Hello, here is the last chapter before Monday. I hope you'll like it.
- Lexa!
- Lexa!
- Lexa ! Wake up ! Clarke finally shouted and started to worry that Lexa was still not waking up.
Clarke felt the guilt invade her insinuatingly, painfully. She thought this was all her fault. But the rage she had felt only hours before had been so immense that nothing in the world could have stopped her from doing this. She wanted answers, no matter what the cost. At that moment, nothing could have stopped her, and woe betide anyone who tried to calm her down. And feeling such negative emotions was scary for Clarke, somehow she was afraid that one day she wouldn't be able to control herself or come to her senses.
Lexa, on the other hand, began to emerge slowly. Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes little by little, as if she was coming out of a terrible nightmare, and she gave a few grunts of pain. Instinctively she wanted to put her hand to the back of her head, but realized that her hands were tied. With difficulty she managed to move her hands to the back of her head to realize that no, she was not dreaming, she had indeed been hit and knocked out, a bump had emerged on the back of her skull. The queen of Isarian was a prisoner, in a state of weakness, and that, she really did not appreciate.
But strangely enough, she was immediately concerned about Clarke, and when her eyes finally met his and she saw that she was fine too, she was instantly relieved.
She realized that she and Clarke were in the same cell. Then she got up with difficulty in order to land next to her. The tied hands, it had been difficult for her to take support to get up in order to join Clarke. They looked at each other, not understanding what they were doing there. Then the two women looked around. They were in a rather stark, basic cell. The bars were anchored to the floor, there were no windows to allow them to see where they were, straw and a lot of dust littered the floor, no water, no food, nothing to relieve their basic needs and a simple torch as the only light. Obviously, for the two young women, either it was a temporary cell until they could be moved to another one, or their captors knew that they would only spend a short time in it.
And this idea, seemed to cross the head of the two young women at the same time. For their eyes suddenly darkened, as if their thoughts were one and the same.
How had it come to this? How had two seasoned warriors come to the point of having to depend on strangers who obviously didn't mean them any good.
Then, as if Clarke had read Lexa's thoughts, she finally whispered, tears at the edge of her eyes:
- I... I am so sorry, all this is my fault, if... if I had not let my revenge impulses invade my thoughts, we would not be there today... Finished by saying Clarke, fleeing the glance of Lexa in order not to see the anger and the disappointment in her glance.
But against all expectations, Lexa did not reproach her, did not look at her with contempt nor with anger. Just, she understood, mysteriously she understood why Clarke had acted like that and she was not in any way in the judgment.
- I don't blame you Clarke, there was a time when I was just as impulsive as you, even more so...
- If you knew the number of times Philémon almost had a heart attack because of me, sometimes I wonder how he's still alive... Lexa admitted with a little smile that reassured Clarke who gave her back her smile.
- Do you think they know who we are ? asked Clarke suddenly with concern.
- I don't think so, otherwise we would already be dead, or even worse... they could ask for a ransom for our liberation and the war would end up bursting irreparably between our two peoples.
- I am thinking more of highwaymen. I've often heard about their exactions, but unfortunately I've never managed to catch them with my men. Told Lexa.
- Back to Isarian, I will have to take care seriously of this problem, because it cannot continue like that anymore!
Then the two women stopped immediately their discussion when they heard steps in the distance which approached more and more. They looked at each other for a moment, as if to say that everything would be all right and that they shouldn't worry.
After a few seconds, a man appeared, with a gruff look, a beard of at least twenty centimeters long, well-furnished and messy, a dirty and filthy outfit, as if he had eaten with his feet. He must have been at least two meters tall, an impressive build that made no one want to fight him.
As soon as they saw him, Clarke and Lexa swallowed together at the sight of the colossus. Clearly, he didn't look good. And although both were excellent fighters, they were hindered in their movement and any attempt to escape was for the moment useless.
The colossus held in his hands a kind of metal tray with food that clearly didn't make you want to eat. It looked like some kind of porridge mixed with all kinds of unappetizing ingredients. And only one glass of water for two. And at the sight of them, the two women swallowed with disgust.
The man put the tray on the floor and pushed it with his foot into their cell while making a grunting sound and ordered them to eat. Then he turned on his heels and left as he had come.
- The dinner is served! joked in a yellow laugh Lexa in direction of Clarke who could not help but to sketch a laugh at the joke of the young woman, who in its turn started to laugh endlessly.
The two young women laughed now together until they could not breathe anymore. Despite the situation, despite the place where they were, they were there, laughing like crazy.
Then, together, they looked more attentively at their lunch tray, and there, the laughter stopped all of a sudden, bringing them back to the hard reality that was theirs, they were prisoners, without knowing the why of the how, and that did not bode well...
Lexa leaned to take the glass of water and gave it to Clarke, but this one refused it so that it is Lexa who drinks it. Finally, after bitter discussions, they found a compromise, they decided to share it.
As for the food, Clarke took the bowl containing the soup, sniffed it and rolled up her nostrils...
- I'll let you have the porridge, Clarke said, holding the bowl out to Lexa who couldn't help but smile while taking the bowl and pushed it away in disgust at the infamous dish that was presented to her.
In spite of the circumstances, the two women became obviously more and more accomplices and that astonished greatly Lexa which was not used to this kind of behavior with whoever it is. However, acting like that seemed quite natural to her, and somehow, it was quite frightening.
Lexa ventured to taste the dish. After all, they didn't know how long they would be here and they would need strength if they wanted to try to escape. But she spit it out immediately. Obviously, the taste was as bad as it looked.
- Now it's your turn, Clarke, I'd be remiss if I didn't share this dish with you," Lexa pouted in disgust as she handed the dish back to the young warrior.
Again they burst out laughing together. They were prisoners, their hands were tied, and yet it was as if the fact that they were together in this situation made it seem less serious than it really was.
Then they came back to their senses and stopped laughing... They looked intensely into each other's eyes, but were again disturbed by the fat man who came back to the charge. This time, he ordered the two women to move back, then he opened the cell and violently grabbed Clarke by the arm to drag her out of the cell. Lexa wanted to intervene, but the man pushed her back violently and she fell on the ground while hitting her head against the wall. When she got up, it was too late, the man had already taken Clarke.
And there, the panic began to invade Lexa. What were these intruders going to do to Clarke ? Were they going to hurt her, torture her, kill her ? A lot of horrible thoughts started to flood her and she couldn't do anything about it. And that thought made her furious.
She was pacing back and forth in her cell, trying to find a way to escape. Then, in a rage, she hit the wall with her two bound points with all the strength she could muster, hurting her hands to the point of bleeding in the process. But she noticed that the wall had slightly crumbled under the force of the blow she had given.
This gave her an idea, if a single point blow could crumble a wall, then she and Clarke must be in a temporary cell, and therefore the construction should not be very solid.
On her side, Clarke struggled with all her strength. The way she was walking with her fat man seemed to her interminable. After a few minutes, he pushed her into a tiny room with only the moonlight coming through a small skylight that was about two meters above the floor.
To her surprise, it was not a torture room or anything like that that would have frightened Clarke. It was simply a room in which to relieve herself. Once she understood why she was there. She tried to get the man to untie her so she could do what he had brought her here to do.
The man seemed to hesitate for a moment, then finally agreed to her request. With a gesture, he cut her bonds with the knife he had just unhooked from his belt and pushed Clarke inside.
When he closed the door, Clarke tried with all her strength to jump to the skylight, but it was too small and she was struggling. When she finally managed to hang on to the skylight, she noticed that outside there were only trees. She thought they must be held captive somewhere in the forest, because she could think of no other explanation for all those trees.
Then she noticed a small stone on the ground that looked quite sharp and hid it inside her jacket. She thought that it could always be used later to try to escape.
Clarke did her business anyway, not knowing when she could do it again. No sooner had she finished than the man violently opened the door again without even wondering if she was done and grabbed Clarke by the arm again. He tied her up again with some kind of rope and went back the same way as before, but in the opposite direction.
When he led her back to her cell and Lexa saw Clarke, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief, feeling instantly better.
The young woman had hardly time to reassure her on what the man had made to her that this one embarked Lexa in his turn. Clarke was slightly reassured to know that the man would not make him evil. But knowing the impetuous character of Lexa, she knew that if she had the least occasion to escape she would do it. Inwardly, this made her smile as much as she worried.
Lexa returned in the same way as Clarke a few minutes later. The man pushed her into the cell with a violent shove. The Zenarian leader's daughter immediately noticed the man's swollen lip. Obviously Lexa had not let herself be done and with given some wire to this big gruff, who, fortunately, did not seem to have retorted too much on the young woman who did not carry any trace of blow, to the big relief of Clarke.
Then the man left as he had come. The two women still did not know why they were there. But one thing was sure, they had to escape, it really didn't smell good otherwise thought the two warriors.
After waiting for the big guy to leave, Clarke asked Lexa if she was alright, because she had noticed the man's wound and she wanted to know what had happened. To what had simply answered the young woman that they had had a small disagreement. What, to the obvious casualness of Lexa when she had pronounced her words, provoked again a sketch of smile of Clarke.
- Look, I managed to catch this stone when I was there, I'm sure with it we can cut our ties.
- We had more or less the same idea made Lexa by also showing him a stone that seemed sharp enough.
- Look, you see the wall there? I'm sure it's not a load-bearing wall and that it can be easily removed by digging a little with the stones.
- How do you know it's not a load-bearing wall?
- Well, it's crumbling, load-bearing walls don't crumble.
Then she showed the state of her hand and she had to explain to him that it was when she had hit the wall that she had slightly hurt herself. This did not fail to worry Clarke slightly when she saw the dried blood on the hand of the young woman.
They sat together for a few moments side by side, just to determine the best strategy to escape. Cutting the ties was already priority number one.
They had put their backs to each other to help each other cut their ties when this time two men appeared. They had nothing to do with the fat man, those two, one could see from their appearance that they belonged to a slightly higher class.
They whispered in a low voice, scrutinizing the young women from head to toe, and then turned back as they had come. But Clarke did not hold any more and shouted to them:
- But what do you want us at the end ?!
The two men turned around and one of them finally answered him :
- Tomorrow, tomorrow, you will be sold as a slave !
Then they left as they had come, leaving the two women shocked by this announcement. They, the two warriors, daughter of a clan leader and queen of a people, were going to be sold. This was intolerable for the two young women, they had to act, and quickly.
If the two women had managed to smile a few times before, they were no longer smiling. They had rage in their stomachs.