Anya had spent her entire life orbiting the Earth. She had spent her entire life making sure each station could talk to the others without disruption lest her world fall into chaos. At times the Ark felt more like a part of her, something that lived and breathed and kept her alive just as much as she kept it alive.

And so she felt a tinge of sadness, something close to loss and fear. The Ark was in the final stages of being readied for the controlled crashed back down the Earth. Belongings were being stowed away, those critical to their people's future placed in the most secure of places — deep in the middle of the Ark's stations — whilst the few personally trinkets and keepsakes allowed were simply wrapped between old blankets or pressed into ragged mattresses in the hopes that they would survive the crash.

It was strange, too. Anya's mind hadn't been able to settle on one thing for too long. She had found herself trying to figure out, trying to understand just how she was going to get Lexa back. She didn't even know if Lexa was still alive. But hope or belief was the only thing she had left. It was the least — or perhaps the only thing — she could do given the circumstances.

Anya paused in her motions as she looked around her office. Bits of radios were strewn about as they always had been. Some in multiple stages of repair, others too far gone, their only use now as spare parts. Most of the working radios had already been given out to each and every group of people in case something went wrong on their descent — they'd need a way to communicate once on the ground.

"I've finished packing the last of the radios," Octavia's voice broken into her thoughts and Anya looked up to find the younger woman pulling the straps tight across the top of one of many crates.

"Thanks," Anya paused in an attempt to figure out if she wanted to say something else or not.

In truth she didn't think she could say anything else given the circumstances. She found herself in an awkward limbo where their shared fates danced between life and certain death. But she knew she shouldn't worry, there was nothing else for her to do but accept that things were almost entirely out of her control now that they were about to be sent crashing down to Earth.

Maybe that's what she simply needed to do. Perhaps all she needed to do was make a plan for her next course of action, one that didn't take into account any set backs, if only because it would force her to act, to do more than settle for the easy.

"Once we're on the ground we're going to be looking for Lexa and your brother," Anya's voice was firm as she met Octavia's gaze. "We'll make sure camp's set up, we'll make sure we can all talk to each other, Mount Weather, to our people already on the ground. But then we're going to be looking for our missing people."

Octavia nodded her head, perhaps in understanding, perhaps because she already assumed that was what they were going to be doing. But part of Anya suspected that Octavia herself didn't quite know what to do. Not when she had never been given a chance to be more than what she had been for her entire life.

"Sounds like a plan," Octavia said with a small smile.

Wind barely made sound as it whistled through the forest. The only thing Jake could hear over the beating of his own heart was the occasional small creature that darted about through the undergrowth.

Jake and his small scouting party had already dispatched three roaming reaper parties they had come across. Each one as easy to track as the other. Part of him pitied the foul creatures for who they had been and he knew all with him saw it as part of their duty to end the reapers if they were given the opportunity. He knew any would do the same for him should he be captured and desecrated.

He heard the quiet hoot of an animal in the distance and he paused in his act of removing the arrow from the dead reaper's chest. Another hoot came, this one from a warrior to his left. The answer he heard lifted his lips into a satisfied smirk as he pulled the arrow free, the sound just a little too loud for the quiet of the forest.

Jake wasn't surprised that the Mountain was sending more reapers out into the forests. He assumed it an attempt to stop his people from attacking or making contact with the newcomers on the ground. But he didn't think the Mountain knew of their advantages. At least not fully.

But he cast aside thoughts and the anticipation of the coming conflict and he turned his attention to the present. The Commander had tasked him with making sure her presence in Ton DC was still kept secret and the easiest way for him to do that was to kill anyone connected to the Mountain.

It was simple. Almost easy. And so he looked out into the depths of the forest that surrounded him and his small scouting party.

And with that Jake slipped into the shadows, those with him as eager and as ready to kill or be killed.

Clarke remained sitting in her chair, her mind carefree as it thought sifted from scenario to scenario that could take place in the coming days. At times she found herself wondering what she would do if her plans failed, if she had simply doomed her people to a fiery end. At times she wondered what she would do if she was victorious, if her enemies lay dead at her feet. And at other times she simply wondered about nothing in particular.

There was no use worrying over things she could not control, not yet anyway. Maya had grown accustom to her moments of silence, of patience and waiting — perhaps that was one of the reasons why Clarke was content to keep her as close as she was. It was with that thought Clarke looked up from the motes of light she had been gazing upon to find Maya carefully peering out a small crack in the window blinds.

Clarke heard it too, the subtle thump of feet pattering against feet that told her someone approached in a hurry.

"A scouting party, Heda," Maya whispered as she stepped back from the window. "I think they're looking for you."

Clarke simply nodded her head and sat a little more stiffly in her small chair, her legs crossed as regally as the chair could afford. She didn't quite mind how simple her presence was in the small room, in fact she kept it that way, just as she did her presence at Ton DC. She wouldn't risk her people's safety just to feel herself queen of the lands.

A knock on the door came and Clarke heard Gustus announce whoever it was that approached.

"Enter."

Clarke didn't need to say anything else and so the doors opened a crack as three warriors slipped inside, the last casting a furtive glance behind her shoulder as if she still felt the eyes of the Mountain leering over her.

"Heda," the first man said as he bowed his head.

"Tork," and Clarke let her head tilt in recognition before greeted the other two warriors with a quick glance. "You were successful?"

"Yes," Tork said. "Some injuries and the reapers move more freely through our forests," he continued with a quick glance and thanks to Maya who offered him and his companions a beaker of drink each. "Jent is injured most seriously but Nyko thinks he will recover. Treska has been watching their new camp."

"Where is it?" Clarke's mind already began thinking of what she should do with this new information.

"There is a clearing south of snake river's rapids," Tork said and he gestured for the woman to step forward.

"Here, Heda," she said as she offered her small notebook with a detailed drawing of the lands.

Clarke nodded as she took hold of the notebook and let her mind take in this new information.

"How are their defenses?"

"Poor as of yet," Tork continued. "Lincoln and Costia have been been to their first camp where they arrived in their vessel, it is being stripped of some supplies and parts but they both believe it is not being abandoned."

Clarke nodded yet again.

"Their new camp," and she looked at Maya for a moment to wonder what the other woman thought. "How many more people can it house?"

"Perhaps three, maybe four times as many."

"And Jake?" Clarke asked.

"Still leading our scouting parties," Tork said. "He plans to return come nightfall."

"Thank you Tork," Clarke said as she handed back the notebook. "Rest for the remainder of the day and for tonight."

"Thank you, Heda," Tork said as he bowed his head and turned for the door.

Clarke waited until her warriors had slipped out of the small room before she looked at Maya.

"They prepare a new staging ground for the Skaikru," Clarke said and she knew Maya had come to the same conclusion.

"Yes," Maya said with a shrug. "It makes sense. They can finally have a foothold deeper your territory with people who can man it without needing nightblood."

Clarke settled more comfortably into her chair as a small smile began to form on her lips. Though her plan and her next course of action weren't so fully thought-out she knew she had an opening of sorts. All she had to do was put the pieces together before the Mountain Men did.

Lexa had given up asking Ontari where exactly they were going. Part of her thought the other woman simply led them down side street and footpath all in an attempt to disorient and frustrate. And yet she didn't really think Ontari the kind of woman to want to spend more time with people she disliked than she needed.

And so Lexa was content to follow, to stop when prompted and to remain quiet as she took in everything she saw. The deeper they seemingly moved through Ton DC the more she saw of a society that had thrived since the bombs first fell. She could see shops, storefronts and even what seemed to be taverns dot the streets. More people moved about, some with purpose, others perhaps on a day off (if they even had that concept).

There was a charm to the village, it would be easy to think that each building was simply the reclaimed remnants of a once bustling town, but the longer she spent taking it all in the more she found herself understanding the order to the chaos.

Each building was covered in vines or other plant life, some were even built into the backdrop of the forests that spread out as far as the eye could see. Lexa could tell it had all been purposefully constructed over years to deceive any who didn't call it home. She even thought that there must have been hidden entrances in and out of the village that most would never discover, whose purpose was as much a quick lifeline for those soon to be trapped by roaming reaper parties or a way for far more warriors to move in and out of the village than could ever be counted.

"It's so much more than we could have ever thought," Bellamy whispered quietly.

Lexa didn't need to see what Bellamy was looking at to know exactly what he was thinking. It could have been what she thought was a bakery they had passed perhaps one block back, it could have been what seemed to be a climbing wall of trees and vines that had been full of youths clearly honing their skills before being sent to face the reapers or it could have simply been everything they had already seen.

It was another side of these grounders that Lexa hadn't really considered. Of course she had known in the abstract that a less violent half of them could have existed, and yet she hadn't really had the chance to see it. Not when she had been kidnapped, not when she had seen all those warriors underground and not when she had seen children already willing and able to face death without fear.

And the most important thing of all was that she still didn't know what Clarke actually was. Human? Perhaps. Not human? Probably. Lexa needed answers, she needed something more than what she had been told if she was going to throw her people into a war. And yet she couldn't help but to believe the things Clarke had said. Perhaps there was a pull between them, there was an understanding. Lexa wasn't dumb enough to think Clarke didn't plan to use her to gain an advantage, just as she knew Clarke wasn't dumb enough to not think that she was in some way being used herself.

And maybe that was why Lexa felt like she could trust Clarke as much as she did. Simply because they both knew where the other stood. Or at least she thought she knew. It must have been better than what Carl Emerson had offered though. Hadn't he lied to her? Or at the very least omitted far more than what could be excused as a momentary lack of judgement?

If anything, at least Clarke was more intriguing to look at than Carl. They had shared a bath. That had to count for something, right?

And with that Lexa walked straight into Ontari's back. She hadn't realised the other woman had come to a stop and for that Lexa was greeted with a scowl and withering look that made her avert her eyes, mutter a sorry and eye the small building they now stood in front of.

The man — Gustus — who had been shadowing Clarke's every step stood by the simple door, his arms crossed and his eyes taking in everything before him. Lexa couldn't help but to swallow as his gaze lingered on her a little more intently before he inclined his head for them to enter.

It took Lexa's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkened interior as she followed Ontari through the door, Bellamy quick to take up the rear. After a moment Lexa's vision settled and she found herself standing in a small room, hardly a thing occupying its interior. It seemed similar in nature to the one Bellamy had been held captive in and Lexa wondered just how many of these spare buildings existed throughout Ton DC and just what their purpose mus—

"Sit."

Lexa startled as Clarke's voice cut into her thoughts. She found Clarke sitting in a simple wooden chair tucked away in the corner, the shadows of the room all but consuming her figure completely. In another corner sat Maya, the other woman's hands clasped and her gaze focused on Bellamy, perhaps to judge the man, perhaps simply to take in the newcomer.

"Sit," again Clarke's words broke the silence but this time there was a slight edge to it, something that seemed less kind than it had been last time they had shared any kind of space.

The change in tone made Lexa wonder if Clarke had simply been toying with her, if all the odd brevity and coy bravado she had displayed had merely been a mental game of sorts. But as Lexa looked around, from Bellamy, to Maya, to Ontari who stood by the doors entrance and then to the lack of chairs, she thought Clarke's current tone the game, the mirage, the thing hiding away whatever she had seen.

And so Lexa sat on the ground simply because there was nowhere else to sit and Bellamy followed suit, the man content not to be struck or beaten or hit anymore than he must have been already.

"You have a problem," Clarke began quietly, her grey skin hardly seen in the shadow she sat entombed within. "My scouts tell me your people build a new camp that will be large enough to house many times more than what already call it home."

"We don't know anything about that," Lexa didn't really think she needed to defend her people's actions — not for her sake at least. But for some reason she felt a game slowly materialising between herself and Clarke, something where truths and knowns weren't to be shared with others. But for why she couldn't quite tell.

"No," and Clarke's lip seemed to turn up in something close to contempt. "I do not believe you would."

Lexa tried to shake the feeling of being an insect stuck in a spider's web, the floor she sat upon too large for her to hide within, the room too small for her to seek any kind of refuge behind. She knew Bellamy must have felt the same by the way she fidgeted just enough that it threatened to break her attention in half.

"Tell me, Bellamy," Lexa had never heard a name spoken with as much disregard as she just did. "What is your job?"

There was a single, far too long pause as Bellamy seemingly tried to find his voice.

"I—" Lexa sensed more than heard or felt Bellamy swallow. "I was part of the guard."

"Ah," Clarke's single utterance was hard to place, perhaps surprise, perhaps intrigue, perhaps feigned interest. "If you are an example of what your people may throw at us then perhaps there is hope for your people yet," Lexa thought it contempt.

Lexa tried not to shy away from Clarke's gaze as it snapped to her. It was hard, more difficult than it had any right to be. Clarke's gaze was icy, intense, something bordering on the cold and heartless as it glinted in the shadowlight.

"Tell me, Bellamy," his name was spoken with a little less derision. "Have you ever taken a life?"

Lexa didn't know where the line of questioning was going, she didn't know how Bellamy would react. She knew enough about his past, about his mother. But she didn't know enough to feel comfortable with whatever he might do next.

"No," Bellamy's voice was quiet, a little gruff, but there was control in his tone, maybe not as much as Lexa would like to hear, but enough that she knew he wouldn't do anything stupid just yet. "I've never killed someone."

The answer seemed to intrigue Clarke though. Lexa watched as she leant forward a little, enough that her face touched what little daylight streamed in through the shuttered blinds.

"And yet you have seen death," Clarke whispered, her voice just a little softer than before but Lexa didn't think it anywhere near compassion. "There is a war coming, Bellamy of the sky people," Clarke continued. "And your people have the misfortune of being pawns to those who are so much more than you have ever known."