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SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE BTW!
Clarissa continuously drew runes on her sketchpad and some useful ones along her arms. The green-purple stele was her childhood. With the runes she could create at the snap of a finger, she'd be unstoppable. She would have been able to stop her father from leaving home and killing himself by summoning demons… but no. He just had to attempt the most dangerous practice known to the Shadow World. Clarissa had avoided it as much as she could, but after training and having a stele back in her hands, she couldn't let go of it.
"You're gonna pass out eventually from putting on so many runes at once," warned Jonathan as he watched his sister mark herself with runes from the waist and up.
"No, I'm not. I feel great."
"Maybe a little too great. It's late, and you're going to be up all night."
"Knockout rune," Clary said smartly.
"More and more runes…" Jonathan said, shaking his head but smiling all the same.
"Goodnight, Jonathan," sang Clary as she tucked herself under the covers of her bed.
"Night, Clarissa. And um… I'm sorry about Jace by the way. I'll make sure he doesn't tell anyone." He must have noticed the slight anger in her darkened green eyes.
"Thank you."
Clary went to school the next day wearing a cardigan to cover up her freshly drawn runes. The skin around them weren't as raw as they were the previous day, at least.
As she started to pick up her binders from her locker, she felt Izzy's anger radiating off of her. It was even more evident as she slammed Clary's locker shut and forced her to look into her eyes by shoving her shoulders.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" she practically yelled across the hallway for people to hear. Jace must have let it slip. I'm gonna kill both Jace and Jonathan later.
"Tell you about?" Acting clueless was getting her nowhere. It was making everything worse.
"This!" Isabelle grabbed Clary's wrist and slid up her cardigan. Her eyes scanned the runes. In shock, Izzy shoved the sleeve back down with a tiny inch just peeking out.
"That's not in the book…" Isabelle was confused. "How do you have a rune that's not in the book?!" She whisper shouted.
Clary hesitated. She didn't know how to answer her without giving her secrets away. Izzy was going to find out one way or another…
"I'll tell you somewhere else; anywhere, but here." Her voice was quiet, too quiet that it seemed she was just moving her mouth and no sound came out.
Izzy dragged her into one of the empty washrooms opposite their lockers.
"Now talk!" she demanded.
"Long story short, now dead dad gave my subconscious mother angel blood in her food while she was pregnant with me. The blood was concentrated onto me making me three quarters angel, one quarter human; not half of each."
Isabelle pouted then made a face. Clary observed her for a minute. It wasn't like a regular face. It was suspicious, like she was digging up lost memory and trying to bring it back up to the surface.
"I should have realized this sooner…" The dark haired girl too her turn to observe her friend. "Clarissa Morgenstern… That last name; Morgenstern… Y- You're Valentine's child?" The name cursed Clary like saying 'bloody mary' 3 times in the mirror. She nodded. "I'm sorry…"
"For?" Why was she apologizing? She didn't make me a target for demons, so what was there for her to be sorry about?
"Having to be raised by him. I heard his children were whipped 10 times for not doing the smallest thing like… not saying 'sir' at the end of every sentence, or not looking him in the eye while he was talking. And… I was told stories of what happened to his children." Isabelle paused. Clary's green eyes looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.
"It was said to be that they were flawless because of the extra demon and or angel blood, I'm not sure. They… they could fight like 10 warriors at 10 years old. They had extra abilities, but no one dared to ask of what they were. Valentine had trained them since birth so they could assist him to dominate the Shadow World. Then something came up; like he committed suicide or even surrendered so he could be sentenced to death. I'm not sure why he would have wanted that, but it's what I heard."
There was a long silence between them. Clary debated whether she should share every detail of her life with Izzy, her first and best friend. They were close, but how well could she trust a girl like Izzy who was so social and popular while she was in her shadow; not that she minded.
She was willing to take the risk.
"What you heard was wrong," said Clary in a low voice. She started to walk around the bathroom tiles while catching glimpses of herself in the mirrors. "My dad started to teach me the ways of the Shadowhunters when I could crawl." Clary spoke slowly, careful with her wording. "He was partially Chinese and that, for some reason, seemed to let him believe he had a right to be strict. He gave me my first stele at 2, and my first blade at 5. My brother and I were taught to be perfect in his eyes… always having the perfect posture, speaking fluently in the most common languages, and having the perfect mind and body for Shadowhunting." Her face darkened. "Once eczema kicked in for both my brother and I, he felt his plan of hurting his wife to change us, and training us to perfection, was all wasted. He was going to use us to dominate the Shadow World, that was true; but, we couldn't be used to help him anymore. That resulted to his attempt in summoning the father of all demons." She paused. "It burned him alive."
Clary took a glance at herself in the mirror. A tear was going down the corner of her eye. She refused to cry. It was a sign of weakness, something her dad forbid her to show.
"My dad never whipped us. He could be patient if he wanted, but if we did do something he didn't like, we'd be punished somehow. Extra chores, extra training hours, no stele for a month; but nothing as brutal as direct physical pain."
"No stele. Damn, that must have been hard." Izzy put a hand on her best friends' shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't be," the feisty redhead snapped. Her body quickly tensed, then softened as she realized how fast she had reacted. "What he did made me stronger. I'm proud of it, not ashamed."
The deepness of the conversation reached a whole new level. Clarissa wanted to break down. Not Clary. Clary would have done it on the spot, but Clarissa was different. She may have had low self-esteem, but she strong.
Just then, the bell rang.
The rest of the day went on in silence. Neither Clary or Isabelle talked to each other unit the end of the day when they saw each other at their lockers. It felt as if they had both fought, but really, they just had a misunderstanding of Clarissa's past.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine, Izzy. I just… I'm not use to letting people in." The flawless girl completely understood. She didn't like having people ask her personal questions either. It made her feel insecure.
Taking her time, she opened her locker and watched Clary open hers with caution. She was afraid her stele would roll out of her locker…
"Come over to the Institute," she blurted out. Immediately, she wanted to take it back.
"I… I would but…"
"Come on, it'll be fun. I promise, no brotherly influences." Clary hesitated.
"Why don't you come over instead?" Now it was Clary's turn to wish she never opened up her mouth.
"Sure!" They hugged it out in the end.
"OMG!" Izzy started to squeal once Clary showed her the training area/basement. The smaller girl was momentarily confused. "We can train together. It'll be so much fun! Maybe even become parabatai!"
"Woah… Izzy, um… not that I don't want to do everything you just mentioned but, I just picked up training yesterday. And, I just got back my stele yesterday. It's been barely 12 hours, I'm still trying to process everything."
The two separated as Isabelle began to run around in awe at the weaponry. Clary was careful to guard her and her brothers' sword. It was just a precaution their father always constantly told them to take.
"Don't let anyone wield these blades," their father had said. "You two may hold one another's, but not anyone else. It'll burn them alive."
Burn them alive. Just like what he was when he summoned the father of all demons. Had he never been told not so summon demons since he was a Shadowhunter?
"What do you want to start with?" asked Clary politely.
"Whip!" Isabelle's signature golden snake whip uncoiled from her wrist. Clary shrugged and grabbed her silver one by the rack. This wasn't just the Morgenstern training stash. It was legendary. All weapons were created by the Iron Sisters on a personal connection, custom made.
"All right," sighed Clary, then firing up the magical whip.
The flashes of gold and silver were blinding within the confined basement. Not much could be seen until the end when Clary had tied up her best friend with both their whips.
"You gotta teach me that," demanded Isabelle as Clary untied her.
"My dad did, and I'm still out of practice. Give me some time to get use to runes again at least," chuckled the redhead.
They both took a seat on the couch, away from the training space. A comfortable silence.
"I can't believe I've known you for 3 years, and I didn't know you were a Shadowhunter."
"I expected that you were one," admitted Clary. Izzy's eyes opened wide and her attention was fully on her. "I chose not to push on the subject though," she continued. "Your runes flickered from their glamours, but that could have just been me hallucinating." Clary knew what her powers could do. It could drive her insane. "The extra blood in me could have ignited something. I haven't had runes for the past 5 years. That extra blood was being put to no use so it could have made me see things or… wish for things."
"I'm sorry," sighed Izzy.
"For?"
"Having extra blood." Clary didn't know how many times she had told Izzy within the past 10 minutes of how she didn't need to be sorry, but the girl just wouldn't stop.
"It's not something that would have effected the way I was brought up anyhow. I'd still be trained the same way, taught the same things… built to be strong. Bravery was another thing my dad enforced. He use to say; 'being brave and being strong aren't that hard to decipher. Being strong is having physical strength and resistance to temptations, to pain, and to weaknesses. Being brave is having courage, to take risks, and to have confidence no matter what anybody says. It's all just you.'"
"Which one did he want more?" asked Isabelle. She seemed to regret doing so right after.
"Strength. He didn't want us to give in to the opposing side of the uprising; meaning the Clave. He wanted us to act as his robots, built up to be exactly what he wants. But, I didn't really care about what he wanted, or said he needed. I wanted to be brave."
Clarissa had no clue why she was telling Isabelle everything her father said not to tell anyone but Jonathan. They could be parabatai one day if they kept this up.
"What about you? If you had to choose, what would you want?"
"I'd like strength," said Isabelle. She didn't seem to fear it. "I'm good at resisting my temptations. Pain, not so much. Weakness, I'm all right."
"That just means you aren't brave," said Clary. It was also from what her father had said. "It's impossible to be both. It's either bravery or strength." However, there was an extra line he always had said to himself which Clary use to always pick up on. "But for you two, it's possible to be both."
"Of course I am, just not as much as I am strong," Izzy giggled. The two stood up again, as if reading each others minds. They battled it out again with whips until they both got too tired and exhausted to carry on.
"Want to stay for dinner?" asked Clarissa politely when she put her weapons away.
"Sure, if your mom doesn't mind." She knew her mother wouldn't mind at all. She'd be more than 'delighted' for Izzy to stay over. It would probably be even better now, now that they knew each other's secret.
"Um… Izzy?" Clary looked at her carefully. Once they reach Clary's bedroom and the door is closed, she continued her question. "Remember when you first introduced me to Simon?" Clary had no clue where the question came from, but it seemed like a good time to ask since they were spilling all their biggest secrets today.
"Yes, why?" Isabelle's face tightened.
"Well... that day, you said, 'date him, you die. He's mine.' Is that still um... Is that still going on?"
"Who told you that and why would you assume so?" she pointed her finger directly at the redhead's heart.
"I just kinda observed and you know how close I am with Simon," she shrugged.
"Only you know. Do not open your mouth about this, please?" Izzy was on her knees.
"Izzy," Clary said as she helped her up. "Why are you afraid of liking him?"
"Apparently, I'm 'overqualified' to be with someone like him who is so… under my league. But I swear he's above me," she explained quietly.
The redhead sighed.
"Why should you be afraid of what anyone thinks?"
"It's a reputation I have to keep? And I doubt that Simon likes me for my personality, just my looks. That's what everyone likes. They don't like me." She looked as if she were about to break down and cry.
"What about you?" she choked out.
"Me?"
"You're a 16 year old girl who hasn't had her first boyfriend yet. There's got to be at least a crush down there." Clary stayed silent. She didn't need people to get to her like that.
"I know… I just… I don't even know him." I know he's a player who hits on all the asian looking girls. I just look more white.
"Well, then get to know him… whoever he is. What's his name?" asked Izzy slightly confused.
"He's someone," replied Clary, not even sure of herself. She wasn't even sure whether it was even a crush…
"I'll get it out of you one day Morgenstern. One day…" her best friend declared in a witch's voice and cackle. They both laughed, just as if nothing ever happened.
