Author's Note: I hope everyone has had a happy holiday season and an enjoyable holiday (or holidays) of your choice! Time for another chapter in our story.
I hope this chapter can add some happiness to your day, especially if things have been tough lately. Hang in there. You're loved and you deserve to live your own life. Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise.
Cover Art for the story is from the LexaRecovery tumblr. Stay strong together.
I do not own the television show "The 100" or make any claims upon it or its characters. Similarly, I do not own Frozen, its characters or any Disney characters or property. All these characters are used under the concept of Fair Use, and I make no profit or income from using any of them.
Our Fight Is Not Over
by Jo K.
Chapter 7: Symbolism
Baby I want scary kisses
I want hits and I want misses
I want hell and I want bliss
And all that stuff between it
And if you give me safety
In a short time I'll be driven crazy
I would rather run and fall
Than take no chance at all.
-Voice of the Beehive, "Scary Kisses"
—O—
"Well," said Briar Rose, hands on her hips as she looked down at the papers carefully arranged on the table between all the women standing in the room. The look on her face wasn't exactly sour, but it certainly wasn't pleasant.
"Well," echoed Maleficent, face stoic, arms folded across her chest as she stood, the edge of her cloak brushing against Rose where her lover stood beside her.
"Well," sighed Elsa, similarly looking down at the sigils drawn on the papers set out before all of them on the table. Her face was sad as she remembered the fate of the family who had been tortured and sacrificed around the runes that had been painted on the snow between them... with their blood. The same runes that had been carefully transcribed on separate sheets of paper, now positioned in not exactly the same orientation they had found at the ritual site, but close enough together to give a good idea of how it would have looked.
"Well, nothing," Anna said, frowning. "Or more accurately, there's nothing well about it. We've not put these things close enough together to really recreate the pattern, and these symbols are still making my eyes water and my head hurt."
Clarke and Lexa looked at each other. Magic was a new phenomenon to them, but there was definitely something about the strange figures and symbols laid out before them on the wooden table that was troubling, not just in a subconscious way but also as a steadily building headache Clarke had developed over the last hour.
Maleficent sighed, and something about her performing such a mundane action seemed out of place to Clarke.
"Drux's Folio?" Rose abruptly asked, turning to look at Maleficent.
"The character set is slightly different," replied the horned woman, pointing at some of the sigils.
Rose nodded her head, then returned to examining the markings. "The Bitter Grimoire, then?" she asked, raising her head again.
"Hmmm," Maleficent murmured slowly. "No, I don't think so. This design," she said as she vaguely waved her hand over the papers, "seems too elegant for that wretched waste of papyrus."
Anna looked at Elsa, hoping her sister was as lost in the conversation as she was. Seeing the look of befuddlement on her wife's face, Anna squeezed Elsa's hand comfortingly, shrugging her shoulders silently as Elsa gave her a curious look in return.
"Well, it certainly looks Hyperborean," Rose muttered.
"I agree," Maleficent said warmly, reaching out to pick up one of the papers holding some of the mystic symbols, then lifting it up to examine it more closely. "Perhaps a rogue infernalist, who's studied more than most."
"No," Rose replied, shaking her head slightly. She pointed to one, then another of the symbols still on the table. "The way these runes are laid out, it's not designed to summon something, it's designed to send something."
Maleficent lowered the paper she was holding, then turned to look at Rose. A quizzical look flashed across her face, only to be matched by a cocky smirk from the blonde. A slow lift of Maleficent's left eyebrow countered the sassy look before the tall woman replaced the paper in its original position to peer more closely at the runes Rose had indicated. "Well, well, well," she purred before standing upright again. Carefully she turned to look at her partner. "A portal spell," she finally said. "Between worlds."
Everyone looked briefly at Clarke and Lexa, who had no idea what to do, so Lexa just stood perfectly still, while Clarke smiled awkwardly.
"Worlds?" asked Rose, uncertainly.
Maleficent nodded. "Worlds." She indicated Lexa and Clarke with a sweep of her left hand.
Rose's right hand went to her chin, index finger tapping against her lips. "Not many works capable of that kind of power," she said, as much to herself as to anyone else. "At least not ones that are unaccounted for..."
Suddenly her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "The Vile Codex!"
A smile bloomed to life across Maleficent's ruby lips. "I concur," she said warmly. "I was wondering when it would show up again."
"I've been wanting to kill whomever it was that stole that book for years now," Rose said, her smile growing wider, if crueler, as she clapped her hands together cheerily.
Seeing Anna and Elsa both giving her a curious look, Rose turned to regard them. "Oh, don't give me that look!" she said, half-teasingly. "You would not believe what I had to go through because of that thief!"
"It was a most unpleasant situation, to be sure," Maleficent said calmly, walking to a different table nearby to pour herself a cup of hot tea.
Rose laughed, a sharp, bitter laugh. "Unpleasant, my eyes!" she said. "I had to burn that particular dress because I couldn't get all the faerie blood and gore out of it, even with magic!"
Maleficent returned to the table, rejoining the group of women standing around it as she sipped her tea. "It really was quite the mess," she said calmly. "My poor Briar Rose had the worst of it, unfortunately."
Rose smiled as Maleficent held out the cup of tea to her; she smoothly took the cup from Maleficent's hand into both of her own. "Thank you, Mal," Rose said softly, offering her a quick wink as well as she carefully tested the tea's temperature before taking a sip of her own.
"The book's true name is not spoken by those few who know of it," Maleficent spoke. "Names have power, after all, and there are some entities that no one wants to accidentally call home for supper. For many years, the book commonly referred to as the Vile Codex was kept locked away in the center of a settlement of good faeries, kept in a prison of earth that had to be replenished regularly due to the book's corrupting nature."
"Why would good faeries keep such an item?" asked Elsa, with Anna nodding in agreement to the question.
"Precisely because they would be among the least likely to ever use it," Maleficent replied calmly. "Multiple attempts have been made to destroy the Vile Codex over the centuries, but none have ever succeeded. Lore regarding the Codex claims that the book can only be destroyed by its antithesis, its polar opposite, but no one has ever been able to determine what that might be."
"And since no one has been able to destroy it, it had to be contained," Rose said as she handed the cup of tea back to Maleficent. "Faeries are much more resistant to corruption than humans, and good faeries are inherently opposed to dark magic, so they made the perfect guardians for such a dangerous object."
There was a short pause before Clarke spoke. "So... if they were the perfect guardians, how did someone steal it?"
Rose sighed, and for a moment she looked noticeably more weary that her youthful features belied. "Someone managed to slip a barrel of gunpowder inside a large crate full of iron filings into the good faerie village, then blow it up."
Elsa reflexively covered her mouth with her hand to cover her gasp, while Anna's mouth fell open.
"Jesus," Clarke muttered, blinking her eyes.
Even Lexa looked taken aback at that assessment.
"Yeah," Rose said, a sad smile now gracing her face. "Most of the ones the explosion didn't kill outright, the iron fragments tore through, killing them either quickly from wounds or bleeding to death or slowly from iron poisoning. And the few who escaped both the blast and the shrapnel succumbed to breathing in the iron dust left hanging in the air, searing their lungs from the inside."
Rose sighed. "And seeing as how between Mal and me I'm the only one who can touch iron and not have it burn me, you can figure out who had to pick her way through the mess and try to piece together—literally, in this case—what happened."
Rose pulled out a chair and sat down. As she did so, Maleficent moved to stand behind the blonde, rubbing her shoulders while being careful to not prick her hands or fingers on the metal thorns protruding from the accents and piping on Rose's corset, tiara and hair pins. "Had to wash my hair four times in that freezing creek beside the village to get all the iron dust out of it, so Mal could touch me again," Rose said, her voice wavering between annoyed and numb. "The blood and guts washed off me pretty fast, but I just burned the dress right there. There was no way it was ever going to be clean again."
Rose paused, remembering the carnage as well as the emotional turmoil that had proved even harder to wash away than the damned iron dust. "It was—" Rose began, only to stop short as her jaw trembled once. "It was pretty fucking horrible."
She looked up, meeting first Anna's, then Elsa's eyes. "I had met most of them, you know?" Rose said as tears began to dribble down her cheeks. "The faeries, I mean. Most of them had come to the ceremony where Mal installed me as ruler of the Moonglades, and—"
"I still don't know why you two won't just call it a wedding," said Anna, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I mean, we all know that's what it was, pretty much."
"They're entitled to express their love any way they choose, Anna," Elsa said, not exactly chiding Anna but the tone in her voice hinting at a bit of that.
"A wedding would have... complicated the situation with Rose's former kingdom even more so than it currently remains," Maleficent finally said.
"I have absolutely no desire to ever return to that wretched shithole of a country," Rose hissed, her right hand clenching into a fist. "Even Aurora doesn't want to go back there!" Rose paused before continuing. "I mean, it was her that they pretty much just threw out like the trash!"
Rose looked up at Elsa. "You know what it's like to have your parents lock you away, Elsa. Spirits, you had it worse than Aurora and I did! You actually knew what you were missing." She wiped the tears away from her face before looking at Anna and smiling. "Who you were missing," she said more softly. "I was just treated like a fool and lied to for what had been my entire life." She reached up with her right hand, palm upward, and held it there until long fingers with sharp black nails interlaced themselves with Rose's splayed fingers. "I had been thrown away, banished by people who claimed to love Aurora, but that isn't how you treat someone you love! Spirits, being cursed was the best thing that ever happened to us in our lives up to that point."
"Oh, Rose," Anna said, reaching out and taking Rose's free left hand. "Are things still that bad between you and your birth family?"
"They're not my family," Rose snapped, her face suddenly angry, but she didn't pull away from Anna's touch.
"Right, my mistake," Anna said, nodding. "Sorry. I meant to ask, are things still that bad between you and Aurora's birth family."
"Thank you," Rose replied, a bit stiffly. "And yes, they are. I'll never forgive their betraying poor Aurora again, casting us out a second time over our love for Maleficent! You'd think they would have learned after how things turned out the first time! I warned Aurora not to trust them again, but she was too naïve for our own good."
"But I thought they had made offers of welcoming you back recently," Elsa asked, sitting down beside Anna.
The cold hatred that smoldered in Rose's eyes was evident to both Anna and Elsa. "I'll never be able to trust them, and now Aurora knows that she can never trust them too," she said firmly. "Just as that bastard father of Aurora's betrayed my dear dark lady, his people betrayed Aurora and me as well, putting an outsider on the throne instead of their 'beloved princess'."
Abruptly Rose turned her head to look over her shoulder at Maleficent. "Do you think that Philip might have ordered the Codex stolen?" she asked. "He certainly bears quite the grudge against Aurora and me both."
Maleficent laughed once, sharply, and its derisive tone was entirely clear. "Had that been the case, then Philip would have managed to curse himself and his treacherous kingdom into oblivion, damnation or both within the first week."
Rose looked up at Maleficent for long seconds, her blue eyes seeming to dance in place before a wide, open smile grew on her lips. "Thank you, Maleficent," she spoke in a voice softer, more hesitant than usual.
As Clarke watched, she saw the blonde princess's shoulders lift slightly, her head tilt disappear. The sly intelligence in the woman's blonde eyes seemed to shift as Clarke watched with intense curiosity, Rose's eyes rapidly becoming more expressive, more openly emotional as they beamed up at Maleficent.
"You are most welcome, my sweet Aurora," Maleficent spoke softly, bending down to tenderly kiss the blonde princess's lips. The action was met with the tiniest bit of hesitation on the blonde's part before she kissed back, allowing Maleficent to deepen the kiss before politely pulling back.
"I shall never grow used to that, I should hope," Aurora said, smiling brightly.
"Nor shall I," Maleficent replied, smiling back.
A light giggle escaped the blonde's lips, followed by a coy smile, which itself was followed by another quick kiss on Maleficent's lips. "I suppose we should get back to the quite serious matter at hand, shouldn't we?" Aurora said, not entirely teasing in tone.
"Probably so," agreed Maleficent, her gaze meeting the warm understanding of Elsa and Anna, then the inquisitive but friendly expression on the faces of Clarke and Lexa as she scanned the room. "I should like to finish analyzing these runes in time for whatever delicious repast our hosts have planned for us," she said, carefully keeping all but the barest hint of a smile off her face as she leaned over the papers on the table once again.
—O—
Three hours later, as the six of them made their way down the wide, elegant hallway toward the main dining room, Lexa noted the presence of two uniformed castle guards outside the doors, a change from the previous two days. The appearance of the blonde twins Elin and Erin, wearing matching gowns of shimmering pale blue, escorting their younger sister Kari, who was mostly wearing a purple dress that appeared to be missing the left sleeve, was also a departure from the dining plans, as it had normally been just them and Elsa and Anna, with Kari there some meals but not all, while the twins had only been glimpsed on and off since their emotional talk with Lexa and Clarke in the courtyard that first night.
"Is it a special occasion tonight?" Lexa asked, stopping several paces short of the door to the dining hall and the guards flanking the portal.
"It is," Elsa said, her own smile as demure as Anna's was obvious. She extended her left hand, first in the direction of Lexa and Clarke, then sweeping toward Rose and Maleficent as well. "We have the leaders of three different nations dining together tonight," she said pleasantly. "Four, if we count the Sky People as a separate people."
"Yeah, leave it to Skaikru to be pains in the ass," Clarke said, getting a smirk and soft cough from Lexa. "Some days, they behave."
"Not so much, recently," Lexa offered, showing Clarke enough of a smile to indicate she meant no insult by the remark.
"You've got me there, babe," Clarke said, grinning as she patted Lexa's left upper arm. "First thing on my list for when we get back home."
Anna nearly skipped the few steps ahead, stopping and turning as she reached the guards, who lifted their spears in salute. "Wanheda Clarke, Heda Lexa," she said, smiling brightly, "welcome to your first formal State Dinner here in Arendelle!"
—O—
Late that night, as the chill wind blew heavy flakes of snow across the small sitting area atop part of the castle, Elsa sat and watched the aurora borealis as it danced high above the North Mountain, its thick, sinuous ribbons an electric green and bright white tonight. She sipped her hot tea, protected from cooling or freezing by her magic and the cold itself, while she enjoyed the beautiful view through the steady snowfall.
"Such a singular beauty found in Arendelle," spoke a calm, strong voice behind her.
Elsa smiled. "Pull up a chair," she said, not turning around as she heard Maleficent's cloak flap and flutter in the wind. "And yes, it's a marvelous sight to see."
"It is indeed," Maleficent said quietly as she took a seat beside Elsa, a wave of her hand and a slight pulse of magic blowing the snow off of the heavy wooden chair before she took her seat. She watched the heavenly display in the sky above them for several minutes, taking a drink of the peach, apple and pear drink she secretly indulged in whenever she and Briar Rose came to Arendelle; she had never asked Elsa or Anna for the recipe, because she enjoyed associating the beverage with seeing their friends, and having the friendship of two who knew and accepted her as she truly was would always be sweeter than any mere food or drink.
"What are you and Anna going to do with the two refugees from another world?" Maleficent asked, her voice calm but her words eager with curiosity.
Elsa sighed, then she carefully placed her tea on the small table beside her, mentally reminding the cold not to freeze her tea. "Their world is... harsh."
"Mmm," Maleficent murmured softly. She had listened to the stories to the otherworlders had told, and a surreptitiously cast truth spell had proven to her the validity of what they had said. "To think that level of cataclysm is even possible is quite unsettling."
Elsa nodded, taking another drink of her hot tea. "We offered to let them stay," she finally said. "They politely declined... but I think they considered it."
"They are the leaders of their people. They feel a responsibility to them." The faerie's bright green eyes turned to meet Elsa's intense blue. "Something you know all about, Your Majesty," she spoke, with a hint of teasing in her tone.
Elsa laughed and shifted her legs, moving from having them crossed to fold them beneath her where she sat in the dark wooden chair. "Well-struck, my friend," Elsa said, shaking her head.
The two women sat quietly for several minutes, a yin to the other's yang in appearance, with Elsa's platinum hair and silver dress contrasted to Maleficent's long, loose ebon hair and black robes, one seeming to become one with the falling snow with the other providing an intense contrast to it.
"Have you and Anna told anyone?" Maleficent finally spoke, her voice uncharacteristically soft but the tone to her words making it clear that they were no longer talking about the visitors from a different world.
Elsa smiled more widely as she turned to meet Maleficent's smug look. "Not yet," Elsa said, giving her friend a not-really-stern look. "Should have known we couldn't hide it from you."
"Then Rose and I shall keep your confidence as well."
"Thank you," Elsa said. "How are Rose and Aurora doing?"
"Better," Maleficent said with a nod as she took another sip of her sweet drink, savoring the tartness and the sweetness, her own magic keeping her warm and her drink chilled without freezing. "There haven't been any conflicts between the two for quite some time now."
"That is good," Elsa said softly, looking to her friend and getting a gentle smile in return. "I know you can't help but worry. She's the woman you love, after all."
Maleficent took another drink, then she returned her eyes to the sweeping light show above them. "Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating," the tall woman spoke slowly. "To have the power I wield, the knowledge I possess, yet be utterly impotent when it comes to helping the woman I love. Particularly when much of the harm she has suffered came from my own deeds."
"I know the feeling," Elsa said, patting Maleficent's knee once before withdrawing her hand. "Believe me, I know."
Maleficent nodded, the expression on her face unreadable for a moment before it relaxed. "I know you do," she said. "In fact, you're most likely the only person who could know how terrible that feeling is."
Elsa nodded and looked back toward the mountain stretching into the clouds above them. "It's like dying on the inside," she said quietly. "Like seeing all your hopes, your dreams, your love, your joy, just shatter before your eyes."
"And the fact that it was a mistake of one's own making only makes the pain that much worse." Maleficent closed her eyes, and immediately it was as if she was back in that tiny cottage buried deep in the forest, hurling wave after verdant wave of magic against the curse she had laid upon an infant many years ago, only to have her mightiest attempts at negating said curse deflected effortlessly, all while Briar Rose slept, unaware of the mystical upheaval and emotional strife surrounding her.
"It's not all your fault, Maleficent," Elsa said, turning to look at the fearsome woman, who didn't look quite as fierce as usual despite her long horns, drinking her fruity drink and leaning back into the dark wooden chair as if on a wintery holiday. "It wasn't your curse that damaged Rose's mind. I'm sure of it."
Maleficent shook her head slowly. "Whether my curse was the direct cause, it was Aurora being cursed that set all other events in motion."
"Then if that's the case," Elsa replied quickly, turning to look at Maleficent again, "we can say it's all Stefan's fault, because the atrocity he committed upon you led to you cursing Aurora!"
It grew quiet, with only the soft sound of the rolling tides far below them for a few minutes.
"She deserves better than me."
Elsa sighed. "Maleficent..."
"She should be somewhere back at the Moonglades, in our moors, allowing her poor mind to heal, not chasing after monsters and nightmares with me!"
Elsa leaned over toward Maleficent, gently taking Maleficent's glass and placing it on a small column of ice that silently rose up between them. "Maleficent," she said quietly but firmly. "Her place is with you, my friend. She knows that. Both Rose and Aurora know that. And it's your love that is healing her mind."
Maleficent's burning green stare abruptly twisted away from Elsa's eyes, fixing stubbornly upon the northern lights again.
"The change might not be as obvious to you because you're with her all the time, but it was clear as the sun reflecting off the snow to Anna and me. Rose is less angry and confrontational. Aurora is more confident, more comfortable. The two parts of her personality are working together." Elsa squeezed Maleficent's left hand once, gently. "They're not switching off as much, because they don't need to."
Elsa smiled. "Can't you see, Maleficent? It's your love for her and her love for you that's healing what was broken by her parents' selfishness and cruelty."
When Maleficent turned back to Elsa, her intense green eyes were glistening, though no tears fell. "You would know something about that as well, wouldn't you?" the tall faerie said, a sad smile curving her pink lips. "We do share the most unfortunate experiences."
Elsa smiled back, her own blue eyes nearly luminous in their intensity at the moment. "And, likewise, we have overcome them," she said calmly. "True Love is the most powerful magic of all, no matter what form it takes." She reached out and took Maleficent's hand again, and the faerie offered no resistance to one of the three people who walked this planet whom she would allow to touch her in such a friendly manner. "I'm incredibly glad that it found you, my friend."
—O—
Several floors below inside the castle, a warm fire crackled and popped inside the largest fireplace in the castle's game room. Clarke sat on a leather couch, her legs tucked beneath her as she leaned back against Lexa, who sat reading a book on alpine military tactics. Her left hand traced and sketched with a thin charcoal as she watched Anna, sitting in an oversized chair a little farther away from the fire while Kari snoozed in her lap. The young girl was curled up, her head against Anna's chest as she slept and her mother carefully played with her short coppery hair, a near-perfect match for Anna's in hue if not length.
When she felt Lexa's arm tighten slightly around her, Clarke lifted her head to look up at Lexa; she met bright green eyes looked back at her and a smile on the brunette's face that made her look impossibly young and innocent.
None of us are innocent, Clarke thought. But maybe, just maybe, we can appreciate moments like these, where we can forget all the horror and pain and loss that we've experienced... and perpetrated on others.
"It feels odd, doesn't it?" Lexa spoke softly, nearly at a whisper, as she herself turned to look behind the couch she and Clarke currently occupied; across the spacious room, the blonde Briar Rose was speaking with the twins Erin and Elin, Rose's hands gesticulating as a swirl of colorful magic vibrated in the air between her and the two young adolescents, who were eagerly listening to the blonde and learning as much as their excitement would allow them.
"Mmm, you're going to have to be more specific, Lexa," Clarke replied in a voice just slightly louder as she leaned further back into Lexa's solid warmth. "Eating the most amazing meal we've ever had in our lives? Being treated with respect without having to beat it out of people? Not having people actively trying to kill us? Watching people use magic as if it's no big deal? Seeing children who actually have a chance to grow up peacefully, without having to choose between killing or being killed?"
Lexa grinned, closing her eyes as she allowed herself to enjoy this unusual sensation of comfort and ease. "I suppose all of those," she finally said.
"Elin and Erin didn't have that chance for long," Anna said quietly, drawing Lexa's and Clarke's attention back to the Summer Queen's face. "When they were just four, they and their cousin Edgar were the targets of a kidnapping plot in a neighboring kingdom."
Seeing that she had their attention and after checking that Kari hadn't woken up due to her mother speaking, Anna continued. "It was an attempt to force our cousin Rapunzel to step down as Queen of the nation of Corona. She was imposing new limitations on the noble houses and expanding the rights of the rest of Corona's citizens, and, as you can guess, the nobility wasn't very happy about those plans."
"I imagine not," Lexa said as she took in the sight of Anna, relaxing and holding her youngest daughter. For a moment she allowed herself to think about a child. It was forbidden for Heda to have children—but then it had also been forbidden for Heda to marry as well. How would Clarke feel about possibly adopting a child one day, should they survive that long?
"What happened?" asked Clarke, bringing Lexa's thoughts away from impossible dreams.
"The attackers killed the guards protecting the children, despite losing most of their numbers in the process." Anna sighed, giving a glance across the room to her oldest children before returning her attention to Lexa and Clarke. "So Elin and Erin created a magical storm in the room," she said quietly. "They buried their cousin and the surviving guard under as many blankets as they could, and they unleashed the most powerful storm their little bodies could at the time."
Anna took a drink of water, then replaced the glass on the nightstand beside her chair. "The storm grew out of control quickly. The cold wouldn't hurt El and Er, but it took them some time to stop it. When it was over, all of the attackers had been killed. Frozen solid."
"At age four," Clarke said, as much a question as a statement. She wasn't sure if she should be proud or horrified, and she knew that uncertainty by itself would haunt her for quite some time.
Anna nodded. "Their cousin and his guard were saved, thanks to them thinking ahead. But it obviously bothered Elin and Erin, having to do something so terrible while still so young."
"It speaks well of their character, though," Lexa said, drawing a curious look from Anna. "That they understood the sacrifice they were making, emotionally, but they were still willing to take such action to protect others."
Anna nodded, surprising Clarke. "Yeah, they're like that," she said, the smile on her face tinged with a touch of sadness. "Kind of like sneaking out of their bed at night to fly off into a blizzard and rescue two strange women."
—O—
In another world, Harper was entirely ready to peel off her dark blue guard uniform and either fall into her sleeping bag or the lagoon beside her and Zoe Monroe's tent. She had finished working her regular shift, then had worked another four hours in training with one of the senior guards. Her suggestion to Chancellor Pike about reformulating the guard teams into pairs made up of one senior guard and one of the the 100 had been implemented, and despite the initial grumbling from both sides, it was already obvious that each group stood to learn quite a bit from the other.
It was only when she registered the presence of the small gathering of Grounders just inside the margins of the nearby forest that she came to an abrupt halt.
As if Harper's motion had fled her and gone into them, the Grounders silently rose from their seated positions and began to walk across the large meadow toward the tent where Monroe already sat, watching their patient approach.
"How long have they been there?" asked Harper as she turned to look at her partner.
"Some of them, I'd guess a little less than an hour," Monroe replied. "Others, almost the whole day."
"And they've just been sitting there? Waiting?"
"Yeah."
Harper frowned. This was the third day in a row Grounders had visited the tent she and Monroe now called home, and each day there were more.
First it was just the teenage girl who had brought them food, a hunting knife that appeared to be newly made, and a curious little multi-tool that had screwdrivers, can and bottle openers, knife blades and a tiny pair of shears folded up inside it. Monroe had discovered last night that it even unfolded into a small but functional set of pliers, despite it being small enough to easily fit in the palm of a hand.
Yesterday it had been a group of four Grounders, what looked like a family, with a father and mother that appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties and two children not yet in their teens. They had brought more food, two books which were old but appeared to be in reasonably good condition, and a woven blanket. None of them had said anything, but there were tears in the eyes of the father and mother as they had placed their gifts on the ground, knelt briefly, then turned and left quietly, disappearing back into the forest like all the Grounders seemed to do.
"Hey, Harp?"
Harper turned to look at her lover. "Yeah, babe?"
Monroe looked a bit uncomfortable, but she forced herself to ask the question anyway. "You're not..." She trailed off, then tried again. "What exactly... did you do inside that place?"
Despite not consciously thinking of that place for days, Harper felt her eyes instantly sting and begin to water. "You... you know what I did, Zoe," she said, her pained voice just above a whisper. "What I went through." I gave so much blood and bone marrow that I thought I'd die. She closed her eyes; lying to herself wasn't going to make things any easier, or any better.
I gave so much blood and bone marrow because I wanted to die. I let them torture me, to stab and cut and bleed me because I thought I deserved to die. Because I was useless at everything else, both on the Ark and on the ground. At least by letting those bastards drain my body dry, I could keep my friends safe for as long as I could stay alive.
"Hey."
The gentle voice and the touch of Monroe's fingers brushing against her left hand yanked Harper out of her dark memories. Harper sniffed loudly, then she wiped her sleeve across her nose. "Sorry," she said guiltily.
"We've both been in bad places," Monroe said, cheering internally when Harper turned her head to make eye contact with her. "But yours was through no fault of your own." Monroe swallowed; even after all they had suffered—especially after all they had suffered—it was still hard for her to say it.
"I... I love you, Harp."
But that only made it sweeter to Harper's ears every time she heard it.
"I love you too, hot stuff," Harper said, bending over and kissing Monroe on her lips before she turned and sat down beside her with a sigh.
"How did the Council meeting go today?"
Harper quietly shook her head. "He's getting worse," she finally said, her voice deliberately low. "If he wasn't unstable before, he definitely is now."
"God," Monroe groaned. "Bellamy 2.0."
Harper nodded. "You have no idea," she whispered.
"The Grounders remain a threat!"
"Charles, they've not come any closer," Abby Griffin said sharply. She turned to David Miller. "Have they?"
"No," David replied. "They're holding position between two and three kilometers away from Arkadia. They've made no signs of buildup of their forces any more than what's already present."
"But they're arranged differently this time," added Hannah Green, seated beside Pike, as always seemed to be the case lately. "Two separate units, a larger one closer to us, with a smaller secondary unit half a kilometer away."
Marcus Kane smiled darkly as he glared at Pike. "Good strategic positioning, if you don't want your entire unit to be annihilated in a surprise attack," he said coldly. "I wonder why they might be expecting something like that?"
Charles Pike returned Kane's icy stare. "Your sarcasm is not helping matters, Marcus," he said angrily.
"Nor is your warmongering!" Kane shot back, leaning forward over the meeting table. "Clarke made peace with the Grounders, Charles!"
"A peace they have no plans of honoring!" Hannah retorted hotly. "They don't believe in laws and treaties."
Pike leaned forward himself. "They will attack us again, Marcus. Unless we eliminate them first." He took a moment to calm himself down, then he leaned back against the seat. "And we will eliminate them first."
"You have no idea just how well-developed their civilization is, Charles," Kane replied. "Abby and I do. We've seen their capitol. We've seen their defenses, and the number of warriors they can bring to war."
"You've seen exactly what they wanted you to see," Pike said flatly.
A hesitantly raised hand forestalled the argument.
"What is it, Harper?" Pike said, a hint of irritation in his voice.
"Chancellor, sir..." Harper began. "Monroe and I see Grounders most days, out where we live." She was trying to not appear as nervous as she felt, but she was afraid she was doing a shitty job of it. "We live pretty far out from the rest of Arkadia, but they've never shown any aggression or threatening behavior toward us."
The cold glare that Pike directed at her made the sweat trickling down Harper's back feel even more uncomfortable. "What's your point, Harper?" he said testily.
She swallowed, looking to Kane, then to Abby for reassurance before she turned her gaze back to Pike. "Sir, Clarke Griffin GETS SHIT DONE," she said, projecting as much confidence in her voice as possible.
Ignoring the faint giggles and whispers that popped up around the Council room, Harper continued. "She beat the Grounders when they attacked the 100's camp the first time. She escaped from Mount Weather and negotiated the first peace treaty with the Grounders, risking her own life to do so. She came back and helped lead the attack on Mount Weather—"
"Until the Grounders turned traitor to save their own," Pike interjected.
"—But even then she pressed the attack, and she rescued all of us while killing those vampires!"
Pike looked entirely nonplussed as he stared at her. "What's your point, Councillor?" he asked, placing just enough emphasis on the title to remind Harper that she was the youngest and newest member on the Council.
"Clarke made a real peace treaty with the Grounders," Harper said, finding more confidence as she spoke. "She had us accepted into their fucking government, on equal footing with the rest of their people! Abby Griffin and Marcus Kane went to their capitol and formalized the peace agreement! How can we throw that away, and risk putting us right back at war with them all over again?" When no answer was immediately forthcoming, she added, "We got lucky that their Commander didn't ride her whole army down here and burn this place to the ground after that sneak attack killed the three hundred Grounders she and Clarke had sent here to protect us!"
The loud bang of Pike's fist striking the metal table reverberated throughout the meeting room. "They were not here to 'protect' us! They were here to murder us in our sleep!"
"Funny," Harper shot back before she could think better of it, "because that's exactly what we did to them."
She knew she had made a mistake when a nauseating chill seemed to fall over the entire room. Pike glared at her for long seconds, and Harper found it hard to draw enough oxygen into her lungs under that angry gaze.
"I'd think you should be most careful of all of us here, Harper," Pike finally said, his words clearly enunciated, his tone clinically cold. "After all, you and your girlfriend Monroe live outside of Arkadia's walls, far away from the protection of the guards."
Harper felt her entire body shiver as she tried to process the implied threat to her and the woman she loved.
Pike smiled as he saw the girl turn pale. "And if the Grounders ever were to find out that Monroe was one of the attackers who carried out that killing of three hundred of their kind?" he asked.
Harper swallowed, because if she didn't she knew she was going to throw up. This is not happening. This is not happening.
When Pike showed his teeth, it only made his smile that much more threatening. "I wonder how peaceful they'd be then," he finished.
Harper shook her head once, closing her eyes to wipe away the memory of the Council meeting last night. She turned and leaned against Monroe, running her fingers through the short red hair to gently hold her girlfriend's head in place as she kissed her, long and slow.
"What was that for?" Monroe asked quietly when they pulled apart slightly, her lips opening and closing slightly as she savored the feel of Harper's lips against hers.
Harper smiled. "Because I love you," she said, honestly. "Because bad shit happens all the time down here. Because every day could be the last day we have, for any of us." She kissed Monroe again, then again. "Because I love you, Zoe Monroe, and I'm going to be with you every day for the rest of our lives."
They looked away from each other as the group of roughly eight Grounders drew closer and closer. Three of them were children, the others adults, and each of them carried something as they approached.
"I still say they think you're a goddess," Monroe said, smiling despite Harper not looking at her currently. "Or maybe they just appreciate listening to you while we have sex."
"Shut up!" Harper said, laughing as she playfully pushed Monroe away. It did nothing to keep her face from turning bright red, though.
Monroe grinned as she shifted to lie down, resting her head in Harper's lap as she resumed watching the Grounders walking toward them. "Maybe we should cook for them or something."
Harper rolled her eyes. "God," she groaned.
—O—
The knocking on the door to their chambers roused Elsa from her sleep. "Yes?" she called out as she wiggled her way out of the grasp of Anna's arms and legs.
"All is right in Arendelle, but I have urgent news, Your Majesty."
Hearing Hilde's voice speaking those words instantly had Elsa out of bed, creating a shimmering blue robe around herself as she hurried to the door. She heard Anna starting to wake behind her, and a wave of her left hand over her shoulder created a matching blue robe for Anna on the bed beside her. "What is it, Hilde?" Elsa asked, dissolving the wall of ice encasing the double doors that led out to the main hall.
As Elsa opened the door, she could see Hilde's eyes looking at her intensely. "There's been another attack," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "And it's much, much worse this time."
—O—
Author's Afterword: I completely and utterly love the idea of Elsa and Maleficent being tea pals and having a girls' night from time to time, just letting their hair down (and horns out, in Mal's case) and chatting as friends and equals. I make no apologies for that.
I've also tried to not go too far overboard with Rose/Aurora's psychological issues. Far too often multiple personalities and schizophrenia are misrepresented or improperly used in place of each other in literature, film and television, and I want to avoid that at all costs. I'm also not going to use it for cheap drama or make it more of an issue than it needs to be. However, having your entire view of the world, your family and yourself abruptly ripped away causes damage, and witnessing Stefan's cruelty and Maleficent's near-death further traumatized Rose/Aurora. Her mind dealt with it through aggressive dissociation, but with time, love and patience, her psyche is slowly recovering.
Next chapter we finally get to see our women in action again, then after that it'll be time for Elsa and Anna to visit the world of the 100!