Clarke wakes to the scent of fear. Is woken by it.
It takes a while for it to register properly. For once, she's not upset in the slightest, and the pull of sleep is almost enough for her to turn over and drift away again. Almost. But something isn't quite right.
She blinks herself into awareness in the comfort of a soft cocoon. Doing anything is difficult - she is so soft, and warm, and comfortable. It is, she slowly registers, made up of a beanbag and blankets and the warmth of a body – of Costia beside and partly on top of her. There's a hand running through her hair. Smooth, steady strokes, with just enough of a hint of nail on her scalp to get rid of the two bones she had left in her body. It's like being a child, staying in bed and letting her mother take care of her in the morning time between waking and being dragged out to school.
She doesn't open her eyes, or stretch. Stretching is moving, and that's the last thing she wants to do. The slightest shift is enough to figure out that they've moved close together while she was sleeping. She has one hand holding onto the blankets, and one trapped beneath Costia, her face tucked into Costia's neck so that the edges of her hair tickle at her nose with every breath. It takes a small eternity for the two feelings to fit together, so long that Clarke begins to fall back to sleep.
Costia, who is afraid. Costia, who is broadcasting her fear.
Costia, whose hands are resting on the almost too hot skin of her hip and her stomach.
Costia, who Clarke's startled mind finally registers only has two hands.
Clarke's mind can move quickly when it has cause to. It's not Costia's hand in her hair.
The hand shifts from caressing to restraining as she twists like a snake to see Nia, smirk firmly in place, looking down at them, in the all senses of the phrase Clarke can imagine.
Clark's fear scent joins Costia's, flooding the air around her until she can breathe from the bitter tang of it.
She doesn't have time to marvel at having her own scent because a single wrong move is going to hurt and in all her time in captivity she has never felt move vulnerable, because she's been exposed before, she's been powerless, but not in front of someone – not when she thought she'd finally found someone nice -
"Ñuha arlie gūrotrir here," she twists the hand in Clarke's hair until she has to bite back a whimper, "has learned to keep her tongue better than you did. Wouldn't you agree?" She smirks. No, she's smiling, at Costia, smiling like - like - like she hasn't just - they had cut her and -
Nia keeps talking, talking, switching in and out of that language and English, sometimes clipped, sometimes almost crooning, but all Clarke can hear is white noise, fragments of sentences fading in and out "- you going to show her what an Omega's for, strik hedagapa or will I have-" washing over her head and drowning her.
The unending stream of hatred from Costia is matched by amusement from Nia, cloying on her tongue like too many bags of cotton candy at once, and in the middle of it all Clarke is a swirling mass of confusion. Whatever that means, it's isn't good, not with Costia – Costia, who she trusts despite spending only an afternoon with – so angry and afraid - resigned - despairing beside her. If only Nia would speak clearly for once, if someone would just tell her whats going on, instead of watching her making mistakes and punishments without explaining why -
The presence Clarke knows can be nothing but Costia - still warmth, still safety, even as it burns - changes abruptly from rage to horror, sharp and clear – Clarke's getting good at interpreting this, not that she has much to compare to - looking from Clarke to Nia and back again. She growls, an ugly mangled rasping thing, and Nia can read Costia's intent to attack as clearly as Clarke can, because as suddenly as she's curling tighter to present a smaller target - not that that'll do much, she's literally touching both of them, and they are touching her, and she's as far from safe as its possible to be - Clarke is drowning.
Only she isn't drowning, she's being pushed under, there's water in her lungs and in her ears and she should – she should -
Hours pass. Seconds. Her shivering form is pulled from the empty room, blankets discarded on the floor. When did they leave?
The sun is gone too, and the guards are nowhere to be seen. She blinks enough to see that Roan's the one taking her to her cell. He seems upset. When had he arrived?
Is he embarrassed? Whatever the source of his awkwardness, he's quieter than usual. It's as out of character as Echo suddenly deciding to recite Shakespearean Sonnets. "That should've been a safe place." He sounds apologetic. If she could, she'd tense, curl into a ball, hide, but she can barely move. Isn't relaxed so much as limp and wrung out in his arms. He leaves her at the door, locks her in and leaves without another word. Clarke reaches her mattress and collapses. Her room is cold.
The room – Costia's room - is empty the next two days Clarke is taken there. She wonders if this will be the new normal, if her cell is now for eating and sleeping, and the room is to be for ... other things. What other things those are she doesn't know. After Nia she doesn't want to know. She wants for everything to go back to normal, for her only interactions with people to be getting food and keeping Ontari happy.
Left to her own devices, and with the dubious security of closed doors to hide behind, she explores the her new space. It doesn't look like much has changed, but she didn't get to do much on her last visit, between the sleeping and - Clarke's investigation was limited. It isn't today, but there isn't all that much to find. Even so, compared to her room, the space is overflowing with colours and textures. No pens, pencils – nothing sharp, she thinks, and bites back the giggles that are suddenly racing to escape into the quiet - but there is charcoal and paper stacked on a low table. More than she's seen outside of art class.
She nearly trips over a rug to get to them, but once she has them in her hands, she can't think of anything she wants to draw. Her mother, Raven, Octavia, her teachers ... it'd be too much like she's painting a target. She hasn't seen them take anyone else – and Costia had seemed surprised to see her - but...
That isn't really much of a defense. She sees her jailers for maybe an hour each day, and up until now she'd spent her time in a single small room. The corridors she's led along every day are long enough to hide any number of people easily.
And she still doesn't know why she's here.
In the end, she scribbles nothing more than a few looping flowers, and puts the pad back down. Her fingertips leave black spots on her clothes. She has a flash of inspiration - a cheetah, emerging out of a vista that its lower half blends into, dark stars in a pale sky - that vanishes before she can touch the stick of charcoal to the floor. She drops it with a clatter. Bad idea. That was such a bad idea. Keeps a wary eye on the doors until her breathing calms. Wipes her hands clean.
After having nothing to chose between the floor and her bed for weeks on end - and it has been weeks, hasn't it? She should be counting, but the days are all the same, and there's nothing in her room that she can use to keep track - the beanbags are amazing. Soft and high and malleable. She sits on one, bouncing like a kid on a bouncy castle, and sinks into it, engulfed. Trapped.
She manages to get up again after a bit of flailing. That's too exposed. Too open. Anyone - Nia - can reach down and pin her.
But she still wants them.
It takes a while to fix on a solution to the competing instincts. The corridor stays quiet.
She drags a couple of the beanbags to a corner, and builds herself a nest. Starting with a large flat cushion, then a pile of blankets, and the bags for walls. She catches herself almost humming. One last blanket, over the top and tucked in at the sides to make a roof, and she has a cave. She's never made a pillow fort before. She is almost absurdly proud of the result. It's warm inside, and soft and dim, and the only way in is hidden by the blanket.
Clarke's still alone when she wakes. She luxuriates in the silence. Slowly, beginning to grow stiff, she pokes head out. The door is standing open. She tenses, but she's still hidden, out of sight, snug as a bug in a rug. No one enters. Slowly, Clarke relaxes. She slithers out of her hideyhole and moves away as quickly and quietly as she can. If they haven't noticed it shes not going to draw attention. Waits. There's still no one. Slowly, slower than grass growing, Clarke makes her towards the door, staying behind cover of table, chairs, the remaining sets of beanbags.
No one is coming in. Why is the door open if no one is coming in? She freezes in front of the doorway. She can't. But it's open. It'll hurt. It's open. It has to be a trap. Pokes her head through the opening. It's not going outside if rest of her body stays inside. Echo pushes off the wall. Looks at her. She doesn't say anything.
Clarke blinks back. Echo is the only one of her guards not to say a single word to her. Clarke wonders distantly why that is. It's not disgust, although her eyes do follow her like she's some sort of strange creature that's been picked up from the side of the road.
Echo flicks her head back over her shoulder. Turns on her heel. Walks away, down the corridor in the bathroom's direction. Clarke can't punish her for following orders, and Echo clear wants her to come along. Actually, they can, but they won't. Probably. Ontari might.
Clarke was right. Echo leads her to the bathroom. Same change of clothes is folded and waiting for her as always. No, that's not quite right. They're changing it up today. Her new shirt is cream, not white. She thinks it might even be a bit softer too.
The two go back to the room afterwards, not her cell. Clarke doesn't know what that means. Short while later, she is given food. Echo doesn't come past the door. Makes more of a point of that than she's ever done with a meal before. Stops a step away, puts the tray down, and slides it across the floor. It's the same thing the next day. On the day after that, Costia is there when she gets back from the bathroom. She limps towards her, ignoring doorway like it doesn't exist. She smiles when she sees Clarke's nest, one side of her mouth pulling tighter than the other. Clarke is proud. It's the first time she's been proud of something in ... since... she is proud. She shows her the entrance, the way the blanket folds over to hide the entrance.
Costia's hand comes to rest against the skin of her arm, touch soft as and lips twitch up into a smile as they enter. Clarke's not stupid. Learns from mistakes. A few blankets and friendly ... friend? Is Costia her friend? There's no way to ask - doesn't make her safe. But it feels better, and right now that's enough.
A/N: The language I'm using for Azgada is based off High Valarian, if anyone's interested in that. Duolingo has a course.