12April 17, 1874
Alicante, Idris
The kitchen windows were gawking like an eye, their swinging shutters like eyelids, as the wind toyed with them.
A concoction of frustration and sorrow came out in the form of assorted growls from the cook's thin lips, wrapping signs blaring red around her: danger. Clarissa couldn't be more used to her cook's ministries and drastic mood swings, and sat on the velvet fabric of her sofa with disinterest.
Catarina Loss had been an enigma to the Morgenstern household for a most infinite amount of time. Smears of gossip revolving around her—her, and her past, and screams, and attitude—had somehow detonated uncontrollably the very week she had arrived, years ago. It had been a booming wildfire with fire made of words and sparks made of snickers.
Then, like a whip, she had somehow snapped.
And that was all Clarissa was exposed to, as Jonathan had pasted glue on his lips and it appeared Catarina's lips were woven purely for scowls and interjections of negativity. Jonathan, at least, would speak to her on a somewhat daily basis, pushing unnecessary sentences into her routine.
After a few seconds, Clarissa noticed a new aspect was sprinkled into the mournful groans travelling from the kitchen.
It was a cup of realization. A dash of frustration. And then, gallons of quiet beating the quivering air.
Then, through her buzzing ears, she heard the slash of sound the kitchen door made when it pounded shut, slapping its frame roughly. For a moment, the delicate chandelier hanging above her—which was a wonder all in itself, crafted from star fragments—sang a sweet and tinkly song.
She might've even felt her insides tremor.
An ugly noise ripped through the area surrounding her, leaving jagged edges in the fabrications of hope stitching within her. She had been praying that Catarina would turn a blind eye on her, but alas, there the woman was, ashen lips compelled downwards at the sight of the notoriously frazzled head of apple hair.
Clarissa bubbled air into her cheeks, as a child would do, looking so innocent that she could have driven a knife through a thousand souls, and everyone would have brushed by her as if she were harmless as stuffing. The gems in her eyes dull with pooling boredom, the girl snapped her head to Catarina, a honey smile tinkering with her complexion, contorting and deceiving.
There was something haunting about the concealed matrix of Catarina's face, something that seemed to always be weeping tirelessly—perhaps she'd caught the blues, except a permanent case. No matter how hard the cook would try to scrub the goopy sadness away, so hard there'd be splotchy red marks, it would stick stronger than the plague. Clarissa wondered if Catarina had ever played with happiness, ever stretched her lips into the formation of a smile. If her eyes, the filed-down cobalt masterpieces, had ever upheld a radiant quality.
Before she could escape the dense—and growing—forest of her mind and the beasts whose very beings were made of her thoughts, cold hands bit down on her own, and her little fingers knotted with thin ones. It was only by the grace of the venomous glare Catarina handed her, that she ripped herself away from the consuming grasp of the sofa.
"Where are we going?" The question plunged out of Clarissa with more curiosity than she would have preferred, causing the whole scheme of words to be nearly lost altogether, kidnapped by the sound of her front door opening and then her being dragged out of it. When an answer didn't float through, a frown nagged at her face, annoying like a nail barely scratching the surface of a table. Being ignored…it irked her, badly.
"Where are we going?" she demanded again, temper expanding its arms wide and embracing her. As Clarissa jolted her vision up to Catarina, the passing streets and buildings encasing the two streaked together. At first, all the redhead's focus lingered on was the blanket of snow resting upon the older woman's head, the way each strand seemed to burn beneath the hands of the blistering ball of heat printed on the sky. Then, while seconds flapped away, leaving imprints of wasted time and stillness, Clarissa's most common emotion—irritation—colored her head thoroughly.
A sigh that was not hers walked up to her ears and shoved through to her brain. It smelled of defeat…and air, and warm, hot breath, embarrassing against the curtain of chill swirled by the wind. "The town square, gathering supplies," Catarina stated, simple and clear, her words as straight as her gaze, though there were brushes of reluctance. Clarissa let her excitement jump out only by squeezing Catarina's fingers tightly, and a smile snuggled in her eyes. It felt good, having it there. "And hush up about this, too, won't you? You and your miserable excuse of a brother are expected to be finishing up schoolwork as per request of your father, not roaming around with hoodlums and waltzing over to the market, understood?"
She hummed, shaking her head obediently. "I thought Jonathan was allowed to be playing—well, he told me he finished his work before—" A silent glare was tossed at her, and she sheepishly glanced downwards. "If I'm not supposed to be out…then, why are you taking me with you?"
"Oh, don't tell me you didn't know how pathetic you looked, alone and wretched on that couch. Ha! I might have possibly mistaken you for a dead animal had I not been a considerate human."
~Fancy Line Break~
The day may have just begun, droopy-eyed and slightly exhausted, but the heart of Alicante was beating with oceans of liveliness, pumping strong waves of chatter and movement. Children wasted coins on the eloquent fountain overseeing all the hurry blossoming in the square, much to the dismay of their parents. Shoes, both worn and prim, punched at the dusty ground, and the assault rang and rang. There were carefully set-up tents splayed everywhere, bargaining and selling one-of-a-kind goods that came from lands of myth and kingdoms of legend. From the sky everything looked a colorful disarray. Birds tweeted their dismay and flew on.
The moment Catarina rested her eyes safely upon the hectic mess, the deafening noises were blanketed. She caught the stares and glances slung in the air with surprising elegance, bending the mechanics of mockery, and never breaking a sweat. The ground froze from the coolness of her eyes' caress. And suddenly, time stopped.
She, once again, became frosty ice with a flaming heart.
An inferno, kindled by the insidious fury and defiance resting on her chest, writhed throughout the entirety of the square as her narrowed stare lagged agonizingly over each and every body there. She could hurt them all for the way they'd twisted her, so few years ago. Bring upon them pain unimaginable, let them see the stars cowering behind the sun's blinding shine. She—
Something squirmy and moist squeezed tight at her fingers, jump-scaring her out of the bloodstained alternate reality that had eaten her alive. She was about to yell, about to uproot the meaning of this rude interruption from this slimy thing, until she actually looked at it: the epitome of fear, reaching out to her aching heart and dulling the rage. In all the time she had sustained hardship and tears, Catarina failed to face something as scared as this; her soul curled up in hatred of itself whenever she thought about it.
Forever, she knew, her mind would be burnt by the scalding jade eyes that played with a fire more dangerous than her own.
~ Fancy Line Break~
At first, he thought it was a breathing, walking tendril of lava that was smoking up the square below, slithering through masses and then pooling up as it stood still. Yet…yet there was no smoke and too much fire. He scoffed.
From his perch atop a grey terrace, where he was absolutely certain he had the clearest view of the commotion heaving below, Jonathan—or Jace, as the Lightwoods preferred—Herondale set his sight out for smoke exercising in the air, for when there was fire, smoke was sure to rise, too. Alas the blond found nothing, and quickly cursed the dimming clouds for fooling him.
Below, in the flooding square, there was a white head of hair—with every ounce of honesty within him, he was sure that it was spun from flour—flowing choppily next to the lava, and before he could bellow to stop it, the mound of flour bent down to the puddle of heat, handed it something glistening, and seemed to be…whispering? Since when could a fire fathom words? If that was the case, he'd fancy a shape-shifting mongoose with a pink bottom!
In the distance, the sky spit out the caw of a bird, resonant and tearing through the atmosphere, and a crazed grin turned his face into a cynical mess. Jace felt the railing that he was leaning on shift a bit; a shadowy figure eroded the color away from his right-most line of sight. "I believe," said Jace inquisitively to the craftwork of shadow, "that the square will set on fire. Burning buildings and all. Maybe if we rush home and grab all the meats, we can roast them over the bonfire that'll ensue. But we have to be quick. Alec, you can run fast, right?"
"The maids would do a better job at roasting meat," stated the figure—Alec—his boyish tone showing no soft spots, and very flat. "Besides, everything would reek of human rot and ash here. And, you should know—"
"That isn't a fire, you dim-wit," another, high-pitched voice scolded, popping into Jace's left side. Strands of the midnight sky flew down in the form of hair and kissed his fingers, and he wondered, for a moment, if kisses truly felt that sweet. But then a disgusted shudder ran through him. "That's a head! You know, the round thing teetering off your neck—it contains the brain that you fail to have."
Jace's cheeks twitched, and a smile rolled lightly upon his face, slow like water sinking in sand. The backs of his eyelids doused in orange when he closed them, the rays of the sun charging from afar and onto his face. "Rather I have a heart than a brain," he said, and mostly, he was proud of himself for saying something remotely of value. He had that swelling feeling, that if his mother was there, standing beside him, she would smile so wide her cheeks would have torn open. Concrete grains, uneven like his pulse, rough like acorns, pinched his hands as his fingers and palms pressed themselves further down into the railing.
"Compassion—care...love," there was a certain ignition of conviction when Celine Herondale let the timeless word drop from her lips, "these…these are like the stars shining amongst our vast sky. We must not reach for them with our bare hands; instead, we must follow them and allow them to guide us. For we are not human without them."
The words were cut carefully into Jace's memory by his mother. Of course, it was his mother. She had taken an iron pen, dipped it in ink that stank of importance, and carved the phrase deep in his conscience. The buds of innocence within him, which somehow still had the light to pry themselves open, sucked the letters and words in eagerly, later working hours upon hours to decrypt the torturous meaning behind everything. Jace had only extracted the first three words, and the rest was clogged by a wall of vines.
Spears of sound splintered the insignificant stupor that had enveloped him, then. "I guess so. But, sometimes I think love's this odd, sticky feeling—I don't like it," replied the girl with the night sky for hair. "It's like a sickness: you can't get rid of it. And then when it's gone you feel weak, like the wind's been forever knocked out of you. I think that's what mother feels, sometimes. She's so far away…"
"Beware, Isabelle," said Jace, minute sadness and an itching curiosity running under his voice. "You sounded almost wise, there. We both know you're far too fragile for wisdom." Alec let out a subtle snort, wincing when Isabelle reached over Jace to gift him a neat jab on the back. Jace got a harsher one on the shoulder; glory was nectar while it lasted.
"Says the boy who sleeps with a wooden sword every night and sobs when it has the absolute tiniest crack in its blade," she said mockingly. "Besides," Isabelle muttered, quiet all of a sudden. "Mother's been tired as of late. It leaves the maids or Alec to cook—it's like dying rats in a pot with him. What he does isn't cooking." She sent a nicely packaged glare at her brother, commenting on his dangling jaw by claiming, "I'm doing you a favor by comparing your…rubbish, to rats. There are worse things."
"It isn't as if you can do better," spat Alec, though lighthearted, his scuffed nails irritating the railing.
But, he understood Isabelle's struggle; when he twisted his head toward her, through the dense layers of playfulness, he identified nebulas of hurt and solar systems compressed by unimaginable grief. The complicated galaxies in her eyes whirled with something that was far beyond words. He could not blame her for the immeasurable number of bruises in her heart, for her pain was always his. For some reason, they were surprisingly skilled in hiding emotions. Hurt often disguised itself as the fiend that is humor, and pain was compressed like the pages of a thousand-page book.
Before long, another caw echoed through the skies, scratching the clouds and piercing ears. "Reva," the name came from Jonathan's mouth as nothing more than a whisper amongst the wind, and he could feel the newly-awoken smiles the Lightwoods wore.
~Fancy Line Break~
The golden coins bouncing in Clarissa's hand grinned widely under the sun, teeth emitting blinding spots of light. Catarina had handed them to her, with the words, "spend wisely, girl," as a token of advice, before disappearing into the square.
Alicante had picked out a melodramatic dress that day, the cotton clouds dull, and the sun only allowed to burst through the seams occasionally. Whenever it did, though, all the world's amenities were basking in brilliance. Clarissa's gaze happily greeted all the exquisite stalls, tents, and shops.
A silent earthquake rumbled in her stomach then, and her mouth was sticky, dry like bread; and she'd realized breakfast had fluttered past her without a word. The smells of pastries and chocolates and savory goodness fell suddenly around her as if a bulky, woolen blanket. Freshly baked dreams linked arms with each new tide of scent, and she wondered that if only the smells were a bit more palpable, they'd morph into actual food.
Money heavy in her palms, mind intent with stuffing something—anything—into her crying mouth, and eyes delirious in the name of gut-wrenching hunger, her frantic feet sped their pace, agile through the clustered crowd. Splattered as they were, the food stalls were quite easy to find, and with the limited money she had, Clarissa rushed up to a colorful one and politely asked the salesman for a tart, because it was the cheapest.
The man chuckled, his paper skin folding with the action. So thin was his skin, that blue veins, tangled like the limbs of fighting men, stood stark. Logic failed to play its card when the man tucked the tart into an unkempt napkin; how did those nimble veins not burst under the pressure of the baked delight?
Head still stuck in a chaos of childish questions, she mindlessly dropped seven coins into the paper-man's hand, snatched the tart, and rejoined the outbreak of hustling people. Too many bodies surrounded her, sucking up space, and effectively depriving her food of the need to breathe. She wasn't about to devour her way-too-late breakfast and risk it being violated by a coat!
That customary darkness provided only by the closed hands of a little girl welcomed the tart, and it bounced around in a cage of fingers. After a few desperate minutes, brightness jolted the bundle of sweetness to color once again. And, in the new setting of seclusion, hidden behind grey-washed brick walls of a peculiarly lit alley, Clarissa let her eyes create an imaginary yellow halo behind it. Negligibly tremulous in starvation, her arms lifted the heavenly masterpiece to her mouth. Lips stretching to take a bite, she—
In a sudden rush, yellow-and-black, fang-like sticks plummeted into her breakfast, and her face was overcome with something fluffy, multiple ribbons of softness tickling her face. Before she knew it, speeding away from her, reaching miles by the second, was the most devious bird she'd ever seen. Though, it wasn't really a typical crow or sparrow—no, it was for too big to be one. Its tail of feathers was artwork in itself, too, different shades of grey undulating gracefully. But there was something about the canvas of feathers, something that yanked it apart from every other bird there was. From afar, she noticed a patch of its skin just above its right talon was showing, feathers failing to smother it. How did it get there? Was it a person? How—?
Vibrations originating from her stomach shook her yet again, and she was all but forced the bid her doubts farewell, hoping they wouldn't vanish into nothingness as clocks ticked.
Sights set on the soaring thief, she slipped from the unusual alleyway and melted right back into the patchwork of crowd. An angry and determined growl raced from her throat, and she searched around frantically for her flailing breakfast. Heads and hats, kids and noises, they all were conniving snakes trying to file her concentration away. She slithered her way past as many as she could, and hope broke to dust when seconds passed with no sign of the fleeting bird. She tried to search for another few minutes, chafing the sky and buildings, squinting her eyes at high perches and inside the stalls that she could see.
But nothing.
She moaned in sadness, her eyes finding purchase on the gloomy ground. Everything good-tasting and breakfast-worthy costed well over eight coins—and she was now certain the paper-man had given her a discount. Besides, was there really a point to a discount when the actual item was wasted?
Presently, she only possessed three coins, finding irony that she was so barren of money. Her family was among the wealthy side of the scale, even she knew that from a young age. Valentine Morgenstern had started out as a merchant, retailing coal items for diamond prices. It was a cheap way to earn money, yes, yet his words brought on this hypnotizing effect on even the most unwilling. But Valentine had better use for his silken voice and consequently betrayed business to politics. In the short timespan he was given, he made armies of supporters, and piece by piece he built a small empire which he hoped would one day rule the naive community, and perhaps country, around him.
Like a comet crashing down on a wandering planet, disappointment slammed into her none too kindly. The impact of the abrupt emotion dug a black pit in her chest and shoved her body to move, because standing still would, most definitely, deepen that hole. Through the boiling chagrin, she raised her head slightly, her stare grappling onto crystalline water drooling from the limestone fountain choking on coins. It was a noticeable landmark, she realized, one where she could be found with ease.
Exhaling a breath that spoke languages of both weariness and renewed determination, the little girl dragged herself to the fountain, sat at the somewhat moist edge of the basin, and waited for Catarina. Droplets rocketed onto her face at times, and she couldn't help but wonder if they looked like tears.
A/N: So I wanted to address a few things:
1- first and foremost, my greatest thanks to HidingBehindMyWords for flawlessly beta-ing through this chapter 💖💖 Idk how I'd do anything without your help xD
2 - To clear it up, more for my sanity than anything else, the characters will remain children for MAX 2 more chapters. They're going to be fast-paced hopefully because there's still a hell ton of development I want to happen.
3 - Updates 😬 So I haven't done shit for this story in about a month, I know. The update schedule, well, I don't have one, nor am I planning to, because writing when I'm not inspired or whatever, to put it in its simplest, is worst than shit. And, as finals ended recently and I'm starting a job and all soon, I won't get too much time to do anything.
Until the next!
-RWMS