Faction Beta Day 1

[Clarke Griffin]

Klara
Monty Green
@jaga
@tomac

Her hand was gentle when she brushed her horse, making sure the mare - at least that was what she was told - was ready for a long day of riding and barely any rest. The team was not exactly how Clarke would have wanted it to be, but she would manage. She certainly managed a lot worse situations. What could a little tension do? Not much. They might even end up getting along - though part of her doubted that this would be based on trust. More based on the necessity for survival. Survival certainly made people do a lot of things. Leading her horse by the reigns to the four people she'd travel with for the next weeks, the assigned leader straightened, reminding herself that she was said to be Wanheda, the commander of death, once a figure of authority one that she intended to try and use for the benefit of their team.

"It's time to go." She announced. Clarke was ready. She had her pack, the horse was stably loaded with whatever she needed and her time away from Arkadia had taught her valuable survival skills. Klara had been there to help her for the rest. But even then, what happened after their time had scared Clarke further. She couldn't depend on her friend still seeing her as that, as Niylah had proven once. "We'll head passed Polis. Beyond there could be bunkers." She had decided on going towards a direction that had been populated by many people before the cataclysm. Many people meant there might be safe places. "From there on we'll find our way." She had decided not to set a too fixed plan as she wanted to be flexible. The finding of a bunker might throw them in a different direction altogether. "Is everyone ready to go? We don't have any time to loose."

[Klara]

As the TonDC orphans had followed her to Polis because she had wanted to keep an eye on them with everything happening, Klara was saying goodbye to them as she was going to leave for four weeks. It was the first time that she will let them alone for so long, so she was reassuring them, telling them that they won't totally be on their own because there will be people staying in Polis who will probably help them if they needed something. She was hugging the last orphan when Clarke announced that it was time to go so she pulled away and said goodbye one last time.

Then her pack on her back, she joined the other members of her team next to their horses. A team in which the only person she knew was Clarke, their leader, and Klara trusted her even if she hadn't seen her for a while. But she will try to get along with the others, or at least she will manage not to make enemies of them. They will need each other if they wanted to complete their mission. As Clarke explained where she had decided they would go, Klara found herself nodding, finding this idea logical and already thinking about the best path to take to go there, she wasn't in the team for that but she couldn't help thinking as a scout. Her thoughts got out of her mind at Clarke's question. "Ready to go whenever you want!" Klara said jumping on her horse, she was the first to answer to their leader.

Tags: Monty Green ; @jaga ; @tomac ; Clarke Griffin

[Monty Green]

Monty stood waiting to leave, he was as ready as he'd ever be for the next four weeks which he was sure would be far from pleasant. He didn't really feel like riding long distances on the back of a horse surrounded by three grounders that he knew nothing about. To make matters worse, he didn't even know how to ride a horse. They had horses in Arkadia, but Monty had never actually ridden one before but he figured that as long as he actually managed to stay on the animal then he should be fine... He watched as Klara climbed atop her own horse and he tried to mimic her actions. Although he couldn't quite grasp the technique at first, several attempts passed with him just uselessly jumping and trying to pull himself onto the animals back but his attempts failed. Ridiculous was a word that came to mind when he thought about how he must look, trying to climb onto a horse in front of four other people who obviously had past experience in riding. Eventually, out of breath and more than a little embarrassed, he managed to pull himself up onto the horse's back and breathed a sigh of relief at his small accomplishment.

"I'm good to go" he muttered in response to Clarke's words "how do you work this thing? Is there like a code word or something that I need to work this thing?" he looked around the group, not really expecting an answer, not really sure if he needed an answer. It couldn't be that hard, it was just a horse. The four weeks that he'd spend riding the horse would only be made worse if he couldn't control the thing. Monty looked down and he realised how weird it felt to be so far off the ground, he finally knew what it felt like to be tall and if he was honest, it wasn't as great as it sounded.

@jaga
@tomac
Clarke Griffin
Klara

[Deleted]

Jaga looked over the map at the course Wanheda wanted to take. She'd never really used a map before, and she didn't see any reason to start now. She could sort of understand it, from her own travels, though. The course Wanheda had picked wasn't a bad one, but she had never heard the word bunker before. "Bunker," she repeated. "Abandon building maybe two day ride that way," she said coolly. She would work with her team. She wasn't suicidal. That didn't mean she had to be nice, she thought, as she watched the small Sky Boy struggle to get on his horse. "Depend how fast we move," she added, her tone clearly implying the small boy might hold them up.

She went over to her horse and mounted it easily as the boy finally did the same and asked about code words for the horse. She rolled her eyes. "Branwoda mokskwoma," she muttered under her breath. Useless worm. She had a feeling that even though everyone else around her would know what she was saying, if they even heard her, the small Sky Boy wouldn't.

She glanced over at the large Grounder whose clan she didn't know. He was closest enough to hear. He was nice to look at, too, and Jaga decided she would do her job when needed, but hang back with him when she wasn't needed. "Nami?" she said to him. Feel me?

Tag: @tomac
Clarke Griffin
Klara
Monty Green

[Deleted]

Finding a horse that could take Tomac's size was not an easy task. Yet clearly, not an impossible one since they found such an animal. Tomac was currently mounting the horse when he heard the Skaikru leader give off some instruction. Tomac was listening, even though he didn't verbally respond. Why bother. He did nearly roll his eyes at the little Skaikru boy who mouthed off about a code word. These were the people he was going to travel with? The other clanswoman words brought a scoff from Tomac. One of emphatic agreement. "Skaikru should ride together. That way we only need to drag one horse along with us." he spoke in Trigedasleng, clearly insulting the Sky People's abilities to ride horses. If they both rode together, they only need to make that horse keep up with them. Maybe the one they called Clarke felt more comfortable on it considering she chose this form of travel rather than those contraptions that Tomac doubted he could even fit his body into.

Holding the reigns of his horse, he looked to the woman who spoke in his language. One who seemed to share equal annoyance and impatience toward certain others. He gave a short nod to her. "What is your name?" He asked her, continuing to speak in their language. He had not bothered asking for anyone else's. He knew Clarke from when she was onboard the rig. He only knew their purposes. This woman next to him now was apparently the scout. "Go," he said, demand lacking in his voice but there was an impatience in it . . . waiting for their leader to start them off. The sooner they started, the better. As the woman had said . . . it could take them longer than two days thanks to some of their groups inexperience.

Tag: Clarke Griffin , Klara , Monty Green , @jaga

[Clarke Griffin]

Clarke watched her group for a while. Problems were ahead, she could feel it. She offered a smile to Klara and the others even though that was hard. In the next days they had to try and at least be civil. On one hand, as she swung on her horse - a horse that still painfully reminded her of what happened in Polis, of what she lost, what possible future and what possibility of actually peace she lost. She knew the things around her in Polis were partially due to what myth they created for themselves, but also due to how Lexa was, how it appeared love had weakened her in a certain way that others couldn't quite grasp or stand behind. Person and role in society were not fitting. 

She knew Monty might initially have trouble riding. Clarke had practice and a horse she could trust, one she had before. For Monty, well his place seemed to not have been on the back of horses so far. And she could understand that. All of them had grown up on the Ark, horses had been pointless to bring up there. But back then, during the first cataclysm, horses survived. If there were no bunkers to be found, maybe they could identify a safe zone. And that was what she was betting on. Clarke knew enough trigedasleng to identify the less than friendly words from their grounder companions. They had to work together. And because of that, Clarke knew she had to speak about why Monty was so very essential to this mission that him delaying them, was a risk they had to be willing to take. 

"Skaikru are vital to this missison." Not her, she was just the leader, someone else would take over if something happened to her. "At least he is. He had the knowledge how to bring down Mount Weather. Without him, Mount Weather would still be at large. But most importantly, he's one of the most clever people around. If there is an area where we can all survive without having to live underground like the Mountain men did, it is him. If there is a way to save us, he will be able to. We need him on this mission. We don't need me. Anyone could lead this group. But we need him, because his brain, his ideas... they're our best chance." Clarke proceeded to gently press her horses side, making her start to move to finally set off and go to where they had to go, the south, where hopefully a place waited that could save them.

Klara

Monty Green
@jaga
@tomac

[Klara]

As Clarke offered what seemed to be a smile to her and the other members of the group, Klara quickly understood that she wasn't okay so as she seemed to be the one to whom Clarke might open up the most easily, Klara decided that she will go speak to her but she will wait for the night when they will have sent their camp to do so. So for the moment, she just smiled at their leader in return. But later, she will be here to bring her some support, wasn't that what friends were made for?

Seeing the Skaikru boy trying to get on his horse was quite funny and it made Klara smile as it remembered her every time she taught to the orphans how to ride, they were just like him when they tried to get on the horse for the first time so she didn't laugh at the boy contrary to the other grounders to whom Klara said in trigedasleng "You were probably just like him when you tried to get on a horse for the first time so don't laugh at him.". She was going to get down of her horse to help him when the Skaikru boy finally managed to get on his horse.

As Clarke spoke, Klara listened to her, she agreed with her, Skaikru were vital to this mission. It was obvious that they needed the Skaikru boy to make sure that a place will be safe. But they also needed Clarke, she was a great leader, she was just not fully aware of that. Actually, Klara didn't think that anyone else in this group could lead them as good as Clarke will. But she kept these thoughts for herself and as Clarke pressed her horse sides to make it start to move, Klara did the same thing.

Monty Green
@jaga
@tomac
Clarke Griffin

[Monty Green]

Monty didn’t think that he should be embarrassed about struggling to get on the horse, after all the animal was quite a bit larger than he was and he’d never been taught how to mount a horse correctly. Before coming to earth he’d never even seen a horse, he didn’t even think he’d ever get to see one, only pictures in books and those weren’t exactly accurate. He didn’t speak trigedasleng but he didn’t trust that anything the grounders were saying was anything nice, he hadn’t had the best experience with grounders and although he heard that not all of them were as bad as the ones that had attacked them when they first landed on earth, he still didn’t trust them and wasn’t pleased that the grounders outnumbered the arkers in their group. The two larger grounders in the group didn’t seem to like him much but he could honestly say that the feeling was mutual, he wasn’t going along with them because he wanted them to like him, this was a matter of survival and they didn’t have to enjoy each others company, they just needed to work together.


He watched the way Clarke and Klara moved their horses forward and tried to mirror their movements, he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to control the animal at first but he was pleasantly surprised to find that his horse seemed to be content to follow the others. The boy was slightly disappointed that no code words were needed, he felt like the experience would be ten times cooler if there were code words involved. He decided that it was probably best to ignore the grounders, he had no idea what they were saying or even if they had been talking about him but he didn’t want to start trouble anyway, he’d prefer to get through the four weeks in one piece and he preferred to avoid confrontation anyway, if he could but that wasn't always possible. He knew that the mission was time sensitive, they had to find a safe place for their people so that they could save as many people as they could and so Monty was determined not to slow the group down, he might not be as experienced in riding as the others were but he had other strengths that he was sure could benefit the group. That’s why he’d volunteered to go, because he believed that he could be of some help.

“So, how long are we riding for today?” he asked knowing that they had a long day ahead of them due to their deadline but the idea of being stuck on the back of a horse all day was far from appealing. The horses were pretty cool, he could appreciate their usefulness and he was sure that if he had more time to warm to them then he’d probably enjoy being around them a lot more. However, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable on the animal’s back and he felt like he could fall at any sudden movement, gripping tightly to the horse’s reigns he looked around at his companions who all seemed to be a lot more at home on the back of horses than he was, it was certainly something that he was going to have to get used to.

@jaga
@tomac
Clarke Griffin
Klara

[Deleted]

Jaga let the corner of her mouth curl up to form a small, crooked smile at Tomac's suggestion that Skaikru should share a horse to keep them from dragging an extra. "Jaga," she answered him. "Yours?" She vaguely heard Klara tell them not to laugh, and Jaga slanted her gaze back over to the other Trikru Grounder. "Who's laughing?" she asked rhetorically, her voice low but pointed.

Clarke then went on and on about how important the Sky Boy was. Jaga mostly ignored it. Why was Clarke even going on about it when the boy probably didn't even know he'd been insulted? If anything, that could make things more uncomfortable than just letting the insults go. Jaga did catch one part pretty clearly, though. We don't need me. Anyone could lead this group. Was the mighty Wanheda questioning herself? She didn't think she was important? The idea was... sort of hilarious to Jaga, but she managed to do little more than snort in response. This was going to be a shit show. And if Clarke didn't think she was important, Jaga felt less compelled to save her ass if needed.

Jaga was inclined not to answer the small boy's question, as she let her horse fall into stride with the handsome one, but she was the group's assigned scout. "'Til dark, Mokskwoma," she said in English. Mostly. They would need to take breaks to allow their horses to eat and drink and rest, but they should use all the daylight they had.

Tag: @tomac
Clarke Griffin
Klara
Monty Green