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chasholidays · 5 years

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Bellarke + Tortall AU where Clarke leaves the convent and joins the Queen's Riders? Thanks and happy holidays :)

The Queen’s Riders form when Clarke is ten years old, and when she tells her mother that she’s going to join, her mother smiles and says, “We’ll see.”

It’s an answer Abby often gives when Clarke wants something she doesn’t want to give her, and Clarke knows what it really means: You’ll change your mind about that. And she might, of course, but Clarke thinks then–and continues to think, as she gets older–that the Riders really would be the best place for her. At four, she learned about Lady Luna, the first lady knight in the kingdom in a hundred years, and a Gifted one at that, and she thought for a long time that she should be a knight herself, until she started to do some training on her own and realized it wasn’t what she was looking for.

The Queen’s Riders, though–they sound a good fit. Like her mother, she has the healing Gift, and she’s good on a horse, even good with a bow on a horse. And while she thinks she’d make a decent enough lady, could probably manage an estate and raise children, it doesn’t feel like the most useful thing she could be doing.

Still, it’s worth knowing how to do it, just in case, so when her mother tells her she’s going to the convent to learn how to manage her home and her Gift, Clarke agrees, and she doesn’t even mind it that much. It’s not a perfect fit, by any means–they don’t want to teach her as much magic as she’d like likes, and she wants to kiss the other girls more than the sisters would like–but she makes it through a few years there without being told to leave.

So, two days before her fifteenth birthday, she leaves on her own.

She doesn’t tell anyone she’s going, although she does leave a note. In it, she claims she’s needed at home, which she doubts anyone will believe, but at least it both explains her absence and doesn’t give them any clue where she’s actually going. The letter to her mother she sends once she’s already on the road, a longer missive detailing her reasons for leaving the convent and joining the Riders. It is, if she does say so herself, a good letter, logical and measured, and it’s possible that if she’d just made the arguments to Abby directly, she would even have agreed. That’s what she expects her mother to say, that they should have talked about this, that she would have listened.

That wouldn’t have done Clarke much good, though, if she hadn’t agreed in the end, and it would have given Abby a chance to stop her. By the time her letter makes it back to her mother, Clarke will already be in Corus, already enlisted in the Queen’s Riders, and it won’t matter what Abby wants.

Except, of course, that the scribe’s second question, after her age, is “And your parents?”

“What about them?”

“Who are they?”

“My father is dead. My mother is Lady Abigail of Griffin’s Reach.”

“And do you have a letter from her?”

“Do I need one?”

For the first time, the scribe looks up from the scroll he’s taking notes on to study her, and Clarke studies him right back. He’s only a few years older than she is, she thinks, with inky black hair that curls like smoke and freckles scattered across his cheeks. She doesn’t know a lot of boys, just Wells, really, and it’s always surprising to remember that they can be as good-looking as girls, in their way.

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to have one,” she says, careful, and he watches her for another moment before he snorts and shakes his head.

“If they don’t know, just tell me. You can join either way, we just need to know what we’re dealing with.”

If he’s lying, then her lying too won’t help; as soon as they get in touch with her mother, they’ll find out that she never got permission, and the end result will be the same. And the boy looks–well, if he was lying, he probably wouldn’t look so amused about it.

“I ran away from the convent and came here,” she says. “I sent my mother a letter, so she’ll know in a day or so, if she doesn’t already.”

He nods. “And you’re sure that you want to do this?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then welcome to the Queen’s Riders. If your mother shows up to take you away, you can deal with her.”

Abby does exactly that, but Clarke digs her heels in, and at the end of the day, her mother is far too proper to try to drag her kicking and screaming from the city, which means there isn’t much she can do. The Commander confirms that Clarke is old enough to join and has every right to do so, and just like that, it’s done, and she’s a Rider.

It’s not the right time of year to start her actual training, but there’s always work to be done, and they find things to keep her busy. She helps the palace healer and the hostlers, getting more familiar with the duties she’ll take on once her training starts in earnest, getting to know the castle and the city.

She gets to know Bellamy, too, the boy who took down her information when she enlisted. He’s not, as she thought, a scribe, but one of the Riders, injured in the spring and away from his usual group and usual duties, leaving him at loose ends with Clarke.

“You don’t look injured,” she observes one afternoon, frowning as he hefts a bale of hay onto his shoulders. They’re in the stables, working with the new ponies, and it’s actually fairly soothing. Clarke likes horses, always has. That was part of the appeal.

He tosses the hay into the loft and shrugs, a little awkward. At seventeen–almost eighteen–he seems like he’s still growing into his skin sometimes, like his limbs don’t fully trust him. “What’s injured supposed to look like?”

She elbows him. “I’m asking what happened.”

“I was stupid.”

“You? Never?”

“Shut up.” He sighs, flexes his hand. “The injury was just an excuse to take me out of the field, a healer could have fixed it pretty quickly. But I made a stupid call, decided to go into a bad situation when my group leader told me not to. We didn’t have a good enough healer around, so they sent me back to Corus to recover, and I’m not back on active duty until they come back here.”

“Time to think about what you did?”

“Apparently.”

“And what are you thinking?”

“That I was stupid.” They work in silence for a minute, Clarke hoping he’ll tell her more if she doesn’t press him, and Bellamy not letting her down. “There was a kid who got taken by bandits. Anya told us to wait, I didn’t, I broke my arm. She told me I needed to learn to not–”

He’s staring into the middle distance, looking at something Clarke can’t see. “To not?” she prompts.

“To not see my sister in every hurt kid. And she was right, I do need to learn that. But I saw a scared girl who needed help, and I didn’t think.”

“Your sister joined the Shang, right?” Clarke asks, trying to remember what he’s told her about his family. Father died when he was young, mother remarried, sister born, sister went to Shang, mother died, Bellamy came to the Riders. Something like that.

“Yeah.”

“So she can take care of herself.”

He smiles a little. “She always could, yeah. But that never stopped me thinking I needed to.”

“Are you getting better?”

“How would I know? I haven’t had to worry about any kidnapped girls lately.” She smiles, and he does too. “Anya told me I should at least remember to talk to her before I do anything stupid, and I think I can do that.”

“Do you like being a Rider?” she asks, curious.

“Yeah. It’s a better fit for me than being a soldier, definitely. Smaller groups, less rigid hierarchy, and I like the work more. What about you?” he asks. “Why did you join?”

“I didn’t want to marry some noble and manage his estate,” she says, truthful, and he laughs.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to do that either. The Riders should be better.”

She smiles. “I hope so.”

Once training starts, she sees less and less of Bellamy, despite both of their efforts to make time. She’s busy with training and meeting the other new recruits, and he’s busy with whatever other duties he’s given. They have meals together sometimes, but by the time his group is back, they only see each other once a week, at best. When he leaves, he gives her a hug and tells her he’ll write, and to her surprise, he really does does. It’s slow, especially once she’s trained and in the field too, letters difficult to send and receive since they’re always on the go. But he’s the one she updates when she’s assigned to her rider group, the one she tells the first time she fails to heal someone. He hears about the romance with Finn that goes sour and the one with Lexa that ends too soon, she hears about his stopping to think before he rushes into a hostage situation, gets every detail of every encounter he has with his sister.

For all she doesn’t see him for six years, he’s still her best friend.

“Six years?” Raven asks, sounding skeptical. “How have you not seen him for six years?”

“Bad luck? We’re never in the same place. He was in the Yamani Islands working on the alliance, we were in Sarain–”

Anyone else might let it go, but Raven’s too sharp for that. “Yeah, I don’t buy it. He’s from the eighth, right? A few inches taller than I am, black hair, freckles, stupidly attractive? We were in Corus for Midwinter with them two years ago, how did you not see him?”

Clarke shifts a little, uncomfortable. She’d wanted to see him then, she really had, but her mother had asked her to come home, and she’d been a little relieved to be allowed to. The desire to see him had been at war with the anxiety that it would be uncomfortable, awkward, not the same. They have a good friendship, but it’s held together by paper and ink; she barely even remembers what it’s like to be in the same space as him.

And now they’re both going to be stationed at Corus, working with the new recruits, and that means she’ll be seeing him all the time.

It’s going to be nice, assuming it’s not awful.

“I was in Griffin’s Reach that midwinter, my mother said if I was close enough to be in Corus I was close enough to visit her.”

Raven studies her. “He recommended you for this, right? It was his idea for you to come back to teach the Gifted Riders.”

She hasn’t been thinking about that either. “Yeah. I knew he was doing it and looking for someone to help out, it wasn’t really a surprise when he asked me. I would have been upset if he didn’t.”

“Just saying, that means he probably wants to see you.”

“I know.”

“If he’s been writing to you for six years, he definitely likes you too.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she says, which is mostly true. “He’s my best friend, of course he likes me.”

And of course he does. He knows her better than anyone else in the world, probably, has seen her growing up in the Riders and likes the person she’s grown into.

But he hasn’t, seen her. When Clarke thinks of Bellamy, the real one, she sees him at eighteen, broad and still broadening, already handsome with the promise of becoming moreso.

Which means that when he thinks of her, he sees a skinny fifteen-year-old fresh out of the convent. She’s gotten better, she thinks, and she hopes he won’t be disappointed, but–he probably doesn’t think of her like that at all, and he probably never will.

So she shouldn’t be wondering about it either.

“Uh huh,” says Raven, unconvinced. “Well, I’ll miss having you in the group, but we come through Corus pretty often. It probably won’t be six years before I see you again.”

Clarke smiles. “I doubt it. But I’ll miss you too.”

The twelfth drops her off in Corus a week early, leaving Clarke more time than she’d like to worry about seeing Bellamy again. Not that she can’t keep busy–there’s more than enough to do–but all her spare moments are wondering about him. Part of her isn’t even sure she’ll recognize him, it’s been so long.

But they still write. It’s not as if he’s a stranger.

She’s in her quarters in the palace looking through Nyko’s notes when someone knocks on her door, and she’s halfway to standing when her heart actually stops for a second because there he is, instantly recognizable as the first boy she met in Corus, the one who signed her up for the Riders, just older and firmer, bearded, so handsome she aches with it.

“Hey,” he says, smile crooked, and she feels her own smile growing.

“Hey, Bellamy.”

For a long moment, all they do is stare at each other, and then he laughs, this short, disbelieving sound, so familiar. “Fuck, it’s so good to see you.”

It’s easy, then–Clarke’s all the way out of her chair and crossing the room to his arms, hugging him tight. His scent is still familiar after all these years, warm and earthy, one she’s caught from time to time on other people and always wants to follow. His arms are strong and his chest solid, and he hugs her like he never wants to let her go.

“You too,” she says. “I can’t believe it’s been six years.”

“You were the one who skipped midwinter in Corus.”

She can’t help grinning; he’s been keeping track too. “Well, you didn’t come on the grand progress.”

“I was working, not–”

“I was visiting my mother!”

He pulls away to smile at her, and she gets caught up in just looking at him. With the beard, his freckles don’t seem quite as prominent, but that makes it easier to get drawn into trying to count them, trying to spot every one.

At least he doesn’t seem to notice. “What are you working on?” he asks, and that shakes her out of it.

“Lessons. I asked Nyko if he had anything I could use, but it’s all the same old stuff I learned. I think it’s mostly useless for us.” She pauses, considers him. “You never really told me much about how you ended up getting brought on as the new training master.”

“I didn’t, and I’m starving. Do you want to go to the mess and I’ll fill you in?”

Walking with him to the Riders’ mess is the strangest kind of familiar, something she’s done dozens of times but hasn’t done for so long that it feels brand new. She can’t stop stealing glances at him out of the corner of her eye, can’t get enough of just seeing him, being in the same space again.

“They actually wanted me to do it because of what I was doing when I met you,” he explains, with a smile. “I was familiar with the training process and I had some, uh–feedback.”

“You thought they could be doing better.”

“More training in Corus and less on the ground would be good for everyone. And I know we both benefited from working more with the Riders apart from our groups. So when I made my suggestions for new training protocols, they thought it would be easier if I just did it myself.”

“And if I helped.”

“If you’d suggested someone else, I would have asked them instead. But you had been complaining about how your new mage didn’t know anything that was actually useful in the field, so–”

“Knights and Riders have different skills,” she says, scowling. “We shouldn’t just be training like we’re going to be knights.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I got the letters. Do you have any ideas for curriculum yet?”

Falling back into their old pattern is easy, almost too easy, considering how little time they had before to set an old pattern. It was a handful of months of her life, all told, but it already feels more familiar than six years in the Riders. Part of that, of course, is routine, plain and simple. Routine is a luxury for a rider in the field; even when they have a long-term assignment, it’s because there’s something to be doing, and that’s never predictable. Living in the palace and doing the same things every day was always going to be different from life on the road, but it’s not just that. Bellamy has been her constant this whole time, even with all the distance between them, and now that the distance has closed, it feels as if her life has fallen back into place.

Wells thinks it’s hilarious.

“You know you haven’t seen me for a long time either, don’t you?” he says. “You don’t act like being with me is coming home after all these years.”

“You’re a knight, it’s different. You aren’t even going to be here for long.”

He shrugs. “You can tell yourself that, but you forget I’m the one seeing the two of you together. I’ve never seen you like that with anyone. You actually relax around him. You can be yourself.”

“I’m myself with plenty of people.”

He watches her in that way only Wells can, the way that makes her feel five years old again and caught out for lying. Bellamy might be her best friend these days, but Wells is still her oldest, the one who can see through her. “Maybe you’re just your best self with him.”

“Getting engaged made you romantic.”

“I’m always romantic! But I’d like to see you settled and happy too,” he says, sobering. “And you’re happy with him.”

“If I married, I’d have to leave the Riders,” she points out.

“Even as a trainer? The Queen started it, and she’s married.”

“Royals are always exceptions,” she says. “You know that.”

“So don’t marry him. Your mother’s already disappointed in you, it’s not like settling with a man you haven’t married would make it much worse.”

“Comforting.” She sighs. “I just don’t know what to do with him around all the time. It’s almost too much of a good thing. I got used to regular letters, and now–”

“Only you would be upset that you get to spend more time with your favorite people. More Bellamy, more me, and you’re worried about it. Just enjoy it while it lasts, Clarke. And see if he wants to be your sweetheart,” he adds. “I am getting romantic, now that I’m engaged.”

Clarke’s over denying, at least to herself, that she wants that. But there are three ways that desire could play out–she tells him and he feels the same, she tells him and he doesn’t, and she never tells him and they go on as they are–and her never telling him is by far the safest, easiest way to proceed.

Not that safe and easy has ever defined her life. But she’s learned enough to know she needs to protect her heart.

“Maybe we’ll be forced to share a bedroll on our trip,” she says. “That would be romantic.”

“Very romantic. How long will you be gone?”

“A few months,” she says, stomach churning with nerves, mostly good ones. “I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.”

“Because you’ll miss your routine?”

“Because I think we’ll get run out of town.”

Wells shrugs. “Tortall is changing. You’re helping.”

The autumn tour of the kingdom was Clarke’s idea, although Bellamy inspired her. The Riders are still a small group, but it’s in part because they’re so new, still largely unknown. The army and the knights don’t really need to recruit; everyone knows if they’re nobles they can be knights, and if they’re not they can be soldiers. The Riders often don’t figure into the equation.

Clarke suggested using the autumn season, when training is done and they’re waiting for spring, to do a tour, the two of them and any rider groups who are near enough to their stops to join, to answer questions and help out recruits who want to join but don’t know how or can’t get to Corus on their own. It’s a smart plan, if she does say so herself, and they have the full support of the Riders and of the crown.

But it’s also months on the road with Bellamy, which might be too much for her to deal with. Her safe, easy routine might not survive it.

“We’re making the world a better place,” she tells Wells, with a smile. “What could be more romantic than that?”

“Did you ever hear from the convent?” Bellamy asks.

It’s not a question Clarke was expecting ever, let alone at the eating house after their first successful day of Rider recruitment. They’re celebrating, in theory, talking about what to do next, and the convent is far from her mind now that it takes her a few seconds just to figure out what he’s asking.

“After I left?”

“Yeah.”

“I think they wrote to my mother, not to me. She dealt with it. Why?”

He drums his fingers on the table. “Do you think they’d let us recruit there?”

It takes her a second. “You want to recruit at the convent?”

“Why not?” He smirks. “They already gave us one good Rider.”

Clarke bites the corner of her mouth on her smile. “I don’t think they wanted to.”

“But it’s a real question,” he says, sobering. “You don’t think there are other girls at the convent who might want to join up?”

“There are, but I’m not sure we can go there and tell them to run away from the convent.”

“You’re still one of the only nobles we have in our ranks,” he says, thoughtful. “Which makes sense, nobles have a lot more options than the rest of us do. But I think we could be missing some noblewomen who would be good fits, and I don’t know how to reach out to them. I wouldn’t want to lose on the next Lady Clarke of Griffin’s Reach.”

Clarke’s heart swells. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

He watches her, expression still thoughtful, a scrutiny intense enough that Clarke wants to shrink away. But she’s no coward; she meets him head on, waiting for him to say what he wants to say.

“So, you’re not on good terms with anyone on the inside? No one we could ask for help?”

“None of the sisters who were there when I was liked me much. But there could be new ones.” She worries her lip. “Niylah may still be there.”

“Niylah?”

“The first girl I ever kissed. She thought if she stayed in the convent, it would be a good way to not marry and find someone else who shared her–inclinations.”

He nods, understanding. It had been an awkward series of letters that had helped the two of them realize they both found gender to be an unimportant part of attraction, but she’s grateful for it now. She can just be honest with him.

“Sounds like someone who might be sympathetic to noblewomen who’d like another career path,” he says, and Clarke smiles.

“I don’t know if she’s actually still there, but I could reach out.”

“You don’t keep in touch?” he asks. “She was your first love.”

“My first kiss, not my first love. Not that I talk to Finn or Lexa much either. You’re the only person I’ve ever managed to keep in touch with with letters.”

He ducks his head, smiling. “Still worth a try, right?”

“Worth a try.”

She writes to the convent that night, directed to Niylah, in the hopes that she’s there, and they’ve got a response back in a week. As Clarke hoped, Niylah has remained, and while she admits that Clarke and Bellamy coming to speak would be frowned upon, she shares that the girls aged thirteen and up are allowed to go into the town on the second Saturday of every month, and if they happened to come on that day, no one would stop the girls from talking to them there.

They were already planning to stop in the area, and adding that town on that day is an easy adjustment, at least in terms of their schedule.

Clarke is having more trouble, though.

“I don’t know what to tell them,” she admits.

“Do you have to tell them something different?” Bellamy asks, with a confused cock of his head. “I thought our presentation was fine.”

She sighs. “I could have done fine staying in my old life. It bothers me sometimes.”

“Really?”

“My mother still tells me I could come home and marry.”

“You are only twenty-one,” Bellamy agrees. “Plenty of ladies marry later than that, when there’s no rush. Do you want to?”

“No. But I could be good at it. I could have stayed at the convent until I was ready to take on a household and married, and I’d be good at it. It might be a better use of my skills.”

“And I might be better off a tailor,” he says. “My mother had me apprenticed to one.”

“What made you join the Riders instead?”

“She died, and I realized I didn’t have anyone else I was responsible for. I didn’t need to support my mother or my sister, I could do whatever I wanted for the first time in my life.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” she says. “I still feel like I’m letting other people down, and encouraging other people to do the same.”

“You’re not letting anyone down, Clarke,” he says, genuine. “You’re still taking care of your people, and you can get married later, if you want. If your fief needs you, you’ll help. But they don’t, so–” He shrugs. “You’re giving people options, not telling them what to do.”

“And this is the best option for me.” She smiles at him. “Do you want to marry?”

“In general?”

“You had that sweetheart in the third,” she says, trying to be casual about it. “Echo?”

“That was years ago. I’m not pining away, dreaming of marrying her.”

“But someone.”

He’s quiet for much longer than she was expecting, quiet for so long she starts to think he’s not going to say anything. But then, finally, he lets out a breath. “Honestly? You’re the only person I’ve ever thought about marrying. I had this fantasy where you’d need to find a husband to save your fief, and you’d ask me, or I’d volunteer.”

“You’d have to leave the Riders,” she says, the first thing that pops into her head.

His face twists in amusement. “I never said it was a realistic fantasy.”

“Wells said I didn’t have to marry you,” she says, meeting his eyes carefully. “We could just be Riders together, and let the rumors fly.”

“Yeah, I thought about that a lot too.” He wets his lips. “That’s why I wanted you for this. And that’s part of why I wanted to come to the convent. I don’t know what–I’d still be a Rider without you, but I don’t know what my life would be like. I want to make sure we get all the Clarkes we can here.”

“I’d just like you to have one,” she says.

It takes him a second, but then he laughs, grins. “You’re the only Clarke for me.” He clears his throat. “I don’t suppose you’d like to come take a look at my room?”

Wells will be insufferable, and Raven too. But there are worse things to have than smug friends, and few better things to have than someone you love who loves you too. And he must; he wouldn’t be looking at her like that if he didn’t.

She stands and offers him her hand, tugging him out of the booth. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Can noblewomen really join the Riders?”

The girl has big eyes and long black hair, and she’s looking at Clarke like she’s hungry, desperate. It’s an expression she’s seen plenty of times since the tour started, on all sorts of faces. But this is the first noble, and it makes her stomach flip.

“We can,” she says. “I’m a noble.”

“You are?”

“I was in this convent, before I joined the Riders.”

“Why did you leave?”

The answer comes easily. “Because I thought this was the right place for me.”

“And it is?”

Bellamy is to her left, a few yards away, surrounded by a gaggle of girls who are more interesting in talking to a handsome young man than they are in enlisting. They have another month of the tour before they’ll be going back to Corus, and some small part of her is worried that this understanding between them will burst, that their bubble of happiness can’t last.

And maybe it won’t be just like this, sneaking into each other’s rooms and stealing kisses when no one is around. But they’ll find something just as good or better, of that she’s sure. They’ll train new recruits and bicker over the best way to do it, they’ll go to meals together and stay up late, fall into bed together when they’re done.

They’ll be happy, and they’ll be good. No matter what else happens.

“It is,” Clarke tells her. “It’s exactly where I belong.”

#laughing-under-a-cloudy-sky

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travllingbunny · 5 years

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The 100 rewatch: 1x12/1x13 We Are Grounders (Part 1&Part 2)

So I’ve come to the end of my rewatch of season 1. (The season 2 opener post will come soon. I’ve already rewatched it.) Overall my opinions on the quality of the season haven’t changed much, though I did like some episodes more and some episodes less this time. It was, however, interesting to see how much foreshadowing there was of later events and how many moments later got callbacks and parallels in later seasons.

I’ve also tried to now keep track of the timeline and body count in every episode...but I’m now starting to realize, after how confusing the numbers got in 1x11 and in these two episodes, that I’ve probably given it much more thought than the writers ever did. In the end, I had to look up The 100 wiki – but it seems just as confused as I am.

Back when I first binged the show, some 7 months ago, I was posting about it on SpoilerTV in the daily discussion threads. Sometimes I wrote just a few lines, but about this two-parter, I wrote a very detailed post - and I wish I had posted it on Tumblr, too. Maybe I’ll dig it up and post it as an annex or something. Funny thing, before that, after 1x11, I made my list of predictions for the two-part finale, and all of them turned out to be true. I liked it anyway - predicting things isn’t always bad, it may mean that the storytelling is logical and that plot points were well foreshadowed. But it’s also one of the reasons why I didn’t find it as mind-blowing as the S2 one or S4 , or even S5 one. (But it’s certainly miles better than the S3 finale. Although that’s not saying much, since the latter was pretty anticlimactic and is one of my least favorite episodes.)

I’ve always felt that Part 1 was the stronger episode, and that hasn’t changed.

Ranking and ratings of season 1 episodes:

1x12 We Are Grounders part 1 - 10/10

1x13 We Are Grounders part 2 - 9/10

1x08 Day Trip - 9/10

1x10 I Am Become Death - 9/10

1x05 Twilight's Last Gleaming - 8.5/10

1x06 His Sister's Keeper - 8/10

1x03 Earth Kills - 8/10

1x11 The Calm - 8/10

1x04 Murphy's Law - 7/10

1x07 Contents Under Pressure - 6.5/10

1x09 Unity Day - 6/10

1x02 Earth Skills - 4.5/10

1x01 The Pilot - 4.5/10

Season 1 overall - 7.54/10

Part 1

One of the few things I didn’t guess about this finale in advance was Ark coming down the way it did. It’s kind of funny that Kane tried to have a sacrificial redemptive death, but Jaha got there first, and had his best and most useful and most heroic moment ever… but then the show didn’t let Jaha have a redemptive death but let him live. And then he went on to make terrible mistakes and be an antagonist for at least 2 seasons, before having a morally grey (and most suited to his character) role in S4.

Every time someone tries to sacrifice themselves on The 100, they live on, and almost every time a major character has a big heroic moment, they are brought low the next season and make terrible mistakes and/or do antiheroic things.

I like it whenever the show has a flashback of the life on the Ark or goes into the past in some other way. And it’s always nice to have another little reminder of the time when Wells used to exist for 3 episodes, which usually happens through his father’s memories or hallucinations. Here it’s Jaha watching an old video of Wells and Clarke, which helps him figure out the solution to how to bring the Ark to the ground.

And look at Jaha opening a 97 year old bottle of scotch, “The Baton” This bottle is almost a recurring character - doesn’t it also appear in the season 4 finale?

I remember that I Kane and Abby’s chemistry was so obvious in this episode, and their scenes so close and extremely friendly (what a contrast to where they started... like mother, like daughter?) that I made a comment that they seemed like they were going to start making out any moment, LOL. And I wasn’t even shipping them then, it was more like “Wait, is this going to be a thing now?” Well, I wasn’t wrong, it just took them 2 more seasons.

A few bullet points about things first mentioned in this episode:

First appearance of Tristan, sent by Lexa, who tells Clarke “I’m the man sent to slaughter your people”. Well, at least no one can say the guy is not honest and straightforward. Also the first time we hear about the existence of “the Commander” and learn that Anya isn’t actually the leader of the Grounders. An interesting bit of trivia I’ve learned since is that the Commander was originally supposed to be a child. JRoth must be really In love with this idea, since he went back to it eventually with Madi.

First time we hear about and see the Reapers, and the scenes with them looked like something right out of a horror movie and was genuinely horrifying. Lincoln not answering Finn’s question what they are but simply saying “Pray you never find out” was, of course, a way to keep it a mystery for us a bit longer, but now we know it was really more about, pray you never get to become one, which happens with Lincoln in season 2, while Finn will unleash his inner monster in another way.

First mention of Luna by name, though Lincoln had already talked about her people to Octavia earlier in the season. I wonder how much of her role was already planned in season 1. With all the Mount Weather mentions and other things like the acid fog, Lincoln’s drawings etc., it’s clear that the main arc of the first 2 seasons was planned since the beginning, with Grounders as secondary antagonists that the 100 mostly deal with in season 1, and the Mountain Men as the main villains, who will get focused on in season 2. But I’m not sure that this was the case with any of the season 3 arcs.

Lincoln finally explains why he is helping the 100 and that it’s not just about Octavia: “What my people are doing to your people isn’t right”. The same reason why Maya and the other rebels in MW will be helping the Delinquents in season 2. In the show where people too often justify their actions by “it was for my people”, it is great to have characters who prioritize what is right.

And god, how good it feels to hear lines like that again. Maybe JRoth and the rest of the writers should have rewatched season 1 and remember the things that actually happened in their own show? Back when they still hadn’t gotten it into their heads that the 100 were somehow the bad guys in that scenario because they were desperately trying to survive after being forced to go to the ground (sent by the Arker leadership because the Arkers were going to die in space), and that Grounders were somehow the good guys for attacking and trying to kill them all for no reason but paranoia and prejudice?

Two big things that happen to Finn: he has a reaction to having directly killed someone for the first time (even though it was a Reaper) and then made his big love declaration to Clarke- only to be rejected, in one of my favorite moments of season 1. I’ve always found Clarke’s reactions throughout that storyline and particularly in this scene really relatable - her feelings for him haven’t gone, but she was hurt and couldn’t trust him or go there again. “You broke my heart... I’m sorry. I can’t.” I always thought that she would never give him a chance again, and that, while the feelings were still there, she was slowly starting to move on and that, in any case, he was her past rather than her future, long before he killed a bunch of people and she had to mercy kill him. Overall, while I really didn’t like Finn/Clarke or Finn/Raven as relationships, the atypical way the C/F/R love triangle was resolved (both girls reject Finn, and become friends) was one of my favorite things about S1.

Finn’s line “I should have fought for you” always struck me as odd (that’s not exactly what I’d say was the problem: he should have been honest with her and told her he had a girlfriend, or then he should have been honest with Raven and told her the truth, he shouldn’t have been playing both of them, he should have made up his mind and been honest about it rather than waiting for Raven to dump him…), and I’m not sure what exactly he meant (fought against whom? Or did he just mean, been more decisive and not let passively wait for things to happen?) but I guess it reflects Finn’s state of mind? He was always trying to play a white knight, first to Raven on the Ark, then to Clarke. And in retrospect, this may be one of the first signs that of where he ends up in S2, when he becomes violent and obsessed with the idea that he’s going to find and save Clarke. But the show has never been fully clear on how much his mental state was PTSD due to war and fighting, and how much his increasingly unhealthy obsession with Clarke.

Speaking of saving Clarke, the fact that Bellamy was able to be very rational about the fact Clarke, Finn and Monty were missing and focus on protecting the camp rather than going on a rescue mission, as opposed to the way he acted in 3x02 when he learned Clarke was in danger and immediately got dressed as an Ice Nation warrior and went on his own behind enemy lines to rescue her, says a lot about how much Bellamy’s feelings for Clarke became stronger between the end of season 1 and beginning of season 3.

This was the episode when Bellamy definitely became one of my 2 favorite characters, with how he dealt with the Murphy situation, and showed what a leader he had become. (Which Jasper also recognized, verbally and with a big hug.) If I were to dig up my SpoilerTV post I wrote back then, you’d see a lot of very embarrassing fangirling over Bellamy. ;)

This time I was able to focus more on Murphy’s motivations and characterization, which I didn’t think that much before. When Murphy is trying to taunt Bellamy - after putting a noose around his neck - saying things like “You think you’re so brave”, “You think you’re stronger than me” – I’m pretty sure that’s what Murphy thinks, deep inside. He has a deep inferiority complex. Which is exactly why he wanted revenge on Bellamy in such a way, hoping to see him afraid and brought low. He used to defer to Bellamy in the early days at the ground, so when Bellamy threw him to the wolves, then later tried to kill him in rage, exiled him and showed multiple times how little he respected him or cared for him (compared to, say, a little girl), that must have brought on a lot of resentment. But the whole “I know the truth, you’re a coward” thing would work better if it wasn’t in a situation where Bellamy was risking his life to save Jasper and actually being just as awesome as Murphy was trying to prove he wasn’t, so the whole revenge attempt was a huge, pathetic failure by Murphy. And Murphy going on about how he’s maybe now going to become the leader of the 100 after both “the princess” and “the king” die, now seems less like a villain’s threat, and more like empty bragging that he probably didn’t even believe in himself. He knows he’s not a leader type and he’s much better at making people hate him than follow him.

The speech Bellamy gives at the camp is impassioned and emotion-driven and gets the Delinquents full of passion to stay and fight – for a moment, until Clarke gives her short speech where she simply points out that they’re likely to die if they stay and convinces them to leave. This is a good example why and how the idea of Bellamy as “the Heart” and Clarke as “the Head” makes sense: it’s not that he is all emotion and can’t think rationally or that she’s emotionless – both of these things are obviously untrue – or that he’s always acting on emotion or that she’s always making her decisions rationally (there are plenty of examples of either of them doing the opposite), but it’s how they tend to approach leadership and decision-making and the arguments they used to appeal to people: his tend to be emotional, hers practical.

Part 2

…And Clarke points that out to Bellamy when she convinces him to go with the others rather than stay on his own to fight, in one of her many pep talks to Bellamy about what a great leader he is. “You inspire them”. (She’ll tell him the same in the S4 finale.)

The Blake siblings scene was beautiful and emotional and one of my favorite scenes in season 1. But now, after that relationship got a lot more dysfunctional in the following seasons, I can’t help but notice that, while Bellamy takes back his statement from 1x06 that his life ended when Octavia was born, saying it was the opposite, Octavia never really took back her accusations that Bellamy was at fault for their mother dying and pretty much everything. (In the following seasons, Octavia will keep the tradition of always blaming Bellamy for everything ever. She does, however, tell him“I love you, big brother”. I believe she says that two more times, in the S4 finale and the S5 finale. But in the latter, it understandably doesn’t get quite the same response.

And here we go again, Murphy is once more captured and tortured by the Grounders… how many times does Murphy get tortured or has other bad things happen to him during seasons 1-3?

Fans who like Finn more than I do have argued that he jumped in and saved Bellamy during the battle because they are comrades. But since he was earlier willing to let Bellamy stay behind and probably be killed, I think the main reason Finn did it was because Clarke was showing concern for Bellamy and upset about him potentially dying.

My main problem with Part 2 was always the scene where Clarke has to pull the lever and close the dropship door, before Jasper incinerates everyone outside. Or rather specifically, the scene where she and Finn stare at each other for a couple of seconds during battle, with dramatic music and all, which was weird because he was pretty close by and it looked like she could have yelled at him to get inside, and he could have come inside, so I was never sure if the scene was just badly done, or if it was supposed to be deeply meaningful (Finn starting to lose it and desperate to prove himself as her hero? A reaction to her rejection? PTSD? All of that at once?) but it didn’t quite work because she looked frozen and emotional, but he was just kind of blankly staring at her… And I’m afraid I still don’t have no idea what the scene was supposed to be.

In any case, the entire thing with Clarke’s dramatic and heartbreaking choice to close to door on Finn and Bellamy to save the others should have felt more epic and had more weight, but it kind of does not. It happens quickly, and then there’s more focus on whether the Delinquent crowd will act inhumane and lynch a vastly outnumbered Anya. And, of course, there’s also the fact that I’m pretty sure no one in the audience ever thought Finn or Bellamy were actually dead. But at least the scene where Clarke goes outside and stares at two charred skeletons was good because you really felt what she must have been thinking.

However, I love the parallel/contrast to this scene in the S5 finale, when Clarke keeps waiting for Bellamy to come inside the ship and doesn’t pull the lever to close the door (while Raven is hurrying her to do it, same as Miller was here).

The visual of the Ark coming down is beautiful - it looks like a ‘falling star’ - a callback to the earlier conversations about making a wish on a star.

Kane and Abby looking at the Earth together kinds of reminds me of Bellamy and Clarke watching the new planet in the S5 finale. (Except the former two at this point aren’t nearly as close to pull each other in an embrace.)

The ending with the Mountain Men is well done, but that was one of the things I predicted at the time: that the finale will mostly be about fighting Grounders, and then the Mountain Men will appear at the end, and they will be very technologically advanced. With so many mentions of them, it wasn’t hard to guess they had to be the S2 antagonists who appear at the very end of S1 in a cliffhanger - shows often do that. (I actually didn’t even make the Mount Weather connection, since I’m not from USA and had no idea what it was. But the mysterious Mountain Men had to be different from Grounders and Reapers, and the opposite of what you’d normally expect from people called ‘mountain men”. Which doesn’t mean it was not a good twist - it’s just hard to fully surprise fans like me who have watched so much TV .)

Timeline: I used to think season 1 lasted about a month, month and a half, but now it seems that it can’t be more than 3 weeks, at most. And even that’s a stretch.

We know for sure that episodes 1-6 lasted 10 days (and a week passed between 1x03 and 1x04), but events in episodes 1x06 to 1x09 were happening very fast, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of days, and ditto for episodes 1x10-1x13. The only possible times when more time could have passed was between 1x9 and 1x10.

Body count:

Part 1:

1 Delinquent (Myles), wounded last episode and now murdered by Murphy as revenge for the lynching.

1 patient on the Ark that Abby wasn’t able to save.

1 Grounder killed off-screen by Lincoln

2 or 3 Reapers

1 or 2 unfortunate Grounders being eaten or about to be eaten by the Reapers.

Part 2: Lots of people.

About 300 Trikru warriors (and some of the Reapers who had been fighting them, probably) – most of them burned in the ring of fire.

Either 31 or 29 Delinquents – first a redshirt Drew, killed by a scout before the battle, then a bunch of them in battle with the Trikru (or maybe burned). This is where it gets confusing. At the start of Part 2, Bellamy feels he’s failed and says there have been 18 dead, and Clarke tries to comfort him, saying 82 are still alive. But only 16 Delinquents were killed before 1x13. So, either 1) two more died of that illness or were killed by the Grounders off-screen, or 2) he was assuming Monty and Murphy were dead or would soon be dead. And in season 3, Bellamy tells Kane “Trikru killed 37 of my friends before you even touched the ground”. Out of the 16 Delinquents who definitely died in the first 12 episodes, 6 were killed by Grounders (3 directly, 3 by bio warfare/illness). That would mean either 2 more + Drew + 29 in battle, or Drew + 31 in battle. In any case, in season 2, 48 were captured in Mount Weather, while 6 survived outside of it (Octavia, Murphy, Finn, Monroe, Sterling, and one boy killed by Tristan in 2x01) – which would make 54, plus Bellamy and Raven.

A bunch of people died in the landing of the Ark, but there’s no info how many. In 1x07 they said there were 2,237 people on the Ark. (Which means that, before they sent the 100 to the ground and Raven took the escape pod, there were at least 2339.) In 1x11, Kane said there were about 1,000 survivors on the Ark. But he also said 1,500 died in the shutdown of the Ark, which definitely doesn’t add up, as it would mean there were about 2,500 people before that, and that’s without the few hundred that died with Diana on the Exodus ship (which Kane may or may not counted?). Either Kane is terrible at math, or the writers got things mixed up. Anyway, let’s say that 1,000 survived, that means about 1,200 died either on Exodus or due to the shutdown on the Ark. But some of the 12 stations probably exploded before touching the ground, so a few hundred more Arkers probably died.

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chronictonsillitis · 6 years

Text

If I Could Do It All Again (I Shouldn't Still Want This) -Chapter 1/? - Bellarke (exes, college AU)

One brown eye opened blearily from where his face was pressed against the toilet seat, then closed again in a second.

She shook him more firmly. “Come on, Bellamy, I know you’re awake.”

He lifted his head slightly from the toilet seat, fully opening his eyes. Bellamy gazed balefully straight at her. Clarke stared back.

Bellamy grumbled and lowered his head back down. “You’re not here.”

*********

Clarke and Bellamy had a thing, until they didn't. But she's a medical professional and she's not gonna let him aspirate on his own vomit just because they aren't friends anymore.

(Ao3) or

“I didn’t know who else to call.”

Clarke glanced sideways past Zeke at the dark head slumped over the toilet. “Did you consider that Campus Safety might be better equipped than I am?”

He shrugged. “Safety will just call an ambulance and I don’t know if he has insurance. You’re an EMT right?”

She was. Clarke had spent the last two years volunteering at the local ambulance company, packing her resume for med school, and in that time she’d seen her fair share of crazy shit, so really a drunk person shouldn’t be a problem. “Yeah but—“

“Plus you know him, right? You were both on the same freshman hall as Raven.”

Clarke sighed heavily. Zeke had transferred junior year so she guessed he didn’t know quite how loaded that question was.

“I used to.”

Steeling herself, Clarke pushed fully into the stall, coming to stand over the toilet and its current resident. She looked back at Zeke, still leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed. “Do you know how much he had to drink? Or when?”

He shrugged again. “No idea. I came in here to take a piss before going out and found him. I called you right after.”

“Great,” Clarke muttered under her breath. “You can go if you want to, I can take it from here.”

“Thanks, Clarke.” Zeke smiled gratefully, pushing off the doorway. “He’s real lucky to have a friend like you.”

Clarke sucked in a sharp breath. “We’re not—“

The thump of the door swinging shut cut her off and she slowly let out the air she had taken in. “Friends,” she finished quietly.

Turning her attention back to her patient, she rolled her small medical bag off her shoulder and squatted down beside the toilet.

Tentatively, Clarke reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “Bellamy? You gotta wake up now.”

One brown eye opened blearily from where his face was pressed against the toilet seat, then closed again in a second.

She shook him more firmly. “Come on, Bellamy, I know you’re awake.”

Blindly, he reached up and laced his fingers tightly around her wrist, stilling her. He mumbled something unintelligible.

Clarke leaned closer and tried not to focus on the way his rough fingers felt on her skin. “What was that?”

He lifted his head slightly from the toilet seat, fully opening his eyes. Bellamy gazed balefully straight at her. Clarke stared back.

Bellamy grumbled and lowered his head back down, releasing her wrist and closing his eyes again. “You’re not here.”

Clarke sighed. “Sorry, buddy, I wish I wasn’t either,” she replied, and reached out to take his wrist, finding his pulse. It was strong, but slow. “How much did you drink?”

He did his best impression of a shrug. “Some.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Did you throw up?”

He grunted affirmatively.

She gently reached out and pushed his hair back from his face. “Do you think you’re gonna throw up again?”

Bellamy shook his head and Clarke retracted her hand, mentally cursing herself.

“You’re not here,” he said again.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes again and sat back against the side of the stall, leaning her head up against the plastic.

“Well if I’m not here, where am I then?”

She could hear him shifting slightly, but she kept her gaze up, silently counting the ceiling tiles.

“You’re at a party,” Bellamy mumbled. “You’re at a party, and you’re dancing with your friends, with what’s-her-name, that girl you’re with. And you’re happy.”

Clarke looked at him curiously. “What’s-her-name? Who’s that?”

He cracked an eye open again briefly.

“You know who I mean,” he said petulantly. “What’s-her-name. With the dark hair and the like leather and stuff.”

“I honestly have no idea who you’re talking about.”

Clarke wracked her brain for who he could possibly be referring to but drew a blank. She hadn’t been with anyone lately, let alone anyone Bellamy would’ve seen her with.

“The short one. I saw you kiss her hair.” His voice was awfully accusing for someone she hadn’t spoken to for over a year.

“I have no idea who that—“ she stopped short. “Wait, Madi?!”

He shrugged impassively.

“Ew, Bellamy. Madi is one my freshman orientees. She’s like my kid.”

Clarke pushed herself up off the ground and wipes her hands on her pants. She could feel anger bubbling up inside her and she tamped down on it, going to lean up against the counter, facing away from him.

She had left the stall door open and she could see the reflection of Bellamy in the mirror, his face still pressed against the toilet seat and his legs sprawled out into the stall next to him.

“What I do is none of your business, okay?” She reminded him quietly.

Bellamy grumbled noncommittally in reply.

“Bellamy.” Her voice was sharp, shaper than she intended. It had been years, but he was still a sore spot for her.

“Murphy said you were happy.”

Clarke sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah, and?”

“That’s good,” Bellamy mumbled. “That’s really good. I want you to be happy.”

Clarke spun to face him. He opened his eyes and looked at her lazily, a small smile cracking across his face. Her expression hardened.

Clarke opened her mouth to say something cutting but was stopped by the appearance of a group of giggling girls bursting through the door. She glared at them, pushing herself up to sit on the counter with her back against the mirror.

One of them went to use the stall next to Bellamy but found his legs intruding on the space. Clarke snorted.

“Try the third one down.”

The girl nodded gratefully. Clarke waited as she did her business, quickly washing her hands and collecting her friends. They burst into laughter as they left and Clarke grimaced.

“You should go with them. Go out and have fun.”

Clarke gave Bellamy a doubtful look. “Yeah, I’m not leaving you alone when you’re drunk like this.”

“I’m so fine,” he slurred. “I’ll just go back to my room.”

He lifted his head off the seat and made to get up, then paled, slumping back down. “Or I can just stay here. It’s all good.”

She shook her head in disbelief. She’d dealt with his specific drunk mess more times than she’d admit, and if she was honest she used to find it endearing.

Back in their freshman year, before winter formal, Bellamy and Murphy had gone out to pregame with some of their rugby buddies and by the time they came back, Bellamy was belligerent. Clarke ended up having to escort him back to their dorm, him leaning heavily on her as she struggled with his weight and her heels.

When they got back to their dorm, she’d had to help him unlock his door, right next to hers.

He had flopped into bed and she’d gently removed his boots. Clarke felt her heart skip as she remember the feeling of him running a hand along her hair. She’d looked up to see him grinning lazily at her.

You look really pretty, Bellamy had said, then his expression had shuttered. He had been with Gina then, and even though their relationship was strained by distance, he’d never cheat. You should go back out and find a nice person to hook up with. You deserve someone nice.

She’d jokingly assured him she would. Bellamy insisted on locking his door behind her and Clarke had laughed but allowed it. The lock had clicked shut and almost instantaneously she’d heard him slam into something.

He blamed it on taking his contacts out and she’d laughed and left, her heart warm and full.

That night she hooked up with Lexa for the first time.

Another time, at the end of the next semester, after Gina had dumped him and they’d started hooking up, he’d come back from yet another rugby party plastered and had barged into her room and flopped onto her bed beside her.

They had kissed for a while and then laid face to face in her bed under the covers. His eyes had been bright and his grin dopey and then slowly his face had changed.

His eyes ran over her face, searching. He must really like you, he’d said. Clarke asked who he meant. Your summer boy.

He meant Finn. Clarke had laughed at that. She’d told him before about how she and Finn had been hooking up every summer for a while at her lake house.

Trust me, he definitely doesn’t. He just liked fucking me. Clarke had replied.

It was true. She’d had such a huge thing for Finn until he brought his girlfriend up for a week. Raven had been so excited to meet her because they were going to the same school, and Clarke was fucking her boyfriend.

Can I visit you over the summer? Bellamy had asked plaintively. Clarke nodded firmly.

Can I sleep here? He’d asked and she agreed again. Thirty minutes later he’d bolted out of her bed, down the hall to the bathroom, presumably to throw up. When she heard his door open and close, she’d gone to sleep.

He certainly hadn’t visited her over the summer. Instead, he’d sent her snapchats of him and Gina dancing at concerts and making breakfast and kissing. She should’ve known better.

Clarke sighed and scrubbed her hand across her face to drive the memories away. She doesn’t like to think about freshman year, or how they’d been friends or how happy she’d been when she’d thought he’d liked her.

When they came back for sophomore year, he'd been single again, and stupidly she started hooking up with him again. He'd ended it via text message while drunk at a party.

She'd thought he was too emotionally compromised over Gina to be in any kind relationship, but then he started fucking the girl she lived next to. It turned out he was ready to be in a relationship, just not with Clarke.

She’d mostly gotten over it. She wasn’t depressed anymore, didn’t have panic attacks when she saw him or Echo, didn’t avoid going to rugby parties just because she knew he’d be there, but it wasn’t good for her to remember being his friend or his lover.

He’d never really liked her, Clarke reminded herself. She was just a very conveniently located lay.

“I just want you to be happy,” he said again, straightening up slightly.

Her eyes flashed.

“Don’t.”

Bellamy looked confused. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t pretend you care. Don’t pretend you ever cared.”

“I care.” He pulled himself off the ground and stumbled towards her.

In an instant, Clarke was on her feet, wrapping an arm around his back under his shoulder and gently helping him back to the ground. He leaned back against the plastic stall divider.

“I miss being your friend,” Bellamy slurred. “We were good friends.”

Clarke could feel tears building behind her eyes but she blinked hard, refusing to let him see her cry.

“You weren’t a good friend to me.”

He nodded in agreement. “I fuck everything up.”

She choked out a laugh. He grinned up at her then his eyes slowly fell shut, his head slumping against his shoulder.

“You passing out or falling asleep?” she asked, an undertone of worry coloring her voice.

He held up two fingers without opening his eyes. She snorted again. “How about we get you to your room first?”

He nodded and she was moving to go help him up when a Campus Safety officer came through the door.

The officer’s eyes flicked between them. “We got a report that there was someone passed out in the bathroom.”

Clarke winced. “No, Officer. He just had a bit too much to drink, but I can handle it.”

The officer nodded. “No need, ma’am. We called an ambulance for him. They’ll take good care of him.”

Clarke’s eyes darkened. “You called an ambulance just based on a report? What if he hadn’t been here? He doesn’t need to go to the ER.”

“Sorry, ma’am. It’s policy.” The officer shrugged. “They’ll meet us up here.”

“It’ll be easier if we bring him down and meet them there. He can get down the stairs.”

The officer looked at her patronizingly. “I think we can let the professionals decide what’s best, yeah?”

Anger bubbled up in her and she was about two seconds away from ripping into him when the crew arrived.

“Oh, hey Clarke. Long time no see.” Her co-worker Jackson grinned at her. She’d worked a shift with him earlier that day, but Diyoza had replaced her for the overnight.

She grinned back but sighed internally with disappointment. If it had been Jackson and someone else they might have let Bellamy stay with her, but Diyoza was a stickler for the rules, and altered mental status, aka being a drunk ass, was an automatic transport.

“This little lady here thinks he can walk down himself,” the officer said pompously, “But I thought I should get a second opinion.”

Diyoza nodded and looked at Clarke. “No stair chair?”

“Not unless you really want to,” Clarke replied.

“No stair chair then.” Diyoza nodded again and turned back to the officer. “I think we can handle it from here.”

He looked taken aback. “I’ll need to get his info to write a citation.”

“He’s over 21.” Clarke said, rolling her eyes.

“I can’t just take your word for that.”

Diyoza stepped in between them. “Clarke is one of our most promising volunteers. I think you can trust her. Now, please, let us do our job.”

Wordlessly she led him to the door. Diyoza had a way of making people do what she wanted.

“Alright,” she said brightly. “Should we go? We can check him out in the back of the truck, but I’m sure you’ve been doing fine.”

Clarke nodded and went to go help Bellamy up. “Come on, Bellamy. Let’s go.”

He nodded slowly and rose, leaning heavily against her.

“Let’s go,” he repeated.

They moved slowly through the hallway and down the stairs, Diyoza and Jackson providing support in case they fell.

“So this is the famous Bellamy,” Diyoza drawled.

Clarke flashed her a warning look. Long hours at the station had a way of making people overshare, but she didn’t want Bellamy to know she’d discussed him.

Diyoza raised her hands in surrender. “Bellamy who I have never heard about at all in great detail.”

“Me neither,” said Jackson.

Clarke groaned. “You guys suck.”

“I don’t suck,” said Bellamy. Clarke exchanged a look with the other two.

“Sure you don’t,” replied Jackson. “You seem totally nice and responsible. That’s why they called us.”

Bellamy grumbled from his position slung across Clarke’s shoulders. “I’m tired.”

They came to a stop in front of the stretcher. “That’s why you’re gonna sit down here for me.”

He nodded, and then almost fell. Clarke caught him

“Whoa! Okay, Bellamy. How about you just hold on to me here?” Clarke shifted her arms so that she was chest to chest with him, her hands looped behind his back.

His hands grasped tightly around her hips. “Okay.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Great. Jackson, could you move the cot behind him?”

Clarke tried not to think of how familiar their position felt but she couldn’t help it.

The first night they had hooked up, they had been partying before spring formal with the hall. For one second he had stood intoxicatingly close and pulled her hips to his. I shouldn’t hold you like this, he’d whispered in her ear. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.

His big hands had seared through the fabric of her dress, burning her skin deliciously. She’d ghosted her lips over his jaw. Trust me, I don’t mind.

This time, she helped him sit down. Bellamy looked at her so softly she had to turn away.

Jackson loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance and started taking Bellamy’s vitals.

“You coming with us?” Diyoza asked Clarke.

She wrung her hands, gazing at Bellamy where he chatted dopily with Jackson. “No, I shouldn’t. Echo—his girlfriend—should go with him.”

Diyoza nodded and called out to Bellamy. “Hey buddy, where’s Echo?”

He laughed bitterly. “Probably fucking my best friend’s ex-girlfriend again.”

Diyoza looked at Clarke, amused. Clarke shrugged, her mouth agape.

“I didn’t—“

“Yeah, I bet,” Diyoza cut in. “You coming?”

Clarke nodded jerkily and Diyoza clapped her on the back. “Great. You’re up front with me.”

By the time Clarke got through helping the hospital reception with his registration, Bellamy was asleep.

She lurked around the emergency department for a while, before coming to rest on a chair by the door in his room. Clarke gazed at him, still in the bed, his chest rising and falling. The heart monitor beeped evenly.

She texted Murphy what’d happened and settled in to the chair. Slowly, she let the beeping of the monitors lull her to sleep.

She woke around six to gentle chatter. Blearily she stretched out and opened her eyes.

A beautiful brunette was standing next to Bellamy, quietly scolding him. Clarke recognized her from family weekend, freshman year. Octavia, his sister.

Bellamy glanced at Clarke uncomfortably and Octavia’s eyes followed.

“Oh!” She exclaimed brightly. “You’re up.”

Clarke nodded and looked away from Bellamy’s gaze, smiling slightly at Octavia. “Did Murphy tell you what happened?”

Octavia snorted. “He sure did. Thanks for taking care of this idiot for me.”

Clarke nodded again. “It’s no problem. I’m an EMT so I’m used to this kind of stuff.”

“You didn’t have to stay,” Bellamy said. His voice was low and quiet, and Clarke fought the urge to shiver.

She stood up and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah I— I should probably go.”

“Well, thanks again!” chirped Octavia. “Bell’s really lucky to have you as a friend.”

“We’re not—“ Clarke stopped short. She caught Bellamy’s eye for a second and then looked down. “Yeah. No problem.”

She turned and slipped out of the room, weaving through the ER, a sob resting high in her throat.

She ran headlong into Murphy as she burst out the doors.

“Whoa, Clarke.” He held her by her shoulders and looked at her. “I was just coming to see if Bellamy needed a ride. You okay?”

She nodded and felt tears start to fall. “He’s fine, Octavia’s with him. Can you take me home?”

She tried and failed to stifle another sob.

Murphy pulled her in for an uncharacteristic tight hug. Quietly in her ear he said, “Bellamy is my best friend, but he’s an idiot. He doesn’t deserve you.”

He released her. “Let’s go.”

Two hours later she received a text from a number that wasn’t in her address book anymore, but she knew who it was. It said: Thanks.

She didn’t reply.

#bellamy blake #bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #bellarke fic #clarke griffin #The 100

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dylanobrienisbatman · 6 years

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When do you think Blarke started falling in love?

Um this is the best anon i’ve ever gotten, i hope you’re prepared for me to go FULL meta. Here, have a novel. Thanks for this because i always wanna talk about this.

For Bellamy i think it was pretty simple, tbh. I think Bellamy fell in love with Clarke pretty early in season 1, but didn’t realise it until season 2. I think he had the feelings and didn’t know what they were, but then when she hugged him in season 2, and then she left at the end of season 2, he knew, which i think was super clear by his response to seeing her again and finding her in 3x02. His crazed reaction to loosing her, his clear anger and betrayal at her choosing not to come home with him later in the season, his anger at her and his vocalisation of that later really shows it, to me, that he loves her at this point, and is not sure how to handle it. I feel like after that it only continues to grow, showing in his anger and resentment towards her for leaving him, and choosing the grounders over him, etc. The moment on the beach, in s3, when they have that conversation, when he tells her he was so angry at her, its like this weight off his shoulders, of being like “i’ve been so angry with you, but you’re here, and were together, and were doing this together, and I’m healing from this now”.

With Clarke its harder for me to tell. I think she started moving towards loving him in season 1, but she didn’t quite get there then. She definitely cared for him deeply, and had strong emotional responses to the idea of loosing him, but maybe not love. In season 2, she realised just how much he mattered to her when she found him again (the hug in 2x05 was a big turning point for both of them i think. For Clarke it was her immediate, unfiltered emotional response to seeing him safe and alive again, and for him it was realising that she cared for him as much as he cared for her, which allowed him to let his feelings really take root. Bellamy has a problem with not feeling worthy of love, as we’ve seen.). I think her meeting Lexa kind of threw her for a loop, and sort of made her feelings for Bellamy more complicated, but I think she fully loved him in 2x09, when she took Lexa’s advice and decided that showing love, and being in love, was weakness, and told Bellamy that her being unwilling to risk his life was her being weak. I feel like a lot of people like to say that she could have meant platonic love, which is probably true, until you look at the context of that situation. The conversation she had with Lexa was clearly about romantic love. Lexa was telling her about Costia, and how “she was hers” and because of that she had been killed, how loving Costia had made her vulnerable, and Clarke took that, and translated it to her own life, and decided that her unwillingness to sacrifice BELLAMY was weakness. She had also been unwilling to let him go to Mt. Weather because she ‘couldn’t loose him too’, directly relating him to Finn, and loosing someone she loved romantically (im a slut for blarke parallels to canon romances lol i could write a book on that alone). And then, after she sends him away, she immediately regrets it, and worries about him, literally bothering Raven every second when Bellamy is late, scolding him when he calls in late, because she realises that sending him away as a way to show strength was wrong, and that her feelings for him are real. She is distraught at the idea of loosing him. In season 3, she is so caught up with her new feelings for Lexa, and then her feelings of grief over Lexa, that she sort of pushes her feelings for Bellamy down, but even in season 3 we see that she trusts him, cares for him, and everyone around her sees it.

I think season 4 was the first time we saw them both at the same place in their feelings, but with this awkward and uncomfortable sense of not being sure how to deal with them. Bellamy still felt a bit betrayed, a bit angry, at the beginning, and Clarke was clearly still grieving, but they were together again, trusting each other, and letting themselves sort of start to feel it all for real, and thats what we got throughout season 4. Clarkes INSISTENCE that Bellamy be inside the Ark when the wave came. Clarke putting Bellamy’s name on the list, even when he didn’t want her too, because she couldn’t imagine a world where Bellamy didn’t get to survive. Bellamy forcibly writing her name on the list because if he was going to live, she sure as shit was too. Clarke giving up 50 spots in the Ark for Bellamy because she couldn’t imagine not having him. Clarke making sure Bellamy was in the bunker when they stole it back, leaving Kane and Octavia and ALL the grounders outside, but sending someone to get HIM. Clarke refusing to shoot him, even when he threatened the survival of ALL of humanity, and letting him open the door to let his sister in, because even when she had killed before, so many times, she couldn’t kill him, she couldn’t pull the trigger and shoot him even when it was probably the RIGHT choice with the information they had. And dont even get me started on the “you’re so special” “you have such a big heart” etc conversations, i was DYING. Season 4 showed us that they were in love, even if they didn’t tell us. They didn’t behave this way about anyone else, they don’t do these things for anyone else. Bellamy refused to believe anything would happen to her, and she refused to believe anything would happen to him, even when the world was ending and there were no guarantees. He left her behind, and he blames himself, and lived FOR HER, every single day, because she died for them and he couldn’t let that be in vain.

We see it now in season 5, fully fledged. Clarke called BELLAMY every single day for 2,199 days. She didn’t speak to everyone on the ring, she spoke to him, which we see because she tells him to tell other people things. She asks about something Monty is doing, instead of saying “hey monty, do you have the algae farm up?”, she tells him to tell raven to aim for the only spot of green, instead of saying “hey raven, aim for the only spot of green.” She used HIM as her way of surviving. When Madi finds the group, she recognises BELLAMY instantly, even after 6 years, with different hair and a beard in the dark, because Clarke drew him and talked about him and raised this kid on stories of him. She knew so much about him that she trusted him without question to save Clarke, who is basically her parent, or at least her only “family”. And then he stands there, in front of a crowd of armed, violent criminals, armed with nothing but pure drama and a coffee mug, and bargains for her life with the lives of 283 other people, and looking her in the eye to make sure she knows she is important to him. She matters, after all this time, after (he probably thinks) she probably feels like he forgot about her, he didn’t, he never could, and he would do anything to save her. Bellamy is Clarke’s anchor, and Clarke is Bellamy’s reason for living. If thats not love, then fuck me i dont even know what love is.

Bellarke have been falling in love since season 1, and theyre finally there, and im fucking thrilled about it.

WOw im so sorry. this is so much. good lord.

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sueboohscorner · 6 years

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The 100 Ep 510 Recap "The Warriors Will" #The100

This episode was thrilling, and I didn't see the twists coming at all, but like any good twist, everything that happened made perfect sense and derived from the characters. I went into the episode expecting to see Gaia fall in the arena and probably Indra too, just hoping desperately that something would happen to save Indra at the last minute. I could never have seen it coming that Monty would be the hero Wonkru deserved. I also didn't see it coming that Octavia would go full Roman emperor and decide that it's okay to become the villain if your people no longer treat you as a hero!

And no lie, I miss Octavia. Blodreina is a nightmare of a person, and I loved Octavia, for all her faults, for four+ seasons (her ascent to Blodreina was the last we saw of her). I see a lot of fans bitching online, and I suspect that what it comes down to is that they loved Octavia too much to accept this version of her, so they're angry at the show. I've been there, where a direction the creators took a character made them so fundamentally different from the person I thought they were, I disconnected from the overall experience. The 100 is beyond that for me; I am fully invested in the world of the show, and I believe the changes they make have always been explicable and internally consistent.

Just as you could see the seeds of Finn's instability long before he gunned down a village, and the clues that Bellamy didn't trust Grounders as much as his loved ones did long before he joined forces with Pike, and the signs of Jasper's fragility long before he started acting overtly suicidal, Octavia's rage, insecurity, and need for unconditional approval have been laid in as fundamental character traits from the beginning. What we're seeing now is the end result of someone whose worst instincts and basest needs were not merely indulged but encouraged for a very long time, and now suddenly. The same people who eagerly followed her are turning their backs, triggering all the fears of abandonment and rejection she has nurtured throughout her life, and her reaction is proportional to how long and how fully her needs had been met till now.

So with the reaction out of the way, let's cover the action!

Clarke and Madi have gotten well away from Polis while Madi continued to sleep off her post-Ascension hangover. When Madi awakens, she's royally pissed that Clarke has spirited her away from her people, because the spirit of the Commander has increasingly taken hold--that will continue throughout the episode, and it's good to watch Clarke lose her confident certainty that she's in charge here, much as we watched Abby experience in Season 2. Madi is also experiencing the memories of past Commanders in her dreams, and the revelation that Becca was burned at the stake possibly tells us why the chip is called the Flame in the first place, as it was presumably all that remained of her after.

Clarke also dumps out the worm eggs from the Rover, for some reason leaving them in a wriggling pile rather than setting them on fire or something...seriously, I would have found some way to destroy them rather than leaving them there to grow into nightmare creatures, but Clarke isn't great on long-term planning these days.

The closer Clarke and Madi get to the valley, the more heated their discord becomes over what to do with the Flame. Clarke keeps making moves to take it out in Madi's sleep, and Madi ultimately promises Clarke that in order to keep her from ascending all over again, Clarke would have to destroy the Flame. Because that means killing what's left of Lexa, that's a no-go for Clarke...but I fully believe that if she didn't have a personal connection to an element of the Flame. She wouldn't hesitate, any more than Abby hesitated when demolishing the radiation test chamber or interfering in Clarke's attempt at ascending, because Clarke is an overbearing mother from hell. It's a coincidence of competing for self-interest that stands in the way of her maternal instinct to stand in the way of her "daughter's" growth and power.

When they reach the valley, Madi gets another demonstration of Clarke's limited range of concern: McCreary and his goons are killing a bunch of Wonkru defectors, and Madi feels the Commander's impulse to rush in and save her people, but Clarke holds her back. Madi knowingly reminds Clarke that Abby is a defector, too.

Major badassery points to Madi for slitting the throat of a McCreary underling rather than letting him talk or possibly find a way to escape while promising to be useful.

They sneak further into the village and find Abby passed out on the floor by her pill bottle. But how she got these pills? That's a fantastic scene!

This season's MVP guest star, Mike Dopud, delivers another stunningly creepy performance this week, as Abby summons him via neck collar shock (his underlying tone of menace as he implicitly threatens her never to do that again is chilling) to beg him for help getting a fix. McCreary cut her off, and she's in such withdrawal that she insists she will literally die without more pills...who knows how true that is, but her need is evident regardless.

Vinson returns later with a plentiful supply, and he brightly says he knows what's it like to need things as he indulges his own need--the desire to rip a couple of dudes' throats out with his damn teeth!

Abby's subsequent overdose may be partially a result of taking too much after waiting so long to have any, partially the response of emotional horror after what she's just witnessed.

But that's it for the valley, so let's move on to Polis! We came into the week with the knowledge that one or even two major characters would die in the area. The deadpool greatly favored Bellamy to be last man standing, but no one was ready to lose Indra. No one except Octavia, who chooses Bellamy.

Octavia first goes to Indra, begging for help to find a solution that will allow her to maintain absolute control over Wonkru without carrying out the sentence according to Wonkru tradition. Indra points out there's no other way, it's Octavia's own fault, and by the way, I'm going to kill your brother first, so my daughter is certain to survive, so the hell with you.

So Octavia goes to Monty and asks him to convey a message to Bellamy about Indra's weaknesses, and he's like, Nope, this is your fault and your problem, and anyway, you can choose to change your entire plan because of my dope botany skills that will save Wonkru without having to go to war!

Then Octavia gives in and talks to Bellamy herself, and it's one of the greatest scenes of the series. She reminisces about one of the many times he put her safety above all other concerns back on the Ark, and she begs him to kill Indra and Gaia so he can survive. The emotional weight of their relationship is so powerful, so beautifully carried by these two brilliant actors who have built their connection over the past five years.

Rebuffed by Bellamy, the final rejection, Octavia goes away, slices open her arm in the exact place Bellamy once cut himself to protect her and uses the blood as her warpaint.

It's arena time, and Bellamy holds out as long as he can, trying to be a conscientious objector, but survival instinct kicks in, compelling him to fight back. The battle is intense, and Indra is getting a number of good slashes in, but Gaia changes the game!

Gaia picks up a spear and prays to the spirit of the Commander as she hurls it straight at Octavia! Bellamy's instinct to protect his sister is ever-powerful, and he knocks Gaia off balance, causing her aim to go foul.

In this moment, Octavia has the opportunity to end the fight, execute Gaia for attempted regicide, and pardon Bellamy for his act of saving her life, then exile Indra because she'd definitely never forgive Gaia's death...but of course, that's not what happens. Octavia just pretends not to be rattled by this near-death moment, tosses the spear back into the arena, and commands the fight to continue.

But here comes Monty, the hero we needed, the hero we deserve! He bursts into the arena with proof of his success growing new plants, and he announces to Wonkru that Octavia is lying to them! They don't have to go to war--it's not their only chance at survival, and she knows it because he's shown her how he's revived the hydrofarm! They could stay and survive and use the same technique to recultivate the land outside over time.

This revelation is all Wonkru needed to turn against their Red Queen (many of them were at the tipping point anyway, because they wanted their new true Commander to take her place!). Monty and Bellamy are heady with the joy of stopping this nightmare, but they quickly grow worried when no one knows where Octavia has disappeared to.

Their search is short-lived because a fire alarm tells them exactly where she is and what she's done. She's set the hydrofarm ablaze, destroying any hope for the future that didn't involve following her into war. Even Miller looks disillusioned with her now.

But hey, it worked...for her selfish purposes. She has deprived them of any other option besides carrying out her initial plan. The rations they have now are the last food they will ever have unless they can take the valley.

A dispirited, morose army marches out of Polis, and there's only one thing keeping them from murdering Octavia at this point: She's an incredibly strong warrior, and they can't afford to sacrifice an asset like that. Which brings us back to the heart of the series in a neat little way--The 100 has always valued people based on one thing: Are you helping your people survive, or bringing them closer to death?

10/10 (I'd give it an 11 if I could. Can I?)

#The 100 #The CW #Mike Dopud

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sometimesrosy · 6 years

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I was rewatching season 3 the other day and I must've skipped the first time but I'm just now realising that Pike wasn't THAT bad. I mean, he killed fan favs and ordered that massacre but this is a guy that has been fighting for his life since day one, being against an army right next to their borders is pretty reasonable actually (in fact, my country sank ships for this very same reason) 1

I mean, he was elected! I can’t blame him for not trusting Lexa’s word, I STILL can’t believe Clarke did! God, I can’t believe I’m actually siding with Pike now. This hiatus is seriously messing with my head! 2

Yeah. I never thought Pike was that evil. He was WRONG, he wasn’t evil. The hiatus isn’t messing with your head, it’s allowing you to see the story without the bias you held from your emotional investment in… i’m guessing, Clarke’s POV. But there were other personal perspective that were invested in turning Pike into an unredeemable bad guy. IDK. I always wanted him to recognize the error of his ways and redeem himself. Don’t know if he woulda but he never got the chance.

His people were HUNTED across the eastern seaboard by Azgeda. They started out with 300 people and they ended up with about 30 I think. They were all killed by Azgeda.

But when he considered Azgeda the enemy, people thought he was irrational and bigoted. He might have been bigoted, but he was not irrational at all. Azgeda WERE their enemies and they HAD been hunting them. They didn’t attack innocent Azgeda. The Azgeda attacked and killed innocent farm station including children playing in the snow.

People bent over backwards trying to ignore that. They said Pike was lying and that farm station CANNIBALIZED their own people. Do you remember that? They said, with no evidence, and against canon, that Pike was such an evil dude that he ate his own people and then blamed it on the innocent Azgeda. Remember? Even when we have canon evidence of Azgeda attacking them unprovoked and riding into Polis with a huge army, they wanted to say that the canon narrative was a lie and their imaginary cupcake grounders were the good guys. Dudes my guys. Azgeda was trying to wipe Farm station out and Pike led a defense against them to keep them alive. From Farm station’s pov, Pike was a hero.

Oh and Bellarkers were no better. They tried to say that Pike was demonized and it was the writers fault for telling the Farm Station attack through exposition instead of showing it happening. They thought that it was bad writing not to tell the story of characters we’d never met with their limited screen time. That they *missed* it because… well idk, I guess they weren’t paying attention when they told the story of how Monty’s dad died. I heard it, and I’m betting you heard it in your rewatch. It didn’t matter to them? Oh wait. It didn’t feed their headcanons, so they IGNORED it. And then said the writers didn’t convey it. Oh dudes my guys. That’s not bad writers, that’s a bad audience. Take responsibility for not paying attention to canon. This is what I’m talking about when I say to stick to the text and don’t let your emotions about things or your personal biases tint your interpretation. CHECK your bias. Double check the canon.

Pike was absolutely against the grounders. And he was painting them all with the same brush even though we knew that they were not all the same. This is bias and bigotry, but he was not an irrational man and he was convinced that the grounders would use that army to kill the arkers. Which… let’s be honest, isa fair assumption. It’s all Pike knew, and it is honestly all WE know as the audience member. Sure we know that Lxa had decided to make Arkadia the 13th Clan, but we ALSO know that Lxa goes back on her alliances, her promises, and also kills her own people when it suits her strategy. We’ve SEEN this. There is canon, narrative evidence of Lxa doing this MULTIPLE times, to sky people and to grounders.

Or another way you can look at it. Remember when Lxa met Clarke and she immediately blamed her for killing her 300 warriors at the ring of fire? Yeah. That was a direct result of Lxa sending in her armies to kill a bunch of kids and what happened when they turned out to be stronger than expected. It was LXA’s fault, but the grounders tend to blame the victims when the victims say no more and fight back.

Pike’s actions are ALMOST comparable to Clarke’s at the ring of fire. They had INDEED just been killed again in MW, by grounders, by the coalition members and had no reason to trust them, no matter what they promised. They felt that Kane’s brand was like a cattle brand. Pikes knowledge of grounders was savage and cruel. They retaliated to what they saw as a continuing war. There was a lot else going on that Pike didn’t understand, but to him, it was just as much a war as it was when Raven blew up the bridge. That was a preemptive move. His attack on the peace keeping army was preemptive. And we do have to remember that this peace keeping army was NOT civilians. They were fully armed and dangerous and, in canon, not defenseless. They had a watch and archers, and Pike’s superior strategy and technology took away their first and second level of defense. It was not killing sleeping innocents. They killed an unprepared army. Killing the wounded would probably count as a war crime, though.

We saw the internal grounder politics with Clarke. Who believed Lxa would not turn on the Sky People, even though Lxa had ALREADY broken her honor and betrayed the sky people. And the tough part for me to get over is that Lxa did, AGAIN, turn on the sky people and put a kill order on the whole people. She said she would follow blood must not have blood, but the first challenge to that and she folded. Back to another attempted genocide of the sky people.

Pike did not need to be so bigoted. He could have recognized that not all grounders were the same. He didn’t. He also pushed his definition of “enemy” from Azgeda, to all grounders, to allies, to sky people who opposed him, to… who was next? He was killing his own people by the time Bellamy put a stop to it. Because this is how this mindset works. This mindset that Lxa shared. Blood must have blood. Do what you have to to save your people. The ends justify the means. Vengeance. Fury. War. I find the greatest parallel in season 3 between Lxa and Pike. But it’s interesting how many people lionized Lxa and demonized Pike. They were very similar. I think.

He was an antagonist with as much justification as any of the antagonists on our show, some of whom are seen as heroes, not just by their own people but by the entire audience.

#the 100 #the 100 meta #pike #check your bias #morally gray #blood must have blood

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bellblakes · 6 years

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In defense of Bellamy Blake: A response to this post.

“They took all that growth and development and threw it out of the window.” I firmly believe that the writing in season 3 was racist towards Bellamy. I understand why Bellamy did what he did, but him siding with Pike and the way it was done were undoubtedly bad storytelling. He was villainized to prop up white characters. I’ll elaborate more in the next points.

“The writers didn’t even own up to the horrible choices they made: instead, they tried to salvage the situation by backpedaling on everything and by using every possible cheap or awful device to make Bellamy likable again." Bellamy isn’t the only character to have done bad things, and I really don’t get why he’s the only one who has to be made “likable” again. I have a lot to say about this and how it all ties into racist writing and double standards from the fandom, but, again, I’ll leave to discuss it further in the next points.

“Which means: to save one character, they sacrificed other characters and cohesive writing. Which is why it’s not Season 3 that made me give up on ever liking Bellamy again, it was season 4, the finale in particular. My issue isn’t with the character, it’s with the writing.” This is where I really started to have a problem with your post, and I think it’s an appropriate section to go into detail about the racist writing I mentioned above. It’s funny how perspective works, because to me it’s clear as day that they brought down BELLAMY to prop up other characters (white characters). For starters, it’s exceptionally racist that Bellamy and Pike, a brown and black man respectively, were chosen by the writers as the faces of xenophobia, while white characters were the voices of reason. According to Jason Rothenberg the storyline was supposed to be a commentary on the US post-9/11. Bellamy, Pike and other characters of color were portrayed as violent racists, Clarke, Octavia, Abby and Kane as sensible and peaceful, and white grounders such as Lexa as victims (black grounders, Lincoln and Indra, were actually the worst victims). The show wanted the audience to hate Bellamy and Pike, and root for Clarke, Octavia and Lexa.

“What I want to say is that I don’t think there is anything really wrong with the idea behind Bellamy’s season 3 storyline. Someone who learned to be a hero but suddenly has a fall from grace. There is potential for great storytelling there. But you have to be careful. If you have decided that you are going to put a beloved character in a tricky situation, you have to be meticulous about everything. The base to justify this turn has to be solid, the character’s reasons must be clear and understandable (understanding is different from agreeing with), there has to be a final intent, whether that being character growth or destruction. All this by staying true to the character(s) and maintaining consistency in the storytelling. With Bellamy, the 100 did none of that.” I understand that Bellamy would feel betrayed by grounders after learning to trust and work with them. I understand that Bellamy is impulsive. I understand that Pike manipulated Bellamy while he was vulnerable. To some extent, I even believe that Bellamy wasn’t completely in the wrong, after all grounders attacked the hundred from the moment they landed, and Lexa sent three hundred warriors to kill them in season 1. In the aftermath of the Mount Weather attack, his past experiences with grounders were at the forefront of his mind and he felt guilty and stupid for ever trusting them despite the warning signs. As a highly empathetic person, he saw each of those deaths as if they were personally caused by him. I GET that. I GET that he wanted to do something about it. He’s a protector, and wanted to make sure that nobody would ever get hurt again because of him. But he decided to support Pike after less than a day. He listened to Pike over his friends. He trusted Pike because he felt alone and scared, and Pike was the only one by his side, giving him a purpose. Why do you think the writers kept Raven away from Bellamy? Because if Raven was there, she would bring him back to reality pretty quick and this storyline would never happen. Raven knows pain. She was Gina’s friend. She understands and inspires Bellamy. Raven would never leave him in that moment. This is another instance of bad writing, and characters being out of character or getting removed from the plot altogether to fit the story they want to tell.

“First, they rewrote the narrative and made Bellamy dependent on Clarke to make good decisions, so that his choice to back up Pike would feel more justified because she wasn’t there to be a positive influence.” It’s racist as hell.

“We’re supposed to root for this character, to understand him and justify him and eventually believe in his redemption.” I already said this, but I’ll say it again: this storyline was supposed to reflect the US post-9/11, and Bellamy and Pike were The 100′s equivalent of “racists wanting to kill every brown person in sight”. We absolutely weren’t supposed to root for Bellamy. He was literally portrayed as a villain. He opposed Clarke, the one we should root for, and ruined the peace she and Lexa achieved.

“But the writing is so downright awful and keeps being so ugly that it has ruined the character for me forever, even now that he has undeniably come back onto the right path again in season 4.” Here’s the thing: bad writing can either benefit or damage characters. On The 100, bad writing props up white characters at the expense of characters of color. A good example of this would be Bellamy relying on Clarke to make good decisions. It’s bad writing, but it paints CLARKE in a positive light (capable of rational thinking, superior person and a good influence for her friend), and BELLAMY in a negative light (incapable of rational thinking, inferior person and dependent on his friend). He’s a victim of the racism of the writers.

“You know how this storyline could have worked? If the writers had truly committed to it. Gone all in and portrayed Bellamy’s actions as nothing other than what they were: wrong. You got your fallen hero who fully realizes the consequences of his action and you follow him in his path towards redemption, real redemption.” As I said before, they definitely portrayed his actions as wrong. In fact, I would argue that they went TOO far in villainizing him. I think you’re being unfair. Why do you have to single out Bellamy, when no other character on this show had a good redemption arc? I honestly think you’re holding Bellamy up to higher standards than other characters. Kane was responsible for the culling of three hundred and twenty innocent people, but he felt bad about it, started being a better person from that moment on, and it was okay. Other characters weren’t screaming in his face about every single bad thing he ever did and he didn’t have to beg for anyone’s forgiveness. We barely saw him struggle with his own morality. Octavia has been physically abusive of her loved ones since season 2 (and we should note that the characters she abused, Lincoln, Indra and Bellamy, are all characters of color), and in season 3 she became a killer. The narrative used her hurt and grief to justify her violence. Throughout season 4, Clarke (who was previously a morally ambiguous character, but clearly had good intentions) was straight up evil: She decided that her “friend” Monty didn’t deserve to live, experimented on grounders, left her “friend” Octavia outside the bunker to die, and kidnapped and shot at her “friend” Bellamy. The narrative didn’t even acknowledge that she was wrong. We’re still expected to root for her. We’re supposed to feel SORRY for her, for "having” to make all these hard choices (despite the fact that she fought to be a leader from day one. Clarke LOVES having power). Throughout season 1, Lexa actively tried to wipe out the hundred, and she was never sorry. She never needed redemption from being responsible for the deaths of dozens of teenagers.

“The massacre isn’t shown, we only see the bodies of the people that were killed, because they aren’t what’s important, Bellamy’s shock and pain is what we should focus on, and it would be hard to bring the audience to root for him if we saw him participating in a cold-blooded massacre.” I’m gonna say it, this makes zero sense. Bellamy’s pain is literally the farthest thing from the focus here. Those scenes barely show him. Instead, the focus is on Kane and Abby’s reactions to seeing Pike’s group return, and Octavia, Clarke and Lexa’s reactions to seeing the result of the massacre. They look shocked and horrified. Clarke and Lexa are enjoying the peace they’re bringing to Arkadia together, when their happiness is interrupted by finding the bodies that Bellamy helped kill. We’re supposed to feel for them and be ANGRY at what Bellamy did. The message of those scenes is that everything was okay due to Clarke and Lexa’s hard work, and BELLAMY ruined everything by starting a war. The writers wanted the audience to hate him and sympathize with Kane, Abby, Clarke, Lexa and Octavia, there’s no question about that.

“And then another thing, possibly the worst in my opinion: Bellamy faces no consequences whatsoever.” He got beaten up by his own sister while chained to a rock. No other character has faced a punishment like this. I honestly don’t know what kind of consequences he should face. At this point people wouldn’t be satisfied with anything but his death.

“Conflict isn’t allowed in Bellamy’s storyline because the characters are reduced to expository devices who are there to tell us we Must forgive Bellamy. His redemption doesn’t work because it comes at the expense of other characters and cohesive storytelling.”

“Every single person Bellamy interacts with (with one exception that I’m gonna touch on very soon) either don’t comment on what Bellamy has done (or has been strategically removed from the narrative/episode when they could have been there to stop him, make him change his mind or simply to tell him what he was doing/planning to do was wrong, e.g. Raven being absent in 304) OR they’re extremely understanding and keep repeating that Bellamy is good and he doesn’t have to blame himself and he has to forgive himself. Kane’s words are the most blatant evidence of what the writers are doing. “Turn the page and don’t look back.” Yeah, he’s talking to Bellamy, but most of all, that’s a message for the audience. We’re supposed to turn the page and forget what Bellamy did.” Have you considered the fact that Clarke, Kane and Jaha also struggle with guilt, and by forgiving Bellamy they’re attempting to forgive themselves for the bad things they also did? Clarke still struggles with the Mount Weather genocide, and Kane and Jaha with their decisions on the council. The kill count between Clarke and Bellamy is extremely close (Clarke at 905, and Bellamy at 1,003), and we don’t know how many deaths Kane and Jaha are responsible for, but, as the chancellor and a member of the council, they certainly executed many innocent people. “If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven.” - Bellamy to Clarke. “You’re not the only one trying to forgive yourself. Maybe we’ll get that someday.” - Clarke to Bellamy. And why is it okay to forget what other characters did, but not what Bellamy did? What is it about his actions that make them worse than the actions of other characters? When Clarke and Lexa kill, their actions are shown as necessary, and the narrative doesn’t hold them accountable. Clarke and Lexa let a bomb drop on Tondc, killing two hundred and fifty people. Abby initially saw Clarke’s actions as wrong, but Kane actually DEFENDED Clarke and Abby ended up agreeing with him: “Because she grew up on the Ark. She learned what to do from us. […] She made a choice. Like executing people for stealing medicine and food. Like sucking the air from the lungs of three hundred parents so they could save their children.” - Kane to Abby. “Like floating the man you love to save your people.” - Abby to Kane. Lexa sent warriors to kill teenagers because they were a potential threat. Bellamy helped killed the grounder army because they were a potential threat. If people can understand what Clarke and Lexa did for their people and move on, why can’t they get over what Bellamy did as well? Why do other characters get to be redeemed within a few episodes, or get no redemption arc whatsoever and their actions are simply justified or glossed over, but Bellamy has to spend entire seasons trying to earn his redemption? The truth is that Bellamy will NEVER meet the fandom’s standards. He has to be absolutely perfect or everyone will call for his death, and on the moment he messed up, he started being treated as an unredeemable trash bag. Even now that he’s trying to be better, people are mad that he’s being portrayed as a better person than Clarke. No matter what he does, people will find a reason to hate him.

“And to do this, of course, the nature of the other characters is damaged. Take Clarke. Stubborn, confident, ready to challenge anyone. From season 3 on, she switches between being Bellamy’s punching bag, his emotional crutch, or being obscured and worsened to prop up his character. In season 3 he lashes out at her, sneers at her, belittles her. And she doesn’t react at all, but instead stays there to offer her support when he’s done being angry and needs a shoulder to cry on. In season 4 we even have a role-reversal of sorts, wherein Clarke makes a wrong choice (stealing the bunker) and Bellamy is shown to be the moral compass of the situation, and the season 4 finale is all about Bellamy, with Clarke being relegated to plot tool and deprived of any emotional resolution.” I’m also having trouble with this part. I know that I’m starting to sound annoyed, and that’s because so far I’ve been able to mostly at least understand where you’re coming from even though I disagree, but this right here? It’s the same coddling Clarke while shitting on Bellamy bullshit that I see all the time. Honestly, the idea of Clarke being Bellamy’s punching bag is… laughable, because since season 2, there’s clearly been a power imbalance and princess/knight dynamic between them. Literally what the fuck did he do to her? He handcuffed her once and tried to take her to Pike. This was ONE occasion, but the way you say it makes it sound like it’s some sort of constant abuse where he’s repeatedly lashing out at her. In season 4 she kidnapped him and shot at him when he tried to escape, and he LAUGHED IT OFF. Bellamy has a right to be angry at Clarke, but he’s rarely allowed to be. She often treats him and his sister like shit and he always forgives her because the writers see him as the loyal knight to her princess. The only time after season 1 where I can remember him being angry at her was when he called her out for leaving Arkadia and leaving Octavia to die in Tondc. I also find interesting that you have a problem with Bellamy being the moral compass of the situation as opposed to Clarke. Why should she be inherently morally superior? Why didn’t you have a problem when Bellamy was demonized to prop up Clarke, but you have a problem when Bellamy is shown to be a better person? The show has always put Clarke and her feelings first. What’s so bad about Bellamy, the male lead, getting the spotlight every now and then? Why, even when Clarke makes bad choices, you’re still defending her and arguing that she deserved better writing, whereas when Bellamy made bad choices, you promptly decided that you could never like him again? These are genuine questions.

“Octavia is the only one who feels angry at Bellamy, but the show isn’t interested in exploring her feelings. Or to be more precise, the show is interested in her pain and anger because of the effects they have on Bellamy. Just take as an example that horrifying scene that never should have existed of Octavia beating up Bellamy in the cave. The scene (and the script as well) is entirely from his POV. The center of the scene isn’t Octavia’s grief, it’s Bellamy’s pain. His voluntary martyrdom as he gives himself up to his sister’s rage, bleeding in slow motion and not reacting. It’s a nasty, horrible scene that also has the effect of making Octavia invisible, crushing her character under all this violence and horror that we are forced to focus on, much like the other people in the cave. She has lost the man she loved but instead of focusing on her grief, she is shown in this extremely violent light that makes it impossible to sympathize with her in that moment, while instead it makes the audience feel bad for Bellamy. Same thing in 313, when merely days after Lincoln’s death, Bellamy complains because Octavia hasn’t forgiven him yet. She is shown cold and harsh, while the suffering that is shown and explored is Bellamy’s." I think it says a lot that in a scene where Bellamy is being beaten up by his sister, you’re more worried about Octavia’s grief than his pain. Octavia’s history of abuse didn’t start in that cave. It started in season 2 when she hit Lincoln and tried to teach him about his own culture. She has had this issue for a long time. Octavia’s feelings don’t mean anything to me and she DOESN’T deserve sympathy. That scene was completely disgusting and unnecessary, and definitely not because of Octavia. I’ll put it more clearly: in a scene of gratuitous violence against a man of color at his white sister’s hands, your priority should be to be concerned about the racism shown, not worrying that this made her unsympathetic or him sympathetic. That being said, according to you this scene made it impossible to sympathize with Octavia, yet I remember distinctly a post with SEVEN THOUSAND notes from Clexa shippers who couldn’t WAIT until Octavia beat up her brother. I remember people celebrating it and laughing about it. I’m also annoyed about people making Lincoln’s death about Octavia. He was more than being Octavia’s boyfriend. Losing him doesn’t excuse her violence. Bellamy didn’t kill Lincoln. Octavia wanted to lash out and targeted her brother, the one person who's been sacrificing everything for her since the second she was born. He shouldn’t be seeking her forgiveness. SHE should be the one desperate to be forgiven by him.

“Season 4 is even worse when it comes to this, with the writing caging Octavia in this nonsensical storyline centered on her downward spiral supposedly started with her killing Pike. We’re supposed to question the morality of that choice and it’s even used as one of the pieces of evidence of Octavia’s growing darkness by Kane, the same person who told Bellamy to forget his past actions.”

“Nothing about all this is realistic or narratively coherent, these are choices made to heighten the scope of Bellamy’s redemption because now Bellamy not only is subjected to her anger but is also worried about her soul. And eventually, of course, their relationship is restored. With the exception of maybe one scene in 311, we can’t really talk about any actual confrontation between these two when it comes to Bellamy’s redemption storyline, between Bellamy and any character really.”

Bellamy’s bad actions came from a place of wanting to protect his people. Octavia became a killer because she was sad and angry at the world. Of course Kane is able to forgive Bellamy, because he can relate to him, but Octavia’s actions are purely selfish. The relationship between the Blake siblings shouldn’t have been restored, because, again, she was abusive towards him. But, as always, Bellamy is the punching bag of the white girls on this show and HE has to earn THEIR redemption despite them being horrible to him.

“The point of Bellamy’s storyline is that he learns to forgive himself.”

“And when the core of the redemption of a character like Bellamy is based on him letting go of guilt to go party and get drunk, I really struggle with calling it “redemption.”” It’s almost like you want everyone to hate him and constantly remind him of everything he did like this is gonna solve anything. He did bad things. The others did, too. Everyone is dealing with their own issues and berating Bellamy, and Bellamy only, for the things he did, would be hypocritical. I don’t see the fandom demanding the same treatment for Clarke, Octavia, Kane, Abby, etc. Kane did the culling in season 1, and he was redeemed on the same season. As I said before, the narrative won’t even acknowledge that Clarke has been doing some fucked up stuff to her “friends” and grounders. Bellamy’s arc with Pike started and ended in season 3, and in season 4 he tried his hardest to be a better person and make up for his mistakes, but it’s STILL not enough. Him regretting what he did isn’t a bad thing. It shows his humanity. This is exactly what I meant by “holding Bellamy up to higher standards”. Bellamy can’t win. If he makes mistakes, he’s a monster. If he regrets his actions and tries to be a better person, it’s “unearned”. Is the real issue here that Bellamy’s redemption was badly written, or that you see Bellamy as the only character who needs redemption?

I will say this: People’s hatred of Bellamy is directly connected to Clarke. Bellamy calls Clarke out on her shit and handcuffs her, and they lose their minds. Bellamy is shown as a better person than Clarke, and they can’t fathom it. They tolerate Bellamy when he’s a good soldier doing everything for his princess. When he has his own priorities that don’t involve her, though? Then he’s the devil. People hate Bellamy because he dares not to lick the ground Clarke walks on. People are allowed to dislike Bellamy. He doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite character. But be aware of racist writing, double standards, and how those affect your perceptions of certain characters.

#bellamy blake #txt #t100 discourse

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williammarshal-blog · 7 years

Text

Minutes

Part I. Clarke & Aden, post 3x07

Part II. Lexa & Aden, pre-canon

A series of conversations Aden will not forget. (Aka chapters 3 and 5 here).

PART I. CLARKE AND ADEN

Lexa was, of course, too obstinate to die by a bullet wound to a non-fatal organ.

Clarke tried explaining to Aden that that wasn't how medical science worked, but his head was stuck in the clouds as he marvelled at how superior his Commander was. The boy had not left Lexa's (and thus Clarke's) side for two days, but in those two days he had managed to banish Titus from the capital for treachery and the illegal carrying of a weapon (none other than a Skaikru weapon, and so there had been no need for a trial). He'd also managed to forge a heavy crew of guards at the bottom of the tower, spear-headed by Indra, who he'd removed from watching the barricade.

"The Skaikru can fend for themselves," had been Aden's exact words. "If they want to face the Ice Nation first, then they can be my guest. We have our Heda to wake up."

The clan leaders had all agreed quickly to the idea. In Titus' absence, the diplomatic speaking went straight to Aden, who would pass the message on to Nyko, who would read it stonily every day. Aden was a master of words considering his age, though Nyko's delivery lacked the sort of oomph Lexa just seemed to possess.

Since Lexa hadn't passed, the coalition had stalled. They could not kickstart another Nightblood trial because the Commander was not proclaimed dead. Not one clan leader could step into position as the Commander, because nobody wanted to disrespect Lexa's position (or face her annoyance when she woke). So they had murmured and whispered and fretted until Aden suggested they voted for one of the Nightbloods to step in, after explaining that they had undergone rigorous teaching and training under the Commander. Thus Aden had swiftly been drafted in as the young Commander Regent, impatiently. Clarke noted the clan leaders had not seen any of the other Nightbloods, or known any of the others by name.

It was a messy situation.

Yet the coalition, the Arkadia barricade, and Ontari—everything the clan leaders seemed to worry over day in and day out—were the last of Clarke's worries. It made her feel endlessly guilty, because this was Lexa's entire life of work they were hastily sweeping under the rug for now, but the only thing Aden and Clarke truly worried for was the protection of their Commander. Clarke kept her gun with her as she slept, and Aden kept his sword sheathed in its scabbard as he slept, both curled up in their respective armchairs on each side of Lexa's bed.

Lexa was also too much of an ass to wake up within a day or two, or even three, and so Clarke and Aden found themselves hesitantly then quickly warming to each other's company every morning they woke up and greeted each other over their Commander's near-dying body.

And they liked to talk.

"You just feel it," Clarke said, fumbling for words. Aden had taken the first swing in firing off a heavy question. "I...don't think what Lexa and I have is exactly what you, and, um, what's her name--?"

"Hemla," Aden said, his ears reddening.

"Yeah. I don't think—I mean, maybe you—are too young." Clarke shrugged, as Aden's eyes narrowed in doubt. "When I was your age, I swear I thought I was going out with about three different people at the same time, and I'd only kissed one of them." Plus I was in space, she wanted to add, but Aden was flustered enough.

"I haven't kissed her," Aden said, hushing the word 'kiss' as if it was some scandal. "I can't be that crass most immediately." He waited for an answer. "...Isn't that correct?"

"Well." Clarke was definitely not someone Aden needed to have this conversation with. Now, and she couldn't believe it, more than ever, she wished Lexa was awake. She was far better with words than her, and closer to Aden than her. And they were talking about this across Lexa's sleeping form, mirroring each other's stances as they pulled their armchairs closer to the side of her bed to talk. "Sometimes you get caught up in the moment and the kiss just...happens."

"What moment?" Aden probed eagerly. "Perhaps if I bought some flowers? Her mother is the best florist in Polis. She is my mother's friend. Aya said that Herst picked her daisies and she just knew it felt right when they kissed."

Clarke took a long gulp out of the mug of wine she'd poured herself. Aden had taken the liberty of bringing up cases and cases of the heady Polisian liquor—probably to loosen her tongue, the little shit. "No," she said, a little too firmly. "I mean—you don't make a moment. It just happens."

"It happens with a flower," Aden decided, "That's what Aya said."

"That's not what happens."

"Is that because it was different with you and the Commander?" Aden veered the conversation back on track again. He supposed 'how do you know you're in love, like you're in love with my Commander?' had been a rather deep question to fire off first, but Aden respected the element of surprise. "What was your moment?"

Clarke drained her mug empty and poured herself another, nearly spilling the liquid. "No," she said again, and this time, it was her cheeks reddening. "Everyone has different moments with different people. You don't just have a staple 'moment'."

"But what was yours?" he pressed. "Did you unfurl a flower for her?"

Clarke stared blankly at him, then at Lexa, then back to him, hoping that in the time she'd taken to do so, an answer would crop up. But there was no answer. There had not been a singular moment and there wasn't...not. She knew instantly if she blabbed that out, Aden would conjure up a thousand other questions so she stayed silent. By now she had figured she might as well tell him, because Aden was not leaving this room and neither was Clarke, until Lexa woke. Yet as she searched for the truth, she found she did not have the answer, or an answer Aden would probably find satisfactory. There was not a singular moment. There had been many. So many. There had been moments that had happened in real-time, and moments she looked back on in hindsight, and had fallen for Lexa all over again. It messed up her way back and forth with time.

Now she thought of their first meeting in the tent, she could see two versions of herself; the version now, and the version untarnished by events that had yet to unfold. She had felt intimidated but bold, fearful yet determined. Now all she could think of was how she yearned for everything to just go back to the start, and to walk down an entirely different path with Lexa. Now the tent was stuffy and intoxicating because Lexa's confidence and power attracted her; now she shuddered at the way Lexa closed the gap between them, standing tall and mighty with the throne as her backdrop.

Clarke's mind and senses had been invaded by Lexa since the start. It may have manifested itself in various ways in the past, but Lexa had never been apart from her, truly. Not when she was so vivid and irreplaceable in her head. Now she thought of that alternate path she'd wanted to journey down with Lexa, and took it away. And then pieced it back together. She wondered if all paths would converge at a point where they kissed in Lexa's chambers, sunlight bathing them through her windows as the sadness of parting meshed with months of longing, and blossomed into desperate, raw want. The urge to kiss Lexa again filled her mind, and Clarke drained her second mug of wine, utterly lost by the memory of Lexa's lips against hers, so soft, so welcoming, and so loving. She could see Lexa pushed down on the bed, staring up at her in a silent ask of permission. Clarke had never been gazed upon so reverently, not the way Lexa had looked up at her that day.

Or had she? Had she always been looked at like that? As she slept whilst Lexa kept watch after the pauna, had Lexa watched her so? Clarke knew that as she'd absent-mindedly sketched Lexa in her slumber, she had felt her own gaze piercing deep of desire. She wondered how many times Lexa may have looked at her as if she held the world in her palm. She wondered how many times Lexa had missed her do it to her, too.

"Ambassador?"

Clarke snapped from her daze, swallowing hard. The lump in her throat robbed her of the ability to speak. Aden tilted his head in expectation, curious. But the way Clarke's eyes softened, and briefly flicked to an unconscious Lexa—

"You love her very much," Aden said quietly, internally slapping himself for asking that question so soon.

"When you stop just struggling for survival," Clarke said instead, "and start struggling solely for living. That is your moment."

Aden stared at her, the sentence obviously flying over his youthful head. And Clarke nearly laughed, because he was so young, and so naive, and everything Clarke was the moment she'd met Lexa. Idealistic, trusting, so desperate to be good. He was handsome, his angular face sweet and strong, and Clarke knew when Aden matured there would be women and men falling at his feet. She allowed herself a sprinkle of naivety and hoped that Hemla would still be.

"I don't think you really know. Think of it like a storm," Clarke began, "That initial rush: think of it as a storm. I don't think you fully appreciate everything that's built up to the storm until the storm passes, and everything's clear."

"And you stand in the rubble the storm leaves?" Aden provided.

"Right." Clarke brooded over that for a moment, and pulled another mug out. This time, she poured for both of them and handed a mug over to Aden too, careful not to spill the liquid over Lexa's body. She had been a blizzard; a hurricane, tearing her world apart until there was nothing but wreckage and ruin. She'd rampaged through her soul until Clarke was forced to bear it raw and naked to both Lexa and herself. She'd been a complete blindside, but it had been brewing ever since Lexa took that first step towards her in that tent. "The moment you start appreciating the beauty of all the shit that you're made of, that you can rebuild and survive and still want, then I think you know. And sometimes it's too late." Her gaze fell upon Lexa again. "Sometimes there's still room to hope it's not."

There was no answer from Aden's end, who decided to rob himself of the necessity to form a sentence by hastily gulping down his mug of wine. He grimaced at the taste, but he forced the head-spinning liquor down his throat anyway until it sat warm in his belly. His head filled with thoughts of Hemla, and also everything he'd seen between his Commander and the Skaikru Ambassador. He'd seen smiles and stares he'd never seen anywhere else, and when he dared to really look at Clarke again, she looked immeasurably sad.

Aden wrestled down a burp. "I don't think I have that with Hemla." Clarke startled at the sound of his voice, and he apologised for breaking her out of her trance. She did it a lot. "I mean, what you have with the Commander."

Clarke laughed, not humourlessly, but not happily either, and she shook her head. "I didn't think I had what I have with your Commander until..."

"You love her," Aden said simply. He raised his mug. "I think we can drink to that."

Clarke raised her mug too.

"What are the Nightblood lessons like?" Clarke asked curiously, as she rubbed her still sleepy eyes. The morning did not fail to wake them. The Commander's chambers were filled with sunlight, and Clarke wondered if it was purposefully designed like that to automatically wake Lexa up. Not this morning, she thought a little hopelessly, reaching to squeeze Lexa's cold hand. It was almost ritualistic now. Aden was already combing his hair in front of a mirror, fully awake. "I only saw the back-end of one of them, but there's a big class of you."

"It looks big, but we know each other closely," Aden said. "It also means I get my daily dose of teasing for the way I look at Hemla. Or Evie. Or Mia. Literally anyone. My heart is with Hemla! Even Heda subjects me to it sometimes," he added glumly.

"I'm so sorry for you," Clarke laughed, and Aden quirked a smile. "I mean, what is the structure? I know there are those three pillars: compassion, wisdom and strength. Do you just go over those again and again until it's drilled into you?"

"No, no. It is part of us, the moment we're born," Aden told her. "The lessons serve as a way for us to regroup and converse with each other, and with the Commander. We ask questions, and she defers it to a discussion. Sometimes she sets a scenario in the beginning for us to work our way through, but it's always an open floor discussion. Sometimes it is physical, and we move to the sparring pits for that."

"Okay. So—if you had to sort of...standardise it," Clarke said slowly, "What'd be your average lesson?"

"There is no average lesson."

Okay. Damn. "Then...what was your favourite lesson?"

Aden put his comb aside and went to his seat. They'd permanently hitched up on either side of Lexa's bed now, and conversing over her seemed to relieve them both. They both knew they were deepening the bond between them, and it had been something Clarke wanted to do for Lexa. She knew how much Lexa cared for him. But Lexa often believed that out of darkness came light; Lexa's situation was dire, but it had given Clarke Aden. She hadn't needed to force it. And that lifted her heart a little. Conversing with Aden was never a burden. The more they spoke, the deeper she understood just why Lexa was so fond of him. He was witty, articulate and smart, and his heart was nearly as big as Lexa's.

"That's a difficult one. I don't think I've ever had a lesson that I haven't enjoyed," Aden admitted, bunching his face up in thought. "I suppose when the lessons take a turnaround and we get to question the Commander. They're always fun. Most of the time they're educational."

"You little twerps turn it back on her?" Clarke laughed, tipping her head back. "Oh my God. Go on: tell me your Commander's deepest, darkest secret."

Aden grinned, and teased: "Do you want BC or AC?"

"What?"

"We call them—" He leaned in, as if confiding in Clarke a secret, so Clarke took the obvious bait and leant in, playing along. Aden snickered, "Before Clarke and After Clarke."

Clarke nearly snorted, smacking Aden's arm as he lazed back into his seat, clearly pleased with himself. Cheeky sod. Clarke couldn't help but feel a little flustered, though, that even the Nightbloods knew enough to have nicknames for her. She knew it was somewhat shameless, but she liked that Lexa wasn't afraid to tell her Nightbloods the truth (she hoped not the entire truth) about their relationship. It was something that plagued her consistently. From Raven to Octavia to Bellamy to her own mother, everyone on 'her' side of things was wary of her relationship with Lexa. The fact that Lexa could talk so openly about it with her Nightbloods, despite her own faction growing anxious—the adult side—was...sweet.

"Let's go for AC," Aden decided, seeing the way Clarke's blush deepened to a wine-like crimson. He smirked at his dozing Commander, and knew she would reprimand him of his sharp tongue and then laugh at it. So if he was to understand his Commander's burning love, he would have to test her relentlessly first. He cleared his throat and straightened his posture, mocking Lexa's posture on her throne and Clarke buried her face in her hands. "She would say: 'come now, you don't really want to talk about me, do you?' and we would all shout the contrary. So she'd be forced to tell tales. Though sometimes I wonder if she...decorated them a little. Because it always became a scenario for us to think through."

Clarke frowned, and wondered how Lexa could twist kissing in a tent into a lesson. "Erm...like what?"

"Like—did you really try to kill her with a knife?" Aden burst out, something he'd obviously wanted to know for real.

"She used that as an example?"

"The moral was to never betray someone you loved by a Mountain. I commented and said it was a rather specific scenario. I think the others agreed with me."

Clarke had no other questions.

"Go to sleep, Ambassador."

"You go to sleep, Aden. I can cover this."

"You have not slept in a day."

"Neither have you."

Aden and Clarke sunk in their armchairs either side of Lexa's bed, patiently waiting for Nyko's potion to wear off. Whenever Lexa did seem to slip into consciousness, the pain was too much—to the point where they were forced to give her more of Nyko's milky pain potion. Here they were hoping the next time Lexa woke, she would be able to bear it for a few minutes. Clarke was aware that this had been their hope for quite some time.

Aden sleepily gestured at Clarke. "I'm supposed to look after you."

"Says who?" Clarke laughed.

"Says my destiny," Aden said seriously. "If I am to assume all the responsibilities of my Commander, then I will behave accordingly. My Commander loved you dearly. I cannot let you fall ill. That would be careless of me. I cannot work you too hard. That would be inconsiderate. As much as yourself, I'd like to see you healthy when you embrace my Commander back to life."

"Then we'll keep it a secret," Clarke said, "Me and you."

"Clarke..."

"She loves you very much, you know," Clarke said fondly, her gaze flicking from a sleeping Lexa to Aden, whose eyes were barely open. "She favours you heavily."

"She loves you very much too," Aden said. "You are her beacon."

Clarke felt her heart ache in longing.

They both fell asleep that night.

"Not quite," Aden said, breathing heavily after their third round of sparring. He'd won all three, which meant Clarke was not even proficient enough with this damn stupid piece of wood—to beat a child. "You're attacking way too rashly. Like, when you're attacking me—say you bring your staff across—you should already have anticipated where you're going next. You should think about all the ways I could counter you, account for them, and have an attack ready for each possibility."

"So—I have to be thinking of approximately fifteen—twenty things in my head per blow?"

"It gets easier."

"This is impossible."

"It's not," Aden assured her kindly. "I was not a good stick fighter, but I improved with practice. Come on, Clarke kom Skaikru. Let us fight again, and I will slow down. We'll start with your first parry. You swung heavily down at me. I parried you to the side, sidestepped you, and smacked you on the waist. Do it slowly."

Clarke performed the same move, and watched as Aden stopped where their weapons connected. "I'm going to brush your stick to the side and then step around. If I parried you like this, what would you do? To avoid that scenario?"

"Sidestep?" Clarke guessed. "You're sidestepping a lot."

"That's because you keep pulling off the same move. Come on, Clarke. A stick is not a sword."

"What?"

"You have no pointy end. Let me ask you once more: what would you do?"

Aden would make a good Commander, Clarke thought approvingly. His discipline was impressive, as was his patience with a quite drastically poor student. "Can I lunge forwards?" she tried, watching a smile spread across Aden's face. "You've parried me to the side but that means your arm is out at an angle. It leaves your body exposed. If I poke forwards, I'll catch you out before you sidestep."

"So if I just poke you..."

"But what if I anticipate that?" Aden said testily. "What else would you do?"

"Are you kidding me? It took me years just to think of one solution!"

"Think of it this way: one attack has to already be anticipated by another. In order for your succession of blows to progress, you must anticipate your opponent's reaction. You can't know for sure I will react a certain way, so you must cover all bases. That is why we train so hard. It isn't a different style of fighting: it's a different person you fight each time. So if I hit you with X blow, there will be X, Y, Z solutions to the blow—and you must decide, in the fight, which is appropriate—and then move onto attack number two."

Clarke stared at him as if he'd just spoken Klingon. This was ridiculous. So much thought should surely cause an explosion in a young Nightblood's brain but apparently they thought about this every single training session. Suddenly she felt woefully inadequate.

Then again, she had a gun.

"D'you want to go swimming?" she asked instead, because Aden loved frolicking outside of the walls—and no-one ever let him. Lexa had too many duties, and his mother worked full-time.

Boys were so predictable. Aden grinned and dashed out of the pits as quick as lightning.

"I love her." Aden wept by the bed, shrugging off his Commander's sash. Filling in for Lexa had been a daunting task; he hadn't anticipated it to be so suffocating, though. Clarke rubbed his shoulder as he rested his elbows beside an unconscious Lexa, scrunching up his eyes. "I love her like she is my world. She is my world. I love her because she is my mentor; my confidante; because she is brave; she is honest; she is the embodiment of the Flame and everything it should be. I have never loved until I realised I love her."

Clarke comforted him, standing up as she watched over a sleeping Lexa. Aden fell into her embrace. She'd made him sit down, for the boy had drowned his sorrows in Polisian wine and could barely make it up the stairs. He clutched at her waist, and then he sobbed.

"I know the feeling," she murmured, closing her eyes. Aden's sobs felt like a noose around her neck. "The pain is worth it when she loves you back, you know."

PART II. LEXA AND ADEN

The boy was young, scruffy-haired and lanky. Compared to the other Nightbloods she'd just initiated, this one seemed like an outlier. Briefly, it reminded Lexa of herself when she'd been found and thrust into Anya's care and brutal training as her second. Under her reign, kids who bled black did not become seconds anymore. They were the Nightbleda, and they were all her seconds. The young boy was the last to step up to the throne, bowing his head in respect.

"Heda," the boy said, reverently. "Commander." Warriors spoke Old English. "My name is Aden. I am of Trikru. I humbly ask for your approval of my Nightblood status." The boy—Aden—took Lexa's dagger and carefully sliced his wrist, avoiding any major veins. It had happened once, decades ago: an initiate had accidentally bled out in the throne room, and she'd failed before she'd even started.

Lexa held out her hand, smeared with black from the previous initiates', and Aden allowed three drops of his black blood to drip onto her palm. Then, he covered his wound up with a cloth.

"I swear fealty to you, Commander of the Flame, the chosen spirit of Becca, the saviour of our old world and creator of the new," Aden continued. Lexa could see some of the Nightbloods yawn out of the corner of her eye. It had been a long ceremony. It always was. "I swear as my blood drops into your palm, you hold my heart, my brain, and my soul as you teach us the ways of Commandership."

Lexa nodded at him, and he quickly joined the group of Nightbloods. Aden, this boy, did not look like the strongest. He did not seem like a mighty Commander should—but then again, she'd never, either. Yet he spoke fluently and with a confidence that was humble too—a strange juxtaposition for a boy so young. It was uncontrolled; it just came out of Aden that way.

"Nightbloods," Lexa called from her throne. Titus headed up the group, taking a sample of each the initiates' blood and smearing it on his forehead. "Tonight you are officially the next generation should my Commandership be questioned, or should my spirit pass. You have each given your life to the throne, as I did mine, years ago."

"Yes, Commander," they chorused back at her.

"You shall also familiarise yourself with my Flamekeeper, Titus," Lexa said. She gestured towards him, and all the Nightbloods bowed courteously. "He is my most trusted adviser and sometimes he will lead your lessons."

"I will ensure your safety as dearly as I protect the Commander's Flame," Titus swore.

"Yes, Fleimkepa."

"Flamekeeper," Lexa said hastily, as a few of them struggled with the inflection.

Once the ceremony—ridiculous, far too long and far too much blood—was over, Lexa mopped at her hand with a cloth, pinching her nose in annoyance. It was dried black. Everyone had left, so she was alone in the throne room once more. Alone with her thoughts. A sense of pride swelled within her. Today she had initiated a class of promising, bright Nightbloods who would eventually take over her position one day. She fiddled with the edges of the throne she'd become accustomed to, and wondered which one of them it would be. She wondered if her hands would still be as young as this when the time came, or if she'd grow to be old and wrinkled. No Commander had gone beyond thirty years—it was the nature of their living. Wars had to be won and sacrifices had to be made. Gallant deaths on the battlefield were an expected end to a reign.

Lexa considered this. She was only nineteen. She still had eleven years to go.

And a furious clan-wide war.

She sighed heavily. The Trikru were fighting the Boat People, who were also fighting both of the Southern Islands. As the Water and Mountain people joined to quell the threat from the North—the Ice Nation—Polis had stayed safe and out of range, though Lexa's heart longed to join her Trikru in battle. Instantly, she had been shut down by Titus, then by Anya, and then by Indra.

Once, she had been Anya's second. Now, she was the Commander and Anya was the General of the Trikru Army. She still remembered staggering out from the dense forestry that decisive night, the very last Nightblood to do so. Everyone had stared at her in disbelief—this slim, muddy, heavily wounded young girl had won? And then Gustus had picked her up in his strong arms, as shouts of "Heda! Heda! Heda!" began, and a drowsy, befuddled Lexa lost consciousness.

It would be one of her initiates some day.

As the sun began to fall, Lexa shoved on her jacket and washed the Nightblood from her hands. The best time to go for a walk around Polis was at sunset, when the sky was a nice yellow-orange, like the sun was giving the night-time a brief wave goodbye of happiness. She trudged to the bottom of the staircase where there was a boy, in the middle of the quiet streets of Polis, practising footwork and basic moves with a shabby wooden sword.

Lexa leant against the wall, folding her arms as she watched his technique. He was not quick, but he was precise. And it was Aden.

"Aden?" she called out, smiling when he turned around.

He immediately reddened, attempting poorly to hide the wooden sword behind his back. "I was—" he sputtered, his free hand rumpling through his thick hair. "There's no space in the sparring pit, Heda."

"How do you propose to spar if you have no sparring partner?" Lexa asked.

"Well, I suppose with some imagination," Aden said earnestly. Lexa looked strangely at him for a moment, and then laughed. "The other kids have already paired up. One of them, a big boy, took one look at me when I asked him and said no. They wish to win the Conclave, you see."

"You don't think you can beat them?"

"When I say big, I really do mean it. He's twice the size of me."

"Gustus is twice the size of me, and I regularly beat him down," Lexa said lightly.

"But you are the Commander. I am just a boy."

"You are a Nightblood."

Aden gulped, and then nodded. "Yes, I suppose I am."

Lexa considered wallowing by the wall-walk, as she did every sunset, and think yet again of Costia's decapitated head. She considered thinking of Nia's frosty blue eyes, and her smug lip curl as she slouched on her royal throne. She glanced at the Polisian walls, and then back to Aden. The sparring pit was currently occupied by a frankly pathetic-looking duo, swinging heavy logs at each other.

"Do you not have somewhere to be, Aden?" Lexa asked. "Where are your parents?"

"It's just my mother. My father passed." Aden blinked heavily. "I need to buy some food for dinner tonight at the market, Heda. My mother does not like it when I am late."

"What will you eat?"

Aden startled at the question. "Er—a beef stew, Heda."

"Sounds delicious." Lexa reached into her pocket and placed her pouch of coins in Aden's hand, ignoring his frantic protests. She made sure his hand curled around the pouch, and squeezed it. "Save it. One day you may need to buy a girl flowers. For tonight, spend a coin on the finest slab of beef you can find."

"T-thank you, Heda."

"Go," Lexa ordered.

He muttered under his breath, worried about being late, and thanked her again before sprinting towards the markets. Lexa watched after him, feeling something heavy shift in her chest, and she chuckled humourlessly to herself. He would not last a minute in the Conclave, the poor boy. Lexa bit her lip, and then swivelled around, making her way to the portcullis where her Chief Guard, Jona, bowed before her. Lexa nodded in return, and Jona watched as she ascended to the top. It was routine—every single day—and Lexa watched the fading pinks and purples and oranges. The day was fading into another restless night, and Lexa thought of Costia, and her deep green eyes, and her smile, her laugh, her kiss, her taste...she thought for the first time of the stars, and how they twinkled charmingly down at her. She thought of beef stew, and her stomach rumbled.

"Why aren't we in the sparring pits, Commander?" Tristan asked eagerly as the Nightbloods pooled into the throne room, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "Should we not train to be excellent warriors?"

"That, you should," Lexa agreed. The Nightbloods looked at each other. "But you speak only of a soldier, Tristan. If you are a Commander, what other duties are you expected to fulfil? What other skills do you think you must possess?"

"You must look after the City Guard," Mia piped up, right at the front. "You must ensure they are being fair. And sometimes, they abandon post to drink at the inn. That's what my mother said."

Lexa blinked. Right. "You're...correct in a way, Mia," she said diplomatically. "You must look out for your guards. You will rely heavily on them, be it for controlling the nature of the streets or in battle."

"You must be fair," Jennon, a dark-skinned boy with a shaved head, was the next to volunteer. "When you resolve village disputes or city disputes you must remain impartial."

"Excellent." Lexa smiled down at him. "Anything else?"

"You must write," one of the bigger boys, Marol, shouted from the back. "If you are illiterate you cannot communicate with the other clans! And you will look a fool if you cannot read!"

"Can you read?" Mia returned sharply, twisting her head around.

Marol narrowed his eyes. "Better than you."

"Enough," Lexa said exasperatedly, waving at them both. "Marol is right. You must be literate."

"You must listen to your heart," small Aden said tentatively, to her right. Lexa, caught off-guard—and rarely so—turned her head to face him, frowning. "The duty of the Commander is to love her people. There are hundreds in Polis, and I imagine hundreds more in the outlying villages. That must mean a Commander should have space for a big heart."

"You're right," Lexa said, "But sometimes you cannot always rely on your heart; your passions. Sometimes, you must rely on your mind."

"Like, when you are discussing tactics for battle," Alec said excitedly.

"But then you must also consider the lives you could lose," Aden pointed out. Lexa stared at him, and the determination behind his bright eyes. "If Commandership means loving the realm, then that is the entirety of it."

"But what if you had to sacrifice a village for ten?" Aliska, next to Aden, challenged him. "What would you do?"

"Mourn the village," Aden said quickly. He did not look at Lexa. "Never let them be forgotten."

For the most part, Lexa let them talk amongst themselves, occasionally providing imaginary scenarios or twists to the ones they'd already thought of. It took them all afternoon, but by the time Titus collected them from the throne room, they did not talk of sparring pits. They spoke of philosophy, weaponry, favouritism, politics and impossible choices.

"Progress?" Titus asked her later that night in the throne room. The Nightbloods had chambers below them, for the initial training period. Then they'd be allowed home as they continued under Lexa's tutelage.

Lexa scratched the back of her neck, and thought of big hearts. Love is weakness, she reminded herself sternly, and made a mental note to scold Aden for this tomorrow. "Somewhat," she said.

It was raining, so the sparring pits were free. Nobody liked to wade around in what was basically a bog, so they took up activities within their own homes, as the wind blew mercilessly and the rain spat disrespectfully down on them. Lexa wrapped up and trudged outside, stopping only in her determined walk when she spotted a small figure alone in the sparring pit. It seemed he had crafted, from his woodwork lessons no doubt, a human figure about her height, and he was currently attempting to practice with his dummy. His posture was awful, and his arms flimsy as he went for a straight punch, and then an upper hook.

"It's raining, Aden," she called out, leaning against the palisade. He startled, nearly tripping over the mud at her voice. "What are you doing?"

"Nobody books for the pits in the rain," Aden said and pointed to his dummy. "I made one so I could practice the speed of my hands."

"Do you know anatomy?"

"Ann-ah-toe-me?"

That was a no. Lexa shook her head, and made her way into the pits with the boy. He'd stolen her spot anyway. "You don't just smack every part of the body. Every human has a weak point."

"So—do I have to learn them, Heda?"

"You will know them," Lexa assured him. "For example, if I hit you—punched you straight in the belly—it would hurt, but it would not damage you." She demonstrated lightly, resting her fist against Aden's stomach. "But if the bottom of my palm went up and forcefully smacked your throat, you would die if I hit you hard enough." Again, she demonstrated—lightly—but Aden staggered back, nearly gagging. "These are weak points, Aden. Pretend to punch me in the belly."

Aden hesitated, wary of touching the Commander. "I don't think—"

"Come on."

It wasn't a request. Aden straight-punched, very lightly, at Lexa's belly. He rested his closed fist there, and she nodded. "For example, if you were matched man-to-man, and he did that to you, you must anticipate it before he completes the move," she explained slowly, as Aden's calculating eyes tried to digest the information. "If you can, you can—" Lexa seized Aden by the wrist, pushing it back and bending it at an awkward angle, her free hand going up to press the bottom of her palm against Aden's Adam's apple.

The rain smacked down on them, and Aden was soaked through. Lexa wondered how many hours he'd been out here, but he did not look like he had any intent of going home. Instead, Aden gazed up at her youthful wonderment. It was such a simple move.

"Can I try it, Heda?"

Lexa cocked her head as she studied him. He was eager to learn. Nodding, she tossed aside her belt buckle and her sheathed sword, appreciating that he'd taken some time to carve eyes—albeit scary-looking ones—into his wooden dummy. "Take it slow for now, yes?"

"Will it get quicker?" Aden asked before he made the move. "I'm not a very good fighter, Heda."

"Physically, someone like Marol has a foot on you," Lexa said honestly. Aden nodded. "But fights are not always won by pure muscle. Sometimes, fights are won and it's all because of this—" she leant over to tap the side of his head. "By the looks of it, Aden, you're a clever boy."

"Do you think I am Conclave material, Heda?"

"Every one of you is worthy of your Nightblood," Lexa said firmly. Aden gave her a small smile, and something in her chest twinged. "Believe it, Aden. That's an order. Believe it, because I believe it."

The fight had been the longest they'd ever watched. As the minutes drained, each Nightblood was drawn closer to the single combat. Aden, perhaps one of the smallest boys of the class, had been given an unlucky draw: Marol. The boy was twice as big as him, and he wasn't fat either. He was not solid muscle, but he definitely had more portions of beef stew a night than Aden did. Yet as they faced each other with their wooden staffs, they'd come at an impasse. Marol had found it infuriatingly impossible to disarm Aden, who was startlingly quick on his feet. He swerved and ducked and slid across the floor, parrying nearly every one of Marol's combination attacks.

Aden had only launched two attacks in the space of their fight-time. One had been calculated, a close attempt to lure Marol into dropping his staff. The next had been reckless and had nearly cost him the duel. But he could see Marol getting purple in the face, which meant either he was severely pissed off, or he was getting tired. Aden worried it was perhaps the former.

"Quit playing games, Aden," Marol snapped. "You're ducking like a coward!"

"I'm defending," Aden shot back.

Marol growled and launched his staff at him, a high vertical swing meant to crush the boy. Aden's eyes widened and he scrambled sideways. In the time it took Marol to make the foolish move, Aden was already behind him, and poked him hard until Marol sprawled onto the ground. To make sure he stayed down, he drew closer, and his knees bent and smacked Marol on the back of his thighs. Marol howled in pain, and Aden kicked Marol's weapon aside.

With the end of his staff, he prodded at the back of Marol's neck, and then pushed down. Marol instantly tapped thrice on the ground.

"Well," said a stunned Lexa, watching with her arms clasped behind her back. "Marol, it seems you need to stop taunting your opponents."

"He played unfairly, Heda," Marol grumbled, brushing himself off as he got up. "He parried the entire way!"

"He played a long game, not an unfair one," Lexa said, nodding at Aden. "Are you tired?"

Aden stuck the end of his staff into the mud and leant against it, breathing hard.

Lexa look it as a yes.

Whenever they finished in the sparring pits, Lexa would bring them to the New Capitol Inn and they would order whatever they wished, and the innkeeper would serve grand portions for the Commander and her potential successors. They simply bought large portions of nearly everything and shared and grabbed off each other's plates. Tonight, Lexa rewarded them with their first taste of honeyed mead. It was relatively weak and she'd restricted them to two jugs split evenly between the company.

She was wedged in-between Mia, who was now known as the group's gossip queen, and Aden, who was now known as the mouse who'd crawled into the elephant's ear and killed it by eating its brains. Lexa ate modestly, saving most of the food for the kids who seemed to ravish anything and everything, especially the honeyed mead. She made a note of Marol graciously swiping Isla's mug too, and rolled her eyes. The boy was big enough he probably needed double portions.

Aden, on the other hand, kept his bowl to himself. He'd piled it graciously with some boiled potatoes, onion gravy, and gammon slices. He ate relatively far from the table, whereas Marol was sprawled across it, conversing with someone on the other end. Aden sat straight, resting his bowl on his lap and he bent his head for every bite he took, relatively quiet.

"You had quite the victory today," Lexa said to him, noticing Jamie on the other side of Aden was busy quarrelling over a chicken drumstick with a fellow Nightblood. "You were clever."

Aden chewed hastily on his piece of gammon, and swallowed. "Opportunistic, Heda," he said modestly, taking a tiny sip of his honeyed mead. He made a face.

Lexa laughed. "You'll get used to it. Soon you'll be dancing on the Polisian wine."

"Perhaps."

"What makes you think tonight?"

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Your mind is occupied. You are reserved, Aden, but tonight you are withdrawn."

"Heda is very observant."

Lexa studied him, taking a sip from her own mug. "I'm your Commander, Aden. You are my Nightblood. If you need to confer with me about anything, I will make it my duty to do something for you. Do you understand?"

"Thank you, Heda."

"The pouch of money I gave you, all that time ago," Lexa remembered. Aden seemed to as well, nodding slowly. "Is it enough?"

"More than," Aden said quickly. "I use it to buy some bigger portions of food on the days my mother does not make enough money. She is growing ill, Heda. I do not tell her, though, for she would be ashamed. In all honesty, I do not wish to be charity."

"You're not charity. You're my Nightblood."

"Nightblood." Aden tested the taste of the word on his tongue, and found he liked it. His lips quirked up into a smile. "Heda, if I may ask you a question in confidence?"

Lexa nodded, leaning into him slightly. "Yes?"

"Now," Aden said, "Am I worthy of my Nightblood? I beat Marol—you said, I used my brains—"

"Aden." Lexa clapped him on the back. "Everyone around on this table is worthy. Even if from now on, Marol beats you every single time, you will remain worthy."

"Thank you, Heda."

"Have my mug too," Lexa encouraged him. "I don't fancy the taste of honeyed mead."

"Neither do I, Heda."

The moment Lexa knew Aden was the most promising of her initiates was not when he neatly beat her in the sparring pits; it was when he had the gall and the brains to answer her (seemingly) most difficult question posed to the Nightbloods.

They had been debating, loudly, over it for a while.

"You have three pillars of being a Commander," Lexa announced. "Compassion. Strength. Wisdom. What's the best answer?"

Each Nightblood had posed excellent cases for each pillar.

"Strength," Marol declared. "If you are strong, you will be feared by your enemies and your people will know that they will be protected by a strong leader. If you are weak, you become consumed by your fears and your people will lose faith in you. Without your people, you are nothing. So you must be strong."

"Compassion," Mia argued. "You must be compassionate in order to understand the needs of your people. Some may live in different circumstances to others. If you show compassion, the people will grow to love you for your understanding and you will never lose the people's faith."

"Wisdom," Ammar countered, drumming his fingers against his kneecap. "You must be wise in order to engage in military tactics in case you are attacked, or in case you are the attacker. You must be wise so you have answers for village and city disputes, and know the line between just and unjust, and know when not to cross it. You must be wise to be literate and negotiate with other leaders."

"You have argued well," Lexa said, when the room fell silent. Nobody had anything else to add. "Your answers all counter-answer each other's. It's very difficult to decide."

Marol, Mia and Ammar glanced between each other. They wondered if it was a test, because if it was, they had failed spectacularly, for now they had argued their case, they could not choose. Marol was a little flustered—as he easily got—and Ammar scratched his head, deep in thought. Lexa watched them like a hawk, waiting for one of them to speak out.

"What about all three simultaneously?"

Lexa's head popped up to the voice at the back. Aden's messy blonde hair, sticking out at all angles, was instantly recognisable. He hadn't raised his hand, but he looked as if he had been pondering the arguments for a while.

"Is it possible?" Aden asked.

Lexa slouched a little in the throne. "You tell me, Aden."

"If you are strong, you have all the qualities Marol has listed. If you are wise, you have all the qualities Ammar listed. If you are compassionate, you have all the qualities Mia listed. None of them are superior to the other. But we are not supposed to be foot soldiers," Aden recalled, perhaps from their very first lesson. "If we are to be Commanders one day, then I propose we shoulder all three qualities. If you build something with a foundation of one pillar, it is less likely to stand than if you had all three together, working in sync with each other."

"That must be cheating," Jamie laughed, "Aden, you just combined all three well-thought answers into one!"

"But it's true!" Aden insisted. "Should a leader be strong but not compassionate nor wise? Or compassionate but not wise or strong? Or wise but not compassionate or strong?"

"How about this?" Lexa suggested, when dissent rose amongst the Nightbloods. "I am going to ask you some questions about me. I want you to answer with a simple yes or no."

The Nightbloods nodded, glancing at each other. Someone wanted to nab the best answer.

"Am I strong?" Lexa asked them.

"Yes, Heda," they said in unison.

"Am I compassionate?"

"Yes, Heda."

"Am I wise?"

"Yes, Heda."

"Hm." Lexa rubbed her chin, grinning at her dumbfounded class. "Aden, it appears we have a problem. It seems your cheating answer was correct."

"Where do you go every sundown, Heda?"

The voice startled Lexa from her thoughts as she pivoted where she stood, dropping her gaze all the way down to Aden, who was staring up at her. They were just outside the Polisian tower, and it was sunset. Lexa was prepared to meet Jona and sit by the wall-walk, and she realised Aden—who had some (but not much) muscle on him now—was still practising his imaginary sword movements.

"You always walk that way," Aden continued to observe, gesturing towards the portcullis. "Do you like the walls a lot?"

"It's high up there. You can see the entire city."

"Can I come with you?"

Lexa hesitated. "Not tonight, Aden."

Aden nodded, and continued his work silently. Lexa walked away, silently too.

"Is it hard, Heda?" Aden shouted after her. Lexa turned on her heel again, frowning expectantly. "You spoke of the three pillars of Commandership. Is it hard to maintain all three—at once?"

"Sometimes it is hard to maintain any of them at a time," Lexa admitted, thinking of all the times she had angrily thrown something at a wall, at Titus, or kicked people out of rooms, trashed rooms...

"But you do it," Aden said admiringly. Lexa gave him a strained smile. No, I don't. "The city is well under your watch, Heda."

"Keep practising. When I come back, I want to see drastic improvements."

"Drastic? Where—where are you going, Heda?"

Lexa pondered telling Aden or not. Aden had friends, but he was not much of a speaker—and less of a gossiper. "Home," she said truthfully, a fond smile curling her lips. "There is trouble within Trikru territory. There has been some violence. I wish to call counsel with my Trikru Generals and Chiefs and talk of a solution."

Aden blinked in surprise, tucking his wooden sword under his arm. "What happened?"

"Would you believe it," Lexa said, eyes twinkling, because what harm could it do? "A star fell from the sky."

Aden was much older now, dressed in lightweight, armoured, black garb as he practised with his wooden dummy outside the Tower. He was a regular sight now, and people were rather fond of the handsome boy determinedly practising whilst the sparring pits were full.

Much had changed. Aden had grown sombre. The first sign of this was not caring about the taste of Polisian wine, apparently, and Aden had fallen victim to that particular symptom. His Commander had been shot by a Skaikru bullet, and was recovering slowly. He prayed to the stars every morning and night, willing her to come home. He had fallen in love with the florist's daughter, and yesterday he had kissed her, and blushed all the way home.

Well—he thought it was love. It was nothing compared to what his Commander had with Clarke kom Skaikru. From the Commander's tales, it had been Clarke who had fallen from the sky that day, and though Aden could smell blood on their hands, whenever he saw them or passed them, they seemed so purely in love that he could not imagine either one of them turning a sword on anyone.

And that was after the Commander had launched a spear straight through the Ice Queen's heart.

He still remained in almost childish awe of that day, and he thought of how his Commander had been on the ground, ready for death. The thought haunted him every night, and then his Commander would roll away and kick King Roan's legs beneath him, and she would not just win a battle but she would avenge a death and create a fairer King simultaneously.

He thought back to the three pillars, and wondered if it was similar.

Jus drein jus daun, he heard his Commander say, and it was the Ice Queen's blood for Costia's. She had killed a Queen and made a King. She had succeeded, in "one must die today"—without it being either Lexa or Roan.

Aden jabbed forwards, careful to keep his legs slightly bent. He had witnessed Jamie suffer a broken leg the other day in the sparring pits, after going far too hard with Marol, who had kicked at his left leg. Because Jamie had held it ramrod straight, it had snapped, and after Lexa had rushed to tend to the pain, she made sure everyone took note.

Aden could see it in the way she fought. She did not run; she shuffled, her gaps wide or small. She did not wait; she anticipated. She did not attack; she attacked and defended. Aden would remember her fight with Roan for the rest of his life. It had been the most magical thing he'd ever seen.

Steps clattered from the Polisian tower, and Aden swivelled around, on-time, and bowed deeply.

"Heda," he said respectfully, and Lexa smiled rakishly at him. There was colour back on her face, and he watched dreamily as she closed her eyes, basking in the sunlight. Today was the first day she'd been outside. Then, Aden bowed again. "Clarke kom Skaikru."

"Hey," Clarke said, smiling too.

Clarke kom Skaikru had been the star falling, and his Commander had been the daring fetcher. Aden watched as Clarke grew accustomed to Polis, a strange colour of faded red and sunken eyes transforming into a dirty blonde, quite like his, and a brighter gaze. There had been whispers of the Commander and the Sky girl, but Aden had left those rumours alone until he'd accidentally walked in on them in the throne room.

Aden did not speak of that day.

Aden could only stare at his brave Commander, too stubborn to die by a Skaikru weapon and treachery. He had seen her so many days, emerge from the staircase with intent for the wall, and he'd seen the same expression on her face for years. It was melancholy, though not an unbearable sad. There had been hope, but it faded, and then when the star fell from the sky, Aden had not seen his Commander in a long time.

But today, he noted Clarke kom Skaikru had her arm interlinked with his Commander's. And as he watched his Commander, as he so often did, he saw her eyes soften, the tiniest of crinkles at the edge of her eyes. She gave Clarke a sideways smile, and Aden full-on grinned at them.

"What is it, Aden?" Clarke asked good-naturedly. Aden didn't like many things about Clarke, but he loved that his Commander loved her, and he had found himself confiding in her many times during Lexa's spell of unconsciousness.

"I have food." Aden rushed to his bag, where his flagon was, and then pulled out a rusty box. "It is warm. I have collected it not long ago, from my mother's house. I bought the freshest beef there was."

"Beef stew," Lexa said.

"Beef stew," Aden repeated.

"Some things don't change," Lexa laughed.

Aden noted the closeness of the two women, and he realised how much he'd missed Lexa; how much he appreciated what Clarke had done for them. For her. He would never stop marvelling at the utter transformation on Lexa's face. Once upon a time, Aden had witnessed his great Commander, pensive as she waited for the sky to come crashing down. And when it had, he witnessed his great Commander revel in its beauty, and he witnessed his great Commander smile.

"Some things really do, Heda."

#clexa #clarke x lexa #clexa fanfic #clexa fic #clarke x aden #lexa x aden

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lexa-griffins · 18 days

Note

"Don't Hold Back" for the fic title

I feel like this is definitely nudging me towards a certain place so I'll comply... under the cut! 😝

But first the non smut one:

Canon world, maybe. A Lexa doesn't die, the end of the world doesn't happen (again) story.

Clarke has taken up training with Anya. She is not training to be a warrior by any means, but to survive on the ground in the high position Clarke as proven herself worthy off she needs to be able to defend herself properly, not just with a gun and pure brute force.

Per Lexa's request Anya goes easy on Clarke, who ends most training sessions on her back, breathless, listening to a list of everything she did wrong given to her by a disappointment Anya.

All it takes is for Anya to question if something was to happen to Lexa with Clarke around, the commander would be sure to die thanks to Clarke's inability to fight.

That sets Clarke off immediately. She is throwing herself at Anya who dodges her and pocks her again, reminding her how she would be unable to even catch whoever hurt Lexa. And Clarke launches at her again, this time landing a punch. Anya is quick to rise and throw one back, but Clarke is quicker and moves, avoiding the hit. The pride in Anya’s face shines for barely a second.

Lexa watches from the sidelines, hidden by the shadows of the trees. Anya is correct that Clarke would probably not be capable of helping Lexa if something was to go wrong. Lexa thinks she would very much prefer the sky girl leave her to die if they ever find themselves in such a situation but knowing Clarke, she would not back down so it is best she knows how to fight.

A loud thud reaches her as she watches as Anya falls on the dirt, Clarke's knee holding her down, a dagger on Anya’s neck.

The older woman chuckles darkly, looking at the wild beast in Clarke's eyes, "She finally got me Heda."

At Lexa's title, Clarke turns her head abruptly, sheepishly dropping the dagger as Lexa comes forward and towards them.

Lexa simsply nods, a proud smile on her face. Staring at her, Clarke's eyes feel tamed once more and she feels the adrenaline leave her and a smile blossom. She helps Anya off the floor.

"It seems she is ready for the next step." Its the first thing Lexa says. Clarke stares at her slightly confused, "and Anya this time, no need to hold back."

Clarke barely has the time to open her mouth before she is being thrown on the ground.

(Also g!p clarke. Duh.). Smutty but with quite a soft undertone to it, building trust and confidence in bed between them.

They've been managing to take things as slow as they can. With the desperation burned out during their first time, they get to slowly learn about each other's bodies and likes.

Lexa has never explicitly told Clarke she likes it soft and gentle, but perhaps it was her tears or the lovestruck look she gives Clarke that gave her that impression and so, with out ever truly confirming it, Clarke goes slow with Lexa, lovingly. Oh so sweet.

Lexa loves it. But she knows Clarke is holding back. And Lexa... Lexa is quite tired of being treated like she might break during sex.

Slowly Lexa would encourage Clarke to let go fully in bed. Urge her on. Ask her to go harder and faster. Nudging Clarke to place them in positions easier to allow her to go harder.

Until the one night when Lexa demands it of her. "Don't hold back, niron. Give me all."

And so Clarke kisses her, the last piece of softness for the next while.

And Lexa loves her soft niron. Loves the care Clarke takes with her, always entering her slowly, allowing Lexa the time to adjust. Never rushing, always assuring, always asking. But this Clarke? This is the woman of passion and fervor she fell in love with. Desperate and rough and so full of passion as she fucks Lexa onto the mattress.

The first of many, I'm sure.

#letter opened #uh this was fun ✨️#wanheda's dagger #clexa

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robinhoodrevisited · 7 years

Text

A New Regime (pt.6)

Sherwood Forest. Outlaws’ camp. Mid-morning. (The gang gather their weapons together.) Robin: “Come on, we don’t want to be late for Knight’s Glade.” (Allan walks past Robin.) Allan: “Yeah, Iz definitely doesn’t like to be kept waitin’. I remember one time Guy had kept me late at the castle and when I got home to Bonchurch she made a right stink about it. Nearly took my head off with a water jug!” Much: (Grumbles:) “Home to Bonchurch. Bonchurch was promised to me!” Allan: “Oh, yeah. sorry.” (Robin sighs as Marian, a troubled look on her face, follows Allan.) Robin: “Marian, are you all right?” Marian: (Brusquely:) “Fine. (Robin tilts his head, looking at her, knowing it’s not the truth.) Allan and I have to get in position at the castle. We have to be there to rescue Guy in case you’ve forgot.” Robin: “Hey... this is for the good of everyone. If we can get a sheriff working—” Marian: (Interrupts:) “Isabella has proven herself time after time. She will make a fantastic sheriff and will work with us but not if she refuses to execute her brother. We should all be working on how to free Guy without compromising Isabella’s position with Prince John.” (Marian pushes past Robin but he grabs her arm.) Robin: “Will you listen to me? I know she’s your friend but she’s not always been straight with us. After we meet her today I’ll know for sure whether she can be trusted or not.” Marian: “Clearly my opinion is falling on deaf ears.” (Marian pulls away and heads for the castle. Little John comes up behind him.) Robin: (Annoyed:) “Where are Djaq & Will?” Little John: (With a knowing look:) “They’re making their own way there. Hey. (Glances meaningfully at Marian.) She’s worth more than any treasure. Don’t let her slip through your fingers.” Sherwood Forest. Between Nottingham and Knight’s Glade. (Will stands waiting for Djaq who is adjusting her clothing behind a tree when he hears horses behind him. He quickly slips behind with Djaq.) Djaq: “Will we can’t, Robin will be waiting for us.” Will: ”Shh.” (Isabella, two horsemen, a cart, and another lone horseman pass them. They step out to watch after they pass, then hear more men behind them in the trees. Will steps in front of the tree and watches fourteen footsoldiers trying to hurry quietly through the brush. Suspecting an ambush on the gang, Will and the Saracen pull their swords and follow.)

Sherwood Forest. Knight’s Glade. (Little John, Much & Robin walk out to the middle of the clearing. Isabella meets them.) Robin: (Pleasantly:) “You came, then? (Two guards set down a chest as Isabella strides towards Robin.) I am glad.” Isabella: (Sweetly:) “Of course. We had a deal, you and me, remember?” Robin: “I do remember.” (Robin and Isabella stand facing each other.) Isabella: “Working together.” Robin: “For the good of Nottingham.” Isabella: “Absolutely. That’s all that matters now, isn’t it?” Robin: (Nods once.) “Mm-hm.” Isabella: (Indicates chest.) “Please, take it. You earned it. (Robin looks at Little John behind him and jerks his head at the chest. He and Little John go to it. Isabella walks with Robin.) You were my knight in shining armour.” Robin: (Quietly:) “Yeah, that’s me.” (Isabella walks to the guards, smiling as Robin stops at the chest and opens it. It’s full of stones and horseshoes. The guards draw their swords.) Little John: (Admonishingly:) “Robin!” (Little John turns away and is surprised to see more guards coming at them. Robin, utterly disappointed in himself, leans with both hands on the chest as the gang gather in a circle round him.) Isabella: (Bitterly:) “Life’s full of disappointment, isn’t it? (Will & Djaq run, following the guards, and stop behind a tree to watch near the glade. They see a single guard with the cart and four more horses. Will gets a tighter grip on his sword, preparing to take the man out.) Now, I’ve decided to stand on my own two feet. Thought about what you said: obey your every command, do whatever you say.“ Robin: “I offered you friendship.” Isabella: “No, you threatened me. You seek to use me to enhance the legend of Robin Hood. Well I am sick of being used. Vaisey betrayed me, my brother before that. Even that peasant girl turned her back on me. Well I say no more. As sheriff of Nottingham I won’t be some frightened little woman.“ Robin: “No, you’ll just be Prince John’s puppet.” Much: “What about the princess? What about Clarke?” Isabella: “What about her? She’s gone, vanished. There is no princess. (to guards:) Go on, take them!” (Robin rips his sword from its scabbard. The gang, in the inner circle, face seventeen guards surrounding them. Much spins his dual swords once. The guards slowly advance, closing the circle.) Robin: “Oh, I hate it when I’m right.” (Robin thrusts and hits a guard’s sword, but the guards do not react. After a few moments, Djaq & Will, riding horses and leading others, gallop through the mêlée.) Djaq: “Yaah! Robin!” (Some guards and Isabella have to step back to avoid getting trampled, giving the gang a momentary advantage. They attack as Isabella watches in disbelief. Will stops at the far end of the clearing.) Will: (Looks back at the gang.) “Come on!” (The gang each fight off the guard in front of them and then run to the horses. Little John sits behind Will. Much is on another. Robin runs to the side of the fourth horse.) Isabella: “Get them!” (The guards chase after them. Robin jumps onto the back of his horse and they all get away.)

Sherwood Forest. Outlaws’ camp. (The gang hurry back into camp to regroup.) Djaq: “Robin, what do we do? Isabella knows about the camp.” Robin: “Well obviously we can’t stay here now. We’ll have to scatter until we can find somewhere new to set up camp.” Will: “Rebuild somewhere else.” (Robin nods. A disgruntled Much walks through to his kitchen.) Much: “I don’t believe this!” Little John: (To Will:) “Won’t your traps hold them off?” Will: (Shakes his head:) “Not for long. They’re meant to capture a single person or at the most a small group. They won’t stop the sheriff’s army.” Much: “It’s over.” Robin: “No, Much it’s not over. We’ll find somewhere else and rebuild. For now take everything you can carry and stash it in the forest. We can’t come back here again.” Little John: “Robin, what’s the plan?” Robin: “First we’re going to warn Marian and Allan that Isabella’s changed sides. Then we’re going to take that hoard back... today at noon.” Little John: “What about Gisborne’s execution?” Robin: (Considers:) “It’s a perfect distraction.” Powis Castle. Guest Chamber. Wales. (Queen Nia sits at the head of a long table eating as Clarke enters.) Queen Nia: (As Clarke reaches the table:) "To what do I owe the pleasure?" Clarke: "What if I changed my vote?" Queen Nia: (Sits up, her demeanor softens:) "Now you're thinking like a leader of your people." Clarke: (Walking the length of the table:) "I would need some assurances first." Queen Nia: "Your clan...Nottingham is it? Will be safe." Clarke: "And me?" Queen Nia: "My quarrel is with Lexa, not you." Clarke: "She was your Natblida before she was chosen as Commander, yes?" Queen Nia: (Smiles:) "You wish to know the reason for the animosity between myself and the Commander? (Clarke nods:) Very well. (Motions for Clarke to sit, which she does:) When your Uncle first came to Ireland under a banner of peace my people were not receptive. But I knew that if I could negotiate a treaty it would be the best thing for our two nations. Upon his arrival in Ireland, John and his retinue were greeted by numerous Irish leaders. Unfortunately things went downhill fast." Clarke: "It is said that upon seeing these strange long bearded Kings, John laughed and pulled them about by their beards." Queen Nia: (Nods:) "John was an ill-mannered child… from whom no good could be hoped. War broke out between us again and our Commander was killed." Clarke: "And Lexa ascended." Queen Nia: "The new Commander quickly drove the English back into retreat but not before the Prince left a grisly parting gift for Heda.” Clarke: "Costia's head." (The Queen stiffens visibly at this and is silent a long moment before continuing.) Queen Nia: "She blames me for welcoming the English in the first place. Now, ironically, the Commander has made the same mistake I once did." Clarke: "You feel the treaty with England is a mistake?" Queen Nia: "A treaty with that manchild John is a grave mistake, yes. Even now rumours abound that the Prince has financed men to come and replace me." Clarke: "I had heard those rumours too." Queen Nia: "Under Lexa's command, my position is tenuous at best. So, to answer your question: once she's gone I see no reason why we cannot find an accord between us." Clarke: "You realise that should anything happen to Richard, my clan will include not only Nottingham but all of England's people?" Queen Nia: "I am aware of who you are... princess." Clarke: "So you will recognise my legitimacy?" Queen Nia: (Takes a moment:) "If your vote changes, (Nia stabs her knife into the table before here somewhat threateningly:) how could I not at least consider it?" (Clarke regards the Queen. Going on her instinct, Clarke realises that the Queen as no intention of keeping her word. Rising from her seat, Clarke closes the distance between them and pulls the knife from the table.) Clarke: "We bind ourselves in blood." (Clarke takes the knife and makes a large incision into her palm drawing blood.) Queen Nia: (Impressed:) "I see you've learned our oath." (Clarke wipes the blade onto her sleeve on each side and then stabs the knife back into the table.) Clarke: "Do you accept?" (The Queen slowly gets to her feet and moves toward Clarke.) Queen Nia: (Pulling the blade from the table:) "We bind ourselves in blood." (Clarke watches as Nia raises the blade to her hand ready to make the cut.)

Nottingham Castle. Courtyard. Almost Noon. (The portcullis is raised as guards hold back the crowd with crossed halberds. Once it’s fully up, the guards let the people in. The gang, in cloaks and hoods, pass among them. Robin eyes the executioner’s axe as he enters. The crowd swarm around the platform in the centre; the gang meet up on the far side.) Robin: “Now, we’ll make our move as soon as everybody’s looking to the platform. When he comes out, we slip inside. Will, Djaq, go through the armoury. John, through the kitchens with Much. I’m going to find Marian and Allan. (Jerks his head to the side.) Go on.” (The gang slowly scatter. A fanfare sounds and Prince John emerges from the main doors. The crowd give a modest round of applause but the Prince beams nonetheless.) Prince John: “People of Nottingham, fear not, I have returned. And, on this most auspicious occasion, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to your new permanent sheriff!” (The fanfare sounds again as Isabella walks out from the cloister towards her chair set at the top of the steps. The crowd cheer much more loudly and enthusiastically this time which does not go unnoticed by the Prince. Isabella quiets them with a motion of her hand.) Isabella: (Sighs.) “Bring out the prisoners.“ (Two boys start a drum roll. A door opens in back. Gisborne is pushed out into the light. The crowd jeer. Meg is pushed out behind him. Robin, standing behind the tree, sees her.) Robin: “The girl.” (Meg and Gisborne are pushed towards the platform.) Meg: (to Gisborne:) “Now would be a great time for your friend to save us.” Gisborne: “When they come, it’ll be very quick so be ready.” (Marian stands in the crowd as Gisborne passes. Just as she’s about to put her plan into action she’s grabbed from behind.) Marian: “Robin, what-” Robin: “Shh. Come on, this way.” (Meg and Gisborne go up the steps and are positioned behind large stumps with wide notches cut out for their heads. The drum roll stops.) Isabella: “As you all know from bitter experience, Guy of Gisborne is an enemy of the people. (Robin peeks at Isabella from around the corner under the cloister.) He must pay the ultimate penalty. (Points at Meg.) This woman tried to help him escape justice. Therefore, she must share his fate. In future, if anyone challenges my authority, they shall suffer the same punishment.” Marian: “What is she doing?” Robin: “She’s changed sides. She’s with Prince John now.” Marian: (Shocked:) “No, I don’t believe it.”

(Gisborne looks at Meg, who is shaking with terror. Isabella sits and crosses her legs triumphantly.) Isabella: “Have the condemned any final words?” Gisborne: (Eyes ahead.) “Very well, Isabella. You win. Kill me if you must, but not her. (Looks up at Isabella.) I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t take her life.” (Isabella is silent. Robin and Marian watch her for a reaction, hoping she will change her mind. There is a commotion in the crowd as a hooded figure stumbles toward the platform.) Allan: “Oi, yer can’t kill someone wit’out givin’ em a last drink!” (The crowd laugh as the seemingly intoxicated man bumbles towards Gisborne. The executioner seeming disarmed by the drunken fool. Gisborne glances at Meg to make sure she’s ready when Isabella bellows from the steps.) Isabella: “Hold that man! (Allan looks back at Isabella as two guards grab him.) Proceed with the execution!” Gisborne: “She’s just an innocent girl!” (The guards push Gisborne and Meg onto the stumps. Meg whimpers and sobs. The guards part their hair away from their necks.) Allan: “Iz! What are you doing?” Isabella: (Impatiently:) “I said proceed!” Marian: “What do we do?” (The two executioners get a grip on their axes.) Robin: (Temper rising:) “For once... I agree with Gisborne.” (Robin draws his bow and shoots Meg’s executioner in the chest as he raises his axe. The axe flies straight up in the air as the man falls back into the crowd. Robin quickly nocks another arrow, Isabella notices the movement and its owner, and Robin shoots for the axe. The arrow hits the axe and sends it spinning into the stump next to Gisborne’s head, right where Robin wanted it so Gisborne can cut his ropes. Gisborne gasps and looks at the close call.)

Prince John: (In quiet rage:) “Hood. (Stands.) Get him!” Robin: (to Marian:) “Come on! Come on!” (Robin tries to pull Marian away as Gisborne unties Meg’s hands. He jumps down from the platform as Meg skips to its edge. He turns to help her down. A guard charges at Gisborne with a halberd. Meg sees him.) Meg: “Look out! (Meg jumps in front of the guard.) Guy, no!” (Gisborne grabs the halberd just as it stabs Meg. He yanks it away and punches the guard, then quickly turns to Meg.) Gisborne: “Are you all right? (Gisborne takes Meg’s arm and helps her to her feet.) Come on.” (Meg holds her stomach. Gisborne sweeps her up in his arms and takes her away. Robin and Marian each take out one of Allan’s guards.) Robin: “Right, you two get yourselves out of here and do not return to the camp. Isabella’s on Prince John’s side now and we cannot go back.” Allan: “Wait, where are you going?” Robin: “Don’t worry about me (Gives him a light shove:) just get Marian to safety.” (Robin heads into the castle as Marian & Allan glance back at Isabella her face contorted in anger, both unable to believe the turn of events.) Marian: “Come on, let’s go.” (Allan nods and the pair of them escape amidst the chaos.) Sheriff’s quarters. (The gang burst into the room with sacks and bags.) Robin: “We have to do this quickly. Come on! Hurry up!“ (They all start sweeping the treasure into the sacks.)

Sherwood Forest. By the river. Late afternoon. (Gisborne carries Meg down the path by the river.) Gisborne: “Let’s just rest here for a while. (Gisborne stops by a tree.) There we go.” (He sets Meg down gently against the tree trunk and holds her, cradling her shoulders, then starts to look at her wound.) Meg: (Weakly:) “Kiss me.” (He looks up into her eyes, helpless, sadly wanting to, but knowing he shouldn’t.) Gisborne: “Shhh.” (He strokes her hair lovingly, shaking his head no.) Meg: “Please? (Meg whimpers softly in pain. Gisborne stares into her eyes, then leans in and gives her a quick kiss. She smiles.) I always quite liked you, you know.” (She tries to smile again, but must gasp for air instead. She takes her last breath and dies. Her arm falls off his. Gisborne closes her eyes with his hand and starts to cry. He pulls her into him, unable to control his tears, and rocks her in his arms, grieving for her. His ears detect the sound of two figures approaching. No longer capable of defending himself, Gisborne resigns himself to whatever comes next.) Marian: (Softly:) “Guy. (Placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, she glances at Meg’s still, pale face.) I’m so sorry.” Gisborne: (Holding his emotions in check:) “I want to bury her.” Marian: “Later. You need your rest.” Gisborne: "No, she deserves a proper burial." (Marian glances back at Allan who nods.) Allan: (Kneeling beside Gisborne:) "Here, I'll take her. I'll do it." Gisborne: (Grasping Meg tighter, shaking his head:) "It has to be me. It's my fault she's dead." (Gisborne buries his face in Meg's neck and rocks her once again.) Marian: "Shh. It's all right. Perhaps we can do it together? (Gisborne slowly raises his head to look at her and after a moment nods weakly.) OK, Allan and I will go find a quiet spot for her while you say your farewell." (Gisborne nods and lowers his head again as Marian stands and motions for Allan to follow her.) Nottingham Castle. Sheriff’s quarters. (Isabella stands in front of a mirror with her knife. Prince John stands behind her.) Isabella: “I will make sure all of Hood’s men are dealt with, Sire.” Prince John: “I have complete faith in you my dear, Sheriff. But for now I believe a celebration is in order. (Stepping close behind her to breathe into her ear:) Remove your clothes for me.” Isabella: “No. (Spins around, pointing her knife at the Prince and backing him up towards the bed. His legs reach the foot of the bed, forcing the Prince to sit upon it.) You remove your clothes, for me.” Prince John: (Raising an eyebrow and smiles:) “Oh yes, my adorable girl. Anything you say.” (Isabella drops the knife and lowers her hair as the Prince begins excitedly removing his clothing as we:) Fade to Black.

#bbc robin hood #robin hood #lucy griffiths #jonas armstrong #keith allen #lara pulver #toby stephens #joe armstrong #richard armitage #anjali jay #harry lloyd #sam troughton #gordon kennedy #eliza taylor

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