the damned → the 100 ¹

[ 038 ] war is here.

— CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT,
war is here.

RUBY AND AMARA SIT IN THEIR SHARED TENT. Her Grounder friend has black paint in her hand. Ruby sits directly in front of Amara, her legs crossed over each other.

Amara gently smudges the black paint over Ruby's eyelids and then along her water line. She loops the black paint around her cheeks and up the sides of her faces. The paint ends just below her temple. Amara draws two lines going upwards, towards Ruby's hairline, from her eyebrows. Then she adds one final line in the middle of Ruby's eyebrows.

"It looks good." Amara tells her. Ruby looks at Amara's ear paint. The black paint is smudged over her eyelids. There's one single line that goes across the bridge of her nose. Three dots travel down her chin. And lastly, two lines hook above her eyebrows. "Now, let me braid your hair."

Amara moves so she can sit behind the younger girl. She gently combs through her brunette hair with her fingers in attempt to get the knots and tangles out. "It's a mess." Amara shakes her head to her as she sections off Ruby's hair. She starts with the largest braid that straight down the middle. Once she finishes the biggest braid, she moves onto the six smaller braids. She then loops four of those braids through the largest.

When Amara finally finishes Ruby's hair, she moves onto her own. It's just one simply braid that starts at the back of her head.

"Amara?" Ruby asks suddenly.

"Hmm?" Amara hums in response.

"Are you angry at me because I knew the missile was coming?" Ruby questions.

Amara's fingers pauses in the middle of braiding. Her brown eyes snap over to Ruby. "Yes. I am angry." She says. Her eyes harden into a glare. "I am angry that you and Clarke and Lexa allowed two hundred and fifty people to die. You could have warned us, Ruby. But you didn't until the last damn second!"

"I didn't have any other voice choice!" Ruby hisses. "If we had evacuated the village, Mount Weather would've known we have someone in their walls! And Bellamy can't die, Amara. Because if Bellamy dies so will the rest of us and everyone inside the godforsaken mountain."

"It's always about Bellamy! What about everyone else who has died? Huh!? Everyone else who has given their life!?" Amara growls.

"Their losses will be mourned when we get our people back!" Ruby's voice raises to a shout. Her anger finally breaks through. "Right now, we have to worry about getting our people out of the mountain! And making sure Bellamy stays alive! Because if he doesn't, I think I might kill myself!"

Amara stops for a moment and just stares at her friend. Then her nostrils flare in fury. "Maybe you should." Amara hisses. She stops her braid, allowing her black hair to fall over her shoulders. She stands and leaves the tent.

Ruby is left dumbfounded. For a moment, she thinks Amara might be right. She could do it. But she's different now.

Ruby is a Grounder.

And Grounders don't give up.

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As the hours pass, the sun takes the moon's spot in the sky.

Ruby sits outside her tent, her sword in hand. She frowns as she thinks back to when Amara started training her. She taught her how to fight. Without her training, Ruby would've died a long time ago. Ruby can't live without Amara. She doesn't know if she wants to.