It was the sound of gunshots that woke Raven and Octavia, though they didn't recognize that fact at first. Having never heard them in real life, only old recordings, and asleep besides, the sound was just one more strange oddity that came with being on the ground. Just one more noise they didn't know amidst countless others that they had encountered in the last day. But it was a noise that was sharp enough, loud enough, unnatural enough that it disturbed them from their sex-drunk slumber. A slumber that had started in blissful, boneless, insensate and lingering pleasure from several hours of passion, and ended it extreme discomfort. As it turned out, falling asleep on a barely-padded floor after hours and hours of sex, while trying to adjust to a different gravity and after experiencing a less-than-pleasant journey from high orbit to the ground, resulted in a rather large amount of unpleasant soreness. A soreness that was almost capable of wiping out the far more pleasant soreness of sex, and the two girls had exchanged a few soft, sleepy kisses and gently stroking of fingers along soft skin before the gunshots resounded again, and this time they were awake enough to recognize them for what they were.
"Fuck, were those…?" Raven breathed, eyes flying wide.
"Gunshots, yeah." Octavia bit out, diving off of their 'bed' and scrambling for her survival knife, drawing it and shoving Raven's across the floor towards her. Then she bit out a laugh. "Well, we knew people were alive down here, now I guess we know they are."
Any attempt to dress, and whatever Raven might have said in response, was lost as the door slammed open and an unfamiliar shape lurched into view: a person, tall, broad, and wearing a full body hazmat suit and carrying a rifle. The figure -man, maybe, it was really hard to tell through the suit, but it didn't look like they had breasts- spotted them, visibly mentally staggered for all of half a second, then turned to face them fully.
"Both of you! On your feet! Now!" The voice was muffled, but urgent and distinctly male. "If you want to live, you need to get out of here right now."
Raven, still as utterly nude as Octavia was, blinked at the apparition. "What—"
"No time!" the figure shouted, already crossing the room in two long strides. "They're coming. You have to come with me."
"Our clothes, our gear…!" Octavia protested, even as she was pulled to her feet, and all three of them flinched as more gunshots -closer, this time- resounded. They weren't the only sounds, however, not this time, and both girls paled at the chorus of screams that followed.
"Put on your shoes and grab your packs, now isn't the time for modesty!" the man snapped, gesturing a bit wildly with his rifle, and the girls exchanged anxious glances before obeying. Whatever was happening, there was nothing they could -or should- do until they knew more. They were naked, ignorant, and facing someone that both had a gun and clearly knew how to use it. It wasn't the time for them to take stupid risks or waste any time.
Feet clad in boots, packs shouldered, and knives clutched tightly in hand, the two naked young women allowed themselves to be herded down the staircase by the increasingly anxious -headed well towards genuine panic- man. Neither thought that they'd ever seen someone this panicked, this afraid, except when faced by imminent death. Or, in Octavia's case, the execution of her mother. Then again, judging by all the gunshots and the screaming that they'd been hearing, imminent death might be exactly what he, and they, were facing after all.
Instead of taking them back the way they had come to get in, though, he turned them the opposite direction and led them through unknown halls, dark and poorly lit. Maintenance halls, from the looks of things, in the heart of the building and less exposed to the elements. Dark enough and undamaged enough that both girls quickly realized that they had no chance of remembering the exact route if they needed to go back.
"Ryan! Good! You found them! The savages are coming! The rest won't be able to hold them off for much longer! We have to go!" another man shouted as they finally burst through a door into a different terminal, gesturing outside towards the tree line, and the girls swallowed as they saw another half-dozen men carrying guns waiting with body language that screamed anxiety as they looked around carefully just outside the building. They were quickly hustled outside, and the same man continued. "Marcus, Ryan, take point. Siobhan, you stay with the girls. The rest of us will pull up the rear. We have to reach the RV point before the savages can catch up."
There was no time to ask questions, not with frantic shouts, screams, and gunfire echoing around them, growing ever closer, and Raven felt the frigid fingers of real fear for the first time since landing on Earth wrap themselves around her heart and squeeze. Not the abstract, speculative fear of what might wait for them in the wilds, or the hollow feeling fear that came with facing the fact that they had no idea what to do to save their people, but the visceral, body-shaking fear of actual people hunting them. And now they were being ushered along by the better part of a dozen strangers, without the protection of even a scrap of clothing for their bodies or their minds alike, hearing people die in the distance to a faceless threat.
"I know you girls are scared, and probably exhausted, but I need you to work as hard as you can to keep up, okay?" the person closest to them, apparently a woman named Siobhan from what the nameless leader had said, told them softly as they half-jogged, half-ran towards the far tree line, her hooded-and-masked head turning so that she could watch Raven with what seemed like an edge of worry. "Are you going to be able to make it?"
"Do I have a choice?" ground out the response, the breathy words tinged with pain and discomfort, one hand clutched to her breasts as she tried to keep them from bouncing around too much. Glancing over at her, she somehow managed to spare the energy to arch her eyebrows. "No gun?"
"I'm not a fighter, in fact I hate fighting. I'm a healer, an RN. The only reason I'm here at all is that President Wallace was worried that you could have been badly hurt in the landing, or immediately thereafter, and he decided to assign a nurse to the retrieval group." came the quick, firm reply, and both girls filed that information away even as they made soft sounds of understanding. Then a thought occurred, and Octavia's head snapped around.
"We…our friend, Clarke, she came down a couple of months ago. Did you people…?" she started, but Siobhan's firm headshakes had already begun before she could finish the sentence.
"A search team was sent out to the pod, but no one was found and they were slaughtered by the tribals before they could return. She's most likely…"
"She's not dead." Octavia cut her off harshly, firmly, every word suffused with unwavering faith, and more than just Siobhan shot her a surprised look in response, her eyebrows drawing down into a scowl. "If Clarke didn't die in the landing, then she's still alive. She's the best of us, and she's come to far to die like that. She's alive, we just need to find her."
The skepticism that met this declaration was as heavy and pointed as it was profound, but no one really had the chance to say anything further about it, because a moment later they were breaking through the tree-line into a small clearing -a small parking lot once, perhaps, based on what remained- where a pair of trucks were waiting, guarded by another three rifle-armed men.
"We've made it…" Siobhan breathed in relief at the sight of them, the two girls smiling in agreement, which of course was when everything promptly went straight to shit. Well, that wasn't quite true. It went to shit the moment that their group was within ten feet of the idling vehicles and the doors were being opened. When the protective column broke up to embark, when the men watching the trees started to watch the vehicles instead. When their focus was broken, their preparedness dropped, and their ability to react quickly to a threat eroded badly.
When they were vulnerable.
Raven didn't see where the first arrow came from, didn't even see it cut through the air or strike it's target, but she heard the sound that one of the men behind her made as it punched through his suit and into his chest. Heard the sound that he made, too, the choked gasp and strangled cry, followed by the shouts and gunfire as everyone save she, Octavia, and Siobhan sought to defend the group.
Such resistance was utterly futile.
The attack was as devastating and exquisitely planned as it was sudden. Siobhan grabbed their arms and half-threw them to the ground beside one of the trucks, crouching over them as best she could, even as their guards fought desperately. But their enemy outnumbered them, had ambushed them, and was well-hidden within the cover of the trees. Within minutes, the three women were the only survivors, surrounded by sword-and-spear-and-bow armed strangers wearing a mix of fur and leather and metal that were held at bay only by the two rifles that Raven and Octavia were brandishing rather more threateningly than their actual ability could perhaps follow through on.
How long the standoff continued, neither girl could say, but it was broken only when a sharp command was given in a language that neither of them understood. The crowd of warriors parted promptly, weapons still held at the ready, opening a space for a young woman their own age, or perhaps a bit older. She was beautiful, in a savage sort of way, wearing fur and leather as much as the others were, paired swords on her hips and daggers sheathed across her body. Green eyes swept over them, seemingly unafraid of the guns being pointed in her direction, and all was silent for a moment before she spoke again.
"Reivon Reyes and Oktavia Blake. Perhaps I should have expected it to be the two of you."
Their names were said so calmly, casually, in a tone that could only be called conversational, that neither girl registered the words immediately. But register they did, and two barrels dipped low as two sets of eyes widened and two gasps rang out.
"H…how do you know our names?" Raven breathed, heart in her throat for reasons she wasn't sure she could define.
"Who the fuck are you?" Octavia asked at the same time, far more harshly than her friend had spoken, and the stranger's lips quirked slightly even as her soldiers rustled and murmured angrily at the disrespect she had been shown.
"I know a lot of names, Reivon. Based on everything I've been told about The Ark, I expected it would either be the two of you or, perhaps, Zoe and Harper in that 'drop-pod'. Though I have to admit, there are several other people amongst yours that I should very much like to have a conversation with, even if they might not enjoy it so much." the other girl's smile widened slightly at their reactions to that, though there was something sharp and coldly glittering in her eyes towards the end. Then they lightened somewhat, turning to Octavia. "As for who I am, Oktavia, my name is Lexa. I rule the twelve tribes of the Coalition whose territory that you've landed in, and I'm also the person with whom Klark has been living these past few weeks."
"That's impossible! No one was found by the pod, there was no sign of any survivors!" Siobhan burst out, shock in every syllable of her words and every inch of her body, and Lexa arched a cold brow in her direction.
"Unlike these two friends of hers, Klark was did not land quite so near shelter, nor was she quite so quick to seek it out. By the time your kind reached her landing site, she had already walked several miles away." she said, the words delivered in a way that verged on taunting, in spite of her cool demeanor and even tone. Seeming not to care what reaction that might garner, or even if Siobhan might try to say something in response, her eyes turned back to the two Arkers. "Suffice to say, Klark is why I know your names, and your descriptions. She has spoken about the Ark at length with the rest of our family, and we have heard many stories about the two of you in particular."
There was a long moment of silence, and Raven was trying to think of a polite way to ask if that meant Lexa wasn't going to kill them after all -hopefully politely enough that Lexa wouldn't then change her mind about killing them- before the sound of shouts and an odd clattering sound drew everyone's attention away. A moment later, the crowd of warriors Lexa had brought with her were scattering further still, as a great black beast of a horse moved forward with a pair of enormous wolves flanking it.
Startled, Raven and Octavia looked up, eyes narrowing against the light of the sun, only the silhouette of the figure astride the animal -all they could really discern was an oddly-beak like hood on their head and the long spear that was held in their right hand- for a long, long moment. There was a soft gasp and the figure dismounted, passing their spear off to Lexa as they passed, and as their eyes finished adjusting the figure knelt before them and held out it's hands.
"You're okay…" breathed Clarke Griffin into the silence, and two clatters heralded the rifles being discarded as Raven and Octavia threw themselves at their best friend.
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Leksa hadn't been expecting to find the newly-arrived Arkers herself. Not after the 'Focus' and 'MERCS' had informed her that the 'mat-trans' had been activated once again to move Clarke to the very heart of Sentinel territory, far closer to the Old World ruins on which they now stood. She certainly hadn't expected to find them in the hands of the maunon, and most certainly not entirely naked and regarding her as a threat to their safety.
Though the last, at least, made some sense given the first. She could only imagine what the maunon had told the other two girls about her people, or even what they might have born witness to. And with no context, well, it wasn't unreasonable for them to be afraid or distrustful of the tribes.
As she watched the pair throw themselves at Klark, she couldn't help but feel a grimace tugging at her lips before it was smothered by iron-clad control. She was thrilled, on Klark's part, that her two closest and most loyal supporters were now here. A touch of home, near and dear to her heart, now at her side once again. And she wasn't oblivious to the attractiveness that the two girls held, future sisters that they were likely to be, nor was she oblivious to the fact that Octavia seemed every inch as fierce as Clarke had described her. She would make a fine warrior. But none of that was what had her grimacing. No, that came from the fact that she'd expected to have another three or four months before she had to share Klark with anyone from The Ark, three or four months to solidify their relationship and her own position at Klark's side.
To have some manner of control over how things would involve from here. Not control over Klark, they were fated to be partners, but a semblance of control over when and how the Ark and its people came home. Which she still had, but it would be rather more difficult to ensure that she and Klark had the closeness, the partnership, required for their entwined destiny if her two most devoted friends were at her side.
Though…she and Klark were quite close already. She spent a great deal of time with them, was no longer ashamed of indulging in pleasure or nakedness in front of Leksa and her sisters anymore, and had no shame in watching them do the same. Only one final thing -they themselves becoming lovers- truly remained on that front, and Leksa very much doubted Klark would turn her away if Companionship was offered.
So long as Reivon and Oktavia being there did not have her reverting to her old, more…restrained ways. It might have been the hardest thing in the world to bring Klark into their culture, thanks in no small part to Niylah involving herself quite firmly and with a surprising amount of talent at 'handling' her domina, but she wasn't willing to risk a backslide. And, more to the point, she didn't want Klark to backslide. She was looking forward to being with Klark, to expanding and deepening their relationship, and she wasn't sure she really wanted to wait all that much longer.
"Klark, I'm glad your friends are here and in fine shape, but we need to get the wounded back to Tondisi and make our way back to Polis before our absence is well-noted. The last thing we want is to cause a panic by disappearing in the midst of the Conclave celebrations. It will take us nearly two days travel as it is." she said aloud, and after a moment longer the tangle of limbs that was the three Arkers separated into it's composite people.
"I…yeah, of course. You're right, we need to get back to Polis, and…we need to talk, Lexa. About a lot of things." Klark sighed, glancing over her shoulder at her, eyes brightening, and Leksa followed her eyes to the recently-arrived Niylah. "Sunshine! I didn't expect you. I need you to take Raven and Octavia someplace and help them get dressed. Actually, grab a fisa from either Lexa's group or the Sentinels that came with Kassandra and I and have them check these two out first."
"We had to leave our clothes and some of our gear behind in the ATC tower, they wouldn't give us time to dress." Oktavia interjected, and Leksa felt inappropriately warm in her stomach at the wrath that flashed through Klark's eyes at that, before she huffed and nodded.
"Alright, then. Do you know how to get back there?"
"If we can get back to the door we got into the terminal through, yeah. Not sure about getting there from here."
"Okay. Niylah, find the right people and go. A Sentinel can get you back to the door they used to get inside the terminal, its the same one Kassandra and I used, more likely than not."
Reivon and Oktavia hesitated, of course, unsure about leaving with further strangers, and even less sure about leaving Klark, but they obeyed none-the-less. Or, at leeast, they started to, but when they were no more than a few feet away, Reivon turned back and called out.
"Hey, princess." Leksa couldn't help her jolt of surprise, not having expected an Arker to use that term for Klark as well, and a couple of murmurs flickered back and forth through her troops. "Siobhan…I…look, it's pretty obvious your new friends don't like her group all that much, but she's not a soldier, you know? She doesn't even have a weapon. She's a nurse, like you. Her president sent her out here to save us if the landing had gone bad. So, you know…?"
"…yeah, I hear you, Ray. Go on, I'll take care of this, alright? It's going to be fine. Geri, Freki, guard."
Dark eyes searched bright blue for a handful of heartbeats, before Reivon nodded and hurried off with the two massive wolves on her heels, leaving Klark and Leksa to turn their attention back to the waiting 'She-vohn', which was perhaps one of the strangest names that Leksa had ever before heard. She couldn't help but wonder if all maunon had just strange names, if such things were more commonplace in the Old World, as strange and irrelevant as it currently was. She didn't wonder, overmuch, about what Klark would do now. It was her friends, her closest friends, that had been taken, after all, and Leksa wasn't unwilling to believe any remaining soldiers would likely have been killed -though she wouldn't consider it a guarantee- as a result. But this woman, provided the two Arkers were telling the truth, was just a fisa, one sent to ensure their health and one that had acted quickly to try and protect the girls without regard for her own safety, even if she hadn't been willing to use a weapon to do it.
Klark wouldn't order her executed, nor kill her personally. And that would have been a guarantee even before Reivon had pled the woman's case, which is clearly what the 'mechanic' had been trying to do in her own way.
"…so, Siobhan, was it? Irish, then." Klark said after a moment, meeting the woman's eyes as best she could through the mask, and Leksa hummed softly to herself, recognizing that word for a people from the Old World, somewhere across the eastern sea.
"Siobhan Myukulak, and yes." came the slow, hesitant response, and it was Klark's turn to hum softly, tilting her head to the side with a faint frown of thought. Seemingly umprompted, or perhaps prompted by the expression, the woman continued. "I married a Polish-American man."
"Oh, that makes sense then. So, Ray said you were sent by your president to make sure that my girls were safe after they landed?" Klark asked, tone not quite conversational, but a damn sight closer than Leksa ever would have been able to manage with a maunon, soldier or not, and the helmeted head bobbed.
"Everything on the Ark is over 100 years old, we had no idea how well it would function as you all came down, and we had no idea how you would react to being on Earth, health wise. Even as quickly as we could get back to Mount Weather with the trucks, it might not be fast enough to keep someone alive if something had happened. The idea was that I'd at least be able to stabilize someone long enough to get them back to the infirmary."
Klark nodded at that, as did Leksa and -she was sure, without looking- that Kostia, Caris, and Ontari (provided none of them had gone with Reivon and Oktavia) were all nodding as well. The chain of logic made sense, the decision was a reasonable one, and despite her enmity with the maunon, sending along a fisa to make sure Reivon and Oktavia would have help on hand was a decision she approved of on moral grounds as well. She had, after all, brought several herself for the same reason.
"Hmm. Well then." Klark sighed, pushing herself to her feet. "I would like to ask you all about the people inside the Mountain, but I think that would put you in a bad spot, and I don't think you'd tell me much of significance or actionable importance anyway. You might not be a soldier, but I don't doubt you're loyal to your people. So I want you to take a message back to your president: this is his freebie, since he didn't know I'm here and he tried to make sure my girls were safe and healthy, so I owe him. Tell him that the Ark is mine, it's people are mine, and I'm not going to let them come to harm. If he wants to talk, I'll do it happily, but if he tries to take any more of my people, I'll burn that Mountain to the ground around his ears."
That was…not the sort of thing Leksa would expect to hear from Klark, but then again, hadn't she already known that Klark was more than willing to kill for the sake of those she considered hers? Hadn't she already known that Klark was near-fanatically devoted to their well-being, to their safety and the surety of their future? Small wonder that such things would be all the more intense, having found her friends -naked, defenseless- being hustled away by a people that were more enemies than not, and small wonder she would have an intense desire to avoid having it happen again with potentially worse results.
And yet, entirely within Klark's nature, with the same breath that she threatened destruction, she'd offered the chance for diplomacy. Not that Leksa thought for even the slightest moment that the maunon would take it, but it spoke well to to Klark's heart all the same, that she would make such an offer even in such an intense moment as this.
Siobhan's face was invisible, but Leksa swore she saw the woman's body hunch deeper into the folds of her suit at Clarke's stone-sharp stare. She didn't argue. Didn't plead her own case. She stared at the ground and nodded, once, in submission.
"Hmm. Good." Klark sighed, standing up straight again and looking around at the surrounding warriors, eyes and bearing still firm as she reclaimed her spear from Leksa's grasp. "Strip the maunon bodies of weapons, then load them as best you can into one of the trucks for her to take home." she ordered, and when there were murmurs of protest and discontent she silenced it by sharply rapping the but of her spear on the road beneath her feet. "They might be your enemies, but that's no reason not to let their wives and children say goodbye. Be better than them. Now get to it."
A gesture from Leksa had them moving to obey, no matter how unhappy they were about it, while Siobhan was firmly directed to sit in the driver's position of one of the vehicles and stay there until they were finished. Klark, Leksa, Ontari, Caris, and Kostia, the later three of whom had, in fact, remained behind -to witness Klark's decisions, Leksa was willing to wager- moved several feet off to watch the work and talk in relative privacy.
"Being better and letting them have their rites is one thing, Klark, but why are you really doing this? Why spare the woman? Because she's not a warrior, because Reivon asked you to?" Ontari asked the question on all their minds bluntly, and Klark huffed softly.
"All of the above, in part, yes. I'd like to think we've become close enough that that isn't much of a surprise to you all, either." she retorted, grunting softly at the chorus of confirmations and nods that went around the group then. "Good, I'm glad. Because I very much don't intend to change that aspect of myself. That being said, there are a few quotes I'd share in response. I don't know of Alexia Pramheda saved them for you, but here they are. First, 'the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy.' Second, 'Do I not destroy my enemies by making them my friends?'. Third, 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals upon his head.'"
"You are attempting to cause some manner of internal conflict amongst the maunon?" Caris asked, as close to incredulous as Leksa had ever seen her, a feeling that she could well sympathize with. It seemed quite insane, ambitious at the very least, and likely to fail. "Even if it were possible, what purpose would it serve?"
"What I want is for people inside the Mountain to know that the people living outside of it aren't psychopathic savages who are little more than animals. I want every group they send out of the Mountain to hurt our people to look at them and think 'but they let Siobhan go, when she was defenseless.' I want them to look at every dead warrior and say 'they treated our dead with respect'.' I'm going to make them see you, us, as people, and once they start doing that, they'll be well on the way to wanting peace." Klark spoke with a passion that called to a part of Leksa, the idealistic young woman that she so rarely was given the opportunity to indulge, gesturing broadly even as she clearly struggled to keep her voice down. "What I want is for the fighting and the killing to stop. Siobhan is going to go home with a truck full of dead people. People are going to ask questions, of her and her leaders. They're going to want to know why their enemies treated them so well. Why their enemies didn't slaughter an unarmed woman. They're going to doubt, they're going to push for more information, and whatever world their leaders have built for them inside that mountain is going to start showing cracks, and when the time comes -if it's necessary- I'm going to hammer those cracks until they shatter."
Then she sighed, softly, subsiding as her lips quirked in that familiar half-smile that made Leksa warm. "Besides, I don't like the thought of killing an unarmed doctor. It's not right, now how I was taught. I can't do it, and I can't let it be done and feign ignorance either. Call me soft, I guess, but it's who I am."
"Not soft. Steel covered in silk doesn't make the steel any softer, only cushions it until it needs to be drawn." Leksa denied instantly and honestly, shaking her head firmly. "The fact that you are willing to show mercy is a good thing, a noble thing, so long as you can temper it, and I have faith that you will do exactly that." she reached out and squeeze one of Klark's hands gently, winning her a small, tired smile, before continuing in a more determinedly brighter tone. "So, Reivon and Oktavia. They seem to be just as you described them, even as briefly as I've known them. I look forward to becoming more familiar with them once we get back to Polis. You mentioned a faster way?"
"…yeah. We need to get back to the Tomb of the Unknown, and from there we'll be able to get back to Polis almost instantly. But you already knew that, didn't you?" Klark sighed, a twitch of her wrist sending Leksa's hand, which had still been on her own, falling away. Leksa nodded slowly, swallowing heavily if subtly, as she slowly pulled it back.
"I did, yes. When you disappeared without warning to us or to your devoted Companion," Leksa didn't tend to fall into anything that could be considered emotional blackmail or pressure, but Klark had disappeared without a word to them, and reminding her of that fact would also remind her that Leksa wasn't the only one keeping secrets. Judging from Klark's guilty grimace, the point was well-made. "devices left by Pramheda told us where you had gone. We found the hidden room within her mausoleum, saw that it had taken you first to 'New York' and then to the heart of the Tomblands. Hundreds of miles in moments, and even if I hadn't believed those devices, seeing you here and now would let me know you had other means of arriving."
"I could have just snuck out of the palace and used horses to get here, like you did." Klark pointed out, playing Breaker's advocate, and Leksa snorted.
"Klark, I care for you greatly, but you're not sneaking out of my palace and my city, with horses, without anyone noticing. You've come far in your training, but not that far. Besides, that would mean that you had known ahead of time that Reivon and Oktavia were coming, which would mean you could already speak to your people and tell them it is safe to leave their home and come here."
"Which you couldn't, or you would have told us so that we could start preparing our people to integrate with those from your home." Kostia added confidently, and with good reason.
"Besides which, you wouldn't have had them come down if you couldn't guarantee their safety once they arrived." Ontari finished, folding her arms across her chest, and every eye instinctively turned to Caris to see if she had anything to add.
"I hardly know you well enough to speak on your nature so confidently as my sisters, so I will simply say that I am looking forward to witnessing more of you." was all she said, with the slightest of shrugs, and Klark gave a somewhat incredulous laugh, offering a hand.
"Clarke, nice to meet you properly, I guess. Congratulations on becoming Chosen, you earned it." she responded, and Caris nodded as she accepted the hand and shook it firmly.
"Caris kom Sangedakru. I look forward to becoming close with you, as my sisters are."
They separated, the group turning their attention back to the steadily-filling vehicle and the pile of weapons that was just as steadily being collected by the Sentinels to be transported back to their lands. Soon enough Reivon and Oktavia had returned, fully dressed once again, and farewells exchanged -and Klark's message reiterated- with Siobhan before the maunon was sent on her way with a mixture of displeasure and bemusement on all sides. Firm instructions were given to the warriors, that they were to return to Tondisi and to say only that maunon had been encountered and killed, and that anything else was declared a secret by the collected Chosen, and for a time there was little more than silent contemplation as everyone thought about how the world had shifted once again.
Then Leksa finally sighed, both wishing to move quicker and to put things off indefinitely at once, and spoke. "Let us make our way back to Polis, Klark. You said we needed to talk, and you're right. We have much to talk about that each of us knows about, and I have the feeling that once we do so, we will find a great deal more needs to be talked about as a result."
"Yeah…yeah, let's go. Let's figure out who the girls are riding with and get moving. We have a lot to do."