first one who touches the ground loses

Only a fool wouldn't try to take advantage of something that fell right into their lap.

Not all the worms had perished when they'd burned down the tent in the wasteland.

( And Octavia had given Cooper the go-ahead. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI. Taken from The 100 S5 episodes 7-8 (yes we are so close to the end of this plot I can practically feel it in my bones omfg). Content warning for off-screen NPC death, and some gore.]

They'd been down in the bunker for six years. They'd made it past the dark year, and although it had left many wounds that had never properly healed, they had survived it. The ground was supposed to be survivable again, by now. They hadn't found a way out of the bunker yet, but Wonkru was alive.

And that was enough.

There had been no more Osleya for many years, by this time. They called her Blodreina now. Because that was who she was now. The red queen. Octavia had pushed all her personal wants (dreams, hopes) aside and focused on keeping Wonkru going, making them strong, making sure they'd be ready if -- when they made it back to the ground.

Her focus was laser-sharp, and unyielding.

(Because it was all she had.)

Niylah's locket was still around her neck, but her bracelet lay abandoned in one of the drawers of her desk. Nou finrona nowe, jos Blodreina. She had armor that had been made especially for her. Parts of it had been dyed red, to recall the blood of Wonkru's enemies.

( The bunker had no commander. It had her. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI. Taken from The 100 S5 episode 4. Content warning for violence and gore. Listen to the Wonkru anthem here.]

In the end, the key to coming up with a new plan was that they ran into Roan, the king of Azgeda, on their way to Arkadia. Or, really, it turned out he'd been tracking Clarke for a while in the hopes of securing the Flame for his people.

They dragged him back to Arkadia with them. Convinced him to help, because now that Polis had fallen to ALIE, they needed him to get into the city and capture the false commander, Ontari, from the middle of thousands of people whose minds were linked.

They left Jasper, Harper, Raven and Monty behind to do the kind of computer stuff Octavia wouldn't even pretend to understand. The rest of them went to Polis, and split up: Roan took Clarke in through the main gate, pretending he'd taken her as his prisoner, while the rest of them snuck in to one of the buildings overlooking the square in the middle of Polis, right by the tower where the commanders lived.

( The whole city was creepy. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, etc. Taken from The 100 S3 episodes 15 and 16, plus a little bit at the end from S4 episode 1! Content warning for violence and cold-blooded murder of an NPC.]

Indra wasn't there in the cave anymore when they reached the hideout, and Octavia barely noticed. She certainly wasn't surprised - everything was falling apart. Why wouldn't Indra leave, too?

( But Bellamy was still there. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC all good. Taken with much summarizing from The 100 episodes 10-12. Content warning for violence.]

Living on the Ground with a tattoo that was in the middle of healing was even more uncomfortable than it had been in Fandom, but Octavia welcomed it. She was unconfortable and unhappy and in pain all the time anyway, and there was a twisted comfort in making that physical.

Lincoln had given it to her, the way he'd meant to do with the design that she'd gotten on her right shoulder back on the island. Now her left shoulder cap had something on it, too: an abstracted version of a tattoo she tried her best not to think about and yet was so desperate not to forget that she'd had an echo of it etched into her own skin. Stark black lines instead of ornamental filigree: an asymmetrical, slightly open circle, with three marks shaped like the letter V.

A skull with butterflies on it.

Octavia was doing her best at taking care of it as it healed. It gave her something to focus on, and something that felt almost like -- honoring her connection to Fandom. That was how Lincoln put it, anyway. She wasn't sure it was how she would.

No matter how little they spoke of it, they both knew she didn't want to just honor it, she wanted to go back.

( But to say there were other distractions, too, was an understatement. The situation on the Ground was so volatile, Octavia could barely keep track. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC okay! Summarized with some major tweakage from The 100 S03 eps 3-5.]