Hi all! So this is the last chapter of this part of the story! The next story in the series will be a longer portion that has to do with *one* of the villains that the kids are going to have to deal with! (Meaning that there's going to be more than one villain and more than one squeal to this story!) I was really just using this one as an introduction to the kids and their characters.
Before I begin the next story, I will be posting a one-shot that gives some background on a couple of the characters. I'll start posting one-shots that relate to them throughout the next story as well, as I see fit and when I get to particular parts of the story. These one-shots will be posted as separate stories but I will mark them as my OCs.
Please, please come talk to me and let me know what you think of these kids! They're basically my world at the moment, and I hope you love them as much as I do!
P.S. The one-shot should be up within a couple of days because I got a bit ahead of myself this weekend so it's almost done already!
Charlie closed her eyes and tried to rid her mind of all the thoughts that she was currently drowning in. She'd gotten home from the hospital just two days ago, but she was already feeling considerably better. She knew she wouldn't want to train or fight anytime soon, but she was able to do everything else the way she normally would. Charlie knew that her great healing speed was most likely due to her Shadowhunter blood, and for that she was terribly thankful. But at the moment, all she really cared about was trying to get out of going to the ball.
They were supposed to leave for Idris in just under an hour, but Charlie still hadn't come up with a way to get out of it. She'd spent all day going back and forth between forcing herself to go and telling her parents she didn't feel well enough to make it this year. She was currently staring at her reflection in her full-sized mirror, resisting the urge to rip off the dress she was wearing. Her aunt Isabelle had helped her pick out her dress for the ball, a short navy blue dress that pinched in at the waist and then floated down around her.
When they'd first picked it out, Charlie had been absolutely in love with it. The dress complimented her figure in just the right way and it wasn't particularly girly, something that Charlie usually looked for in clothes, feeling a bit off every time she tried to dress terribly girly. But now Charlie had more to worry about than when she'd first bought the dress. She'd bought the dress before she'd had another open heart surgery. Now, her scar was much more noticeable than before. Now it was red instead of mostly blending in with her skin.
Charlie reached to brush the scar with her fingertips, her eyes trained on the mirror. The worst part was that the mundane doctors had put surgical glue on the scar since they had use sutures that were inside the body to close the incision. Those sutures would later dissolve, but the glue was a precautionary measure to ensure that the incision wouldn't open back up in any way. Now that she was several days out from surgery, the glue was beginning to peel off of its own accord, looking almost as though the skin itself was peeling off. Charlie had tried her hardest to peel it off herself, but after surgery, every part of her was so sore that peeling it off had proved much too painful.
Her scar had never really bothered her before. It was as much a part of her as runes were a part of other Shadowhunters. But at the moment, it was all Charlie could focus on. She knew she was likely blowing things out of proportion, but it seemed as though the scar was going to be the only thing that anyone could focus on. And now she was supposed to be going to the ball, basically putting herself on display for the entire Shadowhunter community and she couldn't keep herself from worrying about how she looked.
Charlie had been so focused on herself that she hadn't heard the soft knocks that preceded her uncle Simon entering her room. "You ready, kiddo?" he asked as he walked up behind her, placing a very gentle hand on her shoulder. At first, Charlie considered being quite, simply going with her uncle and leaving it at that, but then she realized that that was something she really couldn't do at the moment. She shook her head very slowly, reluctantly locking eyes with her uncle in the mirror. "Why's that?" Simon asked, motioning for her to sit down on her bed with him.
The last thing Charlie had thought of doing all day was voicing her thoughts to absolutely anyone, but suddenly the concern in Uncle Simon's eyes made her realize just how much she really wanted to talk to someone who just might understand. "I don't want to go this year," Charlie said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. She was so rarely ever emotional, rarely out of control of her reactions to absolutely anything that she knew Uncle Simon was probably on the brink of going to get her mother. "By now everyone in Idris has probably heard about my surgery and no one is going to be able to do anything other than stare at my scar the whole time," she continued, highly aware of the fact that her voice sounded frantic. "Not that they don't always stare at me," she finally finished, her voice softening even more when Simon placed a hand over hers.
There was a very long pause before Simon spoke up, but when he finally did speak, his voice held its usual soft, kind tone. "You're worried about what people might think because your scar looks a little worse than it did before? That people might think it's ugly?" he asked, pausing while Charlie nodded her head. "Well trust me when I say this Charlie- I am fairly certain that no one has absolutely ever thought of you as ugly in any way, including in regards to your scar." Charlie tried her best to give her uncle a weak smile, but she knew very well that he could see right through it.
"Have you ever looked at it this way?" Simon asked, shifting his position so that he was facing Charlie more than he had been before. Something in his expression had shifted ever so slightly but Charlie couldn't quite figure out what that was. "Personally, I absolutely love your surgery scar," Simon began, softly smiling as he did so. "It's saved your life more than once, and that's something that I'll never stop being thankful for. If it weren't for that scar, you wouldn't be here right now, and I cannot imagine what our lives would be like without you, Charlotte." Charlie smiled once more, and this time it was a genuine smile. Uncle Simon only ever called her by her full name when he wanted to show just how much he loved her. He had never once used her full name when she was in trouble, and now that Charlie thought about it, she was fairly certain that he did the same thing with Rafael, calling him Rafe for the times when he needed to be stren.
"Your scar is the furthest thing from ugly that I could ever think of," Simon continued, obviously very far from being done. "Sure, there are going to be some people who think it is ugly, but those are the people who aren't going to be worth a second of your time. To me, that scar shows me just how strong you are. The right people are going to realize that your scar makes you a complete badass, and I will not accept anything less than that." Simon gave her hand a gentle squeeze then, his smile only widening. "I'm not saying that you have to go to the ball, but who knows, you might just meet the love of your life there."
Charlie couldn't help but laugh as she got up from the bed, reaching to hug her uncle as tight as she possibly could considering the fact that she was still a bit sore. "You might be a huge nerd sometimes," Charlie said, smiling at her uncle wider than she had in a very long time. "But you really are the best uncle ever," she finished, reaching to pick up the BB-8 necklace Uncle Simon had given her long ago. It had started out as a joke, but now Charlie loved to wear it as often as she could, usually using it to annoy Aunt Isabelle as much as possible.
Charlie followed her uncle out of the room, spirits much higher than they had been just minutes before. "Don't let Uncles Magnus and Alec hear that," Simon whispered in her ear as they turned the corner to see the rest of the family waiting on them. Charlie tried to hide her smile as Uncle Alec gave her a questioning look, his eyes automatically filled with amusement. She softly punched Uncle Simon when he gave her a wink. Charlie braced herself for the impact of the portal and the night that was ahead of them. There was no way it could be as bad as she expected it to be, at least not when she had her family around.
Getting through the formal part of the night was the worst part of the ball, but Charlie had expected that much. Every year, the Clave had to make a huge deal out of their family, so she'd learned from a very young age to deal with having to sit through all sorts of formal events and meetings. Charlie watched as her parents, aunt, and uncles were abnormally friendly to all of the Clave members, especially those on the Council. In just a few week's time, the Council would be making the final decision on whether or not to change the law that forbid Shadowhunters and Downworlders from being married in a Shadowhunter ceremony, so Charlie was entirely certain that the family was being extremely careful for that very reason.
At the moment, Charlie was seated at a table by herself. The actual celebration had finally begun, and she'd spent as much time as possible dancing with Sophie and George, but she'd finally decided to take a break, unable to ignore how tired she was becoming any longer. She had desperately needed the break, but Charlie took the opportunity to also watch the people around her, watching the way the members of the Council interacted with her family, growing extremely worried about what the outcome of their next meeting was going to be.
"Tired of the party already?" a voice just beside of Charlie asked. Charlie quickly turned around, slightly surprised that someone she didn't know would be coming to talk to her. Yet when Charlie looked up, she was even more surprised by who she saw. She couldn't remember the girl's name, but she certainly remembered the girl herself. Charlie remembered the girl from the last meeting the Council had held because she hadn't been able to take her eyes off of the other girl. The girl had long blond hair and piercing blue eyes, and she was smiling one of the prettiest smiles Charlie had ever seen. "I'm Serena, by the way," she finished as she sat down directly across from Charlie. "Serena Starkweather."
Charlie smiled back at Serena, trying to keep from giving away the fact that she absolutely loved the deep red dress that the other girl was wearing. "Charlie Herondale," she replied, trying her hardest to ignore her father's very blatant stare and the fact that everyone in the room already knew who she was. "And sometimes George just parties a little too hard for me," she finished, this time leaving off George's last name, knowing that Serena would know who she was referring to. Charlie held back a groan when she saw her father coming their way, knowing exactly what he was about to do before he even sat down.
"Jace Herondale," he said, as he took a seat beside of Charlie, resting his hands on the table in a way that said he meant business. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he finished, and Charlie resisted the urge to tell him that he hadn't really met Serena yet. She met Serena's eyes across the table, trying to apologize to her without saying a word. She could see the amusement in Serena's eyes, and for a moment, she was terribly thankful that the other girl hadn't taken offense to what Jace was currently doing.
When Charlie realized that Uncle Alec was also headed their way, she couldn't keep herself from audibly groaning. But then Uncle Alec leaned down beside her father and Charlie couldn't keep herself from bursting into laughter at what her uncle was saying. "May I have this dance?" Alec said, clearly speaking to Jace in a terribly absurd way. Jace turned to look at Alec as if his parabatai had very suddenly gone absolutely insane. "Oh come on, Jace," Alec said when Jace didn't answer him. "You promised me a dance last year and somehow you wormed your way out of it, but not this year. Get your butt on the dance floor and stop depriving your parabatai of his one wish." Charlie resisted the urge to tell her father that he'd gotten what was coming to him as Alec looked back to wink at her when he shoved Jace out onto the dance floor.
Charlie turned back to Serena, beyond pleased the see the very wide smile on Serena's face. Almost unbelievably to her, they spent the next hour talking to one another in such a comfortable way that Charlie began to wonder how it was actually happening. Over the years, she'd come to expect that the ball would be terribly boring, but it seemed as though this year was going to be quite the opposite. She wasn't surprised to learn that Serena had grown up in Idris, training at the Academy in the way that most Shadowhunters did these days. She was surprised, however, when Serena told her that she was taking part in the new training program that had been implemented by the Clave.
The very next week, they would be welcoming several more young Shadowhunters at the Institute, Shadowhunters who were some of the best in their age groups who were to be trained by her father and Uncle Alec. Charlie couldn't hide her smile when Serena mentioned that she was one of the few who would be arriving at the Institute in just a few day's time. "I guess we'll be seeing each other soon, then," Charlie said, trying her hardest to keep her cool as she got up to leave, unable to keep from wondering what was going to come of this new training program, unable to keep from hoping that her uncle Simon had been incredibly correct in what he'd said to her just hours before.