12

A Long Ride Ahead

OCTAVIA

"I'll just be a minute." Indra tells me as she leaps off of Cedar's back. I pretend I don't notice her stumble as she hits the forest floor. And she pretends she isn't still hurting from the wounds in her ankles where the nails drove through her flesh. It's a little game we both like to play. Each of us pretending we have no weaknesses. And each of us pretending we don't see the other's weaknesses as clearly as we see our own.

I leap off of Helios's back as Indra disappears inside the meetinghouse to speak with the other elders of Trikru. I pat his neck lazily and he throws his head side to side and pretends to be annoyed by my affections. Then I lean against his solid side and watch the children chasing each other around the heart of the village. They are laughing and teasing one another, throwing pine cones and pebbles at each other and smiling. They have no idea of the storm that is coming.

And before I know it, I am thinking of Lincoln again. And I do not want to think of him. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to. But that never stops my mind from wandering to him time and time again. And this time I find myself imagining him as a child laughing and playing and running around in the heart of this village. And I imagine him as a teenager lounging on a log and using a stick to draw pictures of trees and horses and mountains and skies in the mud and only half-listening while Naiko picks random leaves and flowers and rambles on about the names and medicinal uses of each. And I imagine him older now, holding my hand and kissing the top of my head and laughing as we watch our own children chase each other around the heart of this village.

And I sigh and turn my back on the children because it hurts to watch them. And it hurts to be here in this village. Because it hurts to think of Lincoln. And being here, I can think of nothing else. I bury my face against Helios's neck and run my hands through his rough mane until I can breathe again.

And when I open my eyes again, I am so surprised to see the little girl beside me that I jump and let out a small shriek. Her light hazel eyes grow wide with fear at my reaction, then drop to the ground at my feet. She looks like she might cry. She looks like she might run away.

"Hey..." I say softly. "It's OK. I'm not angry. You just scared me, is all."

The little girl doesn't reply. She doesn't even look at me. She just stares at my boots, awkwardly shuffling the toes of her own shoes in the dirt. I kneel down until our faces are level. She looks like she's about six or so and she has dark wavy hair with tangles and knots running through it along with the braids. She has olive skin and holes in her jacket and dirt smudged on her face. And she reminds of someone, but I can't put my finger on who.

"I'm Octavia." I say gently. "What's your name?"

The girl doesn't answer. But she slowly raises her gaze to meet mine. Her eyes are timid, full of distrust and longing and... Loneliness. And I wonder what has happened to this child that she already carries so much hurt inside of her. She turns her eyes from my face to look up at Helios. The top of her head barely reaches the end of his nose. And now I can see the hint of excitement and desire in her sad eyes.

"This is Helios." I tell her. "You can pat him if you like. Go on... he won't bite." And I know it's true because Helios is perfect around everyone else. Lincoln trained him well. And he's only a little shit to me.

The girl reaches out tentatively and giggles when Helios snorts into her hand and nuzzles into her touch. I watch as she stands onto her tiptoes to stroke his mane and I feel a strange sensation inside of me as I realize I am smiling, genuinely smiling for the first time since... Well... I can't remember the last time I smiled like this. And it feels so good to smile because it makes me think of Lincoln. And it hurts to smile because it makes me think of Lincoln.

"Do you want to sit on his back?" I ask the girl, and I laugh as her eyes grow even wider at the suggestion. And her eyes are as much a mixture of fear and longing and excitement as they are of gold and mossy green and honey-brown. She still says nothing. But she gives me the slightest of nods and I lift her easily onto the saddle. The girl is smiling too now and her eyes are glinting and the fear and the loneliness are gone.

I hear the creak of a door and turn my head to see Indra moving towards us wearing that expression that I so often see on her: the look that is not fear or worry, but rather acceptance. Because Indra is a warrior and warriors do not worry about things they cannot control.

And then I hear a loud thud of something slamming onto the forest floor beside me and turn to see the little girl struggling in the dirt and dead leaves at my feet. For a moment I don't understand how she has fallen.

"Are you OK?" I ask, reaching down to help her up. But she scrambles out of my reach, pushes up onto her feet, and suddenly takes off into the trees around us. And now I understand... She didn't fall. She jumped. Confused, I watch her as she disappears into the forest.

"Did she say anything to you?" Indra asks, curiously, also staring off into the trees where the forest swallowed the little girl.

"No." I answer.

"I don't think Eevie's spoken a word to anyone in weeks." Indra says in a sad voice. "Not since Pike's massacre. Her mother was one of the warriors slain. Her father died months before that in the attack on your dropship. She has no family now. The people of the village try their best to care for her whenever she shows her face. But no one knows where she is most of the time." She pauses to turn her gaze on me. "I'm surprised she came up to you at all." She adds, eyeing me up and down as if searching for what makes me special.

I just shrug. "She wasn't interested in me." I say, climbing into my saddle. It is still warm from the girl's touch. "She was interested in Helios."

Indra turns her thoughtful gaze back to the spot where Eevie disappeared into the underbrush.

"Are we ready to head out?" I ask and Indra finally pulls her eyes from the forest. She climbs back into her own saddle. And I pretend not to notice her grimace as she pulls herself up with her wounded wrists. And she pretends not to notice the tears welling in my eyes.

"Yes." She answers, turning Cedar away from the morning sun, towards the West. "We have a long ride ahead of us."

I give Helios a little kick in the side and follow Indra away from the heart of the village. And I try to leave my thoughts behind. I try not to think of Lincoln. And I try not to think of those lonely hazel eyes.

...

"They used to call this area "The Land of a Thousand Lakes." Indra tells me as we follow the winding trail along the curving bank of yet another lake. Some of the smaller lakes we have passed had water tinged yellow-brown. The most stagnant sections along the shorelines were nearly orange and the fumes emanating from their waters burned like acid in the back of my throat and pulled tears from my eyes.

But the lake we are skirting now is a beautiful cornflower blue. It glitters in the afternoon sun and it stretches on for miles. If it weren't for the green-brown blur of the distant shoreline, I could mistake it for an ocean. Boats dot the surface of the lake here and there and I watch fishermen casting out nets and others reeling them in as we pass. No one pays us any mind as they go on carrying out the daily business of living.

I hear splashing and hooting and hollering up the trail ahead and we round a bend to spot a group of teenage boys playing on the shoreline, pushing and shoving each other off the boulders and into the water. I know the water must be ice-cold, but the boys are all shirtless as if it is a sweltering summer afternoon, as if they don't notice the chilly north wind that bites at my cheeks. Their shoulder blades and biceps and chests are riddled with the markings of their clan: the blue tribal tattoos that curve and flow and cascade along their muscles like water. Each boy's tattoo pattern is different and each is beautiful. But on their faces every boy has the same, identical silver-gray tattoo of a fishhook curving from the left temple down along the jawline, the sharp barb of the hook cutting into the corner of their lips.

Two of the boys sit perched on the edge of a boulder overlooking the others. I watch as one rears his fishing pool back and with a graceful arc of his arm expertly casts his line far out across the waters. The other boy eyes Indra and me curiously as we pass, but when I offer him a smile he timidly drops his gaze and fiddles with the tangled fishing line in his hands.

"The Lake Folk are wary of strangers." Indra says. "And for good reason. Ice Nation has been preying on these villages for decades."

"Why don't they fight back?" I ask. I cannot understand how an entire people has allowed another to walk all over it, to take what is not theirs, and destroy what they did not build.

"Not all people are built to be warriors." Indra shrugs. "That's the way of the world. Some people are foxes. Some are rabbits. And without the rabbit, the fox would starve."

"More like wolves and sheep." I say. "These people are weak."

"These people live simply, peacefully." Indra replies. "They've decided it is easier to placate the wolf than resist it."

"They are weak." I repeat and Indra just shrugs again.

"Rabbits and foxes..." I say thoughtfully. "Wolves and sheep... What are we, Indra?"

Indra answers quickly, as if she has already given this thought. "Bears." She says simply. "We do not prey upon the weak. We protect our own."

"Bears..." I repeat, thinking of Lincoln... Fiercely strong, fiercely gentle. "Bears... I like that."