sixthiterationlogs | 003 - Missing Isabelle

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003 - Missing Isabelle - [OPEN]

WHO: Clary Fray/Fairchild
WHERE: 6i Inn
WHEN: October 1st – 7th
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: N/A

Clary has been through a lot over the past few months: uprooted from her home, learned that her father was a psychopath, that her father-figure was a werewolf and that she was a descendant of the angel Azrael and supposedly part of some secret organization that fought demons. Comparatively, pulling her way through the fountain hadn't been all that traumatizing. It was just another drop in the bucket of weird that was becoming her life.

At first, this Red versus Blue like canyon hadn't been so bad. Clary hadn't been here very long but Isabelle was here and it looked like everyone was working towards the general goal of survival and finding the way back home. Now it sucked. It sucked like perpetually stubbing your toe on the bedpost.

Isabelle was gone.

She had heard stories about people vanishing. Most of which were told to her by Isabelle but she didn't think that it would happen to her. Now she wanted to go home: to see her mother, stop her father, save Jace and see Isabelle again.

Clary tried to think of other, more creative ways, to leave the canyon but without magic of some sort, she was stuck. She ended up moping around the inn with the pieces of paper that had effectively become a replacement for her sketchpad.

Most of her skills were useless here. Nothing had to be kicked in the face or hacked to pieces and there was no one to recklessly try and save. So Clary began the long tedious processes of making a nicer map that fit roughly on one sheet of paper and then duplicating it for anyone who wanted one. The job took up most of her free time and it distracted her from her friends sudden disappearance.

When drawing the map got boring, she switched to a fresh sheet of paper and began to draw bits and pieces from home: Isabelle with her whip looking strong and fierce, an angel with beautiful blond hair, a crystal cup or a demon that was partially obscured in shadows. When this depressed her more, she began to draw the people around her. Eventually her drawings covered the table in front of her.

Clary didn't feel any better. It seemed that no amount of distraction was going to stop her from missing Isabelle.

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Lyanna had been at work at trying her hand at fletching when Clary came to the inn. It had been a few weeks since she had last the woman, but the fox ordeal had stuck out in her memory. Seeing Clary again only reminded Lyanna that she had failed to search her out and make certain she was all right after everything. It seemed that oversight had been a poor choice, since Clary was obviously not doing as well as she could, if her expression were any indication.

Gathering up her supplies, she plopped down at Clary's table. There was an enthusiasm that was slightly out of place for the current atmosphere, but it didn't really matter in her opinion. Lyanna was pleased to see her again. "Everything all right?"

Clary's fingers were spotted and stained with smudges of charcoal. She had pencils but she didn't use them for everything. They were something that could be used up and she didn't want to lose the option. The charcoal didn't give her the ability to draw ridged lines but it worked well enough when she was dumping her thoughts onto the page.

She looked up when she noticed Lyanna. Her vibrate green eyes had a lost a bit of their joy though she tried to keep the depressing feeling to herself. Clary didn't want to depress anyone else.

"Hey. Sure. Kind of." She paused, realizing that she wasn't convincing. "It's lonely here and I suck at everything." So no. She was not okay.

She knew Clary studied art, but she never really saw her draw (or anyone) like this before. Her attention was riveted by the details and lines she created as something was being sketched to life. This was something more than the crude drawings she and Benjen would trace in the mud. This was something beautiful.

The look of sadness in Clary's eyes gave Lyanna pause. She understood that look and what it meant. If you spent long enough in the village, it was an expression they would bear at some point or another. She had worn it even before arriving. Rhaegar's loss still pained her to think about.

"Did something happen?"

Clary loved drawing. It wasn't just something she did but something that she felt. She poured all of herself into her drawings like someone would a diary. It made a lot of her pictures darker than she intended at times. Then there were the times where her drawings were inspired by dreams and those turned out strange or like boys with angel wings.

"Sort of." She exhaled a slow breath before looking up at Lyanna.

"Do you have people here from your home?" Clary looked as if she really needed the answer to this question.

"I do." She knew she was lucky in that, even if most of her family came from after her time and knew her to be dead. She still had her brother, she wasn't completely alone as others were. "I have my son, my brother and his children." Which made for extremely awkward encounters for the young girl, who was now the same age as her youngest niece.

"Did you lose someone?" That seemed to be the most regular tragedy that they could experience. "Family?"

Her heart went out to Clary for that. There was no comfort to be had when you found yourself alone in the world.

"Not exactly family but close to it." Isabelle was part of her family. Her Shadowhunter family. It was a little awkward at times but Izzy was someone that Clary looked up too, someone that Clary wanted to be like. No one could compare to the fierce beauty that Isabelle had.

She sighed and began to pick through her drawings at the table. "I don't know if you knew her. She lived here at the inn." Clary plucked a drawing of a beautiful girl with a whip from the pile of discarded pages that littered the table.

"This is her."

She had never had a friend outside of her brothers or Rhaegar, but she understood loss and pain and it was clear that Clary felt a great deal of it. She never had the opportunity to meet Isabelle, but it was always tragic to lose a face among the village, isolating them even further. "No, I don't think I ever spoke to her."

Lyanna glanced down at the drawing, impressed first with the skill and then the loveliness of the subject. "You're very talented." She had said it before but it was still remarkable to see.

"Did you know her from your world?"

Clary looked down at the drawing. It was Isabelle: beautiful, strong and fierce. Her whip curling through the air like a viper posed to strike. Clary didn't know if the picture was very beautifully draw but the subject itself was beautiful. It had always been easier for her to draw the things that she could see, whether they be in her head or objects and people in the world around her.

"Thanks." She offered Lyanna a weak smile. "I'm not as good as my mom." Her mother was the real artist of the two of them and someone who Clary looked up too.

"Yeah. I met her a few weeks, months since arriving here." Clary was a little fuzzy on the timeline. A lot had happened in a very short period of time. "It's good that she's back in New York. They need her there." More than they needed Clary.

Clary never really did know what she was doing.

"What's in New York?" It seemed a better question than 'what is New York?' It didn't seem like it would be a pleasant subject, since the context seemed to imply there was some threat or war in her world. Though that would always be the most likely answer in Lyanna's mind, it was all she knew and it seemed unlikely context could be absent from any world.

"I'm sure she's safe." While a part of her wanted to offer the reassurance that she might come back, it was as Clary said, she was better off in her own world. Most of them were. It was the chaos they knew rather than the mysterious chaos here.

Clary looked down at her draws as she began to carefully gather them together. The paper wasn't very thin and her drawings had the potential to smudge if she wasn't careful. To combat that she had taken one of the sheets at the inn and ripped it into thin sections that she used as spacers between her images.

"Home. My mother and best friend and Luke." Jace. Clary pushed that last thought away. She didn't want to say his name out loud here, more so given her current broody mood.

"I know. I want her here because I'm selfish." Clary knew this about herself but she honestly didn't care. "I don't want to feel alone."

"I don't think you are selfish," Lyanna offered gently. "As you said, you don't want to be alone and you want someone from home. That's natural." It had to be hard to see others that had many people from their world, but being the only one from your own. She couldn't fully understand, but she knew how it was to be alone in a place, away from family and friends.

"You have a home to go back to as well. No matter how long it takes here, they say that it's like no time has passed in our world." But that was speculation in her opinion. Really, how could they know?

It was at least something to offer as comfort. "You could always come hunting with me every day?"

Clary was very skeptical. It was natural to want someone with her but that didn't stop it from being a selfish desire. She huffed a soft breath as she sat back in her chair, her green eyes dipping back down to her sketches. They were her journal and her cloudy mood had been reflected onto the pages.

"They say that but that doesn't mean that it's true for everyone." There was no way to know, not until Clary returned home. "A lot... a lot is happening at home." Jace was taken by her father and her father was creating an army of Shadowhunters; it was disastrous.

"I don't know if you noticed but I'm not a very good hunter. I can fight with swords and I never fought to eat the things I killed."

"All we can do is hold hope." Though she had little hope, whether time passed or not. "That's not the easiest thing when you are stuck in a place like this." This village was her hope in a sense, her chance to be with family. It wasn't what everyone else might want, but it was all she could really expect.

But these were darker thoughts and it wasn't something that Clary should hear after a loss. It was obvious she was grieving, so it was natural that she was doubtful of the normal platitudes when these things happened. Lyanna knew she would be much the same. "Would you be willing to train with me? I know how to use a sword a bit, but not as well as others."

She eyed the drawing once more, her finger running over the edge of the paper. "If I described someone to you, would you be able to sketch him?"

Clary groaned softly. She was really bad at the whole 'hurry up and wait' mentality. She wanted to be doing something, to be moving towards some goal. She had always been like that. First it was art and then it was being a Shadowhunter. Clary was always driven forward by something.

She perked up at the offer, as if she was a dog that had been offered a cookie. "Really? You'll train with me? Yes. Absolutely." Clary might be a little better but it didn't matter, having someone to train with meant that they would both get better in time.

"Yeah. If there is someone you want a picture of." She was pretty good at drawing things that were formed by loose images in her mind. She can probably draw something that Lyanna imaged too, as long as she had enough information.

That was something they shared. Lyanna was never a patient person and it lead to a great deal of difficulty for her family. She tried to rectify that here, but still found herself charging ahead into the woods and any type of adventure, not thinking about the consequences. She understood too what it was like to be denied something you desperately wanted and was forced to live with that disappointment. Each time she looked at Jon, she was reminded of that.

"Who else am I going to train with?" There were probably others, but she didn't know them or trust them like she did Clary. "I was thinking about trying to find a way to set up training dummies...once I can find the materials."

She nodded, scooting closer. "There is someone. I'd like to be able to see my husband again. I don't want to forget him while I'm here."

Clary knew that her impatient actions had consequences. She hated to think that she was the reason that Simon was a vampire but she didn't want to go back and change any of her choices. At the time, she thought she'd picked the right course of action. She had to believe that.

"Great. I have no idea what to make dummies out of but I can look around for straw or something. I'm sure someone has something." Having someone to spar with helped more than Lyanna might realize. Clary had Isabelle before and not having that time with her had left an empty depressing hole in her daily activity. This was her chance to fill that with something.

Her smile became more earnest at the mention of Lyanna's husband. "Of course. First tell me a bit about him. Like a few words about his personality. Then try and explain each feature." She reached across the table and grabbed a black sheet of paper. She'll probably have to draw him a few times to get it right but Clary didn't mind. She felt like this was a noble cause.

"I have an idea of how to make them, but I don't know where we will find straw and burlap." The pikes would be easy to make. A good knife and a thick branch would be enough to put into the ground and keep the dummy upright for even the most rigorous training. She would look into it and begin work soon. Just having a project was revitalizing for her.

She was young by nature, but the mention of Rhaegar took away the lines and worry in her features, making her that same child who had nearly glowed before the Septon as she recited the words. Her heart fluttered and ached all at once, still in love with him and just as broken at his death.

"He was extremely noble and composed. There was a calm about him that was so soothing, even during the worst of times. He was gentle and tender. While he was very strong and proud, he was able to make me feel safe and protected in his arms. He loved to sing and read. He told me of when he would walk among the people, dressed as a common musician. He would play for them and whatever he earned, he sometimes gave to other performers."

"I'll be on the look out." Clary had spent some time exploring through the woods for Jude and was confident in her abilities. Now she had something else to look for. It might not be straw but winter meant that things were dying and she was sure she could find a plant that sort of looked like straw. As for burlap... she might just suggest they use one of the blankets. The only draw back was that it was about to get very cold in the village.

She'll keep thinking of ideas. It'll be useful and distracting.

Clary listened and began to draw his eyes. She needed to know what he looked like to draw his face but eyes were a little different. Hearing about him added depth to the lines and curves, shadow and softness would be added to his expression. "What did he look like? Hair style, jaw structure, forehead?" She waved her free hand as if to tell Lyanna to go on. This was going to be a rough first sketch and one she'll have to redo since she didn't have an eraser.

She could feel her heart flutter at the sight of his eyes slowly appearing on the parchment. The more Clary sketched, the more it seemed like he was coming to life. There was even that familiar spark in his eyes, that melancholy that expressed so much wisdom and age. She could almost feel that intensity on her again, staring deep into her heart and soul. All of her better attributes bare before him, somehow found out.

"He had a strong jaw. His hair was silver and reached down to his back. There was a slight wave to it and he always wore it loose and free. His forehead was a bit high, but you could only tell when he brushed his hair back from his face."

It didn't mater if it was completely accurate or not. She could see the strong resemblance to Rhaegar. It was better than her memory, which might one day fade. He would at least be present in this world in some form, the sketch bringing comfort that he could not currently.

"It looks like him."

As Lyanna began to describe the more physical components of her husband the picture began to come to life and fill in. Clary drew his jaw, nose, mouth, hair and then did a few touch ups on the eyes. She didn't think it was perfect but it was a rather decent sketch for the situation and those who knew the man would most likely recognize him.

By the time she was done an hour had passed. Clary began to make smaller touches to his face and neck. All the changes were subtle but she thought it helped the end product. When she was finally done she turned the paper around for Lyanna to take a look.

"What do you think? Anything you want changed?"

Any large changes would involve Clary getting another piece of paper but she didn't really mind. It was giving her something to do and someone to focus on.

She stared down at the portrait for a long while as her eyes traced over the image, taking in every small facet and curve, searching her memory for accuracy or embellishments, but it was true to life. As true to life as she could remember. Near a year apart had caused her memory to become a little fuzzy, but it was still Rhaegar, preserved in time for her. Now she could see him, even if he never arrived.

"It's perfect." She murmured, lifting it up with trembling hands. A number of emotions swirling inside her. "I don't want to forget him."

Clary felt a mixture of emotions as she watched Lyanna.

"You won't." Her voice was soft but confident. "When you think you might, just look at this." She gestured to the picture in front of her with a smile. When Clary had first arrived, she hadn't thought her talents were very useful. She could fight but she couldn't hunt and she could draw. She hadn't thought drawing would be any use to anyone, but that was before she saw Lyanna's expression now.

"I can make more if you need too. I won't forget what he looks like either." In case she lost it or it somehow got damaged.

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003 - Missing Isabelle - [OPEN]

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