Here's the next chapter, everyone. I really hope you enjoy and please leave me a review or private message me with your opinions; I love hearing the thoughts of my readers and will do my best to incorporate suggestions to this story!
I also wanted to give a little forewarning that I will be avoiding quite a few of the things that have happened in the TV show's season three for a few reasons. One, I haven't been overly thrilled with quite a bit of this latest season and also I want to steer the story in a unique direction. An immediate example of something that will be avoided like the plague is I won't be including Pike or any of the struggles Arkadia has endured since Pike joined the show. That said, there will of course be new threats and struggles, but those will be revealed naturally as the story unfolds :)
Also, as usual, anytime Trigedasleng is spoken, it will simply be written in italics since I don't know the language beyond a couple of words here and there.
Clarke slept on and off for about two days while her body tried to slowly recuperate from being so extensively neglected. Occasionally she would be gently awoken by Lexa, who would provide her with food and water, or let her know that her injuries were being looked at by Nyko.
While the blonde was ever appreciative of Lexa's uncompromising aid to ensuring she made a full recovery, she just didn't really care. Her own self neglect ran deep. Much deeper than not eating properly or being incredibly dehydrated and having constant, horrible, vivid nightmares leaving her unable to sleep soundly through the night. It was worse than that, believe it or not.
She had stopped believing in herself and the convictions and morals she held so steadfast to when she first reached Earth. Her short time on the ground had altered her views and slowly poisoned her innocence, hardening her to the unsavory truth. The truth that while the ground was breathtaking and magnificent, so full of beauty and life, it was also horrendous and filled with unscrupulous amounts of violence.
Ever so slowly she found herself inching closer and closer to violence, breaking away from the person she was raised to be and moving towards that of a hardened survivor in plagued lands. When she was locked in her cell on the Ark drawing the beauties of the ground on her cell walls, she was blissfully ignorant to the reality of the situation she would soon enough be in.
Clarke never lost the inherited push to survive when she landed on Earth. Something else she never lost was the urge to protect and care for her people. In fact, the desire to keep her people safe grew with each passing day on the ground. Eventually that led to Clarke eradicating an entire colony of people just to preserve her own. Unfortunately, no matter what way she looked at it and the countless hours she spent mulling over it, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the mountain men would have ruthlessly sought out and slaughtered Clarke and her people had she not put a stop to them first. Meaning, regardless someone had to stoop down and be the abhorrent person to protect and salvage their own people.
That was why Clarke was able to pull the lever, to annihilate every single mountain person within their home. As much as it weighed on her mind every second of every day, she knew she would do it again, and again, if she had to. She would always do whatever was necessary to keep her people safe.
What she did was despicable and she couldn't figure out how to stomach it, let alone move on from it and live her life. Did she deserve even an ounce of happiness after everything she had done? All of the lives she had directly and indirectly caused an end to?
These were the thoughts that lingered in her head, both when she was asleep and awake. They and haunting images reminding her of the kind of person she had become since she landed on the ground. People say that time heals all wounds, but Clarke's had not even begun to scab.
Clarke awoke in the tent as she had many times since her arrival. Her eyes were glistening from unshed tears, her head hurt with a dull ache, the pain in her ankle was unbearable, and every little cut she had acquired trying to get away from the brother and sister Grounders stung painfully. Her eyes moved lazily around the room trying to adjust to her surroundings, her head swimming with pain.
Unsure how much time had passed since she had been carried by Rhett, Clarke gently removed the furs that covered her body to determine how badly her ankle was damaged. It was an angry shade of purple-pink, definitely swollen, and very tender to the gentlest touch. She wouldn't be walking anytime soon.
It dawned on her then that she was alone in the tent. If her ankle wasn't in such bad shape, the blonde would probably try to stubbornly flee from the Grounder camp. She clearly wasn't being held against her will, that much she knew. Additionally she was very well aware that Lexa was trying to aid her, but Clarke couldn't quite figure out why, what the brunette was getting out of it, and that unnerved her to no end. She felt uncomfortably weak and exposed around people who she was technically no longer in an alliance with; they left her and her people at the mountain to fend for themselves, so then why was Lexa going out of her way to help her?
Around the time the gears started turning in Clarke's head, Lexa had peeked her head in the tent to check on the blonde and was surprised to spot Clarke alert and assessing her wounds. She debated whether she should enter the tent or leave Clarke be, but when she could practically hear the wheels turning in the blonde's head and the look of conflict on her face, the Commander made up her mind.
"Hello Clarke," Lexa said formally as she pulled back the flap to the tent and entered. Calculatedly she remained near the exit in case the blonde requested to be left alone.
Clarke's head snapped up to the sounds that penetrated the silence, drawing her from her innermost thoughts. Lexa stood rigidly tall by the entrance of the tent with her unreadable Heda mask guarding whatever she was truly thinking. She loathed that impassive mask that the brunette often wore because it stopped her from having the slightest clue what was going on inside the brunette's head.
"What do you want?" Clarke said, her voice sounding nastier than she intended it to.
"I arrived to check on you," Lexa stated, unaffected by the harshness in the blonde's voice. "Since you are awake, do you need anything?"
"Answers," the blonde muttered bitterly, her voice in a low whisper.
Lexa remained quiet a moment, thinking. She wasn't sure whether she should make it known that she heard Clarke's murmured voice or not. After a moment of reluctance she asked, "To what, Clarke?"
Taken aback by the question, assuming that her snide remark would fall upon deaf ears, the blonde tried to buy time to mull over all the questions she had by shifting herself on the bed of furs. She cringed heavily and bit back a howl as pain radiated throughout her body, originating from her ankle. Letting out a trembling breath after reigning in her composure, Clarke looked Lexa right in the eyes as she asked, her voice more vulnerable than she would have liked, "Why am I here?"
"To recover," the brunette responded, the faintest bit of humor in her voice. It caused Clarke to simply scowl at her, desiring the true answer. Rolling her eyes, Lexa amended her statement for the blonde's benefit, "I did not want you to get yourself killed, Clarke. You are important."
"Important for what, Lexa? You broke the alliance between our people when you left us on that mountain," Clarke retorted sternly. As much as she hated it, she understood why Lexa took the deal and left. It was the right thing for her people, but it didn't make it any easier for Clarke to digest.
Lexa sighed impatiently, taking a few steps towards the bed Clarke sat on. Of course the blonde would assume her importance was solely involving their people. With every step she took towards Clarke's bed, she felt her unemotional mask break a little more until eventually she was just Lexa of Trikru standing before the blonde, all of her emotions easily readable on her face. She struggled to speak, a lump in her throat at the thought of actually putting a voice to the words that floated around her head.
"Your importance isn't just to bridge our people," she husked out finally, her eyes on Clarke's, her breathing uneven.
"Then please enlighten me to the full scope of my importance, Commander?" Clarke asked with a clenched jaw, refusing to fall prey to what she felt like Lexa was implying. The brunette didn't care for her, she couldn't have. She had claimed love to be weakness and left her on the mountain without even a labored hesitation.
She noticed the brunette's eyes fall to the floor and the emotions cross the woman's face as the sneer of Clarke's comment sunk in. She hadn't realized before spotting the emotions flicker across the brunette's face that Lexa had lowered the mask she usually hid strongly behind, apparently allowing the blonde a rare glance to the woman below.
After several moments of silence, obviously noticing the brunette's struggle to put a voice to her words, Clarke dropped the cocky attitude she was harboring. "Tell me, please," she beseeched, her voice sincere and soft. She never let her eyes waver from searching the brunette's face.
"You are not just important to bridging our people," Lexa reiterated, forcing her eyes off the floor and to stare back at the ocean blue ones that were boring holes into her face. Her mouth was dry and pasty, her heart racing a mile a minute, knowing she was about to go against the very essence of her 'love is weakness' mantra. Realistically, though, she knew that she had shattered that motto long ago when she first began to fall for Clarke Griffin.
Taking a beat, Lexa schooled her breathing closer to normal and reigned in her slowly shattering composure before admitting aloud something that had only before remained entirely to herself, "You are important to me, Clarke." Her voice naturally drew out the word 'me', stressing the importance of the word in the sentence.
Clarke hadn't taken her eyes off the Commander's, trying desperately to figure out what had the woman so evidently flustered. Then Lexa's words echoed in her mind: you are important to me, Clarke. Automatically her body shivered in delight while her brain tried to pick apart and process the words and their meaning. Confusion flickered across her face and she tried to speak several times, only to find the words she desired to say not leaving her mouth.
Her emotions had constantly suffocated her since the moment she pulled the lever in Mount Weather, and while Clarke had come to realize not long after that they were out of options and didn't have a choice, it didn't ease the nightmares or afflicted feelings in her heart. In fact, if anything, it made her heart feel like it was made out of thick sheets of black ice. Up until she heard Lexa's latest confession, that is.
"What do you mean?" Clarke asked, her voice thick with uncertainty. She needed to be sure.
Silence engulfed the room once more as the blonde examined the apprehension in Lexa's face. As the seconds ticked past, it became more than obvious that the brunette's struggles involved physically saying whatever it was she had to say. Like if she said whatever was on her mind, it would be her undoing.
"One of the clans in the coalition has always been rather troublesome, desiring to see me dethroned by any means necessary. She knows the only way to truly hurt me is to go after my heart," Lexa's voice was eerily hoarse, her eyes showing that every uttered word was utmost truth.
Though Lexa hadn't come straight out and say it, Clarke knew the brunette was admitting her feelings for her, that she couldn't bare to see harm come to her. However, the blonde knew there was more to what was going on, there had to be. "Are they planning to break away from the coalition?" Clarke asked quietly.
Lexa sighed and the features on her face gave way to how exhausted she was. "Not exactly, no. After Mount Weather's fall, I received word that the leader of Azgeda, the clan in the coalition that is most troublesome, wishes to capture the power of the one responsible," as the brunette leader spoke, Clarke could see the brunette's eyes seep in concern. "My people hold the belief that upon killing someone, they receive the power from those the slain has killed, too. Nia, the leader of the Ice Nation, wishes to become Wanheda, the Commander of Death." The brunette's voice was cold as she spoke of the Azgeda leader, her eyes lingering over Clarke's features.
Noticing the confusion on the blonde's face, not having fully grasped what was being said, Lexa continued, speaking softly. "For hundreds of years my people have suffered at the hands of the reapers and the mountain men. We were ill equipped at understanding what was happening or even how to begin to rectify the situation. For what you did at the mountain, my people have come to refer to you as Wanheda. The Commander of Death."
Comprehension gleamed in the blonde's eyes as they grew heavy with sullen tears that she refused to let fall. She cleared her throat and slowly regained her composure. "I can barely think about what I did without feeling sick to my stomach, the hundreds of lives I ended without hesitation, and your people are giving me a name like I deserve some kind of medal for killing over three hundred people?" Her voice gave way to the disbelief she felt.
"Clarke, you may have killed all of the mountain men, but you also stopped a lot of deaths. I know it doesn't seem that way, but you did," Lexa's voice was genuine as she tried to get Clarke to see the truth, the bigger picture. "So many families lost their loved ones––daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, lovers. They would disappear only to reappear months later as a reaper, a possessed body of what the person they loved used to be. These people had mourned and put to bed the one loved only to be plagued by seeing them again in a hollow form of the person they remembered." Lexa's voice was husky as she remembered the telltale devastation that washed over people's faces when they couldn't find their loved one. "Many could not do what was necessary to put their loved one's body to peace when they seen them as a reaper. As a result, they paid the ultimate price with their lives."
Clarke was rendered speechless. She had never considered viewing the situation from the Grounder's perspective. Admittedly, she didn't acknowledge the pain and anguish Lexa's people must have felt when the ones they loved turned up as reapers. They didn't know that their people who had become 'reapers' were still there, trapped underneath the primitive, uncontrollable urge for the drugs that were pumped into them by the mountain. Equally, the blonde didn't realize that the feud between the mountain men and the Grounders had been going on for so long. How many lives did the mountain men end?
"I see," is all Clarke could muster up. The new view on things had lifted a lot of the weight that had been pressing on her chest, but she still had an ungodly amount of questions. So Clarke being Clarke, she asked the first one that popped into her head. "If your people believe you absorb kills, then why don't you just kill me?"
Lexa felt a pang in her chest at the blonde's question. Did Clarke seriously not understand what she was saying before or was she just playing coy? The brunette suppressed the growing urge to shake the blonde for her stubbornness. "Do you really need to ask me that?"
Feeling foolish, Clarke eyed the bed of furs, not letting her eyes meeting Lexa's again. Of course she had understood what the brunette had been saying before, but she just wanted to be sure that she wasn't being played or reading what she wanted of it. Course a part of her always knew that Lexa probably wouldn't come out and straightforwardly state her feelings, but the blonde kind of hoped she would.
"No," she whispered timidly. Why did she care if Lexa cared for her, anyway? She should hate the Commander, never want to see her again, not desperately want to reduce the distance between them and be around her as much as possible.
"Good," Lexa said in a resigned voice, it barely level. "Get some rest, Clarke. I will send Nyko in later to check on your ankle."
Clarke nodded and watched as Lexa turned and left the tent, never feeling more confused than she did in that moment.
As the Commander promised, Nyko entered the tent an hour or two later, his healer bag in hand. He extensively checked every one of her injuries from her throbbing ankle to the various sized cuts she had. Apparently some of the cuts were deeper and uglier than Clarke realized. It took them much longer than it really should have for the healer to look at Clarke's injuries, as the blonde begrudgingly shot the man stern looks and tried to dismiss his help.
"I will prepare a herb tea for you. It should help with the swelling and stave off infection in these larger cuts," Nyko said, eyeing one of the gruesomely large cuts that went from Clarke's underarm down to right above her wrist.
Without giving Clarke the opportunity to make a wise ass response, the healer vanished out of the tent. Before preparing the tea, Nyko stopped to see Lexa and update her as to Clarke's condition per the Commander's request.
"Commander," Nyko said with a bow, awaiting for Lexa to grant him permission to stand from his bowing stance.
"Stand, Nyko," the brunette leader said idly before asking, "What of Clarke?"
"Her ankle is still in very bad shape. She has more cuts that went unnoticed before. I am making her a tea that will hopefully help with the swelling and avoid her getting infection from the cuts," the healer responded.
"I see. How long do you think before she will be able to walk again?" Lexa asked.
"I do not know, Commander. She twisted her ankle at a bad angle. It could be a couple of weeks to a month. Maybe more. Only time will really tell. I do hope the tea will help speed the process some, though," he responded hesitantly. Trying to put a date on when Clarke's injury would be healed enough to walk was difficult. Too many factors played into it.
"Thank you for the update, Nyko. Is there anyway I can aid you in what you are doing for Clarke?" The brunette asked. She was not a healer by any means, but she would do whatever she could to ensure Clarke's safety. Nyko had already suspected her feelings towards the blonde, but wisely left it unmentioned.
The healer thought over Lexa's words in silence for a moment. "Clarke resists my help in healing her and as a result I've missed several cuts because she would not cooperate. I still need to clean each of her cuts up before putting salve on them and bandaging them up. She thwarts my attempts to help her at every turn," Nyko stated, not so much answering the brunette's question as to inform her of the blonde's refractory nature.
"I understand, she is very stubborn. I will clean and address her cuts tonight. If you would prepare the tea, I will ensure she drinks that, as well," Lexa stated, forcing herself not to roll her eyes thinking about Clarke's pigheadedness.
"Yes, Commander," Nyko answered, bowing some naturally in respect, "I will go make the tea now," he added before quickly evacuating the Commander's tent. He put a pot on to come to a boil and begun preparing the necessary herbs.
When the water had begun boiling, Nyko created the tea and sought out the Commander to give it to her. Moments after he left the brunette leader's tent, he spotted her briskly walking to the tent that had become the blonde sky girls. He couldn't help the smirk that made way to his face spotting the content look on Lexa's face as she walked. There was something definitely going on between the Commander and the leader of the sky people.
"Clarke," Lexa said to announce that she was in the room. She smiled a little when she heard Clarke sleepily grunt in reply, clearly agitated for her rest being disturbed. Moments later when she was fully inside Clarke's tent, she seen lethargic blue eyes staring at her.
Without hesitation, the brunette walked to the seat that still resided alongside Clarke's bed of furs and plopped down. She handed the cup of tea out to Clarke, "Drink this."
The blonde whined in reply, already suspecting the tea would taste just as bad as it smelled. She knew there would be no use arguing with Lexa, as the woman would be more inclined to force the healing tea down her throat than appease protests. Nyko probably made mention of her disgruntled attitude towards him earlier and this was his way of payback. Figured.
Clarke practically spit the herbal tea back out when the awful taste hit her lips. She clenched her eyes closed and forced herself to swallow the awful stuff. When she opened her eyes she seen Lexa staring at her with a slight smirk ghosting the corner of her lips and Clarke rewarded her with a dirty look.
Lexa's expression sobered up the moment she realized she had faltered, based on the glower from Clarke. "We have to clean up your cuts so I can put salve on them," the brunette stated, patting the blonde's arm supportively before heading back to the bowl of water and rag that was on the table.
"Ugh, is this Nyko's way of payback?" Clarke bellyached, trying fruitlessly to shift herself away from Lexa as the brunette approached her with a damp rag.
"Nope. I offered to take this task over from him. You seemed to have unnerved him, though," the brunette replied with a slight chuckle thinking back on the frustrated look on Nyko's face.
Hearing Lexa laugh, the blonde felt herself unconsciously relax, conforming to her cuts being cleaned up. As much as she hated being tended to and fussed over, somehow it being Lexa who was doing it didn't bother Clarke quite as bad as it had with Nyko. Perhaps it was because she knew Lexa wouldn't surrender to her persistence like others normally would.
A bit later, Lexa felt compelled to inquire, "How exactly did you get all these cuts?" She actually didn't mean to, she just kind of asked.
"I was running from Rhett and Shae when I fell and twisted my ankle. I thought you had put a kill order out on me or something…" Clarke said, and was interrupted before she could continue.
"I would never do such a thing, Clarke," Lexa said, interrupting the blonde mid sentence. She paused what she was doing and stared at Clarke in the eyes as if to reaffirm the statement.
"Well I didn't know that then, did I?" Clarke said stubbornly, trying to avoid what Lexa had said the best she could. "When I couldn't run, or walk for that matter, I started to crawl away. Guessing the ground wasn't too happy with that," she stated lightheartedly, trying desperately to be done with the conversation they were in the middle of. In fact, she wouldn't have been too fussed if Lexa had allowed her to finish cleaning and tending to her own wounds.
"I see," Lexa replied neutrally as she turned over Clarke's arm to tend to a long, jagged cut that went from her above her wrist to her underarm. It took all of her willpower to keep her face impassive, not wanting to show how hurt she felt that the blonde thought she would try to hurt her. Then again, she knew she couldn't blame Clarke; with the way things were left on the mountain, there was a lot of uncertainty. She had betrayed Clarke.
Lexa finished cleaning the blonde's wounds in silence, then went back to the first of the cuts she cleaned to apply salve and bandage it up. She continued in succession to the other cuts, putting a layer of salve and bandaging them. At the bigger gashes the blonde instinctively recoiled as the cold salve imposed itself over the irritated skin, but that didn't stop Lexa's determination to see every cut covered.
The moment the brunette finished coating the last cut with salve and covering it, she glanced up to find Clarke staring intently at her. Simply nodding to indicate she was done, Lexa stood and gathered the supplies she used before giving a strained smile to Clarke. "I will return later with something to eat. Try to get some rest, Clarke," she suggested before turning and leaving without allowing the blonde to respond.
Lexa practically bolted off to avoid having to look at the perplexed, distressed look on the blonde's face. She was clearly still reeling over the situation and fighting her own demons, and knowing she was a big part of the problem made her stomach churn uncomfortably.
The brunette couldn't do anything about what she did, leaving Clarke and the sky people at the mountain, but she had silently vowed to make it up to her. Clarke battled her own war for what she did at Mount Weather, the Commander fought with herself over the decision she made leaving Clarke's side. It was decided upon with her head and not her heart, but yet she felt chewed up and empty inside. She would need to figure out a way to rule evenly with her head and her heart. The bets for her people and the best for the one who had possessed her heart.