Emotions of the Skairipa

One-Shot of Raven and Octavia

*takes place in season 5, before cryosleep, after 'talk about fate of humanity'*

On her way to find Shaw, Raven passed by Octavia, who sat at a table in the lunchroom (and breakfast and dinner room too, she figured) of the Eligius spaceship. Considering the circumstances, she thought she should probably stop and update Octavia on the plan of action.

"So... we're putting everyone in cryo tomorrow. There's no food or water yet, and we can't rely on finding another habitable planet anytime soon."

Octavia put down the knife she had been fiddling with, nodded, and looked up at Raven. The warrior's eyes were red and tears threatened to spill from them. When she saw that Raven had noticed, she looked down and wiped them dry. The mechanic sat down across the table from Octavia, crossed her elbows on the table, and rested her head sideways on them, enjoying the bit of rest. It was a little while before Octavia spoke up.

"What do I do now?"

Raven picked her head up as she asked, "what do you mean?"

"I ruined it. Most of my people hate me, my own brother hates me. Those I don't personally kill end up dying anyways as a result of my actions. I just—I just wanted to be known as something more than 'The Girl Under the Floor.'" Octavia paused, collecting her thoughts. "But now, I don't even know who I am anymore."

"Come one. You're Okteivia kom Skaikru," Raven told her confidently. "You survived undetected for 16 years! Octavia, I don't know you very well, but I do admire you."

"Why in the world would you do that? I killed hundreds of my people, betrayed even more, and the worst part was that I enjoyed it all. I loved the power and authority it gave me. I wanted to feel like no one could touch me, like I was in charge. But I'm still just a stupid kid."

As she finished her sentence, Octavia's voice cracked and a few tears began to run down her face. Raven couldn't empathize with what the younger girl was going through—she felt confident that she had maintained her humanity throughout the events on the ground—however, she did want to help her in some way.

"Look, I'm not going to pretend to understand what you're feeling, I don't. But I do know that it's okay to break down sometimes. Let out your emotions to someone."

"That's ridiculous," Octavia shook her head. "Who would I even talk to? Like I said, everyone hates me... Hold on, why are you even telling me this? You hate me too and you haven't really tried to hide it, it's pretty obvious."

"I believe that sometimes people do bad things...," Raven made hand gestures as she searched for the right phrasing, "they do them for the wrong reasons, even though they think it's right. Most times, it has to do with personal beliefs and feelings, bu—"

"Like Finn murdering a bunch of people to 'find Clarke'?" Octavia interjected, raising an eyebrow accusingly.

Raven closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and took a breath at the mention of his name. Then she regained her composure and nodded, "but other times, it's because of pressure or ignorance."

"Ignorance. Ha! So you're saying that I led a bunch of gladiator fights and forced good men and women to eat their dead family members for six years because I didn't know what I was doing!?" Octavia's voice rose in volume and anger at each word.

The girl then stood up, grabbed her knife, and threw it at the wall, getting it impressively firmly stuck. Except Raven wasn't impressed. She was disgusted at Octavia's temper, but decided to hold back any nasty comments.

Putting both hands on the table and leaning in towards Raven, Octavia lowered her voice to barely a whisper and spoke in a cold tone with glaring eyes.

"I knew what I was doing. I hated it, but I knew exactly what and why I did it. I had to. To keep us alive. To protect humanity. To save my people... Isn't that the excuse that always works for Clarke?"

She said the blonde's name with such hatred, it was impossible to believe they had been comrades, allies, and friends for years before.

"I'm done here," Octavia muttered, grabbing her knife from the wall as she left the room.

Raven balled her hands and slammed them onto the table, creating an echoing clang, and yelled out at no one in particular.

Octavia's right, Raven thought to herself, there's no difference between the monster from the bunker and their supposed 'leader.' Both of them have betrayed those they loved. Both of them have killed more people than they've saved. At least Octavia sucks it up and stands by her actions. Clarke apologizes and pretends to feel bad, saying it was her only choice. 'Yeah, right,' Raven scoffed to herself.

By a cruel twist of fate, Clarke herself appeared in the doorway.

"Is everything alright?" Clarke asked, seeming thoroughly concerned as she took a few steps towards Raven and reached a hand toward her.

But the mechanic wasn't having any of it.

"Get away from me," she practically spat at Clarke. Then she stormed out and rammed into the other girl's shoulder with hers on the way, not turning back to see the hurt and pain on Clarke's face.

A/N: 
Thank you so so much for reading this, it's only my second written work, after Their Time on the Ground. If you liked this fic, be sure to check that one out ;).
A few notes:  (1) I absolutely LOVE Clarke. I don't agree at all with what I've written about her in Raven's pov; (2) with that said, I wrote this because I wanted to experiment with the dynamic between Raven and O. They aren't really given a chance to talk and I wanted to see how they would react to each other. Octavia may be a little out-of-character here, but I think it works (?); (3) lastly, I felt as though Raven's hatred of Clarke in S6 was a little out-of-the-blue, it seemed as though she immediately despised her from the end of 5 to beginning of 6 and I wanted to explore that. I could be wrong, though, I haven't studied Raven in the later seasons as much as I should
And that's enough from me, thank you again for reading and don't be afraid to share any tips, advice, or improvements I could make!!
-Lex