Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 120: Rules of Engagement

Lexa has stopped to speak with Anya on the way back to the house when she first becomes aware that something has happened. Skaikru stop in the streets to look at her. The Trikru guards standing near the missile stay in position but their focus seems to have shifted. It is not the awed glances they gave to her before, stunned to discover that she was alive, but instead something – more personal, somehow. Something knowing.

Anya notices it too and breaks off in mid-sentence to scowl at the nearest Skaikru. "Well? What is it you want, Skayon?" she snaps.

The Skaikru woman flushes and gives a sort of half-bow. "I just... I just wanted to congratulate you, Commander," she stutters. "I hope you'll be very happy." Then she gives another odd bow and scurries away.

Anya looks after her, perplexed. "Was that... was that about killing the Azplana? It did not seem..."

One of the men on the council, Fuji, steps in front of Lexa. He smiles at her. "Congratulations, Commander! I hope you'll consider holding the ceremony here, but I understand the capital might be more appropriate -"

"You're about the age I was when I married my Rosie," another man nearby talks over him. He's elderly and hunched over, but gives Lexa a very sweet smile. "Most wonderful day of my life. Congratulations to you, and please pass my congratulations on to Clarke as well."

"Heda?" Anya hisses. She blinks, then her gaze slides down to Clarke's father's watch and she goes blank with the realisation. "You... is that..."

"I have been wearing it for months," Lexa points out quietly, nodding to the nearby Skaikru and starting to stride back towards the house.

"Yes, but Clarke kom Skaikru has one as well, one that Raven made for her! I assumed they were common among Skaikru! I did not realise it was a token!" Anya pauses to take a breath, matching her pace, and then has another realisation. "And you – you gave her – it must be the sheath. That is why I did not see it." She frowns. "But I saw you braid her hair once, after the Mountain fell. You did not braid the sheath into it -"

"Neither of us wished to wear our tokens on the day of the executions," Lexa replies, still staying quiet. She inclines her head as a nearby Skaikru calls out a congratulations. "Though to tell the truth, I am not sure Clarke even realised that they were bonding tokens at first. She needed me to confirm our promise before the Mountain."

"If they do not have bonding tokens in their culture, how can all the Skaikru know?" Anya asks, still looking shocked, although she is now smiling. Then they reach the house and both stop walking immediately. "Never mind. I think I understand now."

Abby's voice rings out perfectly audibly, cutting through the wooden walls as if they are made of cloth like a tent. "You're much too young! I won't give you permission for this!"

"I'm over eighteen now, I don't need permission!" Clarke yells back.

"Well then I won't give you approval! I won't attend! Are you really going to get married without me there?" Abby shrieks.

"Why not? I'm already getting married without Dad there! And whose fault is that?"

Lexa winces.

"I wish you the best of lives with each other," Anya says to Lexa, smiling at her. It has a wicked edge. "You, your houmon, and your houmon's nomon."

"Clarke, you're acting like a child. Marriage isn't something to take lightly!"

"I know that! Stop patronising me!"

"How long do you think they have been discussing this?" Anya wonders.