68 days since Praimfaya...
Spear-fishing turned out to be harder than it looked, especially when Clarke only had one leg for balance.
After a few dozen trials, and none remotely successful (there was one time when she managed to spear the tail of the fish as it swam away, being more of an accidental catch than anything, but that was only if she actually got the fish), Clarke decided to take a break on a boulder. She wouldn't go back to their abode yet—not so quickly. After all, it had been a pain coming down here, which would probably be even more so when she tried to get back up.
Settling the sopping-wet, practically-blunted spear by the boulder (for the amount of times it hit nothing but solid rock), Clarke stared hungrily at the creek. The sweat and the grime from her crutch, and afterwards, the spear-fishing had become all too real. How did Lexa deal with it? Clarke could really could use a bath.
Maybe later, her mind told her.
It took some shameful minutes until Clarke noticed the Nightblood staring at her.
It was when checking her spear that out of the corner of her eye, Clarke accidentally spotted the Nightblood, gazing at her in transfixation from behind a boulder. They were observing each other for a minute, until the Nightblood got up, and strolled down the creek, in which she began to spear-fish.
Unconsciously, Clarke took out a notepad, making herself comfortable on a boulder with a wince, placing her crutch beside the rock, and began to sketch the Nightblood and her spear-fishing techniques.
It was a quick sketch at first, something rough and simple, but her muse all but edged her on; just a little more shading here, just some more detail there—oh hey so that's how you do it—and before she knew it, she had spent thirty minutes on refining the drawing, a picture that vaguely resembled the Nightblood and a quick spear-fishing tutorial comic-sort of thing.
She just had to do the final touches. But when she looked up again from her notepad, the Nightblood was gone, disappearing out of sight into a boulder, the pile of fish she'd caught left flopping by the creek.
''Hey, wait!'' Clarke yelled at the Nightblood, who, if anything, sped up at the sound of her voice. In Trigedasleng, she managed to gasp out: ''Your fish—''
Wincing, she took her crutch underneath her arm, and dropping her notepad at the boulder, began to hobble after the Natblida.
Until she realised she couldn't possibly catch up.
And so, with a reluctant sigh, she hobbled back to the boulder, where the drawing of the Natblida and the spear-fishing techniques resided. With one last long look, she tore the sketch from her notepad, and with a rock pinned it down to the boulder. It wasn't exactly the best compensation, but then again, leaving with a bunch of fish that the Nightblood caught (and had apparently ''forgotten about'', though Clarke knew better than that) for free didn't exactly feel... ethical. Even if they were in the middle of the aftermath of a Nuclear Apocalypse.
I'm going to miss those drawings, Clarke thought, and with a final look at the creek, she winced and descended to take the pile of fish the Natblida left by the creek. Her appetite rumbling, she began to make her way back to Shallow Valley.
...
71 days since Praimfaya...
Clarke really liking the Natblida was something Lexa understood. She just didn't understand how to share the sentiment, not exactly.
It had been three days since Clarke came back with a modest haul of fish, which was a significant increase from what she usually would've brought back home. Their chances of feasting on seafood were usually slim to none. It was usually ration-packets, which were infused with... chemicals Lexa couldn't even pretend to begin to be familiar with. Which was why it was fairly a nice surprise to realise then that they were eating fish for that night.
But it wasn't over then. Clarke had returned, with the same amount of fish—no less, sometimes even more—over the course of three days since it began. Every time, Lexa was greeted to a bright smile on Clarke's face and a dropped kiss on the lips, and excited ramblings about how the Natblida was ''growing closer to her'' and how they would conserve in Trigedasleng sometimes, minus the bolting.
Lexa was happy about it, no doubt, but she wasn't as enthusiastic as Clarke was. She hadn't met up with the Natblida, not since a week ago when the Natblida saw her in their abode. The offer still stood on the table, and Clarke was all the more enthusiastic for it, and though Lexa couldn't say she exactly approved, seeing Clarke ramble about the Natblida always brought a small smile to her face.
Though it had only been thirteen days since the Bear Trap incident, Clarke seemed to talk enthusiastically about the Natblida whenever the subject matter was brought up, from how Clarke was learning how to spear-fish thanks to the Natblida, or how Clarke taught the Natblida back on how to draw after their fishing episodes. It was a far cry from when Clarke called the Natblida a ''child from hell'' after the Bear Trap incident.
How has Clarke taken a liking to the Natblida that slammed bear jaws into her leg? But Lexa found herself thinking this with a resigned smile, the anger and rage that usually would've followed the sentence long gone. In a way, the Natblida reminded her of Aden. Small, uncompromising, but obedient—until obedience was thrown out of the window, that was, when it most mattered. And that she appreciated him for.
A small, sad smile coloured her face. There was no harm in trying, she supposed. No harm in trying now.
...
It was nighttime when Lexa found the dead squirrel pinned to their door.
She was just out of the door from their abode, partially on the look-out for the Natblida, who was sure to be around the Shallow Valley village—after all, there was no harm in trying to sought her out, and it had only been a week and then some since their meeting, and partially to take a fresh breath of air, to stretch her legs, as they'd put it, before she went for dinner with Clarke, when she noticed the mutant squirrel pinned to their door with a Trikru arrow. It was within Lexa's reach, and so she suspected its origin from a short, ferocious Natblida, and confirmed when she took the arrow which revealed a note that she unfolded.
Sorry, it read in Trigdasleng. Lexa stared at the note for a moment, her lips a slight quirk, before placing it in her pocket.
Paper was scarce. The only places anyone could've gotten paper from was in Becca's lab, which provided Lexa and Clarke with their notebooks, or through scavenging. She had suspected it was neither of those options, but rather stolen from their notebooks, which the Natblida then used to write her note.
With one last glance outwards into the dead night, Lexa wheeled backwards, shut the door, with the dead squirrel on her lap, and moved back into their abode.
Out in the woods, among the shadows of the trees, Madi breathed in a small sigh. Crumbling her previous notes and stuffing them into her pocket, and producing the drawing Clarke did of her in the other, which she took a long look at—she took her bow which hung from a tree branch, and stalked off into the cold night, leaving the lingering warmth of the village behind.
