Once Upon a Time
Chapter Four
Clary P.O.V
"For God's sake woman, how long could it possibly take to gather some berries?" Jace shouts from a distance behind me.
The mornings events had been uneventful, if you didn't count me waking up soaked to the bone and Alec standing over me with an empty pail, but otherwise it was a very calm morning. The boys had cleared up the camp, the only evidence of our stay the blackened earth of the fire pit, and had soon started our journey to the Kingdom, which Jace informed me is called Idris.
Not long into our journey, I stopped the boys so I could pick some pretty dark blue berries. Perhaps blue isn't the right word for them, but they're a very nice color and I simply couldn't resist.
"One moment," I say as I pluck one more black-blue berry from the b*** and into a basket, supplied by none other than Jace. "There," I say, rising from my crouch and skipping to catch up to him. "That wasn't so horrible, was it?"
"On the contrary, that was possibly the most painful process I have ever withstood."
"You're such a baby." I retort as I roll one of the pretty berries between my fingers. The juice stains my finger a dark purple. "How odd," I mutter under my breath. "Blue-black in color, but purple juice. Quite strange."
Jace, who seems to not have heard me, takes a berry from the basket and examines it. "How do you know these aren't poisonous?" He asks as he sniffs it.
"I don't," I say, taking the berry back from him and throwing it back into the basket. "I want to use it to make paint."
Jace looks like he might just throw his face into his palm. "Why," He asks incredulously. "Would anyone ever perform such a tedious task as berry picking, just to squish them down and use them to paint?"
I decide to ignore his question and instead skip ahead, swinging the basket merrily. I skip past Alec and can practically feel the daggers he is throwing with his eyes. I laugh as a pair of birds swoop past, their feathers a blur of red, blue and green. I spin around and giggle like a little girl until something stops me short.
A growl.
In my surprise, I stumble to the ground, by mind still spinning and my eyes unable to focus on anything. Finally, I am able to see what could have possibly made the noise. I freeze in place.
A wolf stands before me. Its back is hunched and it is baring its teeth, its fur is the color of storm clouds heavy with rain and reflects the light filtering through the trees like silver. I should be terrified and screaming for my life, and in a way I am, terrified that is. But there is just something about the creature that looms in front of me that is beautiful, a sort of wild loveliness. A feral gleam flashes through its eyes moments before it lunges at me.
Distantly, I hear someone shout out. The wind is knocked out of me by the incredible force of the wolf's leap and soon I am struggling underneath it. I can smell its hot breath in my face as it snaps its jaws at me.
My hands are pushing against it, trying to lift its surprisingly heavy weight off me as it continues to snap at me with razor sharp teeth.
I can't breathe. The air has been knocked out of me and I am suffocating under the wolf's weight. My eyelids feel heavy and my struggles are weakening as my head starts to spin and the corners of my vision goes black.
Out of nowhere, the weight disappears and the heart breaking sound of a wounded dog replaces it. I can see Jace standing a small distance away. His chest is heaving and he has his back to me. My brain slowly registers the sword tight in his grip, dripping with blood. I begin to wonder where the blood has come from when I see what lies as his feet.
A ragged breath races into my lungs at the sight, as I see the light leave its eyes. The wolf. I scramble backwards as tears gather in my eyes. It's dead. It's dead. It's dead. "You-"
"Clary," Jace says, his voice low and worried. I don't understand how he can be so calm, he just killed an animal. He just ended a life, and he was worried for me.
"You killed it." I choke out, my throat swelling with unshed tears.
"Yes." He says, not missing a beat and I flinch.
There is not one ounce of regret in his voice and it makes my stomach twist to even momentarily move my gaze to the dead wolf on the ground, it's once beautiful coat now soaked in blood. Its own blood.
"Clary-" He says again, but I don't let him finish.
"Don't come near me," I scramble away from him and to my feet, backing away from Jace and the wolf and its lifeless, staring eyes. "Don't come near me." I repeat, barely a whisper as I run off into the woods.
.o.O.o.
Water runs over my feet which dangle in the fast-running stream. My knees are up to my chest and I rock slowly back and forth as I try to forget the sound of the dying wolf. I still can't quite comprehend what's happened. One moment I'm picking berries talking easily with Jace and the next I'm running away from him and his blood soaked blade. Along with the wolf's last sounds of pain, I try to forget the look on Jace's face, the sound of his voice, as he accepted his crime against nature.
He killed it. He killed it and didn't even think twice about it. He makes me sick.
I wring my hands together and see my cuff drenched in blood. With a whimper, I dunk my whole hand into the water and scrub furiously at the sleeve. I let the tears flow freely and sob so forcefully it becomes hard to breathe. I can taste tears in the back of my throat.
The snapping of twigs and the rustle of leaves announces someone's arrival.
"Come any closer and I'll drown myself in the stream." I say coldly, scooting closer to the cool water.
"Very tempting, but that's not why I'm here." The voice answers. I immediately recognize it as Alec's.
"What are you doing here?" I ask as he takes a seat beside me.
"I figured you'd rather not talk to Jace at this moment in time."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" I reply bitterly. I would rather never see that horrible, vicious, golden, funny, sincere... I shake my head as if to clear it and look at Alec.
His eyes are focused on the flowing water and he sits with his knees trapped in between his arms. He is beautiful in a way so different to Jace, but it is beauty all the same. He could be possibly more beautiful if it wasn't for the constant gloomy expression he wears.
"I just," Fresh tears bloom in my eyes and roll down my cheeks. "I just don't understand how he could do it."
"He did it to protect you." Alec says, not without a touch of bitterness. "If he'd done nothing you would have died."
"I know that, but," I blink rapidly and try to dispel the sob rising in my throat. "He didn't even blink." I choke out. "He didn't have a second thought about it. He just slaughtered it." My throat swells and the rest of my words disappear.
Alec wears a new expression, one I haven't seen on his face before and seems a bit out of place on his features. Sympathy. "He cares for you, you know." he says, his voice lacking its usual acidic tone whenever he talks to me. "He cares for you more than I like to admit."
I look away and stare at the suns reflected light on the water and wonder what would happen if I jumped in. Would I sprout fins? Would gills form on my neck? Would I be able to swim fast enough to escape this wretched feeling that threatens to crush me? I close my eyes and shake my head. "You don't know that."
"When he saw you and the wolf, I saw his face. You didn't. It was clearly written in his eyes, no matter how much I try to deny it. He cares for you in a way he hasn't cared for anything in a long time. Maybe ever."
I avoid eye contact with him.
"He did what he had to do to protect you." He says, his voice taking on a defensive tone. "Don't you think for a moment that he enjoyed what he did to that animal. He'll hate himself for days." His voice quietens when he realizes that his voice has risen to a half shout. "And he'll hate himself forever if he thinks that you hate him too."
A thought comes to my mind and before I can stop myself it comes out. "You love him, don't you?"
A muscle in his jaw twitches and I expect him to deny it. But he doesn't. "I do."
"Does he know?"
"No." He says, his voice hardening to the equivalent of steel. "And he never will."
"Why not?"
He looks at me like I'm crazy, then smiles. "Sometimes I forget how little you know of the world." He sighs heavily and wrings out his hands. "The way I care for Jace isn't exactly smiled upon."
I scoot closer to him and turn my head to the side. "But you love him. Love is beautiful. How can anything beautiful not be accepted?"
He narrows his eyes and smiles again. "Sometimes I wonder about you. You admire the most simple things like they're something dangerous or precious or both, but you seem to know so much. How are you supposed to know that love is beautiful."
I shrug. "I just do."
.o.O.o.
It is dark by the time Alec and I are done talking, and I may be wrong, but I think by the time we decide to leave the stream we are friends. Alec tells me that he left Jace to set up camp a while away as we walk through the woods, weaving our way through the tall trees. At some point in our trek I trip over something, a rock I think, and hurt my ankle. And to my great surprise, Alec offers to piggy-back me the rest of the way.
I'm starting to wish I tripped earlier in the trip, because this is awesome.
I see light ahead and tell Alec, he tells me that this is where Jace was supposed to set up camp and sure enough, when we break through the tree-line, I see Jace.
He's sitting alone on a log, staring into the fire with a solemn expression.
My heart lurches inside my chest at the sight of him and the phantom whisper of my last conversation with him rings out in my mind. Don't come any closer.
Jace still hasn't noticed us as Alec sets me down on the ground. He seems to be deep in his own thoughts.
I clear my throat and his head jerks to my direction. His eyes light up in a beautiful way that tugs at my heart, and then they darken and he looks away, returning his dark gaze to the fire.
I look to Alec and he encourages me with his eyes. Go on, they say, talk to him. And before I can say a word, he's gone. Escaped into the darkness of the woods.
It's just Jace and me. Him, in a melancholy mood and me nervous and scared out of my mind. Will he be angry at me? Is he ashamed of what he did?
An evil part of me hopes he is ashamed, but I push against it. The only reason he ever touched it was to save me. "Jace-"
"Don't." He snaps, not taking his eyes off the flames.
"But Jace-"
"Just don't say anything." He finally is able to meet my eyes. The fire reflects in his eyes like it is hidden behind them. "I know what I did was wrong and," He breaks off and looks at his hands like they hold the secrets of the universe. "I wasn't thinking."
Hesitantly, I sit down beside him. I reach out and try to take his hands, but the moments I touch him he flinches like I've burned him. I can't help but feel my hopes deflate.
Noticing my saddened expression, he grabs my hand and gently holds my chin so I have to look him in the eyes. "I am so very sorry." He whispers.
I can feel his breath against my face and a shiver runs down my spine.
"I wasn't thinking. I only saw the thing on top of you and, I-I just-"
I place a finger over his lips to silence him and am surprised by how soft they are. "I've already forgiven you." I whisper back.
His shoulders sag in relief and he lets go a breath. "You," He says with a rueful grin. "Are the most amazing girl I've ever met."
I think back to my conversation with Alec and smile.
"I know."