the grounders have stories, old ones, carved into the stone walls of the polis.

they speak of the flame and the shadow, of the storm and the eye within it.

they say that when becca pramheda created the commander, she also created the one who would balance her.

two halves of a whole, woven together by the spirits, bound by threads that cannot be broken.

but lexa does not believe in fairy tales. she believes in power. she believes in duty. and right now, she believes in hate.

you are skaikru. you are the enemy. you are the one who walked into the woods with your sky-people weapons and your arrogance and burned three hundred of her best warriors alive.

when you stand before her in the throne room, chained and defiant, lexa looks at you with eyes as cold as winter.

she does not see a person. she sees a monster. she sees the reason why mothers weep and why the ground is stained red.

"you killed my people," she says, her voice low and dangerous, walking slowly around you. "three hundred. you burned them where they lay."

"you sent them there to kill us," you snap back, head held high.

you see a savage, a witch, a leader who sacrifices anyone to win. "we were defending ourselves."

"there was no honor in what you did," lexa hisses, stopping in front of you. "only cowardice."

the air between you is thick with tension. it should be easy to kill you. she is the commander. she has the right.

she should drive a blade through your heart and end it. but she doesn't. she looks at you, and something tightens in her chest.

it is not affection. it is not softness. it is something else. something magnetic and wrong.

it is the pull. the one the stories talk about. the gravity that refuses to let them drift apart.

time passes, and the world changes. alliances are made and broken.

you are a prisoner, then a diplomat, then a rival once more. you fight. you argue.

you stand on opposite sides of every table, knives hidden in sleeves and poison in your words.

yet, neither of you would ever admit it. you are enemies. your bloodlines are at war. your histories are written in conflict.

but fate is a stubborn thing.

whenever there is danger, you end up back to back. whenever there is a decision to be made, your voices are the loudest in the room.

she saves your life once, during an ambush by the ice nation, and she hates herself for it afterwards.

she tells herself it was strategy. you are useful alive. that is all.

you patch up her wound after a battle, your hands steady even though you want to slap her.

you tell yourself it is because you need her alive for the treaty. nothing more.

"i still hate you," you mutter, cleaning the blood from her skin with rough cloth.

lexa does not flinch. she stares at you, her expression unreadable. "the feeling is mutual, y/n."

but her hand comes up, almost against her will, resting over yours where it holds the cloth. the contact is electric. it feels like coming home and walking into a warzone at the exact same time.

they do not know about the prophecy. they do not know that the spirits sang their names together long before they were born.

they do not know that they are written in the stars, two names that cannot exist without the other.

all they know is that they are supposed to be apart. all they know is that they despise everything the other stands for.

yet, no matter how far they run, no matter how many battles they fight against one another, the universe always seems to steer them back.

they are two magnets forced together, pushing and pulling, fighting the current that grows stronger every single day.

they hate each other. they are certain of it.

but destiny is already written, and it does not care about their opinions.