the orphan king

land fall

Drake hid in the bushes as his prey leaned down to nibble at the grass. With silent movements he slowly pulled his bow taunt and the arrow barely trembled as he aimed and after a half second he fired. The arrow moved in a blur as it passed clean through the deer causing it to jerk in pain as it ran a few paces. Its side bled freely and quickly, as the deer tried to find what had harmed it but instead felt its legs begin to give out and fell down feebly.

Drake stepped out of the brush and walked carefully toward the deer before kneeling next to it as it huffed softly at the ground. Carefully he laid a hand on its neck as he shoved his knife between the deer's ribs and pierced its heart.

"Good boy." Drake whispered as he sighed and with practiced ease he began skinning the deer and began to think.

It had been a long six months since he had landed and every day he was on the ground he spent making his way to this place. During the reentry process something had gone wrong and Drake quickly found that he did not land anywhere near the approximated distance from Mt. Weather. In fact he was pretty sure he had landed on the West Coast in what used to be California. Instead of panicking and giving up hope he dug deep within and began his long journey with a month's supply of rations and only three days' worth of water.

He had found survivors on the third day and on that same day he had killed four of them. He hadn't felt right for a week but in that time his kill count had gone up five more and by that point he couldn't have cared. The journey had taken him across 2, 648 miles of hell itself. Between the radiation storms, mutated animals and insects, the environment, and of course the surviving humans themselves; Drake had been beaten, poisoned, stabbed, radiated, tortured, burned, and drowned; but against all odds he stood here just twenty miles away from Mt. Weather.

Although to be fair, the world hadn't been one long horror story after another. He had met friendly clans, had found comfort in the warm embrace of more than his fair share of women, and had seen things the people on the Ark could never have dreamed of, both the good and the bad.

Drake rubbed at a scar on his cheek that extended from the bottom of his left eye down to his chin and he swore he could still feel the blade that had sliced him. He had received it from a slaver's blade and had used the same blade to disembowel the man and leave him grasping at his entrails. The memory was full of blood and smoke and he pushed it away with a mental shove as he prepared the deer's body for transport.

Without warning, the sky seemed to crack open as a man made object streaked across the sky.

"Oh no." Drake whispered as it fell toward the ground and onto the outskirts of unknown territory for him.

Drake turned from the deer and even left the skin on the ground as he began to run back to a small cave where his gear was stashed. Eventually the Grounders would investigate the site and he knew it would be sooner rather than later. By that time he'd be lucky if there wasn't a war being waged, a war he knew his side would lose.

***Two Days later***

Drake had run all day, night, and a good part of the morning when he first spotted them. A group of five teens from the Ark stood across from the side of the river he was on. To his surprise he saw a familiar streak of blonde hair and as he saw her he felt his blood go cold.

"Clarke, what are you doing here?" He whispered to himself as he watched a lanky teen grab hold of a vine.

With a scream of fear and excitement the teen pushed himself off the ledge and swung halfway across the river before letting go and landing heavily onto Drake's side. When Drake turned back however, that is when he saw them in the trees. Without even thinking about it Drake exploded from his cover and sprinted toward the teen who had picked up a rusted sign and cheered.