The Sister | Commander Lexa

Growing Pains

Life for Madi Griffin wasn't particularly exciting. Everyday she'd wake up, make her bed the way Guard Jones taught her, eat her meager breakfast that the guards would slide through the small slope of her door, then she'd read. And read. And read.

Books were the one things her Mommy and Daddy were allowed to bring her, which she was very thankful for, even more so because of the little notes they would leave on the edge of the pages which varied from tips on the book's subjects to little loving notes form her parents and doodles from her sister. Still though it sucked that she couldn't see her mommy and daddy and Clarke everyday.

No parents to check for monsters under her bed, no sister to play with, no friends to hang out with. The life of the youngest prisoner in the history of the Ark was very lonely.

In fact, save from the mandatory one hour socialization time that all inmates were taken to in the afternoon she'd spend entire days without any form of human contact. And to be frank even with the socialization time it's not like she had much human contact anyway, what with most of the other delinquents being teenagers and not wanting to spend their time with a kid.

Between that and her visitation time being only once a month, Madi was more likely to know the periodic table by head than to know how to make friends. Something that always made her parents leave the visitation day with heavy hearts and a sense of failure that their youngest would never get a proper childhood and there's nothing they could do to help.

As the years passed and the Griffins made it into the council things got a little better for Madi. They convinced the Chancellor that it'd beneficial to the people of the Ark to have the delinquents repay their misdeeds by working unpaid during the hours the normal children were at school, that way they wouldn't just freeload until they're 18.

That worked out great for their youngest child as she started to spend most of her days either helping over at medical or at the engineering sector. Sure, she always had her hands chained up restricting what she could do and a very explicit warning from the guards to not try anything until they returned to retrieve her unless she wanted to go to solitary until they floated her when she turned 18. Still, it was better than nothing and her parents saw her flourish a little everyday under their guidance.

She even got to see Clarke sometimes on the hallways when she was being taken back to her cell, which always made her day.

All in all, Madi knew her life wasn't the most conventional but she learned to be thankful for what she got because she knew better than anyone how felt like to have nothing at all. Anything was an improvement in her eyes.

So she cherished everything she got.

She cherished each day she got to learn under her parents, it didn't matter they weren't allowed to touch or hug, or that more often than not her job was boring or gross. No one would trust a delinquent to do anything else after all.

She cherished her first and only roommate who was unceremoniously shoved in her cell during one night when she was fifteen. Fox was one year younger than her and become her best friend in the whole universe. After her sister of course, but she barely saw Clarke anyway so she didn't think she'd be too jealous of the whole friends thing.

She cherished the friends she made little by little with Fox's help, despite the fact that whenever they turned eighteen they'd certainly be murdered.

She cherished each time one of the guards was nice to her, each time they didn't treat her like the trash most people did.

She cherished each visitation day and each drawing her sister managed to slip into her jacket on those meetings.

She cherished each book slipped into her room by the more friendly guards who were willing to bend a rule or two for the girl who would die before she ever got to live.