sixthiterationlogs | 001 ♥ i'm standing on my own two feet

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001 ♥ i'm standing on my own two feet

WHO: Isabelle Lightwood
WHERE: The Fountain, The Inn, and probably the rest of the village, too.
WHEN: 18th.
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Your general panicked-crawling-out-of-the-fountain, some violence because she might punch some people
STATUS: Open

The Fountain; somewhere hanging in between

She's dreaming. She's back at the Adamant Citadel, where the Iron Sisters reside and craft their weapons. This is one of the places she's always dreamed of going, wanting the meet the highly renowned Sisters and see the Citadel with her own eyes. But when she'd gotten the chance to lead up that mission, she'd managed to mess things up. This time, when she's in the water, she doesn't burn. It doesn't bubble and mark her of the sins she's committed, of the impurities she's put herself through.

This time, the water is cool against her skin, and her white dress clings to her thighs. When she opens her eyes, she can see sunlight streaming through the water's surface. She reaches out to touch it, to break her fingers past the surface. But it never happens. The pool at the Citadel isn't that deep.

Her lungs begin to burn. She reaches further, trying to push herself upwards. There's nothing for her feet to find purchase on, and she finds herself scrambling, panic beginning to set in. There's no way she can die like this. Not after dedicating her life to fighting demons. A pool of water is nothing compared to some of the things she's faced, she can't--

Fingers break the water's surface. Air touches her hands, and one last push has her surfacing complete, dragging in a deep breath. This isn't a dream — it's a nightmare. Her surroundings are unfamiliar, her clothes are unfamiliar, her hair hangs wet and heavy around her, and she can only imagine how terrible her makeup must look. But more importantly, she needs to find the others. Alec, Jace, Clary, anybody.

This has to be some sort of portal gone wrong. Really, really wrong.

The Inn; my life and the death of me

She searches. She searches, and she searches, and she searches. There's a police station holding farm animals, a hospital and a town hall that she peers into. Dozens of houses, of which she looks through the windows of. Some appear empty, some appear occupied. Some actively have people in them, and she's always quick to duck away before she can be seen. It would probably be helpful to talk to some of the people she sees, ask them if they've seen her friends.

Normally, she's willing to give everyone a chance. Right now, she doesn't know who she can trust and who she can't. Any of these people could be the reason she's here, and she needs to gather her bearings first. There was a pack with her when she climbed out of the fountain, and she's already searched it. Clothes, mostly. No stele, no whip, no weapon of any kind.

All she has going for her are the runes already burned into her body and her natural angel-infused powers.

After searching the village, she delves into the woods. Here, there are less people. Here, she calls her brothers names until her voice is hoarse. She searches and she yells until she's lost track of time, and she all but tumbles out of the woods, sticks and leaves stuck in her hair. For once, she doesn't care how she looks. She walks towards the lights of the town, and walks into the Inn. She'd peered through the windows before, but deemed it too full and busy to go inside.

But now, she doesn't care. She doesn't care how she looks, or how many people she runs into. She's tired and she's dejected and she has no idea where she is, or what's going on, and she needs some answers. It's warm in the inn, and there's a few people around. She clears her throat, and picks a few sticks from her hair before speaking up, voice strained and raw.

"Would somebody mind telling me where the hell I am?"

[ ooc: feel free to find her around the village too! ]

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She highly doubts that any of them would've hung around long enough to exchange names. Except for Clary, maybe. But Jace and Alec — they would've searched like her, wouldn't have stopped to chat up the mundanes or ask questions. Hell, the only reason she's playing twenty questions is because she got stopped by one, and decided it'd be better to get a little bit of info, some sort of lead, before continuing her search.

"Alec, Jace, Clary," she says, unable to help the exasperation or impatience in her voice, though she does manage to stop just short of rolling her eyes. "Maybe a Luke or a Magnus."

She could name off about twenty other names, but she's sure it's not going to make a difference. If they're here, they're looking for her like she's looking for them. She smiles, tin and pretty and icy. "Well, I'm going to. As soon as I find my friends."

None of the names are familiar, though Veronica's the one who keeps a list. He's not about to set anyone interrogating her though, so he shrugs, stretches the dog off of his lap and lets Aurora roll once in the dust before trotting up to inspect her potential new friend. Hopefully, her youth and bright demeanor will keep her from seeming like a threat.

He doesn't exactly know how to train caution into her, if so far no one's given her the bad reaction that might take.

"I haven't heard of any of them," he answers, rolling up off the step to stand again. "But I'll go with you, and the dog. We've spent a lot of time in the woods this side of the river, and there are some animals it'll be better to smell coming."

Isabelle's gaze flickers, from the boy to his dog. The most experience she has with dogs are the Hellhound demons that make their way around New York that she has to slay. There's no dogs in the Institute, and she doesn't really get out enough to see them out on the streets. Sometimes they come across strays, but those are skittish, and they don't really have time to stop and pet them.

But she extends her fingers to this one, letting her sniff them before reaching further to scratch the top of her head. She doesn't know if she's a dog person or not, but this one isn't too bad, at least.

"Fine," she agrees, looking up again. "But if you try something stupid, I will kick your ass."

He really shouldn't take threats so lightly, but in the absence of being able to do anything about them, he finds it easier to roll his eyes. Yes, she can probably kick his ass. No, he's not going wilt away into his house and let her wander the darkening woods alone over it. "If I try anything stupid," he promises, "it'll be more like trying to stand my ground against a badger or pretending I know how to climb trees."

Aurora gives her best behaved greeting, tongue gently out and testing the tips of the girl's fingers before bowing her head to be pet. She seems calm enough, Kira doesn't think he's meant any direct harm. Arrivals are tense, even if you aren't searching for loved ones.

Casey, almost ironically, had been running around after a dog. If only this one could be that easily placated. "If your friends were here," he asks, just to ask, "what do you think they would seek out?"

People haven't arrived in groups for a long time, and even then it wasn't usually friends and families. He thinks he's going to be the person around when she accepts that they're gone, more so than the guy who helps her find anyone.

Ugh, trees. She could probably scale the side of a skyscraper if she really put her mind to it, but trees? More importantly, trees, in these stupid hiking boots, without the use of any of her weapons or equipment, or her stele to give her some extra balance and strength. She's not looking forward to stomping through the woods. It'd be much easier to locate everyone among New York's busy streets.

Actually, it'd be easier to locate everyone if she had a warlock to preform a tracking spell. But that would involve having something of Alec's or Jace's or Clary's, and she's been stripped of all her belongings, it seems. Great.

"Me," she answers, shrugging a shoulder. She glances at him again, pets the dog on the head, and turns to head for the trees. "Or an Institute — an old decaying church."

At least, that's what it would look like to a mundane. To her, to them, it's beautiful and magnificent, a place that speaks of community and home. They're scattered all over the world, often in the bigger cities. She highly doubts there's one here, but it's worth looking for.

That gives him--pretty much nowhere to start, and he's wary to pull the cards, wary to offer ehat might be her first reading when he's sure there is only bad news. She reminds him, for a moment, of Peggy--locked into place, scratching for answers that fit a mold she wishes to cast them into. It's a dangerous way to live in general, but especially here.

"We don't have anything like that--maybe the town hall, you probably passed the back of it if you came through the fields. The only church we have is something a guy cobbled together in his living room."

Isabelle sighs, and while it's soft, there's frustration in it. She's getting really sick of not getting any useful answers. Of course, she supposes she can't expect a bunch of mundanes to know something useful. She needs to talk to someone from the Shadow World. Another Shadowhunter, preferably, but she'd settle for a warlock or a member of the fey.

Mundanes are most likely to know about magic users than anything else. She turns on her heel, facing him, but continuing to walk backwards. "Are there any magic users around? No offense, but a warlock might be able to help me out a little better."

Maybe he should pull the cards, if she's going to ask about magic like it's a given. She could be part of Credence's old life, wizards and witches and weird Puritans. Hell, maybe that's why she's looking for a church.

"I wouldn't count on that," he says, tilting his head to glance around her at the path behind her heels. Her dark hair sweeps back and forth with her steps, skirting the edges of his gaze, distracting him back to her.

"Our abilities are pretty lacking across the board. Something about this place weakens them, probably because they'd make it easier to get out." Lifting the deck from his pocket, he casts a glance at Aurora, finding her ever at his side, though she strays out to sniff the edges of the path created by those wandering further south than the houses. "I could ask them about your friends, but, like I said, everything's off here."

Isabelle stills, steps halting immediately. Could he be a warlock? No — no, that doesn't make sense, for about a million reasons. She'd be able to tell, able to sense it, in a way. He's not sporting any sort of warlock mark, and even if some of them are subtle or can be hidden, most aren't. Most importantly, he didn't recognize the dark, tattoo-like runes on her body, a dead giveaway that she's a Shadowhunter.

So he's not a warlock. Psychics and spirit mediums and mundanes with odd connections to the shadow world exist, but they're not very common. Either he's one of those, or he's a phony. She just has to decide which.

"Okay," she agrees, moving closer to him now, closing the distance between them. "Let's do a reading."

He scuffs to a stop after she does, trying not to walk into her, but then she crosses the gap. His brows lift, and he leads with one heel sliding back in the dirt before he follows, opening the space between them by a foot. She's new, she kind of wants to kick his ass--but fuck if he has to give up his personal space.

She's probably going to kick his ass, just to get back some sense of control, when his cards don't deliver good news. Hopefully Aurora likes him enough to bite her ankles, or something.

"I'm not bullshitting you," he says, lifting the deck between them and shuffling them with efficient, practiced movements. No flash and flare when he's trying to get her on his side. "They do work, don't doubt them if you don't like what they say."

Fanning out the cards in both hands, he holds them out to her face-down. "Hold a question in your mind, and pick the first card."

Despite her current mood, she's not a vindictive person. She rarely attacks unless provoked, or unless she feels the need to prove a point. Right now, she's not feeling either. Though she always finds it better when people assume she's going to kick their ass, because they tend to be more obedient that way.

Still. She's not in the habit of beating up mundanes, whether or not they turn out to be phony psychics. It helps his case that she can't find much of a reason for somebody to be running that kind of scam in a place like this. From what she's seen, there's not much to gain.

"I know they work," she answers, gaze dropping to the cards he spreads out. "When they're in the right hands."

She exhales, because despite her doubt, she's taking this seriously. She repeats the question in her mind over and over — Where is my family? — like a mantra that she won't let herself forget. Slim, scarred fingers reach out, touching the backs of a few cards before picking one out, and flipping it over for the both of them to see.

"My hands are fine," he says, a match for her own in all but the dark tattoos scattered over her skin, more sigil than symbol. That or she went to a shop where she and the artists were drunk, and narrowed in on a theme.

Who knows, with this place. In her world of warlocks and institutes, maybe they mean something. Kira still finds himself asking, "I can't tell what your tattoo artist was trying to bastardize, Arabic or Chinese."

In his world, they do plenty to both. It sets him up for the sigh he gusts out when she shows him the joker. "Yes," he says to the cards, "I know she's new here, and alone--so does she." Lifting his eyes back to her, he instructs, "Pull another, it can take a few with playing cards."

Most mundane boys tend to find her tattoo-like runes sexy, as they should. She's sexy, with her long dark hair and her slim frame and tight clothes, airing a sense of danger with her weapons and boots, and her marked-up body that she's never bothered to glamour. Though, he's reaction is one she's gotten, too, and she responds to it with ease.

"They're runes," she answers, eyeing the joker she's flipped over scrutinously. "They're burned into my skin, not tattooed."

She says this like it's not weird and something that most people would find to be a sick form of self-mutilation. The joker is passed off to her free hand as she draws another one, flipping it over for both of them to see again. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Okay," he says, letting her doubt strip away any guilt he feels for his own attitude. Her doubt could be the source of it, and he really should be better by now at not letting things affect him, but he only has so much energy to spare. "Your scarification artist has a sick sense of humor. That, or you can cut me some slack, because your runes are just as fucked as my cards, here."

For all he knows, she's from outer space like half of his new friends, or she has to wave a wand around like the other. For all she knows, tarot is a lot more direct.

"Keep going," he says, when she pulls the five of spades--at least it isn't the three, and he doesn't have to tell her anyone's dead. As she does, he holds the question in his own mind--tell me about her. The seven of spades follows, then the ten of clubs.

This place always goes in for the swords, he thinks, letting her hold her spread while he replaces the rest in his back pocket. "You've lost them," he tells her, tapping the top of each card in turn. "You've left them behind, you're alone on a new path. But it didn't start here." He skips to the ten, and carries backwards through them: "They put too much on you, a responsibility, a debt--or you've picked up your own. Maybe you did your best, but you've fumbled it, lied and stolen on your way here."

He finally plucks back the five of spades, flipping it straight in his fingers, and he doesn't have to press it, but he's tired of being scrutinized for having the gall to come out of his house and help. "You've left in dishonor. You want them now that you're here, but you were pushing them away when you disappeared."

He might as well be reading himself from a few years ago--but that's what this place is like. Everything is double edged, and you cut yourself as much as anyone else.

Edited 2017-05-04 21:44 (UTC)

In turn, she should know better by now than to piss off somebody with any sort of magic at their fingertips. Warlocks, the fey, psychics. They're not dissimilar, in some ways. Warlocks and faeires have the same sort of demon blood in their veins, and psychics have been touched by the shadow world in some way, somehow, through some distant lineage or a bad deal or a mistake. Either way, the point stands: they know things, they can find out things, they can hurt in a way that's far more than physical.

For instance, they can worm their way into your past, not seeing memories, but feeling enough to get a clear picture. And then they can throw all your failures and mistakes and wrong doings in your face, and remind you that you're not worthy of the runes you wear or the angel blood in your veins. He was being brutal on purpose, and she wasn't here for it.

Impurities, Sister Magdalena had said. Isabelle had tainted her body with the yin-fen, and later with vampire venom. She'd made a mistake, and ruined herself for the mission she'd spent her entire life wanting to go on. She doesn't need to be reminded of it. And she doesn't need to be told how fiercely she'd fought with her family before finally admitting defeat.

Without a word, expression impassive, she throws the remaining cards at Kira's chest, letting them bounce off and flutter to the dirt. Maybe it's childish, but she definitely doesn't care.

"Thanks for your help," she says, her voice sharper and cold now. "I really needed to hear everything I already knew." She turns, heading towards the woods again.

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001 ♥ i'm standing on my own two feet

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