[For Clarke] Founder's Day

[to_survive]

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.

Comments

[to_survive]

"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.

[willbetested]

"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.

[to_survive]

"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."

[willbetested]

"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."

[to_survive]

"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."

[willbetested]

"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."

[to_survive]

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.

[willbetested]

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."

[to_survive]

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."

[willbetested]

"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.

[to_survive]

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."

[willbetested]

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."