The Girl and the Mystery

[Octavia Blake]

Octavia couldn't get that kiss out of her mind.

It wasn't just because kissing was still a wonderful, fantastically new thing she could do outside of lockup and her hole under the floor. It wasn't just because Bellamy would kill the man if he found out - although that did lend a certain excitement to it. No, it was something about the man, about Lincoln. If she told anyone about the kiss he had given her as she was helping him escape, they would have told her a million different reasons for it. That he was a Grounder. That he was taking advantage of her. That it doesn't mean anything to him. But Octavia knew it was so much more than that. 

It was early morning, and the sun had only just started to lighten the sky. Many of the others spent their nights in the dropship or the tents, but Octavia spent hers right out in the open whenever she could. It was glorious to have so much space around her after a lifetime of being cramped and hidden. A benefit this morning was that it was easy to wake up before the others had a chance, and there was someplace she needed to be. Bellamy might have ordered her to stay in the camp, but there was no way she could. There was so much about this new world that she wanted - no needed - to know, and it felt like Lincoln could be the key to that. 

She had picked her sleeping spot as close to the treeline as she could, and now Octavia used that closeness to slip into the trees silently. Once she was well within the trees, the doubt set in. She wasn't sure if Lincoln would welcome her again, or even if he'd still be there. She didn't really have any reason to believe that he would stay close by, after how the others had tortured him, except that she could feel that he had. He had to have stayed.

Octavia chose the path she was mostly sure they had taken on the way back from Lincoln's cave. The sun continued to rise, glimmering off of the leaves and the the flowers. She couldn't help but marvel at it as she walked - the bright, beautiful fullness of it. A smile played on her lips as she walked through this natural world. Anything was preferable to life under the floor, but this was beyond anything she could have imagined.

When she spotted the cave's entrance through the trees, she slowed and then stopped. Her eyes squeezed shut as she saw, again, Roma with a spear slicing through her chest. Lincoln probably reset the traps. He's not harmless, she reminded herself. He's violent, I don't know anything about him and... he saved my life. The dull ache in her leg and her healing cut were reminders of that. Lincoln had saved her life twice - three times? Although she'd put herself in danger the third time. That was enough to make anyone curious, to wonder why.

Crouching down, Octavia watched the entrance of the cave, waiting for Lincoln to come out or some other sign of life. She wasn't exactly sure what she would do when she saw him, but she knew that this was where she needed to be.

---

Tag: Lincoln
Notes: Sorry if you had another plan, but I just had some muse! Might take me a few posts to really get the feel for Octavia, but I'm excited for this!

[Lincoln]

The taste of her was imprinted unto his memory; his lips, his tongue. From the moment Lincoln had seen Octavia step out of the ship he had been starstruck, captivated by her beauty and grace. He remembered the look on her face when she had drawn in that first breath of fresh air, how the wind played with her hair, the excitement in her voice as she screamed aloud. It was her first taste of freedom and she was so beautiful in that moment. So innocent and mysterious. Lincoln couldn't help himself so had taken to watching her, night and day, ensuring that she was safe, sketching her, leaving flowers. And he knew she was watching him.

Tonight was not the first time he had found the young woman looking into the treeline for him, smiling as she collected the flowers he left for her, waiting for him, wanting him. Tonight wasn't any different. Lincoln wasn't in his cave as she suspected he was. He had been in the forest, blending into the foliage, a shadow stalking her as she moved between the trees. Octavia was still new to this dangerous world, moved with loud steps, without finesse or subtly. He smiled to himself while leaning against the tree behind her. “If I was someone else you would be dead. I heard you coming from a mile away.”

Tag: Octavia Blake
Note: It's perfect!! I'm sorry mine isn't as long or great. :/

[Octavia Blake]

A sudden voice behind Octavia made her jump and spin around. Of course. She had tried to be quiet on the way here - both to keep her fellow Arkers asleep and sneak up on Lincoln. But she didn't move like he did. He moved in an entirely different way from anyone she had ever met. Granted, before a few weeks ago, she'd met very few actual people - but none of them were like Lincoln. He led a different life, and that was one of the many, many things that intrigued her about him.

Octavia bit her lip and stood, but that couldn't entirely hide the smile that lit her face when she saw him. He was still here, still as real as she remembered him. "A mile away, huh? It'll be half a mile next time," she assured him with a false confidence. Maybe she just had to study Lincoln more, a prospect she certainly didn't mind. If he let her, if that kiss meant as much to her as it did to him, then there was so much that she could learn from him. And as long as Bell and the others had no idea, they had nothing but time.

"How would you do it?" she asked, fighting the urge to take a step forward by planting one leg behind her. "Kill me, that is. If you weren't you. How would you do it?" Octavia raised fisted arms near her chest, and tried to prepare her body like she guessed you were supposed to. It would be an understatement to say that she didn't know how to fight, but she'd seen some fights. Some of the other kids she landed with down here had gotten into fights, and some of them didn't seem half bad at it. She'd watched, although took no part in them herself.

More importantly, though, she'd seen kids get really hurt. The spears in Jasper and Roma. Slit throats at camp. Murphy hanging. She wasn't going to be the next one something happened to.

---

Tag: Lincoln
Notes: No, yours is great! I don't care about length

[Lincoln]

if i'm a danger to myself Just think what I could do to you Tag: Octavia Blake

Octavia was still so young, so curious, so innocent compared to the violence of the world she now called home. Lincoln had worried about her since the moment he had seen her. One wrong step and she would be dead. And still knowing that did not stop the smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Quickly." He said simply, as though it was the logical answer. "And quietly, without being seen." It was him that moved to close the distance between them with surprising speed.

His large hand encircled her wrist, firm, strong, using the hold to pull her forward and off balance. Octavia had guile but was still unlearned. Her people were so unlike his. The grounders had been raised knowing how to fight and how to kill. Her people had been raised to survive in vastly different ways, ways that ill-prepared for the ground.

Lincoln moved behind her, no yet relinquishing her wrist, pulled her arm tightly against her own body as his chest pressed firmly against her back. His lips brushed against her ear as he leaned down with a smirk. "If I caught you like this a blade to the throat would work, a quick clean slice." He explained, not trying to hide the blood-soaked details. It was a part of his world, as much as he disliked it.

"Or if I wanted to keep you alive to a while, here." He jabbed a finger into her back, beneath a shoulder blade. "Stab the blade upward into the lung. You would be able to scream but breathing would be unbearable." There were many ways to kill depending on what was needed. Many ways for someone so innocent such as her to suffer. "You are lucky it is only me following you in these woods." He whispered in a lower voice, still not releasing her.

OWL

[Octavia Blake]

Octavia barely had the chance to start returning Lincoln's small smile before he moved. His hand lashed out to catch her and she stumbled forward, far more unprepared for the motion than she would have thought. Then her hand was pressed against her own back and he was behind her. He moved so easily, as if he'd done that sort of move dozens of times. Maybe he had. The ease of it for him reminded her of how dangerous he was, but it didn't scare her. It thrilled her.

Testing his hold, Octavia struggled for a moment to pull her arm free. In response, pain lanced up her arm and she got no closer to having more freedom. She already knew he was strong. She could learn that too, something she hadn't realized that she wanted to learn until she met him. A tingle went through her as Lincoln spoke, his lips by her ear. She was aware of every place her body touched his, and it made it a little hard to follow all of his words and keep on the subject of fighting.

Of course, his bluntness helped. She winced a little when he jabbed a finger into her back, struggled again against his hold with no more success than before. "You know quite a lot about killing," she said, part compliment laced with just a hint of fear. He could easily hurt her. He could easily kill her. But she also knew that if he had actually wanted to, she would have been dead a long time ago. He was instead going to be the reason she didn't die, the reason that she would know how to get out of this hold and do it to someone else.

A smile returned to her lips at his last words. "I am lucky," she agreed. She turned her head to look up at him, aware that it exposed the neck he could so easily slit. "Why didn't you kill me anyway? Or let me die when you could have?"

---

Tag: Lincoln

[Lincoln]

if i'm a danger to myself Just think what I could do to you Tag: Octavia Blake

Why hadn't he killed her; that was the golden question. Lincoln had been asking himself the same thing for days; what made Octavia so different, why was she so special? Lincoln was not a man that believed in love at first sight, no, but she had certainly invoked something in him, something he had not felt for another. It was strange but not an entirely unwelcome feeling.

He continued to hold her despite her struggling, his chest pressed tightly against her back, his fingers constricting around her wrist to accentuate his strength. He smirked faintly against her ear. "I don't know." He answered honestly, not mincing words, knowing that this world was too harsh to try to shelter her from it.

"Maybe I am curious and you are an easy target" That seemed a better explanation. Her people falling from the sky had struck chords for him; mirroring events of his past. Lincoln still did not release her but instead whirled her around to face him, this time pinning her body between him and a nearby tree. He recognised that that may have not been a smart idea when his heartbeats quickened.

Octavia was so small to him, fragile, innocent. But fierce, oh so fierce. "Or maybe I have an interest in your safety."

OWL

[Octavia Blake]

Octavia had sort of expected Lincoln to know why he hadn't killed her. This man, who clearly understood more of life than she did, had to have answers to so many questions. She didn't know what to say when he had no more answer to it than she did. Maybe it was fate or destiny. When she was little, she'd beg Bellamy for stories. Some of them were fairy tales, others from Earth that was, and others grounded in their own reality. The ones she liked best were the ones where the characters took charge of their own stories - daring knights and brave heroines who made the world what they wanted it to be. The fairy tales, with their fairy godmothers and magic and destinies, mystified her. Was there really some greater power making things happen? Were things really meant to be, or did they just happen? Or did they only happen when you make them happen?

So she wasn't sure she believed in fate, but there was a reason behind what they were both making happen. As if in answer to her thoughts, he offered a reason, and she immediately felt offended. "An easy target?" she echoed. "I'm not an-" But she was cut off when he spun her around and pressed her against a tree. Every affronted thought she had instantly vanished like smoke, replaced with fire. Fire along her body, blood pumping quick through her veins. He was playing with her, sure, but she thought she could see that he felt the intensity of their closeness too.

"Just my safety?" she asked, surprised to find that she could still speak. "That doesn't explain everything you've done." She lifts her free arm, fingers trailing along the skin of his arm. His skin is warm, and she can feel the muscles underneath the flesh. She doesn't struggle now, instead relishing the closeness and pressure of his body against hers, even the rough feel of the bark against her shirt and skin. Her eyes look into his, her face barely an inch from his. "So what else do you have an interest in, Lincoln?"

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Tag: Lincoln
Notes: These two are too fun!