When Clarke steps out on the new planet she experiences warmth. She is transported back to the day. The day that changed everything, the day she first saw the earth.
But this is not the earth, that much is clear the moment the doors to the ship open to let in the light.
This light is not the one they were told stories about on the ark. This is not the light that had made Clarke feel weightless for just a few minutes when she first felt it. This light is different, she does not know if it's a good different or a bad one. It's harsher sure but it's also warmer not in a blistering heat way but a soft blanket way.
But Clarke doesn't have time to spare trying to figure out the intentions of light. She jumps off the ramp and lands on the surface. The first thing she does is assemble the radio transmitter and attach the solar panels to it. It's a little harder to move at first the gravity of this planet is a little stronger than Earth's. But in a half an hour her body adjusts to it, so it could not have been that much stronger.
She pulls out the radiation sensor and turns it on. And waits with bated breath.
The radio at her hip crackles, "Clarke I've secured a connection with the Mother ship. I'm patching you through now."
"We've been here for half an hour, how did you manage that?" She asks awe in her voice.
Shaw's chuckles sound over the radio. "I didn't do anything. It turns out all we needed was a receiver on the ground. As soon as I powered it up we had a connection."
Clarke smiles.
Shaw's voice crackles on again, "Okay, I have you on an open line, I'll be able to talk in too, but I am guessing you have more to say than I do."
Clarke waits until there is static. Her thumb moves to press the PTT switch but suddenly she can't move, panic takes her over she's reminded of the last time she made an off world radio call.
Her breathing is coming in pants but no air is entering her lungs.
Then, like a floating twig in a storm, a voice calls out to her over the radio, it's Madi. "Clarke, come in Clarke. Clarke are you there."
Her breath leaves her in a whoosh, "Hey, Madi. I'm here."
"Are you on the ground?"
"Yeah. I am. "
"Tell me about it, please. What's it like. Is it the same as the valley. Clarke, paint me a picture."
Clarke grins.
"Okai, ai strik Natblida."
"The light is…" She's cut off.
"Spek raun Trig.(Speak in Trig)" Echo's voice is calm, calculating.
"Raunon couda senplei.(people could be listening)" She continues.
"Oso souda wada klin. Dula stan op, mema in. Chit dula op Yu fig raun? Madi? Belomi?(we should be be clear with our intentions. Do good, remember. What do you think? Madi? Bellamy?)" She lays the accent on thick, to confuse whoever might be listening, in case Bellamy and Madi disagree with her plan.
"Clarke is right. We do better." Bellamy speaks. And Madi hums in agreement.
"Okay, Good. So where was I? Right the surface." She hears at least three sharp intakes of breath.
But she dismisses the sounds as a trick caused by the static.
"You know we should name the planet, I can't keep calling it the surface. Any suggestions?"
There are a few murmurs at the other end, she hears Murphy shout some ridiculous suggestions, then, "Tabula Rasa." Bellamy quietly whispers but it carries and a hush falls on the other side.
Clarke hums in credence .
"Clean slate." Madi says approval in her voice.
"How did you understand that nerd speak, gremlin." Murphy asks his voice sardonic as ever, but there's a tinge of astonishment in there.
"Clarke taught me Latin." Madi replies before Clarke can calculate the consequences of the statement and stop her. "She said that it would make it easier for me to understand Bellamy's stories. She also taught me Spanish but not the curse words. She said she'll leave those up to Raven. And…"
"Madi. Voulez-vous entendre parler de Tabula Rasa maintenant.(Do you want to hear about Tabula Rasa now.)"
"Désolé s'il te plait continue. (Sorry, please continue.)" She's sure Madi is blushing right now.
"Okay, so the light. It's different from Earth's. You remember the late hours of evening when the sun is almost gone, and the world is bathed in red light. It's a little like that, but instead of chill that comes with the sun going away there is a constant warmth. It's so warm here Madi. But not hot, like the desert. It's like being wrapped up in the furs in the back of the Rover."
"The scenery is not much different than that of the valley. I see a tree line up ahead. But the…" She stops short.
"Clarke. What happened." Bellamy speaks, he sounds worried.
"Shh! I see something in the tree line. I'm moving in to investigate. Put your side on mute, so that the noise doesn't alert it. Shaw do the same. I'm putting my side in permanent transmission mode so you can hear everything from my side."
"Clarke…" Bellamy's voice hisses in panic but then the line goes quiet, someone must have pressed the mute button.
Clarke stalks towards the tree line. She turns to look back to the ship and breathes a relieved sigh at the fact that she couldn't see it from here.
When she's finally close enough to the edge of what is undoubtedly a forest on this planet, she notices the shape. It's a boy. A human boy. He looks to be around Madi's age, maybe a little older, but barely. He sits on a branch in the tree at the very edge of the forest.
He is looking away from her.
Clarke decides to abandon her years of conditioning to walk light footed and approaches the tree, as noisy as she was that first day on the ground, the boy is situated in.
It must be the boy's first time in a forest because he doesn't know she's there until she's almost on top of him.
He stiffens when he finally hears her approach.
Clarke proceeds with every bit of caution she can muster.
"Hey, what are you doing up there." Her voice is friendly, she can't help it if some of her motherly tone gets in there.
The boy glares down at her.
"I can't believe you found me so easily. I thought it would take you people hours before you'll think of looking in the forest. But your hard work will go to waste, I'm not getting down and you can't come up here. Soo…" He pokes his tongue out at her.
Clarke huffs a laugh. She walk around the tree, looks it up and down and easily finding the hand holds climbs up to sit beside the boy.
When she reaches the branch he is sitting in, his eyes are as big as saucers as they stare at her.
"How? You reached here in seconds. It took me 15 minutes to climb up here."
Clarke just gives him a shrug. She doesn't mention that she wasn't even trying to be fast, no need to bruise this boy's ego further.
"How did you learn to climb so fast, on trees like these. We don't have these in the kingdom."
Kingdom, huh? She files that information away for later.
"What are you doing out here, alone?"
The boy scoffs, "Don't act as if you don't know."
At Clarke's perplexed look, his eyes narrow. "Do you know who I am?"
Clarke shakes her head no. Was this kid famous in this 'kingdom'. It would seem so. So that and his earlier statements mean that he has run away. That there are people looking for him. That means there are people on this planet, probably descendants of the Eligus III.
"Have you been living under a rock your whole life?" The boy's astonished shout breaks her out of her musings.
"No, but my head's been in the clouds." Not entirely untrue.
"Hi, my name is Clarke Griffin. And you are?" She extends her hand for him to shake.
He looks down at her hand like it's a foreign object. His eyes dart to her face then back at her hand, before tentatively reaching out to grasp it.
"You've got a firm grip there…"
"Raphael, you can call me Raph."
Clarke looks delighted, "I think I'll use your full name. It's such a beautiful name. Raffaello was an amazing artist."
Raphael scoffs, "Please, he was boring. His art was such a kiss-up. Neoplatonic ideal human. Yeah sure."
"Language Raphael." She admonishes. "But just between us, you're not wrong. His technique was excellent but too conformed. Also his art was sexist."
Raphael laughs. It's nice to hear him laugh, he looked so sad when she first got here.
"Yeah, to my knowledge the only renaissance artist who wasn't sexist was probably Leonardo Da Vinci. I mean Mona Lisa is way overrated, but his other works especially his scientific studies are enough to land him into my good graces."
"Oh Leo would be so humbled to have secured a place in your good graces." Clarke ribs good naturedly.
Raphael gives a mock pout.
Clarke's chuckles turns into full blown laughter.
"Okay, back to my earlier question, why are you here? You are clearly a very smart kid, you have to know that this, being here, alone, is dangerous." Clarke sobers up.
"You really don't know." Raphael breathes out.
He looks down then, Clarke sees a tear escape his eye. So her internal mama bear rears her head, and pulls the boy close resting his head on her shoulder.
Raphael trembles, "My parents died yesterday. It was a freak accident."
Clarke saddens at this. No matter the place death always causes children pain they don't deserve.
"So you ran away because everyone's pity got too much?"
Raphael nods against her shoulder, he was crying silently now. She let him. She didn't offer any condolences, she knew those were redundant.
Finally when he was all cried out.
"Do you have any family left." Clarke asks tentatively.
Raphael sniffles rubs at his nose and nods timidly.
"An older brother."
"Okay then, you need to go back. I know you want to run away, but there is someone waiting for you. Someone who has lost just as much as you have and can't afford to loose you too. He also needs you right now."
Raphael looks stricken at the thought, it probably hadn't occurred to him before. He nods vehemently. But then looks at the ground and gets a little nauseated as if just now realizing that he might get hurt if he falls from here.
Clarke holds in a laugh.
"I'm gonna go down first, okay. You just step where I step."
Raphael looks relieved.
Clarke starts to climb down, keeping the distance between her holds shorter than she usually would in consideration of Raphael's height.
Soon they are on the ground.
She is checking him over for scrapes, when she hears it. Rustling. Multiple feet. Multiple human feet. Shit!
She takes out the radio from her belt.
"Bellamy some people are approaching my location. I don't know if they are friendly or not. If I am captured the radio will be confiscated. Do not. I repeat do not reply to the radio until you hear my voice. Shaw leave now, go to the main ship."
Shaw's voice cackles over the radio, "But…"
"Shaw the ship cannot be captured. Go now."
Clarke leaves the radio on the same permanent transmission mode so the others can know what happens to her.
Raphael is looking at her scared. She crouches down in front of him.
"Raphael, these men that are coming they might be dangerous to me. And you might get hurt if you stay too close. So go behind the tree, stay in sight but at a distance. Do you understand? Nod if you do."
Raphael nods, and starts to move away.
Light floods the space. Clarke didn't notice but during her talks with Raphael the two suns had set.
"Down on your knees. Down on your knees. Step away from the prince."
Clarke is already on her knees with her hands above her head empty palms facing forwards. The words register instantly 'prince?'. Of fucking course the first person she meets on this planet has got to be the fucking prince.
There are guns pointing at her. One of the guy moves to twist her hands behind her back putting cuffs on her. She doesn't even wince, this is routine for her.
A bag is placed over her head and the world goes dark. She is manhandled into a standing position then a gun pokes her harshly in her back. An involuntary wince escapes her.
She hears Raphael shouting and sounds of a struggle but the voices are muffled through the bag placed on her head.
She wants to tell him to relax, that she'll be alright but she stays silent.
She's roughly patted down, her radio, the radiation monitor and her gun plus various knives are taken off of her.
Then she is pushed forward into motion, a hand on her back to guide her.
She walks for 47 minutes. 34 of those minutes were in the forest. Then her feet hit man made plains, manufactured gravel crunched under her feet. She heard a few shouts, a hiss of a door opening. 9 minutes later she entered some kind of building with artificial lighting. For 3 minutes she was standing still but the floor moved, a lift. 1 minute of walking and then she was shoved onto a chair. Her cuffs unbuckled from behind her then were chained to something in front of her, her arms come to rest on a cool metal surface.
She waits for half an hour in that position. She gets comfortable. This is by far her most stress free imprisonment.
Then a door slams open, and the bag is pulled from her head. She takes a moment to adjust to the lighting, it's harsh.
A woman stands in front of her. She wears something that Clarke remembers from old Earth movies to be military formal attire.
Judging from the medals on her chest she is a Major General. That's pretty high up.
They have a stare down. Clarke keeps her face neutral and her posture respectful. But she doesn't break.
Finally the Major General places her radio on the table in front of her. She glances down at it, the PTT switch is in the permanent ON mode so that means whatever happens, her people are listening. She still says nothing.
"Who are you people? How did you get here? How many of you are there? What is your agenda? Start speaking now."
Clarke considers her words carefully.
"We come in peace. I am willing to cooperate and answer questions. But not to you. I mean no disrespect Major General. But you cannot make any decisions of my future or my people's. I will talk with your leaders, your council, whoever has authority to decide my fate, I will only talk to them."
The woman looks like she might tear her limb from limb but before she can retort a knock interrupts her. Clarke looks to the side the knock came from behind a mirror, Clarke recognizes this, it's a classic one way mirror from those old cop shows that were available in the Ark archives.
The Major General touches a hand to her ear, then with a last angry scowl directed at her she leaves the room.
Clarke doesn't have to wait long for her next visitor, the door opens again and in walks a guy flanked by two guards. He is fairly young maybe a couple years older than her. His hair is short and neat. He is in a three piece suit. The modern image, though is marred by the Knightly arming sword hanging at his waist. It's a very pretty sword with Ivory handle and a brass scabbard with detailed etching. His facial features are eerily similar to Raphael's. This must be the older prince, the untimely king.
"Hello Ms. Griffin." He intones.
Clarke is not surprised that he knows her name.
"Your Majesty." Clarke knows how to play this game, assert that you are not afraid but don't show that you are dangerous. It's a fine line, but Clarke is a master at the art of walking the tightrope.
"You are a perceptive one." His tone is neutral.
He pulls the chair on the opposite side of the table and lowers himself into it, the guards come to stand on his either side, their hands firmly on their rifles.
"You wanted to talk to someone who had authority, there's no one higher than me."
"Thank you. But I must be frank, I am not the only person who makes the decisions on our side. If we are to discuss the situation you need to talk to our council."
"We are not letting more of your people land on the ground without further information." He is calm, he doesn't snarl. He is waiting
"I don't expect you to. Connect this radio to a bigger speaker, my people will be able to participate that way."
"Your whole council against me. Seems a little unfair." His voice is neutral but she can detect hint of a smirk on his lips.
"You can call in your advisors. I'm sure you are not the entirety of the Executive System."
"Do you expect us to release you from your cuffs too."
"The cuffs can stay on for as long as you like. But these talks, they are necessary."
There is a pause, as he considers her.
"You are not gonna reveal anything, if we don't do this, are you."
"I'm afraid not."
"Ok then, give me half an hour I'll call the Cabinet and then we can get to the discussions. Your council agrees?" He stares pointedly at the radio on the table, which was still in permanent transmission mode.
"Madi, Bellamy, this okay with you all?"
There is static as the other side finally comes off the mute setting.
"This is good with us Clarke." Bellamy's voice is hard, betraying no emotion.
The young king nods, before getting up, picking up the radio and moving towards the door.
"Your Majesty. May I have your name."
The King's calm façade breaks for a second and he looks startled and then ashamed. As if forgetting his manners is a great folly.
"Edgar Windsor."
Clarke holds in a chuckle, but an amused grin makes its way onto her lips.
"Raphael must hate that you were named after the cooler artist."
A mirthful smile curls his lips, "He does." Then the smile turns to one of gratitude, "Thank you for everything you said to him. And for helping him get down the tree, he knows how to get up but always breaks something getting down."
Clarke knows in that moment that they had intercepted the radio call because Raphael would not have told anyone about getting helped down the tree. She calms herself, this was good. They had no intention of harming these people and listening in on her consoling their prince could have only worked in their favor.
Clarke spends the next half hour planning for the Cabinet meeting. Goes over the things that she should reveal and things she should keep to herself.
The door opens at 25 minute mark, two guards enter and unchain her from the desk but the cuffs stay on. She is led through multiple passages to a double door guarded by two soldiers in tactical Army gear. The guard leading her here holds up her ID and one of the two guards nods, he brings up his wrist up to his mouth to whisper something in it. There's a sound of disengaging lock and the double doors swing open.
There is a wooden, huge C-shaped table situated in the room. There are 7 people including Edgar sitting around it. There's a single comfortable looking chair facing the middle C-shape placed on one side behind a monitor table.
Edgar stands up when she enters the room.
"Take the cuffs off. She is not a prisoner."
The guard who moves forward with the key looks uncomfortable with the given order, she gives her a warning look as the cuffs come off. Clarke doesn't even need to rub at her wrists.
She moves towards the chair and waits for Edgar to resume his seat before taking hers.
"Are we connected to the main ship?" Clarke asks in her most respectful voice.
Edgar nods and motions to the touch monitor table in front of her on which she could see the radio waves in video form.
"Madi, Bellamy, can everyone hear me?"
"Loud and clear." Bellamy answered.
"So now we have met your demands we would like you to answer our questions." An old man sitting to the left of Edgar speaks up.
"We would be happy to answer all of your questions… umm…"
"Justice Thomas Marsden."
"Justice Marsden. What would you like to know first."
Before the Judge could speak Edgar spoke up, "Why don't you tell us your story Ms. Griffin. I am sure most of our answers will be answered that way."
Clarke is silent. He had asked specifically for her story, she could not pawn this off to anyone else.
"Bellamy, Indra, feel free to add in any details that I miss out on." Clarke chose her words carefully. This way they would be able to add information that they deem necessary and also interject if she started to say something they did not agree should be shared.
"Before I start my story I would like to know the year Eligus III left for their expedition. It would make it easier for me to explain the story line."
"Eligus III left Earth in 2049."
A woman, Clarke's age sitting two chairs to the right of Edgar, informs.
"Bhairavi Singh Rajput. Royal Head of security." She introduces herself without any prompting.
"Dhanyavaad." Clarke bows her head, her Hindi heavily accented.
To her credit Bhairavi only raises a single impressed eyebrow.
Clarke starts with her story. "I was born in space. In 2052 the Earth was destroyed by a nuclear war. I was born in 2131, 79 years after the first apocalypse. I was born on the Ark, Twelve nations had operational space stations at the time of the bombs, after the bombs the space stations combined to form the ark."
"I was a one month from 18 when a decision was made to send an exploratory group to the ground to check if it was survivable, a 100 years too early. You see, the Ark was dying we had barely a few months of oxygen left before the scrubbers would fail. But the Ark could not afford to send any important personnel to an irradiated planet, so they sent the juvenile delinquents."
"You were one of them." It's Bhairavi who interrupts.
"Yes."
"What were you in for?" Justice Marsden enquires, his tone is less inquisitive and more accusing.
"Aiding and abetting in act of attempted treason."
There's a hushed silence. But no one speaks up and Clarke needs these guys to trust her so she explains.
"It was my father who discovered the failing systems of the Ark. A year before the decision was made to send people to the ground. He believed that the people had a right to know, that telling the masses would unite them and allow for better solutions. I agreed. The Ark council did not. My father planned to release a statement anyway and I was helping him. The council found out. My father was executed and I was imprisoned."
Clarke risked a glance at Justice Marsden, he had a grudging respect in his eyes.
No one interrupts her again so she continues.
"When we got to the ground, we discovered that there were already people alive on the ground."
"Around 4 and a half months since the landing we discovered A.L.I.E., John Murphy one of the council members, discovered the video diary of Chris, an assistant to Becca, the scientist who created Nightblood. Through the video diary he discovered that in 2051 Becca successfully created an A.I., who was known as A.L.I.E., to solve mankind's problems. But due to the phenomenon of Perverse Instantiation the A.I., who had decided that overpopulation was the cause of human misery, stole the launch codes of nuclear missiles and caused the first apocalypse."
"You keep on saying that, the first apocalypse. Were there more?" A woman sitting to Edgar's immediate right asked.
"Sorry, Hikari Satou."
"Hajimemashite Satou san. Yes there were three."
"Three?" Edgar sounds astonished.
"Yes, the first Apocalypse caused the slow meltdown of the nuclear reactors all over the world. We had a month to prepare. We tried to figure out how to survive the wave of Radiation that was going to descend upon us. We found a bunker and managed to get 1200 people to safety. The rest died."
Clarke closes her eyes, she can feel the pain again. Radiation coursing through her veins, poisoning her from inside out.
She calms herself without showing any outward signs of distress.
"The third apocalypse?" Satou-san asked, wariness in her tone.
Clarke takes in a shuddering breath, calculatingly letting her emotions show.
"The final straw that broke the camel's back. That was all due to human greed or megalomania would be the better term. The Eligius IV returned to a razed planet 6 years after the second apocalypse. There was only a small plot of survivable land left at that point. Some of the Eligius IV members didn't want to share. Some did. Some just wanted to live in peace."
"Anyway Paxton McCreary believed that if he couldn't have the Earth then no one could. He dropped Hythylodium bombs on the planet."
Clarke took a measured glance around the room. Everyone looked sufficiently horrified.
"All the remaining humans, the survivors from the Ark, the ground and the prison transport ship exited the atmosphere. We decided it would be best to wait for Earth's return in cryo. Two of our own stayed awake though, they were the ones who discovered that the Earth was not coming back. They sacrificed their chance to see us again. Instead they cracked the Eligius III mission files and charted a path to send us here. Its been 125 years since we went into cryo. It's been 125 years since Earth finally died."
There was a stiffling silence in the room, as no one even dared move a muscle.
"Anything I missed? Bellamy? Indra?"
"No Clarke I think you covered everything." Indra's controlled murmur answered her.
"Not everything." Edgar intonates. He is staring at Clarke, something in his features that Clarke can't put her finger on.
"That definitely not everything that has happened to Clarke, but it seems the portions of her story that concern the fate of our ancestral planet have been shared. Now we move onto negotiations. What do you want from us."
Clarke waits for a voice to crackle over the radio to lay their demands but nothing comes. It would seem that this falls on her shoulders.
"We want a place on the ground. Permission to land and set up a home for ourselves on this planet."
"You don't want a place in the city?" Justice Marsden's voice is soft. He seems to be clearly affected by her story.
Clarke again pauses glances down at the screen in hopes that someone else might answer the questions.
"If you were to offer us a place in your city and there are people who want to take you up on that offer we won't stop them. But we already have a system and I don't know how many of us would want to live under an unknown leadership."
She looks around to make sure she has not offended anyone, she hasn't.
"What else." Edgar prompts.
"Most of our people don't have Nightblood. And they can't survive the radiation of this planet without it. I know you must have Nightblood solution, for infants born without it, on you. I am requesting you to share it, with only the council at first."
"That's a very steep request, Ms. Griffin. Also your knowledge of Nightblood genetics is unnerving." A man sitting three seats to the left of Edgar speaks up.
"Dr. George A. Beller. Chief of Medicine."
"Dr. Beller, my mother is our resident doctor and I was training to follow in her footsteps before everything. Also Nightblood was an option that we explored to protect us from the second Apocalypse. So extensive research was done into it and its properties."
Dr. Beller nods, accepting the explanation.
The cabinet members exchange glances.
"Clarke if you don't mind we are going to put a barrier up, so we can have a discussion in private."
Clarke nods as a screen descends separating her on the other side of the room from the cabinet.
She takes this time to check up on Madi.
"Hey Madi, how are you holding up?"
"I'm fine. You? How are you? Are you hurt?" Madi sounds worried.
"Relax Madi. I'm fine. I'm not hurt."
"Clarke what are our chances." Bellamy asks.
Before Clarke can answer the screen is rising out of the way.
Edgar is smiling so Clarke takes it as a positive sign.
"We have decided to let your council land on the ground. We require time to help the others. But we are willing to let them land too in time."
A breath Clarke had been holding since the start of the meeting escapes her, "Thank you, Your Majesty."
"We'll require the number of councilors coming down. We need to prepare the Nightblood solutions."
"Of course. Bellamy, Madi can you prepare the list."
There was a pause of a few minutes while the line on the other side went silent.
Then the Bellamy's voice addressed the cabinet, "The councilors coming to the ground are Charmine Diyoza, Indra, Raven Reyes, John Murphy, Emori, Echo, Bellamy Blake and Madi Griffin."
Edgar glances at Dr. Beller who nods confidently. "We will have 8 cures ready. It would be best if you land in the same spot as before, that area has enough flat surface to allow us to erect medical tents."
"We will do that." It's Raven who answers. "Our ETA is 3 hours. We leave ASAP."