4A/N: Father and son training in the Wayland manor. Not hard to guess how it plays out — but kind of fun to watch. As usual, it's really all about Valentine...
My fics take the original City of Bones trilogy as canon. (For more about why I haven't read the later MI books, see my profile).
As always, characters, story and universe all belong to the incomparable Cassandra Clare.
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Fall 1997
by midwinter monday
A chilly afternoon in November, and Jace is upstairs with his father in the high-ceilinged training room that occupies the whole of the manor's east end. He's practising on the horizontal ladders: long runs of widely-spaced oak rungs — a mundane would probably call them monkey bars — which hang suspended from the ceiling around three sides of the room. When not in use, they can be raised out of the way up to the rafters, but Valentine has had them down most of the week now. Jace would be about seven, I should imagine. It's a while since he's been up on the ladders, but his father has decided to pursue this seriously: they've been working on archery technique for the past fortnight, and ladder work is unrivalled for developing the muscles and stamina that archery demands.
So up he sends Jace, day after day, with orders to swing himself the full length of the ladder that spans the long side of the training room. Jace is light and strong and lithe as a cat, but it's an extremely long ladder — over a hundred feet — and by the end of the week they are both getting frustrated because it's all Jace can do to get three quarters of the way across before his arms give out and he drops yet again, shoulders aching, to the ground below.
Well, Jace is getting frustrated. Valentine is simply losing patience with an obviously unprofitable line of approach and deciding to try something else. After Jace's third unsuccessful attempt of the day, he sends him to catch his breath on the windowseat while he busies himself with the ropes from which the ladders are suspended.
When Jace turns round from the window, Valentine has raised them another five feet into the air so that they are now dauntingly high — high enough that the thought of falling from them is distinctly disagreeable...
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"Up you go, then." Valentine nods briefly at the footholds rising up the wall at the near end of the ladder before turning back to coiling the rope in his hands.
Jace tips his head back and looks uncertainly at the ladder far above his head. He can see his father's uncompromising reflection in the mirrors that line the wall and a flicker of foreboding goes though him. "But what do I do when I've got as far as I can go?"
"If you're still short of the far end? Fall, I should imagine." His father's voice is dry. "But I'd suggest persevering instead."
Jace looks steadily at his father. "You know I can't make it all the way to the end."
The cool gaze meeting his makes no concessions. "I know you haven't made it all the way to the end, Jonathan. Whether you can is another matter entirely. After playing about on the ladders all week, you ought probably to be able to."
"But if I can't?" he persists.
"Then as I said, Jonathan, you'll simply have to let go and drop."
"That will hurt," he says quietly.
"I imagine it will." His father's voice is imperturbable. "But you're unlikely to do yourself serious damage from that height."
Jace opens his mouth to protest but his father gently forestalls him. "If you're rested now, I think we should get a move on. If we finish up here quickly, there will still be time to take the horses out along Mickle End before the light fails."
Further objections are clearly a waste of breath. His father has that implacable look he knows too well. With a silent sigh he scrambles up the ladder, trying not to notice just how far away the floor has become.
And maybe his father is right. Maybe it's really not that hard to get to the other end, maybe he just hasn't been trying.
His shoulders are aching worse than ever by the time he reaches the three-quarters point, but he presses on doggedly, desperately trying to close the remaining distance to the far wall. One more rung he tells himself, over and over, just one more rung. His muscles are on fire, his arms trembling uncontrollably, his breath coming in ragged gasps. One more rung. By the time he's travelled half the remaining distance, it's clear he's not going to make it, but he keeps going as long as he can, until at his next desperate grab his hand slips helplessly and down he goes.
A jarring impact, a jolt of agony up his right ankle. He closes his eyes for a second, willing back the tears of pain and frustration, and then gets stiffly to his feet. The ankle is painful, but it takes his weight. His father watches him without comment. Jace says nothing either, but the expression on his face says as plainly as words: See? I told you I couldn't do it.
"Where are you going?" His father's voice stops him sharply as he limps past.
"The stables." He tries to keep the anger out of his voice. "I thought you said we could go for a ride when we'd finished the afternoon's training."
"We will." His father's voice is deceptively soft. "But we're not finished yet." And taking Jace by the shoulders, turns him gently back towards the ladders.
Jace stares at his father a moment in outraged disbelief, before heading stiffly to the ladders again.
The next attempt carries him a half-dozen rungs further before his strength fails. But he's clearly tiring, and by the next attempt Valentine can see there's nothing to be gained for now by pursuing this further. The last fall was a bad one, and Jace is hobbling badly as he pulls himself upright and limps doggedly back towards the foot of the ladder. His father watches him a moment, impassively, and then calls him back.
"I think that's enough for today, Jonathan."
Jace gazes at him wordlessly. He's shaking with exhaustion and perhaps anger too. His father meets his look thoughtfully, and then reaches into his pocket for his stele. "I don't think you'd better try riding on that ankle — it's probably sprained. Come here." He holds out his hand to his son.
For a moment Jace doesn't move, his face masklike with tiredness and the strain of keeping his temper. He can't believe his father thinks he's got the strength left to ride a horse after this. The effort he's making to hold back the outburst of resentment and indignation quivering on his lips is obvious, and Valentine's lips twitch. Jace's eyes are fixed on the floor though, furiously counting to five hundred by thirteens ‑‑ a skill he's mastered recently — and he doesn't see the softening of his father's expression.
"Come here," his father repeats more gently.
And this time he limps reluctantly to where Valentine is standing, and allows his father to take his arm and trace out the stinging Mark which will take the pain away.
Some of the exhaustion seems to lift too. Looking more closely, he can see a rune for stamina woven into the iratze his father has inscribed on his forearm.
"You'll do." A hint of a smile is still lurking in his father's eyes. "Run down to the stable and tell them we'll want Phosphorus and Dagmar saddled. We can go round by the road if you'd rather not tackle the hedges across the fallow fields today."
To his surprise, the idea of cantering with his father along the High Pasture doesn't seem so unappealing after all. Maybe we could still ride there cross-country, he thinks experimentally. Of all their horses, Dagmar is the most fun to take over fences, a natural jumper with a lovely, collected gait.
"We'll return to the ladders tomorrow." His father's words reach him as he's almost out of the room.
But twenty-four hours is a long time in the life of a seven-year-old — long enough that he pushes the thought effortlessly away into the future, where it belongs. If he doesn't literally run to the stables, he takes the stairs two at a time in his usual manner, and is out the door and into the sunshine by the time his father has finished adjusting the ropes upstairs.
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|o|
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So anyone who knows Valentine can guess where this is going...
Sure enough, when Jace joins his father in the training room the following afternoon, he finds that the ladders have been raised almost to the rafters.
Despite himself, he pales. A fall from that height is not a laughing matter. It's not going to kill him, but he can't imagine hitting the floor from that distance without breaking something. He's shattered enough bones in his short life to know that it's something that can be mended, something you live through — and something he really doesn't want to do again in a hurry.
When he looks up, his father is watching him, his face unreadable.
Unconsciously he straightens, doing his best to keep his own expression blank. Fine. If his father wants him to smash himself to pieces on the training room floor, he'll do it. And — and by the Angel, he thinks daringly, a little reviving flame of rebelliousness running through him — he's not going to utter a word of protest, or let his father guess at the fear that is trickling down his spine and turning his arms and legs to ice. His cheeks feel cold — he's pretty sure all the blood has left his face; his father won't have missed that — but he's learnt the art of schooling his features, at any rate. Raising his chin, he marches over to the ladder without a backward glance.
He's not going to forgive his father for this, though.
The climb up to the ladders seems to go on forever this time, and his breath is coming hard by the time he reaches the top. He turns resolutely outwards, his own heartbeat loud in the silence; and as he sets his hand on the first rung, a memory suddenly assails him: of dark, rustling woods and the warm, aromatic scent of balsam. He's very young, maybe not even three yet, but the lure of the climb has drawn him high up in a pine, far out of reach of his father waiting below. He can feel the breeze through the feathery boughs beckoning him higher still.
"Careful, Jonathan." His father's warning comes up distantly from the forest floor, and he raises one hand from the branch to wave. For an instant, time hangs suspended: the sleepy silence, the bright splinters of sunlight filtering down from above, the rough bark under his bare feet; and then with an outraged squeak he topples off his branch — into his father's waiting arms. "Take care," his father says drily as he sets him on his feet. "Another time I might not be there to catch you."
He's not a baby now. No one to catch him if he falls today.
Carefully averting his eyes from the great gulf of emptiness below him, he launches himself forward. The first few swings are awkward with nerves, stuttering cautiously from hand to hand, and then he finds his stride. His shoulders open out and he finds himself caught up in the sheer physical pleasure of swooping weightlessly from rung to rung, his movements swift and sure. He's fresh, and the surge of adrenaline which cramped his arms with nervousness at first just adds fuel to his exuberance now. I can do this, he thinks in surprise.
Even when his arms begin to tire at the halfway mark, he is swept along by his own impetus, buoyed by excitement. He's careful still not to look directly down at the distant floor, but he can feel the exhilarating sense of height, of being aloft. His movements are noticeably slower now, but still easy and unhurried. He has forgotten why he is here, soaring beneath the dark, cedar-scented rafters. He has forgotten about his father watching him with cool, appraising eyes, far below. He has forgotten everything but the steady rhythm of his own airborne motion.
The fatigue and the pain creep up on him gradually. He is three-quarters of the way across before they become insistent enough to dampen his ebullience. By the time he has travelled half the remaining distance, they are indisputably in the ascendant. His lungs are burning in his chest, his fingers cramping around the wooden rungs. Please, not this time, he thinks, snatching a desperate glance ahead. I am not going to fall, I can't fall this time. But the end of the ladder is still hopelessly far away. In his mind, he can hear with sickening clarity the snapping sound his shinbone made the time he fell off Dagmar jumping over the Lower Brook, remember the agony lancing through his leg like white-hot steel — and a shudder goes through his aching limbs.
He is close, so close. But the pain in his arms is beyond belief now as he clutches staggeringly at one rung after the next. His spine is icy with sweat, his hands burning and raw; with every painful lurch forward his shoulders scream let go, just let go! and he knows it is only a matter of moments before he falls.
But a voice is speaking inside his head: cool, commanding, impatient — the sort of voice you obey without question. Don't be stupid, Jonathan.
And he knows the voice is right: he has practically reached the end — he can't give in now. Gritting his teeth, he snatches at one rung after another; and then suddenly, impossibly there are no more rungs to grab, and he is clinging to the handholds on the opposite wall, chest heaving wildly. And as he rests his sweating forehead against the cool plaster, feet planted safely on the footholds below and the weight blessedly taken from his aching arms, he recognises the voice in his head, without surprise, as his father's.
Looking back over his shoulder, the distance he has travelled looks longer than he imagined — longer than humanly possible, really — and he feels a small, sweet, intoxicating blaze of triumph race through his tired body like wildfire on the hills. Part of his mind still can't believe he has done it. He certainly couldn't do it again.
But he knows what the voice in his head would say; and it's probably the truth. The next time will be easier. With a little shuddering sigh he begins slowly climbing to the ground, his arms and legs shaky with reaction.
If this was a battle with his father, he thinks a little blankly, he's not sure whether he's lost or won.
Until he reaches the bottom and sees the flicker of stern pride in his father's stern face — tinged with the faintest trace of relief. And it occurs to him that maybe they were on the same side after all.
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Sheffield
November 2012
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If you liked this story, you might enjoy other Jace and Valentine stories from my Songs of Innocence story cycle: An Orchard So Young in the Bark, Discipline, Chiaroscuro, and my newest story Lessons. They're all really leaves out of a single book: the story of Jace's childhood with Valentine, as I imagine it.
You might also try my Valentine and Jocelyn stories, Odi et Amo, Wednesday's Children and the Academy-era story The Circle Game — or Permanent Marks, a long Jace-and-Clary fic set just after City of Glass. Like all my stories, it's really all about Valentine...