CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
( dakota kom skaikru )
SEPT 25, 2149
DAY THIRTEEN ON THE GROUND
AFTER THE
STORM ━━━
MUMFORD & SONS
" but there will come a time,
you'll see, with no more tears. "
THE LINGUAL CIPHER HAD UTTERLY SCRAMBLED ANY SENSE OF INTUITION DAKOTA ONCE HAD when it came to the realm of understanding foreign concepts and mysteries, leaving her brain spinning in disarranged circles. No matter how hard she studied, how out of the box she attempted to think, her endeavors simply weren't enough to make sense of the adventitious words.
The aching pain in her head had gradually worsened the longer she squinted her eyes and used every ounce of her intelligence to try and work through the seven pages worth of puzzling riddles; straining her eyes in such severe focus.
"Ai... yu.." Dakota mumbled to herself, in a complete quandary as she wondered how badly she was butchering what was likely a beautiful language.
"Yumi? What the heck is a yumi?"
"Maybe like... yummy! Like you ate really good food." Fox shrugged, shoulder to shoulder with Dakota as the two sat against the wall in a more secluded area of the second floor.
"Well then that would make I in their language stand for y in ours, which means if they were actually saying yummy, it wouldn't start with a y. Which it does. And the only lead I've had so far is that maybe they're just spelling words more accurately to how that word sounds, which would mean it should say yumme. Unless they speak their letters totally different than us, which is definitely a possibility."
Fox stared at her with a blank expression for a long moment before speaking, moving on entirely from whatever it was Dakota had just said.
"Can I look at more of his drawings?" she queried, jokingly batting her lashes and grinning widely as if to better her chances of being granted access.
"Yeah, sure. I need a break for a minute anyway." Dakota drew in a deep breath, handing the journal to the young artist to enjoy before rubbing her sore, tired eyes. The pounding in her head was substantial enough to create a whooshing noise in her ears; the girl wanting nothing more than to lay down on the cold, hard drop ship floor and fall into a long slumber. But of course, circumstances did not permit.
"Hey, Kota. Is this one of your words?" Fox's voice caught her attention, blinking away the exhaustion as she turned her neck to see what the brunette was pointing out; her brows furrowing at the display.
None of the other sketches they had scrutinized had been labeled, this one however, was. Of course it was labeled with a word neither of them knew, but if she had an image to match with a saying, it could be a game changer in cracking the other words.
"Tondc..." Dakota spoke aloud, tilting her head as she perused it intently; repeating the letters under her breath with a few different pronunciations. She glanced at the charcoal drawing, various huts and shelters littering the shaded in area representing the ground.
"Must be some kind of living space." she observed quietly, her focused gaze never straying from the page.
When her stare moved past the little hovels and shacks, she found a tiny sketch of a sign entering what appeared to be a village. Half of it was illegible, burned and destroyed, the other half presented the same words that the currently captive grounder had titled the photo as; Tondc. Only on the small plaque, it was displayed as ton DC.
Dakota's eyes widened, her lips slowly parting as astonishment rolled over her body like a rushing wave along with a mind-blowing realization. She could still be wrong, but was almost certain she had decoded at least one portion of this enigma. The girl let out an amazed laugh, slapping her hand over her mouth as Fox's head snapped over to her; surveying the sudden shift in her demeanor.
"What?! Did you figure it out?" she asked eagerly, an upswing of hope in her voice.
Dakota opened her mouth to respond, eyes twinkling with a sudden brightness, but couldn't before a clamor upstairs stole everyone's attention; confused murmurs commencing instantly about the room like wildfire. The lights abruptly began to flicker, but that's not what made Dakota's heart drop into the pit of her stomach; it was the screaming that did that. Grunts and groans of suffering mingling with the sound of Raven's desperate cries and shouts. It had been relatively silent from the third floor until now, the locked hatch having successfully obstructed any noise through its stout metal; but the din of whatever horrors were taking place now were stronger than the drop ship itself.
"Which one is it?! Come on!"
"Are the lights from the storm?" Fox queried as Dakota hurried to her feet, forced to stand still for a moment as a swell of dizziness from her injury took charge; soon moving on and advancing over to the ladder across the room.
"I don't think so." she breathed in return, leaving Fox with the notebook as she climbed up rung by rung.
"It's Dakota! Let me in!" she exclaimed in a panicky voice, hitting her palm repeatedly against the closed off entrance; another anguished sob from Raven ringing out.
"He's all I have!"
"Octavia! Bellamy! Cl-" Dakota's calls were automatically silenced when the heavy trap door swung open, revealing Octavia's face at the top; her dirt-ridden features soiled with fresh tears.
Her friend's utterly terrified expression was enough to make the Thompson girl's already thudding heart beat faster as she scurried the rest of the way up, the screams amplifying as she did. But still, no matter what she already knew was taking place, nothing could prepare her for what she saw when she reached the top. She froze, confined to her spot on the floor as if someone had injected a paralytic into her; constricting every inch of her body from being able to move.
The prisoner's arms were spread unwillingly out to the side, his wrists bound with rope that attached to the ceiling. He was shirtless with long, red streaks across his bare torso; indicating that he'd been whipped. A large, rusty nail had been driven through- through- his trembling hand; blood dripping slowly from his arm as if it had been some sort of failed crucifixion. His face was bloodied and bruised, one eye partially swollen shut; greatly puffy and purpled. And now- as if that wasn't enough- Raven was shoving the frazzled ends of live wires into his chest unsparingly; electrocuting him and causing the lights to spasm uncontrollably. He panted erratically through gritted teeth. But somehow, the absolute worst part of any of this was the fear and panic in his wide eyes; darting frantically from person to person as if silently begging for someone to save him. But no one was.
He had seemed in the cave and that day at the cliff as if nothing could scare him; as if he had been some sort of machine designed not to experience emotion and unable to be harmed. But he was no machine; he was a human being, and they were torturing him. Not even Fallon was unaffected by this. Her lips were parted and her eyes were greatly enlarged, standing uneasily as she watched the scene unfold.
"STOP IT!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" a horrified scream came from Dakota, similar to the grating cry she had let out the day Murphy was being ruthlessly hanged; her bulging eyes already thronged with hot tears.
Everyone but Octavia's gaze snapped over to her, having been unaware she had even been let in. Dakota ran across the short room as fast as her legs would take her, grabbing onto Raven's shoulder and quickly pulling her backwards; the cables finally leaving the stranger's chest as he took a rugged gasp for air.
"He's dying! I can't do nothing!" Raven exclaimed in despair, tears escaping her eyes; talking of Finn.
Dakota hadn't thought her move entirely through, for the second she found herself face to face with the man and all the blood covering him, dizziness had consumed her; the girl stumbling slightly backwards as her stomach churned. Clarke had quickly come to learn the look in Dakota's eyes when too much blood had appeared for her to handle, prompting her to grab her arm and lead her over to a crate; sitting the dark-haired girl down as she caught her breath.
"Dakota, you shouldn't be up here." Bellamy ardently shook his head, though he was mainly saying this from a place of his own shame.
They all half-expected to hear a mean and inappropriate quip from Fallon at his words, a million ways to insult her just from the mention of her name. But no mockery or bitter ridicule came, not in this environment. She was stunned to silence.
"What, so that way I can't stop you all from abusing someone?!" her tear-filled eyes shot over to him with a shout, and for the first time since the second day on earth when they had argued in the woods while Jasper was missing, he saw her angry. Only this time, it wasn't a combination of stress and sorrow and pent up aggravation; this time it was red, hot anger.
"What is wrong with you all?! You can't do this!" she cried out desperately, glancing around to each of their guilty faces in horror from where she sat.
They were silent for a moment, everyone exchanging nervous glances as they waited for someone to make the next move. Raven's face of heartache suddenly shifted, a scowl forming on her features as her eyes darkened; the brunette shaking her head determinedly.
"Screw this. I'm not letting Finn die." she growled, raking the long wires together a few times, emitting a crackle of dangerous sparks before jabbing them back into the grounder's skin; the man letting out a raucous holler.
"No!" Dakota choked out a sob, trying to rise back up to her feet, but finding it useless in the midst of her blood-induced vertigo; his agonized yells continued.
"Please, stop! W-we'll find another way to-"
"NO MORE!" Octavia suddenly boomed, her voice so loud and powerful it stopped everything in its tracks; the world seeming to bow to her as silence settled instantly over the group. All eyes fell on her in the middle of the room, the poisoned dagger lifted in her hand.
"He's letting Finn die!" Raven wailed stridently, outraged and breaking down.
Dakota's crying had instantly ceased, staring at Octavia; watching her closely as she swayed uneasily on her feet, her eyes swimming with tears as they remained fastened to the man chained up across the room. She detected something on her face, a mixture of panic, desperation, fear, and resolve. The breath left Dakota's lungs when she realized what it was her friend was planning on doing; that mixture in her green irises was deadly.
"Octavia..." she spoke in a warning voice, fear underlining her words. Everyone glanced over to her uncertainly, Dakota clearly picking up on something they weren't.
"Octavia, think about what you're d-"
But she was either too late, or the Blake girl was never planning on listening in the first place; Octavia gasping as she dug the sharp end of the dagger into her own skin, dragging it along her arm with a loud wince. Bellamy flew into an immediate panic as he protested unendingly.
"Octavia, no!"
"He won't let me die." she declared shakily, Dakota gulping and glancing at her dirty shoes when crimson blood began trickling down her arm.
"Octavia, what the hell did you-" Bellamy was cut off when she jerked herself away from his hand reaching for her, falling onto her knees before the grounder with the various vials laid out on the floor in front of her.
By the time Dakota dared to warily glance back up, only having heard her mutter a few words and pant heavily, Clarke was breathing a speedy thank you and seizing a specific bottle from Octavia's hands; darting alongside Raven back down the ladder. Her eyes widened; she was right. The second her life was at risk, the stranger had stepped up; entirely unwilling to let her perish.
"Don't touch me!" she whipped around when her brother gingerly attempted to place his hands on her shoulders, venom in her eyes stronger than whatever poison was currently coursing through her veins; only the physical one could be cured with an antidote. The other didn't have a known solution after what had just happened.
Bellamy looked regretfully at Octavia sitting on the floor, her eyes on the grounder who had just saved her once again; something between gratitude and affection shimmering in her irises towards him. After a few long moments, his contrite and dismayed gazed moved to Dakota, who was still sitting on the crate with her hands on her knees; eyes trained onto his little sister. The hurt both of them felt was clear, and their tear stained faces sent remorse hurtling into his chest. Soon she rose shakily to her feet with a wince, her head wound obviously bothering her as she walked uneasily over to Octavia; the girl not recoiling from her touch like she had with his.
"Come on, you need some of that antidote too." she voiced hoarsely, his sister standing up; both of them beginning over to the ladder with the Thompson girl's arm wrapped protectively around the brunette.
"Octav-"
"No." Dakota cut him off with a growl, peering over her shoulder at him with a scowl; sending daggers through her tear-filled eyes. Bellamy seemed to shrink at her statement, never having heard such coldness in her usually warm voice.
༻✧༺
THE SUN CAUSED DAKOTA'S EYES TO BURN, HER BRAIN FEELING LIKE EXPLODING WITHIN the compound of her skull. She never thought there could be a moment where she wasn't enjoying the earth's sweet sunshine, but right now, even as she tried to shield her stinging irises with her hand, she wished it were already dusk.
The cyclone had reeked havoc on their poor camp, looking utterly demolished by the storm. An ancient oak had been brutally ripped from earth and collapsed on its side with its monumental roots showing just outside the gates. Gigantic tree limbs were snapped and dangling as if they had been tiny, weak twigs against the hurricane. Shrubbery and plant-life were torn from their places in the ground and flung haphazardly about; on the wall, on the drop ship, on the tents, all over the dirt. It was a mess, but everyone was already working to clean it up, and she was sure it would be good as new in no time.
Hours had passed since the horrors that had occurred on the third floor, Dakota still greatly shaken up from the atrocity; so many wretched images from the past 24 hours pulsing through her sore head. If the option was available and she had it her way, she'd be fast asleep right now, her body screaming at her about how badly she needed the rest. But Jasper and Monty had yet to return, and she had promised Fox to help her spot a rainbow after this was all over, and there were some people she wanted to apologize to. Starting with the boy standing near a pile of crushed tents, arms crossed as he surveyed the trashed land pensively.
"Be right back, Foxie." she exhaled, slowly sauntering up to him; leaving the brunette with her eyes thoroughly searching the skies.
"Hey."
Bellamy turned around at her greeting, lifting his brows in minor surprise before responding with a deep breath, only to let it back out as a heavy sigh. They stood in silence for a moment, Dakota squinting against the golden rays beaming down from the heavens. It felt uncomfortable, which was not something she was accustomed to feeling with him, so she decided to use an icebreaker before getting into the conversation she wished to have.
"Seen any rainbows?"
He furrowed his brows.
"No?"
"I was hoping we'd get one after the storm."
He nodded, Dakota deciding it was time to remove her eyes from Fox across the yard and connect with his; no procrastination. They both turned to each other, beginning to speak at once.
"I told-"
"I'm n-"
"You go first." she quickly waved her hand, Bellamy pausing ruminatively a long while before speaking slowly with fretted brows.
"Who we are, and who we have to be to survive are two very different things. Same thing I told Clarke."
She hummed quietly, showing him she understood what he meant. But what was the chasm that laid between those two things? At what point would lines be drawn and inevitably crossed if they thought of life that way? At what point would people lose themselves and allow morals to vanish entirely? She understood, but she couldn't say it was a policy she was in favor of.
"I'm really sorry." she voiced earnestly, Bellamy seeming confused by her statement.
"The situation we were in was impossible, and I shouldn't have gotten mad at you or anyone else for it. Finn was dying. You didn't know what else to do and you were trying to save his life. It's not like you took any pleasure in it. I'd never have enough guts to do what you guys did, so... I'm sorry. It was unfair of me to be upset with any of you, and I wasn't considering what was at stake."
There was a long beat. The expression on his face was unreadable for a moment, austere as ever before he eventually spoke up.
"You have guts, Dakota. More than most people I know." he told her firmly, keeping his arms crossed; thinking about how she had refused to return to camp until they had retrieved Octavia safely, even in such peril and while she was injured. She also never batted an eyelash at the prospect of getting caught on the Ark as long as it meant his sister could have a friend.
"You just also happen to have a better heart than the rest of us. Doesn't mean you're not strong."
The need for Dakota to blush never came, the words passing the act of bringing heat to her face and traveling right to her heart instead; the girl staring at him as her lips parted slowly, blinking a few times. He sounded so earnest and truthful, like he really believed that. It didn't happen often, but right now, she didn't know what to say; so she didn't say anything at all. She simply turned her gaze back to Fox, the girl still stumbling in small circles as she strained her neck to the baby blue ether.
"Did you get anywhere with that notebook?" Bellamy then asked, changing the subject.
Dakota had to work to keep her eyes from widening as she recalled her latest discovery, the situation upstairs having stolen her attention before she could do anything about it. She had indeed gotten somewhere with the notebook. She turned back to Bellamy, the boy awaiting her response.
She did not view him any differently than before this day, not holding anything that had happened earlier against him; coming to understand it had truly all been done in the name of saving Finn. She trusted him in a lot of ways, but despite no longer being angry, that grounder was not one of them.
"Uhhh...nope! No. It's practically impossible. Sorry." she lied.
"It's fine. I knew it was a long shot."
"Yeah... okay, I gotta go find Raven and tell her I'm sorry." she clasped her hands together, eager to go retrieve the leather journal again.
"Okay, see you later."
"Bye. Oh, wait!" she stopped herself.
As much as her entire being craved to race to that notebook, what she had just remembered was far too important to go undiscussed; a sincerity upon her as she lowered her voice to a quieter, more gentle tone.
"Octavia told me about your fight."
Bellamy dropped his head for a moment, a worn out sigh leaving his lips before he looked back up to her; jaw tight and eyes suddenly hard.
"Guess you hate me now for that?" he questioned coldly, expecting to be scolded; which he believed he deserved. Dakota's features scrunched up in puzzlement.
"No, I just wanted to see if you were okay."
"Oh." Bellamy eyed her skeptically for a moment, moving his hands to his pockets; not buying that she truly wasn't upset with him after everything he'd said. Maybe Octavia had only skimmed the surface of their heated argument.
"Did she... tell you everything?"
Dakota smiled lightly, knowing what he was getting at; Bellamy not crafty enough to successfully pull it off.
"She told me some things that she said, which I didn't agree with, and then she told me some things that you said, which I also didn't agree with."
He chuckled faintly, rubbing his nose with his thumb as his eyes fell to the muddy, soaked ground and then back up to her; their miens soon sobering again.
"You guys need to make it right." Dakota determined softy, but seriously; Bellamy nodding with grave features, the Thompson girl deciding to lighten things up once again before she departed.
"Can't have my Blake siblings mad at each other." she joshed, Bellamy's lips tugging helplessly upwards at her statement; raising his brows at the playfully smiling girl.
"Your Blake siblings, huh?"
"Mhm!"
"I'll mull it over."
"You do that, Bell. I'm gonna finish up my apologies and go sleep for 24 hours straight." she sent him a sarcastic thumbs up, the boy chortling at her as she walked a few steps backwards; soon turning on her heel and beginning away.
The second her back had turned to him Dakota was all business, every ounce of joking around draining from her body as her face washed over with a serious desire to get back to that notebook. Quickly, she was climbing up to the second floor and hurriedly seizing it, advancing to the third floor once equipped. She popped her head upstairs, Miller in the middle of telling Octavia to leave; it was the perfect opportunity.
"Oh, she's not gonna go down without a fight, Miller. You're probably gonna have to escort her all the way to the ground." Dakota voiced with a shrug, rising to her feet with a soft grunt.
Octavia shot her a puzzled look; she was complying fine, why had she said that? But when she saw the subtle widening of Dakota's pleading eyes being sent her direction, she quickly caught on, and went with the wordless request without any questions asked.
"She's right. You either push me down this ladder or I stay with him." Octavia declared flippantly, crossing her arms and pursing her lips; gesturing to the grounder behind them with her head.
Miller's lazy gaze looked back and forth between the two before sighing in disappointment, closing his eyes momentarily and then wrapping a firm hand around Octavia's upper arm.
"Alright, let's go." he exhaled boredly, Dakota stifling a giggle as the Blake girl began to put up a decent fight; battling harshly against him and cursing vehemently as they both struggled down the ladder.
The second it was safe enough to, she closed the heavy hatch with a huff, quickly strolling over to the man. He'd been cleaned and cared for- as best as they could while he was still tied up- by Octavia and Clarke; so there was barely any blood left in sight, nothing she couldn't handle. The vision of him was heartbreaking, but Dakota focused on her mission; knowing no one would get any good out of her standing there crying.
"Hi." she breathed a smile, holding up his notebook; the man's tired eyes moving slowly to the object and then back to her, his expression unchanging.
"I'm Dakota. So, I'd like to apologize. We... we were scared and one of us was dying. I-I know it's not an excuse to do what we did to you, but it's still why we did it. I really am sorry."
He continued to stare emotionlessly, Dakota awkwardly biting her bottom lip for a long moment of quietude before the glimmer returned to her eyes; lightening up again.
"Okay, so! This journal. I've been working on trying to learn your language all day, which has definitely not been easy. I couldn't get any of it figured out until I found.... this drawing." she hurriedly flipped through the crinkly pages; lifting up the sketch of the village so he could see.
"You're really good at these, by the way. So I was working on multiple theories, because I figured the best chance I had at understanding it even a little was if I could infer if it was derivative from another language. It wasn't until my friend pointed out this drawing of yours that I actually had potential evidence to support one of my theories. If Tondc is a place, like you've drawn it here, and we're in Virginia, then that has to be the ruins of Washington DC. Which... I don't know if you have any way of knowing what that is, but it was a really famous place at one point before the bombs. But if I'm right and that is Tondc, that means my theory that your language is some fast evolved, heavily accented dialect of American English could be right. So basically I'm saying..... I think I might've figured it out. At least a little."
His guise never shifted, never twitched or even showed signs of emotion once; his stare on her the same as it had been when she arrived up here. Dakota dropped her shoulders and sighed, allowing the book to hang limp at her side.
"And even if I'm right... that doesn't change the fact that you still have no clue what I'm saying right now. Right. Sorry to bother you."
She waltzed over to his vials and the rest of the items that had been brought in with him, setting the notebook down and giving it a pat.
"I won't tell any of my friends, don't worry. I'm probably not even right, but if I am, I don't want them to try to use it against you somehow."
She paused, staring deeply into his dark irises for a moment before speaking softly; the man never breaking his gaze from her's.
"I know you're good. I know you don't want violence. Me neither. I'll bring you some of my friend's herbal tea when he makes it."
She stood for a moment longer, about to open the hatch and descend back down the ladder when the frailest of voices caused her to freeze.
"Mochof, Dakota kom Skaikru."
Dakota whirled back around so fast she got whiplash, wincing as she brought a hand up to the bandage on her head. She blinked in amazement, new possibilities zipping through her mind once she had actually heard the dialect in action; allowing her to better understand the pronunciation of things. An awe-struck and flabbergasted smile pulled at her lips as she wracked her brain to remember if she had seen any of those words on the seven pages.
"Kru." she muttered, wheels turning behind her eyes; soon glancing back up to him as she tried to dissect his words, rushing a few steps closer to the man.
"Kru was in your journal multiple times, always with something different before. Trishanakru, Trikru, PodaKru, Floukru."
She gasped animatedly, springing slightly backwards and balling up her fists with a sudden burst of energy as she connected the dots.
"Kru like crew! Like group, people, family! They're all different groups and... I'm from Skaikru... because we came from the sky!" she nearly shouted the last part, letting out a laugh and jumping once in excitement before groaning in pain; head throbbing.
"Ow." she inhaled, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them slowly again.
The grounder tenuously nodded over to his journal before looking back to her, Dakota staring at him with an immensely grateful and slightly saddened air. He was going to let her keep looking at it.
"Thank you."
There was a beat.
"Octavia and I are going to get you out of here. I know we can." she spoke adamantly, giving him a determined look.
"We will-"
"What the hell, Dakota?" the hatch suddenly flew back open, a slightly aggravated Miller resurfacing as he clambered onto his feet. She glanced over her shoulder at him, soon turning her head back to the grounder one final time.
"Dakota kom Skaikru, out." she winked in a whisper, not loud enough for Miller to hear. She soon turned on her heel, retrieving the notebook he had so graciously gifted her access to and bidding a farewell to Miller before heading back downstairs.
A/N!
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BESTIES I FINISHED WRITING SEASON ONE AHHHH YAYYYYYYYYYY!!
Also, fair warning, this is not the last time those wires will be used to electrocute someone. Do with that what you will😳
word count 4,879