In themonths she has spent with feet nestled in the ground, with blood scraping ineyes and mottled under each ragged jaw of cloth that snapped in vicious intent,she has learned that want and NEED are different—just like on the Ark, they survive at all costs.
Weakness is obsolete—having been torn from the throats with human teeth, with rigid and tapered incisors that steep themselves in blood for the sake of their survival, but it is calloused and harsh against Clarke’s skin; she has flexed behind its shield in the missile strike, and in hoods when they hid, calculating, watching—watching as the billowed smog wheezed and coughed over Ton DC, and swallowed its people whole—
And yet she is haunted by the fire that seeped into torpid flesh.
‘ I trust you, Lexa. ’ And perhaps it is that trust which spurs the settling panic broiling in her veins; if the alliance is broken, if it shatters in her palms with the visage of hope, her people will suffer, will BURN in their hysteria, from leaping from one war, wounded, smattered, embellished with the coarse swaddle of ice in freshly numbed veins, into another. Perhaps it is the trust that has been shattered time and time again—from her mother, to Wells, to Finn, to misplaced and mistreated naivety, that only twists and works and forges the steady cusp of her finger nestled against a trigger indefinitely.
‘ What will we do? ’ A question she had long thought of—long planned on the lilt of her tongue yet never sputtered it from between her lips—a question of intimacy, of the rouse that thrums in her chest, only testing, only slight ( for she does not know if it is still Finn that shuffles in her penumbra, or if it is loss, adaption, survival that plagues her ) yet she almost breaks with need to know—to sate whatever curiosity has lolled beneath languid waves.
trust is a dangerous commodity. lexa keeps hers tucked
away beneath her breast, secured beside her heart, as
though she worries it will be stolen; as though she worries
for what she would do with it if she carried it in her hand.
trust is dangerous. a good warrior, anya told her once -- long ago, when
she was only her second -- trusts completely in the orders she is given,
but not in the mouths that give them. a good commander, anya told her
once -- not too long ago, as she prepared to journey to polis to officially
rise to her role -- trusts in her warriors to stand at her back, but never to
stand at her side.
( i do trust you, clarke. )
her lips part, breath drawn to reply, though she
does not know what to say -- and then clarke
asks another question, and her calm inhalation
becomes a hitched breath.
she has made her intentions clear. damn her, she did not want this;
has not wanted this since costia. but despite how loathe she is to
love, every moment draws her closer to clarke. she doubts if she
could retreat to safety if she tried.
(she did not want this) she has made her intentions clear.
(she did not want this) she has already given up.
(she did not want this) she has already given in.
it is clarke who stopped her, not her own misgivings.
clarke who is not ready; clarke who still mourns the
boy she spared, still wears his blood on her hands
like gloves. he never would have deserved her. but
lexa understands. she looks at her and longs, for the
first time in a long time, for proximity, for nearness;
but she will not stand close to her if clarke does not
want her to. she will not take a step.
she is stumbling blind, grasping for something unknowable, and with four words
she relinquishes control. she has already given up -- she has already given in.
