I love you guys and you're all wonderful and worthy of the best, just want to make sure you know that.
Disclaimer: Whatever is Cassandra Clare's, Is Cassandra Clare's.
Sleds and Christmas Trees.
It was December First. One week since the 'public outing' in Stephen's words. It had been a huge success. The three small business owners Clary and Jace had visited were so excited and pleased that Clary couldn't help but feel the pride for her people swell up in her. Jace had been the gentleman he promised to be and gave Clary no reason to slap him, much to Valentine's disappointed.
Today was the Herondales last day before they went back to Idris. To make the last day count, the two families were going to go choose a Christmas tree for the main hall.
"Clary, the snow is taller than you by like six inches, you're riding on the sled with Celine and mom." Clary groaned.
"Do you know how uncomfortable riding on a sled is, Jon?" Jace smiled mischievously.
"You could always sit on my lap." Clary made a face.
"You could always stay at home, Lissy." Clary groaned. Valentine smiled.
"I told you to stop calling me that, dad."
"I'm the king, I can do whatever I want."
"Alright you two, Clary you're riding in the sled with me and Celine. Come along now. Before it starts to snow again." Clary sighed exasperated and got onto the sled as the men sat at the front of the sled to man the horses. Jocelyn side hugged her daughter.
"Think of it as a carriage ride in a parade. Yeah?" Clary shrugged. Celine patted her thigh.
"Don't let them bum you out. You aren't seven anymore." Clary frowned then smiled.
"Just because its your last day." Celine smiled widely and then they were being pulled.
When Jonathan said that the snow was taller than Clary, Clary thought he was exaggerating. Once they were outside the palace grounds though, it was clear Jonathan was not exaggerating. The horses pulled Clary and her two motherly figures as the the four men walked on the snow.
"Oh Celine, are you sure that you can't at least stay until the Christmas Ball?" Jocelyn begged. Celine sighed.
"We'll be back but you're not the only one who has to rule a kingdom. We've taken a longer than expected vacation and though I trust Michael, he gets tired of making the decisions. Stephen is getting home sick as well. The other day he said he missed the gray clouds. Clouds. Of all things," Celine muttered the last part and Jocelyn and Clary laughed.
Clary was bundled in her warmest clothes and still, her toes were freezing. As Clary's feet began to numb, she wondered how the people who didn't have the money to spend on warm clothes lived through harsh winters. The thought dampered Clary's spirit. Celine and Jocelyn continued to talk and Clary continued to wonder what the poorer children wore in Switzerland's worser winters. The thoughts began to slowly leave her head when she began to examine each tree they passed by.
They were all too perfect or too flawed. Clary sighed and Jocelyn turned from her conversation to pay attention to her daughter.
"Are you cold Clary?" Clary shook her head.
"No, all the trees aren't anywhere near perfect." She said. Jocelyn laughed.
"Oh Clary, you've always been too picky when it comes to Christmas trees." Clary's lips turned up at the corners.
"Its not my fault, I am half you and that means that I got your artistic genes." Celine laughed and agreed.
"She definitely reminds me of you at that age." Jocelyn rolled her eyes. As Celine retold a tale of when they were seventeen and looking for the perfect Christmas tree, ("We were out from after breakfast until sundown, and we still didn't get a Christmas tree!") the sled suddenly stopped and the three women stopped their conversation as they saw the four men come towards them. Jace and Jonathan were talking and Valentine and Stephen were laughing and joking. When the reached them, they stopped talking.
"We're here." Clary looked around them. They were in a clearing surrounded by trees of all sizes and kinds.
"You all know the rules, you have one hour to find the perfect tree, cut it, and bring it here. We'll decide on the best one for the hall. Teams are the usual." Valentine said and waited as the women put on their snowshoes.
Jocelyn got out of the sled first, to begin searching. Valentine was trailing after her as she began to inspect every inch of every tree. Clary smiled and finished putting on her snowshoes to get out of the sled. Jace and Jonathan were already waiting for her when she got out.
"C'mon, love. Let's beat them at finding a tree." Clary couldn't find the will anywhere inside of her to reprimand him over using the name love. She was too focused on finding the perfect tree before her mother.
"Careful, Jace. She's on tree mode right now." Jon joked. Jace was mildly smirking.
"Oh I know. But this year so am I. We are finally going to beat Jocelyn." Jace replied. Jonathan groaned.
"Not you too. I can't believe you've been recruited to the dark side." Jon whined. Jace punched him in the arm, Jonathan fell in the snow dramatically. "Clary! You're betrothed has injured me. I'm dying at the hands of my best friend." Jonathan said and Clary turned around to see Jace roll his eyes and offer his hand to Jon. Jon took it smiling widely.
"Cut it out you two. We have to beat my mom this year." Jon sighed and walked as quickly as possible on the snow to catch up with Clary. After the fun and games, Jon also became competitive. The three young adults became engrossed with finding the perfect tree.
"What about this one?" Jace asked. The two Morgenstern siblings turned towards the tree Jace was looking at and began to inspect it.
"Its too short." Jon said.
"It begins to bald as it gets taller." Clary observed.
"There aren't enough leaves."
"Pine needles, Jon. And the pine needles that are there, are sparse."
"What is that?" Jon asked as he got closer. "Are those ants? Jace, you picked an infected tree?"
"Wait, look it has something here too-"
"Alright Alright. What I get for trying to help." Jace retorted. The Morgenstern siblings looked at each other, shrugged, and continued looking. After wandering around, Jonathan left his sister and best friend so they could scout out a larger portion of the land.
"Just you and me, Clare." Clary 'mhmm' at him as she inspected a tree. It was a decent height, not too tall not too short. There were no bald spots and the branches fanned out in the right directions. "So have you made any progress with Magnus?" Jace asked conversationally. Clary looked up at Jace.
Since the public outing, he had been mentioning the wedding more and more lately. And that was only a week ago.
"We have decided on capped sleeves and the color of the dress." Jace furrowed his eyebrows. Clary didn't even glance up.
"What do you mean, 'color?' A wedding dress is supposed to be white." Clary quickly looked up at Jace's confused face. She smiled.
"I'm too pale for white, Jace. Magnus decided we should go for a more ivory color. In the end we didn't even go with that, come to think of it." Clary mused. She shrugged and moved on to another tree. The bark was peeling off.
"So what color is your wedding dress then?" Jace asked as he matched his pace with Clary's.
"Gold." Jace smiled cockily.
"Is it because it reminds you of me and secretly you're in love with my golden glory?" Clary's head shot up.
"Of course not!" She said loudly. "It just so happens that gold suits me better than white." Jace continued to smirk. Clary was beginning to tire of his games.
"You keep telling yourself that Clare." Clary spun on Jace.
"Listen Jace. If I was in love with you, you probably would have known by now giving as I suck at keeping secrets. Second, why would I even be in love with you? You're practically my annoying brother, for crying out loud!" She said. Jace was slightly offended but at the moment all he could notice was the proximity of how close Clary was to him. So he wasn't thinking when he leaned forward towards Clary's face. Luckily, Clary didn't notice as she had turned around and stomped off in the opposite direction. Jace heard a whistle.
"What happened to being smooth, Jace? Isn't Clary just another girl you can win over with your charm?" Jonathan mocked. Jace scowled.
"You know better than I do how difficult it will be to woo Clary. And she's not just some other girl, okay. You know that too, Jon." Jonathan sighed and walked up to his best mate.
"Look, I'm just saying that she's not going to fall for you if you push yourself towards her like that. Remember Sebastian?" Jace's lip curled.
"How could I. I only heard, 'Sebastian actually likes me, and oh look what Sebastian got me.' for a whole summer. If it weren't for Valentine, she probably would have run off with him." Jon smiled.
"Verlac was already engaged, he was just acting nice towards Clary because we were always bastards towards her." Jace raked a hand through his hair.
"Time, Jace. You have eternity to figure things out. We already had this conversation, epiphany and all." Jon clapped Jace on the back as Jace muttered incoherent thoughts. Then they heard a scream.
Um, so yeah... sorry about the semi cliffy. Don't worry, I'll update soon :) But hey, Jace almost kissed Clary! That's gotta count for something.
Hope this chapter was good, I'm not entire sure how I feel about it but its up so you know what to do:
REVIEW! I love reading and responding to you guys, also; PM's are welcome guys.
Until next time,
~BP~