Chapter Text
The sun started to rise, tinting the dark sky, when the three healers from Polis arrived at camp. Two guards were standing on each side of the path, leading to the encampment. In the aftermath of the victory at Mt Weather, a sinister peace reigned on the tents and temporary huts. The three grounders alighted from their horses and walked to the guards. The armed men knew the young woman leading the small contingent and spoke naturally in unison.
- "Heda sis."
They withdrew for the healers path, letting them into the camp. A few warriors stood outside of their tent, most asleep, exhausted after their late return from the Mountain. The young woman walked toward a man, bended over, thoroughly cleaning his spear.
- "Heda sis" he said to her, stopping what he was doing to give her his full attention.
- ''Where is the healers tent?'' She asked him with a sweet but firm voice.
- ''A Few tents beyond the forge.'' the man grabbed his spear and indicated the right direction with it.
The woman thanked him with a nod of the head and went down to the place indicated. The other two healers, men with faces marked by the time and age, followed suit. They roamed through the makeshift shelters and arrived at the forge. Swords, spears and daggers of all shapes and sizes were piled up on a tarpaulin, waiting to receive the good care of the blacksmith. This man, back bended by the hard work of a whole life to shape the metal, looked the healers approaching without ceasing his work on the sword in front of him. The young woman looked in the distance and then turned back toward her fellow workers. She indicated the healers tent further down the hill with a sign of head and without a word, she kept on walking. His companions moved toward the tent and she quickly was out of sight. Physically, she could have been confused with the Commander. The eyes of a bright green, long brown hair tied in a long braid in the back and the strokes, slightly recalling those of Lexa. However, the resemblance ended there. Because although their kinship was evident at first glance, she hadn't this firmness, this power that could be felt in the Commander's presence. In her eyes, even if similar to Lexa's, there was this soothing calm, a reassuring balance. The young woman recognized the Commander's tent, erected in height further away in the field. When she arrived there, the man and the woman posted to the entrance lowered slightly their eyes in sign of, not submission but respect. She had no authority over them but her link with their leader imposed a profound respect.
- ''Heda sis'' they said in a firm tone.
She recognized Ryder but felt her heart tighten at the sight of the woman, posted where Gustus should have been. The young woman nodded in response and passed between them, opening the flaps covering the entrance and entered. She took in the sight in front of her. This place was all too familiar. How many times already since their young age had she visited from one battlefield to another. Behind the table, where were placed the maps and weapons, Lexa stood, her back turned on her, visibly absorbed in her thoughts. The young woman approached and gazed at the Mt Weather replica. She then walked around the table while removing a pendant from around her neck, a pendant representing the sun. Lexa turned too, removing her own medallion hidden under layers and layers of clothing. Hers sported a silver moonlight. The two young women placed their necklace in their left palm and took the hands of one another, fingers lacing together. Their foreheads touching, their noses brushing tenderly.
They remained in this position for a time. When they finally let go, each took the pendant of the other, putting it safely around their neck. This ritual, a well kept secret from childhood, was done at each reunion as well as each departure.
- ''Dria...'', sighed Lexa, returning to the table ''What are you doing here?''
- ''The Council has been informed of Gustus's death'' answered Dria, trying to control her voice.
Lexa turned to face her sister and their gaze met. After everything that had happened she hadn't had so much time to think about Gustus and his death. But right now, she felt fully his absence. She saw on Dria's face the same grief that she was not allowed to feel, the same weakness.
- ''Your place is in Polis Dria, you are the Intendant, in my absence the Council and you are in charge of the capital.'' By saying these words she turned around. She couldn't keep her sister's gaze.
- ''Gustus is no longer here, you have no longer a counselor at your sides. I'm here to take his place.''
Dria looked upon Lexa's face, stain in blood and war paint. She went to the other side of the tent where she took a basin of clear water and some clean rags. She then indicated a seat to Lexa to sit on.
- ''The war is over'' said Lexa, trying to hide the lump in her throat.
By saying these words the sight of Clarke's imploring gaze popped behind her eyelids. This blue gaze, telling Lexa that she knew only too well what was awaiting her People if the Grounders left. She tried to forget those thoughts, shaking her head slightly, avoiding the rag coming to her face to clean her up. Dria dropped the rag in the bowl of water and kneeled down in front of the Commander. She searched her eyes and when both pair of green irises met, Dria held it, waiting for a moment before speaking.
-''Remove this mask of Heda and tell me ... what happened?''
Lexa felt the tears growing in her eyes but she closed them before they could escape. She turned her head slightly to the side, avoiding Dria's gaze. Her sister jumped up and resumed her task. Lexa's face was clean from the dirt, blood and paint when she finally started to tell Dria the latter events. Each sentence was painful but even in front of her sister, Lexa could not admit what she had vowed to never feel again. She told her everything about their alliance with the Sky People, led by a girl named Clarke. How their peoples had united to fight a common enemy: the Mountain men. She told her everything up to the decision that she had to make during the battle that same night. How she had abandoned their allies to make a deal with the Mountain men, a deal tainted with the Sky People's blood. However, the only thing she didn't tell her was what Clarke really meant to her. She kept to herself this moment spend with Clarke before the battle, a time lapse where she had removed her mask in front of someone else than Dria. A time lapse where she allowed herself to feel and love... Her dear Dria to which she could not entrust this secret, to which she wanted to tell but the words were like ashes in her mouth. Dria began to untangle the Commander's long brown hair and braids to remove the leaves and twigs. Lexa stiffened to her sister's words .
-'' You made this decision with your head and not your heart didn't you?''
Those words flew around her and she couldn't say a word. There was nothing else to add. She turned back and looked Dria, eyes wet with tears. She had used the same words without Lexa telling her about it. Dria took the brunette's face between her hands and brushed her forehead against hers for the second time. God she had missed her...
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When the grounders withdrew at Mt Weather, two scouts had received the order to remain in rear, at the border of the Mountain men territory, to keep an eye on the situation. Perched high in the trees, well out of sight, they observed their troupe withdraw by hundreds. Shortly after, they saw mountain men soldiers bringing in members of the Sky People, bags on their heads. The two scouts remained there to contemplate Mount Weather, this murderous mountain which had took their People so much for nearly a century. The moon was about to disappear on the horizon when they saw the Sky People get out of the Mountain. They were progressing without rushing, bearing their wounded with them. They didn't seem victorious, nor afraid to be pursued. The scouts looked at each other and went down without a noise. Stealthily, moving like shadows, they followed. They didn't, however, trespassed the tree line bordering Camp Jaha. The Sky People was returning home, painfully, still alive and without their help. The grounders left their position and got into the woods. Every person of the Sky returned home, all except one. Clarke.
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Lexa jumped up abruptly from her seat when the guards posted outside her tent came in, followed by the returning scouts. The Commander stared at them, waiting with impatience to know the reason of this intrusion.
- ''Heda'' said the two men lowering of their head.
They approached their Commander and the larger spoke.
-''The Sky People, Heda, they left the mountain...'' he made a pause and added with a serious tone. ''They all did!''
Dria, who was still kneeling where Lexa left her a few moments earlier, jumped up while observing with interest the scouts. You could read on their faces a mixture of fear and amazement. Lexa's breathing sped up, her chest heaving quickly now and she looked at the ground, obviously processing the new information. Thinking...
They survived...She survived...
She ordered the four warriors facing her to fetch the generals for a urgent meeting.
- ''Make them all come here and do not talk about this to anyone.''
All executed themselves in an instant, leaving the twins alone. Dria walked toward the entrance when Lexa, well hidden behind her Commander's mask stopped her.
- ''Little are the warriors who returned wounded from the battle, but the ones who were captives of the Mountain will be in great need of your care. They must be prepared to return home as quickly as possible. We dwelled here for too long. We need to move'' Lexa said
Dria answered her with a nod and got out. She head to the healers tent, where she had sent Razan and Agar. As she was going, she saw the generals walking at a fast pace toward the place she just left. The Commander's tent. She looked over her shoulder while turning her necklace between her fingers. She went down the path behind the forge. What she had taken for a small healers tent was in fact the place where the little injured warriors were treated. She looked around and was surprised to see that the tents surrounding it were filled with grounders barely dressed in a strange orange blanket. It seemed served to hide them but not to keep them warm. Most were lying on makeshift beds and the rest were on the the ground. She couldn't see a single tent that did not shelter one of her people once prisoners of the Mountain. She was suddenly out of her contemplation when a large hand grabbed her shoulder. -"Heda sis " said the deep voice that she recognized immediately .
- ''Nyko'' she says with relief while their hands intertwined in sign of a deep affection.
Child, she had been sent away to learn the virtues of medicinal plants of the forest in a village too far from hers. She felt very lonely for a long time and had thought about escaping repeatedly. It is only when Nyko, young apprentice healer at the time, had taken her under his wing that she had finally started to appreciate the experience and opportunity to learn. Learn how to preserve life rather than to be trained to the remove it, like Lexa.
-''Dria, you are more than welcome'' he said, his eyes tired. His features were drawn-looking and he seemed deeply anxious. ''I will need you here, and they too'' He was now watching the tents sheltering the wounded.
-''Where are Razan and Agar?''
-''I have sent Razan over there to change dressings and Agar is dealing with a woman who has started coughing up blood.''
-''How many are they?'' she asked
-''A dozen, from all the Clans''
- ''I was talking about those who were kept alive in the mountain. How many patients?''
-''I have not counted them, there is too many. A few hundreds maybe, looking at all the tents we had to install to shelter them all.''
A loose cough and labored breathing drew their attention. An emaciated man lying on a bed of twigs and leaves was trying to spit out the blood that prevented him from breathing. Nyko and Dria looked at each other and they could read their shared doubts in their eyes. They heard the name of Nyko being called in the distance. First once, then again with insistence and a sense of urgency.
-''Go'' said Dria looking in the cry direction.
He complied and they departed in different directions. Dria made her way to the poor man who was panting now. She turned him on his side and tried to find a clean cloth to wip the blood from his mouth and chin. Almost immediately, a woman reached her and gave Dria a piece of cloth, a little too dusty to her liking, but given the circumstances, it is said that she probably could not find better. She thanked the woman with a nod of the head and wiped the bloodied face of the man. She encourage the man to spit in a basin. After long minutes, he started to breathe with less difficulty but laboriously. Dria jumped up and removed from the back of her hand, the drops of blood left by the coughing man on her face. She looked at him, in his not so white anymore binding, skin tinted with large bruises in several places. She saw him starting to shake and she looked around to see if she could find something to cover him up. The woman, still at her side, reached for her own orange blanket and gave it to Dria. The young healer took it and touched the fabric for a moment. She had never touched something like that before and knew immediately that this came from the Mt Weather. The woman, now almost naked, was tall and muscular. Her skin was pulled, sign of a recent weight loss and bad treatments.
-''I am … ''
-''Heda sis'' said the woman, interrupting Dria before she could introduced herself.
She never got used to being recognized by people that she had never seen before. Her likeness with Lexa made her glimpse what her twin sister was wearing everyday, the gaze and the responsibility of her People. Only Dria could truly imagine what it truly represented.
-''Echo'' she said then.
Dria nodded as a sign of thanks and turned away. She walked in front of the endless line of tents. She peeked inside each ones, seeking Agar. She saw him, out in the distance. He was trying to remove blood from his hands with a cloth. Dria approached Agar and when he remarked her presence, it is as if he could read her mind and her silent question. So he slowly shook his head, lowering it slightly. The young woman looked into the tent and saw a body covered by a dirty and patched sheet. Dria approached inanimate woman and uncovered her with caution. Blood splatters painted her chin and her neck. Her body was bruised, blueish, in several places. She was in the process to put the sheet back when Agar arrived behind her.
-''There are many of them coughing already, no blood for the majority, but I fear that this may be the next step'' he said it a worried tone.
-''Keep taking care of them, I will find Nyko.''
She placed her hand on his shoulder and urged him gently as a sign of encouragement. She found herself walking again among the shelters when she heard another scream filled with pain. She followed the cries and when she found the origin, she knew why Nyko had been called in as reinforcements. Two men were trying to control a grounder who was screaming his pain through the wooden piece he was biting. Nyko was busy amputating the bottom of the man's right leg. His foot was marked with a deep oozing gash. The redness around the wound went back along his leg and stopped where Nyko was attempting to cut. Dria went very close to the man and took his face between her hands. The latter immediately plunged his gaze in hers searching any kind of comfort he could get. The tears gushed out on his cheeks and crushed on the fingers of the young woman. She didn't say anything, uttered no words of encouragement, but kept her gaze focused on him. Her eyes in his eyes. After a few moments, the man closed his lids and began to breathe more regularly. Dria looked Nyko who was now swaddling the bloody end of the man's leg. The healers who were restraining the poor injured sighted deeply as if they had stopped breathing during the entire operation. They took the responsibility over the patient and Dria dragged Nyko behind the tent.
-''One day, you will have to show me how to do this'' Nyko said, already knowing the answer he would get.
-''One day perhaps.'' That is what she was saying every time, but both knew that she couldn't do so.
-''There are those things that cannot be taught'' answered Nyko for the first time. He looked into her eyes and placed his big hand on her chest, above her heart, before saying -'' Either you are born with this gift or you are cursed to seek it your entire life.''
She looked down to the ground and the ghost of a smile painted her lips briefly before she frowned.
-'' I fear that bandaging the wounds of the sick is useless... We are wasting our time to treat them on the surface.'' She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and resumed. -''The woman Agar was treating is dead. The man we saw earlier, the one coughing blood, they both had the same bruises on their body .'' She made a pause and sighed. '' Others also have loose and strong cough and i do not doubt that soon, they will spit blood as well. We are wasting our time here if we do not find what makes them so sick.''
-''The Mountain men are responsible for their actual state Dria. Do you know what they were doing to them?'' He waited for an answer that never came from the young woman's mouth so he continued. -''They were bleeding them, like beasts. The blood of ours was used to treat them. So they can live, thousands of ours ...
He stopped talking and Dria saw his jaw tighten, clenching his fists until his knuckles turn white. She had backed off a step and looked in the distance. Beyond the trees, rising up to the sky, was Mt Weather. She glared at it. Before Nyko could say anything, she took his big fist between her hands, brushing her thumbs lightly to sooth him and said firmly.
-''We are going to find a way.''
Then she was gone, leaving him to what he had to do, so much to do...However, she knew that in order to treat the injured in the camp, she had to find the origin of what was happening to them and the answers were in the deadly Mountain. Nyko did not know that it had been defeated and she could not tell him. Lexa was with the generals and she could not afford to loose more time to wait until they were done with the meeting. This could be endless and she could not interrupt them, not even her. She returned to the entrance of the temporary camp where shed had left her horse at her arrival. She took one of the bags containing clothing items attached to her horse, Java. She placed the shoulder strap across her chest and rubbed the mane of the horse before turning back toward the wounded tents. She would have liked to run in her current state but could not afford to draw attention. For what she was planning to do, it would be better if nobody noticed her absence. She went back to her first patient's tent, the one who inadvertently spat blood in her face. Echo was still at his bedside, shivering now without the orange blanket covering her naked body. Dria's eyes met Echo's and with a severe look she indicated the exit with her head.
-''You have been in the mountain with all these people'' said Dria.
Echo looked at her with attention, crossing her arms across her chest trying to shield her bare skin from the cold wind. Dria opened her bag and pulled out some clothes. She handed them to Echo, and said
-''Lead me there, where you were held.''
her voice a whisper, almost inaudible.
Dria knew what implied such a request but Echo was the healthiest of all the survivors that she crossed path with. Only she could help. Echo took the clothes while staring at her coldly.
-''The lands surrounding Mt Weather are now forbidden to us, they are theirs now. The Commander's made a deal to set us free. There is no peace between our People, they are still our enemies.
She started to walk away when Dria grabbed her by the elbow and pulled, forcing her body to face hers. Dria took a step forward looking the grounder in the eyes. They were so close now that their bodies were almost touching. She said in a whisper
-''The mountain has fallen, defeated by Sky People. '' She new the Skaikru survived and got out of the Mountain, but she did not know for sure if it was defeated. But Echo did not need to know that, at least not at the moment.
-''But... how do you know ... ?'' began Echo before being interrupted.
-''I was with the Commander when the scouts came back. She and her generals are debating on this subject as we speak and it may be our only chance to get in without anyone noticing.
Dria squeezed Echo's arm harder, tightening her grip but the young woman did not seem the least intimidated by her. Abruptly, Echo freed her arm from the healer's weak grip and grabbed Dria in a single motion.
-''I won't get farther than the outer door. I will not set a foot inside.''
Dria felt her arm going numb under Echo's fingers. She nodded frantically in sign of approval.
The sun started to rise again in the sky as the two of them left the camp, stealthily, making sure no one saw them. On the edge of the wood, Dria turned around to take a last glimpse at the grounder camp, twirling her necklace between her fingers. It was in their best interest to be back before Lexa ends her meeting with her Generals and realize they are gone. She looked at Echo, she was walking at a fast pace, rushing into the forest. Dria took a deep breath and followed her through the woods.