archenemy | clexa

twenty nine

It's like the next day is a slap into Lexa's face. Maybe, her life is like the forest that burned, consumed by Clarke's fire and left in a black nothing. Maybe, the next day is trying to show Lexa that she should let her fingers from Clarke. Maybe, it's just underlining Clarke's words about her very finite life, her mortality.

Battle is more cruel than ever. It's icy. There's only white and red now, some blue from frozen limbs, and Lexa fights her way through the weather and her enemies with all the force she can bring up. Her swords are drenched in a thick, dark red and so are her gloves, her fingers beneath, but she doesn't care.

It's not until someone shoots a well-aimed arrow into the only weak point of her horse's armor that things go really downhill. Lexa's eyes snap up when the animal beneath her stumbles and she sees a flash of the face she had pushed into very back of her mind.

Of course. Costia is the only one who knows about all her armors and those of her horses, the Achilles heels of each and every one.

The slope is there before Lexa can save herself. Her cheek connects with hard ice and she squints her eyes together as she slips down the unexpected hill. To avoid the injury she got last time, Lexa lets go of her swords instinctively and shields her body from the hard crash she experiences at the end. Snow has wettened her armor, slipped inbetween the cracks to make her particularly uncomfortable. The sharp ice has cut her fingers and her cheek and she grunts when she gets up, immediately looking for her swords while reaching for her spare dagger.

"Lexa," from behind her. Lexa turns around and goes into defensive position. Costia sits high upon her white horse, hiding well in the snow, matching her bright hair and the icy blue of her eyes.

She must've planned this. "Here to kill me off for good?" Lexa spits, knowing damn well that Costia, despite being strong and skilled, has nothing against Lexa herself.

"I came to talk."

"Oh really. Convenient." A part of Lexa hopes secretly that this is the point where Costia reveals that it's all been a plan, that she smuggled herself into Azgeda to help Lexa.

"Lexa," again. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"You're sorry?"

"Yes. I had no choice."

"I think you had every choice. And you made it in favor of jewelry and being spoiled and having an Azgedan prince for a boyfriend."

"I did, but that was before."

"Before?" Lexa splutters, and it lets a part of her surprise show that she'd rather have covered up. "How long have you-"

"Since the beginning."

"So none of it was real? Nothing? I can't- I should have never trusted you."

"No, you shouldn't have. I wish you would've walked away. I cared, okay? I got to know you and I was supposed to spy on you and leave you at the time I did, but then I began to care. I began to love, Lexa. And I'm so sorry that I set us up for this ending from the start."

"Oh shut up. I was never enough for you, I think you've made that clear. You never knew how to look at me and accept."

"But- you never... You always felt loved, didn't you? You wouldn't have loved me like you did otherwise, you wouldn't have- what, you realized now? That not all of it- Why would you realize now? What-" Costia's expression falters for a moment, interrupts her stuttering that's in her usual genuine voice, one that Lexa wants to be convinced is manipulating her but one that digs right into the soft spot of her heart instead. "Someone else does it now? Loving you?"

And suddenly, it's Lexa's turn to falter, although she does so much more invisibly than Costia.

Clarke does not love her. She hates her. She's Lexa's archenemy. She does not love, she does not love, she does not love.

The echo of that truth fades and another presents itself. The rich blue in Clarke's eyes, void of anything sharp, anything hateful, overflowing with softness and kindness. Soft, only slightly marked hands in Lexa's. A kiss stolen at night, to comfort a nightmare, like a sheep cloud on a warm summer day. The kiss Lexa gave Clarke first, in bright daylight, sat on the bathroom floor inbetween war and pain and confusion and a water bowl colored red. A tug at Lexa's heart whenever Clarke cuddled up closer in her sleep, sighing unconsciously.

Clarke, saving Lexa's life, risking her own.

Costia would not have. Costia, her girlfriend of two years that swore to die by her love, fled instead. Costia, the woman who claimed to love Lexa and claims to have it done now again, would have run.

Why didn't Clarke? Why didn't Clarke, when she does not love Lexa, when she is not obliged to her as Heda, when she is in no commitment, when she would have even profited off her enemy's death?

Why did she stop? Would Lexa have? Would Lexa have seen that gold of Clarke's hair and thought of saving before all else?

Perhaps Lexa is not as all-knowing as some of her people believe her to be. Perhaps Lexa has a lot of questions to search answers for, but the one that presents itself above all else is;

If what Lexa and Clarke are consumed by, late at night and all those hidden moments at day, isn't love, then what is it? What on Earth is it? Does Clarke possess any divine powers that allow her to create unearthy feelings? Confusing feelings?

Lexa doesn't know. She's glad that Costia interprets the silence in her own way.

"Oh, okay, there is someone else. Um- you deserve that. Just don't get hurt again."

And suddenly, all the confusion fades and is replaced by pure anger. That's better. Lexa is more familiar with that.

"Who the fuck do you think you are to tell me not to get hurt? Sitting there on your horse in your pretty 'armor' fighting this war from the bed of your pretty prince, being the one who fucked with me for two years! What the hell is wrong with you? Whatever you're trying to manipulate me into, fuck off before I kill you."

"Fine. I can only tell you sorry, you don't have to accept it. I wouldn't have either. Let me just tell you that it was inevitable, that I regretted it but that I couldn't make a different choice once I made the first one. There's something you don't know about this war, Lexa. If you won't let me explain myself, at least listen to that, please. There's... there's hate behind it, different to what you think. It's all different than you think."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to distract me? Another fucking war crime about to happen, is it? Because my patience is stretching. One more fuck-up on your side, and I'll send my army into your castle and murder each and every one of you. I'll put your jewelry and your boyfriend in your grave, no worries."

"I'm not the only one with another motive. That's all I can tell you."

And then, she turns the horse around and leaves Lexa standing there straining with anger, with distrust, with a certain hopelessness that has been spreading in her veins like a virus.

Fuck that statement, it's like saying that she could trust no one when the only one she can't trust is Costia. It's not true. It can't be. Lexa is enduring enough, she can't have someone else betraying her. No one would dare. If Costia ever does this again, Lexa decides she will capture her and murder her with a 1000 cuts at least. That will set an example, and finally shut Costia up.

She won't make Lexa delusional and paranoid. She won't.

Lexa tries to hold onto that thought as she finds her way back to camp, much after dark, meeting nothing but another situation that is pushing everything into the worse. She is going to lose her sanity.

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