Clarke

Each day with the queen was the same as the last. Clarke was mostly left alone in her cell- bored, hungry, and thirsty- until sunset, at which point she would be escorted up to the Elody's private quarters to share her evening meal. For each question she answered, Clarke was allowed a spoonful of food or a sip of water. For each question she refused to answer, she was punished.

Progress was slow, and Clarke was starving, thin and gaunt, skin ashen and eyes ringed with dark circles. Elody, however, seemed not to notice her discomfort at all, and appeared to have endless patience. The queen didn't seem to care whether it took one day or one year for Clarke to give her all the information that she wanted. The questions were relentless, but it was the only human contact that Clarke had. Still, she couldn't figure the woman out, as she seemed to vacillate between friendliness and coldness at a moment's notice.

The punishments involved a lot of discomfort. Clarke had figured out that the Ice Nation's biggest source of pride was its plethora of herbs. Despite the fact that snow covered the ground for much of the year, Elody told her of what sounded like a kind of greenhouse, kept by almost every family in the land, where they grew all kinds of plants- some were used for food, some were medicinal, and others were grown for darker purposes. There seemed to be many people in the queen's service who seemed to have extensive knowledge of herbal lore, as well as how to distill and brew tinctures and other solutions. All the meals Clarke was given were heavily spiced, and even the drinks she was offered were mulled, sweetened, and fortified with seasonings.

But Clarke became even more familiar the mixtures they used to cause pain. Elody kept a man at the dinner table with them whose sole purpose seemed to be to enforce Clarke's punishments whenever she said something that didn't please the queen.

Her first encounter with this man, whose name was Alek, was on the very first night that Elody had her escorted in for dinner. The meal laid out in front of her was mouthwatering, and at first when Clarke was invited to sit she was relieved, thinking that the queen wanted to discuss peace, or maybe even her release.

The questions had started right away, and there seemed to be no logic to them. Sometimes it was clear that Elody wanted information about Lexa, about the alliance, or about the Sky People. Other times she seemed strangely curious about the details of Clarke's life, her parents and upbringing, her friends. She didn't want to say anything that the queen could use against her or anyone else, but with the questions being so random it was difficult to stay defensive.

"So your leaders killed your father because he wanted to tell his people the truth about a danger that would affect them directly," she asked early on, the first question that caught Clarke complete off-guard. "Did you find that to be a fair punishment?"

"Did I find it fair?" Clarke couldn't help but sputter.

Elody had nodded her head to Alek, who in turn had reached out and pushed Clarke's plate of food away. In its place he had unrolled a long strip of leather, which was lined with many loops of sinew. About two thirds of the loops were filled with small, sharp darts, each one wrapped in coloured thread and capped with a feather of the same colour. Some were bright yellow, others were deep purple, and there were also black, red, blue, and green darts. Each dart was only about two centimeters long; the pointed end was fashioned with a thin sliver of what looked like bone, sharpened into a tiny needle. The remaining third of the loops held small glass vials filled with various liquids, some as dark as amber, others nearly as clear as water.

She had looked at the equipment with great apprehension, but neither Alek nor Elody had explained their presence.

"Did you find it a fair punishment?" the queen had asked again.

Carefully Clarke had met her eyes and said, "No. I thought it was terribly unfair."

"And then they executed him," Elody had said. "By… what is it you call it?"

"Floating," Clarke had answered softly. She could still see her father's face, twisted and frozen in pain as the air was sucked from his lungs half a second before he was sucked from the airlock.

"Yes, floating." The queen nodded, leaning forward as though greatly intrigued. "Now explain that process to me."

"Please," Clarke had said, closing her eyes momentarily. "I don't want to relive it."

Elody leaned back in her chair, her black eyes seeming even darker than usual. Again she nodded to Alek. He reached forward and carefully plucked one of the darts out of its loop; Clarke noted that he'd chosen a yellow one. He carefully uncapped one of the vials of semi-clear liquid, and he dipped the sharp end of the dart into the tincture, letting it sit there for a few seconds before extracting it once again. The fluid glistened over the entire length of the bone needle.

Alek had seized her wrist in his hand and flattened her palm against the table. When he'd lined the sharp end up with the tender flesh between Clarke's first and second finger, she'd tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was like a vice. With surgical precision, he'd slid the tiny needle just under her skin, until the entire length of bone was buried between Clarke's knuckles. It was extremely uncomfortable, but then after a few seconds, she'd felt a searing pain. It started as tingling, but then a slow burning started to grow along the span of the dart.

Clarke had gasped, again trying to pull her hand away, but Alek had held onto her tightly. Both he and Elody were silent as Clarke cried out and struggled, neither seeming affected by her outburst. After what seemed like a very precise length of time, Alek removed the dart from her hand, cleaned it carefully, and slid it back into its loop. He rolled the case up again and returned the plate of food to Clarke.

"Now," Elody had said calmly, taking a bite of her dinner, chewing thoughtfully, and swallowing. "Shall we talk about your father's execution?"

This went on for days.

Clarke soon discovered that yellow was for pain, but she had no idea what the other colours designated. The liquids Alek used created different sensations, all uncomfortable- some stung, some burned, while others throbbed or carried a terrible itch. Still others combined these sensations in disturbing ways.

There was never a night when Clarke didn't have at least some experience with the darts. They were always used when she flat-out refused to answer a question, but they were also introduced when she avoided giving a full answer, when Elody didn't like her response, or when Clarke asked a question of her own that the queen found offensive, disrespectful, or unnecessary.

It was maddening, and each day that she was taken up for dinner she felt a horrible sense of dread. Even though she was starving, she often lost her appetite on her way to the queen's chamber, and thus she didn't always eat a full meal. Through this very simple method of torture, the queen caused both physical and psychological torment with very little overt consequences to Clarke's body. Only a close examination of her hands would reveal the hundreds of pinpricks that dotted between all her fingers.

Once, Elody mentioned Costia in passing, saying, "The Commander's woman was brave for a long time, too. But everyone breaks, Clarke. You should not be ashamed when it happens to you."

"So is that when you killed her?" Clarke asked bitterly, knowing the question would earn her another dart. Sure enough, Alek inserted one between her third and fourth fingers, and as the intense sensation of fire spread through her hand she pulled in shaky breaths and managed to ask, "You killed her because Lexa loved her, didn't you? You couldn't kill Lexa so you killed Costia instead."

"No," Elody answered calmly. "I killed her because I was finished with her."

Clarke met the woman's eyes and she knew her own were filled with hatred. "So what will happen when you're finished with me?"

For a long moment the queen gazed at her, eyes slightly narrowed, saying nothing. But instead of ordering another dart for that defiance, she nodded to Alek and the one in Clarke's hand was withdrawn. Her food was returned to her and finally Elody said, quietly, "You are more interesting than she was."

Clarke could only shake her head. Such was the mystery of the Ice Nation queen.