Struggle to Survive (Orion & Amaranthine)

[Orion]

Aurora Jackson did not go quietly as she was pulled from her cell and in to a crowded drop pod. The thing was already flooded with nearly a hundred bodies by the time that it was her turn to be taken - nearly a hundred familiar bodies, at that. It only took one sweep of her hazel eyes for Rory to realize that she knew almost everyone there. After spending over a year in lock up, she knew who the other trouble makers were. Her daddy had loved finding out that he had fathered a thief, after all. More bodies came - and then more after it. After every seat was filled, the place went quiet. That was, until engines roared and the ship was disturbed. It was then that Rory came to realize they were being sent off of the Ark.

What for? She didn't know until the chancellor's voice rung out through the ship.

“Prisoners of the Ark hear me now. You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable. Those crimes will be forgiven. Your record will be wiped clean. The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years.”

They were going to the ground - and Aurora refused to believe that this wasn't the end of her days. As one of the prisoners known for taking an illegal space walk undid his restraints, a commotion started. A girl she recognized as Clarke Griffin started to try to convince the spacewalker that he needed to get back in to his seat - instead, two more joined him. Those two perished as the exodus ship launched through the atmosphere, sending them flying against metal walls.

The crash left her disoriented, but not injured. In fact, everyone seemed to be unharmed except the two that had lost their lives during re-entry. From there, another commotion started to brew amongst the prisoners: how or when were they supposed to leave?

 

[Amaranthine]

Bellamy Blake had one goal in mind when he conjured up a plan to get on to the exodus ship: protect his sister at all costs. From the moment Octavia had been born that had been his mission and what felt like his sole purpose in life - and he was well okay with that. No one and no thing had ever managed to mean as much to him as his baby sister did.

As soon as he put a bullet in to the chancellor, he had sealed his own fate. As soon as he had stepped on to the ground, only after encouraging Octavia to be the fiest to touch it, and then realized that the bracelets on everyone's wrists were transmitting everyone's vitals back to the Ark, he knew that had to be stopped. Almost immediately that became what he wanted to do - and many of the prisoners sided with him as the chancellor's son and the daughter of someone on the council tried to talked them out of it.

The attempts were pointless, though. Everyone here had a reason to distance from the ark - something those still in the sky must not have thought of. Bellamy didn't even pay any mind, and just turned to the next closest person to him. As long as Octavia stayed out of it, and she had so far, He didnt care that much.

"You too?" He asked the unknown girl next to him. It took him a moment, but eventually he realized that he had seen that face before. "Rory, right? You've been in lock up for a year and a half - Officer Jackson's daughter?"

 

[Orion]

Bellamy Blake - guard in training turned janitor after it was found out that he was harboring a secret sister beneath his floor for 16 years. Just like he seemed to know her face, daughter of one of the guardsmen after all, Aurora knew his. She nodded to let him know that she was alright.

Of course she wanted to take that band off her arm, but it was just as she had reached out towards him that Clarke spoke up again. The bracelets were letting the Ark know that they were alive.

Somehow that made her want it more. Those fuckers were going to float her in a few week's time anyways more than likely. "Do it," she demanded of Bellamy. Her desire was fueled by Clarke's pleas to stop - the blonde made her mind up, not changed it.

 

[Amaranthine]

Of course the princess and the chancellor's son would want to stay in contact with the ark. Had they not realized that despite their connections, they were here too? Not even being Ark royalty had saved them from being sent to die on the ground along with everyone else. Most people seemed to realize how little those still in space cared - but many were hesitant. Bellamy himself didn't believe that anyone would be pardoned once those still on the Ark came down, if it came down - especially not him.

He smiled to Aurora as he broke her bracelet off, freeing her from her ties to the Ark. She was a pretty thing, he had to admit - bright eyed and looking alive, with some sense in that brain of hers to top it. "There," he said as it snapped and fell to the ground. Meanwhile, Clarke was trying to get together a team to head to Mount Weather - actually, she was trying to get everyone to go. She obviously doubted their abilities to survive.

 

[Orion]

Freedom. For the first time in her life, Aurora wasn't tied to the Ark. They couldn't watch her like a hawk or throw her in to a little cell. They wouldn't even know that she was still alive. Even if she should have wanted her family to know that she was alive, she didn't. No one on that space station mattered to her - as it should be. They had been sent down here to die after all.

"Thank you." She may have only said the two words, but Rory sounded genuinely appreciative. "I think you're right to try ro distance from the Ark. I don't think that they would pardon us, not even for a second."

 

[Amaranthine]

Bellamy was glad to see that people were on his side. It would make convincing the Ark not to come down be that much easier - and it helped that a girl on her side was as pretty as this one seemed to be. "There's no need to thank me. Now if only everyone else would realize that trying to get in touch with them is a bad call." Bellamy didn't have anyone left n the Ark that he cared about, though. His sister, Octavia, was here on the ground with him - and his mother had been floated over a year ago when the chancellor himself had made the call to float her simply for having a child. That alone was part of why he was okay with the fact that he had shot a man.

"For now we need to figure out how to live here. They want to go to Mount Weather, but they also want to get back in touch with the Ark. There has to be a better choice." Clarke was on the verge of walking away and was still trying to convince Bellamy to talk the others in to going as well. "We're not going," he said harshly to her - only for his little sister to speak up and offer to go. Fuck. The last thing he wanted was for Octavia to leave his sight, but she seemed insistent. He wasn't able to talk her out of it, and with so many eyes on him there was nothing he could do.

As a small group walked away he was tensed, but he knew they needed to get this place settled in. "Alright guys - we want a fire up. After that we'll figure out what to do next."

 

[Orion]

Bellamy didn't sound too sure of himself after his sister walked away, but Rory was still confident that getting in touch with the Ark was a bad call. Over the next few hours she helped get everything settled. The drop ship had left them with little to work with but they would make do with what they had.

"We're doing good," she said later that night as a fire burned bright. Together the group had managed to get that going, and for now that would have to be enough. Everyone was celebrating and Aurora was impressed. "They seem to like you... I can't say I blame them."

 

[Amaranthine]

"This wouldn't be possible if they didn't cooperate," Bellamy said. As much as he wanted to take all the credit for the scene of celebration that had formed before them, he couldn't. He may have been the ringleader, but without the prisoners of the Ark, now the first residents of the Earth in almost a hundred years, none of this would have happened. It was something worth being proud of - for everyone. Every single person here was playing a role in the making of history, and seemed to be doing a damn fine job at it.

"All I did was rabble up a group of teenagers - they wouldn't have listened if they didn't want to. Now come on - we should celebrate too." Bellamy put his hand on Rory's back and urged her towards the group around a roaring fire. Provided she went easily he would follow closely behind. Out of everyone she seemed to be the one that talked to him most so it was hard not to notice that she was rather beautiful.

 

[Orion]

Bellamy's hand on her back made the otherwise calm and cool Aurora gasp. It was a sudden touch by a boy that she couldn't deny was attractive, and like most seventeen year olds she had been at least a little boy crazy before she was taken prisoner. Besides that, back when Bellamy had still been a cadet in training she had been incredibly attracted to him. They only spoke once or twice but if he had shown any interest then she probably would have gladly handed him her virginity - whether she was sixteen at the time or not. Now she was much closer to eighteen, but she could still remember her failed attempts at flirting back at the unity dance on the Ark. She'd given up as soon as she realized he couldn't take his eyes off another girl, but by the end of the dance she had come to know that had been Octavia, his sister.

"Yes, we should!" Without even realizing what she had been doing, Aurora reached over and grabbed Bellamy's hand to take the lead towards the fire at the center of camp.