The Graveyards We Leave Behind

The next evening in Polis, Roan is freed to prepare to be his mother's champion in a duel against Lexa. Nyx sits on the ground hiding in the shadows watching him practice. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to fuck him, but beneath the desire there was intrigue. All grounders are good warriors so she expects no less of him, but Lexa was the victor of her conclave. Either way, she is unsure that either victory will lead to much. Azgeda will not recognize them, and Lexa already abandoned Skaikru once. The peace is at it's shakiest tonight, and the only thing keeping it together is probably Clarke's love for Lexa.

Nyx gets up and dusts her pants off as the wind nibbles on her bare arms. She walks around the marketplace in search of some kind of moonshine. If there are hallucinogenic nuts being offered as tea, she is sure the grounders could cook up some liquor. She strides toward a table loitered with bottles, and the woman pours her a cup asking her to try in the native tongue. For a moment she imagines Lincoln, who had taught her and Octavia to speak. Though she is not a pro yet, she understands the command and brings the cup to her lips. As the liquid slides down Nyx's throat she smiles at her success. She glances down at the knife strapped to her leg that Murphy had given her. That was so long ago. She wonders how John is for a moment. She realizes that she does not have much to offer the women. Though that knife holds value she has resolved to trade it, but before she can a hand full of coin reaches out in front of her.

She looks up to see Roan who says, "I'm buying in hopes that you'll share."

When the woman accepts the currency Nyx brings the bottle to her mouth. Her head tilts back, and Roan watches with amusement as she chugs half the bottle before handing it to him and walking away.

Nyx is pacing in her room dull from the grey of her emptiness. The buzz for the liquor is peaking and the carnal urge to see Roan is strong, but she's scared that her presence is a curse. Many seem to die when she is around, and she cannot sentence him to death tonight. She stops in her tracks when her door opens. Her head spins to the entryway, and she swallows hard when she sees that Roan is standing there - no armor. He has come to her.

"When I said 'share' earlier, I meant I could use some company," the half empty bottle still in his hand. He waits for a moment observing her reaction.

"You'll die tomorrow," she tells him, worry in her voice. She doesn't know where the concern is coming from, but her belly is full of it, and she can't hide it.

"I do not fear death," Roan says. There is a comfort in his voice intended to assure her as he takes another step into the room and shuts the door behind him.

"Neither do I," she admits. Her eyes are now distracted searching his body. Without all the furs and armor she can see his muscle tone in his long sleeve shirt, and it is enticing. The sight of him makes her, unknowingly, lick her lips.

"But?" Roan asks, knowing something else is coming. He wants to laugh at the way she looks at him, but he holds it back and smiles.

"But I would be disappointed if you died before I felt you inside me," she confesses.

Roan laughs at her insistence - he cannot hold it back anymore. A beauty like that could not be so desperate to find a man to lay with. His chuckle subsides when she pulls her tank top off and then her bra. His eyes instantly swarm to the bruises and the scars on her body. Though the scars were from battle, by the shape of the bruising on her breasts he is sure those were from sex.

"If you chose to seduce me because you think I'll do that to you, then you're wrong," he tells her pointing at her chest. He is not interested in causing her pain for his own pleasure.

"I never told you what to do," she tells him as she pulls her pants down too. "The truth is I don’t care what you do, I just care that you do it," she admits. Her attraction to him is through the roof, and the tower they are in is very tall.

He stands there as his eyes take a walk up and down her naked body trying to resist. He is not a one night stand man, but her persistence is hard to ignore.

"Do you dislike what you see?" she asks him as she did at the summit. Her arms hang at her sides allowing him to take her in.

"And what would make you think that?" he asks her squinting his eyes that seem to be digging deep into her. He wants to understand why she is doing this.

"You still have your clothes on," she tells him before walking over and lying down on her bed.

"I like to think I'm a half decent man. Sex isn't just physical to me," he admits that he is hesitant. "If I lie with you then you won't be back here tomorrow, you'll be somewhere else with someone else," he accuses. He wants to look away, but when he sees what she does next he just can't.

"Do you think I'm not a decent woman?" she asks him, spreading her legs to give him a good view of how wet the idea of him is making her.

He doesn’t speak, but she sees him gulp. She has riled him up, and he is too close to breaking.

"And if you're half as good as I think you will be, then you're wrong, I will be back," she adds standing back up. She doesn't mind sticking around for good sex. She can't imagine Roan ever boring her.

She stands and strolls over to where he is waiting and slides a hand under his shirt. The warmth of his body gives her chills as she fingers the muscles of his belly. Before she can get far, he places a hand on her wrist to stop her. She is about to give up. Her hand drops back to her side and she turns to pick up her pants, but then he peels his shirt over his head. Her eyes flutter across his chiseled body and suddenly she feels scrawny. The weight she has lost since the mountain took Nathan is apparent. She spends more time drinking than eating.

Roan walks toward her, making her drop her pants back to the ground and back up to the bed. His hands play with his belt and then his zipper until his pants are on the ground too. He doesn’t give her any time to look down before he pushes her onto the mattress and climbs on top.

When he is inside her she admires the brown hair that falls onto his shoulders. She reaches to stroke the scars on his face in between moans. He leans down to kiss her lips, and she melts completely under him. The candles in the distance burn a scarlet orange as she buries her face in the crook of his neck. The salt on his skin is almost bitter when she nibbles. The groans that escape his lips are low and tickle her ear; they send her into a frenzy with every stroke of his hips. It is too soon for her, yet she is shaking underneath him as waves of pleasure pulse through her body.

She opens her eyes to be met with his. They are a burnt caramel that she can almost taste in his kiss. When she pushes him off of her and onto his back he is confused, and when she takes him into her mouth he gasps at the unfamiliar feel of a tongue on his cock. It doesn't take long before he is erupting into the back of her throat, unable to tolerate much more of her slurps. When she sits up to swallow and lick her lips, he stares at her with a longing that she's never seen before.

"You’re good at that," he tells after they have been lying for a while tangled in each other. If it weren’t for the heat radiating off his body she would freeze from the cold.

Nyx looks up at him, a gleam of amusement in her eyes, "no one's ever done that for you before?"

He shakes his head as his fingers play with her hair, "I don’t think it’s a practice of our people."

Nyx can think of several clever things to say, but there is aura of calm surrounding them that she enjoys too much to risk ruining. They fall back into a silence. Her right hand is on Roan's side, it's fingers gently rubbing circles into his skin. His right hand is underneath her head, softly scratching at her scalp. Their legs are mixed up in each other, and they are so close it feels like he should be inside her to the hilt. She has never been this close with someone she wasn’t in the process of fucking. She likes it.

"I've never seen someone so empty before," his voice echoes through her mind when he continues, "who broke you?"

"If you don't die tomorrow, maybe I'll tell you," she says reaching up to push his hair back and graze her fingers over the markings on his face.

He is satisfied with her answer for the time being. She is surprised when he doesn’t get up to leave, but throws an arm over her after pulling the furs up to cover them. She has nowhere to run - this is her room, but he could leave, and he doesn’t. She is also surprised that the room does not appear to be grey, and that the candles in the corners still burn orange. Here in the arms of a dead man she does not feel so empty anymore.

When she wakes up in the morning Roan is still there. Her back is pressed up against his chest, and his arm is wrapped around her waist.

"Good morning," his breath tickles her neck when he feels her stir in his embrace.

She turns around in his grasp to face him. There is a calm in his eyes. His hand reaches to rub her cheek before his lips meet hers.

"It's time," he tells her after the gentlest kiss she's ever felt. She nods and sits up to dress, surprised that the flame from the melting candles is still an orange hue. She glances over at Roan. His brown hair is half pulled back as he slips on his navy shirt.

A fire starts in her heart. She could not let him die.

At the arena Nyx admires Lexa's war paint. There is a hole in her belly that she thinks will swallow her whole if Roan dies. The bottle he bought her is in her hand; she opens it and takes a few gulps. Liquid courage is necessary in times like these, she defends.

The battle is a good one. Lexa is strong. It seems there are many things she hides within the body of a young girl. When she overpowers Roan, and he is on his back Nyx cannot help but cry out, "No! Roan!"

Lexa's eyes shoot toward her like arrows. Her head tilts in thought as she holds a knife to the prince's throat.

Nyx has concluded that she would kill the commander if a single drop of blood spills from his skin. He has just come into her life, and there is no way she is letting anyone take him away from her. When she hears his mother's words condemning him an exile if he dies, Nyx's eyes light up with fire. Before she has a chance to react, Lexa's sword is in the woman's chest, and she's declaring Roan King of Azgeda.

She wants to run over and hug him as she is overwhelmed by joy. His eyes meet hers from afar. They seem to smile at her, to embrace her from a distance. She decides against it remembering that he told her his people would kill him. She will just have to wait - after all, she did promise him that she would come back if he was any good, and he was more than she expected - she would be back.

The morning without him is long. Now that she knows he is alive, though, she can bear it for a while. When the commotion seems to die down that afternoon she walks to his chambers. The door is open and a woman is talking to him in hushed undertones. Nyx waits at the entrance, and his eyes meet hers. It is not long before the woman walks out, and Nyx is ecstatic when she can finally shut the door and run up to take him into a hug.

"I'm sorry," she tells him in regard to his mother, pulling back after she is satisfied that he is real and alive.

"That woman was never a mother to me, anyway," he says his hands cupping her face. he doesn't seem interested in talking about the fight. She is amused that he is so interested in her now when she had to work so hard to captivate him.

"I have to go home with Clarke," she tells him, placing her hands over his, grazing over them with her thumbs. There is a sadness in her voice that she tries to hide. She doesn't want to leave him yet.

"Home is where you make it," he tells her wishing she would stay.

"I'll be back, Roan, I promised," she reminds him.

The two lean in for a kiss that sends shockwaves through her body. With every touch she is less and less empty, and he is more and more in love. She forces herself to break it, knowing Clarke is waiting for her. Giving his calloused hands a squeeze she turns to walk away, wondering how she will look at Bellamy when she gets home. She has had so much sex that she forgot how to feel anything else. Now that Roan has given her that, will her feelings for Bellamy finally stop holding her hostage?

When she reaches the gate to the city Clarke is surprised to see her approaching with a look in her eyes she has never seen in Nyx before. She is still empty, anyone could see that, but not completely anymore.