Indigo Blackrose did not like change. She protested when she was moved from Los Angeles to New York and yet again when she was moved from New York to London.
She adapted quickly to new surroundings yet seldom bothered to make the best of her situation.
That was why, she supposed, she found it so hard to make friends. And it was also why, she later mused, she was so against newcomers despite the fact that the London institute was the busiest in the world.
Being an orphan did not help. Like many of the other young shadowhunters at the institute, Indigo's parents had died when she was young, battling demons as their holy writ mandate required. But it did make her feel somehow separate from those who still had families intact.
Almost a decade had passed since the legendary battle of Clary Fray and Jace Lightwood against Valentine Morgenstern and his son, Sebastian.
Shadowhunter population grew and blossomed steadily, slightly attributing to the fact that interspecial marriage between shadowhunters and mundanes was now a social norm. Where there had once been a handful of students at the famed London institute, there were now forty. A sizeable enough class of young warriors, yet far too few for Indigo to find a friend.
And now, nearing her 18th birthday, almost too late to find a parabatai.
Out of everything, Indigo probably regretted this the most. She knew this was caused in part by the fact that she had moved around institutes so much in her youth. Indigo, unlike her classmates who had known each other since birth, had not had a chance to root herself and be supported by friends that she had known since birth. People she could trust.
Plus, her unusual physical appearance did little to soften the still present, however vague, contempt English shadowhunters showed for foreigners. Her father had been a shadowhunter based in New York, a flaming redhead with a penchant for the forbidden and had been completely besotted by a wealthy Korean girl living in upstate Los Angeles while on an ambassador's journey. Charlie Blackrose's pasty lankiness combined with Song Lee's olive skin and dark complexion had resulted in a wiry, pale-faced girl with brilliant auburn hale, slanted blue eyes, and high cheekbones. Her striking appearance had made her self conscious growing up.
Her mother had ascended, traditioning remarkably easily, into the fast and dangerous life of the wife of a shadowhunter. Her daughter, who showed early signs of physical ability, seemed to be born into the right life, growing up alongside the other shadowhunter children in Los Angeles. Until her father had made the decision to move back to New York. Until both her parents had perished mid-assignment and she was transferred across an ocean to another country.
She had been 15.
She had been forced to mature quickly then, from a petulant and spoiled child used to attention to a woman who felt utterly and completely alone.
She did not lose herself in grief, but instead, plunged herself into her studies, learning her lessons by heart at an alarming pace and astounding her mentors in the classroom, much to the annoyance of her classmates. This too, she later realized, contributed to the reason she had no close friends. She had built herself as an outcast from the beginning.
In the training room, her natural flexibility and nimbleness proved useful for superior muscle memory. She learned the fastest, and was soon disarming everyone she sparred against. The boys, in particular, did not look kindly at the 5' 4" spitfire that left them leaving the training room aching from head to toe.
So she did not feel at all pleased when 17 year old Levi Chaudhury, a newcomer, a nobody, singlehandedly beat her on every exam, bested her nearly every sparring practice, and eventually rose to a place where she swore no one would ever reach.
Above her.