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AND I WAS RUNNIN' FAR AWAY
. . . WOULD I RUN OFF
THE WORLD SOMEDAY. . . ?
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HOW WILL THE world end?
You might think ice. Galaxies shrunken and shriveled by devastating permafrost. Cold so unbearably bitter that it burns white-hot, stars engulfed by black frost, burning to glacial chunks floating in inky waters. Dwarfed. Dissolved. Ravenous black holes tearing across the cosmos; insatiable, driven wild by the need to drain the universe of all life. An insatiable fervor infecting galaxy after galaxy until they are all drained of blood and left as sub-zero voids of the most interstellar blackness. Dimensions turned glacial. Everything cold and dark and dead.
You might say war. Mindless brutalities. Infinite destruction. Annihilation. Men turned to packs of wolves with their teeth and ambitions bared into fierce snarls, fangs dripping ruby red. Violence pouring through the cosmos like molten lava, infecting even the brightest of supernovae, pitting galaxy against galaxy. Colliding. Crashing. Chaotic to the very core. Energy stretched taut until it shatters like glass. Thirteen and a half billion years crushed to dust. Existence in ruination. History vanishing. Countless empires and regimes that have fallen and risen now trampled into nothingness. Creation was an explosion and life's final act is oblivion. As if none of it had never been real at all.
But the world has already ended once. Not by ice. Not even by war.
Cities set aflame. An entire planet slathered in gasoline. The match was struck by a single entity and she inhaled the smoke with a wild gleam in her inhuman eyes.
Hellfire devoured a little blue planet and razed it to ash. It was not men depraved of glory, nor was it the coldest and blackest interstellar. Instead it was a false god's judgement that fell from the skies like nuclear rain. Humanity had doomed themselves and this was their last burden and their final deliverance.
That was how the world ended.
Well, the first time, anyways. . .
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
"AFTER WHAT I'VE DONE, they can be free. I can't. Deliverance comes at a cost. I bear it so they don't have to."
The words swirl around in Lyra's head. I bear it so they don't have to, I bear it so they don't have to. Some of Dante's final words, a man who made all the impossible decisions knowing he would have a tragic end anyways. He'd thought that he'd done it so that his people could be free.
Of course, he hadn't anticipated four teenage criminals from outer space to commit genocide.
So. There's that.
Lyra knows she had no other choice. She knows, she knows, she knows. In the end, she did whatever it took to save her people.
And now she gets to live with it.
Three months have come and gone. It has not gotten any easier.
Now she's running silently across the ground, dirt kicking up beneath her feet as fronds of grass bend snap. Trees rustle in the wind, seeming to carry malevolent secrets as the silence becomes visceral. There is no birdsong, no noise except for the near-incomprehensible crunch of withered branches beneath her feet as she weaves in and out of the foliage as if it is second nature. There is no sign of life, man nor beast, save for her.
But no matter how fast she runs, she cannot escape the horror of what she's done.
The roar of a panther breaks through the air.
Eyes glittering as the sunlight dapples the earth beneath her feet gold, Lyra Jupiter forces herself to run faster.
She explodes out of the foliage just as there is an agonized howl and the thud of something heavy. Her fiercely determined expression withers away as she takes sight of the scarlet-haired girl crouching over her kill, already sheathing a knife flinty with blood.
"Yu gonplei ste odon," utters the scarlet-haired girl slowly.
Your fight is over.
"Jok," Lyra mutters, her breath coming in ragged bursts. "Yu iffi, Clarke. Iterum."
Fuck. You win, Clarke. Again.
Clarke turns back to face her, and the Griffin girl is almost unrecognizable from the girl Lyra had known on the Ark. Long gone are her infamous honey-blonde locks; now her hair is drenched in a blood-red, falling in oily ringlets around her jaw. Her face is smeared with grime to the point where it is impossible to tell where her different features begin and end. All Lyra can discern is her blazing blue eyes that regard her steadily, the only part of herself that Clarke cannot mask.
Then again, Lyra's well-aware of the fact that she looks different, too. She'd outgrown her bangs a long time ago, and now her hair flies over her face in dark tresses. Shielding her cheeks and jaw is a dark Grounder mask, leaving only her eyes visible.
"Yeri orzo laboravi," Clarke tells her, brushing her ash-coated hands off on her dark pants.
Your trap worked.
"Scilicet em tat," mumbles Lyra, feeling a twinge of regret at the sight of the dead beast. She forces herself to look away. "Finne tikh osir remekat hac nocte?"
Of course it did. Where will we sleep tonight?
There's a feeble flicker of hope in her words, painfully audible. They both know where she wants to go; the dropship.
"Osir don kom Niylah," Clarke reminds her. "Osir zigereo kom jerat, memento?"
We need to find Niylah. We have to trade, remember?
"Sha," mutters Lyra reluctantly, wrinkling her nose.
Yes.
They lapse into silence. It's much too dangerous to be caught speaking English, or, as the Grounders call it, the warriors tongue, out in the open. Besides, there's not much to say. They've done this so many times that at this point, it's routine. Lyra unfurls the canvas parachute that used to hang over the dropship entrance, and Clarke rolls the extremely heavy animal over onto the material. Both of them take up one end of mock-sling as they begin to haul it through the thick woods. The Trading Post is several miles out, but by now, the hike is almost mechanical.
Lyra could laugh. By now the hike is almost mechanical. Who is she? So far from the stars, so far from everything she's ever known.
Then again, she's on the ground now. That makes her a Grounder, whether she likes it or not.
It's still day by the time they reach the Trading Post, though the sun has already begin its daily descent into the trees. The tumbledown structure looms in a small clearing of scorched grass in the thickest part of the woods, built from a strange combination of crumbling metal and decaying wood. Tattered cloths hang down from the roof, smoke drifting from a steel pipe climbing from the side of the building. It's torn between times; half is made from skeletons of the Earth one hundred years ago, the rest made up from what has been reborn.
They wait in stony silence as a dark figure emerges from the gates. Thick animal pelts are shrugged over his shoulders as he stalks dangerously close to them, now obviously a man, only about a dozen feet out from them. Lyra forces herself to go completely still.
He keeps moving. She exhales in relief, then pulls the dark mask over her mouth and nose.
Then she and Clarke leave the cover of the trees and enter the tumbledown Trading Post.
A battalion of fragmented trinkets and gadgets litter the cavernous single room, the ceiling vaulting high over their heads where a chandelier adorned with candles glitters. Emerging from behind the half-rotten main table that extends across the better half of the room is a lithe woman, honey hair thick falling in oily ringlets across her back. She glances between Clarke and Lyra with baffling calmness before closing the oak doors behind them.
"Os fragon."
Good kill.
"Mochof," says Lyra, lowering her mask.
Thanks.
Clarke seems more eager to get down to business, striding to the main table. "Jos otaim prepon."
The usual supplies.
"Otaim yu kom op jus pas taim ai nontu gonout," remarks Niylah idly, starting to drag the enormous animal across the chamber. "Os manaplei."
You always come right after my father leaves. Good timing.
"Osir ste hos raun you," says Clarke warily.
We're in a hurry.
"Ait," calls Niylah over her shoulder as she disappears into the smaller, adjacent room. "Kom otaim."
Right. As always.
"At least tell me we can make a stop at the river," says Lyra under her breath, eyes fixed on where Niylah's disappeared to make sure she doesn't hear the English. "For a princess, you sure do stink."
Clarke glares at her, but before she can respond, Niylah returns with a crate in her arms. She slides it across the rotting table to them, and Lyra sifts through the goods quickly. There's a lump of what must be meat tied with a yellow string in the largest brown-bag lump. She starts to unravel the smaller one, ignoring the way Clarke elbows her sharply. . . she grins triumphantly. Soap. Thank god.
"Steiks-de kom yu las fragon. Ge fleiva op en ge sonop. Thaus osir kodon."
The meat from your last kill. Salted and dried minus our share.
"Chit daun bilaik?" Clarke asks suddenly.
What is that?
Glancing up, Lyra sees three chalices sat upon the table. Uncorking a bottle of what can only be alcohol, Niylah gives Clarke a wry smile.
"Soudas. Kos yu na ste set raun."
Drinks. For while you wait.
Lyra's grin broadens. Even better. What her heart can't handle, her liver sure as hell can.
"Ai na hos op hashta ostof."
I'll be back with the rest.
Niylah disappears into the back room once more, to retrieve the rest of the supplies she owes them. Because she can't stand to be still any longer, Lyra starts to roam around the trading post. She's in the middle of investigating a crude imitation of a toothbrush fashioned from a sort of twig with a frayed end when Clarke starts to speak, her voice low.
"You're looking for distractions again."
"Wow," remarks Lyra dryly. "Y'know, sometimes I wonder which one of us is the super-genius."
"You miss him."
It's not a question.
Lyra halts mid-step, her heart freezing in her chest. She can't think of a dignified response ━━ because how do you get over someone who was never yours in the first place? Who do you blame when you've broken your own heart?
After all, she's the one who left.
"Y'know. . . " begins Clarke slowly and Lyra chances a glance at the blonde behind her. Her cheeks have gone pink. "If you really need a distraction. . . "
It takes a moment. And then ━━
Oh.
Oh.
"Sounds gay," says Lyra, and her fingers curl. "Usually I'd be all in, but, uh. . . "
"But I'm not him," Clarke fills in quietly.
Lyra ducks her eyes to hide her shame, her voice coming out all scratchy even though she doesn't want it to. "Yeah."
It takes her a moment, but then she lifts her head, her eyes glitter with faint amusement. "Besides, I wouldn't want to get Niylah's way."
Now it's Clarke's turn to be baffled. She blinks. "Huh?"
Evening falls at an agonisingly slow pace, the distant Ice Nation mountains devouring the molten honey sun. They don't bother to have their drinks even as the shadows creep in with lazy haste, and Lyra's urge to leave the Trading Post grows. She can't stand being in one place for too long anymore. It always feels suffocating. And it gives her too long to think.
Even if her sadness is selfish, it still chips away at her heart like a knife.
"Den chit yu don sad in?" Niylah asks as the scent of melting candle wax perfumes the air. "Ai don tel yu op. Ai ouyon yu klin kom mou kom dison. Sad som op."
So what did you decide? I told you. I owe you more than this. Pick something.
Instead of picking something, Clarke grabs Niylah by the wrist. Briefly Lyra wonders if they've been gone from Camp Jaha for so long that Clarke's become completely hopeless at social interaction, then she realizes why.
Niylah has one of the Ark wristbands.
"Tel ai op hashta dison," says Clarke.
Tell me about this.
Yet at that same moment, the heavy wooden doors creak open. Two warriors stride in. Before either of them can get a good look at her, Lyra pivots and faces the back wall, pretending to be occupied with the trinkets, Clarke doing the same. She pulls her mask back over her jaw as discreetly as she can.
"Yu gada som in na kof op?" Niylah asks in the usual rough Trigadasleng.
You have something to trade?
Neither warrior answers. Lyra can hear the thud of footsteps creaking across the wooden floorboards and the hairs along her arms raise in alarm. She breathes carefully, forcing herself to remain calm. This isn't the first time she and Clarke have run into warriors and it will not be the last. They do not know them. It will be fine.
"Ai don as yu prom op," says Niylah in low warning.
I asked you a question.
There's a beat and then the one closest to them strides towards Niylah, unfurling a paper. His voice is harshly masculine; "Yu don sin disha plan in?"
Have you seen these women?
"Dei feisnes nou ste krei os," says Niylah.
That's not a very good likeness.
"Den yu sou don sin em in?"
Then you have seen them?
"Em don kamp raun hir tu sintaim kon gon," answers Niylah with baffling calmness. "Dau bilaik ha ai don hon dison in."
They were here two days ago. That's how I got this.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Lyra can see Niylah raise her wrist and show them the wristband. A sweat breaks out across her palms and she swallows uneasily ━━ either Niylah really doesn't recognize them or, even, unlikelier, she is lying for them.
"En don kof raun gon biskova en swison," continues Niylah steadily. "Biyo laik em na hos of gon nout, ste mafta trei kom Idon op."
They traded for fur and blades. Said they were going north, following Eden's path.
"Azgeda," growls the second warrior, his voice harsh. "Osir souda hos op."
Ice Nation. We have to hurry.
Though the second warrior is quick to leave, the first lingers for a moment. Then, at last, "Mochof. Yu don's mou sisfou kom yu na vout in."
Thank you. You've been more helpful than you can imagine.
"Hanch taim yu don get em klin?" Clarke asks Niylah just as the thick oak doors shut behind them.
How long have you known?
"Hanch taim yu don's komba raun hir?" Niylah retorts, then switches to the much smoother English. "I would wait. Give them a chance to clear out. Have those drinks."
How long have you been coming here?
"You're very kind," Lyra notes carefully, wishing she didn't have to be so on edge. But she hasn't trusted easily, not since Mount Weather.
"My mother was taken by the Mountain," admits Niylah quietly. "You ended the reaping."
We didn't do it alone, thinks Lyra, her intestines coiling into knots. Because it's true, they didn't. They always had help. No matter what, she always had him by her side, and even now there are days when his absence is unbearable. There is nothing more she wants to do then run into Camp Jaha and into his arms, let him hold her, let him play with her hair, and let him make false promises that he will never let her go.
But she has to let it all go. The way he kissed her, the way he smelled, the way he touched her waist and pulled her in. She has to let it go and she has to let him go.
Because she isn't ready to face any of them again.
Not after everything she's done.
"Lyra?"
Her reverie shattering, Lyra realizes both Clarke and Niylah are looking at her in concern.
"I, uh, need some air," she mumbles, cheeks turning red. "I'll wait outside."
Neither of them try to stop her.
She lets the bitter darkness overwhelm her. Facing the woods clogged with shadows, she shoves the headphones from her Walkman over her ears.
The first song is Another Love. She turns the volume up ━━ loud ━━ and lets the lyrics get so noisy it feels like her ears might bleed. "I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright. I'm just so tired to share my nights. I wanna cry and I wanna love, but all my tears have been used up."
She wants to take a nap. She wishes Clarke would hurry up inside. What could she possibly be doing?
". . . I wanna sing a song that'd just be ours, but I sang 'em all to another heart. . . "
Motion stirs in her peripheral.
But there's no time to even think of reacting; an arm is thrown behind her neck and a hand balls into a fist around her hair. A warrior hanks her head back and forces her against him, a knife grazing her throat. She pushes back with every ounce of her strength, straining beneath his immeasurable force while gasping for air. Meanwhile, his startlingly blue eyes rake across her face as he scrutinized her with frightening intent. Even as she squirms and fights in his grasp, it does not break.
When he speaks, there is something deeply unsettling residing in the undertones.
"You were there. At the mountain."
She tries to fight him off even harder, but again it doesn't work. His hold is like iron. Sparse firelight flickers across features, revealing a series of thick, puckered scars carved into his face. Her breath catches in her throat ━━ Lincoln had taught her well. She knows what those markings mean.
Azgeda.
"The Commander only wants Wanheda. But there's a bounty on your head too, Stormwalker."
Lyra's eyes widen.
Before she can think to say anything, he releases her and twirls the dagger in his hands. Then, in one swift, fluid motion, drives the hilt into her skull.
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PLATO ONCE SAID Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Bellamy used to think that quote was a load of bullshit. He'd first heard that quote from his mom when he was just a kid, back when Octavia still lived under the floor and they spent everyday terrified that someone would find her.
He can't remember exactly what she'd been talking about ━━ and that's the worst part, he thinks, about people who die. At first, the pain is overwhelming. Then you take one step, then another. And suddenly things don't feel so shit anymore. . . until you realize you can't quite remember what they used to be like, sound like, even look like. Memories fade.
But that quote, that stupid quote, has been burned into his brain ever since he can remember.
It means that war will exist as long as life does. That peace is finite. According to the ancient Greeks, war is human instinct. It is inevitable.
Like he said, Bellamy used to think that quote was bullshit. Sometimes he felt like he was fighting a war trying to protect Octavia, but he'd won that. He'd been thrust into battle the moment he landed on the ground, and slanted from fight to fight ever since then. There was the war at the dropship camp. Then there was the war against Mount Weather. Bellamy used to think he was winning all these wars ━━ after all, he hasn't died yet. But now he isn't so sure.
He's starting to think war really is in his blood. It is all around him and he cannot escape it.
Even now.
The crude roar of the rover's engines pitch to a whine as it tears across the jagged dirt-brown path in the forest, whipping up dirt as it surged into the shadowy void ahead of them. Bellamy curses himself repeatedly as they move, wishing he had been more adamant that Lyra stayed with them, been more stubborn. Because if Indra had been right when she'd told them why Lyra and Clarke were in trouble, then the odds are not in Lyra's favor.
Beside him, Monty kicks down, and the whine of the engine roars louder than Bellamy's thoughts.
"Does anybody want a juice box?"
His reverie is shattered by Sergeant Noah Jupiter's question, and Bellamy fights the urge to whirl around and stare at the man in shock. They just found out that his seventeen year old daughter, the only family he has left, is being hunted by all the twelve clans. And he's asking people if they want juice boxes?
Kane doesn't seem to be as intimidated by Noah as Bellamy and asks, rather incredulously ━━
"Why the hell do you have a juice box?"
"I packed a whole lunch," admits the sergeant with absolutely no embarrassment. "Got little baby carrots, but nobody wants those. Oh, and I've got two PB&J's, they're kind of mushy but I did cut them into stars."
"Why?" Kane demands.
"In case we find Lyra."
Bellamy finds it kind of hard to imagine this six foot, two-hundred pound soldier letting himself into the Mount Weather kitchen to pack his missing daughter a lunch.
"Sir, we're almost out of range," Monty interrupts their bickering just as the rover lurches over the worn path. Indra makes a sharp noise of surprise, and Kane hurriedly reassures her that they're all right. "Are you sure you don't want to tell the Chancellor?"
"Absolutely," says Noah at once.
"I'm sure," says Kane through what sounds like grit teeth, and Bellamy can only imagine the look he's giving the sergeant. "I don't want to worry Abby until we know something."
"We know there's a kill order," says Bellamy stiffly. "Your people are big on those."
"It's not a kill order," retorts Indra in her usual dry monotone. "It's a bounty. Clarke is a symbol. She's known as Wanheda. The Commander of Death."
Bellamy and Monty exchange an unnerved look, and it's Bellamy who says what they're both thinking. "The Ice Nation guys we killed asked about Wanheda. They're looking for Clarke, why?"
"My people believe that when you kill someone, you get their power. Kill Wanheda and you command death."
"Sounds like a great job to me," mutters Noah. "What kind of salary is the commander of death making? Do they get perk packages? Benefits? I, for one, wouldn't do it without dental, but that might just be me."
"They weren't just looking for Wanheda," says Bellamy slowly, dread creeping through his veins. "They also mentioned someone else."
"Stormwalker," says Indra lowly.
"Lyra's nickname at the dropship," Monty realizes. Hesitantly, he glances over at Bellamy.
"She had a reputation even before the alliance," Indra informs them darkly. "Her flares burnt down a village. Then, at Tondc, she sacrificed herself for her people without question. That is the mark of a good leader. Foolish, but good."
Bellamy tightens his grasp around the rifle, fingers constricting. Talking about Lyra now feels almost as if a dagger is being driven down his throat.
"She attended our war council and earned the respect of our Commander, thus earning our respect. She stood against Abby and sent Emerson back to the mountain. She was by Clarke's side when it was irradiated, showing her ruthlessness."
"Lyra's never been a leader," Bellamy says stiffly. It had been him and Clarke.
Indra's retort is swift. "Why not?"
"But why Stormwalker?" Noah demands dangerously; gone is his earlier amusement, now he sounds as if he is barely keeping himself together.
"She is the girl who broke free of the mountain only to return on her own terms. My people say she walked right into the storm."
Bellamy's features contort, darkening. Frustrations twist his insides. The fact that Lyra has earned a reputation for herself among the Grounders brings little comfort to him at all. Maybe she can take care of herself, but she's not a fighter. She isn't vicious or bloodthirsty or driven by the need for power like the rest of the Grounders, and now she's got a bounty on her head and probably dozens of them hot on her trail.
He should have tried more to keep her at Camp Jaha. He could have done it. If he'd only fought harder ━━
"They're just girls," Kane reminds Indra.
"So was the Commander," retorts Indra fiercely. "What they did at Mount Weather weakened her. The Ice Nation is emboldened. Their Queen wants Clarke's power and Lyra's wisdom. If her people believe she has it, she'll break the coalition and start a war. I can't let that happen."
And thus Plato's words return to Bellamy at full force: Only the dead have seen the end of war. . .
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OK SO - I'm just gonna do the whole next episode from Bellamy's POV. I find the Roan-Clarke parts kinda boring and they don't have any relevance to Lyra's plot this season (you'll see why) so we're gonna come back to her POV for episode 3.
BUT this is probably gonna be the only bellamy pov this season, i j wanted to give a bit of insight to what's going on at arkadia w/ noah and bellamy now that LJ is gone. writing his pov is stressful and difficult and every time i try, it never feels like im doing it right.
Lyra leaving for 3 months because she helped commit a genocide:
Lyra realizing Roan kidnapped her and dragged her back into the main plot:
anyways,,, im SO sorry but i just saw this on Twitter and it made me laugh because i feel like Bellamy would send this shit to Lyra rn -
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