As a Christmas gift to my readers, I'm giving you a sort-of prequel affair to my ongoing fanfiction "Merely a Luxury." I'd advise anyone who hasn't read it to do so before reading this... the main character is an OC who, while not the main character in MaL, is mentioned quite frequently in it. This is how her and our favourite (and only)v Circle leader, well- met? "Interacted" is a better word here, I think. :)
Merry Christmas, ficcers! Reviews do make a lovely Christmas gift.
I don't own the Mortal Instruments or it's characters, wish I did, and the works. I do own Aribelle, the plot and any other unfamiliar characters. Don't sue.
Soft carols floated through the manor halls as Aribelle threw herself down the stairs with all her might. "Mom!" she shouted, eleven-year-old voice near to tears, "Mom, we gotta go now!"
Her mother turned from the bay window that had been transformed into a glass mirror by the darkness outside. Thousands of sparkling witchlight garlands draped around the massive, evergreen tree danced around Evelyn Westin's blonde hair like a halo and threw the many scars that covered her bare shoulders into startling relief. She smiled in between sips of a dark red wine.
"And when are we supposed to be there, dear?"
"In-" the small girl hurriedly threw a glance at the grandfather clock behind her on the first landing. Her face visibly fell as she read the time. "An hour and a half. But- it's going to take at least an hour to get to his house, you know! Or maybe even a little more."
Her mother's tinkling laugh floated to her ears as she made her way towards her, perfectly fitting in with the sweeping blue gown she wore and the glowing candlelight around them. Aribelle was dressed in blue as well, although it was a lighter shade, a one-shouldered affair that brushed the ground beneath her feet. She had bought it especially for the occasion.
Reaching her, Evelyn bent down and swung her daughter up into her arms, a feat she could accomplish only because her daughter was so small. Aribelle had inherited her mother's brains, but sadly not her height. "We have to pick your sister up from her party on the way, remember? And I'm sure that Valentine won't want you to be that early. I've met with his parents, you know. They're charming people, and powerful Shadowhunters at that- especially his mother, who by all rights shouldn't even know how to handle a seraph blade. Their house is only a half-hour ride from here."
It seemed that her mother's comments and reasoning fell on deaf ears. "But it's not proper to be late, mom, no more proper than marrying a mundie!" Evelyn chuckled again at this and started moving towards the parlour loveseat. Once mother and daughter were both seated, Aribelle's suddenly wide and extremely serious eyes darted up to meet her mother's. Her next sentence was uttered so quietly, Evelyn had to strain her Nephilim hearing to catch it. "You... you like Valentine, don't you?" Her face was so incredibly petrified it was almost comical.
Evelyn was finally confirmed of the guess she'd been harbouring for weeks. Snatching bobby pins and a brush from the low oak table beside them, she shifted her posture slightly and took her daughter's pin-straight hair in her hands, twisting it up and around her head in an intricate knot. "He's a very nice young man," she said idly. Since Aribelle's back faced her mother, she was not able to detect the knowing smile that flitted across her mother's face.
"But mom," she insisted, "everyone thinks he's nice. I mean... do you think he'd make a good..." and she mumbled something incomprehensible into the hem of her dress.
"A good parabatai? I'm sure he will grow up to be quite the warrior, but I'm not sure I want you getting into the situations that I am almost positive he will find himself in." Aribelle's hair sat upon her head in a golden knot and Evelyn was now working to pin flyaway strands in place.
Aribelle started drumming a nervous rhythm on her thigh. "No, a good... you know."
Her mother laughed as she spun her around and admired the finished product. "A good boyfriend, you mean?" A rosy flush spread across Aribelle's delicate cheeks as she nodded once. Evelyn smiled warmly, thinking of the days long ago that she held the same concerns as her young daughter.
"I believe he would. In a few years time, of course."
Aribelle bounced up in glee and snuck a glance at herself in the reflective window. "How many years?"
Her mother stood up as well, towering over her in a comforting way. "Hm..." she walked to the foyer and drew on a long fur-trimmed coat embroidered with many swirling, golden Marks. "I should think about forty."
"Hey!" Aribelle ran and threw a playful punch at her mother, a move she had learned last week at the Academy, which her mother easily blocked. Eyes suddenly wide, the small girl gasped and ran down the hall towards the kitchen.
"And you were so concerned we'd be late," Evelyn sighed.
"Just a sec! I almost forgot the most important thing!" In under a minute she had returned, a festively wrapped parcel clutched firmly in her grasp.
"Who's that for?" Evelyn inquired as they ventured out into the freezing night, setting their feet for their carriage.
Aribelle smiled mischievously, although there was an anxious glimmer in her eyes that her mother didn't miss. "My secret Santa."
The snow that was piled around it and the warm light that spilled out onto the front veranda had a way of making the Morgenstern manor look more cosy and inviting than it had any other time Aribelle had seen it. Slamming the gilded knocker once and waiting, she cast her eyes around the surrounding snowy lawn and recognized both the Graymark and Trueblood carriages. She looked up at her mother, happy to know that she wasn't the first one here.
Laughter and voices spilled out onto the porch when the door was opened by a slim woman in a stunning black gown. Pins sparkled like diamonds from the curtain of platinum hair that spilled over her bare shoulders. She smiled warmly when she saw Aribelle and her mother.
"Ah, Mrs Westin and the young Miss Aribelle. Care to come in for a drink? Mr and Mrs Trueblood are here with their eldest son. And of course-" Bellasae Morgenstern projected her voice up the spiralling staircase behind her- "Valentine! Another one of your many guests has arrived!"
As Evelyn politely declined, Aribelle's gaze was caught when a surprisingly tall boy walked down the stairs dressed in a dark, crisp suit that caused his hair, that was the same colour as his mother's, to positively glow. Twelve-year-old Valentine's proud, narrow face lit up in an expression of joy, as though just seeing Aribelle standing in his foyer had been the most exciting part of the night yet. Her heart leaped to her throat as he walked towards her, hand extended.
"Come," he said, taking both her hand and the present and smiling when he glimpsed his own name on the tag. "Lucian is demonstrating exactly how he believes a werewolf acts and we wouldn't want to miss it."
As the night progressed, Aribelle was sure it was becoming one of the best of her short life. She barely knew this group of people- the only familiar faces were Jocelyn Fairchild and Lucian Graymark, who she had befriended the first week at the Academy when they were only eight. All the other fourth year Nephilim children were ones that Valentine himself had personally taken under his wing, helped them with whatever area of training they were struggling in, and then got to know them as actual friends. Lucian, known as Luke to his closer friends, was no different- he had been fretting over the daunting task of being Marked for months this year until Valentine had come into the picture. And where Luke went, Jocelyn and Aribelle usually followed, out of mere curiosity more than anything this time. And that's when the blonde girl developed the first crush she had ever experienced- on the boy whose house she was currently at.
Luke had performed a perfect werewolf imitation as far as anyone was concerned and the dinner that followed could only be described as delicious. They were joined by Maryse Trueblood's parents and older brother and during the three main courses Valentine captured and held the older Academy student's ear with questions about everything from demon lore to parabatai selecting while all others listened in awe. After the last crumbs of dessert were eagerly stuffed into waiting mouths, the host ushered his guests into the grand living room and settled everyone down at the foot of a huge evergreen tree that cast sparkling drops of light upon the stacks of presents that sat beneath it.
"I trust everyone brought their gift?" Valentine said, beaming. As if he never doubted any of them in the slightest and was just teasing them with the notion of them forgetting.
His inquiry was met with a chorus of nods. As each child eagerly moved to retrieve the gift addressed to them, Jocelyn ran to Aribelle and pulled her aside.
"Did you actually do it?" she asked excitedly, eyes shining with encouragement.
She bit her lip in nervousness but nodded nonetheless.
Jocelyn flipped her curtain of fiery crimson hair back and made a lunge for the small festively wrapped box with her name on it. Aribelle cast her eyes around the base of the tree and found her own present waiting beside Jocelyn's, clothed in a non-descript box. She took it absentmindedly and turned back to her friend.
Jocelyn grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry Ari; he's going to love it."
She pulled her anxious friend to where Luke and Rob Lightwood were talking, backs against the side of a leather armchair and presents in hand. The former saw them and smiled.
"What'd you get? Let's see," Luke grabbed Jocelyn's wrapped present from her enthusiastically.
"It's not opened let," she replied, rolling her eyes at her friend and snatching it back. Luke didn't provide any resistance for he was already opening a present of his own. The four Shadowhunter kids dug into their gifts while wrapping paper and bows flew everywhere. Aribelle swore she saw Valentine's mother watching her living room get demolished at the doorway and cringing. Her eyes flew back to her present as she reached through the last layer of wrapping and pulled out-
Pink gloves, a pink scarf and a sickeningly pink hat. Cringing, she looked around at Jocelyn and her heart fell when she witnessed her friend admiring a gorgeous pair of white crystal earrings.
"Oh Ari, I'm not sure who these are from but they're to die for! These people seem so nice-" she lowered her voice quickly "If not a little obsessed with the leader of their "fan club."" Aribelle winced again and glowered at her friend and Jocelyn sighed. "I don't mean you! What did you get?"
Aribelle slowly lifted the appalling accessories with two fingers as if they carried a particularly contagious disease. A similar look of dread crossed Jocelyn's face before she smiled sympathetically.
"I'm really sorry but those are awful." She glanced around furtively, as if the giver of the gift was going to sneak behind her and tackle her.
A slight commotion in front of the tree drew their attention, and the two boys shifted over to see what it was about. Jocelyn quickly put the earrings in- Aribelle noticed, green with envy, how they sparkled against her red hair- and followed Luke to the circle that was forming beneath the massive Christmas tree. Aribelle sat down beside her just as Valentine took an extremely familiar gift from its place on the carpet beside him.
"You all didn't have to abandon your activities to watch me open a gift," he was saying, although the sparkle in his dark eyes gave away that he enjoyed the attention to an extent. A girl beside him whispered something in his ear and he laughed with her. Aribelle felt her heart constrict painfully and hated how she was in love with the most popular boy in the school.
"He's right, you know," she heard Jocelyn murmur to Luke, "Everyone's acting like the whole Clave just gathered in his living room! This is getting kind of-" she directed her attention back to the blonde-haired boy at the front just as he drew the last piece of paper off her gift with a flourish.
The giggles and exclamations of the people around him reached Aribelle before Valentine's own reaction did. Sniggers erupted from a group of boys near front and the girl beside him exclaimed "Why would a boy want that?" in a catty voice. Aribelle's eyes filled with tears and her surroundings blurred. She could hear Robert's laugh beside her as he followed the crowd. Face flaming red, she rose to her feet so quickly that she almost lost her balance.
"Ari-" Jocelyn whispered, eyes brimming with concern, but the golden-haired girl yanked her hand out of her friend's grasp and ran, turning so fast that everything blurred even more and she didn't see Valentine softly admonish the girls and boys around him for laughing at the new copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that sat in his lap. Only when she was out of the warm living room and standing in a dark hallway did Aribelle stop and slide down the wall to a sitting position, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and staining the expensive blue silk of her evening dress.
One of the days that Aribelle would always remember was the one when she found out Valentine Morgenstern knew she existed. She had been emerging from the doorway of her mundane history classroom where they had been studying popular literature when the copy of Romeo and Juliet that had ended up on the bottom of her abnormally heavy stack of books and slipped from her grasp. It had fallen to the ground and she, so engrossed was she in a conversation, only noticed when a smooth, slightly foreign voice had stopped her. Aribelle had turned around to find Valentine with her book in hand and compliments on her novel presentation on his lips. He had proved to know almost as much about Shakespeare and his plays as she did, although the playwright himself had been a mundane. They had spent the rest of the break comparing thoughts on plays from Hamlet to A Midsummer Night's Dream and by afternoon, Aribelle had known that she was head over heels in love.
It was the same childish, innocent love that consumed her now as she sat in the dark hallway and cried. She even stayed put when a sharp, austere man strode by her with a glowing seraph blade in hand, not giving her a mere glance. It was only when the young Shadowhunter heard Jocelyn's soft voice calling for her in the next hall that she picked herself up and ran timidly to the nearest room. It turned out to be some sort of music room, complete with stands of violins and a glossy ebony piano. Aribelle collapsed onto a dusty loveseat and while no new tears came, she was sure her eyes were red and unattractively swollen and she didn't really care for company anyways.
It may have been hours or merely forty-five minutes when Aribelle heard a strong knock at the door. Wondering detachedly what had given away her position, she shuffled to open it, expecting Luke's or Jocelyn's face staring back at her.
Instead she got Valentine's, which was a great deal more surprised than concerned.
"Aribelle?" he said, only hesitating a second. "I was looking for you, but I did not expect to find you in my music room."
Somehow she managed to put on a slightly convincing smile and prayed that her red eyes were hidden in shadows. "If I knew how to play the piano, you would've known my location by the sad tune floating through the deserted halls." She also prayed the shadows concealed the flush that spread across her face at her lame attempt to joke. "You didn't have to find me, I would've come out..." eventually, she added in her head.
"No, you wouldn't have," he insisted in a firm tone and Aribelle knew he was right. She waited to be ushered back to the others in the soft, persuasive tone that was all too familiar to anyone who knew the boy. Valentine couldn't have his guests running off at his party, could he? Just as the thought was formed, he crossed the small room, her hazelnut eyes following him questioningly as he sat on the recently vacated loveseat. He smoothed his jacket lapels down, an oddly vulnerable gesture, before beckoning her over to sit next to him. Aribelle almost tripped in her haste to comply.
His voice was soft when he spoke. "I know why you gave me that book, Aribelle."
If her cheeks had been faintly pink a moment ago, they were flaming red now. "Oh, by the Angel-!" A little squeak escaped her mouth of its own accord. "Please don't think anything of it! I mean, I was merely-"
"Wanting to tell me that you have a crush on me," he stated matter-of-factly, "And I don't think "merely" is the best word to use here."
"Oh..." she closed her mouth to further prevent the squeak that was her new voice from coming out again. No longer being able to look him in the face, Aribelle was suddenly mesmerized by a tiny spot on the music room floor.
"Aribelle," the older boy's soft voice was so close it caused her to jump. A pale hand with an eye-like rune adorning its surface closed over her own, smaller one. "It's okay."
She raised her tear-streaked face to check if Valentine had actually said that. The soft, almost whispering tone that he had uttered sounded unlike any sound that he had ever made in her short time of knowing him. While he was always in such bright, shining control, now he almost sounded... vulnerable. And it only made Aribelle's heart throb for him more.
"It's not okay though!" she said suddenly and forcefully. "I don't think I've ever loved anyone more than you and you obviously don't feel the same way about me!" Yanking her hand out of his, she slid quickly to the other side of the loveseat and wondered if she had ever sounded so childish.
"You're right, I don't."
Aribelle was so stunned that she momentarily forgot her anger and turned to face Valentine. It came surging back a moment later like an arrow in her heart as all the hope, love and excitement she had held for so long when thinking about this moment leaked out of her like hot, crimson blood.
"But I'm only one person, and I am the first person you ever felt like this about, right?" She grimaced and nodded slowly, hurt still bright in her eyes. He attempted to touch her hand once again and this time she complied. Even after those painful words, the glint in his dark eyes was concerned, as if he knew he was hurting her and he hated it. Aribelle was just one of many that found you couldn't say no to Valentine Morgenstern.
He nodded then, as if to himself, and absentmindedly lifted his other hand to touch a glimmering bobby pin imbedded in the younger girl's golden hair. "Then there will be others. If I cannot give you what you seek, to be loved in return, then I, sadly, am not good enough for someone like you."
It felt like she had been falling, and had been caught, miraculously, at the last second. But even thought she had been caught, a fairly large piece of her had still plummeted over the edge. But maybe, she could learn to live without that piece and still be okay. Just maybe.
She straightened up and swept a hand through her bangs, suddenly self-conscious. "So, you won't, you know- stop talking to me, right?"
Her worried tone caused Valentine to chuckle. "And why would I ever do that? Aribelle, you're a smart girl, someone who I'll always have need of." A slightly alarmed shadow flitted across his narrow face then, and Aribelle knew he was thinking that came out wrong.
A moment passed in silence, the shifting of her dress across the loveseat the only sound heard. As expected, Valentine started the conversation once more.
"I saw that you didn't look that happy with your gift."
Aribelle, just about to suggest leaving, fell back against the couch. "No... oh! Sorry, if you were the one who gave it-" Valentine silenced her with a smile.
"I would never give my worst enemy that shade of pink. No, I was wondering because, since this is my house, I would hate it if one of my guests was unhappy with anything." His black eyes raked her with an almost weighed look and Aribelle felt quite exposed. "So Aribelle, what do you want for Christmas?"
Her mind was as blank as white paper. Smiling, she covered her lapse by saying the first thing that came to mind. "What do I want for Christmas? Guess."
The warm glow of witchlight danced in Valentine's eyes as he leaned forward, looking like he was about to say something. She was entranced by the way the light shone through his thin dress shirt and caught the scars of Marks beneath it in a swirling dance. Next thing she knew, he had closed the gap entirely and his lips touched her own.
It was only for a moment, but it was the moment any girl would remember for the rest of her life- her very first kiss. Aribelle couldn't help but smile into his lips, and the upward curve of her mouth stayed after Valentine had withdrawn from the kiss. Knowing that she should be distraught that at his rejection, she questioned her sanity when she realized that she wasn't. She noticed everything about him. The way the glow of light behind him turned his hair into a white-gold halo. The way his eyes turned to mirrors in the dark, like a window in front of a night sky. Maybe he would never be her boyfriend... but he would always be her angel.
"That was mean," she commented lightly, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. "But it was also exactly what I wanted."
She had just had her first kiss with Valentine Morgenstern... and was calling him mean? Aribelle concluded that she had no idea whatsoever of the Academy's pecking order.
But he just smiled his usual, illuminating smile that was part of why she loved him in the first place. "Merry Christmas, Aribelle." He rose from the couch and walked out of the room, not even glancing back to see if she would follow.
She jumped up and ran to catch up with him anyways. It was just painfully obvious, even to her own self, that Aribelle, not unlike every other student in the house, would always follow Valentine wherever he happened to go.