Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 14: Polis Brutality

There is something comforting about walking through Polis with Clarke by her side. Perhaps Lexa should instead be training the Natblidas or continuing to work on the trade agreements, but she cannot stop herself from claiming this time for her own happiness.

Lexa knows there will never be a day they owe nothing more to their people – this is a beautiful fiction. However, there will be minutes, hours, even days she can steal for herself. She would not have stolen so much time from her duties in the previous world, but when she lay dying there she did not think of her people. She thought of Clarke.

Perhaps when she dies in this world it will be the opposite – she will regret wasting so much time with Clarke, and wish she had worked harder for her people – but Lexa doubts it.

"We're up to Bellamy, finally," Clarke says, checking her list.

She's been waiting for them to reach him, tense with worry. Octavia, trailing behind them with the guards, perks up a little.

Most of their stops so far have been quick but boring – Lexa has watched Skaikru learning how to plant seeds, Skaikru learning the correct stance for fighting, Skaikru learning how to hold a bow for hunting, and Skaikru learning basic chores such as cleaning cloth, among others. A few appear to already have skills in things such as planting, but the majority have a skill level far below their years. However, Gustus appears to have chosen people well (Lexa is glad his last duty directly serving her has been so successful). Those with Skaikru apprentices or Sekons seem more inclined to amusement than anger about their charges' incompetency.

When the Skaikru were gun-wielding invaders who destroyed a village and might be allied with the Maunon, they were a threat. Coming from the stars, they seemed distant and enigmatic, their ways alien, closer to the Mountain than their own. But now the Trikru see them as children, barely capable, and this means the strangeness of their ways is seen as funny instead of something to be feared.

And the Skaikru seem to be dealing well too – Lexa has waited outside for most of the checks, but has still seen a boy named Miller scowling in concentration as he learns how to perform a basic punch. She has seen a girl named Monroe kneading bread like it personally offends her. She has seen a girl named Harper examining a basic hunting bow as if it is something rare, a boy named Jones sharpening a blade like it's something precious. They seem to desperately want to learn, to be useful, to contribute. This is not a view she has had of the Sky People before.

Lexa greets the hedticha respectfully, then asks "Where are Bellamy kom Skaikru and his class?" She knows her voice cools on Bellamy's name; she cannot help it, but nevertheless almost feels guilt when this makes Clarke look concerned and Octavia confused.

Clarke does not like that Lexa distrusts some of her people. Perhaps she fears Lexa will take a more permanent approach to dealing with them, which is something Lexa has considered. Clarke insists that in this world, they will not be threats. Perhaps this is true, but Lexa cannot live as though the other world never existed. For her, it did. It is not about blame or anger, certainly not about revenge, but instead about the potential danger they bring to her people. That danger still exists.

Unthinkingly, she touches her hand to the pouch Indra gave her.

Not yet.

"Through there, Heda," the man points, and Lexa nods and walks in the direction indicated. There, behind the building, Bellamy sits on the ground in a circle with nearly a dozen Trikru children, all so focused they don't even look up as Lexa and the others reach them. They look perhaps seven, too young to know much gonasleng at all, and Lexa wonders how Bellamy has been teaching them without sharing more than a few words in each of their languages.