Dedication: To books & to all of the adventures you'll always want, but haven't had yet beyond your pillow.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Notes: Still hypothesizing like mad.
NotesB: I've decided these are all in the same verse. Eventually, I'll have to figure out how to order them, but I'll label them if they fit inbetween or before previous drabbles.
NotesC: Confession: I'm a lazy reader – the kind of person who reads because she loves the plot & the little details & could care more about the quality of writing. I read because I love it versus for any kind of substance (unless I'm reading something serious or for school). But when I read for leisure, I'll just enjoy it unless something stands out plot-wise. Does that make me a bad reader? I don't know. I really don't.
Just something I've been thinking about, recently.
WARNING: Dead baby. Continue reading if that doesn't bother you too much. It won't be detailed, but it will be there. Partially inspired by an incident in the news.
Will and Tessa had been carelessly wandering a bit past her favorite bookshop on a drizzly Friday morning when they came across the flowerbox.
Half-heartedly attached to the windowsill of a window looking out onto a dark alley, it is a hearty green full of dry soil with the head of what looked like someone's broken doll protruding from it. The humanoid toy had been hastily shoved into it, just the face of a coin pressed into its crown.
But it isn't a doll.
"A warlock baby," Will says. Tessa doesn't look at him, but she feels his hand grip her shoulder, trying to pull her away, but she can't help resisting as she stares at the body with gross fascination.
Its face is a bruise. With its eyes closed, she can't see if it had cat eye slits like Magnus's or all black without any of the whites. There's dirt loosely packed around its back, clumsily hiding any evidence of wings or extra arms. Easily remedied, of course – at least, it could be, but, as her stomach rolls, she doesn't feel it… necessary.
She doubts the dark-haired Shadowhunter by her side felt any differently.
Anyway, the skin around the coin is decidedly green enough to lead her to agree with Will's conclusion.
"Tessa." He tugs more urgently on her shoulder, probably afraid that some of the mundane constables will catch them near an obviously deceased corpse, but she continues to resist. When she glances at his face with her jaw set, she sees his eyes. The event isn't a shock or anything he hadn't seen before so much as it just is. Something he has probably seen on a number of rounds, months after some naïve human woman cavorted with a demon and the "unfortunate" consequences leading to the disposal of the yowling results of their indiscretions.
"Let's go back to the Institute."
"It's…" Unable to find the words to describe the scene, she settles on her knees, careful to clear the green skirt of her dress out of her way. Tessa can't see the baby with her head a meter closer to the ground, but the image is still burned into her mind and her eyes burn at the thought. Awful doesn't quite cover the way her chest was tightening up and how difficult it was to breathe and tragedy cannot describe a baby's death properly.
It has more to do with the way she actively tries not to imagine another baby in the flowerbox, her mouth full of dry, old soil. A pale newborn that had looked just like every other baby out there, but innately capable of changing faster than the legendary Proteus himself. An immutable person in all, but…
But she doesn't stop the images because it could just as easily have been her.
Or her own, if she could bear one.
Even with the jade pendant thudding against her collarbone, she can picture the child – more human and angelic than not with her dark brown hair. Its feathery curls would mar the earthiness with its softness and vitality as it waved its fists in the air to grab at strands of her hair.
And such beautiful blue eyes…
Suddenly rising to her feet, Tessa turns to look at Will, who looks taken aback, but not without understanding and maybe a little part guilt, though that might have brought the comprehension with it.
Her heart seeks to claw its way out of her chest. Why couldn't he have looked at her like that before, before he'd said those words? They are on their way to mending the pieces of what had been half of a friendship, weren't they? It is a different creature now, but they, like everyone else are different people than they had been, people with a new future ahead of them…
She ignores that feeling and, instead, turns in the direction of the Institute. She refuses to think on that, let alone ponder how the warlock baby had come to that particular flowerbox, dead.
Burying things only worked for so long, she has learned. It is always so dearly tempting to leave everything nasty about yourself underground…
But things fight their way to the surface to survive, and secrets – God damned hellions of fire and emotions – are no different. If anything, they're more eager. Tessa isn't fool enough to believe that her feelings will stay buried and unknown to any outside of herself, but she will do what she can to cover them up as long as possible.
Will is walking by her side, as silent as she is. His eyes are focused ahead of them and he nudges her with his shoulder when she almost misses their turn.
She grimly wonders as they walked up to the door of the Institute, with a twist of her lips in unusual pragmatism, if he is burying himself as much as she is.