i remember years ago/someone told me i should take caution when it comes to love/i did/and you were strong and i was not/my illusion, my mistake/i was careless, i forgot/i did/and now when all is done there is nothing to say/you have gone and so efforlessly, you have won/you can go ahead, tell them

falling out of love is hard/falling for betrayal is worse/broken trust and broken hearts/i know, i know/and thinking all you need is there/building faith, oh, nothing worse/empty promises will wear/i know, i know/when all is done, there is nothing to say/and if you're done with embaressing me/on your own, you can go ahead, tell them

tell them all i know now/shout it from the rooftops/right it on the skyline/all we had is gone now/tell them i was happy/and my heart is broken/all my scars are open/tell them what i hoped would be impossible

i remember years ago/someone told me i should take caution when it comes to love/i did

james arthur - impossible

You wake up just before dawn, blinking heavily in the darkness of your room, with only the slightest hint of light peeking in from the lanterns that line the streets outside. You reach up and press the palms of your hands against your eyes, in a weak attempt to dull the painful throbbing in your skull and to force the memories of last night to play over your closed eyelids, but it's futile. You remember nothing after your second drink at the tavern, other than Jaquelene's husky voice coaxing you easily into conversation as she poured you drink after drink.

You find yourself strangely thankful for this fact, unsure if you want to remember the journey back to the commander's home and what you might have found when you returned.

(you push away the vision of the commander's shoulders crumbling beneath the weight of the world, hear the sound of her black heart cracking through her mouth, opened in a silent cry. you never wanted to see that, never wanted to think of her as a living, breathing, hurting human. you had spent the last six years catogorising her as something else; monster.)

(same as you)

You slowly roll yourself out of the comfortable bed with a groan, your toes curling into the soft furs beneath your feet as you stand up and stretch. Your muscles pull painfully and your bones groan in complaint and the world tilts and spins for a moment before you regain your vision, shaking your head with a sigh. You pad quietly into the bathroom, searching blindly for a candle until your fingers find a stick of hard wax, which you light carefully with a piece of flint. The bathroom is illuminated in the soft orange glow of candlelight and you make your way over to the porcelain bath, where you test the taps eagerly, delighted when clean water begins to fill the tub.

It's been more than three days since you have been able to do more than wipe your face clean with a rag, so you strip off your clothes in record time and sink into the cool water of the bath with a sigh. You pick up a bar of soap, which smells faintly flowery, before lathering your hands and beginning to wash, knowing that you don't have much time to waste until you will need to join the commander and her army at the gates.

You feel a thrill shoot down your spine at the thought, as you scrub your dirty blonde hair with soap, of returning to your city with an army at your back. You think of all the people you left behind, living, dead and wounded, and scrub your hair faster with a new sense of urgency.

You have wasted too much time already in this horrid city and you're more than ready to return home.

I'm coming, Luna.

After rinsing the soap from your hair and body, you empty the bath and wrap a soft towel around your dripping body, glancing briefly at your dirty clothes that rest in a pile on the floor. You shake your head at the dirty leather and continue into your room, where you open the wardrobe and search through the abundant amount of clothes inside. You wonder briefly who they belong to as you settled on a pair of black leather pants which cling to your legs, paired with a flowing, sleeveless white shirt, that you tuck in at the front but leave the soft fabric hanging at the back. The outfit showed off your toned arms, with carefully chosen tattoos curling around your biceps, mostly black, but with hints of dark blue weaved within the dark lines. You throw a padded, black leather vest over your shoulders before you strap your sword into the sheath on your back and attatch your many daggers upon your person, giving yourself a glance in the mirror on your way out of the room and nodding in approval.

You're still redoing the last of the braids in your hair as you trot down the last flight of stairs, where you find Lexa waiting with a small group of warriors, Indra and Ryder included, standing by the front door.

"Clarke," Lexa greets you as you come to a stop before them, letting your fingers drop from your hair as the commander's eyes rake over your form with a hint of surprise. She's looking at you as if you're a completely different person and you suppose it's not far from the truth.

"Commander," you return stiffly, clasping your hands behind your back and standing tall, while wondering if you're imagining the approving look that Indra is giving you from your peripheral vision. "Is everything ready?"

"Yes; Ryder will take you to the gates," Lexa said, her hand resting casually on the pommel of her sword. "I will meet you there shortly. I must speak to Saka before we depart."

"Where is she?" You ask, having found yourself curious of the women's wearabouts. Where does one keep their possibly traitorous wife when they're about to leave for battle?

"In holding." Lexa finally answers after a few uncomfortable moments of silence. "I admit that I confronted her once I spoke to you yesterday, and when my questions drew naught from her, I was forced to have her contained."

"She said nothing?" You ask, surprised, though you shouldn't be. The Azgeda warriors that you had met so far hadn't exactly been talkative, especially without prompting. "Nothing at all?"

Lexa merely tilted her head. "It is our nature to keep silent when questioned, since silence can both condemn you or save your life. It is possible that she knows nothing of the attacks, but it is also true that she may simply being unwilling to divulge what she knows to me, or her part in them. Either way, she knows that if it is true that her clan has broken the contract of the coallition, her life as the Azgeda prisa is more or less forfeit, and it is better for her to hold her tongue."

You repress a shudder at the way that Lexa speaks so casually, as if the thought of sentencing her own wife to death was of no concern to her, but then you remember the way she left you so easily on the mountain and you can't help trying to reconcile this woman with the one you saw last night. You wonder how many faces the commander has, and you wonder who she truly is, beneath all the facades that she wears like armor.

You doubt that you will ever find out.

"Would you let me speak with her?" You ask, earning a suprised and slightly suspicious look from the commander, even surprising yourself. "Maybe she'll talk to me."

Lexa studies you briefly for a few moments, intensely, before lifting her shoulders in a small shrug and gesturing for you to follow her. You walk quietly behind the woman as she leads you from the house, raising an eyebrow in some surprise when you merely cross the street, stopping in front of a brick building, not far from the small library that you had met in the previous day. Two men stand guard outside the door, one of whom opens it at your approach with a small nod of respect as you pass him by. You walk down a tight, dark corridor, passing by closed doors with your eyes locked firmly on the commander's tense back, stopping when the dark haired woman pauses in front of a door, being guarded by no less than three armed warriors.

You watch as Lexa hand hovers briefly over the door handle, before she suddenly reaches out to grasp it, throwing the door open and striding inside with her head held high, while you tentitavely follow.

You have only seen Saka kom Azgeda once, on the night of her bonding ceremony to the commander almost four years ago and she's as beautiful now as she was back then.

It is obvious with only a glance to tell that she is from the northern clans, situated up in the mountains where the weather is always cold and snow falls more often than not. Her white blonde hair is long, flowing over her shoulders in intricate braids and intertwined with colourful beads and feathers. It's surrounds her finely featured face, with pale skin, creamy white and smooth like marble, stretched tight over sharp cheekbones that are dusted with a pink flush from the heat. Her pink lips are pale and full, pursed as she studies your form in return, with cold eyes that are so pale, they're almost colourless except for the tiniest hint of blue. She's dressed in white furs that cover a thin but strong body and you can see that she would easily stand an inch or two higher than you, as your eyes trail over her long, long legs that are crossed at the ankle.

You think briefly that if the commander had to marry a possible traitor, at least she was fucking stunning.

"Aleksandria," Saka murmurs, her voice smooth and cool as her eyes flick towards her wife, who stands stiffly to your left, before returning back to you. "You did not tell me that we had such an honourable guest staying in our home."

"Saka," Lexa says the name, without a hint of warmth and you glance at her wide eyed to take stock of the cold, emotionless expression on her face with a hint of surprise. "This is-"

"Klark kom Skaikru." Saka finishes for her wife, her eyes flicking appreciatively over your leather covered form, sending a cold shiver down your spine as she appraised you. "Strange, how one so beautiful has killed so many, no?"

You hold her gaze, even as you feel your entire body stiffening at her words, your hand unconciously reaching for the knife sheathed at your waist. Saka's eyes follow your movements and her lips lift up in an amused smirk as you drop your hand back at your side.

"Saka, I leave now with my army to travel to Thera," Lexa says and her voice takes on an almost pleading note, as she takes a step closer to the woman sitting on the floor, still managing to look somehow regal in her position. "Is there anything that you wish to tell me before I go?"

Saka merely looks up at her wife with cool eyes, saying nothing, before Lexa finally sighs and shakes her head, turning away to meet your eyes. She tilts her head as she gazes at you, before striding past you to stand in the open doorway, her green eyes burning into Saka's from across the room. You catch Saka's stare when it finally returns to you and you take several steps forward, before crouching down until you're eye to eye with the other woman, clasping your hands before you. You appraise each other, for several minutes in silence, and you ignore the sound of Lexa shuffling at your close proximity from her place behind you.

"I have lived in Thera for almost four years now," you finally say with as much nochalance as you can manage, staring at the pale eyed woman who gazes back at you curiously in silence. "I met a woman in the woods, after visiting the dropship where my people and I landed, and she took me there because she thought that Thera would be good for me. I was hurting and I needed a place to rest and Luna kom floukru took me in, even though I had nothing to offer her. She gave me a bed and she fed me and she had her captain train me in the ways of the sword and she gave me a home, something that I've never had since I stepped foot on the ground."

"Luna is a good woman," Saka comments when you pause, with a hint of warmth in her tone. "I have never seen one other than the commander that can hit a target with a dagger so accurately from such a distance as she can."

You tilt your head in acknowledgement at her words, letting a small smile tilt your lips. "She is a good woman, and the floukru are good people; I've made many friends in Thera." You say the words softly, even as the smile slips from your lips and your eyes harden. "And right now, my friends are dying because your people are attacking them. I have captured Azgeda warriors and I have cut into their flesh until their screams were the only things I could hear ringing in my ears, and do you know who they told me sent them? Nia kom Azgeda. Do you know anything about that?"

You watch as Saka's eyes soften momentarily at the mention of your friends, before hardening once more, and it surprises you. There is nothing in her gaze or expression that leads you to believe that she knows any information about what her mother has been doing. For the very first time since your people were attacked, you wonder if Saka has anything to do with it, or if she is just an innocent woman who might be put to death because of her mother's mistakes.

When the other woman says nothing, continuing to simply stare back at you in silence, you shake your head slightly as you admit defeat. You move to stand but before you can, Saka finally speaks.

"It must have been very hard for you," Saka says softly, her words sympathetic as she gazes at you with her pale blue eyes searching your face. "To finally find peace, only to have it snatched from your grasp."

You feel a lump form in your throat and you swallow heavily, saying nothing as you stare back at the other woman who shakes her head almost sadly. You try to cover up the hurt you feel, the pain caused by those words that hit home harder than Saka probably knows, but you think you fail if the expression on the other woman's face is anything to go by.

"I wonder how it must have felt for you, Clarke," the woman murmurs, and your brows begin to furrow as her voice drops lower until it's barely a whisper and her eyes become cold as she stares at you with a morbid sense of curiousity. "Tell me, was it painful for you when my mother's captain drove his sword through Isandra's chest? She was your lover for a short time, was she not?"

You feel frozen at the other woman's words as they slip into your heart like ice, your hands clenching into fists where they rest on your thighs as you stare into Saka's eyes, while a cold smile spreads across the pale woman's beautiful face.

"My men tell me that you fought very honourably; they say that you cut down six of our warriors in your fight to get to her, but you were too late." Saka gives a mocking sigh of sadness, her hand reaching up to cover her heart as she shakes her head with pity. "You managed to save Luna though, did you not? When one of my men managed to pierce through her shoulder with his spear? But again, you were not fast enough to save Dren or Kado, and poor Mishka, she died in your arms-"

Saka's next words are cut off as your hands shoot out to wrap tightly around her throat, where you squeeze the pale flesh beneath your fingers as tightly as you can. Your entire body is shaking with the weight of her words, with all the deaths that weigh so heavily on your shoulders and you just want to destroy something. You barely notice Saka's pale hands scrabbling against your forearms, or her fingernails that leave bloodied gashes on your hands as you continue to squeeze tighter and tighter, keeping your eyes locked firmly on her pale gaze as you squeeze and squeeze-

Until strong hands wrap around your bisceps and wrench you bodily away, pulling your hands from Saka's throat and leaving the pale, beautiful woman gasping and retching on the stone floor.

"Clarke." Lexa's hoarse voice whispers raggedly in your ear as you struggle against her hold, but you barely hear her, your entire focus on the Azgeda prisa who now looks up at you from her position on the floor, with a mixture of fear and awe in her eyes.

"Ai na frag yu op," you hiss in trigedasleng, earning another surprised glance from Saka at your use of the language, at the ease in which it slips from your lips. "Ai na frag emo op! Ai na jus daun."

You throw off Lexa's hold with an angry snarl, which had tightened slightly on your arms as you spat your hateful words at her wife. You push past her, ignoring the hand that reaches for you as you stride from the room with a scream building in your chest. The guards watch you with wide eyes, filled with awe as you storm out of the building and into the cool dawn air. You pause just outside, ignoring the curious looks thrown towards you by the guards stationed at the door, and lean down to rest your hands on your knees, breathing heavily. It takes several long moments for the red to slowly recede from your vision and you can feel the newly healed scars on your back pull from the way your body is positioned, a constant reminder of the lives that have ended on the edge of your blade. You lean over further, feeling your muscles tensing and pulling the scars so tight that you wonder briefly if they will rip right open, leaving your back drenched in blood.

You straighten when you hear the door open and close behind you, followed by the warmth of the commander's body as she pauses behind you. You can feel her hesitation, can the feel the warmth of the hand that hangs above your shoulder, ready to offer comfort, but you move away before it can touch your skin.

"The sun rises," you finally manage to say, your voice sounding as if from far away as your heartbeat continues to pound loudly in your ears. "It's time to go."

You don't look back once as you begin the walk to the city gates, but you can feel Lexa's gaze burning in between your shoulder blades for the entire duration of the short journey.

/

When you finally reach the gates, Indra is waiting for you, her dark eyes unreadable as she studies your approaching figures. Her gaze finally stops to rest on Lexa and she tilts her head slightly as she studies her commander, seeming to read her thoughts if her next words are anything to go by. "She knew."

Lexa doesn't say anything, simply nods her head sharply in reponse before striding off into the masses of warriors that are crowded inside the gates. You watch her go, standing by Indra's side and note the way she walks so confidently, with her head held high and her back straight as she barks orders, like she hadn't just found out that her wife had betrayed her.

"You aren't surprised," you finally say, when Lexa disappears into the mob, turning your head to face Indra who is watching you carefully. "Neither of you are."

It's not a question, but Indra answers you anyway. "No, we are not."

You shake your head, feeling more than a little bit confused and even more overwhelmed. "I don't understand."

Indra is still watching you, quietly with a flicker of thoughtfulness in her eyes, as if she's considering something, before she finally speaks. "Heda did not have the choice to marry for love, sky girl. Azgeda took that desicion from her when they threatened to break the coalition."

You know the story, at least some of it, from Luna's own lips, but you ask anyway. "What do you mean?"

"Nia kom Azgeda desires nothing more than power," Indra offers, her words laced heavily with hatred and barely repressed anger. "When she threatened to break her part of the coalition, heda was desperate, so when Nia offered a union to make Azgeda and Trikru one, heda could only agree. She might not have been able to take the throne herself, but she got as close as she could, by seating her daughter at the commander's side."

You knew all this, but that doesn't explain the current situation. "But if Nia got what she wanted, why this? And why are you not surprised?"

Indra shrugs at the words, almost casually. "We knew from the beginning that the bonding would only be a temporary fix; Nia is greedy, she would never be content forever to rule only partially through her daughter alone. She wants it all. We knew this day would come, though heda hoped that it would not."

Their is a surprising touch of sympathy in the older woman's words and you find yourself unable to fault the older warrior for it. It's not the most tragic story that you've heard, but you know how much the commander desires peace, and you think it must hurt her to have it all ripped away, especially by her own wife. Even if she was expecting it.

You can only shake your head as you follow Indra through the crowds of warriors, catching a glimpse of your midnight coloured horse standing patiently by a familiar white mare. You stroke Raven's nose, feeling all the remaining tension drain from your body as the mare nuzzles against your hand, snorting softly against your skin.

"Hey, girl," you murmur, taking note of your packs that have been reattatched to her saddle and nodding in satisfaction as you pat the horse's neck. You place your foot in the stirrup and swing gracefully up onto the saddle, smiling slightly as Raven turns you both around in a restless circle.

It's only a few moments later before Lexa is striding through the crowds of grounders, sighing softly when you avoid her gaze before swinging up onto the back of her white mare with a grace born from a lifetime of riding. She gestures to the warriors who stand guard at the gate, her back straightening as the doors begin to swing open, showing the towering trees and the dirt path that you will be following for at least the next three days.

"Gonas kom Polis!" The commander's voice carried easily over the sudden silence as the warriors formed disciplined lines behind her. "Masta ai op, kom wor!"

The organised lines of warriors behind her cried out in response, slamming their weapons or fists against their armor as Lexa glanced briefly over at you, her green eyes sparkling in the day's first rays of sunlight. She tilted her head slightly in your direction before gently pressing her heels against her white mare's sides, urging the horse into action, with Raven's following barely a step behind.

And then you were outside of the gates, with an army at your back and Lexa at your side and it all felt uncomfortably familiar.

You only hoped that it wouldn't end in the same way as before.