Chapter Text
Clarke steps out of the tent into a gorgeous morning, the sky a vault of blue above the tops of the trees and the air crisp and cool with a hint of petrichor. She raises her arms above her head, stretching out the kinks of a long day of training and building and a long night of things that make her grin and blush. She takes a minute to watch the waking village of Tondc and just breathe.
She can’t remember the last time she did this – just stayed still and felt the air move through her, and luxuriated in the openness of the world turning around her. The Ark had been home but it had always felt somehow claustrophobic – you could never escape the sense that this was all there was, and that perhaps humans weren’t meant to live this way. That sensation had only intensified during her time in solitary confinement, but then she’d fallen to Earth and suddenly the world had opened up before her like a painting come to life, all vast expanses and screaming colors.
That had lasted all of three hours, at which point Jasper had been speared to a tree. Everything afterwards had been about running, hiding, hunting, fighting – surviving. There had never been a moment like this, in which she could simply pause, suck in a deep breath, and just live.
Her stomach growls. The moment’s over.
“Hey sleepyhead,” she calls back over her shoulder as she focuses on the smell of frying breakfast food, “if you don’t get up you’ll miss the bacon.”
“No I won’t,” she hears a sleep-roughened voice growl back. “I am Heda. There is always bacon for Heda.”
“I guess you haven’t had breakfast with Octavia, then,” Clarke says, rolling her eyes. “Does the phrase plague of locusts mean anything to you?”
“It does, yes,” Lexa says, stumbling out of the tent and rubbing at her eyes in a way that Clarke definitely doesn’t find adorable. “I take your point.”
“And I’ll take your bacon if you don’t hos op,” Clarke says, grinning as the Commander scowls at her.
The grin drops off her face a moment later as Lexa repeats, “Hos op. Your inflection was off on hos. Say it again.”
Clarke rolls her eyes. Lexa may have gotten a bit better at sleeping in since the addition of Clarke as an incentive, but that hasn't made her any less of a morning person. “Isn’t it too early for a Trigedasleng lesson?”
“Never too early.” Lexa raises her head and sniffs the air, then heads back into the tent for her coat. She shrugs into it as they make their way together towards the camp ground where breakfast is being laid, and Lexa allows herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, this cold snap after a solid week of thunderstorms could be the end of the rainy season, and they might just have the superlative harvest this village sorely needs. But it’s early yet for that by a good two weeks. This is likely just a respite, an eye in the greater storm. Still, maybe she’ll get to feel dry for the first time in the last month.
By the time they reach breakfast most of the villagers have already come and gone. The only ones remaining are her warriors and the Skaikru, though they should be on their way soon enough to their work assignments. She politely reminds Harper of this as she passes, and the girl nods seriously. She’s become an excellent overseer, a quietly natural leader that the others look to instinctively. She and Jasper Jordan have become co-leaders of the group the people of Tondc have come to refer to as Sistenkru – the Volunteers.
It’s Harper’s turn in Tondc this week, for which Lexa’s glad. The Sky boy has yet to fully overcome his distrust of her people, and his high-spirited antics can sometimes turn disruptive, even mean. She knows that Clarke’s had to mediate several conflicts between him and Indra, whose patience with him is at an absolute zero. The last blowout had occasioned a hurried negotiation with the seething general, who had demanded that the boy be banned from her village. Clarke had managed to persuade her to accept Harper as a co-leader instead, knowing that as the majority of the Volunteers came from the 47 they would take Jasper’s exile very hard, and many might not come back. Having one of their own at all times makes it a bit easier for them to accept, and Indra doesn’t mind Harper. Even likes her sometimes, Lexa can tell, though the Sky girl probably doesn’t know it – Indra’s method of showing her approval looks like the way most people treat someone they only mildly dislike.
Harper is conferring with Indra now as to the Volunteers’ work assignments. They’re turning the main crater into a pen for the village's animals, and the Volunteers are to be working on the fence, Lexa overhears as she fills her plate with breakfast. She's got one ear on Clarke moving along behind her, and hears the Sky Girl humming absently to herself as she goes. A small grin crosses her face.
True to form, the Blake siblings have already laid waste to the banquet table and are coming back for more, but Lexa manages to snag the last few slices for herself and Clarke just as Octavia’s reaching for them. “Dammit!” the girl says, incredulity on her face. “How did you do that?”
Lexa smirks. “Too slow, Seken. I’ll need to tell your Fos to work on your reflexes.”
Octavia groans and returns to her seat with Bellamy amongst the warriors of the shiljus. They’re not officially bonded by blood yet, but that will come in time – Lexa has work to do yet in training them and turning them into a seamless unit, a strike force she can be proud to have at her back and that she can trust implicitly with Clarke’s safety. While the first objective is important, she knows that she has many skilled warriors who will lay down their lives for her already. The second objective is what she most often has in mind when she’s drilling them and training them and putting them through their paces in the sparring ring. It’s the only way she can make herself accept what Clarke has come to mean to her, what it might mean if Clarke comes to harm. While she knows that Clarke can take care of herself, sooner or later her position as Ambassador of her people and her closeness to the Heda of the Trigedakru will make her a target. Clarke is a dangerous weakness for Lexa, a straight shot to the heart. To remain able to protect and guide her people, Lexa must protect her heart. To do that, she must protect Clarke.
The Skaikru have made slow progress with Trikru weaponry, with the exception of Octavia who, Lexa has to grudgingly admit, is something of a prodigy, but the rest still lean far too heavily on their firearms. While the fall of Mount Weather has theoretically lifted the prohibition on Grounders taking up the weapons, Lexa still remains wary of guns as a concept. She can’t quite fathom the Skaikru’s preference for weapons with such clear limitations and has forbidden their use during her training sessions, but she is under no such illusions that that prohibition holds during the Bloodguard’s time at Camp Jaha.
She'd had precisely that conversation with Bellamy Blake shortly after they had started training. From Clarke’s stories and her own brief interactions with him, she had imagined that the Sky boy would be a disciplinary problem, but after she had managed, during one of their first hand-to-hand combat demonstrations, to disarm and completely incapacitate Ryder within seconds while unarmed herself, he had given her his grudging respect. His sister is another story, but thankfully, Indra - the only person Octavia honestly seems to fear - drills with the group too.
Bellamy had come up to her after a particularly discouraging introductory session with the bow (led by Ryder, who’s the best there is with the weapon), while most of his compatriots were groaning and nursing stung fingers. His own were reddened and flexing, but only his tense jaw showed that he was in pain. “With all due respect, Commander, what’s the point of learning how to use these?” He gestured towards the racks where the bows had been hung. “I’d say we should be teaching your people how to shoot guns.”
Lexa had eyed him narrowly for any hint of disrespect, but had found none in the level gaze he returned. “Have you ever run out of ammunition, Bellamy Blake?”
“Yes.”
Lexa nodded. “Blades do not run out of bullets; arrows can be gathered and repurposed after a battle, and bows can be restrung. Once your supply of ammunition has been exhausted, your gun is no better than a club. I won’t deny your people the opportunity to use them, because I’ve seen their effectiveness, but you will also become proficient in weapons you don’t need to reload.”
Bellamy had nodded, accepting this, but then his head had snapped up again and Lexa had seen the glint of inspiration in his eye. “What if we could teach your warriors how to fight with our weapons, as we’re learning about yours? Your soldiers would be doubly effective if they could shoot, and then be just as good with a sword or an axe after they run out of rounds.”
Lexa considered. It wasn’t a bad idea – in fact, it was a good one, one she’d been toying with idly for some time. If she were in Bellamy Blake’s position she wouldn’t hesitate to implement it, but she’s not in his position – she’s Heda of the Trigedakru, and she has the weight of nearly a century of tradition to consider. She’s already broken some of the laws and traditions of her people and bent many others, and she can feel the weight of the last straw on her like iron. There’s only so much further she can push the coalition before it breaks. If it does, she won't let it be over guns.
“I will not be holding training with firearms in my camp,” Lexa had said at last, and watched Bellamy’s jaw grind and his eyes harden. He opened his mouth, probably to say something disrespectful that would mean she’d have to make an example out of him. She didn't want to do that so she was quick to continue with, “But I do not know what I do not know. Do we understand one another, Bellamy Blake?”
It had taken a moment, but soon comprehension had dawned in the Sky boy’s eyes. “Yes, Commander,” he’d said, and if she noticed that some of her warriors had returned from Camp Jaha with a little more than passing familiarity with the weapons of the Sky People, she’d turned a blind eye. That was Abby Griffin’s jurisdiction, after all, not hers.
Bellamy approaches her as she sits and begins to eat. “What’s on the agenda for today, Commander?”
“Knives in the morning,” Lexa says after chewing her bacon very deliberately in Octavia’s direction – Clarke rolls her eyes – “and then we’ll go riding in the afternoon. Hand-to-hand in the evening, when it’s not so hot.”
Bellamy’s shoulders slump. “Is the riding necessary?”
“Yes,” Lexa says sharply. “I know riding doesn’t come naturally to you but that doesn’t mean you can neglect it. A small mounted force can turn the tide of a much greater one on foot. Have you heard of Tysburg?” Bellamy shakes his head. “It’s a place about a day’s ride from here, where a great battle happened long ago. It took place over the course of three days, and at one point a cavalry unit faced a force that was larger than them by several orders of magnitude…”
Bellamy is listening with rapt attention and soon draws up a chair, eyes wide. Clarke’s finished her food by now and leaves them to it. She’s grateful that Lexa’s finally found someone who shares her love for military history, but there's only so long she can listen to the two of them geek out about it.
She goes and sits by Octavia, who’s still pouting over the lost bacon. She’s been in a generally shitty mood for the last few days, on account of Lincoln’s being away on a boar-hunting trip and not due to return until tomorrow night. She’d begged Indra to let her go but had been told – in furious Trigedasleng that Lexa had translated for her in a gleeful whisper – that she was Indra’s Second and in training and under no circumstances was she to slip off with her boyfriend to kill pigs and have sex (apparently there had been some pork-related pun in there that Clarke hadn’t understood, but it had had Lexa laughing for a day straight).
“Your girlfriend’s a dick,” Octavia says by way of greeting, taking the bacon slice that Clarke hands her as a peace offering and wolfing it down like she hasn’t just eaten half her weight in breakfast food.
“I’m aware,” Clarke says. “Heard anything more from Raven about the radios?”
“Crackling and the occasional curse, but that’s it,” the warrior says, washing down the last of her food with a healthy swig of berry juice.
Clarke sighs. “You’d think with the towers down it would be easy enough to establish communications between here and Camp Jaha.”
Octavia shrugs as she rises, slinging her sword over her back. “You’d think. But apparently Raven’s got more important things to do…or people.”
Clarke rolls her eyes but is well aware that she has very little standing to criticize Raven for that. Four weeks ago Lexa had announced her intention to train the Amba kom Skaikru personally to make sure that she was well-versed in Trigedakru language, politics, weaponry, tactics, and everything else necessary to ensure that she was fully equipped to handle her new position. A week later she was forced to admit defeat: they’d spent more time in bed than out of it and had been caught by Indra so many times in various inappropriate places that she had begun refusing to enter their presence without sending Octavia in to announce her first. Octavia had borne the new arrangement with bad grace until she had realized the endless possibilities for humiliation it presented. She had once watched for five whole minutes, making snide comments about form and technique to one of the other Seconds, before Clarke and Lexa had noticed her and screamed at her to get out.
Clarke can’t help but blush at the memory, and when she can meet Octavia’s eyes again it’s pretty clear that the warrior knows exactly what she’s thinking about. “Try to make it to training at least a little bit on time?” she says as she turns to go.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Gotta check in with Indra first,” Octavia shouts over her shoulder as she heads back up the path to the village proper. “See if there’s anything else she wants me doing.”
Given Octavia’s advanced progress compared to the rest of the Skaikru, Indra occasionally sends her on different training missions, though the general makes sure that she attends at least one of the shiljus sessions per day and cuffs her soundly every time she rolls her eyes or makes some comment about how basic everything is. She also seems to have an eagle eye out for anytime her Second's fudging her form or skipping a step in a drill, even when she’s halfway across the training ground correcting some foible of Clarke’s.
Because, of course, Lexa had insisted that Clarke learn how to fight too. She’d been pleased with Clarke’s ability in hand-to-hand – having trained in various forms of martial arts since age eight, she’s typically good for pinning Octavia in about half of their bouts. She’s been getting better with the bow, but she’s struggling with the sword and so hopeless with knivesthat Lexa had eventually been persuaded to give that one up. While the shiljus trains in knife-fighting, she studies Trikru healing with Nyko.
This had been a request of Abby’s – knowing that the Ark medicine, while more effective than the Grounder stuff, wouldn’t last forever, she’d tasked Clarke with learning everything she could about Trikru equivalents and bringing back samples for her to experiment with. This project has been largely shelved, Clarke knows, as her mother is still struggling with the creation of a cure for the Spared – now housed in three different airlocks, with oxygen supplies holding more or less steady. It’s been slow going, but the last she’d heard from her mother she’d been excited – the Chancellor thinks she might be close to a breakthrough that could mean the ground would be survivable for the remaining Mountain Men.
This is why Clarke wishes Raven would get the radios up running sooner rather than later – she knows that the Maunon are running out of time, and it seems like every time she comes back from Tondc there are a couple less of them. A few have died of very basic illnesses that had come too fast for Abby to cure, and the last time a little boy had accidentally crawled out of an airlock without his hazmat suit fully sealed. His screams had brought everyone running, but by the time he had been hustled into the medical bay his burns were too extensive to treat. All they’d been able to do was make him as comfortable as possible, and try to console his older sister.
Clarke knows that incident had broken her mother’s heart, and that she still considers herself responsible. She wishes that she’d been able to talk to her mom, to offer her some comfort in the immediate aftermath, and she knows that that won’t be the only incident. But there’s another reason she wants the radios working, one that's looming somewhat large today, the last day of her fourth week at Tondc: Lexa.
It had surprised her how difficult those two weeks at Camp Jaha had been without Lexa to turn to, to make a snarky comment or listen quietly to Clarke’s frustrations or distract her very efficiently with sneaky hands and a skillful mouth. It concerns her a little bit just how much she finds herself missing the Commander when they're apart, but she brushes those concerns aside with the facts: it will be incredibly useful to be able to maintain an open channel of communication between the Ark and the nearest Grounder village, and if that means she gets to talk to her girlfriend on a regular basis, that’s just a plus.
Girlfriend, she thinks, looking at the Commander as she’s very seriously pushing the remains of her breakfast around the high table to plot out the great Battle of Tysburg for Bellamy, who’s eagerly following the bacon bits’ progress as they mount a charge on a hill of bread. It feels like a weird word to use for Lexa, an Ark word, one that doesn’t belong on the ground, or at least make sense there. Girlfriend feels like giggling and holding hands as they run through the corridors, skipping class to steal some time alone or hurrying home from a deserted engine room just before curfew. The idea of Lexa doing any of those things seems ludicrous to her, but she can’t think of any other word that fits. Maybe she’ll ask Lexa later what her people would call them.
They haven't really discussed what they are to each other, not in a way Clarke’s familiar with – haven’t said the three most terrifying words on Earth. And yet they speak in another language – not English, not Trigedasleng, but one that only emerges when they’re alone. Not so much in words, but in touches and looks and sighs. Clarke can feel Lexa’s care in the way her hands gentle the places where she was pleasurably rough moments before, in the kisses that she presses over the marks she’s made on Clarke’s skin. Each one of these gestures both excites Clarke and settles her in a way she’s never felt before – it’s like she’s simultaneously racing through darkened woods and sitting inside by a fire on a cold evening. It’s not something she can put into words, but there’s a canvas taking shape in her mind bit by bit. She’s been meaning to ask Lexa if they’d recovered any painting materials from Mount Weather, but they’ve been so busy that she keeps forgetting.
Lexa feels eyes on her and looks up to meet Clarke, staring at her in a way that she can’t quite fathom. She gives the Sky Girl a quizzical look, but she just shakes her head, smiling like the sun out of a clear blue sky, and Lexa’s description of Tysburg’s second day of fighting stutters to a halt. She hardly notices Bellamy’s impatient glance over his shoulder to see what she’s looking at, but his annoyed sigh snaps her out of her trance. “My apologies, Bellamy…what was I talking about?”
“The Second Manass – but you weren’t so much talking as drooling towards the end there, so I kind of lost the thread a little bit.”
Lexa shoots him a dark look, but doesn’t demur. She’d been taught that it is bad grace to punish someone for merely pointing out the truth, as rudely as it was delivered, though Blake and his sister seem to delight in tempting her to break that rule. Bellamy meets her glare with a level gaze, and she decides not to push it.
“I believe we should be heading for the training ground in any case.”
Bellamy gives her a humorless smile. “Tysburg can wait.”
“It can…and perhaps it should. In my library at Polis there are many books that can do a far better job of detailing it than I.”
Bellamy’s face lights up at the prospect, and she sends him ahead of her to round up the shiljus and herd them to the training ground.
“Shouldn’t you be going with him?” Clarke asks when she feels lips pressed to her neck and warm hands sliding over her shoulders.
“Mmm,” Lexa murmurs in her ear, hands moving lower. “Ryder will get them started. No one will notice if I’m late.”
“Indra will – notice,” Clarke says, cursing herself for how the word turns into a gasp.
"Let her."
Clarke is about nine tenths convinced when they hear the yell.
“No, fuck you!”
Clarke's head snaps forward from where it was tipped back against Lexa’s shoulder, and Lexa’s lips detach from her throat with an audible pop. They take a moment to give one another a guilty glance before another shout rings out:
“Sep of, branwada!”
"Shit," Clarke growls under her breath and shoves back from the table. She takes off up the path back to the village at a dead sprint, Lexa close on her heels.
What they find is about the worst-case scenario: a struggling scrum of Volunteers and Tondc villagers, heaving back and forth like an angry sea. It looks to Clarke like most of them are trying to pull people apart, but there are plenty who are just interested in getting in a few good shots. At the epicenter of the raging mass is a grappling pair that makes Clarke’s heart sink: Isaac Asmo and the Trikru warrior Penn, both of them young and hotheaded and currently attempting to kill one another.
Asmo’s been a problem since the beginning. His time in Mount Weather had made him fast friends with Jasper, but Monty doesn’t like him and it’s not hard for Clarke to see why. He brings out the worst in Jasper where Monty brings out the best: while Jasper in Monty’s presence is caring, considerate, and brave, in Asmo’s he’s disruptive, caustic, and sometimes even mean-spirited. But Asmo at this point doesn’t need Jasper’s authority to make trouble; after having established himself as Jasper’s left-hand man, he’s gathered a little following of his own. Clarke’s done her best to make sure that there aren’t a critical mass of his cronies coming with her to Tondc each expedition, but she can’t directly forbid anyone to come; they’re all volunteers, after all.
Apparently she didn’t do a good enough job this time, she thinks with a sinking heart as she wades into the fray, pulling idiots apart and delivering blows carefully localized to deaden arms and take out knees. When she takes a moment to look up and wipe the sweat out of her eyes, she sees that Lexa’s circled the brawlers and begun to do much the same. At least, Clarke thinks, Indra hasn’t arrived to see this mess. It would be just the thing to make the general kick the Sky People out of her village for good.
“Chil yo daun!” Indra roars.
“We’re fucked,” Clarke says cheerfully to no one in particular, only realizing when she hears a soft snort just next to her that Lexa has met her in the middle of the melee. She shoots her a sardonic glance before grabbing Asmo and wrenching his arm up behind his back, easily incapacitating him, just as Lexa does the same with Penn.
The idiots have largely stopped their idiocy, aside from a few isolated kicks and shoves, and no one really wants to meet Clarke or Lexa’s eyes as they march the two ringleaders towards where Indra’s standing flanked by Octavia, murder in her eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” she hisses as they approach. Lexa’s just about to start delivering a report when she remembers that she’s Heda and attempts to glare down her nose at Indra. After a moment the general sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and says, voice shaking with rage, “My apologies, Heda, but –”
“It’s your village, General,” Lexa says, kicking Penn’s knees out from under him and sending him to the ground. After a moment, Clarke follows suit. “I’ll leave these two for you to sort out. Your discipline stands.”
Clarke sees the satisfaction in Indra’s eyes and is forcibly transported back into Lexa’s tent two months ago, when she’d watched the general demand Finn’s life and all of their own as restitution for those he’d taken from her people. “The hell it does,” she says, stepping between Asmo and Indra and turning to glare at Lexa. “Indra can do what she wants to Penn, but Asmo’s Skaikru. We’ll put him in lockup and he can answer to the Chancellor when we get back to Camp Jaha.”
Lexa’s eyes have gone dark and cold in a way that Clarke hasn’t seen in months. “He may be Skaikru but you’re in a Trikru village,” she says in a low voice. “I am Commander of the Trikru; my word is law.”
Clarke knows that it wasn’t the best idea to buck Lexa’s authority in public, but she’ll be damned if she lets her get away with pulling rank on her either. “Well, we don’t have to be here, Commander,” she says, just as low, just as deadly. “I can take my people and go at any time, unless you choose to detain us.”
All at once the clear autumn air is gone; heat crackles in the space between them. Lexa’s eyes narrow, boring into Clarke’s, but the Sky Girl's not giving any ground. Lexa clenches her fists against the urge to lash out at someone, anyone. But she’s Heda, and she needs to act like it. She just wishes Clarke weren’t making it so hard.
“That will not be necessary,” she says as calmly as she can, drawing herself out of the fighting stance she’s unconsciously adopted and lifting her chin. “Your people will be returning to Camp Jaha tomorrow. However, if you refuse to accept our rule of law you will need to be confined. All of you.”
There’s a feeling in the pit of her stomach like she’s stepped on uncertain ground, but she can’t imagine what it is. This is who she is, what she does; she’s Heda, and whatever Clarke may mean to her she can never forget that.
She expects Clarke to yell and push her and storm off. Clarke’s anger is usually hot and sudden, there and gone again as swiftly as a summer storm. But now her voice is cold, the only hint of her rage the bite of her inflections, like flashes of heat lightning on a breathless night. “Fine,” she says. “Just tell us where you want us, and we’ll go. Just to be clear: tomorrow we will be allowed to return to Camp Jaha, right?”
“Correct,” Lexa bites off, trying not to be taken aback and failing. “You’re not prisoners, Clarke, but –”
“Ambassador,” Clarke growls, and Lexa’s feeling of the ground shifting under her feet intensifies.
“Ambassador,” Lexa repeats, and then turns to Indra to hide the tumult going in her eyes. “General, where do you have that can hold all of the Skaikru?”
“Nowhere that they can all be restrained, Heda,” Indra says stiffly, her eyes flickering between Clarke and Lexa. Lexa wills her own not to follow them.
“They’re not prisoners,” Lexa says again, letting a bit of her anger show in her voice, knowing that Indra won’t fault her for it. “They don’t need to be restrained, just…kept.”
“The meeting hall should be sufficient,” Indra says.
“Good. Take the Skaikru there.”
Before Indra can issue any orders, Clarke barks for her people to follow her and begins making her way to the underground hall, one of the few buildings left more or less intact after the missile. Lexa’s teeth grind as she watches them go, then notices the Skaikru warriors of the shiljus standing aimlessly. Many of them are darting glances at Bellamy, who’s watching Clarke’s retreating back with a furrowed brow. Something clicks into place in Lexa’s mind, but she knows it’s not time yet for that mechanism to be set in motion.
“Bellamy.”
The Sky boy jerks his head towards her. “Commander. Should we be going with her?”
Lexa considers. She’s trying to meld the shiljus into one seamless unit, but they’re not there yet. Keeping them from their people will only cause more tension among those who need it least. “Go,” she says at last. “Keep an eye on her – on everyone. Keep them from causing any more trouble, and bear witness to make sure that the instigators of the fight are punished.”
Bellamy nods and the Skaikru element of the shiljus follows him towards the doorway. The rest turn to head back towards the training ground, led by Ryder, but Lexa calls over Kyro and Rana, a younger warrior from a nearby village who’s become close friends with Octavia and Monroe. “You go with them too,” she says, low, in Trigedasleng. “Keep an eye out for trouble at the Camp. If you think anything’s likely to happen, one of you get back here and report to me. The other one can stay to excuse their absence.”
“Sha, Heda,” Kyro and Rana say immediately and turn to follow her orders, but Lexa can see the worry and confusion in their eyes that she’s been hard at work keeping from hers. It’s far too reminiscent of the old days, when her people and the Skaikru had barely been allies, the truce fresh between them and bad blood still seeping from fresh wounds. Much progress has been made in healing the animosity that’s lain between them, but tension has remained, and it’s felt for some time now like there was an incident like this one brewing just under the surface of their collaboration. And then there’s Clarke.
Lexa sighs and runs her hand through her hair roughly in frustration. If she’d been thinking straight no one would even know they were more to one another than close partners and allies, but while she can curse herself all she likes for her indiscretions that won’t put the ringcat back in the tree. She knows she needs to deal with Clarke, but – not now. She follows her shiljus down the path to the training ground, knowing that Clarke’s fury will only grow with each step she takes away from explaining herself, but right now she just needs to plug a target full of throwing knives until her head stops hurting so much.
Clarke waits at the door of the meeting hall as the Arkers descend into its darkness; she's joined by Indra, whom she refuses to look at. Neither of them speaks until Octavia tries to go through, but is stopped by her mentor. “No. You’re my Second; you stay with us.”
“She’s from the Ark,” Clarke snarls.
“And she’s in training with me, which I won’t have disrupted for a full two weeks!”
Clarke is so ready to go, even though it’s with Indra who could probably demolish her with her pinky, but Octavia puts a hand on her arm and shakes her head. “Not this one, Clarke, okay? I’m too far along in my training to stop now. And besides, you need someone to keep an eye on the radio in case Raven ever gets the damn thing going, right?”
She grins, and Clarke can’t help but return it. “Fine. Take care of yourself, okay? And say hi to Lincoln for me.”
“I will.” She steps back to stand behind her First just as the last Sky Person – Bellamy – heads down the steps, and then two of the Trikru warriors from the shiljus – Kyro and Rana – try to follow.
“Hod op,” Clarke says, stepping in front of them. “What are you guys doing?”
They both look taken aback, as though they hadn’t considered that Clarke might ask them that, but when Kyro starts shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably Rana rolls her eyes at him and says, “The Commander asked us to join you. We’re to keep you safe and make sure nobody else starts something stupid.”
Clarke glares in the direction that Lexa went, but she knows that they’re on the knife’s edge of another incident and she’s not going to start this one. “Fine. But I discipline my own people, got it?” she says with a sharp glance at Indra, who glares.
“Sha, Amba,” they both say, nodding, and she steps aside to let them pass.
Now it’s just her and the general. They glare at each other for a moment and Clarke is reminded again of Indra in the meeting hall, demanding all of their lives for Raven’s perceived treachery. She’d been more than happy to slaughter them all, and while she’s achieved respect and even affection for Octavia and been forced to grudgingly admit that the Skaikru are a useful ally, she’s not yet been able to let go of her distrust of the outsiders. She’s lost too much, a voice in Clarke’s head says quietly, and she swallows and ducks her head. Indra very briefly betrays surprise before her cold mask snaps back down over her features, but her voice is slightly warmer.
“I’m going to lock you in, Sky Girl,” she says. “Afternoon and evening meals will be brought to you. If you need anything, tell Kyro or Rana.” Clarke turns to go, but stops at Indra’s hand on her arm. The general's look is hard, but not as hard as it might have been. “Penn will be punished for his role in this, you have my word on that.” Clarke nods and heads down the steps, the sound of the door slamming shut ringing in her ears.
She spends the next hour or so getting stories from everyone involved in the melee, which is pretty much all of the Volunteers in some capacity. It turns out that Asmo and his sidekick Beans had isolated Penn beforehand as a hothead and judged him most likely to rise to offered bait. Beans had tripped Asmo, sending him sprawling into a pile of pig shit; when Penn had turned on Beans in fury, Asmo had stepped in and started taunting him and posturing, which had in turn become pushing and shoving. In a space as tight as the work site you couldn’t just shove one person, so pretty much everyone else in the vicinity had gotten involved almost immediately. Asmo and Beans have stubbornly refused to answer any questions and asserted their Charter rights to the Chancellor’s justice. Clarke refrains from saying that they’ll probably fare better under her justice than her mother’s – she’s 110% done with these two, and privately hopes they get shocklashed. Given the mood her mother’s been in lately, it seems like a distinct possibility.
After enough voices have corroborated the story, she orders Bellamy and Monroe to tie Beans and Asmo to chairs and then retreats to a bench in the corner, her dark look more than enough to frighten off anyone hoping to speak with her. The rest of the morning passes in a haze of brooding and boredom, broken only by the door opening to reveal several villagers with platters of lunch. From what she can hear of the conversation, they’re pissed at Penn, Asmo, and Beans but by and large upset that the Skaikru are going to miss their last day of work before they return to Camp Jaha. Clarke snorts. At least that’s progress from demanding that they all be publicly tortured to death.
By the time the sun has started filtering out of the western window high in the vault, Clarke is ready to start climbing the walls. She’s snapped at Bellamy, growled at Harper, and nearly started a screaming match with Monroe before Bellamy bodily hauled the girl off. Clarke’s privately disappointed; Monroe doesn't deserve it, but at least it would have been something to do. She doesn’t expect anything more than boredom and agitation until the evening meal, but at what Clarke estimates is late afternoon the door groans open once more, letting in a choking blast of humid air. It's Ryder; his eyes rove the room until Clarke stands and makes her way to the stairs, knowing it’s her he’s after and knowing who sent him.
“The Commander wishes to speak with you in private,” Ryder says in a low voice as she nears. Clarke considers, weighing the various merits of telling Ryder that Lexa can come and speak with her herself if she wishes, she has no secrets from her people; or that Lexa can go fuck herself. But eventually she caves to her overwhelming desire to get out of the dark and dank and nods, following him through the door.
He doesn’t take her to Lexa’s tent as she expects, but down a hunting track into the forest that leads to a small open space often used as a meeting place for hunters before they embark on an expedition, or warriors before they leave for a raid. Lexa’s kicking moodily at the ashes in a firepit, and doesn’t bother to look up as they approach. “Gon yu we,” she says to Ryder, and he obeys with a nod.
When she’s sure he’s gone, Lexa’s eyes snap up to meet Clarke’s. “Why must you do this?” she says, low and harsh.
“Do what?” Clarke snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Challenge me in front of my people. Force me to act with a heavy hand when if you had just trusted me I would have made sure that Indra treated them fairly.”
“And what’s your version of fair?” Clarke says, stepping closer, voice low and soft like rumbles of thunder before a storm. “Only let half the village cut them to ribbons?”
Lexa’s nostrils flare and she clenches her fists as she tries to keep herself in check. “Ten lashes each, most likely; maybe twenty for the boy who started it. And Penn would be getting his own right alongside them for rising to the bait. He’s an initiated warrior; he knows better than to fight untrained brawlers.”
Clarke feels heat rising to her face and hates both Lexa and herself for it. She’s beginning to have the sinking feeling that Lexa’s right, much as she hates to admit it. She wrestles with herself for a moment trying to be an adult and handle it, but then Lexa goes and ruins it all by being smug and all of her patience and forbearance go directly out the window.
“Now,” Lexa says, the barest hint of a smirk curling at the edge of her voice, “we may still be able to salvage this. If we go back together and announce to the village that you’ve decided to accept our justice, then –”
“No fucking way,” Clarke snaps, and is momentarily gratified to see Lexa pull back, eyes wide and nostrils flaring like Gona looks when he sees a snake. Her eyes narrow a moment later and she looks almost as ferocious as she does when she’s got her warpaint on, but Clarke’s mad enough to almost be able to ignore how hot that is. “If you think I’m going back there to genuflect to you in front of Indra, you’ve got another think coming, Commander.”
“You’re being impossible, Clarke!” Lexa bursts out, taking a step closer, nearly shaking with rage. “This doesn’t need to happen and wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t letting your bias towards your people get in the way of your reason.”
“Yeah, I am biased,” Clarke says, matching her step for step until they’re kissing-close, and again Clarke hates the ember of lust that coils to life in the pit of her stomach. They’ve had their fair share of fights – they’re both strong personalities, and used to having their commands obeyed – but they also both seem to find the sight of the other growling and fuming insanely attractive, so more times than not they conduct diplomatic negotiations rather vigorously in bed. Clarke swallows down the memories that rise to the surface of her mind and bites off, “I’m the Amba kom Skaikru, Lexa. My job is to be biased towards them, to fight for them and make sure they’re being treated fairly. To protect them. You’d do the exact same thing if Penn started something at Camp Jaha; don’t even try to deny it.”
Lexa hates it when Clarke has a point and she hates how much she wants Clarke right now, and it's either get her out of her sight or take the Sky Girl up against a tree. “We’re done here,” she snarls, wrenching herself away, and then calls out for Ryder, who appears from around the bend in the path. “Escort the Amba kom Skaikru back to her people.”
Ryder nods. “Sha, Heda. Amba, komba raun ai.”
Clarke whirls and stomps past Ryder with a huff, missing the long look he gives Lexa, who snarls inarticulately and turns away to compose herself. She stays out there in the woods until close to dusk, trying breathing patterns and hodchil that Anya had taught her in an attempt to quiet her mind. She returns to the village only when a wind kicks up, blowing in black thunderheads that hasten the arrival of nightfall. The breeze dies as soon as comes, leaving the night breathless and growling with thunder but void of the storm’s relief. Lexa tosses and turns in her bed that night, working very hard to convince herself that it’s due to the humidity and sudden heat and not at all to her being alone.
When the villagers of Tondc bring them their evening meal, they also bring a collection of pelts and blankets and bedrolls that the Arkers spread out on the floor of the meeting hall. As the window darkens further, the Volunteers gradually stretch themselves out as well, attempting sleep or talking quietly in small groups. Clarke’s aware of a closeness and a charge in the air and it has her sitting on a bench against the wall, eyes flicking from the door to the window and across the Volunteers in a restless circuit.
As more and more of them lapse into sleep, Clarke finds herself thinking longingly more than once of the soft tangle of furs on Lexa’s bed and just how good it would feel to say Sure, whatever, you were right, I was wrong, can we please just go to sleep now? Not gonna happen, she snarls at that small, weak part of herself. When she feels Bellamy’s weight join hers on the bench and hears him murmur, “What’s not gonna happen?” she realizes she’d said it aloud.
“Nothing,” she says, not bothering to try to hide the exhaustion in her voice. That’s one thing she’s always valued about Bellamy, as much as it infuriates her: she’s pretty much an open book to him, so she doesn’t waste time trying to act cheerful when she’s not. This also means, of course, that he knows when she’s holding something back, and she has to deal with the consequences.
Mercifully, however, he doesn’t seem interested in pushing it. “You should get some sleep, Princess,” he says, and she smiles wryly at the old nickname. “Got a long walk ahead of us tomorrow. Assuming, that is, your girlfriend isn’t planning on keeping us all locked up here forever.”
“Like she could,” Clarke snorts, then sighs. “No, she wants us gone just about as much as I want to be gone.” At Bellamy’s side-eye l look she hastens to clarify, “Which is a lot.” He nods, processing, and she’s chewing over how to tell him that Octavia won’t be coming with them when he asks her the question just as she finds an answer.
“I take it O’s staying here?” he says.
“Yeah, and you are too.” He’s frowning and opening his mouth to argue and she gestures to Kyro and Rana just before he can start. “Lexa’s got those two coming with us, and I want us to have eyes and ears here too. Not that Octavia can’t do that just fine on her own, but…”
“But she’s already more than half Grounder,” Bellamy says, nodding. “Sounds good to me. Just make sure you get on Raven to get the radio working. If you can find a time when Wick’s not already on her, that is.”
Clarke snorts. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get to have sex until that radio’s done, and you know how grumpy that'll make her.” They exchange dark looks, and then Clarke grins. “Besides, from what I’ve seen – which is way, way too much by the way – she spends more time on him.”
Bellamy makes a face. “Definitely didn’t need to know that.”
With that sorted out, Clarke settles herself onto a bedroll, hoping she can get a bit of shuteye before she has to face Lexa and a very long walk the next morning. She winds up watching the sun and then the moon creep across the window and resigns herself to a very, very long day.
Shortly after dawn, the door to the meeting hall clangs open and Indra stalks down the stairs, flanked by a couple of warriors. Clarke stands immediately and Bellamy rises as well, planting himself by her shoulder and folding his arms. When she sees his tightened jaw Clarke nudges him with her elbow – the last thing she needs is for him to start another confrontation, especially if he’s going to be spending the next two weeks here. She’s uncomfortably reminded of the time she sent him into the Mountain as her inside man, but forces herself to remember that these are the Trikru, not the Mountain Men. Their customs are different and their ways sometimes strange but they are allies, maybe even friends. Bellamy’s smart; he’ll be all right.
Indra’s gaze sweeps across the room, pausing over the bound hands of Asmo and Beans before settling on Clarke. She gives a slow nod, which Clarke returns, and then gestures for her attendants to unlock the door. The Sky People follow the general up the stairs, blinking at the sudden blast of light before emerging into the breathlessly humid morning, already buzzing with heat. Clarke begins to sweat almost immediately and bites back a groan. This is not going to be an easy march.
They’re given leave to return to their section of the camp and pack, and most of the Sky People stumble towards their tents, but Clarke hesitates. All of her things are in Lexa’s tent, and that’s about the last place she wants to go right now. But she’s not going to leave her things behind just because the Commander’s being an ass. She forces herself to remember the heat of yesterday's anger as she marches stiffly towards the tent. It’s hard, though, with how tired and heartsick she is, and the most she can manage is a sort of exhausted ache.
Lexa turns away from the flap of the tent the moment Clarke enters and pretends to interest herself in a map spread out on the war table, but when she hears Clarke scoff she knows her pretense hasn’t worked. With a sigh she forces herself to look at the Sky Girl, trying not to think about their last parting – how they’d spent nearly the entire night entwined, not wanting to look away from one another even to sleep. They’d managed a few hours but need had woken first Lexa and then Clarke, and they’d returned to mapping one another’s bodies with desperate hands and hungry mouths, falling into one another again and again until exhaustion parted them once more. Looking at Clarke now, she feels that same desperation rise again, a feverish urge to close the distance between them in the tent and apologize to Clarke with a kiss, but something won’t let her. Her pride, her position, maybe her fear – it won’t let her bend, and so when Clarke stands up from shoving her clothes into her pack and meets her eyes, she breaks and turns away.
Clarke lets out a quiet huff, like something she’d suspected had just been confirmed, and then moves to sweep past her out of the tent. Fear closes around Lexa’s throat and she moves to stop Clarke with a hand on her wrist. At the Sky Girl’s glare, she drops it like it burns her, but returns her eyes to Clarke, silently beseeching. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” she says, her inflection implying a question.
A humorless smile quirks at Clarke’s lips. “I am the Amba kom Skaikru, aren’t I?” she says, and Lexa nods. “Two weeks, then.” She leaves the tent, and for the first time since their arrangement began Lexa does not follow her to say goodbye.