Survive for Another Time

Prologue

The armies of the coalition surrounded the Skaikru's stronghold. Two thousand men and women armed with swords and arrows ready to defend their lands and peace by going to war with Chancellor Pike and his men. But first they had to avenge the death of their Heda by drawing the blood of the traitorous Skaikru that had murdered her.

Clarke Griffin, Wanheda and Ambassador of the former thirteenth clan, was tied to a wooden pilar, her skin marred with cuts and smeared with blood. The warriors of the coalition taking their turn to cut her, not to kill her but to slowly torture her. Not far next to the rejoicing Ontari was Titus. The real murderer. He had been the one to use her gun. Through it had been accidental he had been the one to kill Leksa, the very one he attempted to protect by snuffing Clarke's influence on her.

He was looking at her, just as all the Gona were. Although she could see the sadness of loosing the one he considered like his daughter, she also saw the fear and respect he was trying to hide as she did not scream when the warriors cut her.
He was not the only one. Many in the Kongeda were now revising their opinion of their prisoner as she behaved like one of the most enduring of their warriors. Ontari herself was fuming. She had counted on the Skai gada's screams to psychologically destabilize the people trenched into Arkadia.

But Clarke did not pay attention to them or their torture and remained lost in her memories of the stolen moment she had had in Lexa's warm embrace. As blood fell on the soil her tears fell from her eyes. She tried to remember her touch, her smell, her taste and her voice. She tries to remember them but her mind wavers and instead she hears gunshots, screams and war cries.

The twelve clan's army and the Ark's guards has entered battle.

Ontari turns towards her prisoner and smiles, conscious that seeing her people die would be the worst torture she could impart her with. Turning back she advances on the battlefild surrounded by loyal azgeda warriors, letting Titus approached Clarke and in her ear whispers.

"You are very brave. Lexa would be proud."

But Clarke does not listen for she only cares about her love now.

"I wa-want to see h-her" she mutters between the pain.
"Its too late. The spirit of the commanders are now within Ontari."

For the first time tears leek from Clarkes eyes. She was about to demand he gets it from the Natblida when another voice speaks to her from beyond the stars.

"Klark kom Skaikru... I need your spirit to stay were it was... So much has gone wrong... I shall give you a second chance..."

Clarke felt herself go, carried by the mysterious voice, as she utters Lexa's name one last time. When Titus would look at her once again he would see that her eyes were empty of life but her face was serene and a peaceful smile graced her lips.

Clarke awareness returned to her quite rapidly. She abruptly stood up from where she was lying and saw that she was in a small white room with a metal bunk bed as its sole furniture.

My sky-box... How?

She was wearing the frayed gray shirt and dark blue jeans that she remembered from her first week in the sky-box. It had been just after her father had been floated. She had refused to separate herself from the clothes he had last touched. It was trivial now but at the time it had been what had kept her above waters.
The white walls exempt of charcoal drawings were another indicator that this was long before her descent to earth.

Is this real? Can't be... Right?

She turned to a wall, noting as she did that all the pain from the thousand cuts were gone, and with all her might punched it. And it hurt. Not as much as it did when the first cut had been applied but enough to make her groan.

Elated at the second chance she was given Clarke first though can be resumed to a sigle word. More precisely to a name: Lexa.

Skaikru = Sky clan
Wanheda = Commander of Death
Leksa = Lexa
Gona = Warrior
Kongeda = Coalition
Skai gada = Sky girl
Azgeda = Ice Nation
Natblida = Night blood
Klark Kom Skaikruu = Clarke from the Sky Clan