Previously in chapter 34
Clarke hears from Lexa that they are required to hand Finn over for the truce to start. Marie is with Anya, when the woman finally wakes up and demands to speak with the commander.
Chapter 35
Marie had hurried back into the tent and the noises she made in her haste, startled Anya awake again who had begun to fall back asleep.
The woman's wide brown eyes searched the tent for a few moments, before she realized that Marie alone had woken her. "Where is the commander?" Anya asked in a tired voice, reflecting the strain on her body.
"She's coming" Marie reassured the woman quickly and kneeled back down next to the bed. Her grey eyes were searching Anya's face intently, she could still not truly believe that she was actually looking at the woman and finally able to speak with her again as well.
They did not have to wait long for Lexa to arrive. Gustus stayed outside of the tent again to stand post at the entrance.
Marie could see relieve flickering through Lexa's green eyes, when the commander saw Anya awake with her own eyes.
"I am glad to see you awake again, Anya" the commander said and her eyes were swimming in emotion. Lexa knew that their relationship had been strained in the last years. After Costia's head had been delivered to her bed, she had finally heeded Titus' advice and sent those away that still held personal ties to her. Anya had not been understanding of her decision to ban her from her personal council and sent her to a small village near TonDC and the woman had seen the order as a punishment, Lexa was sure of that. The commander had not seen her former mentor for some time before the Sky children fell from the sky and reports of them had called her to TonDC. Lexa had expected their interactions to be strained with undissolved tension, as she would not apologize to Anya for her previous decision. It was actually Marie, who had made them reconnect effortlessly and Lexa had already decided to revise her former decision and call Anya back into her inner circle in Polis, if the woman regained her health. Being confronted with the very real possibility of having lost her previous mentor, had been enough to prove to her that she in fact did wish for the woman to return to her side.
Anya looked genuinely surprised at the commander's admission, but nodded mutely in acknowledgement her eyes softening for a second. She had known the younger woman for long enough to identify just how concerned her previous second really had been for her. Absentmindedly, she realized just now, that she was not in her own tent, but in fact residing in the commander's tent.
"What happened to you?" Lexa asked in an even tone and Marie could see the woman's demeanour changing as if she hardened herself.
Anya inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again, Marie found that they were gleaming hard like polished stones in the candlelight in the tent. The woman seemed distant somehow, as she recalled everything and she was surprised and confused at the monotone quality of Anya's voice.
Anya told the commander how Tristan had led them into battle at the crash site of the Skykru children. Lexa could hear the bitter tone in Anya's voice, as she mentioned that she had lost command to the other general. The commander hoped that her former mentor would understand that it had not been a personal decision. Anya continued, how Reapers had suddenly appeared and when they had dealt with them and gotten closer to the metal contraption, the children had fallen to the ground in, they started to close the door.
"I had been closest to the door as it started to close" Anya recalled her eyes far away and voice slightly wooden "So I jumped onto it and climbed into their metal thing."
The woman related, how she had been overpowered by the Skykru children after they had made flames erupt outside. Marie could see a shudder coursing through Anya's body as she recalled how the warriors outside had screamed burning alive. Lexa had clenched her teeth in silent anger, knowing that there would be no retribution for the death of the 300 warriors that had burnt. Their warriors had fallen in battle, it might not have been a fair battle, but it had been a battle nonetheless.
Anya told them that the Sky children had taken her headband, coat and swords from her before leading her outside, bound by some weird straps. The woman was not sure what had happened then exactly. She knew for certain that Mountain Men had appeared, but they had thrown strange metal things at them, that had emitted red smoke and Anya knew that she had lost consciousness only moments later.
"When I woke…" Anya narrated her features becoming stone hard as well and her tone void of any emotion "…I was chained by the Mountain Men and they dragged me through the Reaper tunnels. I tried to fight against their hold, but it was in vain. I was hauled into a strange room. There were grids as a floor and I wasn't alone there." The shudder which ran through her frame was visible and Marie would have liked to reach out to her, but Lexa shook her head subtly, urging her to remain back for now.
The woman told the commander, that she had seen people from most of all the clans within the Mountain. Mountain Men in their strange suits had ripped the clothing from her body and literally scrubbed her clean from head to toe.
Marie glanced at the commander in silent horror, when Anya described the process of how they were cleaned by the Mountain Men and saw a blazing fury in the green eyes, while Anya's eyes remained carefully blank. The girl herself was feeling cold all over and bile was rising in her throat at the images Anya's words conjured in her mind. How could anyone treat another human being like that?
The procedure sounded awfully painful and extremely humiliating. It sounded as if the grounders were no better than animals for the Mountain Men. Her blood turned to ice in her veins, when Anya continued, confirming her image of the grounders being nothing more than cattle to them.
Lexa listened on in silent horror as Anya described the room, where she had been caged together with almost 300 others of their people. She could only begin to imagine how it must have felt like to be caged in such a room, waiting for certain death, utterly powerless to fight your survival.
Anya described how the Mountain Men would come into the chamber, shock one of the caged grounders with a weird stick and inject them with something which made them sleep for a few hours. The sleeping grounder would be hung upside down and their blood flowed in pipes in the wall.
"How often have they done this to you?" Lexa interjected the narration for the first time, trying to keep her internal horror from her tone. She could not stop her mind from wondering just how many of her people had been killed in such a fashion.
Anya shrugged indecisively "Three or four times, I think. It would not have been much longer before they would have discarded me" her voice did not sound particular frightened and it appeared as if she had had accepted her impending death.
Marie inhaled sharply at the woman's words, feeling her heart squeeze painfully at the thought of losing Anya forever. If the woman realized her strong reaction, she did not show outwardly.
"The Mountain Men would take the strongest ones at first" Anya continued her eyes distant again "The room was heavy with the suffering of our people. Many were almost dying and they threw their bodies away like waste."
Marie could see Anya's brown eyes blaze for a second before they muted again visibly. Internally, she wondered what the Mountain Men had actually done with all the corpses. She doubted that they had burnt them, so they had not only taken the people but kept their souls trapped as well.
The woman continued her narration with how the blonde Sky girl had found her in the room an undefined time later and freed her from the cage and how they had fled together. She told them about the tracker in her arm and how she had simply bitten it out, knowing that she would fight until her last breath before she let herself be captured again by the Mountain Men, how she had fought with Clarke and how she finally had been shot, when she wanted to depart from Clarke in front of Skykru's camp.
"I don't know for certain how I actually got here" Anya ended with a heavy exhale, the events of the past days fully registering in her mind. During her trek to TonDC, she had doubted constantly that she would ever reach the village, pure stubbornness and determination had kept her going somehow, exceeding her physical limits.
Lexa looked down at her former mentor, trying to process everything the woman had just told them and she was truly just glad to see the woman alive. She knew that she should not care on a personal level for the general and heard Titus' voice in her head repeating sharply how love was weakness. But in this moment. she could not be happier to see the woman conscious again and to hear her voice.
A short glance to the girl still kneeling next to Anya and the paleness and troubled expression on her features, told the commander just how deeply Anya's tale had shaken the child. Marie looked shell-shocked and it worried her slightly that the girl had not truly reacted yet, simply staring at Anya with grey eyes wide with horror.
"Have Skykru approached you?" Anya asked the commander with guarded eyes. She was unsure of her standing with the commander right now. She had lost command over her unit before the actual attack, but she had nevertheless been with Tristan when they had led 300 warriors to their deaths. She should not have survived a lost battle in such a fashion, the fact that she had been abducted and forced into the Mountain, did not compensate her failure in her opinion.
"They have" Lexa answered simply and told the woman quickly how she had posed as a servant girl. A fleeting ghost of a smile flittered over Anya's face at that. When she told Anya of the meeting with Clarke and how they had cured Lincoln from the Reaper drug, surprise and disbelief was evident on her face.
"So, there will be an alliance?" Anya asked with a faint flicker of hope in her brown eyes.
Lexa huffed under her breath, before she also filled the older woman in on the assassin who had been in one of the villages close by and the eighteen people that had been slaughtered at his hand.
Anya's lips thinned "I don't know if we can trust them. They were blindly shooting into the forest at everything that moved." The woman thought that Clarke had obviously been lucky as Lexa had not mentioned that the blonde had also been shot. She distantly remembered the Sky girl shouting for her, while she staggered into the tree line and the girl was hauled away by Skykru. She had been lucky that their guard had not followed her into the trees, she would certainly not have been able to flee from them in her weakened state.
Lexa nodded as she had wondered the same already. Looking down at Marie, she knew that there might be some people trustworthy among Skykru, but obviously most were not to be trusted. Markus and Clarke seemed to be two members of Skykru who were genuinely interested in peace between their people as well.
"Do you think we need them to get into the Mountain?" Lexa asked after a moment of silent contemplation. Anya was the only one to ever escape the Mountain alive, so she would be best equipped to judge that.
Anya looked honestly surprised by the question and Lexa surmised with a flash of regret, that the woman obviously thought to have lost all of the commander's trust.
"We are no match for the tech the Mountain Men wield" Anya said slowly, as if she was unwilling to admit the fact that they might truly need the Skykru.
The commander nodded with a thoughtful expression "They will have their truce after the murderer dies." She had already come to the conclusion that their only chance to fell the Mountain was in working together with Skykru.
Anya nodded in mute acknowledgment and Lexa recognized how tired the other woman looked, her features pale and exhausted.
"Go and get something to eat for us, Marie" Lexa softly commanded towards the child and the girl sprang into action immediately. Lexa had wanted to speak with Anya for a moment in private.
As soon as Marie had left the tent, Lexa crouched down next to Anya and when the woman tried to sit up, she put a steady hand on her shoulder to keep her down and stop her obvious struggle. She wanted to speak with her as herself and not in her function as the commander.
"I am truly glad to see you alive, Anya" Lexa said her voice soft and her green eyes expressive "When you have regained your strength, you will lead our warriors into battle against the Mountain at my side."
That was the closest Lexa would come to actually apologizing to Anya, but the commander could see in Anya's brown eyes that she understood all that she could and would not say out loud. Anya held up her arm and the commander gripped her forearm with her own in a warrior's grip and they silently nodded to each other in acknowledgement.
On a certain level, Anya understood how hard it was for Lexa to let even her see more than the façade of the commander. But the woman still remembered the small and skinny runt Lexa had been when they had first met. The child had always been spirited and Anya had helped groom this woman into the commander she now was and she was deeply proud of the woman she had grown up to be.
"It would be my honour" Anya answered with a heavy voice and let go of Lexa's arm.
"So, you have taken over the girl as your second now?" Anya asked with a slight teasing in her voice. Of course, she was aware that she had asked the commander to look after Marie in case something happened to her but, she had never expected the commander to actually take over her duty, but rather to delegate it over to someone she trusted.
Lexa nodded immediately in agreement "Of course".
The conviction in Lexa's voice told Anya more than any words could have, that she had never truly lost the commander's trust, otherwise Lexa would not have been willing to take Marie as her second. Anya still remembered, how Lexa had mourned the loss of her first second and how she had been unwilling to ever take over a new one and she knew that the younger woman had not truly grown very close to the boy under her tutelage.
The train of thought made Anya realize, that she did not possess any of her clothes she had worn to battle anymore. Tris' braid had been in a pocket on the inside of her coat and she wondered if the Mountain Men had already burnt it. She wondered why her eyes started to burn, as she thought of the piece of braid burnt to ashes just as her second's body already was.
"What is it?" Lexa asked worry laced into her voice at the easily displayed amount of emotion on her former mentor's face. She had rarely seen the woman express her emotions freely.
Anya exhaled forcefully against the lump in her throat "Tris' braid had been in my coat"
As the woman's voice trailed off tinted strongly with regret, Lexa understood the meaning. But she remembered that Anya had mentioned that the Sky children had taken the coat from her in their metal contraption, so it was a distinct possibility that it was still there together with her sword.
"It may still be in your coat" Lexa mused and Anya seemed to remember that her coat had not been in the Mountain at all and a sliver of hope flickered in her eyes.
Before either of them could say more, Marie barged back into the tent loudly. The girl tried to balance a stack of mugs, a big jug and two plates somehow. Lexa immediately stood back up and took some of the things from the child's hands before she could let fall all of them.
"You could have gone twice, Marie" Anya reprimanded from the bed and the girl smiled innocently as her only reaction.
Lexa just shook her head in amusement and distributed the food evenly between the three plates. She handed one to Marie and brought one over to Anya, pushing it into her hands with a forceful "Eat. You need to regain your strength quickly."
Marie had sat down cross-legged across from the commander's bed and after a few moments of silent eating, the girl blurted out the question that had been on her mind "Who's second am I now?"
The commander could see a flash of regret flicker through Anya's eyes at the realization that she probably had lost her claim over the girl, so before the older woman could answer, Lexa beat her to it in a strong tone "You will be a second to the both of us".
Anya blinked at the commander, confusion obvious on her face. Sharing a second was unheard of so far to her knowledge.
"I have already proclaimed to take her as my second in TonDC" Lexa explained to Anya "So it will happen. But a first, whose fight was supposedly over, to return has never happened before, so you are also still her first as well" she tried to reason calmly. She had no intention to pass over the bond which had already formed between them.
Anya wanted to answer how a commander's claim on a second would always overrule that of a general, but Lexa shook her head with a gentle smile.
"I have already made my decision Anya" Lexa reassured her and glanced at the girl who seemed happy enough at the news "We will figure out how that will work specifically at a later point". She somehow had the feeling that Marie would continue to help them reconcile with each other.