It's a quiet and cold night, each breath feathers against the back of her neck, brushes against the shell of her ear, and Clarke can't help but to lean back into the pressure behind her, into the warmth, into the beat of the heart pressed against her shoulder blades.
Torvun grunts out quietly as her body shifts against his, each quiet breath that leaves his lips sending a warmth down Clarke's neck that she finds herself sinking deeper and deeper into. And she can't help but to whimper, to moan just a little as his arms wrap around her and as his beard brings even more warmth to the back of her neck as he presses a chilled cheek to the furs that wrap them both.
But Clarke grimaces, too, she can't help but to feel the twitching of her lip, and the grimace at the slightest bit of pain at the stretch as Entani moves against her then, as the other healer presses closer, as her breath seems to sink into the very fibres of her body as they grow closer and closer and closer.
A gasp comes next, and it's quiet, it's careful, it's just a little bashful and far too close for Clarke to ignore.
And so she can't help but to frown as Ontari's braids fall against her face, as the other woman's lips seem to press against her nose, and as she presses as close as possible as flesh finds flesh, and as cold breath is shared between quivering bodies.
"Ontari," Clarke can't help but to whisper out into the quiet, "Ontari," she repeats as the other woman simply ignores her and continues to press closer, more firmly, more wanting in her desires for bodily contact. "Ontari. Stop moving," and it rolls off her tongue far too biting for her to suppress, but Clarke can't be blamed, for she feels Ontari's knee digging into her stomach, she feels Entani's shin press between her legs, and she feels Torvun's knife as it digs into her lower back with each shifting of their bodies.
"It is your fault," Ontari replies with little more than mouthed breath, her cold lips seemingly finding even more of her exposed face from where their cheeks remained pressed together.
"No it isn't," and it wasn't, not quite, at least.
"It is, Clarke," Entani says as the healer sneaks her hands deeper into the furs they share.
"You're the one who wanted to try to make it to their hunting grounds before nightfall," Clarke retorted as she felt the faintest speck of ice fall onto her forehead.
"You are the one who chose this spot to dig for the night," Ontari answers, and Clarke grimaces as she feels Ontari's chin dig into her cheek as she shifts in search of a more comfortable position.
And perhaps Clarke can't blame Entani and Ontari. Perhaps she can't even blame Torvun and his quiet acceptance of their predicament.
But perhaps Clarke can resent.
And so, as Torvun's body continues to take up far too much of the small space they had dug into the snow for the night, as Ontari's body presses too firmly into her own, and as Entani's legs seem to stretch Clarke's own body out in an attempt to make room, Clarke finds herself wistful in thought as she ponders what it must be like to not have to worry about being eaten by a mutated beast, or freezing to death in the wilderness of the Norther Plains.
But what more is she than a fool seeking a reward?
Sunlight sparkles and echoes off the snow as far as her eyes can see. Each little reflection seems to bring with it a colour too vibrant for Clarke to gaze upon for longer than a few short moments before her eyes water and sting.
A gust of wind picks up then, and with it comes a shiver and a gasp that Clarke finds familiar now that she has spent the last few days tracking her prey. Ontari stumbles then, the woman curses and groans at the way her furs don't quite hold back the cold, and Clarke can't stifle the laugh as Ontari flings snow up in the air in annoyance.
But despite the days they have spent in the Northern Plains, despite the isolation and the cold, the buffeting winds and the constant feeling of being followed, Clarke finds that she feels alive, more carefree, more at ease with her surroundings than she has felt in months.
And perhaps that feeling is due to the lack of ambassadors that constantly belittle her, that think she is nothing but an unthinking warrior, someone who knows nothing but death and violence.
And perhaps they are right, at least partly, if only because she can't deny the fact that she has considered ordering any one of her clan's assassins to Polis.
But, she can't complain, not much and not at all. And Clarke finds she can't complain for the simple fact that Azgeda has thrived since Nia's death, that the clans have seen more trade with the help of Skaikru's tech, that clans once reliant on others for food can now begin to grow where once it was impossible.
But Clarke is also no fool, for she knows some grounders see the change as blasphemy, as an erosion of their way of life. But in time, she hopes, things will settle, that the changing of the times will be seen as a welcome reprieve from the constant battle for survival.
And yet, she thi—
Torvun stops suddenly, and Clarke grimaces as her face bumps into his back, into a hard edge of a sword strapped to his body. But Clarke thinks she hears it, she thinks she feels the vibrations in the air, the quiet rumble that just barely gives way to whatever presence is near. Clarke looks out around her, she sees Ontari already drawing an arrow, she sees Entani readying her spear, tip glinting and glaring fiercely in the sun light. Her hand falls to her knife strapped to her thigh, and she shrugs off her bow. And she waits.
Torvun's body begins to shift ever so slightly as he eyes the far side of the snow dune they stand upon, she feels his body beginning to strum with anticipation, and she can't even deny the excitement and the fear that begins to spike through her veins, that makes her blood begin to flush and flow to the very corners of her body.
And the next few moments seem to last a lifetime, for Clarke is sure she could see every little detail that flashes past her eyes. But she knows it to be nothing more than a blink of an eye.
A roar echoes out around them, something deep and loud and fierce, deafening and full of fury and desperation.
Ontari yelps in shock and surprise, and if Clarke was safe behind an army, if she wasn't knee deep in snow, or if she was in her quarters in Polis tower she would have laughed, would have doubled over at the sound that escapes Ontari's mouth. But she's not, and she's not and she is sure she screams out in shock, too.
And she does because an eruption of snow explodes in front of them, particles of the white, glistening and sparkling, shimmering and dancing in the sun soar through the air and blind her sight for longer than she likes.
A shadow moves through the haze, its body large, lumbering, elegant and precise. But Clarke sees the eyes, she sees the fangs, the jaws, the lips that pull back in anticipation of the blood that will wet its maws.
Ontari jumps forward then, an arrow flashes out, and Clarke sees the beast swipe it away as little more than annoyance, even Entani leaps forward, the healer's spear thrusting out, the tip aimed squarely for the beast's neck, but it rounds on them as easily as it exploded from where it had hidden in the snow. And Clarke can't help but to grimace as she feels the snow give way under her, she can't help but to cry out in panic as she feels her body begin to slip, but still, she draws an arrow, she aims it for the beast, and she pauses for only a moment longer, until she is sure Entani won't be hit, that Ontari won't stand in the path of her arrow. And then Clarke fires. She fires, and her eyes follow the arrow as it zips forward, as it crashes through the air, and as it slams into the beasts shoulder.
And Clarke will celebrate drawing the beast's blood at a later time, at a time when Ontari and Entani don't seem to be tumbling down the side of the snow dune, where they aren't falling head over heels, arms and hair and fur and weapons flying in every direction as they tumble and tumble and fall with the avalanche of snow that carries them away and away. And Clarke will celebrate not having been eaten mere moments ago when Torvun isn't flying through the air, when his sword had only just found flesh on the beast's forearm, when his body doesn't seem to weigh anything more than a bundle of sticks as it spins and turns through the air.
And Clarke will most certainly celebrate at a later time, when she isn't being taken down the other side of the snow dune, when she isn't struggling to stay atop the blankets of snow that pull her further and further and further away from her friends.
And Clarke will celebrate.
If she doesn't die.
There's perhaps two things Clarke hates in the world. The first being the way certain ambassadors see fit to second guess every deal she negotiates on behalf of Roan, every word she says during meetings or the fact that they simply ignore her presence. The second is the fact that she doesn't quite have the authority to kick them from the top of Polis tower, or even to simply sneak into their quarters and slip a knife between sleeping ribs.
But Clarke thinks she's found a knew thing to detest, a new thing to resent.
And so she curses, she stumbles and she spits out a mouthful of muddy snow as she rolls to her feet and continues to plow through the snow piles before her, each leaping step she takes bringing her tiring limbs closer and closer to their breaking point.
The roar echoes out around her, its sound carries through the snow and the cold continues to bite into her flesh. But she ignores it as much as she ignores the blood that drips from her forehead, that continues burning in the corner of her eye.
Clarke slips then, she slides and she finds herself falling down and down and over the edge of a small ridgeline that bottoms out into the harshness of a frozen lake, whose surface is rough and glimmering to the sun that sits too happily overhead.
But she hears and feels the thudding, she even senses the prickling in the air and so Clarke grimaces as she comes to her shaky feet and turns to face the beast that had been trying to eat her for the last hundred paces she had dashed.
Its eyes are ferocious, its lips pull back to expose snarling teeth, gnashing and twisted to the radiation. Its body seems to shift and shiver to the cold, but Clarke is sure it feels none of the biting chill as it starts to take cautious step after cautious step towards her, its large feet helping to spread its weight over the frozen water's surface.
Clarke finds, not for the first time, that she curses the fact that she had fallen over the wrong side of the snow dune, that she had been cursed to tumble left when Ontari and Entani had fallen right, when Torvun had tried to distract the animal only to be flung head over heels somewhere into the billowing of the white.
But most of all?
She curses the fact that she thought it a good idea to take on the Northern Hunts, all in the name of giving the Commander a gift for their anniversary.
And so she draws her knife, she lets the tip glint in the sunlight and she lets her breathing still and steady as she focuses her gaze onto the beast that inches forward. Its breath fogs and rises before its face, its eyes narrow, each paw print left behind in the soft dusting of snow too large, too dwarfing for Clarke to really comprehend. But she thinks she sees its body shift, she thinks she sees its weight change slightly, just enough that she knows a strike, a charge, an attack is soon to come.
Clarke continues to take cautious step after cautious step backwards, for she knows facing the beast head on to be foolish, to be a stupid task, but still, she finds herself unsure of how to fight, unsure of how to battle something so large she was sure it could tear her in half and eat her torso or her legs with little trouble.
Her foot slips then, and she grimaces as her knee strikes the frozen and harsh surface of the lake she stands upon. The beast must sense where they are though, it must understand the danger, for it pauses for a moment, its snout presses to the ice and Clarke thinks she sees it take a moment to judge, to gauge, to war with its own survival instincts.
And perhaps the only way she can survive is to draw it closer, if only because she is sure that neither of them being able to stand without sliding is better than her continuing to be chased until her legs give out.
And so Clarke grits her teeth, curses the fact that all her arrows are broken, snapped and destroyed from her fall, and she wonders and prays and hopes that Torvun and Ontari, Entani will find her soon.
The beast takes a step forward, and Clarke sees its paws spread its weight, she sees it lower itself ever so slightly to the surface of the ice, and, if Clarke were a fool she would think she sees it smile, sees its lips twitch up at the corners.
But she thinks herself not.
And so she takes a steadying breath, she settles her stance, and she tries to calm her thoughts as muc—
She isn't so sure whether she heard or felt it, but she knew she registered it.
And again.
The beast pauses, too, and Clarke thinks it takes her only a moment longer to realise what that noise, what that feeling reverberating beneath her feet must mean.
She spares barely a second to take her eyes from the beast, she eyes the ice beneath her, and she can't quite tell whether it's fear, it's relief, or some other form of emotion that takes hold of her body.
But she is sure it to be a sign, a hand reached out to her in this god forsaken desolation.
Clarke smirks something feral, something desperate, something honed from years of surviving the cold of Azgeda winds.
And so Clarke roars, she begins to rush towards the beast with whatever strength she can muster in the moment.
And she'll worry about the ice cracking beneath her when it breaks.