Longer chapter you guys! I got a little carried away, I hope you like it ! Let me know what you think : ) (promise I'll edit later). Oh, and when I reach the modest number of 25 reviews (I don't ask for much, eh?) I will write a one-shot based on any prompt you guys suggest :D
CHAPTER 12 – Osir en em
They approach slowly, one by one. They are not many, but their numbers will have to suffice. They emerge from the woods as if pulled by some greater force, something bigger than themselves, stronger than their own individual will. They loom out of the forest, blending in with the dim light of dusk. The exhausted, worn out 47 gather around Clarke. Quietly, for once. Their faces and clothes are covered with dust, smeared with dirt. It has been a long tread. Clarke's eyes smile at the familiar faces, pausing for a brief moment on each one. The time has come for her to accept her fate. The time has come for her to lead. And to do so she must be hard, yet ductile. She must be energy and heat. And she must be logic and ice. And she is ready now.
"We're here, princess" Bellamy says. He stands tall among the others, at the front, ever close to her.
But the 47 are not alone. More people approach from the forest shadows. Older people are coming, too. Ark people. Clarke waits for everyone before beginning to speak. But she is not given the chance.
"What's the meaning of this, Clarke?" A familiar, reproachful voice looms over the quiet murmur that has spread.
"Mom" Clarke addresses the speaker, calm and collected. "I'm glad you came."
Abby strides the few remaining meters separating her from her daughter, until she is inches away from her. She grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her.
"What's going on? You leave without saying a word… I need to wait until Bellamy explains to me that you've left, God knows where… mumbling a sorry excuse of you needing time for yourself, when all you need is precisely the opposite, time with the people you love! Don't look at me that way, because I'm not stopping until I've had my say…"
Clarke remains impassive, looking coldly at her mother, and then softly removes Abby's hands off her shoulders.
"Are you done?" Is all she asks. Lexa watches from the distance, but knowing she is indeed there gives Clarke strength.
"Of course I'm not done!" Abby shouts, exasperated. "And what's this now? You call asking us to help this filth? To aid this people who have betrayed us, who nearly cost the lives of our people back in MountWeather? This Grounder girl who didn't think twice before offering us to the Mountain men? Who do you think you are to ask for such thing?"
"I am your leader" Clarke states flatly, simply, holding back the surge of black, thick bile that threatens to burst out of her mouth when hearing her mother's insults.
"Well, not my leader for sure… you are a child, Clarke, don't you forget that, and I am your mother!" Abby spits, all flared up.
"Are you sure about that, mom?" Clarke replies, speaking slowly. "For I don't recall asking you to come specifically, and yet, here you are"
The Sky people fall silent.
"What do you say?" Clarke asks, addressing all of them, speaking in a loud, determined voice. "You seem to have put me in this place since before I had even considered it" She says. People around her nod, acknowledging what they had, perhaps subconsciously, done.
"Will you have me lead you now?" She asks proudly. "Will you follow me, knowing that what I want, what I have always wanted, is what is best for us? Knowing that my major concern is, and will always be, our survival here? Our getting to have an actual life here?"
The Sky people cheer. For the first time, Clarke feels complete confidence in her power. In her ability to lead her people with justice and honor.
"We got your back, princess" Bellamy says, smiling broadly.
"Well, you got us out of the Mountain, didn't you?" Monty shrugs, lips curving into a small but reassuring smile.
"You've always been our leader, Clarke, whether we were ready to admit it or not" Says Jasper, probably remembering how he did not give her credit back in MountWeather, and lived to regret it. Clarke cannot help but feel her chest swell with pride. These are her people, choosing her to guide them.
"I guess you've been leading them since the moment you got here, probably before you even realized you were doing it, kid" Says Kane. Clarke can feel her eyes flicker. Is Kane actually saying this? But she rapidly, imperceptively falls back into her stern, confident position. Shoulders square, back straight.
"And, I must admit, you seem to have been doing a better job than we have" Kane goes on. "You know the ground better than we do, you certainly seem to understand the Grounders better," He glances at Lexa, then goes on. "…and you seem to understand the rules of the ground, of Earth, better than we do…So it would only be fair to give you chance, eh?" She smirks, perhaps laughing inside at the idea of Clarke, a mere girl of 17, being a better leader than the Council itself.
"You too, Kane?" Abby asks, outraged. "This is unbelievable, I-"
Bellamy steps in, interrupting her.
"I think the majority has already decided who they want our leader to be, Dr. Griffin" He states, respectfully yet coldly.
"The boy has a point, Abby" Kane follows. Evidently realizing she has been defeated, Abby walks away from the bewildered crowd, sparing Clarke one disappointed glare before leaving.
"I'll talk to her" Kane murmurs to her, before walking away, too.
Once the agent of tension is gone, the Sky people turn to Clarke, expectant. She sighs soundlessly, then inhales to get the strength she will need to go on speaking.
"What now, Clarke?" Asks Monty, arms folded across his chest. "Why are we here?"
"The Ice Nation has broken their allegiance with the rest of the Coalition" Lexa jumps in, her hand leaning on Clarke's shoulder for a second. "They have attacked the Polis, the very base of our entire culture; and they won't stop there. In the Ground, that means war" She offers as evidence of the betrayal. Clarke glances at Lexa, who looks back at her reassuringly.
"That means that, unless Coalition to defeats them, the Ice Nation is going to take over. Over everything" Clarke says. "They can take over our own camps, take over the ground we are just barely getting acquainted with."
She stands straight. The Sky people are still. She has their attention.
"The Grounders that have once betrayed us need our help now, that is true" She says, acknowledging what her mother had said before. "But what is also a fact is that, unless we help them, the Ice Nation will crush us along the way" She explains.
"But how can we trust them now? We can't ignore the fact that they've done what they did!" Bellamy speaks up, likely expressing what is in everybody's mind.
"We were only allies before in the face of the threat of MountWeather" Now, it is Lexa who addresses the Sky people. "It is undeniable that we did not honor that. We could not afford to" Lexa explains succinctly. And unsatisfactorily, for her knowledge of the Sky people is limited, and she knows not how to quench their thirst for explanations. But Clarke does.
"And it is the same I would have done, given the circumstances" Clarke lies. "If I had been forced to choose between the Grounders and our people, I would have chosen our people" She says.
"But we were going to win!" Shouts Jasper, who clearly still mourns for Maya.
"We don't know that Jasper" Clarke says, her limbs stiffening with the tension that can almost be seen in the air. "And we never will, so there's no point in dwelling on that now" She adds, perhaps too harshly. But she is also aware of the harshness of the place they live on, now.
"The point now is that, unless we do something to help stop them, the Ice Nation will either kill us off, or chase us out of these lands" She says. "And we have a better chance of fending them off if we fight together with the Grounders"
"Well, I guess that makes sense…" Says Bellamy, hesitant.
"I do not expect to gain your trust" Lexa says. "I only expect you to trust your leader" She adds.
Clarke can see the Grounders approaching when hearing their Commander's far-reaching voice.
"But if it will be of help, I offer you, Clarke of the Sky people, a position in the Coalition" She announces. The Grounders listen. The Sky people listen, too.
"So if you will have it, from now on, the Sky people are part of us" She says, her voice meandering into the ears of cloudling and earthling alike. "You can partake of our councils and gatherings, and your people shall be treated as Skaikru, on the same level as Trigedakru or Floudonkru. If anyone from my kru has something to say, speak now!" She states, challenging.
Clarke can see in the Grounders' eyes that not all of them agree with their leader, but they defy not.
"Any objections?" Clarke asks her people.
Silence.
"If that is the case, then by dawn, two days from now, it is war" Clarke says, feeling her voice carry well into the woods. "Two days from now, the Ice Nation will learn fear" She says. "They will learn what the Sky people are made of"
Her people cheer.
"And tonight, let there be fire and drums and dance, let us honor this new coalition!" The Commander of Grounders announces.
_
Everyone, Skaikru and Trigedakru alike, runs towards the shore. Speedily and with trained expertise, the Grounders gather wood and make an enormous bonfire by the sea. Their earth spirits awoken, the Sky people help light the fire. The Sky people cheer, and dance, and join in the communion with nature. Lexa secretly rejoices. The feast might bring their people closer.
The realization of the risk she is taking weighs heavily on Lexa. She can easily avert her thoughts from the dim, cold probability of her own death, but somehow she cannot shut her mind to the possibility of her dying. She cannot face that possibility again. The mere glimmer of likelihood sends shivers down her spine and compresses her lungs. She strives to inhale, but the tight knot in her throat prevents the air to reach her lungs.
A sudden gasp brings in the needed oxygen as she feels Clarke's hand grabbing hers and leading her towards the bonfire.
"Come" Is all she says, walking determinedly towards the shore.
Drums reverberate in her ears, stunning her, clouding her senses, mixing in with the thrill of imminent battle. The faint scent of burning wood flares in her nostrils. The drums ring to the beat of their hearts, and their hearts beat as one as they dance and they revel. All of them.
The drums beat. And the ringing in her ears is the same that deafens her ears. The fire burns. And the flames that play with the shadow of night on the sand is the same that plays in her sky-blue eyes. Those stormy, powerful blue eyes, which are now tainted red from the flame's light. And tainted red from the fire within. Lexa cannot avert her eyes from such blazing fire. The drums beat in her ears. They beat as they watch the cloudling dance and move to that earthborn pulse. Before her mind is spared any time to gauge the circumstances, to measure or calculate her next move, Lexa finds herself compelled to join her in her dance back to her roots. As they move, oblivious to the people around them, they see the same fire in each other's eyes. The same earthly impulse. The same realization that they might not live another day and the same determination to let those flames consume them before death can get a grip on their souls.
The fire burns within them. And as they dance, they feel such igneous heat erupt in their souls. They feel their melding souls, welding, alloying until they are one. And in the process, Lexa feels herself getting caught in the fiery storm within Clarke's eyes. Feels Clarke determined, urgent body pressing against hers. Feels her confident hand on the small of her neck, pulling her into a molten kiss. For the first time in her life, in the lives of her soul, Lexa feels herself being engulfed so by the cataclysmal turmoil and the tempestuous heat of another human being's ardent passion. A passion radiating from no other than the girl who fell from the sky. She feels such blazing heat in the way Clarke kisses her, her mouth devouring Lexa's, her tongue relishing in such fiery contact. She feels it in the powerful grip Clarke has on her waist, and in the commanding way in which she pushes her against the base of the tall eroded cliffs that climb up above them. Barely aware of the agitation in her breathing, Lexa kisses Clarke back, hunger and lust taking over her. But Clarke's blazing storm has been unleashed and, drowned by the drumming noise in their ears, Lexa is oblivious to her own sounds, to the deep, heavy, coarse sounds that escape her throat as Clarke's ravenous greed kiss and bite her neck.
Lexa is unaware of the moment when it happens, but she finds herself being dragged to the dry sand. Finds groping, eager hands exploring her body, aching for contact. Finds dissatisfied, hungry lips licking and sucking, find a voracious mouth devouring her. Feasting on her own hungry lips and her tingling skin and her limitless soul. Lexa sees the sky girl's fiery eyes, combusting with passion and love. Hears the sky girl's agitated breathing as her pulsing fingers find their way inside of her. Lexa sees the storm in her eyes as she touches her.
"Take me…" She finds herself saying as deep moans take over her throat and escape her mouth. She feels Clarke's lips curve into a smile against her chest. And for the first time in many lives, Lexa allows herself to be taken. Lets someone make her hers, claim her body and her soul. For the first time in many lives, Lexa allows herself to give in and melt and weld and amalgamate with someone else. With the girl who fell from the sky.