Prologue
Lexa’s people were falling back. She stood just inside the tree line watching them get to safety. There was a knot in her stomach, forced there by her deal with the mountain men. Her people that had been stuck in the mountain were now being carried off, alive, some with friends or family reunited at their sides. Each face was remembered and each one lessened the knot slightly.
She knew the sky people would not give up, and they would not lose.
“Victor.” She called, and got the attention of the old warrior beside her.
“Sha, Heda?”
“Take two squads of your finest scouts and set up a perimeter around the mountain. Do not be seen.” The last was spoken with a tone that would not be defied.
“Yes, Heda... But, what is it we are looking for, exactly?” his reply was filled with uncertainty. This whole attack had been filled with uncertainty and confusion from where he was standing. They had a plan that would destroy the mountain, and now they were retreating with not a drop of enemy blood spilled. The whole army had chanted ‘jus drein jus daun’ but now they fled.
Lexa could see the distaste in the scout’s eyes. "The Sky People will not give up without a fight. They will not stop until their people are safe. For now you sit and watch. I expect a number of Skaikru to leave the mountain as a group. When they do; have one squad follow them, do not let Clarke, their leader out of your sight."
Lexa paused there and gave the old warrior a second to process what was said.
"And the other squad, Heda?" The doubts in his eyes hardened to a cruel hope.
"You send them into the mountain and kill every surviving mountain man. Children included."
A cruel grin spread across Victor's face; but the question needed to be asked, "I thought we were to spare the innocent?"
"No one inside that mountain is innocent." Lexa's reply was sharp and fierce. "They have all stolen the blood of my people. Those children will grow up just like their parents."
"Yes, Heda. It will be done."
Victor began to move but stopped in his tracks not three paces towards the mountain. Lexa could almost see the thoughts being processed inside his head.
"Heda?" He asked, the devious light in his eyes dimming once again. At Lexa's nod he continued his question. "What if the Sky People do not leave the mountain?"
"They will." She spoke, but quickly reminded herself to think with her head, and not her heart, "But if they do not, you will send a messenger back to me by midday tomorrow, so that I may rally the army once again.
The answer seemed to appease the old warrior. Lexa made a note to remind him not to question her, once he returned with news on the mountain. Before the scout could leave however, the commander added, "Take the traitor with you." She gestured to Lincoln, who was just regaining consciousness under the watchful eye of several other warriors.
"He will work well in these conditions. When the job is done, bind him and bring him to face my judgement." Victor gave one final nod, pulled Lincoln to his feet and then began calling for his men.
The commander of the twelve clans continued to watch as the last of her freed men and women were lead further into the forest, safe, and with their people, at last.
***
“You were born for this Clarke. Same as me” Lexa’s words echoed in Clarkes head as she willed herself to pull the lever that would save her people.
Killing hundreds to save a few. Was that wrong? After everything the mountain had done?
She reached out and placed a hand on the lever, searching the screens above for the faces of her friends, her mother. "I have to save them" She gasped to Monty beside her. As if asking permission. As if asking forgiveness.
Not a moment before she was about to bring the mountain down, she felt a gentle hand placed atop her own. Her focus shifted, and she found Bellamy standing beside her. "Together" He whispered, and the weight of the world split in two. Half a world was still too much to hold, but maybe now it wouldn't crush her.
She gave half a nod, and they did what they had to.
There was a horrible pause that stretched for an eternity, and then alarms were blaring. Clarke watched the screens before her, and saw hundreds of people slowly fall to the ground, out of strength. She cursed the mountain, she cursed Dante, and she cursed Cage. If he had let them go, then no one would have died. Now everyone was dying.
Clarke wanted a list, wanted their names, wished she known them, felt she owed them at least that. They had saved her friends; her family.
She took a breath, and carried on. The walk through the mountain was so quiet, once the alarm blaring faded to the back of her mind. It was too quiet. She passed bodies, passed Jasper; they said something to him but she couldn't remember. It was a weak excuse, whatever it was. The whole thing was a blur until she saw her mother, being untied from the table.
She gasped and ran to her. All the while realising she would do the whole thing again. Her mother was safe, breathing, holding her. She felt so glad, and guilty, and relieved and a hundred other things as well.
"I tried-" her voice broke. She felt the weight of the world closing in, becoming whole once again. "I tried to be the good guy." Her breathing was heavy and she couldn't keep the tears from her eyes. It hurt so much.
She knew her mother could see it, see her spirit being crushed. Every second on the ground had been so hard.
Somehow Abby knew the only thing to say that wouldn't make it hurt more. "Maybe there are no good guys." And it was true. It had to be true. They'd done so much to stay alive.
Everything blurred again after that. Her mother was placed in a stretcher and carried off as everyone else followed. The walk back to camp became an exercise in sullen steps. Clarke didn't hear a word anyone said. She just let her eyes wander, settling on each of her people in turn.
It was worth it, she knew. She had done enough to bring her people home. Maybe too much, in their eyes; but the sky princess remembered their faces as they helped each other back to camp. She whispered their names, in her mind, like a silent prayer of thanks that they were still here.
All too soon, the gates of Camp Jaha creaked open before them. She stopped at the entry way and Monty took one look at her, before realising she wasn't coming. He gave her a hug, and whispered for her to stay safe.
Bellamy tried to get her to stay. He offered his forgiveness, to convince her to stay. It was practically the same speech she had given him after three hundred people of the Ark were killed to save oxygen; he’d blamed himself because he had broken the radio that Raven came down with.
His words still softened her resolve; but it wasn't his forgiveness that she needed. If she were to stay with those she had saved, some would think she was a monster for the rest of her days.
"Take care of them for me." But he protested again. Why wouldn't he just let her go?
"No, seeing their faces every day, is just gonna remind me of what I did to get them here."
"What we did." He sounded so sincere. But she was the one that had killed Dante, she asked Monty to set it all up; she had pointed the gun. The fact that Bellamy had helped pull the trigger, didn't absolve her of any of it. Not really. "You don't have to do this alone."
He almost made her change her mind. Almost.
She looked back at her people, inside the camp. They were reuniting with their friends.
"I bear it, so they don't have to."
"Where're you gonna go?" It was the last ditch effort, the last please.
"I don't know." And they were the truest words she had ever let leave her mouth.
She said her last goodbye and walked away. Every step was easier; for a while. And then each step was heavier than the last.
Once she was well inside the tree line she stopped and wondered. Where was she going to go? She looked up and saw the peak of Mount Weather above the trees. With one shuddering breath, she put the mountain to her back and started walking.
She remembered faces, from when she was walking ‘free’ inside the mountain. They were faces she'd just glanced at, the kind man that handed her a piece of cake, a little boy with a ball, glimpses of faces; but now she could see all of them. Fresh, and unburnt, some of them smiling at her. She tried not to think of them afterwards, but it was no real use.
Rows of people, scattered, fallen; they all burned the back of her eyelids as she willed them away without success. She tried counting footsteps and trees. Trying to find something to distract her, but eventually everything came back. Was it all her fault?
First her father, then the hundred started dropping like flies, and she couldn't save them. What would she have done differently? Could she have done anything differently? Or would things just find a way to turn more horrible than this?
The sun was high overhead now. Somewhere along the line Clarke had stopped. She was sitting on the ground with her back pressed against a tree and her knees to her chest.
She wasn’t thinking, and somehow she was thinking too much. Everything was just white noise in her head as she refused to entertain any train of thought to its completion.
Her hand gun was in her hand. She thought that it was there the whole time but now she was staring at it, and there were tears stinging her eyes. She couldn’t breathe, or maybe she could and didn’t want to. Her breath was gasping and her grip on the gun was white knuckled and clamping.
After a small eternity she peeled her eyes from the gun and took a searing painful breath. What came after was somewhere between scream and wail. It didn’t sound human.
Sometime later there was nothing. She didn’t feel anything at all. She heard branches snap to her right and her head whipped around. Her heart thundered in her chest, her body responded with adrenaline, with fear. She didn’t feel anything.
Her physical response increased, at the realisation that she felt nothing. She was afraid, terrified that she didn’t feel, but there was only a blank space greeting her shaking form.
So Clarke stood, and kept walking through the woods. She tried to calm her breathing and slow her heart rate. Once that settled she felt a deep knot of fear settle in the pit of her stomach. That was worse than feeling all the anguish. Feeling that nothing, had been worse than the agony.
It was another few hours before Clarke realised that her steps were taking her somewhere. She looked at the setting sun and tried to guess where she was in relation to Camp Jaha. But her feet kept drawing her weary body onwards. She didn’t know where she was going, but it was where she was supposed to be.
Suddenly, Clarke stopped dead in her tracks. She looked down and found her toes set just behind a perfect line of grass. The dirty leaf strewn forest floor shifted to a soft and perfect green. There was a power there. A threshold stood before her, calling her inwards. She held her breath and took one step.
And she melted. All her pain and exhaustion and everything melted away and left only a weary soul. It felt peaceful here.
Clarke continued inwards and found herself in the centre of a small glade. There was a great patch of sky above her and she gazed at the stars. Looking down she saw a dark, crescent shaped pool that looked like it could be as deep as a mountain is high. Around her, the trees were huge, and thick around as six people’s arm spans. They felt old, and alive, and like they were watching her.
But not in a menacing way. Some watched with curiosity as though they wondered why a human would find themselves amongst their home. Others felt as if they watched her with whispers of pride.
It was an odd feeling, to be the subject of the tree’s interests, but it did not bother Clarke.
Scattered between the trees were shrubs and bushes. Some glowing with a faint light on their edges, others bearing berries that looked ripe and inviting.
With no troubles, and a weary person, she removed her jacket, picked a pile of berries and then set herself in the centre of the crescent of the pond. She removed her boots and socks and dipped her sore feet in the cool waters. A great sigh escaped her, and she sat munching on sweet berries, feeling like a person for the first time in a long while.
***
Lexa received Victor’s latest report from one of his scouts. The leader of the sky people had utterly destroyed the mountain. They were already calling Clarke Wanheda, the commander of death. The name made Lexa a sick mix of pride and distress.
Only one mountain man had escaped, but Lincoln had taken great joy in hunting the man down. The escapee had been the de facto leader of the mountain in the last few days, but he was also the man that turned men into Reapers. Lincoln gave him what he deserved.
Skaikru then travelled in a group back to their camp. Wanheda did not enter their camp, but instead split from the group and headed out through the woods.
It was well after noon, and Lexa organised another group of scouts to head into the mountain and scrounge up some food or take any clothes that they could find, as long as they were not attached to the dead.
After that, she spent some time organising camp and ensuring the twelve clans were being fed and that they were in some semblance of order. Heda then Informed Ryder that she was following the trail of the Skaikru leader. Ryder was instructed to send a runner after her should anything go awry with her subjects. Messages were sent to Polis to inform them of the destruction of the mountain. Everything was as organised as she could make it, short of babysitting everyone, so Lexa headed out to find the rest of her scouts.
As the last rays of sunlight kissed the horizon, she travelled along the path that Victor's report had described his second team of scouts heading. She met one scout halfway as they were returning to report in Clarke’s most current whereabouts. The sky princess was headed disturbingly close to Keryon Glad, The Soul's Glade. Lexa quickened her pace.
The Soul's Glade was surrounded by many stories within Trikru folklore. It was said to be a place no man had stepped. It was whispered that it got its name because it contains the soul of the forest. Or that any who enter its depths forfeit their souls to the forest's wishes. Everyone who nears it is lead around it, purely by the menacing power that surrounded the area.
Lexa wasn't sure if she believed any of the stories. There were too many to count to ignore them altogether, but perhaps that foreboding feeling people felt when they drew close, was caused by their own expectations.
After a lengthy hard ride on horseback Lexa approached a member of the scout team. Gerrit, she believed his name to be. He was young, almost as young as Lexa. He still had that flare of bravado hiding behind his eyes, meaning he had not yet learnt how to lose graciously. The man was neither short nor tall, but he had the thin, wiry physique that seemed to suit scouting and tracking work well. At the Commanders orders, the young scout referred her to where Victor himself, was stationed on the far side of the Glade.
Before Lexa departed to find the scout's lieutenant, she questioned the boy. Perhaps she could eliminate any conflicting answers.
"Heda," He bowed his head in respect. "The Skaikru leader has walked through the woods, nearly all day. She stopped out of nowhere around noon. She stayed like that for a couple hours and then kept walking. She entered Keryon Glad a few hours ago. Victor allowed us to remain outside its borders. Since then we have been on watch at intervals around the glade, in case she exits. There have been no signs of Wanheda since."
Lexa's focus shifted in attempts to peer through the tree line and into The Glade, but there was nothing to be seen through the dense tree growth.
"You're certain she entered the glade?" She asked the scout. He nodded once, firmly, and with distaste in his eyes.
The Commander could see that he was holding his tongue about his thoughts on either The Glade, or of Clarke. She was not inclined to entertain either line of thought.
"Remain at your post, Gerrit."
To hell with Victor, she thought as she walked forward into where Keryon Glad began.
"H-Heda?!?" Gerrit's voice trembled as he called after his commander. She was not inclined to answer to the whims of all her warriors, but something in his voice made her turn. The glare she gave him was enough to get him to speak quickly.
"How? - D-Don't you feel it? How can...?" He looked genuinely terrified now. His eyes were glazed with fear and his hand was gripped tightly around his sword.
"Feel what?" There was no patience left in her for this scout. It was not his place to question her.
"The forest- It does not want anyone to see that part of her. We- We could not follow Wanheda- not out of caution, none could-" He took a deep shaky breath and his stare shifted to try and pierce through the trees towards The Glade, as if a monster were about to exit its depths. "We can't get close."
This was ridiculous. There was no animosity coming from the forest. "Come here, scout."
"Heda?"
"Stand at my side." She ordered sharply.
He swallowed stiffly and shuffled towards her by two steps, then three. When his fourth stride made contact with the ground, his whole body tensed. It looked as though the man had turned to stone, until he started shaking. He physically shook and when he tried to take another step towards the Commander, his legs buckled beneath him. He cried out and shuffled backwards.
"We should not enter there. We are no welcome." He croaked to her before backing up out of sight. He would likely calm himself and then return to Victor with news of all that happened. The boy would be punished for abandoning his post.
However, all these thoughts were secondary to Lexa's bewilderment. There was a slight inkling of fear, which she embraced. This was however overshadowed by a stark curiosity. She found her feet carrying her inwards, into The Soul's Glade.
***
Clarke was not lost in thought, per se; but lost in peace. There was a blessed emptiness that filled her in this Glade. Her feet still dangled in the cool waters of the crescent pond. She was lying on her back, arm spread, relaxed. Her left hand occasionally reached from her stomach to her mouth, passing another sweet red berry between her lips. Her eyes scanned the sea of stars above her and marvelled at how wonderful it was to see them without thick glass impeding her view.
She had no desire to see the stars up close, or ever see space again. The first breath of fresh air had been a sweet kiss to her sheltered senses. And every breath since, no matter its context had been more freeing than any she had ever taken on The Ark. As cursed as her time on the ground had been, Clarke would rather live free and cursed than be trapped and safe.
Her wandering mind, not lingering in any one place for any length of time, did not notice that the stars had shifted position in the sky. She held no concept of time here. As such the soft footsteps she heard behind her did not startle her. The light gasp as the steps hesitated made her smile, and when the soft trudging brought Lexa into view, she was not surprised.
What did surprise Clarke however, was that she was happy to see Lexa, that she was glad, that someone else should discover this astounding piece of serenity. She had expected to be angry, spiteful even, towards the commander for abandoning her people; but she suddenly understood. Clarke would have done the same thing for her people. She would have abandoned her heart, because that is what was expected of her.
Lexa sat down on the grass in silence. It was a mournful silence, filled with apology and mutual regret. The moment passed and they both sighed, and it was an understanding exhale. The commander took of her boots and socks and dunked her feet in the pool. A groan escaped her, pleased at the relief the water gave her. Another, more peaceful silence grew between them; and Lexa sighed as she lay down beside the sky princess.
Clarke handed her companion a great handful of berries, and they both munched on them happily.
"My mother used to pick berries just like these and fold them in the middle of small loaves of bread." Lexa spoke, quietly. She spoke with reverence towards the memory, "There was no greater treat when I was little, than to come back and find one waiting for me." Clarke listened, but didn't say anything. Lexa could feel her hearing the words though, waiting for the next ones. "That's just about the only thing I remember of her, but I will always think of a safe place when I think of warm berry bread." The pause stretched then, and Lexa waited for a response with baited breath.
"My father used to draw a dozen plants on a page, just scribbles-" Clarke hummed with the same esteem. "Then he'd make me pick the ones he'd made up, and drawn from his imagination." She laughed once, softly, at the memory. "It was a smart way for him to teach me about earth plants, but I think he liked the made up ones more than anything."
And so began a long and thoughtful exchanging of stories. Lexa had had a ruthlessly competitive friendship with one of the others that were training to be commander. Vara had been better at fighting than Lexa by a mile, but the other girl wouldn't rest unless Lexa got the better of her at least once, each time they practised.
Clarke had had trouble as a kid, making "th" sounds, and "s's" and "l's". The young Griffin had battled hard with herself to get past her speech problems, and sometimes they still echoed through in her voice when she was stressed.
Clarke learnt all about Night Bloods, and the Conclave, about how the next Heda was chosen. Lexa learnt about How the Ark stayed in space, about how and why they'd come back down to the ground.
Clarke learnt about the time Lexa had gotten stuck so high up in a tree that Anya couldn't get to her she was too big and would break the branches. Lexa was forced to jump several feet into her mentor's arms so she could be guided safely to the earth.
Lexa learnt about when Clarke had skipped school for several days, hiding in the vents of the Med-Bay, watching her mother heal people, wanting to never have to go back to class again.
Some were trivial tales; others were personal secrets that had never left the speakers lips until now. Some were harsh realities that neither of them wished to face.
But at the end of each story, the speaker felt a little lighter, and they were holding their breath waiting patiently, excitedly for the other's tale in response to their own.
Smiles were exchanged, and frowns, sad tears and joyous laughter. The sun had risen high again and was on its way down to setting once more. Now they both sat side by side, leaning their backs against the same trunk of one of the ancient trees. They didn't seem to notice that neither of them had spoken for a while.
As their arms became leaden and their eyes heavy, they both assumed that it was due to exhaustion, they were certainly due a rest, were they not? But when Clarke's heart beat began to slow of its own accord, and her breath hitched in her chest, she asked Lexa if it was those berries that her mother put in sweet loaves of bread.
"They look the same-" The weary commander replied, "But mothers berries never tasted so sweet, they didn't taste like that." Lexa didn't seem to make the connection that the other woman had. "These ones taste better." She picked another from beside her, and Clarke's hand snapped out to grab it before it reached her mouth. The blondes grip slackened and slipped as she fell forward.
"I think they're poison." She murmured, but she couldn't rack up an ounce of fear at the prospect of death. Lexa had tried to grab her falling form, but was quickly dragged down into a similar position.
"I think you're right." Lexa whispered as her breath too, hitched in her chest.
The two leaders lay side by side in the midst of The Soul's Glade. They slowly ran out of breath, out of heartbeats. But both were quiet and at peace, and the ancient trees watched over them with a knowing eye.
***
A great lively breath escaped Clarke's chest and she reluctantly opened her eyes. She found herself of a stiff bed looking up at a window that peered towards a distant earth.