Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 128: Reunited

Anya makes a little warning noise in the back of her throat as Lexa guides her steadily cantering horse between two narrowly set trees and over a thick branch. The horse, a sturdy mare Lexa has ridden often over the years, does not even slow. "Heda," Anya says, voice a little higher-pitched than normal with annoyance, beginning to fall behind on her own horse, and Lexa sighs and pulls gently on the reins, allowing Anya to pull beside her again.

"You should not risk yourself like that," Anya says severely. "If you had reopened your wound, or if the horse had tripped -"

"You used to race me down these pathways," Lexa points out. She wants to keep at the faster speed. The forest is beautiful, the trip has been lovely, the hunt was challenging, but Clarke is in Polis and Clarke is more beautiful and lovely and challenging than anything her forests can provide. Evening is already upon them and she wants to be home. They have furs enough in their bulging packs to swathe whole rooms in them, though they left the meat as a gift for the nearest village in each place.

Her left arm aches. It is much weaker than it used to be. She could not pick up a sword in it now. She could not even hold a dagger steady, let alone throw it. It is difficult just to hold the reins – she is lucky this horse is obedient and used to her and has a soft mouth. But Abby says her shoulder wound is healing at a very fast rate, faster than she's ever seen, and she does not believe it will reopen now. Perhaps Lexa will never be as strong or fast in a fight again, not even when she has healed as completely as she ever will – but on a horse, on this horse at least, she can still move just as quickly, just as recklessly. The feeling of speed and strength is a joy. The feeling of returning to Clarke, even more so.

Anya sniffs. "In my foolish youth."

Lexa's lips quirk slightly, the ghost of a smile. "You were around the age I am now."

"Exactly," Anya says, an answering smile lighting up her face. "Foolish youth."

"Whereas now you have become staid and settled," Lexa says provokingly. "Responsible."

"No," Anya says haughtily. "Wise. Clever. Cunning." She steers her horse so that she is slightly ahead of Lexa, then in one fluid movement spurs it into full gallop, calling back, "And that is why I shall win!"

Lexa laughs, and digs her heels into her mare's sides, sending it after Anya's full speed along forest paths she raced when she was as young as Tris and as silly as a Skaikru. Back then she wished for the forest to be her home. She felt part of them, connected to them, a Trikru to her core. But she never once considered doing as Luna did and vanishing into a different life – even when she was Lexa kom Trikru, she thinks some part of her soul was waiting to be Heda.

Just as it waited for Clarke.

She was incomplete, without the Flame. Her people were incomplete without the alliance to join them together. The alliance was incomplete without the Skaikru, though they did not know it, and were being steadily chipped away by the cruelty of the Mountain and the spite of Nia. Now as Lexa races through the forest she is not missing those pieces any more. She is not part of just the forest, but so much more. Tomorrow, she will receive her last piece, her soul finally whole and healed, her love by her side and in her arms and inked onto her skin.

Anya beats her to the marker they used to use, but only just, and they are both laughing when they slow the heavily-breathing horses. Lexa leans forward to pat hers with her right hand, her laughter fading to a small smile. She thinks she has smiled more in the past week than she did in her whole life before that. "Mochof," she says to Anya softly.

Anya raises her eyebrows. "For defeating you, yongon? You are very welcome -"

"For giving me something I would not have had otherwise," Lexa says simply. "Not just a Fos. A childhood. A sister. A friend."