It was dusk when Madi visited Carl Emerson's grave.
Clarke had brought her there after Madi had insisted her to. Over the ridges and through the forests and near a valley that was all too familiar. Madi didn't memorise the route. She didn't need to.
Why did you play that facade, Carl? Madi thought in distress, as she stared on his grave. She knew him enough. Knew him enough that he might've put a gun on her, but would've never pulled the trigger. Because, she thought but was never certain yet it was, because she reminded him of them. His old family.
But was it? Or was Madi just a simple convenience, someone that he could've just used and manipulated to his own liking? She—she didn't like the thought at all.
He didn't want to kill her. He—he said that he wouldn't've cared about killing a child, to Clarke and Lexa, but he did care, didn't he? Because his own children were killed when Clarke pulled a lever? Or was it the opposite—was it because his children were killed by Clarke that he became indifferent, apathetic to it all?
She knew him enough that it was all an act. Wasn't it? He—he couldn't've been all serious about everything he said. Some was exaggerated sure, because—because it just simply couldn't be, because he was unlike the other Maunon and—and he was different, she knew, but then why'd he have to say and do all the mean things the tales said the Maunon did? So—so he was alike the other Maunon, but wasn't all the same? How'd—how'd that work?
Everything was just so complicated. And Madi winced every time her mind replayed the mean things he'd said about Lexa and Clarke. Because... he couldn't've meant it all, could he? But a part of her heart told her that he didn't care at the time, that he insulted all he could, all 'cause he wanted to hurt them, cut them deep, like—like what she did to him? Like when she said he couldn't be anything other than Maunon?
(—did he?)
(Was it?)
Or was it because he knew that he was going to die, so he wanted to get all those jabs and insults and everything that was in his mind but never did say in, so they all knew what he was thinking? So he could shout into something that wasn't a void, but at something he could scowl at and attack? Was it so that he could spit into Clarke and Lexa's faces before he died?
Clarke and Lexa decided not to put his name on a headstone. All that marked it was the fresh dirt, surrounded by weeds and grass and flowers.
(And for all the more better—for if future generations came, and remembered the Wanheda's tales—then what would've they done but desecrated and spat on his grave?)
Why did you give me that opening? Was it because he couldn't stand the thought of holding her hostage? Was it because he knew when it came to it, he wouldn't be able to shoot her? Was it because he wanted to finish it, once and for all?
And then she felt cold metal press against her head.
''Go.'' Carl's voice was emotionless. Cold, stoic, like the barrel of the gun that shook against her head. ''Go, or I shoot!''
Fear. Something ingrained in all humans, a trigger for a flight-or-fight response, the very reason that powered people's wills to survive. Survive. She should feel fear, she knows, but there was nothing but a void staring back at her.
But she didn't feel nothing either. Something spawned in the void. Was it kindness? Trust? An odd sensation of acceptance? And then... sadness? Sorrow?
Pity?
Her lip had quivered, but it was not because of fear. ''No, Carl.'' she said. ''I was wrong. You're not just Maunon. You don't have to die 'cause you think it's the only way this can end.''
