#but it just STINGS and HURTS knowing he voted for the worst case scenario

[apatheticcanid]

this is beanie my mini/moyen poodle hes cute and sweet and one of the reasons i stay alive

[dullwriting]

|| pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

|| warnings: angst I guess? | so cliché | written by a non-native | a lot of swearing

|| word count: 1.975

|| summary: You seduce influential men for a living, the job being too much for you initially, because it usually ends in their killing, but the money you make, let’s say, helps your conscience. That is until it’s time to give up your current target - Thomas Shelby, the poor motherfucker and yeah ...I’ll say it... love of your life.

If someone were to call me a whore, I’d thank him.

My profession was far more irreverent than that, not leaving room for doubts or a healthy conscience. Healthy was my body however, as the amount of men I slept with was manageable.

I was far worse than a whore, because a whore’s intentions are clear as day.

She gets paid by a client, who – mostly – knows what he wants, they perform the act, he leaves, full stop. The service simply consists of sweaty skins rubbing against each other, a visceral dance being performed, the communication reduced to muscle contraction and crude sounds leaving parted lips. The one and only purpose being ejaculation, one’s body just a means to an end.

My service was a different one.

“Everyone’s a whore, Grace, we just sell different parts of ourselves.” A statement once made by my current target, victim or however you prefer to call it, meant solely for the ears of his blonde Irish barmaid.

That was the particular day, I realised, I was worse.

Far worse than everyone for there was hardly a part of me I didn’t sell to the person my clients wanted dead.

Paid I was not by simple working men who craved some sort of release or stress relief nor horny upper class arseholes who were bored shitless at home while also thirsting for power over yet another poor soul. Clients of mine, they desire quiet similar things but on a much bigger scale, outside the four walls of damp rooms filled with grunts and moans and vulgarity.

Priests worse than the devil they point at, politicians worse than the - I quote - “scum that votes for them”. To eliminate their competition, I shall seduce party leaders or gang leaders or bloody royals, anyone with too much influence for some other influential bastard’s liking. Make sure to involve feelings, in order to make their target emotionally vulnerable so they make mistakes and take risks and bullets for someone who doesn’t even care for them.

Let me rephrase that. Someone who shouldn’t care.

My first targets I indeed treated with cold professionalism, barely ready – but still ready to feed them to those sharks. My first two times, I actually witnessed the job being done, hiding behind doors or brickwork, apparently more involved than I told myself after all, drowning my guilty conscience afterwards in expensive booze, the most expensive they could offer, to remind myself what I was suffering for.

The money I earned was indeed more a regular whore could ever ask for, but at what cost?

The muffled gun shot I heard from afar the first time made my throat close up for real and for a solid two minutes I thought I was suffocating, wondering what the fuck they put in my tea and how naive I’d been to believe my client would let me live after being informed of his plans. Eventually I realised it was my own weakness strangling me which force I underestimated. Life’s little ironies.

The next stimulus that caused the contents of my stomach to rise up to my again closed throat was a thud behind closed doors which gave me a good enough picture of my target’s limp body colliding with the ground. He had proposed to me beforehand. I looked down a bridge that night.

After that I never again mustered up the sufficient amount of courage to attend the inevitable killings after a job well done. There was no third time. It made all the difference.

That had been the case until the gravelly voice on the other end of the line breathed out the two words I feared the most, ever since I cried into the sheets of my first and probably last target I not only pitied but loved. “It’s time.”

“No!”, I screamed at the device, before I could detain it. Fuck. They knew now. They knew I fell in love with Thomas Shelby and now refused to give him up. They knew they had to kill me for I was too much of a menace. The deafening sound of a disconnected line brought me back to reality. I tossed those bloody high heels to the side while sprinting down the street, barefoot, my delicate skin rubbing against the material closest to my personality: the stinking horse shit of Small Heath.

“You’ve saved me.” were the words Thomas had mumbled into my chest tightening with sadness and regret at three o’clock in the morning after I’d comforted him once again, reassuring him that the terrible screams and shots and shovels weren’t real, his subconscious still trying to process war.

“You’ve betrayed me.” were the words Thomas choked out as soon as I barged into his office, out of breath, wet cheeks and horse shit stuck to my soles. Of course he found out before I could save him. He was Thomas Shelby after all and my client just a criminal bakery owner, an amateur in comparison.

“Yes, Thomas.” was my short answer while glaring at the ground. It was spinning.

At any moment I’d throw up.

What was I to reply instead? “No, Tommy, not yet. In fact, I was about to tell you.” That he wouldn’t quite believe. “Tommy, I’m sorry.” That he would laugh or scoff at. “Tommy, I love you. More than anything in this world.” That statement would be either followed by an outburst or an unbearable silence, judgemental and heavy.

For a split second his eyebrows rose up in something I identified as surprise, then he composed himself again. His cold and distant expression however couldn’t hide the hurt I spotted in his glassy blue eyes. Just then I registered my own eyes stinging as tears were uncontrollably streaming down my pale cheeks. I made no sound, just stared at him, silently crying.

“Shoot me, Thomas”, I ordered, voice surprisingly steady. The crease between his eyebrows reappeared on his smooth skin, I so longed to caress one last time.

“What?”, he blurted out. I took a deep breath, exhaling shakily as my eyes darted to the presumably loaded weapon sitting atop some papers wildly scattered across his desk. This was it, then.

“Just get it over with!”, was what I wanted to shout at him. My emotions got the best of me, however. “I know, I’m in no position to make demands, but do me that favour, Tommy. It’s the best option for me.”, I ended up saying instead.

Curiosity washed over his face. He was no longer trying to hide his own emotions, serving as a cue for me. I owed him an explanation, at least that. “The other options, you ask? Being killed by that Jewish bastard for betraying him. I refused to give you up this morning, he probably already sensed my true feelings for you long before, that’s why he accelerated the process. That or the worst option. You killing him first, leaving me to live without you but with that crushing guilt. I’d have to end it myself eventually. You know me well enough, Thomas. I don’t have the courage to commit suicide. The parts I sold were all true in the end. That is how much I love you.”

He didn’t respond, didn’t need to. The grip around the gun he had picked up during my confession weakened, his hand visibly shaking. I was smarter than to act upon the sudden hope flooding my chest, trying hard to ignore it.

“In the bleak midwinter-“, I started then, interrupted by the loud clattering of steel against hollow wood. He let go off the weapon, the blue of his eyes now surrounded by a reddish rim. My lids immediately shielded my burning eyes from the scenario before me, my heart too broken to witness Tommy crying, not over me, not now.

Looking away, not seeing the consequences, that makes all the difference. All the difference.

How wrong I was. Hearing his voice, laced with sadness, barely above a whisper, that made it even worse. “Shut up!”, I hollered through my sobs.

“Actually-“

I opened my eyes again, seeing how it was of no use, nervously running a hand through my hair. “Please, shut up, Tommy! Don’t make this worse! For Christ’s sake, just shoot me! Fucking get it over with already!”

I didn’t notice the door handle being pushed down behind me, someone entering the room while I screamed at him in between pathetic sobs, fighting for breath afterwards, the oxygen not wanting to reach my burning lungs. Once again, I was suffocating, grabbing my throat with numb hands, panic and adrenaline rushing through my increasingly weaker body. As soon as I felt a pressure on my shoulder, I sank to my knees, coughing and choking violently. Somewhere in the distance I heard Polly’s voice, filling the room with curse words and instructions. The last thing I heard.

Countless voices overlapping, chairs screeching and the sound of heels clicking made me realise how busy hell was and how there was no light at all, just noise and heat nagging at my back pressed against a rather soft surface. That was until a searing pain shot through my head as a wave of harsh, glaring light flooded my blurry vision I recovered all of a sudden.

I moaned at the sensation, causing the noise to die down for a second. “She’s back!”, someone announced surprisingly thrilled and it took me a solid thirty seconds to recognise the voice that belonged to none other than Arthur Shelby.

Hell would’ve been busier and too good to be true.

“You had a panic attack.” “You fainted, love”, Polly and Ada exclaimed in unison before I realised that I was staring at them, a bewildered frown plastered on my face.

“Tom?”, was the only syllable I managed to croak out before a painful coughing fit disrupted me. Probably for the better. To my right I heard an all too familiar voice mumbling my name, my head snapped into his direction.

“Why-“ I cleared my throat. “Why am I still alive?” The question seemed to amuse and sadden him all at once as the corner of his mouth twitched upwards, yet it never reached his eyes.

“I knew”, he finally spoke up. “I knew it all, just waited until you’d tell me. Alfie should’ve made a bigger effort, dealing with the Peaky Blinders, with me of all people, therefore I knew. Also, I knew that you actually loved me.” I gulped, feeling my lips tremble as I was close to crying again.

“You talk in your sleep. You also talk to Polly, about me among other things and Polly obviously talks to me and, you know, she’s never wrong.” That earned a satisfied grunt and a breathy chuckle from the rest of the Blinders.

“I- I don’t understand”, I finally confessed, looking up at him through my lashes. “You were about to shoot me for treason, weren’t you?” That made him look down and my stomach drop. I’d never learn, would I? Let that bloody hope and bloody hormones cloud my judgement every time. He’d have pulled the trigger eventually, if it wasn’t for me fainting.

“Actually, no. After I was informed of your client’s instructions I lost my patience. The gun wasn’t loaded, I just wanted to point it at your head to get you to finally confess, to teach you a lesson, whatever.” A long sigh left his lips.

“Somehow I couldn’t even get myself to point an unloaded weapon into your direction, that’s how much I love you.” I shivered at his choice of words, the last part of the sentence sounding awfully familiar.

“If it’s not you who kills me, it’s him. You’re not the only one I deceived”, I insisted.

“A dead man can hardly harm you”, he chuckled in response.

[sarcasticdebate]

Sailors Take Warning

Relationship: Emori/John Murphy, Gen - AO3

Rating: T

Summary: Emori was born with black blood and a mutated left hand. One of those things granted her the opportunity for leadership and acceptance, the other barred her from ever hoping to have either. Emori has long since accepted that the spirit of the Commander will never chose her, and has carved out a different life for herself. Until four strangers offer her a chance to ascend, and, more importantly, a way to get back to John Murphy. 

[Canon Divergent AU from 3.13/3.14]

Written for The 100: Chopped Fanfic Challenge hosted by @dylanobrienisbatman and @littlefanpire. Super excited that I won first for the use of the canonverse theme, the character swap trope, and the ‘everyone thinks you’re an asshole but you’re nice to me’ trop, as well as first overall!! Thanks to everyone who voted. You can check out the other fics here!

Emori loves her boat. It’s been the one constant in her life since her early adolescence. A means of escape and survival, a place of shelter and sleep. She’s fallen in love on this boat, with herself, and the world, and a boy. In her head she sometimes calls herself Emori of the Boat People. She loves her boat, and there’s someone on it.

Emori drops her freshly caught rabbit and unsheathes her knife, still dirty from her kill.

The boat had been well concealed, and Emori is forced to tamper down her annoyance at it being found to focus instead on using the thick brush to conceal her movements as she creeps onboard.

The closer she gets the more she’s able to gage about the trespasser. He’s younger than she first thought, tall and skinny, maybe malnourished. Hardly capable of putting up a decent fight. But he’s also yelling, in Gonaslang, and in conjunction with his clothes its clear he’s skaikru.

“Guys!” he calls, and Emori knows she needs to act now, before any of his reinforcements arrive. “We’re looking for the boat people, right? I found a boat!”

There’s an answering call, muffled by distance, but then the sound of movement, and Emori knows she’s running out of time. The kid is searching through her stuff now, hunched over as he picks through her tech, and although something in her prickles at the sight of this stranger handling her things, she also recognizes it as her last opportunity.

With practiced grace she leaps onto the boat, her landing so soft that they don’t even sway in the water. It’s a simple matter after that to take him by the collar, haul him away from her things and throw him belly down onto the deck, her knee in the center of his back pressing hard enough to cause discomfort. The knife finds its place at the nape of his neck and he grunts, trying to reach back and push her off, but she takes his wrist in her gloved hand twists it till he yells.

“Tell me what you want with my boat and I won’t kill you,” She whispers into his ear. The words come out as a hiss and her breath makes the hairs rise on his neck. She has to make sure he fears her.

“We’re just looking for someone named Emori! We’d heard she’d have a boat!”

The use of her name surprises her, but not enough for her grip to loosen.

“Who told you that name?” She asks, and her prisoner starts moving again, wriggling in an attempt to break free. As if on cue his back-up breaks through the treeline, but there’s only two of them: a petite blonde woman who looks at the situation first with worry before it settles into grim determination as she looks to the older man at her side, his gun aimed at Emori.

Emori pulls the kid in her grip to his knees, her body shielded by his. The knife finds its way to the front of his neck. There’s a faint scar there, where someone has cut his throat before, so she presses the edge of her knife to that point, to remind him of the pain. He goes still.

“Eject the magazine from the gun and kick them both away and no one has to get hurt.”

The man with the gun hesitates, looks first to her knife, then her hostage and finally over his shoulder.

“We don’t want anything from you, just information,” he says, voice low and gravely, but he begins to lower the gun holding up his free hand in what he probably assumes is a show of good faith. As if information is nothing.

“Bellamy, wait. What if she’s chipped?” The woman on the bank says and Emori blinks.

“Bellamy Blake?” She says, her mouth forming the words without her mind’s consent. The gun is raised again and the posture of all three of the strangers becomes lined with tension. They’ve suddenly become more dangerous.

“How do you know who I am?” He barks, and she can see him weighing the risks of taking a shot, his eyes falling to his friend with concern.

She takes a risk before he can. “John told me.”

Bellamy’s eyes shift, uncomfortable and uncertain. His gun doesn’t move, but his finger on the trigger softens.

“John Murphy? You know John Murphy?” The blonde woman asks, her eyes wide with something like excited relief.

Emori’s mouth pinches. Of course she knows John Murphy. Knows the sharp spark is his eyes when they outsmarted a mark, knows how his voice sounds in the morning, knows about his scars, the ones on his body and the ones in his mind, knows what his hands feel like running up her thighs and cupping her breasts and tracing her jaw.

That knowledge burns now though. It’s eating her up inside, when she considers it against the memory of him shaking his head, fear in his eyes, as he was dragged away and she did nothing. He might be dead now. He could have died days ago while she dawdled trying to fit together the flimsiest outlines of a plan to get him back.

This is the first time she’s allowed herself to think of that possibility, his name in this stranger’s mouth a trigger to all the worst case scenarios when before she was able to convince herself to rely on the cleverness of his mind.

“I do,” she says, but has no opportunity to elaborate or ask questions because the boat rocks, unsettled, and Emori turns her head to see a fourth member of the party, a girl with sharp black hair, sword in hand. She doesn’t have a chance to yell a warning before the girl springs forward, her sword swinging in a wide arc, and Emori is forced to shove her hostage to the side, so she can parry with her knife, the sword’s sharp edge just catching on the hilt, close enough that she feels wind from the motion move her hair. She forces the path of the sword to her right, then grabs the girl’s wrist with her gloved hand to limit her control of the weapon. Emori tries to pull her opponent closer, knowing that her knife will be useless against the wider range of the girl’s sword. They wrestle over the blade for a moment, before Emori’s elbow connects with the girl’s jaw making enough of an opening to kick her down.

But their struggle was enough time for the former hostage to recover himself, and rush her. He tackles her to the ground using his momentum and the leverage of his height. With the breath knocked out of her he’s able to land one punch, sending the back of her head smacking into the deck, and making her nose sting in sharp pain.

He stops in the assault, which makes him a fool. One punch is not enough to keep her down. He seems confused, and his distraction allows her to deliver a swift knee to his gut and push him off her.

Her attention turns back to the female warrior who has reclaimed her sword and Emori is thinking about the possibility of pushing the two of them overboard and starting the boat quick enough to get away, when the hostage exclaims behind her.

“Wait! You’re Emori?”

The warrior’s stance becomes less hostile. Although her expression remains the same, held together by anger. It might be set like that.

“Well, she’s a nightblood. And she feels pain.”

Emori feels blood drip onto her lower lip and quickly brushes away the trickle coming from her nose.

The other two are on her boat now as well, and Emori doesn’t like it. She takes a step back. She can’t fathom what they might want with her. No one’s cared that she has nightblood for a long time, skaikru should least of all.

“You are Emori, right?” The blonde asks, stepping forward, seemingly unaware that Emori doesn’t want her close. “I’m Clarke, and this is Bellamy, Jasper, and Octavia. We’re friends with Murphy, and we need your help.”

“Friends who hung him from a tree?” She snaps back, satisfied by the way Clarke flinches and Bellamy looks to the ground. Octavia mumbles something inaudible, but obviously rude, and it’s only Jasper’s hand on her shoulder that seems to take the venom from her eyes. “Why should I trust you, let alone help you?”

“You’re the last Natblida,” Clarke continues, with desperation Emori notes. She reaches into a concealed pocket on her chest to pull out a small box which she opens it to reveal a tiny piece of tech, like one of Jaha’s chips, the sacred symbol, ALIE’s symbol, emblazoned right in the center. “Lexa died,” Clarke says, something hopelessly empty in her eyes for a moment, “and her spirit has chosen you to be the next Commander. Titus entrusted me with the flame to give to you.”

Emori scoffs.

“You want me to be the Commander?” She asks, the idea honestly funny. All four pairs of eyes are fixed on her, and Emori isn’t sure she’s ever had this much attention put on her in her life. Clarke must misinterpret the comment. Her next statement is still desperate, but insistent now too.

“Titus told me about how you ran from your conclave, and I know it’s frightening to lead, but—”

“Of course he told you I ran,” Emori interrupts, almost laughs. She hasn’t had reason to think of that self-righteous bald man in years, but her hatred for him still bubbles, just below the surface. Memories of how happy she had been to come to Polis as an accepted novitiate are now clouded with bitterness over her own naivety when she remembers how she had been neglected or excluded in all aspects of the training the other nightbleeders were groomed in. All of that she might have been able to deal with if it weren’t decided at the most final moment that she wasn’t even deserving of a warrior’s death in a competition for what should have been her birthright. Cast out again, it was then that she began to recognize it as the pattern of her life.

“I didn’t flee the conclave because I thought I would lose. They kicked me out because they were afraid I would win.”

Clarke’s eyes narrow, as if she can’t comprehend being lied to by the old flamekeeper.

“I can’t ascend,” Emori says, her left hand curling into a fist. “No one will ever accept me as Commander.” As a child it was a hard truth, but the thought of it no longer stings. She’s moved on from who she could have been.

“You don’t have to be Commander,” Bellamy interrupts, a statement that Clarke doesn’t seem too keen to accept. “You just have to take the flame so we can stop ALIE from taking over everyone’s minds and ending the world.”

Emori’s thoughts starts spinning with this admission, she doesn’t know why they didn’t start with that.

“Jaha’s ALIE?” She asks. “In the City of Light?” She remembers John’s explanation of what had happened to the old man, the offer that he had made to go to a place without pain. Remembers also ‘the bitch in the red dress’, the one who had first ended the world.

“Yeah,” Clarke confirms, “She’s turning people into mindless minions who take away free will. If you take the flame we can figure out how to stop her.”

Clarke holds the little rectangle between two fingers, pressing it into her line of vision, and Emori thinks of the reasons she should refuse. There’s clear danger in what they propose and little benefit. Still, ALIE might come to prove herself a nuisance for Emori in the future, and she doesn’t often have the reassurance of allies. Having ones who don’t seem to wish her harm is better than any future opportunity will be. And she certainly wouldn’t mind them owing her a substantial favor.

“Okay,” she agrees, and all four of them seem to relax by at least a few measures.

“I need to put the flame in the back of your neck,” Clarke explains, and it takes more self control than Emori is willing to admit to stop herself from flinching at the way Clarke brushes aside her hair. Her fingertips on the first notch of her spine are oddly shaking, as is her voice when she whispers words Emori has never heard. “Ascende superius.”

There’s a feeling like a needle entering the back of her neck, cold enough to halt the flow of blood in her veins before it changes sharply and starts to burn like a cauterization across the length of her spine. She yells, her back arching in unpleasant ways that only abate to an aching throb pressing out from inside her head to every inch of her skull.

The pain subsides quickly, except for the headache, leaving a warm prickle to dance through her blood. Emori blinks away the tears that had welled in the corners of her eyes to see Jasper crouched in front of her, his hands hanging loosely in the air just in front of her shoulders. She doesn’t remember falling, but she accepts his hand and lets him pull her into a sitting position.

“Are you okay?” he asks, once he’s satisfied that she’s settled.

Her mouth feels thick, like her lips are so swollen as to make talking difficult, but she nods anyway. Despite the bodily discomforts she feels largely the same.

“Do you know how to stop ALIE?” Clarke asks, not one to stray far from sight of the goal it would seem.

Emori rubs the center of her forehead in an attempt to ease the headache and closes her eyes. She doesn’t know if it will help to stimulate whatever is supposed to happen, but at least she won’t have to be aware of all the eyes pressed on her.

The idea comes to her in flashes of memory: The backpack she had stole from Gideon clutched in one hand, opening it with her knife, John holding it over the water in a successful exchange for her life.

“There’s a backpack,” Emori explains piecing together the information slowly, “That’s what ALIE is stored on. Destroy it and we destroy her.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Jasper says sitting forward in interest. “It’s what Jaha used to make the chips, I think.”

“Well, where is it?” Octavia says, sharp.

“Last I knew Jaha had it.”

“Yeah,” Jasper confirms, “he was really protective of it.”

“Well then where’s Jaha?” Bellamy asks. They look to each other in dumb confusion until Clarke hatches a plan.

“Polis probably. If he’s trying to get as many people chipped as possible. It’s even more densely populated than Arkadia.”

“I can’t go to Polis,” Emori says, a reflex. “I’ll be killed.”

“What did you do?” Clarke asks, in the same breath as when Jasper questions, “Why?”

“Is it for the same reason why you couldn’t ascend?” Clarke continues, clever enough to find the commonality. Emori admits nothing, shifting how she sits so her hands are tucked under her thighs.

“The twelve clans are intolerant. They’ve been trying to erase my existence for my whole life, I’m not going to let them.”

“But now you’re the Commander,” Clarke tries, as if she’s been able to learn in the short time that’s passed since skaikru fell all the ways of the people on the ground. “They’ll respect you.”

Emori thinks about laughing in her face, thinks about spelling out her ignorance to her letter by letter, thinks about just kicking the lot of them off her boat. But she doesn’t move or speak, thinks instead about finally carving out a place of acceptance for herself.

“Please,” Clarke says, desperation setting in, “You said yourself this is how we stop ALIE. And Murphy’s in Polis.” Emori hates that she’s right to know those words will cause a squeeze of longing in Emori’s chest. Hates too that she was already planning on going to the Capital in the flimsy hope that she could trade her scavenged ALIE tech to Titus for John’s safe return without even the reassurance of the spirits of the Commanders shifting in her mind.

“And we’ll protect you,” Bellamy adds.

“Alright,” Emori says, wondering where all her common sense has gone. “The river will take us straight there.”

Polis sits on the Wide River, and Emori would never typically travel on it when it was so commonly used for commerce by various villages along its banks. But speed is of necessity so she risks the danger, finding comfort to in the fact that Bellamy has a gun.

She starts the boat, guiding them to the mouth of the river, not too far down the shore. It’s unerringly quiet until Bellamy breaks the silence to speak into a radio to someone named Raven, informing her of the events of the afternoon. The others fall into deliberation after that, and like so many before them they seem to forget about her once she’s left their frame of view. She stays still and keeps her breaths quiet so that she can eavesdrop.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Clarke says, maybe rhetorically. “All we really know about this girl is that most other grounders hate her and that she’s John Murphy’s girlfriend? None of that is really giving me a vote of confidence. I mean, think about what kind of person you have to be to fall in love with him.”

“Lincoln trusted her,” Octavia says. “And Murphy might have been a lying killer, but his body count isn't as high as some people's.”

“He was still always kind of a dick though,” Jasper says, more bored than harsh, trying to neutralize the rising heckles of the little group, but still the comment irritates something in her chest at the lack of understanding his so called friends have of him. “He’s the one that shot Raven.”

“It’s the best choice we have,” Bellamy says in a way that’s final. “If she’s working an angle it can’t be worse than anything else we’ve seen.”

The others seem to agree with that, and they go quiet.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, “Daylight’s dwindling, this might be the only chance we have to sleep for a while. We’ll take shifts to stay up with Emori, I’ll go first.”

Emori might question why they feel the need to have one of their own group stand guard, but it seems a waste of energy to pinpoint the level of trust they’re placing in her.

Bellamy lingers on the lower dock for some time, eyes trailing over the three others as they drift off, but soon enough he comes up to meet her. Let’s his gun hang loose at his side.

“Where’d you get this boat?” He asks, as if too strike up a conversation, or peel information from her. But he’s no spy, and when she looks in his eyes there’s something close to sincerity. Even still she lets the silence sit while she considers lying.

“I acquired it from a previous owner. Made some improvements myself.”

“Impressive,” Bellamy notes, “you’d get along with Raven. She designed the motorized Rovers we use.”

Emori hums. “I don’t generally get along with people.”

“Sorry about my sister attacking earlier,” he says, as if he thinks that’s the root of her social trouble. “I’m sure we can all get along given enough time. I mean apparently you get along with Murphy, that’s no easy feat.”

“It’s not that hard.”

Bellamy’s stance shifts were he stands next to her, in disagreement perhaps, or plain awkwardness.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know each other?”

It’s probably the black ink of the night that prompts her to answer the question so openly, darkness conceals all sorts of vulnerability. It lets you expose some of the bleeding pieces of your heart to the fresh air.

“We’re lovers.”

“Huh.” A funny expression plays across Bellamy’s face, surprise, confusion, amusement. The need to defend John flashes sharp in her.

“I know you hate him,” Emori says. “But he’s…” She thinks of the way he had seen her, the day they first met, when she had carted him and his friends from the desert to the island and he had stood where Bellamy now stands, asking about her solitude. He had looked at her the same every time she returned to the island to hand off new tech. It was the care and a cool softness and understanding that convinced her to start taking him on the trips. It’s what made her fall for him too. “He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re right,” Bellamy says after a long pause, one which Emori didn’t think he’d try to bridge again. “I hated him for a long time. Now though...a lot of things have been put in perspective.”

“As they should be,” Octavia says behind them, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s my shift for watch.”

Bellamy looks as if he’s thinking to protest, but he moves away from Emori without much complaint, looking to his sister for some type of compassion. But she presses her eyes closed as he passes.

Slowly Octavia comes up to take a position next to Emori, taking the assignment of guard seriously even when there’s nothing to see except the reflection of the moon against the water.

The wind picks up several times making them both shiver, but neither of them talk about it. Emori is just beginning to think they’ll spend their time together in utter silence when Octavia’s hoarse voice breaks the quite.

“You knew Lincoln,” she says, and Emori would have to be far more pigheaded to not noticed the layers of grief that coat the name.

“Not well,” Emori says, although she remembers the one time they had spoken very clearly in her memory. It had been a good con.

“He mentioned you a couple times,” Octavia continues, seemingly not satisfied by Emori’s answers. ���He spoke highly of you.”

Emori turns her head away. A person like Lincoln would. He was a skilled warrior, but too soft. A few lies about a fictional safe haven for the misplaced had gotten her a large supply of medicine. Seemed better than telling him it was for the boat dwelling clan of one.

“He’s dead?” Emori asks, turning the conversation so that her own viewpoint of their relationship won’t come to light.

“Yes,” Octavia whispers, not that Emori needs the confirmation.

“That’s a shame,” Emori says, thinking of the ways to endear herself to this vulnerable girl. “He had a good heart.”

Octavia scratches at her chest, then stands with a sudden jolt, distancing herself from Emori as if she’ll be able to shake off the weight of heartbreak with movement alone. Emori licks her lips, and is forced to acknowledge that she’s been attempting to do the same these past long days.

Exhaustion pulls at Emori like a riptide, the desire for sleep a sudden and deadly call. Octavia stands at the stern, her eyes looking to the river behind them, and despite her habits Emori doesn’t think the girl will attack her in her sleep.

She stalls the book and picks a spot away from the others to lie down to sleep, just for a few hours. But her sleep is not restful.

She dreams of the crack of a gunshot, a flaming cinder planted in her stomach that spreads to consume her flesh. There’s sobbing and gasping, and then pain choked yells. Someone else’s black blood drips out of a closed fist, warping as it lands on the flame. The sacred symbol on the blue tech transforms into the same symbol installed in a geometric backpack, one she had once killed for. The tech of its belly uncovered and shining in dim light for precious few seconds before the blunt end of a spear comes crashing down on it. From the corner of her eye she can see John’s face, dirty and handsome, like the day she met him. Exhaustion pulls at his eyes, and all she wants to do is to turn her head, reach out and soothe the worry from his skin. But then synapses disconnect, wires break, and Emori wakes with a start.

“The City of Light’s been destroyed,” she says into the cool air of the night. Octavia is the only one awake, but the others stir at her outburst.

“It’s gone,” Emori repeats, “Someone else destroyed the backpack.” She doesn’t mention who that someone is, but her heart thuds with the knowledge.

“It can’t be that easy…” Clarke says, and Emori wonders if the girl feels lost because she wasn’t able to fulfill her savior complex or because paranoia is what has kept her alive this long. “How do you know?”

“I saw it,” Emori says, unsure how to explain something she doesn’t know herself. Perhaps it has something to do with the interconnections of the tech, but Emori has no way to know, and doesn’t particularly care either.

“Raven it’s Bellamy, come in.” Emori looks over to see Bellamy speaking into a radio, hope that’s known too much disappointment rising behind the depths of his eyes.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t asleep Blake,” a disembodied voice comes back. “I’ve actually been meaning to tell you guys, I think I can create a backdoor through the key into ALIE’s code to find a kill switch.”

“Wait, is the City of Light still there?” Bellamy demands, and even Emori, who is sure of its destruction, holds her breath in wait of the confirmation.

“What do you mean is it still...oh my god. It’s gone. There’s no more code.” Comes back the voice, a crackle that pours relief out into the open air. “We did it.”

“Not us,” Bellamy corrects, “Someone in Polis destroyed the server ALIE was on. We’re on our way there now. We’ll get our people back and then we’ll start to rebuild.”

“It won’t be that easy,” Octavia says, dark and sharp into the silence the click of the radio had returned. “Some people still have things to atone for.” She stands as if to move away from the group but there’s little space to go on the small boat. Jasper gets up to follow her, the pair of them speaking in hushed tones as they lean over the railing to watch the first rays of dawn bring light to the day.

Bellamy and Clarke watch them for a moment before turning to each other, their own quiet conversation concerning plans and technicalities. Emori stands so she can get the boat moving. She won’t be able to sleep any more.

“Emori wait,” Clarke calls out, “We need to talk about rebuilding.”

“That doesn’t concern me,” she says.

“It should now that you’re Commander.”

Emori has no intention of lingering in Polis, she’ll find John and then the two of them will get the hell out. He’s probably already trying to leave now that the City of Light is gone, they’ll need to get there quick if she wants to intercept him.

“That can wait till we get to Polis.” For now she plays along.

Clarke seems to accept this, although not without a suspicious pinch of her eyes. Emori gets them moving again, and tells them they should be at Polis before mid morning.

As they continue down the river, she begins to think she overestimated. They don’t encounter a single other boat along the way, and despite passing the banks of several fishing villages they don’t see any people either.

“Is anyone else really uncomfortable?” Jasper asks, when the tower of Polis has come into view. There are sounds, finally, coming from the city, but none of them bode well.

“Yeah,” Octavia agrees. “And I think there’s someone following us.”

“What?” Bellamy says, moving to stand next to her, using the scope of his gun to look out to the place where Octavia points. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I can’t make anything out for sure, but there’s been movement for the past couple of miles. At first I thought it was just an animal, but it’s been following the line of the river too closely for too long.”

“It’s someone on horseback,” Bellamy confirms.

“They won’t be able to catch up,” Emori says. An animal that can fatigue is no match for the swiftness of her boat. None of them seem to take any comfort at her words, all of them turning their ears to listen for the pound of hooves. Emori is more concerned about what awaits them in the city.

She’s right to worry. Polis is soaked in blood, it sits in pools among the cobblestones, weeps out of bodies that are nailed to crosses or that lie already dead in the center of the streets. In her memory Polis always smelled like iron, but it was the ashy type that came from fire and blacksmiths; now it’s wet and red, thick enough to taste.

Jasper looks nauseous, and Clarke heartbroken. Bellamy squeezes his eyes shut for long stretches of time, as if to ward of the sting of a violent memory. They walk silently through the streets, avoiding the sobs and outraged cries of mothers and children and friends. There’s an odd urging in the back of her head to call them to action, say some fancy words of condolence before putting them to work, but Emori shakes her head to dislodge the suggestion.

They make it to the center square without being stopped, or even looked at twice. And it’s there that Clarke finally breaks the silence.

“Mom!”

There’s an odd assortment of grounders and skaikru brought together before the entrance of the tower. And even as Clarke rushes into her mother’s embrace, tensions between the two simmer, suspicious eyes and barked insults threatening to bring the situation to a boil.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy asks of a bearded man, tear tracks the only lines of clarity on his dirty face.

“The grounders are blaming skaikru for the deaths that occurred under ALIE,” the man says, his head bowed, but his gaze remained fixed on the accusers.

“But we have our dead too.”

“It’s the tech,” the older man says, his hand on the muzzle of Bellamy’s gun to keep it pointed down. “They think we’re the ones who created her.”

“Aren’t you?” Questions a new voice, cool and sharp. It’s owner is a tall woman, her furs characteristic of Azgeda, but her face bearing none of the traditional scarring.

“Echo…” Bellamy says, recognition and then desperation playing across his face.“We’ve suffered as much as you. And now we have to help each other.”

“Skaikru is incapable of helping us,” Echo says, regret mixing with her harshness to create something heavy. “I’m sorry Bellamy, but Azgeda is taking command of the city on behalf of Commander Ontari. No one leaves.”

“If it’s on Ontari’s order, then where is she?” Clarke steps up, and the two women wear matching glares. “You don’t have any authority here.”

Echo lifts her chin. “Take them all prisoner.”

There’s a scuffle then as the two groups approach each other and Emori turns her head to look for a route of escape, but before any of them are dragged away in chains, Jasper’s voice breaks through the struggle like the crack of a whip.

“HEY!”

Emori wouldn’t think it enough to distract heavily trained Azgedan soldiers, but there’s enough influence in his voice to catch them all unaware.

“Is this really what we’re doing now? We all just got our minds back from a crazy AI who made us torture people we love, and we’re all turning against each other again? If this can’t draw us together, then we’ll always be at war. We have to try and work together.” Jasper is frantic in his insistence, and convincing too. Emori sees more than one soldier lower their sword.

“The boy is right,” says a warrior woman coming out of the tower, but Emori pays her hardly any attention because John stands to her left, his eyes shifty and distrustful as he looks out over the crowd. Until he sees her.

“Of course Trikru would say that when it suits them,” Echo snaps back, and the two start a squabble about the old feud, but Emori couldn’t care less because John is alive, and he’s here, and his mouth is forming the shape of her name.

She’d run to him if there weren’t so many people in the way, screw the fear of making a spectacle of herself, it would be worth it. Instead she’s trapped between two groups a pin drop away from a fire fight.

“I say it because you don’t have any authority here. Ontari kom Azgeda is dead, and until a time when a new Commander can ascend, the council of ambassadors will speak for the needs of the clans. Not Azgeda alone.”

Silence, by definition, should not have a sound, yet Emori swears it rings through the crowd at the news.

“Except there already is a new Commander,” John says, his voice not raised, but still able to carry through the crowd, his sardonic tone catching on all their ears. She’s almost surprised when he singles her out with a casual point, but his eyes remained locked with hers, wider than how he normally holds them, willing her to understand him.

Trusting him is easy. She takes one of her knives off her belt and nicks her palm, the cut oozing tar that starts to trickle down her wrist as she holds her hand over her head for the crowd to see. The grounders in her vicinity take a step back, a familiar motion, but one that is now associated with awe rather than disgust.

John is then able to make his way through the crowd to her, he reaches out, her gloved hand slipping into his easily. He smiles at her, small, almost not there, but still he lets it crack through the pretense for her.

“Murphy?” Bellamy questions, but he’s already pulling her away, and only manages a glance over his shoulder for his former friend.

“I got this Bellamy.”

Emori isn’t yet positive about what they’re lying about, but it’s easy enough to follow his lead, to find a place at the base of Polis tower and prepare to bullshit her way through this.

“This is Emori, she’s the last Nightbleeder.”

“And who are you?” Someone calls out, one of the Azgedan guards.

“The flamekeeper,” John says, his tone accusing the man of idiocy. Emori studies John from the corner of her eye, wanting to ask him a thousand questions but refraining for the sake of the con. God, she taught him well. “Now why don’t we go up there,” he says with a point up there tower, “where she can recite the lineage and we can figure this thing out without spearing each other.”

The warrior John was with, Indra, some part of her brain supplies, steps forward then, eyeing them with no small amount of suspicion, but seeming to fall into support of them anyway.

“Let’s go,” John whispers in her ear as the woman starts calling for representatives from each of the clans to ascend to the tower and for those left behind to start building pyres for the dead. John guides her inside the tower, first into a main hallway before pulling her off to one that was narrow and easy to miss. Her memory of the building from her childhood seems wildly insufficient.

“We could still get out of here,” he says, their pace nearing a run now.

“We won’t make it out of Polis.” Not with tensions running as high as they are. And especially not after they put themselves on display like that. “Might not hurt to have a lot of power. And your old friends owe me now.”

“Okay,” John says, coming to a halt. They’ve arrived in the same hallway they originally started in. They've ran a circle. Now there’s nowhere to go but up.

“Okay,” Emori agrees, stepping into the old elevator, John joining her a moment later after miming something for the two men who are inexplicably still standing by the wheel waiting to turn it. The doors haven’t even closed before he wraps his arms around her, two hands strong and firm across her back.

“I missed you,” he says, his arms squeezing tighter as she presses her forehead into his shoulder, allowing herself to sway just a little bit.

“I missed you too,” she breathes back, forcing herself to step out of his embrace so that they can start getting on the same page only to fall back into it when the elevator stutters to a halt, upsetting her balance.

“What was that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” John laughs, brushing down her hair. “I told the guys to stall us halfway there. Gives them a break, gives us time to talk.”

“Yeah,” Emori breathes, her hands squeezing his forearms. “How did you know I ascended?”

John exhales deeply. “No one’s shut up about nightblood since I got here. Remember that time you pricked your finger making fishing hooks? I knew you had it, and I knew Clarke had the flame, and that you were with her. But mostly I was just bluffing. Been doing a lot of that lately.”

Emori huffs in laughter. “That’s a big risk John. Hardly a survivor's move.” She tries to sound berating, but mostly she’s too charmed by how his mind works. His daring and quick thinking.

“It was worth the risk, if it could get us both out of there.”

“But now we’re here,” Emori notes. And John nods, his hands falling to cup hers, fingertips staining from where she cut herself. But no, stain is the wrong word.

“We’ll go along with it for now, until a big enough distraction comes along for us slip away. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.” Emori nods, wanting nothing more than for them to get back on their little boat and to leave the complexities of society to flounder on the shore.

“Okay, now that all that’s settled, I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Please,” she mumbles into his lips. There’s no patience in the kiss, both of them seeking too much from each other—reassurance, comfort, presence—for it to be chaste. He backs her against one wall, clutching at her waist, tongue playing at her bottom lip while she reaches for the back of his neck to pull him closer.

She kisses at the corner of his jaw, and when she moves to the sensitive parts of his neck he gasps her name without shame. His thumb presses into the point just behind her ear, his other fingers tilting her jaw up so their mouths can collide again. Her gloved hand tugs uselessly at his collar when he slots one of his legs between hers and she’s on the verge of asking him to take it off so she can feel his skin when the elevator starts moving again with a jolt, sending their foreheads knocking into one another.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, soothing the spot with his thumb. She copies the motion and he smiles fully this time, just for her. A moment later the door dings open.

The body of the former Commander lies on the steps in front of the throne, stabbed to death it would seem.

“Shit,” John says. “Indra and I didn’t move her.” He explains how he and Indra had come to kill her after they destroyed the City of Light. “She really deserved it,” was the story’s culmination, John’s voice shallow and dark. They move her corpse to a vacated room and leave it at that, the floor dark and dirty enough that her blood doesn’t leave too much of an imprint.

The others begin coming up in batches, first the skaikru she had escorted on her boat, but then many others, mostly faces she doesn’t recognize; people who have just been informed about the existence of the new Commander and look at her with curiosity. John stands a little in front of her, protective, which she finds so sweet she doesn’t bother to remind him of the fact that she’s the much better fighter. He passes the time by whispering how she’ll have to recite the names of all the former Commanders, and makes a big deal about brushing off any of the representatives who approach in hopes of talking to them.

The room fills too quickly, but it also seems to take far too long. But at last the final elevator arrives and in unspoken recognition all the room goes quiet, attention placed solely on her. So many eyes.

“The Commander will now recite the lineage.” The words sound so boxy and improper in John’s mouth, but everyone but Emori seems convinced.

Standing in front of them, in front of a throne, makes her think she should quiver. John stands next to her and fighting the urge to hold his hand seems more difficult than any of the tasks she’s completed in the past day. But despite those things, her stance is firm as names and faces flash in her mind. She doesn’t realize she’s saying them out loud until she peels her eyes open to see the various degrees of surprise written across the faces of the crowd.

John looks to the room as if in challenge before announcing to them all. “Commander Emori.”

She’s often thought that her name felt empty without a following clan title, but she’s always liked the way John says her name.

“One of you sound the horn,” John orders. “Let the people know they have a Commander.”

A man at the edge of the group begins to move, but doesn’t make it to the balcony before a new arrival breaks through the gathering.

“Not so fast,” says a strong square man, pushing his way past people.

“Roan wait!” Clarke calls out, only to be ignored, as is Echo who seems to say something sounding a lot like “My liege!”

“The pair of you are frauds!” Roan calls out, his finger and glare accusatory. “That man is a skaikru imposter and the girl is nothing but a frikdriena!”

Actual gasps of shock rumble through the room, but no one yet makes a move for a weapon. Confusion setting in first.

“You might think you’re so smart, using your little boat to hide away all these years, but you couldn’t even shake a tail. It just makes obvious what you are. A coward and a stain.”

“Back up,” John growls even if he can’t hold a candle to Roan in terms of intimidation. The man turns his focus to him instead.

“You have big talk for a dirty rat.”

“King Roan,” that’s Echo by his side now, her hand on his shoulder a gesture made to pull him away. “Even if what you say is true, Ontari’s dead. She’s the true Commander now, we all saw.”

“Don’t make me question your loyalty to Nia’s ideals, Echo,” Roan says. Without even a glance to accompany his words, Echo’s arm drops and she takes a step back.

“I question your loyalty to your mother’s lust for power when she had you banished,” Emori counters, the knowledge pressing on her without warning, like a headache. Roan flinches ever so slightly at the words.

“Fine,” he says, “You’ll get your peace for now. But I’ll never accept a stained Commander.”

Emori blinks with utter boredom. It’s funny how this man thinks she will crumple to insults now after hearing them her whole life.

He storms out of the throne room after that, followed by at least half of those gathered. Clarke looks intimidated by their leaving, the gears in her mind clearly turning, but their exit is undermined by the bellow of the trumpet, reverberating through the streets of Polis.

Emori doesn’t care much either way, it’s not like she’s planning on staying Commander for long.

“You know I was actually expecting that to go a lot worse,” John says, offers her a tired and funny smile. She caves and reaches out to hold his hand.

“It did,” Bellamy says, his face more pale than can be natural. In his right hand he holds his radio, wrist shaking as he presses down a button. “Raven, tell them what you told me.” His eyes are afraid as they survey the room, and a pit drops in Emori’s stomach as the crackle of a voice makes an announcement.

“There’s a wave of radiation coming. We’re all going to die in six months.”