Us Against Them. Maybe.

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Jaga wasn't sure how many days she'd been out on her own in the woods. Had it just been a few days, or had it been more than a week? She wasn't sure. All she knew was that Heda Lexa was dead, their supposed new Heda was in hiding, and Skaikru had come into Polis with strange discs people had been eating that apparently made them unable to feel pain. When people started getting nailed to planks of wood, Jaga had run. The idea of being pain-free was tempting, but Jaga suspected there was a cost. The people who'd swallowed that thing seemed mesmerized.

She'd packed a few things into a bag she could sling over her back--a change of clothes for when she needs to wash one set, a couple of waterskins, supplies to help build fire, among other things--and taken her bow and arrows, and left, hunting her own food and finding her own water. She was doing well on her own until the day the storms hit. They come from nowhere and drenched her to the skin in minutes. Jaga ran to the closest cave she knew of for cover and stripped off all her outer layers of clothing so they would dry faster.

She was crouched, starting to build a fire, when someone came running into her cave. She grabbed her bow and loaded an arrow without thinking, aiming at the other person from her crouched position... a shorter girl with mousy blonde hair who looked like a drowned rat (not that Jaga could compare, with her normally wild curls plastered to her skin), dressed like Skaikru. "Hod op!" she shouted. Stop.

Or was the other girl Skaikru? Was she one of the people who'd swallowed the discs? Both Skaikru and Trikru seemed to have gone crazy after people started swallowing those things. Normally, Jaga would have solely blamed Skaikru, but now her options were whittled down to those who had taken the disc, and those who hadn't. For the first time in months, Jaga wasn't sure who to trust. She narrowed her eyes, and before the other girl could speak, she lowered her bow and shot an arrow into the other girl's thigh. This would tell her if the other girl was one of the mesmerized.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG The mud sunk under her heels as she ran weaving through the trees. It had only just started raining and already she could hear and feel that the ground was anything but dry. The rain could have easily been the heaviest she had ever seen. It was surely the heaviest she'd been caught in. She tried to listen through the static of the rain for the sound of others but she couldn't hear any other footsteps apart from her own. She knew that she would also have no chance of seeing any further than a couple feet in front of her face. There wasn't going to be much chance of knowing if she was still with the others. There was even less chance of finding them again while it was raining so heavily. It wasn't the worst situation to happen. They were on their way to meet some of the people coming back to Arkadia from Polis. A group had already made it back, including the medics and now those who could were going to help get the injured back to camp as quickly as possible so that they could be treated properly. Not that it would be happening fast now with the change in weather. The storm had beat them. All Harper could do now was find shelter and wait it out. Hopefully the others would find shelter as well and they would come together later. A large structure came into view ahead of her. Her lips twisted into a smile, her eyes squinting as she looked up at the entrance to a cave. Cover. She didn't even think to see if it was already occupied, she could hardly see clear enough to even think about that. So she was truly surprised when there was suddenly an arrow pointed at her. She let out a short cry and automatically lifted her hands up next to her head. It was obviously a grounder and Harper opened her mouth slightly in worry when the other woman spoke. She hadn't been good at learning their language. She thought quickly, thinking of what the safest thing to say would be. Especially if the woman didn't speak English. Before she had a chance to speak, however, a sharp pain started in her thigh. The grounder's bow was now empty. I didn't even do anything! She thought but the pain was too intense to speak through. She heard herself whimper in pain. It wasn't as bad as Mount Weather, nothing really could be, but it definitely brought back memories she wished she could forget. There was pain in her lip as well and she realised she was biting it to hold back a scream. @jaga || Who needs to actually talk in a post?

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The girl from Skairkru didn't fall like Jaga expected her too, but she was clearly in pain, biting her lip. She wasn't one of the mesmerized. "Set raun der." Stay there. Jaga rose to her full height, her hand reaching back for another arrow, though she didn't load it right away. The other girl didn't look like a threat. Not right now, anyway. "Yu breik au seintaim?" Did you run away also?

She eyed the girl for another moment, deciding she obviously didn't speak Trigedasleng. "You no eat disc?" she said, opening her mouth to tap her tongue to two fingers to indicate what she meant. She didn't necessarily have any desire to interact with Skaikru, but her options were limited, and she doubted either of them would go back out into the weather willingly.

She could just kill the other girl. But she decided to see what happened.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG There was a moment in the pain where Harper did wonder why she hadn't fallen when the arrow had sliced into her thigh. She probably should have fallen, the amount of pain she was in was crazy. Thinking back to Mount Weather and the drill was enough, however, to answer that question. It had been so much worse and it was like he pain threshold had increased as a result of it. That could be a good thing, especially in a situation like this one. If she could fight through all the pain she was feeling then she could speak and have her hand ready to get her gun out. She could feel it tucked into the back of her pants and knew it was completely hidden under her shirt and jacket. The grounder woman said more things and Harper struggled to take some meaning from them. She had a faint feeling that the first was something about staying but she wasn't sure of much else. She moved one hand to press down where the arrow had entered her leg and used that movement to cover that of her other arm. Her fingers grazed against the shape of the gun. "Disk...?" Harper asked, happy at least to hear the other woman speaking some English, even if it was broken. "Oh, the chip? No! I didn't." She pursed her lips together, as much more as she could with them already smashed together from the pain. If the grounder didn't speak much English, it was going to be hard to communicate anything to her. She obviously had no idea that the City of Light was gone. It had only been destroyed two days before then. Of course, it wasn't exactly easy to communicate that to every grounder so quickly, so she wasn't surprised that this one didn't know. There was a thought of uncertainty about whether to even attempt to tell her, as it could be more trouble than it was worth. "I'm Harper. Do you understand English?" She decided that might be the best place to start. @jaga || PAIN!? YOU CALL THIS PAIN?! XD Harp ain't scared by an arrow.

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Chip? Jaga vaguely remembered those discs being called chips, but she hadn't stuck around much longer than she needed to. "Chip," she repeated, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes at this Harper person when she asked if she spoke English. Hadn't she just spoken it?! "I understand," she said, her tone flat, as if it should be obvious. After a moment, she re-sheathed her arrow. This girl wasn't a threat. And she was the first person Jaga interacted with since she'd fled Polis.

"You run from them seintaim, maus?" she asked, mixing languages, but thinking Harper would understand the gist of it. Maus. Mouse. That seemed appropriate. The girl in front of her was short and mousey. Even her hair color reminded Jaga of field mice. Almost no meat on them to speak of, but their bones sold for trinkets and jewelry.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG She understood English, that was something. Harper decided to assume that she could understand better than she could speak, as at that stage she didn't have much confidence in how much English the grounder could speak. "What's your name?" Harper then asked. She eyed the arrow that the other woman was still holding. The arrow in her leg was obviously a way for the grounder to be sure that Harper wasn't in the City of Light, another arrow wasn't needed for that. Her hand pulled at the fabric at the bottom of her shirt, preparing for the worst but the woman must have made some sort of decision in that moment, as she placed the arrow back in her quiver. It must have been the fear of another arrow keeping her standing as well as she had been as she then leaned back, her hand searching for something to support her. She couldn't be sure how much longer her leg would support her. Her other hand felt wet with blood that was seeping from the edges of the puncture, her leg throbbing with the pain. As strong as she was, it would really get to her eventually. Her hand brushed against rough rock. With cautious movements for more than one reason she took a small step backward and lowered herself to sit on the ground against a wall of the cave. The grounder spoke, a mix between English and the grounder language but it was close enough that Harper had no trouble understanding. Although her eyes widened a bit at being called a mouse, at least that's what she thought she heard. "No, I didn't run from them—did you call me a mouse?" She tilted her head to the side, the movement caused a sharp shot of pain to run through her leg. She bit her lip again while it passed. "The people, they aren't...zombies anymore." Really, Harper didn't have any better word to use to describe them. @jaga || Instead of saying 'brains' the zombies are saying 'key'

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Jaga ignored the question of her name, and watched as Harper slowly succumbed to her pain, winding up on the ground. She was almost impressed that Harper had picked up on her new nickname. Without knowing Trigedasleng, Harper could have strung the words together. Seintaimaus. But she didn't. "Maaaauuuuus?" she replied, drawing out every vowel sound and tilting her head as if she didn't understand what it meant to be called this strange word.

But then Harper said something Jaga really didn't understand, and she frowned. She didn't think her mother had ever taught her the word. "What is zombie?" she asked. She should go get her arrow back, but she had learned a while ago that sometimes taking them out caused an animal to bleed even more than it had been. She needed Harper alive to answer her questions for now. If she bled out later, oh well...

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG Harper noticed that on two occasions now that grounder had avoided giving her name. She decided to drop question. "Okay, you're 'The Grounder' then," she just muttered. It really didn't matter anyway what her name was, she had shot Harper with an arrow and had more arrows with her. That was probably the main thing that Harper should have been using her energy to focus on. She wanted to get out of this situation alive. Well, the grounder had definitely found a name for her at least. Whether that name did mean mouse and if it meant something completely different, Harper decided that she didn't care. She just rolled her eyes as the other woman repeated the word the way she did. By then, her hands were soaked with her own blood, so much so that she was sure it would take a week to wash the stains off. She might start looking like a zombie herself with all the blood. At that thought she smiled a bit. She had always loved ghost stories, it was why she could see the chipped people as zombies. The whole City of Light thing even with its lack of brain being eaten had made her feel uneasy for that reason, ghost stories were only when they were stories. Apparently though, the grounder had no idea what zombies were and Harper would have to describe those in the City of Light differently. "The people that ate the disks," she said, using the word that she remember the grounder had used at first. "They're better now." She would explain what a zombie was as well, as much as the grounder might not care. "A zombie is a monster from stories, a dead person who eats people. They don't seem to feel pain and so I thought the name worked for the people who had the chips." As much as she could without accidentally moving her leg, she shrugged. The rain was still pounding down outside of the cave. It was  going to be a long storm. @jaga || Jaga is great and adorbs as much as she put an arrow in Harp.

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Jaga felt her shoulders relax when Harper said the people who'd eaten the discs were better now. Maybe it was safe to return home now. Well, as close to a home as she had, now that TonDC lie in ruins. Harper further went on to explain a zombie, and Jaga found herself making as face at Harper, her expression scrunched in confusion. Zombies were from stories people told about dead people who could somehow eat people? That didn't even make sense. God, Sky People were morons. After a moment, she shook her head and muttered, "Yo koken. Branwoda." You're all crazy. Foolish.

She walked back over to the fire she'd been trying to build when Harper had come into the cave, suppressing a shiver as the winds gusted through the cave against her wet clothes and hair. She crouched in front of it, trying to work up some embers. "When skaikrasha over, you go," she said, gesturing out the cave one the word 'skaikrasha' to indicate the storm. She knew the English word for it, but didn't feel like making things easy on Harper. "How Polis now?" she added, wondering what the state of their capital was.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG There was a slight sense of relief when Jaga crouched down to start the fire. It was freezing and the jacket Harper was wearing did nothing to help against the icy winds that were blowing into the cave. Being cold on top of being in pain would do nothing to help her. She would have offered to help with the fire but Jaga would be able to start it a lot quicker than she could. She'd had to start a lot of fires since arriving on Earth but that didn't mean she was quick at starting them. "Don't worry, I will," Harper said, having no plans of staying with the grounder once she could safely leave the cave. She didn't hate grounders, of course she didn't, but the woman hadn't exactly been polite to Harper. And, well, Harper still had an arrow in her thigh. At the grounder's question, Harper couldn't do anything really but shrug. She hadn't been in Polis during the how take-over by Alie and she hadn't actually been to the capital since everything had ended. There had been no reason for her to go there. "I don't know about things personally, I was never there. From what I've heard things are calming down and they're destroying the wooden crosses--" Harper was definitely happy that she hadn't seen people hanging on them, just hearing about them had been bad enough. "--but there isn't a heda right now." She did feel a little bit proud over using the grounder word for "commander." She smiled and let her chin lift for a moment before looking back down at the starting fire. @jaga || Jaga should be proud of Harper for knowing the word "heda"

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Jaga shook her head, rolling her eyes when Harper said she didn't know much about what was happening in Polis personally. Of course, Jaga had to get stuck with a useless Sky Person. At least she knew they were destroying those crosses. When the Skaikru and Grounder mesmerized started nailing people to them, that had been the last straw for Jaga before she ran from Polis.

Jaga looked up when Harper mentioned there being no heda. At least Harper knew what they called their commander, but there had been no heda when Jaga left, as far as Jaga was concerned. Lexa was dead, and Ontari was claiming to be the heda, but she hadn't recited the names. "Ai don no wichnes de Ontari." I have no loyalty to Ontari. "No heda when I leave."

When she was satisfied that the fire she had started could withstand the wind without her careful tending to it, she stood and walked over to Harper. "Ontari still breathe?" she asked, wanting to know if Ontari was alive, before leaning down to yank the arrow out of Harper's thigh. There was none of the sudden gushing of blood when she puled it out to indicate Harper would bleed out in the cave anytime soon, though the blood flowed a little more. "Yu no blid au, Maus." You won't bleed out, Mouse. "You be ok." What a shame.

She walked back to the fire, wiping Harper's blood off her arrow on her pant leg before re-sheathing it. If she wanted to help, he could heat up one of her knives and cauterize Harper's wound, but Harper should know how to do that herself. If she was meant to survive this world, she should know.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG Harper noticed the eye roll. The head shake. Out of all the grounders she had met since coming to Earth, she had to say she had never met one that acted as rude as this one did. Warriors were dangerous but they weren't flat out rude. "I'm sorry I'm not helpful enough for you," Harper muttered, sarcasm dripping from the words. She didn't care if the grounder even heard her or not. Listening to the grounder speak, Harper found herself confused as she continued to switch between the grounder language and English. The grounder had proved to Harper by that point that she had an alright handle on the English language and Harper wondered if she really did struggle with it or if she was just being rude. Again, the grounder in general seemed rude so it wouldn't be a surprised to Harper in any way. "When did you leave? There was Ontari." With the fact that this grounder had escaped without being chipped, Harper really had taken the assumption that she would have had to have left quite early. Harper wasn't even sure if all the grounders knew that Ontari was dead, that wasn't something that she had to worry about. But then the grounder mentioned that she did know about Ontari. Harper didn't know what to think. Really, there was a part of her that wasn't one hundred percent sure if she was even hearing things correctly. She was in so much pain, she wondered if she could be hallucinating. The arrow could have even been poisoned. She answered anyway. "Ontari's de--" Harper's scream cut through the cave and hurt even her own ears. She hadn't even seen the grounder reach out to take the arrow. Too focused on her own thoughts and confusion she must have completely missed that fact. When the shock of the action faded and the pain of the arrow ripping through extra skin as it was pulled out seemed less urgent, Harper realised that the grounder had spoken again. She would be okay. Harper hoped that was what the grounder had said. "That wasn't poisoned, was it?" If it was, she was in trouble. If it wasn't then she had an idea of what she could do to help the wound now that the arrow was out, something she had seen Clarke do before on at least two occasions. She glanced at the fire and then up at the grounder. There was a likely chance that the grounder would have knives, Harper could at least hope that because she herself didn't. Harper only had her gun because, well, she hadn't expected that she would be in any real need of an extra weapon. The gun usually sufficed.  @jaga || Would Jaga have any knives on her that Harp would be able to notice?

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Jaga settled in close to the fire, reaching her hands toward it to warm her fingers. They were freezing. Fortunately, the wind was blowing most of the heat her way, so she would warm up soon. She listened to harper's question, her lip curling. Poison would taint her meat. And she knew how to kill without it. "I no need poison. I shoot straight," she said. Except she hadn't this time. There was no ceasefire, and Jaga could have easily shot the arrow through Harper's eye. Her aim was that good. But she hadn't. Maybe the scary time in Polis of slowly seeing everyone take that chip, as Harper called it, plus this long on her own had made her too hungry for interaction with someone reasonable. Well, reasonable in the sense that that chip hadn't made them crazy. Reasonable as Skairkru could be.

Her body ws starting to warm finally, and she could feel the edges of her hair starting to dry and curl again from the heat of the fire. "Answer question. Ontari still breath? I be gone from Polis maybe week. Maybe two." Truthfully, she'd lost track of time out here.

Tag: @harpermcintyre

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This is my Fight Song --TAKE BACK MY LIFE SONG, PROVE I'M ALRIGHT SONG Well, Harper wasn't poisoned. Yay! she thought but there was a lack of any real excitement or relief to the thought. Even if the arrow hadn't had any sort of poison on it, she still had a bleeding hole in her thigh and she would need to deal with it. It would have been a lot easier for her if she could quickly stumble back to camp and have one of the medics look at it. She glanced out the entrance to the cave. A cold wind blew in and her cheeks ached like they had been hit with needles. No, there was no way she would make it back to Arkadia. She would have to deal with the injury on her own whether she liked the idea of she didn't. She was strong. She could do it. She hoped. Then there was the fact that the grounder had said that she could shoot straight. A question broke through her thoughts about her injury and she asked it as a way to procrastinate making any sort of decision about asking for a knife to heat up for her wound. Even if she had seen Clarke do it, she didn't know if it was even the right thing to do. "Why did you shoot my leg and not just kill me?" It's not like you seem to care if I live. Really, the only reason that Harper could see for not being killed was that she could give the grounder information. And she hadn't being doing particularly good at that fact. The arrows were constantly being watched in the corner of her eye, she didn't trust the grounder not to actually kill her when her use was over with. It wasn't that she didn't trust grounders, it was that she didn't trust the woman in front of her. It was Harper's turn to roll her eyes. "I was telling you that's she was killed when you decided to pull the arrow out of my leg!" She snapped the words out, losing her patience in a way that she didn't normally do. Not that the whole situation could qualify for normal. Harper knew what she needed to do and she was going to stop herself from bleeding out to the point of death. Who knew how long the storm could really last. She used to arms to drag herself a bit closer to the fire and gave the grounder a stern look. She had to hope that she remembered correctly what Clarke had done. "Give me a knife." @jaga || Patience left: 0. Fucks given: 0.

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Jaga looked over from the fire when Harper asked why she hadn't killed her. There was no way Jaga could answer that truthfully. Harper wasn't even useful to her anymore. "Ai no get in taim skaikrasha wan daun." I don't know when the storm will stop. "No wanna smell you rot," she added. Though she supposed she could eat Harper if things got desperate enough.

Harper continued to say that Ontari had been killed. Jaga didn't feel anything. No grief. No reason to mourn. Not like she had when Lexa had died. She only cared about Ontari because she was curious what state Polis was in. Where would they find another natblida to lead them?

Harper sounded annoyed now, though, and while Jaga didn't particularly care, Jaga knew she needed to pay more attention too her now. And agitatedSky Person was a dangerous one. When Harper asked for a knife, Jaga scowled at her. Did she really expect Jaga to hand over a weapon? "I no stupid, Maus," she sneered.

Tag: @harpermcintyre