Lexa stood by the post in her tent watching as Clarke slept, the blond's hand held the small makeshift ragdoll that a girl had given her for Costia just days after the baby had been born. The girl had just been chosen as a second and wished to give the toy to another instead of seen it burn with her other childhood items. Pain echoed in her chest, Costia was still missing and it was nearing four days. Part of her ached to see the child again, whose blue eyes were as soft and beautiful as Clarke's. The reality was that stolen children rarely returned home, the clan that sat south of the Plains Nation was known for its trading of slaves with those just south of them. While treatment of such slaves was questionable, the clan was not part of the Coalition so they could not interfere with the process. The Southern People who made cloth were neighbors but being part of the coalition, were not allowed to trade with the South Clan due to possible war that could come of it.
The thought of promising Clarke that she would hold Costia again bit at the leader. As much as she wanted to deliver the babe into her beloved's arms, each day passed and it became further from the truth. Her men were still tracking those that had taken Costia and Drake but the tracks headed south towards the nation that trades in slaves.
Walking over to Clarke, she rested her hand on the blond's head and combed her fingers through her hair. She bent down as she watched Clarke open her eyes, blue meeting green. "Costia?"
"No information has come." Lexa took the small doll from Clarke's hand, running her thumb over a dry-crusted spot that had come from an ill belly a week before Costia left with Octavia. The child couldn't clutch the doll but she made attempts, unfortunately her belly had been ill and when she's expelled the sickness from herself, the mess had ended up on the furs and doll. "I need you to rise from bed and put aside your sadness for the next few days." She watched Clarke glared. "I ride south to meet with a clan's Heda, I suspect those that took the children take them south. If I can speak with the clan's Heda alone, there is a chance if they are there I can recover them without harm." She held out the doll as Clarke sat up, the blond taking it from her. "Our people need you Clarke, need their leader and while your sadness consumes you it does not help our people. When Costia and Drake are returned, their home needs to be stable and safe and you can do this while I leave to recover them."
Clarke looked at the doll, "do you even feel anything? You act like Costia was just another clan member. You don't act like someone who placed her to bed at night or smiled when she held your finger tightly, crying when you left her. Was she just a burden to you and you're finding her just to ease your guilt for causing her to be kidnapped?"
The remarks struck Lexa, her heart squeezing itself painfully as Clarke accused her of not caring for Costia. The child had become a part of her, a piece of goodness and purity that had not been a part of her life for years since the child's namesake. Her arms ached to hold the babe again, to see Clarke smile as she leaned over the baby to encourage smiles and soft sounds. To wake in the early hours before the sun rose from sleep in order to comfort the babe from her loneliness. Part of her even wished to be back to aiding Clarke in keeping the child's fever down, easing her ill belly from a bad meal. Those nights had been tiring and saddening to watch as the child cried, as Clarke cried trying to ease the child's pain but when both had fallen asleep as the sun rose, Lexa had seen the most beautiful sight in all her life as Clarke lay asleep with her arm surrounding the sleeping baby. It was a memory she often returned to when she thought they wouldn't find the child.
"I am lost without her as well Clarke but I cannot stay in bed or cry for it will not bring her back. I can only search with my warriors, gather news and talk to others in hopes that they have found information to aid us in recovering the children. I will not rest until she is in your arms once again or lays before us in need of us to release her spirit, I have vowed this to you and it is a vow I shall keep." She rose and placed a hand on Clarke's cheek, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "I will bring Costia and Drake back to Tomac," she pulled back and looked into Clarke's blue eyes. "I will bring her home to the safest place she can stay, your arms, but I must go to do so and you must be Heda while I am gone as you have been before."
