AN: So this chapter was a lot of fun to write after the last few heavier ones. New Zealand and a LoTR tour is definitely on my own bucket list, and I wouldn't mind a week or two in Bora Bora if I could afford it… a girl can dream, right?
I don't own anything relating to The 100
Chapter title from "Into the West" by Annie Lennox, from "The Return of the King", for obvious LotR references
47
And Dream of the Ones Who Came Before
Clarke has been to New Zealand before, back in the early nineties when she and Harper did a kind of tour of the area, with a few stops in Australia first. That was basically a city trip, though, apart from a couple of days in the Australian bush, and they spent a week each in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, so they never really got to experience the nature of the country. And, of course, that was before the big Lord of the Rings craze, so she might not have appreciated it the same way anyway.
Now, though, it's completely obvious, even during the three hour drive from Auckland to Rotorua, why this was picked as the location for the movies.
"This is amazing," Bellamy notes quietly when they've been driving for an hour or so and are heading down a narrow road that cuts between rolling hills. "Even if I hadn't seen the movies, this is what I would have imagined based on reading the books."
"It is really cool," Clarke agrees. "I mean, I was already looking forward to the tour tomorrow, and the other stuff we're doing, but now I'm getting really excited."
"Way ahead of you," he replies with a half-smile. "This is going to be awesome."
They're booked into a country hotel by Lake Rotorua, closer to the airport than the movie set they're visiting tomorrow, but since their flight on Monday is at ten in the morning, it made more sense.
Clarke hadn't realizes just how remote the place was, though. She knows that the city of Rotorua is stretched along the southern bank of the lake, but that's about a fifteen minute drive away, and all they've passed since they turned onto the road leading to the hotel are a handful of houses dotted here and there.
The view is absolutely stunning, though.
"Wow," Bellamy breathes when they've parked and gotten out of the car.
On three sides of the hotel, the green rolling hills stretch as far as the eye can see, roads cutting through them here and there. Straight ahead, though, is the lake, painted a multitude of colors by the setting sun.
"Amazing," she agrees.
The receptionist helps them make dinner reservations at a nearby restaurant after they check in, but that's not for another two and a half hours, and Clarke's kind of hungry now, so when they've checked out their room, she heads for the door again.
"I'm going to see if they have any food in the bar," she tells Bellamy, who's toed off his shoes and is leaning against the headboard with his phone in his hand. "You want anything?"
"Sure, if they have sandwiches or something, grab me one? Whatever looks good."
"Will do."
The hotel's not huge, but it still takes her a little while to find her way to the onsite bar, and then ten minutes to get the food and another minute or so back to the room. When she opens the door, she immediately hears Octavia's voice.
"… so I told her, if you want my help, that's fine, but if you're just going to complain, I have better things to do."
Bellamy looks up with a smile when he hears the door close behind her.
"You called her without me?" Clarke asks, pouting a little.
"Sorry, Clarke, my fault," comes from the phone, and he hands it over at the same time as he mimes 'no wedding'. "We said around six and I have to get to my morning class in, like, ten minutes so I called him."
Clarke gives Bellamy a discreet nod, telling him she picked up on his warning, before focusing on Octavia on the screen. "Of course, I totally get it. So did he manage to convince you to come to New York when we get back?"
An expression that could probably be described as mischievous flashes across Octavia's face before she smiles brightly. "I think so, yeah. I just need to make sure I can take some time off, and that it's OK with Lincoln, but barring any complications, we'll be there."
"Great!"
They chat for a little longer before Octavia has to dash, and then Bellamy calls his grandmother as well and they talk to her and Danilo and Maria for almost an hour, telling them all about Sydney and what they've seen of New Zealand so far. When they hang up they still have half an hour before they need to leave for the restaurant, though, so they decide to explore the grounds a little. They find a donkey and some alpacas, and then lounge by the pool for a bit, Bellamy pointing out the constellations that are unique to the southern hemisphere.
"So you didn't bring up the wedding thing to Octavia?" Clarke asks when he's stopped talking, glancing sideways at him.
He shrugs – or at least as much as he can lying down. "It didn't feel right. But she sounded excited about just coming to visit, so hopefully that'll work out."
"Good, I know you want to see her again."
He sighs, long and deep. "Yeah, I do. I wish… I want more time with her, but I'll take what I can get."
She reaches out to find his hand in the darkness and squeezes.
"I know."
-100-
It's about an hour's drive from their hotel to the Hobbiton Movie Set, but their tour isn't until after one in the afternoon, so they can enjoy a nice, lazy breakfast looking out over the grounds and the lake in the distance. The drive is lovely too, all winding roads weaving through lush fields and rolling hills. It definitely gets them in the right mindset for the actual tour.
Which ends up being even more awesome than Clarke thought it would be, even having seen the photos on the official site. They start off with a buffet style lunch in a large marquee that looks like it could have been taken straight from Bilbo's eleventy first birthday party, and then their knowledgeable – and excited – tour guide escorts them around the movie set.
"It's like stepping into the actual movie," Bellamy mumbles to her as they follow the rest of the group down a narrow lane. The hills around them are dotted with little round, colorful doors and windows, sheep grazing in the distance.
"I think that's sort of the point," she replies amusedly. "But it's pretty cool, yeah."
They get a chance to take some photos, pass the mill down by the small lake, and visit the Green Dragon Inn before they're escorted back to the car park.
"We should have watched the movies before we came," Bellamy half-grumbles when they're back on the road. "It would have been so cool to be able to point out all the little details."
"So we'll watch them now," Clarke says with a shrug. "The flight to Bora Bora is, like, a whole day, we can cram at least a couple of them in there, right?"
He snorts. "Funny, they're not that long."
"The Hobbit is three movies," she points out. "I mean, I probably wouldn't have complained if they split Lord of the Rings into two movies per book – those are long and I really missed Tom Bombadil – but three movies for The Hobbit? Seriously?"
"I'm not arguing with you!" he exclaims, chuckling.
They spend the hour it takes back to the hotel discussing everything they would have left out of The Hobbit trilogy if they had been in charge, and everything they would have included in the Lord of the Rings trilogy if they could. It's not really a surprise to her that they agree on almost everything, but it still makes something warm and soft settle in the pit of her stomach.
The next day is a lot of travelling again, since there's no direct flight from Rotorua to Nelson and they have to go through Wellington with a bit of a delay. Even though they leave their hotel right after breakfast, they don't arrive at their next stop until late in the evening. They're only staying here for two nights, so she booked a hotel by the airport, since that's where the helicopter tour they're taking departs from, which means they at least don't have a long cab ride when they finally make it off the plane.
"Please tell me we can just crash," Bellamy says, flopping face first onto the bed.
"Good idea," Clarke agrees, pausing long enough to kick her shoes off and get out of her jeans before joining him.
They do muster up enough energy to at least brush their teeth, and she remembers to set her alarm, but after that, they're both out like lights.
They're back at the airport at ten the next morning, a little bleary eyed but still excited about the day ahead.
They did watch the first move, The Fellowship of the Ring, while they were waiting for their flight in Wellington, so the places they fly over and visit during the helicopter tour are a little fresher in their minds.
Clarke's never been in a helicopter before, and while she knows she can't die if she were to fall out of it, hitting the ground would still hurt like hell, so she thinks she's perfectly reasonably slightly terrified when their pilot tilts the thing so they'll be able to see better. Bellamy laughs a little at the way her fingers dig into his thigh, but he does wrap an arm around her as comfort as well.
"The door's closed," he points out through the headset. "And we're wearing heavy-duty seatbelts. What exactly are you afraid will happen?"
Before she can come up with something, the pilot's voice comes over the coms. "I assure you, you're perfectly safe," he says. "I've only crashed once in my life, and what are the odds of that happening again, eh?"
She's not entirely sure if he's joking or not, but he follows up with a proper belly laugh, so she decides that he must be.
As soon as they've leveled out and are flying over the Tasman Bay, she does relax a little. The scene below them is just too mesmerizing to focus on something else – the sea glittering far below, a deep blue right below them and lighter, almost turquoise closer to the sandy shore, beautiful, rolling hills and even a few snowcapped mountain peaks in the distance.
"Will there be snow today?" Clarke asks the pilot when she spots it. In the confirmation email she got when booking the tour, it did say that the end of May could mean snow in the mountains, and both she and Bellamy are wearing layers, with a couple of sweaters each and thin jackets.
"There was some snow last night," the pilot replies as he turns the helicopter in a semicircle and starts heading back towards land. "Most of it's probably melted away by now, but there might still be some."
She manages to focus on the landscape below and around them until the pilot starts coming in for landing at their first stop. It feels like the mountain's approaching much too fast and she can't help burying her face against Bellamy's shoulder until she feels the helicopter touch down. His arm tightens around her and she feels his lips press against the top of her head, can almost hear a whispered 'you're fine, Princess'.
"See, that wasn't too bad, was it?" the pilot asks when he opens the door for them.
She still feels a little shaky, so she takes the hand he offers and lets him help her out of the helicopter.
"Not too bad, no."
They get some time to explore what they can of the mountain peak they're on – which is free from snow, though a higher peak some distance away is still covered in a thin layer – and then the pilot offers a thermos of coffee, and they sit and talk for a few minutes, listening to his stories of different tours he's taken tourists on.
When they get back in the helicopter, Clarke resolutely squeezes her eyes shut before the pilot even starts the engine. "Let me know when we're high enough," she says. Both Bellamy and the pilot chuckle a little at her request, but she feels better, so she doesn't really care.
The second stop is just as amazing as the first, and just like at the Hobbiton set the other day, it's easy to imagine scenes from the movie coming to life – a hobbit coming over the rocky hills, an Elf arrow whizzing through the air, or the Orcs and their wargs storming over the plains below.
They land at the airport again around two in the afternoon, and stop by the hotel to get rid of some layers of clothing before heading into the city proper to explore a little.
Nelson's not a big city, so even though the airport's some ways out of town, it's only a fifteen minute cab ride to the city center. They grab a late lunch before exploring the city, and end up strolling around well into the evening, checking out the different sights and interesting spots.
"What do you say, an early dinner and back to the hotel?" Bellamy suggests when they've gone full circle and are back at the city's main attraction, its cathedral, which is lit up beautifully in the dark.
"Sounds good."
Their flight leaves a little before one the next day, but they've done all the sightseeing they wanted and it doesn't seem worth it to head into town again, so they enjoy a long breakfast and then just lounge around their hotel room until it's time to head to the airport.
The flight to their last New Zealand stop, Christchurch, is barely an hour, and it's only a twenty minute ride to their hotel in the center of the city, so they have a couple of hours to sightsee before the sun sets.
"That's the downside of it being late fall here," Bellamy notes as they watch the sun dip below the tree tops. They're grabbing a coffee at a café by the botanical gardens, which still has tables and chairs set up outside, despite the temperature already dropping. "Short days."
"Yeah, that's going to be a problem for a little while," Clarke replies. "Until we get to Central America, I guess. On the other hand, if we'd been here in the middle of their summer, it would have been much hotter, so…"
"So we get to enjoy that when we get back to the US instead," he finishes off her sentence, and she can't help but laugh.
"Yeah, Vegas in July, that'll be fun."
"It will be," he agrees, sobering and offering her a smile. "It's just that it'll also be hot as hell. But this is the only way the trip would have worked, really."
"Yeah, it is. Plus, the hotel will have AC and if there's anywhere nobody will look twice if we walk down the street in just a bikini or swimming trunks, it's Vegas."
He chuckles a little at that. "Good to know."
Clarke downs the last of her coffee. "Now come on, I want to check out the garden a little before they close."
-100-
Thursday is another early day and they're bundled up in a minivan with a few other tourists by nine in the morning, heading out of the city for another Lord of the Rings experience. Clarke did consider not booking an actual tour from Christchurch and just driving around the countryside themselves, since there are a lot of resources online, but she's insanely glad she talked herself out of that. It's much nicer, being able to relax and admire the scenery, discuss what they're passing with Bellamy and the other people in their group, and not have to worry about focusing on the road and making sure they're on the right track.
It's a long but fun and interesting day, with stops at the filming locations of Edoras – the actual town that was built for the movies is gone, of course, but they can still climb the hill and it's not hard to picture it as it used to be – the Misty Mountains and Helm's Deep. They enjoy a picnic lunch with breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside, and even get to check out a couple of props from the actual movie. She snaps a picture of Bellamy holding Aragorn's sword, an almost awed look on his face.
"Imagining killing orcs?" she asks with a smile and he rolls his eyes.
"One of us has to," he shoots back. "Come on, Princess, they could attack at any moment."
"Obviously."
They're not back at their hotel until after six in the evening, both still buzzing slightly from the excitement of the day and unable to stay still, so they head out for some more exploration and dinner.
Their flight to Bora Bora isn't until Friday afternoon, so they manage to squeeze in a trip on the Christchurch gondola, taking them to the peak of Mount Cavendish, in the morning.
"Good thing this one doesn't have a glass floor, huh?" Bellamy notes with a smirk when the doors have closed behind them and their gondola is starting to move.
They're sharing the gondola with a family with two kids who look to be maybe five and eight, so Clarke elbows him lightly in the side before leaning in. "Shut up."
He just laughs and turns his attention to the view, which is absolutely amazing.
They don't have a ton of time, though, so they just stroll around a little when they reach the summit, snapping some photos of the city below and the mountains and water surrounding them, before boarding another gondola to head back down.
"So, overall score for our Lord of the Rings experience?" Clarke asks later in the afternoon when they're waiting for their flight to be called. "I know there are other places we could have gone, but these were the ones that jumped out at me when I was looking into it."
The smile on Bellamy's face pretty much says everything she needs to know. "On a scale from one to ten, it's been, like, a twelve. At least. Maybe twelve and a half."
She shakes her head. "You're way too easy to please."
"Oh, you know it," he replies, wagging his eyebrows, and she has to laugh.
"I definitely do."
It feels like they should have gotten used to traveling by now, considering how much they've been doing it, but this is another one of those trips where they don't really have a lot of flight time, but several stops and one long layover in Papeete in Tahiti. They do get to take a shower in the VIP lounge after they land, but even though it's the middle of the night, neither of them get much sleep on the hard airport chairs. Which means they've basically been awake for…
"What time is it here again?" Clarke asks the man who picked them up at the airport.
"It is nine forty-five in the morning," he replies with a knowing smile that tells her he's used to the question. "On Friday May thirty-first."
Bellamy frowns next to her. "How does that work, we left Christchurch at three in the afternoon on Friday."
"We've crossed the dateline," she tells him before hiding a huge yawn behind her hand. "And I'm too tired to figure out how long we've been awake, but it's definitely at least twenty-four hours by now. Good thing I was more coherent when I made the hotel reservation, or we might not have a room until tomorrow."
Their… driver? Captain? He did give them his name but Clarke clearly didn't register it. Their host, anyway, has loaded their bags onto a trolley and is now leading them out of the airport building and towards the docks on the lagoon side of the small island.
"Do not worry," he says with a smile over his shoulder. "Your bungalow is ready and waiting for you."
"We're going by boat?" Bellamy asks when he realizes where they're going.
"Yes," their host replies. "There are roads on the main island, but not many out here, so we go by boat."
Within a few minutes, all three of them along with the bags have been loaded onto a sleek looking boat and they're pulling away from the docks. It's already warm, and the wind whipping against them is pleasant as they cut through the turquoise water.
Their host offers some information during the trip, pointing out the main island to their right and the outlying island, which their hotel is on, to their left. He gives them some more background on the area as well, and tells them about some excursions that the hotel can help them book, if they get bored of just relaxing.
It's not long before Clarke spots the thatched roofs of their hotel in the distance, and she turns her attention to Bellamy, wanting to see his first reaction.
And it does not disappoint. When the boat slows and turns in between the rows of overwater bungalows, towards what she assumes is the main dock and reception area, Bellamy's eyes widen almost comically, his jaw literally dropping.
"We're staying here?" he half-whispers, as if he's afraid it will turn out to be a joke if he's too loud.
"We are," she confirms, not fighting the smile that wants to spread on her face. "In one of those bungalows out there. You like?"
"I like? It's… this is like… not even a dream, because I don't think I could have come up with this in a million years if someone asked me, but seriously, this is… wow."
The boat has come to a stop and their host helps them out of it and onto the dock. "Just go on in through there," he tells them, gesturing at a building at the end of the docks. "Someone will help you get checked in, and I will make sure your luggage is waiting in your bungalow when you get there."
"Thank you," Clarke says with a smile, fishing a big tip out of her purse.
They get checked in without problem and are soon being led by a woman with an overly polite smile towards the farthest row of bungalows. She stops at one towards the end of the wooden dock, opening the door for them.
"Here you are. Your bags will be in the bedroom, and if you need anything, just call the reception at any hour."
Clarke takes the key from the woman and then the door closes behind her and they're alone.
"So… first thoughts?"
Bellamy lets out an incredulous snort. "It feels like I'm in some sort of alternate reality, I just… this isn't something I get to do."
She drops the key on the table and goes over to wrap her arms around him. "It is for the next week, OK?"
"It still feels surreal."
"More than the Seychelles?"
He frowns a little at that. "Yeah, I'm not sure why…"
"Well, why don't you think about that while we get some rest?" she suggests, kicking her shoes off before going over to the terrace doors and tilting the blinds a little. "I don't know about you, but I'm about to fall asleep, so I think our best course of action would be to get a couple of hours of rest."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." He looks around the room for the first time. "Where is the bedroom?"
Clarke slides her hand into his and pulls him along towards the bathroom. "Through here."
As promised, their bags are waiting in the bedroom, and they both change out of their travel clothes before Bellamy sets an alarm on his phone for two hours and they crawl into bed.
"Have I thanked you lately?" he mumbles once they've settled in, him on his back and her with her head on his chest, one leg thrown over his and one arm wrapped around him. He's trailing a hand up and down her back, through the thin material of the tank top she put on, but the touch is still warm.
She turns her head up a little to be able to look at him. "For what?"
He half-shrugs. "This, everything. Just… giving me the most amazing experience I could ever have asked for."
Her instinct is to brush it off, to say it's nothing, or that it's just as much for her as it is for him, which is true. But, for some reason, she doesn't. Not this time.
Instead, she settles back down, burying her face against his neck and breathing in the mix of day-old cologne, airplane, sweat and Bellamy. The best scent in the world.
"Not lately, no."
He presses a kiss to the top of her head and slides his hand under her top, just resting it against the small of her back, a warm presence against her skin. "Then thank you."
"You're welcome."