Chapter 1

"Prisoner 299, face to the wall and hands behind your back!" came the harshly barked order as the door was ripped open to the small cell. Marie hastily scurried to obey the order of one of the guards. With only nine years she was a small scrawny girl with long wavy blonde hair and steel grey eyes. It did not happen too often that guards came into her cell and she immediately wondered what might be going on. The guard was not carrying any food or supplies as far as she could see, glancing over her shoulder. She obediently put her hands on the wall she stood facing and waited in silence, the guards never reacted too well to unnecessary questions.

Her hands were pulled from the wall roughly and were cuffed together behind her back in an uncomfortable position and Marie bit her lips, trying to contain a light whimper. A moment later, she was roughly led out of her cell by the guard. As she was brought onto the hallway, she quickly looked around and to her consternation, she could see similar things happen to the other teenage prisoners all around her. The hall was filled with the other prisoners, handcuffed as well and led along the hall by guards, some were struggling, while others went without any protest. They were all led out of the sky box quickly and the guard pulled her along relentless, Marie doubted it would make any difference if she tried to put up a fight. Marie's heart started to beat faster in fright as she wondered why they were all being led away. Had the council finally decided to float them all, regardless of their age? But that could not be true, no one under the age of eighteen had ever been floated before as far as she knew.

"What is happening?" she asked the guard in a pleading tone, peering over her shoulder at the man who had cuffed her with a frightened look in her grey eyes. The man looked uncertain for a moment and Marie thought to spot a hint of compassion in his dark eyes, but he answered in a low tone "I am actually not allowed to tell you, but you all will find out soon enough." With that the man fell silent again and looked straight ahead.

"We will all be floated, won't we?" Marie whispered horrified, eyes widening as panic flooded her mind.

The guard just shook his head but remained silent and Marie did not know if he had shaken his head to deny her assessment or to placate her.

If they were not floating them, what was happening then? When Marie caught sight of an air lock in front of them, she panicked completely and finally started to struggle against the man's grip. She had seen her father been floated. She had been too young to remember much, but she would forever remember the air lock and the look of pure horror on her fathers' face as his body was sucked out into space. She could see him standing in the air lock again, as memories assaulted her mind and blind panic rushed through her thoughts.

Nevertheless, the guard had no problem to physically overpower her and now more or less carried her through the air lock against her will. Marie wondered if he even truly registered her attempted fight.

Her heartbeat decreased slightly, when they left the air lock behind them, but she wondered just how far they would still have to go, as she did not even recognize the part of the Ark they were in any longer now. They entered a strange looking room with what appeared to be rows of seats in it and she was put onto one of the seats and strapped into the seat belts by the guard. Before the guard stepped away, he took her cuffed hands and undid the cuffs but kept her right wrist in a firm grip. Marie was fairly certain she would have bruises of the shape of his fingers there later, her heart was still hammering inside her chest, afraid of just what exactly was going on. The guard took out some weird kind of wristband that Marie had never seen before and before she knew it, he fastened it around her wrist smugly with a loud click.

Marie clenched her teeth against the sharp pain suddenly shooting through her wrist and up into her arm when the wristband was snapped shut. It felt as if long sharp needles had been rammed through her wrist all of a sudden and the pain pulsed strongly. The guard looked at her with an apologetic glint in his eyes and finally stepped back, not saying another word, he left the room. Marie looked around the strange room nervously, still not recognizing what the purpose of the room might be or even where they were. She had lost track of all the twists and turns they had taken to come here. Marie watched as more and more teenage prisoners were forced into their seats everywhere around her and geared with the same wristband. Some looked as horrified as she felt, while others glared angrily at the guards. One was even screaming insults around, but the guards did not seem to pay him any mind.

The last prisoner to be brought in was an unconscious blonde teenager, who Marie knew was the daughter of the medical chef of the Ark. She had spent enough time in the medical bay to encounter the older girl there, although they had not spoken more than a few words.

Her fear mounted when Marie realised that all of the guards had now filed out of the room, leaving all of the prisoners alone and her eyes scanned the room frantically.

The door to the strange room was sealed from the outside without giving them any kind of information and Marie could see that they now all felt the same kind of uncertainty. She spotted another girl directly across from her, who did not seem much older than herself, or at least also much younger than the majority of the prisoners and she guessed that her own features would show the same amount of horror.

Suddenly and without any kind of warning the screens scattered all around the walls came to life and a videoed message played where the chancellor Jaha was addressing them. Marie watched the message intently and her eyes widened further with every additional word that left the chancellor's lips.

Marie could absolutely not believe her ears and what she had just heard. The chancellor had said that all of them were being sent down to earth. From the little regular lessons, she had attended, Marie knew that earth was not supposed to be survivable for another hundred years at least, if not even longer. She frowned, when her mind focused on something the chancellor had said, they were sent to the earth simply because they were expendable to the Ark. Anger shortly flashed through her mind, but was replaced with encompassing fear. They were surely going to die soon. As the fear consumed her mind, she felt tears mist her eyes.

The teenage boy sitting directly next to her addressed her suddenly, pulling Marie out of her thoughts and she jerked her head around to look at him.

"What can a little kid like you have done to get into the sky box?" he sneered at her assessing the girl with a judging glance.

Marie blinked at him and her brows creased, speechless for a moment. She did not like the way he addressed her, but she doubted that picking up a fight now was sensible, so she gathered her voice back and answered honestly "I tried to steal medicine from the med bay for my mother."

The boy's sneer lessened noticeably at her answer and he spoke in a much softer voice now "My father was floated for steeling medicine for me when I was sick as a child. I am Jonathan Murphy by the way." His thoughts seemed to linger in the past shortly, before he blinked and looked back at her.

Marie took a closer look at the boy, without the sneer on his face he definitely looked nicer. The girl startled strongly, yelping in fear, when the dropship suddenly disconnected from the Ark with a sudden strong jar and they were on their way to earth now.

"I am Marie Matthews" she answered a little bit shyly. She hoped that continuing to speak would keep her fear at bay, so she would go with it. Besides, she did not know anyone of the other criminals and it could not hurt to know someone if they were to survive the crash to earth, although she internally was convinced that they would not and even if they did, radiation would surely kill them in a few hours at least.

"Nice to meet you, Marie. But call me John. And how old are you?" John asked with genuine interest in his tone.

Marie was surprised that John did not seem affected at all by what was just happening and the boy seemed utterly relaxed. "Thanks. I just turned nine a few weeks ago" Marie told the teenager and continued to listen to Jaha's message from the screen as she did not want to see the pity in John's eyes. She had stopped listening for some time, but who knew if the man might say something useful.

The doctor's daughter had obviously woken up, Marie could hear her fighting heatedly with the dark-skinned boy sitting next to her. Then suddenly one boy loosened his seat belts and floated through the small space without the artificial gravity of the Ark.

Marie had to smile at the sight forgetting her fear for a short moment, the floating looked like fun. Two other boys undid their seat belts and joined the first boy in his floating, all of them were laughing and Marie saw others reaching for their seatbelts. The doctor's daughter loudly lectured them about the dangers but they totally ignored her, goofing around instead.

Suddenly, the ship gave another hard jolt and continued its course down to earth heavily jerking. Marie screamed when the first jolt happened and John sitting next to her took one of her hands and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Something had disconnected from one of the walls and crashed to the floor with a loud clattering sound.

Marie gave him a small thankful smile at the kind gesture, but she kept a firm hold on his hands while her other hand was clenched around the seat belt. She did not want to let go just yet, to her slight surprise John let her be without any protest.

The ship got an even harsher impact as it landed on the earth all of a sudden. Marie screamed again shrilly when the floating boys were shot onto the ground of the ship with the force of their impact. Her head smashed back into the seat and she looked on rather dazed. John pried her fingers of his hand a moment later and unfastened his own seat belt, others had already started to stand up. With shaking fingers, she also undid the straps of her seatbelt while the other teenagers were already scrambling to the exit. Marie stood up with weak legs and saw the doctor's daughter lean over the two boys who had joined the first one to float, they were laying still on the floor. They did not seem to move at all and Marie wondered if they might be dead.

"Are they dead?" she asked uncertain with her voice pitched higher, stepping closer to them slowly and hesitantly.

The older blonde girl just nodded her head sadly, but she stood up suddenly when she noticed that others were already arguing about going outside. She was obviously trying to dissuade them from just opening the ship to the outside air. But what else were they supposed to do, Marie wondered silently. The chancellor had stressed that they needed to reach an old military base called Mount Weather to gather supplies. They had not been given any resources, so they would need to find water and food quickly, if they did not wish to starve.

Marie had always liked to read as soon as she was able to read that is. She had read that a healthy human could survive without food for around three weeks but only around three days without any water. They were all relatively thin as the rations in the sky box had been even smaller than the rations normal workers got. But water would be the most valuable thing for them in the weeks to come. If they survived the radiation that is left on earth that was. She internally hoped that they would not be too far from Mount Weather, as she doubted that anyone of them would know how to navigate around earth without help.

The blonde girl had obviously lost her argument with the boy on the hatch as he pressed a button next to the door and it blasted away. Marie was momentarily blinded by the bright light now suffusing the small space of the drop ship and she hesitantly stepped closer to the door.

The teenagers in front of the queue to the outside were already jumping outside looking around in wonder, some screaming in joy.

Marie remained at the back for a few moments trying to hold her breath, afraid to breathe in this polluted air. But the others seemed to be just fine outside, so she took some more shaky steps in the direction of the opened hatch.

Her mouth hung open in silent wonder at what she was seeing. She was frantically looking around trying to take in all the details at once. Everything seemed to be covered in green around them. But not just green everything looked so colourful and just alive. A bright contrast to the metallic and almost sterile atmosphere of the Ark they had grown up in. Marie had never before seen trees or grass and every surface seemed to be covered in some kind of plant, as far as she could look.

They had landed in what seemed to be a forest. It looked wild and untamed, untouched from civilization, or at least that was what Marie would have assumed it would look like. Marie wondered if the whole world now looked like that, after it had been wiped clean of the human race by the nukes. Marie wondered if there were any animals around. Looking behind her, she could see that the drop ship had destroyed some trees and set their trunks aflame. The others seemed to be unaware or simply did not care at all and were running wild around her like they were high on something, laughing and goofing around as if they did not have a single care in the world. In the other direction, she could see some big mountains on the horizon and started to hope this was not the Mount Weather Jaha had spoken of, it seemed to be pretty far away from them.

Marie's heard dropped slightly, when she heard the doctor's daughter trying to urge some of the others to start walking towards the mountain to reach it, before the sun would be gone for the night. The one who had opened the hatch wanted to send her off alone, clearly unwilling to follow the orders given to them by the chancellor. Marie wondered how one young woman should be able to carry the things needed for all of them, if she would even find Mount Weather on her own?

She offered to join the group who had gathered around the older blonde girl, but was rebuffed rather harshly as being too young and not much help anyway. Sulking, Marie left in the other direction into the woods. It was obvious that no one was paying her any mind any way. When she was barely able to hear the activity of the other 100 at the drop ship any longer, she slowed down and truly looked around.

Marie fell in love with the forest on first sight. Everything was so vibrant and so overwhelming. There was no constant humming anymore from the machines keeping the Ark going. The girl could hear a soft breeze jostling the leaves of the trees and what she thought might be sounds emitted from insects. She let her eyes roam over the trees around her in wonder. The forest was anything but silent, but it sounded so totally different from what she was used to.

Her eyes snapped back around, as she thought to have seen movement in the leaves of the trees in front of her. As she tried to focus better on the area, she thought she had seen the movement in, suddenly a bird busted from the tree on the left to her with a loud screech. Marie was startled by the sudden appearance of the bird and watched it as it flew off into the sky, awed at seeing a living animal. She dismissed the prior movements to that of another animal, registering in her mind that there obviously were still animals around. If they managed to catch animals, they would have a food resource already.

Marie jerked back around, when she heard the sounds of someone approaching her from the direction she came from. John suddenly stood behind her with a sloppy grin on his face "Might not be safe here outside on your own, Marie".

"Because I am too young and too small?" Marie inquired moodily still sulking about having been rebuffed earlier. She had seen that she was by far the youngest of them, the other younger girl was around three years older. If no one of them felt responsible for her, she feared she would soon be forgotten entirely. So, it seemed she would have to fend for herself from now on if she wanted to survive. She guessed that the air was not toxic after all as she did not feel any kind of dizziness or something else.

John shrugged his shoulders and narrowed his eyes at her scrutinizing her once more "You seem tough enough to survive if needed. So, what are you searching for here?"

"Water" she replied immediately. She did not have to tell John, that she had forgotten about that in the meantime because of the distracting view.

John just nodded at her "Then let's go. Together we have a higher chance anyway."

Marie smiled at him slightly and started to move again further away from the drop ship. John followed her silently, although they did not speak, Marie did not feel oppressed by the silence. Her mind was still too focused on taking in all the new things around her and it felt companionable, walking together like that.

"I have already seen a bird" Marie told John after a few moments, her grey eyes shown with the awe she felt and she felt rather proud for having seen an animal before him.

John looked around with wonder on his face after hearing that, obviously searching for another animal around them.

"Do you think it might be possible that some humans have survived as well?" Marie inquired thoughtfully after long moments.

John shrugged his shoulders "Don't know, don't think so, but recording to our earth lessons we should have died from the radiation already. So, who knows?" It did not seem as if the boy was too curious about finding out though, so Marie just inclined her head and kept silent.

Above them in the trees a lone warrior was silently following them from tree to tree, completely undetected by them and listening in on their conversation and observing the intruders to gather as much information as possible to report back to his general.

Chapter 2

Marie and John kept on searching for water for a long time. Marie grew bored after some time, slight frustration creeped into her mind with not finding anything yet. Although she was still awed by the forest, the novelty of it had already worn off and she felt her feet beginning to ache slightly. She was not used to walking long distances and suddenly the silence which had settled between them, did start to feel oppressive, but Marie did not know what to say to the boy.

"So, what did you like to do most?" John asked her out of the blue suddenly.

Marie startled slightly, but internally she was grateful that the boy had chosen to pick up a conversation again. Marie shrugged "Mostly reading" she answered honestly and after a moment she added "Mum would always try to exchange something for a new book for me every few weeks, after I had read the one before a few times."

John laughed sceptically "I was never one for books. Never took a liking to it. My father always tried to encourage me, but he failed obviously."

"What happened with your family?" Marie asked in open curiosity, remembering that John told her that their stories were similar.

"I already told you. My father stole medicine for me when I was sick as a child and was floated for it" he told her nonchalantly. Although Marie noticed that the boy did not seem to pleased with the subject of their conversation, her interest was sparked now.

"Do you remember him much?" Marie inquired further, before a slight frown settled on her own features as she tried to picture her own father. She was always sad that she forgot most of her father, she wasn't able to remember the sound of his voice for instance. The only true clear memory of him she still had left, was his face contorted in horror before he was floated.

John shrugged again "Some details remain, while others are forgotten" he answered vaguely, when he noticed Marie's expression, he added "I still remember him telling me to try to be better."

"I still see him being floated in my dreams" Marie shuddered in a whisper, not being able to banish the image from her mind "But I wasn't there when Mama was floated."

Although Marie thought she saw some compassion on John's face, the boy obviously did not know what to say and kept silent.

After a few more moments of silence, Marie continued to question him, trying to divert her own attention from her dark thoughts "What about your mother, John?"

John's face showed an ugly sneer now "She was just a useless and pathetic drunk."

Marie was startled slightly by his reaction and the sound of his voice made it quite clear, that the conversation was finished. Marie did not know, if she should try to apologize for asking or if it would be better to remain quiet. The latter won out after a few moments of contemplation and she again focused her attention on the wonderful nature around them.

Both of them noticed the sudden darkness around them almost at the same time. "We should head back, before all light is gone. We'll never find the way back to the dropship then." John announced, slight worry creeping into his tone and turned around abruptly. Marie followed him moodily, dragging her feet.

"We have not found any water" she complained deeply disappointed after a beat of silence. Her feet were truly aching now and she knew that they had some way to cover to get back to the others, she was already feeling slightly hungry and she felt tired.

"Obviously" was the one worded response as John urged her on faster, not feeling well in the darkening woods.

It took them quite some time to get near enough to the dropship to be able to hear the activity of the other 100 again.

When they finally made it back to the crashing site, the dark-skinned boy, who had fought with the doctor's daughter was trying to tell the others to build shelter.

The other 100 seemed rather unimpressed by his words and most of them flat out ignored the boy. The one who had opened the hatch to the drop ship faced him then.

"We are not on the Ark anymore. Here the privileged will do the dirty work!" he announced loudly to the others and with an arrogant sneer on his face. His words made the others shout out in pleased agreement and Marie frowned, she immediately disliked the arrogant boy who looked to be older as all of them. She noticed, that he was wearing a guard uniform and she wondered why one adult had joined them at all and if one was chosen, why not a doctor or someone else useful.

Marie would have agreed to the dark-skinned boy, if someone had asked her, she could see the logic that they would soon be needing shelter and the longer they waited the weaker they would get without food and water. The drop ship was too small to house all of them and they had no idea yet about the weather conditions.

John on the other hand seemed to agree with the arrogant boy and jumped directly into the confrontation and he roughly shoved the dark-skinned boy out of the way.

"Your old Dad is not chancellor here" John's voice had turned cold and mean. Now that Marie looked at the dark-skinned boy more closely, she faintly remembered him standing with Jaha somewhere at official gatherings. Even if his father was the chancellor, she really did not like the way John was treating this boy. They were all the same now, weren't they? Send to the earth to die or rather to function as lab rats for the Ark.

John kept on antagonizing the other boy with taunts and sneers and suddenly they were facing each other with knives in their hands. Marie hold her breath in fright, she had not even been aware that the others carried any kind of weapons, as she had not been given one herself. She thought they were just fighting with words and not with weapons.

She had liked John so far, but she disliked this new side to her friend immediately. Now the softness in his face was replaced with hate and arrogance. His voice was cold and nasty. Marie hoped that he would not speak to her in such a fashion as well, it was hard to compare the kind boy in the woods and this nasty version here.

Marie was watching the boys circling each other with baited breath, the arrogant boy was just standing back with his arms crossed over his chest and silently waiting for them to finish their fight. It did not look like he was planning to interfere and no one else seemed inclined to do so as well, although all of them were watching the two boys circling each other with interest.

Suddenly the boy, who had opened his seat belts during the landing, fell from a tree and jumped in between them shoving John back hard in the shoulders and efficiently ending the fight before it had really begun. The boy was much bigger than John and seemed a bit older as well. John seemed to sense that he would not win against him and backed off after he threatened the life of the dark-skinned boy loudly.

John trailed behind the boy who had watched them fight and Marie did feel like joining them, so she ventured to the border of the crash site and silently sat against a tree looking up into the sky. She felt slightly disheartened by the obvious change in John's behaviour, she had hoped that she could stick to him, but that had obviously been foolish of her.

She could feel her belly rumbling from hunger now. But hunger thankfully wasn't a stranger to her. She had gone hungry many days before and she knew how to try to block out the nagging of her stomach. Marie knew from experience that she could block the nagging feeling out for some time, but it would not work forever either.

The others were still partying around in smaller groups and no one seemed to pay any attention to her, she was too young to be of any interest to them. When a boy and a girl laid down together only a few inches away from her, starting to make out immediately, she backed further into the treeline more than a bit put out by the couple as the boy started to remove the girl's shirt and she saw her opening his trousers.

She was still near enough to the camp, close enough to hear the laughter and the ongoing party. Marie looked around the trees, wondering why no one was trying to do anything productive. Did the others think that food and water would just be falling from the sky to them? They had probably landed a few hours ago already and besides the small group which had left to search for Mount Weather, nothing had been done yet.

She had been lost in her thoughts for some time and was startled strongly when someone sat down next to her, making her jump in place slightly. Marie looked up and noticed that it was the dark-skinned boy John had fought with previously.

"I am Wells" he introduced himself with a kind smile on his face and offered a hand to her to shake.

"Marie" she responded with a slight frown, as she shook his hand shortly and turned her attention to him fully now. "I think you're right by the way, we should start to build shelters" she commented, her frown deepening.

Wells seemed to be perplexed for a moment, before he answered with a charming smile on his features "So, you're a smart one obviously."

Marie puffed out her chest proudly at the compliment for a moment.

"I am sorry John was mean to you" Marie continued in a compassionate tone, now assured that the other boy seemed to be nice enough.

Wells bestowed a sloppy side grin to her and shrugged his shoulders, waving off her apology "I had not really anticipated to be popular among the other criminals."

Marie scoffed, she did not like the way he labelled them all as criminals. Sure, in one way or another all of them were criminals, but most of them were held in prison for petty crimes, only a few had really done anything more serious than stealing or taking drugs.

Wells tried to explain himself, when he noticed that he had offender her, but Marie blocked his rambling out and laid down on the moss under the tree, turning his back to the boy, as she hugged her arms closely around her body. It was turning dark anyway, so she should try to sleep. The moss was much softer than she had expected, it felt much softer than the metal cot in her cell had, but she did not like the feeling of dampness creeping into her clothes after a few minutes.

Marie heard Wells sigh under his breath, probably annoyed that she had ignored him now, but he said that he would keep her company for now and that she should not be alone. She did not actually give him a verbal response. but he stayed with her silently keeping watch over their surroundings.

After a few hours of sleep, Marie suffered from the same nightmare that plagued her every night. She saw the blurry shape of her father standing in the airlock and being sucked out into space. She saw her mother getting sick again, getting thinner and weaker in front of her, while the medicine failed her. She saw herself being caught in the medical bay. She was thrown into her cell again and she felt the same fear again. The fear of the uncertain future, the fear for her mother, the fear of the silence and of being alone. She saw herself standing in front of the door of the cell crying, kicking and screaming to be let out again. But no one ever came, no one ever answered her pleas.

"Hey, wake up" a voice was penetrating her consciousness and a hand was gently shaking her shoulder.

Marie bolted upright at the unexpected contact and looked around herself with wide frightened eyes. Wells was still sitting next to her and had a soothing expression on his face.

"It's ok. It was only a dream" the boy tried to soothe the obviously shaken girl in a kind tone.

Marie shook her head vigorously, as she fought off her tears. She knew it was not a dream, only her worst memories packed together into one nightmare and she wondered if they would ever leave her alone.

"Try to even your breath" the boy tried to get her attention again, noticing that Marie was not calm at all yet "Breath in … and out"

After a few moments, she managed to match her breathing to his words and gave him a smile full of gratitude once she felt calm again.

Before she could really utter a thanks, they heard a commotion coming from the camp. Both of them stood up abruptly and followed the loud noises.

The blonde girl had returned from her quest to Mount Weather with her companions. The girl, who was the first to set foot on earth, was wounded and leaned heavily onto another boy. But they did not seem to carry any supplies, so Marie gathered that they had not reached their destination and she also noticed that one boy was missing who had accompanied them. Marie frowned slightly, worry creeping up in her mind, the others had probably relied on the fact that the group would bring supplies, but they had obviously failed and they still had no water or any food.

Marie blinked, when she listened to what happened to the group on the way to Mount Weather. They seemed to have been attacked by either humans or mutant monkeys. Marie internally thought that humans would probably be more likely. The blonde girl, whose name was Clarke, wanted to directly go back in search of the missing boy. John and the other guy more or less volunteered to accompany her. Marie did not even suggest to go with them, if they were facing a possible threat no one would be willing to take on a kid.

So, Marie went through the crash site again and passed a fire where some of the teenagers had gathered into a line and were smashing their wristbands with stones to get them off. She just shook her head and shrugged of one guy who wanted her to join them. Judging from the pained grimaces on the faces of those who had gotten rid of their wristband, it was painful to have it smashed off. Marie retreated back to the border of the camp. She had heard the others speaking of a river and a lake they had encountered, so there must be water somewhere in the other direction. Silently debating in her head whether she should venture out in search of the river on her own or not, she fell asleep again, propped up against a tree trunk. She only woke up, when the group who had departed to hunt returned rather loudly. Marie watched how one of them carried the boy into the ship, he seemed unconscious and was probably wounded severely.

They had brought a dead animal, although Marie had no idea how they had managed to actually kill it and it did not take long until the meat was distributed to the ones willing to have their wristbands removed.

Marie actually had nothing against losing her wristband, it was still aching and no one on the Ark would care if she lived or died anyway. So, her hunger won out and she joined the others in the queue, although she was still afraid to only add to the pain still aching in her arm.

Having a stone smashed onto it turned out to truly hurt pretty much and she rubbed her tender wrist gently before she finally received her ration of the panther. Marie inspected the meat in her fingers with a slight frown, she had never before eaten any kind of real meat. There had been no farming animals on the Ark, so, beside the little organic food produced on Farm Station, all their food had been synthetic. The meat looked weird and the texture seemed weird as well, but her hunger gnawed at her insides and she gingerly took her first bite and felt like moaning out loud at the taste. It felt so much better than anything she had ever tasted before. The synthetic food on the Ark could absolutely not compare to this in any way.

When it started to rain only some time later, they were also able to quell their thirst and Marie felt as if they were in heaven. She had envisioned rain to be somewhat different. It turned out to be just wet and pretty cold, but at least it was water.

But once she was soaked through, she started to shiver and got into the drop ship with the others to seek some shelter. The space was soon crowded, but at least they were protected from the rain and it was warmer than outside. Marie tried to find a comfortable spot to lie down, which was not that easy, the space was small and there were no kind of beds. So, she just sat down in a corner and leaned against one of the cold metal walls.

Starting to drift off again, she tried to envision how their lives would continue now on earth. She tried to envision a peaceful future for them, although it was hard to make out how their daily life could look like. What a childish and impossible fantasy that was, as she later had to learn.

Chapter 3

On the next morning Bellamy made them all work together to erupt a wall around the crash site of the drop ship for security with the possible threat of other humans and wild animals in the woods. Marie could not really help with that, so she tried to make herself useful in other ways.

John seemed to have climbed in his grace during the trip the day prior and was not really doing work himself, but was instead shouting orders around for the others to follow. Marie watched him disbelievingly, the boy seemed to be enjoying himself and it was obvious how superior he felt. He had told her; his father's mantra was to try to be better. She didn't know for sure, what being better really entailed, but she was sure running around giving orders and bullying everyone would not fulfil the criteria. She frowned, she thought that they might get friends, but she did not wish to be friends with someone so mean.

As she was viewed as being too weak to physically do much by the others, she was told to help to ration some nuts a group of the others had gathered yesterday. The work was boring and monotone, so that she could still watch what the others were doing at the same time. She would have liked to do something more interesting, but she doubted that her complaining would do anything.

Bellamy seemed to have taken a liking to the other younger girl named Charlotte in the group of delinquents. She was still a few years older than Marie herself and had not shown any interest to socialize with her. Marie had tried to get closer to her in the morning, but the girl had outright ignored her, sticking to Bellamy as if she had become his shadow.

Not many had heeded Wells' advice from the evening before to set up things to collect the rain water, so that they were falling short on water again only a few hours later. Marie had not found anything useful to collect water in, but she regretted not having looked harder now that she was beginning to feel thirsty again.

Marie was hesitant to ask for water, the mood in the camp was weird and she was slightly wary of John now, but she was positively surprised when John gave her some sips without questions asked and even gave her a friendly smile in greeting. So, Marie was completely baffled when another guy asked for water some time later and seemed to be denied instead. John shouted at him to continue working with a nasty sneer, shoving the boy away. But the other boy shoved right back and when John seemed to relent, he actually peed on the boy. Marie was absolutely horrified by such behaviour. What horrified her even more, were the laughing faces she saw around her as a reaction from the other 100. Not even one of the others seemed to contemplate to come to aid the boy and Marie felt disgusted at how proud John seemed to be of himself.

The boy did not get the chance to retaliate to John, as the doctors' daughter and her group made their re-entrance to camp, with an unconscious boy. So, they had finally found the missing guy, who had been attacked the day prior.

As the girl shouted for someone to bring them clean water, Marie immediately jumped into action. She wasn't of much help anyway, as all the nuts had been evenly distributed into small rations and stored away. She had just stood around for the last minutes without anything useful to do any way.

After bringing water into the drop ship, Marie lingered there, hoping that she could offer some more assistance. Clarke had thanked her shortly, but did not pay her any mind any longer.

The boy honestly looked horrible. He was pale and sweaty and had a huge hole in his chest. The doctors' daughter tried to clean the wound as best as she could and made the boy drink some water. She had heard the others say that he had been speared in the chest and Marie could not even begin to imagine just how much this wound must be hurting him.

Marie watched her working on the wounded boy carefully, she had watched Clarke's mother before when she her own mother had been treated by her. The guy's best friend was also sitting there and pleading her to save his life.

"Clarke, please, safe Jasper" the boy kept on repeating desperately, dark eyes shining and holing one of Jasper's hands. It was obvious that the two must be sharing a pretty deep friendship.

The blonde girl nodded, trying to placate Monty "I am doing all I can, Monty. Jasper is strong, he'll survive. I don't know what they put onto his wound, it has to have some antibiotic properties."

The girl, who had been hurt yesterday also came into the drop ship and sat down next to Monty trying to calm him down as well.

All calm was forgotten a moment later, as Jasper woke up suddenly and started to scream at the top of his lungs. Marie startled and jumped slightly in place when his screaming began, he must be in horrible pain from the huge wound to cause such a sound. Goosebumps raised on her arms, she had never heard someone scream like that before.

"Don't we have some pain killer?" she asked timidly. Marie did not like to watch someone suffer like that, it reminded her of the times her mother had been so sick, lying in bed and trying to reign in her moans of pain.

Clarke shook her head, frustration etched deep into her features "They did not really pack any medical equipment. So, there are no painkillers." Regret was clear in her tone and she seemed to think frantically, probably trying to come up with something else to ease his pain.

A few moments later Jasper lost his consciousness again and the silence that followed was heavenly for their ears.

Marie left the drop ship again only moments later, wanting to flee outside and looked around the crash site. The fence the others were trying to erupt had made great progress. But Marie doubted it would be of any use if they were to be attacked. No one of them had any idea just what they were facing. But if those that could attack them, were able to throw a spear across a broad river and hit Jasper directly in the chest like that, she doubted that any fence would keep them out.

The next hours were difficult around the camp, Jasper woke up every few minutes and screamed non-stop. Some were already asking for him to be killed, they believed he could not survive anyway.

Marie could not listen to them complaining about Jasper's suffering anymore and left the camp on her own, unnoticed in search of the river. They needed more water and the others had found it yesterday, so, she was positive she could find it also.

She wandered around the woods on her own peacefully. Marie did not want to believe that the inhabitants of the earth were really out to kill them and she had walked around the day before as well without encountering anyone. She was wondering why only Jasper had been attacked and not the others as well, but she had not shared her thoughts with anyone yet.

The woods were really beautiful and the air was so fresh, without the smell of disinfectants clinging to it like on the Ark. Her focus stayed on her new surroundings and it seemed as if every place she looked, held something new to see.

After some time, Marie heard rustlings behind her and tried to hide behind some trees, fearing that it was either an animal or even another survivor. The sounds got louder with every second and Marie barely could duck out of the way of a blade that all of sudden came flying her way. Her eyes were trained on the blade now sticking in the tree trunk directly behind her and her breathing was erratic, her head had been in exact that spot only a moment ago.

"Damn! I could have killed you! No one was supposed to leave the camp on their own!" a guy she did not know reprimanded her sharply, stalking up to her and ripping the knife from the tree forcefully. Behind him, Bellamy and others of his group appeared, they were obliviously trying to hunt.

"Sorry" she answered weakly, still shaking a bit from the shock of nearly being killed.

"You okay?" Bellamy asked her kindly, stepping closer to her and offering a hand to steady her for a moment.

Marie nodded her head and stood up again, brushing of her clothes quickly as she stood.

Somewhere in the distance a horn was blown, the sound resonating loudly through the woods.

"What was that?" Marie asked confused, her brows creased.

Everyone looked clueless, looking around and trying to make out the source of the sound, as suddenly yellow smoke came their way.

Bellamy immediately urged all of them to run and seek shelter. Bellamy grabbed her arm and tugged her along, when Marie had not started to move a moment later.

Fortunately, they had found a bunker around here before and could seek shelter there now. One boy did not reach the door in time and Marie could hear him screaming a long time before he finally quitted. She tried to fight against the urge of covering her ears against his screams the whole time.

"What was that?" Marie repeated her question with a horrified expression edged on her face.

"I would say it was acid fog" Bellamy suggested with a grime expression.

Marie swallowed, while her thoughts raced wildly in her mind. How did spears and acid fog go together? Were there different people out there?

But she did not voice her thoughts aloud. The others were arguing about Jasper. Bellamy seemed to be sure that Clarke would not be able to save his life and assured the others that he would put an end to his misery the next day himself, if he had not died already. Marie dearly hoped he would be wrong and that Jasper could recover completely.

The waiting until the fog cleared seemed endless. The mood in the bunker was glum and dark and Marie sat huddled into a dark corner trying to be invisible and blocking all of them out. She had slept a few hours on the hard and clammy floor only to be woken by Charlotte screaming from a nightmare. Bellamy spoke to her in a hushed tone, too low for Marie to catch even a single word and they all settled down again afterwards.

When the fog had finally cleared a few hours later, they were able to leave the bunker again. Most of them now wanted to directly return to the drop ship without any pray.

Bellamy and two others wanted to continue their hunt and Marie left all of them on her own. She knew the general direction of the crash site and would find it on her own.

On the way she suddenly heard someone moaning in pain and the sounds of ragged breathing. Following the sound Marie found the boy, who had not reached the bunker in time, lying on the ground of the forest. She let out a loud scream when she truly looked at him.

He looked to have been burned nearly completely. His eyes were unseeing and opalescent and he was obviously in grave pain, bloody blistered seemed to cover every inch of his skin.

Bellamy, Charlotte and two others had followed her screams and appeared only moments later. Charlotte looked as horrified as she felt when she saw the dying boy lying on the ground.

"Get back to camp" Bellamy demanded harshly, addressing both of them equally, his eyes not leaving the face of the boy on the ground.

Marie turned around and hurried away, while Charlotte lingered behind.

Marie had no intention of watching the boy die. She knew Bellamy would kill him, not even Clarke could do anything for him.

When she arrived back at the camp, night was falling around them. She could already hear Jasper screaming in the drop ship. So, he had survived so far, but Marie was unsure if that was truly a good thing.

She went into the drop ship. John was hammering loudly onto the hatch to the upper level, demanding to be let in, while Jasper continued to scream in pain from above.

John stopped his hammering, when he saw Marie appearing in the drop ship.

Before she could say something to John, Clarke appeared behind her completely breathless.

She climbed the ladder to the upper floor and demanded to be let up. She had found something to help him with the pain.

The girl who had been hurt let her in and a few minutes later the screaming from Jasper finally relented.

Marie listened on, praying that Jasper had survived and not died the moment Clarke tried to ease his pain.

She left the drop ship again and sat down in front of it. The drop ship was too crowded and she wanted to watch the stars in the sky. Marie fell asleep under the stars and managed a few hours of sleep before she was woken up by the sunlight on her face. She had never thought that she would ever be seeing the stars or the sun from under it. No one of them had ever thought to reach the earth and here they all were. Their generation had never been supposed to come down to earth after all.

The peaceful quietness did not remain for long. Wells had been killed in the night and his body had been found by a group who was supposed to head out to hunt. Wells had obviously been killed outside of the fence and it looked as if he had been killed by a grounder.

Marie felt truly sad to hear that he had died. The boy had been nice to her and had been one of the only ones to actually show her any kindness here. But he was gone now and she had already learned not to dwell on the people who were gone.

Clarke had been a close friend of his and she seemed to grieve him most. Some even seemed glad that he was dead. Maria thought it unfair to label him as chancellor just because his father was that.

A grave had been dug for Wells and he was buried together with the two boys, who had not survived the landing and the boy who had been killed by the acid fog.

Marie sat around the camp silently, feeling her mood plummet even more. They had only been here for a short time and already four of them were dead. How were they supposed to survive? Most of them were trying to craft weapons out of metal of the drop ship and others were trying to make the fence stronger. Everyone was working on improving their defences, clearly unified in their fear of the survivors.

But Marie highly doubted it would be enough. They still did not even really know what they were facing. She kept close to the edge of the camp, keeping out of side and simply watching the clouds move across the sky.

Sometime later Clarke stormed to John angrily shouting that he should be punished for killing Wells.

Marie did not want to believe what she had just heard. John had been cruel to the others, she would agree on that, but she hoped that he was incapable of actual murder.

Obviously, his dagger had been found where Wells had been killed and Marie could only watch on horrified as some of the delinquents started to gang up on Murphy together, overpowering the single boy easily.

"You are killing him" Marie tried to stop them desperately, running over to the group, but she was rebuffed directly.

Bellamy and Clarke were arguing with each other about what to do. Marie had thought with leaving the Ark they had left behind a world where you were directly killed for your crimes.

It was as if they were wild beasts, demanding each other's blood loudly.

It ended quickly when Bellamy tried to hang John and Charlotte screamed that she was the guilty one, surprising every one.

Marie looked at her with her mouth hanging open as her mind could not wrap itself around the fact that Charlotte could have just killed Wells like that. She wondered just why the girl might have done that and she could not come up with a sensible reason at all.

The boy who had survived unfastening his seat belts in the drop ship finally cut John from the ropes in the very last moment, before John could truly choke and he landed on the ground with a heavy thud. Coughing hard to get air back into his lungs. His face was bloody and swollen where they had hit him repeatedly.

Clarke and the boy who had cut John free had taken Charlotte into a tent, in the moment of chaos and were arguing loudly now.

"Are you okay?" Marie asked as she hesitantly approached John. She knew her question was stupid, it sounded lame even to her own ears, but she nevertheless wanted to show support to John, when no one else had before.

But John just looked at her as if she had lost her mind and shoved her away and charged behind Clarke and Charlotte, loudly demanding justice.

Most of the others did not seem to agree that Charlotte should be sentenced to death, as they had only moment ago demanded for John. Marie did not know with who to agree, she was torn. It was unfair to execute John, but let Charlotte off simply because she was younger and a girl.

But some supported his claim and when they saw that Charlotte was gone, they went into the woods in search of her.

Marie remained behind at the camp absolutely horrified by the events of the day. Marie did not know what exactly to do now, she did not feel like sleeping, so she went back into the drop ship to check on the wounded Jasper.

He was conscious again and fortunately looked to be in a much better condition now. So, whatever Clarke had done, had obviously helped him greatly.

"You're looking better" Marie just wanted to talk to someone in order to forget everything at least for a few moments.

"I will survive. Thanks kid" Jasper smiled at her with a goofy smile.

"My name is Marie" she supplied annoyed and grey eyes narrowed at the boy. She did not like being reminded that she was the youngest by far.

"Sorry Marie" Jasper relented with a slight smile.

"What happened outside? I heard a commotion" Jasper asked her, changing the topic.

Marie's eyes filled with tears as she recalled what had happened.

Jasper's expression mirrored her feelings. "We are spiralling down very fast" was Jasper's last comment, before he fell asleep again, probably still worn out.

Marie could only nod in agreement and hoped silently that their situation would improve in the next days.

Hours later the others returned. Charlotte had killed herself by jumping off a cliff and the others had decided that John was to be exiled now. All of Marie's protests fell on deaf ears when she tried to change their minds and John was literally shoved out of the camp in the dead of the night, without any supplies or any weapons.

Marie stood behind unsure of what to do. She thought his sentence unfair. Charlotte had killed herself, even Clarke had backed up that fact. So, she finally made her decision and followed John into the woods unnoticed by the other delinquents hoping to be fast enough to catch up to him. Later she would recognize this decision as the one, which had changed her life completely.

Chapter 4

Marie stumbled through the darkness of the woods, feeling her heartrate increase as she frantically tried to search for signs where John might have vanished. But without any kind of light source available, she could only pray to be walking in the right direction. It was hard enough not to stumble and fall, as she could barely make out the foliage on the ground beneath her feet. No one of the others had tried to hold her back. Marie wasn't even truly sure if anyone had seen her disappear at all. But she was fairly certain that no one would miss her back at the camp anyway, so she did not give leaving further thoughts.

Marie did not exactly have any exact plan on what to do now. She had hoped to catch up with John, but she could not make him out anywhere in her vicinity. So, her only real plan was trying to find John somehow. The problem was, that she had absolutely no idea where John might have gone.

Marie continued on with her search for a long time, but when she started to feel the coldness of the night seep into her clothes, she frantically started to call out for John, hoping in vain that the boy might still be close enough to hear her shouts. She tried to continue her way without changing directions too often, fearing she would start to go in circles otherwise. But honestly, she had no idea if that might not have happened already a few times. In the darkness, she could not make out any differences between the trees surrounding her and the sounds, which had sounded so peaceful and alive in the light of day, now made her jump in fright and let goose bumps raise on her arms.

"John!" Marie shouted for what felt like the thousands time, her voice had already gotten slightly hoarse and she felt tears of frustration pricking at her eyes. She stopped again to listen if he responded, but she was greeted with silence again and her shoulders slumped in defeat.

Marie pulled her jacket even closer around her thin frame, starting to regret leaving the camp in the night on her own. She chided herself a fool in her mind, she should have thought this through better, but there was no turning back now, she would never find her way back in the darkness. With every passing moment, her hopes of catching up with John were decreasing rapidly and Marie tried to control her breathing, aware that giving up and crying now, would not change a thing. Doubt about the direction she had initially left the camp in, was creeping into her mind and Marie bit her lip, convinced she would never find John now.

On the other hand, Marie had absolutely no idea how far away the crash site was right now. She had long since lost all sense of time and distance. Her feet were aching, she had stumbled quite a lot of times already, so that scratches littered her hands and face and with every passing moment, the coldness seemed to increase.

Her eyes filled with tears of frustration at realizing just how foolish she had been to leave camp in the night. Maybe she would have had higher chances of finding John, if she had just waited for first light. She could barely see few meters ahead as it was a nearly moonless night and the shadows seemed to play tricks with her mind, moving as if she was followed by frightening creatures, ready to pounce on her any moment.

Disappointed in herself for not being able to locate John, Marie huffed and finally let herself sink down against a tree trunk hopelessly, as the first tears ran down her cheeks. She did not even bother to wipe them away, there was no one to see them anyway.

The night was turning colder and without moving around, Marie started to shiver strongly, only moments later. She had not even thought for a moment to bring a blanket or anything else, which she now realised had been a great error from her side.

The utter exhaustion of the day finally caught up with her and despite being cold, Marie started to dose of huddled against the tree, when she was jolted awake suddenly by a scream from somewhere in the woods around her. Her eyes scanned her surroundings frantically, trying to make out if John might have been the source. She pushed all thoughts about the survivors from her mind and she followed the noise, now also hearing a commotion. Someone was obviously struggling and Marie increased her tempo hoping it was John fighting of an animal, needing help. It did not even occur to her, that she would probably not to be able to offer any real help.

But Marie was utterly unprepared for the sight that met her eyes. She sucked in a sharp breath and eyes widened in bewilderment.

John was surrounded by two large humans or Marie assumed them to be humans. She could not make out their faces as they seemed to be covered with a sort of a mask. They did not seem to have noticed her arrival yet and the attention was solely focused on John. Marie spotted both of them carrying what appeared to be swords and she remained rooted on the spot.

John stood absolutely no chance against his attackers and was overpowered immediately, as if he had not even tried to fight them. Marie took one step in their direction and a branch under her foot snapped rather loudly. One of the men had hoisted the now unconscious John over his shoulder, obviously intent on taking the boy with him. The other had whirled around in her direction at the sound of the snapping branch and immediately begun to run towards her now, sword raised in his hand.

Marie was frozen in shock, eyes widened in absolute horror. She knew that she would never be able to fight against someone as big as her opponent and trying to run in the darkness would not help much as well. She had stumbled around the darkness without trying to flee for her dear life before after all.

As he got nearer to her, her survival instincts suddenly kicked in and she tried in vain to run anyway, hearing her heart hammer in her ears loudly.

Unfortunately, Marie did not get away very far. She stumbled and fell down, hitting her head against a rock on the ground, before her attacker had even reached her. She was still lying dazed on the ground, when her attacker caught up with her and roughly grabbed her from the ground without a word. The guy carried her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. Marie tried to put up a struggle against his hold, but he only strengthened his hold over her thin body and she doubted that the man had even recognized her struggle.

As she hung over the shoulder of the guy, her only thought was, that she had obviously found John in the end and the inhabitants of the earth in addition. The man who was carrying her, wore weird kind of clothes. In the dim light, Marie could occasionally see small flashes of metal reflecting the moon light.

The unknown people started to converse in a hushed tone. Marie tried frantically to listen to them, but to her utter horror, she did not catch any words she could recognize. Maybe the survivors on the ground were speaking another language, Marie wondered silently.

Marie tried to see how John was doing, hoping that he had not been injured too severely when he had been knocked unconscious, but from her position it was impossible for her to get a clear view of him.

She had absolutely no idea, how far they were carried. But she did feel how fast they were moving. The grounders obviously had no problem to navigate through the darkness of the woods in comparison to her. It almost felt as if the trees were flying around them, blending together in the darkness.

It could have been several hours later or just an hour, when they finally reached some sort of village and pulled to a sudden stop. Marie could hear some people moving around, but it was mostly silent. It was still dark, so the night had obviously not passed completely yet.

They were brought into some sort of cell and dumped onto the floor without any words.

Murphy scrambled to his knees immediately, he had obviously regained consciousness some time ago and he tried to follow one of the men, who had brought them into the cell, before the cell's door was closed in his face. He was just pushed back roughly from another man standing guard in front of the door landing on his but on the hard floor with a resonating thud.

He let out a grunt of pain and tried to open the cell's door with force after getting up again, glaring angrily at the guard.

Marie stayed on the floor instead and looked around the cell. The cell was underground and she could see the dark sky through the cell's bars. The floor seemed to have been tiled and was dirty, littered with dry leaves and dirt. The bars, on which John was still searching for a way out looked, old but they proved to be solid still. On the other side of the bars a guard was standing watch. Marie was unable to see the guard's face, as he was wearing a terrifying looking mask and she was not entirely sure that there might not be more guards obscured by the shadows.

As the minutes ticked by and John was still trying to break the bars open and the guard did not seem the littlest bit fazed by his tries, Marie tried to discourage his attempts to escape. It was obviously wasted energy any way.

"John, I don't think you'll be able to break them open" Marie tried to get John's attention in a hesitant tone and she stood up to get nearer to the other boy.

John whirled around and glared at her with a murderous expression. Startled by the hatred on his face, Marie took a sudden step back immediately and let herself slide down the wall and sat down again, pulling her arms tight around her midriff to get warm and pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Just shut the fuck up!" John shouted loudly at her, clearly angry. When Marie jerked at his raised voice John, calmed down again slightly.

"Sorry, Marie" John pulled his fingers through his hair in agitation, trying to calm down further. He knew that placing blame with Marie was unfair of him.

Marie just nodded silently, not looking up at the other boy. They were both scared to death, so she would not take his shouting personally for now.

John sat down across from her, finally abandoning the bars for now. "What were you doing alone in the woods anyway?" he inquired with a raised brow and what seemed like honest confusion.

Marie shrugged, unwilling to admit to having tried to locate him now, that he had been so harsh towards her. She had realized already, that following him on her own, had been a mistake.

After a few minutes of silence, which felt utterly oppressing to her, she finally admitted, that she had wanted to follow him, so that he would not be completely alone either.

"Oh damn. I had no idea" John said as an apology for his behaviour earlier. His expression seemed honest and Marie thought to spot genuine surprise flit through his dark eyes.

Marie just gave him a little smile and looked back to the guard, she was sure he would be listening in on to their conversation, if they were speaking the same language that is. But she could not see any reaction from him at all, he just stood there stock still, not moving an inch.

John had also seen the guard and was now again glaring daggers at him, as he pulled to his feet again. "Let us out! We haven't done anything!" John demanded loudly in the direction of the guard, stepping closer to the bars again.

His shouting was only met by silence as the only reaction. Marie was starting to doubt, that the people here could speak English at all. It would at least explain, why the guard was not reacting in any form.

"I don't know if they understand our language. I didn't understand a thing when they spoke with each other" Marie voice her assumption to John, as her grey eyes stayed on the guard.

John just kept on glaring at the guard. There was nothing in the cell they could use to break the bars and he had felt how solid they were. Even without the guard on post, he would probably not be able to break free by physical force alone.

They fell silent again as they waited for something to happen and the minutes seemed to tick by ever so slowly. Marie started to shiver again in the cell. The night was still cold and none of them had more than a thin shirt and a light jacket and some long trousers. John took of his jacket and offered it to Marie to keep her warmer.

Marie gratefully took the offered jacket although she was surprised by the kind gesture yet again. It was big enough to be used as blanket for her and she stopped shivering soon after.

"Please tell me, if you're cold and want the jacket back" Marie said, after she had thanked John with a grateful smile.

John just shook his head, waving her off "Keep it for now. You're younger and will get sick sooner."

Suddenly, there were footsteps loudly approaching from the other side of the bars. The guard turned around and nodded in greeting to the arrivals.

Marie was unable to see how many people had arrived no matter how much she squinted her eyes, as they were still standing in the shadows, obscured from their view. She could hear them conversing in hushed whispers in the unknown language before the door was opened with a loud creak which made the hairs on her arms stand up.

Five people entered together, in a closed front. It were two women and three men. The men were also wearing some kind of masks as the two men had already worn who had brought them here and were walking directly to John and yanking him up from the floor without saying anything. John tried to struggle against them, but he was dragged away as if he were nothing more than a little doll in their strong hands.

Marie looked at the scene with frightened eyes. It was obvious that they stood no chance at escape or to fight back. These people were obviously physically stronger and trained to fight, she could also spot various weapons strapped to their persons.

The women were eying here both with different expressions. The dark-skinned woman looked at her as if she was looking at dirt which had personally offended her. The blonde woman looked rather neutral and Marie thought to spot a glint of interest in her brown eyes, as if she was looking at an unsolved puzzle.

Marie just silently stared back at them, not sure what would be the best thing to do or to say.

The dark-skinned woman said something to the other after a beat of silence and Marie just now saw they were both armed with swords, she had only noticed the men carrying weapons before. The dark-skinned woman took her sword out of its sheath in one fluid motion and took a threatening step in Marie's direction. Marie sucked in a sharp breath and tried to scoot away from her in reaction.

The other woman spoke some harsh barked words and after staring at each in silence for a moment, the dark-skinned woman reluctantly put her sword away again, turned on her heels and stormed out of the cell without saying anything further.

Marie was still focused on the spot the other woman had just stood in, when the blonde woman started to speak in a harsh tone.

Marie did not understand any of the words and just shook her head with a helpless expression.

The strangers' expression turned from interested to suspicious in the blink of an eye.

"Where are you from, girl?" she demanded to know in a harsh voice that demanded answers immediately and her brown eyes were narrowed dangerously.

Marie looked at her with a slightly open mouth, surprised by the fact that the woman fluently spoke English. She thought to spot some hard kind of accent on some syllables, but it was perfectly understandable to her ears. The survivors must have developed their own language since the old world had been destroyed.

As the woman's suspicion turned into a threatening glare at her continued silence, Marie hurried to respond "From the Ark"

"From the Ark?" the woman questioned back, her features hardening even more, clearly unfamiliar with the term "Mountain?!" she added with a snarl.

Marie shook her head with a frown, wondering if the woman meant a particular mountain. The Ark was surely not a mountain after all.

"The Ark is a space ship" Marie tried to explain desperately. It seemed as if the woman was losing patience with her and her lips were pressed into an angry line.

"Space?" the woman's confusion seemed to grow and Marie noticed her hand tightening around the hilt of her sword.

"In the sky?" Marie tried to explain frantically. It wasn't accurately correct, but the explanation would have to do.

The woman's expression was a mix of disbelief and suspicion now, her brown eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the girl in front of her. "You mean to tell me, you fell from the sky?" she asked in a confused tone.

Marie just nodded her head helplessly, after all they kind of did fall from the sky in the drop ship.

"The strange star that fell from the sky?" came the next question, delivered with a raised brow.

"It wasn't a star. It was the drop ship. We were sent down in the drop ship from the Ark" Marie tried to explain better, sensing that the woman seemed inclined to believe her words.

The woman's eyes minutely turned to the still dark sky above them and then she returned her gaze to Marie's face. "How many of you are there?" her voice had turned sharper again and there seemed to be dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Here? On earth?" Marie questioned back, stuttering slightly.

The woman just nodded sharply in agreement and waited for her to elaborate.

"100 of us were sent down" Marie answered truthfully. She had the feeling that lying would not help her now. "But four are dead already" she added, slightly subdued.

In the distance, she could suddenly hear a pained scream and goose bumps formed on her arms. She had the pressing suspicion, that John was emitting those screams. Before she had the chance to plead for her friend the questions continued coming.

"Why were you sent down?" the woman asked, stance still threatening.

"We were sent down to see if earth was survivable" Marie answered easily.

The woman's expression had now turned alarmed all of a sudden. "How many of you are left in the sky and will they follow you?"

Marie shrugged with an uncertain expression "I don't know how many people are living on the ark but I guess more than 2,000 people"

The stranger's expression had turned even more alarmed with this new information. "What do you want on earth?" the question was pressed through clenched teeth.

Marie just looked at her helplessly "To live. The Ark is dying." She would not be able to answer specific questions about the Ark. She had no real idea about any of those things, she was just repeating things she had heard others say.

"What is your name and how many summers have you seen?" the stranger continued her questioning a moment later, changing the course of the questions slightly.

"I am Marie" the girl answered quickly, grey eyes looking up at the woman. "I haven't seen any summer, there are no seasons on the Ark" she explained with a slight frown on her brows.

"How old are you then?" the woman rephrased her question, impatience seeping back into her tone.

"I have just turned nine years old" Marie answered truthfully, now able to understand what was asked of her. She doubted that anyone would have believed her if she lied about her age, she was not particular tall for her age, she had always been on the shorter side and the smaller rations in the sky box had surely not helped her growth.

"Still a goufa then" came the thoughtful response and it looked as if the woman's brown eyes had softened, if only for a fraction. Marie gathered with a slight frown of concentration that "goufa" must be a term for a child.

In the distance, the screams were growing louder and more intense. Marie tightened her arms around her frame, feeling sick all of a sudden. She looked at the stranger with a pleading expression "Please don't hurt him!"

The stranger seemed unimpressed of her pleading and just flatly ignored her, continuing to scrutinize her in silence.

Marie was aware that she could not do anything for John, but it just crossed her mind that her destiny was unclear as well "What will be happening to me?" she asked, trying to sound brave, but feeling horror settle in her mind.

The woman looked at her some more, before she answered in an even tone "We will see. But for now, you will live."

Chapter 5

The woman turned her back on Marie after long tense silent moment and shouted what might have been an order in the strange language, as if she was addressing the shadows. Marie frowned behind her back, but she noticed that beside the long sword, a long dagger was strapped to the woman's thigh, glinting in the dim light.

A girl came out of the shadows only a moment later, joining them in the cell and answered the woman in the same language. They exchanged a few words in their language, before the woman suddenly strode past the girl, closing the door to the cell behind her firmly and disappearing into the shadows.

Marie looked up at the girl still standing in front of her and she seemed to be only a few years older than her, but she instantly noted that there was a sword dangling from her hip. Marie frowned slightly, the girl was clearly a child still, but she carried a weapon, she doubted anyone would have given a gun to a child on the Ark.

The girl stared at her silently for long moments, brown eyes shining with honest curiousity. She tossed her wavy brown hair back and sat down cross-legged across from Marie in one fluid motion. Judging from her size, Marie would estimate her to be around 13 years old, give or take a year or two.

"I am Tris by the way" the girl broke the tense silence and introduced herself in English. Her English had a more prominent accent than the woman's spoken words had, but Marie could still understand her fairly easily.

Marie met her gaze silently for a few moments, before she swallowed and finally introduced herself as well, even if she guessed that Tris must have been near enough the cell to listen on in her interrogation and so had already heard her name. It was still common curtsey to introduce oneself.

Tris inclined her head in agreement and stated with an amused glint in her brown eyes "I knew your name already".

Marie did not know, what to say to that statement, so she stayed silent, only huffing slightly in reaction.

"Are you really from the sky?" Tris asked curiously, breaking the silence and her interest seemed honest. She had leaned slightly towards Marie, obviously eager to hear about space.

Marie shrugged, narrowing her eyes at the other girl. She was surprised by the difference between the woman and Tris. After a moment of contemplation, she said "From the sky is not really correct. The Ark is in space, which would be behind the sky."

The other girl looked impressed and she also looked up into the dark night sky for a few minutes in silence. Her brown eyes were visibly filled with wonder, probably imagining what it would be like among the stars.

"What is living in the sky like?" Tris asked excitedly, once her gaze had returned to Marie.

When Marie stayed silent, because she did not think she would have to respect a girl barely older than herself as she did with adults, Tris continued with a light smile "You don't have to answer. This isn't an official interrogation or anything, I am just interested."

Marie observed her for a moment longer, before she accepted her words for the truth. "I don't know what living on earth is like, so I can't compare it with living in space. But the Ark is cold, sterile and everything is pretty crowded" Marie tried to explain her experiences of the Ark. She could not say that she had liked the Ark very much and since landing on earth, she had found it so much more beautiful.

"Can't you see the stars from up close then?" the girl continued her onslaught, a slight frown on her face.

Marie just now noticed the silence around them, John had stopped his screaming. They had either stopped his torture or he had passed out. Marie hoped the first option to be the correct assumption. "Yeah, you can see the stars and the moon. But I always liked the view of the earth the most" she recalled honestly.

"And what does the earth look like from the sky?" the girl wanted to know next. If not getting satisfying answers was frustrating her, she did not show it in the slightest, only asking the next question.

"The earth is huge. A round planet surrounded by clouds, with a lot of blue and green" Marie answered. It was true, she had liked seeing the earth best, while she dreamt about what it would be like walking on the earth. "Do you know what will happen to me?" she quickly interjected, before Tris could bombard her with even more questions. The worry of what would happen was still gnawing at her mind and the woman's answer had not been reassuring for her in the slightest.

Now it was Tris who shrugged as an answer, but her tone was still light when she said "I don't know for sure. But you are still just a child, I don't think you'll be killed."

Marie's eyes widened in fright. She had not really thought that these people would be as cruel as to just kill them for being here.

Tris just continued as if she had not seen Marie's reaction "Indra had wanted to kill you without speaking to you, but Anya refused to kill a child just like that. You are still alive so I guess, that she likes you somehow."

"Now if that is not reassuring" Marie responded drily, trying to cover her fear with sarcasm.

Tris laughed out loud as if she did not have a single concern in the world in reaction, as if she had just told her the best joke. "Tell me more about your life in the sky or why you were sent down" she urged a moment later.

Marie just rolled her eyes, aware that Tris had listened to her conversation with Anya before from the shadows. "We were obviously deemed expendable by the Ark. They sent down 100 juvenile criminals to see if they can survive on the earth." Marie finally said bitterly speaking those thoughts aloud for the first time.

Tris now did look impressed and even slightly confused. "You are all criminals?" she asked with slightly widened eyes, her head tilted to the side slightly as she added "What have you done then?"

"On the Ark crimes were all punished by death. Only kids under the age of eighteen are put into jail and either floated later or re-integrated into society." Marie explained, bitterness seeping into her tone. In her opinion, she had not done anything which could have warranted her sentence.

Tris looked rather confused and her brows were creased, as if she had not understood everything she had just been told and was now trying to figure it out in her head.

"I have been put into jail for breaking into the medical bay and stealing medicine for my mother" Marie continued her story with a sad glint in her eyes. She blinked against the tears suddenly gathering in her eyes.

"You are killed for getting healing for a loved one?" Tris questioned, tone slightly raise and obviously shocked.

"Everything on the Ark is rationed. We only have so much for everyone and my mum did not get better with the medicine. So, I tried to help her." Marie tried to explain, shivering slightly as a memory of her mother wasting away assaulted her mind. The laws on the Ark were absolutely relentless and a lot of the times unjust. "Most of the other 100 have been put into prison for little things. Like taking drugs or stealing. I think only a few have done bad things" Marie continued, just wanting to keep on talking before she could begin to cry.

Tris inclined her head in a mute response and stayed silent for a long moment, obviously thinking about what she wanted to ask next and processing what she had learned so far.

Before Tris could utter her next question, Marie beat her to it again "And what is live on earth like?" Marie hoped that she could diver the girl's attention from herself.

Tris shrugged her shoulders with a slight frown, before she said "It is all I know. Life can be short and harsh here."

"All is so colourful here" Marie added with shining eyes, still intrigued by the beauty of the nature surrounding them "And what are you doing?" she asked, as her eyes darted down to the sword on the other girl's hip.

"I am Anya's second" Tris explained with a puffed-out chest, it seemed to be something to be proud of. As Marie looked at her confused, unsure what the term meant, Tris added in explanation "I am training under her to become a warrior."

"How old are you, Tris?" Marie asked with wide eyes, the thoughts running wild through her mind. The girl looked much too young to become a warrior already.

"I have seen my twelfth summer this year" Tris answered truthfully "But I started my training under Anya in my fifth summer."

Marie stared at her disbelievingly. They started to train little children to become warriors she thought with horror.

Tris obviously interpreted Marie's expression as disbelief and she pulled her shirt down slightly and twisted around, revealing five small round scars on her shoulder.

"This are kill marks" Tris explained with clear pride in her voice "I have earned them by killing others in battle." She looked at Marie for long moments, before she readjusted her shirt again.

Marie could not believe the words she had just heard. This girl had already killed five other people and she seemed to be proud of it. As Marie did not want to offend her, she just nodded mutely. Life on earth must really be harsh if children were part of battles. After a few moments of strained silence she asked "Do all of you train to become warriors?"

Tris shook her head in the negative "No. Some become healers, hunters or traders. Or learn other professions."

Marie was fascinated by this piece of new information. So, the people on the ground had some kind of community structure that must be working. None of them seemed starved, so they were doing relatively well. She had not seen any sign of electricity so maybe the people on earth did not use technology any more.

She looked at the sword fastened onto the others girls' hip "You do not have guns?" she questioned with a frown. Swords did not seem very effective, if you could use a gun from a saver distance.

Tris looked horrified for a moment, brown eyes widening at the simple implication, before she shook her head resolutely "Guns are forbidden. It is said that if a warrior picks up a gun their village will burn down."

Marie blinked at her owlishly. But she gathered that the population of the earth must all share their dislike for guns. With a sword you would not be able to fight an army with guns, so they must share their way of fighting.

John's screaming started again in some distance and Marie pulled her arms tighter around her body. "Why are your people hurting John?" Marie asked with a worried expression.

"He must be unwilling to answer their questions" came the simple reply from Tris. She seemed completely untouched by his screaming as if this was not the first time, she was exposed to torture to get information.

"Will he be killed?" Marie continued in a whisper, unsure if she really wanted to know the answer to this question. It disturbed her that Tris seemed so utterly unaffected by John's screaming, while she felt sick again.

Tris shrugged her shoulders "I don't know. But it is a possibility. If he does not have any further use, probably."

Marie turned paler after hearing Tris' response. The female warrior who had spoken to her before had specifically pointed out that Marie was still a child and Marie had the sinking feeling that John would be seen as a child by them as well. What use could he have to these strangers? What use could she have? "Why I am still alive then?" Marie wondered with horror underlining her voice and widened grey eyes.

Tris grinned mischievously as she answered "Anya seemed to like you. But the commander will decide what is to happen with both of you."

"The commander?" Marie pressed on, unfamiliar with the term.

"Oh, sorry, sure you can't know that" Tris answered and explained "The commander leads the coalition of the twelve clans. The commander will arrive here at dawn."

Marie looked up through the bars between the cell and the sky. It was still pitch-black outside, so dawn was probably still a few hours away. Marie swallowed forcefully, in a few hours a stranger would decide if she was killed or allowed to stay alive. If she was allowed to live, what would her life turn into? If she was killed, she prayed it would be a quick and painless death. All she could do now, was wait. This inability to do anything made everything worse tenfold and Marie felt like throwing up. Her stomach growled rather loudly all of a sudden. She had eaten the last thing in the morning and it had not been a big portion either. The third time in only a few days, her life had been turned upside-down. The morning seemed like a life time ago already and her happy times on the Ark seemed to be a completely different life now.

Tris had obviously picked up on her glum thoughts and tried to cheer her up by telling her some stories about her own life.

Marie listened on intently, grateful for the diversion the other girl offered. Tris had been born into a small village near the border to Azgeda. Marie had absolutely no idea what Azgeda was, but she gathered it was a clan these people had fought many battles with. Tris' parents had been killed in an attack on the village when Tris was four. Only a few children survived the attack and the village had been burnt to the ground. Anya had been sent to look for survivors and had taken the young child in for training. From the stories Tris told her, the adoration Tris felt for Anya was as clear as day to Marie. Her life seemed simple without the luxury technology had to offer. But these people were obviously content with their lives.

Marie wondered if the population from the Ark would be able to adapt to living without electricity as well, once they came down to earth. Most of the people there were completely dependent of the technology. It was just a simple part of their life and in everything that surrounded them on the Ark.

But from the stories Tris told her, Marie also could definitely gather that life on earth truly was harsh. The people here were used to fight battles upon battles for their survival. Warriors often died young in battle. Their medicine or the healers were obviously not able to heal many wounds. Losing a limp in battle, meant that the warriors could not fight anymore. But the villages seemed to take care of their inhabitants and everyone was doing what they could to contribute.

Marie constantly compared Tris' experiences to her own. Sure, the Ark had technology, but it was so constricted that everything was rationed and space was short. Here, people had more than one child in a family as many children died in their early years. On the Ark, if you could not life by the rations you were entitled, no one would help you.

All Marie could do now, was pray that their commander would decide to let her life. She really wished to get the possibility to see more of the earth and the lives of its inhabitants. She did not know, if she would be able to fit in with the way of the survivors, but in her opinion she could surely try.

Chapter 6

Dawn came quicker than Marie had thought possible. Tris' mindless chatter had distracted her well over the last hours and she had not even truly noticed how fast the time had passed. As it grew brighter in the sky above them, Marie was starting to feel more agitated by the second and she was barely able to listen to Tris' words any longer, starting to fiddle with John's jacket nervously.

Tris picked up on the shift in her mood and smiled at her softly. "I don't know when the Commander will arrive exactly" she explained with an apologetic expression. The survivors seemed to have lost the usage of exact time measurements and were travelling on horses, which probably made it impossible to predict a precise time of arrival.

As Marie's stomach growled again loudly, Tris' stomach joined in. Laughing lightly in reaction, the girl stood up from the floor in a slightly clumsy motion, legs obviously feeling numb from sitting cross-legged for so long and brushed her pants down quickly.

"I'll see if I can get some food for us" Tris explained, stretching her arms high above her head and smirking slightly Marie, before she turned on her heels and left the cell again.

Marie noticed how a guard appeared closer to the door of the cell only a short moment later. She had not heard any other footsteps than Tris', so the man had probably been there all along, just slightly further down, hidden in the shadows.

John's screams had stopped hours ago and Marie wondered with a shiver, if he was still alive at all. She knew, that she was on her own here. Only her own life must matter to her from now on. She knew that none of the delinquents would be willing to search for her as she had left on her own. She still wondered, if anyone would even try to locate her at all.

Marie started to fidget around nervously, the silence seemed oppressive, being left with nothing else than her thoughts. The minutes seemed to tick by ever so slowly again, now that she was alone in the cell. What if the commander would not come at all? Would she be killed then? Her eyes flitted over the tiled walls of the cells and she began to count the tiles, if only to occupy her thoughts with a mindless task. She had reached around one hundred tiles, when Tris returned with a plate in one hand and balancing two mugs in the other. The guard opened the door for her and closed it again disappearing into the shadows behind the bars of the cell again.

She had a soft smile on her face and sat down gracefully across from Marie. Tris put the plate down on the floor between them and handed one of the mugs over to Marie.

Tentatively, Marie reached out and accepted it. She put it to her lips immediately and when she noticed that the mug only contained plain water, she started to gulp down the cold liquid with hurried sips.

Tris looked at her alarmed, brown eyes widened slightly and trying to slow her down "Slow down or it will come back up after" she warned.

Marie tried to slow down, feeling Tris' brown eyes watching her every move, but only seconds later the mug was drained and she put it down to the floor with a sorrowful expression, regretting to have emptied it so fast.

Tris shoved her own mug over to Marie, with an amused smirk "Take it as well. I can get more for us later."

Marie nodded at her thankfully and focused her attention on the plate in front of them. There was some meat on sticks, some bread, something Marie thought might be cheese and some fruit she did not know.

"Take whatever you want" Tris offered with a soft smile, having watched her expression as she inspected the food.

Marie took one of the sticks with meat cautiously and sniffed at it. It smelled divine. There had been no meat on the Ark and eating her first portion of the panther had been extremely tasty already.

Tris must have interpreted her hesitance differently and laughed "It is not poisoned if you fear that."

As Marie shook her head in denial quickly, Tris added with an almost evil grin "Poison would go better into water anyway."

Marie nearly choked on the piece of meat, she had bitten off a second ago, caught off guard by the other girl's comment and the casual way she had proclaimed her words.

"Just a joke" Tris added laughing freely at the horrified expression flitting over Marie's features.

Marie huffed under her breath and lightly glared at the older girl.

Suddenly the door to the ceiling was opened again harshly and Anya strode into the cell with a murderous glare on her face. She spoke some quick harsh words to Tris and the girls' smile froze on her face and she looked abashed all of a sudden, shoulders sagged visibly.

Marie gathered that Tris must have given her food and water without gaining permission from Anya first. She tried to defend the actions from the other girl to Anya "Please, don't be hard on Tris. She was nice to me." She knew that speaking up had been a mistake, when Anya directed another murderous glare at her direction, before she turned back to Tris and continued to reprimand the older girl in their foreign language.

The girl sprung to her feet quickly, as soon as Anya had stopped her rant and hurried out of the cell without another word to either of them, not even once looking at Marie as she left.

After a moment of heavy silence, Anya also left the cell. With relief, Marie noted that Anya had left her with the mug of water and the plate full of food.

The guard returned to his post nearer to the bars and Marie ate some of the food in complete silence. Trying to keep her attention focused on chewing and swallowing only. Now she could really just wait for something to happen. Marie was cautious not to drink and eat everything Tris had given her at once, who knew when she would get another ration. Judging from Anya's reaction to seeing Tris and her together, she doubted that she would be given anything else soon. With nothing to do but wait and lose herself in the fears of what would happen to her, Marie started once again to count the old tiles on the wall to keep herself distracted from her own thoughts.

Her focus wasn't really good after a night with no sleep at all, so she had to start anew every few minutes, but the mindless task of counting the tiles served its purpose and Marie forgot to worry about her future all together. She was distracted from her counting when the door to the cell was pushed open again. Marie looked over to the door quickly and saw a young woman enter. Could this be the commander? Marie did not think so. The woman looked too young to hold such a position of power. She had brown hair, interwoven with different braids and wore armour not unlike what the others were wearing. As Marie looked straight back into the green eyes of the stranger, she had to admit to herself that this woman seemed to radiate a strange kind of power. So, she may be facing the commander after all right now.

Marie tried to sit up a bit straighter and taller, trying not to appear just as frightened as she internally felt.

"What are you doing on my land, skygirl?" the stranger inquired with a steely voice, green eyes narrowed and boring down strongly at Marie.

"I…" Marie started to stutter out her answer, as her tongue suddenly felt too thick in her mouth. This stranger made her nervous somehow. "We were sent from the Ark, to see if the earth is survivable."

The commander inclined her head with an almost bored expression "I knew that already from the boy that was found with you. I wanted to know why you left the safety of your camp" the woman rephrased her question in a biting tone, scrutinizing the young girl in front of her.

Marie opened and closed her mouth soundlessly, for a moment unsure of what to answer. Finally, she gathered her thoughts and answered truthfully "John was banished from the camp. I did not want him to be alone." Although she did not know this woman, she sensed that trying to lie to her, would be a deadly mistake on her side.

The woman looked down incredulously at Marie "So, you thought it was a good idea to follow him unarmed in the middle of the night?" she questioned with a raised brow, disbelief flashing over her features.

Marie just shrugged helplessly, lowering her eyes to the floor. Put that way, her plan had really been lacking a lot of thought, but she had come to that conclusion on her own already. Even if they had not been abducted by these warriors, how should they have survived in the wild on their own?

"Why do your people try to reach the Mountain?" the commander implored further, green eyes hard and tone steely.

Marie perked up, she could answer that question at least "We were told there might be a storage of food in Mount Weather. We did not get supplies from the Ark." She at least hoped, that the woman was referring to Mount Weather with her question.

"Your people will not find the help they seek there" the commander countered, tone ringing resolutely.

Before the commander could formulate another question, Marie cut in bravely "What will happen to John and me?"

"You will not share the fate of the boy" the commander explained after a moment of heavy silence, where Marie tried not to squirm under the intense gaze of the woman.

Marie looked up at her with widened grey eyes and horror etched deeply into her features. Would they kill him?

"We do not harm the young needlessly. You will be allowed to stay and try to find a place within Trikru" the commander kept on explaining, not showing any kind of reaction to Marie's unease.

"And what about John?" Marie asked tentatively, although she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the honest answer. She was relieved to hear, that she would be allowed to live.

"The boy will be sent back to your camp" the commander spoke with a hint of finality in her voice. Marie would not be told anything further obviously, but she wondered why these people would be sending him back and allowing her to stay at the same time. It occurred to her, that the commander had not specified on the condition John would be in when he was sent back and she felt sour bile rise in her throat, already imagining that they would be sending John back in little pieces.

"Come" the commander ordered sharply, expression blank and she turned around on her heels striding out of the cell without looking back.

Marie struggled to get up, having sat on the cold stone floor for hours, her legs were now feeling weak and stiff. She tried to catch up to the commander quickly, as the woman did not seem inclined to wait for her. The sounds of the woman's steps were already getting fainter and Marie was afraid of what would happen, if she got lost. She hurried along the corridor, spotting the woman at the end of it, as if she was waiting for her.

They climbed some old stairs to get outside together and now that there was light again, Marie could look around and take in the village with wonder in her eyes. The village or town was much larger than it had seemed in the dark. There were people everywhere going around their daily routine. She spotted warriors engaged in hand to hand combat, she was others preparing food and she even saw a woman nursing an infant against her chest. When they saw the commander coming their way, all of them would stop what they were doing and bowed deeply to the young woman with reverent expressions on their faces.

Marie followed the commander silently, her eyes hurrying from one place to another trying to take in all the new sensations at once. She was so absorbed in looking around, that she was utterly oblivious to the glares some of the inhabitants were sending her way. She also did not notice when the commander stopped walking suddenly in front of her and she abruptly bumped into the woman's back. She stumbled backwards from the impact and would probably have fallen on her ass flatly, if not for the arm of the commander shooting out and steadying her. She glanced up at the woman sheepishly.

She startled, when a warrior in their close proximity took his sword from his sheath and approached her, sword raised in a threatening gesture. Marie looked at the approaching warrior with wide eyes filled with fear. She had not bumped into the commander on purpose after all. As the man approached further, the commander let go of her arm and made the man stop in his tracks with a simple gesture.

The commander let her gaze wander over the people around them shortly, most of them looked worried.

"The girl will be our guest indefinitely from now on. I expect all of you to welcome her into our midst" the commander let her sharp voice carry through the village unwaveringly. As some people still eyed the girl with undisguised distrust, the commander added loudly, steel creeping into her tone "An attack against her will not be tolerated."

The people all bowed their heads again in silent acknowledgement and the commander turned back to Marie "You should better watch out where you are going" she warned the girl lowly.

Marie nodded mutely, while her cheeks turned a slight pink in embarrassment.

The commander continued their way without another word and Marie was cautious to keep a better track of her steps now, but she could not completely stop her gaze from wandering around the village. She was led towards a huge tent in the middle of the village which was flanked by several huge warriors. One of them opened the tent flaps for the commander and the woman stepped inside as Marie hesitantly followed her.

The interior of the tent was covered with furs from different animals and a huge wooden throne sat at one end of it, raised on a dais.

Anya was standing before the throne waiting together with the dark-skinned woman that had wanted to kill her the previous night. Marie remembered that Tris had mentioned her name to be Indra. Anya looked at the commander with an expectant calm expression, whereas the other woman looked slightly sour as she spotted Marie's form behind the commander.

The commander strode through the tent wordlessly and sat down on the wooden throne "The girl will be allowed to stay" she proclaimed nonchalantly.

The dark-skinned woman let out a strange snarl filled with disbelief and discontentment, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword at her hip slightly stronger.

The commander's eyes bored into the other woman's, she asked, voice weirdly calm and expression blank "Do you got anything to say, Indra?"

The dark-skinned woman started to speak rapidly in the language Marie was unable to understand.

The commander lazily silenced her with a gesture "Speak in gonasleng, Indra!" she commanded sharply.

Indra shot a look full of hate towards Marie, before her gaze returned to her commander and she continued in English "Why allow one to survive? We should kill them all right now. They are invaders of our land, Heda."

"We do not simply slaughter children, Indra" the commander offered in a bored tone, staring at the woman unfazed "I decided she will stay, so she will stay!" she added a little more sharply.

Marie was slightly confused, why the young woman obviously had so much power over others which were obviously much older than herself. She also did not have an incline as to why Indra was already hating her with such a burning passion, she had done anything to offend her after all.

"The girl will need a first, of course" the commander continued after Indra had fall silent again. Her green eyes shortly flitted over to Anya inquiringly.

Anya minutely glanced over her shoulder at Marie, before she inclined her head and proclaimed in an even tone "I would gladly take her on."

The commander regarded Anya for a short silent moment as their gazes connected and she dipped her head in silent agreement "You may have her. But keep a close eye on her, she is unfamiliar with our ways. Crimes out of ignorance won't be tolerated for long."

Anya nodded again "Yes, Heda. I will start right away." Anya turned towards Marie after the commander gave her assent "Come, you have much to learn."

Marie nodded worriedly. These people obviously led a completely different life and she could only hope to adapt quickly enough to her new surroundings. She followed Anya out of the tent and took the first steps into her new life.

Chapter 7

After they had left the commander's tent, Anya guided her through the village silently. Marie just hoped that following the woman was the right thing to do. A few moments later, Anya came to a halt in front of a small wooden hut. "You will get clothes suitable for your new status here" Anya explained and held the door open to Marie.

Marie entered the building and was met by the sight of an old woman. The woman's skin was wrinkled from age and the exposure to the sun. In contrast to the reactions from the other inhabitants of the village, the woman smiled first at Marie and then directed her glance towards Anya.

"Landed yourself with another one, did you?" the woman asked Anya with a playful tone and her brown eyes twinkled visibly.

Anya just nodded stiffly, expression not turning even the slightest bit friendlier and gave the woman a look that clearly translated into "get on with it", tapping her foot impatiently against the rough wooden floor.

"Come nearer, young one, and take off your clothes" the old woman demanded with a gentle voice, motioning her closer.

Marie blinked at her for a moment, her brows creased in confusion. Why would she need to strip in front of them?

"Can't see what will fit you best under these loose clothes, girl" the woman explained as amusement creeped into her tone, when Marie hesitated a moment too long.

Anya seemed rather impatient as well and the glare Anya sent her way made Marie spring into action finally.

Marie shrugged out of the jumper and the pants she was wearing, but she kept her underwear and her boots on. Internally she hoped, that she would not be required to strip completely, not feeling well with the thought of being exposed in such a way.

"A scrawny one, I see" the woman commented in a teasing tone, when Marie was done with undressing and she inspected her body shortly.

Marie crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously. It was not her fault the rations on the Ark had been this small. When her mother was sick, they had tried to get extra medicine for all the rations they could spare. Later in the sky box, the prisoners were fed only the minimum to keep them alive. Mostly two small meals a day and if there was a shortage of something the prisoners were the first to go hungry. She had been in the isolation of the sky box for around a year and she knew that she had thinned even further.

The woman had turned around and was looking through a pile of different clothing articles she had pulled from a cupboard behind her.

Anya did not spare Marie's reaction any attention and tapped her foot impatiently on the ground. The process was obviously taking too long for her liking.

A few moments later, she was handed different articles from the old woman with the instruction to put them on. Marie was a bit overwhelmed on how to dress in these strange clothes. All of the clothes seemed to have been recycled from other clothing. Different materials had been mixed together and sometimes a piece of metal had also been added into the mix. The clothes all had various straps and buckles and Marie was confused on how to fasten them properly. She fiddled around with the items helplessly, trying to figure out where they belonged on her own, but it did not seem as if she succeeded.

The old woman finally stepped closer to her and lend her a hand, noticing how helpless the girl was and fastened everything where it belonged. "That should do" the woman said only a short moment later. She was obviously satisfied with the result, as she stepped back with a small nod and a satisfied expression.

Anya shortly inspected Marie and nodded her consent to the clothes mutely. "Have some comfier ones and light armour for her sent to my tent as well" Anya ordered and without waiting for a reply from the old woman, she turned around and left the building, holding the door open behind herself for Marie, expecting the girl to follow her.

Marie was unsure if she should take her old clothes with her, but as she bent down to pick them up, she saw Anya turning around in the opened door.

"Leave them" Anya instructed sharply "You will not need them anymore and they can be repurposed."

Marie nodded feeling strangely numb, leaving behind her only possessions from the Ark. But she knew, that Anya was right. She would be integrated into this culture and she would stand out even more among the people of the village in her old clothes from the Ark. But still it felt as if leaving the clothes behind would cement her leaving the delinquents completely. The numb feeling left her the instant she had followed Anya out of the house after waving goodbye to the woman. The village was bustling with people still.

"Wow, we were taught humanity had died on earth after the bombs fell. But it is so … so alive here" Marie voiced the wonder she was feeling aloud, looking up at Anya expectantly.

Anya gave her a short mild smile as a mute reaction, but kept them moving, weaving them through the tents and huts with the ease of familiarity. They went through the village towards the tent where the commander had stayed. In the near proximity other tents were located. All of the other tents were slightly smaller compared to the commander's tent and Anya guided her towards what appeared to be the second biggest tent. "You will share a tent with me for now" Anya explained calmly, holding the tent flap open for Marie and motioning her inside, before she showed her the inside of the tent.

The tent was definitely smaller. It had two areas, one Marie thought might be reserved for sleeping and a second area where a chest was standing and a small table and two chairs were located, both parts were separated by what appeared to be a think leather curtain.

"Furs will be brought later for you to sleep on" Anya continued to speak in an even tone.

Marie just nodded in mute acknowledgement. She was still intrigued by this different kind of life and felt slightly overwhelmed with all the new impressions her mind had to process.

"We will get something light for breakfast and start your training immediately after it" Anya proclaimed after a short moment, enough time in her mind for the blonde girl to take in the tent, before she turned again and motioned the girl to follow her.

Marie followed her through the village again. On the other side of the village, Marie could see horses grazing. Marie was completely enthralled by the animals, Tris had already told her that her people used horses for transportation. She stopped following Anya when her attention stuck to the majestic looking animals and she wished to observe the animals for a moment longer. She had never before seen a living animal, except for the bird, as there had been none on the Ark. When Marie noticed that Anya had not waited for her, she sprinted up behind her trying to catch up. The woman had not appeared to be the most patient person and she doubted she would be pleased, if she just ignored. Unfortunately, she promptly bumped into a huge warrior, as she hurried behind Anya. She had simply not noticed the warrior crossing her path and had not been quick enough to slow her movements, to prevent crashing into the man.

The man whirled around to face her with a murderous expression on his harsh features and before Marie knew what was happening, she was backhanded harshly across her cheek from the stranger and lost her footing at the hard impact of the harsh blow. "Watch out, filthy invader!" the man sneered towering above her, eyes glinting hatefully and features contorted into a mean sneer.

Only a second later the man was lying on the ground, with Anya kneeling above him pressing a blade to his neck. "You will better watch out, Quint!" Anya hissed angrily at the man, pressing the blade a little stronger into the skin of his neck, piercing it lightly for emphasis "The girl is under my protection now. Heda decided she will be my second and spread word around camp."

The man regarded Anya with a sour expression for a moment, but he nodded and stood up when Anya let him. He left without another word, but only after shooting Marie another hateful glare.

"Making friends already?" Anya teased her new charge lightly over her shoulder.

Marie cast her eyes down onto the ground, her cheeks dusting over with a blush. She knew it was her own fault for not following close enough to Anya, but fortunately the woman did not seem to be angry about that at all. The anger had faded out of her face all together after the man left them.

"Come" Anya ordered finally, tone stricter again and expression blank and they continued their way through the village together now undisturbed. They reached some buildings around a huge fire pit, where smoke was coming from chimneys.

Marie's brain directly associated the smell with food and her stomach began to growl again. It had been a few hours ago already that Tris had brought her the food.

Anya was given two plates of food and two mugs without having to ask for them. It seemed as if everyone knew the woman very well, so Marie gathered that Anya must be pretty high-ranking within this village. Later Marie learned that Anya was one of the commander's most trusted generals.

Anya sat down on some logs that had been placed next to the fire pit and mutely motioned for Marie to do the same. She was handed one of the plates and one of the mugs immediately after from Anya.

The mug did not seem to contain water this time as the liquid in it was of a slightly red colour and smelled strongly and weirdly. Marie took a cautious sip from the mug and had to cough at the strong taste, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "What is that?" Marie asked with a disdainful glare towards the mug, trying to supress herself from coughing and spitting out the foul liquid.

Anya snorted and amusement at the girl's antics danced through her brown eyes. Her tone was even but hinted with the same amusement "It is watered down wine. From your expression I gather you never tasted wine so far?"

Marie just nodded in mute agreement and still looked at the mug distrustfully. She knew theoretically what wine was, but she was not sure if there had been any on the Ark. Even if there might have been wine, children under the age of twenty-one were prohibited from drinking any kind of alcohol by law. Marie knew that probably half of the 100 had been imprisoned, because of breaking this particular law.

"You will have to get used to the taste soon" Anya commented lightly and continued with her own food, although she kept close watch over the girl from the quarter of her eye. Water was not always safe to drink on the ground and wine was a common beverage.

The plate contained a strip of meat, a chunk of bread and some fruits again. Marry started with the red berries and let out a sound of delight at the taste. "What are those?" she asked after taking a second one and savouring the taste on her tongue. Her grey eyes clearly showed her joy as she glanced up at Anya.

"Raspberries" Anya answered simply with the corners of her mouth curling upwards in the ghost of a smile. It seemed weird that the girl was so intrigued by something so trivial, but it was refreshing to watch her reactions.

Marie decided that she liked raspberries definitely much better than the wine. The rest of the meal continued in silence and shortly after, Anya ushered her through the camp again towards the training pits. The training pits actually were just some free space, where wooden targets had been placed and borders were marked by some logs.

"I will need to test your skills first to start efficiently training you" Anya informed Marie, circling around the young girl.

Marie looked at the woman with a doubtful expression. "If you mean skills to do with fighting" Marie started lamely "I don't have any. Children were not trained on the Ark."

Anya looked slightly irritated by that statement, but just nodded in the end. Her lips thinned slightly "Then we will start with the basic skills."

Basic skills for Anya obviously contained a perfect fighting stance for hand on hand combat to begin with.

For Marie it felt like endless hours, before Anya was even mildly satisfied with the way Marie placed her feet and got into a slight crouch raising her hands up to defend her head. She was sure that her shoulders and thighs would be sore in the morning from the uncomfortable position and having to take it up endless times again.

Anya also made her run around the fighting pits and the woman was really irritated to see that Marie's stamina was next to none existent.

But how should she have gotten stamina to begin with? There were no offers of sports on the Ark and she had been in the sky box for the last months. Her cell had been so small, there was not much space to walk around in, so most of the days she had not made more than a few steps from one wall to the other. Marie was breathing heavily after only two rounds around the fighting pits and she felt the muscles in her legs burn and her feet ache. Some of the kids from the village who had eagerly wanted to watch the strange girl train where outright laughing at her now and begun to make fun of her. Marie had to struggle not to let tears of frustration flow and bit her lips hard to get her breathing under control, when she noticed them pointing and laughing at her.

Anya had her arms crossed over her chest and was showing a slight glare on her face. The woman shook her head in exasperation, her tone turned steely "You will just need to improve faster then."

Marie nodded mutely, clenching her teeth together. She was feeling, as if she was confronted with an impossible task. But she would try hard to improve and satisfy Anya's expectations, which she judged to be impossibly high. She prayed they would not cast her out on the spot for being weaker than Anya had thought.

After all, the training did end on a positive note as Anya handed her a dagger and told her to try to throw it at one of the wooden targets. Although lifting her arms felt weird and there was not much force behind her throw, she had not missed the target entirely. The blade fell down again only a brief second later, but her aim had obviously been well enough.

Anya nodded with a hint of satisfaction in her brown eyes "Good. When you improve your strength, the daggers will be your first discipline. Your aim was well, only the strength of your throw is lacking."

Marie smiled proudly, she had a feeling that statements like this, would be all the praise she might get from Anya. The woman seemed nice enough, but definitely did not seem to be the cuddly type. Nonetheless, Marie was internally grateful when Anya told her that training would end for the day. Her limbs were feeling heavy and her back hurt from the unfamiliar fighting stance, she doubted she would be able to move again any time soon.

Anya brought her back to the tent, they would be sharing from now on, but told Marie she was allowed to roam through the village, if she did not go into the woods on her own. Dinner would not be for another few hours and Anya obviously had other things to do than babysat her the whole time.

So, Marie was left on her own in the unfamiliar surroundings. She stood in front of the tent undecided, unsure of what to do. She had no intention to go into the woods any way. She was sure that someone would haul her back sooner than she could try to leave any way. Anya had left her with the instruction not to get into trouble and Marie definitely was not planning to do that. She wanted to stay within her good grace as long as possible. Although her body felt tired, her mind was wide awake and she did not feel like sleeping now.

Chapter 8

Marie did not feel like sleeping at the moment and she wondered where Tris might be, but she had not seen all of the village so far and had no idea where to start to search for the other girl. It was also possible that Tris had other obligations and did not have time to spend with her. Without any other idea on what to do, Marie turned around and went into the direction she had seen the horses earlier. Wanting to see them again up close, now that she had the time. She could not forget the majestic creatures.

It took Marie some time to find the horses again, being so unfamiliar with the way through the rather huge village. But after some search, she finally found what she had been looking for. The people she met on her way, either ignored her completely, watched her with interest or turned away from her with distrust in their eyes. Word had obviously been spread, that she was not to be harmed, so the people left her alone for now and fortunately no one tried to approach her this time.

There were different horses grazing on a patch of meadow, that had been lined with a fence out of wood. Marie stood next to the fence and regarded the horses with eyes shining full of wonder. She had never seen any animals. There were no animals on the Ark. And these horses were absolutely huge and magnificent. She only knew, that the creatures were named horses as she had seen pictures from the old world in a book her father brought her once.

The horse that intrigued her the most was a beautiful black creature. It was amazingly huge and had a white star on its head. When Marie stepped nearer towards the fence the horse stopped its grazing and also came nearer towards the fence regarding her with dark wise eyes. The mare raised its enormous head over the fence and sniffed at Marie's face, blowing its hot breath over her face. Marie laughed lightly as the horses' breath tickled her face. Cautiously, Marie held her hand to the creature's nose and let her fingertips graze over the soft skin of its nose. The mare whinnied a bit and nuzzled her hand in a way to tell her to pet her for a bit. Marie obliged the silent command and looked at the animal in wonder when it felt as if the horse settled the weight of its head into her hand.

After a few minutes, the horse obviously had enough of her petting and went back to lazily grazing. Marie was slightly disappointed to have lost the animals attention so quickly. She made a few attempts to get the lost attention back, calling out to it softly and when her attempts all failed, Marie finally climbed through the fence onto the meadow the horses were grazing on, wanting to go closer to her.

The black horse looked up again, after she stepped onto the soft grass and came back to her. Nuzzling its big head into her midriff with a huff. Marie had only just begun to resume her previous caress, when shouting from a few meters behind her began. A man was running towards the fence all the while gesturing animatedly and loudly screaming a command in the unfamiliar tongue Marie yet had to learn. Marie just blinked back at the man owlishly, not understanding what he wanted her to do. The man also climbed through the fence hurriedly and came towards her with an expression screaming murder on his face for being ignored in such an impertinent fashion. To her utter wonder, before the man could make a grab for her, the horse she had been petting intervened. The creature blocked the man's path and seemed to threateningly huff at the man and started to get on its hind legs kicking with the front legs as a warning.

The man seemed to be aware of the damage that the horse would be able to inflict on him if it wanted and went back through the fence quickly to avert the kicking front legs.

Marie looked on to the proceedings with a slightly open mouth. It seemed as if the horse had just protected her from the man. But why would a horse do that? She could not understand what had just happened.

Before Marie or the man could do anything else a strong female voice cut in, sending the man away.

Marie had to look around the horse to see that the commander herself had been the origin of the voice. Marie chewed on her lips nervously, the reaction of the man had clearly shown her that she had done something she should not have done.

She started to apologize, trying not to stutter, but the commander waved her off immediately with a lazy gesture.

"As it seems trouble seems to follow you, sky girl" the commander said with a hint of amusement in her voice and her green eyes seemed almost kind as she looked at her.

Marie pouted silently not knowing, what she was allowed to say and she did not want to get into even more trouble and Anya would surely already be disappointed when she heard of her newest adventure. The way the warrior had wanted to attack her before, simply for running into the commander, she did not wish to find out how insulting the commander would be punished.

The horse demanded her attention back and nuzzled her midriff again. Marie lightly scratched behind its ears, with a slight smile on her face.

"Curious. Touching my horses is forbidden for a reason, you know?" the commander continued, tone light, as she watched the young girl from the corner of her eyes "They normally do not let themselves be touched by anyone but me. They are trained against abductions."

Marie looked at the young woman slightly shocked, thoughts whirling around wildly in her mind. The horse had been nothing, if not friendly to her. Frightened of the severity of her sin, she let her hands drop to her sides immediately as if burned and took a subtle step back. The horse obviously did not like her retreat at all and huffed again in complaint and kept on nuzzling her, prompting her to take up her caress again.

The commander had the hint of a small smile dancing around the corners of her mouth. She shortly let own fingers graze over her horse's nose, before she assessed "She obviously likes you. You should not anger my horse by ignoring her now that you started."

Marie could just blink at the commander in open astonishment. She had expected a lecture at the least or some form of punishment, but surely not to get the permission to continue. She stretched her hand towards the horse again, cautiously, watching the woman the whole time, trying to judge if the woman truly was not against her touching her horse. Marie guessed the commander's personal horses were probably even more precious. "We did not have any kind of animals on the Ark" Marie finally said after a few moments of silence, as she glanced at the woman. She was wary of being alone with the leader of these people. She had no idea of their culture and she was bound to do one mistake after the other that way. The woman's austere mannerism was alien to her and it made her even more nervous to be alone with her.

The commander inclined her head as if she had expected or already known this answer. Either John had been asked or they had concluded that fact themselves. "So, you will need to be taught how to ride a horse properly" the woman concluded in a kind tone.

Marie looked between her and the horse in wonder. Although Tris had already told her that they used horses for transportation, she had not thought that it would mean that she got to learn to ride, but she was already feeling excited at the prospect. She only knew of horse riding from an old fairy tale book her father had read to her a long time ago. In the book a prince had come riding a horse to a tower, where a princess had been hidden away.

"When will I learn to ride…?" Marie paused slightly at the end of her question. She was unsure how to address the woman correctly.

"You are eager to learn, I see." The commander answered with a pleased note in her voice "You may call me by my name outside of meetings, but in front of other clans you will address me as Heda as anybody else does."

Marie nodded immediately in agreement. The only problem was that she had no idea, what the woman's name was anyway.

"What were the children of the Ark taught, Marie?" the commander sounded genuinely interested.

Marie tilted her head in thought, trying to remember as many of her lessons as possible. She had not attended many lessons only the basics, before her mother had been ill and she was incarcerated for trying to help her. "I have only been taught how to read and write, some basic math and the beginnings of earth study and history" Marie explained easily, features showing her utter concentration "I would have learned other things later as well, if I had not been caught stealing." Marie bit her lips for a moment, unsure if admitting theft had been such a great idea on her part in front of the leader of the people here.

But the commander just nodded, maybe Anya had already told her that they had all been criminals of some kind. She could not see any kind of judgement in the woman's features.

"What did you learn in earth studies?" the commander continued her questioning in a calm tone. She was truly interested to hear, how much the Sky youth might know about life on earth.

Marie first just shrugged a bit, she had not liked this subject in particular. She had not truly seen the purpose in learning something about living on a planet that their generation would never see. Looking back now, she wished that she had listened a little closer to her teachers. "Well" she started after a few minutes of silent contemplation, fortunately for her the commander seemed to be rather patient in contrast to Anya and just waited silently for her to continue, "We were told how to start a fire without a match, but just told in words. Burning a fire uses oxygen and the Ark was always short on that, so we just got the theory. Same goes for how to hunt or fish without a gun. In the last weeks I had been there, we were shown how to navigate and tell the time using the position of the sun. I know that later on in the class would have come more survival skills and how to grow crop and such things."

The commander regarded Marie with a thoughtful expression, processing the information the child had offered freely for a moment. "Your lessons do not seem very effective without practise of any kind" she commented with a slight furrow to her brow.

Marie just let out a little laugh, totally agreeing with the woman. She had never seen the sense in knowing how to theoretically light a fire if she would never have to do it or know that she might be faced with having to do it in the future she did not think from the theory alone to be able to light an actual one. It had not sounded very complicated, but everything seemed easier in theory.

"But you did not learn any professions?" the commander called her out of her musings with another question.

"Professions?" Marie asked back unsure what the word meant exactly, tilting her head to the side slightly in confusion.

"Like healing or how to sew clothes or how to build a house or craft something" the commander tried to explain her question a little better, in term she hoped the girl would understand.

"Ah" Marie answered in understanding and shook her head in the negative "We would not be taught a job in school. In the year before you turn eighteen, you decide what you want to do later on or you got a recommendation based on the talents you showed in school. Some kids just chose to do the same their parents did. And when you turn eighteen on the Ark is the time you start training for your job."

"That does also not sound very effective" the commander commented with a doubtful expression.

Marie shrugged helplessly "I did not make the system."

"How does it work here?" Marie asked immediately interested in their way of living. She had judged already, from what little she had seen of the village so far, that the lives of the survivors were not comparable to her own experiences and life on the Ark.

"Children start training for a profession when they reach their fifth summer" the commander answered in a neutral tone.

Marie looked at her with wide grey eyes and her tone showed her shocked surprise "That is awfully young. You don't have normal schools?"

The commander shook her head in the negative and explained "Not everywhere. In the capitol there is a school, but most of the smaller villages do not need one. The children learn all they need to know for their lives in the village they grow up in."

Marie just caught up to the fact, that her peers on earth had the advantage of four years of training on her. How was she ever expected to get to their level of skills? She had already seen how lacking her skills were and how should she be able to make up for four years? "Do your warriors start training this early as well?" Marie asked hesitantly, internally praying for a negative answer.

"It depends" the commander answered "Some earlier, some later. I started my own training in my third summer."

Marie looked at her with her mouth agape in horror. The horse seemed to sense her mood and whinnied at her to get her full attention back. Marie did not have the chance to say anything more as a messenger for the commander appeared behind the other side of the fence. The commander bid her goodbye giving her the permission to stay with the horses for as long as she wished and the explicit permission to visit them again later if she desired.

Marie was silently contemplating her future, while absentmindedly petting the horse from time to time, when Anya called for her from the other side of the fence. Her thoughts were glum and her shoulders were hunched. Marie quickly looked up at Anya and was relieved to note that the fierce woman did not seem angry at her, so Marie hoped that the commander had told her she had the permission to be with the horses.

"It is time for dinner now" Anya called her and impatiently motioned the girl to leave the horses "Come!"

Marie petted the dark horse one last time as goodbye and climbed back through the fence obediently.

"Have you been with Heda's horses all the time?" Anya asked her on the way towards the place they had eaten before with amusement colouring her voice.

Marie nodded mutely. The prospect of having to compete with children that had years of advantage in training had dampened her spirit drastically. She was still unsure what would happen to her if she proved incapable for the training of a warrior after all and she was unsure on how to ask the woman, afraid that even through the simple action of asking she was admitting her incompetency and giving Anya further reason to be dissatisfied with her.

Chapter 9

Anya regarded her charge silently from time to time with a worried expression on the way to the communal fire pits. The girl seemed to be physically unharmed, but the wonder she had observed sparkling in her eyes earlier in the day had dimmed notably and Anya was internally wondering what had prompted the obvious change.

The girl silently accepted her plate and mug and picked at her meal in complete silence as well. Anya would have expected for the girl to be starved and parched after their training. She doubted that anyone would have given her water or something to eat in her absence. But the girl was not really paying any mind to the food in her hands.

Word had spread quickly through the village of the girl who fell from the stars and more people than usual were gathered around the bonfire trying to catch a glimpse of the stranger. Her performance on the training pit had not been impressing, but the girl being allowed to be with the commander's horses already must have added to the others' curiosity.

Marie seemed to be completely oblivious to all the eyes watching her every move. It was starting to turn dark and the only thing that seemed capable of catching the girl's attention was the bonfire itself. Anya wondered whether the girl had even seen such a huge fire before, but she highly doubted it. From what the boy had disclosed in his interrogation the sky people relied on electricity completely. The boy had not wanted to answer their questions at first, trying to resist questioning, while Marie had spoken freely and honest right from the beginning. It had nearly been disappointing just how quickly the boy offered everything they wanted to know under even a little bit of physical violence.

Anya could see Tris wolfing down her own portion alarmingly fast on the other side of the fire to return to her guard duty as quickly as possible. Anya had assigned her extra guard duty as punishment for her disobedience with the sky girl. She had made it clear that Tris should have only stayed with her and try to gather more information, but Tris seemed to have taken the opportunity and try to befriend the girl instead. Handing out water and food to prisoners, was unacceptable and although Anya was sure that Tris had been more than aware of that fact, her second had deliberately ignored it. She internally wondered what about the young blonde girl had been enough to make Tris forget all caution like that.

The girl was just nibbling at her food pushing it around on the plate not really eating anything at all. Anya frowned, when she noticed the girl more or less playing with her food, obviously lost deep in thought. Long after she had finished with her own portion and with a flash of annoyance, she took the girl's still mostly full plate away finally.

"If you don't want to eat, you'll go hungry for the night" Anya said to the startled girl in a harsh tone and strode away to bring the plates away. Someone else could get the rest of the girl's portion so that it would not be wasted.

Marie was left alone at the bonfire staring forlornly at the dancing flames for long moments. She was so lost in her thoughts that she had not even looked up from the flames when Anya returned to her side.

"It's time to retire" Anya told her, impatience with the girl seeping into her tone and strode through the crowd with Marie silently following her, with her head bowed down towards the ground.

Anya had no idea what Lexa had told the girl to upset her, but whatever it was had turned the interested, eager to learn girl into this silent version and it was getting on her nerves. Nothing which Lexa had relayed to her, had made her assume that Marie would be so glum now. Anya hoped that a night of sleep would restore her mood again on its own, it was probably to assume that the girl was tired. She hoped, that the girl was just cranky from exhaustion but highly doubted it. She bit back a sigh, she was not good in offering comfort and was not looking forward to having to speak with the girl about what was troubling her.

No one followed them through the camp, but Anya had seen that Marie had not left any flattering impression on their people. Before she had collected the girl for dinner, she had heard guards whispering about the fearless girl from the sky who tamed Heda's beasts. More than a few of them had already learned painfully not to get too near to Lexa's mounts. Unfortunately, during dinner, Marie had worn the expression of a startled deer and not some fearless girl. Anya knew it was important, that the people of TonDC respected the girl on their own. For that the girl would need to make a name for herself rather sooner than later, or scenes like the one with Quint would keep on repeating themselves.

When they reached the tent, they would share for now, Anya could see that her orders were already fulfilled and some furs had been added for the girl to sleep on. The sleeping area immediately looked smaller with a second bed roll added to it and Anya huffed lightly, it had been some years ago that she last had to share her tent with Tris. Her other second had long outgrown the need to be kept company during the night. Theoretically, Marie was old enough to have a tent of her own as well, but as long as the girl was unfamiliar with their culture, it was safer to keep her under close watch.

Anya immediately started to discard her own armour in silence and motioned Marie over to her sleeping place. The girl was struggling to open the clasps of her own clothes and the frustration seemed to grow on her features. Anya watched her struggle for long moments, expecting for the girl to ask for help, but when she thought to see tears glitter in her grey eyes, she stepped in with a huff. She batted the girl's hands away impatiently and helped her undress briskly.

Marie looked even more dejected as before when Anya stepped back. Silently Marie was fuming, angry at herself for not even being able to dress and undress on her own.

When they had both undressed and gotten ready for the night, it started to rain slightly and Marie could hear the raindrops splashing onto the tent. She laid down on the furs allotted to her and pulled one over herself as a cover. The furs were much softer than she had thought and she liked the feeling of them on her skin, she could also feel how warm they were keeping her after only a short moment. They did not smell disinfected like the blankets on the Ark, the smell of nature and wood was clinging to them rather intensely. Marie laid under the furs without finding any rest, as her thoughts kept on circling wildly in her mind. No matter how tired her body felt and she did feel utterly drained physically, her mind was still racing with thoughts. She was trying to lay still as to not disturb Anya next to her who she thought had already fallen asleep. The woman's breathing sounded deep and even and in the dim light filtering into the tent, Marie thought her eyes looked to be closed. Anya had also stopped moving a long time ago.

The rain kept coming faster now and the wind seemed to have picked up as well. There were other sounds, Marie could not identify as well and the new atmosphere was making her even more restless. The sounds of the wind suddenly sounded more like the screech of a wounded animal and it made goose bumps raise on her arms as she pulled the fur tighter around her frame.

She felt like crying at the moment and struggled to not let her tears fall. She felt overwhelmed by everything and helpless. And to top it off, completely alone right now as well. Marie wished herself to be back on the Ark, being younger and safe in the small quarters her family had inhabited in happier times.

After some time there were tears running down her cheeks unbidden and Marie started to sniffle softly.

Only a few moments later the first signs of a storm could be heard and thunder was growling above them, startling Marie. When lightning illuminated the sky followed closely by a loud growl of thunder, Marie let out a startled scream and she was shaking slightly under her furs in fear. She had never seen or heard a thunder storm before. She knew from her earth studies, that they were a part of the weather and that the lightning could ignite trees and kill people. She had fantasized as a child what witnessing one would feel like, but in her mind she had never been in a thin tent with basically a stranger.

Anya had awoken with a start, when Marie screamed and looked around with a dagger, she kept under pillow, in hand for the intruder she thought had made the girl scream. When she could not detect anyone in the tent besides the girl curled up under the furs, Anya lowered the dagger with narrowed eyes. She did not appreciate being woken in the middle of the night without a reason at all. She wondered if the girl might have been woken by a nightmare and she grimaced in reaction.

At the next lightning accompanied by loud thunder the girl let out a little yelp again and Anya huffed irritated for being woken by her for something as insignificant as a thunderstorm. Those were pretty common for the region and this season. Anya slid the dagger back under her pillow and laid down again hoping to fall asleep again. But she could hear the girl clearly crying now, loud sobs leaving her mouth when there was no thunder. She had never been good with comforting, but she was the only one here and as she assessed the time she doubted the girl would stop crying on her own any time soon.

When the next thunder made the girl scream again muffled by the furs, Anya sat up again with a sigh. When lightning illuminated the tent for a moment she could see the girl under her furs, her eyes red and puffy from crying. So, she had obviously started to cry before the storm.

Marie did not look in her direction and seemed to try to be as silent as possible, so she had not woken her up on purpose either. Tiredly rubbing her eyes, Anya spoke towards the girl "What is wrong, Marie?" she tried to keep her tone kind, but she felt the tiredness clouding her mind still.

Marie turned her head and looked at her startled, not having noticed at all that Anya had woken up until now.

The girl hastily rubbed around her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt and just shook her head silently.

Anya huffed under her breath in annoyance. She was not the most patient person when rested and being woken in the middle of the night did not help her patience one bit.

The girl jumped again with fright under her furs, when the next lightning illuminated the tent brightly only a short moment later.

"Come here" Anya ordered briskly and lifted her own furs. Maybe some closeness to another body would calm the girl down or she at least hoped the girl could draw comfort from her presence. Tris had been rather afraid of thunderstorms as well a few years ago and would always silently make her way under Anya's furs to snuggle up to her on those nights.

The girl blinked at her with a sheepish expression and seemed rather unsure if Anya's offer was earnest or not.

When the next lightning occurred and Anya was still lifting her fur the girl leapt from her furs under Anya's immediately.

The girl was shivering and looked totally spooked.

Anya cautiously pulled her closer towards her not feeling entirely in her element. The girl finally snuggled up to her and tried to control her shivering.

"You are safe here, Marie" Anya assured the girl in the softest voice she could muster "A little thunder won't hurt us."

Marie looked up at her with her big grey eyes wide open and nodded.

"And now tell me what has soured your mood before." Anya commanded with a hint of stiffness underlining her tone. They were both awake now anyway and hopefully speaking about what was bothering her besides the weather would put the girl to sleep sooner later. Judging from the utter exhaustion etched into Marie's features, Anya highly doubted that the child had slept even a little moment before the storm had started.

"Nothing" Marie answered and tried to turn away from Anya, clearly unwilling to answer the question.

Anya curled her lips in irritation and narrowed her eyes at the child, she absolutely hated being lied to. She pinched the girl's arm hard once and hissed "I do not appreciate being lied to."

Marie looked rather startled about the pinch and was gently rubbing the undoubtedly smarting region with her hand.

When Anya kept her gaze firmly drilled into Marie's eyes the girl gave up with a sigh.

"The commander spoke to me earlier" Marie began slowly, grey eyes downcast and fiddling a few strands of fur between her fingers in obviously rising agitation.

Anya nodded in acknowledgment "I know, Lexa had told me where to look for you."

"The commander's name is Lexa?" Marie answered back, her attention diverted from the woman's question as she let the commander's name resonate through her mind.

Anya nodded again pursing her lips slightly, she tried hard to keep her patience, but she was not used to dealing with a child like Marie "Do not evade the question, Marie" she reprimanded the girl with narrowed eyes.

"The commander, eh … Lexa, she told me that you start training warriors from their third or fifth summer the latest" Marie continued in a clearly subdued tone, but did not offer anything else as if that would answer the question.

The way Marie looked at her now clearly showed that the statement somehow must contain the reason for her sullen mood before and Anya blinked at her utterly confused. "Yeah, so?" Anya asked after a moment of contemplation not understanding what the girl was trying to convey.

"I am nine already" Marie explained with an impatient expression, as if Anya had not understood her on purpose.

"So?" Anya asked again with a confused furrow to her brow. She knew the age of the girl, she had asked for it herself after all. Anya clearly did not understand the way the girl was working her thoughts right now. What had her age to do with the age the other warriors started their training?

Marie huffed and her lips were starting to tremble precariously as if she was on the verge of tears again.

"How the hell am I ever going to catch up with them?!" she let out rather loudly looking at Anya accusingly as if Marie's lack of knowledge and skill was somehow Anya's personal fault.

Anya still blinked at her confused. She was not expecting the girl to catch up in a few days or only after one training. The training earlier had clearly shown her that her new charge did not even possess any basic knowledge of fighting neither was her body equipped with the muscles needed for efficient fighting. But that would change as they continued her training, so Anya was still not able to understand the origin of Marie's problem.

Anya let out a strained huff "Marie, no one expects you to catch up just like that. It will take month or years of training. Maybe you will even never be able to catch up completely."

That had obviously not been what the girl wanted to hear and she did start to cry again, tears leaving glistening trails on her pale cheeks.

Anya was watching her rather helplessly, what was wrong with her now?

"What will happen to me if I fail as a warrior" Marie asked through her tears, voice shaking and desperate "Will I be killed then? Or allowed to stay? And learn to become something else? Or…?"

The girl kept blabbering on.

Anya huffed with a glint of amusement in her brown eyes. She now did understand her charge's problem. The girl was afraid of not meeting up to their expectations for her and she was afraid of the consequences if she would fail. Anya silenced the girl with closing her mouth and gently wiped away the tears from her cheek "You worry for nothing, Marie. If you try your best at the training you will surely not fail to become a warrior. And if you do not enjoy the life of a warrior you can of course choose a different path in the future. You will surely not be killed by us. So, stop the fretting, Marie."

"Really?" the girl asked with a sniffle looking pitifully small right now, but Anya still noted the hope gleaming in her grey eyes.

"As I do not like being lied to, I will always speak only the truth to you as well" Anya answered gravely, her brown eyes boring down intently at the child.

Marie giggled lightly with a relieved expression "You know, the commander gave me the permission to keep on visiting her horses." Her voice clearly resonated with the astonishment and even a hint of pride.

Anya inclined her head in acknowledgment and an amused smirk tugged at the corners of her lips. As fast as the girl's mood had soured, it was lifted as well again obviously. The girl was not comparable to Lexa or even Tris in the slightest, both of them had never tended to get overly emotional and the instances where she truly had been required to comfort them had been very rare.

"And she allowed me to call her by her name outside of meetings" Marie added with a proud glint in her grey eyes. The exhaustion seemed gone from her features and the child was wide awake and even slightly chirpy now.

Anya nodded again "So I have heard already. You must have left a rather good impression on Lexa to allow you this privilege."

The girl seemed to glow with pride at the praise and what it must mean and the sparkle was back in her eyes, before lightning and thunder came back again after some silence and the girl shrieked again and pressed herself into Anya's body more firmly.

Anya could not help herself and started to laugh before she caressed her charges back soothingly, until the girl began to calm noticeably.

"Try to sleep, little skaifaya." Anya murmured to her as she also settled down again "I will keep you safe."

Chapter 10

The next morning the storm had thankfully cleared away. Marie woke up still snuggled into Anya's side comfortably. The woman seemed to be asleep still, her breathing even and deep and her eyes were closed. Maire peered up at the woman for long moments, as her grey eyes scanned over her features now that she had the chance to actually do so undisturbed. The woman's features were sharp, even completely relaxed in her sleep, there seemed to be a lingering sharpness and austereness about Anya.

"Stop staring at me and get up" Anya grumbled at Marie suddenly with her eyes still closed.

Marie jumped slightly not having expected the woman to speak up as she had been convinced that Anya was still asleep. "Sorry" she mumbled timidly, as a slight blush dusted over her cheeks at having been caught staring like that and she hurriedly inched away from the woman. She stretched slightly like a cat feeling the aches inside her body still. "Argh, my muscles ache" Marie complained in a whiny voice, testing slowly which movements hurt most and got up to dress for the day with a sigh, feeling Anya's brown eyes watching her every move.

Anya had also gotten up now quickly in one fluid motion and she rolled her eyes at the girl's complaint "You shall see, how your muscles feel after another round of training" she commented with a hint of amusement in her tone.

Marie looked at her utterly horrified, she had not even considered that her training would probably take place daily from now on. Internally she chided herself a fool for not having considered that yet, she was painfully aware of how lacking her skills were, so she would need to get as much training as quickly as possible, but she was not sure how she would be able to cope with the sudden physical strain on her body.

Anya laughed under her breath at her dumbfounded expression and tossed a wet cloth at her face "Wash yourself. I will grab us some breakfast shortly." She had already dressed, while the girl had just stood around without doing anything really.

Marie glared at her retreating back, but started to wash herself obediently nevertheless. She should not anger the woman needlessly, she had gotten the impression that the woman would surely not accept disobedience or other non-sense. Anya would probably expect her to be on her own best behaviour constantly. She remembered Anya's lasts words from last night, before she had drifted off again and noted to ask her about the unknown phrase later. The woman had spoken the words in an almost gentle tone and Marie was curious for their meaning.

When Anya returned some time later, Marie was still struggling with her clothes and her hair started to look rather stringy and Marie kept pushing it out of her face in frustration, when the strands stubbornly fell in front of her eyes again, obscuring her view.

Anya placed the plates on the small table in the middle of the tent and huffed at Marie's unsuccessful attempts to dress herself properly. "That won't do" Anya said after a silent moment of observing the girl, so stepped closer to her and swatted the child's hands away, closing all the buckles and straps in no time at all with practised hands. Marie would need to learn how to do that herself soon, but as long as the girl was unable to do so, she would help her. She turned the girl around and ran her fingers through her blonde locks shortly, detangling them, before she braided the wavy blonde hair into a simple braid fastening the braid in place with a short leather cord.

Anya turned the girl around and inspected her young charge with a critical gaze, before she inclined her head "Better, that will do for now. I will show you to the river later, where you can wash your hair".

Although Marie was internally annoyed, that Anya had had to help her dress once again, smiled thankfully at the woman and tilted her head to the side slightly, trying to remember how exactly Anya had pronounced the unfamiliar words, before she asked curiously "What does skaifaya mean?"

Anya seemed perplexed for a moment, before a scowl settled on her features and she lightly glared at Marie and her cheeks seemed to turn a slight pink "Enough with the dawdling. Eat! Or you'll go hungry until sundown."

Marie wanted to argue, that she had not been dawdling at all and had only been curious and that Anya had evaded her question, but another glare from Anya, made her snap her mouth shut before she could try to argue with the woman. She sat down on the floor of the tent which had been covered with some pelts and eagerly ate the breakfast. Her stomach had started to growl at the sight of food. She had not eaten much the previous evening due to her glum mood, but now that it was lifted again, her hunger had returned.

Anya ate her food in silence and waited for the girl to finish rather impatiently, wanting to get back to the training pits as soon as possible. Once Marie did, Anya took the plate from her immediately and left the tent without any word, expecting the child to follow without being asked.

Marie blinked behind the retreating woman for a moment, wondering where Anya was going and why the woman had not told her, if she was supposed to follow or not. When she heard a throat being cleared directly in front of the tent, she stood up as quickly as her stiff muscles aloud, biting at her lips to reign in the slight hiss of pain wanting to escape. She hastened behind Anya quickly when the woman immediately resumed walking.

Anya discarded the plates at the bonfire, handing them over to one of the seconds on duty there and guided Marie through the village back towards the fighting pits.

With a small smile on her face Marie noticed that Tris already stood there, waiting for them. But a frown settled on her features, when they reached Tris and she could truly look at her. The girl reciprocated her smile in greeting, but Marie noted on the utter exhaustion painted on her face, bags were forming under her eyes, as if she had not gotten nearly enough sleep during the last nights.

Surprise flitted over Tris' features, when she spotted Marie approaching behind Anya, but she did not make any comment.

Anya acknowledged Tris' presence with a simple nod, her tone was sharp as she said "I hope the additional guard duty has cleared your head of your rebellious tendencies for now, Tris."

Tris looked rather sheepish, lowering her eyes minutely before she nodded her head in agreement repeatedly "Of course, Anya. I'm sorry, I won't disobey again."

Marie listened to their conversation with a slightly confused frown, wonder why Tris was being punished. She dearly hoped that the other girl was not being punished because she had shown her kindness on the previous day. But she was pulled out of her musings by Anya, ordering the both of them to start running rounds around the training pits to warm up.

Tris jumped into action without missing a beat, being used to Anya's drill and aware of what the woman expected, whereas Marie stayed in her place for a moment and sent a pitiful glance towards Anya in the vain hope of being let of training due to her aching muscles. Of course, Anya would have none of it and threatened Marie with additional training in the evening, if she did not obey her command immediately.

Marie ceased her unsuccessful attempt at manipulation quickly, when she noticed the impatience flashing through Anya's brown eyes and started jogging around the pits as fast as she could. Tris was running way faster, so they ran around the pits in different rhythms. To Marie if felt, as if Tris was running at least two or maybe even three rounds, in the time she needed to finish even one round.

Anya kept watch over them carefully from the side-line, spurring Marie on sharply, when she started to slow down again after only a few rounds. Anya's lips thinned visibly at Marie's performance. The girl was moving too slow and her movements seemed uncoordinated and clumsy, even after only a handful of rounds the girl had visibly broken into a sweat and her breathing had gotten laboured. She wanted to see, how far the girl could push her own body, but Anya feared the child would collapse soon. So, she called both of her charges over to her, after another few rounds.

Marie came to a halt directly in front of Anya, breaths heaving and sweat running down her face. She tried to wipe away the sweat burning in her eyes, but only succeeded in rubbing more into her eyes. She had to hold herself up by putting her hands on her knees and leaning over slightly, as she frantically tried to regain her breathing.

Anya's eyes narrowed at the younger girl, clearly unsatisfied with the girl's performance. Her lips thinned, when it truly looked as if the girl could collapse any moment. She snorted under her breath, the girl would need to toughen up as soon as possible. She nodded to Tris, explaining to Marie briskly, that both of them would be using the hand to hand combat techniques, she had already taught her the basics off yesterday.

Marie foolishly assumed to have a higher chance at beating Tris compared to her previous experiences with Anya. She had forgotten for a moment, that Tris had also had years of experience in combat already. So, it truly was no surprise that she was lying gasping for air on her back on the ground only seconds later. She had not even gotten into the right fighting stance, before Tris had pounced her attack on the younger girl relentlessly.

"Again" Anya commanded in a bored voice from her post at the side of the field. She inclined her head at Tris minutely, acknowledging her clear victory. The girl had not fought unfairly, but she had hoped to see Marie try to defend herself at least a little.

Marie struggled to get up from the ground quickly, feeling her whole-body ache all over already. The rounds after that, Tris at least waited until Marie had gotten into her fighting stance, but it did not change the outcome of the fight one bit. The fights did only consist of one or two attacks from Tris and a poor try of Marie to defend herself against the other girl and Marie would end up on the ground again and again. After what felt like an eternity for Marie, Anya finally called an end to the fighting for now.

Tris looked at Marie apologetically, with a kind smile on her face and bend down slightly to offer her a hand to get up again. Before Anya could tell them what to do now, shouts were heard in the village. Marie looked over to them and saw that all of the inhabitants of the village were looking towards the sky, pointing at something. She looked up as well and a frown settled on her features, it looked as if another ship might have been sent down from the Ark and it was falling towards the earth with a flaming tail.

"Another part from your Ark?" Anya turned to her younger charge, brown eyes worried and lips pressed into a thin line as she questioned Marie immediately.

Marie shrugged "I don't know for sure. But I guess. But the pod was rather small, probably only for one person." She could not know for sure of course, but she did not have any knowledge of other people in space, which made it pretty probable that it had come from the Ark.

"It does not seem to have landed far from here" Tris observed thoughtfully, brown eyes hefted on the place, where the thing had disappeared from their sight.

Anya contemplated on what to do now for a few silent moments, before she inclined her head. "Come, we will try to find it" she briskly ordered, already beginning to stride into the direction of the tree line.

Marie felt a thrill of excitement run through her mind, forgetting about her aching body immediately, as she hurried behind Anya and Tris. The older girl seemed at least a little excited as well.

The way through the woods was much longer than Marie had anticipated and she had absolutely no idea how far away the village might be now or from which direction they had come from. What dimmed her excitement the most, was the fact that Anya had stopped criticising the way she walked from the very first moment in the woods. The woman constantly reprimanded her to walk more silently, although Marie was trying her hardest to copy Tris' movements.

"I am trying, Anya" Marie whined, annoyed with the woman's constant criticism "Really…"

Tris had stopped in her tracks all of a sudden and Anya had whirled around, covering Marie's mouth with her hand with an abrupt movement, startling the young girl strongly in the process.

Marie sucked in a harsh breath, looking up at the woman with widened eyes, wondering just what had made them stop. Anya and Tris both seemed to be searching for something, their attention solely focused on their surroundings.

"Ssh" Anya hissed at the girl under her breath, observing the trees closely and straining her hearing.

Only the fraction of a second passed, until a stag crashed through the bushes on their side, facing them for a second before it dashed away in another direction.

Anya let go of Marie and the girl looked after the stag shell shocked, grey eyes widened and sucking in another harsh breath. The stags head had been deformed split in a half between two faces, she had never seen such a thing before and the sight had shocked her speechless.

To Anya and Tris, the sight obviously was nothing to worry about and they both had relaxed again to some extent after the dear had vanished between the trees.

"Something or someone has startled the stag, careful now" Anya hissed at the both of them, as her eyes continued to scan their surroundings carefully. "You still place your feet wrongly" she continued her criticism in an annoyed tone after a few moments of moving again.

Marie sulked silently, as her mood soured again and tried to copy Tris' movements harder this time. But no matter how hard she tried, she still failed miserably at it. If she looked on the ground to see the sticks she might step on, Anya demanded she did not heed her surroundings enough attention. She did not understand, how she should be able to know where she stepped without looking for it.

Sometime later, they finally reached their destination and could see that the pod had landed near a river.

Anya observed the pod from the safe distance of the tree line. Before Anya could leave the treeline to get a closer look at the pod someone could be heard behind them approaching the crash site as well. The sounds were much too loud to be caused by any of their people, so Anya instantly knew that it could only be Skykru or even worse Mountain Men. She whirled around quickly, motioning to her charges and Tris started to climb a tree next to them immediately.

Marie looked between the both of them worriedly, having concluded that whoever came there was probably not one of them. She watched how Tris climbed with a furrowed brow, absolutely convinced that she would not be able to get onto a tree like that and she dearly hoped that Anya had another hideout in hand for the both of them.

"Climb!" Anya hissed at Marie lowly, destroying the girl's internal hope with her command.

Marie looked at her with wide grey eyes and fear flashing over her features, she had never climbed a tree and the first branch seemed to be awfully high up, she did not even know how she was supposed to reach it, nevertheless, climb the whole tree. She had already lost sight of Tris, as the girl had vanished at the top of the trees.

When the sound of the approaching person came nearer and Marie still had not moved an inch, Anya's patience snapped and she quickly grabbed Marie and climbing onto the tree quickly, trying to hold Marie's smaller body securely. Only a few seconds passed after Anya had stopped to climb further up in the tree, when a boy passed the tree under them with a raised gun in hand.

"It's Bellamy" Marie whispered as lowly as possible to Anya, when he passed directly beneath them and she recognized his hair.

Anya nodded in mute acknowledgment and observed the sky boy. The boy ran to the pod, ripped the door open and searched for something frantically. He ripped a strange metal box out of the pod and closed the door again. Anya furrowed her brow in thought, the boy had completely disregarded the passenger she had already spotted inside the pod.

Bellamy ran a few meters away from the pod and threw the metal box into the river behind the pod. After the thing disappeared in the water the boy turned around and ran back into the woods.

All remained quiet for a few moments, but Anya still kept Marie mobilized beside her, waiting patiently if someone else might be approaching. She was fearing that the Mountain might have seen the thing falling from the sky as well and could come to investigate.

"What was that thing the boy threw into the river?" Anya demanded to know from Marie lowly, but her eyes remained on the metal contraption.

Marie shrugged in thought "I don't know for sure, but it could have been a radio or something like that. Bellamy did not want the others to get in contact with the Ark."

Anya kept a firm hold on Marie to make sure she would not fall accidentally from the branch they were cowering on, as the girl started to move a bit in this awkward position, clearly unused to stay still like this. The sounds of more approaching footsteps and a freely held conversation, made Anya tense again, tightening her hold on Marie even further.

When they were near enough to be seen from the tree, Marie easily identified the both of them as Clarke and Finn to Anya.

Anya observed the two teenagers as they ran towards the pod and opened the door also. But they in comparison to Bellamy were both more concerned about the passenger inside of the pod. A young woman with some dried blood on her forehead climbed out of the pod a moment later and hugged the boy rather enthusiastically. The other girl looked rather put out by the scene and remained in the background. They were too far away to listen on in their conversation, but a few moments later the woman from the pod went back and looked for something returning empty handed. All three of them appeared rather angry and hurried back through the woods in the direction the other two had come from.

Anya assumed that they were searching for the thing the other boy had previously tossed into the river. When the woods felt quiet again finally, Anya and Tris started to climb down from the tree again. Marie remained on the branch looking down to the ground with wide eyes. She had not felt too unwell on the tree with Anya securing her on it, but now without the woman, she was acutely aware of the heights.

"Come down, Marie!" Anya commanded loudly a moment later when the girl still had to move an inch.

Marie shook her head frantically, keeping a firm hold on the trunk of the tree. She had no idea how to climb down without falling the whole distance. She would probably survive the fall, but she would definitely hurt herself.

"Marie" Anya shouted again, impatience now noticeable in her voice.

When Marie still did not move, Anya turned away from the tree and sent Tris ahead back to TonDC with narrowed eyes.

The other girl left, sending Marie a short sympathetic glance over her shoulder. She knew that Marie would have to learn to move in the trees soon. They were surrounded by trees and using them as cover was essential for Trikru.

"Come back down at once" Anya ordered once more in a harsh voice that commanded absolute obedience.

Marie still just shook her head again, her fear only mounting with each passing moment.

Anya looked up at the branch she knew she left the girl on with an impatient glare "Believe me, you won't like the consequences if I have to come back up and take you down myself!"

Anya's threat had at least made Marie move a bit from the trunk, looking down to see if she would find a way to get down on her own.

"I don't know how" Marie shouted down, voice frantic and tinted with rising panic, trying to keep her balance on the branch.

"It isn't that hard, Marie" Anya answered back in a softer tone, rolling her eyes slightly at the frightened girl.

Marie huffed, of course it wasn't hard for them. But she had never seen a tree until a few days ago nor had she ever climbed onto one. She had gotten one branch further towards the ground when she slipped and fell with a loud scream.

Anya had tried to catch the falling the girl before she could crash onto the ground, but the girl's leg still twisted in an awkward angle with the impact of the fall.

"Ow!" Marie let out a pained moan as Anya let go of the girl to see if she could stand. The leg gave out under her and Anya caught her before she fell to the ground lifting the girl to carry her back to TonDC.

"Sshh" Anya shushed Marie in an almost gentle tone "Every child has to fall from a tree at least once, before they learn to climb. Nyko will take a look at your leg in the village."

Marie gave her a little pained glare. She dearly hoped that not all of Anya's lessons would contain hurting herself before she learned something.