Chapter 10
Clarke shook her head. She wasn't some savior for them all. She couldn't be. She was just a girl that was sent down from space in hopes that she might live. This was too much. It would be too much for anyone, but for Clarke, it wasn't just daunting. It was gigantic. It was like this huge burden that she had to take on. And while the reincarnation and rebirth thing was very intriguing, it didn't mean that she wanted to be a part of it.
"Can I get up now?" Clarke asked.
She was done with this conversation. She knew that it was her own fault, but that didn't mean that she wanted to hear more of it. Not now, not after the beating that she took from Ontari. If anything, she wanted to pick up a sword and go beat Ontari with it. She wouldn't. But, that didn't mean that part of her didn't want to do it. If Nia was going to throw her in the pits, she needed to be ready. Ontari would be a good partner to train against, but she would still need Echo's help in training. It wasn't going to be easy. She knew that, but she also hoped that in some of her training against Ontari that she would be able to score a hit against her. That would be better than actually defeating her. Ontari thought she was untouchable. Clarke was going to make her see that she wasn't.
"You want to train, like this?"
"Are you going to stop me?" Clarke asked her.
"No, but I thought with you being a fisa seken, you would take a break."
"We both know that I can't. Nia will be watching and I can't give her an inch. I have to be able to fight. I have to train."
"Okay, okay, let's work on your bow work then," Echo stated as she stood up from the cot.
"No, today, we do swords," Clarke demanded.
"You aren't ready for that, especially in your condition."
"I said: today we are doing swords," Clarke commanded in Trig.
"Just because you are learning the language and can speak doesn't mean that you are going to get your way, Klark kom Skaikru."
"Ai laik Wanheda," Clarke replied.
Echo smiled. Clarke was actually coming into her own as Wanheda. Echo didn't need to tell her that. She could see it. Everyday, Clarke embraced a little more of her true self and everyday, she was one step closer to doing what ever it was that she needed to do in order to save them all. Of that, Echo had no doubt. She could see the heart and spirit of Wanheda in everything that Clarke did, whether the blonde wanted to believe it or not. She was Wanheda.
"And the dreams?" Echo asked.
"Don't bother me as much."
"Do you still talk with the dead?" Echo questioned.
"Every night," Clarke answered.
Echo wasn't sure what to make of this. She'd heard Clarke screaming at the Dead to leave her alone. She apologized to them. The dreams were how the Dead communicated with her. Their spirits coming to her when she was the most vulnerable and haunting her. They knew that they could weaken her this way, and in the beginning, Echo could see that it was taking its toll on the younger woman. But, now, the only thing really hurting Clarke was Ontari.
"I'll get you to the hot springs later and we'll soak. For now, dress as warmly as you can. I'll be back with some breakfast. After you eat, we'll go work on your bow work and then, if the sun is out today, we'll go to the sparring grounds to work on your sword work."
"Why outside in the cold?" Clarke asked.
"Because you'll body will be numb. You'll keep moving to stay warm. If you are doing this, you won't feel any of the pain that would make you stop fighting."
Clarke just nodded. It was a sound theory. She would just have to find a way to stay warm enough. Anger towards Nia and possibly Ontari wasn't going to be enough. And, there wasn't enough wine in all of Azgeda to get her drunk enough to want to be in the snow that long.
Weeks in Azgeda had taught her enough about the perils of the snow, and she wasn't ever really in it. She'd seen frostbite and dead tissue on the Ark, but the Ark had nothing on Azgeda. Many of the royal guard were missing toes or finger tips. These people had adapted to these harsh conditions and they did so, it seems, almost willingly. They supported each other and believed every lie that fell from Nia's mouth. These people didn't know what lay beyond their borders. They didn't know that they could have more help, more medicines, more harvest, if Nia would only ask. The only people who knew that life was a little easier outside of the Azgeda borders were the warriors who fought (lived and breathed Azgeda until death), diplomats (who would be killed and lose their status and riches if they talked), and Nia's spies (none of which were dumb enough to piss Nia off and risk their death or their families, too). She'd come to hate the snow. It was cold and wet. It was blindly white. And, it was keeping her inside much too much.
She longed to see the sun and feel it on her face. She longed to see a tree that wasn't being burned in the palace. She longed for something that she couldn't have. She didn't want to name it. She still wasn't ready. She hadn't found a way to make sure that Lexa didn't die. She hadn't protected the innocents of Mount Weather. And, she damn well wasn't going to save anyone this time when Praimfaya came for them all.
Those weeks had also taught her that she was good with a bow. It may have been her teacher, but she realized that she could hit things with pinpoint accuracy. She wondered if it was the little bit of training that she had with a gun that helped, but the fundaments were different. It wasn't just pointing and shooting. She found that she had a knack for it. Echo complimented her on her shooting often enough for Clarke to realize that it wasn't just lip service that she was getting. She was actually good. She just hoped that she would be able to retain this skill when she woke up again in her next life. Being able to hunt would help her greatly in quest for peace and salvation.
Echo came back into the room with two bowls of some sort of porridge. Clarke learned not to ask what she was being given to eat. There were some things that she just didn't need to know what they were. They could taste good without her needing to know what animal it came from. Plus, after the Mountain, she didn't eat a lot of meat, knowingly. She knew that Echo had been sneaking it in, and she was grateful for it. So, they'd both just kind of silently agreed not to say what they were eating and just eat it. Clarke took the bowl and spoon and ate. There was nothing more that needed to be done in that moment.
When they were done, Echo took the bowls and set them on the sparsely covered table. She looked over the drawings that Clarke had made. She didn't ask how Clarke came by the parchments and coal. She knew that it wasn't a reward from Nia, but Nia wasn't restricting her from having it, either. The drawings were of the guards of the palace, rooms in the palace, and some of the weapons that she used. There were even a few of some armor that looked really promising. Echo didn't realize that she was staring at the armor drawings until Clarke was beside her.
"These are good," Echo told her.
"They are just doodles. Something to pass the time after dark while I wait on sleep to take me. Drawing helps me remember, too."
"Remember?" Echo questioned.
Clarke sifted through some of the drawings until she came upon a few that were portraits of sorts. She leafed through those until she dropped a few in front of them. Pointing to the first one, she looked deeply into Echo's eyes because she watching Clarke more than normal that morning.
"This is my father. He would have loved the ground. He was trying to save us. He is the reason that I ended up down here. He found the flaw in our tech that was slowing causing us all to die up there in the stars. The Council was afraid of riots and rebellion, so they killed him and locked me away," Clarke stated before pointing to another. "That's Raven and Octavia. They are the closest thing that I have to sisters. Octavia is an illegal second child. Bellamy, one of the ones that helped rescue you, is her older brother. They are so different it isn't funny, but everyone can tell that they love each other fiercely. They lost their mother, executed, just because Octavia was born. She was slated to die on her eighteen birthday or eighteenth winter.
"And, that's my mother," Clarke said as she pointed to another picture. "This is Madi. She's my daughter, or would have been my daughter. She'll be alone in a few months in a world that she won't understand. I want to help her, but I can't. I know that she'll suffer because of my selfishness, but..."
"Where is she now?" Echo asked.
"In Shallow Valley," Clarke replied.
"And, you can't save her?"
"I can't save anyone, Echo. In less than five or four months, I am not even sure right now, the world will end again. I can't save it."
"That is how you know that Nia's reign will end?" Echo questioned.
"Sha, and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it, not even your great Wanheda. The world is doomed. Praimfaya will come and lay waste to every living thing on Earth. Nothing will be immune to it. We will all burn, and rightfully so," Clarke lamented.
"There has to be something that we can do. You're Wanheda. You command Death, command this."
"I told you, Echo. I am not some mystical being. I can't command anything but men who want to be commanded. And, no one wants me to command them. I am an untrained and untested. No warrior would follow me. I'm not Heda. I have no power. I am just a healer that knows things," Clarke stated.
"You are so much more, but you still have yet to accept it," Echo told her.
She picked up the designs for the armor. She held them up and really studied them. She could see Clarke's healer's touch in them.
"I am taking this to one of the armorers. You will need armor for the Ice Pits. What better armor then armor you've designed yourself."
"I don't guess I could go with you on this trip?" Clarke asked.
"We will find them after lunch when the sun is higher and the ground a little warmer. I know just the man and woman to see. They will make you glorious armor," Echo explained. "But, first, we will go train."
Clarke just nodded. She was glad that Echo didn't ask more about her drawings. She knew that the older woman had to have seen the pictures of the blistered children from the Mountain. She had to have seen the drawing of Finn on the tree where she gave him mercy. She had to have seen so many things that plagued Clarke's dreams and thoughts. Thankfully, she said nothing. Clarke figured that the more she drew, the more she could get out of her head. IT was a form of memorializing what happened and working through the pain and anguish that all her decisions gave her. She was forgetting them. She couldn't, but with each drawing, the pain lessened and the dreams weren't so chaotic and horrible. She was healing, but she wasn't forgetting what she had to do to get where she was. Clarke never wanted to forget. Some of the drawings weren't even from this lift time, but Echo would never know that. She didn't need to know that. So, Clarke didn't volunteer that information. The drawings were for her and her memories.
She knew that if Nia could ever know what they really represented, she'd burn them all. Hell, she still might. But, Clarke would just draw them again. Clarke would continue to memorialize them all until she fingers quit working or she didn't have a medium in which to use. Clarke wondered what Nia would do if she drew her with one of Heda's guard's spears in her chest after the failed fight against Roan. Would Nia see it as a memory or a prediction? Clarke wasn't willing to find out. Drawing was helping her not go crazy in the snow bound palace, or in Azgeda in general.
Clarke just followed Echo out of the room. They worked their way through the palace and down to the barracks halls. Clarke knew this route well. She wondered if she could take it blindfolded. She had a map of sorts of the palace in her head, but she didn't know a route to Nia's rooms. She also knew that Ontari's weren't down with hers or even near where Echo was staying. She knew that Echo was technically in "guest" quarters, but Clarke knew better. She was stationed there on the "guest" wing of the palace to spy on any dignitaries that found themselves staying in Nia's palace. She always made sure to watch their route. If Echo knew what she was doing, she never let on. But, then again, Echo always took the same route to the barracks training rooms.
The entered the room and it was empty. She wasn't surprised. It had been like this for days. She knew that it wasn't just because some of the guards had gone to their homes to celebrate. It was because it was the dead of Winter. Nia only kept the guards that had no family around her in the palace for the most part anyway. She knew that way she would always be protected. And, those guards had their own rooms, in their own wing, away from the dungeons and nearer to Nia's quarters. This gave Echo, Ontari, and Clarke pretty much free reign over the barracks training rooms.
"Get a bow," Echo told her.
Clarke went to one of the weapons racks and selected a bow. Echo gathered two quivers of arrows. Neither woman counted how many were in them. Instead, Echo handed her one of them and went to fetch some targets. Clarke picked her spot near a crack in the floor between what looked like slate tiles and actual mountain rock from the cliff that the palace was carved into. It was the same line that Echo used to help her learn to gauge distances. Once she was set, she looked down the long room that doubled as the warriors' mess hall for the barracks, to see that Echo had hung several straw stuffed targets. They were at varying heights and distances. It was meant to be more of a challenge for Clarke. She didn't draw as long as Echo was down range with the targets.
"Are you going to call targets out for me to hit?"
"No, not this time. For now, I want you to hit each one five times. If you can do that in your condition, I will up your training today."
"So, five arrows in each of the targets?" Clarke asked, making sure that she understood what Echo was asking of her.
"Yes, five in each," Echo answered.
Clarke smiled. It was going to be too easy. Echo hadn't demanded that they be kill shots. She just told her that she had to hit each target five times.
Clarke drew her first arrow and knocked it. Her smile faltered a little when she pulled back on the bow string. The tension on the string was normal, but she was in pain. She was using bruised muscles. But, she knew that this would be good training for her. She needed to be able to fight while injured. She knew that they Grounders fought hurt, injured, and damn-neared maimed most of the time. She had to learn to work through the pain if she was going to survive the Ice Pits and Nia. This was just another test for her to see if she could do it. Learning how to fire a bow and becoming very proficient at it was just a plus.
She struggled to get the string completely back. She wasn't going to let it stop her though. She pulled it back and took aim at the first target closest to her. Her arms were shaking with tension, fatigue, and pain and she found the target. She knew that Echo was watching her more than the targets at this point. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. As she was breathing out, she let the string go firing the arrow from the bow down range to the target.
She dropped the bow just a little to watch the shot. It hit. And, it just didn't hit the target. It was a kill shot, a heart shot, to a man that could be easily three times the size of Clarke (think Gustus). She let out another breath and turned to look at Echo.
"Good, now do that five more times," Echo told her. "Let's see how many kills you can make today before your arms turn to jelly."
Challenge accepted, Clarke thought as she drew another arrow and knocked it on the bow.
