140AD - The Rise to Empress || [GxG] ||

Chapter 13

Translations:

Faex! = Shit!
Dulce periculum, Imperatrix. = Danger is sweet, Empress.

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When Lexa awakes after first light she can't help to turn over and bury her face into the pillow farther. She didn't feel like leaving her quarters today, especially not after what happened last night. From sharing her deepest emotions with Clarke to the near-death experience they faced together.

What made the whole situation much worse was the way Clarke acted after. Lexa had just saved her life but Clarke ... she seemed ungrateful and that was when it hit Lexa. Clarke's people mattered more to her than her own life mattered.

However, Lexa couldn't say the same. Her duty required her to put Clarke at the top of her list. Clarke was what mattered most and over time it wasn't just Lexa's duty that put Clarke on the top of her list, it was Clarke in general.

But the previous night, they returned to the palace separately. Clarke in her angry yet passionate stride and Lexa closely following her to make sure she reaches her quarters safely. Lexa did not bother to catch up to her completely nor did she attempt at a conversation. She decided to just let Clarke be for the night.

Lexa understood that the Empress must have been in shock and that perhaps she will soon understand that Lexa could only save her and not the rest of the people that still laid unconscious in the stable. Clarke had to understand that Lexa did her utmost best; she saved four which was better than none and the gods knew that Emperor would not have forgiven her if she let his only daughter burn.

Lexa's unbraided hair sprawled across her face onto the cold pillow and she inhaled a deep breath hoping for a breath of fresh air but her hair still only smelled of smoke. The scent made her stomach churn and without another thought, she stumbled out of her bed toward the backroom.

Her bath was still filled with water since she did not have the will power or energy to take a bath the previous night. When she returned to her quarters she practically threw her Praetorian armour across the room out of frustration. Although she was frustrated, she couldn't tell why. Whether it was at herself for opening up to the Empress or if it was for the fact that Clarke did not even acknowledge that Lexa ran straight into a fire for her. Even after she knew that Lexa's mother burned to death.

Lexa only managed to eat half of the meal Valentina had left in her quarters and after she simply fell face first onto her bed and drifted off to sleep. Somewhere in the night she woke up and unbraided her hair and quickly fell asleep again with not much trouble.

Looking down at her hands now, they were still covered in soot and they made the callouses on her hands ever more evident. She had never had the palms of an elegant woman, and early in her life, she had also lost the privileges of elegant soft skin that held no scars.

As she lowered herself into the cold bath she couldn't help run her hands over either of her arms, from the wrist up to her shoulder. From knicks of blades to the many times she fell off of her horse when she had just started to learn how to ride.

A small smile quirked at the side of her lips as she remembered the fond memory and the laughter of her father as he watched her fall off of the horse for the fourth time in a row. Next to him stood her mother Becca that swatted his arm for laughing at their daughter's failure.

Ever so softly she smoothed her fingertips over the scar on her wrist, savoring the short-lived happy memory. The water around her had turned a greyish color as the ash and soot washed off of her skin. She relaxed her head against the rim of the bath and slowly she submerged her head under the water, freeing her mind for just a moment.