to_survive | [For Clarke] Founder's Day

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clarke,
in-game

[For Clarke] Founder's Day

Founder's Day sounds something like Unity Day, though Darrow's celebration is obviously miles different than any celebration people on the Ark could have put together. Bellamy doesn't quite understand most of it, but he's spent some of the day with Clarke, taking everything in.

It's almost too much at one point; the constant press of bodies, the smells, the sounds, the noise. He's never experienced anything like it, even after the few days he's had to wander Darrow. At least Clarke has been a constant presence by his side, something Bellamy has no problem with.

After sunset they find themselves in the park with a few others, though it's thankfully not so crowded as the main parade streets were. Sitting on a park bench, Bellamy eats some kind of cake that tastes way too sweet and watches what is slowly starting to seem normal. The families often catch his eye and he wishes, not for the first time, that Octavia could be with him.

"There aren't enough stars in the sky," he says to Clarke as he sits back and looks up. He knows the science behind it, knows the lights from the city obscure the night sky, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels wrong.

Just another in a long list of strange, new, wonderful, crazy things about being here.

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Without a thinking, she opens her mouth to explain the science behind why that it is, but she catches herself. Bellamy's anything but stupid and they both had sat through the same basic classes on the Ark. Explaining would just be embarassing for them both.

Leaning back, she feels the cool wood of the bench against her back as she nods instead. Her fingers absently twist the bracelet made of cheap, neon rubber and plastic around her wrist. A silly little carnival prize that seems weirdly precious in its newness.

"There really aren't," she squints to see if she can make out the faint glimmer of familiar-yet-different constellations. "It's kind of lame, but I miss them."

It's like losing a familiar friend, even though Bellamy had given no real attention to the stars at all in the past. They'd just been something always there, always in view when looking out of the Ark and always filling the night sky on Earth.

"Not that much," Bellamy says. "Just a little bit. You're allowed to be a little lame when you end up time traveling with no way home."

"Good, because I'm going to stick with it." A hint of a smile creeps into her voice, her own mild sentimentality getting the better of her.

Clarke's never been one for romanticizing anything, not even the stars in the sky. Her head is too filled with reality, with science and facts that it tends to get in the way. Better uses for her energy often to spring to mind. But after the exhausting and frankly overwhelming nature of celebrating the founding of a city she shouldn't be in, she allows it.

"Today was nice. What did you think?"

"I didn't realize old Earth was so weird," Bellamy says before he can stop himself or consider anything else. Between the parade and the people of the city, he's not sure which is real old Earth and which is part of the craziness specific to the situation they've found themselves in.

"But," he says, and he holds up his plate with the funnel cake on it, "the food is amazing." He's stuck to mostly safe-looking food throughout the day, with the cake being his first real indulgence. Bellamy hasn't mentioned a thing to Clarke about it, but he discovered the hard way what happens when he eats too much of the food here without taking into account the fact that he's had nothing but nuts, berries, and animal meat for a month and a half. He'd thrown up almost as much as he ate for the first day or two.

"Neither did I," Clarke suspects that the rest of old Earth, the one they'd been taught about hadn't been this weird. Maybe it's just their particular pocket, full of strange things that don't make sense, but at the same time fit into the stories in her head.

Without hesitating she reaches out and steals a bit of the funnel cake, popping it into her mouth. It's sweet and not sweet at the same time, the texture not quite like anything she'd had before. The food here is kind of incredible and she's been careful to build herself up to trying it all. It's been a month and a half, but she still knows too much about the prolonged impact of a restricted diet to gorge herself too much. "The food's crazy. There's just so much of..." she waves a hand. "Everything here. "

He hasn't gotten used to the idea that he can still go get food whenever he wants; that there's no shortage of it, that he doesn't have to save every last bit for a day he might need it (but he still has food tucked away in his apartment, just in case). Bellamy twitches his plate away even after Clarke has taken a bit, holding it close to his chest.

"So much food and yet you're still stealing mine," he protests, laughter in his voice. "Should've gotten your own."

"What's yours is mine and vice versa," she retorts with an easy smile and shrug of her shoulders.

It's a lame excuse and she knows it. She could have just as easily bought her own. Funnel cake hadn't seemed appealing at the time and now that she's satisfied the urge, she doesn't want anymore. There will always be more food. Clarke can't get over that, but she's coping, storing and saving, eating moderately and reading all of the food labels. "This counts too."

Bellamy hesitates, only because he realizes that much hasn't changed. They're in some weird little Old Earth city with no escape, but they're still together and it still feels a bit like they're surviving. Just in different ways now. He holds the plate out again, resting it on his leg so Clarke can pick at it too.

"You're buying next time."

"I can do that."

There should be a strangeness to the idea. Next time. It suggests a luxury of resources, something that is new to her, but Clarke's not interested in picking that idea apart. Tomorrow maybe, but right now there's just this. She laughs lightly as he holds the plate out, helping herself to a bit more.

"I heard someone mention that they have fireworks at this thing. Can you imagine?"

"Can they even see much with how bright this place is?" Bellamy asks, looking back up at the sky. The fireworks would have to be as strong as the flares they'd once sent up to signal the ark. Enough to be seen in the night sky throughout the whole city, no matter where someone was. He can barely picture it.

"I don't know." Clarke squints up at the sky, trying to imagine it lit up with color. There's already so much color and noise, so many lights and music that she can't really imagine it. Fireworks are supposed to be beautiful. The movies and pictures she'd seen had told her as much. But wouldn't it be better if it were darker. "They must be able to. Why else would they do them if they couldn't see?"

No matter what it should be better to blot out the memory of the bright streaks that bodies entering orbit had flashed against the sky. She wants something better to touch upon.

"People do a lot of weird things here that make no sense," Bellamy points out. He recognizes lots of things here from their basic Earth History, but some things are just so inexplicably strange that Bellamy hasn't even tried to understand them.

"Like the parade. One of floats was a tribute to a famous person's dog."

"Okay the dog float was a little much," Clarke admits after giving it a bit of thought. Honoring the dead or the founders or anything like that was something she could understand. Parades were meant to honor and celebrate. The dog thing had been taking it to an entirely new level.

Reaching down, she picks off another piece. "It will still be nice. I'm sure of it. It has to be."

"There are lots of good things." For every strange item or interaction Bellamy has, there are two others that he finds intriguing and exciting. The list grows longer every day, and if they ever do get back to their Earth and he remembers his time here, he'll miss it. That much he knows.

"You're here. It doesn't feel as strange with you around."

"I'm glad you're here too. It's better now."

A smile, soft and strangely sweet, starts to spread across Clarke's features as she turns slightly to look at Bellamy. After she says it, she feels oddly warm and sticky, glancing down at her fingers to see if somehow the powder sugar did this to her. None of what she'd said was a lie. That first month had been hard and lonely and strange, little good things aside. There's still so much to know and understand, but having him here makes it easier.

She dusts the powder off her fingers before looking back at him, studying how the light hits his face. "I hated losing you too. Especially right after Finn."

Bellamy doesn't think he's seen that sort of smile out of Clarke before -- definitely not on their Earth, with the way things had been going.

He looks away and back up to the sky at the mention of Finn. That, when Bellamy thinks about it, had been the real start of when Clarke started to slip away from them. They all grieved, but Clarke had been so caught up in it with almost no time to heal, and she'd steadily moved further and further away from Bellamy, toward Lexa, and finally beyond the Grounders entirely.

He's turning back to Clarke, about to say as much, when a flash of light in the sky catches his eye.

The flash and the boom that follows causes Clarke's heart to jump into her throat. Startling, her head whips upwards, pulse racing even as she realizes that it isn't any sort of threat. There's nothing attacking them, no enemy at their gates. No, it's something much more simple.

Another flash of color, crackling as it tumbles down. Her mouth opens slightly at the wonder of it. They had been wrong. Even if the light of the city, the fireworks are visible. They're lovely in a way that didn't transfer in videos and photographs. A simple sort of wonder, but one nonetheless.

"Wow," she breathes as her smile splits into a full-fledged grin. "We were wrong."

Bellamy will happily admit to being wrong in this case; the fireworks are unlike what he could imagine. The flashes of light and designs traced in the sky, along with the breeze blowing in the scent of gunpowder, makes for an experience he's never had before.

When he looks over at Clarke, he's glad to see she's smiling as well, and he knows the wonder in her face matches his.

"This city is still strange, but this makes up for a lot."

"Yeah, it does." Her tone is distracted, her mind swept up in the colors. It seems impossible that something so explosive and formerly ominous can also be beautiful. This is what a world without worry or threat looks like. It takes the dangerous and softens them.

It hurts to admit, but Clarke loves it even as it makes her heart tighten in her chest. The booming, the burning, the clapping of spectators. Everything is at odds.

Eyes still fixed above them, she reaches out and grasps Bellamy's hand, fingers tightening around his, oblivious to the stickiness from the powdered sugar.

Clarke's grip in his hand is something Bellamy has become accustomed to, but there's comfort in it that he doesn't find elsewhere. A reminder that Clarke is here with him, and that they're not alone in this strange new world.

The show overhead is enough distraction that he lets the conversation die, content to watch the colors light up the night sky. The gunpowder scent reminds him of Raven, makes him wish the others were here to witness this. They all deserved some bit of it.

When the show finally ends, leaving bright streaks of green in Bellamy's vision, he gives Clarke's hand a squeeze. "That was...pretty damn amazing."

Her fingers still laced with his, she turns her head slightly to look at him. A flickering of ghost-like dots still flicker through her vision. The booming had been both terrifying and thrilling and she can't wait to get home to paint it. She has to preserve it for when the others get here.

If they get here her pessimism corrects, dampening the day.

Brushing it off, she nods. "It was. I wish the others could've seen it," she bites her lip. "I might paint it later. Just to have."

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[For Clarke] Founder's Day

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