The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Way Early Monday Morning

[okteiviakom]

It would have been an overstatement to say Octavia had been sleeping well over the last couple of weeks. Although she slept a lot, her sleep had tended to be fitful, restless. But, so far, whenever she actually managed sleep, it had been of the exhausted, dreamless kind.

As Sunday turned into Monday, her luck on that front finally ran out.

-----

She's back in the gorge. It stretches on for miles, impossibly long, out into the horizon and even beyond. She knows this even though she can't see it.

She's not alone.

She's never alone. The bodies are strewn all across the dusty floor of the gorge. She can see some of them piled up on top of each other. Some of them twitch and convulse in unnatural ways.

Others are perfectly still, and she's not sure which is worse.

Octavia.

Someone speaks her name, right beside her. She turns her head, expecting Bellamy, because it's always Bellamy. Right? But it's not.

It's Ilian, laying on the ground with her.

Around his neck, not on a black leather cord but on a delicate chain, hangs her dove. Above it, a round pendant with a butterfly on it. And above that, his smile. Warm, faintly amused, as if she's been tilling the soil all wrong again.

And then he moves to get up, and panic fills her lungs so tight she can't even tell him not to do it, and his smile falls away.

Gon Blodreina.

She can't move. And as Ilian gets up, she can see the arrow sticking out of his neck, sees her knife stuck in his belly, sees how ashy his face is. Sees the bullet strike his temple, sees the tiny spray of blood.

Sees him drop down next to her, eyes glassy and staring right through her.

She screams his name.

-----

It wasn't a scream, out in the real world. Octavia had spent too long under everyone's constant attention to let her guard slip that far down even as she slept. It was muffled, more like a whimpery mumble.

"Ilian, no --"

And she was fidgeting. Still felt like she couldn't move.

[ooc: For that guy in the bed. Content warning for some gore under the cut. ETA: Extra content warning for the thread for vague suicidal ideation, talk of past NPC deaths and probably various other sensitive subjects.]

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[betterthanaplan]

It was still enough to wake Duke right up.

"Tavi?" He shook her gently, remembering all too well when this had happened before. "Hey. It's okay, Tavi, it's just a dream."

[okteiviakom]

"No --"

Oh. Something was shaking her. The gorge fell away, and her eyes blinked open. It took a few seconds for them to focus, and she spent those half expecting to find herself looking into another pair of dead eyes.

But, no.

She gasped in a shuddery breath.

[betterthanaplan]

"Hey," Duke said again, keeping his eyes and voice soft. "That was a doozy, huh."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's eyes darted down to his neck. The last remnants of her dream forcing her to look for -- the dove?

The butterfly.

[betterthanaplan]

There was nothing there but neck. Duke didn’t tend to sleep in his various necklaces.

Or much of anything at all, really.

He offered her a small smile. “You want to tell me about it?”

[okteiviakom]

It was an odd sort of comfort, right now, that there was nothing there. Octavia still brought her hand up to brush over his collar bones like she needed tangible proof even as she already wasn't sure where the urge had come from.

Then, she pushed herself up to sitting. She'd talk, but... In a moment.

Needed to breathe first.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke let her touch and sit and breathe as needed. She wasn't in the full panic mode dissociation of her first nightmare with him. She seemed awake and aware. He could be patient.

That seemed to be the only thing he could do for her, these days. Just be patient.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia breathed slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It was the one thing she'd managed to hold on to from her handful of yoga lessons, all through the years.

After a moment, she reached for his hand, blindly, fumbling. Tried to tug him up and closer to her.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke went easily (it was what he wanted to do anyway). He wondered if this was a sign she was starting to recover, if her brain was finally rested enough to start working through things.

He didn't say a word, though, just shifted up next to her and gripped her hand. Let her use him to ground herself.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia struggled with the urge to pull him in closer, to get him to wrap her up. Could she want that? Should she want that?

(Did she deserve it?)

She stared out into the dark, holding his hand tightly. Her voice sounded hoarse. "I was in the gorge." That didn't mean much to him, did it? "On the battlefield."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in his arms, but didn’t want to push her.

They always seemed to land here, didn’t they. Duke not wanting to go to far, and Octavia not knowing how to ask him to.

“Shallow Valley,” he said, remembering the name she’d given the place she’d marched to.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia nodded. It was slow, a little off, somehow.

"Right outside the valley."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded, squeezing her hand again. "You said something, just before you woke up," he said. "A name, I think? Ilian?"

[okteiviakom]

Okay, that last nod had nothing on this one in terms of shakiness.

Octavia swallowed. Her expression twisted, briefly, before she forced it into tempering itself.

"Ilian kom Trishanakru."

[betterthanaplan]

A person, then. And from a kru he wasn't familiar with.

"Tell me about them?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia caved in under the urge she'd tried to fight. This was another liminal space. She had a little more room to be open. Just a little.

She tugged on his hand. She couldn't use her words to ask for it, but she could try and guide him into it, right? Into wrapping her up.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was getting pretty good at reading the signs. He opened his arms up, offering her the hug. He still didn't want to push it, in case he was wrong.

"Meant a lot to you, didn't they."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia leaned into it, pressing herself tight against his chest.

"He was his clan's champion in the conclave."

That wasn't even half the story. But it seemed like a place to start.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke hissed softly. The more he heard about this conclave, the worse it sounded. He hung on, rubbing her back gently, and waited to hear more.

[okteiviakom]

"I knew him before that, though."

Another swallow.

"It's kind of a... complicated story."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke looked around. "We've got time."

He didn't even have any classes this week.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia hadn't quite meant it like that. She didn't even know where to start. She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them again when all she saw was Ilian again.

Dead.

"He tried to blow up Arkadia," she said. "For something he blamed Skaikru for. He didn't know yet that Praimfaya was coming. And he didn't know they were trying to build a fallout shelter out of it."

[betterthanaplan]

. . . Huh. Not the kind of story Duke was expecting.

"Was he like the Floukru woman -- Luna? In the conclave to end it all?"

[okteiviakom]

And Octavia had even skipped over the part in Polis where she'd assassinated Ilian's clan's ambassador and beheaded another member of it.

"You're skipping ahead," she replied quietly, with a little sigh. "But no. He was there for his clan, same as the rest."

[betterthanaplan]

"I'm skipping ahead?" Duke teased gently. "Did you know him, before the conclave?"

Was she going to have nightmares featuring each other champion in the conclave in turn?