Aleksander stepped down the rusted metal ramp, his boots sinking into the soft, loamy soil. For a second, he just stopped and breathed. The air here wasn't stale, metallic, or scrubbed through a dozen chemical filters; it was rich, thick with the scent of pine, damp earth, and vibrant life. Deep inside him, his Dark Fey blood practically hummed in response, vibrating with an ancient, instinctual connection to the wild.
Around him, the rest of the delinquents were losing their minds. They were sprinting through the ferns, tackling each other into the dirt, laughing, and staring up at the blinding blue expanse of the sky. It was a chaotic, desperate kind of joy.
Aleksander just shook his head, the unseen rings heavy and grounding against his forearms. He ignored the celebration and fell into step beside Clarke. Behind them, Wells had already broken off from the main group, heading back into the smoking bowels of the dropship to see if the communications array had survived the crash.
Clarke wasn't cheering. She had unrolled a weathered topographical map she'd smuggled down and was holding it up against the horizon, her eyes rapidly darting between the parchment and the ridgelines. Still, even she couldn't completely hide the awe softening her features as she took in the sprawling, green world around them.
"Why so serious, Princess?"
Finn swaggered up beside them, practically bouncing on his heels. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, flashing Clarke a bright, aggressively carefree grin. "It's not like we died in a fiery explosion."
Aleksander stopped walking. He turned slowly, his gaze shifting from the pristine, sunlit forest back to the battered hull of the dropship. He stared right at the open hatch, knowing exactly what was lying in a puddle of blood on the upper deck.
"You might want to save the victory lap, Spacewalker," Aleksander said, his voice dropping to a low, icy register that completely shattered the lighthearted mood. "Your little zero-G stunt just painted the bulkhead with two of our people."
Finn's grin vanished. A sharp flash of guilt crossed his face, but it was almost instantly buried under defensive irritation. "They unbuckled themselves. I didn't force them."
Aleksander took a deliberate step closer, his glamoured brown eyes hardening into something entirely unyielding. "Right. Because leading by example is a foreign concept to you. But hey, as long as your hair looked good while they were getting their skulls crushed, who cares, right? Welcome to Earth."
Finn clenched his jaw. He opened his mouth to argue, to throw back some witty retort, but the sheer, freezing contempt in Aleksander's expression stopped him dead. Instead of pushing his luck, Finn scoffed, turned on his heel, and walked off to join a group of cheering teenagers by the tree line.
Aleksander watched him walk away, his expression flat. "Not even caring about the deaths he caused," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head. "What a walking red flag."
Clarke, who had remained quietly rigid during the exchange, let out a slow exhale. She didn't defend Finn; her silence was a complete agreement with Aleksander's assessment. She just tightened her grip on the paper in her hands and shifted her focus back to the immediate crisis.
She pointed a finger across the vast, heavily wooded expanse of the valley, her voice tight with anxiety. "Do you see that peak over there?"
Aleksander followed her gaze, his hyper-analytical mind locking onto a massive, jagged mountain looming in the distance. "Yeah," he replied, already calculating the miles in his head. "Let me guess. Mount Weather."
Clarke nodded grimly, tapping the map. "There's a massive, radiation-soaked forest between us and our next meal. They dropped us on the wrong damn mountain."