Polis, at the same time as Clarke's reentry.
Maker and Seraphim, bring her back to me safely. The thought, the prayer, dominated the mind of Lexa kom Trikru as she stood on her balcony, high above Polis. The capital city of the Coalition, her Coalition and her city, a thousand twinkling lights stretched out below and around her, filled to the brim with an ocean of souls that relied on her judgment for guidance and protection. All doubtless beginning to wak as the sun began to crest the horizon, the predawn light greeting them to another day of work and play. Yet all she could think of at the moment was her beloved Costia, her precious Shadow. Oh, how she wished she could keep the other girl safely in the city with her, surrounded by her handpicked and loyal warriors, but the fiery redhead would never tolerate it. Costia was a scout, probably one of the best alive; fluent in five languages (with accents to match), an expert markswoman, quiet as a cat (when she wanted to be), and possessing a nature and bearing that made the cultivation of contacts and informants simplicity itself. Unfortunately, she also had a tendency to take foolish risks and act brashly, something that had nearly gotten her killed a dozen times and had resulted in injury a hundred more.
"Staring out across the city isn't going to make her return any faster, you know, and its hardly becoming of the Heda to be wistfully pining after your lover when she has only been gone a handful of days." An amused voice said behind her distracted her from her thoughts, two distinct pairs of footsteps approaching her, and she couldn't help but smile as their owners stepped up beside her. The speaker, tanned by the sun with her dirty blonde hair loose and flowing, was smirking at her in what seemed to be the only facial expression her sister-by-choice Anya kom Trikru actually had.
"Is it not you who is forever gloating, quite loudly at that, about introducing the two of them to one another? Our Lexa has always felt things strongly, surely you didn't expect anything less when she finally took a lover?" Indra kom Trikru, leader of that clan and the person Lexa had always thought of as 'mother', pointed out dryly. Once a gladiatrix famed across the tribes as 'Indra of the Thousand Cuts', she had risen far beyond her station of birth and was the prime example of the value in the meritocratic system Aleksia Pramheda had instituted. Countless scars, pale lines against the dark canvas of her skin, were proudly displayed and spoke to the number of people who had tried and failed to kill her.
"Of course I am, its adorable and so sweet my teeth might rot right out of my head one of these days. That doesn't mean I can't tease my baby sister about the lost puppy look she seems to acquire whenever her Shadow is out and about." Anya smirked gleefully at the expression of profound discomfort and embarrassment on Lexa's face. It was only in privacy such as this that the general could behave in such a way, could make Lexa blush without dangerously damaging the reputation of them both with the warriors and the civilians.
"Oh, just be quiet Anya. I'm not in the mood for jesting right now, not even with you." The younger woman groaned, one hand rising to massage her forehead promptly at the other woman's words. "The next Conclave is in a month, the Azgeda are restless, and the Maunon are raiding again. I swear to the Maker, they have to be watching us somehow. They always know when warriors are moved away from villages and are too far away to return in time to defend them! Its maddening!"
"They are the last vestiges of the corrupted Old World, it's hardly a surprise that they would have more tools than their guns and the Acid Fog." Indra shrugged, her tone and bearing casual enough that someone unfamiliar with her might consider her apathetic to the suffering of such villages and their people. Lexa and Anya, however, were more than familiar enough with their mutual mother figure to know that she was simply resigned to the fact that countering even half of the Mountain's depravities was impossible. She would know better than anyone, after all, as the leader of the Trikru and the mistress of Tondisi, the village closest to (and therefore in the most danger from) the Mountain's inhabitants.
"Yes…there is nothing more that we can do until the Sky Princess comes." Lexa sighed, starting to turn away from her balcony -ignoring the amused and affectionately exasperated looks her mother and sister exchanged at the reference to a Prophecy that she in their minds took a bit too literally- only to stop as something caught her eye in the distance, towards Tondisi. A bright, fiery glow falling from the stars, and she smiled. "Make a wish, yes? Perhaps Fate will turn in our favor!"
"Yes, and perhaps the Maunon will in their entirety drop dead of illness, Nia will become your most ardent supporter, and I will wake up tomorrow twenty years younger." Indra japed dryly as the glow vanished from their sight, and both of her daughters laughed in agreement. As they finally moved inside, Lexa cast one last look over her shoulder and wistfully wished for a chance to make life better for her people…and for herself.
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Clarke stared dumbly at the glowing figure in her palm, a tall and mature woman with dark brown hair, wearing a slinky dark-red dress and a smile on her face as their eyes met. She had no idea what was going on, that was for sure, and for a moment she wondered if this woman was one of the 'traitors' that apparently held Mount Weather.
"Welcome back to the Homeworld. I admit, I was starting to worry that no-one from PROJECT: ARK would ever make landfall, but when I detected your pod launching, I knew it was time to step in. I barely had time to tweak the retro-rockets and direct you away from Mount Weather." ALIE continued, taking her blank stare as an invitation to keep speaking. "Thank the Maker I did, it wouldn't have ended well if the mountain's inhabitants had gotten their hands on you, of all people."
"Nice to meet you, ALIE." Manners moved Clarke's mouth as her brain scrabbled to catch up with the information she had just received. Then one particular detail penetrated her mind, and she jabbed her finger at the image. "Wait, you put me off course?! Why the hell did you do that? Do you have any idea what you've done, how many people you've put at risk?"
"I saved your life, Clarke, and put you in the position to do a lot more good than you would have otherwise. Maybe you could have evaded your enemies until people who would be your allies found you, but maybe you wouldn't have. Even if they had, you would have missed quite a few opportunities, not the least of which being the MERCS." ALIE's tone held a mild rebuke in it, and Clarke scowled darkly, not liking what she was saying but willing to acknowledge ALIE had information she didn't. "Not to mention you might have remained ignorant to your family legacy for quite some time."
"Fine. Thanks, I guess." The blonde grumbled unhappily, looking like she would have folded her arms and looked away if ALIE had been standing before her in the flesh. "Why don't you fill me in on what you think I need to know, then, so I can avoid making any poor decisions."
If she noticed the tinge of angry sarcasm in Clarke's voice, the holographic woman ignored it completely, instead shaking her head and pointing to one of the terminals.
"It would be better for you to read it and watch it on a larger screen. Plug the MERCS into the system and I'll use the connection to stream the information. You don't need to worry about getting traced by anyone, no human can crack my systems. After that, we can see about getting you headed in the right direction." She instructed, and Clarke nodded slowly before sitting down and removing the mini-usb plug from its internal holster on the MERCS to plug it into the terminal. The screen blurred for a moment before resolving into a map of the D.C. area from space. A wave of icons spread over it, and while she recognized some to indicate war shelters, the vast majority of them were alien to her. Colored borders seemed to indicate territory, and each territory had a large emblem dominating its center. Only one, centered around Mount Weather, was colored the blood red she automatically associated with an enemy.
"What you see right now is the accepted territorial borders between the Mountain Men, as they are called, and the twelve tribes of The Coalition, the primary military and political body that unites the surviving humans in this section of the East Coast. These are people who survived the war in various underground bunkers and were rescued, modified, and united by your ancestor, General Griffin." ALIE informed her blandly, as if she hadn't just announced a that there were not only living people roaming the Earth, but that her great grandmother had been the one to pull them together. "When she passed away, the tribes fell into infighting despite her attempts to create a unified culture for them. Well, she actually did create a unified culture for them that they conform too, but they until recently continued to fight one another as much as the Mountain Men."
"By modified I'm going to guess she did the same thing that let us survive on The Ark for so long?" Clarke asked curiously, getting a nod of confirmation, and she nodded as well before a look of confusion swept over her face. "Wait, how is it that the people living in the Mountain don't have the same modifications? And why are they labelled as traitors anyway? Wouldn't they be the only survivors of the government?"
"Technically yes, but that involves some history. A lot of history actually, but I can't really explain it all here and now. Long story short, the leadership inside Mount Weather are members of the organization that started The Last War, as well escalating it to the nuclear level. For that, they and their descendants never received the inoculation to radiation and are barred from all but the most basic of access to satellite and radio networks. Currently, they survive any events where radiation enters the Mountain by bleeding members of the tribes dry and using their blood for transfusions. Not good enough to be a cure, given the somewhat diluted form of cure that the tribes possess, but access to inhabitants of the Ark would allow them to mine bone marrow and create a true inoculation." ALIE explained, and Clarke swore, putting her head in her hands.
"Can you link me to the Ark, ALIE? I need to get in touch with The Council as soon as possible, especially if The Mountain is an enemy like you say. If they don't hear from me within six months, executions and population reductions to lessen the burden on the environmental machinery will start happening. The sooner I can inform them, the sooner they can start getting ready to come down." She asked, hoping desperately that whatever resources ALIE possessed would allow extra-atmospheric communication.
"It…would be wiser for you not to communicate with them immediately. In fact, gathering all the information that you can before placing them into any potential danger would be the responsible thing for you to do." ALIE responded, grimacing unhappily at Clarke's request, something she probably wouldn't have done if the girl's eyes weren't covered. "After all, their arrival would be far more noticeable than your own, and if any debris had the misfortune to struck a tribal settlement…"
"Yeah, I can see how that might end badly." Clarke bobbed her head in understanding, all to easily picturing hordes of barbarians filled with righteous fury descending upon her more-or-less helpless people. History was rife with examples of overwhelming numbers defeating superior tactics or technology, though admittedly not without heavy casualties on the part of the aforementioned barbarian hordes. "So, what, I walk into their capital city, tell them I fell from the sky, and ask them to take me to their leader?"
"Amusingly, that would actually work fairly well, but I wouldn't recommend it just yet. While they would fall all over themselves to welcome you and heap praise upon the descendant of their beloved 'Aleksia Pramheda', as they call her, they would also have certain expectations of you. Expectations that you do not yet meet. It would be in your best interest, and that of the other inhabitants of the Ark, to wait until you can."
"Uh-huh, and what exactly are these expectations, and how do I meet them?" Clarke inquired skeptically, trying to imagine what a group of barbarians would expect of her. Everything she could think of was based on old movies and books, which weren't exactly what she would call reliable sources. "I mean, according to you, Alexia Griffin is, like, George Washington to these folks, right?"
"Not a bad comparison, actually, but a bit more cult-like than simple admiration and respect. As far as they are concerned, she was literally Heaven-sent to deliver them from the consequences of mankind's hubris. She had powers beyond what normal humans could dream of, was impossible to kill, and prophesized that one day everything she built would be inherited by someone. A girl with golden hair, eyes as blue as the sky she will come from, a princess of those who dwell above the clouds. They call her Skai Prisa, The Princess of the Sky, The One Who Was Promised. The woman who will unite Mankind and guide them into an eternal golden age. An Eternal Empire."
"I see what you mean about 'certain expectations." Clarke mumbled, slumping down in her chair and resting her face in her hands as she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that her arrival had been a point of religious expectation to the remnants of Humanity for the better part of a century. Not to mention that said religious expectation included her uniting humanity into a single empire and creating a golden age that would last until the universe ended. She gave a slightly hysterical laugh at the thought. Not to mention indeed! No pressure here, no indeed!
"Oh, calm down, Clarke! Honestly, you were already planning on taking a significant amount of control over the Ark anyway, weren't you? Bringing back the freedoms your people used to have? Making life better for them, letting people live instead of simply survive?" ALIE was hardly sympathetic, in fact she sounded like a scolding mother as far as Clarke was concerned. "Besides, by the time I am through with you, you'll be the best mortal leader humans could possibly hope to have."
"And just how do you plan to do that? How, exactly, do you plan to make me a capable and decent ruler for an entire race in less than six months? Even if we ignore all of the other problems that are bound to crop up, how do you expect me to learn in half a year what some people couldn't learn after being raised from birth for?" Clarke bit out, politeness failing her in the face of her emotions, and ALIE responded with a grin that seeped smugness.
"Oh, you'll be ready. There are secrets in your family, legacies that you can't even imagine. I'll show them all to you, Clarke, but for now…" the screen before her changed, the image of the 12 tribes and their territories zooming in to focus on the capital city, Polis. "This is where you need to go, Clarke. Underneath the former Military Academy of Annapolis, every question you have, and more that you've never even contemplated, will be answered."
"Oh, sure, I'll just waltz across thirty miles of populated terrain, filled with people whose language I don't speak and whose customs I don't know, take a nice stroll through their capital city, and disappear into what looks like one of the most central buildings in said capital! Sure, no problem! What could possibly go wrong?" Clarke threw her hands in the air, glaring at the ceiling in appalled frustration.
"Fortunately for you, English is still the main language for the tribes. One hundred years isn't enough for them to completely lose the knowledge, especially with your ancestor placing importance on it. They do have their own pseudo-languages, one for each tribe, but that's something to think about later. Customs are a bit more complicated, but you wouldn't go too wrong if you started with 'barbarian warrior culture' and went from there." ALIE gave an unconcerned shrug, bringing up blocks of text on her screen, each covering the basics of various interactions she might have with a tribal. "I've built a primer for you while we talked, just give it a read. It should be enough to let you escape scrutiny until you reach The Vault, but that doesn't change your point about the distance. It won't be an easy trip for you, no matter what sort of shape you've kept yourself in on the Ark, but you're more than capable of making it eventually."
"The 'eventually' isn't exactly encouraging, you know." Clarke groused, but she begrudgingly admitted that (despite her best efforts, and the fact that she was in better shape than just about anyone on the Ark) she had been unprepared for Earth. The gravity was only slightly more than the Ark's rotation had been able to impart, which was a rather large disaster avoided, but long-distance trekking on malleable terrain would probably be a nightmare. Having to worry about predators of the bestial, and now potentially human, variety was a rotten cherry on top of a shit sundae. "You going to be with me the whole time?"
"Unfortunately, no I won't be riding shotgun for you. I'm heavily limited under current circumstances, though I can get around some of my restrictions with a bit of cleverness. Besides, if I was holding your hand every step of the journey, it wouldn't be much of a learning experience. Now, I recommend staying here the night and moving out in the morning. No need to risk serious injury by trying to pick your way through the woods at night. See you when you wake up." With her final words lingering in the air, the holographic woman vanished with a shimmer of light and a slight buzz of static, leaving Clarke with a computer full of information and more questions than she knew what to do with. The questions would have to wait, it seemed, but she could do something about the information, and she settled in to read through it.
It was a lot to wade through, unsurprisingly, but the parallels between Ancient Greece or Rome couldn't be missed. Alexia Griffin had clearly put a fair amount of effort into designing the system, and it seemed to be an amalgamation of Athens and Sparta. There was a Senate, drawn from the members of every clan, that had nominal control over the civilian side of things from the Forum in Polis. They ensured that villages struck by disaster received aid, argued and enforced trade deals, presided over the capture and punishment of minor criminals, and things of that nature. They served for three-year terms, no more than two terms could occur concurrently, and a Senator could only serve three terms in their lifetime. Clearly, she had had no interest in repeating the mistakes of the former United States and other modern democracies by allowing someone to be a Senator for decades on end.
Above them were the leaders of the individual clans, of which there were twelve, each with their own traditions and cultural differences. Interestingly, there was a thirteenth clan that wasn't truly a part of this 'Coalition', known only as 'The Sentinels'. The information on them was thin, which was decidedly strange given that they had apparently been formed and given some sort of task by Alexia herself, but what Clarke did see was that they kept to their own very small territory and didn't get involved in the inter-clan squabbling that often took place. Any bandits that trespassed were ruthlessly killed, and foreign clan members that didn't have a reason to be there were firmly and quickly ejected. The only person they gave any sort of power over them was the Commander of the Clans, the Heda, and even then it was limited.
The Heda. Now that was an interesting character, certainly. Always female, always chosen by a 'Great Conclave' and evidently responsible for hosting other 'Conclaves' periodically. What a Conclave was, or what the difference might be between one that was 'Great' and those there were not, the primer didn't say, but what was pointed out was the fact that the Commander was considered the steward to her great-grandmother's throne. Her throne, according to ALIE, but Clarke determinedly pushed that particular thought (and the proverbial can of worms it represented) as far out of her mind as she could. The final sentence noted that the current Heda, Lexa of the Woods Clan, had single-handedly brought decades of inter-clan fighting to an end and was making The Coalition actually live up to its name. Which was encouraging, because if she was supposed to do all this 'unification' and 'empire-building' ALIE was talking about, having the clans already more-or-less unified would make her job a lot easier. If nothing else, it lessened the possibility of one clan going rogue and posing a threat to the other ARKers once they arrived.
There was more, of course, details about methods of purchasing supplies, the value of monies, and what foods she should avoid due to potential health risks, at least until she grew more used to eating something other than nutrient pastes and limp vegetables. All useful, it wouldn't do to get locked up or find herself in a fight because she accidentally 'cheated' someone out of the value of a meal. Wouldn't exactly be a good first impression, nor would it do her mission any good.
She kept reading, as the sun finished setting, and by the time that she was done it was well and truly night. Recalling her though from earlier as the article came to a close, she bit her lower lip with a light blush. She wanted to see the stars, and she wanted to be daring, and none of the clans were in this area, so…
Shedding the majority of her armor and equipment, leaving her with only her basic clothing, sidearm, and kukri, she headed out into the night. It was so incredibly different, as different as (and she snorted to herself as she thought the cliché) night and day. In fact, she now finally understood what that saying actually meant. The sounds of the animals, the whisper of the wind in the trees, the rustling of nocturnal movement, it was like listening to the same song that was being played by a different instrument. The stars, as incredible as it seemed, were even more beautiful here on the homeworld than they were in space. In space, there was no air, no distortion of those eternally-distant pinpricks of light, but that in and of itself was the problem. They were just pinpricks of light up there. Down here, the distortion created by the atmosphere made them gleam. They seemed, paradoxically, more real here. Luna was low on the horizon, full and glowing a pale yellow-white, and Clarke was quite sure the particularly bright light to the East was the Ark itself.
It was hard to pay attention to where she was going, with so much to see that was infinitely more beautiful and interesting than the ground in front of her feet, but she didn't have any great desire to face plant again, especially not without the extra padding of a space suit to protect her. She knew what she was looking for, though, and it didn't take more than a few minutes after her departure to find a good-sized clearing that was covered in grass rather than tarmac. A large boulder, as tall is she was and twice her height in width, sat off to one side. Why there was a boulder that size in the ruins of an Air Force base, she didn't know, but she didn't particularly care either. No, she had more important things to worry about tonight. More indulgent things.
Biting her bottom lip, she started shucking her clothes. As she tossed her jacket onto the rock, and because (or despite, perhaps) there was no one there to see her, she took a moment to start up a throbbing beat on her MERCS. The music filled the air of the clearing, pulsing with her heartbeat, and she let her body shift and flow with the thunder in her blood as she grew steadily less 'modest'. She would never have had this sort of freedom on the Ark, and even when she had been caretaker for Prison Station, she wouldn't have behaved like this. She'd had to be the paragon, the icon for them, the guiding light and the glue that held them together. Even if that hadn't been the case, she wasn't interested in giving any of the boys a free show, nor was she interested in sharing the naked forms of any lovers with them. Though she had to admit, her Lieutenants and some of the other girls had certainly featured in more than one fantasy, and more than one particularly intense dream had featured some of her 'Cultists' worshipping her.
Her core, already heated by what she was doing, warmed further still at the still-vivid memories of those dreams, grew warmer still, her folds slickening noticeably. She put her bra aside, pushing and squeezing her handful-and-a-half breasts, and she couldn't help but bouncing on her heels to watch them bounce and sway with the motion. Her nipples were tight and proud, pink pebbles engorged by blood not from the cool night air caressing her but the arousal that was steadily consuming her. She continued to dance, damp grass beneath her feet and between her toes, fingers tugging and pinching those erogenous beads, moans and murmurs flowing from her mouth as she egged herself on. She wasn't a masochist, not really, but the tiny threads of pain and the extra blood called to the area was making the sensations even more intense.
Her right hand left her chest, gliding down her stomach and through the somewhat-trimmed golden hair that framed her sex, soft and warm and damp from her need. A need that she could smell, at this point, thick and sweet and cloying. All-encompassing, it would have made her head swim if it wasn't floating already. Her hand moved lower, and she gasped sharply as her palm ground over the swollen nub of her clit, her knees weakening and nearly buckling. None of her self-explorations, hasty and shameful as they had been on the Ark, had ever aroused her to the point that it had left its enshrouding hood, and the sensation was beyond anything she had ever experienced. It was almost frightening, the intensity she felt as her fingers curved gently between her legs to stroke the tight, virtually-untouched cleft between her pussy lips.
They were soaked entirely, her arousal literally dripping from within as her fingers slid across the delicate skin, trailing heat in their wake, soft schlicks interspersing themselves with her intensifying chorus of moans. The tips curled up inside of her, almost without command, and she was forced to lean against the boulder to steady herself as a moderately strong orgasm swept through her, accompanied by a fresh flood of cum that soaked her hand and upper thighs further still. Stroking herself through the aftershocks, keeping her fire kindled, she clumsily moved herself up onto the rock, sitting down and spreading her legs as wide as she could go, lying down with her knees to the stars she from which she had fallen. She thrust her fingers into herself, ignoring the discomfort from the stretch her cunt was so unused to accommodating, curling the tips and rubbing against her inner wall in a frenzy of pleasure as she let herself drown in the pleasure, doing anything that might feel good in an effort to reach extasy once again.
Her eyes closed and her body flooding with endorphins, her mind began to flood itself with images that she couldn't (and didn't want to) forget: Raven and Octavia at her feet, contrasting bodies pressed against one another as they mutually masturbated for her viewing. Harper, her dutiful courier, waiting with head bowed and chest thrust out for her next command. Zoe, her strong, stern, and trusted lieutenant, writhing and crying out in pleasure beneath her, all semblance of stoicism lost in carnal delights and rendered helpless by silken cords.
She cried out, loud enough she was sure they could have heard her all the way on the Ark, as another orgasm thundered through her body, fluid spraying out of her to stain the rock and mark it with the scent of her delight. She lay there for several minutes, breathing deeply the night-time air as it mixed with and eventually diluted the smell of sex, before finally sitting up and reaching for her clothes. She grimaced and stopped, feeling the stickiness of cum drying along the skin of her thighs and hand, and regarded the faintly-glistening skin in the moonlight. She hadn't brought any water to clean herself up, she didn't want to try and use grass or leaves to do the job (she shuddered in horror at the idea of accidently encountering poison ivy or any of its cousins), and she was damn sure she didn't want to pull her clothes on like this, so…
Having already indulged in lewd and lascivious behaviors that probably would have given her mother a heart attack, and seeing little reason to refuse another without even trying it, she lifted her cum-covered hand to her face and took a tentative lick. To her surprise, and perhaps to a thrill of narcistic (and perverted) pleasure, she found that she tasted rather sweet. A subtle tang gave the unnameable taste a bit of bite, and she had little in the way of qualms about cleaning her hand as much as possible, before using it as a sponge to do the same for her thighs. Not a perfect option, and not one that did anything about her folds themselves, but it would do for the time being. She could clean up properly in the morning. And next time she did this, she would bring some water with her.
Unsteadily getting to her feet, wishing despite the discomfort of the rock's unyielding surface that she could stay where she was, she dressed as quickly as she could and set off for the bunker, feeling like she was walking on air. Somehow, the world seemed even more beautiful than it had earlier, her joy at being on it heightened further still. Sex hormones will do that for a girl, she supposed, and the rush of being free somehow driven home more by her ability to fuck herself than it had by landing on her homeworld.
Locking the bunker door behind her, she unpacked her sleeping bag, slid inside, and curled up on the carpet. Tomorrow would bring new challenges and dangers, but for tonight…she was happy.