Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost

I Can't Drown These Demons

A/N:

Sorry for the long wait guys. Haven't been doing too well mentally and my brain fog has gotten really bad. Lately, I've been lucky if I'm able to get in an hour of proofreading a week through the fog. Hence, the long wait. I don't think the next chapter will take quite so long as I had that draft mostly ironed out before I got sick (at the beginning of the year). It just needs maybe two more proofreads.

So I can't remember whether I've mentioned this before or not but you can basically just assume that during any flashback they're switching back and forth between Trigedasleng and English (which is what we tend to see on the show when the Grounders are communicating between themselves, which makes sense when you want to maintain the ability to speak both languages). The majority of the time when Luna is talking to Adria or Derrick, though, it's in Trigedasleng. In a flashback, if a character says a word in Trigedasleng, like 'Skaikru', you can assume they've been speaking in English. None of this is really important lol but whatever.

The flashbacks are from the night Derrick died.

. . .

'I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim. . .'

- Can You Feel My Heart by Beyond the Horizon

. . .

Lexa was dead.

Lincoln was dead.

Bouin, better known as Cap, was dead.

Austin was dead.

Shay was dead.

Krei was dead

Derrick- Oh, God Derick.

How could Luna have lost them all in the space of two days?

Two days.

Even Titus was gone.

As a child, he'd seemed almost immortal to her. A specter that would always be there, for better or worse. A constant. It was only now that she realized a part of her had held onto that impression all through the years.

But he was as mortal as the rest of them.

Gone.

So many were just. . . gone.

Luna's sanctuary had been invaded, violated. She'd been tortured by those she loved, near forced to take the Flame and, at the end of it all, had reneged on her vow. She'd killed again. More than once.

So quickly. So easily.

Like she'd never stopped at all.

The skill had come back to Luna without hesitation. Her people, her friends, hadn't stood a chance. Could never stand a chance.

Not against her.

She'd cut them down with so little effort.

Luna wished it had been harder. Physically, at least. Wished it had taken longer. That her body hadn't still remembered those moves as intimately as a mother's hug.

(Luna had no notion of what a mother's hug felt like but she knew the steps of combat as though they'd been tattooed onto her feet at birth)

It all felt like a dream. Or rather a nightmare that Luna still held out hope she could wake from.

She didn't even know how to begin grieving all that she'd lost. It was so much at once. Too much.

But she still had Floukru. And most important of all, she still had Adria. Luna hadn't lost her.