Grounders

CHAPTER 8

The next morning found Clarke and the rest of Skaikru ready to head out for the quest, along with the Azgeda that were going with them. Lexa and Clarke had already talked to Echo and Octavia about helping to bring down the mountain and both were extremely excited at the opportunity to prove themselves not only to Trikru, but to the entire coalition as if this worked, they would be a huge part of taking down the mountain and both were honored to be chosen to do it.

Clarkes group had Madi, Jasper, Miller and Monroe. Jasper was excited because he had everyone who would make sure he wouldn’t die. Raven’s group had Monty, Harper, Fox and Jackson. Murphy’s group had Octavia, Echo, Talli and the other 3 Azgeda warriors.

They were all waiting at the gates when Lexa, Anya, Indra and the Chief Tris come to see them off. “I want to wish you all good luck and good hunting out there. Please be careful and take care of one another. There are many predators out there so please stay alert,” Heda said.

With that the three groups all bowed their heads and started to head out the gates towards their predestined places to start their week of living off the land and hunting food to bring back for the village.

The first few days for all the groups uneventful, which was good. They caught deer and rabbit for the most part. It was on the third day for Clarke’s group that the action picked up. Jasper was out with Madi setting traps when all of a sudden there was a loud sound that had Jasper pulling Madi up and behind him. He looked around but saw nothing. Madi had picked up her bow and had notched an arrow ready to take on whatever was lurking in the shadows and Jasper has his sword out in front of him. Just then the shadow moves and becomes a giant black panther growling lowly at them showing off its huge teeth. Jasper looks at Madi and tells her to run which Madi didn’t listen. It was then that the panther came towards them, and Jasper fended it off. He was doing alright until the panther's giant paw hit his arm and knocked the sword from his hand, and as he went to try and recover it the panther jumped on him scratching his back. Jasper was in severe pain but was still trying to crawl over to his sword while the panther stalked him from behind. When the panther went to leap onto Jasper again, Madi shot her arrow and it hit the panther in the eye and killed it. Although she killed it, it landed on top of Jasper as he let out a loud cry. Madi tried to move the panther off of him and she was able to shove it off and help Jasper up. He pulled Madi into a huge hug and when she wrapped her arms around him, she hit the spot that the panther had scratched, and that made Jasper scream out in pain. Madi froze and started telling Jasper she was so sorry.

Jasper sucked in a big breath and let it out when Madi said, “look Jasper we got a panther.”

Jasper smiled at her, “no Mads you did that.”

“Only because you used yourself as human bait. At least that’s what we tell people,” she said with a wink.

Jasper just laughed and said, “ok warrior princess let’s get this thing back to camp,” and with that they picked the panther up and headed back.

Clarke losing her shit was an understatement. It took Monroe a few minutes to calm Clarke down, but when she had calmed, she told Madi how proud she was of her, and thanked Jasper for protecting Madi. He told Clarke that Madi protected him.

“Here sit so I can fix up your back,” Clarke told Jasper.

Jasper just watched Madi, “she is something amazing Clarke. She never flinched. Me I was so scared, but I tried not to show it and I tried to protect her, and I would have died trying, but Madi she shot her arrow and my god what a shot it was. One shot Clarke, that’s it, one shot dead in the eye.”

Clarke just sat there tending to Jasper holding so much pride for her daughter. “I know Jas she is absolutely amazing.”

“Yeah, just like her ma,” Jasper said with a smile.

“Thank you, Jasper, for trying to save her and I know you would have laid down your life trying to protect her,” Clarke said. “Ok all patched up.” Jasper got up to head over to the fire to rest when Clarke pulled him in for a hug. “Really Jasper thank you for protecting my daughter,” Clarke whispered in his ear.

Jasper whispered back, “thank you for have such an amazing daughter who saved my life.”

When they pulled away from each other they just laughed and headed over to sit around the fire with Clarke pulling Madi to her to sit between her legs so she could have her near her to know that she’s still here. “I’m so proud of you ai strik gona,” Clarke whispered to Madi.

Madi smiled and nuzzled into Clarke. “Ma do you think Heda and my Fos will be proud of me.”

Clarke just smiled, “Madi they are both going to be so proud of you. You took down a panther and saved Jasper from getting seriously injured or killed.”

Madi smiled and then curled into Clarke and feel asleep. Clarke just kissed the top of her head and followed her into sleep.

Raven’s group found their camp site and started to go out and catch some rabbits and down a couple of deer’s. Raven and Fox had taken a walk to set up some of Raven’s traps when they both felt the earth shake.

“Raven was that an earthquake we learned about in school,” Fox asked.

“Umm…I don’t think earthquakes ever really happened where we are, so no I don’t think that was an earthquake.” It was then that they heard the loud roar coming from in front of them.

“Raven, what the hell was that” Fox asked with a shaky breath.

Of course, Raven knew what it was, but she couldn’t let that on. Plus, she was scared shitless just like Fox was. ‘Fuck think Raven what do we do, cause it sounds like its headed towards the camp,’ Raven thinks to herself.

Raven was shaken out of her thoughts when Fox spoke to her. “Raven, we have to do something it sounds like its heading right to our camp.”

“Yeah, it does. Let's go this way and see if we can get ahead of it and make it change course away from camp.”

They both took off to try and get ahead of it and when Raven saw they were almost there she told Fox to go farther down closer to camp so that if it got passed Raven she could get to camp and get them out of there. Raven being Raven ran to where she thought she would be able to veer the beast off. Once she got there, she looked around to see what she could do to make the beast veer off and that’s when she saw the large vines hanging down from the trees. She quickly grabbed the vines and started to make a trap to trip up the beast, but she had to be quick cause the puana was moving quickly. Once Raven felt she had done as much as she could she climbed up the tree to hope she could surprise the beast and maybe take it out. It was just a few more minutes when the puana finally comes into view and Raven takes a few deep breaths trying to calm her nerves, but let’s be serious it’s a fucking puana coming right at you. ‘Alright Raven you got this; you can do this. What the fuck were you thinking you fucking idiot,’ Raven says to herself. The puana comes through where Raven had made the trip vines and the puana hits them, except he walks right through them and what Raven didn’t realize are the vines were tied up by her feet and they had gotten tangled in them so when the puana pulled them forward Raven was pulled from the tree and landed on the puana’s back. Once it felt the thud of Ravens body hit it the puana started trying to reach for her to get her off of it. Raven for her part was holding on as tight as she could trying her best to not get thrown off while also trying to grab her dagger do that, she could stab the puana. She thankfully finds the dagger and as she is about to stab it into the puana’s back she loses her grip with her other hand is sent flying into a tree. She hit her head and as she is trying to shake the dizziness away, she notices the puana is charging towards her. ‘Oh, shit Raven what are you going to do now,’ and as she thinks she remembers some of the guys on the Ark watching old wrestling shows on the TV and remembers where the one that was waiting in the corner would wait till the last second and move so the other would run into the turnbuckle. So, Raven stands there and waits thinks to herself, ‘for being a genius your fucking stupid sometimes,’ and with that she jumps out of the way and the puana rams right through the tree. As he’s down on the ground Raven runs to his head quickly and stabs him in his neck with the dagger. It took a while but eventually the puana finally bled out and died. Raven just sat there waiting and finally took a deep breath when the puana died. Raven got this huge grin on her face once she got up and was able to steady herself from what she thinks might be a slight concussion, ‘I just fucking killed a puana. Oh, shit I’m going to be the talk of TonD.C. when we bring this fucker back. That’s right Raven fucking Reyes the puana killer. Take that Clarke, you’re not going to be the only one of us to have a cool ass nickname.’ She just laughed to herself and headed back so that they could come up with some way to bring the big guy back to camp.

Murphy’s group was going to have a crazier time since he had to try to control the four Azgeda’s while Echo and Octavia get captured and go to the mountain. They were told by scouts of a place where the Reapers were known to be so that is where Murphy headed. It didn’t take long for them to find the reapers. They hadn’t even started setting up camp when they heard loud noises coming towards them.

Murphy walked up to Echo and whispered in her ear, “I believe this is going to go down now, all I ask is that you try to keep Octavia safe. She is like a little sister to me.”

Echo looked at Murphy and she gave him a small smile. “I will do everything I can to keep her safe and complete our mission to bring down the maunon.”

Murphy nodded and then went to Octavia, “hey, if these are the Reapers then I want you to know how proud of you I am. You have become my little sister and I love you O, so please take care of yourself and listen to Echo.”

Octavia had tears coming down her face and she just threw herself into Murphy’s arms. “I love you too big brother.”

Murphy tried to hide his tears, but Echo saw them and just smiled at him then looked away. “Alright let’s get ready.”

Octavia moves closer to Echo and gets ready to do her duty and go into the mountain to help bring it down.

Echo moved to Talli and kissed her, “I love you and I will be back. Please make sure the others do not follow and understand that they need to follow you so they can become Trikru and follow Heda’s orders.”

“I will Echo please come back to me and I love you too,” Talli says and kisses Echo again.

It was then that ten Reapers came out from the trees and surrounded the group. Murphy also noticed standing off from the Reapers were three mountain men. He looks over towards Echo and she nods to him that she sees the mountain men standing there. Echo then moves over to Octavia so that they can move together and make sure they are caught.

“Octavia lets slip this way and work on getting to the men in the suits,” Echo whispered.

Octavia nods, “following you.”

Once they moved up towards the men the rest of the group started to focus on the Reapers. The Reapers were growling and ready to attack, and when the battle started, and everything turned into chaos. The Azgedan’s led by Talli went straight towards the Reapers and started fighting them off. Murphy moved towards two of the Reapers and started fighting one of them.

Talli was keeping one eye on Echo while she was fighting off two Reapers. She wasn’t happy about the plan but knew Echo was the best to send in, she just didn’t know Octavia and was worried she would get Echo hurt or worse, but when she saw Octavia playing her role all her worries left her and she went back to focusing on the Reapers she was fighting.

Echo and Octavia were trying to make it look like they weren’t trying to get taken by the maunon on purpose. They were both fighting the three men in suits, but they had said they couldn’t fight to their full potential, or they would beat them and then they wouldn’t make it into the mountain. They let the fight go on for about 10 minutes before Octavia let herself be taken down. She let one of the men get behind her and he hit her on the head and knocked her down. Echo tried to get to her, but another mountain man pulled a gun, “stop right there or I will shoot,” he said.

Echo stopped and was breathing hard as she took in Octavia to make sure she was ok. “Let her go and I will go with you.”

The man just laughed at Echo, “I don’t think so, you both are going with us back to the mountain. The Reapers will either bring your friends back with them or your friends will die. Either way we will have you two. Let's go,” he said waving his gun to gesture Echo to move. Another man picks up Octavia and throws her over his shoulder as they start to return to the mountain.

Ash, one of the Azgeda warriors and Ontari see this, and they start to move towards where the mountain men were leaving with Echo. Talli noticed this and shouted at her, “Ash, Ontari no we need you both here to help defeat these, Reapers.”

“But Talli they have Echo,” Ash shouts back.

“We can’t help Echo if we are dead, so get back to the Reapers so we don’t die and can save Echo and Octavia,” Talli pleaded.

Ash looks to Ontari who is looking like she is going to fall apart, and then took another look back to where Echo was getting farther away and just sighed. Then she looked at the Reaper coming towards her and Ontari, and she steeled herself to take out her anger out on the Reaper for Echo being taken and killed the Reaper in front of her. Ash was only 16 summers old and was Echo’s seken. She had been Echo’s seken since she was 3 when her parents were killed by Nia for refusing to join Nia’s army. When Echo found out she wanted to make sure that Ash was taken care of, so she took her as her seken right away. Nia hated it, so that made Echo even happier to take Ash under her wing. Ash knew Ontari wasn’t going to be able to fight anymore so she took it upon herself to protect her Fos’s sistra.

As the fight with the Reapers was going on Murphy had just killed the first Reaper when the second one came charging at him and he was barely able to move out of the way of the attack. When he got his footing, he turned to take on the Reaper when his eyes went wide at the sight in front of him. Standing there growling and snarling at him was Emori. It was at this moment that Talli came up beside him. Murphy spoke quickly, “We need to capture this one. Clarke was a doctor on the Ark, and she might be able to help figure out what is wrong with them and help to bring them back.”

Talli looked over at Murphy with a scowl on her face. “Reapers do not come back. It would be foolish to bring one back with us.”

Murphy wanted to punch Talli but had to remember that she didn’t know who this Reaper was or who she was to him, so he had to be smart about this. “If Clarke can’t help then we kill her and there’s no harm no foul, but if she can help just think of all the Reapers, she could help to bring them back to their family and friends.”

Talli just rolled her eyes, in her mind a good Reaper was a dead Reaper, but she nodded and helped Murphy to capture the Reaper. Once all the Reapers were either dead or caught the group came back together. Murphy spoke up. “Alright let's get the Reaper tied up at camp. We still need to hunt and finish our quest before we go back to TonD.C.,” Murphy said.

Once camp was set up Ash asked about the Reaper. “So, Talli, who is going to keep an eye on the Reaper.”

Talli just looked over to Murphy and he sighed. “I will keep her in my tent and keep an eye on her. Let’s get going and get to hunting.”

With that everyone went out and started on the quest.

Back in TonD.C. was pretty quiet, which made Lexa happy. Lexa was doing one of her favorite new things which was playing with Charlotte in Clarkes tent. Anya came in and stopped in her tracks, then she started laughing when she saw that Charlotte had Lexa sitting at a table having a tea party. A few minutes later and Anya wasn’t laughing anymore when big puppy dog eyes were looking up at her and she found herself sitting at the same table joining the tea party. After a little while Anya’s greatest nightmare comes true as Alexis comes into the tent and falls onto the bed laughing.

“Oh Anya, that is the funniest thing I have ever seen.” Anya huffed and put down the cup she had just been holding with her pinky out cause you can’t hold a teacup without your pinky out Auntie Anya,’ and folded her arms with a pout on her face.

Everyone knew Charlotte loved all the people close to her, but no one knew how much she loved Anya. Charlotte walked over to Alexis and crossed her arms with a look on her face that was so Clarke. Lexa just smiled at how much her little girl reminded her of Clarke. Alexis stopped laughing when she was hit with Charlottes look.

“it’s not nice to waugh at people, especiawy at my Anya.”

Both Lexa and Anya shot each other a look.

Alexis gets off the bed gets down on her knee and bows her head to Charlotte. “I am sorry strik prisa. I will apologize to your Anya for laughing at her.” With that Charlotte nodded her head and Alexis got up and walked over to Anya.

“I apologize goufa for laughing at you,” Alexis said and then winked at Anya.

“Mochof Fos,” Anya said with a slight smile.

Charlotte smiled and walked over to Anya and climbed into her lap. Charlotte then curled up and nuzzled her nose into Anya’s neck. Lexa smiled knowing Charlotte was ready for a nap. As her breathing started to even out, she mumbled into Anya’s neck, “ain Anya.”

Alexis looks at Anya with a smile. “You may be a fierce gona seken, but to that little goufa you are so much more.” With that Alexis leans down and kisses Anya forehead and then moves away to go and talk to Lexa.

They talk for a while when they hear a snore and look over to see Anya taking a nap with Charlotte. Lexa looks at them both and thinks how much she wishes she could somehow capture the moment so that she could show Clarke when she returns. As she thinks this, she thinks of how much she misses Clarke and Madi.

Alexis notices Lexa lost in thought and the little frown on her lips. “You miss her don’t you strik Heda.”

Lexa looks at her nomon, “sha nomon, very much so.”

“Well from the little time I have been around her she seems pretty amazing.”

“She is more than amazing nomon. She took both of the girls as her own and she is an amazing leader to her people.”

Alexis smiles, “She is also very beautiful.”

Lexa blushes, “sha nomon very beautiful. An angel from the heavens.”

They both hear a noise and turn to look and find Anya trying not to laugh. Lexa rolls her eyes at Anya and mumbles “branwoda.” She was moving over towards Anya when she noticed Charlotte starting to wake up, and then she yawned and everyone let out an, “aww,” at how cute she was. Charlotte opens her eyes and see Lexa and she smiles at her. Then she turns and grabs Anya’s face and kisses her on the cheek and whispers, “love Anya.”

Anya just smiles, “love you too strik prisa,” and then kisses Charlottes forehead.

Later that week Lexa was out in the pits training when her nomon came up. “Alexandria, would you like to spar with your nomon.”

Lexa smiles, “of course nomon. It would be an honor to be able to train with you again.”

They trained for over two hours, before they decided to stop, and go under some trees to talk. “Nomon, can I talk to you about something.”

“Of course, my goufa,” Alexis says.

Lexa and Clarke had talked about this before they left for the quest. Gustus had come to them and asked if they thought that maybe they could tell Alexis the truth saying that he felt like she should know that she has gained a wonderful daughter and two beautiful granddaughters. So, Lexa meditated and talked to Bekka to make sure it would be ok, and Bekka told her that yes, the only other person that they could tell was Alexis, so they said that Lexa would tell Alexis while they were away on the quest.

“Nomon I have to tell you something that may be very hard to believe, but I need you to know that I have never lied to you, so I need you to listen first and then I will answer your questions.”

Alexis nods and allows Lexa to tell the story of how they had lived another life and how she killed Nia and after that Nia’s soul went into where the fates were and changed the world so much that the fates intervened to help make the world right again. How her and Clarke are soulmates and how the two girls were their daughters. Alexis took in all this information and looked her goufa in the eyes and knew she wasn’t lying.

The first thing Alexis said after Lexa was done was, “I will kill my sistra for what she has put you through my goufa. This I promise you.”

“I know nomon, but they are a part of the coalition and so we must make sure we are following coalition laws to take Nia down,” Lexa said to Alexis.

“Sha strik Heda I will follow the laws,” Alexis says without looking at Lexa.

“Nomon, I need you to swear fealty to your Heda in front of Tris and Anya. You know ai hod yu in, but I need you to swear it so that I can make sure you do not do something that will put me in any hard spots.”

“Sha goufa I will do whatever it is you need me to do,” Alexis says bowing her head.

With that Lexa asked her Guard to Gather Tris and Anya to her tent so that her nomon could bow and swear fealty, and a few minutes later they were both entering Lexa’s tent and Alexis swore fealty.

Once all the formalities were done Alexis asked to spend time with her granddaughter and who was Lexa to deny her nomon time with her granddaughter.