A/N: I mostly use the italic for sentences written in English but meant to be in another language, be it Trigedasleng or Italian. And if there are no " " it's someone's thoughts.

I'm sorry if there are mistakes, English is not my language.

If you like it, please leave a review! Enjoy!


Chapter Seven: Melt laughs into tears

Only a couple of days have passed since the visit to the waterfall and this girl is leading her again towards something Clarke has no idea what could be.

They're walking through the village and entering a part of it Clarke hasn't seen yet. Which is weird because she's walked around the village a lot in the last days.

There are small and sometimes very poor houses and few men and women around. They all look shabby and pitiful. Their clothes are old and torn, but work has done worse on their faces. The misery on them, their tired eyes that don't even look at her as they pass by. These people have nothing and Aeryn walks straight into one of those house, after giving Clarke time to take all in.

Clarke is not sure if she's meant to follow her, but Aeryn lingers for a moment at the door, looking at her and the sky girl walks in behind her.

The house is shattered and ruined by time. There almost isn't any furniture except for the basic one. There's just a mild light coming from the door, but the windows are closed and the room is dark, Clarke is afraid she could bump into something at any time. But there's nothing to bump into. The room is so empty and Clarke can only follow Aeryn, who's heading for a door on the left. While she crosses the room, Clarke can see something like a table against the wall at the end of the room. There's something else, but she can't make out what it is.

When she enters the other room after Aeryn, she takes in the little bedroom. There's nothing but a bed, a chair and a little cabinet. There's a woman lying on the bed. She looks sick. Her skin is too pale even for an Ice woman, her body is too thin, her face is twisted in pain, her eyes are unfocused as they randomly scan the room.

Aeryn tends to her, she takes some clothes from a box on the floor and she damps them in the bowl full of water that's on the chair. Then she starts to wet the woman's forehead and wrists.

Clarke wants to ask what's wrong with the woman, but she figures she'd better not speak. So she just keeps silent and watches Aeryn. She starts to help when she gets that the girl is just doing the same thing all over again, keeping the skin hydrated. Maybe the woman has a fever because Aeryn also keeps changing the cloth on her forehead as to get her body heat to decrease.

When Clarke takes her place in changing the wet clothes, Aeryn gives her a little grateful smile and starts looking for something in her bag. She picks some herbs and walks out of the room.

Clarke looks the woman over and she knows she hasn't long to live. She's already old and, if Clarke is right, she's not strong enough to fight the fever, even with the help of some herbs. Clarke feels suddenly very sad and it surprises her. She didn't think she could feel sadness with all the bad emotions that break her every night and day. Even now that she's not fighting a war, she can't save this woman. Even now that she's no one's leader, she has to look the death in the eyes and even now that she's not responsible for this people, she feels it upon herself anyway. The medical supplies from the Ark could help this people. And the fact that she can't offer that to them kind of makes Clarke feel guilty. It doesn't make sense, it's not her fault. But maybe she's just used to think that is her fault, that is upon her. And so it doesn't matter if that's real or not, she still feels it. As if her being a monster could mean that is acceptable to charge every death on her. Maybe it is.

When Aeryn comes back she has a cup in her hands and she helps the woman drink from it. Clarke knows it's an herb tea meant to help her, but she also knows it won't do much.

When the woman has drunk the cold tea, Aeryn sits on the other side of the bed, helping Clarke with the wet clothes, and they stay like that for a long while.

Some time later they finally get up and the woman whispers something to Aeryn. Her voice is weak and trembling. When they come out of the house, Aeryn just walks directly into another one.

She didn't tell Clarke what their illnesses are, but Clarke understands that she doesn't need to know, because she couldn't do anything anyway, and all Aeryn is doing is offering some kind of solace to people who are dying.

They visited at least ten houses. Some people looked worse than the first woman, some others seemed slightly better, but for none of them there's hope. After some hours they came back to have lunch and neither of them talked about those people.

Now Clarke is wandering in the village alone. She should meet Aeryn near the healer's house in less than an hour. But right now she has time. And she thinks. Memories come back, people who haven't hunted her for a while are there again. Never failing to remember her what she is. She's not worth this people's company.

The innocents in the Mountain are not the ones who are whispering in her head. She sees them every time she closes her eyes, they come to her screaming every time she goes to sleep, they wake her in the morning, they draw her dreams. They are always with her, never leaving her. But for a while, when she was with Aeryn, when she was at the waterfall, they have been her only companions. Now she can see the others again.

People who thank her for what she did, because she saved them, people who walk away from her, people who look at her disappointed, people who watch her with fear, Jasper's voice yelling at her that she's a monster. Her mother asking if it couldn't have been done differently. People accusing her, yelling in her mind. And the words all come from Clarke's heart. Because her heart is the one that most of all hunts her.

And then one person whose voice tells her that she did the right thing. And Clarke can't think about that. She can't think about how similar they are, Lexa and herself. Lexa left her to die and Clarke killed innocents, oh so many innocents. For a moment Clarke wonders how well Lexa knows that feeling. The feeling of being nothing but death, the feeling of being a murderer. Lexa's been a leader for a longer time than Clarke, she must have taken those decisions a lot of time. How could she live with herself? How could she keep going? Clarke wishes she could do that too.

Lexa chose to close up, to bury her heart and feelings. Could Clarke do that? Should she? Would it make things better?

And than she hears it. Something resembling a laughter.

She follows the sound and goes down the small street. Soon she finds herself in front of a little square where someone is laughing, someone is playing, someone is happy.

Children. Clarke can see at least twenty of them. A group is playing with a ball of sort. Some others are chatting and yelling at the ones playing. Then another small group is sparring whit wooden swords.

She approaches this last ones and hears them talking. They've split in two and it looks like four of them are playing as soldiers and two others should be the fighters in the village who dare to try and stop them. The small group that was chatting and witnessing the players is now gathered around the sparring children. Clarke watches as the outnumbered ones defeat the four "soldiers". Their friends cheer them and the four on the ground smile and stand up, talking about how well they perfomed the stupidity and cowardice of the soldiers.

They laugh, fear forgotten.

Clarke looks in a small awe as they perform it all over again, switching roles and joined by other children. They look invincible. She figures they feel strong and powerful. There's joy all around them and Clarke feels overwhelmed by it.

No, Clarke won't close up her heart. She could, but she doesn't want to. She wants this. She wants to see people happy like these children. They are unaware of the death they could witness or in whose arms they could fall soon, too soon. Clarke wants to feel, she wants to let their laughs sink into her heart. She wants them to wake her.

No matter how hard that will be, how painful it will always feel, she wants this, the ability to feel. Maybe it could be worth it. Suffering all that pain and sorrow to be able to feel this children's joy, still. She doesn't want to lose that. And if it means she has to bear all those ghosts hunting her, all the sorrow she caused, if it means death will never leave her alone, well perhaps she can handle it. Or she can't. But it doesn't matter. Better be crushed by your heart's sorrow, then to never feel this things.

What does Lexa feel when she watches the children playing? Does she feel all these emotions Clarke is feeling, or is she only happy for them?

Clarke wants to scream, she wants to run and laugh with them. She's surprised by how affected she is. Just witnessing children playing is making her feel so much. And she can't describe it. So she finds a place where to sit and she looks and she takes every emotion they're willing to give her.

After a while she takes out her sketch book and she starts to draw the children playing. She draws them clean and safe from war and pain, she paints their futures as soft as they should be, as they are now when they're smiling and laughing. She tries to print the careless and the happiness on the paper. War will always be waiting her and them too, but there are places, little moments in life when she can see the sparkle of life. In a world of death and sorrow, between wars and murderers, life still paints smiles on the faces of children. And that's her victory. No matter how hard the hate of men strikes lives, no matter how many wars crush upon innocents, no matter how many monsters violence can create, life will always find a way to paint her joy.

And maybe Clarke should surrender to this. Maybe she should let her ghosts go only for this little while, so that she can help life winning this small battle against death. She should let this light envelope her like it's doing with the children, but she doesn't deserve that. Maybe life has lost with her, she can't let herself be separated by death, by what she has done.

But then a little girl approaches Clarke and bows her head, hands behind her back, like if she's unsure of what she wants to say. Clarke looks at her warmly, trying to push away the thoughts of just a second before. When she looks up the child's eyes sparkle with curiosity and small fear. She asks shyly if she's the stranger who knows their language and Clarke nods slowly.

Other children gather around Clarke, they lose their fright and start to look at what Clarke was doing. They ask what she's drawing and they watch the drawing in awe as Clarke tells it's them. They want to see the other drawings and she lets them, because what could she ask more for her art then to be seen by people who still feel so alive?

They hold her sketch book carefully and with respect. They start telling her their name and asking her to draw each one of them. Clarke tries to memorize every name and she promises that she'll do her best to draw as many of them as she can. She's actually smiling and she laughs at the eagerness of those children.

As soon as the laugh is out of her mouth she falls silent, taken aback. It's the first time she laughs after the Mountain. The first time she actually hears that sound coming from herself again. She feels tears in the corner of her eyes and she has to swallow them back. These children managed to take a laugh out of her, how is that possible? Some minutes before she was thinking that life would have lost with her because she doesn't deserve that, and now here they are, champions of the life, winning.

After a while most of the children go back to their game, some ask her about the place she comes from and she tells them something vague. Eventually only a girl and a little boy are still there, still watching her drawings. They are suddenly serious and they seem lost in thoughts of great importance.

"You are an artist." the little boy says.

But the girl looks at him with confused eyes. "She's a fighter. Her passion is the leader of many."

"What? What are you saying?" Clarke is astonished and she wonders if she understood her correctly.

"Or it will be." then she runs away towards her friends.

The boy looks at Clarke once more and then he's off too, the seriousness in his eyes gone.

Clarke is left there watching them starting to play again without a thing in mind. What has just happened? What did they mean? She can't find an answer, she can't find a sense in their words.

She tries to shake it off as a meaningless thing, but it doesn't leave her mind. It is as if it has settled in the back of her mind and it won't go away until she can fully understand it.

She goes back watching and drawing. She draws many of them, as they requested and she stops when she realizes how she has drawn the two children who were the last ones to leave. They look older in her drawing, they're smiling but there's a solemnity in their eyes she can't understand. They're holding hands, the girl slightly turned to the side, as if she were shielding the younger boy with her body. Who was she protecting him from? They look happy, but so aware of the world they live in. And how is Clarke even thinking this? It's just a drawing. It doesn't matter. She probably was just absently drawing it differently from what she intended on.

Suddenly Clarke senses something. Someone is behind her and she has to calm her new instinct to jump up and face the possible danger. However she can't stop herself by turning swiftly and on alert.

Aeryn smiles warmly at her and Clarke feels herself calming down a bit. Her body relaxes as the girl sits beside her. For a moment she just watches the children with Clarke, but then she turns to the side and looks attentively at the other girl.

"They're beautiful, aren't they? What do we have more alive then children?" her eyes search into Clarke's.

"They are. I've been here for a while, I must have lost count of time because I didn't realize we should have already met."

Aeryn gestures her not to worry and they both go back watching the children, whatever they have to do forgotten. It is nice, thinks Clarke, just sitting there with Aeryn. It feels comfortable in a new way. Or maybe just a way she hasn't been able to feel in a long time. It feels innocent. And normal, common, as if they were just two girls looking after happy children. But those children won't be happy for long, and Clarke is not innocent. And Aeryn, well she's too good for this world. She will just crumble under the pressure of death and fear, pain, loss, sorrow.

But only for a moment they look like a painting. A painting of life. Hope. And Clarke is kind of glad that she gets to be in that painting.

"They calm me." Clarke whispers after some time.

"They could purify anyone." is Aeryn's answer. It sounds like she's meaning more than what the sentence alone conveys. And again Clarke feels like this girl understands her in a worrying way. It is as if she could read Clarke like a book, as if she could see her sorrow and the weight she's carrying. It kind of terrifies Clarke. But it also feels good. She doesn't need to tell Aeryn anything, because that girl already understands what she needs.

No more words are said and after a while they get up and start walking away. But some children catch Clarke leaving and they hurry after her, asking for her drawings of them.

Clarke smiles and shows them what they want. They all look confused and curious about the last drawing. They ask who those girl and boy are and Clarke doesn't know what to say. But the girl and the little boy among the children pull at her sleeve and when Clarke looks at them, the girl nods, the boy smiles widely. Then they walk away, holding hands. A moment later they're back playing looking as every other child. Clarke realizes she doesn't even know their names. All the children told her their names, except for those two. But she doesn't go after them, neither she asks their friends about them. She just follows Aeryn, feeling like their names aren't what makes those children important.


Her general announces his presence and enters the tent as soon as Lexa grants permission. He says that some guards have reported a conversation between the Ice general and the leader of the Cloud People.

"It seems like they have an ally in the south."

Lexa already knows who it is. Aima was never a peaceful leader. She is always thirsty of war and death. She is unable to live in peace.

Tansee, at her side, hisses. "The Blood Clan."

Lexa nods slowly. If the Ice Queen can attack them from the north while another clan attacks them from the south they won't have any choice but to split forces. And the Blood Clan is a strong ally to have at her side. She chose well her friends in this war. And what is Lexa going to do? If she starts moving troops towards the south, the Blood Clan will become suspicious, and it could also be seen as a hostile motion before an attack.

"Heda, should I give orders that guards never leave the leaders alone?" her general's voice brings her back to reality.

"Yes. But they have to be more careful than ever. We can't have our allies think we're doubting them, and neither we can have our enemies knowing that we're controlling them."

"I'll make sure they know how to act." assures the female general. She then takes her leave and exits the tent.

"Train your warriors harder, Fern. We have to be at our best."

"Sha, Heda" the general bows his head and leaves the tent.

Here they go again. Another war, a new threat from another front. At least this could occupy her mind, instead they can't do anything, there aren't moves to plan and she's left waiting. Thinking. Drowning.


They had little work that morning. There weren't injured people and the only ones who came to the healer were feeling sick or asking for something for relatives who were badly ill.

Now they're heading to the forest. They've just had lunch and they're going to meet up with Asher and Ianthe. That morning Asher told her they would have gone searching for herbs and asked Clarke if she wanted to come. She eagerly accepted and Mawiyah asked her sister to come too. So here they are, right before the line of trees. Asher and Ianthe are waiting for them and they immediately start the trip.

Clarke knows some of the herbs they're looking for so she doesn't feel totally useless. But she doesn't know the land, so Mawiyah helps her finding places where those herbs could be. The little girl is talkative as always and she tells Clarke a lot about herself.

Suddenly when she's talking about how she got the little tiny scar under her elbow her eyes become sad. She was exited and eager to speak and a moment later sadness washes over her face. Clarke wonders what the cause of it is, but she keeps silent, knowing the girl will tell her if she wants to.

"My dad said what I'd done was stupid, but he said I was brave and strong." the little smile on her face is so not alike her. Clarke can only guess what happened to the man, but she can't ask child.

"I'm sure he was right. You seem very brave, Mawiyah."

The girl looks up at her and smiles widely. "I'll be a warrior one day!"

"Didn't you want to be a healer just some days ago?" Clarke chuckles.

"Of course! I want to be a healer so that I can help my friends when we fight together! A warrior who's also a healer is stronger!"

"I can't argue with you there, Little One." the girl frowns at the nick name, but she sticks out her tongue at Clarke and smiles again. Clarke started to call her that just yesterday when, at dinner, she actually joked along with the two sisters.

After a while Clarke finds herself next to Asher and she takes her chance.

"What happened to Aeryn and Mawiyah's father?" she hopes she's not overstepping the border.

He looks at her for a moment before answering, his voice low and sad. "Their parents died a year ago. Their father was killed by the soldiers. Their mother got sick after that and died the same year. Their uncle should be the one taking care of them, but Aeryn thinks they're better on their own. She says she can handle it and take care of her sister. The thing is she's never got along too well with Eber and at the same time she knows he has a family on his own he has to take care of."

Clarke is surprised but glad he told her so much.

"Thanks." and he knows what she means. He nods and gives her a little smile.

They start to head back to the village a couple of hours later. It is a long way, they went pretty far from Cristallo in their research. Mawiyah and Ianthe are chatting in a low voice. Aeryn is silent and seems content with just watching Clarke and Asher as the Ice healer shows the girl herbs and plants. He tells her their name, what she can use them for, if they're poisoned or if they can be eaten.

As soon as they're approaching the village they hear screams, calls for help, crying. People are yelling, and Clarke can hear children crying. She starts to run toward the village, but she's stopped by two strong arms.

Asher is holding her and when Clarke tries to break free Aeryn helps him to restrain her. She tells Clarke to stay still and keep silent. But Clarke can't understand why.

"They need help!"

But they force her to wait in the safety of the trees, the screams piercing her ears.