The Musical
Clarke doesn’t sleep that night. As soon as the sun comes up, she goes to their sitting room, only to find Lilith already there, slumped against the wall, her hair uncombed and her face a mess of dripping mascara and mud. Clarke recalls Lexa’s darkness at the sight of her friend, and struggles to reconcile the motherly figure that looked after her for so long with Queen Nia, the woman who killed Lexa’s lover in cold blood, breaking her forever. Nia doesn’t acknowledge her.
“You know, last night was surprisingly non-terrible." Clarke downs a glass of water, hoping to dispel her low-level headache. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Nia purses her lips tight like she’s about to start breathing fire.
"Clarke of the Sky People is a very different person than Juno, the delicate girl."
“You thought I was delicate?” Clarke laughs a bitter laugh. “Delicate people could never do what I’ve done.”
“So it was all just an act, then.”
“Yes.” Clarke slowly refills her water glass. “It was.”
“Then I’m glad I wasted so much time on you.”
“Why did you?” Off Lilith’s silence, Clarke continues. "You were pretty damned clueless. I’d expect better from someone with your reputation."
"You're sounding an awful lot like Lexa."
"Well maybe that's a good thing. At least I'm trying to figure out what to do next. But you...you're just giving up."
"That was my intention, Clarke." Again, she pronounces 'Clarke' as though the name’s a dirty word. "To give it up. To find peace. I'm not so keen to return to my well-worn saddle."
"And you think I am?"
"I think that’s pretty obvious.”
Clarke recoils as though Lilith had slapped her. She blinks back tears. "What else can I do? I’ve just got to get through this, and then..."
"And then what? The holiday's over, Clarke. Juno's dead. And so's Lilith."
Clarke slumps down on the sofa. “Why did you kill Costia?”
“Who’s that?”
“You don’t know? Really?” After a minute with no response, Clarke says, “Lexa’s lady-love. The one whose head you chopped off.”
“I didn’t know that was her name.” Nia’s eyes waver and she picks at her fingernails. “You’re judging me, Clarke.”
“You made Lexa this way.”
“And what way is that?”
“Hard. Unfeeling.”
Nia laughs at this, a harsh laugh that echoes into Clarke’s ears like gunshots. “You murdered hundreds of innocents in cold blood, Clarke. Hundreds of our people. Hundreds of mountain people. Do you know all of their names? Did you consider the feelings of everyone they left behind?”
“I’m going to my room,” Clarke says, tossing aside a bracelet she’d borrowed for the previous day’s dinner. “They’ll come for us in an hour.”
“Now who’s running away?” Clarke doesn’t respond, so Lilith continues. “You accused me of being clueless earlier, but I got one thing dead right about you.”
Suddenly wary, Clarke lays a hand on the doorframe. She doesn’t turn around. “And that is?”
“The groupie thing. But I didn’t realize you were the head of the fan club.”
---
As she follows a guard to the center of town, Clarke tries (and fails) to get Lilith’s words out from her mind. She’d thought she’d put her actions to bed over the long months in their little house at the end of the road, but her wounds bleed anew, rising through her throat, poisoning each breath. She thinks of the relish Lexa took in ruining their quiet, clandestine existence. But mostly, she thinks of how Lilith, despite no longer being Lilith, can see right through her.
“Why’d you leave without me, sky queen?”
Clarke looks at Lilith, who’s pulling herself up the mountain like a one-legged rabbit. Clarke crinkles her nose as she gets a whiff of pure ethanol. “Where’d you get that?”
“Get what?” Lilith slurs.
“It’s only noon and you’re already drunk.”
“Yup. Your point?”
Lexa walks up at that moment, and Clarke rolls her head back in annoyance. “I cannot catch a break,” she mumbles.
“Trouble in paradise?” Lexa taunts, giving both of them the once-over, then landing on Clarke. “I don’t know how you could stand her company as long as you did.”
“She hasn’t stabbed me in the back yet. Which puts her above 99% of the people of the people standing near me right now.”
“Don’t mind her, Lexi-lex. She can’t afford anything more luxurious than cheap shots.”
"You're drunk."
"I didn't know it was state-the-obvious day."
"And I didn’t know I could possibly think less of you."
“Ouch,” Nia says, pretending to stab herself in the heart. “Woe is me. Who’ll autograph my halberd now?”
“I’m gonna kill you if you keep this up.” Clarke shuffles away from her.
“No,” Lexa says. “That would break the alliance.”
“Suddenly you care about that, huh? Besides, I was kidding.” Clarke tries not to miss the debonair commander from the previous day. It’s better this way - less danger of being lulled into a false sense of security.
Lexa stops and clenches her fists. “Murder’s no joke, Clarke.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” Clarke spins around Lexa like a tetherball, practically spitting out her words. "You should have seen me after I killed the mountain men, just laughing and laughing through the nausea and the nightmares and the flashbacks. Think of all the fun you missed out on."
Lexa’s eyes dart all around her, as if she’s searching for a quick exit. “We’re almost at the plaza.”
An uncomfortable silence threatens to take over, interrupted only by Nia humming a tune. "Maybe we should sing a song to bring us together,” she says when she realizes the others are watching her. “The three merry murderesses of the post-apocalypse."