There were two things known to Lexa in that very moment. The first was that she was very much naked and bare to the world, and the second was that she had no idea where the voice had come from.
Heat flushed her cheeks, her heartbeat seemed to be screaming in her chest but for some reason she couldn't move, couldn't take a step back or a step forward and for the first time in her entire life she knew exactly what a mouse cornered by a cat must feel like.
As if on cue the quietest of chuckles broke the silence and Lexa's eyes snapped to the far side of the pool as a shimmering silhouette began to come into view. Lexa's mouth felt dry and she didn't know what to do as she realised Heda remained almost entirely submerged within the searing heat. Water lapped at the woman's chin, her hair fanned out around her shoulders as it was possessed by the water and steam swirled around her as if commanded by some unseen force.
In that moment, as Heda's eyes seemed to take her in, Lexa realised just how bare she was. She knew she blushed as she moved one of her arms across her chest, the other placed awkwardly down below her waist in an awkward attempt at regaining some modesty.
It wasn't even so much that she was embarrassed about being naked, that Heda had seen all. She was used to bathing amongst others in the Ark's shared facilities. But it was the fact that she had screamed, that she had made a fool of herself and that Heda watched her with predatory glint in her eyes.
"You would be more comfortable if you entered the water," Heda said quietly, and Lexa could still hear the hints of mirth colouring the woman's tone as she came to a gentle stop somewhere in the pool's centre.
Lexa took a second to consider what could go wrong with sharing a bath with a reaper. She considered what could happen if she refused, and she wondered what could happen if she were to turn, to try to get away from Heda. But as she looked down at her body, at the sweat, mud, dirt and days worth of grime that still covered her flesh, she knew a bath would do her good.
And so Lexa took in a deep breath, awkwardly shuffled to the edge of the pool and began to step down.
Lexa's toes curled as the searing heat of the water enveloped her, she let out a groan somewhere between pleasure and pain as her tired muscles twitched and she awkwardly lowered her leg deeper and deeper into the water in search of the heat.
Her movements were made doubly awkward by the fact she still tried to cover herself and tried to regain some control over the situation as Heda continued to look at her. But eventually Lexa's leg dipped low enough that the step she searched for gave her foot a place to stand. The water now lapped at her upper thigh, it made her skin pebble and she took in just another deep breath before she stepped down with her other leg and inelegantly submerged herself into the heat. The water stole her breath, it made her lungs constrict and she tried not to flinch as she came to sit on the step as heat settled over her upper chest.
Lexa realised then that she had directed her vision away from Heda and that she couldn't meet the woman's gaze without feeling her cheeks flush. But she fought down whatever embarrassment she felt as she made herself look the other woman in the eyes.
It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but still, it seemed bizarre, so very foreign and at times gruesome, unappealing and terrifying. The pale grey of her flesh had become flushed, had become just a little darker with the heat. Heda's cheeks seemed a shade darker and it made the piercing blue of her eyes stand out and seem so very vibrant. Even her hair as it fanned out across the water seemed to radiate a molten gold as she continued to let the water lap at her chin.
The silence began to stretch for an awkwardly long time then, and as Lexa sat on the step, and as her body grew more and more accustomed to the heat, she found herself fidgeting, she found herself unsure of what to do or where to look as Heda continued to study her, continue to take in anything and everything she saw.
"What is your name?" Heda said suddenly, and Lexa heard a curiosity in the woman's voice, she heard an intrigue and something she couldn't quite place.
Lexa wet her lips and tried to think of a reason not to answer. But she couldn't really see a reason why giving up her name would and could be troublesome. She was already starkly naked and sharing a bath with a reaper that she assumed was just as bare as she was a few mere paces from where she sat.
"Lexa," she said and she hated the fact that her voice trembled just a little.
"Lexa," Heda said quietly, the way she pronounced her name clicking just a little as if the woman chewed the letters in her mouth and savoured the sounds that broke free.
"What's yours?" Lexa asked, and she didn't know why she assumed Heda wasn't her name, and she didn't know why she assumed she could get away with asking such a question. But she did.
A smile slowly began to creep across Heda's lips, and Lexa tried not to grimace at the way her teeth glowed and contrasted terribly with the dark of her gums.
"Clarke."
It was an odd name for a woman, Lexa thought, but she'd keep that to herself.
"What are you going to do with me, Clarke?" Lexa asked, and she tried not to sound too worried, and she tried not to sound too confrontational. But as she continued to feel Clarke's gaze pierce into her very body, she thought herself at less risk with each passing second.
"I have not yet decided," Clarke said with a shrug, a single well defined shoulder raised out of the water the only movement she made.
"Are you going to kill me?" Lexa asked.
"No," Clarke answered and her voice seemed to waver somewhere between chuckle and sigh.
"Are you going to let me live?" Lexa asked, and she knew Clarke understood the difference between not being killed, and actually being allowed to live.
Clarke paused though, and Lexa found that she could almost see the woman's thoughts moving behind her piercing blue gaze. But then Clarke's head tilted to the side, and if it had been any other situation Lexa would have found it funny just how openly puzzled Clarke appeared in that moment.
"Where do you come from?" Clarke asked
It didn't surprise Lexa when Clarke asked. She had expected to be questioned, to be interrogated for information. What did surprise her though was the way this information was seemingly trying to be discovered. But she wouldn't complain about not getting beaten. Sharing a bath with a reaper must have been far better than the alternative. Even if she found it so very awkward.
"Space," Lexa said simply, and she gestured upwards with a hand before letting it sink back into the water.
Something between understanding and curiosity coloured Clarke's gaze and Lexa found herself feeling like Clarke understood more than she let on, or at least grasped more than what Lexa could have ever assumed.
"You are not allied with the Mountain?" the question gave Lexa pause, if only because she assumed Clarke spoke of Mount Weather. Despite how relaxed the question was, Lexa assumed whatever answer she gave could change her people's path to salvation. But as she looked at Clarke, as she looked at the woman who appeared at times to be more corpse than living being, she thought lying would be sensed, she thought lying would be considered more insulting and dangerous than telling the truth.
"We didn't know people lived on the ground," Lexa began quietly, and she shifted on the step just a little in the hopes of shaking the intensity of Clarke's gaze.
"Why?" Clarke asked.
Lexa didn't know how much Clarke knew of what had happened. She didn't think much considering the reapers had seemingly regressed socially. Clarke might not even know why her people had become what they were. But Lexa knew that simply not knowing something was no measure of one's intelligence. And more importantly, she didn't think Clarke stupid.
And so Lexa settled for telling her the truth.
"When the world ended, when the bombs fell, some of us lived up in space," and she watched as Clarke nodded just once. "We thought all life ended on Earth. There was too much radiation for anything to live."
"Radiation?" Clarke asked, and intrigue coloured her tone.
Lexa paused as she tried to think of how to explain.
"It's like acid fog," Lexa said. "But invisible."
Clarke nodded an understanding.
"We didn't think anyone could survive on the Earth," Lexa continued. "So we lived up there."
"With tech," Clarke said, and this time Lexa knew Clarke understood more than previously believed.
"Yes," Lexa said.
"Why did you come down?" Clarke asked.
"Our home was breaking," Lexa said. "We needed to come down or we'd die."
Lexa didn't think she needed to go into the intricacies of the Ark's oxygen recyclers slowly failing. And from the way understanding took hold of Clarke's expression, she knew the woman understood enough.
"And what of the Mountain?" Clarke asked.
Lexa paused, if only to gather her thoughts and to figure out how best to answer the question without her head being removed from her shoulders. But she thought telling the truth to be the best course of action. Perhaps even the only course of action she had left.
"We didn't know about them. Until the acid fog. One of them saved my life," an Lexa found herself grimacing at the flash of hate that flowed across Clarke's face. But she wouldn't lie for she knew the only thing she had going for her in that moment was the truth, was showing Clarke that she would answer truthfully and be helpful. "He told us about your people," Lexa continued quietly, and she tried to shirk away from the intensity in Clarke's gaze.
"He told you of my people?" Clarke said, her voice filled with derision and sarcasm now. "What did he tell you?"
Lexa took in a steadying breath before continuing.
"He told us you were reapers," again that flash of disgust filled Clarke's gaze. "He told us you kill his people when they scout for supplies. He told us that you'll ki—"
Clarke surged forward with such speed, with such ferocity that Lexa yelped, she pushed back only to hit the back of her head against the step and splutter as searing water crashed over her face. Somehow, someway, Clarke had closed the distance between them faster than Lexa could have imagined. Anger contorted the woman's face, it made her seem far more savage, far more grotesque and gruesome than before and Lexa's breathing began to quicken with each passing second.
But just as quickly as Clarke had exploded, the woman settled, the woman gentled. And Lexa swallowed, she found her mouth drying and she found her mind turning blank.
It took a second, but as the water's crashing waves calmed, Lexa realised just how close Clarke had come. Lexa didn't notice it at first, but as her beating heart began to ease, she realised Clarke all but sat in her lap. The woman's arms were braced against either side of her head, the water came to just below her shoulders and Lexa could feel the distinct softness of Clarke's inner thighs pressed against the outsides of her knees.
"I am not a reaper," Clarke said quietly, and Lexa couldn't help but to shy away from just how close Clarke's face was to hers in that moment. "The reapers are not my people," and Lexa almost whimpered as Clarke shifted, as she slowly began to rise in the water before her, and she whimpered as the delicateness of Clarke's skin slid over hers, as the friction sent a jolt of arous—
Oh god.
Clarke came to stand before her as water slowly cascaded down her body, down the toned muscle that wove valleys of shimmering and glistening flesh. Beads of liquid heat settled in the curve of her flesh and it made Lexa's mind go blank.
And it was awkward.
It was so fucking awkward.
Lexa didn't know if she should look straight ahead at Clarke's chest. She didn't know if she should look up at her, the angle somehow more intimate than it had any right to be.
Clarke stood in front of her, the water coming to rest just below her waist and Lexa's mind was blank. With Clarke leaning over her, and with her hands braced against either side of Lexa's head, she couldn't help but to stare.
Clarke was very much a woman. So womanly in fact that Lexa found herself unable to comprehend much more than the feel of Clarke's skin as it brushed against hers.
Clarke leant forward even more than, enough that the curve of her breast brushed against Lexa's own chest. The worst part was that Lexa actually fucking whimpered. She didn't mean to, she didn't intend to make a sound, but the situation she found herself in was so incredibly unexpected that the only part of her brain that seemed to be working was the animalistic part that reacted to pure visual stimuli.
But Clarke's lips came to brush against the shell of her ear and Lexa shivered, she closed her eyes and tried to take in a deep breath as Clarke settled over her body for just a second. Lexa could feel Clarke's breath ghost against the side of her neck, she could feel Clarke's body brush against hers in the most tantalising of ways. They were both so close that Lexa had to force her hands to grip her own thighs to stop herself doing something so very stupid.
"I am not a reaper," Clarke whispered so quietly that Lexa almost thought she imagined it.
Lexa's eyes opened and she watched as Clarke stepped back with such elegance that it seemed to Lexa like she was gliding, floating through the water until she came to rest in the centre of the pool. But this time she stood, this time she didn't let the water lap at her chin.
Lexa realised the centre of the pool was only deep enough to rest at hip level, and she tried to force her eyes to not wander, to not dip below Clarke's shoulders, to not follow the water that continued to drip a tantalising path downwards.
From the corner of Lexa's eye she could see a scar that cut into Clarke's chest, she could even spy other smaller scars that etched their way through the woman's body, but she didn't let herself study if only because she didn't want to be caught staring.
"You do not know everything," Clarke said quietly then, and Lexa managed to get her breathing under control enough to clear her throat as she lowered herself into the water until it brushed against her lips, if only because she wanted to disappear, she wanted to explode into a million pieces just to escape how awkwardly she had handled the situation.
"I am not a reaper," Clarke said again, and Lexa's eyes widened when Clarke lifted her hand out of the water to reveal she held a knife.
For the briefest of moments Lexa wondered just where Clarke had been hiding it before her eyes widened further.
"Look," Clarke continued and Lexa's lips parted in shock as Clarke placed the blade against her palm before slicing it across in one elegant motion.
Clarke held her hand upward, palm facing Lexa. The cut was deep enough that Lexa could see sinew, veins and tendons. Black blood spilled from the wound, it coated Clarke's hand and it dripped into the water. The colour made Lexa recoil, it made her flinch, and she didn't know what to say, she didn't know what to d—
She gasped. Before her very eyes the wound began to pull at the edges, it began to twist, stretch and stitch itself together. Lexa shook her head, she tried to clear her vision for she was sure her eyes deceived her. But the harder she looked, the closer she peered, the only thing her eyes saw was the wound as it slowly healed to leave nothing but the black of Clarke's blood in its wake.
"What are you?" Lexa whispered as her eyes took in the blood that coated Clarke's arm, that dripped down her body and splashed into the steaming water with a quiet drip.
"A nightblood," Clarke said as she slowly began to move forward once more.
Lexa tried to force her eyes to remain glued to Clarke's face as the woman moved forward, the motion of each step tantalisingly teasing Lexa's eyes downwards.
"A nightblood?" and Lexa found the name fitting despite not knowing exactly what a nightblood was.
"The Mountain hunts my kind," Clarke said quietly as she came to stand in front of Lexa once more. But thankfully there was just enough space that Lexa's vision wasn't filled with Clarke's naked body. "The reapers are not my people," Clarke continued. "They are captured by the Mountain, tortured, enslaved, their minds broken until they can not think for themselves."
Lexa remembered how savage, how ghastly, how beastly the reapers had been, and at least that part of what Clarke said lined up with her experiences.
"Why?" Lexa whispered, and she tried to juggle the things Carl had told her with the things Clarke now said.
"To make us fear them," Clarke answered simply. "We out number the Mountain Men ten to one," she and sneered ever so slightly, the expression juxtaposing so vividly with the curves of her body on display. "They can not risk losing their numbers to us so they steal our people and break their minds."
"Why can't you get along?" Lexa whispered.
The laugh that answered her question almost seemed tinged with pity before Clarke lowered herself so that they were at eye level, the water they shared both lapping at their chins.
"What a foolish question," it wasn't so much insult, nor was it something Lexa thought meant to sound so arrogant. Yet it did, and she found an indignation beginning to rise.
Clarke lifted her hand from the water and began to slowly turn it in a lazy arc between them. It took Lexa a moment to realise that Clarke was drawing the water from the centre of the pool to them, and with it the black of her blood that didn't seem to disperse as it should.
"Nightblood is a gift," Clarke said quietly as she looked down at the black of her blood that seemed almost oil-like in substance as it gathered atop the water's surface between them. "It gives me life," she said. "It gives others life," and Lexa grimaced as the image of Clarke slicing open her palm took centre stage in her mind. "Years ago the Mountain Men discovered nightblood," and something between sadness and anger began to colour Clarke's eyes. "They captured one of my kind. Tortured her, bled her dry and used her gift as a source for life," and at that Lexa's mind turned to the vial of black liquid she had seen Carl inject himself with.
And with that the pieces all fell into place.