archenemy | clexa

seven

Lexa sits on her mighty, black horse proudly. Her red veil flows in the light breeze and her eyes reflect the rain of fire far away, behind the safety of the treeline in the woods by the demeika, sun, home of Skaiprisa's people.

Lexa thought that Skaiprisa wanted one thing; win over her people. She doesn't kill those who don't attack her first because she wants the people to know that if they obey her, they live. She's smart like that, she's manipulative like that. The reports about her have been all the same- a clever, fast-moving woman, sly, deadly. A goddess, a curse.

And she's told to be beautiful.

Of course she is. The princess of the sky and stars- how could she not be told to be beautiful? All the sparkle and glamor of the stars, all the angelic charms of white clouds and all the sleek danger of thunderstorms- she embodies it. 

Lexa knows she's right about Skaiprisa, but she was wrong about her intentions.

When the deimeika came to Earth, the sky downright glowed. Like a fire it burned, its embers flanking a large fireball and it looked like the sun was crashing. The stars were rid of their existence by the blinding brightness, so much different to Skaiklaka- bone of a star, home of Skaiprisa.

So Lexa knows, her people know. There's no new Becca, no one sent by the Gods- Skaiprisa was sent by no one other than Death. Maybe she is death, maybe it's beautiful and dangerous like that, maybe her lethal hands hold the strings of life.

Wanheda, adapts to be her new name, her second nature. Skaiprisa is the Heda of Death, the dark Commander, and it infuriates Lexa. Not ever would she give up her territory, her forest, her people, for anyone. No deity, no angel, no ghost, not even death.

So her army's fire arrows burn the deimeika down, try to, at least, because while the grass around it flares up, nothing changes with the deimeika itself. She supposes the sun cannot burn.

Instead, they catapult fist-sized balls into the legion, which explode like stars on contact. They scare away horses, kill man after man, and Lexa calls for a retreat only when they start firing their fayogon- firearm- again and it becomes obvious that Lexa needs a better plan, something to beat Skaikru right in the face, to beat death with her name imprinted on the victory.

-

Lexa fails with five battle plans. Five battles are short-lived, five battles are met with far too many losses on her side and none on the other and five times, the day ends in a bad-tempered rage.

Costia is a single blessing during those times. When Lexa comes home to their tent covered in dirt and blood, tense jaw and white knuckles, the vein by her temple pulsing, Costia is just there. She's quiet, busy with this and that while Lexa rants, planting soft kisses here and there with no further intention.

Lexa appreciates the calm, the peace after each of her progressively worse days.

"Is there nothing you can do?" sounds so much sweeter from her mouth than it does from anyone else's.

"I can try," Lexa rasps, voice strained from speeches and war cries, fingers calloused beneath the cloth Costia uses to wash her hands. "Fights are useless, and that fact might spread panic once it becomes obvious. I thought about something before, but it's as good as any plan."

"Thought about what?"

"Starving them. I have enough warriors, we're the great majority. If I make a human wall around the deimeika with enough distance, we're going to see if they need food and water."

Costia moves the cloth up Lexa's bare arm, kneeling besides the tub and pressing a kiss on Lexa's shoulder. Just like that, she moves on from the topic. She doesn't question, she doesn't argue. She's just there and kisses it okay.