened her eyes to take in the grassy field and the breeze sweeping over it.

Lexa had something else she needed to focus on.

She directed her attention to split, the way she suspected it had with Clarke and Trubel, and centered her focus deliberately on the horse in front of her.

Lexa's sense of the joined essence between Clarke and herself became a cyclic pull of sensation that flowed through her and then returned over the Thrum. She let herself stay connected, but forced their combined reverberations to return without passing through her first. The feel of them pinged off the surface of her being but then headed directly back to Clarke.

Lexa needed to focus on her horse.

Solon took two hesitant steps in her direction.

She felt a thrill at his immediate interest, but waited patiently for him to come closer.

He shifted his weight back and forth from right to left as though he deliberated on what he was willing to do. Finally, he took two more steps toward her.

Suddenly, there was a sharp surge of frustrated emotion rushing over the connection from Clarke that pushed through the circuit Lexa had set between them, threatening to overflow.

Carefully, she began to disentangle from Clarke, only to discover it was far more resistant to her efforts at distance than the previous times she had done it. Somehow, she found herself thoroughly entrenched in the strength of the sensations and…knew she did not really want to let go.

She grit her teeth, determined, and wrestled against her own inclination. Finally, it was done.

Solon halted his approach.

Was it the connection itself that drew the horses or was it Clarke?

She had never attempted to reach for a Thrum in an animal before. Until yesterday, Lexa had not even had a word for the connection she had between the children she gave blood to, and it had never occurred to her that an animal had one at all.

She glanced around to see if anyone was watching and confirmed she was alone, the only movement in the paddock was the gentle swirl of breeze still blowing the tall grass around the fence's edge. Lexa turned back to Solon and cut the distance between them in half.

Feeling awkward and foolish, she spoke aloud to him. "Solon. I will groom you…if you want." Then she stood there stiffly and tried to sense his Thrum. She reached blindly into the emptiness between them until there was a grazing touch of something against her.

Solon tossed his head, snorted loudly and then backed away.

Was she doing it wrong?

She remembered Clarke lying on the ground when Trubel had approached her and glanced around the field again to see if she was still alone.

Two warriors walked at a distance along the south facing buildings.

Lexa realized she would not place herself in a vulnerable position on the ground the way Clarke had done. She turned back to Solon, and considered Clarke's other actions. There must be something else she could try.

She dropped her breathing into the count of eight and let her mind slip into a meditative state. Lexa had been doing this since she was a child, and it took less than half a minute for her to sink into herself completely. Now, she attempted something she had never tried before; she directed her focus outward instead of an internalized search.

She reached out for him again. The sense of emptiness felt vast all around her as she searched through it, and realized the small physical distance between them did not seem to define that kind of space.

There!

The distance was deceiving. Lexa did not have to stretch far, but twist herself in a different way to feel the brush of foreign resonance against her own. It was deep and low as though the size of him reverberated inside of his body and defined the path it could take to connect with another being. It was less focused than the Thrum from Clarke, and aimed at her in a wide band from its contact point. She gently eased along side it, trying not to force a direct confrontation or meshing, but to investigate.

Solon's muscles rippled down his sides as he flinched in awareness at the intrusion, but remained still.

Lexa retreated to the point of complete disconnection and hovered there, waiting.

Solon examined her while she watched him for a long moment, but neither gave an inch.

She registered the sound of footsteps growing louder. The warriors had moved toward her location and she tilted her head to track their proximity.

Lexa closed her eyes and felt the distance expand between Solon and herself at her loss of focus. The world had intruded, but she desperately did not want to give up now that she felt she was so close to achieving what Clarke had with Trubel.

She reached again slowly across the unseen expanse between them, while she curled her hand harder around the coarse bristled brush. Lexa wanted this to work. She needed to understand.

Lexa heard Solon step closer. His Thrum vibrated faster and erratically with alternating rhythms she did not recognize and could not make sense of.

Slowly, she opened her eyes at the feel of his nose bumping heavily against the arm that held the brush, and she smiled. This was the first time he had ever approached her first with no other intent than to receive her attention.

She ignored the sounds of the warriors armor clanking as they spoke to one another and passed the gate of the paddock. She methodically brushed Solon's coat for a while, and then they were alone again. It was surprisingly natural. It was…something else. Her mind stilled within the calm of repetitious movements she shared with him as mutual comfort, and she felt as though she was connecting to something long lost to her.

Solon's Thrum responded to that complex inner emotion and pulsed in long slow spans deepened with a low hum that passed gently against her own.

She knew other riders had a companionable relationship between themselves and their horses, but it was never something afforded to her with Solon before now. Lexa had never attempted to connect to any animal in that way after becoming a Commander, not only because she lacked the time to pursue it but losing an animal like a horse was always an expectation in her world. Horses died of old age, injury, and sickness, but any horse of hers would most likely die in battle, and was a large part of the reason she had been fine with never forming a bond with Solon.

It was so rare for her to feel it that she did not comprehend the feeling at first. A warmth spread through her and reminded her of the life she had as a child. In the time before she was Chosen and the world was less complicated, it took nothing more from her than it would any other child. Now, she was reminded of the contentment of simply being present, accepted by another being just as she was, and only asked in return what she could readily offer.

She savored it, and continued to brush his coat with wide smooth strokes for no other reason than they both wanted to be there in that moment. It was a simple joy denied to her for so long. With the lack of threat from Solon, who was just a horse, or the fear that the experience could be taken away, her entire body finally relaxed.

After becoming the Commander, she had not known this sense of innocent comfort. Except with…

Kostia.

She let out a long breath and closed her eyes at the thought of the woman who had brought the taste of peace and belonging into her life, if only for a short time. But she had been lost to her, and Lexa still believed it was through her own selfish folly.

She shook her head and dislodged the jumble of painful memories before they threatened to surface.

Clarke should be learning to ride Trubel right now.

The thought of a real connection to another now seemed somehow reasonable, and in this moment, and Lexa no longer felt tentative at reaching out as she had before; she could not even remember why the idea had been so disconcerting to begin with. Without hesitation she reached for Clarke's Thrum again, and brushed against the points of contact to find them stronger than they were before, as though she was somehow closer than a few minutes ago. She lingered lightly along the connection for several long moments, exploring the expanse.

This time, there was no negative reaction from Clarke. There was only a moment of surprise, but she still reluctantly disconnected, and turned her attention to back to her horse.

Lexa rested her head against Solon's broad side without thought, but he did not reject the unanticipated touch as he normally would; after she realized the liberty taken was not rejected, she was relieved by this as well.

She rested her other hand against his warm shoulder and ran the tips of her fingers down his coarse hair. He allowed this too, and she could not contain the grin that spread across her face. Lexa felt a childish urge to wrap her arms around him, but did not want to push him too far or too fast. She was also wary of drawing attention to the fact that she could suddenly get a Southern to accept affection or to have anyone see her act like an excited child because she was able to do it.

She stepped away, still almost giddy with the discovery and Solon did the same.

He pranced back and high stepped in a small circle, executing one of the maneuvers she had taught him for battle.

Lexa almost laughed aloud at his antics, and he seemed so pleased with himself right now that she was suddenly seeing him differently than she ever had before.

He was not a simple mindless beast. His actions showed her that his personality was not only an ingrained defensive attitude and a driving need to conquer or win against an opponent while he protected what he considered his.

The thought unsettled her and she did not understand why.

Lexa retrieved the grooming brush and hung it on the wall of his stall. Her breathing changed back into its normal pattern as she stepped away, and knew she needed to return to her other responsibilities.

He seemed to catch the shift in her mood and resorted to his usual off-putting manner immediately, as he backed away, tall and proud, the lines of his body suddenly stiffened with clear disdain at her presence.

His reaction to her brought her up short, and it finally occurred to her why she was still not comfortable with him being more than he seemed.

They had suited to each other so well before. Lexa lived her life in a manner that proved she was ready to die for her cause, her people, and he did the same in his own way, protecting what he considered his. Yet, he had just proved to her that he was so much more than that. He could take delight in things, even if she was not sure what those were for him.

He is just a horse.

Lexa felt some of her unfocused concern slide to the back of her mind and linger there. She should not feel uneasy by her horse's actions.

He is not a threat to me.

She felt foolish for contemplating the idea that he could be, and tried to convince herself there would be no harm in forming a bond with him just as other riders did with their horses.

Lexa decided to try again later when they were less likely to be interrupted. It was somehow reassuring that they were able to connect at all, and she knew she still wanted to explore further. Though she was not sure what she could expect from it, she was pleased by the possibility of it all the same. It had touched a piece of her disconnected past she had felt forced to put aside for a very long time.

My loneliness.

Without any conscious concern at all she found herself reaching out, and very carefully formed a solid connection to the person she knew she wanted to fill that void.

Clarke's Thrum was louder still, and while it was not at the strength it had been in the next room, Lexa believed it meant she was returning to TonDC.

Lexa felt her heartbeat sped up and the hollow of her chest thudded with longing.

A surge of startlement spiked from Clarke.

It is foolish to want.

Sadness overtook her thoughts and Lexa withdrew from the connection quickly before turning away and retreating back to her responsibilities.

She sat stiffly on her throne and found that waiting for Clarke was not any easier than it had been before. An overwhelming desire to see her caused a rush of anticipation to travel through her body, and her skin flushed with heat. Suddenly, it made Lexa feel unarmed, almost naked.

Something is wrong.

Lexa's heart raced and her pulse sped up, fluttering and jumping. Her lower gut clenched in a short spasm of sharp pain. She gasped in surprise at it.

It felt familiar.

The pain came again, longer and sharper, but quickly dropped off to a low ache. She scrambled to control her breathing, and fought to bring it down to her natural rhythm. It was as though her body was preparing again for the beginning of Clarke's strange bout of agony the day before.

After it became manageable, Lexa regained control, but her unease remained.

Another burst of pain hit shortly after and nearly floored her, triggering a response in her body that she was wholly unprepared for.

Desire.

Lexa let out a gasp when she felt her nipples harden as pleasure rode the pain down to her clit and her entire body throbbed with both.

Clarke's Thrum was coming closer and it was setting her on fire.

Lexa could feel the power of her Thrum resonate in high waves as it bounced around inside her own body before Clarke sent a sudden bolt of anxiety spiking through it.

It yanked an unexpected longing from her again, and without thought, Lexa clambered for her, as yearning stung its way through her chest and throat, then she hooked into Clarke's Thrum like it was her only lifeline. In her panic, she could only spare a lone thought that it was a rising physical response to the closing distance of Clarke's actual presence to her location.

As the anxiety passed, Lexa's body flushed with a steady heat and desire struck again sharply between her legs, her nipples aching with a muted throb.

Her eyes shot wide, jaw dropping as she looked down at her lap.

That was not me!

Suddenly, Lexa realized what was wrong, and she bolted upright in her seat. The barrier protecting her emotions must have been lowered while she worked with Solon, and she was left vulnerable and exposed.

She can feel me!

Ashamed at her weakness, she tried to clamp down on the fear filling her stomach and quickly tried to raise the barrier, to cut herself off, but it resisted her efforts.

Lexa squeezed her eyes closed as she concentrated on breathing in through her nose at the count of four.

Several long moments passed, her body tense and her hands clenching the arms of her throne, as she fought to win her control back.

She was open to someone she feared could literally feel her if she did not protect herself.

Lexa froze, both hands gripping bone as her knuckles turned white.

I am Open!

At the count of eight, just like Clarke. In a meditative state, but…I was focused outward…

The moment of realization was interrupted by the scuffle of footsteps approaching through the walkway of the tunnel by her door.

A few seconds later, she felt Clarke's Thrum caress hers hard. It-she was angry.

The force of it spurred her lower abdomen into another painful spasm, before it suddenly dropped off again.

The direct and forceful contact buffeting her senses from Clarke was nearly overwhelming, stronger by far than before Clarke had met Trubel that morning. The raw power behind both Clarke's emotions and physical sensations reverberated through her body and set her teeth on edge.

Lexa was struck by the width and breadth of Clarke's unique signature as her vibrations filled the depth and space within her own flesh.

Lexa was panting heavily as she scrambled internally to calm herself, then tried to prepare mentally in the scant seconds she had left to face Clarke's seething anger in person.

With golden hair fluttering wildly about her face, Clarke appeared in the doorframe, and hugged it for a tense moment before she stepped through. She closed the door firmly, without looking up, and stood in a forced stillness with clenched fists trembling at her sides.

She finally lifted her eyes, and Lexa sucked in a sharp breath.

Clarke's eyes were dark and full of challenge, her lips flushed and slightly parted, as she stared fiercely back. Her voice was coarse and lower than usual. "Whatever you think you're doing Lexa, you need to stop now."

Suddenly, she was glad they had a good ten feet between them.

Clarke's situation became clear to her; she was still very much aroused.

Lexa's thoughts reeled and she felt another spasm of pain uncoil in her stomach. Her hands tightened around the chair again as she fought through the pain.

Clarke's entire body flinched.

Did she feel it too? Am I still Open?

She hoped Clarke's reaction was just due to her own face giving her away at the force of the sudden pain.

"Lexa?" Clarke's tone softened as she took several hesitant steps toward her, away from the doorway.

She felt another surge of panic. Unfortunately, she knew it was her own.

No! This is weakness!

Lexa was terrified she was still Open to Clarke's perusal, emotionally and in whatever other way being Open meant.

She scrambled internally again to bring the barrier up, and clamped her eyes shut as she forced herself to visualize her signature wall of impenetrable brambles growing over a wall of thick cement.

In her mind's eye, the wall trembled as if unsteady. It seemed thinner, brittle and fragile, but it held. She quickly wove thick greenery over it.

It was done. Yet, it felt less safe or secure than it ever had before.

The pain in her stomach cut off abruptly, and she almost sighed aloud in relief. Lexa gathered her resolve, and forced her eyes open as her features smoothed.

"I am fine." She managed to croak out.

Clarke's expression slid into disbelief, then disappointment. "Right." She turned around and opened the door, pausing in the threshold. Her shoulders squared, then she swung around and fixed a pointed stare directly into her own eyes.

"Just so you know, don't do it again Lexa."

Her body finally calm, Lexa stared back, perplexed. "Do what Clarke?"

Clarke hesitated for a moment, then raised her hand slowly to curl her fingers in toward her palm, before she closed her fist tight.

Lexa felt Clarke's Thrum correspond to the physical action as it reached out and cupped hers violently. It curled around, twined and merged as it clawed into her, digging in and fastening them tightly together.

Goosebumps shuddered across Lexa's skin, and her lips parted in a gasp as her breath ran ragged, her heels left the floor with the unexpected force of the contact. Her body ached suddenly everywhere in want.

She clung to the arms of her throne to keep herself from bowing out of her seat, and she felt the weak emotional barrier protecting her tremble.

Clarke backed off abruptly, her voice hoarse with desire and challenge. "Stop doing that to me and I won't do it back."

Still shocked, thought evaded her and she found she had no words to respond. Lexa swallowed hard, but managed a sharp nod.

Clarke spun around and left, slamming the door behind her with an angry crash.

Goosebumps continued to prickle down her arms even after she was alone, and her body pulsed with leftover desire. She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.

It was so very wrong. She wanted to feel that addicting contact again, yet she sat awash with shame and fear of losing control, and it made her want to run from it at the same time.

Lexa sat and struggled to breathe like a normal human being. Her confidence in understanding anything had just taken a dive along with the earlier hits to her pride.

I should have better control than this. It made me weak in front of her!

Lexa had not even been able to respond properly to Clarke's…attack or her promise for retribution. She did not know which it was. Only a few minutes in the other woman's presence with her emotional barrier down and she had acted without thought to consequences.

The implication that she had done this unknowingly to Clarke sank in, and she felt shame at her intrusive actions. Lexa sighed heavily at her error in judgment, even if it had been unintentional she knew she would need to find some way to apologize. Later. After her pride recovered. After she could be certain she had total control.

I was Open to her!

Embarrassment pooled in her gut again. She really needed to figure out what that meant.

It only happened after I went into a meditative state.

I lost control of my emotions.

It was a souring thought but she followed through with it to the next point of reference.

The pain in my abdomen stopped as soon as I brought the emotional barrier up all the way.

I was Open because my emotional barrier was down?

It was all connected, at least Lexa was sure of that now.

Why would I suddenly have the pain Clarke went through?

Ryder entered the room and closed the door behind him, interrupting her internal debate as she jerked upright on her throne reflexively and tried to pull herself together. She had not even heard him approach the door and she was uncertain just how much time had passed while her thoughts and feelings twisted through her mind.

At least there is no more pain in my stomach.

Lexa knew she needed to set this aside so she could focus on the warrior in front of her. She could not afford any more distractions…any more weaknesses.

She shifted into her usual position of feigned casualness upon her throne, suppressing her unease as she slipped the mask of cool indifference back on her face; his presence represented problems that were solvable, and she welcomed the sense of normalcy. Finally settled, she directed all of her attention to the man in front of her.

"Heda." He stood sharply at attention, hands clasped behind his back and a glimmer of accomplishment lingering in his eyes.

She immediately noticed grass and dirt clinging to the hair of his beard as well as streaked down the front of his shirt. It looked as though an attempt had been made to brush off his front, but he had missed his face altogether.

This new mystery was a welcome distraction and she willingly latched onto to it. "Report."

"I have shown Clarke of the Sky People basic care for Trubel and she has ridden this morning." The gleam in his eyes faltered for a moment in a rare expression of uncertainty, but then he resumed. "She has also had one training session in hand-to-hand combat with me."

With the second statement, the gleam in his eyes flashed again for a moment, but disappeared quickly and seemed to suggest ambiguity in results. She needed to know why. "Is Clarke ready to ride for Camp Jaha or not?"

Ryder eyes broke contact with hers briefly, glancing down at the floor, but then he angled his chin up and responded in his usual thoughtful deep rumble. "Trubel is ready to carry Clarke to Camp Jaha."

Lexa leaned back further in her seat and considered his careful phrasing, implying that Trubel somehow had superceded Clarke in their training. She knew she must set aside personal issues she had with Clarke and consider the entire situation objectively.

Who was in charge within that relationship?

She flashed upon several situations where a horse being in charge could create dangerous predicaments, something truly unacceptable for any rider. Regardless of how smart the animal was, she still did not like the idea of the beast leading. "Explain."

Ryder's hands dropped to his sides and lightly curled into fists with a show of unease. "Trubel responds to Clarke's directions…" He breathed out unsteadily, then began again. "Clarke talks to her."

His words remained ambiguous and Lexa still did not have a clear understanding of what caused Ryder's obvious discomfort. She also felt the sudden need to defend Clarke. "Many riders talk to their horses."

"Trubel listens."

The pointed emphasis on "listens" was not lost on Lexa, but she knew horses responded to directions of spoken commands all the time, though she supposed the Southern Bred communication style made it complicated. Usually, verbal commands did very little good for the rider as the horse usually fought all and any direct overtures of companionship, unlike Northern Bred horses who seemed to appreciate direction and bonding that way.

With her earlier visit to see Solon in mind, she had to consider that the dynamic between a Southern bred and a Commander might be distinctly different from the norm and could defy expectations. Even with their brief contact this morning, Lexa was sure she had already achieved far greater results with him than any other Southern rider she knew of, especially now that she took a chance and…Opened herself to up to the connection between them. But, she certainly would not be sharing that information with Ryder.

With a raised eyebrow, she waited for him to give her more.

His fingers brushed against the fabric of his leggings unconsciously. "She wants something to happen and Trubel makes sure that it does." He shifted, feet spreading a few inches more to a widened stance, then his fingers stilled at his sides.

Curiosity peaked, her scrutiny did not leave him. She wanted to know exactly what had happened.

He huffed out an uneasy breath at her unwavering stare but submitted to the silent request. "She corrected Clarke's mistakes during training." He swallowed. "Trubel…"

Ryder looked a little lost. Lexa could see the effort it was taking for him explain, but she would not be deterred and her direct eye contact and stillness challenged him to continue.

His voice had never sounded so odd. "Trubel handed Clarke her own reins when she forgot to take them." He stopped and stood taller, now challenging her to disbelieve the uncomfortable otherness his tone implied.

It was strange to see a grown warrior act defensively because they simply could not comprehend something. Ryder appeared to actually be afraid.

Of Trubel or of Clarke?

Lexa dismissed the discomfort of his tone to focus on his words instead, and her eyes widened as she made sense of his statement. A rush of excitement coursed through her. She was almost convinced Trubel really was smart, and possibly Solon was as well. She could not yet prove it, but it lent credence to the wild tale Anya had told her about Trubel's sire.

If Ryder was to be believed, and she had no reason to doubt him, Trubel was possibly the smartest horse she had ever personally known about. Only time would tell if Solon equalled his dame, but she was convinced Ryder was entirely lost as to why Trubel could do what she did.

Clarke was not what Ryder thought she was either, and neither was Lexa. The gifts of a Commander Spirit had made everything different. After taking into account Clarke with Trubel earlier that morning and her own connection to Solon less than an hour ago, she thought she must reevaluate what was possible between a horse and rider; the key to understanding the situation must be the Commander being partnered with a Southern…and being Open.

She noticed Ryder shifting his weight uncomfortably, obviously desiring to avoid the subject, and yet still receive validation for what he thought he saw.

While Lexa agreed internally with him, he would not benefit from knowing. "I understand. Clarke is…unique." She could think of no other word to explain the other woman to him that would not lead to questions she would not answer. Just saying her name sent tingles down her spine, and she shifted forward in her seat to mask a shiver.

It seemed he had nothing more to say, and she decided they both needed redirection before he thought to ask for further clarification. "Tell me about the lesson in hand-to-hand combat."

He relaxed at the implied acceptance in her words, and the glimmer of pride reemerged his eyes. "She hesitated at first, as though she did not understand the idea of enemies." His lips curved up in amusement before it slid away again. "I believed she had no understanding of fighting at all, but she soon gained skill after she followed your instructions to visualize what she needed to do." He frowned in puzzlement, and raised an eyebrow in query. "Like a child just learning to listen."

As Lexa replied, her tone abruptly thick with disgust. "She was not raised as we are, they keep their children vulnerable."

He seemed to agree with her harsh words as he nodded decisively. "Later, I realized she was afraid to hurt me. She did not want to see me as an enemy, but I was able to push her beyond the weakness."

He took a step closer to Lexa and reached up to untie the lacings at his shirt. He did not stop until the shirt was removed altogether and he stood before her glowing with stoic pride, eager to share the results of a pupil who showed great potential.

Deep bruising covered his upper stomach. He raised his arm carefully, clearly paining him to do so, and a hint of a grimace crossed his face as he showed her an equally darkening area in his armpit. He lowered his arm slowly and showed her finger-shaped bruises along both his arms, and pointed to his right arm in particular. "This was done with only two attacks."

Lexa left her throne and strode toward him for a closer examination. As she looked at the wounds she conveyed her appreciation of his training skills, but also examined how bad the damage actually was. She eyed his bruised torso carefully, then looked up to take in the rest of him, noticing the dirt and grass still lodged in his beard.

Clarke had him face down on the ground at some point.

Ryder had not mentioned this part of his tale, and Lexa knew it could mean several things, but the most likely was that his pride was involved and he did not wish to state the truth. It was possible that Clarke had total control over the situation at some point. It filled Lexa with a sense of unease.

What was resolved while she had him on the ground?

"I think she hesitated in the beginning because she is very strong, and her speed increased greatly after she practiced visualization for the last attacks." A grim calculated smile appeared on his face. "You are right. She is untrained, but resourceful. She thinks of ways to defend herself that I have not seen before."

He put his shirt back on and his obvious pride in Clarke's accomplishments, so quickly gained, sparked a concern in her mind for the possible loss of his loyalty. It could happen; Clarke simply had a way about her that drew people to do her bidding.

Just minutes ago she had so easily caved under her influence and Lexa knew that she herself should now be counted among the throng of people who readily gave in to Clarke. She felt threatened by it even in retrospect, not wanting to be at anyone's mercy that way.

Lexa wondered if she would lose Ryder to Clarke in the end.

Was he susceptible the way the other Sky People were to her brand of influence?

Yet, Lexa knew it was not just Sky people or herself as a Commander that had responded to the other woman's charisma. If Clarke was to be believed, Anya had also fallen under her sway before she had died. Clarke's description of Anya's uncharacteristic behaviors had proven that to her.

She had hoped Ryder was the right warrior for this assignment because he had always shown her loyalty without the need to question her reasoning, and now Lexa needed to test how secure that loyalty still was. "Clarke is our way into the Mountain, Ryder, but someday she will be much more than that." She looked into his eyes to track if he understood her unspoken meaning.

He stilled at her words and then gave a slow nod of understanding.

"Keep her strength and skills to yourself. It is not time to reveal everything she can do yet."

Again, he paused before he nodded, as the suggestion of a plan between them was entrusted to him. He stood taller at her words. While he was not in her position of balancing long-term strategy, he had witnessed her gift for it before, and seemed to trust her to know what needed to be done.

It seemed that he was still her warrior, and Lexa was torn between the discontent at her own worry of a loss to Clarke, and the hope that he could also see Clarke as a worthy leader.

In that moment, Lexa was close to admitting to herself that this was about something else entirely. After all, she was not afforded an easy option when it came to Clarke. That woman found ways to cause havoc, and frustrating as it was, Lexa did not think Clarke did it on purpose. Despite what had transpired between them only a little while ago, Clarke had actually warned her first before taking action.

If she were completely honest with herself, Lexa felt she was now fighting a battle she was ill prepared for. It was weakness to crave an emotional connection and…more between herself and Clarke. However, she did not have time be completely honest with herself right now. There were plenty of reasons to ignore her own desire, and avoid thinking about Clarke in that way.

The most obvious reason was pain. She wanted no more of the physical pain they seemed to set off in each other, or worse. To have Clarke only to fail her later in a similar manner she had with Kostia.

Lexa turned away from these thoughts and gathered the maps from her War Table before heading for the door. "You have time to eat. Make sure Clarke has food as well before the meeting." She was not about to seek the other woman out yet on her own, but she would admit to this at least, she never seemed prepared enough to handle a confrontation with Clarke unscathed. She had proof of that.

She paused for a moment in the doorframe, eyeing the large warrior carefully as he was about to follow her out of it. Ryder was still under her care as well as under her authority. Lexa could lose him someday to Clarke, but that had not happened yet.

She was not sure how many had already seen the state of him, but it would be uncomfortable to explain to others why, after training with Clarke only once in hand-to-hand combat, he had so clearly met the ground face first. She had assembled the truth readily and suspected other warriors would easily piece together the story as well.

Lexa should not care, but found that she did, and decided it was a small thing to preserve his dignity, even if it was not her personal responsibility. Not looking back at him, she spoke. "You have grass in your beard."

Then, she was out the door.

Chapter Summary:

Clarke: learns the mentality of winning and negotiating, Grounder style.
Clarke: Gets several painfully pleasurable surprises.
Clarke: Gets answers to questions she did not think to ask.
Clarke: 'Returns' Lexa's feelings.

Ryder: Babysitting Clarke is weird, but not pointless.

Lexa: Might need her horse just as much as Clarke.
Lexa: Unintentionally has feelings.
Lexa: Halts a physiological process.
Lexa: Pride goeth before the fall.

Thrum: Distance and Range of emotion and/or physiological communication.
"Open": Explored

Concepts: Expanding Intuitive Aptitude for - Situational Awareness, Fight Science/Principles, Pressure Point usage.