Like Wildfire

[Clarke Griffin]

Malia

Clarke had found a way to dye her hair. It was bright red now. For most people she encountered that did the trick. She was hiding, but being away from any kind of society was hardly possible. She couldn't prepare meat int he way Grounders did. She couldn't tell all flowers apart or other plants. She needed to trade to survive. She couldn't produce fabric, clothes, essential things to survive on her own. Not yet at least. She was trying to learn. To teach herself. It was just coming along slowly.

The village was nice, located in the woods. Children played outside, seemingly careless to the dangers of what could be outside. Animals ran through it, yet Clarke was oblivious to the animals all running in one direction as if they were fleeing. It was a sight the young woman couldn't deny to be beautiful. Clarke walked around at first, her bag with her hunt close in her hands. She asked around for someone to approach. People pointed her to a house with an open door. Clarke entered it slowly, trying not to disturb.

"Hello. I got pointed here. I need to trade a few things. I am running low on durable supplies and some tools. I have game with me to trade, if that is of interest to you."

[Malia]

Malia had been bent over a table, studying a map of the Clan territories, trying to find the best route to attack Azgeda---if she was ever going to. She looked up, hearing someone enter her hut. She was surprised to see a stranger, a girl with red hair, approaching her. Straightening, she narrowed her eyes slightly. The stranger claimed that she needed supplies and wanted to trade.

"Chon yu bilaik, en weron don yu kom op?"

Was there not trading posts close to where she lived? Or perhaps she was a traveller and didn't really live anywhere. There wasn't a post near here, and it would benefit Mia Te Mak (the village) if they acquired new things.

"I can find some tools and supplies to trade. One moment," she said, rolling up her map and carefully putting it inside her bag. After glancing at the girl, Malia exited her hut.

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[Clarke Griffin]

"Bilaik Lara." She said. She knew she had to hide clan affiliations. It would be unfortunate in most events, especially given since she ventured across borders with little regards to them. "I am a wanderer. I speak for no clan and no clan speaks for me." And that was the one way she could survive all of this maybe. Survival among grounders, it was hard and next to impossible. Their culture was based on violence and bloodshed. Blood was so deep ingrained in them, it was the answer to next to everything and that was something that was now the reason why her life was at risk, so much so that her return was next to impossible. They only stopped their bloodshed to save their own skin, their leader had shown as much and Clarke was still bitter over it.

"Mochof. I need durable food, too. I am running low on these supplies and I have no skills in preparing these. I was taught as a healer." She said. And that, too was something she said to protect herself. The default for Grounders was to assume another person was a warrior. She had to make sure they knew she was not. And healers, especially skilled ones, were rare enough to let them live longer, in hopes of aquiring and exploiting their skills.

Malia

[Malia]

Hearing that she was a healer sparked interest in Malia. She had a special respect for them.

Returning to her hut with the requested supplies, she placed them on the table. "Are you planning on spending the night here? You can stay in one of our huts if you would like."

She began to place the supplies carefully into a bag for Lara. "In the morning, perhaps I could show you how to preserve food, since it seems as if you do not know how to." Malia tied the bag at the top and held it out to Lara.  

"Also, have you ever been in Trishana territory before? There is something you should see before you leave," she added, with a small smile.

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[Clarke Griffin]

Over the time Clarke has spent with Grounders, she had learned that nothing came for free with their culture. Not even life. And thus an unexpected offer of kindness - or what it looked like - could easily turn sour. As it tended to do. Having to show someone something after such an offer wasn't exactly evoking trust either. Nothing was offered freely. Nothing, especially not from leaders. Maybe it was her saying she was a healer that evoked kindness and a ploy to get her to heal someone. Maybe it was another place without healer and a plan to make her stay. She could not stay. Her ghosts would follow her.

"Thank you. But other clans have offered me this on conditions. What are your conditions for me to learn this skill from you?" She asked. She had to know. She had to get an idea of what she was facing here. She had to get an idea of how honest this person would be to accept that offer.

"Other clans have offered for me to learn from them, too. And yet it always came with conditions I could not agree to. I can not stay in one place. I am not made to stay in one place any longer."

Malia

[Malia]

Malia thought that it was odd that Lara said she couldn't stay in one place for long. Could not was a lot different from just not wanting to.

"This is a skill that everyone should know. Self-sustainability is a necessary gift," she told Lara. "I am not asking anything of you for acquiring this. You will trade something for the supplies, but I will teach you this skill for nothing in return." Malia tapped the bag of supplies. "What do you have to offer for this?"

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[Clarke Griffin]

She still had no reason to trust this. And yet she also knew not to necessarily doubt something offered like this. She would insist on the part of her not wanting anything in return. There was nothing she would offer or could offer in return on this and she would insist on it. If she was to teach her a skill, that was it. She would be adamant about not healing anyone for her or teach her how. 

"I have meat. Freshly hunted." Clarke began in return for the supplies so so desperately needed. "I also have very important herbs collected. Some for inflammations, headaches and the likes." She held the bag up, but would not show what was inside, for the simple reason to not reveal how much she truly had. The thing was, she wanted a fair price after all ad putting all cards on the table would not exactly ensure a fair prise.

[Malia]

Malia nodded and pushed the bag of supplies over to Lara. She did not ask how much of the meat and herbs she was getting, and accepted the bargain.

"It is yours," she said. She held out her hand to the bag Lara was holding in return for the supplies. She had no reason to trust this stranger, but had no reason to distrust her.

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[Clarke Griffin]

Things did not come cheap in this world. Everything was created by hand, hunted, grown by hand. Hours upon hours of work went into one thing. From a young age on Clarke learned that everything created by men had a natural price, the price of the labor as well as the price of the resources going into creating the final product. Once a society was reduced to purely manual labor, the prices looked a lot differently than the prices for something created in a mainly digital society. Clarkes own society, while having had to go into some form of regression through the confined spaces, had still been surprisingly digital and automatic. Automated processes created pills, thread and so many other little thing that her people had once come to depend on. Next to nothing of the kind was still accessible to them. They, too, had been thrust into this kind of world now. And so they had to relearn prices. So far every single person in this world had known to put a price on what they offered.

Not here. Here her word was taken. Or was it? With a society that based everything on manual labor and resources, how could a clever leader with no angle to work – as she seemed to want to say herself – able to trade off something on the basis of trust that should not be there, that had no place in a trade like this, because in this world trust was not easily given, but easily betrayed and Clarke was the furthest thing from trustworthy for her people. Her people, who so easily betrayed Clarkes, leaving them to die in Mount Weather, while accidently signing their own death sentence, because ultimately, the Mountain Men would have killed countless more of her people as their solution with the bone marrow was no permanent solution after all. A treatment with bone marrow did not change a patients DNA and the Arkers immunity to radiation lay in their mutated genes, in their adapted genes. It would have worked for one generation that could have lived on the ground and then their children would have died or would have been forced back into the bunker, this time with the Arkers dead and no permanent solution out there again. Their hopes failed and everything around them dead. They also would have probably pushed the end to any hopes of repopulating earth again. Not that they were theoretically close to it, but it was not impossible yet. Maybe a healthier balance than previously could be found, as Clarke had been reading on overpopulation.

The red haired so called commander of death took the bag offered to her, mentally adding a note to it to have the supplies checked by another trading post. People would always name a worth to it and she did need it to much to decline an offer, even as shady as this was. Something surely wasn’t right. Or perhaps they had no intentions of letting her leave from the moment she said she was a healer. By now she learned what kind of people they were. Opportunistic, selfish in so many ways. In a world like this it was not bad, but it did not make for easy alliances. Especially not for Clarke. She was pushed to an edge, knowing herself to be called Wanheda, to be hunted like this mythical creature that could bring mass destruction onto the ground. And the worst part about it was that they were right. It was entirely within the realm of possibilities that she could do that. It was just another question of if she would. Perhaps, she was some kind of angel of death after all, born with a purpose that left ashes in her wake, purging or cleaning this or bringing it to an end. She was nor sure. Who could ever be sure about something like that. All she knew was that she was on her own in this world, chosen by herself and maintained by herself. Everything pointed to this place either being shady or too peaceful to be survivable and so she decided she would not put up any effort in staying. Because why should she? Maybe a night, a day or two, but then she was off. She would fight – and succeed – in leaving, because if she was an angel of death, if she was wanheda, she would be damned to be enclosed against her will by a village, when she brought down a mountain. 

“Thank you. I will seek a place to settle outside. I am a traveler for a reason and I prefer staying outside.” She explained. In truth she did not. In truth it was a necessity to not allow them to lock her in in her sleep, as she was sure was not beyond any grounder clan. Far from it, it was exactly what she expected of them and so she was prepared for something like that. She had to be. This was what ensured her survival. And perhaps it was selfish, but she was not the only one selfish. 

And thus Clarke went to the door to let herself leave. The door opened without a problem, but it was then that she spotted the insects. It was uncommon for them to run in one direction, even less uncommon to see critters follow and not mind the easy prey at all. It seemed like something she had seen before: Acid fog. Except that was disabled by her people. Arkers had made sure, especially Bellamy, Raven and Wick, that the Acid Fog could never again harm anyone in this world. It was not meant to be out there and it would never be used as a weapon, especially not as a weapon of mass destruction as Mount Weather had done. And then the smell hit her, sharp and strong. She had smelled smoke before when their smoke house burned down and after the bombing of TonDC. It left behind the constant memory of that smell, the smoke and whatever followed. 

The sight of a burning horse flashed before her eyes, as she had seen after TonDC, the howling and cries rang in her ears. So many dead. For a moment the red head stood there, frozen to the ground as smoke invaded her nose and her brain froze, flashing back to pictures of terror and pain she had felt before, not too long before. Slowly, only slowly her lips moved. She didn’t need to see what it was. There was no need for any of it as the signs were clear and painfully hard to ignore. Animals ran. Smoke. A fire. A large one. “Fire.” Was all she could bring out, in a low voice as it was not her job to warn any of these people. As she was still frozen in what happened before, in the horrible images she had seen before. 

[Malia]

Malia nodded. "As you wish. I will have guards nearby to make certain that no one bothers you, though I think they will not. In any case, they will be nearby, but not too close to make you uncomfortable. I will show you how to preserve meat tomorrow." She followed Lara outside, and then stiffened as she saw the insects covering the earth, fleeing from something. She smelled the smoke before she saw it.

"Fire!" she yelled, warning her people. The ones who heard her rang the alarm bells, and they chimed through the village.
The smoke in the air got thicker, the fire coming closer. Malia grabbed a hold of Lara's arm and began to run away from the direction of the fire, pulling Lara with her. Lara seemed frozen, so she took it upon herself to get Lara to safety. She ordered everyone to the flee the village, as it was not safe anymore. She let go of Lara once they were further away from the fire and ran back through the village. She got everyone to run away from the fire, making sure that no one was left behind.

Malia did not know whether the fire had been intentionally set or if it was a wildfire. She could not fret about there being enemy warriors in the woods, since their current danger was the spreading fire.

Once she was certain that there was no one left in the village, she went after her people, fleeing with the in the direction of the lake.
She was coughing already, inhaling a lot of smoke when she had been searching the village. She could feel a tightness in her chest, and breathing became harder. She gasped in oxygen, a pain spreading in her lungs. She tried to ignore it as she ran, trying to just focus on her people and getting them to safety.

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