Ground Down

Chapter 39

He had fucking gagged her. Her tied hands made her unable to go anywhere except where he was dragging her, and the gag saw to her being unable to make his life hell for that. Anymore. Which was probably why he had gagged her in the first place. 

Clarke glared daggers at Roan's back. If looks could kill, she would long have walked over his corpse and turned back towards the ice palace hours ago. They were trekking through Azgeda, that wasn't her fucking problem, her fucking problem was that the ice palace lay two day's worth of walking north-westwards from her position and they were eastbound along the fucking border. Or more like towards the fucking border. Which meant they were fucking heading back towards Trikru territory and she sure as flying heck wasn't down for that, but Roan didn't care. He hadn't cared when he had knocked her out cold, he hadn't cared when she had come to hanging over his shoulder like a sack of flour, he hadn't cared when she had yelled at him and cussed him out and voiced her opinions in all other ways she knew, he had just rolled his eyes and gagged her, and he still didn't care that she yanked on her restraints with every odd few steps he made her take. 

It mainly just chafed away on her wrists, he had a death-grip on that damn rope, and apparently weeks of involuntary boot-camping in the forest hadn't rendered her strong enough to even annoy him. He scanned their surroundings like a vulture, head up, neck long, turning, turning. She wanted to pluck out his feathers and blunt his beak. Maybe he wouldn't have to do that and probably cause himself an awfully stiff neck if he weren't leading them down a wildly exposed river bank flanked by lots and lots of fucking trees that lots and lots of over-eager savages could be hiding behind. 

Pebbled riverbed. Stones. Clarke let her shoulders drop and her head lol, deliberately stumbled into her restraints. Roan wasn't looking. He just yanked on her to pull her forwards as if she were one of those toys children could drag behind themselves on little wheels. Clarke shot the back of his head her dirtiest glare, and let herself drop sideways onto the shore. Ow. Fuck, the stones were hard. Eyes closed, she felt them for a bigger one to grab, used Roan pulling on the rope to hide it in between her palms. Above her, Roan groaned. His weight caused the pebbles to crunch against each other, he probably turned, yanked on the rope again and she let her hands dangle from it as limply as the stone in between them allowed. 

"Get up!" Roan yanked on her so hard her body got dragged forwards a rather painful inch. 

Clarke bit her tongue. He muttered to himself, steps crunching closer, a boot connected with her shoulder and she let herself get flopped to her back from the impact. Roan huffed through his teeth. 

"The great Wanheda-" he crouched, his belt ruffled with him digging through the supplies dangling from it- "she's human after all."

Well, what else would she fucking be? Clarke swallowed the tension before it could show on her face, held still as he pushed one hand under her neck to tilt her head up, the edge of a waterskin met her lips and she slammed the stone down on his head as hard as she fucking could. Roan made a face as if someone had told him there were no more muffins even though he had wanted one for breakfast, he didn't even twitch, and then he yanked her up by the collar. Clarke choked, legs kicking, thrashing against him, screaming into the gag, her tied hands missed him once, twice, he just folded himself out of her way, steadily pushing her backwards, and then water clashed cold and hard above her head and she was choking on liquid ice shooting up her nostrils. 

And she still couldn't swim. Not that anyone could swim with their hands tied. Clarke struggled up to her knees, Roan kicked her over with one disinterested boot to the shoulder, she hit the river sideways, bubbles blurry all in front of her face, muscles seizing into the water's cold grip on her, she thrashed against it, her body twisted, she felt her stomach graze the riverbed and pulled her legs in as hard as she could. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't fucking breathe! He treated her like a football again before she could amend that, Clarke strained to keep her mouth closed around the gag, strained to keep her lungs from filling with water, trying to twist herself around in the blur of water around her but probably just managed to wiggle in place like a demented worm.