Oops! Forgot the disclaimer!
These characters - except for Tanwen and a few others - all belong to the CW and co. Not mine and not for profit. Samdagger.
Chapter 2
At the Ark camp, Clarke was on the verge of losing her temper. She hadn't realised just how institutionalised they'd become and now they were on the ground, it seemed even worse!
"Mom! You're not listening! 47 of my people are inside that mountain and I guarantee you that they are not safe! Those people are monsters, mom, they take the grounders by their hundreds and stuff them into tiny cages - and I mean tiny!" Clarke said, measuring out the size of those cages. "It won't be long until my people are shoved into them as well."
"Mount Weather has the same technology as us, Clarke, they'll be fine."
"No they won't! Why won't you listen to me! I was in there and I know what it was like!"
"Calm down, Clarke. We'll go and negotiate for the release of our people. You'll see, they can be reasoned with like adults." Clarke stared at her mother in disbelief.
"You are not going to do a damn thing about rescuing those kids, are you? You really are another Jaha! How long until you start killing criminals again? How long until your thugs in uniform start accusing innocent kids again? Are you still going to marginalise us just because we're younger than you?" Clarke was incredulous at the lack of care her own mother was showing.
"Clarke! I'm the Chancellor and you will do as you're told!"
"What are you going to do, mother? Send me to my room? Throw me in the stockade for daring to say no to you? Jaha killed dad and had me locked up in solitary confinement for a year, mom, A YEAR, just for knowing his secret. He called me a traitor and had me put in prison for treason. Tell me, how is knowing something Jaha didn't want anyone else to know about, treason? Did I tell anyone? No, I didn't! He just locked me up. I never committed a crime, mom, and nothing was done to stop it!" Clarke stopped as a thought came to her. She looked around at the crowd that had gathered including Bellamy and Murphy.
"Nothing was done to stop it." Clarke said, quietly. She sighed and turned to her mother. "Why didn't you say anything to anyone else about what he did to me?" Abby Griffin said nothing. "You knew, didn't you? You knew what he was going to do to me and you agreed. Why?" Again, Abby kept quiet so Clarke puzzled it out herself.
"You told Jaha about dad!" Clarke said, her eyes widening in surprise. "It was you! You let me believe it was Wells, but it was you! How could you? To your own husband and your daughter! What kind of monster are you!?" Bellamy and Murphy both took a side of Clarke and held her back from striking her mother. "You disgust me, I hate you! I hate you!" she kept screaming even as Bellamy and Murphy dragged her backwards and out of the area. Finn, who thought Abby was one of the decent councillors, looked at her.
"Your own daughter, Abby? Even my own mother wouldn't turn me in - no matter how much booze she could have gotten for it!" Finn turned and followed Clarke away from the others. Raven looked at Abby with pity.
"You know you've lost her, don't you?" she said to her. "Clarke loved you and you turned her in and turned your back on her. Your own daughter and you do that. How many people here are going to get the same treatment, huh? I respected you, Abby, but right now, I don't like you very much and I don't recognise you as our leader, you've done nothing to prove you can care for our people while Clarke has. She was the one who held us together before you came down. She was the one who came up with the battle plans when we were fighting a war with the grounders - and that's us, the hundred, not you. Not one of you was down here so don't tell me that we can't trust grounders. We went through that and you didn't! This is part of our life experience, not yours. I call for an election! Abby Griffin was not elected, Marcus Kane was not elected, so I say we have a vote to see who can lead us into the future because it sure isn't Abby Griffin. I vote for Clarke Griffin, the leader of the hundred, someone who has proven herself to us!"
"You can't do that!" Abby said.
"Actually we can," Raven said to her. "The exodus charter gives us the right to call an election if no-one has been elected. Jaha stayed behind so that leaves you and Kane, neither elected Chancellors. We have a duty to elect our leader. We are not a dictatorship!" The crowd roared their approval of Raven's suggestion.
"I call for an election!" one man called from the crowd.
"Yeah!" several others yelled in response. Abby was floored. What did she do now? She knew she had no choice but to accede to the election otherwise she would be seen as a dictator. She inwardly wilted. She didn't have a choice.
"Alright, we'll have an election, but only those over 21 can be voted for!" she said, trying to keep power.
"No!" another voice called out. "We are on the ground now and the Ark rules don't apply!" The crowd parted for the wizened old man who approached, using a stick to aid him in walking. The oldest person from the Ark, a 97 year old man, born the very day the Earth was destroyed, stepped forward. "I've watched as the Ark descended into madness with the Chancellor and council doing their best to keep themselves and their families fed and clothed while others were on the verge of starvation. I've watched as the Ark I knew became a dark and twisted place, devolving before my eyes into a dystopian world! Our days as Arkers are over, it's time for the next generation to step forward and take the reins because they are our future, they are the ones who have to make this place work! Any child born to us now will never know what it's like to live in space, they'll have the wide open areas to run in, they'll learn to hunt and forage, they'll learn to track animals, they'll learn a whole load of things we have no clue about and it seems to me that those hundred that were sent down have already started doing that. This is their time, ours is over! The Ark is no more and we are the relics of that time! The children are our future!" More yells and cheers accompanied his speech. Abby was speechless.
"Well in that case, Mr Gorin, why don't you preside over it?" Abby said, conceding ground she never had in the first place. He nodded.
"With pleasure," he said grinning. Abby nodded and walked away while the crowd asked him how it was going to happen.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Clarke was with the rest of the hundred and was calming down a bit.
"That was some performance, Clarke!" Finn said, smirking.
"It wasn't a performance, Finn!" Clarke yelled at him. "It was the truth!"
"But-"
"No!" yelled Clarke. "I will not go back to that role of being a meek and mild, silent little girl that my mother is trying to force me into. We went to war! They didn't! How dare they decide things for us based on their age instead of what we went through!"
"I agree," Murphy said. "Even though I was the cause of so much trouble, I still knew what it was like out there. These people haven't even left their fenceline to go get water and food. The food dispensers still work and there's one large water tank still full of Ark water." Everyone wrinkled their noses in disgust at the thought of having to drink that tainted water of the Ark instead of the pure water right from a river.
"So what do we do?" asked Monroe. Just then, Raven went to them.
"Man, you should have stayed to see the fireworks!" Raven crowed.
"What?" Clarke asked.
"I called for an election because Jaha stayed on the Ark and neither of the two Chancellors on the ground so far, were ever voted in!" Raven was grinning. "And then Mr Gorin spoke up when Abby tried to impose a 21 age limit on who can be Chancellor. He came right up to her and said no. He then went into a speech about how we children were the future and that we'd been down here learning to hunt and stuff and they weren't part of that! Abby conceded and now we're having an election!" Raven laughed.
"And what happens if Abby wins or someone else with a hidden agenda does?" Murphy asked.
"We just make sure Clarke wins. With her as Chancellor the rest of them have to live with her decisions. We can get our people back, guys!"
"Who's organising it?"
"Mr Gorin. Abby made it a condition to the election and he grinned as he accepted. That guy's on our side, he'll make sure it's a fair election."
"But you just said…" Monroe trailed off. "Oh, you mean we campaign for Clarke to be the leader of us," she said, finally getting it.
"Yup, we make sure that everyone knows what Clarke did for us, and that goes for you too, Bellamy. We may have to tell them how epic a dick you were in the beginning to see Clarke was looking out for us, but hey, it's all for a good cause," Raven said grinning as the others burst out laughing.
"You gonna tell them I shot Jaha?"
"No, they don't need to know that. If anyone asks, we just say that Shumway decided it was you and he's well known for lying."
"He was the one to set it up, though."
"So, that just proves that he's a liar. He blackmailed you into shooting him and then he went and told Kane it was you."
"I was the only adult on the Ark unaccounted for, Clarke, it was a process of elimination."
"No, actually it was a process of finding a scapegoat. You said it yourself, you were off the Ark so blaming you was the easy part, you weren't there to refute it. What happened when you told Jaha who was behind it?"
"He had Shumway arrested," Bellamy said.
"Exactly, and who got you to shoot him? And who told Kane it was you? He was covering his own back. We now know that he was part of Diana Sydney's group of rebels and they took the exodus ship without decoupling first, killing almost a thousand Arkers in the process. None of them cared about the Ark or the people in it, they were only looking after themselves!" Clarke was vehement in her defense of him. Bellamy took a few moments to calm himself. He'd just realised what an idiot he had been in not telling them from the start and trying to get them to take their wristbands off so the Ark thought they were dead.
"Thank you," he said to Clarke, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. He'd support Clarke over any of the Arkers any day because she had proven herself. She had organised and helped people to overcome the difficulties they encountered on the ground. She'd saved Jasper from dying when he wanted to kill him just to shut him up and she'd saved Finn from the poisoned knife Lincoln had stabbed him with. He nodded, he had a lot to make up for and helping Clarke to win the election was the first step.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Tanwen woke up a few hours later to find Lexa wrapped around her. She was startled at first and then remembered the dream she had when Lexa came to her bed and laid down. It wasn't a dream but a half remembered, fuzzy, sleep-deprived memory. She smiled to herself and stayed where she was, after all, Lexa made an excellent heater! Tanwen closed her eyes again and snuggled deeper into Lexa's embrace. She sighed quietly and fell asleep once more, safe in the knowledge that the Commander wouldn't let any harm come to her while she slept.
The Commander though was still awake. She was enjoying the feel of another woman in her arms and she hadn't realised how much she'd missed it. It wasn't just any woman though, but Tanwen, her firebrand. Anya had told her of what had happened with the two Skai boys and how much she'd yelled at one of them because he was an idiot thinking the grounders had kidnapped the skai girl. She remembered what she heard when standing above the grating to the dungeon and overheard what they talked about. She tightened her hold slightly when she felt Tanwen snuggle closer and her heart leapt at the thought that maybe Tanwen felt something in return. She was looking forward to finding out! Lexa smiled to herself and felt herself drifting back to sleep with thoughts of the girl in her arms and knew she'd do anything to protect her.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
The next day, Tanwen woke up in an empty bed. She looked around but didn't spot Lexa. She got up and dressed and went out into the main part of the Commander's tent. Anya was sitting on the platform.
"Hey, Anya, what are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to rise," she replied.
"Alright, I'm up. What now?" Anya smirked.
"First I'll show you where you can go to relieve yourself and then we'll get some food." Tanwen nodded.
"Where's Lexa?"
"The COMMANDER," Anya said, stressing her title, "is talking to some of her generals."
"Okay, let's go, I'm hungry." Anya led her out of the tent and immediately two female warriors followed them. Tanwen looked over her shoulder at them.
"What are they doing?"
"The Commander has assigned them as your bodyguards. She cannot use her own so she's checked out each person and these two passed her test."
"I get bodyguards?"
"Sha, you're uniting with the Commander, so that makes you a very important person."
"It'll take some getting used to." She turned to the bodyguards. "Please bear with me as I adjust to your presence," she told them.
"You're not going to fight against them?" Anya asked, having thought she'd not want them.
"Like you said, the Commander has them, so I'll have to put up with them. After our meal though, can you tell me what's happening today? I need to get to know my bodyguards."
"Sha."
"Sha? Does that mean yes?" Anya smirked again.
"Sha."
They went about their business and then sat down with some food beside one of the fire pits used for cooking. Her two guards stood four feet away, keeping everyone away.
"That's quite handy for when I want peace," Tanwen said, watching them.
"You are not what I thought you were," Anya said.
"Why? What did you think I was?"
"Soft, weak, basically unable to think for yourselves. Lincoln told us about what he watched the first two days you came down. He saw goufas running around, yelling and shouting without a care in the world."
"Yeah, well, we were always told that no-one survived the war, that those in the Ark were the last of humanity, so when we were sent down - against our will - there were no people on the ground. We could do what we wanted, go where we wanted because there were no people left alive on the ground. Don't forget we were all prisoners due to be killed when we turned 18. We were free of the Ark and anything they wanted us to do, we decided not to - sort of. Clarke took four others towards Mount Weather because there was supposed to be supplies in there, but Jasper got speared by one of your people and they came back and got a rescue party together and went and got him. That was our first knowledge of people living down here."
"But you started the war between us?" Anya said, frowning.
"No we didn't. Jasper being speared was the first instance, then Lincoln kidnapped Octavia. He was trying to heal her but never let on that he could speak our language. She escaped and he brought her back to the cave and chained her to the wall, that was the second instance. Then when we went to rescue Octavia, Bellamy knocked him out - or he thought he had, but Lincoln stabbed Finn with a poisoned knife and that was why Bellamy and some others went out to get him and drag him back to the dropship. The fact that Lincoln had a journal with 102 tally lines with the correct amount of our dead already struck off meant that he'd been watching us. From Bellamy's point of view, he was picking us off, or he was going to. Octavia is his sister. How would you act if it was the other way around?" Anya was silent for a few minutes while she worked her way through it.
"We would act the same," she admitted.
"So we didn't start the war, your side did." Anya nodded. Tanwen looked around and saw warriors training.
"Don't suppose I could learn weapons, could I?" she said wistfully.
"You want to?"
"Yeah, the guns aren't gonna last beyond the ammo running out so we'll have to learn your weapons eventually. I'd just like to learn them now."
"Maybe after the union you can. You'll be Trikru then and one of us. You'll have to talk to the Commander about it." Tanwen nodded.
"So what now?"
"Indra's organising the union for the day after tomorrow."
"Is there anything special I should be doing?"
"You need new clothes - our clothes."
"I don't have anything but what I'm wearing. We were sent down with only the clothes on our backs. No weapons, no food or water and no tools. Whatever we had, we made ourselves." Anya looked at her, unable to conceive of people who would send children to the ground with nothing. She was sure that if Tanwen hadn't already killed Jaha, she'd do it herself!
"I will get you some," Anya said.
"Thank you," Tanwen said.
"Mochof, it's how we say thank you," Anya explained.
"Mochof, Anya," Tanwen said and a smile split Anya's face upon hearing Trikru words from a Skai girl.
"Indra will tell you what you need to do, but if you need help, come see me," Anya said.
"Won't you be busy running this place? Aren't you the Chief?"
"I was, but when I was captured, someone else had to take over. Indra was next in line and the Commander had already agreed. Now that I'm seemingly back from the dead, Indra is still the Chief."
"So what happens to you?"
"I have no idea, but with this union, I may be sent to your camp as a guide or something."
"Good luck with that!" Tanwen said. "I've never been there but if the adults are there, I don't really want anything to do with it! They threw me away once, I won't give them a second chance!"
"We have to work together to take that mountain, Tanwen," Anya said.
"I know, but right now, it's a little too raw."
"Well, you'll be well protected. As the Commander's houmon, you have a special status, not to mention every warrior within the clans knows to protect you."
"How many bodyguards would I have?"
"If the Commander had her way, you'd be surrounded with them so no possible attack can come to you without getting through them first."
"I'm happy with just two, any more and I'll feel penned in and suffocating from them not letting me do things they or the Commander think I shouldn't," Tanwen said.
"I know, the Commander was the same in the beginning. All Commanders have a bodyguard and usually three or four at a time. The only reason the current Commander only has one is that she's undefeated against anyone. She can defend herself."
"Hope I can learn to do that, I'd feel better if I could."
"As her houmon, you'll be taught all kinds of things including weapons and our language."
"I'm not going to be a trophy wife, am I?"
"What's that?" Anya asked, frowning.
"A woman who is married to someone who only uses their wife as a status symbol."
"No, the Commander will see your worth, not as someone too stupid to get things right."
"Oh, good, I was worried she'd try to make me into a subservient wife or treat me like something breakable. I want to do things, Anya, but I'm not sure I'll be allowed to."
"Like what?"
"Travel. I'd like to see some of the other clans and the land. On the Ark the only land we saw was when we looked out of an outside window at Earth and then all we saw was colours and white clouds or snow. There were no details. Now I'm down here, I can see the trees aren't just one shade of green or brown, but lots of them. I love it down here and I want to learn about the land, the woods, the animals and plants and all that I can." Anya looked at her with a little bit of pride.
"You can, it's part of learning about us, the Trikru and the other clans, though I will warn you that Azgeda don't like obeying anyone and their queen thinks she'd be a better Commander and every clan should be under her control."
"Hope I don't have to deal with her too much."
"Not if the Commander has any say in it! Your bodyguards would be doubled at least if she was around!"
"Good. Now, at this ceremony, Indra said that I have to kneel and show deference to the Commander, is that right?"
"Not exactly, this union will automatically make you Trikru. The kneeling is to swear fealty to the Commander. All Trikru do that upon adulthood. As you are joining us, you still have to swear fealty to her, but it's just a formality. Lexa would never impose her will on you."
"Okay, good."
"Anything else?"
"Not right now," Tanwen said.
"Then I'll leave you for now. Just remember don't leave the village except for the trenches." Tanwen nodded and Anya left.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Two days later, the ceremony was ready and Anya was acting as her guide for anything she needed. In those two days, she'd hardly seen her intended bride as she was busy making sure everything was just right.
When the ceremony began, both Lexa and Tanwen walked towards the village's holy man who smiled at them both. He couldn't believe his luck that the Commander was getting married in Tondc. He thought she would take her intended back to Polis instead. Lexa and Tanwen reached the old man and stood before him. Everyone gathered around to watch their Heda get married.
"Heda, do you agree to form a union with this woman of your own free will?"
"Sha," Lexa said.
"Prisa, do you agree to form a union with the Commander of your own free will?"
"Sha," Tanwen replied. Lexa smiled at hearing Tanwen use their words instead of her own.
"This is a union for life. The only way to dissolve it is by one of you dying." Tanwen didn't know that part of it, but she knew marriage was a serious thing for grounders - Trikru, she must remember to call them Trikru! Both of them nodded in response.
"Commander, hold out your left arm, please." Lexa held her hand out and the holy man tied a piece of leather around her wrist. "Prisa, hold out your right hand, please." Tanwen did so and the other end of the leather was tied around both their wrists in a knot.
"This knot represents your unbroken bond. You must work together to untie it. If you cut it, you are severing your union and one of you must die." Ah, shit! Tanwen hadn't been told that part of it! She looked sharply at Anya, who held her hands up.
"You are now married, may your union be blessed with many children!" the old man said. Many? Tanwen mouthed. Lexa smirked.
"You may kiss your houmon." Lexa smiled at Tanwen and took her other hand and they brought their lips together in a gentle kiss, but it wasn't enough for Lexa and she drew Tanwen's lips to her harder and gave her a full kiss. Tanwen got lost in the kiss. She'd never felt that before when she'd kissed anyone and she loved the feeling. When they finally parted, both were panting hard. Their foreheads came together as the crowd cheered. Lexa moved back and led her new wife to the banquet hall where a feast had been laid out.
They had to work together in eating and drinking their food and beverages. The knot was not to be removed until their wedding night. Because of that, their bodyguard was doubled and the gates of the village had been closed. Nothing was left to chance when the Commander couldn't use both hands to defend herself.
They sat side by side and took turns to eat and drink. There was some light-hearted joking about the couple, but nothing too invasive. When the banquet was over, they moved back to the village and joined those who couldn't be at the banquet as they held their own celebration. This was a once in a lifetime event and they intended to enjoy it. Once it had darkened, the Commander and Tanwen stood in the torchlight with the holy man and several witnesses to watch them figure out how to untie the knot. It took a few goes and missteps but eventually they figured it out and as Tanwen held one part of the knot, Lexa was able to work the other part out of the knot and then Tanwen pulled her part and it all unravelled, leaving the leather tie intact. She returned it to the holy man and he beamed at them.
Next was the part she was both dreading and looking forward to. Part of the after event was the consummation of the marriage. Because everyone lived in tents, noise of people making love was often heard and the Trikru were not prudish about such things, they were part of human nature.
She needn't have worried, Lexa was very gentle with her and held her tenderly as she undressed Tanwen. No words were spoken but they did stare at each other a lot. There were a few kisses strewn among the clothing. Soon both of them were naked and both of them stared at the other, looking up and down the form of her wife. Tanwen could have looked at her for much longer but the cold was starting to get to her so she grabbed Lexa's hand and pulled her over to the bed. They got in and soon it was getting warmer as Lexa kissed her and explored her body with very gentle hands.
It seemed as if Lexa loved to feel her way along her wife's body. Tanwen could feel the tension rise with each caress. Lexa stayed away from the one place she wanted her hand to be.
"God, Lexa, get on with it!" Tanwen said, surging forward to kiss her. Soon both of them couldn't figure out where one finished and the other started and they didn't particularly care, they were enjoying themselves.
Outside, Anya and Indra smiled as they heard the sounds of lovemaking coming from the couple. The union had been consummated and now they were married.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Back at the Ark camp, the election was underway. Instead of electronic votes, each person over the age of fifteen - not eighteen - was given a small stick, they just had to drop it into the bag of the person they wanted as their leader. Bellamy was in charge of making sure no-one tried to take sticks from one bag and put them in the other. As only Clarke and Abby were in the running, neither of them was allowed in the small tent they'd erected for that purpose and they couldn't vote either.
Everyone lined up and all the guards were keeping them in line as well as those of the hundred that were left. None of them were allowed to speak to the electors other than to ask them to stay in line or keep quiet. Once they'd cast their votes, they were to go to the other end of the camp and wait for the results.
Monroe and Major Byrne were in charge of the actual counting but it was done in front of each of the participants. Clarke would watch Monroe count her own sticks and Byrne would be watched over by Abby. Both of them had Bellamy watching over proceedings.
Eventually it was declared that Clarke had been chosen as the new Chancellor, a title which she immediately threw out, stating that it belonged on the Ark and they no longer lived in space. A new start with a new title. Heda Clarke was starting out how she meant to go on.
"Alright people," Clarke said, getting up on a rock to give her first speech to her people. "I've been elected by you and from now on, we live on the ground, we don't pretend we're still living in space. If we do that, we won't survive the winter. We need hunting parties to go out each day and look for meat, foraging parties to go with them for the plants that are edible, we need the pelts of the animals we kill for food so we can turn them into clothing. We need to learn how to build our shelters and make them weatherproof. We need to learn how to turn those pelts into clothing and bed furs to keep us warm. We need to build specialist buildings like a blacksmiths, kitchen and mess hall, a water tower building, we need running water in winter and the rivers around here could freeze."
"How are we supposed to do that?" asked one man in the crowd.
"We learn from the grounders, they've been here since the war and know this land. This is their land, we only live on it because the Commander lets us. We do not have the right to any of it. We learn from them and we learn how to survive. We learn their weaponry too because the bullets for those guns won't last long. We need to teach our children how to survive too, don't forget, any child born from today onwards will be a child of the earth, not space. They won't know what it was like up there, they won't know which station did what job and that to get food, you went to the mess hall and asked for it. Down here, we can't do that, so we learn and we pass it onto the next generation. In a few decades, we'll all be dead and they need to survive - without the old prejudices of thinking we are superior to those that live around us just because they use swords not guns.
"We also have to rescue our people from the mountain and we need clan help with that. We may have the technology, but they have the manpower. They know the land and the terrain. They know the best places to ambush from and the best places to attack from. To that end, Tanwen Brown is at one of their villages talking to the Commander about an alliance to rescue both our peoples. I want volunteers to go help them take that mountain down, I want volunteers to go hunting and foraging and water collection, I want volunteers who are willing to learn from the clans in order to survive the coming winter.
"But most of all, we need to remember that we are not just who the Ark said we were. We are not just machinists and farmers, engineers and mechanics, leaders or councilmen. We are humans and the human spirit is alive in each and every one of us. Use that spirit to live, use it to make peace with our neighbours and use it to make something of yourselves. Don't fall back into the narrow roles the Ark made you fit into. Those of you who worked in Factory Station, find a job you like and are good at. Maybe you want to farm, or build with wood, or become a blacksmith or learn how to look after horses and ride them. There will be many jobs we do that we didn't on the Ark, learning to live with each other is one of them. We will no longer be segregated by where we work, nor by what we do. We all learn to build our new homes, we all learn how to plant food and we all learn how to survive in temperatures we've never experienced before.
"We show each other that we can survive and we'll be showing those who were in charge of the Ark that we are just as good as them. We do our jobs and be proud of it. Now, I'll be gathering a council together from amongst you, young and old..er people. Where you came from is no longer important, but what you can do. I want people on the council who can do the job of looking after ALL our people, not just a few. I want people who can solve problems and overcome the odds. Bellamy and Monroe are two of the hundred and every single person of the hundred have already proven themselves because they survived when the Ark didn't want us to. We solved problems, we overcame difficulties amongst us. I want those two on my council and Bellamy as my head of security. None of you have done anything other than shoot at leaves rattled by wind. That stops right now. Bellamy will be in charge of security. Are we clear on that?"
A few nods and yeses rang out.
"Good, learn from those who were here first, either clansmen or the remains of the hundred. Stop seeing children and start seeing someone who's lived through it, someone who knows what they are talking about. We are not children anymore, we are survivors! Okay, speech over, back to work!" Clarke got down and went over to her mother, Bellamy and Monroe.
"How was that? Okay?" asked Clarke.
"You did good, Clarke," Bellamy said.
"Yeah, now we need to find out if Tanwen was successful in getting an alliance with the Trikru Commander," Monroe said.
"We'll wait a few days and then I'm hoping someone comes here or we send someone to Tondc to find out."
"Who?"
"Probably you and Sterling," Clarke said.
"Okay," Monroe said, looking forward to it.
"In the meantime, you two can help me find people to be on my council."
"Like who?"
"Anyone who can problem solve, anyone who can help run this camp properly. We need to go out and hunt and forage and we need to start building for the future. That starts with building homes for us."
"We don't have much building material, Clarke," Bellamy said.
"Yeah, we do," Clarke said, waving towards the remains of Alpha station. All three looked at it and Abby saw her home but the other two saw a relic from the recent past.
"Nice!" Monroe said.
"Yeah, I'm putting Raven in charge of getting that thing dismantled." Clarke held her hand up to her mother. "We'll find a way of saving the medbay or remaking it on flat ground. That is nothing more than a reminder of the past now, mom, and it needs to go before we can truly move on with the present and future. If we leave it there, all it will do is remind people of the life they used to live. Now, you may have fond memories of it, but I can guarantee you that most of the people here hate Alpha and what it stood for. It comes down."
Abby reluctantly nodded.
"Good, do you want to be on my council?" Abby narrowed her eyes.
"Do you want me to be on it?"
"Yes, I need the input of my Chief Medical Officer, that's you. If you don't want it, I'll get Jackson on it. I need one of the doctors on my council because we'll have a lot of winter related injuries and conditions such as frostbite and maybe hypothermia. I need to know what to do to counteract that." Abby nodded.
"Okay, I'll be on the council." Clarke nodded.
"Good, but bear in mind the only way to change leaders amongst the clans is by death or someone standing down. There will be no more elections. We do things the clan way."
"No! You cannot do that!" Abby stated.
"Mom, this is the ground, not space. If we want to survive, we need to do things their way and that means leadership roles too."
"But-"
"No, mom, this is our time, the time of the Ark is over and this is a new start for everyone, including you. We do things right this time."
"Meaning?"
"No more killing unless they've committed an act of murder or sexual assault." Clarke turned to Bellamy. "Bellamy, we need a prison." He nodded and Clarke turned back to her mother. "I want someone to become a judge and others to be prosecutors and defenders. We won't be putting all that power into the hands of the council and the leader anymore. Trials will be held and the judges make up the sentences and the jail time, not Jaha, not me and not the council. No-one gets killed for turning 18. Their cases will be reviewed and either they go back to prison or they are set free."
"The Exodus Charter-'' Abby started.
"Is useless down here. It was written by those in charge of the Ark to keep themselves in power. By saying they wouldn't kill people anymore, they were appealing to the masses, mom, but it's not worth the data it's taking up. We've lived on this planet for two months before you came down, we went to war with the grounders and now we are willing to put that aside because we now have a common enemy - Mount Weather. We join forces and get our people out." Abby had a hard time sorting out which parts she could still live by and which would be discarded.
"Are you re-writing it all?"
"Probably. I can't remember it all so I'll need to go check it out, but it was written by people who didn't have the first clue about living on the ground. Come on, think about it. Up there we had nowhere to go, but down here, if someone doesn't like my policies, what's to stop them walking out of that gate and finding somewhere else to live?"
"That charter would have been used against us, Abby," Bellamy said.
"How?"
"We were supposed to be pardoned for our crimes once we proved the ground was survivable. Do you really think Jaha would have let us roam around outside the fence line of this camp?" Abby thought about it and then with a sigh, she shook her head.
"No, we would have kept you inside and tried to turn you back into the children we think you are."
"We're not kids anymore mom, we proved we can look after ourselves."
"You went to war!" Abby said.
"We did and we didn't need adult help to figure out how to win it either. The fact that some of us were taken by the mountain wasn't factored into our plans, but if we knew, we would have figured out how to stay away from them. We did that by ourselves, us, the kids you threw away." Abby nodded.
"So what now?"
"Now, Bellamy goes and takes over from whoever was the head guard and he gets them to stop shooting at anything that moves. He turns them into the warriors we need. The term guard will go as well, that's a term that means pain and fear to most of the people here. Eventually the uniforms will go as well. He teaches them combat tactics for the ground and he teaches them to watch for dangers in the trees as well as on the ground. There's a lot he needs to teach them and they will be resistant to it, but I give him permission to smack them around if they need it." Bellamy smirked and Monroe laughed.
"You can't do that!" Abby said, shocked at what she was hearing.
"Yeah, mom, I can, I'm the Heda of this clan now and this time, we need to make sure the adults actually act like adults and not scared rabbits. Bellamy, go start your new job, Monroe, come with me and we'll figure out who else we can have on the council." Clarke and Monroe walked away leaving Abby standing there, unsure of what just happened.
ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
Having trouble with my account and email account so my stats for the last two months are zero. Notifications also suspended until I can get it sorted out. Hopefully it'll be soon. Thank you for reading my stuff and also for the reviews. I do read them all. Samdagger.