From the Ashes

38

"'It is
Your
Blood in
my
veins, tell
Me
How I'm supposed to forget.'"

- Milk and Honey

_____

The joke was that humans seemed to be cursed by design so that they would be at their greatest when everything around them was in ruins.

Lovota felt sick to admit that she was a good example of this theory.

All of her people dead, her body scarred, her mind torn. The only thing keeping her together now was the will to kill a Queen who made her into a weapon, and the will to kill a betrothed who never came.

It was foolish of her, really, to hate the boy who was just as much forced into this arrangement as she was. But her mind was at war, and to be kind on a battlefield is asking to be shot down.

"I have no need to talk to you anymore," Lovota sneered, tapping on the side of her horse,"Talk to me again, Bellamy, and I will put an arrow between your pretty eyes."

"Wait!" Bear called out, just as Lovota smacked the heels of her shoes into the horses side, making herself and the wolfs disappear across the field.

"Great," Bear sighed,"she could've been a good ally. I think you pissed her off."

"How could I have pissed her off?" Bellamy asked, rolling his shoulder.

"Well, saying she couldn't speak a word of English might've not helped," Kage tsk'ed,"Honestly, Bellamy, you don't know the workings of a girl?"

"I know the workings-" he quickly caught himself,"I don't need to explain myself!"

Tilting his body, Bellamy's eyes tore through the field laid out before them, his eyes watching the sun stream through upon the grassy fields soft with the serenity. Free from human naivety.

He was wishing to catch her eyes once more, like a midwinter sky, a coldness harsher than the winds. But, there was that woven chorus of green splitting down the one eye, reminding him that plants bloomed in the harshest of seasons.

Bellamy Blake was struck with the feeling of adronitis. She was a wayfarer, built upon by the dreary skies on a rainy day.

Suddenly, a rapid beeping began to click from inside the vehicle, making everyone turn to the metal, rustic bucket on wheels.

"Great, and now our rides gonna blow!" Kage exasperated, throwing up his hands.

"And how is it going to... blow?" Miller asked, clamping a hand onto the boys shoulders.

"Beeping noises always come from bombs!" Kage noted, slightly flustered, as his cheeks began to tint red,"Miller, I thought you were smart."

"I am," Miller stated,"kind of... smart enough to know that's not a bomb."

"It's a transmission!" Monty smiled, flinging himself over the passenger seat of the car so that he could look at the radio.

Looking out across the fields, Bear realised her mind was travelling to the thoughts of Lincoln. The boy hadn't chosen to come with them, but what if he did? What would he have said, what would the stranger have done?

Lovota.

We'll see her again, one day, for she had a fighters heart that beat to the drums of a warriors war cry.

"Look," Monty noted,"we can go find the crazy grounder later... we just got a transmission from a tracking beacon using the same frequency as the ones from the ark!"

Clambering into the car, Kage unconsciously fixed the mirror, his eyes gazing fondly at someone's face caught in the chipped reflector glass.

Standing on the perch of the car, Bear turned to face the older Blake, a bracelet long returned to her wrist crafted by him that she'd thrown at his face in anger so long ago.

"If we meet her again," Bear stated,"make an ally of her, Bellamy, for she does not seem like the type to take revenge lightly."

Seating himself down beside her, the boy pulled at the neckline of his shirt, strangely nervous at the thought.

"Do we know who it is?" Miller asked.

"Farm... farm station," Monty pointed out, analysing the subdecimals used behind the backing of their sound.

"Wow!" Kage suddenly yelled,"if my parents made it down, mums definitely kicking my ass..."

"You're from farm station?" Monty asked.

"Hell yeah!" Kage smiled.

"Why would your mum kick your ass?" Octavia snickered,"someone got mummy issues?"

Smiling fondly at the thought of his parents being down here, Bear noticed the boys eyes prick with tears through the broken mirror.

"She said she'd kick my ass if I ever, somehow, got out of the sky coffin," Kage pointed out,"she's a very lovely women..."

Them all his smiles and laughter at the idea of an older woman stomping towards them and giving Kage a good kick in the backside.

"Kage..." Monty suddenly whispered,"it's landed in section eight."

"Ice nation..." Bear sighed, grabbing the boys shoulder.

Hands hovering over the ignition of the car, Kage fumbled slightly with the keys, the soft sounds of chains a lyrical toxin poisoning the air of anything nice.

"Who cares," he tried to laugh off the solemn expression scarring his face,"we go to ice nation... and we... and we get them! That's our people, no person gets left behind!"

"Kage-" Miller tried to soothe.

"No!" Kage screamed, making the boy flinch,"I'm not... I'm not leaving my mum there!"

"Then we don't," Bear noted,"we go to ice nation and get our people back."

"But protocol..." Raven whispered, afraid of the idea of walking into enemy territory alone.

"Screw protocol," Bellamy smiled, turning to Kage with a firm nod,"step on it."

The car surged forward with life, as if it, too, we're making its way home to its mothers harsh but loving ways and it's fathers joyful embrace.

"I'm coming," Kage whispered, under his breath so that no one heard,"mum... dad... fight for me, because I'm coming."

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Authors note:

If you could say anything to any of the characters in this book, what would you say?