Aiedale sat, armed and dressed in her fighting Gear, in a chair in front of the paperless desk of her aunt's office on the executive floor of the Institute. Outside, the Parisian weather coloured the world grey. Her newly reinstated captain badge glinting, eyes falling almost unwillingly on a picture tucked in with a number of others all framed in polished silver and neatly placed on a side table at the back of the room.

He was smiling in the photo.

Sebastian Verlac had been all confidence without being an ass, a nice smile, a good heart. One of her cousins through the Penhallow relation on her mother's side. He had always seemed so young to her — not quite grown into himself. Not gangly, he had trained too hard, but he just stood straight. He hadn't been knocked down by life yet.

Which was maybe why his death hit her so hard. She had yet to find out the particulars, but suspected that one of Lucian's final betrayals had been to hand Sebastian over to Valentine.

She would never forgive herself for not questioning the whole situation more. She had been brooding on her demotion, fretting over her Downworlder contacts, and had missed Valentine's perfect trap because of it. Yes, other people, from the Lightwoods to the Penhallows, had also been lured in by Valentine's demon son's perfect masquerade, but she had known Sebastian.

The blood on her hands from it…she knew it would haunt her until she died. It haunted even now...three weeks back from Alicante and settling into the new normal of a Shadow world that was trying to make the Accords function while still reeling from the shock of Valentine's war.

You ran risks, she told herself. You protect those you can and you run them, the best ones you run against horrendous odds.

And braided through that knowledge, sharp and bitter, underlined in the blood and fire of the battle that she had just fought and whose consequences she must now face, was the understanding that she would live and die in a world of extreme violence against the innocent, and at most she could only help a few.

As night fell, heavy dark clouds of rain moved in from the mountains. Thunder rumbled and lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the advancing columns of orcs and their black banners marked with a white hand.

Aiedale's gloved hands remained firmly wrapped around her cold bow, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the slowly advancing army. The wood was smooth, etched with runes.

All she could do was wait and watch, aware in every fibre of her body. It didn't scare her. She had felt this before and, she reflected grimly, what was left? Death? No, she thought. Familiarity with it had dulled the edge and removed the terror.

The rain fell hard, the curtains of icy water drenching the keep walls and the silent men.

She remembered another battle field, remembered waiting for the hordes of demons to descend on the thin ranks of Downworlders and Nephilim warriors. Back then she had been thinking how wrong ,but how right it was to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Downworlders who so many Shadowhunters feared, loathed and persecuted with a vengeance. She remembered thinking that this was how it should be.

Get deep enough, she had thought back then, and divisions stopped existing.

Everyone bleeds the same.

Everyone bleeds the same, damnit.

Clarissa Morgenstern had not realized what she had done with that single rune. The girl had no idea what the rune did, the way it so effortlessly bridged a gap that had become so deeply entrenched neither side had seen anyway of reaching out to the other. The Accords were a pretty thing to speak of but in practice they were useless. The dysfunctional, violent cycle of mistrust and hatred had seem impossible to break until Valentine declared war and his daughter decided to betray him…

The red head American with her sharp accent and unmarked, callous free hands had no idea of the full repercussions of her actions. Like waves traveling outward from the source of impact, her rune had rocked the Shadow world to its core and kept rocking it. The reverberations shaking the structures and narratives that had once seemed so strong, creating gaps that could be exploited and expanded by those with enough vision and cunning to press forward the advantage.

In the days following that remarkable victory, Aiedale had found herself in a unique and powerful position. She had cultivated a number of Downworlder allies and connections. Her efforts to balance Shadowhunter oaths with respect for the Downworlder community had lent her words weight with those once scorned and persecuted by the Clave. She remembered how shocked her superiors had been, remembered feeling that rush of cold satisfaction when she was asked to take on a leadership role after being stripped of her captaincy. It had been a heady sensation to begin to put in action the very policies she had spent so long quietly working towards on the side streets of Paris and in the Downworlder hide outs.

The whole thing still baffled, amused and angered Aiedale. The innocence of Morgenstern whose brash, decisive action had helped them defeat her father, but had also provided a critical opportunity for those eager to change the trajectory of Downworlder and Clave relations. A chance to realize plans and goals centuries in the making. Morgenstern had not even been a part of the negotiations. She had been insulated from the consequences — both good and bad — of her actions.

Like most Morgensterns, thought Aiedale, all power and a once in a generation Angel-given talent wrapped up in flashy actions with no concept or care for what the fallout would be. No concept of what it meant to stick around after the runes were drawn and the painful process of reconciliation began.

Aiedale glanced briefly at the sky, the rain pouring down in endless cold curtains.

Stop thinking back, snapped an inner voice. Get back to the now.

Aiedale blinked rain out of her eyes before glancing to her right and left at the rows of silent, tense Rohirrim. She was some distance from her companions but she wanted to be here, closer to the main entrance so that she could more easily reinforce the gates with runes if need be — whatever good the few she knew would do. But it meant that she was the sole trained warrior among a bunch of greenies.

No one had puked…yet.

"We are going to die," said the boy beside her very quietly. He was a lanky youth, no more than fifteen and clearly more comfortable with a pitchfork than a sword. He held the sword loosely, the tip blade pointed at the ground and his shoulders slumped. The blade was little more than a cudgel in his uneducated hands, of little use and more of a hindrance than a form of protection. No one had bothered to give him a bow.

"Be quiet," snapped Aiedale, glancing sharply at him.

"It's true!" He was terrified and his voice shook.

And maybe, beneath everything, Aiedale found she could pity him, could feel a small stirring of compassion. There was no one here to tell her it was wrong to pity him, either. No one to chide her for allowing herself to be distracted by a mere mundane and no one to tell her it didn't matter if the youth died or not because he was just another mundane.

Everyone bleeds the same, damnit.

She turned on him, fully facing him. There was precious little she could give him or any of the other young, inexperienced boys watching her with desperate, terrified eyes. All she could give in those moments before the orc host arrived was the advice all young Shadowhunters received on their first patrol. "Eyes open," she said with the sharpness of a drill sergeant to their troops, "and sword tip up. Weapon between you and them. Always."

"My mother and sisters…"

"Eyes open," said Aiedale in a voice that cracked like a whip through the stormy air, "sword tip up. You versus them."

She felt the gaze of all around them. It made her want to flinch even as she held herself absolutely still. They were looking at her as if she was some source of advice and inspiration which was so odd but she refused to show how uneasy it made her feel. She had been a leader before, a warrior experiencing her first command position, she could be so again. "Don't think about anything else. Think and you will die. Think and it will be too late. Fight. Aim for the chinks in their armour. Keep close."

The boy nodded. All desperate desire to live and try to survive.

She didn't know why but she didn't want to scoff. That stirring of compassion was stronger than she had thought as she cast her eyes over this sorry lot of shivering mundanes. Men who stood shoulder to shoulder, hands shaking, because this was the only thing they could do. Men who faced this coming army with little hope of victory and even less training. There was a kind of courage in the air, something that reminded Aiedale a bit of Samwise Gamgee as he stood on the edge of the wide Anduin River and told her he was going to Mordor with Master Frodo.

Faith, hope, courage…the best of humanity, if you wanted to think of it that way.

It was a far cry from what she knew as a member of the Nephilim fighting force.

An even farther cry from the last battle she had taken part in against Valentine. This was not a Shadowhunter's snarky bravery; all resolved and grit hammered down into a lethal action that never hesitated not even for a moment. Not the cold smirks and sharp laughs of warriors trained relentlessly since early childhood. Not the pitiless, ruthless drive that sought the danger, the darkness and then revelled in the close brushes with death because for those few moments everything was crystal clear and there was no time for hesitation or self-doubt…no biting fear of failure.

"I don't want to die," said the boy so softly it took Aiedale's enhanced Shadowhunter hearing to catch the words. His face was twisted in fear, the whirlwind of half-remembered training nonsense in his eyes as he failed to control himself.

Beyond her Angel blood and the privileges it granted her…this was at the core, she thought, of what separated them from her.

She had been raised to challenge and bait death at each and every turn. She had lost her fear of death so long ago when she had heard her mother's shrill, dying scream and felt the heat of the Greater Demon's fire on her skin. Death had always been there, a moment away. Death had haunted her footsteps and each time she had scorned it, told it not this time, bated it at every single turn.

They did not taunt death. Did not know what it was to say not this time. Next time perhaps, but not this time.

And maybe they had their own kind of strength. Maybe it was the strength of the untrained Clarissa Morgenstern; the strength that could achieve the impossible because it hadn't been told what was possible and what wasn't. A kind of faith, she thought, not tainted by cold Shadowhunter logic or confined by the dictates of Clave teachings.

A belief that was stronger than any Oath. A belief that could hold a line of shivering mundanes in the pouring rain before a seething mass of blood thirsty mutant orcs.

She straightened. The unease fading, the resolve crashing down into her soul like white hot fire. The Shadowhunter turned her gaze forward, her voice carrying across the helmed heads, "Never give up without a fight. Never give up. Tonight we fight, you and me."

You and me.

She'd thrown her lot in with the Fey and the werewolves and the vampires as an agent barely six months out of training. She'd fought and bled beside them…even gotten fall down drunk with them on occasion. She'd done it because it had felt right. If she could throw her lot with the flotsam and jetsam of Earth — the castoffs and the trash and the cursed — and survive the repercussions of her actions then she could damn well do it again here.

She knew such a decision came with a price and she had paid it before. The lessons, the belief, the anger, the hope and the desire to do something —

Traitor.

Her hands tightened around her wet bow.

The rage was cold. It was a Shadowhunter's lethal fury.

If she died by an orc blade trying to save the life of the shaking mundane boy next to her the Clave would not mourn her. If she died that night defending the walls she had marked with runes reserved only for those places deemed worthy by the Clave there would be no Shadowhunter honour for her.

And she found that deep down she didn't give a damn what the opinion of the Clave would be. Besides, she thought, who knew anything about how to bury and honour a fallen Nephilim warrior in this medieval backwater of a dimension?

"Don't surrender," she said loudly to the men and to herself, "not now. Not ever."

It seemed like the ultimate kind of irony to her that the daughter of the very man trying to rip the Clave apart was the one who was saving it.

The girl was naive and stupid and uneducated. Yet she had a gift and the ear of a few key people whose influence had grown with the deaths of some of the more hardheaded Clave elites. It was enough. The rest of the Clave's fighting force could offset the deficiencies in the girl's plan, could counter the shortcomings.

They had been trained how to make things work.

For some, war slowed the world to a crawl.

But Shadowhunters were trained to react, always to react, so they would never hesitate. They were taught to see, to take in a situation in a few seconds and then move. Sometimes that quick look was not enough, yes, for in battle one did not always know. There was no time to know.

But the consequences of not acting? The price paid for each moment wasted looking, waiting, thinking?

And so, for a Shadowhunter, war was fast. It happened at a speed which they were taught to prefer because at that speed there was only time for training, for the ingrained patterns of action and thought placed by years of constant repetition in the training rooms. It was liberating to allow the body to fall back on skills and motions that were so familiar they were comforting, natural. An enemy that needed to be killed, no time for thinking of anything else. It was a relief, an escape valve for all the suppressed tension.

Aiedale was a blur of efficient motion, not a single movement wasted.

Aiedale was partially conscious of the desperation of this fight, but she was also nettled at how limited she felt she was fighting on this parapet with these men. Her vision was acute and ice clear in the centre, but hazy around the margins. The inexperienced mundanes kept getting in her way—

It was hard to find a rhythm as a result.

She was both attacker and defender. Surrounded by those who were too inexperienced and too terrified. She had to be everywhere at once, snapping ropes before orcs could secure ladders, pushing those ladders that did land back into the screaming horde of orcs below…it was nettling. And she knew she had to pace herself, she could not exhaust herself in the opening hours of this battle.

Aiedale saw Aragorn frantically gesturing at something to the side of the Deeping Wall. He was bellowing at Legolas to shoot something, to kill something. She could not see what he was pointing at, but she watched Legolas pull three arrows at once and loose them each one after the other. They flew into the dark, but they clearly made contact…just a moment, a second too late.

A flare of fire at the steel grate which allowed water to flow through—

BANG—

Aiedale braced herself, absorbing the shock through bent knees, head swivelling to try and locate the source of the explosion. She froze.

Stunned.

Where her runes had been etched, the stone of the Deeping Wall was shining. The tracery of runes she had carved along the top of the wall and into the inner gates of the keep were alight. They had held the structure together against the terrible explosion of Saurman's attempt at a mundane bomb. Where orcs touched them, they screamed and fell back from ladders and ropes which fell away, burning.

Men cheered.

Suddenly, Aragorn was beside her. "What did you do?" demanded Aragorn in her ear, his voice almost inaudible over the clamour of battle.

"I…" she had seen runes glow, she had seen runes on Shadowhunter buildings look like they had caught fire when their protections were called into existence under threat. But she'd never thought she had enough power to…

She was one Shadowhunter.

A moderately gifted fighter with knives, yes, but not especially gifted with runes. She'd never been particularly good at them. Those that she had carved into the outer wall of Helms Deep had taken much of her strength of mind and body and — even then — it was like using a bucket to put out a bonfire…

Sometimes, a voice whispered in her mind, we are granted the power to step beyond the limits of our own abilities. Sometimes our prayers are heard by greater powers.

Her eyes flicked upwards into the dark, rain cascading down her face. Aiedale murmured a quiet prayer of thanks.

An arrow bounced off the stone close to her left side. The battle raged on.

"I don't think it will hold," said Aiedale quickly. "It won't hold if they set another one off that close."

She didn't think her prayers had been heard by that great a power, after all. She was hardy angelic. And she definitely wasn't Clarissa Morgenstern.

Things were desperate…desperate times call for desperate measures which meant she was free to act as she wished.

Finally, she thought. At long last she could ditch these mundanes on the wall where their desperate hacking and screams did nothing but hinder her.

She glanced down at the seething mess of bodies and her sharp, battle trained eyes picked out an orc larger than the rest. It was white skinned…and in the creature's arms was a dark spherical shape, a rough kind of bomb. The white skinned orc was guarded…She glanced at the drop — barely high enough to make her pause — was distantly aware of Aragorn yelling at her, and vaulted over the stone. She slowed her fall only partially by running her blade along the stone wall, gouging the stone as she slowed her free-fall.

Shadowhunter craftsmanship was made for these sorts of things—

She landed in the swarming mess of orcs, a blur of motion and knife. There—

The orcs, too confused by her presence to do anything initially and then they were far too slow, failed to stop her hell bent charge at the white orc and, once she reached it, her killing of said orc. But they were about to stop her from lighting the fuse, ducking a slashing blade she saw coming for her, she held her witch light briefly to the exposed fuse and then vaulted back, using the swing of an orc's sword arm to propel her into the air. Deftly jumping from one confused orc head to another, she did not bother to look back, focusing on the Wall and the many orc ladders and ropes which had been raised against it.

She heard the explosion. Satisfaction flared briefly in her as she caught a rope, half springing, half climbing up the wall as an orc arrow came within inches of her head. It had occurred too far away to do any real damage to the wall, shaking them but not breeching the thick stone. Instead it had shattered the line of advancing mutant orcs quite effectively. The men of Rohan cheered from their beleaguered positions on top of the besieged Wall.

Aragorn was waiting for her at the top of rope, pulling her over the edge of the parapet. He was cursing. Gimli saluted her with his ax, shaking his head at her.

"It worked!" she said, still amazed despite herself.

"Damn it if it worked—"

She flashed a grin at him. "We need to neutralize the rest of them."

"It's too dangerous—"

She laughed. And then cursed as an orc arrow whizzed far too close and clattered against the stone.

The thing about battle was that it was messy and chaotic, the unanticipated happened all too often. Aragorn could hardly lecture her about taking unnecessary risks. She also felt oddly liberated. Aiedale was fighting with no superior officers scrutinizing her every move, yelling orders, overriding her authority…as long as she killed orcs and defended this keep? Well, she was free to do so however she wanted to. Aragorn could moan and complain all he liked.

Her runes would not hold. When they failed and orcs breeched the Deeping Wall, the men of Rohan would need all their strength. Already they grew weary. All their arrows were spent, and every shaft was shot; their swords were notched, and their shields were riven. But she was hitting her stride, her knives were sharp, her instincts firing…yes. She could do this.

And so she systematically moved through the orcs. Aragorn cursing her every time she crawled back over the parapet slick with rain and blood. He yelled and soundly cursed at her every time she vaulted off. And if a few orc scimitars came a tad too close for comfort to her head? If a few arrows whistled by and a few orcs did manage to land a solid blow or two?

All in a night's work.

That was all it was…fate. Luck. Chance. A long series of what-if's that had lead her from one moment to the next, time never pausing.

All she could was play her cards as best she could and keep her knives sharp. Because it all came back to those three basics.

Fate. Luck. Chance.

Happy New Year! Wishing all a wonderful 2025!

I have been so touched by the number of readers who have reached out asking if they can use this story as inspiration for their artwork. Of course! Please do! I am a little too busy to think about doing any kind of formal collaboration - I literally write bits and pieces of this story while on airplanes and in little breaks between meetings because (very sadly) I am supposed to be a professional with a career. It brings me great joy to think that this story has inspired someone to write or draw. After all, so many of us start reading fics and writing our own because we are drawn in by the magic of a world like Middle Earth.

Small author's note: I did not include the elves in my version of the Battle of Helm's Deep. It always bothered me a bit because the elves of Lórien have their own battle to fight along with the Greenwood. I do love the scene, however, of Gandalf and the Riders appearing at dawn and then charging down a cliff face. Call me a hopeless romantic who loves a good calvary charge down a sheer cliff. That is a fantastic moment in the movies and I can't not include it in my own version.

One other thing: you might notice that Aiedale's perspective on being Nephilim and a Shadowhunter is a bit darker than that in the original Mortal Instruments canon. Aiedale and the rest of the Nephilim fighting force face horrific odds, have to manage the very deep, very painful divisions between Nephilim and Downworlders, as well as navigate Clave politics and their own understanding of the Oaths. They have to be a unified, cohesive fighting force that can be counted on to do their job, every night, no matter the order. Any uncertainty that you might not be loyal, that you might be skirting your orders, would undermine the authority of the Clave and its ability to execute its Angel-given, keep the Earth safe mission. At least, under the leadership of Aiedale's aunt (who is my creation and not a part of original canon), teenage theatrics and the like are not tolerated because they can jeopardize missions, result in some key pieces of information not being shared, undermine the perception of Clave authority among Downworlders, and introduce a whole lot of unnecessary risk to an already high risk occupation. As Aiedale knows all too well, your own personal wants and needs or beliefs don't matter in this kind of highly disciplined and regimented world even if the system contains some deeply flawed, contradictory, and sometimes very corrupt aspects. It would be impossible for the Clave not to be a somewhat corrupt and deeply flawed system or for there not to be some seriously intense internal politics given Shadowhunter egos and their penchant for solving a problem by killing it. Despite all this and the personal cost all Shadowhunters must pay for their service, is the very real knowledge that, without the Clave and Nephilim, demons run loose over Earth.