Chapter Text
They came for Clarke at dusk.
It was fitting in a way, the setting of the sun a statement to the loss of her innocence.
The thought made her laugh, a bitter, strangled wheeze that the wind sweeping across the balcony stole from her mouth the moment it was born.
Her people had lost their innocence well before reaching the ground.
She leaned against the railing, back turned away from the grandeur of the city sprawled below her, and watched the handmaidens slip inside the apartments assigned to her. Their movements were ephemeral, like ghosts in the encroaching darkness.
The last, bloody rays of the sun weakly scratched at Clarke’s back, the day’s warmth long forgotten, and the light had waned too much to filter inside what had been her bedroom.
Funny how she thought of it in the past tense already.
“Wanheda.” What looked like the oldest in the group of women addressed her from the doorway, stern face a pallid oval emerging from the murkiness. “It’s time.”
The handmaiden inclined her head, just low enough to convey some sort of respect, but not as deeply as she would have bowed it for one of the Ambassadors. Clarke certainly got nothing near the greeting Heda would, and part of her was disappointed.
Despite the fretful way she’d heard her title whispered - among other less flattering things - she found no fear there. The handmaiden met her gaze levelly, as an equal, her demeanor exuding the kind of quiet determination of one who wanted to see their job done without wasting any time.
Clarke shrugged and walked back inside, not seeing the point in making the woman’s life difficult.
After all, she was the one who had agreed to the whole thing.
Interpreting her reentering the room as a sign that she was ready to start the ceremony, the handmaidens - Betas? Clarke was left wondering - swarmed around her. One had grey in her hair, which caused Clarke to reconsider her initial assessment, but the one who had called her inside was clearly in charge. Wherever she pointed - with a frown and a downward turn of her mouth if the others didn’t move fast enough for her liking - the women went. They worked in silence for the most part; lighting the fire, bringing in water, and wobbling under the weight of a wooden trunk which Clarke supposed contained whatever they may need to dress her, except for a pair of them, who threw several shy glances her way, giggling each time.
“Enough of that.” Their leader clapped her hands sharply and cut their fun short. “This is a solemn occurence, and I will not have it spoiled. If you can’t behave yourselves, you will leave. And Heda will hear of it.”
The threat settled the girls down; they paled, and moved considerably faster as they resumed their work.
One of the women placed her hands on Clarke’s shoulders, tugging her worn leather jacket off, and she almost flinched away, balling her hands into fists to resist the urge to strike her.
The jacket was one of the few things still in her possession that had accompanied her all the way from the landing site - identification number on the sleeve and all - and as grimy and threadbare as it was, watching it being tossed on the floor like trash hurt. Clarke felt as if a lifeline had been severed, and she wrapped her hands around her upper arms, fighting back a wave of nausea.
She knew she had worn it tonight, instead of the soft one Lexa had provided - sky blue to match her eyes - in the hope that it would comfort her. Stupid, she knew, and it hadn’t really made a difference, but Clarke’s mind had refused to let go of the idea.
Possibly mistaking her behaviour for a show of nerves, the woman in charge grasped her by her elbow, tugging her away from the rest of the handmaidens for a little privacy.
“I shouldn’t tell you this. I shouldn’t say anything, really, but…” She pursed her lips. “Heda is a hard woman, but fair. You needn't be afraid.”
“I’m not-“ And she wasn’t scared, not really, but the woman rolled her eyes, not giving her a chance to finish.
“There’s no shame in being afraid,” the woman continued, “it simply is the other side of courage.”
Clarke wasn’t sure she bought into that philosophy, but she made herself nod. The handmaiden held her gaze a moment longer, her hard façade softer now that she was facing away from the rest of the girls, until she nodded back and let her go, having clearly found what she’d been searching for within Clarke’s eyes.
As they rejoined the group, Clarke pored over what the woman had said about Heda. It helped her detach her mind from what was happening around her; the sets of hands that brushed her skin to remove her clothes were gentle, but caused her to blush a deep, rich red. On the Ark, where space came at a premium, personal boundaries were perceived in an entirely different way.
To be sure, it had made for some hilarious anecdotes, once they had started mingling with the Grounders.
What was said about Lexa’s fairness, Clarke knew it to be true, having witnessed it firsthand. Sure, the relations between Skaikru and the Coalition hadn’t started very smoothly – and, for the breakout of a war, that was a gross understatement – but once it had been proven that they had not meant to attack the villages which had burned down as a consequence of their landing, Heda had worked tirelessly to broker peace.
Of course, as was the Grounders’ custom, a price needed to be paid for the lives that had been lost.
And that was where she came in.
After all, what better way to strengthen the peace than having the one responsible for burning three hundred of Heda’s finest warriors mated publicly by the Commander herself?
Clarke’s heart stuttered curiously inside her chest, as it often did when she thought of the ritual, or of Lexa. In the long, tense months that it had taken them to finalize the deals and treaties, she had spent many sleepless nights in Heda’s company.
More often than not, they argued the finer points of the arrangement between their people until Clarke’s eyes were ready to fall out of her head from sheer exhaustion; what medicine Skaikru would produce for the clans, and how long they would do so without getting payment in return, which lands Heda gave to them to farm and hunt, how many people would help rebuild the destroyed villages, and so on.
It was draining work, which sometimes ended in a shouting match between her mother and one of the Ambassadors, but, after what had seemed like an eternity, the treaties had been written, and Clarke’s life changed forever.
She had been the one to fight with Abby over that part of the agreement, and, while her mother believed she was sacrificing herself for the benefit of her people, Clarke’s motive was not so altruistic.
Maybe because they had been forced to spend so much time together, she and Lexa had grown close; the Commander allowing Clarke to glimpse the woman who hid under the title “Alpha of all Alphas” as her people sometimes called her.
They had dined together, trained together – which mainly consisted of Lexa thumping her around a clearing with a wooden sword – until one evening Clarke had leaned close while they sat alone next to the fire and, without thinking, kissed the Alpha’s lips.
Three weeks later, only days before the Council meeting during which Heda and Clarke’s mother would sign the treaty, Lexa had slipped in an extra clause.
“Come.” Clarke was abruptly jerked out of her recollection. “The bath is ready.”
She had been so engrossed in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed that most of the handmaidens had left, carrying the clothes she had been wearing with them. The wooden chest was gone as well, a dress and several vials laid out on top of the furs covering her bed. Clarke would have liked a closer look; in the light of the fire, the fabric gleamed with a warm sort of sheen she had never seen before, but the handmaiden had already grasped her elbow to steer her towards the apartment’s bathroom.
Clarke didn’t know the woman, but she suspected – from how she had behaved with the other girls – that it would be unwise to make her wait, Wanheda or no.
Compared to the rest of her rooms, the bathroom was sweltering with heat. Steam fogged the air and ran in droplets along the stone walls, whatever fragrance the servants had added to the water filling the space with scents that tickled Clarke’s ancestral memory.
Despite all the time she had spent studying botany before landfall, most of the plants she’d come across since coming to the ground were still unknown to her, changed as they had been by radiation. Yet, locked deep within her bones, there was a part of her that remembered.
And it seemed that it was not the only thing Skaikru had forgotten was buried somewhere along the strands of their DNA.
Helped by the two women that were left, Clarke climbed into the copper tub that had been prepared for her, resting the back of her head against its rounded edge once she was seated in the water.
The liquid was hot enough to make her skin burn, slightly but pleasantly, and lassitude crawled along her muscles. Some of the tension that had been gathering inside her since first light eased, and her eyes closed.
Unable to resist the embrace of the water as the handmaidens washed her hair and lathered her with soap, Clarke relaxed further, a tiny sigh leaving her lips.
And it was there, in the small space between sleep and wakefulness, that she remembered the last time she’d talked to her mother before Lexa brought her to Polis.
*************************************************
“Clarke, you can’t be seriously considering this.”
They faced each other inside what remained of the Ark’s medical wing. Gone was its pristine, chirurgical look, the metal walls darkened to soot-grey by the fires of re-entry and patched in places with wood.
Abby leaned forward, her weight resting almost entirely on the desk where she did most of her paperwork. Its surface was surprisingly empty, datapads and paper files stored safely away, as was the infirmary, which meant that spring had finally come, and the last cases of flu had successfully been treated.
Clarke stared her down, lips pressed into a thin line. Her back hurt, and the first tendrils of a headache snaked around her temples, squeezing right under her skin. They had talked about Heda’s last request for what felt like a century, tossing argument after argument back and forth across the table.
Part of her wanted to whirl around and march off to find Lexa, get her somewhere private (the dense woods just outside Arkadia would do nicely) and talk her into a heated make-out session.
Not that it usually took much convincing on her part; when they were alone, Heda was ardent in a way that made Clarke’s body tingle in all the right places.
Warmth climbed up her neck, and Clarke was glad that it was still cold enough that her jacket was zipped all the way up. The shirt she wore beneath it was cut low enough to reveal the flush crawling across her chest.
She could almost feel the phantom-whisper of Lexa’s lips against her pulse.
“ Clarke !” Abby slapped her hand down on the table, making her jump. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Did you say anything different from what I’ve heard at least fifty times tonight?” she retorted, hoping that sarcasm would conceal the fierce blush heating her cheeks.
She expected her mother to explode, but, to her surprise, Abby’s shoulders slumped, and she walked around the desk, hopping onto it with a sigh.
Weariness was evident on her face, the strips of fluorescent light bathing the med-bay in a harsh glare not particularly forgiving. Black circles seemed to have taken residence around her eyes, making it look like she’d been dabbing with Grounder war paint, and her skin was even paler by contrast, her cheeks hollowed-out and gaunt.
A pang of regret transfixed Clarke’s heart, and she wondered if her mother was eating enough.
Or getting enough sleep, for that matter.
Even if sitting on her table afforded her a few inches over Clarke, Abby actually looked smaller than she was, and more fragile.
“Clarke…” Abby trailed off and wiped a shaking hand over her eyes. “I assume by now you’ve heard how the Grounders refer to their ranking system?”
“You mean the Alpha, Beta, Omega stuff? Yeah, I’ve heard something.” Her mother shot her an overly serious look, and Clarke’s brows furrowed. “But our species evolved from that centuries ago, didn’t we? Like… They may cling to the hierarchy, but it’s a matter of superstition isn’t it?”
Her mother jerked her shoulders in a tired shrug.
“Yes and no.”
“No? So Pike has been bullshitting this whole time?” She failed to keep a touch of sarcasm from her voice.
Abby snorted, her lips twitching as she struggled to contain a smile.
“He gave students… an edulcorated version of things, shall we put it like that?” She looked around the desk, as if to grab something she could fidget with, but, finding nothing, started to pick imaginary flecks of dirt from her jacket’s sleeve.
“You see, there was no reason for us to believe that these traits would ever reappear in humankind. But they have. I think, and Jackson agrees, that, because of the nuclear fallout, humanity crossed a threshold after which the need to increase population numbers became a biological imperative.”
“So you mean heats and ruts and all that aren’t actually things of the past?”
Abby nodded. “It’s in us.” She tapped her chest, and then pointed a finger at Clarke. “All of us. Grounders or Sky People makes no difference. Going into space for as long as we did must have kept these characteristics dormant. Due to limited resources, our imperative was to reduce population. Theirs was to increase it. Both working to preserve our species.”
Clarke’s knees felt weak. She wasn’t scared, or shocked, but it was as if little pieces of a puzzle she’d been trying to fit together for a while were finally clicking into place.
How two warriors who had been indifferent to each other would all of a sudden stand up and snarl a challenge, their hands flying to the hilt of their weapons. How, when she’d asked Lexa what her people meant when they called her Alpha of all Alphas , she’d just given her a wolfish grin and simply said they acknowledged that she was the strongest. Clarke had dropped the matter, glimpsing a flash of something in Lexa’s eyes that she could not put a name to at the time. Not uneasiness, nor the panic of someone who had their deepest secret almost revealed.
Surprise, perhaps, at Clarke’s ignorance.
“You’ve run tests, I assume?”
Her voice sounded cold, weird to her own ears.
“On myself and Jackson. Kane and a few from the Guard also volunteered.”
“And will we…”
Abby sighed again. “Eventually. Under normal circumstances, it would take generations, but radiation levels are still high enough to speed the process along. It’ll take months, a year at most.”
Clarke said nothing.
“Do you understand now, why I am so against you... mating Heda?” Abby’s mouth curled around the words, and she grimaced, no longer bothering to hold back her worry. “Even after all the blood work that was done, we have no way of telling where each individual falls within the hierarchy. And if there is a way, we lack the knowledge to find it.”
“And if I don’t do what Lexa asks of me, we’ll be at war again, Mom.”
Abby opened her mouth to protest, and Clarke squared her shoulders, readying herself for more arguing. What her mother couldn’t possibly understand was that she didn’t have a choice.
Her heart had chosen for her already.
*************************************************
Clarke stared into the cracked full mirror taking up a corner of the bedroom, a perfect stranger staring back.
Apparently she’d fallen asleep in the bathtub, and the handmaidens had woken her by dumping a bucket of cold water over her head. She couldn’t really blame them; overall she felt more energized than she had in a long time.
The bath she’d been given obviously wasn’t the first she’d taken since coming to Polis, but she’d never been so thoroughly scrubbed in her entire life. What skin her new dress left uncovered glowed a rosy pink, and her hair gleamed a deep gold in the fire’s flickering light, still not completely dry.
The handmaidens had arranged the blonde locks in intricate braids, so that no errant strand would fall across her face and shadow it, then, once they were satisfied, the older one had applied war paint around her eyes. It was the same midnight blue as her dress, the entire ensemble offsetting the lighter shade of her eyes.
“Very good.” The one who had tried to reassure her nodded, satisfaction clear on her face. “Heda will be pleased.”
Clarke’s heart skipped a beat and she swallowed harshly, fervently hoping the women wouldn’t notice the flush that spread across her collarbone at the mention of the Alpha.
“We must be going.”
The handmaidens bracketed her, falling in step as they herded her toward the bedroom’s door. The little calm she’d found while in the bath evaporated, and Clarke wiped her hands on the fabric of the dress, noting how it exposed the the entire length of her right leg as she walked.
Easy access.
She swallowed again.
Outside, the hallways were completely empty, which caused her steps to falter. In her time as Heda’s honored guest, Clarke had quickly learned that the Commander’s Tower never really rested. Sure, it grew quieter at night, but one could always cross paths with other people along its corridors. Guards patrolled at regular intervals, and dignitaries who were visiting Lexa or petitioning the Council often gathered to discuss diplomatic matters; conversations that sometimes heated up and spilled into the hallways.
“Where’s everybody?”
She kept her voice low, feeling that disrupting the heavy silence would be akin to sacrilege.
“The corridors were cleared for you,” one of the handmaidens replied, just as quietly. She peered into Clarke’s face and added, pity softening her voice, “Only the Ambassadors will be present at the ceremony. They will bear witness, and word of the mating will reach the Clans through them.”
Clarke clamped her teeth around the nervous giggles she felt build at the back of her throat. She couldn’t decide whether the woman’s words made things better or worse. While she was relieved that she wouldn’t have to… perform in front of a sizeable crowd, these were people she knew . Men and women she and her mother had argued with, some of whom she’d earned the respect of, while others regarded her with open hatred.
“No more talking now.”
They had come to the hallway leading up to the throne room, and the handmaiden stopped Clarke right before she rounded the corner.
The woman held her gaze for long moments, a hand clasping one of hers in an attempt at reassurance.
Breathe, the woman mouthed. All will be well.
Clarke drew one deep breath and righted herself, squeezing the handmaid's hand once before letting go.
She would walk to meet her fate alone.
The throne room had been rearranged for the evening, and, while its aura of power was preserved, a different feeling pervaded it. Only a few torches had been lit, and their light failed to reach the Commander’s throne. Beyond it, the curtains had been pulled open, and Clarke caught a glimpse of the city’s lights, glinting far below the balcony’s edge like diamonds tossed to the ground by the hand of a God.
The Ambassadors sat in a line along one wall, each of them underneath a banner bearing their Clan’s sigil. The first to meet her eyes was her mother, who had been seated the furthest from Lexa’s throne; a reminder in a way that Skaikru had not completely earned Heda’s forgiveness.
Lexa waited for her at the base of the dais. The dress she wore was cut just like her own, but of a forest green that appeared black under the torchlight, instead of blue.
When their eyes met, sparks seemed to fill the space between them. The air turned heavy inside Clarke’s lungs, electric and full of promise.
Without speaking, she began to walk toward the Alpha, her feet carrying her along subconsciously, as if she was being drawn to Lexa like a magnet.
Clarke couldn’t resist the pull of those eyes, which bored into her own and seemed to know every hidden corner of her soul.
Neither did she want to.
“She comes!” a woman’s voice called from the shadows beyond the throne. “Wanheda comes!”
Clarke could see her now, a darker silhouette against the night. One of the Fleimkepas, she assumed, but thankfully not Titus.
She halted inches away from Lexa, and under that unflinching gaze, the room grew distant. Unimportant. Clarke thought that she could easily get lost into the green of those eyes, and if it happened, she found she wouldn’t mind.
Behind her, a chair scratched loudly across the floor, and Clarke knew without looking that her mother just stood up.
The other Ambassadors hissed lowly, and she knew she needed to do something before Abby interfered. Something that would make it impossible for anyone to stop their union. As enraptured as she had been with the Alpha, the sneer that had flashed across the Azgeda Ambassador’s face had not been lost to Clarke.
“ Dison laik ai sadon .” [this is my choice] she said, a collective gasp rising from the men and women gathered behind her. “ Em laik ai sadon .” [she is my choice.]
Lexa’s jaw, which had hardened with barely contained anger when Abby stood up, unclenched, and, when Clarke dropped to her knees in front of her, the Alpha’s eyes widened, showing the white.
This wasn’t how the ritual was supposed to go, and once her knees hit the floor, Clarke paused, silently checking in with her soon-to-be mate for permission.
Lexa’s nostrils flared, hunger descending like a cloud over her eyes, and she gave a minute nod of confirmation.
You don’t have to, her softening gaze seemed to say. Clarke knew she could just let the Alpha lead her to the furs that had been laid out for them, and hide her face into Lexa’s neck while her lover took her and marked her as her own. It would be easier to pretend nobody was watching if she allowed herself to be pinned down under the Alpha’s solid weight.
Please. Lexa’s body language screamed her need, even as tenderness flashed through her face. It lasted just one moment before her features stilled into the stoic mask Clarke knew so well, and nothing more was necessary between them.
Even though she could feel the Ambassadors’ eyes burning her back like brands - her mother’s gaze the hottest one - Clarke didn’t care. Lexa’s eyes kept hers entrapped, and she found refuge in the Alpha’s commanding presence.
Nothing existed, save the two of them, and the last vestiges of her fear lifted away from her heart, letting it beat free.
“Allow me to serve, my Alpha,” she whispered, voice pitched for Lexa’s ears only. The Alpha reached down with one hand, fingers running over Clarke’s braided hair in assent, and she tilted her face into the touch, a shiver racing down her spine as Heda’s calloused hand skated along one of her cheeks.
Her hands lifted, shaky and tentative, to pull the skirt of Lexa’s dress aside and reveal the apex of her sex. Soft curls already dampened by arousal greeted her, and while Clarke would have loved to spend an eternity exploring the rest of Lexa’s body before this, she knew that it would have to wait.
Clarke ached to trace the scars that surely had left faded lines on Lexa’s skin, follow the swirls of her tattoos with her lips and her tongue, but the Ambassadors waited to see her submit, so instead she pressed her mouth to Lexa’s mound, and felt her own sex start to drip.
Above her, Lexa panted openly, the hand still fisting Clarke’s braids spasming and drawing her closer. She obliged the silent command, laving the Alpha’s sun-kissed skin with slow swipes of her tongue.
Lexa tasted of the sun, and the salt the ocean left behind. Clarke nipped at her skin and tugged, leaving a purplish mark where her inner thigh met her sex, whimpering when Lexa’s hips jerked forward, the Alpha rubbing her slick-soaked mound against her cheek.
She let Lexa turn her face - and the entirety of her focus - to her weeping sex, tongue darting out to part the Alpha’s swollen lips and lavish her inner folds with attention.
A warm jet of arousal gushed into her mouth and Clarke moaned, drinking of her lover’s essence greedily. Lexa was openly snarling now, her abs flexing as she tried to hold herself from bucking into Clarke’s mouth too roughly.
Clarke dug her hands into Lexa’s hips, holding her in place as she latched onto her hardened clit to pull back its hood with the tip of her tongue and tease around it while she suckled.
It throbbed against her tongue, and ever so slowly started to grow, forcing her to tilt her head back a little to accommodate.
She let her eyes fall shut, savoring Lexa’s taste, and her hands cradling her face as she sucked and licked her growing length. Because of the talk she’d had with her mother, Clarke was not surprised, and this was not her first brush with sex anyway. On the Ark, a lot of experimenting went on after lights out, and it was an accepted way to ease the tension that inevitably built in such a cramped space. While conceiving was strictly regulated, sex was not, but public sex… well, she would never had expected to agree to it.
Pulling back, she released Lexa’s fully erect cock with a wet pop, grinning up at the Alpha before pushing her tongue against its tip, teasing the divot in which small droplets of pre-cum had already gathered.
“Fuck, Clarke.”
Lexa’s façade shattered, hips stuttering forward as she called her name, and, still smirking, Clarke let her mouth fall open.
She sealed her lips around the blunt head, her moans vibrating along the shaft as she coaxed more of Lexa’s salty-sweet pre-cum into her mouth. Tongue sliding in tight swirls around the Alpha’s girth, Clarke let her head bob down, taking more and more inches in with each pass. Her hand moved from where it had been rubbing circles against Lexa’s hip, and descended to the base of her erection, adding stimulation.
Thoughts invaded her mind, of how it would feel to have Lexa sheathe inside her, and ram her length into her slit until she spilled deep in her womb.
Clarke’s cunt clenched painfully around nothing, and she moaned again, her fist moving faster along Lexa’s twitching shaft.
Growls fell from the Alpha’s lips without pause, and, when Clarke let her eyes roll up to look into Lexa’s face, what she saw almost left her breathless.
Lexa’s pupils were blown so wide that her eyes looked black, and her upper lip had curled back, exposing the whiteness of her teeth. She was a wild, beautiful goddess, coming undone under the mouth of her dearest supplicant.
Clarke could tell that she was close, and pulled her head back until only the head of Lexa’s member remained in her mouth. She inhaled deeply, willing herself to relax and then slid back down, taking the Alpha in until she hit the back of her throat.
Air left Lexa in a rush, and she hunched forward, a silent scream twisting her lips as she emptied inside Clarke’s mouth, the orgasm shaking her like wind would sway a tree when blowing through its branches.
Her hips jerked with each spurt, and no matter how quickly Clarke swallowed, strands of the Alpha’s release spilled from her lips and slithered down her chin.
Finally, the jets tapered off, Lexa carefully withdrawing while her hands lingered around Clarke’s face, stroking her jaw. She made a show of licking her lips, and gasped when the Alpha’s shaft lifted again under her gaze.
There was no chance to do anything about it, however, Lexa pulling her to her feet firmly to crash their mouths into a heated kiss.
The Alpha gathered traces of her own cum from Clarke’s chin and lips, before drawing her flush against her, a loud rumble filling the air. Lexa’s body was hot and firm against her own, and Clarke was glad for the support. Her legs were weak, her thighs shaking, and she doubted she would have been able to stand without Lexa’s help.
Flushed and short of breath, she rolled her hips forward, her thighs a mess of running slick under her dress. Something she couldn’t name had awoken deep inside her, a hunger so great it scared her with its vastness.
She whined and mewled, her grinding growing desperate.
Lexa’s arms went around her, and when the Alpha lifted her up and carried her towards the furs, the rest of the room left her mind for good.