Ground Down

Chapter 61

Somebody had taught her mother how to ride and whoever that had been, she wanted to bake them a cake with laxatives in it. Ahead of her, her mother casually pushed the horse they'd given her into a slow trot to catch up with Roan who leaned down to her to listen, she took one hand off the reins to gesture all through the air and the horse still slowed down again perfectly and she remained on the furs thrown over its back perfectly and being shown up by your mother in a skill traditionally attributed to warriors had been the last fucking thing on her agenda. Clarke scowled at the reins in her hands. She still clutched the leather so hard her metacarpals smarted into every step the animal took because she fucking feared the beast to throw a fit and run mad into the forest and she'd get speared by some tree branch or something. And, like, no. 

"Clarke?" Her mother turned her horse around with one hand still raised, and her legs framing the animal so calmly made it look fucking easy. 

It wasn't. It really fucking wasn't, Clarke kinda flopped onto her own belly onto the furs trying to get her horse to do anything she wanted. She didn't even know what she wanted. The horse didn't care either way, it just kept plonking along and fell into step next to her mother's horse who turned so far towards her she expected her to slip off, with or without the furs, but nothing of the sort happened. The wrinkles on Clarke's forehead reached canyon status, she shot her mother a glare that made Abby clasp her mouth back shut with a confused frown. 

"What is it?" She craned her neck, checked the guards in front of them, checked the guards behind them, turned to her. "Is something wrong?" 

"No, mom, we're safe here, it's fine-" Clarke shot her a glare for craning her neck again anyway because why listen to your daughter and ambassador who'd been dealing with warriors for weeks- "they would've warned us, mom, stop it."

"I am just making sure." She reined her horse throwing its head up in without even looking, she made an offended face at Clarke instead. "None of them are very eager to have us here, unless you didn't notice."

Them as in the small army the Commander moved with that surrounded them like a uniform black mass of savage. Or maybe she just thought that because her mother shielded her face against the rain like she wanted to fucking rub it in that she could ride flawlessly with only one hand on the fucking reins. As if shielding your fucking eyes with your fucking hand did anything against the spraying kind of not-even-really rain that hadn't let up since they'd started out in Polis. Hours a-fucking-go. 

Damn weather only added to her general level of annoyance; it didn't seep through, it didn't freeze her down to the bone, it sat on all the savage armour around her and her horse's fur and the furs they called a saddle like white sparkling dust, and it added a leaden heaviness to everything. The air, her lungs as she breathed it in, the hood of her jacket on her head, the clothes pressing against her spine, even the skin reddening on her exposed hands. Everything except her mother stretching up on her horse's back a-fucking-gain until she created a gap between her pelvis and the so-called saddle and could force her chin up until all the sinews strained out of her neck and she could cast a sceptical look ahead and then back over the crowd of soldiers who didn't get to ride. And thankfully kept them from riding at anything faster than a human walking pace. 

"But all of them are loyal to the death to her and she said we're untouchable-" Clarke jutted her chin towards Lexa riding ahead of the loaded carts in front of Roan's stupid horse- "a move against Skaikru is a move against her." 

"Are you sure about the loyalty part?" Her mother muttered that, half under her breath, with a sideways glance at her and a covert brow quirked upwards. "After what just happened?" 

Clarke groaned in the back of her throat, arched her head back so she wouldn't have to look her mother in the eye and then turned it to the side for the same reason. The guards marching at her side knew not to look back, but they listened. Of course, they listened. Loyal to their Commander, waiting for intel, information they could relay to her, plots, plans, issues, dangers. Anything and everything, which made it stupid for her mother to bring up the fragility of the Coalition like that. But, still, they left her alone.