the cool morning air carried the scent of earth and wildflowers as lexa and you rode side by side across the open fields. The sun had barely risen, casting a pale golden light over the grasslands. Behind you, a procession of warriors and guards walked in somber silence, their footsteps heavy. Among them, anya’s body was carried with care, adorned in white flowers, her lifeless form a haunting reminder of what had been lost.

you glanced at lexa, her eyes fixed ahead. The weight of leadership rested on her shoulders as it always did, but there was a particular tension in the air today. The morning should’ve felt peaceful, but the unease in your chest told me otherwise. you were both quiet, lost in your thoughts, until lexa broke the silence.

“Thinking about home?”

she asked, her voice low and thoughtful, as if she already knew the answer.

you took a breath, letting the words sink in before answering.

“Thinking about Mount Weather.”

“Mount Weather has taken too much from all of us,”

lexa said, her tone even but laced with underlying fury.

“More than just lives. They’ve taken our future.”

you nodded.

“It’s always on my mind. Even now, with Anya…”

you glanced back at the body draped in flowers.

“We can’t lose any more people, lexa.”

before she could respond, we reached the top of a rise. you felt lexa tense beside you as you both looked ahead, expecting to see the stretch of peaceful fields we’d ridden across so many times before. Instead, the sight that awaited you turned your blood cold.

a field, once golden and alive with the sound of the wind, was now littered with bodies—Grounder warriors, their armor glinting dully in the morning light, scattered like leaves on the ground. Three hundred of lexa’s people, all dead. The stench of death filled the air, even from this distance.

lexa‘s horse came to an abrupt halt as she pulled the reins with a sharp motion, her entire body stiff. Her face, always so controlled, shifted into a look of devastation that you had never seen before.