Octavia Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
okteiviakom) wrote2020-05-19 01:17 am
okteiviakom) wrote2020-05-19 01:17 am
The Woods and A Village, Monday FT
Octavia had far too much time to think, in the woods.
She thought about Lincoln, detained in Arkadia. About how she'd tried to get him to leave before, to try and go back to Indra and the rest of Trikru, but he'd been adamant about staying, about leading by example in trying to show they could all live peacefully together. But he was wrong about that, wasn't he? And now he was paying for it.
She thought about Bellamy and what he was doing and how she could barely believe he was doing it. But maybe she should've seen it coming. She'd forgotten over their time in Fandom how much shorter a time he'd spent on the Ground than she had. They'd barely made contact with grounders when he'd been taken, and so they were strangers to him. But that didn't explain siding with Pike, it didn't explain what they'd done.
And she thought about everyone back in Fandom. It had been, what? A month and a half, almost two since she'd disappeared. What did that mean for Fandom? She'd been on the island for almost three years and only a handful of months had passed on the Ground. Did that time difference still hold true? Maybe it had already been a year since she'd vanished.
Maybe everyone had already moved on.
(Maybe Lucifer had someone else to look out of place and surly at his club, maybe Shunsui had someone else coming by for grocery store sake, maybe Duke had someone else --)
She didn't want to think about it anymore.
She wanted to go back to Indra, but the range on the radio Kane had given her was too short for that. She had to stick close or she wouldn't hear him when he could signal her. And right now? She lived for the moments he called, to alert her whenever Pike was sending his people out of Arkadia so that she could follow them and try and see what the hell his plan for his next move was.
Not that they made much progress that way. The best that Octavia had managed to do was saving a grounder kid by tackling him as he ran from Pike's people and keeping him hidden until they gave up on finding him. All she got for her trouble was the toxic sap from the tree above them burning her forehead while she couldn't move and give away where they were, and once she released him, the kid ran away before she even found out who he was.
Ultimately, it took Kane and Miller - a guard still pretending to bow down to Pike - managing to bug Pike's office for them to find out anything of use. Octavia listened in through her headset as Pike met with Bellamy, Monty, Harper from Factory Station, and a few others from Pike's Farm Station loyalists to discuss their plan: taking over some land to begin growing crops.
The land was near a grounder village.
Monty was the one to speak out against the plan the most, the quickest, but Octavia was glad to hear that Bellamy spoke against harming the villagers, too. But when Pike pushed him on it, he was quiet for much too long.
And then he said, "We'll do what needs to be done."
Good thing Octavia's heart was already broken.
-----
Miller met her in a cave.
"Where's my horse?"
"Outside. Nice to see you too."
She didn't bother answering, already rushing past him to go find Helios -- but he yelled after her, "Octavia, wait a second! You actually think a bunch of grounders are just gonna give up their homes because you asked them to?"
She turned around, stalked back to him. They had to keep their voices down. "If it's that or be wiped out, maybe!"
"Okay, then, what if they don't leave? Then we're leading our people into an ambush."
Our people. Octavia knew what he meant but it still felt wrong, but before she could put together the words to object, he said something even stupider.
"If you just talked to your brother --"
"My brother is on the wrong side."
"So then we don't even try?"
"What do you think happens when Lexa finds out that Skaikru massacred another grounder village?"
Miller seemed to straighten up some. "War," he said. "More dead friends."
They were already at war if you asked Octavia. But she wasn't going to say that, and just nodded. "Stop the attack," she rasped, "stop the war."
He didn't try to stop her from leaving, this time.
-----
The villagers took her warning for a threat, at first. It took the kid from earlier stepping out from the crowd and saying she'd saved him for them to even listen to her - and she would've appreciated if he'd done it before she got struck down and kicked in the face.
(Even if there was a grim pleasure to the pain and the adrenaline. Even if, for a second, her entire body sang with the hope of getting into a fight, of getting the shit kicked out of her, of punching someone until her fist felt like a ball of pain.)
She spat blood onto the ground and waited for the village's leaders to talk it over. Eventually, the man who'd spoken for everyone else before, Semet, came up to her again. Told the kid to go pack up his things, like so many others seemed to already be doing. It seemed like they'd taken her on her word: Skaikru was coming, and would wipe them out unless they left.
But then she realized the men behind Semet were building something, tying felled tree trunks together. One of them was wiping his hands, clearly in pain. The trees - they were the same that had burned her before.
"What is this?" she demanded to know.
"You think you know us?" Semet asked. "You know nothing, girl."
Then she felt a sharp pain in the side of her head, and everything went black.
-----
When Octavia came to, night had fallen, and she was face down on the ground, tied up. The people standing right by her didn't seem to realize she was awake. She listened to them say the trap was set, that they'd leave for Polis as soon as it was done. One of them thought they should kill her, but the other - Semet again, she was pretty sure - said the commander needed to hear of this from the Sky People themselves.
He meant her.
They were atop a hill overlooking the camp. When the jeeps from Arkadia rolled into the empty village, Octavia used the villagers' distraction to free herself from her ropes. They saw her running for Helios, of course, but that was nothing a swift kick from the back of a horse couldn't fix.
She rode Helios to where she could see things better - and saw Bellamy.
And didn't stop to think for even a second. "Bellamy, get out of there, it's a trap!" she yelled, right before the villagers shot their flaming arrows, and the tree stacks they'd built before burst into flames. "The smoke is poisonous!"
They made it.
Octavia stuck around too long to make sure of that, staring down at Bellamy - long enough to find herself yanked violently off of Helios's back, and a knife placed on her throat.
There wasn't a kick to fix that.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, you know the rest. Summarized from The 100 s3 episode 6.]
She thought about Lincoln, detained in Arkadia. About how she'd tried to get him to leave before, to try and go back to Indra and the rest of Trikru, but he'd been adamant about staying, about leading by example in trying to show they could all live peacefully together. But he was wrong about that, wasn't he? And now he was paying for it.
She thought about Bellamy and what he was doing and how she could barely believe he was doing it. But maybe she should've seen it coming. She'd forgotten over their time in Fandom how much shorter a time he'd spent on the Ground than she had. They'd barely made contact with grounders when he'd been taken, and so they were strangers to him. But that didn't explain siding with Pike, it didn't explain what they'd done.
And she thought about everyone back in Fandom. It had been, what? A month and a half, almost two since she'd disappeared. What did that mean for Fandom? She'd been on the island for almost three years and only a handful of months had passed on the Ground. Did that time difference still hold true? Maybe it had already been a year since she'd vanished.
Maybe everyone had already moved on.
(Maybe Lucifer had someone else to look out of place and surly at his club, maybe Shunsui had someone else coming by for grocery store sake, maybe Duke had someone else --)
She didn't want to think about it anymore.
She wanted to go back to Indra, but the range on the radio Kane had given her was too short for that. She had to stick close or she wouldn't hear him when he could signal her. And right now? She lived for the moments he called, to alert her whenever Pike was sending his people out of Arkadia so that she could follow them and try and see what the hell his plan for his next move was.
Not that they made much progress that way. The best that Octavia had managed to do was saving a grounder kid by tackling him as he ran from Pike's people and keeping him hidden until they gave up on finding him. All she got for her trouble was the toxic sap from the tree above them burning her forehead while she couldn't move and give away where they were, and once she released him, the kid ran away before she even found out who he was.
Ultimately, it took Kane and Miller - a guard still pretending to bow down to Pike - managing to bug Pike's office for them to find out anything of use. Octavia listened in through her headset as Pike met with Bellamy, Monty, Harper from Factory Station, and a few others from Pike's Farm Station loyalists to discuss their plan: taking over some land to begin growing crops.
The land was near a grounder village.
Monty was the one to speak out against the plan the most, the quickest, but Octavia was glad to hear that Bellamy spoke against harming the villagers, too. But when Pike pushed him on it, he was quiet for much too long.
And then he said, "We'll do what needs to be done."
Good thing Octavia's heart was already broken.
Miller met her in a cave.
"Where's my horse?"
"Outside. Nice to see you too."
She didn't bother answering, already rushing past him to go find Helios -- but he yelled after her, "Octavia, wait a second! You actually think a bunch of grounders are just gonna give up their homes because you asked them to?"
She turned around, stalked back to him. They had to keep their voices down. "If it's that or be wiped out, maybe!"
"Okay, then, what if they don't leave? Then we're leading our people into an ambush."
Our people. Octavia knew what he meant but it still felt wrong, but before she could put together the words to object, he said something even stupider.
"If you just talked to your brother --"
"My brother is on the wrong side."
"So then we don't even try?"
"What do you think happens when Lexa finds out that Skaikru massacred another grounder village?"
Miller seemed to straighten up some. "War," he said. "More dead friends."
They were already at war if you asked Octavia. But she wasn't going to say that, and just nodded. "Stop the attack," she rasped, "stop the war."
He didn't try to stop her from leaving, this time.
The villagers took her warning for a threat, at first. It took the kid from earlier stepping out from the crowd and saying she'd saved him for them to even listen to her - and she would've appreciated if he'd done it before she got struck down and kicked in the face.
(Even if there was a grim pleasure to the pain and the adrenaline. Even if, for a second, her entire body sang with the hope of getting into a fight, of getting the shit kicked out of her, of punching someone until her fist felt like a ball of pain.)
She spat blood onto the ground and waited for the village's leaders to talk it over. Eventually, the man who'd spoken for everyone else before, Semet, came up to her again. Told the kid to go pack up his things, like so many others seemed to already be doing. It seemed like they'd taken her on her word: Skaikru was coming, and would wipe them out unless they left.
But then she realized the men behind Semet were building something, tying felled tree trunks together. One of them was wiping his hands, clearly in pain. The trees - they were the same that had burned her before.
"What is this?" she demanded to know.
"You think you know us?" Semet asked. "You know nothing, girl."
Then she felt a sharp pain in the side of her head, and everything went black.
When Octavia came to, night had fallen, and she was face down on the ground, tied up. The people standing right by her didn't seem to realize she was awake. She listened to them say the trap was set, that they'd leave for Polis as soon as it was done. One of them thought they should kill her, but the other - Semet again, she was pretty sure - said the commander needed to hear of this from the Sky People themselves.
He meant her.
They were atop a hill overlooking the camp. When the jeeps from Arkadia rolled into the empty village, Octavia used the villagers' distraction to free herself from her ropes. They saw her running for Helios, of course, but that was nothing a swift kick from the back of a horse couldn't fix.
She rode Helios to where she could see things better - and saw Bellamy.
And didn't stop to think for even a second. "Bellamy, get out of there, it's a trap!" she yelled, right before the villagers shot their flaming arrows, and the tree stacks they'd built before burst into flames. "The smoke is poisonous!"
They made it.
Octavia stuck around too long to make sure of that, staring down at Bellamy - long enough to find herself yanked violently off of Helios's back, and a knife placed on her throat.
There wasn't a kick to fix that.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, you know the rest. Summarized from The 100 s3 episode 6.]