Title: She
Fandom: The Mortal Instruments
Characters:Isabelle, Clary, Jace, Maryse, Jocelyn, Robert, mentions of Valentine
Prompt:#85: She
Word Count:1,029
Rating:K+
Summary:This is the story of a family on the morning of a war
Author's Notes:So, this is my first fic for the FanFic100 and I'm majorly excited. One down, 99 to go! As far as pairings go in this story, it's mostly implied. IsabellexClary friendship, AlecxIsabelle friendship and some implied ClaryxJace. Feeback is love.

P.S: All my entires for the FF100 will be posted in this story. I will not be posting them seperately.

Whooper willows hum in the trees as the obligatory goodbye party sets off. Idris is at its prettiest in the heat of summer, the pale pinks and warm oranges of the cherry trees setting of a color palette quite discordant to the situation at hand.

Clary reached up her sleeve and scratched at her arm, her face contorting as she squirmed to work her hand up the tight purple tunic dress that her mother had gotten for her their first day here. Clary would have appreciated the gift much more if it weren't for the fact that the only reason her and Jocelyn had traveled to Idris in the first place, for the first time in five years, was to see Alec and Jace off to war.

War. Dammit, she hates that word. She likes to think of the conflict as a scuffle more than a full blown war. She likes to think that her so-called-brother (They have no proof of the relation, but they have no disproof of it either) will simply be in the battle fields for maybe two months and will come home just fine, not a scratch on his skin.

Stupid Valentine. Stupid goddamn bastard intent of pulling everyone she's ever cared for away from her and slamming them, face down, in the dirt, right where she can see. He's torn apart everything she's ever worked for, everything that's ever matter at all to her. She would say that she hates him but the word is hardly strong enough to describe her enmity. Loathe doesn't even begin to cover it. It's a feeling for which she doesn't have a word for, something so deep and so hollow that it chills her, freezing her from the inside out.

xXx

So Jace and Alec will go to war. They'll go to war to destroy Valentine and her mother will go back to New York and Maryse will make excuses not to hang around Clary much. But Isabelle will stay. No matter what happens, Clary can be sure that Isabelle will always stay.

What they have could never be called a friendship, not by any stretch of the imagination. Clary secretly still kind of hates the other girl and she supposes that the other girl still kind of hates her. Maybe its jealousy, maybe it's just a predatory instinct to protect what they believe is rightfully their territory. Whatever it is, it definitely gets in the way of any bond the girls ever had the chance of forming.

Clary remembers the day in late April, when Maryse suggested that the two could possible become parabatai. Clary had gagged on her orange soda, the bubbles rising up to come out her nose as her eyes teared in pain. She was a bit too preoccupied to look to see what Isabelle's reaction had been, but she assumed that it was similar in most aspects to her own. They just didn't fit that way.

She looks to Isabelle now, standing next to her mother, as stone cold and emotionless as a statue. They're in the Idris train station, the bustle of people blurring around them as Clary, her mother, Isabelle and her parents hug and kiss and cry for the boys. The two girls hang back, standing side by side in paralleled silence. The corner of Isabelle's mouth twitches and she swallows so hard that Clary can see her throat move beneath her skin. Clary thinks that maybe she should reach out and take the older girl's hand, but decides against it, deeming the idea a little too weird.

The parents finally clear away, parting a road for the girls to say their goodbyes. Alec and Jace wait sheepishly at the end, their hands in their pockets, their eyes downcast. Isabelle takes one step forward and Alec pales while Jace struggles to express no feelings. She's angry, that much is readable from her posture and the hard set of her jaw. At this point, it's entirely possible that she'll run up and punch one of them in the stomach, probably both of them if Maryse can't pull her off in time.

A moment of tension, the air quivering, asking "What will she do?" and it's a few seconds pause before Isabelle breaks into a run, her dainty feet tripping over themselves as she flings her arms around her brother, burrowing her head in the crook of his shoulder. Alec glances at Clary from over Isabelle's shoulder and nods once to her, a greeting as much as it is a goodbye, and she nods back, feeling a slight relief wash over her.

She'd say good bye to Jace if she was sure that she would be able to control her emotions. Her mixed feelings of hatred and sadness tighten in her gut, leaving a bad taste in her mouth. They were selected by draft, so she can't scream at him for wanting to go out and get killed, but the anger is there all the same. It might be because she feels that the whole thing is just extremely unfair and sexist. She wants to go to war. Hell, this is practically her war. She, in a sense, up and started the whole thing, so why won't they let her fight?

Jocelyn had sighed and rubbed her eyes when Clary asked her this, explaining that Shadowhunter culture was still very much behind what her daughter was used to. They just didn't draft girls. It was a rule that would probably be changed but, for the time being, Clary just had to grin and bear it. She could just cry from the injustice of it all, but, as her mother said, that's the way things worked and, honestly, there was nothing she could do about it.

The hug she gives Jace is stiff and they all watch the two boys board the train with shaky smiles. Isabelle returned to her position next to Clary, her eyes belligerently red-rimmed. The older girl turns to her and Clary gives a little smile before reaching out and grabbing her hand.

When she thought about it, Clary supposes that Isabelle probably wants to go and fight too.