So, my college decided to be nice to us and call a snow day so I took the opportunity to do some writing and finish up the second half of Portrait! Yay for work!... I should be studying...

I had rarely seen forms of gentleness in this harsh reality. Nyko was the closest able to come to anything remotely kind, with his firm hands and attentive eyes as he bandaged and prescribed medicines. But he was still a fighter, and had killed alongside me. Everything else about my past life was far from any kind or gentle thing, it was simply necessity.

I felt awkward holding her, trying to shimmy down into my tunnels, keeping her head tucked against my shoulder and her body folded in my arms to avoid any unnecessary scuffs. A groan escaped her lips and I froze, hands bunching against the folds of her clothes.

But she did not stir.

I tried to be gentle as I lay her body on the uneven rock floor of my hovel. My awkward attempts at gentleness elicited a short fit of bitter laughter. I had not dared to dream of her presence here, not to say I did not dream of her, just never here. This place was my own intimate world where none of that blood of my past life could encroach. Only Nyko had ever crossed into the threshold of this place, and only because the blood he carried was as much his as mine.

And now she was here. Her chest rose and fell in swift succession, her brow was speckled with sweat and her leg was most certainly broken. I tried to focus on the medicines and herbs Nyko had taught me, but she was still distracting me. I licked my dry lips, eyes flickering from her injured knee up to the bruised plane of her cheek.

I was indeed a fool, or worse insane.

I jerked to my feet and mentally snapped back to focus. Even as I told myself to throw her back into the wilderness I knew I was incapable of such an action. Somewhere along the twisted line of my life I had surrendered myself to this infatuation. I had admitted it countless times to myself, but I was unwilling to breech just all that implied what it might entail. She could not die, I decided then. Not because she deserved to live, nor because she was somehow less my enemy than the others. It was not even because she held any special place in my heart. I could not let her die because she was life, she was innocence, she was a spark in the dark world and I had never before experienced such a brightly burning soul.

When I returned she was conscious, shouting out in pain. Her eyes found mine and they were and wide and filled with utter terror leveled fully against me.

"Please don't hurt me." She pleaded, hand risen in supplication and I abandoned the futile attempt at tenderness. I may have rescued her, but I had no intention of becoming involved, of giving her any reason to question all she believed of my race.

I was her enemy.

Her cries rang in my ears as I wrestled her back, pinning her shoulders against the rock and leveling the hot poker above her. Death was in her eyes, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She was screaming, but she did not hold out long against the pain. She fell limp against my grip, and I softened.

I should have killed her. That was what Anya wanted, that was what was expected of my hateful race. Instead I did my best to mend her wound, running my hands against her smooth skin until satisfied by my work.

When finished I leaned heavily against the wall and heaved a huge sigh that held a million unspoken frustrations. Tie her up, my mind was telling me, but as I considered her prone form my heart refused. She was freedom and fire and the thought of cold chains about her wrists was not concurrent with my vision of her.

I tugged out my book, flipping to the page where her smile brightened the pale page. I should never have drawn her. Her cheeks were not as sharp as I had drawn, and I could see now that the slope of her shoulders was not as drastic. In the dull light I began to redraw the small portrait, the shining smile on the page utterly displaced by the searing fear I had elicited.

I stayed too long, and the pale traces of light were beginning to shift into my hovel, and I knew that certainly by now the Sky People had noted their missing fire. I shifted and pulled myself forcefully to my feet, tucking the book back into my pouch. She still lay vulnerable on my floor, and for the moment she seemed almost peaceful, if not for the traces of pain that drew her lips downward.

I had stayed too long.

She disappeared. I thought she would be secure in the place, not knowing the escape routes, too small and injured to climber her way out. I had been wrong.

In a burst of panic I crashed through the tunnels and rooms and found nothing and began to wonder if I truly was going crazy. But then I found the side tunnel, saw the handfuls of moss littering the floor, the rocks that had been pushed from place and the scuff marks as she crawled her way to freedom. She was a feisty soul, a fighter.

But her freedom would lead her to the outside world. The Sky People's revenge was more sudden than I had expected, her brother was transformed into a beast in his search. And my people were indiscriminate in their killing.

They would not think twice about putting an arrow through her heart.

I cursed a million times as I scrambled from the tunnels, eyes roving the forest with ferocity. I had already chanced too much to allow her to be killed by my own people now. She was still injured; she could not have gotten very far. I crouched low and ran my hand over the ground, searching for signs of her struggle.

Broken branches, heavy footprints, and I was following, thundering beat of my heart pressing me forever forward. My path twisted from tree to tree, following her struggle to escape from me. There was a noise and I came to a halt, listening.

It was a scream, the strangled wrenching cry of a girl in distress. My pace once again quickened, following the trail, following until I saw her, glancing about in utter uncertainty as she too tried to pinpoint the noise.

I was horribly aware of my approaching brethren, of the girl they chased. I knew at any moment they would arrive, here, and Octavia would be killed along with the unfortunate girl. I reacted as my heart beat demanded, hardly feeling in control at all.

I could not let her die.

I clasped my dirty hand about her mouth, pressing too hard as I wrapped my other arm firmly around her and pinned her arms to her body. I lifted her up, resisting her struggle and forcing her down, away, behind a tree where I forced her to crouch, covering her body with my own. Overpowering her.

Her hands were at my hand, trying to pry it away, trying to run, to escape. I pressed her firmly against me until I could feel her frantic heartbeat through my chest, matching my own.

She struggled still as the girl appeared, and still as the spear pierced the girl's chest. It was only when she fully recognized that the girl was dead did her breaths come shuttering out and her grip changed from one of type of fear to another. Slowly I loosened my grip and withdrew my hand, testing to see her reaction, if she would scream.

She was silent.

I wrapped both arms about her body and tugged her backward, and she let me, feet stumbling against the earth and I forced her away, careful not to draw attention from the others. I forced her movements, wincing at each crack of a branch, each heavy foot fall, and each groan that escaped her lips. When we had traveled far enough from the hunting ground I shoved her away, glairing down at her.

"Don't worry." She muttered, brushing back hair that had fallen across her sweaty face. "I'm not stupid; you could kill me if you wanted to."

I could.

I tugged down my face mask and started forward, she followed. She was not stupid, and I could kill her. For the moment we both let it be this way, me leading her through the forest and her following. And for a moment I could tell my heart to shut up and it would all be fine and all the risks I had just taken would end with us both as enemies.

Except I had saved her.

And she knew.

Her breaths grew heavier, pace slower, and I tried to accommodate but in the end I heard her halt. I hesitated a moment before I paused myself, turning about to face her. She had a hand splayed against a trunk, leaning her full weight as she swung fatigued against it.

"My leg." She said in simple English. Then let out a groan as she touched it. I glanced down to where she pushed her palm, and then let my eyes flicker back to her face. "I need to rest."

I had already resigned myself to this idiotic course of action.

So I stepped forward swiftly and she tried to straighten, tried to back away, but I scooped her into my arms much like I had done when she had been unconscious. Back resting against one arm, knees over the other. I did not wait for a reaction, did not look for one, just kept walking forward. She was stiff in my arms, tense as she blew aside a strand of hair and clasped her hands in her lap.

She looked at me, then away, then back, confused. I could feel her gaze on my face, but I refused to return it. I kept my eyes focused ahead on the trail, planned what I would need to do next. This hold I had on her now was nothing but necessity as was everything else in my dreadful life. Nothing but necessity and I could not allow her or myself to imagine it as anything but that.

"Thank you." She broke my concentration. "You saved my life."

What appeared to be an unfortunate decision on my part.

"That girl back there," She continued, and I could hear the hardened edge coming into her voice. "I knew her. So if she's here than so is my brother so please you have to help them too, they'll kill them."

I trained my face to a mask of unconcern. I was grateful she had said more than just 'thank you'.

She threw her head back and groaned in frustration.

"You don't understand me do you? Great." And her gaze was no longer upon me.

Then I did look at her, laughing to myself at how at least one of my 'don't let Octavia die' plans seemed to be working. She expected nothing from me. I noted the set brow, the tight lips then let my eyes fall down the slope of her neck to the swell of her breasts.

I looked away.

We had arrived and I set her down and continued to push aside the cover hiding the tunnel beneath. I glanced up to her then as she peered down, her lips forming a set line. I stood and grabbed her beneath the shoulders; she shuffled uncertainly until I lifted her and lowered her down into the darkness below. Her feet touched the earth and she hobbled forward, giving me room to jump down beside her. I closed the roof door then scooped her once more up into my arms.

I walked her through the stone halls back to the room I had first brought her to. As I set her down she began to ask,

"Why are you taking care of me?"

Her voice was fearful. As it should be. I left her side as she continued on, tugging the mask back over my mouth.

"You found me at the bottom of that ravine." I could not let her continue with such deductions, into the dangerous conclusions she ventured too close to. I grabbed up the metal and stepped back over to where she was inspecting my stitch work. "You fixed my knee."

I grabbed her wrist and snapped on the cold metal cuff.

"What the hell are you doing?" She asked, and I could hear the disbelief, and the small trust that had built between us shattered into unfixable pieces. "Please don't do this!" But I forced her wrists together and continued to wrap the chains securely about her flesh. I tugged tightly, knowing the metal was cutting into her flesh, knowing it would hurt.

"Ow! Stop it!"

I crushed the fragments of trust beneath my heel until they were dust that one would forget had ever even existed.

She was crying as I dragged her to the wall, securing the chain to the loop in the wall. I did not look at her as I left, just grabbed up my spear and parted with the sound of her cry echoing in my ears as I climbed out of my hovel.

I retraced the steps I had just taken. For a moment I considered the feel of her body in my arms, of how she had allowed me to hold her, lead her. Then I thought to how I had destroyed that, and how it was right.

My fog horn was in my hand. I did not do this for her, for them. I did not do this to rebel against Anya. I did this because it was all my own stupid decisions that had led the kids to hurt and pain and death and I would not let them die by my hands. I was not my clan.

I found them by the dead girl thanks to the idiot black haired ones screaming. As did the whole of my clan. They were surrounded, and they would die. Because of my most idiotic decision that I could do something to protect her.

I blew the horn, a long low blast that froze them, a second that sent them running.

Survival meant more to them than dead Sky People.

I was surprised however by the shaggy brown haired boys next actions. He pulled out a sort of material from his sack, spreading it out and ordering the rest to hide beneath its shelter. But it mattered little if they understood what the horn meant. No one would be able to pinpoint who had blown the horn, and now the children would have time to run. If they would run. But I did what I needed, if they died now it was not on my hands.

I trekked back through the woods to complete the next part of my task.

Octavia.

I tried to form some plan, but nothing seemed to work, nothing came out right. Everything had become so twisted and convoluted and I was angry with myself. I landed with a thud into my tunnels and went directly to 'her' room.

Her back was turned to me, and I still had no idea what I would do.

I placed my spear against the wall and stepped forward, crouching behind her. I let my eyes travel up her spine, and met her eyes as she turned her face to glare at me. And I needed to make my decision then.

I should not have hesitated.

She made her decision quicker and before I could note the movement she had swung her arms about and slammed the hard stone against my head. I leaned back, trying to go with the movement and not absorb the blow. I leaned back, glancing up to her burning gaze just as she swung the rock back the other way and once again caught me with its edge.

She was a fighter.

I struggled against the dark that pulled at my vision, but it was too strong and I succumbed for a moment. My head pulsed with pain, and I was certainly bleeding. When I finally managed to flutter my eyelids open there was noise. I lay still, deciphering it all until I could distinguish voices and words.

"We should go, now, before he wakes up."

That was Octavia, sounding both relieved and fearful.

"He's not going to wake up."

And that was her brother, murderous intent plain.

"Bellamy, stop. He didn't hurt me, let's just go."

It seemed my whole plan really had failed. But then, I never truly had any plan. Taking her with me had be a spur of the moment decision that in retrospect could bring nothing but what I was faced with now. I sensed a presence at my back, kneeling beside me as fingers picked up the horn strapped to my side.

"He started this." Bellamy countered, ignoring his sister's wish. "Finn, move." That to the boy at my side. I had to act now while I still had cover from Bellamy. I slipped out a knife from its sheath belt strapped to my chest and I rounded on the kid, digging it deep into his side. It was the one who knew what the horn mean, one I had saved just mere moment earlier. In the same motion as the stab I swung out my leg, sweeping Bellamy off his feet, his body thudding to the ground.

He scrambled back up quickly and tried to thrust the weapon against me, but I caught the wooden thing and pushed back. It was simple, too simple. He was their leader and he fought like a child. I easily took the spear from his grip and swung its tip toward him, toward his throat.

He managed to grab the end and desperately pushed back against my thrust.

"Stop! That's my brother!" Octavia screamed.

I had already made enough mistakes. This was all indirectly because of her, because I was infatuated and I had dared to even entertain the possibility that I could get closer to her, that I could do something for her, that I could save her.

There was a crack to the back of my head and with a grunt I fell limp, and this time had no choice but to fall into unconsciousness. It was all blurry and fuzzy noise and I could vaguely hear her cry.

The portrait had come out nice, capturing the sincerity of her smile, the spark in her eyes, and the beauty of her spirit. It was all soft edges and hard work and careful attention to detail. I was proud of the finished work.

I should have never drawn that portrait.

I noticed something today that I found vaguely interesting... Lincoln is first seen by Octavia with his mask down, and it's down again when he's walking with her/carrying her, but it's up when he finds her after she's escaped and when he's chaining her...

Could this just be a way for the creators to cast uncertainty about his intentions, or is it Lincoln's way of protecting himself from Octavia and pretending to be the big, bad grounder since he wears it when doing things that aren't exactly kind... like chaining her up...

Well anyway! Hope this part was enjoyable and up to par with the rest, and YAY FOR SEASON 3!