After they wake - and how surprised Clarke is, to discover she fell asleep - Costia shows her around the room, points to the blankets Clarke has discovered and unfolds one to display a pattern she has not. She picks up the art supplies, smudges charcol under her eyes and across Clarkes cheekbones till she knows she must look like a racoon. She can't find it in herself to complain. Costia is smiling - a faint, wistful smile, but a smile nonetheless - and Clarke is maybe, tentatively, happy. Perhaps content is a better way to identify the mix of could be better but at least its not worse that she's feeling. Whatever it is, she likes the feeling.
So it doesn't last.
Roan opens the door with his usual double thump of warning, looks at her, and steps away from the threshold, expression unreadable. Costia not-glares back at him. Half hidden behind her, Clarke wipes at her face with small quick movements of her sleeve. Her stare-down finished, Costia turns and furrows her eyebrows at catching her in the act. Clarke can't identify. Not annoyance, not sadness. It might just be understanding. Whatever it is, it burns. She'd like nothing more than to curl away. She can't bring herself to move.
Costia clears away a spot that she must've missed, else what would she run her sleeve across Clarke's eyes, leaving grey mark on her own sleeve that's not as noticeable as the one on Clarke's, because her shirts have colours. Dull colours, but still colours nonetheless - she hadn't noticed till then - then walks past her, slipping through the small door. Clarke hadn't known that was unlocked. Hadn't even though to try it.
Time continues to pass, and Clarke grows used to spending her days in the hall. It's still quiet, but that is softened by the rugs and blankets and Costia until she can think of nothing less like the icy silence of her cell if she tried. Which she doesn't. It's not safe - nowhere is, she knows that now - but it's nicer than it has been and she'd like that to stay for as long as possible. The variety of it almost makes her dizzy.
She tries to ignore the sliver of unease that creeps through the monotony. It's not exactly hard - she is getting used to living with a constant background simmer of bored dread. She doesn't speak again. Costia doesn't try to make her. That helps. It helps.
Even so, she knows that there's something special about her being kept in the room. It's not the room itself - she's been here a while, and nothing had happened, except for Nia, on the first day. (And Nia was distant enough from Clarke's life that she could be reduced to an except for.) - so it has to be a meaning or association attached to the room. Clarke's only done one Sociology module, but she knows that those are as imprecise and complex as abstract art. She won't know until she knows. Or was it that she'd know but she wouldn't know she knew? It'd been a confusing class. Worse than anatomy, and they'd had half a sheep on the desk right in front of her in that.
The bright moon brings a shivering ache with it. She has a nightmare of Ontari - she is there before Clarke is conscious and she is a wolf and it is dark but the moon is bright and all around her is threat and danger and be small and Nia. Above her. Teeth against her neck, weight on her chest and belly, tail thrashing. She can do nothing but whimper.
She wakes, throws her arm up across her throat and curls into the solid, safe corner of the wall, shivering still.
The days comes when she is left in the care of her silent guards alone. She freezes, uncertain once more of the order of things. They are masked, anonymous, unfamiliar. She doesn't know them. She doesn't know what they want, or how to avoid the edges of the knives in their belts, or -
Ontari notices her hesitation. Her hand slides up behind her skull, fingers tangling in with her hair. Tugs sharply, hard enough that Clarke bends her neck down and twisted to straining point. Now is not the time to think of the cat video and she likes to feel tall. That way lies ripped hair, and worse. "Aw, don't you want to leave me?" She smugs smugly. It would usually annoy Clarke, probably still should, but right now its familiar. Not safe, but just enough security in her understanding that she can bare it. The is something almost like a smile on Ontari's face before she shoves her in their direction and walks away.
The guards don't touch her.
Costia too becomes a semi-constant in her life, usually in the afternoons. She doesn't draw on her again. Roan's reaction was enough for that. If Nia had seen ... Clarke doesn't usually remember her nightmares. Nia is the exception to that. There are times she honestly believes that she is in her room, standing over her. It's almost as vivid as the dream where her window breaks and the snow falls in and she slowly turns to ice.
She likes Clarke's drawings, and Clarke likes drawing for her, especially the stylized portrait with flower crown. Mostly, they spend their time napping in the sun or curled up in Clarke's fort, and touching - always touching. Hand on leg, arm, shoulder - Clarke can't get enough of it.
On a rare rainy day, just cool enough for blanket in their laps but too warm to be covered completely, Costia starts playing fingers through hair,and Clarke discovers a new favourite thing. It's just the right amount of pressure on her scalp, and scritches. Clarke almost, almost dozes off completely as Costia pulls her hair into hundreds of tiny plaits. Clarke tries to return the favour, but even her best attempt at a french braid is wonky and off center. She still gets rewarded with a small smile at her huffs of frustration.
Echo's expression doesn't change at all that evening, and Clarke continues on her merry way to the shower. Her hair doesn't unravel as she washes it. It does, however, take forever and a day to dry, even after she wrings water from it. It's enough of a distraction that she can almost ignore how confined her cell feels.
Ontari's knife comes back out when she sees, and she makes such a game of pulling that her porridge is stone cold by the time Clarke gets to eat, but at least there's no cutting involved. She has the same amount of hair, relatively speaking, as she did when she woke up.
"She's adopted you."
It doesn't sound like she likes the idea. Clarke keeps her head down. Ontari steals her bacon just as Clarke is getting to it. She'd been saving it for last. Bites back the whine threatening to escape. She doesn't need up to look to know Ontari's smirking. Of course she is. She thinks stealing the best part of Clarke's food right in front of her is funny.
Clarke doesn't know what it is that is disrupting the easy routine of her days, doesn't dare ask, and no one explains why she is sometimes taken outside. The nameless guards, the ones who aren't allowed to speak to her, start talking to each other while she is present.
Then they start counting down. Talking oh so carefully to each other when escorting her to her showers, to a walled in yard filled with green sunlight (that somehow smells like Costia, Costia and other, but Costia other), and back to her room. She's not sure when they started it - they don't talk to her, and they don't use English, so she doesn't bother listening, usually.
Except, they had spoken English. Only a little, but they had, and she'd heard them. She only realises once she's alone on her bed and they are long gone - or just out of sight, but she prefers to think long gone - so its word associations and overthinking. Had it been a fortnight to the moon? A forthright loon? Something mightily soon?
Clarke thinks, hopes, it might just be the the upcoming full moon that has them dropping their formality. It's nothing more than conjecture really, but then again, she has been seeing wolves.
The next day is the same. "Lucky thirteen. If you win the -" They notice her listening and do nothing but slip smoothly back to their regular language, smirking like she's missing the joke. Or is the joke. She's taken to the hall today.
"Think we'll get twelve in twelve days?" "Don't be an idiot. First time ... is ..."
Costia, when they're allowed to see each other, can't say anything. She seems almost apologetic, and does her best to comfort her while keeping a weather eye on the door. Rebraids her hair. Clarke tries to return the favour – finds it calming, combing her fingers through her curls– but a single French braid isn't the same as the multitude of little ones drawn together to make some sort of pattern Clarke can't fully make out without a mirror. (She finds her tongue long enough to rasp "Like Legolas" and Costia smiles like its the first time someone's said that to her.) Echo twitches when she sees it, almost looks like she's going to break her silence. Doesn't.
The food improves. Clarke thinks it's a late meal, at first, but the quality stays the same day after day. Ontari starts showing up with snacks between mealtimes. Dried meat one day, a piece of cake thick with fruit the next. And she watches her. When Costia is there, she watches her too, not as much. Eying her up like a piece of meat. But she doesn't come past the door, and no one comes past Costia's door but Costia. That's important, somehow, she thinks.
A lot of things here are important, and Clarke doesn't know why.
There's an unaccustomed bustle in a late evening walk as the moon approaches its full once more. It's one of the first signs Clarke's seen that people beyond Costia, her masked guards and Echo-Ontari-Roan-Nia exist.
"Guess we're two for two, two days, two – " Roan turns the corner and they snap to attention, jaws closing so quickly they click. He takes a second to just look at them while Clarke keeps her eyes down as she has been everywhere but Costia's hall. She studies the floor with renewed interest. They take her the rest of the way silently.
She uses the time to think. Costia's been getting sadder as whatever it is approaches, and even more touchy-feely, like she's apologizing for something. For it. It does nothing but give Clarke a sense of imminent oncoming dread, but there's nothing to be done so she soaks up as much affection as she can. She prefers not to think.
After a quiet second half of the journey, she arrives in her cell. Today she's looking at daydream spot number four, just past the midpoint of the window. And then, no more than an hour later, Ontari arrives. She takes Clarke from her room. The corridor is empty. She's alone. It's the second sign today that something else's changed. Clarke knows better than to argue, but her slight hesitation at the lack of escort is enough for Ontari to send her crashing to her knees. She doesn't let her recover - drags her up to her feet and stumbling after her, towards the sound of shouting and the distant clang of metal.
The noises get louder and fade again as they traverse passageways, duck through doorways and at one point step through a trick bookcase filled with National Geographics. They end in a long room, at least three times the size of Costia's hall. A throne room. Costia is there, Nia standing behind her. Their eyes meet, and Ontari pulls Clarke to the side, into a partially concealed alcove a third of the room from the throne.
They wait. Ontari doesn't take advantage of their close quarters, but she doesn't step away either. Her hand stays wrapped around Clarke's wrist, and her other arm settles like a sleepy constrictor around her waist.
The noises get louder. Battle or ... what was the word? A motley? Whatever it is, she can hear the clank of metal against metal, getting closer and dying down until -
The doors slam open. Clarke flinches. Ontari digs her fingers into her arm, relaxing them only when Clarke shuffles back into her. She knows she'll bruise, can feel the spots beginning to throb, but for now she can ignore that.
She can't see what's happening, so she keeps looking forward.
She's never seen Costia looking so happy, and then, like she doesn't know they aren't supposed to go together, scared.
Nia has a knife. She isn't doing anything with it, just holding it, but her other hand holds Costia. Clarke is suddenly extremely conscious of the fact that Ontari's hands are empty. The fact that they're closer to her does take a little away from the relief she feels. Besides, she knows that she's got one on her somewhere.
They speak, Nia and whoever comes through the door, in that strange language that Clarke knows almost nothing of, save that os means they think she's been punished enough.
She can feel their pressures running into each other, like opposing storm fronts, like static on her skin. It's the first time it hasn't been directed at her. It feels weird when it isn't directed at her.
The exchange gets heated. Nia's knife flashes, another flourishing gesture. Clarke doesn't understand it at first.
Costia gargles, but she's not growling. She's not growling.
The fight starts up again halfway through the room, racing up towards the throne. Towards Costia.
She's not growling.
Ontari has stepped backwards, and is trying to pull her back with her through another concealed passageway, but Clarke is already lunging forward. She hasn't fought since her first shift, nearly two full months ago. They have all become used to her compliance. She slips free.
NIa has disappeared by the time she reaches Costia. Drops to her knees, hard enough that she doesn't feel it at all.
She's choking. Costia's choking, and there's blood everywhere and – no. No, she's a med student. She can do this. She can fix this. She just has to figure out what she has to do. What does she have to do? She has to stop the bleeding.
She just has to ... hold her throat together. Stop the bleeding. Okay. Okay. She can do this.
But what if it's internal? What if – if -
She lands hard, half on the platform, half off. Gravity pulls until she slides the rest of the way to the floor. Instinctively, she freezes. The pressure is right there, hovering over her. If she stays really still, if she doesn't move an inch, maybe it won't –
It doesn't work.
It's not like Nia. It's not like Ontari. It's not even like both of them together. With them, she knows what's happening, knows she's being crushed, knows she has to fight for every breath until they decide she's had enough or, well they decide she's had enough. Or they get bored. (Ontari once managed to stay interested long enough to wait through Clarke passing out four times. Clark can only begin to guess why she wasn't there when she woke the fifth time, but she'd been put in with Costia and they'd been left alone until she could remember how to breathe again. Costia had held her. Costia -)
Costia hadn't been breathing.
"Heda!"
This is not like that. This time, she doesn't know how long has passed before she becomes aware enough to notice she's hyperventilating. The pressure has lessened enough that it's almost like the other times. She almost knows how to deal with this.
Almost.
She concentrates of making herself go limp as she is flipped onto her back. This is Ontari's favourite method of play, and one of the reasons she got stuck with an escort. She thinks. But she always did it after the pressure, when Clarke could think. Think enough to know that any wrong move would mean more of the same. Think enough that it was fun. She thinks.
Black spots dance in front of her eyes. She concentrates on breathing. Concentrates on lying still, still enough that they grow bored and she doesn't feel her hands -.
Her head is guided around, there's a hand on her jaw. Sticky. Must have bit her lip again. Or it cracked. It does that, here. They don't give her chapstick. Three different kinds of conditioner to choose from every time she took a shower, but no chapstick. Breathes in, and out.
"Chek ai au."
In and out. Don't fight, don't tense, don't do anything wrong. In. And. Out.
"Nau!"
Jolts, words slam into her like a fist in her gut. Blinks reflexively, directly into green, green eyes. Flinches, braces. This is going to be bad, worse even. Eye contact is a no, and in the middle of punishment? With any luck, will only make her wish she had the taser again. It's not been a lucky day. This is going to hurt. Any second now.
Only ...
Nothing happens.
She dares to open her eyes again, just a little. Green looks right back. Curious. Is it lessening? Is she maybe supposed to look? Opens mouth – to ask? She knows the rules of this, knows she isn't allowed to speak, but ... she isn't allowed to look, so ... maybe ...
Something slams into her head, hard enough to snap it back off the floor. Impact. Floor. Bounce. Floor.
"Onya!"
There's no pain, just adrenaline and ringing and sound fading away, and a pair of green, green eyes in darkness.
It's kind of weird, Clarke thinks, how black is just really, really dark green.
A/N: I don't actually know if prospective doctors have to take sociology. I know nurses do, so I decided to sprinkle a little in.
The first chapter of the sequel, Jarring of Judgement, will be posted shortly.