Hi guys! Here's the next chapter. I'm trying for about weekly for updates now that the story is in full swing. I'm not sure how long I will make it. it just depends on how it goes.
This probably would have been up earlier, but I got stuck reading this awful book for school and couldn't write. I just finished this now for you. :) Hope you like it!
"Alright, ready-Block!" Jace said, lunging with lightning quick precision at Simon, with a blade in hand. Simon held one too, dulled intentionally for safety. He had barely enough time to parry the other Shadowhunter's blade out of the way or face being decapitated. Because Jace's sword, as opposed to his, was definitely not dulled, the training room lights glinting off its sharpened edges, and it could easily have killed him. Maybe Simon should have been more scared of that possibility than he was, and he definitely would have been, if it had been anyone other than Jace Herondale standing in front of him, flinging blades at his face. As quick and agile as Jace was, he could just as easily not kill him as he could kill him. And if he couldn't, well, more incentive for the new Shadowhunter to block appropriately. Simon though, for his own peace of mind, was choosing to trust him.
It was his first day of training as an official Shadowhunter, two days since his Ascension, and though it was hard, Simon was enjoying it. They'd been at it for about an hour now, he and Jace, working with swords and knives, Simon learning the essentials. Right now, they were doing blocking drills, while Clary and Isabelle were immersed in a sparring match on the other side of the room, paying them little attention.
Normally, a newly Ascended Shadowhunter would have been further along in his training then Simon currently was, but the circumstances had made him a sort of special case, having had to Ascend as quickly as possible or risk being found out by a prince of Hell before he was Nephilim, which was definitely a worse option. So, they were treating him as they had Clary, after she'd found out she was a Shadowhunter. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best option, and personally, Simon was happy with having not delayed.
Jace came at him again, using a different technique, and Simon danced out of the way, putting all his focus into the task at hand. He narrowly blocked it, the powerful assault sending a painful vibration up his arm. Jace took a step back then and began circling the new Shadowhunter, quite obviously examining his form. Back in front of him again, he kicked out with almost blurring speed, and swept Simon's front leg right out from under him. The latter crashed roughly to the floor. "Keep most of your weight on your back foot," Jace instructed, watching with not-very-well-concealed amusement, as Simon picked himself up, trying not to wince. It seemed everything would hurt by the end of today. "Your balance and speed is altered otherwise."
Once again upright, Simon let out a quick breath. "Alright," he said.
"Again?" Jace asked, grinning, though he wasn't actually giving him a choice. Simon nodded and took up his sword, shifting his weight into the proper stance, and braced himself to block another onslaught of Jace's strikes.
Clary traced her stele across Simon's collarbone; next to the large gash the sword had cut in it. He winced slightly as she did so, clearly unused to its burn on his skin. "Sorry," she murmured.
Clary had watched the incident happen. She and Isabelle had stood off to the side of the room, taking a break from their own training and watching Simon with his. He and Jace were working on basic back-and-forth with blades; a simple exercise: two steps forward in offense, two back in defense, and repeat. Clary remembered learning it herself many months earlier. It was the prequel to actual sword fighting.
It looked to be going smoothly. Simon had gotten the hang of the basic concept and he and Jace exchanged moves back and forth at a pretty quick rate now; Simon, with a look of deep concentration, and Jace, well, Jace wasn't really trying at all, but he seemed satisfied with Simon's progress.
The girls stood there for a minute, watching, and were about to get back to work on their own education, when Simon, in an attempt to block another of Jace's advances, almost missed, just narrowly catching his opponent's blade with the very edge of his own. The force of Jace's blade and Simon's lack of a decent block resulted in Simon's blade bouncing back… right at him. "Whoa!" Jace barked, well aware of what would happen and knocked Simon's blade aside in time to prevent the new Shadowhunter from hitting himself in the face with it. Unfortunately, he could only get it as far aside as the blade hitting him in the shoulder instead, eliciting a painful sound from Simon, before clattering to the floor. It all happened in a matter of seconds.
"Simon!" Isabelle cried and shot forward with Clary on her heals.
The good news: Simon's blade was intentionally dulled for safety, so it didn't half-sever his arm from his body like a sharpened one would have. The bad news: it was still sharp enough to do some damage.
Blood poured from the wound in his shoulder, soaking his gear jacket rather quickly, but Clary was already there, stele at the ready, while Jace cut away the moist fabric with his knife to permit her access to her best friend's bare skin.
The whole thing was over pretty quickly, and Simon stood where he had only moments earlier when the accident had first happened, with the three other Shadowhunters standing around him, examining the lines of the iratze by his collarbone and the jagged red line beside it, which was all that was left of the gaping wound that had been there only seconds earlier.
"Is this going to scar?" he asked, sounding wary, "Because it might be a bit early still for me to be coming home with scars. My mom will freak."
It was Jace who answered with a dismissive wave of his hand, "From that? No. It was minor. And Clary drew the iratze. You'll be lucky if that mark lasts half an hour."
Simon nodded; looking relieved, and glanced at Jace. "Thanks," he said, "For-not letting me hit myself in the face with a sword."
Jace, grinning, slung an arm around Clary, who had stepped back after finishing the healing rune, "What would you do without me?" he asked, as cocky as ever.
Simon breathed steadily as he drew his stele slowly across his left forearm, his eyes shifting between it and the open Gray Book in front of him, trying to trace, as exactly as possible, the rune for sore muscles. Clary had mentioned it to him before his Ascension, and he was giving it a try. Because, God, did he need it. Everything hurt. He had thought the worst was over as far as the soreness went, but today had been a whole new level entirely of hard work. His newfound strength and balance had allowed him to perform better than he'd ever been able to before, but it had also given Jace a reason to push him even harder.
After the near miss earlier in the day, the training had continued, after Simon had swapped his cut open, blood-soaked gear for new ones, though it had been unanimously decided that they'd done enough sword work for one day. They'd moved on to some other methods of fighting: hand-to-hand combat, fighting with blunt objects, archery-which was the only thing Simon had ever particularly excelled at prior to joining the ranks of the Nephilim. A lot of ground had been covered in one day, all of which had left Simon feeling both exhilarated and exhausted. And very sore.
He had been slowly learning and memorizing runes as part of his daily lessons, but the Angel's Marks were powerful things, and he knew that too much in one day was dangerous. He had never looked one up on his own before, but if he was expected to be able to move tomorrow, learning this one was necessary.
Footsteps on the library floor alerted him to someone else's presence, but he didn't look away from his work, determined to finish the complicated Mark. A moment later, Isabelle stood before him, watching. Simon glanced up at her for a second before glancing back down again. "Do you want some help?" she asked after another second. Simon looked at her again, but she didn't wait for his answer, plucking the stele from his hand and finishing off the rune herself from memory. He could feel it working immediately. The throbbing in his arms, legs, and torso faded considerably.
"Thanks," Simon told her, sitting back on the couch as Isabelle came to sit beside him. He wrapped his arm around her and she hesitantly leaned against him.
"This doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked.
He smirked. "Not anymore," and she made herself more comfortable against him.
"How's your shoulder?" she asked.
"It's totally fine, not even a mark to prove it was ever hurt to begin with."
She smiled, looking up at him, though she seemed distracted. This was the first real time they'd had together in a while, since before all the craziness with the Ascension had started, to be truly alone, and he hadn't had a chance to really talk to her in a long time. "Welcome to the world of iratzes. Great, aren't they?"
"Yeah," he said and then, after a pause, asked, "You okay?"
She nodded against him and was quiet for a few seconds before speaking, looking down at their hands, which sat on both their laps, entwined together. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I'm not used to this, to you being here, like this, to actually being allowed to be with you, here, like this. But in a good way. I like it." She looked up to meet his eyes and he saw the small smile she wore on her face, and he knew she meant it. He could see she was truly happy, happier than she'd been in a long time. He met her smile with one of his own. "Plus," she added as a side note, "My dad is apparently visiting here next week, and I plan on giving him hell for how awful he was to you back in Alicante during the war."
"Izzy, that was, like, eight months ago."
"It doesn't matter. He still had no right to treat you like that. At any rate, he treated us all like crap at one point or another." Her words were bitter, but they still carried the loving undertone she used only with him.
"So I'm guessing 'forgive and forget' is out of the question?" he asked, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth.
"I'm not the forgiving type," she said simply in reply.
"Good to know," Simon said and brought his lips to hers, interrupting whatever she had planned to say next.
"What was that for?" she asked a minute later, slightly breathless, after they both pulled apart.
"Because I love you," he answered easily, "And since, like you said, we're allowed to be together now, I see no point in withholding that bit of information anymore. In any way."
Izzy smiled and glanced down quickly before looking back at him again. "I love you too," she replied. It wasn't the first time she'd said it since everything had happened, but neither of them proclaimed it very often yet, and hearing her say it still made his heart skip a beat.
That had been the worst part about being a vampire, the whole undead thing. It had always put an insurmountable barrier between the two of them that they could never get around. Being in love was so much better when his heart actually beat. And he really didn't want to live forever anyway.
Now, he could experience every aspect of a mortal life, and then some, now that he was a Shadowhunter too.
He didn't know what the future held. He didn't know what would happen with Asmodeus, and he didn't want to worry about it. For now at least, he was content to simply hold his girlfriend in his arms, to kiss her breathless, and to enjoy the time he had with her right now before he had to go home to have dinner with his mom, who had accepted him for who he was and seemed, for the most part, okay with it. And the rest would come in time. For right now, he was taking things one day at a time. Right now, he was happy.
And that was all that mattered.
Okay, so sorry about the ending. Its super cheesy, I know, but I couldn't think of another way to resolve the scene, and I wanted to get this up for you. Hopefully it wasn't too bad...?
Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it otherwise! And please, if you can help at all, I need ideas! For anything at all. Robert Lightwood is coming, so anything I can have happen then would be great, as well as more ideas for the Asmodeus thing. Anything at all. I would love to hear your ideas! And thanks to those who already gave me some. Guys, keep them coming! The more ideas I have, the faster the updates will be! Thanks a bunch!
Thanks again for reading, leave a review, let me know your thoughts. I'd really appreciate it! Bye!