Brave Princess - A Bellarke Story

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Clarke:

Bellamy's been distant lately. Sometimes I catch him looking at me hesitantly, as if he was afraid of something. We're meeting with Raven and Monty in the drop ship to talk about the crash. I am sitting on one of the seats that were taken off the ship. It frustrates me that I can't move as much as I would like to.

"I can't believe they let all those people die," Monty says sadly.

"They're selfish," Raven says, clenching her jaw. "The council chose a chance for some instead of security for everyone."

"Death isn't security," Bellamy tells her, crossing his arms. "They wanted to keep the human race alive."

"Exactly," Raven tells him, raising her voice, "But they didn't realize that we were already alive. We could have been the last of the human race. I mean, the population is bound to increase in our camp sometime."

Monty wrinkles his nose at her words, and I don't blame him. Population increase? Children?

"They wanted to save as many people as they could," I tell her. "They thought that was the best way."

Raven rolls her eyes. "Yeah, the best way to get rid of some too."

Monty puts a hand on her shoulder. "You already said yourself that they couldn't have known which stations would fly off. For all we know all the council members could be dead. They're not necessarily alive."

I purse my lips at his words, but stay silent. He's right. My mom could be dead.

"So what do we do?" I ask after a while. "We need to start work on better shelters. Do we hold off those and go investigate the ark?"

"We don't need their help, Clarke," Raven says. "We're fine on our own."

I notice Bellamy has stayed silent throughout most of the conversation. I turn to him, and raise his eyebrows. He leads this camp too. He needs to give his input. He meets my eyes and understands.

"I have to agree with Raven on this one. We do need to start work on better shelters, and we need to do that right away. It shouldn't be put off."

"Even if we were to go to the ark, what would we do then?" Monty questions.

I shake my head slightly. "I don't know. I have a feeling they would want to control us. They would want to lead us."

"Clarke's right. We can't allow the people who locked us up to force us to follow their laws again. We're stronger on our own," Bellamy says.

The small group around the table mutters their agreement.

"Let's start work on the shelters tomorrow," I say. "We should start as early as possible before winter comes."

Winter. The concept is strange to me. On the ark, there were no seasons. There was only night and day. Asleep. Awake. And still the darkness outside the air locked windows never changed. Always the same, day in and day out. But I do remember looking down on the earth, and watching over the course of a year as it slowly turned. It was mesmerizing. It was so full of life.

So unlike the cold metal and plainness of everything on the ark. Brown-gray protein paste. The simple markets where people haggled for plain clothes. We worried over such simple things. Whether the pale grey shirt I had once gotten my mother for her birthday was made with ten percent or fifteen percent earth fibers. Whether the perfume I had once smelled on a rare occasion in market was the real smell of lavender.

At the time, I had thought the smell beautiful. But now that I have smelled the earth, I realize just how fake the scent of lavender was. It was a random scent produced in a lab that was labeled lavender.

Fake. Plain.

"We'll start tomorrow," Bellamy says, meeting my eyes for a split second. "I guess we're done here."

"Alright," Raven says harshly, before walking out. She upset with the ark, and the council that made the decisions. But most of all, I think she's upset that she couldn't do anything about it. And still she can't.

Monty looks apologetically at us. "I'll go calm her down," he tells us.

I smile slightly at him, and he walks away, leaving Bellamy and I alone.

But Bellamy doesn't speak to me. He doesn't make eye contact. He instead tries to leave.

"Bellamy, wait," I tell him. I inhale sharply as I stand up.

I'm sure it must be the sharp intake of breath that makes him turn around. "Clarke, you shouldn't be moving." I don't reply to him. I just stare. "What?" He asks harshly.

"You know that's the first thing you've said to me today."

"What do you want me to say?" His voice is harsh, his tone angry. It confuses me.

I walk a few steps closer to him. I look up at him, and quickly realize the large difference in our height. Has he always been this tall? "I want you to tell me what's wrong. What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything, Clarke. Nothing's wrong."

"That's bull, Bellamy, and you know it."

"Maybe it is Clarke, but it really isn't any of your concern." He tries to turn away, but I put a hand on his arm and pull him back. His eyes are pained, and full of sorrow.

"Bellamy, you need to let me in." I pause, and he shakes my hand off his arm. "One day, I'm going to break, and I'm going to need someone."

He doesn't meet my eyes. "Stop it," he asks desperately, but I continue. He needs to hear this.

"But you're already broken, Bellamy." He closes his eyes at my words, and the muscles in his jaw twitch. "And that's why you need me."

I grab his hand. For a second, I think he has wrapped his fingers around mine. But he quickly changes his mind, and pulls his hand away.

He meets my gaze at last, his eyes burning. "I don't need anyone."

And he walks away.

AN: Hello! Did you like that? Eh, probably not. I feel like my writing is getting worse. Is that true?

Anyway, feedback would be great!