Indecision is never something Torvun has had the pleasure of knowing. At least until now. Each step he takes leaves him feeling guilty and uncertain. It doesn't help that his steps are followed by that same annoying pain seeping into his hip, the time since the explosion having barely dulled the hurt.
The moon hangs high in the night's sky. Clouds drift by and the wind that breathes through the forest brings forth a creeping chill. Azgeda warriors lie carried on stretchers, many with missing limbs, broken bones and injuries too numerous to count. Those not helping carry stretchers hold out burning torches to light the forest, and the other uninjured, or lucky enough to be only mildly hurt move from stretcher to stretcher seeing to the hurt.
Torvun looks down at Entani who lies on the stretcher he helps carry, the woman's eyes closed, her lips pulling into a grimace with each unfortunate jostle she feels. At times Entani seems to curse or to take in a shallow breath as she tries to control the pain that must stab into her side.
Ontari walks beside him, her face and eyes wrapped in a bandaged soaked in scented ointment. Her left hand reaches out and holds onto Torvun's furs, her injured arm bandaged and held close to her side.
Torvun looks out around them, he knows their predicament, their pain not unique. He sees Trikru warriors walking amongst them, too, these having been sent to accompany them on the journey to the Mountain, in part in a show of solidarity, and in part to protect lest they are attacked by Ilian and whoever he walks with. He even sees Indra rising at the front of the slow moving mass of warriors, the woman's gaze clearly directed outwards into the dark, one of her hands resting on her sword's handle.
But Torvun doesn't linger too long upon Indra, and he doesn't for he finds himself grinding his teeth and ignoring the bruised and fleshy gap where two of his teeth are missing. A frustration grows inside him then and he tries to settle his anger, his frustration and guilt.
He doesn't know where Clarke is. Part of him is thankful for the fact that her body, or what was left of it, wasn't found, if only because he thinks that must mean she is still alive, that she has a fighting chance. And part of him is furious for he feels a responsibility for her presumed capture.
But Torvun is no fool, he knows himself currently incapable of helping Jenma and the others track Clarke down. And yet, as he grits his teeth only to wince, he feels a guilt all the same. He shakes his head to rid his minds of the thoughts, but he looks up to find they have come to the edge of a clearing as Indra's hand rises in the air before she turns in her saddle.
"We camp here for the night," she calls out.
Camp fires spread out across the clearing. Tents stand erected and uninjured warriors and healers alike move from wounded to wounded. Torvun finds himself sitting by a fire, the top of his head stinging from the cut, the burn and the ointment spread over his wound.
He hears a cough then, and as he looks down to Entani who lies on her back by the fire he can't help but to feel a stab of worry as she tries to even out her breaths.
"How are your ribs?" he asks quietly and he watches as she tries to move into a more comfortable position where she lies before giving up.
"Sore," and her voice comes out quiet.
Torvun doesn't press further, but he finds himself examining each breath she takes as subtly as he can, if only because he remembers the last time how severely Entani had broken her ribs the last time they had been in an explosion. He turns to Ontari to find the woman sitting, her face and eyes still covered in bandages and her jaw clenched tightly. But he looks up at the approach of feet to find a warrior moving towards them, a cart pushed in front full of foods hastily prepared for the night. It doesn't take long before the foods are laid down before them, the scents enough drown out the medicinal aroma that wafts through the groaning camp.
"Food?" he asks to Entani only for her to shake her head with a grimace.
Torvun accepts her refusal with an understanding nod despite the fact her gaze seems focused up into the stars as if she is trying to will away the pain into the heavens.
"Ontari?" and he turns to the woman to finds her hand already trying to unwrap the bandage across her face. "Let me," Torvun says as he turns to face her fully.
Ontari pauses for a moment before she seems to huff out her frustration and turn herself towards him. Torvun moves the bowls of food down near the fire to keep them warm as he reaches out for Ontari's face.
Though both women's faces are only lightly burnt by the red smoke, Torvun knows it must be uncomfortable for both, so as he begins to unwind the bandage from across Ontari's face he can't help but to whisper apologies with each gentle wince that falls from her lips.
As the last of Ontari's bandages fall away he finds her skin still reddened and inflamed, the hair of her eyebrows singed and her eyes still bloodshot and unfocused.
"Can you see?" he asks.
"Everything is blurry," Ontari says, and Torvun eyes the cut that opens her lip and reaches up to the scars on her cheek.
Torvun doesn't press further than that, but he can tell a panic exists within the woman as her eyes try to piece together whatever she must be seeing before her.
"Your lip?" he asks and he reaches for Entani's healer pack, now half empty, its contents having been used by many in need.
"Fine," Ontari says, but he notices that she speaks from the opposite corner of her mouth, her words just barely slurred.
Torvun reaches for the bowl, her wound's cleaning to be done after the food, and Ontari must sense what he does for she holds out her hand for the bowl. He watches as Ontari takes hold and lays it in her lap with one hand. But he sees her pause, seem to try to look more closely at it with her injured eyes.
"What is it?" Ontari asks then, and Torvun finds that her voice seems to be tinged with the barest hints of something has hasn't heard often.
"Soup," he says, and he reaches forward, prods the spoon around so that Ontari can hear where it is.
Ontari stays quiet for a long moment, and in that time Torvun is sure he can see the thoughts moving through her mind. He takes the moment of silence to check on Entani who remains lying on her back, her mind elsewhere, but when he turns back to Ontari he sees her looking in his direction.
"I—" Ontari pauses. "I can not see it," and she looks away. "I need help," her voice comes out more quiet than Torvun has heard before.
Torvun doesn't say anything, doesn't even make a fuss over the fact, he simply moves forward, his motions enough for Ontari to sense his presence. And so he takes the bowl from her lap and he brings the spoon up close enough that he knows Ontari can smell it.
"Careful," he says, "it is hot."
Ontari leans forward just enough that her lip touches the spoon, but she flinches, she winces at the heat against her lip and the cut that must hurt more than she admits. But Ontari seems to settle her mind for she opens her mouth and takes in the soup with a determination that Torvun finds familiar.
"More?" Torvun asks.
Ontari nods just once.
And so they fall into a rhythm, Torvun content to help Ontari eat, and to check on Entani who remains quiet throughout the night.
But through it all, Torvun can't help but feel a guilt, an anger and a responsibility for Clarke's disappearance.
The forest is quiet, the wind that breathes through the trees seems less inclined to make noise than usual. Even the animals remain silent and hidden away from the open. Lexa pauses, one hand on the pommel of her sword, the other pressed lightly against the footprint in the ground.
Warriors spread out around her, a mixture of Azgeda and Trikru. Costia and Anya stay close by her side, and in the distance she can just barely make out the silhouette of Jenma who leads the Azgeda.
"It is a trap," Anya says against the shell of her ear.
Lexa knows the footprint is too cleanly made by anyone wanting to remain hidden and unfollowed. But knowing a trap lies in wait isn't the thing the frustrates her the most. What makes her skin crawl is the fact that she isn't entirely sure if they will be met with tech or not, and that changes things, it leaves them vulnerable, unable to commit to a course of action without taking more risks than she would like. Especially because she is sure Clarke has been taken prisoner.
Lexa looks for the nearest scout, and her gaze falls to a wiry man, short, with slender body corded muscle.
"Up," she whispers and she sees him nod once before he slinks forward before beginning to scale the nearest tree.
A thrill begins to strum through her veins though, and she feels the tension in the air begin to shift, begin to vibrate with an intensity that makes her lips snarl in anticipation. Lexa waits for long enough that she knows the scout would have seen danger if it was easily found, perhaps disappointingly no warning comes and so Lexa lifts one finger into the air, and as she does more warriors begin to scale the trees around her, their motions sure, fast and silent.
"Move."
And so, as if as one, Lexa and her warriors rise from the shadows and begin to stalk forward and into whatever trap lies in wait.
Lexa runs hard, her vision half blurred and her face covered in part of her sash. Red smoke wafts through the forest, more concentrated in some places, spread out in others. Warriors around her sputter, some choke, some roar out frustrations and take to the trees in the hopes of escaping the red.
They had been ambushed just as expected, but what had surprised her was the method of attack. Lexa expected explosions, a volley of arrows or a confrontation head on, but what she had found was the tech that spit out the red smoke. And so she curses the fact that her vision swims, that she races forward and towards the shadowy figures who run ahead.
Lexa leaps over a fallen tree trunk, she hits the dirt and the rolls to her feet in one motion as she continues her chase. Noise overhead brings her attention for only a second's look, and as she snaps her gaze upwards she sees Anya, beast like in motion leaping from branch to branch in an attempt to cut off whoever they chase.
A prickling sense of something triggers her reflexes and Lexa dives to the ground just in time to avoid an arrow sent her way, and she feels a stab of relief as she hears whoever runs behind her manages to deflect the arrow with whatever weapon they hold in their hands.
Lexa doesn't linger, she leaps, she races and she sprints through the forest, her feet more sure in the forest as she begins to gain on the person before her. But she hears the clink, she sees the flash of silver tech and she grits her teeth as the person throws a canister of the red smoke behind them.
The canister bounces off the ground, tumbles through the air and explodes. Red smoke screams out in all directions, its tendrils reach far and wide, engulf and wrap and choke the trees and bushes and leaves.
Lexa grimaces, takes one last deep breath before she plunges into the red smoke as she gives chase. She thinks she hears another warrior follow through the smoke with her, but she ignores their presence as she squints, as she fights the burn in her lungs and the heat against any exposed flesh she has.
A flash, a blur, a sudden movement catches her attention and Lexa dives. An arrow snaps by overhead, the twang of the bowstring enough for her to pinpoint where it was fired from. She sees the hazed silhouette through the red smoke, she sees it dart left, right, under a low branch and over a sprawling bush.
And she gives chase.
Lexa breaks through the red smoke, her skin tingles and she takes in a welcomed breath of fresh air. A cut across her knuckles seems to sting more forcefully than it should and she grits her teeth as she pushes her limbs to move faster and faster and faster forward.
Movement overhead tells her Anya still follows from above, feet pounding behind her tells her another of her warriors has made it through the red smoke, and the shouts of warning that echo out around her tells her that more have escaped the smoke, have banded together, have taken it upon themselves to help those who have succumb to the tech.
Lexa spares only a second to look behind her and she sees that Costia is the one who has made it through the red smoke, her hair wild as she runs, her eyes squinting past the burn and her lips pulled into a grimace.
But movement overhead forces Lexa to turn back forwards and look up. She sees Anya leap from one tree to another, her grasp sure and certain from branch to branch. As Lexa continues to run, continues to jump and dive and leap her way through the forest she sees Anya begin to descend towards who they chase.
Lexa senses Costia pause in her chase, she senses the woman draw an arrow and she feels it snap past her head. The arrow soars through the arc, it arcs, curves and whistles past branch and leaf and bush. Who they chase must sense the arrow for they dive out of the way. But not fast enough. The arrow just barely hits their arm, the impact enough to send them reeling to the ground with a shout of frustration, pain and anger.
And then Anya drops on them from the trees.
Lexa comes to a standstill over their wounded assailant, her chest rising just a little more heavily than usual. She keeps one hand on her knife, the other already sheathing her sword. Anya kneels on the woman, her knee pressed into her throat and a knife poised to strike.
Silence seems to echo out around them now, and as Lexa takes in the wounded woman. Costia's arrow has cut a large gash into her upper arm, but her face shows no signs of pain, but Lexa can sense the uncertainty, she can sense the budding fear that the woman tries to hide behind her gaze.
"Get her up," Lexa says and her voice comes out harsh and violent.
It's dark, the sun sits below the horizon and Lexa sits with her back to a fire and the prisoner on her knees before her.
Anya stands behind the wounded woman, one hand on her sword and Costia sits nearby in the shadows, her head cocked to the side and her gaze steadily taking in the woman's nervous shifting, even Gustus lurks in the shadows, his stature more felt than seen.
Lexa lets the crackling of the fire, the whistling of the wind through the trees and the steady murmur of her warriors in the distance fill the air. In her silence Lexa finds herself thinking of Clarke and everything that has happened in the last few hours and days.
It isn't quite a conscious thought, perhaps not even something she has even realised, but the more she thinks, the more she recalls, the more she realises that Clarke means much to her.
It's true that both women have never quite said in words what they both believed, it's true that both women have spent less time together than they would have liked since their first meeting in her tent what seems like so very long ago. But as Lexa continues to think, as she continues to remember every little moment they have shared, she finds herself unable to ponder what life would be like if Clarke were suddenly removed from the equation. And now that Clarke's whereabouts are unknown, now that she knows not if Clarke has died, has been gravely wounded, or taken prisoner, Lexa finds herself realising the depths of her emotions.
And so Lexa takes in one deep breath, she closes her eyes for only a moment and then she leans forward as her gaze opens and hardens into something she knows to be unnerving.
"Your friends have abandoned you," she says quietly.
The woman doesn't speak, doesn't react much more than to meet her gaze with her own.
"You made your tracks too easy to follow," Lexa says and she keeps her gaze even. "We know it was a trap," and Lexa continues to think over all she knows of Ilian, of Clarke's suspicions, of her handmaidens who guarded the storeroom full of tech and who are now being transported to the Mountain for care.
The woman continues to look on in defiant silence but Lexa finds that it doesn't bother her, if only because it tells her that what she says is truth.
Lexa takes another moment to think over the day's events, and she knows the direction they were led was halfway towards Arkadia and the Mountain, that the ambush of red smoke was where anyone would split off in one direction or the other depending on whether they wished to continue on to Arkadia or the Mountain. And that is it, Lexa decides, she is sure, certain and confident that this woman and whoever was with her had planned the ambush to hide their tracks, to hide their final destination, or at least to slow down those who gave chase until it was too late.
"You do not like tech," Lexa says, and though it's a stab in the dark, she thinks it likely. "Or you do not understand it," and she leans closer. "Which is it?" but Lexa continues to think for just a moment longer. "Or is it both?"
The woman's eyes glare just a fraction, enough that she sees she has found a weakness.
"It is ok to admit that you do not understand tech," and Lexa smiles, she lets her lips turn up at the edges, but she doesn't let it reach her eyes. "Tech will change the way we live," Lexa presses. "It will let our people grow food where they were once unable to do so. It will let our injured warriors continue to serve their clans where once they would have been maimed. The old, the young and the sick will have care that was once out of our grasp," Lexa leans closer still. "It is ok to admit you do not understand tech."
"I understand it enough," the woman spits.
"No," Lexa says as she shakes her head. "I do not believe you do."
With that Lexa stands and takes a moment to consider what next to do. But she knows the prisoner won't give away more information just yet, she knows that the woman is still too defiant to talk. And so Lexa merely gestures to Anya to put the hood back over the prisoners head before taking her away to be guarded.
She waits until the prisoner has been led away by warriors before she comes to face Anya, Costia and Gustus.
"She will not give us more information tonight," Lexa begins, but she pauses as she hears the approach of feet to find Jenma walking their way cautiously, her presence as the only Azgeda amongst those present clearly at the forefront of her mind.
"Heda," Jenma says, and Lexa watches as the woman pulls her furs a little more tightly around herself as she squares her shoulders and perhaps a little forcefully pushes herself into the group.
"Jenma," and Lexa nods her head. "The prisoner did not give us any information."
"What do we do now?" Jenma asks as she looks around.
Lexa takes a moment to consider what their best course of action is, and she even tries to imagine what those they chase would anticipate them to next do.
"We were ambushed at a crossroads," Lexa begins. "Those we followed knew that we would be able to determine their final destination so they used the red smoke to distract us long enough for them to hopefully throw us off their scent."
"I agree," Gustus says quietly, the man's gaze moving back and forth as he thinks.
"So they do not wish for us to know if they travel to Arkadia or the Mountain?" Jenma asks.
"That is correct," Lexa says.
"What would they want with either place?" Anya asks.
"We know they dislike tech and are experimenting with it," Lexa continues. "I believe that they will either attack, or try to steal tech that is at either places."
"And what of Clarke?" Anya asks. "What part will she play in this?"
"I do not know," Lexa says, and it's the truth. She can't quite see where Clarke's presumed abduction fits in all that has happened. Perhaps it is simply because she is a hostage, that she will be traded for escape, or that they believe she has information that others would not have. Whatever the reason, Lexa feels it so very important that they find her in one piece. "We rest for the next few hours. Check on the few wounded we have but then we move," she says eventually. "Jenma, you will take your Azgeda warriors to Arkadia, ensure that it is protected."
Jenma nods an understanding at that.
"We will continue towards the Mountain," Lexa says. "Jenma, either you and your Azgeda forces will encounter the rest of the attackers, or we will," she continues. "We must capture them, find Ilian and rescue Clarke."
Those around her nod their heads in understanding and Lexa takes a second to make sure none have further questions before she dismisses them for the night.
Lexa watches as those with her turn to leave to find rest for the next few hours. Anya looks her in the eyes for a long moment, enough that concern is spoken before she breaks eye contact and heads for the nearest flame. Though Gustus slips from her view, Lexa senses he lingers near. But Lexa feels Costia move closer, she feels the woman step out from the deepest shadows and Lexa looks out the corner of her eye to find Costia standing by her side, the woman's hands tucked into deep pockets and her gaze focused somewhere out into the dark of the forest.
"You worry for Clarke," Costia says gently into the silence.
"You worry for Ontari," Lexa challenges, and she looks to Costia from the corner of her eye to find that the woman does the same. "They will both be ok."
"Yes," and Costia smiles sadly. "They will be."
And so both women fall quiet as they share in an old familiarity amongst the dark of the night and the silence of a sleeping forest.