Chapter Text
She flitted across the forest floor, ducking through the undergrowth that flourished in the months since winter's last breath. Vaulting over fallen trees and across shallow creeks, ignoring the audience that flew above her and ran alongside her. It was an act she'd come to seek out as of late. Feeling the wind in her hair and seep in through her clothes was simply exhilarating, leaving her without a thought of the world.
But it didn't always stay that way.
Her past still managed to niggle its way into her thoughts when she stopped moving. It was inescapable, and she knew her mentor had been right about that single fact. She knew that maybe it was time to slow down and go back, go back to what she once knew. Not go back to who she once was because that girl was gone. She had died in the woods further to the north than where she was now. Died in the snow drifts that built against the walls of the ice cities. Died in the ice pits where she battled for her freedom.
In those snow drifts, in that pit, before them all she had already been a legend. Her name even then a whisper on lips of the common people, on the lips of warriors, generals and leaders of all the clans. She had been the wanheda, destroyer of the mountain, freer of its people but now she ran as the champion of the north. Slayer of the creature distorted by radioactivity, sporting its lasting scars on her once smooth back.
She slowed to a walk at the thought, dropping herself to the grassy floor of a clearing, drawing her sword across her lap that caught the gleam of the noon sun. The greatest blacksmiths of the northern cities had come together to forge this single sword, symbols that stood for each of her titles etched into its blade.
She hated the ice queen for it. She hated the reminders etched into the sword of the things she'd done, of the people she'd conquered. Their blood staining her hands but nothing conquered the blood she'd shed in that mountain. Nothing could make her forget the nightmares that still haunted her resting moments and waking. Nothing could make her forget the bodies of children lying dead in their parents arms, skin pulled taut across bone. Expressions full of anguish still visible despite the radioactive burns.
Nothing could make her forget the pain of being betrayed and abandoned on that mountain. Nothing could make her forget her hatred for the one who forced her hand in murdering a mountain of innocent. Nothing could make her forget Lexa, the commander of the 12 clans.
Clarke Griffin could not and did not forget the beginning of what she thought would be her end.
Her vision blurred as she drifted into nothingness, convinced she was greeting a long awaited death when she suddenly woke once more to a crackling fire and warm furs laid over her body. The woman across from her silent, her eyes downcast and focused on the fire. Her face covered in black paint, the paint that followed her prominent scars across her face as if she'd gotten into a fight with a creature far beyond Clarke's wildest dreams.
The woman unmoving as Clarke shifted into a sitting position, swallowing despite her dry throat and fingers inching towards a branch sticking out of the fire. Silently wishing she hadn't tossed her gun into a gorge days ago. She wrapped her hand around the small branch and swung it at the woman but she was ready for her. Dodging the attack and slamming Clarke into the wall of the cave behind her, the edges of stone cutting into her skin through her jacket. Her grip firm and unmovable despite Clarke's struggles. Her eyes a piercing gray, so light they were almost white that Clarke became acquainted with quickly enough as the woman rarely spoke. Choosing to speak through glances and glares as Clarke spoke to her.
She had no idea what her name was, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know who pushed her awake by boot tip in the middle of the night during her nightmares. Who shoved a spear and knife into her hands in the pink of dawn then taught her to hunt. Giving her one lesson before abandoning her to hunt on her own just as the commander had. She learned fairly quickly once she'd returned empty handed the first time that the warrior would not let her rest until she showed progress.
She shifted as the sun glared down at her as it set behind the trees ahead of her. Getting to her feet and sliding the sword back into its leather sheath at her back, just behind her bow and quiver full of arrows. She began to walk instead of run, the longer it took her to return to the southern territory would hopefully quell the anxiety she felt surging through her limbs.
Only once did she manage to catch the warrior with a clean face, with clean hair, finding out that the woman was blonde as mud no longer clung to her head. Clarke had hidden herself in a thicket as silently as she could manage. Finding the quiet one emerging from a slow flowing river that twisted near the cave they called home. Naked as the day she was born, scars running across the skin of her toned stomach and arms, down her legs as if she had survived the torture that she had once seen Raven partially go through.
Clarke watched as she dressed in the dark clothes she always wore. Tightening straps across her legs and chest to keep her clothes in place. The sleeves of her worn shirt rolled up to her elbows as she sat on a rock at the river's edge. Her feet bare as she drew a knife from a place Clarke couldn't see. The warrior dragging the blade through the hair on her head, shaving the sides down but leaving the middle long enough for her to run her fingers through. Watching as the warrior stabbed the blade into the earth behind her, reaching up to delicately braid the blonde hair that remained.
Clarke shifted, feeling her legs begin to stiffen but breaking a stick underfoot. She snapped her head up as the warrior did, her head turning and facing Clarke. Her eyes remaining impassive, emotionless as she turned back towards the river. Not caring if Clarke watched her, not caring if Clarke saw the scars on her face clear as day. Not caring to see if Clarke's face twisted in distorted horror as she imagined the pain the woman must have felt when she received them.
It was enough to push Clarke away, to make her return to the cave with the spear in hand before the warrior did. The warrior returning with her bow slung across her back and a rabbit in her hand, held by the back legs as she dropped it before Clarke. Then dropping a knife at her feet with a glare as if to say 'you saw me at my weakest point so now you do dinner' and Clarke accepted it. She accepted the punishment that she knew the warrior was throwing at her.
A snap of a twig pulled Clarke from her memories and she stooped low. Straining her ears for footsteps when a deer stepped into the path ahead of her. Lean and graceful as it dropped its head to pull at the fresh spring grass. She felt the urge to kill but refrained from it, clicking her tongue loud enough for the deer to startle and spring away. It was refreshing for her to witness life in this part of the woods, after the long, cold winter she'd endured in the village many miles behind her.
She woke that morning to a cold cave, to a fire long since burnt out and the warrior missing from her usual place. The bow and arrows that normally laid next to her seat missing but the warrior's knife stuck in the dirt next to Clarke's face as she sat up. The dark feeling of abandonment coursing through her and sadness toying at the outer spectrum of her emotions.
She let out a sigh, pulling the furs up and over her head in an attempt to keep warm as snow began to fall at the mouth of the cave. Wind building as it howled through the forest like wolves in the night, the air icy that hit the exposed skin of her hands as she tried to bring the fire back. Her teeth clicking together uncontrollably, hands trembling as mild heat grew but it wasn't enough to keep her warm.
She shivered as a shadow fell across her, the warrior having returned with a horse. The woman grabbing Clarke, dragging her from the cave and ignoring the burning fire. Heaving Clarke onto the horse before pulling herself up behind her and driving the animal hard through the sudden blizzard. Snow flying by as they rode when a sudden village sprang up before them as if by magic. The warrior halting the panting horse, dismounting and dragging Clarke with her.
Clarke put up no fight, she knew the warrior would down her in a second should she struggle against her. The warrior had never been gentle with her, often making a move to even strike her should Clarke show defiance. The warrior taught her to just accept the power she had over her and Clarke allowed it, grateful to no longer be in control of herself or anyone else.
She did not baby Clarke, she did not treat her as if she were weak, she treated her like she would any other warrior and Clarke recognized it as she was half dragged towards a hut. The roof thatched and caked in snow as Clarke was shoved inside. A fire burning bright in the center as she dropped herself onto the wooden bench across from it. Shivering in the cold air that manage to squeeze itself through the thin walls.
Clarke looked up towards the sky as it darkened, making the choice to climb a tree for the night. Passing by round, rough trunks until finding one she deemed decent enough for herself. Digging her boots into the surface as she stabbed two pronged blades into the bark, hauling herself upward until she reached a thick enough branch to support her weight. She leaned back, feeling the sword press into her back between her shoulder blades and maybe once before she might have found this uncomfortable. But now she found it relaxing, knowing she was safe above the earth for a time.
Each day she grew stronger than the last, accepting the warrior's way. Accepting the warrior's offering of warmer clothes then more hunting. Learning that the woman who found her was Alta, the village healer Nadira. Her days falling into a scheduled pattern, waking, hunting, being ignored by other village people. Only Nadira meeting with her should she injure herself in the woods.
The healer was kind, her eyes light brown and warm, stark difference from the warrior. She spoke english to Clarke but spoke trigedasleng to the warrior despite not being replied to aside from soft grunts and nods in front of Clarke.
Months later she woke to the healer sitting beside her bed, a knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. Whittling carefully and quietly as Clarke sat up sleepily, heart racing from the dream she woke from.“You wake,” she spoke low, quietly.
“I do.”
“A queen rides this day.”
“A queen?” Clarke asked, she could assume it to be the commander whose name she refused to speak.
“The ice queen, my queen, my lady in white.”
“Why.”
“For you, we wanted to keep you hidden but someone passing through the village saw you. Spoke of you in the queen's land, outside of exile. She rides for the wanheda, destroyer of the mountain, freer of its people, to learn if you are real and not legend.” The healer shifted in her seat, “you have a choice.”
“Do I?”
“You have a choice to leave or stay and meet the queen. You can remain a legend with whispers of your death on the lips of every warrior and child or be seen by her. To be real, it is your choice, I nor Alta will stop you.”
She waited patiently as Clarke considered. Unsure with this new found ability to make a decision given to her by Nadira. Unsure if she should let the world know she still lived and breathed. Unsure if this queen would allow her to live or kill her on the spot and perhaps it was time. Perhaps it was time for her to come out of hiding and take the chance to rejoin the living.
She snapped her eyes open as a hawk landed a few feet from her on her branch. Its piercing eyes meeting hers for a moment then letting out a screech as she scrambled in sudden terror. Resulting in her hitting the ground below her with a groan, something Alta would surely have her head for if she were here. She sat up slowly, grateful that she wasn't as she stretched. Making sure she hadn't broken anything, checking her weapons that had managed to survive the fall but finding a few broken arrows. She could salvage them, break off the heads and save the feathers.
She walked with the arrows in her hand, breaking them up, dropping the heads into the leather pouch at her hip. Weaving the feathers into her braids to keep them safe, listening to the soft sound of birds chirping over head then another sudden screech. The sound reminding her of the ice queen and the white hawk that sat on her shoulder, one eye blind and the other red as blood.
The queen sat a top a horse as white as snow, the dress she wore long and white. She truly was the lady in white as Nadira had called her but the healer failed to mention the icy blue gleam in her eyes. She failed to mentioned the nearly white blonde hair that hung straight down her back. Her skin as white as snow that did not even glow in the torches that burned on either side of her in her guards hands. The guards dressed in black, faces covered by black feathered masks with black beaks.
She dismounted with a flourish, gliding to the snow dusted earth beneath her. The land cleared as her arrival warned by a man in dark leather on a panting steed. She held her arm out as she approached Clarke and the fluttering of wings pierced the air along with an unearthly scream. A snow white hawk landing perfectly with talons that should have cut the queen to ribbons but did not, the bird landing on her shoulder rather than her outstretched arm.
“You are the feller of the mountain,” the queen spoke. Her tone disbelieving as her emotionless eyes narrowed, the bird on her shoulder seemingly mirroring her gaze as she looked Clarke over. Approaching her slowly, her delicate fingers reaching out and touching the soft leather of her clothing. “But you look like common folk, not a thing of legend, not a beast from the books of old. A human, a normal human girl who is untrained and unknown.”
“I..-”
“You do not speak when a queen speaks girl.” She leaned over, her fingers slipping beneath Clarke's chin, tilting her head up to look the queen dead in the eye. “How is it that you, a mere girl, is whispered about in the streets of Polis, how is it that you are both a nightmare to children and a lullaby sung by mothers at hearth fires to calm them. How and not I, the queen of the north lands. The one who rules the shifting ice like she would her own children, who is legend to protect the children from death in the dead of winter. How are you more than I?”
“Even you could not fell the mountain, queen Nia.” A voice broke through the silence. A voice Clarke barely recognized but as the warrior pushed through, she knew her exactly. She had never heard Alta speak more than two words at a time but here she spoke a full english sentence. “The mountain cast it shadow over all of our lands since the great falling of the civilization of old and she destroyed it. A mere girl, did what you, the queen of the north, could not.”
That memory in particular caused her to grin, Alta defending her and putting the queen in her place always made her smile. Alta, the warrior who returned from the brink of death, exiled to the land that separated the north and the south. The warrior who returned to the north as Clarke did, training her, teaching her, protecting her until she could no more.
Clarke rode alongside Alta on the ice road to the north. The queen and her guard ahead of them, out of earshot but within viewing distance. It had been Alta's idea to remain this far behind, her distrust for the queen radiating around her like hot heat from the cooking fires at the village.
“Where is the ice city?” Clarke asked quietly, her voice carrying away from them as the wind blew over them but Alta said nothing. “Is it made of ice?” Nothing. “Is there more than one ice city?” Nothing. “Can you answer me?” Nothing, Clarke sighed, dropping her head and staring at her fur lined leather gloves. “What is the name of the city we ride for?”
“Ontre,” Alta replied curtly, her tone harsh and Clarke almost missed it over the howling wind. Her fur lined hood flapping in the snow dusted wind loud in her ears as they rode and Clarke remained silent for what felt like hours of riding. Hours before something began to grow in the distance, Clarke squinting her eyes to try and make it out but failing, it looked like nothing more than a mountain.
“We have arrived,” Alta murmured and Clarke glanced at her in confusion.
“It can't be, it looks like nothing,” Alta merely shook her head and Clarke understood it to mean that she was serious. That the growing object in the distance was Ontre, an ice city.
Clarke remembered the way the city had grown as they rode, then the ice walls became truly visible and still to that day she wondered if some type of grounder magic was what made the city appear the way it did. Buildings entirely cased in ice, stores entirely cased in ice, the roads made of a cracked, dark stone. Lit at night by glass encased flames that were only visible until you were within a few feet of them as the nights were plagued by blizzards. In the gleam of the morning sun was when the city was most beautiful, standing in the yard of the barracks that Alta lead her to each day. Thrusting a dull blade into her hand.
It was early the morning she was woken by the queen's guards. Their faces hidden by their feathered masks as they dragged her from her bed. Tossing her to the stone floor of her room, their booted feet holding her arms to the floor as she fought against them. Only stopping when the queen entered her room, dressed in armor that looked to be made of plated ice. Solid and dark as it wrapped her chest, down her legs and arms. Cloth hanging around her hips that stopped knee length, the symbol of the ice nation clear against the iron gray fabric.
“I tire of watching you train with that exile day in and day out, it does nothing for you. She is too patient, too simple, too clean for my liking.” The queen knelt, her armor clicking together and the cloth at her waist sweeping the floor. “So you will go to the fighting pits in Otta, you will learn there because no teacher is better than the possibility of death. You will either learn or die, I care not if you survive but should you.. then I shall reward you.” She stood back up straight, motioning with her hand for the guards to take her. “I have a war to wage, and should you survive six months then I will return for you and make you a general in my armies.”
Clarke hated those ice pits, she hated the blades that always seemed to be sharper than her own as they slashed through her leather armor. That slashed through her skin, she hated taking the lives of some common criminal that she was pitted against. She hated not knowing what happened to Alta until she came to the six month mark but it was the fight that came before the last that still shook her to her core.
The crowds cheered outside of her cell, the cell she'd called home for the past six months. She'd heard rumors from the guards that a special treat was being brought in just for her. A creature so powerful and bloodthirsty that it had claimed hundreds of victims in the last fifty years. She heard the guards bet on how long it took her to die, on how mutilated her body would be after she died. The guards laughter echoing through the tunnels as they walked the path toward her cell. Their boots near soundless against the loose earth.
“You, get up, you have a fight.” One of them told her, the largest of them with his face covered in deep blue tattoos as if they were claw marks straight down and braided facial hair.
“I fight my last battle this day and it is not until later.”
“Not what I was told, get to your feet.” He unlocked her cell, throwing it open and grabbing her by the shoulder. His large hand in a vice like grip on her until they came to the armory where another, smaller man fitted her in her leather armor. Her armor hastily patched by blacksmiths, tailors and leather workers in training alike. Numerous shades of brown that she did not mind as she only wore it to survive.
She would not be given anything to defend herself until she was in the pits, if she was given anything at all. She ground her teeth as she was shoved forward through the metal gates and into the pit. She preferred this one, it wasn't covered like the others. Fresh snow often covering the blood stained snow of the previous fights.
The snow crunched underfoot as she crossed in the center, listening as the crowds cheered loudly for the one titled heda of Otta. A mocking title that Clarke did not care for as the doors opened opposite of her, a man stepping out with such a pronounced limp that she thought he may fall before he reached her.
However she was sorely mistaken, the man did make it to her and he raised his head. She jerked backward, her eyes wide in fear and recognition as his face was burned, just like in her nightmares. The angry red skin pulled taut across his facial features, his long since burned away lips leaving his black gums and teeth visible as he let out a roar. Straightening up to full height but only a few inches taller than herself.
Clarke remembered finding the man easy enough to kill, a dull sword lodged in his burnt neck. Blood pouring from the open wound as she yanked her sword free from him. Painting the snow in a deep sea of red. She remembered the crowd standing in their cheers as she trembled, his lifeless pupils blown, eyes staring up at her. Her nightmare had come to life during that battle and her strikes were frantic, not calculating as she normally was. Resulting in her own cuts and bruises until she'd managed to get a grip on herself. Realizing that no matter how far she went, no matter who she killed, no matter how much she wanted to forget, her past would find her. That it would seep in through her pores and settle in her bones, that it had become a part of her she would never escape.
She sat alone in her cell, still in her armor awaiting her final battle. The flashes of memory from her previous battle flickering before her eyes as she wrung her hands. Wishing she could wash her mind of it, wishing for something, anything. A wish granted as she heard footsteps and the click of plated armor echo down the hallway towards her then Alta rounding the corner. Alta, alive and dressed in actual armor rather than her leather. Scars covered in paint, but alive and frowning as Clarke sat bleeding from a wound on her shoulder in her cell.
“You're alive, she didn't kill you.” Said Clarke standing, drinking in the familiarity of her stoic mentor. Breaking into a small smile as the woman nodded, her hands reaching in through the bars of Clarke's cell and gripping at her leather armor. Yanking her close, grasping at her forearm firmly as Clarke returned the notion. “Where have you been all this time? Has she hurt you?”
Alta shook her head, closing her eyes briefly then meeting Clarke's blue eyes. “Survive and you will be free once more.”
“What if I don't want to be free? What if I want to die in that pit? What if I want to put an end to my story, an end to this endless battle that I've been thrust into.” Clarke sighed, “perhaps I should have never met with the ice queen. I should have escaped and run back to what I once knew before fighting for an inevitable end in these pits.”
The warrior shook her head once more, “it was meant to happen and now you must survive.” Alta released her arm and took a step back as the familiar guards appeared. Dressed in black but without masks as they approached, pushing Alta aside.
“Its time,” one of them told her as the ice queen herself glided down the hallway in a pale blue dress. White furs draped over her shoulders, looking the same as she had been six months ago when they met in Clarke's room in Ontre.
“Good to see you alive Clarke, I have to admit that I expected you to die but, alas I was wrong.” She flicked her wrist and one of the guards opened Clarke's cell door, pulling her from her cell roughly. “But I wonder.. will you survive this final battle? Or die like the rest.”
“I guess we'll both see.”
“Of course but I've decided to change your reward, you will not fight in my army. You will be set free, free within the exiled lands. I care not what you do should you manage to free yourself. I care not if you leave the exiled lands but should you return to the north. I will hunt you, I will hunt you down like the skai girl you are.”
“I am no longer of the skai, Nia, I fell and I am just like you. I am of the ground but clanless and homeless.” Clarke spat at her, she knew the queen would take offense to her not using her title and the queen scowled in anger. Backhanding Clarke but her lips twisting into a dark smile as Clarke hit the dirt.
“Take her to the pit she battled in before, the beast is kept there, feasting on her slain.” The queen ordered and her guards grabbed Clarke, hauling her to her feet. “Make sure she is armed, I want this battle to last, I want to watch as she begins to feel hopelessness despite her advantages.”
The guards dragged her away with those words ringing in her ears. One of them thrusting a sharp blade and dagger into her hands before pushing her through the gates and into the pit. Freezing as the creature before her had yet to realize she was there. The creature gray and muscled, open wounds scaring its back as it leaned over the dead body left in the snow. Its long muzzle painted red as its black stained teeth sliced through burnt skin to devour the near frozen meat inside.
Clarke assumed that it had once been a wolf, an artic wolf, she remembered the pictures from her life on the ark of the creature thought to be extinct. But now as it suddenly lifted its large head, breathing in, catching her scent through its black nose. The eyeless pits on its face directed at her as if it did actually have eyes. Scars crisscrossed over the empty voids as if someone had long since cut them straight out of its head. Roaring as it rose to stand on its hind legs as if it were human before breaking into a run, charging straight for her. Its blood stained tongue lolling between his incisors as he leaped claws outstretched but narrowly missing Clarke's head as she rolled away.
Her choice made without her consent, her choice to survive rather than die.
Clarke blinked and shook her head, stopping at a cliff that overlooked a deep ravine. Dangling her legs over the edge as she pulled dried meat from the pouch at her hip. The scars that ran along her back ached at the memory, those long claws dragging across her skin like a sharp sword through air. She remembered driving her sword through his skull, dislodging the dagger she'd stabbed into one its eyeless sockets. The dagger dropping to the snow silently as she stepped back from the dead beast. Drenched in head to toe of her blood as well as the creatures. The crowd silent as the ice queen herself let out a bloodthirsty scream at Clarke surviving, the hawk that sat on her shoulder landing in the snow making a meal of the downed creature.
Days later the queen gave her the sword strapped to Clarke's hip and sent her alongside Alta back to the exile lands. There she lived alongside Alta and Nadira, learning trigedasleng from Nadira until one day Alta took her hunting to the land bordering the Trikru.
“You do not belong here Clarke.” Alta had begun after stopping them in the center of a clearing, the sky dark with the promise of rain. “You are not like Nadira or I, not like the other exiles of the clans. You have a destiny beyond our little family, our village, beyond our pitiful squabbles. You have a home of your choosing to return to, you have your skai people.”
“How do you..-”
“You once whispered their names as you slept, you spoke of a Raven so bright she blinded the sun himself. You spoke of an Octavia the most fearless and determined of them all. You spoke of a Bellamy as much your equal as any other. Of a Lincoln so kind and strong that you envied him but also of the commander herself, your hatred for her. The fire that built in the pit of your stomach and fueled the hatred that I suspect still burns to this day. You should return, but should you not like what you find.. you will always have a place among the exiled.”
“Alta.. I-”
“It is my final advice to you, Clarke of the sky people.” Alta turned from her, her words hanging in the air around Clarke like a heavy cloud. No one had called her that since the commander had, she had always been wanheda, destroyer of the mountain, freer of the people or heda of Otta before that day.
All of this days ago, days since she had last spoken to Alta. Days since she had last seen Nadira's warm smile as she entered the hut. Days since she ate around a fire with people she learned to love and care for, now she sat a few miles from Camp Jaha. The ravine she sat over filled with the remains of the fallen ark from nearly a year ago. She knew this wasn't a good place to stop, she could be seen by passing arkers or even trikru from Ton DC.
She sighed as she stood, sticking the remaining meat between her teeth as she brushed dirt from her pants and heading back into the forest. Chewing slowly, methodically as she wondered if she should visit the camp or not. If she should climb into the trees and watch them for a moment, if she should even enter the camp. See her mother and friends again but she bypassed the camp, turning towards Ton DC.