Chapter Text
Many, many years in the future, somewhere on the planet Earth…
Gryffin rolled her eyes as the museum curator delved into a long story about the Wonkru clan and the survivors of the three bunkers. The strict looking woman pushed her glasses up her sharp nose as she explained how it all began with a young girl from the Space station the Ark agreed to marry a fearsome warrior king who had survived the years on the ground. She went on to paint Azgeda as a group of savage people who had adapted to a cruel and violent way of life and the inevitable bloody conflict that happened when the people on the Ark came down to the ground, escaping certain death in space. Clarke was painted as both a saviour and a self-sacrificing noble young woman who was willing to risk her own life and happiness to help unite the people. Roan was described as wise and intimidating, a hard and weathered warrior whom many feared.
Gryffin knew the story they told well and wandered away discreetly to go to the display showing a picture of Roan and Clarke and their children gathered outside the first buildings of Genesis. She smiled up, her sharp, light-blue eyes twinkling, as they looked into the face of the man who bore ones strikingly similar to hers. Her mother often regaled her with stories about them. Real stories taken from Clarke’s journals passed down for generations and kept within the family. Gryffin was their great-great-great-granddaughter and she had been raised on the story for as long as she could remember and dreamed of adding her name to the long list of family accomplishments.
Roan and Clarke had gone on to have five children, all of who became leaders in their own right, exploring the struggling planet and helping to rebuild the world. And the spirit of adventure, compassion and exploration seemed an innate part of their genetic makeup, with an extra drive to achieve the impossible. It had only taken a generation before Wonkru had set out in different directions all over the planet and done their best to explore every last hidden corner of the world to find and help the few remaining people hidden away underground.
Gryffin brushed back her blonde curls as she admired Clarke who stood smiling proudly at the camera, Roan’s arm wrapped around her shoulder and their children lined up around them. She touched her own temple gently, proud to keep the somewhat out-of-fashion tradition, but she liked the three small stars on her right temple. They reminded her of where she dreamed of going.
“There you are, Fi,” a deep voice said behind her and she turned to face her best friend, John. “Should have known I’d find you here.”
“Well, the way they tell their story is just ridiculous,” Gryffin complained and John laughed, already well versed in his best friend’s aversion to her family history. “They make it sound like Clarke was bartered off as part of a contracted exchange, a poor pawn traded away to a brutal warrior in exchange for a chance to survive. They gloss over the fact that they both worked equally as hard to unify the clans. Clarke was the one who saved him in the end, not this romanticized version where she becomes some sort of damsel in distress. She would have hated it. Almost as much as she would have hated how they describe Roan. And don’t get me started on what he would have thought. He loved her more than anything else.”
“I know,” John agreed warmly, looking up at the picture Gryffin was still staring at. “I think everyone knows that though. Just look at them.”
Gryffin smiled up at the picture, knowing there was some truth to what he said. You could tell how happy the family was, and she had the journal files from the time in the bunker. She had read everything she could get her hands on and probably knew Raven’s personal journals by heart at this point. But it was important to read the story in their words. Wonkru and the original members of the alliance had done something amazing. They had achieved the impossible and saved the human race.
“You still going tomorrow?” John asked after a moment. He sounded nervous and Gryffin wrapped a hand around his bicep, fingers tensing as she thought about the shiny new spacesuit with her name embossed over her heart.
“Obviously,” she laughed happily as she moved them further into the museum, leaving her ancestors display behind her. “As if I’d ever give up my dream of going up to the stars.”