Clarke wakes up aching all over and covered in sweat. She realises, with some surprise, that she's actually extremely warm, and starts shedding the blankets around her. Eventually she sits up.
There's a fire crackling nearby, with Gustus tending to it. No doubt that's why the cave is much warmer than it was, although also a bit smoky. "How long have I been asleep?" Clarke croaks, throat scratchy and sore from inhaling ice-cold air. She misses her watch, the one Raven made for her, the one taken from her when Diana's people kidnapped her.
"It is nearly dawn," Gustus says calmly.
Clarke blinks, surprised. "But it was past dawn when we got -" she stops. She's been asleep nearly twenty-four hours? "Why didn't you wake me?"
"The snowstorm worsened," Gustus says simply. "We could not have gone anywhere. It seemed best to allow you to rest."
"Thanks," Clarke says gratefully. She sheds a couple more layers and finds herself staring down at her coat, black and stiff with Ontari's dried blood. She swallows hard and looks up again, fighting back the memory. It's not guilt that makes her uncomfortable about Ontari's death – it's that she almost got herself killed by being too stunned to react when Ontari assaulted her. Normally, she's the one who knows how to react, always. The only times when she hasn't...
Don't think about Lexa's death. Just don't.
She clears her throat. "Is it still going?"
"Skaikrusha wan down nau," Gustus says absently, starting to look for something in the pile of blankets and tools next to him.
"Good," Clarke says, relieved and concerned at the same time. The storm winding down is good news because it means they can get going, and bad news because it means Nia and her gona will be out looking for them.
"Here," Gustus says, finding what he was looking for. He passes her some dried meat wrapped in cloth.
Clarke suddenly realises she's ravenous. She takes the meat and tears into it. Halfway through following her second mouthful, she pauses. "Have you eaten yet?" she asks indistinctly.
Gustus shrugs. "It is your food, Clarke kom Skaikru." He pauses and corrects himself. "Clarke kom Kongeda."
"It's ours," Clarke says firmly. "Eat something." She sees his mulish expression. "I am Lexa's second-in-command and in her absence, I'm in charge. And I'm ordering you to eat something."
"We do not have much," he comments.
"We'll get more," Clarke replies. "I mean, unless you pass out before we can. Then I'll starve or freeze without your help and you'll have gotten us both killed."
His stubborn look slowly fades to a smile and he reaches out to take a strip of meat. "I do not believe anything could kill you, Clarke. You are far too fierce for that."
She smiles back at him. "Yeah, let's hope so." She closes her eyes against the sudden surge of emotion. "I want to go home," she says, her voice sounding dangerously close to a sob. "I want to see Lexa and Wells and Raven and Octavia and my mother and I'm sick of snow ... I want to see Lexa. I really, really want to see Lexa."
Gustus simply watches her, eyes calm and understanding. "I too," is all he says.
Clarke swallows some more meat and takes a few gulps out of a waterskin Gustus passes her, and forces her emotions back down. "Then I guess we should get going, huh. If Nia and her gona were forced to head back inside because of the snow we have a head start."
"Sha," Gustus says, standing as well. "The storm did not become truly bad for some time, however, and the weather has been slowly improving for several hours. I think they must have at least made it to the edge of the lake. Hopefully they will head after Roan instead of leaving the horses behind to go across the ice."
"Fingers crossed," Clarke says, only for Gustus to give her a strange look. Right. Not a Grounder expression.
Gustus ties the spare blankets into a neat bundle and slings them over his shoulder, then wraps one of Nia's guard's jackets around the top of her coat to give her more warmth without slowing her down. Clarke gratefully shrugs into it, the warmth from her cocoon of blankets starting to wear off. He gestures towards her hair and when she nods, braids it neatly and efficiently. He slows slightly, almost reverently, when he rebraids Costia's sheath into her hair.
Clarke picks up Ontari's sword to take with her. When she picks up Costia's bow, she pauses for a few moments – it seems almost like sacrilege to wear it, especially when she's also wearing Ontari's sword. But she's already wearing the sheath Costia made for Lexa in her hair. And she knows that if it were her, if she had died and Lexa fell in love with someone new, then she'd be unimaginably grateful if they carried her most valued possession back to the woman she loved. For a second she runs her hand down it admiringly, wishing she knew how to properly use a bow. Maybe Lexa will teach her someday.
They smother the fire and get moving quickly. The air outside is cold and there's some falling snow and slightly-painful wind that whips it into their faces, but it's nothing like it was before. The sun's starting to come up and it dyes the snow orange, every step makes a subdued crunching noise, and the crisp coldness of the air makes Clarke feel very awake and alive.
Gustus is also wearing one of the Azgeda jackets, and he's twined the chain attached to his wrist up his arm over the sleeve of it. It looks like a strange metallic snake curling around him. Clarke wonders if they should try and get it off – if anyone sees them it'll be obvious he's a runaway. But she doesn't have any way to remove it and it's pretty strong metal, she's not sure what to do about it. He'll just have to use one of the blankets to cover his arm if anyone approaches them – but even as she thinks that she knows it won't work. On the other hand, who are they likely to run into out here besides Nia or one of her gona?
She finds the answer to that question three hours later, when Gustus freezes suddenly. "Wait here, beja," he says quietly, then looks at her.
It's the fourth time he's done this, so she knows he's waiting for a response – no, not a response, her permission. She gives a slight nod and he disappears into the icy forest. Clarke waits, huddled into herself, watching her breath turn to little huffs of condensation. That's something the Ark never told them about, really. But Earth Skills never taught them much that was helpful about the world. It was a class based around the belief that they were important, they were unique, and that the earth was waiting just for them. When all they needed to do was look at the window to see that it was still spinning on.
Clarke starts to get worried after a few minutes. Gustus hasn't left for more than a minute or two previously – the first time she actually thought he was going to handle the call of nature, only to realise when he came back and reported that it was 'just wolf tracks' that he's making sure the way ahead is perfectly safe for her. With another person she might think he was assuming she was fragile, but that's not it. He just considers her safety more important than his.
He arrives back. "Hunters," he says in a low voice, lips thin. "They are not looking for us, they are searching for food. But there are ten of them at least and they are spread out. They know this area far better than us. I was very lucky they did not see me – if we try and get by them, they will. And I do not think we can move fast enough to avoid them."
"Alright," Clarke says, forcing herself to calmness. They can't know about her or Gustus, otherwise they wouldn't be looking for food, they'd be looking for them. She looks at Gustus. "Let me guess, you're about to suggest you attack them as a distraction and I get by."
Gustus stiffens slightly. "It is the best option," he says, almost pleadingly. "You must return to Heda. Tell her that she is the greatest of all the Commanders, that it has been an honour to serve her, that she must stay strong -"
"Together or not at all," Clarke says firmly. Her mind races. "Hold out your hands."
He doesn't hesitate, or frown at her, or question. He simply sticks out his hands. Either he's mad or he believes in her. Perhaps both.
Clarke unwinds the chains from his arm and loops them around his wrists to tie them together awkwardly, leaving her holding the end of it. She reaches out and pulls open his jacket, letting all of the bloodstains on his clothing show – there's a lot of them, since Roan stabbed the man he took this top from several times. Then she grabs his two swords and shoves them besides Ontari's one.
"Stoop," she orders him quietly. "Limp. Look as injured as possible. And afraid, too. Look as scared as you can."
She turns and yanks him several steps after her. They haven't made it far when a voice cries out from high in a tree, "HOD YU OP!"
Clarke stops and bares her teeth. "Down here, now!" she yells. She stands up straight, looking as proud and arrogant as she can. "All of you! I am here by order of the Azplana!"
There's a long pause. Then suddenly someone drops from a tree to land directly in front of Clarke. They have long curling hair with only a few braids, a feminine, catlike face, skin darker than any Azgeda Clarke has seen before, and they're holding a bow. When the hunter raises their head, dark brown eyes survey Clarke cautiously. "Chon yu bilaik?"
"Ontari," she tells him. "Ontari kom Azgeda, Seken kom Azplana."
"Seken kom Azplana?" the hunter says doubtfully.
"Sha," Clarke says, then raises her voice to yell, "I command you all to show yourselves!"
There's another long pause, and then the hunter lets out an ear-splitting whistle and other hunters start to appear, spread out as much as possible but all visible, all arrayed around the first in a loose semicircle. "I am Orion. Chit yu gaf?"
"What I want," Clarke says coldly. "Is an escort." Channelling Ontari, she looks Orion up and down dismissively. "And I suppose you will have to do. My gonakru were attacked by wolves. I managed to save myself and our prisoner. You and your hunters will accompany us south."
Orion blinks and says sourly. "Will we?"
One of the other hunters hisses "Shof op!" She turns to Clarke and gives her a brittle smile. "Excuse my houmon, he speaks without thinking," she apologises. This second hunter is pale, with very blue eyes, and unusually bright red hair. Clarke wonders how on earth she and her husband can be effective hunters when they're both so bright against the white snow – but then, she hadn't seen them before they stepped in front of her, so perhaps they're simply very good at what they do. "We must discuss this -"
"There's nothing to discuss," Clarke says. "I need to go to a village in the south. All of Ice Nation depends on the safe delivery of this prisoner. So you'll provide us with shelter, food and assistance. You'll be our guides and our guards." She smiles icily. "Or you will deal with the disappointment of the Azplana."
Orion and his wife have a very quiet and quick argument. Clarke catches the words "Azplana", "Seken", "danger", "food", and "Natblida" multiple times.
Eventually Orion clears his throat. "We have all heard rumours of our Azplana's brave Seken," he says, and the words are coated with a thin layer of mockery. Clarke can only guess what they've heard about Ontari – it can't be positive. "There is a simple way to prove if you are who you claim to be." He pulls a knife out of his belt and takes a step forward.
Clarke draws her sword immediately, realising what he's talking about. Nia hasn't kept her Nightblood quite as secret as she thought. "Back off," she says dangerously. "I've lost enough blood to wolves, I'm not losing anymore to you. If you hurt me, the Azplana will raze your village to the ground." With her other hand she pulls open her outer jacket, revealing the dried black blood all over her coat. "Does this answer the question you were about to ask? I am Natblida."
Orion's wife mutters something that sounds a lot like "I told you so" to him, and Clarke almost feels bad for making him lose an argument when he's absolutely correct to be suspicious.
Orion looks at her sword. "A very fine blade," he says blandly. "Rock Line's best work, I see." He raises his gaze to stare into her eyes like he's trying to figure out her game.
"A gift from the Azplana," Clarke says sweetly. She yanks on Gustus' chain, pulling him forward a step. "I am very glad to have run into you. Travelling alone is so much effort, especially with a prisoner to deal with."
"We are glad to assist," Orion says dryly. He smiles thinly, eyeing Clarke shrewdly from beneath his thick eyelashes. "Well, then, let us go south. We will take you to whatever village you wish, and be sure to inform the village leader that the Azplana's Seken requires his hospitality."
In other words, deliver them to someone who almost definitely has heard by now that Nia's looking for some fugitives. Also, now they have guards on the way – excellent against wolves, bears or bandits, but if they run into Nia's people the hunters will turn on them immediately. Clarke wonders how the hell she's going to get out of this one.