fragile | clexa

chapter thirty five

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Lexa brought Clarke back into their tent as soon as the healers let her. The girl apparently couldn't move her legs entirely too well, or at least didn't have that good of a sense for balance, so Lexa was pushing her in a wheelchair.

What had improved over the few days Clarke had needed to stay in the healers tent was her speaking and her thinking. It all seemed to have cleared up a bit.

Cleared up enough that after dinner, after looking over Clarke taking all her medicine, Lexa dared to ask about the incident that had happened in the tent over a month back.

She just touched it very lightly, but Clarke told her all about it anyway. Only after Lexa had made them a tea and let Clarke sit in her lap, of course. 

"He's one of Jaha's men. I saw it at his tattoo."

"What did he want?"

"He wanted to know if you had taken advantage of me first. He looked around for my restraints, for a whip or anything alike. I told him you hadn't. He saw the memory game Lincoln and I had played and he asked me about it. Lexa, if they ask you something you have to answer honestly. Jaha said they can see if you tell the truth or not and if we didn't, they'd hurt our family or someone else innocent, worthy a lot. I'm sorry Lexa, but he was so big and he looked so angry and-"

"Don't apologize Clarke. Don't apologize," Lexa shushed her.

"There's this thing they call de-beautyzation," Clarke started again. "That's pretty much their entire plan, next to money and pleasing their customers of course. People bring their girlfriends, wives, sisters or mothers to this place in exchange for money and seeing them being de-beautyzized. Another slave I met once said it was because they were too insecure with prettier women around themselves than they were handsome. Some even bring their daughters," Clarke told, and let her body be rocked back and forth by Lexa's.

"That's disgusting."

"There are rules of de-beautyzation. Every owner is allowed to starve their slave, hurt them in any way and leave them without any medical help. That's all encouraged, but they're not allowed to let their slave die if they don't pay the price to fully own them and only borrow them.

"They are also not allowed to hurt women's breasts over a few minor bruises, or their face past minor cuts. You can pay extra if you want to be able to impregnant your slave, but that's only allowed with women over 20 because they're scared the young slaves would die with a child. So you can't hurt a women's ability to bear children either.

"When a slave tries to run or is somehow helped to freedom, they hunt after them to do the final act of de-beautyzation. For slaves it's the worst thing that can happen, basically. Anyone who is allowed the act of final de-beautyzation can and should hurt the slave's chest, her uterus, and destroy her face. Any weak spots may be hurt further to a point where the slave either painfully dies or lives a cripple that no owner and no one else would ever want to look at again," Clarke finished her explanation.

It hit Lexa right in the gut. For what felt like forever, it was quiet in the tent.

"You're okay," Lexa then said, more trying to calm herself than Clarke. "You're okay."

"I'm a cripple."

"No you're not. We'll fix your legs. And even if we won't, wheelchairs are cool. Maybe you will be able to walk and just not feel cold or pain. That's even cooler. You'll never have cold feet again."

Clarke smiled a little. "Yeah."

"And he didn't manage to mess up anything with your uterus or stuff."

"Yeah."

"That's good, right?"

"Mhm."

"Clarke, that's good, isn't it?"

"Lexa look at me for once. It doesn't matter whether or not I would be able to bear children or not. It doesn't matter if I can walk, or have cold feet. I'm a cripple anyway. My face is nothing but sharp bones and now there's the ugliest scar all over it. He cut my hair in the most horrible way if you haven't noticed yet, it looks like thin hay. My whole torso is littered in scars, my legs lack bone stability, are broken, one thigh he completely cut through and my nerves to feel my skin are dead. I neither have muscles nor fat. You're still sitting here thinking I'll be fine and wasting your time on a useless corpse."

Lexa had stopped rocking Clarke. Was everyone but Lexa seeing Clarke as half dead now?

"You will be fine, Clarke. I'm not saying you'll be an athlete, but you will be okay. Your broken bone is fixed and your cut is healing. Your nerves can be fixed too and your walking was improving before everything. You had grown muscles and fat."

"And everything's gone now."

"Clarke. Success doesn't come at once. You have to try again."

"Maybe I don't want to try again."

"You'll heal first. You'll heal, and you'll take all time you need to do so. Then we'll see if you can walk. If not, then so it shall be and will not a problem either. We'll focus on the therapy more than the physical exercise. Somewhen, when you're ready, we'll go to Polis and you'll see your family again. Raven, your grandma, everyone."

"Lexa, I'm meant to be a slave. Now I was de-beautyzized and this is my sign to die. This life is over for me."

"It's not! How am I supposed to stay sane if everyone keeps telling me you'll die?!"

"My body might be a broken skeleton, but my eyes work very well Lexa," Clarke said. "And you have a mirror." Something about the whole guard thing had taken her mind and despite her attempts, she couldn't stop talking back at Lexa.

Lexa, who had saved her life over and over again. Who was trying so hard for her. Who hadn't once in that month of coma given up on her, had kept reading and brought flowers.

"I'm unusable," she said. "In all ways imaginable. Wherever you look at me, you should put a trigger warning. I can't work or contribute to anything that would make me worthy. I look like an absolute corpse. My family might as well kick me right out of the house. Everyone I'm seen with in public and especially you I'm a shame to, a downgrading, and-"

Clarke was cut off abruptly. Her whole body stopped moving at once, every word ever on her mind falling right out of it.

Lexa's hand was around her neck, she only remembered that, before her entire world froze.

Lexa kissed her.

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