fragile | clexa

chapter twenty two

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He's between 40 and 50 of age. His skin is dark, the texture clear, he had no facial hair until I came back once, and he had grown a neat beard, tips white. He was bald then, had short hair before. His name is Jaha. Thelonious Jaha kom Boudalan.

The second one was hardly 16 when I last saw him. His hair falls into his face when he moves, it reaches his chin. He had no beard and light skin with a few minor scars or spots, but otherwise clear. His name is Finn kom Sangedakru. He had a beautiful smile.

Clarke set the pen down. Her eyes flickered over all the scribbled over and written again words, then to the clock, and she was embarrassed by how long it had taken her to write those two paragraphs.

Clarke handed the paper to Lexa with her face on the ground, fingers shaking of anxiety, but her eyes found Lexa's face as soon as the woman's focus was on the words. She awaited any reaction tensed, but there wasn't much apart from a twitch of Lexa's brow towards the last words.

"Was he... your lover? Finn?" she asked a little hestitantly.

Clarke didn't answer it. She wasn't sure. They'd been together for a while. A few days or maybe weeks of Clarke falling in love until he'd suddenly turned out to be someone so very different. Sold her because he'd needed the goddamn money.

And while Clarke knew she was only a slave, she wouldn't quite go so far to call what Finn and she had had 'love'. She hoped love was something else than that.

"I loved him. I think. I was only 15. I don't really know what everything like that is."

"What what is?"

"Love. He said he loved me. He sold me to the other man a week later."

"He sold you?"

Clarke nodded and Lexa scoffed. So that was how it worked. People sold others.

"I'm very sorry for that Clarke," she said taken-aback, her eyes running over the note in her hands over and over again.

Clarke had a beautiful handwriting, Lexa noticed at the side. It flowed over the paper smoothly, like a signature under a painting, or maybe just the painting itself. Though they were shaky and weak, Clarke had absolute artist's hands.

"And the other man? Do you want to tell me who he was to you?"

Something of panic was back on Clarke's face, seeping out of her eyes and her trembling, split bottom lip. She wanted to say no.

She wasn't even allowed to talk about him, or describe him, or say his name. Since he was going to kill her anyway though, it didn't matter what she said now either, did it?

Except in case he would torture her further for it.

An idea crossed Clarke's mind suddenly, and her eyebrows knit together. "Why are you doing this?" she asked back instead of answering, which should have terrified her more than anything else. "He will kill me for not fulfilling my duty. And if he had trained me more instead for that, he will kill me now that I told you about him. It is of no use to have a substitute doing your duty so you waste your days here with me, no offense meant."

God she hadn't talked so much ever, probably. Why did Lexa manage to make her do all those things? Talk about herself, about Jaha, talk in general, call Lexa by her name, spend her days with painting and a horse and raspberries?

It was not her destiny. It wasn't what her life was supposed to be. She was a slave, meant to die slowly from starvation or overuse or pain, and Lexa was lifting her up into the level of honorable citizens without hesitation, at least in her activities, her food and her place to stay.