Chapter 2

Marie did not know how long ago their landing on earth had been now. She knew that she had already slept once and saw the moon and the stars.

So far, the others had not let her out of sight and everyone had strictly told her to remain close to the dropship. Marie could only remember the names of a few of the older kids who had this far mostly taken of care her until now.

Currently, she was sitting on a log next to Octavia. She had learned already that the dark-haired girl had been in prison for being born. She did not really understand how this could be a crime though and by the sadness in the older girl's dark eyes Marie had thought it better not to ask either.

The dark-haired girl was not in the best mood right now. She had been bitten by some sort of water monster from what Marie had understood of the others and could not walk really well. So, she had also not been able to join the others in their search for Jasper, the boy with the goggles was missing currently.

Marie still found it hard to imagine that there were other people on earth. Her parents had not told her much about the ending of the old world, but they had told her that all humanity had been destroyed beside those who had found a place on the Ark.

Most of the older children were not paying her much attention at all, while others seemed to watch her constantly. A few of the older girls were annoying her, watching her antics and commenting that she was "the cutest thing ever". Marie had scowled at that, she was not "cute" any longer, but a big girl. Her Daddy had told her so a lot.

Octavia had promised her that they would show her the glowing butterflies today. The others had stumbled upon a place where there were butterflies which glowed in the dark and ever since Marie had heard about that, she wanted to go and see them, asking after it several times. Bellamy had finally conceded and agreed that she would get to see them this night. Clarke had been furious with him, saying that Marie was too young to set foot out of the camp and Marie had been upset at that.

"Can we go see butterfies now?" Marie asked hopefully, to her it seemed that it was already going darker and she was tired of waiting and just sitting around. There were no toys or books around to keep her occupied with and she was bored.

"It is "butterflies"" Octavia corrected the small girl, turning over to look at her, it was obvious that Marie was bored and she herself was annoyed by having to stay within the camp at all. The others were erecting a wall around their camp currently, but she was certain that her brother would wish to accompany them and he was with the search party for Jasper, although none of them knew if the butterflies would actually be there during daytime and it was still slightly too early for the sun to set. "It has not gotten dark enough yet" she explained after a moment and amusement filled her gaze as she watched Marie's features pull into a dramatic pout.

"Wanna go now. Now!" Marie retorted a little too loudly, crossing her arms over her chest "It gotten darker aleady" she added, nodding her head for emphasis.

Octavia chuckled under her breath "But not yet dark enough" she reasoned seriously. She let her gaze wander over their surroundings. She knew that a few of them had been successfully in gathering some berries and other plants which were edible and their last meal had been meagre at best. "Are you hungry, Marie?" she asked the smaller girl, hoping to divert her attention for some time from the butterflies.

The pout dropped from Marie's face as she considered the question, placing one hand on her tummy as if to feel inside, she nodded her head in agreement.

Octavia quickly learned though that the young blonde child was a rather picky eater and finding something which the girl actually wanted to eat was anything but easy. She unfortunately had to agree with Marie's assessment that most of the things the others ha gathered was barely edible and tasted pretty vile, but she understood the necessity of food though.

"You know that a human body needs food to function, right?" Octavia asked Marie, having watched the girl just pick apart a few berries instead of actually eating them.

Marie nodded her head and a look of concentration settled onto her features "Human body can go tre days without water and tre weeks without food" she cited something which she had read in a book. The only problem was, that Marie did not understand yet what an actual week was. She knew the word, but she did not understand its meaning.

Octavia laughed out loud at the serious way in which the young girl had shared obviously learned by heart knowledge. "You can read?" she asked the younger girl, letting the matter of food drop for now.

Marie nodded her head in mute agreement, there had not been much else to do when her mother was also away at work and playing with her toys alone had always gotten boring. Reading alone though was not boring.

Octavia looked mildly impressed at that, but she refrained from commenting. She grimaced slightly; the girl's chubby hands were strained in the dark juice of the berries with which she was messing around instead of eating them.

All thoughts of getting Marie to wash her hands were forgotten though, when the search party for Jasper returned to their small camp.

Marie left the berries discarded on the ground, following Octavia to the dropship. The group seemed to have found Jasper, but the boy must be in a horrible pain to make him scream like that. Octavia had vanished inside the dropship by the time that Marie reached the entrance and Bellamy met her there.

"Hello there, Marie" the older boy greeted her with a kind smile "We have brought back a panther to eat" he informed Marie.

"Panther" Marie repeated the word thoughtfully under her breath, trying to remember if she had seen a picture of this animal in one of her books, but she could not remember right now.

Bellamy nodded his head "Come" he held out his hand for the small girl and when she reached out to take it, he frowned, noticing how dirty her chubby fingers were "Someone obviously needs some water" he commented with amusement colouring his tone.

Marie looked down at her hands with a slight frown, she had not noticed that the berries had strained her fingers like that. She had always had to wash her hands before they had gone to the hall to eat, so she knew that she would need to wash them now too.

"Gonna wash them" she said in an important tone, nodding her head in a promise.

"You better" Bellamy agreed still amused by the young girl. Marie was different from the way his sister had been at that age, but the child seemed to be sweet and kind so far.

After her fingers were washed, Bellamy brought her to the fire where some others were roasting meat from the panther.

Marie smiled brightly when Bellamy handed her a piece and she was already in the process of bringing it to her mouth to take a bit, when the older boy slowed her down, warning her that the meat would be too hot to eat like that.

Marie frowned slightly, the food on the Ark had always been directly eatable and she did not know how blowing onto it should help. She held the stick with the meat in her hand indecisively and as she now did not know that surely anymore on what to do, she waited until she had been able to observe Bellamy eat a few bites before she copied how he was doing it.

Marie's expression turned delighted at the taste of the tender meat.

"Good, isn't it?" Bellamy asked kindly and Marie immediately nodded her head eagerly in agreement before she took another bite.

"Butterfies" was the only thing Marie immediately said just the very moment she had eaten up her portion of the meat.

Bellamy chuckled slightly "We can go soon, promise" he reassured the girl. He just wanted to check in with Octavia and Clarke on how Jasper was doing, the boy's screaming had thankfully stopped for now, but he did not know if he had just passed out.

Marie nodded that she had understood and she waited in her place when Bellamy asked her to. The wait seemed to turn into long minutes though until the boy returned together with Octavia and Clarke, although the older blonde girl did not seem pleased.

"No one should leave this camp now" Clarke said loudly, continuing their already ongoing argument "and least of all, her" she pointed at Marie "It is dark and we can barely navigate…".

Marie pouted at Clarke's words and she crossed her arms over her chest again "Wanna go n see them!" she exclaimed loudly, interrupting the older girl midsentence.

"Marie, it is dangerous outside this camp" Clarke tried to reason with the small girl. She could fathom that Marie was bored, but bringing her out of the camp in the dark was truly a bad idea in her opinion.

"But the butterfies…" Marie retorted stubbornly, looking up at Bellamy with huge grey pleading eyes. The older boy had promised to take her there right now after all.

"You shall see them now" Bellamy agreed quickly, not wanting the small girl to burst into tears. That had happened already yesterday and no one had seemed to know exactly on how to treat Marie then from what he had been told "Clarke can just accompany us if she is so afraid of the dark" he added in a cheeky tone.

Marie giggled at his comment and at Clarke rolling her eyes at him.

"You very well know that this has nothing to do with being afraid of the dark" Clarke shot back a little darkly.

"If you say so…" Bellamy trailed off with a critically raised brow and Marie giggled louder at the two of them squabbling.

The way towards the place where they had seen the butterflies was thankfully not too long. Octavia had decided to stay back in the dropship with Jasper, so it were only Bellamy, Clarke and Marie now.

Clarke seemed as amazed by the butterflies as Marie obviously was.

Marie stood in the middle of the trees, spinning around herself with wide eyes and taking in all the glowing butterflies sitting in the trees around them.

Bellamy and Clarke had begun to argue about the Mountain now and when Marie's attention was caught by a single butterfly having landed on her arm, only to fly away, the small girl quickly followed the butterfly, trying to chase it.

Marie did not even realize that she had gotten out of sight from Clarke and Bellamy, she only noticed it really as the butterfly landed on another tree and the woods around her were silent.

Marie turned around quickly, hoping that she had turned back into the direction she had come from. She did not know if the other two would be able to hear her, if she called out. But somehow her throat felt a little tight all of a sudden and the sounds around her of the trees and animals were all too frightening now.

Marie hurried through the trees, desperately hoping that she was moving in the right direction. She stumbled some time later and picked herself back up from the ground with a frown. Her knees hurt under her trousers and she could see a little blood gathering where she had scraped her hands open. She sniffled under her breath. She was all alone in the woods now and it was so dark and she actually had no idea where she was exactly.

Marie's sniffles continued for some time. Usually her mother or father would have soothed her by now, they had never let her cry in silence, but always hugged her close and kissed it better. She wanted to be with them now. Where were they?

Marie had no idea how long she was already trudging through the dark forest and at every new sound, she startled strongly and just wished that she was not alone right now. She wanted to be back with her parents on the Ark. She did not like earth all that much now.

It must have been a rather long time later until Marie by chance found another glowing butterfly and decided to follow that. She found a place where there were many of the creatures sitting on all of the trees.

Marie was so focused on all the brightly glowing butterflies that she had not noticed that she was not in fact alone on the small clearing.

Lexa's hands tightened around the daggers fastened on her thighs, when she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone approaching the clearing. She frowned slightly, something seemed off about the sounds. They were too light to be produced by a fully frown adult, but they sounded too unsure to be sounds from an animal either.

The grip on her daggers loosened, when her gaze fell onto a small girl trudging onto the clearing. In the dim moonlight it was obvious that the girl was none of their own. Lincoln had already told her in his report that these Sky children had brought one very small child with them, so that must be her.

She tilted her the slightest bit, watching the girl totally undetected. The girl was small, barely reaching to her hips from her heights. She had curly light blonde hair and the roundness of her face and the obvious chubbiness of her body clearly showed that this child could not be older than a few summers, too young still to be trained as a fighter. The child was unobservant and her attention was fully immersed by the glowing butterflies around them.

Lexa remained standing utterly still, not entirely sure on how to proceed. The girl was too small to have any knowledge which could be of use to them.

Once the girl noticed her, her bright grey eyes widened visibly and Lexa recognized the signs of tear tracks on her round cheeks.

Lexa frowned slightly, when the girl's eyes flashed with something and her unsure steps carried her closer to her. Her frown only deepened when the girl stopped just slightly in front of her and the child raised her arms up, unmistakably asking to be carried.

Bewilderment filled Lexa's thoughts, the child did not seem put off at all by the armour or weapons she wore, neither of the dark war paint smeared around her eyes. She hesitated for a single moment, but something pulled at her heart, when the child's grey eyes filled with tears of rejection and she reached out, pulling the small girl up into her arms.

The girl sniffled a little under her breath and Lexa unsurely held her small body in her arms until her short legs found their way around her hip and the girl settled there comfortably, laying her cheek against her chest and it seemed to barely take a second until the child's grey eyes closed and she dozed off.

Lexa remained rooted to the spot for long moments, trying to figure out just what had happened these past moments. How had she ended up with a small sleeping girl on her arms? A girl which was not even from any of her clans.

She had been called to TonDC after scouts had reported that something had fallen from the sky. She had already ordered for scouts to have these invaders put under watch. She wanted to know about them before she would call her warriors to attack. She had arrived in TonDC the day before and had wanted to return to the spot which she had always liked to be as a child, having grown up in this area. It did not really make sense to her that she was now carrying a small sleeping child through the forest and definitely did not make sense how the child had just demanded to be picked up and that she had actually complied with that.

Lexa shook her head, trying to silence her thoughts for now. The girl had obviously been wandering through the forest on her own and the woods were no place for such a small child without any protection. The girl had obviously been lucky not to have a run in with a predator. She did know yet what would be happening with the girl, but leaving her behind was out of question. Somehow, she also already knew that she would not agree to killing her either. The girl was still so small and young. They would not have any reason to execute her and surely someone would be found to look after her.

Lexa nodded to her internal thoughts. Yes, she would bring the girl back to TonDC and see then what would happen with her. Maybe a family in TonDC would already agree to take her in. The girl had appeared to be healthy and uninjured at least.

The sensation of the little girl's breathing ghosting against her collarbone was a rather weird one to Lexa, but she only tightened her arms slightly around the sleeping girl, securing her in place, as she carried her back through the woods and further towards TonDC. If Anya could see her now, her former mentor would surely snort out a bark of laughter. The commander of the twelve clans carrying a sleeping lost girl through the forest. Hillarious…