Children of the Blood

The Visit

Chapter 7 - The Visit

Lexa didn't know what woke her. She blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the dim glow of the dying fire. A tangle of blonde hair was splayed across her chest and an arm draped possessively around her waist. She sighed and gently touched the soft tresses so as not to wake Clarke.

A faint noise, like a shuffle of fabrics, sounded in the next room and Lexa froze, her senses on alert. Silence.

Still she gently extricated herself from Clarke's embrace and moved to the edge of her bed. When her feet hit the furs on the ground she frowned. A thick layer of fog drifted slowly over the floor.

She blinked, making sure her vision was clear. The dense fog covered every inch of the ground and extended into the next room. She stood slowly and silently made her way to the hanging fabrics that separated her sleeping area from the rest of the tent.

The sound again. Faint, but there beyond the curtain in the next room. She lifted the fabrics slowly and swept her gaze across the room. It was dark, only a few low candles clinging to their last flickers of light. The fog covered the floor there too, heavy and creeping into every corner.

She glanced back at the bed, at Clarke, and froze. The blonde lay where she'd left her, sprawled under the furs, hair fanned out amongst the blankets, arm exposed and outstretched where Lexa had been. And on her arm, a watch. A watch she knew well.

Lexa turned back to the next room just as a dark figure slipped beyond the doorway into the night. She wasted no time and followed, keeping her bare steps light and soundless through the blanket of fog.

She pushed through the tent opening, expecting to see the encampment, but instead found herself surrounded by crumbled ruins. She spun, disoriented. The tent she'd just emerged from gone, replaced by dark silhouettes of crumbling walls and rising smoke.

Polis.

But unlike how she'd ever seen it. The tower stood, reaching upwards until lost in the churning dark clouds above. Scattered around it, shells of once great structures, reduced to rubble. No sign of the villages. No sign of her people. No sign of life.

The shuffle sound again, this time closer. She spun in the direction of the sound and stopped, her breathe catching. A figure stood a few yards before her, fog and smoke seeming to swirl around it as if alive.

The figure began moving towards her, it's feet lost in the thick fog. The shape resolved into a woman dressed in shapeless clothes. Dark hair, dark eyes. The figure stopped in front of Lexa, her expression unreadable and the mysterious eyes studied her.

Lexa scarcely breathed, her body tense with uncertainty.

While she had been visited by the past Commanders, they had all looked like Grounders. The woman before her was different. She watched Lexa as if seeing into her soul, evaluating, judging.

Lexa's eyes travelled over her, settling on a patch of fabric above her breast. COMMANDER. As realization dawned, she met the dark gaze locked on her.

"Prom Heda," she whispered.

The figure broke into a sudden and brilliant smile but did not speak.

She had been visited by many past leaders, but never the first Commander. Never Prom Heda. Never Becca. Until now.

Becca turned suddenly and began walking away.

"Wait!" Lexa said.

Becca stopped but didn't turn back to her.