CHAPTER THREE
Chante rossignol, chante
The Herondale girls were taught how to become wives, sisters, and mothers – not ladies. Their education had been at home, equally distributed by their parents both. Their mother taught them the arts, things that they needed to survive mundane culture. The children excelled in their own field, never a squabble for superiority over the other – one good at something, the other – another. Ella had talented fingers, with a natural gift of melody, attuned to the harp and the black and white keys of the piano. She used those same fingers to sew and knit for her siblings, just as their mother did for them when she knew not yet how.
Will had a knack for poetry – his mother often laughing at his most peculiar choice of writers – and jolly debate. He conversed easily, so fluidly, a natural person for people. He was agreeable as a child, though still accompanied by an air to be right, even when he wasn't. Cecily accompanied her sister in talent, her voice that of a nightingale's. The wild little thing that she was, she was peculiar – much like her brother – with her taste. She had a palette that was not so easily pleased, often spinning together flavours and spices that their mother never dreamed of putting together but Cecily knew, she knew they would work.
It was a simple life they led at Wales, though their father warned them to never be complacent, to think more of the shadows than mere darkness, than mere absence of light. The children knew of their father's past, often he told it to them when they needed a good fright from the beyond – when they believed themselves too safe.
If their mother taught them to live, their father taught them to survive. He had honed them as much as he could; as little as he could, for them to stand a chance. Clearly not enough for Ella, but that was too late and too long ago. Ella and Will had precision in their arms, throwing stones to knives at barks of trees or sending smooth pebbles to skip through rivers and ponds, as though the forests were the enemy of the country. Cecily fared differently, her feet quick and light, seemingly flying from branch to branch and stone to stone by the riverbanks, even with her skirts.
The Training Room was no different from the forests of Wales, just beyond the old home she used to have. She shook the thought of grey skies and greeneries as she took in the mats on the floor, the nets that lay below the tree-like posts, weapons of different kinds at an array against the wall. The training gear was comfortable and she moved freer. However, she missed the swish and fall of air at her ankles at every brush of her skirt.
She put a finger to a sword as long as her arm, which was not that long at all, when Gideon called her attention to him. Sophie and Tessa were there as well but where Tessa was supposed to be instructed by Gabriel Lightwood and then by Will, Will had not shown himself. Her fiancée was not suitable, apparently, due to his lack of experience and questionable health, but he stood by amiably, smiling at all of them – though clearly his eyes were for and only on Tessa.
"Yes?" asked Cecily, her chin high and her arms crossed.
"I'll start you off with basic blocks. Miss Sophie, would you oblige to demonstrate with me?"
The girl did not reply but to everyone in that room, the reddening of her cheeks and the slow nod was answer enough.
They faced each other; the others left in the room watched them. Cecily, with her sharp eyes, missed little to nothing. It was Sophie who was on offensive, her jabs and kicks sloppy to the young girl's eyes. She had lived as a Shadowhunter's daughter for nine years and nearly destitute for money and provisions for three – she knew how to throw a punch. Gideon, on the offensive, was smooth and he knew every move that Sophie would take. Each duck and cover, each right hand punch or uppercut – anticipated, their feet dancing with each other as though not in battle but in a ball.
Tessa's eyes were half filled with worry – perhaps for herself or for Sophie – and half filled with a certain glow of something else. Pride, perhaps? Or amusement? Jem's expression certainly was, what with his shy smile and squinting eyes, stealing glances at his own beloved. Cecily could only roll her eyes at the four of them. Petty, the lot of them were, swimming in their own devotions to each other.
"Are you quite finished yet or would you rather I'd dim the lights out so you lot could…" she eyed them wearily, her arms still crossed. "Finish?"
It was Gideon's turn to turn red as he released Sophie from an arm lock that had both her arms behind her back, her neck firmly but gently captured in his arm. "Dìos mio, Sophie. You're getting better," he whispered to her ear before she chastely left his side to Tessa's.
"You're quite eager, aren't you?"
"I know what I came here for, Mr Lightwood," Cecily replied, arms still crossed.
"Please, call me Gideon."
"Well, we'll see if you've earned that."
She pounced without warning, her leaping to him, twisting mid-air to land a kick on his chest, then flipping to a short distance away. He charged to an offense to which she scuttled to the side. Her feet were swift; her arms close to her body. When he turned to face her, she kicked again just as swiftly, jumping a few feet into the air and landing with a flip.
"Where did you learn to move like that?"
"Grew up with William in a forest in Wales. What did you expect? A meek little girl who didn't know what she was getting in to?"
She ducked down, a swivelling kick at his feet, almost sending him to the floor but even Gideon was not to be outfought by a little girl. She was swift, unMarked, and much too eager. Perhaps Sophie and her simply being there had muddled his thoughts and him holding her in his arms (not in the way he would have preferred it) only moments ago, perhaps he had underestimated her for her size and her age; but, he had forgotten - Cecily may have only been fourteen years old but she was also William Herondale's younger sister.
He turned, expecting her kick, and when it did – he sidestepped and lightly tugged on her hair. The bun that kept it together was loose, her not yet accustomed to keeping her long black hair away from her face. When she turned to the side, he pushed gently on a pressure point on her neck, sending her downward.
"You can't just keep attacking, you need to watch your sides!" he said as he sidestepped to the other side of her and hit a point on her collarbone. She was still fighting but her upper body was off its usual balance, therefore – she was off her game.
She ran for another kick but Gideon deflected with his arm, sending her stumbling down. She lay face first to the mat, not daring to move in gracious defeat. When she moved to stand back up, Gideon offered a hand to help her up. She accepted and stood, her face somewhat turned away, her hair hiding half of her.
"Your speed and grace are admirable, hìja. But you are reckless, lacking tact, like of a bull that seeks only the red dangling cloth in front of it, never mind the pitchforks of the butchers at the side." He takes her by the arm and pulls, making her look at him. "Your balance is in your core, not by the way you hold your weight together. You need discipline, Miss Herondale, and control."
She freed her arms away from his grasp and pushed her hair behind her hair. "Yes, sir. May I rest?"
"This early? I thought you were so eager?" he asked, though his tone was kind. She had taken more than a simple blow.
"This time again tomorrow. We practice your balance and defence. We need to even out your strength. Learn how to bun your hair."
"I'd rather know how to fight freely."
"This is not simple fighting, Cecily," said Jem, coming in from behind. Tessa and Sophie could only observe and said nothing of the Shadowhunters who gathered among themselves, building up their youngest bud. "This is surviving. Our mandate is to protect not our own persons but those who cannot protect themselves."
"I understand. Please, kindly permit me to repose."
She looked at him with those same broken hue of blue eyes that mirrored her brother's, which made him remember that he was not there. He and Gideon nodded and she walked away without glancing back. Jem felt Tessa walk from behind him, taking his hand on hers.
"Where's Will?"
"I told you, my love," he said with kind eyes. "I know where he is."
X X X
Walking. Running. Past the endless corridors and doors that all looked the same and past the library that rested but a few doors away from where she ought to rest, Cecily found her way to her room, hastily going to her vanity table. She picked up her brush that she had hauled at her brother only hours beforehand and stroked her long hair, finding no tangles despite the fight.
Each brush was delicate and deliberate. Her reflection in the mirror lacked colour, lacked life. From the black of her hair, to the paleness of her skin – she had none of her rosy blush or lips. All was pale, blood drained from her face, neither by exhaustion nor defeat but by something else entirely.
It was her father who taught her how to fight and she only ever fought, really fought, with Will. The other boys she would play with took her lying down, took her as weak and always let her win. Will was born a father, a protector, and he knew better than to let Cecily believe that she needed protecting. He challenged her, made her lunge instead of run and made her block instead of faint.
When he had gone, it was a different battle she fought and in that war, she was a lone soldier, with flags not even recognised as an enemy. She stole to keep herself, her mother and father alive and when found out, she had to fight her way out. There was no other way but to attack or lest become prey. For so long, she had been strong enough. For so long, the need to keep forward had always been her guide – never to look sideways or back, to be distracted from what lies ahead, never seeking what could come from the side or from the shadows that her father often warned her about as a child.
The darkness was an intangible concept; nothing could actually come from the darkness and take her in. There only ever was light and the things that blocked it, the hindrances that kept her from her path. But which path was she on, which light was she following, and what darkness laid waiting at the sides?
And as she stroked her hair, her rhythm slowing at every strand, tears welled in her eyes, and she wept.
X X X
"Becoming what everyone believes me to be."
His sentence came out slowly, his voice slurred. Jem went over to his side immediately and noticed what was around him. Tattered pages of books, parchment scribbled around with words that had been erased and written with haste, and bottles upon bottles of alcohol – some of it on the carpet, were laid waste around the black haired boy - his eyes bloodshot and his clothes wrinkled and filthy.
"You're drunk. Let me get you out of here."
"No," he replied, forcefully pulling away from Jem's grasp. He remembered the night at the ifrit den, seeing Will so helpless and devoid of the Will that he always knew. Only it was different for never before had even life itself drifted away from his eyes; no light, no life, no fire.
"William, don't be ridiculous. If you wanted pleasant dreams, you could have gone to sleep."
"I don't want to dream, James," he said, again, pulling away from Jem's grip. He grappled for a bottle with a bit of alcohol left. "I want to die."
Jem bit back his tongue and kept still. Will had always been deprecating but never destructive. The finality of his words scared Jem, scared him of what Will was capable of doing and what he could do to himself. It was neither pain in his voice nor anger. It was more than that, infinitely more. It was all he could do to keep trying to carry him to his room, to the infirmary, to anywhere else but there.
"Leave me alone, James!" Will shouted, his arm motioning to throw the bottle to Jem but kept his grip on its neck.
"Will, enough of this!"
"I have had enough! What do you think I'm doing?!" Will had risen, shakily, to his feet. Jem stepped back. "You have a reason to want to live, to cling to your life as you do – I do not."
"Will, you-"
"You don't know what it's like, James. You get what you deserve because you're a good man."
"But you are a-"
"No! Do not lie to me, James. I've lied my life away and know when I am lied to. To live a life I never wanted – to lie so I may never be loved, to do everything I can to not be loved. All to protect her, to protect you, to protect my family, to protect everyone, everyone I love for a lie!" Will shouted. He backed up against a wall and slumped from it. He bent his knees, his hands on his head, and began to weep. "Lies, James. All lies. So do not lie to me."
He was in hysterics, completely broken. There was no sense in him and surrounded by broken glass, Jem could not leave him. He blathered on about a curse, about a demon, and more about lies that he had told. Lies that Jem knew to be lies for he knew the truth of Will – the goodness that the world could not burn away from him. His goodness shone much too brightly for the fire to burn away but the strength of it was burning him from the inside.
The boy's face was streaked with dried and welled up tears. Jem had never seen Will so defeated, so destroyed – he hadn't believed it to be possible. Will had always been strong, steady though inconsistent he may have seemed - he had purpose, he had light. This was different; this was more than the night at the ifrit den. Jem had never heard him speak with such finality in the words he spoke then as he did at that moment, bottle in his hands.
"You must not go where I cannot follow," Jem half whispered, unable to address a dying man who could not find the will to fight - to live.
"But you are bound to another oath now, brother," he said, raising the bottle to him. "You will not leave her."
"My taking of another oath does not withdraw my oath to you or yours to mine," he replied, still kindly, attempting to make him stand. "Please, Will, let me take you to the infirmary. You are ill."
Will fought his way from Jem's grasp, all his remaining sense pulling in back from hitting his parabatai with the bottle he still held in his hand.
"Will, enough of this! Should Charlotte, should Cecily see-"
"Then let her see!" he yelled, standing with sudden vigour, the bottle still in his hand. The wind blew in from the already open library door, sending a chill inside. "Let all of them see, let them all be at peace." He smashed the bottle to the nearby shelf of books, sending the ends shattering to the ground; the shards covered with whatever liquid had been inside, now scattered across the littered carpet – soiling the cloth, the ripped pages of once beloved letters kept in secret.
"Let my faux burden cease being a burden to anyone else but me for my burden is I and I am my burden."
"Will-" Jem stepped nearer him but Will put the broken ends of the bottle to his throat.
"I am dead to my own sister and can't I grant her this?"
"She didn't-"
"To bring myself joy, I must bring you sorrow, and I cannot, I will not inflict that on you, James. But to keep me here, to want what I can never have, you are better off with someone more sincere."
"William, there is someone for you-"
No. No one else but her, he thought, but even his mind was not so far gone to reveal even that. He let out a bitter laugh. "No, James. There is nothing, no one, left for me here-"
"Not your sister?! Not even me?!" Jem yelled, tears running down his silver eyes. "You would do this to me, watch you die and let me do naught to stop it?"
"This is not about you, James. You have gained everything. I have lost all. I do this one last kindness, this one thing for myself."
The glass had barely grazed the skin, had barely cut off small bits of whatever stubble was there, Jem only half a heartbeat away to slapping the glass from Will's hand, when she came from the shadows again.
"GWILYM!"
The two boys turned to look at her half lit figure. Will had not heard that name in years and had not spoken the next for just as long.
"Seissylt."
The room was still as Cecily came to light, hiding from the bookshelves shadows. Neither of them knew how long she had been standing there but her hair was sleek and she was still in Shadowhunter black.
"You would be so cruel, brawd?" she whispered, her voice not breaking so much as it was broken. "So as to take yourself away from me just when I've found you again."
"Chwaer-"
"You would leave me alone? Again? Forever?" Her tears fell from her eyes, raindrops falling from her skies. Will lowered the bottle slowly, his mouth agape. Jem made haste and grabbed the bottle from his grip but Will paid him no mind and saw only his little sister in front of him, almost having had her watch him die.
"You said-"
"And you believed me? What would you have had me done – took you in without another word after five years of waiting? Of course I'd be bloody upset but I wouldn't want you to off yourself! You'd have that on me, make me know that it was me who killed the last family I had left? I thought you had more sense, you idiot!"
"I just want to protect you."
"And how will you do that if you're dead? Your ashes can't hold me in a storm, Gwilym."
Gwilym Owain Herondale had not heard his name spoken in five years. It had almost been as long since he had heard his mother language spoken in a native tongue. The words were stitched together in a way only a Welsh man could appreciate, a whale's song only to be understood by those who knew how to hear it. She stood there in front of him, the blue in her eyes as clear as the turbulent seas of nearby where they used to grow up. The storms and clouds that had disrupted their serenity soon blew away to mere wisps of white as there was always light that seeped through, always a little presence of the Sun to let them all know it was still there and there was always morning after the night.
When she spoke, she had their mother's voice. That same shrill pitch when it was angry, that same calm, soothing sound of hearth and home.
Will's mouth quivered to speak, to retort, to yell – something but he could only see her and the fire in those same blue eyes. He let out one sob, one great sob, one that echoed throughout the library, the walls with the books he called home as witness. Cecily looked to Jem and from silver to a different blue, they held one thing true. Jem took the bottle and slipped away from them both, closing the library's doors behind him as he left, leaving the two Herondales to each other – mirrored eyes that looked and saw and spoke.
She ran to him and he held her tightly in his arms, her sobbing into his alcohol-drenched suit but neither of them paid that mind. He buried his face in her hair and combed it with his fingers, as he did when they were children, granting her the comfort that he was there – that she was safe so long as he was there. And how, just a few moments ago, he had almost taken that away from her again.
She was still sobbing then, her grip around his neck as tight as though they never would have the chance again. He drooped to the floor, taking his little sister with him as she still held on to him for dear life, and he whispered to her in Welsh, whispered his 'sorry's and assurances and all the things he'd waited five years to tell her, things he never wanted – should have – said if he had not been so foolish.
While in his arms, he saw his mother's face – Linette's calm smile and darling voice that sung to him before he slept at night. The one of home, the one of comfort – the song of ages that her mother and her mother's mother sang to her, from back in the lands of France where some of his mother's mother's mother's mothers used to live, their tongues in native sweetness and rhymes, finding rhythms that sent scared little gentlemen to a sleep without nightmares, only pleasant dreams.
When the world quieted down for the both of them, when nothing could be heard but the soft whistle of the books that surrounded them – that witnessed it all, the quiet flicker of the candles lit from somewhere, to their heartbeats calming down – knowing that the storm had gone and was going, Cecily began to hum their mother's song.
"Did Mother ever sing again?" he whispered as shyly as Will Herondale possibly could.
"Only every night, praying it would call you back home."
"You still haven't forgiven me, have you?"
"Doesn't mean I don't love you," she looked up at him then, smiling at him for the first time in years.
"What would it take?"
"The truth. But that's for another day, brother."
The passing angels returned, bringing forth with them their silence. The library was filled with silence – the only sounds that resonated across the room were their breathing and the soft crackle of candlelight. Their storm had passed, their thunder had rolled away, and though they lacked but one in their number, the song still lulled them to sleep – that same foreign lullaby that was their only home left. Cecily hummed, then sung softly, bringing them both to sleep without nightmares, only pleasant dreams.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai
Chante rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi je l'ai à pleurer
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai
X X X
A/N: I got this done rather quickly because I simply couldn't stop writing it. It's somewhat addicting. Translation of the song in the P.S. of this author's note. Again, many thanks to Bookworm and Lover, and Rachel for all the support and help and feedback. You guys are awesome. I love feedback so please, constructive criticism or praise works just as fine (because ehehehe narcissism). Again, I'd like to thank Rachel (highways) for being such a lovely beta. 3
Are there any more ships you'd like for me to see? Send me your theories and I might just incorporate them (and credit you, of course!) on here. Usual disclaimer, I'm just a teenage girl with a blog and not Cassandra Clare. The song? It's Maryse's lullaby to the Lightwood kids in TMI, if you need a refresher. What am I doing? Stay tuned! Catch me over at snapspotter or sisypheandreams on Tumblr, should you wish to!
xx, Jonnah.
P.S.
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.
Sing, nightingale, sing,
Your heart is so happy.
Your heart feels like laughing,
Mine feels like weeping.
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.
Brawd – brother in Welsh
Chwær – younger sibling/child in Welsh
Seissylt – Welsh origin of "Cecily".
Where do I get my facts? Google, yay! I apologize for any mistakes in terms of geography, language, and climate. I live in the Philippines and I've never been on a plane so I really do not know anything in terms of actual climate conditions or geography of Wales or London. All I know are from what I read in books… and BBC Sherlock mehehe. ;)