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The air was crisp as Clarke stepped out onto the muddy dirt of Camp Jaha. Her nose wrinkled in slight distaste as the juicy waft of fresh brewed oats and berries was carried across the chill wind. She preferred when breakfast was earned through her own hard work, and Harper’s careful cooking was gratefully shared. With the adults around, the combined expertise of the Arc members was far greater than that of 100 juvenile prisoners.
Clarke knew it was unreasonable (unjust, even) to resent the adults for their newly built expansions. After the carpenters had scrumped spare pieces of wood to practice on, furniture had taken on a whole new appearance now it was not just made of rusted metal. Upturned crates would have been faultlessly useful for bar stools and tables that could decorate the hastily cobbled together breakfast court. While the outhouse cabin did give luxurious privacy, the line it created was almost a social gathering location, and it really was silly that gaggles of young girls clustered around such a fragrant area merely for the hope of a scrap of gossip. Besides, the newest smoke-house was frankly unnecessary.
She and Bellamy had managed brilliantly with their own criss-cross log storehouse, thank you very much. There really was no need for a fancy firing oven and meat-hanging rail.
The camp no longer smelled of the home she and Bellamy had created for themselves on Earth, and this small thing bothered Clarke to no end. While she as the now-Chancellor’s daughter was taken with a modicum of seriousness, Clarke hated that the leaders of the Second Landing Arkers did not treat her comrades with the respect that they deserved. Oh yes, they had been pardoned as a reward for surviving on the supposedly uninhabitable Earth, but she felt as though everyone over 18 (with the exception of her once co-leader) had gone back to treating them like naïve children, despite all the knowledge and skills they had collected over the last few months.
“You’re up early, Clarke.” Bellamy shot her a tired grin as he brushed past on his way. Clarke mustered up as civilised a smile as she could manage. In the disastrous week that had followed her sacrifice of Finn, Bellamy was the only one who tried to treat her no differently.
“Couldn’t sleep.” She replied shortly, rolling her left shoulder a bit awkwardly.
He grimaced back, “I never thought I’d actually miss sleeping in a tent again.” Bellamy admitted. While most of the 100 were permitted to set up tents in the residential area of the village, a few choice members had been advised to sleep inside the limited space of the ship. For Clarke, her own bunk was treated as a privilege; for Bellamy, Abby wanted him where she could keep an eye on him more easily. While he was likely to cause as little trouble as possible for Octavia’s sake while she practically lived in Lincoln’s personal med-bay, the Grounder would eventually recover. Abby could see that Bellamy’s days of relatively toeing the line were numbered. Ad those numbers likely were not in double digits.
Clarke nodded, absently discarding a shred of leaf from her matted hair before checking around to see if there were any eavesdroppers, “It’s my birthday in a couple of months.” Her voice had dropped.
Bellamy quirked an eyebrow inquisitorially. They had gelled as co-leaders immensely, but he wouldn’t exactly put them on present-hinting terms. “Right,” he probed, waiting for more information.
“I was thinking.” Clarke continued, her air of faux-casual attitude a dead giveaway. She was a terrible actress when her life was not in immediate jeopardy, “Perhaps when the peace treaty goes through, we could resurrect the Drop Ship.”
Bellamy snorted, “Yeah, like your mom would go for that.” He could just imagine how that conversation would pan out. Abby had got her overprotective claws into her daughter again, and as well-meaning as her motherly streak was, it was clear that Abby had no intention of letting go.
“We’ll set out soon.” Bellamy carried on, “I imagine that most of our crew will be first in line for the rescue trek to Mount Weather, it’s only a matter of time now.” He gave her shoulder a brief squeeze as he carried on his way, and Clarke frowned in irritation at his retreating back.
Oh yes, and there was that.
Either in a bid to provoke her mother, or because Bellamy was trying to build their friendship in the only way he knew how to treat girls who weren’t his sister, Bellamy had started… touching her.
Nothing objectionable, but Clarke was still trying to come up with a legitimate reason to grouch at the way his hand seemed to gravitate towards a perfectly respectable spot on her waist whenever he thanked her for patching up his latest injury.
Or that time when they were out hunting, and this fingers perfunctorily gripped her elbow in order to alert her to a deer.
His long legs and big feet really didn’t need to stretch out so much and encroach into her foot-space whenever he sat opposite her on the times when they ate together.
She shook her head, trying to push his annoying tendencies out of her mind – it would only let him win. Clarke made her way up to the watch tower and scaled the ladder quickly. She hoped no-one talkative would be up there. Though the camp assigned a 24 hour soldier’s watch after Finn, Clarke spent a lot of her free time on the rough planks of wood under a rusty metal roof. For one thing, accompanying the watch guard got her out of people’s way.
For once, Kane and her mother agreed on something – that the rescue mission would be pushed back until they had enough food supplies to go. As autumn was well on its way, these last couple of weeks would be their last opportunity for gathering before winter. Her mother was tired of Clarke pestering her, and eventually threw her out of the med-bay in frustration the day before. Clarke wasn’t going to come crawling back, even though she felt like she was going insane with idle hands.
Being up on the high tower meant that she didn’t have to endure either the pity or deference offered to her by the Arkers. It meant that she could peek into the window of Raven’s workshop and see for herself how her once-friend was progressing. It saddened Clarke greatly that she and Raven were no longer on speaking terms. After that awful night upon her return from Finn, Clarke realised that she had to let Raven have her own time. That didn’t exactly make the wait any easier, though.
Luckily for Clarke, the young soldier on watch knew her habits well, and didn’t bat an eyelid when she invited herself onto the tower balcony, sliding down to the floor and slipping her legs under the lower beam of the gate so that her legs dangled free, but she could rest her arms on the top side of the horizontal plank. She sat for a good hour, observing the comings and goings, the constructions and the gatherers. Clarke had plenty of time before her hunt was due at noon.
The watch solider did, however, jump up when he caught sight of a small dot on the horizon. As Clarke sat forest-side, she would not have seen. But lake-side, her breath would have been taken away.
Living on the Ark, their ancestors had prized preserved knowledge. Growing up, Clarke had access to an expansive library with tall fairytales, gruesome horrors of history and encyclopaedias of every known fact about the famed Earth.
When her mother sacrificed her to the Ground, hoping either for a better life or a swift death, Clarke had flourished on the home planet. She found her own feet, with a family of friends that would have (and already had) given their lives for each other.
Clarke got to feel the sun on her face.
She breathed real air.
And floated in the water.
The Grounders used tamed horse beasts for transport; the Arkers relied on primitive walking; the Mountain Men never ventured outside.
At the watchman’s surprised shout and deep toll of a battered bell, Clarke leapt up, banging her knee on the wooded beam painfully. But a minute later, she forgot all about the searing throb transmitted down her leg as she watched the graceful prow of a ship breach the water in the cove.
While the camp used the lake as a brilliant supply of clean(ish) water, and healthy source of brightly scaled fish, they so far had seen no signs of further human life across the expansive lure of deep water… Until now.
At once the camp was a flurry of activity, people scurrying about trying to usher civilians inside to safety while soldiers poured out of their mess-tent. Granted, it was one ship, but this presented a possible dramatic shift in the treaty dynamics, which was exactly the situation the Arkers needed to hold steady. There were new people in town.
Their ship was sleek and graceful, billowing cream sails catching the wind as the ship crested the neck of the large cove. Passengers were dots no larger than ants at this far distance, but Clarke could see flashy disks adorning the edge of the tall ship. Colours she had rarely seen – deep reds and majestic purples interspersed with a buttery sunshine yellow.
Clothes themselves were a rarity down on the ground, though some of the weavers were testing out the potential of sweeping nettle fibres dried and twined into soft flaxen fabric. But dyes? Even with Clarke’s passion for all things transformative and healing in nature, they hadn't exactly gotten around to aesthetics of colour yet.
There was no mistaking an imminent meeting with the Water Folk; the Arkers had traveled a previously fledgling path so well now, that the coast road led directly up to Camp Jaha, the camp itself standing between the water and the forest. Clarke was torn between watching the ship float to shore or trying to involve herself with her mother’s plans.
Eventually, she decided to enjoy the mesmerising ebb and flow of the beautiful water vessel – she could soon scamper down the watch tower when the passengers dismounted. Unlike the pictures in the fading colourful books Clark devoured as a child, the ship was made out of a silvery white wood that glinted like a fish flitting in the shallows. In the sleepy waking morning sun, the ship would absorb pretty pink hues and amber glows; but in the rising paler light, the ship was hard to see in the sun’s shining reflection on the water.
The ship’s progress slowed as the flickering sails were quickly sheathed. They came nearer to the coast, and the black lines of darkly tarred rope could be seen lashing the sail canvas to central poles. Individual people were almost distinguishable, sticking mainly to the sides.
The reason for this soon became clear as the vessel soon began to sprout stalks from the sides as a plant would grow roots. Clarke realised that these rows of stalks were long oars, and the passengers themselves were working hard to physically move the great water arc. She had never seen anything like it, nor imagined such a sight to exist nowadays.
As the ship nestled closer into the shoreline, Clarke leaned further over the beam as if that would help her see any more. To her surprise, as the figures began to swarm slowly over the coast, she could just distinguish excited whoops and hollers, almost like a child’s game.
More passengers appeared then, unloading what looked like crates and great wooden wagons onto the well-packed sand. At the tell-tale smoke of a couple of small cooking fires, she slipped down the ladder into a somewhat settled chaos of Arkers. The Water Folk were certainly not a raiding party if they had stopped for a leisurely picnic.
“Where have you been?” Octavia snapped at her, ushering her through the throng towards their secret shelter at the perimeter of camp.
Clarke’s eyebrows flew up at the peevish tone, but said nothing. An answer was clearly not required if the way Octavia was impatiently tugging her towards their hideout was any indication. They clambered through the stack of clay bricks behind the log-store and Clarke startled abruptly.
“Hi.” She stared into deep mocha eyes that usually held such warmth and was struck by the way Raven had seemed to age since they last saw each other close up.
“Hey.” Clarke replied, a little uncertain, but trying to put as much love as she could into the greeting. Even if Clarke would never forgive herself, repairing her massacred friendship with Raven was on the top of her priority list.
Octavia settled Clarke down on the wide log they had dragged over as a seating area, and Octavia wiggled in until Raven and Clarke made room for her too. “Have you seen it? What does it look like? Who was there? What happened?” Octavia bombarded her with excited questions.
For a moment, Clarke felt a wash of relief as it felt so good to have Octavia back with her instead of moping despairingly at Lincoln’s too-still side. Perhaps their new normality wasn’t so bad after all.