Octavia Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
okteiviakom) wrote2020-06-10 06:49 pm
okteiviakom) wrote2020-06-10 06:49 pm
Entry tags:
- !canon,
- !canon: season 5,
- fact: love no one,
- issue: betrayals galore,
- issue: nou blodreina nawe,
- issue: you want your army to march?,
- person: bellamy,
- person: brell,
- person: clarke,
- person: gaia,
- person: harper,
- person: indra,
- person: jackson,
- person: madi,
- person: miller,
- person: monty,
- place: the bunker,
- place: the ground
The Bunker, Wednesday FT
Octavia woke up to someone gently nudging her shoulder. It was Jackson, the closest thing they'd had to a doctor since Abby had gone with Diyoza. Behind him, Indra. Octavia had no idea how long she'd been out of it, but it had been long enough for them to have turned her chambers into her own personal sick ward.
She told Indra her brother had poisoned her.
Jackson, shocked, told Indra to arrest Bellamy.
And Indra told them she couldn't do that.
And then, with Octavia able to do nothing but watch from the bed, Indra threw a knife into the face of the guard at the door, and stabbed Jackson with an injection that caused him to fall unconscious, and then she rushed to lock the door.
So it wasn't just Bellamy that had turned against Octavia. She'd been right, that night in the wasteland, before the worms, when she'd told Indra that love was weakness. Love no one, and no one can hurt you.
"Tell me why," she gritted out.
"Diyoza agreed to share the valley if we surrender."
"Surrender." The word practically tasted bitter in her mouth. "So you're not just a traitor. You're a coward." She'd expected so much better. She knew Indra had wavered lately, but she'd expected better than this. "I'm ashamed of you."
"And I'm afraid of you," Indra replied without venom. "Of what you've become. I blame myself for that, I let you go too far. The dark year broke us all."
"Do not talk to me about the dark year," Octavia replied. Her body protested the vehemence by causing a coughing fit, but she pulled the tubes out of her nose. "We survived that," Indra told her, kneeling down by the side of the bed. Kneeling down to Octavia's level. "We can survive this, too."
"We survived that because of me," Octavia replied. Did Indra think she'd forgotten? She remembered, she remembered what she'd had to do, to get Wonkru to survive when so many of them had wanted to give up and wait for death. Her breath wheezed again, forced her to quiet down to almost a whisper. Her eyes were burning. "You stood there, and watched."
"Yes," Indra replied, quieter herself now. "I shouldn't have let you shoulder that burden alone. I won't make the same mistake now."
They heard the sound of horns reverberate through the bunker walls. It was the Ascension call. And that meant several things. "Wonkru wouldn't follow you," Octavia realized. Miller. She was sure Miller had stayed loyal to her, rallied the troops that were of like mind. Gon Blodreina. "So you're using Madi?" They wanted a child to take her place. Didn't matter that she was the same age as Lexa had been when she'd ascended. All they wanted from the girl was that she would take the deal with the enemy, that she would surrender Wonkru to them. And Octavia couldn't allow that.
Which was exactly what she told Clarke when she burst in through the door a little later, with a gun, intent on killing Octavia. The only person who wanted Madi to Ascend less than Octavia did was Clarke. They struck a deal: they'd stop the Ascension, and Octavia would help Clarke and Madi escape to the valley.
But they were too late. By the time they got there, Gaia had already given Madi the Flame. The girl was still unconcious, and Clarke couldn't take the Flame out while it was still bonding, because that would have risked Madi's life. Which was just as well, because Octavia couldn't risk having an almost-commander martyred.
Not right in front of everyone, anyway.
She had Bellamy and Gaia arrested for treason and imprisoned the same as she'd already done with Indra. Then she sent a guard to take Clarke and Madi to the rover. He was meant to execute them, and dispose of the bodies. Then they could say Madi had fled like a coward.
Octavia got half her plan. When the news came that Clarke, like the cockroach that she was, had once more survived by killing the guard and stealing the rover, Octavia announced to her people that the Nightblood child had not recited the lineage, which the Flame was supposed to enable her to do, and was therefore not a true commander. Instead, she'd run away, abandoning them all. She was not Wonkru, she was an enemy of Wonkru, and like all of their enemies, she would be dealt with.
But dealing with the traitors could wait, and that included Indra, Gaia, and Bellamy. First, they had a war to win.
-----
Octavia was running low on advisors she could trust. Miller and another one of the delegates, a woman called Brell, came to her office to update her on the state of the clan after her illness, after everything, and the news weren't good. Fifty percent of their people wouldn't march. Miller tried to soften the blow by saying they were afraid of the sandstorms, and that they were calming people down by saying they'd take the longer route, but Brell forced him to tell the truth.
It was Madi.
There was a supposed commander out there, and everyone knew it, and it was dividing the ranks.
Miller still believed in the people they had. He said they had the element of surprise still on their side. He wanted to go win the war, the rest would follow them again once they did. But Octavia wasn't so sure, and anyway, Brell kept looking like she had something to say. And at Octavia's prompting, she did. "Either you're Wonkru, or an enemy of Wonkru," she said. "My advice -- you can either unite us behind the real commander, or remind those who refuse to march what happens to our enemies."
Miller instantly disagreed, saying the 'real commander' was a child who'd shown up practically yesterday. "Blodreina's kept us strong through six years of hell. Now you're advising her to stand down or kill half of our people?"
But Octavia knew that wasn't what Brell meant.
She meant the fighting pits.
She meant Indra, and Gaia. And Bellamy.
There was just one thing that didn't add up. Octavia knew Brell had been at the ascension ceremony. "I'm confused," she drawled. "You want me to kill the people who conspired to bring you back your precious commander?"
"No," Brell admitted, briefly lowering her gaze. Lowering her chin. "I want you to bend the knee to her, but I know you won't." That last part was awfully hasty. But then she steeled her expression, and Octavia knew what side she was on. "You want your army to march? Show them what happens when they don't."
-----
Octavia had spent six years pushing all her personal wants, dreams, hopes aside, and focusing on keeping Wonkru going, keeping them alive, making them strong. And this was what it was coming to. She was almost surprised that it didn't come easy. That there was anything still left in her that beat for something other than Wonkru.
And she was doing her best to smother it now.
Still, she went to see Indra in her cell. One last time to ask for another option, another solution, anything. But she didn't get one. All she got was sneering, and things she didn't understand. ("You betrayed me, Indra." "I betrayed Blodreina." "What's the difference?") And a promise that Indra would not lose a daughter in the arena.
She would let Gaia take her life, after she took that of Octavia's brother.
So Octavia went to see Monty down at the hydrofarm, hoping he would go talk to Bellamy. To tell him about Indra's weaknesses. Help him survive. But she didn't get what she wanted there, either. She just got called a dictator who should call the whole thing off. And he showed her a branch with a white flower on it - an apple blossom. He claimed it meant they didn't have to march to war, that they didn't need Shallow Valley, that the farm was rebounding and the algae would help them farm the wasteland, too.
Octavia snapped the flower off the branch. The ghosts could have this place. That valley belonged to them.
And finally, she went to see Bellamy. She found him sitting on the bench in his cell. He kept his back to her as she sat down at the other end. "Remember lily pads?" she rasped after a moment. Paused, but didn't really expect an answer. "God, you used to hate that game. Jumping from table to chair, to bed. First one who touches the ground loses." She looked over, watched his back for a second. She knew him, even after all this time, knew he was trying not to let tension show in his shoulders. "But you never once said no, and you always let me win."
His head tilted back. He was looking up at the ceiling. But not turning.
"Do you remember the last time we played? I cut my lip. I bled all over the place, I was so worried that someone would see it on the floor and find me. But you took care of that. You cut your own arm open so people would think it was your blood." She saw him look down at his arm. Knew he was looking at the scar. "Long way from that to poisoning me."
"Not really," he replied, very quietly. Then he finally turned to face her. "No, I did that to save you, too. From yourself, from fighting a war that could destroy the last survivable land on Earth."
"Well, you'll be happy to know that the worms are gone," Octavia replied evenly. "Clarke took them, along with the usurper you tried to replace me with."
"And you're still ready to go to war, even though Indra has told you how many of your people would die? What kind of leader does that?"
Octavia drew in a deep breath, trying to push her first instinct down. Her voice still came out a little tight. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Just shut up, Bell, just shut up.
"Don't I?" he asked, incredulous. "O, you turned this place into a story from your childhood." He gestured at the cell. "I mean, the Red Queen? It's a joke. And I can still tell when you're scared." When she didn't immediately reply, he somehow took that as an invitation to double down. "You think this is what Lincoln would've wanted you to become? You think this is what Duke --"
He was not allowed to speak that name. Desperation flooded her chest at the sound of it.
"I came here to save your life," Octavia snapped. "Now I'm not so sure I should."
Bellamy huffed, dryly, joylessly. "Well, this should be good."
For a few seconds, Octavia considered just walking away. Just -- leaving him here to fend for himself. But somehow, even now, she couldn't bring herself to do that. So she told him about how Indra's shoulder had never fully healed from the bullet Pike had put in her all those years ago. That meant Bellamy would have to make her take the hammer, because it was too heavy for one arm, and that meant --
"So you came here to help me kill the woman who made you who you are."
"I love Indra," Octavia replied. "I do. But she's not my blood. You are." It didn't feel like that was it. She didn't want to look at this clawing urge too closely, didn't want to think about it, she just needed Bellamy to listen to her. But it didn't seem like he did. As she told him to make sure he got the sword, and that Gaia would go for the staff, and that he should only worry about her after Indra was dead, all he was doing was looking at her.
She'd gotten up to pace, and now she sank down in front of him, put her hands against his knees. (Begging.) "Tell me you understand," she tried.
"I wish I did," he said. "I wish I knew what made you this way --" Oh, here they went again. "-- and I wish that I could have been here to take the burden off you these last six years. But I'm here now. And the way I see it, you have two choices: you either call this thing off, and make a deal to share the valley, or you watch me die in that arena today. Because I'm not fighting."
For a moment, Octavia was speechless.
Then she said, her voice small but dark, "Everybody fights."
He shook his head. "I won't."
Octavia shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds. Tried to center herself - and found it impossible. "We'll see," she said, and stood up. Strode for the door, only to hear Bellamy one last time. "There's no coming back from this, O." When she turned, he'd stood up. "If you do this, there's no coming back."
He was too late with that.
Her eyes burned again. "I know you're still trying to save me, Bell." Like the big brother he'd always been. I won't let anything bad happen to you. My sister, my responsibility. He was much too late, now. "But you can't save someone who's already dead."
-----
She didn't let the tears come before she'd made it into her office.
And as she stood in front of the broken mirror, with a dozen distorted, distraught faces looking back at her, she thought about how everything was falling apart. The last of what little family she had were going to destroy each other in the arena. And Wonkru was losing faith. Was it time to admit the world and everyone on it had been dying since the day the bunker had been opened?
Since the day the bunker door had first closed on them.
Since the day the multiverse had yanked her back here.
Octavia looked down and saw the broken-off shards on the edge of the mirror. She picked one up. Felt how sharp the pointed end was.
It wouldn't take much pressure.
The shard hovered above her left wrist. She stared at it for a long moment.
Just one move, and she might be free,
But as she thought about the last six years -- She had a family. Wonkru was her family. And now divided, her family, her people needed their leader to see them through this more than over. An even bigger challenge than the dark year, bigger than the unrest of the first several months in the bunker. They needed Blodreina, and they needed her to be strong, and unwavering, and merciless to their enemies. And they needed her to remind them who they were. What Wonkru stood for.
They'd thank her once it was done.
The shard cut her skin at the back of her forearm, near the elbow. She let the blood drip onto her other palm, then rubbed her palms together. Then ran her hands over her face.
New warpaint.
All of her, for all of them.
-----
"We gather here today to remind ourselves what happens to the enemies of Wonkru. It doesn't matter who you are. If you choose sides against us, if you divide us, if you defy us, then you are not us. Before we give these traitors a second chance to be called brother, or sister, or seda, we pay tribute to those who have died so that we might live."
Once again, all those in the stands around the arena bowed their heads.
"Be the last."
And once again, the fight began.
Octavia watched, numb to what she was seeing, as Bellamy hesitated to attack his opponents. As Indra and Gaia put on what had to be a show of fighting each other, though a convincing one, she had to give them that. And like Kane before him, Bellamy couldn't resist the fight forever. He went for the sword. Good.
And so the three of them fought.
Until Gaia took her spear, and threw it - up at Octavia. It thunked into her throne, not too far from her shoulder. (Not too far from her head.) The arena went quiet, frozen, everyone waiting for Octavia's reaction. But unlike with Kane, she wasn't going to let the guilty take control of this situation.
She stood up, yanked the spear out of the throne, and tossed it back down into the pit.
"I said," she spat, "be the last."
But before the fight could begin again in earnest, Monty came barreling into the arena, Harper rushing in at his heels. Octavia called for the guards to take them away, but Harper jammed the door into the pit, buying them time. "Octavia told you we have to march," Monty shouted to the people behind the fencing, "that we have to fight for the one place left where we can survive, but she knows that's not true."
He was holding something under his arm, wrapped in a blanket.
Octavia's voice was calm, but ice cold. A warning. "Monty, you do not belong in here."
He pulled the blanket away. It was one of the clear plastic cylinders he used for growing things at the farm. In it were several branches - with many pale flowers on them. "The hydrofarm is working again! Soon, it'll be processing enough food to feed all of us here. Using the same techniques, we can grow crops in the wasteland. Ask Octavia. She's seen it with her own eyes." Finally, he looked up at her. "Go to war if you want to, but at least tell them that they have a choice."
Octavia didn't reply. Not to Monty, not to Brell when she asked if it was true. She could already feel the shift in the room even before the first voices broke off from the crowd. "Nou Blodreina nawe!"
Blodreina no more.
She told Miller and the rest of her guard to stand down, and as the crowd turned louder, she slipped away. No point in shouting this one down. Or making Monty fight in the arena for his treason. Or reasoning with anyone. This was one fight in the pit she wouldn't win.
-----
There were many more branches down at the hydrofarm. They were thin and young, but strong, and their flowers were white and delicate. They were alive, they were life.
That was where she started the fire.
That was where she watched it all burn.
By the time they found her, summoned by the alarm, the entire growing room was a sea of flames. Plants, equipment, everything. The destruction was complete. "What did you do?" Monty asked, staring past her as she turned to face them.
"Took away the choice," Indra said.
"You still have one," Octavia rasped. "Stay here and die, or march with me and live."
She'd told Monty when she'd visited the farm earlier that farmers would not save the world.
The warriors would.
[ooc: NFB, NFI. Taken from The 100 S5 episodes 9-10. CONTENT WARNING for suicidal ideation and self-harm.]
She told Indra her brother had poisoned her.
Jackson, shocked, told Indra to arrest Bellamy.
And Indra told them she couldn't do that.
And then, with Octavia able to do nothing but watch from the bed, Indra threw a knife into the face of the guard at the door, and stabbed Jackson with an injection that caused him to fall unconscious, and then she rushed to lock the door.
So it wasn't just Bellamy that had turned against Octavia. She'd been right, that night in the wasteland, before the worms, when she'd told Indra that love was weakness. Love no one, and no one can hurt you.
"Tell me why," she gritted out.
"Diyoza agreed to share the valley if we surrender."
"Surrender." The word practically tasted bitter in her mouth. "So you're not just a traitor. You're a coward." She'd expected so much better. She knew Indra had wavered lately, but she'd expected better than this. "I'm ashamed of you."
"And I'm afraid of you," Indra replied without venom. "Of what you've become. I blame myself for that, I let you go too far. The dark year broke us all."
"Do not talk to me about the dark year," Octavia replied. Her body protested the vehemence by causing a coughing fit, but she pulled the tubes out of her nose. "We survived that," Indra told her, kneeling down by the side of the bed. Kneeling down to Octavia's level. "We can survive this, too."
"We survived that because of me," Octavia replied. Did Indra think she'd forgotten? She remembered, she remembered what she'd had to do, to get Wonkru to survive when so many of them had wanted to give up and wait for death. Her breath wheezed again, forced her to quiet down to almost a whisper. Her eyes were burning. "You stood there, and watched."
"Yes," Indra replied, quieter herself now. "I shouldn't have let you shoulder that burden alone. I won't make the same mistake now."
They heard the sound of horns reverberate through the bunker walls. It was the Ascension call. And that meant several things. "Wonkru wouldn't follow you," Octavia realized. Miller. She was sure Miller had stayed loyal to her, rallied the troops that were of like mind. Gon Blodreina. "So you're using Madi?" They wanted a child to take her place. Didn't matter that she was the same age as Lexa had been when she'd ascended. All they wanted from the girl was that she would take the deal with the enemy, that she would surrender Wonkru to them. And Octavia couldn't allow that.
Which was exactly what she told Clarke when she burst in through the door a little later, with a gun, intent on killing Octavia. The only person who wanted Madi to Ascend less than Octavia did was Clarke. They struck a deal: they'd stop the Ascension, and Octavia would help Clarke and Madi escape to the valley.
But they were too late. By the time they got there, Gaia had already given Madi the Flame. The girl was still unconcious, and Clarke couldn't take the Flame out while it was still bonding, because that would have risked Madi's life. Which was just as well, because Octavia couldn't risk having an almost-commander martyred.
Not right in front of everyone, anyway.
She had Bellamy and Gaia arrested for treason and imprisoned the same as she'd already done with Indra. Then she sent a guard to take Clarke and Madi to the rover. He was meant to execute them, and dispose of the bodies. Then they could say Madi had fled like a coward.
Octavia got half her plan. When the news came that Clarke, like the cockroach that she was, had once more survived by killing the guard and stealing the rover, Octavia announced to her people that the Nightblood child had not recited the lineage, which the Flame was supposed to enable her to do, and was therefore not a true commander. Instead, she'd run away, abandoning them all. She was not Wonkru, she was an enemy of Wonkru, and like all of their enemies, she would be dealt with.
But dealing with the traitors could wait, and that included Indra, Gaia, and Bellamy. First, they had a war to win.
Octavia was running low on advisors she could trust. Miller and another one of the delegates, a woman called Brell, came to her office to update her on the state of the clan after her illness, after everything, and the news weren't good. Fifty percent of their people wouldn't march. Miller tried to soften the blow by saying they were afraid of the sandstorms, and that they were calming people down by saying they'd take the longer route, but Brell forced him to tell the truth.
It was Madi.
There was a supposed commander out there, and everyone knew it, and it was dividing the ranks.
Miller still believed in the people they had. He said they had the element of surprise still on their side. He wanted to go win the war, the rest would follow them again once they did. But Octavia wasn't so sure, and anyway, Brell kept looking like she had something to say. And at Octavia's prompting, she did. "Either you're Wonkru, or an enemy of Wonkru," she said. "My advice -- you can either unite us behind the real commander, or remind those who refuse to march what happens to our enemies."
Miller instantly disagreed, saying the 'real commander' was a child who'd shown up practically yesterday. "Blodreina's kept us strong through six years of hell. Now you're advising her to stand down or kill half of our people?"
But Octavia knew that wasn't what Brell meant.
She meant the fighting pits.
She meant Indra, and Gaia. And Bellamy.
There was just one thing that didn't add up. Octavia knew Brell had been at the ascension ceremony. "I'm confused," she drawled. "You want me to kill the people who conspired to bring you back your precious commander?"
"No," Brell admitted, briefly lowering her gaze. Lowering her chin. "I want you to bend the knee to her, but I know you won't." That last part was awfully hasty. But then she steeled her expression, and Octavia knew what side she was on. "You want your army to march? Show them what happens when they don't."
Octavia had spent six years pushing all her personal wants, dreams, hopes aside, and focusing on keeping Wonkru going, keeping them alive, making them strong. And this was what it was coming to. She was almost surprised that it didn't come easy. That there was anything still left in her that beat for something other than Wonkru.
And she was doing her best to smother it now.
Still, she went to see Indra in her cell. One last time to ask for another option, another solution, anything. But she didn't get one. All she got was sneering, and things she didn't understand. ("You betrayed me, Indra." "I betrayed Blodreina." "What's the difference?") And a promise that Indra would not lose a daughter in the arena.
She would let Gaia take her life, after she took that of Octavia's brother.
So Octavia went to see Monty down at the hydrofarm, hoping he would go talk to Bellamy. To tell him about Indra's weaknesses. Help him survive. But she didn't get what she wanted there, either. She just got called a dictator who should call the whole thing off. And he showed her a branch with a white flower on it - an apple blossom. He claimed it meant they didn't have to march to war, that they didn't need Shallow Valley, that the farm was rebounding and the algae would help them farm the wasteland, too.
Octavia snapped the flower off the branch. The ghosts could have this place. That valley belonged to them.
And finally, she went to see Bellamy. She found him sitting on the bench in his cell. He kept his back to her as she sat down at the other end. "Remember lily pads?" she rasped after a moment. Paused, but didn't really expect an answer. "God, you used to hate that game. Jumping from table to chair, to bed. First one who touches the ground loses." She looked over, watched his back for a second. She knew him, even after all this time, knew he was trying not to let tension show in his shoulders. "But you never once said no, and you always let me win."
His head tilted back. He was looking up at the ceiling. But not turning.
"Do you remember the last time we played? I cut my lip. I bled all over the place, I was so worried that someone would see it on the floor and find me. But you took care of that. You cut your own arm open so people would think it was your blood." She saw him look down at his arm. Knew he was looking at the scar. "Long way from that to poisoning me."
"Not really," he replied, very quietly. Then he finally turned to face her. "No, I did that to save you, too. From yourself, from fighting a war that could destroy the last survivable land on Earth."
"Well, you'll be happy to know that the worms are gone," Octavia replied evenly. "Clarke took them, along with the usurper you tried to replace me with."
"And you're still ready to go to war, even though Indra has told you how many of your people would die? What kind of leader does that?"
Octavia drew in a deep breath, trying to push her first instinct down. Her voice still came out a little tight. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Just shut up, Bell, just shut up.
"Don't I?" he asked, incredulous. "O, you turned this place into a story from your childhood." He gestured at the cell. "I mean, the Red Queen? It's a joke. And I can still tell when you're scared." When she didn't immediately reply, he somehow took that as an invitation to double down. "You think this is what Lincoln would've wanted you to become? You think this is what Duke --"
He was not allowed to speak that name. Desperation flooded her chest at the sound of it.
"I came here to save your life," Octavia snapped. "Now I'm not so sure I should."
Bellamy huffed, dryly, joylessly. "Well, this should be good."
For a few seconds, Octavia considered just walking away. Just -- leaving him here to fend for himself. But somehow, even now, she couldn't bring herself to do that. So she told him about how Indra's shoulder had never fully healed from the bullet Pike had put in her all those years ago. That meant Bellamy would have to make her take the hammer, because it was too heavy for one arm, and that meant --
"So you came here to help me kill the woman who made you who you are."
"I love Indra," Octavia replied. "I do. But she's not my blood. You are." It didn't feel like that was it. She didn't want to look at this clawing urge too closely, didn't want to think about it, she just needed Bellamy to listen to her. But it didn't seem like he did. As she told him to make sure he got the sword, and that Gaia would go for the staff, and that he should only worry about her after Indra was dead, all he was doing was looking at her.
She'd gotten up to pace, and now she sank down in front of him, put her hands against his knees. (Begging.) "Tell me you understand," she tried.
"I wish I did," he said. "I wish I knew what made you this way --" Oh, here they went again. "-- and I wish that I could have been here to take the burden off you these last six years. But I'm here now. And the way I see it, you have two choices: you either call this thing off, and make a deal to share the valley, or you watch me die in that arena today. Because I'm not fighting."
For a moment, Octavia was speechless.
Then she said, her voice small but dark, "Everybody fights."
He shook his head. "I won't."
Octavia shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds. Tried to center herself - and found it impossible. "We'll see," she said, and stood up. Strode for the door, only to hear Bellamy one last time. "There's no coming back from this, O." When she turned, he'd stood up. "If you do this, there's no coming back."
He was too late with that.
Her eyes burned again. "I know you're still trying to save me, Bell." Like the big brother he'd always been. I won't let anything bad happen to you. My sister, my responsibility. He was much too late, now. "But you can't save someone who's already dead."
She didn't let the tears come before she'd made it into her office.
And as she stood in front of the broken mirror, with a dozen distorted, distraught faces looking back at her, she thought about how everything was falling apart. The last of what little family she had were going to destroy each other in the arena. And Wonkru was losing faith. Was it time to admit the world and everyone on it had been dying since the day the bunker had been opened?
Since the day the bunker door had first closed on them.
Since the day the multiverse had yanked her back here.
Octavia looked down and saw the broken-off shards on the edge of the mirror. She picked one up. Felt how sharp the pointed end was.
It wouldn't take much pressure.
The shard hovered above her left wrist. She stared at it for a long moment.
Just one move, and she might be free,
But as she thought about the last six years -- She had a family. Wonkru was her family. And now divided, her family, her people needed their leader to see them through this more than over. An even bigger challenge than the dark year, bigger than the unrest of the first several months in the bunker. They needed Blodreina, and they needed her to be strong, and unwavering, and merciless to their enemies. And they needed her to remind them who they were. What Wonkru stood for.
They'd thank her once it was done.
The shard cut her skin at the back of her forearm, near the elbow. She let the blood drip onto her other palm, then rubbed her palms together. Then ran her hands over her face.
New warpaint.
All of her, for all of them.
"We gather here today to remind ourselves what happens to the enemies of Wonkru. It doesn't matter who you are. If you choose sides against us, if you divide us, if you defy us, then you are not us. Before we give these traitors a second chance to be called brother, or sister, or seda, we pay tribute to those who have died so that we might live."
Once again, all those in the stands around the arena bowed their heads.
"Be the last."
And once again, the fight began.
Octavia watched, numb to what she was seeing, as Bellamy hesitated to attack his opponents. As Indra and Gaia put on what had to be a show of fighting each other, though a convincing one, she had to give them that. And like Kane before him, Bellamy couldn't resist the fight forever. He went for the sword. Good.
And so the three of them fought.
Until Gaia took her spear, and threw it - up at Octavia. It thunked into her throne, not too far from her shoulder. (Not too far from her head.) The arena went quiet, frozen, everyone waiting for Octavia's reaction. But unlike with Kane, she wasn't going to let the guilty take control of this situation.
She stood up, yanked the spear out of the throne, and tossed it back down into the pit.
"I said," she spat, "be the last."
But before the fight could begin again in earnest, Monty came barreling into the arena, Harper rushing in at his heels. Octavia called for the guards to take them away, but Harper jammed the door into the pit, buying them time. "Octavia told you we have to march," Monty shouted to the people behind the fencing, "that we have to fight for the one place left where we can survive, but she knows that's not true."
He was holding something under his arm, wrapped in a blanket.
Octavia's voice was calm, but ice cold. A warning. "Monty, you do not belong in here."
He pulled the blanket away. It was one of the clear plastic cylinders he used for growing things at the farm. In it were several branches - with many pale flowers on them. "The hydrofarm is working again! Soon, it'll be processing enough food to feed all of us here. Using the same techniques, we can grow crops in the wasteland. Ask Octavia. She's seen it with her own eyes." Finally, he looked up at her. "Go to war if you want to, but at least tell them that they have a choice."
Octavia didn't reply. Not to Monty, not to Brell when she asked if it was true. She could already feel the shift in the room even before the first voices broke off from the crowd. "Nou Blodreina nawe!"
Blodreina no more.
She told Miller and the rest of her guard to stand down, and as the crowd turned louder, she slipped away. No point in shouting this one down. Or making Monty fight in the arena for his treason. Or reasoning with anyone. This was one fight in the pit she wouldn't win.
There were many more branches down at the hydrofarm. They were thin and young, but strong, and their flowers were white and delicate. They were alive, they were life.
That was where she started the fire.
That was where she watched it all burn.
By the time they found her, summoned by the alarm, the entire growing room was a sea of flames. Plants, equipment, everything. The destruction was complete. "What did you do?" Monty asked, staring past her as she turned to face them.
"Took away the choice," Indra said.
"You still have one," Octavia rasped. "Stay here and die, or march with me and live."
She'd told Monty when she'd visited the farm earlier that farmers would not save the world.
The warriors would.
[ooc: NFB, NFI. Taken from The 100 S5 episodes 9-10. CONTENT WARNING for suicidal ideation and self-harm.]