My knees were aching, the damp, bone-chilling moisture on the floors of the stone cell seeped through my cotton pants; the icy trembling traveled up the veins of my legs, shook my abdominals, traveled incessantly through my blood and settled cruelly in my heart. It throbbed frustratingly. The manacles around my cut and sore wrists refused to let me have the luxury of laying my arms down, in rest. My eyes and skin haven't known the warmth of light in the unknown time I've been in the hopeless prison of the silent city. Witchlight nor sunlight has greeted the demon. How long has it been? Days, weeks, months? The more I realize there is no escape, the more my bitter soul clings to vengeance; I will damn them to hell. The cold begins to feel natural; my skin expects its frigid fingers. Will I recognize light when I see it? I cannot tell if my eyes have lost sight, or if the abysmal darkness is real.

I hear things slithering near me; I smell the caustic iron of blood and decay every minute of the endless night. Unnatural moans of the denizens disturb my feeble sleep. During the day, or, rather, what I substitute as "day", are the hours in which my mind is most alert, and not leaving me; during the day I hatch thought. Thoughts that welcome murder and emotion; and create ideas. These ideas involve the people of old memories and they then become a plan. This plan is given to me, and I raise it, nurture it, and learn it. It sounds plausible, but there's one flaw. This plan requires two guardians, two nurturers, and two students.

There's only one person I know that will be willing, he who raised me and made me what I was.

Yes, he will come to see me eventually, he must help me.

I waited.

And waited.

The plan matured and began preparing itself for its new guardian, reserving parts of itself for him. Began working its way around itself seeing where its new student will fit. Eventually the plan couldn't fail and leveled out. There was no more to add, everything was set for the new guardian's arrival.

It waited.

"Hello, son." said Valentine.

He didn't know what repercussions would follow him after this hesitant visit. After his son was deemed too dangerous and a "risk the Clave is not willing to even consider" because of his involvement in the 2nd uprising, his demonic qualities, and taking down the wards in Idris, Valentine wasn't even sure the guards of the silent city would allow him to see his son, but his fellow Nephilim have been more lenient towards him than his son Sebastian. Valentine was stripped of his marks and had given everything he owned to the Clave, his weapons, family heirlooms, even his father's library was handed over in exchange for his life. They gave him an apartment in Idris, albeit small and far off in the outskirts of the city, and a job fit for a mundane, a waiter at a quaint coffee shop in the heart of the city. He wasn't all too sad, he enjoyed finally being able to show his face, although any returning visage was distrustful, and settling down, ever since he had become mundane he just didn't have the drive or energy to hatch a revolution, nor did he wish to.

"Father? Is it you?"

Valentine raised the torch in his hand and held it closer to the cold bars, he could barely make out a slumped figure in the corner of the room, until his wide, bloodshot eyes turned to look at the light, and they glistened feverishly.

"Yes, Sebastian, it's your father." Sebastian let out a tiny, raspy laugh.

"I knew you'd come."

"Of course I would." For a moment they said nothing.

"….How are you?" said Sebastian, uncertain.

"I've been holding up well." Valentine responded, honestly.

"…Did they really strip your marks?" Sebastian asked the question that's been burning his mind since the inquisitor declared their punishments, he couldn't imagine his father as anything else but the powerful shadowhunter he was, he didn't believe his marks could ever be forced off.

Valentine waited a moment before he spoke, "Yes, they have." He said somberly. Sebastian was quiet.

"I could tear the skin off the very bones of those filth-loving heathens." Sebastian hissed suddenly.

"Don't speak like that…"

"Are they going to strip me of my pride as well? Take away my God given right? Is that why I'm rotting here still, father? Am I waiting this fate?" He barked fearfully.

"Resisting will be of no use to you," Valentine advised. "And…I think it'd be best if they did the same to you." He reluctantly admitted. Just as he predicted, his son gave him the most disbelieving countenance to have ever crossed his features.

"You're not serious are you?" Sebastian replied, appalled by the statement. "You don't want me to become weak and useless as a mundane, do you?"

"Sebastian, understand, I've had my marks stripped and I know what it does. You are TOO powerful for your own good, what with the dirty blood I cursed you with, you don't have any inhibitions, being mundane weakens that urge, it shuts off the energy valve, you won't feel the need to destroy or-or hurt."

"What on Earth are you getting at father?" Sebastian replied furiously.

"It has humbled me, that is all I'm trying to say. Our pride has gotten us right here" He pointed his finger into the insides of Sebastian's damp prison.

"What have they done to you father?" He looked into his father's eyes, trying to understand where this-this blasphemy is coming from. "Don't we have reason to be proud, we are the ones with sense, not them."

"Son" Valentine bowed his head down, exhausted. "I've always been an ambitious man, an idealist, but I was never stupid, my survival instincts are much stronger than my ideas are"

"You were never like this before"

"I had never been that close to death before."

"Coward."

Valentine sadly looked upon the fire in his son's eyes, the same fire that fed their destruction.

"Our lives mean more to me than my marks now, you have two choices, take my advice, or die." Valentine challenged.

"I'd rather die than become less than what I was born." He replied instantly. "Besides, I wanted to tell you something." Sebastian whispered.

"What?" Valentine wondered.

"I have a plan to get out of here, and a way to avenge ourselves." Sebastian explained to his father excitedly.

He isn't serious, thought Valentine; I've had enough of this life already.

"I don't want to hear it."

"Just listen."

"No" he answered curtly. "You'll be better off putting it to rest." He said. Sebastian wasn't having it.

"I WAITED FOR YOU! I WANT OUR HONOR BACK, FATHER, WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU, WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME!" Sebastian cried out. "ANY OTHER DAY YOU WOULD HAVE SUPPORTED ME!" Tears threaten to manifest themselves in his feverish eyes.

"SEBASTIAN I'VE HAD ENOUGH! THIS IS WHY YOUR MARKS SHOULD BE STRIPPED, YOU'RE JUST HUNGRY FOR REVENGE! LISTEN TO YOURSELF…God listen to yourself" Valentine said sadly. "I know my mistake with you, please, I think this is one way we can redeem ourselves." He pleaded. Sebastian didn't speak for what seemed like an eternity.

"I don't need redemption, and I don't need you father."

"Sebast.."

"GO!" Valentine accepted his failure and walked down the long, sad hallway, taking Sebastian's only light along with him farther and farther away from his cell, until his son couldn't see his hand in front of his own face again.

A.N

Special thanks to my awesome Beta Jessica :D curing me of my apparent lack of knowing that I have to put a comma before a name and other crap, PLEASE REVIEW :DDDDDDD