Lexa remembers being a child, a Seken, in these forests. She loved the forest at night – especially nights like this, clear and still with the crispness of autumn hanging in the air. She loved running through them after Anya or after whatever quarry they hunted. Dodging trees and vines and jumping easily over holes in the ground. In her childish fancies she had seen herself as a deer or a mountain lion, a creature of the forest.
By her estimation there are maybe thirty or forty Maunon firing at them – so they may have already started to use the people of Alpha Station for bone marrow, or may just have a lot of the suits they use. Perhaps if they were alone her people could take them out, using the forest to their advantage. But she can hear the sound of screams as someone left behind is torn into by a Ripa. Who knows how many of the monsters they have brought with them? The Maunon might be slowed by the forest, but any Ripa with them will not be.
Looking to her side she notices Raven pause, turn briefly, and throw the grenade she’s holding as hard as possible. Luckily, it does not hit a tree and rebound towards them. There is an explosion and scream of pain from someone behind them.
She lets go of Clarke’s hand, reasoning that yanking Clarke behind her will only make the other girl more likely to fall. Zion is on her other side, face pale, scrambling to keep up. Before, when he and the other Azgeda had showed no signs of wanting to attack Lexa – no signs of wanting to attack the Trikru, even, before Anya was involved – she had known she had to stop the fight, but she had not expected him to live through their discussion. Now, she is grimly satisfied that he survives as a witness to Nia’s treachery. If she can only keep him and a handful of the other Azgeda alive, it should not be hard to order Nia’s death when she returns to Polis with the other ambassadors’ full approval.
“My father,” Wells gasps, nearly tripping over an exposed root. Finn lolls between him and Anya, still unconscious.
“He is lost,” Anya snaps, driving him forward ruthlessly, not even straining under Finn’s weight. “Continue moving or your friend may be lost as well. Or all of us.”
Lexa darts through the gap between two trees and leaps a small gorge, helping Raven up when the girl falls. She wonders why Anya did not leave Finn – normally, she would not have hesitated to take the sensible action, leaving the injured boy behind so that their pace is not slowed.
A Ripa appears to Lexa’s left and she slashes it immediately, continuing without pausing. “This way!” she calls again, and the others follow her, though she does not know who is with them still and who is lost. Her legs feel strained and sore with the effort of continuous movement. Almost there. Almost there…
There is never just one Ripa. The group thrashes through the forest behind them, uncaring of the noise they make. They will catch up shortly. Outrunning Ripa is nearly impossible – whatever is done to them makes them strong as well as making them forget themselves. Once the Ripa are on them, they will need to fight them, and that will give the Maunon time to catch up. With their grenades and sleep darts the fight will be over soon. So there must be no fight.
“I recognise this place,” Clarke says breathlessly, sliding down a little hill after Lexa. “Good thinking.”
“Mochof,” Lexa manages, equally as breathless. She spots the movement up ahead, in an area which has no other movement – which is why she headed this way. When there is a feared predator around, all of the animals go still and silent except for it.
Nevertheless, she is lucky to have found the creature. If it can be considered lucky to succeed in your foolishness, anyway. She holds up her sword and stops running, judges the distance and prays that the movement in the dark forest is what she thinks it is. Then she throws her sword.
It is difficult to harm or kill with a thrown sword, since unlike knives they are rarely weighted to be effective when used like this. Luckily, she has no intention of harming or killing, she simply wants to attract the creature’s attention.
A bellow fills the air and suddenly the movement is not slow, the pauna is bounding towards Lexa, knocking trees aside in her blind rage. Several people scream. “To the side!” Lexa yells and takes a hard right, followed by nearly everyone. Clarke is keeping pace with her now, old forest instincts coming back. The patch of trees they’re heading towards are set closely, which should slow the pauna following them.
There’s another scream from behind and Lexa dares to glance back. The Ripa have reached where she was standing only seconds ago, and the pauna has reached the place only a moment after. She grabs a Ripa and tears off his arm in an almost petulant way. She has already disposed of two gona, one thrown against a tree so violently that he resembles a slab of meat more than a man. The pauna looks up suddenly, her eyes surveying the forest for her original tormentor, anger tempered with a sharp intelligence that seems almost unnervingly human in its spite. She is tensing up to bound in their direction when another Ripa attacks her viciously and suicidally. They all pile on, throwing themselves against the pauna like an ant nest disturbed by a mouse, tearing at her with hands and teeth and weapons while she throws them off easily and bellows again. Ripa are unable to ignore a battle when their bloodlust is up and the pauna is a mighty foe.
Then they are out of sight through the trees, Lexa’s heart pounding quickly and her face numb with primal fear. Roars echo through the forest as the animal rage of the pauna meets the bloodthirsty frenzy of the Ripa. Lexa hopes that the Maunon catch up in time to join the battle and be killed by the pauna. She hopes the pauna will stay in that fight instead of following her original attacker, for otherwise they are all dead.
The adrenaline from the pauna makes running easier, though Lexa can still hear the effects on her companions – Raven’s breaths are harsh sobs, Wells is nearly hyperventilating even as he keeps pace with Anya, and Octavia is muttering curse words under her breath. Zion is still beside Lexa but shaking so fiercely he finds it hard to run. Glancing back quickly she can see that the two dozen or so gona still with them are pale and terrified, one even whimpering without pause. Only Clarke, Anya and Lexa herself seem calm.
Eventually, Lexa slows. She can feel the subdued burn in her legs and knows she could continue at this speed for a while longer, but it is unlikely many of her companions can. The Skaikru are soft and unused to this and Anya and Wells are carrying another person. She might be safer from the pauna if she keeps her speed up, but she will be at risk from whatever the next threat is. As she once told the clans when she first began the alliance, strength lies in unity.
And also – her strength lies in them. Her love. Her former Fos. Her… friends, strange as it may seem to say, because somewhere along the way she has grown to consider Wells, Raven, even Octavia to be something to her.
Everyone catches up as Lexa goes to a brisk walk – still moving, because if they stop they will fall, but moving slowly enough to accommodate the others. She looks at the group following her and counts. It is lucky the moon is bright tonight, since they have not gone far enough south for the glowing plants to be plentiful – it makes her easily able to tell the survivors. The Skaikru all gathered around Finn when Clarke began looking at him, and Lexa moved to there as well before she yelled at everyone to follow her, so all of them managed to stay with her despite their slowness – except Jaha, who was the first to fall. Including Anya and Zion, there are twenty-eight gona with them, ten Azgeda and eighteen Trikru.
“Everyone else…” Octavia says wretchedly, looking around and clearly doing the maths as well.
“Many are no doubt alive,” Lexa says firmly, projecting certainty. “They will have scattered at Anya’s yell. The Maunon wanted Clarke and I, so I believe most of their forces followed our group. If the others went in different directions they had a good chance.”
“We should have gone back,” Wells says hoarsely. Now that she looks at him, she realises he’s crying, the moonlight turning the tears rolling silently down his cheeks to silver. “We shouldn’t have left. My Dad -“
“I’m sorry, Wells,” Clarke says, genuine sadness in her voice. “But you know we couldn’t have. You know that.”
“Yeah,” he says, sounding exhausted. “I guess I do.”
“Besides, he was only knocked out,” Clarke tells him. “He’s the Chancellor, he’d be a good hostage or source of information, just like my mother. He could still be alive.”
Lexa looks behind her. “You two,” she says sharply, looking at two gona. “Take over carrying the Skayon for Anya and Wells.”
“I should bandage Finn’s face as well, and I’ve got some sedatives I can give him,” Clarke says. “If we can scrape up some snow or ice from somewhere for the bump on his head, that could help. That’s about all I can do, though. I might be able to stitch up the scars on his face but I can’t… I don’t know how to do anything about his eyes. At least the sedative will keep him out of it, because him regaining consciousness is not going to be fun for any of us.”
“But your mother,” Raven says sharply, her eyes still red and raw with weeping. “Abby. She’ll be able to fix him up, right?”
“I don’t know, Raven, I don’t think so,” Clarke says gently, “I’m sorry. You can see the damage. I don’t think it’s fixable. But if we get the sedatives down his throat and douse his cuts with some of the tonic used to stop infections, he should probably live. He just won’t be able to see. Eyes are… pretty fragile.”
Raven lets out another angry sob. “Shit. Shit. Oh my God, Finn.”
“We will have a brief break for Clarke to help him,” Lexa decides. “Not long, though. Everyone, drink water. Stretch. Do not sit if you believe you might not be able to stand again.” These are obvious things to her gona, but not to all of the Skaikru, some of whom look longingly at the ground.
Lexa walks away from the rest of the group to stand alone, thinking. She wishes Clarke was not fixing Finn so they could speak.
“Yongon?” It’s Anya, covered in dirt and minor scratches from their run and looking somehow defeated. “Are we going to TonDC?”
“No,” Lexa says, “We will go south, to rejoin Indra and the Skaikru. I will send one of these gona as a messenger to Nyko in TonDC to gather any information they have found from watching the Maunon and send it to us, along with the gona who were training to catch Ripa. We may find a use for them.” This will leave TonDC largely undefended, which worries her given its closeness to the Mountain. But if there are no targets there, then surely there will be no reason to attack it.
Anya nods.
Lexa studies her old Fos closely. “Anya, are you all right?”
Anya stiffens. “Of course. I am unharmed, Heda.” But there is something wrong in her face. Lexa’s never seen such a stormy look in her eyes before, so much churning emotion.
“There is more than one way to be harmed,” Lexa says softly. “You know that better than most. You and Gustus have always helped me through pain that Titus called weakness. Even as a Seken, I came to you with my foolish problems and worries and hurts, and you helped me. Will you not let me aid you in the same way?”
“I…” Anya hesitates, then shakes her head indecisively. She glances over at Clarke, busy bandaging Finn as Raven holds his hand.
No, she’s not looking at Clarke. She’s looking at Raven. “Is this about Finn kom Skaikru’s injury?” Lexa asks.
Anya frowns. “She… Raven kom Skaikru… she just worked herself free of him. She is exceptional, that one, it can be seen in what she says and what she makes. But the boy is ordinary. She has fierceness that he quells with his disapproval and spirit that he crushes with his indifference.” She looks down, gritting her teeth.
Lexa blinks, realising what Anya is saying. That Lexa is not the only one who has come to care for a Skayon. It must pain Anya to reveal that she is not as heartless as she claims. “I see,” she says softly.
“And now she is tied to him by pain as well as love,” Anya continues, voice flat. “She loves him and he is injured. I know her, now, and I know what she will do. She will return to him, be with him, care for him. That slash blinded Finn kom Skaikru… but it caged Raven kom Skaikru, as well.”
“And yet you did not leave him behind,” Lexa observes, seeking absolute confirmation of Anya’s feelings with a questioning glance.
Anya gives her this confirmation. She sighs. “I could not. As I said… she loves him.”
“I am sorry, Anya,” Lexa says, meaning it absolutely. “Raven kom Skaikru is not the only one who is exceptional. I hope you know that.”
Anya manages a grim smile. “Only a truly exceptional person could have taught one such as you how to shoot a bow,” she tells Lexa.
“Perhaps so,” Lexa says, managing a half-smile of her own. Her skills with a bow have never been particularly good, but they both know that the joking taunt is just Anya’s way of trying to move the conversation into territory she is more comfortable with. Lexa looks back – Clarke appears to have finished bandaging Finn. “We should continue. I do not think they have tracked us, but again, we do not know.”
“Which ‘they’? The Maunon, Ripa or pauna?” Anya asks dryly, her face becoming stoic yet again though her eyes show she still aches with private pain. “I will say this for you, yongon – travelling with you is not dull.”
“Hey,” it’s Raven, face still tear-stained but wearing a fierce scowl. “What are we doing now? Finn needs help, proper help, as soon as possible. Which way are we going?”
“We will go to Arkadia,” Lexa says. Raven gives her a confused look and opens her mouth to say something, but then Clarke moves to join them and Raven pauses. “But the fastest way would be to go back the way we just came, and we cannot do that.”
“No, we can’t. I really don’t want to meet the pauna ever again,” Clarke says grimly. “And if we cross at the bridge the Maunon will probably be waiting.”
“Yes,” Lexa says. “We will go downriver, to where it is narrow enough to cross without a bridge.”
Anya and Raven glance at each other for a moment, then Anya looks away. “Sha, Heda,” she says.
Author’s note: “Ranya: the ship I did not intend, which somehow happened anyway. Because they are just so much fun to write.”
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