OUT OF MIND² ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈: Day 46

If possible, Indra looks even more displeased.

The bunker is an underground labyrinth of chilling corkscrew corridors that snake between slabs of bedrock, walls carved of glaring shadows and knife-sharp promise. A serpent of darkness. Yellowing lights flicker overhead, casting a sickly glow upon everyone that they pass; Lyra's eyes water if she looks at them for too long. She holds her backpack straps tighter in her fists, wishing that she was anywhere but here.

"Osleya kom Wonkru!"

Both Skaikru girls flinch around in synchrony and there, standing along the stone-cut wall, is Niylah, her honey-hair unusually lank, tousled around her cheeks. Clothed in a bizarre assortment of Grounder and Skaikru garb, she looks almost as if she's trying to make a political statement through fashion, which is laughable. She's smiling at Octavia teasingly and Octavia's mouth really does curve upwards. For the first time in a while, Lyra snorts.

"Stop," says Octavia, cheeks going pink.

"Look what I found." Niylah reveals a withered book tucked into the breast of her cloak, holding it out. "I know Bellamy used to read you the parts about Ancient Rome."

It's a copy of The Iliad ━━ the only one left, actually. The same one Lyra had stolen from Mount Weather a long, long time ago.

A bit of lightning seers white-hot against her eyes. She sucks in a sharp breath.

"I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities." Octavia's fingers trace the soot-stained page and there is something like regret lingering in her features. "Thank you."

I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities ━━ the words ring in Lyra's head as they continue their journey to the assembly. She wonders what they had meant to Bellamy. She wonders what they had meant to the author whose blood lives on in the ink marking those pages.

"We're sparring tomorrow," Octavia says casually to Lyra. "Right?"

Lyra makes a face. "No way. I hate training."

"That's because you always lose."

"Obviously!" Lyra splutters indignantly. "I don't think you'd be lining up to get the shit beat out of you, either!"

"Maybe if you actually tried, you wouldn't get the shit beat out of you." Octavia rolls her eyes. "Plus, you'd probably suck at fighting, like, a little bit less."

"Fuck you," Lyra mutters.

Octavia tosses her a smirk. "Only if you ask nicely."

Gaia is waiting for them at the entrance to the chamber, standing in the doorframe with her soot eyebrows arched as high up as they can go.

"Great." A grimace crawls across Octavia's face as she quickens her pace. "Here we go again — complain to your mother."

Before Gaia can even attempt to berate Octavia, the supposedly merciless Heda has disappeared into the chamber. Lyra hangs behind for but moment and regards Gaia with distaste; the religious girl seems more like a Flame fanatic than anything else by now, imposing and draped in Fleimkepa robes as she stares her mother down. While the clans go restless and old hatreds fester like wounds that never properly healed, Gaia has stayed silent and let murmurs of Octavia's inability to lead grow louder and louder in the shadows. Her reasoning is simple enough; the order of the Flame will apparently never support a red-blooded Commander.