only in blood
After Jaha goes down, it’s like the cold seeps back into his bones. Starts walking. Keeps walking.
Less snow here, but more ice. Falls a couple times, only has one hand to stop himself.
He doesn’t know where he is. Doesn’t really remember what direction he started walking in. It sets in. Gonna freeze. Gonna trip on the ice and crack his head open. Gonna starve. Already injured. Easy prey for coyotes. For vagrants.
The Rover is idling at the end of the road. He’s so tired. It’s a mirage.
It’s a mirage till he walks into it. He opens the passenger-side door with his good hand. Raven is still in the driver’s seat. It’s warm in here, but Raven still leans forward and cranks the heat up when he gets in.
“Sorry,” says Raven, unprompted.
“You gonna drive me back?”
“To Polis,” she clarifies. “Rest of the group has moved on.”
“Okay,” he says. “Good.”
He leans back in his seat, kinda falls asleep for a while.
—
Luna comes to Ryfe when Skaikru is packing for the journey ahead of them, back to Polis. “You are Mofi’s seingeda?” she asks. “His mentor?”
“Yes,” Ryfe confirms.
“You brought him into this,” she accuses.
“No,” says Ryfe, careful. “He was arrested in the woods outside Polis.”
“I know that,” says Luna.
“He was gifted to Lexa,” she explains. “She chose what to do with him.”
“He’s not an object,” snaps — Luna would never snap like this; she is cool like the moon she is named for. So the legend goes.
“You’re not really Luna,” Ryfe accuses.
Her face falters for a second, but when she meets Ryfe’s eyes again she is fire and gold. “Who are you to tell me who I am and am not?”
“You’re Emori,” says Ryfe. Mofi has — spoken of her. “Luna’s — sister?”
“Yes,” says Emori. Enough to be a snarl. “Only in blood.”
“It’s enough,” says Ryfe. Enough to take her identity. Enough to live in her house. “You are — Mofi’s friend?”
“His lover,” corrects Emori.
“Oh.”
“You tortured him,” continues Emori. “Don’t think I didn’t hear.”
She does not regret it. She will not. “You did nothing to stop it,” she accuses.
An easy shrug. “I have no loyalty to Skaikru or Polis. I don’t care what happens to their lukotwar.”
“But you do if it’s Mofi.”
“He trusted you,” counters Emori. “As his seingeda. You are in the wrong. You owe him blood.”
“No,” Ryfe says. “He is my second, I can do what I like.”
“He’s not going to collect that blood,” points out Emori.
“He has no right to.”
“But I have the right. You have harmed those that I love. Blood must have blood.”
Ryfe shakes her head. “The new ruling is this: Blood must not have blood.”
Emori laughs. “You think I am Luna and then you tell me that blood must not have blood? Like you think it will matter to me? I reject that, as the Commander rejected me.”
And she lunges.
—
Wakes up eventually. They’re still driving. Raven’s expression is all closed. Like nobody’s home.
How do you make somebody stop looking like that? You talk to them about something they’re interested in. Worked with his mom, for a while. Worked on Mbege, better.
“You ever find out why A.L.I.E made the City of Light?” Raven startles a little, glances over at him. “Why she was so into saving everybody? Like, downloading them?”
Raven kind of shrugs. “There are nuclear stations all over the Earth,” she says. “According to A.L.I.E’s calculations, they would start breaking down within the year. Radiation all over again. More than what we could survive. But I’ve searched and searched and — That isn’t going to happen. Maybe in tiny pockets, near the stations, but nothing actually serious. Her calculations were wrong.”
“She blew up the whole world, you know that?” goes Murphy. “The thing that made us go into space for the first time. She caused it. Her core command is to make life better for humans, so she blew them up. I can see where she’s coming from, but also — that wasn’t her decision to make. She wasn’t human.”
“Yeah,” says Raven, and looks out onto the road. “You got pulled out of the City, right? Like me. We just pulled the plug, but like — the City of Light is still in us. We didn’t lose that information. Everyone else, I think, just got it wiped out of their brains, but we kept it.” Pauses, looks over at Murphy. “Have you — Can you do stuff now that you couldn’t do before? Because, like, I’m really good at coding now, and I definitely wasn’t before. I’m a hacker now, and before I was just an engineer.”
“I don’t know,” Murphy admits. “I don’t know what I did that I couldn’t do before.” He honestly doesn’t really remember a lot of what happened while he was in the City.
“You spoke in tongues,” says Raven, almost reverent. “In binary and in Trigedasleng.”
“Never been good at languages, 01010010 01100001 01110110 01100101 01101110,” he admits, then reexamines himself. “That’s not —“
“Holy shit,” breathes Raven.
“Christ,” he agrees.
“Can you say something in Trigedasleng?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Hang on.” It’s like a dream he had a year ago, something that used to be vivid and bright, but has now faded. “Uhhhh… Ai laik Mofi kom Skaikru. I am Murphy of the Skaikru. The Sky People.”
“That’s not very impressive,” points out Raven. “Pretty sure you could say that much before.”
“Can’t you speak Trig?”
Raven thinks about that. “Definitely not.”
“A.L.I.E couldn’t speak it, I bet. Like. You know that Trig developed out of English to be a code against the Mountain Men?”
“Yeah,” agrees Raven.
“I only got it because at least one Grounder was in the City of Light. So I guess I — absorbed that information. Because it was useful to me. And then — now I can’t anymore. I guess.”
Raven shrugs. “Huh,” she says. “Okay. You wanna learn how to drive?”
“…Sure.”