Clarke curses under her breath, curses her inability to finish artwork on time, having to stay behind to finish her portfolio piece. In this whirlwind of a thunderstorm, her umbrella practically does nothing because of how the wind whips the raindrops right back around. Her sneakers are soaked through. She looks up at the sky, and that's when she sees and hears it, the lightning coming straight down at her. She knows she's going to die.
Clarke barely has time to register the twenty seconds that she is falling before she lands with an oomph. She slowly opens her eyes to see a large grand hall sprawled out before her, and a line of people on their knees in medieval clothing. She registers the warmth she is pressed up against last. Clarke turns her head the other way to see kohl lined piercingly green eyes that are starting to narrow. A crown of black and a gear with a shining red ruby smack in the middle sat on her head. Oh shit. She has landed in their ruler's lap.
Thunder claps outside once, twice, three times, and then in a low tone that was somehow more menacing than any scream could be, the woman says, "What. Is. This?"
The people in the room rush forward in apologies, "It is our fault my Queen, please spare us." They look like they're about to piss their pants in fear.
The Queen all but ignores them and waves her hand, to which a staff that had previously been resting on a stand nearby snaps to her hand. Magic? Is that even possible? Well, if this crazy dream she was having before she died from lightning had medieval people and a beautiful queen, why not have her be a magical one too?
Clarke is levitated and dropped to the floor unceremoniously with the same magic.
-0-
Every day that Clarke attempts to demand answers she gets no answers. The first day Clarke is pushed out by a soft wind. The second day Lexa's eyes narrow (she learns her name from all the guys screaming, "Queen Lexa have mercy!") and she blows a hole through the wall of the throne room, which is about twenty something stories up in the sky and shoves one of the prisoners out the hole. "This'll be you next if you don't stop bugging me." Spoiler alert, Clarke does not stop because she wants to know how the heck she ended up here, because by now Clarke has accepted that this is too long to be a dream. Why not ask the magical woman?
Clarke has to admit that the Queen had her charms. She was mysterious to say the least, and beautiful. She couldn't help but wonder if Lexa was as tough as she pretended to be.
Clarke gets her answer a week in when she turns around the corner to go bug Lexa in the throne room again, and instead sees two....fireballs? No. They were flaming human cannonballs that smashed into the stone wall across from the entrance of the throne room. Lexa steps out, a sad expression on her face. With a wave of her hand the fire enveloping the bodies immediately extinguish. It leaves charred unrecognizable corpses. She kneels down and murmurs, "Yu gonplei ste odon." Clarke has no idea what these foreign words mean but they sound like a prayer of sorts.
Clarke steps forward, not bothering to mask the echo of her shoes on the stones. Lexa looks up like a deer caught in headlights. "The infamous sorceress Queen has feelings."
Lexa grimaces and looks back at the bodies, "Everyone can be turned into a monster when put into the right situation."
"What's your situation?" Clarke asks as she plops down on the floor next to her.
"I'm the Sorceress Queen. I could never have become the Queen if I'm not strong", Lexa huffs indignantly and gets up, brushing off her long coat and calling for the guards to "clean up this eyesore". The damage is done though, because Clarke now understands there is so much more depth to this woman who once seemed like a cruel ruler.
-0-
In the following days, Lexa invites Clarke to eat dinner with her. It isn't anything fancy like Clarke would've thought. It is just a small table set up in Lexa's room that they eat from on the couch. It starts out as tense discussions of how Lexa's reign is being challenged because she wants peace with the neighboring country, Arkadia, but Arkadia only sees her country as barbaric. Clarke can tell how much Lexa hates the conflict with a passion. Then it devolves into drinking Lexa's most expensive ale and discussing hobbies.
"Geezus, do you do nothing other than hone your magic and intimidate people as the Queen?" Clarke asks as she learns how awful Lexa's sense of fun is.
Lexa scoffs, "Really? What's your way of having fun then?"
It hits so close to home. The home that she was whisked out of, where her friends and mother that she left behind still were. Clarke's voice quiets so much the room seems to empty as she speaks, "Art. I drew and painted."
To her surprise, the very next day when she arrives for dinner, there is an assortment of paints and canvases waiting for her. Lexa tilts her head, gauging Clarke's reaction. Clarke, who hasn't seen a single art supply since she arrived here all but throws herself into Lexa's arms. Lexa stiffens, but surprisingly doesn't push her away.
Clarke slowly lets go and pulls away. She realizes how close they are and her cheeks start flaming.
That night they chat long into the wee hours of the morning until Lexa falls asleep on the couch. Clarke pulls one of the canvases to her and starts painting. Inspiration fuels her fingers as she paints Lexa sleeping, a rare moment that she lets her guard down and seems unburdened by her title.
It is quite a while later that Lexa starts to stir, her brow furrowing from her dream, and then jumps up from sleep. Clarke's first instinct is to rush over and comfort her. "You're okay." Lexa's eyes look at her with an unmasked intensity then, and Clarke has to force herself to swallow, hard. Clarke suddenly realizes she is so, very, close. She hopes to all powerful beings listening that Lexa can't tell how her cheeks are heating up and her heart is racing, because this beautiful, powerful, woman next to her is turning her feelings into a storm.
Then if possible, Clarke turns even redder because Lexa sees the painting on the table and picks it up gingerly, careful to avoid the wet paint.
"Oh uh-. That's uhm... it's not finished yet", is all Clarke can muster.
Lexa raises an eyebrow and her mouth quirks into a small smile. She leans forward and kisses Clarke on the cheek. An almost imperceptible brush of her lips on Clarke's cheek. "Some motivation for you to finish then. Thank you. It is beautiful already."
Clarke's heart explodes and there is no way that Lexa can't tell, but Lexa doesn't say anything and Clarke is left to stew in her own thoughts. She asks herself over and over what it could possibly mean that Lexa kissed her cheek for the next several days, Lexa is impossibly stoic and silent about it, as if it didn't happen at all.
-0-
It is the day that Clarke has just finished her art piece and wants to give it to Lexa that everything goes downhill. She is already standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the throne when the double doors of the throne room are thrown open and two very, very, familiar people are dragged in, kicking and shouting. Two people who shouldn't be here.
Clarke rushes forward and ungags them with a cry, "Raven! Octavia!" What the hell are her best friends from highschool doing in this world? She turns around to Lexa, "Tell your guards to untie them! They're my friends."
Lexa sighs and gestures to her guards. The guards untie Raven and Octavia who rubs their wrists. Octavia gets up, while Raven stays seated on the ground. She has been stripped of her brace, and she doesn't want to ask for help in front of these strangers.
"Friends... from your world?" Lexa queries, her emerald eyes sharpening with a thousand possibilities.
Clarke nods vehemently. Lexa takes a sharp breath in through her nose. "That is three of you that have been transported here now without reason. It is imperative that we get you all back." This doesn't sit well with Clarke. Perhaps a few weeks ago when she just came here she would've jumped at the opportunity, but now she has a home here. She has Lexa here. Lexa who kissed her cheek, Lexa who her heart beats so fast for, Lexa... who is now pushing her away.
-0-
It takes three days for Clarke to get fed up with Lexa's attitude. Don't get it wrong, Clarke loves having Octavia and Raven around, she has missed them and showing them the wonders of this place is everything she has dreamed of since coming here. Except, Lexa stops inviting Clarke to dinner and instead locks herself up in her room. When Clarke asks the guards and servants, she is simply told that Lexa has been working on the spell to return them to their realm.
Why would Lexa send her back to a place where she could never see her again? What happened to that kiss? Or was Lexa just toying with her like the cold-hearted sorceress queen everyone in this kingdom thought her to be?
For this reason, Clarke storms up to the tower bright and early with a dagger she has bribed Lincoln (one of the guards that has taken a liking to Octavia) for. She throws the door open with a bang. Lexa whips around, hands already on her staff and ready to punish whoever has interrupted when she specifically told them not to and freezes when she realizes it is Clarke. A very angry and confused Clarke who takes that one moment to storm up to her and press her against the table with a dagger to Lexa's throat. Lexa drops her staff and her hands grip the edge of the table.
"Stop playing with me. First you get my hopes up, and now you're suddenly pulling away?" Clarke growls, pressing a little harder so that the dagger breaks skin a little. A trickle of black blood goes down Lexa's neck.
Lexa's face is open, sad, and raw as she whispers, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to be selfish anymore and keep you here. The three of you deserve to go home, especially with the war coming."
Clarke shakes her head as if refusing to accept it, "Maybe someday we can be free of our constraints of this realm and my realm."
Lexa looks heartbroken, as if she knows that it's never going to happen. Their homes are in two different places. Even knowing that, she doesn't crush Clarke's hopes and instead answers with, "Maybe."
That's what breaks Clarke. "I can stay. I can lead your army with Raven and Octavia. You haven't seen what we have up our sleeves. I can convince the entire world that I belong here if need be", she tries in vain to reason.
Lexa shakes her head, "You may want to be here, but what of Raven and Octavia? It is unfair to them." Lexa doesn't say what she thinks, that Clarke couldn't possibly win this war.
She underestimates Clarke's stubbornness though, because Clarke pushes on, "Raven has no family to return to and Octavia would rather not return to her brother who got her last boyfriend killed. Let me try, Lexa. We can defend ourselves. Just give me the troops."
"Clarke you don't understand. Magic in this world is dark and corrupt. It is so dark it has turned my blood black." To demonstrate, Lexa smears her finger over her wound and comes back with her finger soaked in inky black blood. She expects Clarke to recoil, to run away like most people, but all Clarke does is step forward and dab away the blood on Lexa's neck with her sleeve. Lexa gulps at how close they are.
When Clarke is done, she looks up from her neck into Lexa's eyes and says, "I will show you. I will be your general and conquer the world for you if that's what it takes for you to accept that I like you and we can be together."
In the end, Wanheda, the Sorceress Queen's infamous general leads a crushing victory against their neighboring nation, Azgeda. Her right and left hand were revered as well for generations to come. Blodreina was infamous for cleaving her way through waves and waves of soldiers to save one of her troops (that may or may not have been named Lincoln). Bumheda devastated entire armies with her explosions.
Queen Lexa reigned for a total of sixty years, from the day of her ascension on her fourteenth birthday to her 74th year where she died of grief over Wanheda, who she had taken as her wife in her 25th year.
Lexa's reign was known as the golden age and remembered for centuries to come. It revolutionized weaponry as well as magic. One of Lexa's greatest magical accomplishments was creating a permanent portal to Wanheda's home realm as a wedding gift.
End Note:
Bumheda literally means the "boom commander" which is pretty accurate for Raven, I think.