Disclaimer- I do not own any of the Mortal Instruments characters. They belong to Cassandra Clare. However, unrecognized characters belong to me.
Another Magnus
Something was wrong. Very wrong. I was on something… soft. Soft, smooth, only slightly colder than the average human body temperature… Leather. I was on a leather couch, with my head propped up and my one arm pressed between me and the back of the couch. That wasn't right. The last thing I remember was that I was outside, in the freezing New York November weather fighting a demon while the harsh wind blew ice crystals in my face and I fought for a grip to stay upright on the icy surfaces.
Then I started to notice a lot of things about my surroundings, without opening my eyes or moving an inch. In example: It was warm here, not suffocating warm, but a comfortable warm, and I could hear the distant crackle of a fire somewhere else in the room. Like that there was something resting on my stomach, not very heavy, and nice and warm, purring softly with each breath. A cat, I realized. Another revelation was that I wasn't alone.
"…come from?" It was a female's voice, and she sounded irritated, like she was tired of arguing this side of the conversation with whomever she was arguing with. And that's when my head had it. Whatever damage I sustained from my tussle with the demon that caused me to not know how I got from there to here caught up with me like someone just stabbed a railroad spike through my forehead, shattering my skull into a million little pieces. Metaphorically, of course. Figuratively, I was still the exact same as I had been just a second ago, just in a lot worse pain.
A sharp hiss of pain escaped through my teeth against my will, and I suddenly felt… five, six pairs of eyes on me. Apparently, since I got here I hadn't made much noise. The sudden confirmation that I was, in fact, alive and in more than just a breathing and heart-beating state, must have alarmed them.
"Chi picchiare io!?" I groaned breathlessly, clenching my eyes even more tightly shut. I didn't want the blinding vibrancy of colors to add to the ache in my brain that I was already experiencing. After a few seconds of silence where I swear I could have heard a pin drop, I replayed what I'd said and felt like hitting myself in the forehead. Damn my habit for talking in Italian when I first wake up. "Uh, sorry." I mumbled, tilting my head slightly so that if I were to open my eyes I would see the back of the couch. "Bad habit I've been trying to shake."
Twelve more seconds of silence later, and I was ready to peek and see who the hell was staring at me like I'd grown another head. Just as I was contemplating how badly the colors would hurt my head, someone spoke up.
"What's your name?" It wasn't the same voice I heard earlier. No, this time it was a male, who seemed to have an air of authority and cockiness that I instantly didn't like, but also sounded like he had a knack for breaking rules. I frowned, lifting my arm that was pressed between my body and the couch to run through the cat's fur, hearing a small little sound of surprise from the creature and rolling my eyes behind my eyelids at it.
"Magnus." Exactly thirty seconds of silence later, I huffed and my eyes flew opened to look at the people surrounding me, accusation for their silence dripping like venom from my voice. "And what, pre tell, did I say this time to cause such a long silence?" The dizzying blindness of colors and shapes in front of my eyes made my head spin, and I had to fight the urge to dry heave.
"Your name is Magnus?" I looked at the man who said this, letting my eyes focus, and saw spiky black hair with every color of the rainbow mixed in, kind of like when the sun hits a raven's feathers just right, mascara rimmed cat eyes, strong pale features that looked slightly perturbed, and the most outrageous outfit I'd seen since crossing the Atlantic to come into the U.S.. And glitter. Lots and lots of glitter.
I grinned broadly, sitting up slowly and swinging my body around so I was sitting properly on the couch, the cat still somehow staying comfortably in my lap without clawing the shit out of me. "Oh, of course! And I've been teased quite a lot about being your twin, except I always point out that I look abso-friggin-lutely nothing like you, Mr. Bane." I beamed, quite pleased that my vision had returned to its normal sharp clarity. "That is, unless, of course, I do this." I blinked once, and my vision changed ever-so-slightly. It became sharper, more sensitive to light, and the colors became a little bit… weirder. The collective gasp made my grin widen, if that was even possible, and I rolled my eyes, blinking once more to make my eyes return to normal instead of ones of the feline variety.
And back to the damn silence as they all stared at me like I'd just grown another head or cat ears. Though, if I really wanted to, I could do either. I just don't see the point in having another head. 'Fine,' I thought, crossing my arms a little self-consciously over my stomach, 'If they're going to stare at me, I may as well stare back.' And that's exactly what I did.
As I mentioned, you had Magnus Bane, the bane of my existence due to all of the comments about the fact that I shared a name with him, who was standing all by his lonesome over by the door. A little bit closer, in three of the four chairs that went along in the set with the couch I found myself currently sitting on, were three people. Two of them looked very similar, though they were different genders; they both shared the same black hair and ice blue eyes, and it was obvious that they were siblings. The other person looked little like the others, actually, almost a complete opposite. While they had dark hair, he had honey blonde hair, and while their eyes were blue, he had tawny colored eyes that reminded me of hard butterscotch candy with the way they were guarded.
Two people, closer to the fire across the room, looked very similar to the two teenagers sitting across from me, with dark hair and glacial blue eyes, and it didn't take me long to make the connection that they were a family, with a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister. My eyes narrowed slightly at the thought.
Finally, I sighed in exasperation, tilting my head back on the couch and staring at the ceiling. To my surprise, it was domed. Wow, wasn't expecting that. "Someone say something!"
"Do you know why you're here?" Ooh, the blonde speaks! I looked at him and smiled, pretending to be flattered that he'd spoken. After all, he seemed like the type who I'd just get annoyed with and end up wanting to punch.
"Duh," I mumbled glumly, my smiled disappearing as soon as I opened my mouth to speak. "I was fighting a demon, obviously something happened that caused me to black out, someone here found me, and was oh so kind enough to bring me back." I paused for a second, and the stab of pain in the back of my head seemed to want me to remind them of something else. "Oh, and whatever caused me to black out probably has something to do with, I dunno, my head colliding with a wall or cement."
"She'll get along so well with you Nephilim," Magnus commented, seeming amused by this prospect. The idea of why I would get along well with anyone caused my eyebrows to knit together and the corners of my lips to turn downwards in a frown. Did he not gather that I didn't play well with others? Wait, I hadn't told them that yet. Sighing, I rolled my eyes and looked down at the cat perched delightedly on my lap, enjoying the attention it was getting. It was a Russian Blue, by the looks of it, a tad on the chubby side, and from what I could see through the slits between its squinted eyelids, it had bright amber eyes.
"You don't know very much about me, do you?" I mused, not looking up from inspecting the feline's face and stroking my fingers over its ears. The imagined sound of stones rattling around in their heads when they shook their heads cracked a grin across my face. "Then let me tell you a little bit about myself. For starters, my name is Magnus Blaine. Yes, my parents have a crude sense of humor. Then again, they never anticipated I'd end up in the Brooklyn area." I peeked out of the corner of my eye to gauge Magnus's reaction. "If it helps, I go by Kota, as in Dakota. It's my middle name."
"I was born in Italy, accounting for my knowledge of Italian, but I've lived in France for a time before I got shipped over here by the Clave. Oh, and I am Nephilim, technically." My warning glare was enough to keep them from asking any questions about 'What did I mean, technically?' or 'Why did the Clave ship you over here?' "My dad is a Nephilim, while my mom is a warlock, witch, whatever. Let's just say I've always had the weirdest genetic make-up in the family. Everyone else is either strictly Shadowhunter or strictly warlock. I have an older brother and an older sister, as well as a younger brother, all of them still back in France, though we still keep in touch. But I have another family that extends beyond blood, who are much closer to me, both in the literal and figurative sense. They're actually somewhere in the city, probably wondering where the hell I am, and they're my best friends. We often claim that we're siblings who were separated at birth."
It was times like this when I really wished that I had Cali with me, to unceremoniously break the silence with some random outburst about how she had a split-end or chipped nail polish. Never, repeat never, would I be good at doing something like that.
A/N- Well, there you have it! The first chapter! You'll meet more of the creations of my mind besides Kota in the next chapter, but first I'd like to know what you thought of this one. So, hit the little purple-gray-ish button and review, please! Oh, and what she says in Italian is supposed to be "Who hit me!?", because she's wondering who hit her hard enough to shatter her skull. -shrugs- Figured you'd wanna know. Anyhoo, REVIEW! -Kloudz-