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The night felt good for Coriane. With that exhausting day, she needed some silence, some peace, a chance to connect with her precious element and feel tucked under Tekara's protection. The forest managed to give her all those things on that particularly beautiful night.
Coriane saw something strange, however. It seemed as if the forest had been arranged for her pleasure, to give her a little calm before a terrible storm, she didn't know how to explain it, but whatever it was, she didn't intend to waste the moment with worries.
The forest at night looked very different in the eyes of a Terra. It didn't look dangerous; it looked welcoming, it didn't look full of mysteries; it looked full of beauty.
She wished, deep inside her, that people were like that, but she knew well that, with all the power in the world, she could never understand them.
She took a deep breath as she closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the forest, one last breath of fresh air to finally return to Polis, no one had seen her leave, but she was still aware that she had to return, tomorrow she would be leaving for Arkadia quite early.
Her plan was exactly that; go back to her bed and call it a night, until she heard Astrid's slight grunt and the voice of the person who provoked it.
"For some reason, I knew I'd find you here."
Coriane clenched her jaw and took a second to calm her high heart rate before turning to face Bellamy's face. Sinful even in the moonlight, with his hair curling over his forehead and tired eyes detonating emotions.
She stood in silence for a couple of seconds more, analyzing him from head to toe. Deep down, and a confession she would never say out loud, it pained her a little not to trust him. She had thought they were forming a relationship based on that: trust, Coriane thought Bellamy understood so much of her, but she just didn't know what to think anymore, who to really trust.
"You've come to risk your luck, Blake?" She said nonchalantly when she was sure the boy wasn't carrying any visible weapons.
"No, I don't think that would do me very well," he shook his head slightly, laughing nervously. "I've come to apologize."
"For what?" Coriane arched an eyebrow.
"For everything."
The tiredness and all those feelings returned to his voice this time, making Coriane try to look for lies in his eyes, for some plan she wasn't seeing. But, it seemed so genuine...
"Well, I appreciate the effort, but it wasn't necessary," she shook her head, swallowing dryly and staring at the ground for a few seconds, trying to look anywhere else but his eyes.
"But it is, I didn't...I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry," Bellamy took a step closer until Astrid growled. When he looked up at the ligeress a hint of hurt crept into his features, but he quickly hid it, Astrid had begun to trust him as well.
"It wasn't you who hurt me, let alone the one who should apologize. Don't think you're so important, Bellamy," she didn't mean to sound or look so harsh, but she couldn't afford faces or emotions at the moment.
"Could you please stop being so Coriane for a second," the boy sighed, exasperated, rubbing his eyes.
"And who do you want me to be, then?"
"I don't know, someone who accepts apologies, maybe."
"Fine," she snorted, rolling her eyes and folding her arms in anticipation.
"I'm so sorry, Ann, I...it's just that they were...I never meant to hurt you, I never wanted to hurt you," again the vulnerability in his features made an appearance, managing to relax Coriane's countenance despite her attempt to remain as stoic as possible.
"You didn't," she shook her head, more sympathetic this time.
"But I did."
"Did you send me here to die?"
"No."
"Then you didn't."
"In that case, can I get close without getting my head ripped off?" He pointed at Astrid, and Coriane laughed.
"Yes."
They sat together under a tree while they watched Astrid amusing herself, running and darting into the bushes where the fireflies were hiding and making them fly, teasing the butterflies to fly around her and light up the dark forest with their luminescence. They both just laughed at how that huge, intimidating animal could act like a child so suddenly, after having been threatening Bellamy with its lethal teeth only minutes before.
While Coriane was immersed in the tranquillity of the forest and the happiness of seeing her happy ligeress, Bellamy couldn't help but be mesmerized by watching her. He knew how dangerous the woman was, like those snakes he almost always saw her carrying; beautiful, exotic, fascinating, but poisonous. Still, he couldn't help wanting to be near her, wanting to be able to sit all day and listen to her talk only about life as Terra, about her animals, about nature, about the God she loved and served so much and the one who gave her the honour of being the protector of the forests.
Although, to be honest, more than "protector", Bellamy saw her as a Queen. She just had that kind of power, power over her actions and her every word, to make people follow her, to tame the most dangerous of creatures.
"I never asked you, though I was always curious, is she the only hybrid?" He pointed to Astrid, who was still running the butterflies around and around.
"No, there are hundreds of hybrids of many species."
Putting two fingers in her mouth, Coriane whistled, Bellamy had heard her do that before when she called her animals, so he excitedly waited to see who would show up.
One by one they came, as Coriane told him how the wild world after the bombs had sought extreme ways to survive, among them, the combination of species. She told him about the first time she saw Astrid and how she was once just a tiny kitten who could be held like a human baby, and now she was a huge predator whose whole torso could not even be hugged.
"You know Roscoe, he's a hybrid of jaguar and lion; a jaglion," Bellamy smiled sideways watching the animal lick his wet paws and shake the water off his black fur.
"This is Ibis, she is a coyote and wolf hybrid; a coywolf," she turned her attention away from the jaglion to the wolf-looking one that Coriane was pointing at, she had about three pups wrapped around her paws and they couldn't stand still, they all seemed to be eager to run towards Coriane, but their mother kept them at bay.
"And these are siblings Gus and Gala, hybrids of a leopard and a puma; pumapards," two felines he already recognized from having seen them once or twice accompanying Terra appeared very playful, scampering and biting each other. Pure mischief shining in their black eyes.
When Ibis finally let her cubs run towards Terra, they bumped into each other and fell to the ground more than once before finally reaching them. Coriane greeted them all with a huge smile, a smile that Bellamy only saw on her face whenever she was in her element. Coriane was one, but Terra was another.
She spoke to the cubs in such a strange way, as if they were little human babies, and they responded with barking and other sounds. Bellamy was sure they were communicating, what or how; he had no idea, but he watched them in fascination with a smile of his own.
He had no idea how much time had passed before he had inevitably fallen asleep next to the girl and the animals, but they had spent the whole night talking about hybrids and all the anecdotes Coriane had with them, both the good and the not so good.
It never failed to amaze him, to entertain him, and even if tomorrow he would have to give many explanations as to why he had not arrived from his departure, where he had been, and many people were sure going to scold him for leaving Arkadia all night, he did not mind at all, for he knew, deep down, that there was no better person to spend the night with in the middle of the forest, surrounded by wild animals and treacherous nature, than with the queen of it herself.
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The next morning she was exhausted but happy. In the early morning, Bellamy had returned to Arkadia after they had woken up together in the forest, and the whole morning after that Coriane had spent sleeping to regain some energy. She slept until Odeya came to wake her up to tell her that Lexa needed her. It turned out that the Commander wanted her to accompany her and Clarke to the town of the Sky People, and although her heart raced, her hands began to sweat and she felt nervous at the thought of seeing some faces there again, the anxiety was not so destructive at the thought that Bellamy would be there too. And Octavia, Indra, Jensen and Krista, of course.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks Lexa has already lost her mind over Clarke," Aren whispered next to her.
Coriane couldn't help but stifle a giggle, of course she'd already noticed, even a blind man could see it.
"But... I don't think she's the only one who has found a new... interest, in the Sky People."
The girl's head turned quickly towards him, with a raised eyebrow and an amused smile, she waited for the boy to give another hint to his words, but when all she got was a sly look and a sly grin, she raised her eyebrow further.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing special," Aren shook his head, unable to hide his grin, averting his eyes from his friend's.
Coriane looked at him suspiciously for a few more seconds, but when she assumed Aren wouldn't say anything else, she turned around again, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
"You and Bellamy, maybe."
Aren's horse whinnied and reared up on its two legs suddenly, causing some of those walking around him to stop or jump backwards to avoid being hit by the animal.
Aren fell backwards to the ground when the horse's movement caught him off guard, drawing a satisfied smile from Coriane and a groan from the boy himself.
"Hey, that's not fair!" He complained, trying to get up but failing to do so.
Behind, an extremely amused laugh made them both turn around, while Aren frowned more deeply, Coriane widened her mischievous grin.
"Since Aren has been such an idiot, can I take his horse? My feet hurt from all the walking."
When Coriane nodded to the animal, giving Isaac permission to get on it, Aren stifled a groan, but this time, of pure indignation.
"Okay, that's cruel enough, Ann!" The boy reproached, getting up from the ground faster than he had tried before.
"For your information, Bellamy is just a Skaikru that I like better than the others. Enjoy your walk."
Isaac put two fingers to his forehead and winked amusedly at the chestnut as he led the horse that had once belonged to Aren to the front, and grumbling, Aren had no choice but to continue the long walk to Arkadia on foot.
Isaac hadn't exactly redeemed himself with the group. Yes, Coriane had forgiven him after Isadora returned and the boy tried to do his good deeds. Isadora herself had already forgiven him completely, Krista was starting to let go a bit more, and Odeya said that while she didn't fully trust her own twin brother, she recognized his efforts to try to make amends. Jensen and Aren were still extremely reluctant to accept the boy back, but increasingly, it seemed that the only person Isaac was seeking full forgiveness from, other than the one he had directly hurt, was Coriane.
Last night, as they talked about everything and nothing, including her current predicament with the man she used to call a brother, Bellamy had told her that no one could tell her if forgiving someone or not was right, he had told her that it was her decision to forgive him or not, but that it was also her decision how she felt about it, the consequences that her heart was going to bring her, that the weight of hatred and resentment would do, and although it had been hard for her to admit it that night, her heart didn't want to hate Isaac anymore, not only because of the memory of the times when she called him her brother, but because she was tired of feeling that horrible pressure of betrayal, of resentment in her chest every time she looked at him, she was tired of thinking about what could have been if nothing had happened. Maybe she and Isadora would have been together, maybe those two years of pain wouldn't have happened, maybe she would have had her brother with her all that time, and the conflicts that arose from it all would never have happened. But there was also that side of her brain that thought that maybe she would have suffered not only Isa's loss but also his, that maybe in that situation Isaac would only have gotten himself killed, turned into a Reaper, even, and Coriane couldn't stop imagining the deep grief and sorrow that would have put Odeya in, and to see that pure heart suffer so much more than it did would have been unbearable.
Isaac no longer had her hatred, that was certain, but her trust, her unconditional loyalty... that, she found hard to believe, would ever be fully regained.
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Blood.
It was the only thing she could see. That she could smell.
They had arrived at what was supposed to be the camp of those warriors protecting the lands of Arkadia, but instead of being greeted with the usual enthusiasm, they were greeted by nothing but bodies and death.
Death. Everyone she could see in her field of vision was dead.
Her breath caught in her throat, the smell was unbearable, Jensen and Krista were the only things her eyes searched for so desperately that she couldn't focus on anything.
She jumped down from Nix, the mare whinnied feeling the fear and despair of her Terra, Astrid and Søren immediately ran to the field of dead bodies without needing a verbal command, they already felt it, they already knew what their Terra was so desperate to find.
Her eyes met Aren's and she saw in them the same thing she was feeling in her chest; fear, terror, anguish and extreme concern for those two bodies. They didn't even wait for the others, together with Isaac, whom Coriane had heard swallowing dryly at her side, they set off on a desperate search for their friends.
"Please, please, please, please," Terra whispered to herself.
Her breathing was getting more and more hurried and her chest was rising faster and faster. She ached, ached with the anticipation of what she was about to encounter, with the pain of the loss she hadn't even seen yet.
They heard Astrid's roar, and without a second's delay, they ran to where the ligeress was calling them.
Astrid's roars were not the only thing they heard as they approached; so did the sobs.
It was like a stab to the chest, deep inside her, in that core that made her human, she recognized the feeling because she had experienced it time after time already: when her parents died, and when she thought Isadora had died too. But this time there was something much, much worse in the way a very wounded, weak, and almost unrecognisable Jensen held Krista's lifeless body.
Her Krista. Her High Sectatore. Her best friend. Her sister.
The redhead's face was stained in blood, her body punctured by more than three bullet holes. She was pale, her eyes devoid of any life that could be seen in them, without that fiery sparkle that characterized them. Her bow was broken on one side of her, it was as if she hadn't even had time to get up and fight, to take whoever had caused this with her.
Jensen held her so tightly against his own wounded body, as if he somehow hoped he could bring her back to life.
Only once had Coriane seen Jensen cry, and that time had been nothing compared to the wrenching cries and sobs of pain that now pierced Coriane's ears.
She didn't notice when Aren ran up to both of them and threw himself on the ground beside his dear friend, tears had also gathered in the blue eyes of the chestnut, but he was desperately trying to hold them back as he searched for wounds on Jensen's body.
Coriane couldn't move, she couldn't think, all she could see were the tears falling intensely from the light blue eyes, as his big, burly body trembled with a helplessness that Coriane had never seen in him.
Jensen was alive.
She thought, and kept repeating it over and over and over in her head.
Jensen was alive.
Jensen was alive.
Jensen was alive, but Krista was not.
Alive, but Krista was not.
But Krista.
Krista.
Krista was dead.
Somewhere in her unconsciousness she reached them, her knees hitting the ground so hard that if she had any coherent consciousness, she would have groaned in pain. She wasn't looking at Krista's body, her eyes were solely focused on Jensen's injured leg, on the cut on his face that looked like a bullet had grazed it. Had she pushed Aren? She didn't know, but the boy certainly wasn't there anymore, though he could be by her side, and at that moment Coriane would have no sense of it. She tore the end of her shirt with her knife and with hands much shakier than she felt them, and she tied the piece of cloth to the boy's still bleeding leg. Jensen turned to look at her, his eyes bloodshot but his sobs diminishing slightly in intensity.
"Let me see..."
Had she spoken? From the boy's confused face she supposed she had. It had been no more than a sigh, an almost unintelligible whisper of words that didn't even make sense in her head.
Coriane raised her hand to touch the boy's face, but when he pulled away slightly, she clenched her fist.
"Let me see."
Aren, who was actually on the girl's left, tried to place his hands on her shoulders, but something in Coriane just went boom at the touch. Something snapped, something inside her detonated each and every one of her feelings.
"Let me fucking see, let me see, Jensen, let me see, let me see!" She screamed loudly, desperately. She didn't even know why she was screaming, for what purpose she was screaming, she was just doing it.
She was screaming. Screaming. And screaming. And screaming.
With Aren's help, Jensen moved to the side, just enough so that Krista's body was exposed to Coriane's view. The screaming stopped suddenly, even the air circulation did too. For a moment she froze. From up close, Krista looked even paler, even more unrecognizable.
Her breathing came back abruptly, as if she was begging for some air in her lungs. She was begging for something other than pain, other than helplessness. Her heart was wrenching into so many tiny pieces she wanted to try to give one to Krista to replace the heart that didn't beat anymore. Her beautiful Krista, her beautiful sister, her beautiful friend, dead. While she hadn't been near, while Coriane had had no idea something had happened, while Coriane had not been able to protect her. Krista hadn't been giving a chance to fight, no one around her had. The sobs were not long in coming, abrupt and even louder than Jensen's had been.
She suddenly threw herself into his arms. She stopped staring at her sister's body, and sank her head into Jensen's neck. The boy had been completely caught off guard, but he didn't hesitate for a second to wrap his own arms around Coriane with a strength similar to that with which he had held Krista's body.
No one was moving. Clarke, who had just arrived after hearing Coriane's gut wrenching sobs, tried to speak but Lexa stopped her, no matter how much the blonde insisted that she had to tend to Jensen's wounds, as she had done with Indra's, to prevent the boy from bleeding more, neither Lexa nor Isaac would let her speak, but in a short time Clarke understood. She had never thought it possible to hear so much pain from someone as strong and fearsome as Coriane, for some time, even, Clarke had thought Coriane unable to feel any pain at all. But when she saw the terrified, shattered way she clung to the body of the boy she remembered as Jensen, Clarke knew that this was not the Coriane who had almost killed her more than once, the one who had coiled a snake around her neck and thrown felines at her, the Skaiheda, not even the Terra, the one everyone seemed to fear. That Coriane over there was the one who had just lost a sister. Even the most monstrous, the most reckless and the toughest could be broken, and until that moment Clarke had had no idea just how much.
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Her eyes were threatening to close, it was taking her every little bit of strength to stay awake. She couldn't fall asleep, not with Jensen badly hurt beside her. Because she knew that if she did, the nightmares of that moment would invade her dreams, and if anything happened to her friend while she was trying to fall asleep, she would blame herself for the rest of her life.
For a moment she almost failed tho, for a moment she stopped thinking and forgot absolutely everything, her brain emptied, she didn't even remember who she was or what she was doing in that tent, but Jensen's desperate cry woke her up in an instant and reminded her of everything she had forgotten for a second.
"Hey, hey, you're okay. Jensen, Jen look at me, look at me, you're okay," her voice was hoarse from all the tiredness and all the crying and screaming she had done that afternoon, she reached out to the boy and cupped his face in her hands in an attempt to bring him back to reality.
By the time Jensen finally came to his senses, Isaac and Aren had already entered the tent with concern, and the felines resting near the two on the ground had already risen in extreme alertness.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Apologized the boy in a voice so thin, that only Coriane was able to hear him.
Seeing Jensen so broken was causing her even more mortal pain than the whole situation was already giving her. He was the strongest of them all, the one with brute strength and double-edged swords in both hands. But deep down, Coriane knew him very well, deep down she knew that he was capable of loving like a little boy, of being scared of the dark and much more; scared of being alone.
"I didn't tell her, Ann, I never told her," those beautiful light blue eyes were looking at her with pure pain, bloodshot and crystallized with tears.
Coriane tried to hold back her own tears, licked her lips and prepared to speak, trying not to break her voice in the process.
"But she knew, Jen, she knew, and she loved you too."
For the rest of the afternoon and part of the night, Jensen and Indra had told them everything that had happened, how the Arkadian soldiers had attacked them while they slept, and the boy had not bothered to omit that her sister's killer had been a man named Pike, who himself had pulled the trigger countless times when Krista was going to get up and defend herself.
Coriane didn't even know him, but she wouldn't really need to, all she wanted was to hear his every cry of pain, to hear his prayers and begs for mercy.
And she was going to get them, sooner or later, she was going to kill the man with her own hands, and anyone who got in her way, would suffer the same fate.