archenemy | clexa

seventeen

Clarke comes to the tent late that night because of having to reaffirm to her friends and mother that yes, she did in fact survive the night with the Heda. Lexa isn't in bed yet either, though. She's pacing around the tent instead and when Clarke enters, her first reaction is a glare (obviously).

"Where were you?"

"With some friends," Clarke answers calmly.

"We're in the middle of war, you can't just 'be with some friends' without telling anyone! You could've been abducted!"

"Right. That would've been so terrible to you."

"Yes, because it would turn your people against mine."

"No, it wouldn't. My people know that you can't afford to hurt me right now. I'm fine, Lexa, you can go to bed safe and sound."

There's another glare for using her name (Lexa doesn't like it, somehow, apparently she's rarely called that), but Lexa does lie down as Clarke gets ready for bed.

That night, Clarke thinks Lexa worried for no reason. The next morning, she wakes up to screams and gunshots and war cries, and she knows she was wrong.

-

Lexa tells Clarke to stay in the tent out of instinct. When a group of Azgedan warriors storm towards the tent, she protects it alongside the guards out of instinct. When Clarke comes outside armed with her firearms, Lexa pushes in front of her to stab through a man that's attacking out of instinct.

Remembrances of Costia.

"I can fight for myself," pulls her out of it. And Clarke can fight for herself. The battle is over quickly, but still Clarke doesn't get a scratch in the meanwhile.

Azgeda didn't expect Skaikru and so Lexa is hardly mad about the war crime of Ice Nation attacking the camp out of nowhere, because it brought them a much bigger disadvantage. There are only few casualties on the alliance's side, many on Azgeda's side.

What really bothers Lexa though is the fact that none of Skaikru's people got seriously hurt or died. Worse (for Lexa's pride), Skaikru protected Lexa's people. Skaikru guards covered for hers. Civilians (not all Skaikru were soldiers, after all) saved trained warriors.

Perhaps, it's for the best. The trust that Lexa's people have towards Skaikru has increased now, and that means better cooperation in fighting. But what if they ended up accepting Skaikru's reign over hers? What if they would try to overthrow her instead? What if they thought Lexa couldn't protect them as well as Clarke could?

Anger has been building up inside of her with every little and big thing that had gone wrong recently, and she is reaching a breaking point.

A godly princess has been mocking Lexa from her arrival on Earth.

She lost Azgeda.

She lost Costia, and, worse, she lost the breath of warmth Costia had kept alive inside of her heart before, turning it icy upon realizing that it must've been fake all along. Every night with Costia's fingertips on Lexa's bare skin, every morning with Lexa's muscles relaxing for once around Costia's body, every concerned thought in the back of her mind- it had torn the sky-high walls around her heart down from the top, brick by brick. Now, they were higher than ever.

Then, Azgeda attacked without warning.

She might lose her people to a bunch of deadly idiot Gods.

Perhaps the anger is covering up the grief and anxiety buried much further down, but it's doing a good job at it. The vein by her forehead pulses, her muscles are tight although she isn't fighting anymore and there is an acidicly burning coil deep in her stomach where she feels it has build an unshakable home.

Lexa wants to get out of camp. She wants to run until her ribcage closes in on her heart, until her stomach contracts and throws out the anger. She wants to train until her muscles become the primary source of pain, the primary drainer of focus, the primary matter in all the mess.

Of course, she can't. Of course the expectations that now lay on her are heavier than anything she could carry to train her arms. Of course she has to prove herself again as a leader. She cannot have Azgeda set an example. She cannot turn Skaikru into the good guys. She cannot spit on her own image of a strong and able leader.

It's the last thing she wants to do. Her anger is cursing through her veins now, it has left her stomach and clutched in on her heart, thickened her blood, and she feels it rising in a way that doesn't speak for meetings.

"Get everyone into their tents safe, no one leaves the camp. Speak to the Skaikru guards. We move tomorrow like planned. This is a mere hiccup, it is not our loss," is what she snaps at Indra, who stands in front of Lexa's (and Clarke's) tent, before dismissing her with a careless wave.

Clarke is inside the tent already and when Lexa enters and Clarke looks up, there's a sudden, hot spark in the atmosphere around them. Lexa couldn't explain it if she wanted to, but she feels it. Perhaps divinity. Perhaps anger clashing. Fire does not fight fire. Fire and fire spark an inferno.

"I thought you were prepared for the war," Clarke accuses her immediately and Lexa glowers.

"Oh, that's right, I'm supposed to be prepared for anything anytime. Heda, this is your job, Heda, why did you let that happen, Heda, why are you too incompetent to fail looking into the future, Heda, you should be able to do this, Heda, why are you human? You're supposed to be the goddamn Gods, Clarke! You're from the stars and the sun and yet you cannot foresee a warcrime. None of your people even died!"

"It doesn't matter, they could have! Your people are warriors, each and every one of them are here by their decision or your order, being paid! They're grown, trained adults! We were promised food and water and land in exchange for guns and soldiers, not the risk of civilians! There are pregnant women in this very camp, babies, children, elderly and sick, because you refused to leave them on their own account in Arkadia!"

"I'm concluding you aren't immortal. That's great, because while you trick my people into thinking your people are the best, my opinion of you is sinking. You're a hypocrite. Pretentious and manipulating and using your advantage of mere luck becoming Gods against a people where hard work, education and strength is actually valued. What can you do except scaring people off? Can you even read? Handle a sword? Ride a horse any faster than in trot? Goddamnit Clarke, not even your shirt fits you!"

And with that, Lexa seems to have struck a nerve. Clarke tenses, the look of you're so stupid what are you even talking about is wiped off her face and exchanged by pure, rigid hatred. It's not filthy. It's not a brutal, shadowy hate.

It's the sharpest Lexa has ever seen. For a moment, she staggers backwards like being hit in the stomach. The icy blue that Clarke's eyes now carry might just have delivered a powerful enough blow. There's a line Lexa didn't see before that she just crossed and somewhere inbetween it went from confessing each other's hate and anger at the overall situation to provoking a Goddess.

Clarke looks like she might kill her now. Blow a hole in her forehead, right by the vein that Lexa feels less prominent because the blood rushed back into her brain, into her heart. It's beating abnormally fast, though not yet in panic.

Then, Clarke snarls with such an inexplicable power, "Leave," that Lexa does not object.

Instead, she goes to search Ax and Lin. She has an order for them that might seem bizarre, but could end up saving everyone's lives. Lexa does not want to come in touch with the real fury of a Goddess, after all.

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