Day 152 – Feb. 11
Myles' tired brain swirls in confusing tangents, the sound of her two friend's deep, steady breathing keeping the repeating voices from days before company. Hazel eyes scan the chunks of parchment in front of her, desperately trying to piece it all together. Flicking her right hand hard out towards the cave's open floor, Max's paws excitedly clatter and skid along the stone and loose dirt on the ground. His urgent and happy panting echoes and disappears down the length of the cave the flickering candlelight doesn't reach before coming back to her. Max's panting is louder and more harsh when he comes back, the thick, short rope in his mouth made from braided t-shirts that his breath huffs around emphasising the sound.
"… em otaim dula op, nami," a young boy's, Sanli's, recorded voice babbles as Myles waits with her hand open and held down low. Max trots up to her, placing his head in her hand and dropping the slobbery thick rope before excitedly jumping back and waiting for her to throw it again. Myles doesn't disappoint, repeating the hard throw but never tearing her attention away from the recording or the papers in front of her. "Ai mema em we." [AN: "She always does, though. I miss her."]
"Chit moubeda em don tich yu op?" Myles had asked, and her mouth moves along with the words she knows will come as she waits for Max to bring back his toy. [AN: "What else did she teach you?"]
"Tona en tona diyo," Sanli chatters happily about his sister, and the slobbery rope is placed in her hand. Myles gives Max a quick pat and scratch before he jumps back, and the second he does, the redhead lifts her arm and chucks the toy. "Em skrab daun sontaim gon ai nau, sef tel ai op emo den ai na ste kyon grounen op." [AN: "Lots and lots of things. She writes me stories now, instead of telling me them so I can keep growing."]
"Ou, sha?" Myles enquired kindly, her voice soft and high-pitched, jarringly contrasting the harsh and repetitive clicking of Max's claws as he runs around happily. "Chit kaina sontaim?" [AN: "Oh, yeah? What kinds of stories?"]
"Emo ste otaim fodowin!" Sanli recounted, and the red-haired teens eyebrows remain furrowed in thought as her hand is patiently waiting for the calico-coloured dog to return. "Der laik dison hashta chichplei kom tainstepa en insek en emo's sou nodotaim gon op gon kru, en emo fis op binch seifas en biga hou gon ponk klin kru." [AN: "They're always the best! There's this one about talking ants and bugs and they're constantly fighting off the people, and they make silly traps and big homes to confuse the people."]
"Daun's sennes krei ku," the redhead had replied, the slobbery rope nudging into her hand still doesn't deter Myles from listening to herself gently encouraging the young boy to keep talking. [AN: "That sounds cool."]
"Sha, emo laik," the boy prattled on, his recorded voice undeterred by the throwing of the toy or the soft groan Clarke let's out as she stretches and rolls over on the floor across the table from Myles. "En der bilaik Hainofa en Hainofi gon foto wizplei op en biiiigas bis," days ago, Sanli had paused and his whole body had sagged at this part of the conversation. Across from Myles, Clarke's head peers over the top of the table when she sits up, bringing a hand up to brush over her knotty, long blonde hair and wipe at her face tiredly. Max's happy pants and clattering steps keep the room from being silent while Sanli finishes his thought. "Ba em ste gougenas hashta em." [AN: "Yeah, they are. And there's princes and princesses fighting evil magic and huuuuge animals… but she's annoying about it."]
"Why are you listening to that again?" Clarke's tired voice drawls out over the recording, but Myles' eyebrows remain furrowed in thought and her hazel eyes stay glued to the scattered bits of parchment in front of her.
"It's the most honest one we have," the red-haired teen answers distractedly as the recording of her keeps questioning Sanli and Max deposits the toy in her hand again. "Gougenas?" [AN: "Annoying?]
"Sha," the child sighed and Myles lifts her arm to fling the rope, "emo otaim kom inayu… ba ai vout op daun weron emo but tush op en wan op bilaik yontsleya gon ogeda moun kru." [AN: "Yeah, they always fall in love… but I like the ones where they kick butts and die heroes for all the other people."]
"Honest?" Clarke's drowsy voice questions disbelievingly over the boys excited chattering, pulling herself up to sit in the seat across from Myles. "Her parents aren't lying, they want her home more than anything."
"Daunde sennes pri fodowin," the redhead had agreed kindly. [AN: "Those ones do sound pretty amazing."]
"She's not saying they're lying," Jasper placates over the recording, his voice groggy and drawled out from his spot on the floor to the redhead's left. "Just that Sanli's too young to understand the difference between important information and useless information." Jasper grunts as he stretches out, sitting up slowly and watching Max bound back to Myles' awaiting hand. "He's more likely to give useful info than anyone else because he's not trying to separate what's helpful and what's not. He's just talking."
"Sha, emo laik," Sanli's eager smile can still be heard through the recording, and what's heard even louder is how the smile slipped almost instantly from his face and voice. "Nomon en nontu fleim emo klin, nami." [AN: "Yeah they are. Mum and dad hate them though."]
Myles isn't going to lie; she didn't hear a word Jasper had just said. Instead, her whole focus was on the recorded voices he was talking over.
"Ou?" Myles had prompted, her soft and gentle tone hard to discern over her friend's voices. "Hakom emo fleim emo klin?" [AN: "Oh? Why do they hate them?"]
"No," Clarke argues, and Max whines, tapping Myles' unmoving hand with the slobbery rope in it. The redhead hasn't chucked it, her mind too focussed on listening to the recording under the sounds of her two friends. "Her parents are worried sick. We went over everything they did that week, several times. They told us everything."
"Emo nou vout tona diyo op," the young boy had sighed out, his mumbled and slightly fearful tone echoing in Myles' mind. [AN: "They don't like a lot of things."]
"Daun souda bilaik snoren," Myles tried to pry, wishing she could go back to when this conversation had taken place to ask more questions. [AN: "That must be boring."]
"We can't know that," Jasper counters, standing up and dragging his feet over to his best friend to pluck the rope from her hand and toss it for Max. "The only way we're gonna find who took her is getting as much info from as many people as possible."
"Em laik," Sanli huffed out, "osir nou teik eni lukot kom hir seintaim o kamp raun osir lukot. Osir gada in na kom hou fou sondaun otaim sintaim." [AN: "It is, we can't even have any friends over or stay at our friends. We have to be home before sundown everyday."]
"What if no one took her?" Myles asks, her voice quiet and detached as her finger presses the pause button.
"What are you talking about?" Clarke questions, her blonde eyebrows drawing close and her face screwing up in confusion.
"You thinking she's a runaway?" Jasper enquires, leaning his hip on the edge of the table and looking between the two girls.
"I'm thinking," the redhead starts, "both parents admitted to being strict. No sleepovers, no dating, no being out of the house before sunup or after sundown. It's all work, no play, all the time."
"Everyone said Acha is happy," the blonde-haired teen reminds them, her disbelieving tone drawled out slowly. "Why would she run away?"
"Sanli isn't happy," Jasper shrugs. "Maybe she just hid it because she was afraid of her parents?"
The words click something in Myles' mind, and the redhead rewinds the tape a little bit. Pressing play again, the redhead holds up the device to tell the other two to listen.
"…na diyo," Sanli's voice states again, "em skrab daun sontaim gon ai nau, sef tel ai em op den ai na ste kyon grounen op."
"'She writes me stories now'," Myles translates, clicking the pause button again, "'instead of telling me them so I can keep growing'."
"Grounders don't teach each other how to write," the brown-haired teen reiterates, and Myles starts scrambling through the parchment and books on the table to pull out the stories Sanli gave to them. Clarke stands up, her eyes scanning the writing on the papers. "Her parents don't know how to write. Who taught her?"
"The spelling is all over the place," Clarke points out, "even for Trig, but it's neat."
"Because she taught herself," Myles realises, "sounded it out. It's why letters are backwards and half done. She's only seen writing on whatever signs have survived."
"So…" Jasper begins, looking up at the two with him. "If it's neat for someone who taught themselves, how long has she been practicing it?"
"What was she writing before these?" Myles finishes, her victorious and alight hazel eyes dancing between her two friends. "And why is she hiding them?"
Sticking her head around the corner slightly, Myles signals to the two behind her when there's no one looking towards them. Jasper, Clarke and Max slink forward, quickly ducking behind the home they've come back to search. Myles is right behind them, reaching up to unhook the wood blocking the window and pull herself up. Hazel eyes sweep the house, making sure it's empty before letting the other two Arker's know it's clear.
"Max," Jasper orders quietly from below her as she slips from the windowsill and onto the floor, "stand guard."
Clarke's hands grip the windowsill and Jasper lifts her up towards Myles, who helps pull her in. Once Clarke's boots are firmly on the floor, both girls help Jasper crawl in after he jumps up. Myles quickly and quietly sticks her head into the rooms in the house, just to make sure no one is asleep in one of them, before stopping and staying in Acha's room. It's barren, compared to the other houses they've been in. Most houses with children who live in them have toys and all sorts of handmade things to keep them company, but Myles'd never be able to tell that children lived in this house just from looking at it.
A bed, a simple handmade dresser and a stack of parchment and charcoal on the floor is the only sign of someone living in this room. Biting the inside of her cheek, Myles can't help the disappointment that floods through her at the reminder of what little hiding places there are in this room.
"Okay," Jasper breathes out, "I've never been a fourteen-year-old girl, so this is on you two. Where would you hide something?"
"In the walls," Myles immediately states as Clarke answers, 'the bed'.
"Bed," the brown-haired teen points at Clarke, before directing his finger to Myles, "walls. I'll take the dresser, maybe it'll get me into character."
Myles snorts obnoxiously, "I don't know…" making her way over to one of the hay, mud and wood walls and scrutinising it with a playful glint in her eyes. "You sure do drink like a fourteen-year-old girl."
"There is no point in having a drink we have at home," Jasper relays pointedly, "when we go out. If we're at a bar, I'm having something new."
"Okay, 'trigiboba'," the redhead teases, a bright smile across her face.
"Hey," her best friend calls defensively, as Clarke snickers, "it was good! You're just jealous that I'm cool and can get all the cool drinks."
"If cool means barely even alcoholic," Clarke chimes in, huffing when she drops the sack of a mattress back down. "Then you're definitely cool."
"It has gin in it," Jasper counters, stopping looking through the drawers to stare at the two teens with him in betrayal.
"It's like," Myles starts, giggling, "three parts berries and one part gin."
"No, it's four parts responsible," the brown-haired teen states, getting a barked laugh out of the redhead and a scoffed giggle out of Clarke. "Really! Think about it, it's so tasty you want more than one of them, but it's so responsible you'd need a couple of them to get tipsy."
"It's marketing," the blonde explains through a chuckle, and Myles' laughter dies down when she spots a strange crack in the dried mud and stick walls under a log-framed windowsill. Crouching down, Myles pulls her flashlight up from her belt straps and clicks it on to shine the light on whatever's between the cracks in the wall. "To get you to trade more."
"Exactly," Jasper doubles down, "it's responsible for all involved. Everyone's happy. It's a happy drink." His attention turns to his now silent best friend. "What'd you find?"
"Clothes," Myles answers, her tone drawled out in confusion as her hands pull the bundled material from the slim gap in the wall.
Holding them up, it's immediately clear to the group why the missing teenager would hide them. Revealing shirts that would only cover to the bottom of her ribcage, very short shorts and skirts and tops with only one shoulder or nothing at all over the shoulders. Very frilly, fancy bras that look like they were handmade with great care and by someone who's experienced in making them custom shock Myles.
These undergarments and some of these clothes had to be handmade and mended, whereas the shirts and shorts could've easily been chopped off by Acha herself.
"Those are nothing like anything in here," Jasper informs them, yanking out another drawer and holding up very modest and simple shirts and pants.
"She got these made," Myles replies, and Clarke comes over to stand above her, leaning down to inspect the clothes. "Her family won't let her work, where did she get kapla or something worth trading?"
"More than that," Clarke corrects, "everyone we've spoken to says she'd never be caught dead wearing anything like this. Where is she wearing it?"
"We're gonna have to talk to Kaila again," Jasper sighs, "that kid is the devil incarnate."
"I thought everyone in her village said the same thing," the blonde-haired teen queries, moving back over to the bed when Myles shoves the clothes back into the wall. "That she is a perfectly behaved angel whenever she visited her?"
"Rule 57, Clarke," Myles reminds her, moving over to examine more of the walls for similar gaps.
"'Conform openly'," the brown-haired teen recalls for their friend when she only stammers in response. "'Rebel surreptitiously'."
"We tried lying to our people in Tondc," Clarke tells Myles, "and that didn't work at all. You really think a fourteen-year-old can lie to two whole villages and not get caught?"
"I think," the redhead drawls out, crouching down and shining her flashlight up and down the back wall to check for gaps. "That when you give people too many rules, they learn how to work around them. Like on the Ark."
"I betcha her parents don't know about the hidden clothes stash," Jasper points out, "and, I bet when she visits Kaila every week, the villagers doesn't always see her. They go off and do their own thing, away from Acha's hyper-restrictive parents."
"And Kaila is going to tell us now," Clarke sarcastically enquires, "after a week of not telling us anything because we found some clothes?"
"Your pessimism is highly annoying yet highly accurate," the brown-haired teen commends with a sigh, pushing the last drawer closed and starting to walk across the room. "But, if she's helping Acha run away, she might be nearby."
As Jasper is walking, one of the chopped log floorboards tied together with woven straw and mud bends down a little, and the teen stops, snapping his head down to his boots. Myles stands, scanning the wall up to the triangular sloped ceiling of logs, hay, mud, and sheets of patchwork fabric. Hazel eyes don't tear away from the walls until she sees Jasper crouch down in the corners of her eyes.
"You were both wrong," Jasper announces, pulling up one of the randomly sized chopped logs that's come loose from the hardened mud that's been carefully scratched out on one side.
Underneath the floorboard is three huge piles of something wrapped in cloth and a small wooden box with precisely carved five-point stars scattered along its sides. Both Myles and Clarke move over to Jasper, crouching down and peering into the hole in the floor as Jasper places the piece of wood down. Clarke's hands reach in for one of the cloth-wrapped piles, and the second her hands come in contact with it, the pile parchment inside crackles and crinkles. Bright hazel eyes lock on her two friends equally as victoriously gleaming faces.
"It was in the floor."
They're sitting in the rover on the outskirts of the Hurin village, Kaila's house not far from sight. Myles is sitting in the back with Clarke and Max, reading over the writings on the parchment. Some of them are stories, some rants about her overly controlling parents, but most of them are journal entries. Both girls are sitting on the floor instead of the seats lining the walls of the vehicle, the parchment and thin wooden chunks spread out over wherever they can reach in an attempt to organise what's there.
Sitting in front of the pile of unsorted pieces of parchment is the wooden box. It's rectangular and short, the wood sanded down smoothly to accentuate the dark swirls and lines dancing on top of the pale colour hiding underneath. A small dip in one end of the top allows for someone to push and pull the lid off, sliding it through the grooves carved into the sides. The box sits opened; the lid laying on the floor beside it, revealing the bizarre contents inside.
A dried deep red rose, the red-purple shade darkened with time, sits carefully nestled beside sketches of birds and the night sky. Flat stones with stars painted on them in a dense, bright white gloopy paint peek out from under a pinecone with one end completely dipped in white paint. Quite a lot in this box of jumbled knick-knacks seems to relate to stars, whether with them drawn, painted onto something or carved out, like the thick sanded down wooden star leant up against one side. On top of everything, however, are two crowns wrapped into a circle with braided straw hay. Sticks, dead leaves and dried, wilted flowers protrude up all along both crowns, but they both have one distinctive difference.
Among the leaves, sticks and flowers of one crown, is a carefully carved and sanded little wooden bird, connected to the crown by little holes where hay is hooked through to secure it to a stick. The other crown holds a wooden star, much thinner and smaller than the one in the box, but secured to the headpiece the same way.
Clarke is still very new to Trigedasleng, making the writing a much more difficult task for the blonde to piece together alone. Despite this, Clarke can pick out the words she knows and what she can decipher as coming from the languages lexical source of English to figure out which category her chunk of writing belongs to. Brushing some of her long, waist-length blonde hair behind her ear, Clarke sighs and leans over to show Myles what she's looking at.
"What's this line here say?" Clarke enquires, pointing to a line in the writing with Kaila's name in it.
Myles takes her hazel eyes off of the off-colour parchment she was reading to look at the one her friend is holding out to her.
"'I don't know why they can't understand'," the red-haired teen translates haltingly, the half-finished letters, no punctuation and misspellings requiring her whole attention. "'That I need a life. They don't understand, not like Kaila's parents, not like anyone's. I have found them again today…' uh… 'killing'? 'Tearing apart'? I don't know what she's trying to say there. 'Ransacking'? 'My room… always'?"
"Parents didn't say anything about going through their rooms," Jasper mutters, sitting in the drivers seat and watching Kaila's house from a distance to see if the girl leaves.
"'They took the stories for Sanli'," Myles continues reading, "'and done away with who all said of adventures because they be disrespecting his authority'."
"Thanks," Clarke says when Myles hands her back the parchment. "I'll put it with the rants."
"I wish there was a way to date all these," the redhead huffs out dramatically, "all we've got is when she's at Kaila's and when she's home."
"Is it just me…" their blonde-haired friend starts, "… or is the pile for Kaila's house a lot smaller than it should be?"
Hazel eyes glance away from her own sheet of parchment again to look at the piles, furrowing her red eyebrows in thought. Jasper turns back slightly for a quick second, before facing the front again. Myles immediately starts flicking through the large mess of a pile of unsorted writings, trying to quickly find a reference amongst them that would indicate Acha was in another village than the two they know of.
"Maybe she didn't write about it," Jasper offers, "because she was happy there? She only seems to rant about things she can't talk to anyone else about."
As Myles is flicking through the different sheets of parchment, instead of finding anything that would show her in a village besides Astia, Acha and Sanli's village, the redhead finds a similar phrase repeated over and over. Pulling up a story she'd written, Myles scans the parchment quickly, before looking back at the story she'd put down a moment ago to check for more about Kaila's house.
"What is it?" Clarke asks, leaning forward to read the stories and see what Myles is seeing.
"JJ," Myles calls, handing the two stories to Clarke before picking up a handful of more stories and flicking through them. "Can you pass me the sketch of Acha?"
"Yep," her best friend answers, reaching across the front seats to grab their hand-stitched notebook from the passenger footwell. The teen quickly flips it open to the sketch of the missing girl before reaching back and handing it to Myles. "As you so desired."
"What's wrong with it?" Clarke inquires again when all the red-haired teen does is switch her focussed gaze between the stories and the sketch.
"All the princesses in the stories," Myles slowly states, her distracted mind sluggishly allowing the words to tumble out as she checks more stories. "She uses the same words to describe herself. All have long ash-blonde hair, green eyes and a heart-shaped face."
"And?" Jasper urges, looking over his shoulder at the two of them.
Myles holds up the sketch of Acha instead of replying, but both teens straighten and Clarke rifles through the stories.
"They're all her," the blonde reiterates, scanning bits of parchment. "'Hainofi' with 'folau bounj' hair, 'nulif' eyes and 'tombom' face." [AN: "Princess", "ash blonde", "green", "heart".]
"Maybe she just isn't creative," Jasper guesses, feeling like he needs to be the voice of reason. "Her family doesn't exactly inspire great uniqueness."
"'Great uniqueness'," Myles repeats, searching through the stories for another familiar phrase, "like teaching yourself how to write?"
"Yeah, okay," the brown-haired teen relents, "what's it mean?"
"About her?" Myles supplies, "absolutely nothing. What does, though, is this." The redhead holds up a piece of parchment in each hand with a finger pointing at a specific line on each. "They all have 'Hainofa's with 'modi' hair, 'wonkou' eyes and 'the heart and strength of a man'." [AN: "Prince", "brown", "chocolate".]
Clarke is instantly scrambling through the different stories again, trying to verify if this is indeed the case.
"Are they all the same names?" Jasper inquires, turning his body to face the backseat, flicking his eyes to Kaila's house every now and again.
"No," Myles answers, "the Princesses all have 'ch' in their names. 'Archa', 'Chara', 'Naichi', 'Leicha'… 'Sacha'."
"All the Princes start with a 'T'," Clarke informs them, her eyebrows pulled together and held down low as she scans for a frequent combination that could make up 'Prince _'. "'Taiga', 'Teitim', 'Tibi', 'Tora', 'Tua'."
"Well," Jasper sighs, grabbing his bag and opening his car door. "Looks like we have to go annoy people again."
"Heyo," Clarke greets the three people standing behind the makeshift counter squished inside the front of the butchers. [AN: "Hello."]
The woman smiles, abandoning her position overseeing someone skin a squirrel in front of the boarded off smoker and curing room. Seeing the black-haired lady look directly at her and walk towards her specifically, Clarke nervously shifts and glances at Myles for backup. Only raising a red eyebrow in question, the redhead remains silent in the hopes of letting the blonde get more practice communicating in Trigedasleng.
"Ha osir na sis yo au?" The woman replies brightly, her soft and happy expression calming Clarke slightly. [AN: "How can we help you?"]
"Uh…" Clarke starts before reciting the words they're hoping someone will recognise with a very distinguishable accent that labels her as a Sky Person. "Osir trana lok op skat kom modi melonkova en wonkou blinka?" [AN: "We're trying to find a boy with brown hair and chocolate eyes?"]
"Mebi yu get o mema in du kom feisnes-de?" Myles butts in casually, adopting a typical Trikru accent with their distinctive trill. [AN: "Do you know or remember someone like that?"]
"Ou, loda raun hir," the woman laughs breezily, "osir gada in mou kom daun gon enthing bilaik, nami?" [AN: "Oh, lots here. We might have more of that than anything else."]
"Na yu fig eni tagon raun?" Myles presses lightly, "kom skat?" [AN: "Can you think of any names? Of boys?"]
"Maa…" she drawls out thoughtfully, looking away from them to stare in the distance as she thinks. "Der bilaik Ikas, Orkan, Buch, Navi, Uridj." [AN: "Umm… There's Icas, Orkan, Buch, Navi, Urridge."]
"Sha, mochof," the redhead nods, stepping back and preparing to leave when the lady looks back at them blankly. [AN: "Right, thank you."]
"Mochof gon yu sis au," Clarke thanks, turning around with Myles and following her back out of the butchers. [AN: "Thank you for your help."]
"Damn it," Myles huffs out around a long sigh, heading towards the next trading hut.
"They didn't even give us a name with a 't' in it," her blonde friend echoes her dismay, strolling along beside Myles.
"Hei," Myles greets a man opening up a bar, awkwardly ducking down to make sure he notices their approach. When his green eyes lock on her hazel, the redhead continues. "Osir lok skat op en osir ste fig raun taim yu mebi don sin em in?" [AN: "Hello. We're looking for a boy and we're wondering if you've seen him?"]
"Chit's em feisnes bilaik?" The man answers, standing up straight and eyeing the two girls with suspicion. [AN: "What's he look like?"]
"Modi melonkova," Clarke describes vaguely, shifting on her feet slightly as she switches holding her weight from leg to leg. "Wonkou blinka." [AN: "Brown hair, chocolate eyes."]
"Ai get bida in," he supplies, just as vaguely. [AN: "I know a couple."]
"Na yu huk osir op kom tagon?" Myles implores, squinting slightly at the man. [AN: "Could you give us the names?"]
"Orkan," the man tosses out with a shrug, "Navi, Toga – "
Both teens leap at the name, but Clarke speaks first "tel osir op hashta Toga." [AN: "Tell us about Toga."]
"Chit yo gaf get in?" He questions, the girls instantaneous response to the name catching him off-guard. [AN: "What do you want to know?"]
"Weron Toga shak op?" Myles queries, her expression relaxing as it becomes clear through the man's body language that he'll cooperate. [AN: "Where does Toga live?"]
"Saut kom kofkova," the man gestures around the winding buildings. "Won-de kom nulif dou en thri bouda stergeda. Chomouda? Chit dison hashta? Em nou ona sich, sha?" [AN: "South of the fabrics trading post. The one with a green door and three stone steps. Why? What's this about? He's not in trouble, is he?"]
"Osir jos gada in bida prom gon em, you," the red-haired teen appeases him, "chit yu na tel osir op hashta em? Chit em bilaik?" [AN: "We just have some questions for him. What can you tell us about him? What's he like?"]
"Em ste os goufa," the man recalls honestly, "nou sich nowe." [AN: "He's a good kid. Never any trouble."]
"Gada?" Clarke asks, having trouble following what's being said. [AN: "Girl?"]
"Mebi won kom falou bounj melonkova?" Myles tacks on, trying to help get the point across. [AN: "Maybe one with ash blonde hair?"]
"Em gada in won kom modi melonkova," he explains, and both teens frown, "ba nou bounj. Em ona sich seintaim? Emo don chek au ku nou taim kom gon. Don gada in os taim gon Toga eidon wintam breshin." [AN: "He has one with brown hair, but not blonde. Is she in trouble, too? They looked fine not long ago. Had a good time at Toga's eighth winter celebration."]
"Hod op," the redhead starts, her shoulders already sagging in defeat before the man can confirm his statement to her. "Em's eit yo?" [AN: "Wait. He's eight-years-old?"]
"Sha," the man nods, his expression becoming bleak and suspicious once again. "Chomouda? Chit's skechi?" [AN: "Yeah. Why? What's wrong?"]
Hazel eyes lock on Clarke's confused blue, replying, "non. Bet non." Looking back at the man they're talking to with a sigh. "Mochof gon yu sis au, ba Toga nou chon osir ste lufa au. Moba gon yu gou." [AN: "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thank you for your help, but Toga's not who we're looking for. Sorry for your time."]
"Ba'm eintheing," he responds as the two teens turn and start walking away with Clarke glancing between Myles and the man repeatedly in confusion. [AN: "It doesn't matter."]
"What's happening?" Clarke quick-fires off at her red-haired friend, but her steps continue following her. "That's the first 't' name we've gotten."
"Toga," Myles states in a slow breath, clicking her walkie-talkie's transmit button to signal Jasper to get somewhere where he can talk. "Just turned eight."
"That's what you said, right?" Clarke's face falls as her mind tries to understand what just happened and their walking comes to a stop to the side of the path. "Em's eit yo."
"Eit is eight," the redhead explains, "yo doesn't just mean plural yu, it also means 'years old'." Her blonde-haired friend's shoulders slump in defeat, and Myles impatiently clicks her transmit button again. "They don't have a dating system. Sometimes they count how many days into a new seasonal change the kid was born, but birthdays tend to be decided by how many winters, summers, springs, autumns they've seen." Clicking the button again, Myles mutters to herself. "Come on, JJ."
"How many times are you gonna do that?" Clarke implores, bringing a hand up to her earpiece, like the sound of the static clicking is bothering her.
"I'll stop when he answers," the red-haired teen answers in a huff, pressing button again.
"Doing that four times," Jasper chastises his best friend through their earpieces. "Isn't going to get me to answer any faster. The early bird gets to wait for the late bird."
"And yet…" Myles drawls out mockingly, "it still got you to answer."
"I'd agree with you," the brown-haired teen reasons as Clarke chuckles behind her hand, "but then we'd both be wrong, and that's just embarrassing."
"Shop talk, JJ," the redhead reminds him, "all we've got is an eight-year-old Toga. Any luck on your end?"
"You want the short answer or the long one?" Jasper asks, and Clarke and Myles lock eyes eagerly.
"Both would be good," Clarke tells him, awkwardly glancing around at the village folk minding their own business around them.
"Short answer; I've got nothing," the teen replies, making both girls sag exasperatedly, "long answer; I've got absolutely, stupendously not one single thing. Except rumours that Kaila is the one with the secret boyfriend."
"That doesn't sound like nothing," Myles prods as Clarke keeps looking around, feeling antsy from the lack of progress they've made with this in the last week. "Any clue on who it is?"
"Some weaselly, pimple faced teen that her dad hates," Jasper recites, "get this, apparently he's the son of Snobby's father's arch nemesis. A family rivalry thing that goes back to their grandfathers burning down some café."
"Who's café?" Myles quizzes quickly, getting Clarke's attention again.
"Who burnt it down?" The blonde questions instead, sending a pointed look to Myles that only gets an amused eyebrow twitch in response.
"No one knows which one did it," the brown-haired teen supplies unhelpfully, "just that their families hate each other for it."
"That's not why they hate the boy," Myles decides, earning a confused look from Clarke at the confident statement.
"How do you know?" Clarke enquires, her expression furrowed in intrigue.
"The only reason," Myles declares certainly, "no one knows who did it, and why they're both so pissed is if they had some sort of stake in the café to begin with. The one who didn't do it would be pissed they've lost their stake, and the one who did it would pretend to be pissed so they don't look guilty. I bet they're related, that's why they hate the boy."
"That's ridiculous," her best friend denotes, "but I love it and I totally agree. Us against the princess. How much are we betting?"
Clarke sighs harshly, turning around and bouncing on her heels anxiously.
"Princess is antsy," Myles states, "we'll talk about it later. Did you get a name?"
"Alista," Jasper informs them, and Clarke's impatient shifting stops suddenly. "Doesn't start with a 't'."
"At least it has one in it," the red-haired teen comments, breathing in deeply as her blonde-haired friend taps her arm. "Yeah?"
"What if," Clarke begins slowly in thought, staring at something behind Myles and making the redhead turn around curiously. "She said he was a man because he is a man."
Red eyebrows start to furrow before her hazel gaze lands on him. A short and stocky teen, about the same age as both the Arker's. This makes him an adult, and not the fourteen-ish year old boy they were looking for. His short hair is slightly shaggy and brown, his focussed eyes a deep shade of chocolate brown barely glancing up from the wooden pole he's meticulously carving. It's straight, but curves in at the bottom and top, probably to be used for a piece of furniture instead of a weapon. People move around behind him, dirt covered burly men dumping arms full of logs into a crate behind the young man and clapping him on the back before stalking back out of the simple gazebo style hut.
"Hey, JJ," Myles calls into her walkie, her gaze still stuck on the brown-haired young man. "Can you bring the trinket box over to us?"
"Sure," he replies easily, "Where are you two?"
"Woodworkers post," the redhead reveals, stepping towards the sheltered hut. "Down from the bar."
"Rodger, dodger," her best friend answers immediately, and Myles hooks her walkie away on her belt.
There's no real doors to the woodworkers post, only a braided mess of straw and hay laid on top of a simple wooden frame. The material doesn't stretch for the length of the open frame, covering the top and only coming close to the ground on one side. It's sectioned off inside, not with walls, but a clear empty space dividing each station. Tools and sharpeners are hung up on a sturdy stand, carefully sculpted to hold the weight of several thick axes underneath the little shelf of knives.
Hung over the stand, strips of leather slathered with hide glue has crushed shells and stone infused into the dried sticky substance. Beside it, burnished cow ribs hang alongside the makeshift sandpaper's. Laying on a sideless shelf between the axes and the knives are variously sized saws and mallets. Wooden tenons pile up and stick out to the side of the knives, copious amounts of braided twine and hay looped around them and tucked between them.
The young man is so focussed on the wooden pole he's carving carefully; he doesn't even look up when both Arker's enter the post. One of the burly men from before is using his axe to choppily strip the bark from some of the logs they've carried in just out the back of the post. He looks up at them, but doesn't shift or cease in his movements when he sees the two of them going straight to his coworker.
"Hei," Myles greets with a polite smile, and the brown-haired young man jolts, snapping his head up to them. "Ai laik Maiyls, en dison bilaik ai lukot, Klark." [AN: "Hello. I'm Myles, and this is my friend, Clarke."]
"Ma.. hei," he says back, and Myles quickly holds her hand out for him to shake to gently prompt him to introduce himself. "Ai laik Tibrik. Meika's slak." [AN: "Um.. hey. I'm Tibreek. Nice to meet you."]
"Tibrik," the redhead repeats, shaking his hand. "Ai fig raun yu bilaik chon osir lufa au." [AN: "Tibreek. I think you might be who we're looking for."]
"Ai?" Tibrik questions, his expression tightening ever so slightly before he shrugs stiffly. "Ha ai na sis yo au?" [AN: "Me? How can I help you?"]
"Yu get in gada kom Hurin?" Myles enquires, "du kom tagon Acha?" [AN: "Do you know a girl from Hurin? Someone with the name Acher?"]
"Maa… nou ai na mema in," he brushes off, his eyes darting to the right quickly as he thinks. His head shakes in a small and stiff movement before shrugging. "Ai nou get in eni Acha." [AN: "Umm… not that I can recall. I don't know any Acher."]
"Yu get klin?" Clarke presses, tugging at the bag hooked over Myles' shoulder and pulling out a notebook opened to a sketch of the missing teen. "Em nou bilaik lukot feisnes?" [AN: "Are you sure? She doesn't look familiar?"]
"No," Tibrik insists, shrugging one shoulder stiffly and holding his brown eyebrows raised. [AN: "No."]
Hazel eyes squint at him, but neither teen backs down. Something moving in the corner of her eyes makes Myles turn to see Jasper and Max entering.
"Dofo, Jei-Jei," Myles calls to her best friend, looking back at Tibrik with sparkling eyes. "Cheket, Tibrik hir nou get in eni Acha nowe." [AN: "Hey, JJ. Check it out, Tibreek here has never known any Acher."]
"Daun's ait?" Jasper enquires, sauntering to a stop beside the two girls and glancing over the young man's work on the wooden pole. Tibrik shifts on his feet, casting a quick look at his coworker stripping wood outside and bringing a hand up to his face as Jasper pulls Acha's trinket box from his bag. "Yu nou don sin dison in nowe, seintaim?" [AN: "Is that right? You never seen this, either?"]
Tibrik's face immediately pales and his chocolate eyes widen, his fidgeting body becoming still at once. His eyes flick up to them before twisting around quickly to glance at his coworker.
"Chit yo gaf?" Tibrik demands, lowering his voice and leaning over his table towards them. [AN: "What do you want?"]
"Bida dulasei na laik os," Myles prods, and Tibrik sags before shifting forward urgently again. [AN: "Some honesty would be nice."]
"Em don ai lukot," the young man divulges lowly, his eyebrows still raised in that 'believe me' look. "Ai don na sin em in taim em komba raun gon hang em lukot au, you. Kaila." [AN: "She was my friend. I'd see her when she came to visit her friend. Kaila."]
"Chit mou yu get in?" Clarke quizzes, and the stiff young man snaps his head to look at his coworker again. [AN: "What else do you know?"]
"Non," Tibrik insists, "non, daun's ogeda." [AN: "Nothing. Nothing, that's all."]
"Pri os shaini," Jasper muses pointedly, looking down at the trinket box. [AN: "Pretty nice gift."]
"Ai don tel yo op," the young man promises, "em don ai lukot." [AN: "I told you. She was my friend."]
"Yu get klin yu gaf daun bilaik yu sontaim?" Myles asks lowly, leaning on the table to get close to the brown-haired man when she speaks. When all she gets in reply is a pointed stare and his frozen expression, Myles leans back and opens her bag, pulling out a sheet of parchment. "Yu don get in Acha skrab daun kom geifou, sha?" Tibrik pales, his nervous twitching and paranoid glances gradually getting worse. "Tsa ai op, ou dison laik os won. 'Hainofa Tibrik ste sis ai meika op, en ai kom au drop of ona em wonkou blinka. Bilaik fos gou ai nou gaf chek skaifaya au, en em ste biyo – " [AN: "Are you sure you want that to be your story? You know that Acher likes writing stories, right? Let's see, oh this one is a good one. 'Prince Tibreek takes my hand, and I get lost in his chocolate eyes. It's the first time I don't want to look at the stars, and he says – "]
"Kei!" Tibrik snaps, reaching out to tear the piece of parchment away, but Myles is faster. His name wasn't really in the story, and if the young man calls her bluff, that could cost them whatever information he holds. He's breathing harshly now, his frantic eyes wide and his body jittering urgently. The man behind him stops, looking at them and starts to make his way over. "Radi, ai na bants gon bida tika." [AN: "Okay! Raddy, I'm gonna leave for a few minutes."]
Tibrik rapidly strides over towards the back corner, on the opposite side of Radi, and ducks under the section of material hanging from the roof. Jasper, Clarke, Max and Myles are right on his heels, making sure he doesn't try to make a run for it. He doesn't; instead, the brown-haired young man waits and leads them a few metres out of the woodworkers post before turning back to them. The frazzled expression and jittery movements still hold one thing from before, and that's his eyebrows are still raised high, which doesn't sit right in Myles' gut.
"Kei," Tibrik sighs, and it's the first time his eyebrows shift down. "Mebi osir don mou kom jos lukot." [AN: "Okay. Maybe we were more than just friends."]
"Em ste fotin," Jasper states disdainfully, not hiding his animosity for the young man in front of them. [AN: "She's fourteen."]
"Ai get in," he insists, and it's the only thing Myles feels he's been honest about. "Ai get in." [AN: "I know. I know."]
"Weron em ste haden?" Myles enquires, squinting her eyes when his faux and over-exaggerated 'believe me' look reappears. [AN: "Where's she hiding?"]
"Ai nou get in," Tibrik huffs out in aggravation, "osir don split klin sintaim feva fou em ban klin." [AN: "I don't know. We broke up many days before she disappeared."]
"Chomouda?" Clarke asks, picking up the pieces from what she can understand. [AN: "Why?"]
"Em don huk klin," the young man describes, and while Myles can buy that Acha would be clingy, Tibrik's shifty eyes and twitching fingers speak louder than his words. [AN: "She was clingy."]
"Yu gaf osir gon wich daun in," Jasper drawls out disbelievingly, "Acha don ron we kos yu split klin seintaim?" [AN: "You want us to believe… Acher ran away because you both broke up?"]
"Sha," Tibrik nods, jumping onto the teens words quickly. "Daun's chit don kom au." [AN: "Yes. That's what happened."]
"No," Myles drags the word out, scrunching up her face and ignoring the twang of concern Tibrik's falling expression sets ablaze in her gut. "No, ai fig raun bilaik som mou." When chocolate eyes only stare at her and the young man shrugs stiffly, a movement his body doesn't sing with, Myles continues. "Geril, oso ogeda get in em don get in ha gon kik thru kom em renon hedplei. Nou hod em op nowe, hakom em na fig raun nouseim nau? Weron yu ste haden em?" [AN: "no. No, I think there's something more. Come on, we all know she knew how to survive with her parents rules. Never stopped her before, why would she think different now? Where are you hiding her?"]
"Ai nou haden em!" Tibrik exclaims, huffing frustratedly and lifting his arms up, his eyebrows still in the same raised, deceptive position. The way he says it or the words he uses isn't what makes both Myles and Jasper pause, but it's what he doesn't say. Jasper leans his head back, his posture slouching ever so slightly as he locks his eyes on Myles', sharing a knowing look. Clarke goes to say something else, her body leaning forward in preparation for the words she's thinking of, but a hand on her arm stops her. Tibrik catches the motion and misreads it. "Cheket? Ai tel yo op dulasei, you." [AN: "I'm not hiding her! See? I'm telling you the truth."]
"Kei," Jasper replies simply with a half-hearted shrug. "Yu nou ste haden em. Ba, yu get in weron em kamp raun." [AN: "Okay. You're not hiding her. But, you do know where she is."]
"No, ai nou," the young man persists, his restless and fidgety posture only getting more paranoid. "You." [AN: "No, I don't. I swear."]
"Ku," Myles breathes out, taking a step backwards and slouching her shoulders obnoxiously, leaning back to take on a predatory stance. "Den yu nou na gifa in taim osir tel op bida kru hir bilaik yu don ste ses op kom fotin yo gada." [AN: "cool. Then you won't mind if we go tell some of the people here that you were sleeping with a fourteen-year-old girl."]
"Hod op," Tibrik calls out, chasing after the few steps Myles had taken with an urgent spring in his anxious steps. His hands grip her arm tightly with wide, fearful chocolate eyes and it puts Jasper on edge. Jasper pushes his way between them, keeping both girls behind him. "Yo gada in nou figon chit dei na dula op gon ai. Em na flosh ai klin." [AN: "Wait. You have no idea what that'll do to me. It will destroy me."]
"Ena?" Myles shoots back, keeping her hazel eyes stuck on his frantic gaze. [AN: "So?"]
Tibrik pauses, and he visibly deflates before his antsy behaviour starts up again.
"Kei," the young man huffs out lowly, speaking too quickly for Clarke to understand most of the words he's saying. "Ai nou split klin kom Acha. Ba ai nou get in weron em kamp raun. Ai don sin em in en kom of em der gyon au. Daun's em, you." [AN: "Okay. I didn't break up with Acher. But I don't know where she is. I dropped her off and let her go. That's it."]
"Kom em of taim?" Jasper asks, and Clarke shifts on her feet anxiously at his slow tone. [AN: "Dropped her off when?"]
"Sintaim feva kom gon," Tibrik answers, "fou twin-de wintam. Ai bilaik las chon don sin em in." [AN: "Many days ago. Before the middle of winter. I was the last person to see her."]
"Weron yu don bants em?" Clarke questions, her blonde eyebrows furrowed deeply as she tries to recall the words she's learnt and follow what's going on. [AN: "Where did you leave her?"]
"Saut," the young man supplies vaguely, clenching his jaw and darting his eyes to the side quickly, "tu sintaim strech au." [AN: "South. Two days walk."]
"En em jos…" Myles starts, scrunching up her expression sarcastically, "don bants em seingeda? Em strik bro?" [AN: "And she just… left her family? Her little brother?"]
"Em don gon raun kom em nontu," Tibrik explains away, his eyebrows twitching before quickly returning to his 'believe me' look, a small, subconscious smirk pulling up the left side of his mouth. "Em don bilaik fiyon rek. Em jos don gaf in gon ron we, en em don." [AN: "She had a fight with her father. She felt horrible. She just wanted to get away, and she did."]
Myles looks between Jasper and Clarke, and both Arker's meet her gaze almost instantly.
"Kei," the red-haired teen decides with a firm tone, but relaxed delicate features that start to brighten with excitement. "Yu na tel osir op opleis yo tu don gyon au. Ething yo don gouthru klin, ething yo don sin in." [AN: "Okay. You are gonna tell us everywhere you two went. Everything you passed, everything you saw."]
"Nou ban enthing au, nami?" Jasper adds when Tibrik starts getting fidgety again, bringing a hand up to his face and brushing through his brown hair. "Osir gaf get in ogeda skrap kom graun yo don sen yo fut daun." [AN: "Don't leave anything out. We want to know every grain of dirt you stepped on."]
"We need another plan," Myles sighs out, keeping her hazel eyes fixed on the surroundings whipping past the rover. "Too much can go wrong with A and B."
"Wait," Clarke interjects, leaning forward in the backseat to stick her head between the two front seats, resting an arm along the passenger seat as she does so. "We have plans? We haven't even found where they went yet."
"Acha is dead," the redhead deadpans, locking her confident gaze on Clarke's shocked blue. "The people in Arkadia aren't."
"No," Clarke refuses, "there's no way Acha's dead. She just ran off, and we can track her when we get to where she was dropped off."
"Sorry, Princess," Jasper butts in, "Aggie's right, we should prioritise project Cactus over doing nothing while we wait to see something that probably doesn't exist."
"You think she's dead," the blonde turns on him accusingly, staring at him as if she hopes he'll say something to disprove her statement. Huffing a sigh when nothing more comes from the brown-haired teen, her blue eyes lock back on hazel. "Okay. Fine. Why do you think she's dead?"
"He only talked about her in past tense," Myles explains, "'she was clingy', 'she was my friend', 'she felt horrible', 'she wanted to get away'."
"Because it happened two months ago," Clarke reasons, "two months in the past!"
"Or," the red-haired teen drawls out sarcastically, "because she's dead and he's a murderer."
"You both are so negative," Clarke goads, "would it kill either of you to be positive for one moment?"
"I can be positive," Myles declares defensively, a smile beginning to shine through her voice. "I'm positive he's a murdering asshole."
Jasper snorts a laugh, quickly lifting his left hand from the steering wheel to lean his elbow on the door and place his hand over his mouth. Myles watches the movements her best friend makes to stifle and kill his bubbling laughter with her mouth held open as chuckles clench her stomach and get stuck in her throat.
"You both," their blonde-haired friend starts, light, airy laughter betraying her harsh words. "Are awful. Not everyone is an asshole, you know."
"Yeah," Jasper agrees, sliding his hand from his mouth to his jaw momentarily to speak his next words clearly. "Except for the fact that everyone is an asshole."
Myles leans forward in her seat, smiling through the giggles that escape from her throat. Their laughing eases the weight the redhead's words seemed to have put on Clarke's shoulders.
"Fine," Clarke relents, easy chuckling still dancing over her words. "We'll worry about Acha when we get there. What are these plans you've got?"
"Bad," Myles informs her instantly, her laughter dying down in her serious tone.
"Plan A is our containment plan," Jasper divulges to their blonde friend, "'Asleep'. Keep Finn's and Octavia's eyes on them, diverting them from the villages to give Kane, Monty and Bellamy enough time to recruit more into the defectors army."
"We," the red-haired teen continues, gesturing to the three of them half-heartedly, "are to keep Lexa, the clans and the villagers happy. Make sure they know Arkadia can be contained and handled internally."
"Keep Arkadia asleep," Clarke summarises, "have our inside men get the pieces into place. Just like Mount Weather."
Myles and Jasper sober up even more so, both best friends turning to stare at Clarke like she'd grown a second head. Jasper keeps flicking his eyes back to the windscreen, watching where he's going while also pinning Clarke with the same offended stare Myles has twisted in her seat completely to give.
"What?" Clarke feigns innocence, already knowing the answer, but wanting to pry the conversation out of them.
"Mentions of Hell," Myles states slowly, "with it's alternative name also need to be contained."
"It's bad juju," Jasper tacks on, his voice dead serious, "real bad."
"You guys talk about it all the time," Clarke shoots back, looking at the two best friends like they're overreacting.
"Strictly for healing purposes only," the brown-haired teen supplies. "And not when comparing plans."
"You call it Hell," the blonde scrutinises, "how is that healing?"
Myles fake gasps, getting an exasperated look from Clarke, "who's side are you on?"
"Yours," Clarke answers honestly, "it isn't healthy."
"Don't listen to her, JJ," Myles tells Jasper, twisting back around in her seat to face the front again. "She's just bitter she's not avoiding Finn by being shirtless in Polis right now."
"At least," the blonde jokes, "I have someone to be shirtless with."
Both teens in the front whip back around to look at her again, Myles with her mouth held wide open and Jasper with twinkling eyes that flick between her and the Earth the rover tramples over in front of them. Myles raises her hand towards the blonde and Jasper awkwardly reaches his palm out behind himself.
"Ooh," Jasper exclaims, and Clarke high-fives the two hands held out towards her. "Double burn!"
"That's big," Myles smiles widely, hazel eyes gleaming brightly. "I'm so proud of you."
"Only you would be for that," Clarke replies, chuckling. "Okay, Plan Asleep is at a standstill. What's Plan B?"
"The worst of the two of them," the brown-haired teen informs her, and Clarke lightheartedness deflates.
"What?" The blonde questions, her thin eyebrows furrowing imploringly. "Why?"
"'Backfire'," the redhead sighs out, "is if things go awry. It's a putdown scheme. Pike's army gets out of hand or crosses another line; take care of them before Lexa has to do it to pacify the clans."
"This is all we've got?" Clarke demands frustratedly, shaking her head. "You're the Ghost! You've spent the last three months fixing things like this."
"No," Jasper corrects tiredly, "we've spent the last three months preventing things like this. In one day, Pike and Abby destroyed the months of progress we made with Hell. One day. One morning destroyed everything we've built for Arkadia in the clan's and the villages."
"So, what?" Clarke scoffs, disbelievingly, "we just do nothing? Make them fix it themselves?"
"They can't fix it themselves," the brown-haired Arker announces, but Myles slouches in her seat, ideas turning around in her head. "They've done nothing but prove that since they landed down here. We can't do anything until the inside passes us intel or has their own army or they kill another 300 innocent people."
"So we're sitting ducks again?" Clarke continues, "is that all we can do?"
"If it walks like a duck," Jasper starts, "quacks like a duck and is sitting, it's us."
"What if," Myles speaks up, her words slow and thoughtful, "we had a failsafe plan?"
"A failsafe plan?" Clarke echoes, leaning forward so her head is between the two front seats again.
"What are you thinking?" Jasper inquires, flicking his lightening but still serious gaze over to her.
"I'm thinking," the redhead begins thoughtfully, as if testing the words out as she's saying them. "Rule twenty-four."
"'When in doubt'," Clarke recites one of the first rules the two best friends drilled into her head perfectly, but her tone wavers with uncertainty. "'Always know your way out'?"
"A plan to somehow solve this from the inside," Myles confirms, "get the grounders held prisoner out safely when it starts going south."
"Keep them safe," Jasper finishes, his voice just as slow as his mind catches up with hers. "While we're on our way and getting into position. A backfire plan for 'Backfire'."
"Can they do that themselves?" Clarke quizzes, "I thought we needed one of us to help them out?"
"They do," Myles answers, "unless there's a big enough distraction that everyone leaves the prisoners behind."
"Or leaves them with a few guards," her best friend keeps going for her, "that they can take out themselves. Have Marcus or Monty slip them the key for the cell, distraction, take down the remaining guards, get to safety, wait for us."
"One of us will need to track them down," Myles theorises, "get to them before anyone on the inside realises they're gone and there're defectors."
"That'll be Finn," Clarke guesses, "Octavia is with the villages, so Finn is with the patrols around the border. Finn grabs them and takes them… where?"
"We have a couple hidey-holes," Jasper divulges, "caves. Not far, but hidden."
"It will depend where shit hits the fan," Myles sighs, "okay, Finn is their escort, I end Pike's influence, what else?"
"I'll be with you," Clarke decides, nodding to herself. "If we can't sway Pike's army, we'll sway Lexa. Jasper and Octavia can find all the prisoners and take them to safety while we keep them distracted."
"We'll need to dig up Rover 2," Jasper tells Myles, and Clarke almost does a double take.
"Rover 2?" Clarke questions, "as in, more rovers?"
"There's six of these rovers," Myles elaborates for Clarke, "and two big troop trucks that we jacked from Hell and did up. We've got one car that has the same kinda build as the rovers that we found in an underground parking garage. It was all souped up with all sorts of gear for hunting and four wheel driving, so we dissected it and one of the rovers we didn't take. Made it run."
"When we have some spare time," the brown-haired teen offers, "we'll teach you how to drive."
"Thanks," Clarke beams, leaning her arm on the back of Myles' chair again as leaning over awkwardly becomes uncomfortable.
"It's easy," Myles brushes off, wanting to get back to planning. "You'll pick it up fast. What kinda distraction do we think? Get Finn to take pot-shots at the gate? Have Monty fritz the whole system? Stage a brawl? A ka-fucking-boom?"
"Clarke," Jasper calls, flicking his gaze towards her fleetingly as he drives. "You're new to the Ghost team, what do you think?"
Red eyebrows are furrowed deeply, the tense look emphasised by Myles' frustrated and gloomy hazel eyes that stare through the metal slits in the passenger window at the absolute nothingness that they pass. The easy conversation that her two friends are having around her wafts through the air, but she doesn't pay attention to a single word. Pessimistic thoughts bounce around her mind in a never-ending echo, repeating the exchange they had with Tibrik and screaming everything they know about Acha. It's wrong, Myles knows it, her gut knows it, yet somehow, she just can't put her finger on what's wrong.
Silence fills the air, but it makes no difference to Myles. To her, this is what it sounded like in the rover before, the background noise nonexistent compared to her racing thoughts. Jasper flicks his eyes towards her slouched and standoffish posture before his voice drags her from her mind.
"Aggie," her best friend calls tiredly, "what do you think? Does nine make more sense being 'nain' or 'nai'?"
"No," Myles responds distractedly, barely even registering the question.
Jasper looks back at her, "just… relax." Myles rolls her head against her chair to meet his eyes as he looks from the path in front of them to her. "We've got a plan for everybody, a backup plan, a backup backup plan, and a backup for that one, just in case."
"That," the red-haired teen sighs dramatically, pulling herself up to sit up properly and look through the metal slits windscreen. "Is not what I'm thinking about."
"What are you thinking about?" Clarke enquires kindly, leaning forward towards her.
"Stop the rover, JJ," Myles says instead, and the dead seriousness in her voice makes the brown-haired teen immediately press down on the brake.
"What?" Jasper quizzes, in both perplexity and concern as the rover all but skids to a stop suddenly. "What's wrong?"
"They didn't go this way," the redhead declares over Max's frustrated huff, looking back down at the book and papers in her lap.
"How do you know that?" Clarke asks and furrowed red eyebrows face her when Myles twists around fully in her seat so her body awkwardly faces Jasper.
"We've been driving for almost four hours," Myles points out dully, gesturing towards the metal slits in the windscreen, where the late afternoon sun starts to colour the edges of the light blue sky with warm tones. "At the speed we've been going, there's no way they made it this far in two days, even if they didn't stop."
"Maybe we just haven't gotten to where they went yet," the blonde-haired teen reasons, her eyebrows drawing close in thought.
"We haven't passed one thing he claimed they saw," Jasper adds, shaking his head, "not off in the distance, nowhere."
"What are you saying?" Clarke implores defensively, already drawing lines between this conversation and the one they had before about Acha's probable demise.
"Unless a large, forked tree," the brown-haired Arker answers, recreating the image with his arm, "that's leaning over completely horizontal but is still in the ground and growing leaves, and giant rocky lines in a mountain somehow got swallowed by the Earth, we're going the wrong way." Clarke looks defensive again, opening her mouth to retort, but Jasper beats her to it. "We haven't passed any of the ruins or farmland Tibrik said they saw. A sunflower and wheat farm that stretches 300 acres and a sheep farm almost twice that with storage houses all over the forest around it doesn't just disappear in two months."
"Even if she isn't dead," Myles tries when Clarke still looks indifferent to the idea. "He'd still lie, because he's protecting himself." Their blonde-haired friend relaxes at the words, and Myles presses on to make sure both teens are on the same train of thought as she is. "He had no idea we knew. When we showed up, he had no intentions of admitting he knew her."
"You think it was all a lie?" Jasper questions, his expression twisting as he thinks over their interaction with the young man.
"All the landmarks?" Myles queries back, already shaking her head. "No, he gave them up too quickly."
"He gave us south quick, too," her best friend reminds her, and Clarke straightens.
"Because we put him on the spot," the blonde realises, snapping her head to look at both friends quickly with her soft features brightening. "He didn't know we knew, and he wasn't going to admit it, which means he didn't rehearse an answer."
"I think," Myles looks between her close friends, "the landmarks are real, I just think they're in the opposite direction, because – "
"Because he answered so quickly," Jasper confirms, nodding along with his friends idea. "He didn't have time to think of a lie, so instead of saying the truth, he just said the opposite."
"We need to go north," Clarke states, an underlying current of giddiness beneath her serious tone.
The rover rolls to a stop, but the headlights stay on. Myles is the first to open her door out of the two best friends, having already undone her seatbelt with the fidgety energy sitting in the vehicle for most of the day has left her. Slipping from her seat, one hand stays on the open passenger door to keep it held open for Clarke and Max, the other slipping down to her belt to pull up her flashlight. Clicking it on, the sound doesn't echo; it doesn't bounce off the trees and woodlands surrounding them. Instead, the sound disappears into the blackness of the night with the sound of Jasper's door opening and closing.
Clarke's boots hit the ground behind the redhead mere seconds before Max's energetic panting reaches her ears. The sound keeps the silence of the still leaves and the eery chirping of crickets and nightlife company. Everything is still as Myles sweeps her white beam of light over their surroundings, looking for hints of what happened two months ago. Jasper and Clarke's lights join hers quickly, moving around sluggishly as they inspect the world around them in the dead of night.
Nothing around them jumps out at Myles, and she swings her light around to glance up at the slope before them. Clarke pulls at the passenger door, the cool metal leaving the touch of Myles' slender fingers before slamming shut. Switching her flashlight around, the redhead tries to think of what's the most likely course.
"How likely," Jasper starts, his calm, contemplative voice sounding loud and harsh in the still, cold air. "Is it that they stopped here?"
"I'm not Greenie," Myles answers back, slowly inching forward and scrutinising the land. "I can't answer that with any amount of accuracy, but up there would have the best view of the stars."
"And if they didn't reach here by nightfall?" Jasper questions again, "if they just kept going?"
"This is the third place we've stopped at," Clarke interjects, trying to follow Myles slowly and carefully so as not to disrupt whatever scenario she's playing through in her head.
"Third time's the charm?" Jasper begrudgingly mutters, "is that what we've come to?" No one answers him, and the teen huffs tiredly, walking away from his friends. "I'm waiting in the rover."
"Aggie," the blonde-haired teen calls softly, watching the redhead stop and shine her flashlight up the jagged slope. When she gets a hum in reply, she continues. "What are you doing?"
Spinning around, Myles shines her light vaguely southwards of them.
"Hurin is about two days walk that way," the red-haired teen states, shifting her flashlight ever so slightly to indicate something through the trees that they can't see. "Couple hundred yards east is Stauto's farmland. They would've had to walk through it to have time to spare, but Stauto didn't see them."
"Because they went around," Clarke finishes the thought, following Myles when she turns back around and starts slowly ascending the slope.
"If they went straight to save time," the redhead continues, "this would've been directly in front of them. I can't figure out if they would've went up this way, or on the other side."
"Or if at all?" Clarke guesses, and Myles' hum of agreement is almost drowned out by Jasper calling for Max and following the two teens up the slope. "I thought you were waiting in the rover?"
"I can't let you two do nothing in the middle of the night alone," Jasper replies, stomping up the slope behind them as Max jogs up, his small paws trampling over the cloaked forest floor.
Max's head bumps against Myles' hand and leg a moment after Clarke coos at him when he passes her the same way, before rushing in front of them all to reach the top first. Myles takes her time, scanning her flashlight around as if she could see any evidence left behind from the first half of winter two months ago. She's not surprised to see absolutely nothing, but it does little to relieve the pitifully heavy sense of tiredness and powerlessness that floods through her veins. Her sense of hopelessness lifts when she reaches the top.
Their small calico coloured dog is what she sees first, standing in front of a tree to her left with a leg raised high as he marks his territory. All the breath leaves her lungs in a thick cloud in front of her face when her hazel gaze catches sight of the bright moonlight and starlight cascading through the leaves above her before piercing the hilltop unrestricted in the middle. Trees teeter out towards the very centre of the small hill, allowing for a clear view of the stunning sight above them. Early morning winter fog is not in the air yet, leaving the sparkling night sky appearing crisp and gorgeous.
The sense to hit her next is smell. A part of Myles' mind tells her the strong far-away stench is from Max, but he's been well hydrated the whole day and hasn't eaten anything out of the ordinary. It's a heavy smell, but it's hidden away, as if under several sweet layers of the forest. Hints of strong urine and bitter, stomach churning musk that reminds her way too vividly of Pauna's zoo and the military supply depot they found the guns in so many months ago.
"Woah," Jasper huffs out in amazement, his sentiments echoed by Clarke's slow puff of air. "This was worth leaving the rover. Smell sucks, though. Stauto must drop off his manure up here, fertilise the trees."
"Sick bastard," Myles jokes halfheartedly, her nose scrunching up slightly the longer the smell hangs in the air.
Myles tears her eyes away from the sky first, resuming her scouring gaze and stepping forward a few more steps. Max trots up to her, sniffing the ground and happily shoving his head against her limply hanging hand for a pat. Scratching absentmindedly at his head, the redhead keeps looking around, scanning the three clusters of boulders near the centre for signs of the runaway teen. Still, nothing jumps out at her, and when Jasper and Clarke shift behind her, Max turns to them and waltzes over for more pats.
Without him by her side, the red-haired teen moves closer to the boulders, crouching down to carefully examine them for manmade scratches or grazes. The leaves and grass below them won't hold any answers for them, so Myles sticks to tree trunks and rocks. Someone like Acha wouldn't want to miss a sight like this, wouldn't want to forget it, surely something must be left behind or have been taken as a trinket. This far away from their villages, surely they'd be safe to scratch a lovey-dovey message into a tree or on their front row seats to their view of the stars?
"Acha definitely would've stopped here," Clarke decides, tearing her eyes away from the sky to glance around. "Even with the smell. Someone that in love with the stars would know just from looking at the hill, there'd be a view like this."
"That's what I'm hoping," Myles mutters, more so to herself than the friends with her.
The Arker's steps are near silent, a far cry from the careless pitter-patter of Max's paws scrambling to smell everything he can without straying from their loving hands.
"How hard do you think it is," Jasper enquires after a silent moment, and Myles glances at him on her way over to another cluster of large stones. "To train a dog to sniff out scents?"
"Probably as hard as it is to train one to do anything else," the redhead replies, shrugging halfheartedly.
"Some dogs can track scents from months before," Clarke tells them, "while others can only smell things twenty-four hours old. If you wanna train Max to track things, it wouldn't help. Rain and snow taint the scent."
"How do you even know that?" Jasper asks slowly, perplexity shining heavily through his tone.
"From third year Earth Skills," Clarke reminds him, her tone accusatory. "Earth Skills was mandatory. How do you not know that?"
"Correction," the brown-haired teen announces over-dramatically, and Myles goes to shoot an exasperated look to her best friend before halting, her whole body going rigid. "First and second year Earth Skills were mandatory." Myles raises slightly from her crouched position, maintaining a bent over posture and reaching a hand out slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on one spot. "I took additional Chem after that."
"Max," Myles calls, the urgency and breathiness in her voice immediately alerting the other two. The dog in question looks up at her at his name, the slender decaying human arm still in his mouth and detaching from the body it came from, the skin covered in bugs and insects melting off the bone. Clarke screeches, and Myles' stomach twists painfully with nausea. "Stay."
"Drop it," Jasper orders thickly, copying the redhead's hunched over and slow approaching demeanour. They're both being careful and slow, their tones low and authoritative, but strong with their commands. "Now, drop it."
Max lowers his head, but his jaw doesn't open to realise the dead girl's arm. Carefully inching forward some more, Myles fights the urge to swallow the lump in her throat.
"Good," the redhead coos darkly, both her and Jasper continuing forward very slowly to not spook him. "Drop it."
Slowly, as if he's in trouble, Max let's go of the arm and slinks backwards, his paws slipping slightly on the downward slope behind him. The second he lets it go, both best friends lunge forward to shoo the dog away, and order him to sit down out of the way. While Jasper sorts Max out, Myles scrunches up her face sourly as she looks over the dead body of a young, teenage girl. Long ash blonde hair is matted with god only knows what, knotted and rotting near her head.
The girl is unrecognisable, even after memorising the sketch of her living. Two months of decomposition has melted her away, all that's left of her hanging on grotesquely to her clothing material and being eaten away from her bones. Her stomach has collapsed, the organs having melted away weeks ago.
"Fuck," Myles mutters, pulling her shirt over her nose. The smell seems twenty times worse now that she's been disturbed, or perhaps it's just because now Myles knows what it is. "Fuck."
"Please tell me that's not Acha," Clarke all but pleads, her voice teary and wavering.
Jasper approaches haltingly in the corner of Myles' eyes as she crouches down to the body before deciding to stop a few metres away from them.
"Can you tell what killed her?" Jasper enquires morosely, his tone as defeated as the other two feel.
"Not with all the bugs," Myles grimaces, hating that those words ever had to leave her mouth. "I can't see fucking anything. Fuck."
"She's really decomposed," her best friend states obviously. "Is it possible she's only been here two months?"
"She's not covered," Clarke's quiet voice wavers, stepping forward haltingly and staring at where Myles' flashlight reluctantly shines. "If she was buried, I'd say no, but in the air, even in winter, even – "
"It's her," Myles answers instead, trying to spare her emotional friend who'd been the only one of them to actually have hope from needing to say the words aloud.
Flicking the light around a bit more and leaning so she doesn't need to get too close, hazel eyes scour for something to tell her this was an accident. Silently begging for an answer to take to her family and give them some kind of peace in this pain. Myles doesn't find that, though. Instead, as she's leaning back up from hovering over Acha's legs, she flicks her gaze and light up to the dead teen's head again, going rigid.
Disgust and dejected defeat wash over her so quickly and so strongly that Myles is certain she's going to pass out or throw up. Neither happens, she just stays frozen until Jasper shifts anxiously behind her. Clenching her jaw, hazel eyes glance up at Clarke hesitantly, hating herself for having to ask this of her friend.
"Clarke," Myles calls out weakly, her tone thick with dread. The sound of her voice makes the blonde flinch back, but she doesn't say anything. "I need you to tell me if this is what I think it is."
Slowly, Clarke reluctantly steps around the dead body in a wide circle, coming up behind Myles. Myles knows she's trying to stay as far away as possible, trying to do what she's been asked without actually doing it. It's for this reason that the redhead doesn't try to speed her up, just lets her take her time. Eventually, the blonde leans close to Myles, keeping her body millimetres from the red-haired teens as if Myles could protect her from the sight she's about to see.
"There," Myles prompts quietly, shifting her hand holding her flashlight still stuck on it ever so slightly to show where the Arker needs to look.
Clarke is so close to the redhead that Myles can feel her tense.
"Oh, my god," the blonde breathes out, sounding breathless and stunned to silence.
"What is it?" Jasper frets, the severity keeping the air thick and the anxiousness of being the only one who doesn't understand what's going on makes him take half a step forward.
"Foetal bones," Clarke whispers remorsefully, "they're small, haven't hardened or fused yet. Maybe eight weeks?"
"What does that mean?" Jasper quizzes morosely, though Myles knows he already knows what this means and feels it as much as they all do.
Everything Tibrik said sprints through Myles' mind. Every action, every twitch, every paranoid glance.
"Ai nou get in eni Acha." [AN: "I don't know any Acher."]
"Em don ai lukot," the young man divulges lowly, his eyebrows still raised in that 'believe me' look. [AN: "She was my friend."]
"Kei," Tibrik sighs, and it's the first time his eyebrows move down. "Mebi osir don mou kom jos lukot." [AN: "Okay. Maybe we were more than just friends."]
"Em ste fotin," Jasper states disdainfully, not hiding his animosity for the young man in front of them. [AN: "She's fourteen."]
"Ai get in," he insists, and it's the only thing Myles feels he's been honest about. "Ai get in." [AN: "I know. I know."]
"Osir don split klinsintaim feva fou em ban klin," Tibrik huffs in aggravation. [AN: "We broke up many days before she disappeared."]
"Em don huk klin," the young man describes, and while Myles can buy that Acha would be clingy, Tibrik's shifty eyes and twitching fingers speak louder than his words. [AN: "She was clingy."]
"Hod op," his hand is gripping Myles' arm tightly with wide, fearful chocolate eyes that put Jasper on edge, and he pushes his way between them, keeping both girls behind him. "Yo gada in nou figon chit dei na dula op gon ai. Em na flosh klin kom ai." [AN: "Wait. You have no idea what that'll do to me. It will destroy me."]
Looking over at her best friend and locking her sad and defeated hazel gaze on his brown, Myles connects every lie and half truth with everything that's before her.
"She didn't leave because she had a fight with her dad," Myles grits out around her clenched her jaw, "she and Tibrik left together, because if anyone found out something happened between an adult man and a fourteen-year-old girl, he'd be 'destroyed'. They'd kill him."
"So he killed her," Clarke finishes, her tone strong even though her voice whimpers. "Because she was pregnant."
Rule Number 5:- The best way to keep a secret? Keep it to yourself. Second best? Tell one other person - IF YOU MUST. There is no third best.