Chapter 11

For a split second swinging across the river, Clarke forgot what was waiting for her on the other side, she felt a sense of freedom. When the vine got to the other side she jumped throwing her spear and landing on a roll and bouncing to her feet whilst scoping her spear back up. She sees the sign for Mount weather but does not touch it. She turns and looks at the trees where she knows the grounders and watching her from. Time seems to slow as she watches the spear come flying towards her. She steps to the right moving her spear to the left and the spear glances off her spear striking her across the cheek and splitting it open.

Blood starts flowing freely down her cheek, Clarke crouches and shouts to Wells and Octavia,

"Run! Run back to camp now!" Octavia does wait she starts moving, but Wells hesitates until she nods, and he goes. Clarke touches her cheek and pulls her hand away staring at her fingers. The black hot liquid coats her fingers, she stares at it with amazement, confusion clouding her features. The wound is superficial, but the grounders will have seen her blood.

Clarke grabs her spear and the spear that hit her she holds them in one hand and from her crouching position behind a small bush she prepares herself. She senses more than hears the grounder coming up behind her. She tenses and her body reacts, she turns swiping with her leg and then following up with the blunt end of the spear against the grounder's chest knocking him to the ground, she places the spear against his neck,

"I don't want to fight you, and I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. I'm sorry if we have landed in your lands, we didn't have much of a choice, but this isn't an invasion. We are just looking for somewhere to live, somewhere to survive." The grounder stares at her mouth slightly open Clarke doesn't think he heard a word she's said as his eyes follow the trail of black blood seeping from her cheek.

"Natblida" he whispers barely audible; Clarke takes his distraction as the opportunity to run toward the vine. She jumps swinging back across the river when she reaches the other side she jumps rolls straight back to her feet and begins running. Clarke keeps to the trees weaving to make sure there would be no clear shot to hit her as she runs. She makes her way back to camp not stopping or slowing, she feels winded but the exercises she has been doing in her cell have benefitted her. She makes it back to camp just as she hears Wells arguing with Bellamy. She takes a second to listen in, from what she gathers Wells wants to create a search party to find her and Bellamy does not. She catches her breath and steps forward.

"Enough!" Clarke shouts and she emerges from the trees, everyone immediately falls silent and she walks towards them. Wells runs toward her and wraps his arms around her. He touches her cheek,

"Clarke oh my God are you ok? How did you get away? Why is your blood that color?" Clarke pushes Wells away,

"thank you for your concern Wells but I'm fine, I will explain later we have bigger things to speak about."

Clarke walks to the drop ship door, and everyone gathers around.

"First things first we found food and we found water, that's the good news. The next thing is yet to be determined good or bad, I crossed a river and this spear was thrown at me from the trees I was able to doge it otherwise it would have hit me a lot worse." People start shouting out that it's an attack.

"Yes, it looks that way but here's the thing, I felt eyes on me from camp to the river, I thought I was just being paranoid but this confirms I wasn't. they could have attacked us at any time but it wasn't until I crossed the river that they acted. This leads me to believe that this was more of a warning shot, to say 'do not go there!' Another thing I should mention is one of the people approached me I reacted and managed to knock him over before he could do anything. He spoke in an unfamiliar language but something seemed to stop him from attacking me. I took that as my opportunity to escape." Everyone is listening intently waiting for Clarke to continue.

"I don't think he was alone either, but as I ran away I wasn't attacked again. This leads me to believe that we have landed in their territory and they may perceive us as invaders. Now I don't know what this means but we should finish the wall, make sure we always go out with others, and never go out unarmed." Everyone starts shouting questions, Clarke holds up her hand signaling for them to stop, and waits until they are quiet.

"These people have been surviving here since the war there is much we can learn from them for example, this spear is forged steel and the man wore sophisticated leathers and furs, this tells me that there is civilization here. The way this has happened speaks to order, so somebody is in charge. If we can arrange to speak to them, potentially they could help us survive without relying on the Arc, especially come winter." Bellamy seems to perk up at her suggestion of not needing the Arc. Clarke encourages everyone to go back to work and excuses herself to take care of her wound.

Clarke goes over to Octavia,

"Hey, can I have the med kit out of my bag please?" Octavia takes the bag off her shoulder.

"Sure, here you go Clarke, but are you ok your blood is a weird color?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Octavia, my blood is this color normally."

"that's normal?" Octavia looks at her incredulously.

"Yeah, it was an experiment, I gift let's say." Clarke takes the med kit and retreats to the dropship to tend to her cut.