Book:
Rebirth Of The Dove
Chapter One:
Cigarettes And Embers
The night was dark. Very dark. It sat there, a dark woven blanket lain over the rift between sky and land. Sage leaned against the side of the shutdown Burger King; a burnt out cigarette leaning over the edge of her bruised bottom lip, embers falling to the floor and turning to ash in the dead of the night. She watched them, the only living non residual light within five square miles. The reflections danced a mayfly's dance between birth and a short-lived life within her exhausted eyes. Slowly, she raised a hand to catch one of the ashen meteorites, wincing as it blazed through the thick layers of her toughened skin. The small light in her palm faded quickly and winded out of existence. She frowned, her eyebrows furrowing, and clenched her fist angrily. "Is that all you've got for me? Well… Is it?" Her voice rose, a fierce scissor cut through the smoky velvet darkness. "PATHETIC!" She cried, tossing the soot and burned skin onto the eroded street corner. She gasped and brandished a heavily marked silver soaked blade from her crimson colored trench coat.
"Cigarettes and embers," a calm voice crept from behind the shadowed corners of the building behind her.
"You're not going to end your 'suffering' very quickly like that." The sarcastic tone manifested itself within a quick flash of movement.
"Waraxe. Don't you have some beach to be patrolling?" Sage growled, and sheathed the blade.
"Because I look like a surfer, yeah that's nice." He rolled his eyes, and feathered a stray, almost bleached blond strand of hair from his face. "Look Paloma, we need you back, the territory raids have actually become a little more than the standard annoyance. I promise it'll look better than wherever it is that you're spending your nights." He surveyed the foreground, dust, rats, and trashed cycloned on the windy night. He sniffed and flinched. "Probably smell a lot better too, that's is if you haven't developed hemophobia."
"How funny," she raised her head and met his excited gaze, a quick search of his face revealed... Nothing... Absolutely nothing. As usual, no scars, no cuts, bruises, blood stains, marks or buffs. Perfect. The tall pale man always remained perfect. She raised a hand, scarred, cut, bruised, blood-stained, marked, and buffed to her face. Imperfect. the word burned bright like a Vegas street sign within her mind. "Go back. Please." The hand fell to her side. "That is not my home anymore, I'm sorry but I don't have the power to he-"
"The power or the will?!" The screech came forcibly with a forceful palm to the wall behind Sage.
"Does it matter?" She heaved, shoving the lean brightly clothed one back. Her eyes ardent with a heavy lack of self-control.
The silence reclaimed the dark abandoned street corner as the two stopped and stood in the light rain. A quarter inch of murky rainwater ran a cluttered course into the drain at her feet. Now quiet, they could hear the small matter of life that erupted under their feet. Insects diving into the underdeveloped puddles occupying the street's various potholes. Small mammals scurrying from the drains grazing on the tiny six legged creatures. One cretin, unidentifiable by any distinguishing features save for a matted coat and disfigured leg, attempted to receive its share of the feast, but found it's opportunity cut short as a rather famine fleshed feline found what had to be her first meal in months.
"Miles, I-"
"Save it, I can tell I'm wasting time here, I have to get back." he reached into his coat and retrieved a hat to shield himself, albeit a little late given his thoroughly drenched thick bushel of hair. He turned around sealing the cap to his head. "We've lost enough friends." He muttered meandering slowly out of normal earshot.
"What?!" Sage stood rigid behind him.
"Well well, someone's gotten faster." He stood facing the same direction.
"Who died Miles?!"
"I mean still not faster than me but, still pretty-"
"Who. Died. Waraxe?!"
"Like a little Mexican Speedy Gonzales." He smiled, his back to her.
"MILES WHO THE FUCK DIED?!" Her tear ducts began to itch, a sensation she had begun to grow accustomed too as of late.
"Wait a second, he's already Mexican. I mean, the ethnicity is in the name. Well don't I feel stupid?"
"Forget it," she wrapped her arms around herself, turning, not wanting to walk away.
"There. That's what is was." He stood in front of her staunch and hard, as tall as could be. "So that's how easy it is to walk away? To walk away from this turf war? To walk away from your friends?"
"Please. Just go away." She whimpered, her head down.
"No." He slid a finger under her chin and brought her gaze to his. Her wet face salted between the pooling of rainwater and tears. His smile had faded, traded with a stern glare, fiery green eyes alive with a sense of hatred, desperation and sadness.
"Just tell me who fell." She threw her arms around him. Leather sleeves sloshing, as they grew steadily heavier.
"Tzar," he whispered wryly and awaited a response. "Well aren't you gonna say something, curse, scream, shout?" His voiced trailed, almost as if he stood in thought.
"I..." She looked up and searched his face. Nothing, no sadness, nor anger, nor hate. But there was something. Something left over from a lifetime of fighting, a lifetime of constant battle: the absence of... Perfection. For the first time in years she could see all the lines of his face, as faint as they were, she could see the scars, she could see the cuts, she could see the bruises, she could see the blood stains, she could see the marks, she could see the buffs, they were hard to make out in the dark of the night but she could see them.
"I'll go.
Author's Note:
If the positioning of the characters seem a little inconsistent, it is due to the fact that Shadowhunters in The Mortal Instruments series are known to move very fast. Within this chapter the characters are moving in between certain sequences of their conversation.
P.s:
This is my first attempt at fanfiction. However, with that sad, please critique as you see fit. Reviews are very welcome, and desired.