A.N-

Okay hey guys

This story is set sometime in the 1800s I think.

If some things are out of the time frame I'm really sorry! I'm not a historian kay? If there is anything major that I have screwed up on then please tell me!

I'm not going to be too particular on the place it is set (because I made it up so just trust that it's on the earth) and when it's happening.

Some things might be a little different to like, historically correct things so here's my advice- JUST ROLL WITH IT enjoy

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters- everything else is me xx

Chapter 1

My opponent was disgusting.

As he circled me, I couldn't help but wonder how he must have become such a vile man.

He was large, to say the least. A small bit of spit trickled down his chin and his eyes scanned my stance, greedy and cocky.

These were always the easiest opponents to beat.

The beast swung for a hit, aiming high on my face, his arm fuelled with brute force. Only a dirty player would go for that hit.

Without wasting a second I dodged the fist and neatly landed a kick just under his rib cage where I knew it would hurt the most. It wasn't as powerful as his although the sensitive area added effect.

The beast whipped around, eyes glaring, and the cocky attitude vanished as he realised I wasn't going down without a fight. I didn't blame the guy for thinking I would be easily beaten though. Not at all.

I was about 5 foot. Short and skinny with a mess of unruly red hair. And he was built like a tank. What my opponent had not taken into account was my speed or skill. I had been trained by the best.

The beast sent a raging fist to my cheek and I managed to block it, although the effort drained me. He was strong like stone. We circled each other and this time I saw a calculating look in his eyes, a look that told me he understood what type of fighter I was.

There was no hesitation when he struck. I was ready for the blow although the beast was just too strong. His fist whipped through my defences and struck my face. I darted out of the way, ducking under limbs, using my experience to sense where he way around me avoiding another hit.

I was done playing around. A rage pulled from under my skin and shook my body. No one hits my pretty face. The beast noticed. "What? Angry now little girl?" he taunted.

That did it. Before he could even comprehend what was happening to his fat ass, I had landed a kick to his ribs, ducked under his flailing arms and swept his kankles out from underneath him. He landed on the dusty stone floor with a thud.

I watched in satisfaction as he flopped onto his side, trying to recover from the fall. Stupid man. He should just give up now. Smirking at the pile of meat on the floor I scanned the arena. "Now, how should I finish him off!" I yelled. The audience roared, each person shouting vile ways to hurt the best lying under my feet.

It was exhilarating. I could feel adrenaline coursing through my blood. The thrill of the fight, especially when victorious, melting into my being.

Without another second, I rammed my elbow into his chest, where I know it would knock the breath out of him, and smacked his sweaty head into the stone, knocking him out cold.

The crowd went berserk. Hollers and cheers of drunken men filled the small tavern court yard where I had fought. Coins where showering around me and beer was spilled at my feet. People wanted to reward me for their entertainment and I let them.

It was how I survived in this cruel world.

The crowd parted where I walked through, and I was greeted with pats on the back and whistles of admiration. I enjoyed that, but it was when a man who had had a little too much to drink touched something he wasn't supposed too, that I got pissed. When hands travelled a little too far down, they would usually end up broken.

As I neared the edge of the tavern's people, something golden caught my eye.

It was just a flash but it was enough to intrigue me. This was not a place of wealth, and the rich did not venture around these parts so gold was a colour I saw very rarely.

I scanned the stuffy room, looking again, but was only met with eyes of men and bartenders. Giving up I retired to my room.

The Emerald Eye was famous for its fights. The tavern was popular among travellers who were looking for cheap entertainment to ease their violent minds. Although there were also the regulars who returned once a week just to witness me fight. Either way everyone ended up drunk and loud, hollering and shouting at pointless brawls.

My story is not a happy one. But in these times not many people's stories are.

My mother was a seamstress who worked in a shop selling gowns and hats to rich young women with nothing better to do that dress up like dolls. Eventually she fell in love and married a man I never knew, and still know nothing about to this day.

Well, long story short, before I was born he bailed and left my mother poor and raising a child. We managed though, because as soon as I was old enough to work my Mother sent me to work in the stables. Living with two meals a day and a meagre roof to stay under, I grew up with her.

Jocelyn was a loving woman. Although we were living in hardship and strife, she always managed to see the beautiful things in people and places. Sadly, I did not inherit this trait, but I did manage to cherish the values my Mother held and taught me.

She told me to always be strong, even when everything was crumbling under my feet. That lesson was the only thing that kept me going when she died of an incurable sickness when I was twelve.

Left alone with no one in the world, I discovered something I never knew about my Mother. Whilst I was growing up, she befriended (and eventually fell in love with) a man who visited her store often.

The man was named Luke, and he just happened to have enough money to open a tavern on the main street of a city in Aramon, where we lived. Unsurprisingly, he named it The Emerald Eye, after my Mothers beautiful pair of jewel coloured eyes which always sparkled with love and hope. I loved that I had inherited them.

Luke loved her dearly, and after her death he found out she had a daughter and took me in. By this time the tavern already had a reputation of fights in the courtyard used as an arena.

To the rich civilians, this street fighting was considered savage and dirty, but by the people who survived in the slums, the competitors were considered royalty. The rules were simple. There was a circle marked by a red line in which the competitors were not allowed to cross. The victor was the one who managed to knock out their opponent. The first time I snuck out of the room above the courtyard where Luke and I lived, was entrancing.

I had stumbled upon one of the most vicious fights ever to be held in The Emerald Eye. It was a fight to the death between two extremely skilled Protectors, equally deadly in their skill. It was not a typical street fight, where large overweight men wound use their fists to knock another large man out with one powerful punch.

No, this was a battle between two men raised in the Courts of Aramon and taught to fight with skill and agility.

The Protectors (royal guardians who worked as the King or Queens's henchmen) were having a night off in the city next to the Palace where they lived. Behind the fighting, I could see the Aramonian Palace looming in the background, the peaks and windows adorned with red, gold and white, the official colours of the court.

As a twelve year old girl, a dream bloomed in my chest. A dream of fighting in honour of the King and Queen, a dream of protecting Aramon with my life. Of course that was stupid for me to have ever dreamt up, because I was a woman. There was no such thing as a female Protector.

Luke told me sternly of what he thought of my fantasy when I returned to our room that night. But still, hope laid waiting in my chest. It was the first time I had ever felt any feeling like it since my Mother's death one year ago.

After Luke had fallen asleep, I crept outside to search for the victorious Protector. It didn't take long. He sat at the bench next to the bar drinking to his heart's desire. Men and women surrounded him asking for tales of his journeys to protect the Royal family. Music floated around the candlelit bar, mingling with the voices and drunken laughter.

He spoke with an impish grin on his face, and I realised that he must have been younger than I expected. Maybe about 22.

I snuck around the back of the bar as I had many times before to swipe liquor and wine to share with my friends around the tavern, and spied from behind a well-stocked cabinet. The Protector had a clean head of black hair and looked foreign. I was immediately interested.

Just as I was about to leave I flashed one last quick look at the man and found him staring at me. My heart froze. I was certainly not meant to be here. "Hey you, little girl" he jested. I hated it when people called me that. "Come out from behind there"

I really saw no other option. I couldn't refuse a Protector. The talking and laughs died down a bit when I emerged from my hiding spot, but people mostly ignored me. They had either seen me around before or were too drunk to care.

The Protector swept his eyes over me and that impish grin reappeared. "Come out to the back with me" he said and I was getting ready to bolt when he added, "I'll teach you how to fight".

The man's name ended up being Magnus. Magnus Bane, and he told me he was regarded as a high member of the current King's Protectors. He would accompany King Stephen as a guard most of the time, but was also sent on missions to find selected people, as he was now.

Magnus became my friend. He stayed at the Emerald Eye for a long time, every morning and night after I had finished work in either the rooms or the stables he would train me in fight. It was what I lived for.

I often asked him why he stayed, and did not return for his duties, but Magnus never gave me a straight answer.

After one year of a steady pattern, Magnus praised me on how far I had come. "You could be fit to become a Protector" he said one night after a particularly hard session. I stopped and stared at my friend and teacher. "I could never" I said back, rubbing a sore spot on my arm. "I'm a woman".

Magnus gave me a look, one I knew meant he was about to say something philosophical. "Yes you are" he finally said and I laughed. "You noticed?" I joked.

"Clary" he paused. "Remember that always. You are a woman. Use it to your advantage" I gawked at him. How could someone ever use that to their advantage? Women were treated like possessions. They could never be ambitious or useful, two things that I strived so hard to accomplish in my life. Magnus must have had too much to drink.

Years later, I could fight well. After the fourth year of Magnus's stay, he left. The palace had summoned him, and although I could tell it was not something he wanted to do, he rode off into the night.

I missed him sorely when he was gone but kept training myself with everything he had taught me. Pride swelled inside whenever I reminded myself that I was training like a Protector.

"Clary are you there?" Luke's voice snapped me from my thoughts. "Yes" I called back. "I'm alive" I grinned. I never failed to tease Luke for his worry over my fighting. He would always get nervous when I was fighting no matter how much I assured him that I would be fine. After almost a year of brawls every week, I had never lost a fight.

But then again the fights I knew I wouldn't win, I almost always avoided. When Protectors would come in search of an easily won fight for money, I would make myself hidden. I had five years of training under my belt and they had twenty.

I knew I couldn't beat them. I was fast and agile, but they were skilled and powerful. That was something I could never be. Powerful.

Luke emerged from his room and smiled when he saw me in one piece, but I knew he would scold me when he saw the black eye I knew would be loud on my face tomorrow. "Come to the kitchen, I made soup."

Placing my gloves and scarf in my room, I tied my curls back with a band. I had hair that most ladies in court would die for. Thick and curly, it would sit on my head like a crown, but I hated it. All it did was get in the way in a fight.

Luke would never let me cut it though. I had a feeling it was because it reminded him so much of Jocelyn. The soup Luke made was delicious. I always loved his cooking.

We ate and talked like we usually did together, before I locked up and Luke sent me to bed. "Goodnight Clary."

"Night Papa"

Thanks for readin! So that chapter was kind of like an intro… the real action is yet to come

Keep reading and ya know… fell free to review, follow or fav *crosses fingers*

Love ya xx