A little OOC, but Tessa is a shadowhunter; training and most of the CA book events still occurred except her not being a shadowhunter.
Jumping onto the beams, Tessa walked across, spreading her arms out and trying to balance herself. She did a flip and landed on the other side of the bean with one hand when she lost her balance, falling to the ground of the training room with a thud.
Standing up and rubbing her back with her hand she moaned frustrated with her poor efforts and reached up to grip the rope to climb onto the beam again. Maybe this time she found finally get it right. She needed to perfect this move in order to fight better. Balance wasn't Tessa's strong point, even though she was a shadowhutner, it just didn't come to her naturally like it did for William or Jem, even Jessamine.
Tessa was very clumsy, always tripping over things or losing her balance. Charlotte said she was the same at her age, and practice makes perfect. So she had been here in the training room for over four hours trying to get it right.
"Boo." She heard someone whisper in her ear, their hot breath tickling her skin. She didn't expect that and tripped over her own feet, loosing balance yet again and was now hanging by the beam.
"William, this is no time for fun and games." Tessa said irritated.
"Oh, it's always time for games." He said smirking before reaching down to pull her up.
Pushing the hair out of her face, he looked down as she glared up at him. "I'm training why must you do this now? I was just getting my balance right." she said sighing.
"No you weren't, if you were, you wouldn't have tripped when I scared you." He said still grinning as she threw him an icy glare. Things were still tense between the two after the holy water fiasco, but they were trying to move on from that.
"I'm just being realistic Tess, what happened if that was a real life situation? You'd be as good as dead if it was a demon or even a downworlder." He said bluntly, and she knew he was right, that mistake could have cost her a lot under the circumstances.
"Fine then, since you seem to be an expert Mr Herondale, why don't you teach me." She said mockingly, taking a step forward.
"Alright then Miss Gray." He teased keeping his blue eyes on hers as he took her hand in his own and kissed her knuckles.
"Let's get started shall we?" she said pulling her hand away and blushing furiously.
William placed his hand on her waist as he turned her around on the beam and slightly angled her body. He showed her how to keep the correct posture, back straight and made sure that her stance was correct by having her right foot back, making sure it was slightly sitting up at the back relying on the force. Then proceeding to place her left foot in front of her right.
"Correct posture is important in getting this right." he explained from behind.
"Okay, moving on." She said impatiently, she just wanted to try and flip already; okay not really but his presence behind her was making her heart race and she'd rather he didn't notice that. He moved his arm around her own pointing to different things here and there that were getting lost in translation as the only thing going through her mind was the close proximity of his body.
"Start by keeping pressure on your right foot at the front, that's where you will push off and then use the momentum to keep balance, go ahead and try it with the flip, and then jump off." He stated, finishing off the explanation.
"Really, you have faith in me to do it right after one demonstration?" she questioned sarcastically.
"Yes, because you have an amazing teacher. Me." He said winking at her before doing the flip exactly like he taught her but backwards and landing gracefully on the mat below.
"Easier said than done." She muttered to herself.
"I heard that, now hurry up. If you get it right, you get a reward." He said smirking from below. She tried to ignore that comment, but it seemed to have the same effect on her heart either way. She placed her left foot in front of her right behind her and swayed back and forth gaining some momentum before running, pushing off on her right leg and doing the flip in the air, landing next to William.
Catching her breath she realised that she finally perfected it. She was so excited. She practically jumped on William hugging him hard and then kissed him on the cheek.
"I DID IT! Thank you so much." She said smiling and then realised that she kind of attacked him with hugs and kisses. She jumped off and straightened her shirt, feeling the hot blush working its way onto her face; and to her surprise the same as his.
"Well you do have an amazing teacher." He said, and a moment later. "Who said you could stop hugging me?"
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into an embrace, resting his forehead against hers. "I knew you would be able to do it, you just needed a little incentive." He said smiling again.
"Oh really, and what is my reward?" she asked curiously, her gray eyes staring back at him.
"Maybe a little something like this." He whispered, and before she could register it he was kissing her full on the lips.