Hey guys, thanks for the reviews and follows! XOXO continuing here, again still slowly. Action will pick up soon, but so much angst is also on the way. When is season 3 coming?

Over a distant horizon the sun was quickly setting. She knew the daylight hours got shorter and longer as the seasons changed, but seeing it was a startling reality of how fast winter was approaching.

She shivered in her thin clothes.

Clarke was cold. And hungry. And tired. And a million other things but the cold and hunger were the first of her priorities.

She had cautiously skirted around any signs of human civilization in her many days of roaming, but now she sought out some semblance of civilization for the sustenance she knew she badly needed to keep surviving.

And here it was in front of her - a deer hung dead and gutted from a tree. She had watched it from her hiding spot in the hallow of a massive tree, obscured by thick brush, terrified to move, terrified that the hunters who had hung it up there could come back at any moment and find her.

But they hadn't.

She vaguely remembered Bellam- she shook her head violently at that momentary intrusion of his name in her head. That was a name, a memory she had neatly put away into a different compartment in her mind for some later date.

- She remembered being told that a carcass of that size would be hung up for days to bleed out and age. The exact reasons why escaped her now. But it seemed strange that anyone would leave prime meat for the stealing this far away from any camp or village.

Was it a trap? Or had the hunt been so successful that they couldn't carry back all they had taken?

It was risky, she knew. And so she sat and watched, her extremities growing increasingly numb.

Logically speaking, the animal had been hung far from the ground and clear of the tree trunk. Too far for any predators to take it, save a human being.

Logically, it was too dark for the hunters to return now and process a kill this large and return back to their camp.

Which meant she must have until morning, which would be the only logical time for them to return and bring their kill back to wherever they had come from.

For the millionth time it struck her how little she knew about the way life progressed here on earth, about the knowledge that was taught and ingrained in these people who had survived the Cataclysm.

She had grown up on a diet of mostly protein paste, doled out in carefully calculated amounts and macros that varied according to age, gender, and height. What the hell was she really expected to know about hunting and processing a deer carcass? She had helped the group with these things after their arrival, but never alone. Earth Skills courses up on the Ark hadn't interested her as much as medicine and biology. Even after she had been approved into the advanced placement, what had she really retained? Hopefully enough to survive alone she realized grimly.

Learn fast or die. That much at least she understood intrinsically.

Cautiously she got up from her hiding spot and quietly brushed the tangled branches away, making her way slowly around the perimeter to where the deer hung. Every few footsteps, she stopped and listened - still nothing. Just the normal forest sounds of humming and buzzing and the occasional chirping.

She stopped finally in front of the carcass. Her small knife was sharp and ready. It was too far up. She would have to cut the whole damn thing down. Her heart hammered loudly in her chest as she made her way to the rope and sawed it through cleanly.

The deer carcass crashed to the ground louder then she expected and the sound made her jump in terror.

Stupid stupid stupid.

She stood frozen for long minutes, waiting on the missing hunting party to suddenly jump through the bushes, spears aimed at her heart.

But they never came.

Well, now what?

She glanced at her knife and back at the carcass. It was a good knife, but she had never quartered an animal of this size alone. And she had only ever skinned rabbits back at camp but their flesh parted easily from their bodies. This gigantic buck was certainly not going to be built like a tiny rabbit. She didn't have a saw to hack through the bone or tougher ligaments and there was obviously no way she could drag the entire animal back to her camp.

Great. I'm a moron.

Trying to remember what she knew, she grabbed the front quarter and moved the shoulder joint around in its socket. Rigor mortis had passed which she at least knew meant the animal could be butchered easily - relatively speaking.

She pulled the shoulder away from the torso of the deer, exposing the hinge and began to cut parallel to the rib cage until her knife hit the shoulder joint and it became tougher. Despite the cold, sweat formed on her body as she cut as quickly and efficiently as she could. After what felt like an eternity, the front quarter fell away from the rest of the carcass and Clarke sat down heavily with a sigh. She was warm at least through her exertions even though she knew the sweat would quickly dry leaving her colder then before and in danger of hypothermia.

She slung the hunk of meat across one shoulder and began to move in the direction of her shelter. It was an hour away and she had to move quickly and be careful not to leave tracks behind that could be easily followed.

The deer carcass Clarke left behind, taking the valuable rope with her. She knew it would likely be ruined and scavenged by the time the hunting party returned but she also really didn't care.

The Grounders certainly were good at taking care of their own first. Clarke decided she would do the same.

The trek back to her camp exhausted her further. Little food and poor sleep had left her easily tired. She had found this hidden little spot two days ago and decided it was safe enough to rest up in for a while - little choice in the matter really, she had scant supplies and the cold days made travel difficult and dangerous.

The "camp" was a small clearing covered in thorny bushes and dense pines that she had to climb down a steep ledge to access. A small cave was hallowed out into the rock, more of a ledge really though it opened up further inside so that it was tall enough to almost stand in, but the lack of any air flow would made a fire inside dangerous and likely to suffocate her in her sleep even as it kept her warm.

The outer ledge was almost perfect, longer then her and shaped slightly like an oval bowl. Underneath was space to keep a fire lit through the day that warmed the rock ledge above sufficiently to keep her at least slightly warm. She had filled it further with pine needles for added insulation and covered herself with pine boughs for added warmth at night. The opening she concealed with more boughs to hide the ledge, and hopefully her.

It was enough. Just barely.

She stoked up the fire with her store of wood and kindling and set to skinning the hunk of deer meat. It was a frustratingly long time before she could finally pierce it with sharp sticks and set it to roast on the fire. Finally, filling up her metal canteen with pine needles, she set that to boil into a nourishing tea and gloomily watched the fire, feeding it sticks and twigs periodically, huddling as close as possible for warmth.

Fire was another risk she took. But death without one was almost certain.

It felt good to sit still with the knowledge she would eat well that night and for several more afterwards. But this stillness and seeming peace gave her time to think and that was not a good thing from her perspective.

The past was a dark, almost living thing that seemed to loom over and threaten to overtake her at moments like this when she had a time to spare. And she wasn't ready. She doubted she would ever be ready to face it but certainly not now and not yet.

Survival gave her something tangible to focus on. Clarke knew she would have to make her way to a village and steal supplies or the winter would kill her. Doing this by herself was daunting but it wasn't even the threat of getting caught and probably executed that scared her, but just the thought of coming into contact with humanity again. The stench of humanity. The sounds of human voices. All the evidence of their pathetic existence on this planet made her shy away. She hadn't even heard the sound of her own voice in days and she was okay with that. Out here in the woods there were no obligations save for those focused on survival. Out here she was no different from that deer. Out here there was no war.

She sketched out some semblance of a plan in her head while carving strips of hot flesh off of the hunk of shoulder meat. It was good. Very good. The hollowness in her belly began to feel satiated. Warmth from the meat and hot pine tea crept its way through her body and drowsily she stored the remainder of the meat further into the cave away from any scavenging animals. Covering herself with the pine boughs, knife always ready in hand, she drifted off into an almost content sleep.

Tomorrow she would find a village. She would rob them of their food and furs. She would survive another day on the ground.