Chapter 3
The next morning she wakes early, the sun hasn’t even risen yet. In the dark, she tries to light some candles but almost burns her hand off in the process. She curses loudly at the match while she attempts to reposition the lucifer, so it lights the candle instead of her hand. After several tries, there is finally enough candlelight so she can see in the room.
Clarke shuffles around in the closet for fresh underwear, to her horror she sees the grounders haven’t invented bra’s yet, and instead the females use a simple strap of cloth to bind their breasts together. From the moment she saw the straps she knew it would be a tight fit.
She grabs a strap and basic panties and carries it to the bathroom where she splashes some water (she hopes it’s fresh and not some used seawater) in her face and changes in her new undergarments. As expected the strap doesn’t fit at all and she ends up with a much bigger cleavage than she is comfortable with. She quickly walks over to to the closet and searches for a shirt which wouldn’t show too much, but even then you could see pretty much cleavage. She sighs and walks out the door.
Outside stands Nabu, she isn’t sure if he even slept or just stood there while she slept. The latter is a bit creepy, but she shrugs it off and greets him “Morning Nabu” she says more cheerful than she is feeling. He just nods his head, the lack of communication from grounders is still a new concept for her. Lost in thought Nabu nudges her in the ribs, she jumps and lets out a quiet yelp which seems to startle Nabu who thinks he hurt her.
“My apologies Wanheda,” He inclines his head “I wanted to say we could morning food get,” He says with a confused look on his face while he tries to form English words.
“Morning food” she claps her hands “Breakfast” she rubs her belly “Let’s go” Nabu smiles and leads the way
They end up in a big room with several tables which kind of gave her a high school canteen vibe. She isn’t sure if she likes it yet. On the outside are small tables for three persons on each side of the table but more in the middle, there are bigger tables for at least six persons each side. In the center of the canteen, there is a big table with on the head a high throne, different from the one in the throne room but nonetheless impressive. Nabu leads her straight to the biggest table
“Can’t we take a small table?” she quietly asks him. She regards the people eating who look at her curiously. When they arrive at the big table, Nabu leaves to talk to a cook who oversees the room from the door by what Clarke presumes is the kitchen. Like a bag salt, she stands there next to the table. Not much later Nabu returns, and he points at the stool directly beside the throne, Clarke sighs, of course, Lexa would give her a seat next to her. She sits down a bit uncomfortable and shifts a little in her stool. She doesn’t sit 10 seconds, and two cooks with big steaming plates of food present her her breakfast.
She looks down at the plates, she recognizes something like bread and a sort soup, but the other stuff is all new to her. Next, to the plate lays a fork she picks it up and takes the first bite, immediately a moan escapes her mouth, with flushed cheeks she takes another bite and another, in minutes she finished the two plates while Nabu is still nibbling on a piece of bread. When he sees she is done eating he stuffs the remaining bread in his mouth and stands up quickly, with his mouth still full he beckons her over, and they walk to her room, but instead of stopping there Nabu walks to the end of the hallway where they stop before two massive doors. He nods towards the door, swallows the remaining bread and says
“Heda there” It took a second for Clarke to realize what he was talking about. She was standing before Lexa’s room.
She looks questioning at Nabu “Why did you take me here?” Nabu, who thinks it’s a great honor to be asked to Heda’s room looks confused but answers anyway
“When Heda checked last night I bring you after morning food to her room she said” A foreign feeling washes over her,
“Lexa checked up on me?” She asks timidly, “Heda” He stresses, clearly uncomfortable using anything other than Lexa’s official title “Come to see if you slept good” Come to think of it, she slept great, no nightmares at all. “Oh” is all she said a bit upset that she just realized this. Nabu knocks hard on the doors with his big hands which are full of little cuts. “Sha” sounds Lexa’s voice from the other side of the doors. She looks at Nabu, swallows hard and then pushes one of the doors open.
Lexa is standing with her back to the door, to her surprise, Clarke realizes that Lexa just woke up. Her hair is loose and knotted flowing across her back, and a few strands are standing upright. Instead of the heavy commander armor Lexa is wearing, short shorts made of loose material and a white tank top. Clarke isn’t sure why but an uncomfortable feeling begins to form between her legs.
“Um, Hi” She lets out hoarse, Lexa turns around, and Clarke can see her face now. Lexa’s eyes are red with big circles beneath signaling that Lexa hasn’t slept well last night or possibly several nights.
“Hello Clarke” She awkwardly changes her stance. “You asked me to come?” She asks stoically, but in her mind, this sentence is being applied to a very different situation which would also explain Lexa’s lack of sleep, a soft throb begins to form between her legs, and she has to shake her head to bring herself back to reality. Lexa looks puzzled at her but doesn’t say anything about it. “That is right; the meeting will begin in an hour or so, Nabu will keep a check on the time and lead you there” Clarke nods. She waits for several heartbeats expectedly, but when Lexa doesn’t say anything, she says ‘Is that all?” with a bit of an unbelieving tone.
Lexa looks a bit confused "Yes?" she says. Lexa turns around and messes with some papers which lay before her on the table. From her position, Clarke could see very messy handwriting all over the papers with plans of Arkadia. In one swift motion, she reaches beside Lexa and grabs the paper.
"What is this?" She almost screams. "Paper." Lexa says without looking to her, "You will know in the meeting" she continues.
"Why can't you tell me now?" her mother always told her she was stubborn and now Clarke knows where she comes from. "Meeting Clarke" Lexa answers. Irritated Clarke stamps out the room and practically runs to her chamber with Nabu trailing behind her.
In her room, Clarke lays around the bed a bit, and soon enough Nabu knocks on the door and announces that it's time for the meeting.
Together they walk to the throne room. Nabu opens the doors and walks to a chair right next to the throne. There are already a few seats taken, Clarke recognizes Fal, the ambassador from Trishana kru who is sitting right across from her, against his seat stands a big double headed axe. Next, to Fal sits Ruye from the Yujleda, he is a large man with big shoulders and huge biceps. While she observes all the other ambassadors she doesn't know yet, Clarke doesn't notice someone sitting in the chair next to hers.
"if it isn't wanheda." A deep throaty male voice sounds beside her. She jumps up from her thoughts and snaps her head to the side. Next, to her sits Lexa's brother, Tomac.
"Call me Clarke please." She extends her arm, "Nice to meet you, Tomac."
A flash of surprise passes his face, and before he can even say something she speaks up.
"I talked to Lexa." He made a twisted laughing sound.
"What?" She tries to wrap her head around it; I can call her Lexa in front of her brother right? He shakes his head.
"I'm just surprised, I thought you hated my sister."
Relief flooded over her "I tried to trust me." Tomac's laugh rippled trough the throne room and all the representatives look at them curiously, but Tomac doesn't seem to care. Before she can say something the room becomes silent and Lexa strides into the chamber in whole commander armor, the iconic red stash sweeping behind her.
Lexa makes an elegant turn before the throne, and before Clarke can comprehend what is happening there is a chorus of "Hail Heda" From the corner of her eye she can see Tomac smirking at her.
"Hail ambassadors of the twelve clans" Lexa sits down and crosses her legs, "Speak." Fal slowly stood up, "Heda, We have news of our scouts that the girl is from Skaikru."
Where at first the room was filled with soft murmurs and quiet whispers now there was just overwhelming silence, and Clarke couldn't help but feel that everyone in the room could hear her heartbeat.
Of course, after Lexa's betrayal, Skaikru lost faith in the grounders, but Clarke didn't believe that her mother, Kane, Bellamy hell even Jasper let them start a war. It just didn't add up.
"Are you sure?" She tried to keep her voice from breaking but isn't sure if she quite accomplished it. "You don't think our scouts are trustworthy Skygirl?" Fal sneers to her, "What keeps us from destroying you right now?" His knees crack when he suddenly rises and reaches for his axe beside him. Fear races trough her veins as she watches Fal making his way over to her. In despair she looks at Lexa, almost pleading for her to stop this but Lexa sits as stoic as ever in her massive throne. They lock eyes for a moment, and although she might be wrong Clarke could swear she say a tingling of fear beneath all that self-confidence.
Clarke looks back at Fal who is a few big steps away, he raises his axe above his head and brings it down with such speed she could hear the air crack. When it's about to come down right on her head, she is suddenly pulled back with enormous force. She looks behind her and with a triumphantly smirk Nabu watches how Fal's axe gets stuck in the ground. Next thing she knows Nabu's hard, metallic kind of boots hit Fal square in the chest, and he falls over gasping for air.
This is when Lexa stands up, "Klark Kom Skaikru, is not to be harmed" Lexa's eyes seem to scan the crowd beating the littlest thoughts of hurting her out of them with just a look, "Jomp em op en yu jomp ai op."
Fal crawls slowly back to his seat leaving his axe sticking in the ground before her chair. The other ambassadors carefully sit down, except Tomac who remained seated at first, is now standing up. "Heda, I understand and accept your order, but what do we do about the threat?" If it weren't for their similar looks Clarke wouldn't be able to tell that they were related.
"I want more spies there and get me an identification; I want to know with who we are dealing here." A chorus of 'Sha Heda's" sounds and without another word ambassadors stand up and leave the room and Clarke takes that as the sign that the meeting is over.
Clarke is one of the last to leave trying to progress everything. She feels a soft wave of air beside her, "I wanted to decapitate Fal the moment he sneered at you" Lexa quietly says to her. "But I couldn't look weak; I knew Nabu would protect you" Clarke sighs "Well, it isn't the first time you almost got me killed is it?"
"Clarke.." But she didn't have it, of course, she understood, hell she didn't even need that explanation, but there were too many thoughts in her head. Without looking back Clarke storms out the throne room, she follows her gut to where she thinks her room is. When she comes to an intersection, she chooses right over left, but a strong hand suddenly pushes her to the left. Nabu had followed her quietly as always.
She leans into his touch, "Thanks for saving my ass back there" she quietly whispers to him. "I not only save your butt but your whole body," Nabu says utterly confused. And Clarke laughed, actually laughed for the first time since she was with Finn in the bunker, The sound echoes between the empty halls. Several guards who were posted nearby look up.
"Yeah, you did Nabu you did." She looks up to him, and the kindness reflected in those brown eyes warm her heart, she squeezes his hand, and they turn left.
"You wanna come in?" She asks Nabu, he eyes her a bit wary "You are afraid someone is in room?" He asks reaching for his sword which is strapped to his side. She laughs again, twice in one day, something she couldn't do for months. "No, just to keep me company. You don't want me to get lonely do you" She hesitates "I don't think Heda wants me to feel alone" She immediately feels guilty to convince him this way, but she doesn't want to feel cold in her chest again.
Nabu eagerly nods, "I will come inside." She smiles at him when she opens the door for them.
Tomac watches as Nabu enters after Clarke and close the door behind them. He heard the way Clarke laughed, saw the way she just smiled, and he was the lucky guy to bring this news to the almighty heda who cares so deeply for this girl. Tomac sighs deep and reluctantly walks further down the hall to his sister's room.
His heart feels heavy for his sister, and he wants to say nothing because he knows the way, Lexa is. He pushes the doors open and slams them close behind them. With a little sprint, he jumps right beside his sister who is laying sprawled out on the bed reading a book.
"And how is she?" Lexa says without looking up from her book. "She is fine, she is with Nabu now," he murmurs. At first, his sister doesn't understand "Of course she is with Nabu now. I ordered him to not leave her out of his sight."
"Lexa, I mean Nabu is WITH Clarke right now, he is in her room." This catches her attention. With speed, he only once saw when she was in a battle the book flies against the wall, and he is pinned beneath his sister on the bed.
"Where is Nabu?" Lexa isn't screaming; her voice is rather calm and soft which makes it ten times worse. "He is with Clarke," before he could finish his sentence Lexa jumps off the bed and starts pacing. "Lex, wait, Lex, LEXA," finally she looks at him, with a look of pure despair written all over her face. "They are not together together, I mean like, I think they are friends nothing more."
"You think?"
"I know" Tomac quickly says "I know Nabu and Clarke are just friends" Tears are forming in Lexa's eyes, but they do not fall, Lexa doesn't let them fall. He quickly gets off the bed and closes his arms around his youngest sister. He softly susses her, which Lexa hates but this time she lets him. "I-I just feel so lonely, and I-I thought Be-Because she is also a leader that may-maybe we could." Lexa stops and scrunches her eyebrows "But the du-duty to protect my people comes first and-d now what we had is broken." She squirms the last part out.
"Lex" His tears in contrary to his sister's do fall, they streak silently down his cheeks. His hearts breaks into a million pieces when he hears her soft sniffle. So many times he dreams of how it should have been, Lexa with their parents, Niamh, Sindri and him at home. Instead of their parents dead, Niamh is away working, Sindri in the trikru army fighting and him and Lexa in Polis doing politics.
Lexa pushes at his chest and aggressively wipes away his tears, "Grow up." she says while sniffling. He offers her a soft smile, and the corners of Lexa's lips weakly turn up. "Says you, young one." Lexa walks over to her book, which is laying defeated next to the wall. "Stop calling me that." Lexa murmurs under her breath.