❛ empire now ❜
★ ₊˚. ❪ marie kane ❫
˗ˏ⋆ ˎ˗⠀┊ 1x12⠀┊ ⠀❝ vii ❞
▅▅▅ ▅▅▅ ▅▅▅ ▅▅▅

( tw | blood )

" WAIT ... "

Marie Kane whispered as she struggled from where she was sitting. The grounder she had learnt was named Anakin Kom Trikru, had been in and out of her room with question after question. She would answer the few, keep her mouth shut for many more, a trait she picked up from her father no doubt. "Can I ask you a question?"

Anakin nodded, standing near the door of the room. She was his most important prisoner at the moment. He gave her a bed — an indication to Marie that she would be here longer than she had hoped. "Yes."

"What happened to make you like this?" Marie asked as softly as she could. She kept her hands to her side, although they weren't bound together anymore, she still kept them together. "Why so deadly?"

Anakin paused. No one but his sister had ever asked him why he seemed to be so angry with the world, but the truth was so easy to see. His birth parents, ripped from his home when he was only four years old, dead by the hand of an Azgeda assassin. His adoptive parents, dead by the nightblood scout after they had said their goodbyes, he had heard his father's screaming for his wife before he too died. His sister, whom had been a few years older, becoming the commander when he should have become the commander. But no, the flame keeper had insisted that he was not to fight in the conclave, letting Anakin give up on his own birthright until the death of the last person who truly cared about him.

"The ground made me this way, Marie." Anakin said as he sat down across from the girl, his palms resting on the small wooden table. "You have a choice you know, something that the commander had forced upon me."

Marie tilted her head, eyes quickly glancing to the dagger that rested a finger away from Anakins skin touched hand. "The commander?"

"Yes, the commander. She leads all twelve clans, she is the chosen one." He grumbled, because he wished it was himself he was talking about, not his sister. "She had tasked me with your life, more so molding you into a warrior. She wants to meet you in a days time, and we will travel to her meeting point before the war against the sky people."

"Me?" Marie took a moment to replay what had been said. She? Why had the commander chosen her, someone who had no training in nothing. A girl from the sky, someone who had been forced from her bed in the skybox and then forced to the ground with nothing but a wristband and the clothes on her body. "Why me?"

"The commander believes that if I can mold you into a weapon, than you can be our inside man. You would be promised a life as a member of trikru, at the demise of someone you know." Anakin explained slightly, but there was so much more to why Lexa had chosen Marie as the one member of Skaikru that wouldn't die in the next few days. The commander had heard of the girl who not only had murdered one of her trusted warriors, but had attempted to murder her own brother. That wasn't taken lightly, she was to be watched. "She wants to you to become my second."

"And what do you want?" Marie questioned, her fingers itching to wrap around the knife on the table.

"Your death." Anakin grasped the knife and moved it downwards, the tip sticking into the table, beside Marie's pinky, the cool metal touching her now bloodied finger. "Marie Kom Skaikru, the commander has chosen you. If you can prove your worth, there is much you can accomplish."

"Or?"

Anakin turned around, his hand still resting on the door he was going to exit the room from. "You die. We leave for the commander in less than a days time."

          " YOU ... "

"You must be Marie Kane, I have heard  interesting things about you." Lexa walked, more so paced, among the forest floor in front of where Marie sat against the forest floor, hands bound infront of her body.

Looking up, Marie had a resting glare on her face as she shifted against the tree her clothed shoulders rubbed against. "You must be the one who's deciding to keep me captive."

"You have freedom at your fingertips, Marie." Lexa walked and crouched in front of Marie, a soft smile resting on her lips and a rosy tint to her cheeks as she reached out and cut the rope that held her wrists together. "You have a choice, live as a prisoner of war and when the rest of your people die you'll be the last one standing, or you train underneath my brother and live."

Marie sent her head forward, hers smashing against Lexas with enough force to send the commander to her ass. "Fuck you."

Lexa grinned as she wiped the black blood from a spot of her forehand by her hairline. "There is no choice now, Marie Kom Skaikru. You train and then you murder your friends or my brother will murder you."

" AGAIN ... "

Marie huffed as she blocked the sword that swung towards her body. Her fingers that wrapped around the weapon ached, burning with pain as she continued to fight. What could she do — give up? NO.

"Harder." Anakin commanded from in front of the girl, swinging his sword towards her and hoping that she would slip up and fail. But he was corrected when she had blocked his attack, or at least attempted too.

Landing on her back, Marie let out a huff and a small yelp as her sword landed on the ground beside her. Anakin kicked it to the side and swung his sword towards her head, ready to end the fight here. But Marie had other plans when she grabbed the blade of his sword and let her own blood splatter across her face.

Red, warm, sticky, blood was splattered across her cheeks and forehead, dripping into the soil surrounding her. She could feel it soak into her skin and dry in her hair as Anakin pulled the sword away.

He grinned, reaching out and letting Marie place her throbbing bloody hand in his own. He nodded with what was clearly a sense of accomplishment. In only a few days time, Marie had proven herself worthy. It didn't mean he liked her, his sister had made it clear that he had no choice but to train her and made her a warrior that could kill, otherwise he too would face the consequences.

"Congratulations, Marie. You will fight beside me in the battle against the sky people."

Marie didn't want to fight against her own people. But when she had come face to face with the commander, a woman who wasn't even a woman. She was a teenager, probably a similar age as herself, maybe two or three years older at the most. She couldn't say no. With promise that she would live, experience all the great things about the ground, how could she refuse, especially when her life was hanging on the line.

Anakin handing Marie her sword. "You have earned this, do not make me regret it."

He hated the fact that he was working along side a member of skaikru. But when his sister had forced the girl upon him, and told him if he failed, he too would be punished or even worse, banished until the day she died and he was called to the next conclave. He had no choice, and he hated that. He wanted to choose who he could teach, and who would become his most trusted person.

But when you are the commander, everyone listens to you, or they die. Anakin knew that, and that is why he listened to his sister and chose not to argue. He would never admit it, but Marie was starting to get less on his nerves than he thought she would. Deep down he believed she was just like him, deep and dark and twisty in all the right places in their souls.

"We attack at mid day."