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It isn't over-exercising. I have trained nearly every day of my life. Also my death. [That, to Lexa, was like saying you could breathe too much. It was just part of living.]

Mmmn... if you want. I think I have some more if you want some. [Lexa said, suddenly compelled to get up and be a good host.]

Nope. [Rowan turns suddenly, wrapping their arms around her to hold her to the bed. Not that there's much strength in them, it's more of a show than anything.] You are done for the night. Morning. Whatever. And it's too early or late for me to get started.

[Okay, okay, fine. Lexa lets herself be stopped, leaning back against Rowan.]

And here I was trying to be fun. People don't think I'm fun, Rowan...

I think you're fun, and that you don't need to be pissed for it. Angry pissed or drunk pissed, for that matter.

You're using that word for a lot of things. [Lexa says, half complaining and half confused as she turns around to face Rowan as best as she can.] I wasn't raised to be fun. Or have fun. or smile... or kiss.

Nah, that's just what it means. [They let her turn, but keep their arms around her, since they haven't been knocked away yet. All the better to keep her from the booze, and maybe to get her to eventually sleep.]

Anyway, I can't say nothing about kissing, but you're getting pretty good at the other two, so stuff what you was raised as.

[Without her warpaint on, without her hair braided or her weapons strapped to her sides Lexa looks young in a way she doesn't understand how to be. The puffiness beneath her eyes only amplifies the effect as she looks at Rowan, her green eyes always carefully watching even when she was probably half made out of wine instead of woman.]

Beau likes to say that. [Lexa says, quietly.] Again and again as if I had not heard her. Since the day we met, I suspect until the day we part.

She hates how I was raised to be. The things my people do.

[Rowan's too soft for this. Their hold on her turns into a hug, and they run their fingers through her hair gently.]

I can't say as I like it all that much neither. But don't get me wrong, it's a part of you, and it always will be. Can't change that. Don't mean that you can't be more than that, though. You got the chance to be whatever you want to be here.

[She doesn't resist the hug at all, rather she leans into it and hugs Rowan back. Letting herself just exist like that for a few moments without replying.]

She tells me that, too. And I told Ren. I am different, both to my people and to what my people wanted me to be. I always was even before here.

You get used to always being wrong to someone when you are a leader.

I don't think that's just a leader thing, though. You just have the disadvantage that everyone's got an opinion about you, so more people are going to want something different.

The flip side's true too, though. More people are going to think you're the dog's bollocks.

...I can't tell if that's a compliment or an insult. It's you so I'm leaning toward the first but I really have no idea.

What, the dog's bollocks? It's a compliment, innit. Like the bee's knees.

I.

Do bees even have knees?

[Rowan she is not sober enough for this omg.]

[Just be glad they haven't gotten to the cockney rhyming slang yet.]

You know, I never asked. But they must do, right? Everything has knees. Except for fish.

There's not a lot of time to study the knees of bees when you are the commander and forever at war or risk of famine.

I cannot say I would know. Though I imagine skaikru would have...

It ain't something they covered at school neither. Unless they did and I just weren't paying attention that day.

Who's Skaikru?

It means sky people in Trigedasleng, my native speech. They call themselves Arkers or Arkadian's because the ship they lived on in space and have now turned into a village was called the Ark.

I am from Trikru, or Trigedakru. The woods clan.

Clarke is a sky person...

Oh! Clarke was your-- [And then they fumble. Girlfriend? Partner? The person that Lexa died for? The last one's at least true, but wow, how about we don't aim for morose drunk.] She was the lady you loved, right?

And they'd have looked at the bees 'cos they fly too?

Yes. I love... loved her.

No, because on the Ark before they had to return to the ground they had time for schools, and knowledge from the world before the fire. Their people escaped much of the problems my people faced. We only teach children to survive. They had time to teach them to live. Not just to be warriors and hunters and to kill.

Natblidas and Flamkeepas are the only ones who learn much outside of that on the ground. Because we must. And the flame taught me the things that Titus and Anya could not after I ascended.

Nothing about bees, though.

There is no time for childhood when you are born like me. Little time for love, either. Which is why what happened happened... Clarke, but also Costia before her. At least Clarke lived.

[Rowan's fingers go back to slowly working through her hair, softly soothing. As much as they're fascinated by her world and curious to hear more about it, every snippet they find out about seems to be worse than the last.

And they do try to resist. Really they do. But Costia - they haven't heard that name before. Or if they have, they'd forgotten.]

I don't think you mentioned Costia before? [They struggle against their curiosity for a moment longer, but it wins out.] What happened to her?

She died. [Lexa says, quite bluntly and with a tone that is just a bit too calm about it.]

We were... young and stupid and I thought I could change the whole world. We were probably fourteen or so when we met... One day when we were fifteen or so she went off on a ride and she never came home.

Most of her never came home.

Queen Nia, the ruler of Azgeda - the Ice nation - sent her head to me in a box. To my bed. Where we had been together only days before. Because she was mine they tortured her, thinking I had divulged my secret plans. They tortured her, cut off her head and made sure I knew it was them.

And to forge a peace I still had to let them into my coalition. To bring them to heel.

We were so young...

Edited 2020-10-22 19:38 (UTC)

[Rowan tenses against her, and then instinctively pulls her in closer, hugging her tight. It's too much to bear, thinking of anyone losing a lover like that. And they were both so young as well, it's simply too cruel.]

I'm sorry, Lexa. I'm so sorry. [They don't have words for that, all they can do is curl around her and wish they had some way of taking away all of the awful things that she's had to go through.]

Titus taught me that love was weakness. I thought I would die, when I saw her like that. But he taught me and I shut the feelings off.

And then Clarke fell out of the sky and crashed into my land and... everything changed again.

I hope she taught you that love ain't a weakness. 'Cos it ain't, you know that, right? It hurts sometimes, more than we can bear, but it can make you stronger than anything else too.

Oh, she did.

After I left her to die, turned her into a monster, was generally entirely undeserving of love even if it was the right thing for my people.

I dream about her. Every night. About leaving her at mount weather alone.

About comforting her as I died.

About the hundreds of nights we might have had if the world was kinder instead of the single afternoon we got.

That's why I try, here, you know. Not because I've been told too, but because you never know when someone is going... and I'm so tired of being left in the dark. Even if I deserve it.

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0 successes on willpower against curiosity whoops

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