hah almost two months - i've understood my writing style so well.
now read, ponder, and enjoy!
It wasn't the light. It wasn't the noise of mechanical objects and scuffle of feet. It wasn't the muffled whispers. It wasn't the echo of snores from several men. It wasn't the humming of a folklore music from a man to her right. It wasn't the fading effects of the painkillers that they must have had her hopped up on.
It was the smell. Damp and rotten. Metallic blood stinging her nostrils. The dust and gunpowder residue. They were sharp and invading – and she was all too familiar with these stenches to know that it meant nothing good. Hell, only more than six months ago, she was still half awake from the pain of her broken leg, and she spent the whole time being transported to the hospital smelling this stuff.
She wrinkled her nose and slowly but surely blinked her eyes open, expecting to find herself in a rundown hospital or something. A medical tent at least. But when she opened her eyes, what she saw were…sawdust, dilapidated interior of something like a dent, a fire surviving on a flimsy firewood pile, Gustus, the staff sergeant, and a private.
She blinked again, not really understanding.
"Welcome back, Commander," the staff sergeant – Ryder – greeted with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Gustus, having heard the staff sergeant's greeting, hurried over to her, basically scrambling out of his sleeping bag like an affectionate dog. He hovered over her, quiet but obviously concerned, judging by the deep frown on his face and the tightness tugging at his lips.
He was hesitant in touching her – he'd always been hesitant with touching anyone apart from his wife – but she smiled at him, if only to alleviate his concerns a little. The truth was her head was spinning and the ache in her leg was beginning to make itself known. Guess the painkillers had warded off and that was why she had woken up.
"Water?" he grunted. She made a noise of affirmation. And quickly, he had her sitting upright and handed her a half-empty bottle of water. "Drink," he ordered.
She smirked at his tone, but drank anyway. She was parched. Once the contents were completely downed, she shot him a confused look. "Where are we?"
"Further west of the village," Ryder offered. "SAT phone is down, so we haven't been able to contact the base in two days. You did a good job commanding, Commander, but we were largely outnumbered, as you could probably tell that day. And you suffered a concussion, so we didn't really have a choice but run…without the truck. And here we are."
"So we're –"
"Missing in action, basically. But hey, at least we're alive."
She nodded in agreement. "Right." Then she leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.
Yes, at least they were alive, but her family. Clarke. God, they must have heard the news by now, and she couldn't imagine what they were going through now. Last time, at least she was sent to a hospital and her family knew where to find her. Now, literally nobody had an inkling of where she was.
"We need to go," she decided, already pushing away the top flap of her sleeping bag to get out, only to be pushed back by Gustus after she had hissed sharply in pain. "Gus –"
"You're in no condition to walk," he grunted. "Until someone finds us – hopefully not the same group of insurgents – we're staying here. There's an oasis nearby so we don't have to worry about water. This house also has some food left to tide us over two or three more days."
"SAT phone's really not working?"
"Nada," Ryder said.
She wanted to argue and brave through the pain just to get back to base and get on the first plane out. She wanted to see Anya and Lincoln and – god forbid – her parents. She wanted to turn back time and stop herself from being so dutiful so she could have stayed by Clarke's side and not end up in this godforsaken place.
Life was so against her even though she had done everything she could to go along with life. Born gay? Okay, so just date girls and hide it. Purposely outed by what was supposedly the most prestigious paper in the country? Okay, so now use that to her advantage and help the rest of the community. Couldn't really handle the public life that came along with being the first gay princess? Okay, sign her the fuck up for the military and learn some stuff. Got blown up and almost lost a leg? Okay, get shipped off back home and meet a pretty blonde doctor while doing it. Felt like she was trapped home like a worthless piece of shit? Okay, make an effort to hang with the family, see a therapist, and sleep with said pretty blonde doctor in the process. Finally felt like she was someone worthy and had to be sent off back to her own haunt just when she finally got comfortable back home? Okay, it would just be two weeks anyway.
And yet she was. Here they were. SAT phone down. Her phone back on base without a single bar. Injured. And she didn't even wanna be here, for the love of god.
"I need to go home," she muttered, loud enough only for Gustus to hear her. "You need to go home. Penelope's been waiting for you to be back home since we shipped off together – which reminds me; I haven't apologized to her yet. I'm firing you when we get home. Get you a desk job. Penelope would appreciate that."
"I'll break your leg again if you do that," Gustus huffed, seriously glaring at her for even daring to suggest that.
"We need to go home," she muttered, softer, because even though she just woke up, she could feel it creeping in.
"And we will."
"Penelope's gonna hate me for this."
"She won't."
"I didn't even want to be here, you know."
"Yes."
"Next time my parents send me to another warzone, tell them no for me."
"I will."
Amidst her confusion and pain induced sleepiness, she didn't even realize that Gustus had moved to tuck her back into the sleeping back until he pulled the flap over, covering her chin, almost like he was scared she'd freeze in this Middle Eastern heat. She would resist, but she was so tired.
Maybe she spoke it out loud. Maybe it was just a thought. But the last thing on her mind as she drifted off to sleep…
Clarke.
There was a time when she probably would have given anything to be back here, even though they were essentially trapped and would be running out of water in a day or two. They could die quite easily, if Lexa didn't pull herself together and the SAT phone didn't start working soon, but there was a time when she would have found it thrilling.
As quiet as she had been in her youth, where she would always keep it to herself even though she had much to add about the political climate in Polis or she found something her mother said funny, she had never found as much as thrill as she had during her first dispatch. Being out here, with the people who didn't really about her status as a princess but more about her skills as a soldier, the constant awareness even when sleeping – she loved it.
And then she met a pretty blonde doctor. She went home and reunited with her family. She got a bum leg and she started seeing a therapist. And just like what they said, the rest was history.
Right now, there was no thrill to this. No excitement at all. She would never admit out loud that she was scared, but she was. She wanted to go home. She missed the pool. She missed getting breakfast with her family and talking about things that no one would have expected a royal family would talk about. She missed waking up spooned by a blonde teddy bear, all cuddly but also somewhat prickly.
She needed to go home.
It was two days later. The oasis had run dry. She was parched. The staff sergeant had passed out and Gustus couldn't wake him up at all.
Lexa honestly thought she was dreaming when she heard it: the whirring of wheels and the telltale noises of boots on the ground and the crackle of radios. She was already hoping that her family would find the letters she'd written for them in the drawer of her office desk and passed Clarke her own. Hoping that Penelope would forgive her. Hoping that Clarke would forgive her.
But then the decrepit doorway with the swinging wooden plank was filled up by a silhouette. A rather small but strong silhouette. Dressed up in camouflage and carrying his own sidearm, her father didn't fail to exude the essence of royalty even when stained with sand and oil. She couldn't see his face, no, but there was no mistaking the man who'd let her suck his thumb and made sure she was sleeping as deeply as a child could before closing the door behind him. The man who'd always kept her safe.
In her sleeping bag, she was shivering. It was a fever that had suddenly attacked her two nights ago, and never relented. But god, was she happy to see her father.
It was only when he fully entered that she could see his face, and the last time he'd been so relieved and delighted at the same time was that time her mother told him she was no longer considering a divorce as they were going through a rough patch. It's a long story.
She didn't even have a voice to call out to him anymore, but he came to her anyway. More like stumbled to her, losing all the grace and elegance that a king should carry, skidding onto his knees to reach her and take her hands, putting them to his lips as he mumbled incoherently and emotionally. She allowed him that moment.
"Oh honey," he whispered and cupped her cheek with one hand. "Honey, I'm so sorry." And obviously, she wasn't so feverish as to start hallucinating things, so she definitely wasn't hallucinating the tears hovering in the corner of his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he whispered and kissed her forehead.
"It's okay," she mustered, letting him kiss all over her face. "It's okay."
"You were missing for so long," he whimpered.
"I'm here. I'm here."
"I'm taking you home," he said, more stable now. He straightened, but didn't let go of her hand. He addressed Gustus and the private and the now revitalized staff sergeant. He nodded at them assuredly and tightened his grip on her hand. "I'm taking all of you home."
And then, just like he did when she was a child, Richmond placed his arms under her knees and shoulders and lifted her up, even though he was much older than before and she was most certainly much bigger than a three-year-old toddler. He did it anyway, grunting in exertion, but not letting go. He was the man who always kept her safe.
"Happy Service Day, Your Highness?" Ryder greeted as he gained enough consciousness to make more jokes.
She turned towards him in the stretcher she'd been lain out on, grinning, though still a little woozy. Plane rides were definitely not advisable when one had been thirsting and starving for two days. But heck, she'd take wooziness on her way home to her people than being stuck in that stupid house another day.
"We're stretcher buddies," she exclaimed, ignoring the snort her father released and the eyeroll Gustus did. "You know what, Ryder, I have a feeling we're gonna be in each other's lives for quite some time in the future." He raised his brows. "You're a good egg, Sergeant Ryder."
"It's actually Kyle. My friends call me Kyle."
"I prefer Ryder."
He laughed and turned away, but extended a fist in the space between their stretchers. "Whatever you say, Your Highness."
She reciprocated his gesture by bumping her own fist to his. "It's Commander to you."
She was almost certain that he was saying something to her, probably something cheeky. Except she couldn't really hear him, because all of a sudden, on top of the wooziness, the shadows abruptly invaded the corner of her vision, taking over as rapidly as the insurgents had attacked them only days ago. Her chest was collapsing, clawed and tugged and so fucking heavy.
Before she could complain, the shadows had leered at her from within the cages of her pupils and decided that she had had enough consciousness.
Damn, and here she thought she was almost home.
Within the palace that sat at the edges of Polis capital, where the halls weaved together and formed unlikely patterns, where royalties were born and died in, there was a library. Magnificent, gigantic, lined with shelves all over, and filled to the brim with books and books and books.
There were three librarians – always three – who never ceased in caring for the books – making sure the seams were repaired, original copies were retained as best as possible, clicking their tongues at the children who bent the books just a little too far. And they also always made sure the shelves were strong and sturdy, could hold their owns against the words and ideas they had to carry.
They were important people in a very important place; knowledgeable people in a very knowledgeable place.
After King Richmond II ascended the throne, his Queen would always bring their children to the library on the weekends, even when they were toddlers. She would let them wander around the space, get lost in the mazes of the shelves, and never tired of looking for them afterwards. She'd let them touch the books after telling the librarians to keep all original copies at the top, let them open the books, and let them marvel at the words, slowly growing to understand the stories. She'd made sure that her children were familiar with the three librarians, and have the librarians accidentally fall for the three kids.
Lexa had grown up loving books, more so than her siblings. She started with illustration books to Enid Blytons, graduating to thrillers and romances, and then occasionally reading and criticizing her father's biographies. She'd learned from her mother and made nice with the librarians – they were, in other words, her teachers as well.
But out of all the books in the library, there was one book, nestled in the second from bottom compartment of the fourth shelf in the northwest corner, that she'd destroyed beyond belief. Dogeared, coffee spilled upon, the seams cracking, and every unimaginable thing done to a book, she supposed – the librarians had grown tired of admonishing her, but only because they could very well understand a particular obsession with a particular book.
A translated book: Fragments of Sappho, circa 630-580 BC.
She cherished it not because it was really fucking gay, but that was a big bonus. She loved it purely because of a single quote that had stayed with her since the first time she read it at 15, when she'd only started thinking that she was not like her siblings and discovering things about herself that she couldn't really talk to her parents about.
She wandered through the library, deliberately losing herself in the smell and her thoughts. And then she came across this book for some reason she couldn't really remember. And she just took it out of its assigned place and started flipping through them, leaning against the sturdy shelf and spending two hours devouring everything.
'Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time.'
It was the simplest quote, written in the most mundane prose. But fuck, those ten words – forty-three characters – had resonated within her like a Buddhist gong being hit on at the right time. It rang bells in her, sent waves of tsunami through her, and stayed nestled in her brain for the longest of time.
She brought it with her everywhere. It was especially loud when she woke up one morning to find her face on front page of every newspaper and the topline of all online news outlets and trending on Twitter worldwide. Because even if she hadn't wanted to be remembered, there was no way out of it now. It had been written there: the World's First Lesbian Princess. She had been branded, through and through, at eighteen, when she was supposed to still be discovering herself and find out who she was on her own.
And just as she told Clarke, she didn't want that to follow her everywhere. If she was to be the poster of something, it wasn't going to be the gender she loved. That was the worst thing about being a celebrity – once the press caught wind of one of identifiable thing about them, it was more than likely that they'd go carrying that thing at their tail for the rest of their life.
So…she joined the army. She certainly wasn't going to be the first lesbian to ever join the army, and unlike the US, there was no such as thing as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Polisians didn't give a shit, certainly not when they were literally fighting for their lives.
She didn't know why she was thinking this at this time, but then again, she didn't know what else to think when she was in the middle of a coma and was most likely hanging by a thread, if she remembered her collapsing chest earlier correctly. Maybe because she wanted someone, anyone, to remember her, in another time.
Maybe this time around, they'd remember her as the first princess who'd been an active soldier in active warzones, and almost died twice. God, maybe she'd actually die this time.
Good god, she didn't even want to be there.
However long it had been since she crashed on that plane, Lexa didn't know, but she definitely didn't die. And chemicals definitely weren't nice to wake up to.
She wanted to move her hand – it was itching – but there was a deadweight on it. When she managed to look down without hissing at the cramps that clawed at her neck, she had to smile. Her brother's shining bald head was definitely one for the magazines. Under his dozing bald head, he held tightly to her hand. Her very itchy hand.
She gulped and grimaced at the scratchiness of her throat, starting to wriggle her fingers as much as she could to disturb him from his sleep. It didn't take much, as he leaped awake soon after, pushing the chair back and making a weird noise of having just woken up. He looked at her and blinked rapidly for the next few moments before it caught up to him, and he leaped to his feet, the chair rattling before falling completely behind him.
"Lexa!" he exclaimed, joyful and wary at the same time, not letting go of her hand at all. "Oh, Lexa," he repeated, his free hand reaching up to touch her shoulder gingerly.
Okay, well, not that she wasn't happy that Lincoln was so happy to see her awake, but her hand was itching. She gently removed her hand from his gentle grip and started scratching, breathing slowly in relief at the sensation fading away. She then smiled at him and reached up to cheekily pat his cheeks, only to hiss at the sudden pain that shot up chest.
"Oh, crap, no, don't do that. You just came out of surgery," Lincoln said, one hand passing over a glass of water while the other pressing a button above the bed. "You scared us half to death, you crazy bitch," he complained as she drank the water.
"What ha –"
The door crashed open, and fuck, Lexa wanted to just get out of bed and kneel on the floor at the sight before her. Clarke Griffin, in the flesh, disheveled, one arm tugged out of the sleeve of her coat, hair a mess – the most beautiful thing Lexa had ever seen.
"Hallelujah," Lexa whispered.
...another two months? i wanna say it probably won't take that long because my country's currently in lockdown but fuck that because i still have to work anyway and well, i'm a procrastinator - so, two months, just to be safe.
also, social distancing you guys. don't be one of those assholes who kills a whole community because they just want to enjoy spring break - fuck those people.
