Hi everyone. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it. It's my first time writing a Mortal Instruments fanfiction and I hope it's not to bad. Warning. Story contains: Violence, boyxboy, graphic violent details. Mentions of past abuse, amnesia, death, murder. Hope you all have a nice day/night wherever you are.
-Over a thousand years ago-
I still wait for it to end. The cold of the bitter winter, the merciless ice always at my throat and grinding into my chest as it gives me nothing but the most useless of hope for any survival. My physical body survives while my mental state deteriorates with each growing day. I stare through a lifeless eye that seems to show me nothing more than the poison of my wound. The infection that brings me to my knees as I know I have no more ounce of fight left in me. I'm just a shell that waits for time to decide it's final moment; degrading slowly and breaking because of time.
But why do I have to wait?
I know why… It's because I'm a survivor.
I know that much. I know how to run and to keep on going. I know how to ignore the pain of burning lungs and the ache of a body, which is ready to give in and collapse. I know how to sly my way through conversation and draw eyes away from my self. I can slowly sneak my way into someone's heart. I can twist it and crush it in my fingers. Watch as betrayal paints a symphony on their faces as the light of the dagger in their back becomes apparent to them.
At least… I think I do?
What is this darkness around me? Why does it decide that it claims me? This small box and corridor of a prison I find myself in? Why does it matter any more if I carry on the fight? Something tells me I've already lost now that I'm here. Something tells me that now I have failed everything that I ever set out to accomplish. I know that I have failed. I know I cannot keep on fighting. I'm a survivor who has given up. I'm a fighter who has decided that after so long, they can no longer wield the sword.
I'm the boy who knows those who love and those who lies.
I smile for those who lie and step away from those I love. Oh it's so easy to paint a deep smile and twinkle in the eye for your enemy.
But how can I trust senses that come from an empty mind. How can I trust a personality that I know nothing about?
How can I trust myself when I don't even know who I am?
I try to look around but again this winter darkness seems to be compacted in the small room around me.
I feel my heart accelerating as my breathing becomes rapid. I'm trapped. I can't see the world around me… am I even still alive? What is around me? I'm standing on the brink. I can hear the tap of rocks falling apart around me. The long winding echo of wind... but there's something else. Something distant, a surging, a tide. It's rushing towards me.
I reach out a hand and feel the cold biting beneath the gentle of my fingers but it's mingled with something else. The bitter of the cold is beginning to flee. To run wild and scared, a scorching pain is filling the air.
I need to figure this out faster.
I reach out for the walls. It's rough but smooth… sharp in patterns. Steel? Rock formations? Some kind of metal I think. Unrefined ore in the cracks and lodges of a wall. A mine? Was I somewhere underground? It would make sense why it is so dark?
But is that what this is? Not a room of darkness but a cell of imprisonment? I'm a cornered rat. I'm stuck and I don't know what to do. I can't see anything. I should be scared. I should be terrified. I should be screaming for someone or anything to be there.
But I don't… I just stay there. I think, and that's good. Oh by god is that good. Thinking means that I'm still here. That something of me exists. But who was I really? I was just a boy in the darkness of this new nightmare. I was a dog in a cage. I needed to get out. I need to rip myself out of here.
I know one more thing... that the person who has me here? They're going to pay.
Slowly and painfully.
Just like those who would betray me.
But to get even, I had to be alive. That meant focusing on here and now. Making sure I am alive. That's task one.
I reached up slowly and felt my face just to even assure myself that it was still there. It was madness but it was familiarity. It was insanity but it was something that I could partly understand. It was me. I can feel the spikes of my hair standing up as a new rushing breeze was coming through and getting closer. I wasn't imagining it. I can feel it now. The heat. The heat of something intense. It makes me long for the winter. It makes my mouth blister as I'm thrown back against the wall.
Some part of me can't help but think that I really am dead... why can't I remember! Why can't I see or feel anything!
No.
That's a lie. I feel pain! I can feel pain! The one thing to always hold onto in doubt! It means I really am alive! Good! But now from pain was coming the next tool of survival. The thing which was going to keep me alive through this. Curiosity.
Why isn't there anything else there but me and this cell!
I flinch away from the coven of spires and catch a small shot of porcelain before I look my eyes on the ground.
Then it arrives.
Like an express raging to a sudden stop on the platform.
A burst of orange and red as it roars up higher and keeps on going past me. It doesn't stop. It's like the mightiest tide I have ever witnessed. A sea of fire a brimstone... The roof and walls are illuminated to their black and lifeless light around me. The floors are chipped away as though an all mighty row of knives have been dragged through them. But that's not what's intriguing.
There's lose soil nearby.
It hangs on the edge by this risen and erupted tide. In the light the small and distributed pile looks abandoned and forgotten. It must have fallen in from a fissure... maybe if I can-
I reach out and yelp slightly as a ember burns onto my crimson dotted hand. The lightly tanned skin, already broken and split open as it leaked my life fluid out onto the cold stone. "So that's why I'm in pain." I growl. I look down to see my bare legs are in no better of a state. The only articles of clothing left are smouldered shorts which were marked with soot. "The soil... it's so fresh." I run my fingers through it eagerly. "I'm missing something! Why the hell am I looking at soil!" I toss it into the long stream of orange and red which still hasn't given up yet.
The soil stands no chance.
"I'm missing something! Something really important! It's right in front of me but-"
I pause.
I slowly turn back to the stream. "That's Lava." I dead pan.
I'M IN A FREAKING VOLCANO!
Another shock wave hits me and pushed me back as I can no longer keep myself up.
My fingers trembled and curled around a nearby lose rock as I kept my eyes closed. It wasn't the god damn scolding temperature which was killing me now. It wasn't the fact that I could feel the brimstone filling my lungs as thick clumps in the air seemed dissipate and abandoned me in my hearts moment of need. Only the loose rock and stone in the air seemed to remain as it began to whisk inside my mouth in a vortex of remembrance. The heat ruled everything. The fire scorched all... any longer here and I know I would not be an exception to that... but still, it seemed to speak out to me. As though it was trying to cry a warning to me. We are the victims of Pompeii, you will remember us, you will feel our pain. You will not forget. Yeah, forgotten this situation? That was definitely going to be a difficult one. This would live on in my nightmares forever. I can hear of the dead who won't have their story told for yet another thousand years! They whisper to me... but is this the state that I am to end up in? A husk of a soul like them?
I would remember the feel of my warm blood, slowly dripping in a trail down the exposed wound of my own torso. The fleeting and fleeing movements, as though it was trying to escape from the prison of my own body. My shirt which was beginning to turn to nothing more than ash which just seemed to line my lungs and starve my insides faster. "You still seem so slow to decide." The soft purr teased. I caught another flash of porcelain, this time above in a small hole nearby.
A quick burst of a rattle.
The slow chuckle and sound of a nearby rock falling lose from it's degrading cliff face and into the lava.
I didn't want to look up. I wanted to. By the gods on Olympus, I wanted to. But my mind told me otherwise. I just wanted to keep my eyes locked ahead of me on the pit. The flicker and ever loud roar of flames screamed out and tried to escape to the lilac and diamond studded night time starry sky outside. I trembled. How could I not! I was standing on a cliff to oblivion. Slowly dying, not only from the stone and rubble filling my insides; making my lungs plead in mercy for clear air. But from the fear that came from that voice.
I reach my hand up on the off chance and feel my forehead.
It hurts like I've taken a violent blow... the fresh and warmth of blood stains it.
I've taken a knock that's short circuited me... by the looks of it, I had been running.
"It was said that, my predecessor always had a saying." The voice cackled as it bounced around me. "Beauty comes from within."
I look around as I try to focus onto the sound of where that voice is coming from. "Behind the skin and bone."
I flinch away as I hear a louder tumble of rocks moving away. The voice dripped with beauty and yet I could tell the purpose behind it had absolutely none.
"And those who cannot see it."
I pause as I see the shadows rear just in the corner, behind the tide of fire.
"May as well be made of stone"
I scream my lungs out as the figure steps into the light.
-End of his dream-
He sat slowly at the oak table as he drummed his fingers gently along the smooth surface.
That blasted memory was only one of his problems.
His amber eyes tracing every single imprinted ring of age along the hard resource.
He still could see it.
The place that this table had once stood tall as a tree.
Oh that wonderful and great tree.
It had bore great amounts of fruit and food for him whenever he had come to taste it's beauty. So much care and love for it had been pushed into the single growth that he had often left himself sick or set the needs of the plant above himself... look where that had gotten him. Sat now at a table with a blade in his hand as his hand delicately now traced the patterns in deep memory of where it had once stood in the piece of furniture presented to him.
Oh the glorious beauty that it had been. So firm that he had hidden himself away with it when he had found it broken and harmed. All on that one special day he had been sprinting through the forest.
There had been news that the beast from the mountains had been drawing nearer to the towns... the beast that the boy used to dare call the owner of his heart. But that was a long time ago, a very long time indeed. Back when the days blurred together in childhood innocent incompetence, and no nimble, golden crown of wreathed thorn vines and roses rested upon his brow. When the tittle of 'The prince of the bloody rose thorn' or 'The Demon Rose' did not hang around his neck like a inconvenient noose.
So many days of his childhood were spent in the embrace of the warm forest. Every day running past the winding expanse of everything around him, he would closed his eyes and feel the thick energies running through him. The warm, ancient guardians of the forest. The ever changing tunes of the crystal creek rivers which played for his ears and the clarity of the blue skies above him. The blur of days he had watched as the air brushed through the cherry blossom trees that his brother had planted a few days before hand of his death. Now they were already fully grown with full and wild branches of the warmest pink blossom. So absolutely beautiful and comforting in this still strange place which the prince liked to call home. The thick and dark of the tree trunks which had sunk their roots in deeply after feeding on a daily dose of his love and care. How much longer could he spend here without calling it truly home?
But he remembered that day certainly.
He ran faster and longer than any other day in his life. Running from the wrath and call of his king who had demanded blood on the boy's dagger. Demanding a show of power and assurance that the boy was the true blood of his blood. The spirit of his divided soul...
But the boy had just turned and ran after almost embedding the dagger in the king's neck under the dark illusions of anger. How could it be demanded that there would only be a claim over the control between who lived and died! It was sickening.
Back to the point at hand.
It was only when he reached the other side of the expanse of growth where he knew no one else ever went, did he finally stop. The rose bushes were growing in full bloom next to the sparkling river while a coven of strong standing oaks stood around the area as though they were soldiers protecting their king.
Ironic to the point of cold laughter, the boy thought.
He liked coming here though. He often did when his father was working late and quite a lot more frequently with the passing of his brother when he would feel lonely.
He would sit on the old rope swing and gently push out as it rocked him back and forth over the water. The gentle breeze would caress his face and kiss his skin as it brushed back his hair with love. But whenever he started this swinging, he would always become rather pensive. 'Why had I run like that from father? Why had it felt so wrong... and yet so alluringly delicious. The feel of a dagger in his hand as he could finally silence the voice of stupidity which had demanded control. "Why can't nothing in my life just go right for once!" He argued with the thoughts which violently hurled the memories and feelings of blood lust at him. "I'm sick of these stupid dreams! I'm sick of always being alone!" He whispered and wiped away the slowly oncoming tears.
No don't cry. Don't cry. Never show your weakness... only your petals to draw them in then repel them away.
Little did he know that the tears watering the ground had begun to send frantic whispers among the trees. Their adopted son of the prince was crying! He was in pain! Their child and baby was breaking.
They had to do something for him. Remove the pain. Remove the agony which had presented itself into his life. Remove the agony which no longer could be sustained in the borders and corners of a mind. They had to fight against the bitter cold that had become him. They had to revive him! They had to save him!
At first he pushed himself off the swing and let his body smash into the soft moss which held him in a close embrace. He needed to feel it's embrace across his cold and lean form. He needed the warmth to burn through the pain which was becoming him. May the gods damn that beast in the mountain, his mind would never have been such a jumble of confusion if it hadn't had been for that... for that... Gorgon!
That stupid snake boy who would do nothing but taunt him with alluring truths and dreams of escape. Rogue stories of soldiers who had turned against the gods in rage and now had their own names; Hydra, Minotaur... now there was this boy. The bitter spawn of a victim. The essence of pain incarnate as it resided up there in the belly of a fiery volcano.
How could he truly go and find that beast when he was the son of the vile tyrant. How could he seek out the warmth that anything else deserved- "Wait what are you doing." He whispered as his eyes shined out from under his mousy brown hair of a fringe. He could feel the tendrils and roots slowly rising out the ground beneath him as they hugged his skin and arms. The life of the forest was here kindling him like a lost puppy finding it's owner. "W-What are you doing?"
Okay so the roots of trees were moving over him and slowly lifting him of the ground, rocking him as though he was a baby in a manger... certainly not one of the weirdest things that he had ever seen.
But this was familiar. He knew this aura. He had sensed it almost every night in his sleep. Every time he wanted to hide and get out of his dreams he could feel this aura. Clambering him back violently to the surface of reality and holding him tight in a solitary embrace. He could never run from it. It was just as he knew now why the tree seemed to repel life and yet give an aura of it out. Whispering in his sleep. Talking to him through dreams as it repelled his own life away and gave out warmth to the forest.
But then his father had come and brought the tree down for kindling and the care and love of forest had stopped. The warmth that had kept his garden and kingdom alive had begun to flee. The life of the trees began to sink away till absolutely nothing was left.
"YOU DID THIS!" He screamed as he threw his smaller fists against the chest of his larger father one morning, upon finding the great finished oak table pushed into his chambers.
His eyes blurred with the mist and pain of tears. "WHY! WHY DID YOU BRING DOWN THE TREES! WHY!" He cried as finally his father rose a hand and brought it down, sending his son flying to the floor.
His hard and cold brown eyes were nothing like the floor of the forest.
They held no love.
No kinship.
No love or acknowledgement for the sacrifices the world around him made just to keep him alive.
The boy had always planted a sapling for any and all trees that had been brought down into the forest. He had cared for and nursed the young of any animal which had been hunted and left a family which had been left to the wild and pain.
But the father cared not for any of that. He cared not for the large, stinging red mark which had been left on the boy's cheek out of his undirected anger. "Remember your place, brat." The man glared before turning with a large and sharp burst of his trailing cloak as the black velvet silk dragged across the floor. His black and emerald insignia clothing was his mark to the world, just like his sons.
But then came the final insult of all of this.
The burning wood had been thrown into the boy's bed room. The main trunk had been carved into the main centre point table of the room. The book shelves which held the boy's diaries and journals were made from the large branches. A daily reminder that even the world and care of his heart could be rendered useless...
Which brought him to this.
Sitting as now he span the edge point of his knife over his finger in deep thought. His once warm amber eyes now suffering with the thought and silence which haunted him to his very soul. "Please." He whispered. "Talk to me. I'm not him." His voice brushed through the air in agony as he turned his head out onto the wilting garden.
The emerald expanse of sheer beauty.
The swirling patterns of the forming and cut lawn.
The beauty of patterns between contrasts of green! The lighter! The darker! The blossom of the trees! The petals of the roses and their thorns! It had to come back! It had to! "It's killing me!" The boy slammed his hand down gently as he pushed his face to rest against the wood. His tears splashing quietly in silent anger and frustration as he could do nothing any more. "What can I do?! Please! What can I do?! I'm not him! I'm not my father!" His pale fingers curled into a fist as he moved his knuckles across the cold surface.
Then he finally heard it! Oh the extreme beauty which was that voice of the forest! Some would have called it absolute madness, insanity, the whispers of the evils from Hades... but not to him. He knew that voice! It was the voice of the forest. 'Beating has gone, death is life, drain from the living or we will never bloom again.' It sang weakly over and over in his head. It's whimpering voice was pained in admission but also excited in it's claim.
His eyes locked onto the knife. "Beating has gone." He looked down at the oak table. "Death if life." He raised the blade high and let the light of the sun fill it. Every ounce of possible sunlight getting into the harsh steel. "Drain from the living." He caught his breath. "Or we will never bloom again."
His eyes slammed shut as he brought his dagger down onto his chest and slashed open widely as his life force splattered across the oak wood. Twisting his wrist as he dug the burning blade in deeper and screamed his lungs out till he was sure his throat was bleeding. All the while not caring as he just carved the blade through his skin. His legs giving way for a moment when he came crashing down, sprawled across the surface. "B-Beat again." He thought as slowly he pulled himself back up. The blood oozing and rushing in streams out of his chest as fast as he could take a step. The crimson life source was painting the oak with a new love and life.
"Do it." The voice whispered over and over.
"Not here. No. Not here." The boy responded over and over. His eyes half lidded as his exhaustion and pain were overcoming him.
But he had to do this... it was just as the beast in the mountains had told him. Beauty came from within... and now he would make this garden beautiful again with his own sacrifice.
The branches bowed back with the trunks as they presented a walkway of golden floored autumn leafs to fractures tree trunk and ruined remains of the decimated forest heart. "Beating... returns."
He plunged his hand into the large slash with a scream as with one almighty grip and strength of will, he removed his gift to the forest which had been plaguing him his entire life.
It was such an odd sensation holding the still beating organ in his hand. The thing which had once caused him so much agony and cost him a life on the above mountain village, now was what he would give to bring the forest back to life. "P-Please." He begged as he stumbled forward and looked at the dead trees. Tears falling down his pale cheeks as the hood of his velvet cloak was raised over his head, hiding the crimson splashes and stains. "Come back to me. P-Please!" He looked around at the large, grey broken trunks which had been slashed and hacked away out of mercy. "I-I never planned for any of this." He shook his head violently.
Slowly with cupped hands he placed it onto the spiked tree trunk with the last light of his life. His eyes rolling back. His crown slowly coming away as the breeze rushed through his stained strands of hair. Falling onto the tendrils roots which raised to hold him. "It was worth it." He smiled as his breath left his lungs.
He had no idea of what was about to course through his body.
The prince of bloody rose thorn was about to take a leaf out of the book of monsters.
And now he was reborn.
-Present day-
Thunder and lightning sprang across the night sky violently. Casting lengthy shadows across the ground, highlighting the lengthy shadows of stone and frost speckling grass of the closed in area which a lonely figure now stood in the lonely storm drowned night.
In nothing much less than a pressed and clean suit with an umbrella, a single boy stood ahead of the group which had amassed and gathered behind him.
One girl slowly crept forward, her inky locks of hair were being plastered down to her face by the onslaught of hammering rain. Her pale and lean face was only illuminated. Her eyes were depths of black pools as her scarlet stained lips pulled back ever so slightly. "Raphael, just accept it." She turned her head towards the boy under the umbrella who was now stiller than those who were littered underground, beneath their group. Where once they themselves had been shoved for a short time. But even with the sharpness of her words, her hands came to a joined rest as she pressed out a crease from her short skirt and turned her eyes towards the raging heavens above them.
The boy however, just remained patiently beneath his umbrella.
Stuck with the appearance of his fifteen-year-old self, Raphael looked young and was often described as having the face of an angel, though many of those who knew him well enough would quite well often enough whisper otherwise about him, behind the mask of his frozen human flesh and in the truth of his hungry glare when his fangs came out to play. Although, his deceptive age, (which became certainly meaningless in the context of his group), sometimes, his wisdom showed the weight of his years.
Just as his age sometimes showed in the depths of his honest gaze.
He had dark black, curly hair, very thin eyebrows, and honey-coloured skin. He was slightly built like the rest of them, but that didn't deceive anyone... at least, not anyone who wasn't foolish enough to believe it. The boy adjusted the black gloves on his hands which fit snugly. His close fitted black suit was perfect to mask himself off as one of the mourners. Not that anyone had really even said anything or cared about this soul.
Not enough now that night had fallen and the air had began leeching every ounce of nearby life and colour from the world.
Raphael stood there, staring out from under his dark curls as his gaze lingered on the ground. Come on. He whispered in his thoughts. So far not an ounce of the ground had been disturbed except for the main burial which had taken place earlier. "Raphael-"
Had the girl still been living, she would have paled drastically as the boy's pointed look, pierced over onto her in deep and flaring irritation, before flickering back onto the ground.
One other slowly stepped forward and took Raphael's umbrella as he crouched down, careful not to dirty the shine of his gleaming midnight black shoes or trousers. "Come now dear child." He whispered softly to the ground. His finger tips brushing just above the surface. "Come now darling, it's time to rise and shine."
He often did find himself attending more of these awakening ceremonies. Watching more of the children being reborn... those who broke the surface anyway, and those who fed. The rest he just had to watch sadly or at least try and make them comfortable as they faded back into the realm where they were once taken away from.
After all. Any Child of Night had faced death. Going back to it brought no fears. Not when they had already experienced it a first time.
The others began to turn around on the spot and sigh softly as they stared at the unmoving ground. Their eyes wavering with hope from the new member which may have just joined their family. Now they mourned as the unborn would remain in their coffin bellow. "Does this mean that it's dinner is up for grabs-"
"Shut it!" They hissed on the girl who had turned towards the sealed case carried between them.
"Hey! You were all thinking it!" She hissed quietly. Her hungry gaze lingering on the case as two faint white shapes poked out on the edge of her lips. Her tongue hungrily tasting the remains of her left over earlier meal which still lingered in her taste buds. "Come on! The little corpse isn't going to-"
"Show respect. Or I'll rip your fangs out, long before you ever think of getting a drink ever again!" The smallest of the males glared out at the girl with a furious nature. "That is a new member of the family down there! They are just that! Family! We are all children of the night here."
"And as so." Raphael began. "We are all equal among each other-"
Slowly he took a step back as for a moment his ear twitched with a faint tremble bellow.
For a moment there... it had felt like... like something had begun to surface. "All children of the night share the same hunger. We share the same thirst. Our muscles ache together and our line draws on."
He paused for a long moment.
Till once more a shaking tremble echoed from beneath the ground.
"You hear my voice don't you?" He purred softly, making sure to keep the level and tone delicate. "Come now child. Stretch and fight. Come towards my voice."
More trembling shook the ground till finally a hand burst violently through the cover of soil. Scrambling desperately and grasping the air as hard as it could. "Nearly there." Raphael grinned, watching the way that the group had suddenly turned back with a brand new interest at the birthing of their new sibling. "Come on now dear."
The ground eventually tore apart and a fresh scream ripped through the night.
Raphael barely understood, just what he had uncovered.
Or the chain of events that this new birthing would take his family down, or what kind of darkness, the children of the night were about to be impaled onto.