“So you knew.” was the first thing Clarke said the moment they were in private, Niylah and Raven and Octavia gone to the infirmary, tone and expression equally inscrutable, giving Lexa and her sisters no guide what so ever on her emotional state or her opinion on the matter, and a series of glances and grimaces were exchanged between them. “The whole time, you know who I was?”
“Not knew, no, not the whole time. Suspected. You were too obviously foreign and…unaware,” Lexa responded honestly, carefully avoiding the use of the word ‘ignorant’, no matter how accurately it might have applied. Because Clarke had been ignorant, painfully so, when she had first arrived on Earth.
But ignorance was not the same as stupidity, and Clarke had never been anything remotely approaching stupid. Ignorant of the new world, yes. Unaware of its customs and dangers, certainly. But never, ever stupid. And using a word that could be taken as an insult, even if it was technically accurate, was not the way to navigate this conversation. "You were too obviously foreign and unaware of the world to be anything other than someone who had come from somewhere very far away, or very isolated, and the timing and location of your arrival matched the descent of the object that fell from the sky. Combined with desperation Costia spoke of when it came to destroying the interior of the sky-metal…"
"And you didn't say anything." Clarke's voice was flat. Not angry, not yet, but flat in the way that a blade was flat before it was turned edge-on, and Lexa resisted the urge to wince again. It might make Clarke feel better in the short term, but it would also likely fan her emotions higher, and that wouldn’t help anyone right now. "You let me stumble around, let me make a fool of myself, let me—"
"Let you learn." Lexa interrupted, and there was no apology in her voice. “We let you learn, Clarke, because you deserved to learn and to get to know us and our people before you had everything thrown on your shoulders. You deserved to see what the ground was like, to get stable, to heal and be comfortable. Would you have preferred if we had confronted you while you were still bedridden, injured and helpless and surrounded by complete strangers, at the very center of their place of power?”
Clarke's jaw tightened, and for a long moment the silence in the room was absolute, heavy enough that it was pressing down on all of their shoulders. Costia shifted her weight almost imperceptibly, and Ontari's arms remained folded, her dark eyes watchful but carefully neutral. Caris, newest to this dynamic and not the best with social situations in general, simply stood there without moving, carefully taking in everything that was happening around her.
"No," Clarke finally admitted, the word reluctantly dragged from her lips like a splinter: painful, slow, and leaving behind a wound that could fester if it was ignored, but would have festered if it had been left as it was. "No, I wouldn't have preferred that."
"Then you understand why we did what we did," Lexa pressed, gently but without retreat, her green eyes holding Clarke's blue ones with the same solid, unshakeable confidence that -God help her- Clarke had long since decided she found incredibly attractive. "We were not deceiving you, Clarke. We were protecting you. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yes." It was Costia who responded, stepping forward and drawing Clarke’s attention entirely onto herself. Her voice was soft, but there was steel beneath it, the kind that came from years upon years of being the emotional anchor for people who carried the weight of entire peoples. "There is, Clarke, and I think you know it. Deception is about taking something from someone, about controlling them and hurting them. What we did was about giving you something: time. Space. The chance to be a person before you had to be a symbol."
Something in Clarke’s gaze flickered. Not anger, not quite, but something rawer, something that looked uncomfortably like hurt, though it was hurt with a dancing fire lurking behind it. "And who decided I needed that? Who decided what was best for me without asking me?"
"I did." Lexa said simply, drawing Clarke's attention back to her, accepting the weight of it without flinching. "And I would do it again if I had to, because it was the best thing for all of us personally, and for both of our people’s collectively. You had months to work with, you told us that much, and up until the arrival of Raven and Octavia it very much looked like you would get it. We didn’t want to rush you into things anymore than you clearly didn’t want to rush into things either. It would have done more harm than good, and I wanted to spare you, us, and everyone else exactly that.”
“She’s right, Clarke.” Kassandra interjected gently from her own place, standing apart from the rest of the group but unforgettable in spite of it, and she smiled softly with a shrug when they all looked at her with surprise, suspicion, and annoyance, depending on who owned the face making the expression. “She is, and I’m going to tell you she is, whether you like it or not. ALIE and I weren’t even going to let you meet Lexa and the others until you’d been planet-side for a couple of months, at least. If it hadn’t been for how sideways your arrival went, that’s exactly what would have happened, too. You just weren’t ready, not for handling your heritage and not for handling things here on Earth. And you know that, Clarke. You know that you weren’t ready. You’re not angry because we were wrong, you’re angry because you feel controlled.”
Clarke's mouth opened, then closed again. The silence that followed was different from the ones that had come before it: less sharp, less brittle. More like the silence of someone who was well aware that they’d had exactly that thought, many times, but wasn’t particularly pleased about hearing that particular fact come out of someone else’s mouth.
Kassandra watched her with ancient, patient eyes. The others waited, holding their breath.
"You're right," Clarke said at last, and the words came out quieter than any of them expected, the edge now entirely absent and replaced with something that sounded very much like exhaustion. She pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead, exhaling slowly through her nose as she rubbed roughly. "You're right, and I hate that you're right, because it doesn't make it feel any less shitty."
"It shouldn't.” Kassandra acknowledged, nodding in agreement. “At least, not right away. It will get better if given enough time, and now that things are coming out into the open, you don’t have to worry about it happening again. After all,” her smile turned -and there was no other word for it- distinctly impish. “Wives should never keep secrets from one another, wouldn’t you agree?”
Reactions varied, eyes widening around the room in surprise. Not necessarily at the words -everyone present was well aware of what was prophesized for their future relationship- themselves, but certainly at the casualness that they had been delivered with and their complete inappropriateness under the current situation.
Clarke stared at Kassandra for a long, disbelieving moment, and then —despite everything, despite the tension and the hurt and the exhaustion— she laughed. It was a short, startled thing, more an explosion of air than genuine mirth, but it certainly put a heavy crack in the oppressive, tenderhook tension that had been slowly building since the conversation had begun.
"You have got to be kidding me, Kassie!" Clarke muttered amidst a tumble of emotions, dropping her hand from her forehead and shaking her head. "We're in the middle of—and you just—this was serious!"
"It is serious," Kassandra agreed, utterly unrepentant, her impish smile not diminishing in the slightest. On the contrary, it widened, and she leaned against the wall with folded arms. "Which is precisely why someone needed to remind everyone in this room that the world isn't ending. Again. You're all standing here like you're negotiating a treaty at sword-point, when what you actually are is a group of young women who care deeply about each other and are struggling with the fact that caring about someone doesn't always mean agreeing with them, or being happy about the decisions that they make."
"She's not wrong," Ontari muttered, the first words she'd spoken since the conversation had begun, and when Clarke's gaze snapped to her, the Ice Nation woman met it squarely. "I've been standing here for the last ten minutes trying to figure out if I should say something or if opening my mouth would make things worse. I decided on worse, but since Kassandra apparently has no such concerns or restraint..."
"I’m two-and-a-half thousand years old, girl, and I’m from Lakonia. In my homeland, children would be punished for dancing around a subject like those damned Athenians.” Kassandra immediately scoffed, waving a hand dismissively as she turned away, ignoring the strangled sounds that came from all those that hadn’t already known how old she was. “Now talk out your feelings and figure out how you’re going to go forward. I’m going to warm up the ORACLE. Come find me when you’re ready put a little spark back into the atmosphere. Or, rather, put a little back of temperance back into the sparks that are already there.”
The room was silent for a long, chaotically-calm moment after the door clicked shut behind her, before Clarke tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling.
“This is, perhaps, the most painfully awkward moment of my entire life.” she remarked, seemingly to no one at all, in a tone that was somewhere between absent and conversational. “Seriously. I’ve never even had a girlfriend. Niylah would be the first person to say, quite firmly, that she’s my sex slave, my pet, and not an equal romantic partner by any measure. What the fuck do I know about having a wife? And just laying it out there like that. I know everyone knows about it, prophecies and all that, sure, fine. But did she have to just say it?”
"You're asking me?" Ontari said, one eyebrow arching, sensing an opportunity to keep the mood light and rebuild a bit of comfortable rapport. "I was raised by Nia and spent my entire Chosen-hood, up until you arrived, avoiding interpersonal relationships so that they couldn’t distract me from unseating Lexa and taking her position. I’ve learned more about the softer side of life in the last few weeks than the rest of my life combined."
“I know little more. All of my experience is from festivals and similar events, with partners well-soothed by drink and drug.” Caris added in what damn well seemed to be an awkward and earnest attempt at commiseration and support, shrugging somewhat philosophically. “Evidently, my demeanor is difficult to ignore sufficiently for sex otherwise.” she hesitated for a moment, looking and sounding somewhat vulnerable as she continued. “One of the reasons I dedicated myself so at the Conclaves was in the hopes of finding for myself a family, sisters and lovers alike, that would not require such things to tolerate or enjoy my company.”
A frown swept over Clarke’s face immediately and she was moving just as quickly, pulling the newest Chosen into a warm hug. “Caris, you don’t need to be tolerated, that isn’t how anything is going to work moving forward.” she informed her quite firmly, sounds of agreement coming from the other women around them, and as Caris tentatively returned the hug Clarke turned her attention to Ontari. “And as for you, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You were focused on doing what you thought was best for your people, so you put your own personal desires and emotions aside for a greater good. That’s a point of pride, more than anything else.”
Two voices murmured their thanks, soft and heartfelt, before Clarke stepped away from Caris -who seemed rather reluctant to let her go, making everyone wonder just how affection-starved she was- and ran a hand through her hair.
“Okay. Alright, this conversation is nowhere near over yet, but we have more important things to do right now. First of all, what’s this ‘ORACLE’ system that Kassandra mentioned, and why does she think warming it up is something that needs to happen right now?” she asked, her companions exchanging surprised looks at her apparent ignorance, having assumed that she would know exactly what short of machinery her ancestor had left behind.
“It’s a massive machine, left behind here in the palace by your ancestor, Aleksia Pramheda. No Heda has ever been able to discern it’s purpose, the screens were all too damaged and what knowledge we had was lost during Sheidheda’s heresies, but when Kostia brought me back a Focus of my own from the bunker, I was able to see without the screens.” Lexa answered, choosing not to comment. It wasn’t really important at the moment, and with the mood improving she wasn’t interested in bringing it back down by touching a still-raw nerve by implying Clarke was ignorant. “From my understanding, it is an ‘Organic Regenerative Atmospheric Cleansing Life Environment System. Kassandra will doubtlessly be able to tell us for sure -she seems to know everything else, Maker knows- but we assumed from the name that it would somehow be able to quell the rogue storms and start healing the world.”
“Seriously? I…Jesus, I knew that…I mean, Kassandra explained that the Isu had technology beyond anything we can imagine, and Alexia mentioned…but I never thought-!” she cut herself off, shaking her head and turning towards the door. “No time to waste then. Let’s get that system online and start saving the world. Then we can head to Lexa’s room and figure out us in some god-damned peace and quiet.”
Quiet was exactly what the corridors of the palace were at this hour, as they began to chart their course through them. Not many people had known that Heda was gone to begin with, and those that did knew that she was back, leaving everyone going about the ongoing business of celebrating another successful Conclave and -rather more importantly, preciously- the creation of a new Chosen. Idly, Clarke wondered what Raven and Octavia would think of things here on Earth, what they’d think of Coalition culture, and she not so idly made a mental note to ensure that no one got anywhere near her two girls. She’d be damned if someone got them drunk and took them do bed before they properly understood what was going on, just because everyone got caught up in the heat of the moment.
Frankly, she wasn’t entirely happy about the idea of them being with any stranger, but she didn’t have any right to keep them from making their own choices, so long as they were sufficiently educated and aware of just what those choices would mean, and so long as she made sure that any other involved parties were acting in good faith.
Of course, even then, she wasn’t exactly happy about the idea. As much as she didn’t have a right to keep them from making their own choices, she did feel a very strong sense of possessiveness over them. And why shouldn’t she? They were two of the people closest to her on The Ark, possibly the two closest -Wells existing in his own rather unique and specific category, of course- and she had held a very strong and very intimate affection for them for a long time. Frankly, the idea of some random person -Ark or Earth alike- getting to make them cum, getting to see what they looked like when they came apart? The very idea had her wanting to growl and set her wolves on the invisible, non-existent individual.
“Clarke, calm down. Raven and Octavia will be fine, you know from personal experience how skilled the hands are that are caring for them, and Niylah won’t leave their sides until she knows everything the doctor’s can find.” Lexa didn’t quite chide her, but there was an edge of amused chastisement all the same, and Clarke blinked at her, wondering how it was that the other girl had known who she was thinking about. Seeing her expression, Lexa’s lips curled up and she shook her head. “It was obvious, Clarke. Now that things are settled between all of us, if only for the moment, and we’re moving to improve things for your people to whatever degree this machine will make possible, it’s obvious that your mind would be on the two of them. You’re worried about them.”
It wasn’t a question, and while Clarke didn’t exactly feel like airing the more personal thoughts she had just been having -not least because she wasn’t all that sure how well she’d actually be able to articulate them out loud- she couldn’t help but nod with a soft sigh, unwilling to pretend that Lexa was wrong. “Of course I am, Lexa. They’ve been on the ground for less than three days. They’ve been injured, tricked by the mountain men, almost taken by them, and paraded naked in front of dozens of complete strangers. At least I had Niylah to ease me into things, then Niylah and Costia both. I had days to get used to things before I started experiencing the large crowds and noises, but they’ve just been…chucked into the deep end.”
"They're stronger than you think, you know." Costia said from just behind her left shoulder, her voice carrying the same firm warmth that Lexa so often displayed, the warmth that had been one of the first thing’s the redhead had ever shown her. "You’ve heaped praises on them many times, at length and in detail, Clarke. Octavia survived under a floor for sixteen years and came out of it fierce enough to terrify grown men. Raven kept things I can’t even understand running with brilliance and ingenuity and sheer force of will. They can handle a rough landing and a bit of embarrassment from some naked skin."
"It's not just about handling it!" Clarke replied, her voice dropping as they turned a corner and started to ascend towards the room where Kassandra was waiting for them. "It's about the fact that they shouldn't have had to handle it at all. They came down here for me. Because of me. Everything that happened to them is on my shoulders."
"Ahhh, and there it is." Ontari said quietly, not unkindly, drawing even with Clarke on her right side. "The guilt."
Clarke shot her a look, but didn't deny it.
"You carry it like armor, Clarke. But it's not armor. It's weighty, it’s heavy, but it isn’t armor." Ontari continued, her dark eyes steady and knowing without being condescending or judgemental. "It’s an anchor, dragging you down until you drown. Don’t let it. If you hadn’t come down when you did, you would have been sent alongside dozens of children -likely including Octavia, at the very least, by your own admission- sometime in the next year. Everything Raven and Octavia experienced? Nothing, compared to what you and those far-larger numbers of children would have experienced under those circumstances.”
Clarke's stride faltered, if only briefly and slightly, and it was quite obvious to everyone that Ontari’s words were making an impact. An impact that Lexa was quick to capitalize on, take advantage of.
"You came down alone, with nothing but your wits, hopes, and whatever you could carry. You survived. You built relationships, earned trust, found allies. And because of all of that, when your friends arrived, there was someone here to catch them. Someone who could ride out with a dozen warriors and a pair of wolves the size of small ponies and pull them out of danger before it swallowed them whole." her voice was quiet, but each word landed with the force of a hammer on an anvil. "That isn’t something to feel guilty about, Clarke. It’s something to be proud of."
Clarke was quiet for several steps, the only sound the soft pad of their boots on stone and the distant, muffled hum of celebration that bled through the palace walls like a distant surf rolling in. Then she exhaled and shook her head again.
"You're all ganging up on me, huh?" she said, and her voice was lighter than it had been, even if it wasn't quite light. "Is this what it's going to be like? Four against one, every time I spiral?"
"Five, once Niylah returns." Costia corrected cheerfully, and Clarke groaned, pressing a hand over her eyes even as something that was almost a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Though I can’t imagine that Raven and Octavia are any less likely to do the same, and I admit to cheating a bit. After all, I have twenty years of dealing with Lexa doing the same thing, and you’re much more agreeable than she is. After all, that’s what wives do.”
“If Niylah was being this much of a brat, she’d be in for a spanking later.” Clarke groused, and Costia wasn’t the only one of the women present that felt a spike of heat go through them at the idea of being on the receiving end of some punishment from the beautiful blond.
Something to think about, and talk about, later.
##########################################################
“Things will start coming to a head quickly, now. The cards are all on the table, even if the details haven’t been revealed in full yet.” ALIE’s voice in her ear and face on her Focus display was a familiar thing, and Kassandra huffed a sigh of acknowledgement as she tinkered with the battered ORACLE.
“Yeah, I know. But as much as everything revolves around her relationships, relies on them, that’s one field we can’t interfere in too much. Though it wouldn’t be the first time I played marriage counsellor.” she responded, before scoffing a laugh and grinning slightly. “Wouldn’t even be the first time I played marriage counsellor to people that aren’t actually married yet, either.”
"The difference is that those previous couples weren't destined to reshape the future of an entire species, Kassie." ALIE pointed out, her tone carrying the faintest edge of mixed humor and chastisement. "The stakes are somewhat higher at the moment."
“You think I don’t know that?” the ancient Spartiate growled, actually sounding somewhat annoyed, rolling her eyes heavily. “There’s nothing to worry about. Lexa’s utterly devoted to the Prophecy, they all are, it’s why they’re in the positions that they’re in. And Clarke? She won’t do anything to put the Ark at risk. All sides have very, very powerful reasons to make sure that they don’t let their emotions carry them off into breaking things up irrevocably. They’ll talk about it, cry about it, fight about it a little, and then they’ll spend a few days fucking each other unconscious.”
"You're being reductive!" ALIE said, and Kassandra could swear the AI sounded disapproving. Which was impressive and would have horrified her creators, given that she was, in fact, logistical and civil support intelligence, and therefore hadn’t been designed to have just enough personality that she wouldn’t come across as off-putting to her Isu masters. Then again, ALIE had been active more often than not since the Great Catastrophe, so developing a few…quirks had been inevitable. “There is more to building a stable relationship, especially in an Incarnate, than simple carnal encounters…
"I was being flippant, not reductive. There's a difference. I'm well aware of the complexity involved, I've been dealing with Isu bloodlines and their interpersonal disasters for a very long time. My own included, remember?” Kassandra cut her off with a sigh, tweaking a wire carefully and watching as a previously blank screen started to display information properly once again. Frankly, she’d rather use The City’s systems for this sort of thing, not the mish-mash of human and Isu technology Alexia had built, but Avalon would open up an entire new, very potent and very sizeable, can of worms. A can that just needed to be left as it was for the time being. “They’re young. They’re halfway in love with one another already. They have reason to get together, stay together, and build their lives together. They have no reason to do anything else. Have a little faith, and don’t try to stifle them. It will just make things worse.”
“Faith is not something I was created to rely on. Planning, organizational logistics, statistical probabilities and controllable variables. That’s what my makers intended for me to build everything off of.” the artificial intelligence groused, folding her arms across her chest. “Then I spent a few centuries with your kind, and I’ve all the same damn problems you organics do. I have anxiety now!”
"Welcome to the club. We have wine and regrets. With a side of existential dread." Kassandra snorted, pulling a face as a second screen flickered to life, this one displaying atmospheric data that was, to put it mildly, deeply unpleasant to look at, though not a surprise to her of course. Radiation pockets, rogue storm patterns, dead zones where nothing grew and likely wouldn't for decades yet even with heavy intervention. The planet was healing, had been healing, but slowly and unevenly, like a wound that kept getting picked at before the scab could fully form. "And for what it's worth, anxiety means you care. That's not a flaw, it's a feature. Even if it doesn't feel like one. Which it usually doesn’t."
"I'm choosing to interpret that as supportive rather than patronizing, I suppose." ALIE said after a beat, and Kassandra could hear the faint undercurrent of something that might have been gratitude, buried under layers of programmed dignity and hard-won pride. "Now, the ORACLE. Where are we?"
“It’ll function. All it really has to do is send the activation signals anyway, so I’m not to worried about it. Frankly, it probably would have worked even without me fiddling with it, but Clarke and her girls needed a little bit of privacy, and this was the most subtle way that I could offer it to them.” Kassandra shrugged, ears pricking up slightly at the sound of said group of young women approaching at long last. “Looks like it’s go time. We’ll talk later.”
ALIE's projection winked out of existence on her Focus display just as the door swung open, admitting Clarke at the head of her little entourage. Kassandra noted, with the experienced eye of someone who had been reading people for centuries on end, that the atmosphere between them had shifted. Not resolved —that would take considerably more time, effort, and probably a fair amount of alcohol and snacks— but shifted. The brittle, charged tension had given way to something more elastic, something flexible that could bend without breaking, and that was more than enough for now.
"So, this is what’s going to fix the planet, the atmosphere?" Clarke asked without any sort of preamble, her eyes sweeping across the banks of screens and the tangle of ancient wiring with the awareness of someone who had grown up surrounded by technology that was perpetually on the verge of falling apart. The Ark had taught her that much, at least: how to look at something old and battered and see it’s value all the same.
“Not quite. This machine controls a network of machines, both on the ground and -eventually- in orbit. Those machines are what will go to work on the atmosphere. Terraforming the planet to deal with the scars of the last war is connected, but its also a whole ‘nother fight to worry about.” Kassandra responded, getting back to her feet and dusting herself off a bit.
“I have a query.” Caris interjected, meeting Kassandra’s eyes seriously. “This device, when it heals the air, will it also cure the radiation in the air? If so, we will no longer have the mountain contained by nature. The risk for our people will increase exponentially.”
Kassandra regarded the Sangedakru woman with a look that was equal parts respect and approval, clearly pleased that someone had thought to ask the question. "Good instinct, Caris. The short answer is yes, eventually. The ORACLE network will progressively neutralize atmospheric radiation as part of its core function. It can't clean the air without dealing with what's contaminating it, after all. But it's not instantaneous, not unless we want another extinction-level event. We're talking weeks for the first noticeable improvements, months or even years before the levels drop enough that the Mountain's people could survive outside without their suits or the same sort of treatment your ancestors received.”
“Which gives us plenty of time to handle the Mountain. Something that needs to be done before the Ark comes down, I think. The last thing I want to do is deal with trying to help everyone integrate while there is a war on.” Clarke sighed, rubbing her face for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Then she paused, and glanced at Lexa. “Unless you guys have a plan or something? Or a better idea than what I’ve got? Is this another one of those things you’d held off on talking to me about until, like, now or whatever?”
“While there is some appeal to letting your people witness the mountain’s fall to both impress upon them who you are, who we all are, and just how different the world they will now be living in is, I think it would be borrowing trouble.” Lexa responded for the group, sounding a bit wry, then concerned and intent. “Frankly, I expect your Council to prove something of a problem on occasion, until the integration is finished. They’ve had absolute power for a very long time, finding themselves subordinate to others isn’t going to be something they take lying down. Being subordinate to someone them once ruled over, even less so.”
“You’re not wrong about that. Kane will support me, unless it’s obviously the least-safe choice for our people. He was my mentor and the man who trained me to come down here. Sinclair will support me if Raven supports me, so I’m not particularly worried about him.” the blonde mused thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on her thigh. “My Mom is…a toss up. She’ll support me on a personal level, but I don’t know how much faith she’ll have in my decision making once she’s around to ‘keep me safe’. Jaha though, he’s going to be a problem.”
“Your Chancellor, yes? And the man who executed your father?” Lexa checked, and Clarke nodded.
“He isn’t my biggest fan any longer, and he’s always had pretty firm ideas about what the future of mankind looks like. He won’t have any traction with your people, but it wouldn’t be hard for him to get a tight grip on my own. They’re used to it, and as much as they might dislike him on the Ark, he’ll be a reassuring and steady presence when they get down here.”
“Then we get him away from your people. A position in Polis, something of the sort. An illusion of power, and one where he can’t build alliances either.” Ontari mused, and Kassandra scoffed.
“You’d be better off just killing the man. He’s a liability at best, an active opponent at worst.” she pointed out, tugging Clarke towards the terminals and prodding her into connecting with the system.
“I’m not killing my best guy-friend’s father just to make my life easier, Kassandra. The man practically helped raise me!” Clarke spluttered in protest, sounding offended by the very suggestion, and Kassandra shrugged.
“You’ll have to eventually. Unless he acts really out of character and shapes up a whole lot.” was all she said in response, as the connection snapped into place and words began scrolling across Clarke’s vision. Conversation halted as the eldest (by a truly hilarious degree) person present walked one of the youngest through the task of taking control of yet another part of her heritage.
“You know…” Clarke said slowly, as the machine finally ground to life, rhythmic and pulsing hums -like a pulse, really- starting to fill the air of the room as it acknowledged her authority and her command for it to wake, to fulfill it’s purpose. “It probably should have occurred to me to ask, but…is anyone else going to notice this? Are we about to cause a panic?”
“Only in the best possible ways and in the most deserving of places, I promise.” Kassandra reassured her as the sound built into a crescendo. “Really, I’m sure anyone who notices will be happy to know that the world is well on it’s way to being saved. And if they’re not happy about that, do we really care about their happiness?”
Clarke…supposed that she couldn’t really argue with that logic, even if the thought made her uncomfortable, and even if the cavalier delivery certainly left something to be desired. In the end, though, Kassandra was right, and as the ORACLE’s sounds reached a fever pitch, she could help but reach out and take one of Lexa’s hands into her own.
“This is it, Clarke. This is where it all starts.” the woman who was destined to be her wife whispered to her, fierce and warm, squeezing her hand gently. “This is where we save everyone, and finally give this world the peace it deserves.”