Chapter 15

Lexa spend the early evening together with Marie in the commander's tent.

The little girl was happily working on the drawing of her castle and her princess and seemed utterly concentrated on her task at hand. Lexa had watched the girl scribble away for some moments, thinking that the girl could probably soon also be taught more theoretical skills. Her attention span was obviously long enough to try and hold lessons with her. She would have expected that Marie would lose interest in her drawing soon, but as the silence had settled comfortably between them, only interrupted by the little scribbling sounds Marie made on the paper, Lexa turned her attention to a few reports which still needed her attention.

Marie smiled brightly at her finished picture some time later, inspecting it for a silent moment longer for things she still needed to alter. She had drawn a large castle with quite a number of towers and she had tried to draw a princess in front of the castle and she had drawn both as well as she know how to do. She had tried to make the princess look like Lexa, but she was not entirely satisfied with her work.

"Are you a p'incess, nomon?" Marie finally interrupted the silence in the tent in a chirpy tone. She could easily picture Lexa wearing a shining and sparkling crown on top of her brown hair, but she had greater difficulties in trying to imagine the woman wearing a red or pink flowing gown. She had thus far only seen Lexa wearing dark clothing and the only colourful thing she had seen so far on the woman had been a long red sash. She remembered that Anya had already told her that Lexa was the commander which meant that she was some form of leader, but the woman had not told her anything further. So, she guessed that Lexa could also be a princess, or would she be a queen?

Lexa looked up from the latest reports from one of her spies who had infiltrated the ranks of queen Nia's loyalists to be faced with the child's grey eyes look at her in obvious deep interest and she felt her heart skip a beat at the child's nonchalant usage of the term "mother". She noticed that Marie had also abandoned her drawing and she wondered how long ago the girl had finished already and stayed quiet. "I am not a princess, Marie" she denied the little girl's question in a kind tone.

Marie's smile dropped a little in obvious disappointment, before her expression turned thoughtful. She had noticed of course that the other people treated Lexa different than how people reacted to Anya in comparison and she already knew that Anya was a general. She remembered from one book that a general was a military term. She had already concluded that Lexa must have a higher rank than Anya possessed, although she was confused by the fact that Lexa was apparently younger than Anya and Marie knew that the chancellor on the Ark had always been an older adult. "Are you a queen then?" Marie asked after a moment of contemplation and her head tilted slightly to the side, while she narrowed her grey eyes at Lexa as if she was looking at some form of puzzle, she could solve by just looking close enough and find the answer.

Lexa completely discarded her reports and stood up from her chair, walking over to the girl. She remained standing behind the child for a moment, gazing down at her drawing. Marie seemed to possess at least some talent for drawing and it was obvious what she had wanted to draw and it gave her hope that Marie could show talent for making maps and writing.

Marie looked up over her shoulder and their gazes connected for a silent moment and her smile grew again shily.

"I am not a queen, little one, but the commander" Lexa exclaimed, taking the child up into her arms mutely for a moment, sitting down and placing Marie into a comfortable position in her lap.

"But what does that mean?" Marie questioned further with a little frown. She had heard the word before a few times of course, but no one had explained it to her so far.

"Being the commander means that I lead the clans" Lexa explained in a kind tone while she let one of her hands rest flatly on the girl's back, feeling the warmth of her little body seep through her clothes and she could also feel each breath the child drew.

Marie's frown only deepened further. Lexa's answer had not really explained what the commander actually was, but her mind was stuck on another piece of information. "There more clans?" she wondered out loud in astonishment. She knew that the scientists on the Ark had all been convinced that humanity had died out with the end of the old world.

Lexa nodded in agreement "There are twelve different clans in total and I united all of them together into the coalition, ending the wars between the clans" she explained and pride had noticeably filtrated into her tone.

Marie's confusion only grew. She had never heard the word "coalition", but she was fascinated with the information that there were so many clans. She could only count to twenty yet, so twelve sounded like an awfully high number. "What's the diffe'ence?" she wanted to know with curiosity burning within her grey eyes. She wondered if the clans were all visibly different somehow or why there actually were different clans.

"You mean how the clans differentiate between each other?" Lexa clarified the girl's question and waited until the child had nodded her agreement a second later, before she explained "The clans are all based in different locations. You and the youths who have come to earth with you, have landed in Trikru land. The name of our clan would translate to tree people in your language and we were named after the forests in which we live".

Marie nodded along slightly and her expression still showed a deep concentration. "The othe' clans live somewhe' else?" she supposed in a soft tone, showing clearly that she doubted her own conclusion.

Lexa's green eyes flashed with acknowledgement and she nodded in agreement "Very good, little one" she praised the girl in a kind tone "Most of the clans have indeed been named after the kind of terrain they inhabit."

Marie scrunched up her brows in confusions. Lexa had used a lot of words she did not exactly understand.

She had already read all of them in a book or another, but she had not understood them there fully either. In the beginning of her switching from children's' books to adult books, she had tried to ask her parents for the definition of all the big words she had not understood, but they had not been able to help her either. In fact, they had told her that she should stick to books that she understood and that she would not be required to achieve this kind of knowledge to work on Farm Station later, like they had been doing for all their lives.

Lexa chuckled slightly at the child's obvious confusion and how her little mouth curved into a cute dissatisfied frown "Ask, if you do not understand something" she told the blonde girl in a kind tone, the tone she usually used with her younger nightblood children too, "How are you to learn otherwise?".

Marie thought over the woman's words in silence for a moment and Lexa could almost visibly see the gears turning in the girl's mind, before the child gave a slight nod.

"For example, the people from Ice Nation live in the north and in the deepest part of their lands, the snow and ice never thaw" Lexa explained what she thought was most likely for the girl to be confused over "The people from the Desert Clan live in the Dead Zone which consists mostly just of a desert" she added for further clarification.

Marie nodded again and internally wondered how much of the world was still populated. She remembered having seen some maps of the inhabited parts of the old world and she knew that almost the whole surface of earth had been heavily populated.

But she was stopped from asking her question by Alira entering the commander's tent, carrying with her a large tray with food. Marie's previously open expression visibly faltered and she burrowed herself a little closer to Lexa, grey eyes falling to her own little hands playing around with the hem of her shirt.

Lexa's lips thinned a little at the girl's sudden shyness. Alira had helped greatly in taking care of Marie while the girl had been sick and the child had seemed to like the handmaid well enough, that she found her returned shyness somewhat weird now.

But Alira did not seem offended by the girl's antics at all and just smiled kindly at the child, ignoring her clear attempt to vanish from view. Instead, she took a small bowl from the plate and directly held it in front of the girl's view. The bowl contained raspberries, the berries the child seemed to enjoy the most and Alira had specifically asked for them for Marie.

"Ras'erries" Marie exclaimed in a chirpy tone, seemingly forgetting her previous shyness in a blink and smiled brightly at the woman with happily shining eyes.

Lexa shook her head at the girl's antics with a soft expression.

"Indra asked if it will be fitting to start the burning ceremony in a candle mark" Alira related the general's question to the commander as she took a step back from the table again.

All that Marie could understand from what had been spoken between Alira and Lexa was that Indra's name had been mentioned. She remembered the dark-skinned general they had encountered in the village, but she really wanted to learn this strange language everyone around her was speaking now. She wanted to be able to partake in the conversations and it made her feel weird and unsafe not to know what being spoken.

Lexa nodded her head in agreement and dismissed the handmaid a few moments later. Her braids were still in place and did not need to be redone and she could handle dressing herself in the regalia of the commander without help well enough.

Marie had already begun to eat a few of the raspberries and Lexa gently took the bowl from her hands and placed them out of reach "Eat some of the other things, too" she ordered the little girl and her voice took on a hint of sternness at the girl's apparent disappointment "You can have more raspberries later" Lexa added as a promise.

Marie made a little pout, but her expression turned happier again at the added promise of getting the raspberries as a kind of desert. The only thing she really missed about the food from the Ark were the deserts, she had loved the different kinds of colourful puddings they used to have there.

After they had finished their dinner in relative silence, Lexa placed Marie back on her feet. She frowned a little at how tired the child appeared to be. She doubted that bringing the girl along to the burning ceremony would be a good idea. She had the foreboding that the child would just fall asleep after some time and that it might be better to leave her in the tent instead.

It was as if the girl was reading her thoughts and confirmed her suspicion by yawing deeply.