who the hell can remember which way the east wind blows

[nonsibi]

WHO: Bellamy and/vs Lexa
WHAT: there's a mudslide in the mountains. Lexa is in peril. Bellamy rescues her. this is actually what happens and there are no other motivating factors to either of their choices or this situation whatsoever.
WHEN: NOW (Bloomingtide).
WHERE: mountainous mudslide region
NOTES: people are angry and they're going to say mean things. also Lexa's got a broken leg and no one likes each other.

Back pressed flat against a tree, Bellamy unsheathes his dagger. Not his weapon of choice, but it's a more unobtrusive movement than going for his sword. He's careful about it anyways, going slow, lest the scrape of steel against leather should carry across the short distance between him and his target. The worst of the noise will be lost in the rain--up here, shitty weather is still holding out, and the constant rainfall has mobilized the rocky soil into thick and viscous mud. Bellamy is soaked well past the knee, and the sodden weight of his cloak's hood lays heavy against his head, doing little to protect him from the rain.

But he's better off than the Avvar, which is a thought he thinks with some satisfaction.

No time for gloating: he stills again at the sound of voices, hand closed tight around the handle of the dagger. Some of the noise is from above--far above, where the narrow path winds close to the rock. The drop down the cliff's face has been softened by the mud, making it treacherous by foot or horse. A thick mass of it has washed out the path entirely, carried rocks and larger boulders along with it. That mess is down here, under a sludge and ooze of mud still flowing down the side like a thickened waterfall.

The sound of voices is what brought him over here in the first place, with nobler intentions, at first. Hostility had set in as soon as he'd gotten near enough to assess the situation and everyone involved. To say that Bellamy doesn't like the Avvar would be to put his true feelings lightly. He hates the Avvar. After the shit that had been pulled on them, those feelings aren't likely to change. He doesn't trust them. He has no intention of helping this set, though they could sorely use the aid. Most of their number are clumped at the top of that cliff, while one--carried over the cliff's edge by the mud and rock--lies at the bottom, leg twisted at a grim angle. So, injured, but still likely to be hostile. And likely to be his insurance out of this, because the second they see him, they'll attack. That's just what they do.

He's not thinking of the Western Approach any longer. Eyes narrowed, Bellamy stares at the treeline opposite his hiding place. He listens to the guttural voices calling to each other and thinks of Montemps, of Clarke, of the sick grim certainty of the task that was left to them, their only option, choice narrowed down thanks to betrayal. The Avvar with the broken leg has dragged herself away from the worst of the mud. Her breath is thick with pain; he can hear it. His jaw tight, Bellamy counts down from five.

Then he pushes away from the tree, ducks low, and seizes hold of her, arm curled around her neck, high enough to force her chin back, his dagger at her throat.

Comments

[heda]

Lexa is cursing herself for not being quick enough--for not seeing the signs before the mud came down, for not getting away from the cliff's edge before it collapsed beneath her. Delsin, her nearest guard, had grabbed for her, had dove into the mud to try to snatch her back out to safety, but its force was too great and she watched as he was plowed under as she was borne away. She looks for him now, scanning the mud and rubble with as much focus as she can muster just in case he has managed to survive. It takes all of her concentration, breath harsh through grit teeth, fists clenched against the dirt at her hips.

She knows without trying that there is no way she will be able to put weight on her leg, that it smashed beyond what will or toughness can overcome. Dragging herself away from the slide is the best she can do, crawling into the lee of a rock and a couple trees. Protected, but out of sight of her retinue up above. She can hear them shouting, and after a moment to brace herself she tries to fill her lungs full enough to shout back. Her voice comes out weak and rough, a painful wheeze that tells her she's cracked a rib or two as well. There is no way it reaches them.

She's about to try again when she hears a swish of cloth and a foot coming unstuck from mud just behind her, too late. She curses as the arm comes around her throat, the knife blade touched to her skin, too late, again. Distracted, careless. Pain is no excuse.

But she can berate herself for it later, for now she must gauge height and weight, listen to his breath and feel his grip on her and on the knife, and get a picture of her attacker in her mind. Not Avvar, that is for certain. Not with that heavy step, not with the wool of his sleeve and the bits of plate armor she can feel jutting into her back. He would kill her, she thinks, his hands are steady enough, but it isn't his first plan or he would have done it already.

The dagger at her thigh was ripped away during her fall, she has a few others, including one hidden at the small of her back. She tries to shift her hand in that direction as discreetly as possible, letting it curl behind her like it's a natural result of being tugged up and back like this, her chin tipped to the sky.

"What do you want?"

[nonsibi]

"Immunity." He keeps his arm tight, not tight enough that he's cutting off her breath but tight enough to keep her in place--tight enough that he could cut off her breath if he wanted to, and tight enough so she knows that's true. The way he's holding her keeps her back pressed to his chest. "But first you tell me how many men you got up there, and what they're armed with."

He'd counted. Of course he'd counted, snatching glimpses. More than he can safely handle alone, with a range of weapon he hadn't had time to take account of, plus more hidden, probably. And more men hidden too, most likely. The way the Avvar can melt in and out of the treeline is just one more thing to hate about them.

He tightens his grip on his knife, steeling himself. He can always run if he needs to, but he can buy himself a surer guarantee. First things first: "And if you're thinking about going for a knife," he tells his captive, voice pitched low and threatening, "you better think twice about it. You stab me, I'll do worse. No poison, no knives. You cooperate, I'll turn you loose when we're done, and that's a damn good offer, by your standards."

[heda]

She recognizes his voice. It takes a moment, but only a moment; it's a pretty distinctive voice. Hers perhaps isn't so much, and Lexa isn't sure if he has recognized her yet. She's basically coated in mud, he has only seen the back of her head, and it's not as if Bellamy has ever made much effort to distinguish one Avvar from another anyway, in her experience. She's not sure what to take from his plan and his words. Your standards sounds like it's about Montemps, but there's threat instead of that sour mockery in his tone, no sarcastic use of her title...it could go either way.

Lexa debates whether to enlighten him. She would make herself a more valuable bargaining chip for whatever deal it is he wishes to make, and that could make the situation worse or ensure her survival. For all his bullheadedness, the elder Blake has shown some understanding of basic political realities, like not stabbing her in the middle of an Inquisition ball. Whether that carries over to now she's just not sure. She hates not being sure.

The hand going for the knife doesn't quite stop, because that would be admitting she was aiming for a weapon to begin with, but it does brace on the dirt between them like that was her plan all along. She can still get to the blade if she needs to, probably, but it may be that she won't need to. And as much as she'd never admit it, she'd prefer not to kill Bellamy if she doesn't really need to. She'd prefer not to kill anybody if she doesn't really need to, but especially Clarke's best friend. She grimaces, unseen.

"There are too many," she says, and her voice is still hoarse, harder to place without effort or hint but not impossible, "You cannot escape them or fight them off. But they have no interest in you. They will only attack when they see that you threaten me. Leave now with your life and they will not follow."

[nonsibi]

"Too many's not a number," Bellamy says through his teeth, "and I'm running out of patience. How many."

He's not trying to place her voice. He's not trying to identify her. He's listening to the sound of the Avvar's voices, what he can make out over the sound of the rain. He never bothered to learn more than a handful of their tongue. It all sounds the same, harsh and brusque. If she doesn't come back, they'll track her, which means they'll track him. It'll take them some time to work their way down from the cliff. The weather will impede him, just as much as it will them, but he'll at least have a head start on them. Slow, if he's dragging her with him. Her complacency isn't likely to last no matter what advantage he has over her.

But if he gives her up, he doesn't trust that they'll just let him walk away. Why would he trust that? Why would he ever trust the word of an Avvar ever again, on anything?

"I'm leaving," he tells her, "with you. And you're gonna tell them that. You're gonna tell them that you're coming with me, and they wait a day before they follow. Sun up, to sun down. I'll leave them a trail so they can find you. That's the way it's gonna be. And if you say anything else to them, I'll know," and he presses his knife against her throat to underscore that point. "Got it?"

[heda]

"No."

Lexa has had another moment or two to consider her predicament now, and that is her decision. The truth is that she and her people would have had no reason to harass Bellamy on his way, let alone to attack him, but it is plain that he will not believe that and though she might have been inclined to grant some leeway in his dealings with her out of respect for his status as Clarke's friend, his apparent willingness to attack random injured Avvar out of fear alone does not exactly stir her sympathy. Bad enough that she is caught as she is, but her pride will not allow her to comply any further, let alone to lie to her guards and give herself up as a hostage without resistance.

Her leg burns and aches at once, a pulsing, stabbing pain that has not lessened since it happened. That she cannot take a full breath without pain is not helping. She needs to get out of this quickly, before it all gets the better of her, and allowing him to drag her along for a day would likely add both insult and injury to injury.

"Either leave me now and I will see to it that you are not followed, or kill me and be sure that my people will hunt you to the ends of Thedas. A chance, or none. Make your choice and get on with it."

[nonsibi]

How's this for choice:

Bellamy keeps his arm around her neck. But he does take the knife from her throat and shoves forward against her, to make room for him to lean down and punch her, hard, right on the leg, the one that's still wrenched at a grim angle. He does all this without letting go of her neck, so that when she writhes in sudden pain--which she will, tough Avvar or not, that's not going to feel good--he'll still have her. Just in case, he claps his other hand on his upper arm, in a firmer chokehold, her back pressed against his chest and her head against his shoulder.

"Tell them," he orders, loud, so she can hear him over her scream. "Now."

[heda]

Lexa does scream. She bites it off as quickly as she can, loathe to give him the satisfaction, but it's impossible to hold it back altogether. Her leg is already mangled badly enough that without magical intervention it will likely never heal right and the blow is viciously aimed. Even once she's gone quiet again she isn't really silent, breathing through her nose as hard and loud as if she'd just run a race (the irony isn't lost on her).

But it does not change her mind. She gives her head a shake, a rough jerk to one side and back. "No."

The scream carried the way her voice earlier could not, and there is no doubt that her companions up the cliff have heard it. There has been a flurry of noise and movement, difficult to track precisely but clearly indicating alarm. They will still need to find a safe way down, but now they are definitely coming.

[nonsibi]

He's almost glad that they'll have company. It'll be a better way to exercise his anger than punching her in the leg again. Punching her again is actually what he wants to do, bad enough that his fingers twist into a fist again, with a creak of leather and tight-wound cloth. But under the surge of his anger, Bellamy feels a spark of recognition.

There's no way. He has to see for himself. With one ear out for the movements of the Avvar above them, Bellamy leans around so he can see the face of his prisoner. He's gotten really good at picking out features from under smears of mud and blood, good enough that he recognizes her.

It should be funnier, that the thing that got him to recognize Lexa was her refusal. Refusal has marked his interactions with the Avvar so far: refusal to let them be, then a refusal to help them. Lexa's hand had been in both of those, especially the second. Of course she's refusing again. Of course she's not just going to make this easy.

"Well, what d'you know." He doesn't have half as much mud on his face, but when he laughs--once, short--his teeth stand out white. "Fancy meeting you here, heda."

There's the sarcastic use of her title she was looking for.

[heda]

It's almost a relief when Bellamy finally recognizes her. That's a testament to how much pain Lexa is in that peeling away one layer of this game doesn't feel like losing an advantage so much as gaining some small piece of her focus back, one less variable to consider, one less ball to try to keep in the air as her arms tire.

She has been braced for another strike, teeth grit against the expectation of even greater agony. She would have assumed more would come with recognition, and probably it will. But first he is laughing in her face, and that is the opening she has patiently waited for.

Lightning-quick she rears back and slams forward, driving her skull against his in a vicious head-butt. She reaches up for his knife-hand in the same moment, grabbing and twisting his wrist. If he were unarmored it would be enough to make him drop the blade, but as it is it may only be sufficient to ensure he doesn't accidentally slit her throat while reeling from the blow. She grabs the dagger from the sheath at her back with her other hand and jams it into the meat of his thigh where his knee is planted by her hip. They're not killing blows, not unless she's gotten (un??)lucky and hit an artery, but the hope is to knock him out, or at least to buy her a little time for her guards to arrive.

[nonsibi]

The crack of her head against his is the first part of it, abrupt enough that he misses the tell; forceful enough that stars burst over his vision. Bellamy reels back, chokehold loose. His gauntlet and handwrap give his wrist an extra measure of steadiness, a brace against the worst of her grip, so he keeps hold of his dagger--

Then she drives her knife into his thigh.

The pain rushes everything back into focus. He shouts; her hand is still on her knife and her knife is in his leg and Bellamy shoves her forward, enough to dislodge her grip on the knife, if not the knife itself. She might have his dagger safely away from her, but he uses his weight, pushes up from his knees to drive her forward, keep her hand away from her knife so she can't yank it out and stab him again. A fresh wave of pain spikes through his thigh and he grits his teeth against it, tightens his arm around her throat, in the crook of his elbow. And he squeezes, flexes his arm and squeezes the fucking air right out of her throat, spurred on by the pulse of pain in his leg.

[heda]

She tries to roll away, to fling herself free of him even if it's only a foot of distance put between them. He got his hold on her the first time because he had the element of surprise; even if her mobility is severely limited it won't be easy to recapture her and get that arm around her neck a second time.

But only if she can get free now, and despite the moment she has bought herself with the butt and the stab it isn't enough. She knows how to execute a headbutt without incapacitating herself too, but he recovers more quickly from the stab than she'd hoped, and she doesn't anticipate the shove forward. It puts her off balance and jostles her leg, another sharp spike of pain she can only push through so much. She has nearly ducked free when his arm tightens again. Too late.

Lexa punches back at him, first with her elbows driven at his sides and his gut if she can reach it, then, more desperately, clawed knuckles aimed for his eyes, his nose, and finally claws, short blunt nails still scrabbled at whatever bit of his face she can tear at as her own goes red and then purple beneath the mud.

[nonsibi]

He leans as far back from her scrabbling hands as he can, letting up as little of the pressure on her throat as possible. It's not entirely effective, and he's winded from absorbing her more calculated blows, blows he'd absorbed with grunts but which are now starting to ache, adding to the ache in his leg where her knife is still buried. Get it out, but he doesn't dare, not before he's had a chance to look at it, not before she's as cowed as he's going to get her to be.

Their struggling has plowed up the mud around them. Bellamy keeps his arm tight, Lexa pinned under his weight. "You," he rasps, close to her ear, "are going to tell them. Not to follow. Do it."

And all at once, he lets up on his chokehold, enough that she'll be able to suck in a big breath, a dizzying glut of oxygen. Methodical, as she's reeling from that, Bellamy grabs her hand--first the one that had stabbed him, then the other. Loose now from getting choked out, easy to manipulate. He goes for one of the pouches at his belt and comes up with a cord of leather. Her arms are wrenched behind her back, leaving his intentions clear.

[heda]

Lexa does not do it. Not because she's seeing stars--though she is--and not because she's gasping for breath--though she is that too--and not even because gasping for breath and filling her lungs causes a new flare of pain in her chest as it pushes on ribs cracked by collision with a rock or five. It's none of those things, and that becomes clear as she continues to not do it even once she is breathing semi-normally again, the gasping rasp of air through her throat less pronounced.

She tries to fight his effort to bind her hands, but is too slow and there's too little strength left in them. She finds reserve enough to crack her head back against his and drive another elbow into his chest, but the blow to the head hurts herself nearly as much, and all she is really doing is delaying what now seems inevitable, unless her guards make a sudden arrival. There is no sign to indicate that they will, not even to her eyes. Not that she tells him that.

"You're a fool," she grits out, contempt in every syllable spat through her teeth. "My guards and I had no quarrel with you until you touched me. Your sister and the rest have lived in peace on my lands for months. I will give you a final chance, Bellamy Blake. Put down that cord and leave now, and I will forgive this, for the sake of peace between our peoples." (And Clarke.)

[nonsibi]

Octavia. That mention is enough to still his hands, at least. It works better than slamming her head against his, a weaker impact this time, like the sharp dig of her elbow.

If he takes Lexa, what happens to the others? The other Avvar, they'll--what? Do nothing, unless Lexa commands it. And if he has Lexa, if they're chasing after her- It's a gamble. It's stupid. It doesn't get them anywhere, and maybe it puts Octavia and the others in danger, and maybe it doesn't, but the uncertainty of that is nearly enough.

Nearly. Because then Lexa says forgive this, and Bellamy remembers what it was like to stand alone, in Montemps. He remembers Clarke's arms around him before she left. He remembers--before they did what they did, before they did what they had to do, to survive, to save their people--he remembers all of it. And he remembers himself, then; he shoves his forearm against the back of Lexa's head and shoves her roughly forward, and loops the cord around her wrists.

"I don't need forgiveness from you." He spits his words with equal venom. "You don't get to talk to me about peace. You left us. And we didn't die. So we're your problem now, Lexa. Me, I'm your problem. And I want to know what you're doing hanging around here again. So you're coming with me."

Broken leg or not. His fingers are quick with the knots, even though the last crack of her head has him dizzy and he can feel his pulse in his leg. He pulls the cords cruelly tight.

"We don't have that far to go. But if I was you, I would save my breath. Don't talk to me."

[heda]

Hanging around here again draws a roll of her eyes but even had Lexa been inclined to explain herself to Bellamy before she certainly isn't now. Not because he said not to talk, but because nothing good can come of pointing out that they are near the border of her lands, and that she was riding on a commonly-used trail to visit a village troubled by earlier mudslides. This is not a man she wants knowing where more of her people live, not while he is behaving like this.

(She'll wonder, later, if he was always this way. If Clarke was wrong about him, if her trust was simply misplaced. Or if Montemps broke something in him the way it did Clarke. Maybe in some way he really is her problem. [But Clarke doesn't go around setting random injured Avvar on fire, just her.])

Lexa does her best to resist being manhandled, but it's a token effort at this point. Rocking forward a little less when shoved, pushing back against his arms. The way he wrenches hers together pulls on her ribs and she bites her already-bloody lip to keep silent, trying to arrange her hands in such a way as to create a tiny bit of space that can be exploited later. She's entirely capable of breaking her own thumb if necessary.

"I can't walk," she claims. It could be true. She hasn't tried, and certainly she shouldn't. Maybe she could hop with his help, but at best it's sure to be excruciating and slow and even more difficult with her hands tied behind her back. She's certain that if she got a chance to escape she could force herself to give it a go over at least a short distance, however unlikely, but he doesn't need to know that. "You don't even have a horse, do you? You haven't thought any of this through."

[nonsibi]

Bellamy's mouth tightens. Behind them, in the trees, water spills suddenly off of where it was collecting in a leaf. The sound is brighter than the steadier spatter of the rainfall, bright enough to catch his attention. The noise of the Avvar has died off, which means they'll be here just as fast as they can be. If she won't cooperate, she doesn't leave him a lot of choice.

Abruptly, he seizes Lexa by the shoulder and pulls her back toward him again. Then he slams the butt of his dagger against her head. Once will be good enough. He knows where to strike, lucky for her.

When Lexa wakes up, she's tied to a tree. It's still raining, but the rain has slowed and turned softer, and the trees above are a dense enough canopy to slow the worst of it. There's a mountain horse some safe distance from her, tied to another tree. He's been given enough slack to nose at the ground, whereas Lexa's bonds are very tight.

And, in profile: Bellamy. He's got his foot braced on a rock and he's pouring water over the wound in his leg. The blood has slowed, at least, mostly dotted on the cloth he was using to apply pressure just a few minutes ago. Lexa's knife lays on the ground beside him, the blade washed clean and glinting in the rain.

If he's noticed that she's awake, he doesn't show it. Even in profile, his mouth is pulled grim and tight as he splashes more water over the wound.

[heda]

She doesn't do much to show that she is awake, anyway. It comes on her gradually enough not to jolt up in a way that might draw the eye, awareness seeping back in, pain filtering through unconsciousness and tugging her free of its hold. It takes her a moment to make it through the haze but she figures out what has happened quickly enough. She lets her head loll still, trying to sneak a glance up at the sky to determine how long she has been out.

Lexa tests his knots, too, subtle tugs on the ropes, shifts to find some space to move. Unfortunately, he's good at this part. She spends a little while longer sitting, playing dead, considering her options. Unarmed, unable to run, and tightly tied, her only shot is either to lure him near enough to knock him out and take his knife, or to convince him somehow to release her. Or she could wait until they're moving again, she remembers; he has a destination in mind. This seems like her best option, and so after a few minutes more to keep turning it over in her mind until she is confident, she feigns waking, jerking upright and looking around, eyes wide and then narrowing.

It affords her her first real look at where they are, and though it is difficult to tell one random clearing from another, she can orient their position by the mountains, and frowns. This is not the way to his people's camp. Skyhold, then? But to what end? She wants to know without having to ask.

"There is a plant around here that will prevent infection," she calls over to him after a moment to come up with a half-assed idea, "Untie me and I'll help you find it."

[nonsibi]

He shoots only a peripheral glance in her direction when she starts awake, enough to make sure his knots hold her. They will; they do. Knots are a steady easy thing.

Less easy will be keeping control. It's not that Bellamy thinks that Lexa will overpower him. Untied, she could kick his ass, if he gave her the chance, if he didn't stab her in the gut or go for his crossbow and put an arrow through her eye. Avvar are vicious, but he can be vicious, too. As long as she's tied up, as long as she cooperates--as long as he ignores her, which is what he should do, but her words get a huff of laughter out of him as he dribbles more water onto the wound in his leg.

"Like hell there is." The water stings. The crinkle at the corners of his eyes and mouth, that's as much pain as Bellamy shows, imperceptible from the distance she's at "I think I know enough about your idea of help not to take you up on that. I'm doing fine."

[heda]

"In weather like this that wound will rot in two days, maybe three at most," Lexa continues, ignoring his refusal and his snark. "Even if you manage to keep out the mud you will never keep it dry. But I suppose if you're lucky you will only lose the leg."

What she really wants is to get him to say "ha ha we won't be out in this rain for two days" so that she can have a better sense of where they're going. She is at most mildly concerned at his possibility of infection, and there really is a plant, if it comes to that. If he'd even trust her then. Clarke can hardly blame Lexa if he dies because he didn't bother to prevent infection. Right?

[nonsibi]

"Much as I'd think you'd like to see that--" He shoves the stopper back in the water skin and drops it on the ground. The slosh is mostly covered by the pissing rain, dripping and spattering and sloshing all on its own. And now Bellamy looks over at Lexa, flatly, as he swings his leg back down onto the ground. "We'll be out of this rain in less than three days. Sorry to disappoint you."

He heaves himself to his feet, teeth set against any grunts of pain. It hurts, of course, to put weight on it, to flex muscle enough to go over to Hector and dig in one of the horse's saddlebags. It's dark enough and she's tied up far away enough that she'll likely miss any wincing.

"Besides, I'd trust a mage over you any day," he calls to Lexa, with his back to her. "Now stop talking to me."