a/n: I'm writing unedited TMI/Shadowhunters fic. Quick, what year is it? Am I a sophomore in high school again?
Here's a little trip down memory lane brought by the TV series because why not? I have writer's block for everything else.
Disclaimer: Mhm. Nope.
Title: blood in the water
Words: 1K
Summary: She slits her father's throat and stabs him four times. Clary Fray character study + show-centric.
tell them something is coming
there's blood in the water
give them a warning
- Katie Garfield, Gallows
The chains burn in a flash of hot gold as she breaks them off.
She grabs Valentine by the shoulders, throwing him away from Lake Lyn. The heavenly light dims and melts back into the shadows, darkening her father's face when he sees her as he stumbles back to his feet.
This is her father, a monster in human flesh. Clary sees herself in his face. She knows, and she starts to move to steady her stance and brace herself for what's about to come.
Father are supposed to protect their children.
He hits her first.
She falls to her back as another blow lands on the side of her face. She gets back up. She fights.
Clary throws everything into fighting her father. Her mind cycles through the lessons Jace, Alec and Izzy pushed her through, feeling their lessons guide her through her punches and kicks, trading blows with the monster in a fight for survival. Every block, every strike–delivering a snapping kick at his knee, an uppercut to his jaw, strikes to his chest. This is the anger, this is what she gets for never killing him back at Camille's apartment.
Another bone breaks. Clary feels the pain ricochet in her hand. Keep fighting, keep going, she tells herself. But her father lands another blow, and another…
The fight starts to slow, her movements more desperate as he overpowers her.
He hits her again and he throws her to the ground. Rocks dig into her back, broken bones screaming in pain, and this is it. He's going to kill her. Black dots swim in Clary's vision. She gasps in pain, her breath shudders inside her chest in anticipating of a hidden knife or another weapon. Her father is going to kill her. She is going to die along the bank of holy water and see her father burn down the world with a single wish.
Her father looms over her. There is a rock in his hand.
There is something terrifyingly large about him. He blots out the sky, the lingering heavenly light and pale stars.
Father are supposed to protect their children.
"For too long I have sacrifice too much to let anyone stand in my way." The world spins and narrows around him. He holds a rock in his hand. "My own daughter." This is a biblical story surrounding her, fathers sacrificing sons, holy water and blood, angels rising and men turning toward shadows.
He raises the rock.
Her mother is dead. Jace is dead, and if she doesn't stop Valentine, then so will everyone else.
Get up, says a soft voice in the back of her mind. She sees her mother in her mind's eye, offering a hand to help like Clary's five again and she's fallen at the playground. Get up and fight.
Something glints in the corner of her eye.
Clary rolls and grabs the discarded knife, throwing her arm out to feel blood splattering over her face.
Her father staggers back, stumbling, a hand at his throat and his blood everywhere, more falling as she grabs him by the shoulder to stab him in the chest. Clary wants him to see her face, to show him Jace and Jonathan aren't his only weapons.
He looks at her, grim resolve in their similar features. They fall to their knees, the knife connecting them as Morgenstern blood spills to the ground. This is for my mother. Jocelyn's dark red hair fanned over the floor, pale and in death and never knowing the full extent of what monsters her children were turned into.
She stabs him again.
This is for my brother. Jonathan's pale lock of hair in her mother's box, a single baby shoe and a lingering dream of what a brother should be instead of what Valentine had forced him into becoming.
And again. For my lover. Jace's eyes flashing gold with heavenly fire, the shadow of an axe over her neck. Everything will be fine, he'd said, only to be stabbed by the only father he knew. Everything will be okay.
Valentine's slumping against her– she stabs once more, the hilt slippery with blood as she twists. His legacy. Their blood and choices. And this is for me. For the girl she will never be again, the one who traded paints for knives and canvas for the endurance to make it through another day.
Her father dies at her feet.
The world doesn't end. There is no divine fire striking the earth, no demons crawling out of the woods. This is it, her harsh, uneven breathing and the shaking in her hands.
She looks around the valley, past the bodies of Jace and her father, the rolling hills of Idris where her mother's home has a sky full of faded stars.
The hazy image of Raziel glimmers above the water, a casual observer to everything Clary has lost in a single night. Desperation swells in her chest and she lets a ragged sob escape. She wants to fall to her knees and cry her heart out, she wants to feel her mother's comforting presence, but her father is dead and she takes his knife to slash at her palm, letting the blood fall into Lake Lyn.
She is the last of the Morgensterns, and she is determined to unmake her father's choices.
The air explodes with light.