Magnus

Magnus stared at the cup in front of him, hesitating even as Alec drank his greedily. There was a strong aroma coming from it, pleasant but unfamiliar. He went against his better judgment and brought the cup to his lips, rationalizing that you can't possibly die in a dream. The hot, thick liquid slid between his lips, traveling down his throat in a warm carnaval as it sent his taste buds into overdrive .

"What is this ?" He gasped, drinking more of the delicious liquid. He turned as a warm laugh escaped Alec and he blushed. Alexander was a very handsome man after all, even more so when such unadultur joy swept his face.

"That's actually your favorite, a sugar bomb if you ask me but it's your death not mine." Alec smirked, then seeing the complete confusion still dominating Magnus he sighed. " It's coffee Magnus. And this is our favorite downtown coffee shop. And that is your favorite pastry from a smaller store down the street. "

Magnus blinked as a plate holding some sort of dessert appeared in front of him. Much less hesitant now, Magnus grabbed a fork and got a charitable amount into it before taking a bite. It seemed to be coconut infused and the bread almost dissolved on his tongue.

There was some silence as they both enjoyed the coffee and desserts Alec had made appear. There was a part of Magnus that knew, without a shadow of doubt that he was currently dreaming. But the part of him that was tasting the delicious food and drink, could not comprehend how this could be a dream, yet feel and taste so vivid. It made his head throb the more he thought about, so he searched for a conversation topic, until something he had been wondering popped in his head.

"Alec .." Magnus said tentative, watching as the shadowhunter looked up at him sheepishly with crumbs all around his mouth.

"Yeah?" He answered, his mouth still filled with one of the desserts.

"You come from the future. You have the knowledge of the past all in your head. Yet all of you seem so eager to return to your time period. Is there nothing you would change in the past ?" Magnus took a breath, not knowing if he had hit too close to a nerve.

Alec looked away for a moment, and in an instant the coffee shop was replaced by a long stretch of dirt, with some odd buildings in the distance. Magnus blinked away the disorientation, and gasped as below his feet appeared a humongous hole, filled to the brim with what appeared to be bodies.

The coconut infused pastry threatened to leave his body as he took in the broken bodies. He teared his eyes away, noticing the buildings surrounded by a tall chain link fence, the ones that were highly uncommon in England. He stared as he saw shadows of men walking in between the buildings, their eyes hollowed and their bones poking through the spare clothing. He turned quickly to make sure that Alec was still there, and had not simply left him.

Alec was standing looking indifferently at the man walking by the buildings, his eyes ice cold. Magnus wondered if Asmodus' power to manipulate dreams had infected him, when Alec suddenly laughed. Magnus flinched and stepped away from him, which drew Alec's attention to him. His eyes instantly melted and a soft blue glow surrounded him.

"I'm sorry. I know this is not what you were expecting. It's just, I wish this was my answer to you. " Alec finally said, his eyes returning to the man. "I wish I could be so honorable."

"Whatever do you mean." He finally whispered back. There was so much pain, so much horror and fear in the dead and in the living that it was getting hard to see straight. He suddenly wanted to blow the fence open, and take every single person inside his arms, to cure them and love them.

"You asked if there was anything in the past that I might like to change. I wish this was my answer. I want to be able to say that I want to stop this from happening, and all other crimes against humanity. We are supposed to be their protectors. Yet when they needed us most, we were too busy thinking of ourselves to notice this genocide. We didn't stop it, and now this is what I should yearn to prevent. But it's not. When you ask me that, this isn't my first thought."

He was still lost in the terrifying view, so it took him a second to catch up.

"Do you mean to say that this is real? This will happen ?" His voice trembled despite his best efforts.

"It's still a ways off, but yeah it is going to happen. It will be known as the holocost. A mundane started it, but a demon pushed it along. It took millions of men and shadowhunters to end it."

"If this isn't your first answer, then what is?"

The scenery began to change, the bodies and the man disappeared, and Magnus was surprised by his sadness at leaving the man behind. What began to form was a paradise, filled with whiteness and glorious waterfalls. It made no sense. Alec turned to see his confusion and rushed to explain.

"It's heaven. And these people are the people I lost, or that my friends lost, or that you lost. These are the people I want to save."

Magnus stared at a couple of shadowhunters passing by them, paying them no attention, rushing to one of the golden buildings in the far end of their vision. He startled as he saw Ragnor leaning down from a floating cloud with a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle in the other. He was looking down at Raphael who was playing with some instruments.

It was as if the monsters that had been tormenting him nightly had finally managed to pierce his heart. He stumbled back as he realized what Alec was saying. His friends, his little moody cabbage and the broody vampire … would die. A single tear slid down his cheek before he could stop it, catching Alec's attention.

"I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, they won't die for many years to come." He blushed as he realized what he had just said, looking away from Magnus.

Magnus took in all of the people around him. There were shadowhunters, but also Warlocks, wolves, vampires and even fairies. Another realization struck him. Alec believed that all of these people belonged in heaven. Even the downworlders, even the children of demons.

"There is someone. Someone special." Alec said, just above a whisper and started to move, or more like float along the clouds, with Magnus walking behind him.

At last they reached a small golden house, with the door opened. The glimmering light left a brilliant light into the room behind the door, illuminating a small creature holed up in some sort of blanket. There were books all around the little creature, with indistinguishable figures drawn on their covers. It took a second before Magnus realized the little creature was just a child, with huge round glasses, messy hair and bright eyes, who had a book in one of his hands and a soldier toy in his other hand.

"That's Max. My brother. He died in the war. " There was a tremor in his voice, and such sadness in his eyes that it broke Magnus's heart. He reached out his hand and laid it softly on his shoulder.

"I am so sorry Alexander." Was all he managed to say before the clouds disappeared and Mganus was freefalling in complete darkness.

He screamed and tried desperately to find something to hold onto, or at the very least slow his fall but he continued to fall for what seemed to be an eternity. Every bone in his body hurt as he slammed down into his own body. It was hard to blink, or even breath for a second, before his chest relaxed and the tension left.

Magnus was holding Alec's hand, half out of bed with his feet dangling over the edge. Alec sat bolt upright, his attention immediately drawn to the door. Not a second later, Jessamine burst inside, dragging a half conscious Isabelle behind her.

The ground seemed to scream as it tembled, sending everyone in Magnus's room stumbling, including Magnus who fell off the bed. A large piece of the ceiling cracked and fell where Magnus had just been laying. Adrenaline rushed his body and his magic simmered around himself, both protective and at the ready to attack.

Jessamine was shouting, but it was hard to make out anything over the sound of the house falling. Isabelle was clutching the ball of magic, even as a cut on her head gushed out blood at an alarming rate. Alexander was trying to lift him, but Magnus kept stumbling, still too dazed to completely understand the situation.

Alexander pulled out a knife and threw it at the window, shattering the glass into a million little pieces, which surprised Magnus since he would have guessed all the windows should already be broken what with the house falling on their heads. Jessamine hesitated slightly before rushing to the window and pushing Isabelle out, quickly following her. Alec wasn't far behind her, still pulling Magnus along, until they reached the window and he pushed him out.

His back hit the ground with a resounding pound, sending the breath out of his chest. He hadn't even stood up when Alec had already slipped through the window and was pulling him again. The sun was blocked by dark clouds, raindrops falling calmly towards earth. Their horses were trained to stay calm under intense pressure, so they had remained camly standing under their stables. Jessamine had already managed to sling Isabelle over one and was hurriedly climbing into it's back.

Alec tried to pull Magnus onto the black mustang of the institute but Magnus couldn't bear to leave his own horse behind and feebly pulled against him. Realising what it was he wanted he slowly let his arm go and waited until Magnus had mounted before swinging onto his horse. They set at a gallop, the horse raising as the destruction of Magnus's home continued behind them.

Magnus wasn't materialistic, he had lost his home before, yet there still remained a ting of fury at the invasion of his territory. He half turned, holding tightly to the rains with one hand to get a clearer view of his house. There were winged demons sweeping down to get rocks, carriages, anything capable of causing damage and throwing them with surprising force into the house. On the ground were smaller demons, rushing in and out of the house, their hands and in some cases tentacles filled to the brim with some of Magnus precious books.

In the blink of an eye Magnus was holding a sizzling blue net, which he lightly threw in the direction of the smaller demons. As soon as the net touched them they began to melt, their cries inhumanly loud. The net quickly tightened until the demons finally died, their remains returning to hell, all that was left inside the net were the books.

His horse, having been startled by the demon cries, ran too close to a tree, effectively sending a branch right into Magnus's head. He managed to stay on the horse but the pain left him momentarily blind and the net fell limp against the ground, the blue slowly fading.

One of the flying demons turned his attention to the fleeing horses, quickly leaving it's position in the pursuit of human meat. The other demons seeing one of their own leave, noticed the horses and immediately followed in its lead.

Magnus still couldn't see, a warm liquid flowing from somewhere in his head down into his eyes. Yet he could hear the sound of the demons wings quickly growing louder, and his magic instinctively reacted, forming into a blazing ball, that flew for the nearest demon hitting it on the chest and killing it on the spot.

This only made the demons hurry their pursuit, one sweeping so low that its talons managed to catch onto Magnus's shirt. The silent sound of a whistling arrow passad an inch from Magnus's head and into the demon. Magnus was released and he furiously wiped his eyes, trying to clear his vision. He popped one eye open, seeing the shadow of a horse with two girls on its back turn down a path and disappear. He also managed to see a glowing bow being held by Alec as he aimed for the next demon.

They began to pass by more houses nearing the heart of the city. It was already mid afternoon and the streets were filled to the brim with mundanes. Magnus cursed and sent a vast majority of his magic to move the mundanes out of the way and into relative safety. Their eyes would glaze over and they would feel an undeniable urge to move elsewhere. His magic was begging to run low, and he struggled to ignore his bleeding head and concentrate on the mundanes.

Alexander was killing demons left and right but more pooped up, seeming to provide an endless amount of demons. Finally over the rooftops of nearby buildings the institute could be seen, and Magnus finally realized that Alec had been leading them there the whole time.

Magnus sent out a last wave of his power to the mundanes quickly moving them and the rest of his magic to the horses, the magic sending them 2 times faster towards the imposing sanctuary. The gates swung opened, a tall figure with golden hair already standing in the middle, a blazing sword in his hand.