archenemy | clexa

thirteen

Lexa wakes up late. The rest of all the hours she slept is heavy in her every limb and she turns over completely sated. Her body stretches out over the whole bed and for the few seconds inbetween sleep and being awake, she feels more peaceful than she has in a very long time.

Then, memories of last night start to flood her mind and her eyes pinch together as she groans.

Fuck.

The bed is long cold now, the passion and heat of last night gone, and Lexa wishes she could say it feels like a feverdream now, but if she's honest with herself, each memory of last night is clear as a summer sky despite the alcohol.

The first, innocent, polite question if Lexa would like a drink. Other, faceless warriors asking her the same before it was Clarke again. The request to dance, the way she wrapped Lexa around her little finger, those eyes, that risk of holding the Heda so close, the pure hunger in her movements- oh fuck. Lexa needs to stop thinking about it.

She doesn't know how she could possibly be aroused by a memory, but her mind inevitably moves on in the timeline of last night and she feels that pleasant agony in her lower stomach when she thinks about the way Clarke looked, moved, sounded, beneath Lexa and on top of her, playing a game Lexa was bound to lose.

If there was no war, if there weren't two wars, and if Lexa didn't have the willpower she does have, she would have called the guards to find her the only woman right now whose body Lexa would kneel for if she'd have to.

The guards, though, appear to be busy with other things one way or another, because only minutes after Lexa wakes up, voices are raised in the camp and noises of chaos erupt.

Seconds later, Indra rushes into the tent alongside two guards. "Heda-" Indra starts, but cuts herself off when she finds her Heda's naked body stretched out over the bed, only hardly covered by furs.

"Haven't you heard of knocking, Indra?"

The woman has turned around and so have the guards, but she speaks with the same urgency. "Heda, the camp is empty."

"What do you mean the camp is empty?"

"They have taken the food, weapons and hostages last night. The medical tent is raided. We have nothing but our people, Heda."

Lexa rushes to get dressed and only has little time to notice the marks on her breasts, stomach and thighs before she hurries to make herself a picture of the camp.

Indra was right, they are left with near to nothing, and Lexa is torn between boiling of anger and sacking with defeat. She chooses rational thinking instead, and reinforces the wall around the deimeika while taking the rest of her warriors to guard the camp.

Then, she gets back into her tent and thinks, plans, whatever might bring this damned situation one step further. Against Indra's wishes, she stays alone, without the endless advices on this and that that the clan leaders have to offer her that in the end will get her nowhere after all.

It's the next day when the sun is starting to set and Lexa takes a breath of fresh air outside her tent that she has the first idea that doesn't involve countless deaths. The first idea that's endlessly reckless, endlessly shameful and yet could be the best of them all.

She calls two ambassadors, assings them a message and sends them towards the deimeika. Indra doesn't have time to even ask what's going on before they're already gone. An hour later, they're back with a new message.

And so it comes. The stolen weapons, soldiers, healers and help of Gods against peace, Lexa's land, food, knowledge and life in comradeship with Lexa's people.

A feeble promise of an alliance. A dangerous act, one that might get them all killed, or one that might just save them from it. An agreeement waiting to be betrayed.

Lexa wishes she could go to sleep that night, but she stays up outside of her tent instead, just to look out that the Gods from the sky aren't going to burn down her camp in the hours to come.

Early in the morning, they prepare the abandoned tents of Azgeda for the Sky People. The deimeika doesn't seem like it could move very well, but moving is crucial if they're going to march against Azgeda.

Some warriors aren't convinced of her idea at all, but they also know that in times of as much struggle as this, they cannot distrust their Heda. So all day, everyone works towards the evening. Then, the bonding ceremony will take place, like Lexa had informed the Sky People when proposing the alliance.

It's busy and loud in camp due to that, but Lexa would much rather have some silence and calm. She doesn't like the idea of Skaiprisa in her camp, she hates the imagination of the divine princess even at the other end of it with hundreds of tents between them, but she supposes she could live with it for her people.

She won't, though. Skaiprisa will not be at the other end of the camp, because the traditional bonding protocol for an alliance as risky as this one says that the two bonding leaders must undergo certain stages of mutual trust. One of these stages suggest that the leaders, as leading a war together, must share a living space.

Lexa would love to throw that 'suggestion' right back where it came from, but she's reasonable enough to listen to Anya for once. She's responsible of the protocol because Indra refused to be, and according to her, it's impossible for the Heda to distrust someone and then expect her people not to do the same.

Against Lexa's will, that sounds reasonable. She knows it does, she has lived with each of the clan leaders in shared chambers for a week, but that was something entirely different. The clan leaders aren't Gods, the clan leaders were never her archenemy, and also, they had shared chambers. Not a single tent. They had had a bed for themselves, obviously, but now Lexa is supposed to share hers with a lethal Goddess?

"Heda, you know we cannot make a second bed now. It also simply wouldn't fit into your tent. Yours is big enough," Anya says decisively and Lexa only lets her say it like that because Anya is almost a friend.

"If she kills me, the guards are to kill her and her people with a thousand cuts each upon finding out," she orders dismissively.

"Yes, certainly Gods will let that happen," Anya mutters but Lexa does not want to think about the possibility of the Sky People being immortal right now. "I want to speak with you about the bonding ceremony tonight, we need to be on guard and prepared to show them that we have clear ways and they cannot bend them however they want. It's supposed to have the character of a celebration, so that-"

"The people will be pleased by the alliance. I know."

"Good. So. You and Skaiprisa will agree to the alliance and its terms to start off with. There will be a celebration that you may start with a dance and then, the will be the feast. Towards the end of the night, you will leave with her."

Lexa doesn't argue because she knows Anya is right, but that doesn't make her very personal irritation any smaller. This whole situation is just less than optimal and that she has practically surrendered to the Sky People only tops the whole thing. So what if she's irratable.

"So get everything in order," she demands. "I want things to be done in this camp in three hours maximum."

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