light_of_the_world | And who are you, my pretty fair maid...

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And who are you, my pretty fair maid...

There were a multitude of things that Hild enjoyed about working at Graymark Books. The owner, of course, was the best boss that Hild could possibly have. But the store itself was still a marvel to her, crammed full of books, which were so precious in her time and place, so rare, none of them so neatly formed as these, sturdy and precise. She had quickly learned how it was that a book smelled, and just as quickly learned to love it. The customers were usually polite, relaxed, unperturbed by Hild's still lingering accent or the way she had to pause at times before answering a question. She learned in leaps and bounds from these interactions and, on those afternoons when the store was empty, peaceably silent and still, all activity shut outside the broad front window, she read.

It was not very fast reading. English was more of a mongrel language on paper than on the tongue, Hild felt. The alphabet was familiar to her, thankfully, but whenever she sounded out words, their meanings eluded her. Luke would read things for her at times, when he was also in the shop on slow days, but sometimes that hindered more than helped. (How "receipt" could be spelled with a p was beyond her.)

One such slow afternoon had Hild behind the counter, bent over a more simply written book called The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Her finger dragged slowly along the lines and her lips mouthed the words, but the moment she heard the front door open, she promptly greeted the new guest with a well practiced "Hello. Can I help you find something?"

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He was, she decided quickly, the very essence of a gesith. Old enough to have wet his blade with enemy blood, but young enough to wish to prove himself still. Arrogant in his youth and skill, but not without reason to be. Cian would not have taken the chair either, despite its tactical position, but that made him seem ill at ease, edgy, wary. A fool, when there was no threat.

But Lintlaf, old and sour, would have taken the seat and thought nothing of it, thought nothing of her except as a maid who might pour him some wine. Lintlaf was a horribly stupid gesith.

"I know him as long as I am here," Hild said, giving him truth but a vague measure of it. "A little less."

She leaned forward over the counter, propping her chin up in one hand, her eyes never leaving him.

"He does not tell me of you."

She moved and he didn't. She leaned and he continued to stand ramrod straight as if he was at attention and she was a drill instructor. The posture was natural for Alec who used to standing for hours on end, waiting and watching for threats to materialize from the comfortable confines of a shadowy alley or a damp rooftop.

"Good, he shouldn't be telling people about me," Alec said, crossing his hands in front of him, fingers curling over his wrists. It was the extent of his relaxation. "I'm Alec."

He'd been leaving off his last name though he wasn't sure if that was intentional or not. Luke, he knew, had talked about his past with some people though he didn't know if his parents had ever come up during the course of conversation.

"Luke and I are from the same place," he said, loosening his grip and allowing some information to flit through. "Manhattan."

"Idris," she corrected him mildly.

His words itched at her, that he was too important to be spoken of. They itched just enough for her to wish to take him down a peg. As if she did not know that they were from the same place, what he was, when he first stepped through the door. Hild held no doubts about their skill as warriors, but she knew from experience that winning every battle could weaken a man without his realizing.

"Then Manhattan," Hild continued. She would not call him a liar, even so. "I am from Northumbria. Many centuries back."

Idris. The Shadowhunter country. Luke really hadn't skimped on what he'd decided to reveal to Downworlders and mundanes. A muscle in his jaw twitched but that was the entirety of his reaction to her quiet correction.

"Idris isn't my home." He'd been born there but he remembered very little of the short time he and his parents had spent there. He remembered the Brocelind Plain and being held up by his father's arm before he jumped into Lake Lyn.

He remembered their house, large and hollow, its spacious halls the perfect place for a young boy to scurry around while his parents conferred quietly behind closed doors.

"Manhattan is and that's where I met Luke," he continued neutrally. His parents were the ones that knew him from Idris, he was sure. He wasn't that Lightwood. He'd never be that Lightwood. "Not Idris."

Alec hooked two fingers into his pocket, letting those words settle for a few moments. "I don't know Northumbria. Luke hasn't shared about your home with me like he's shared about Idris with you."

She smiled, unable to help herself, to hide her pleasure at that tiny crack in his armor, that twitch in his jaw. But her smile was smooth and paired with a small, apologetic nod of her head. Her mistake, she seemed to say, though it was only a difference of semantics.

It pleased her too, in some way, to hear him push Idris away from himself, his identity. From what Luke had told her, she did admire the place distantly, saw the beauty in their brotherhood of warriors, their singleness of purpose. But Idris was the place that disowned Luke. She hated it, for all its imagined beauty, and would have hated Alec if he had cleaved himself to it.

"Many do not know Northumbria," she admitted with a wave of her hand, dismissing and gesturing back. "Too many years ago. I do not say much of it to Luke. It is England now. I am of the Angles."

Her words brought to mind the globe in the library and some of the maps Hodge had showed him over the years. He knew exactly where England was in comparison to both Idris and Manhattan but hadn't done much with the information. There were Institutes all over the world and Hodge had given lessons on the few differences each Institute and their Shadowhunters demonstrated.

Alec had found the information mostly boring because he'd never planned on going anywhere but New York. That was his home, that was where he was bound and that was where he wished his duty to keep him for the rest of his life.

"So, you're from a different time entirely?" Alec gathered, head tilting sideways slightly. He didn't sound surprised. He was still new to Darrow but his life had been filled with the dark, the grotesque, the murderous and the impossible.

Darrow had managed to pull him away from a battle without the aide of a portal or demonic magic so being from a completely time period didn't seem out of the realm of possibility. It was a terrifying thought, knowing that a Valentine from a time when the Circle had their greatest power could arrive.

Every day, Alec was able to see just how small the Clave's reach was. They were insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Tiny and unimportant. He felt like a traitor for those thoughts but couldn't stop them from occurring.

Hild nodded in answer to his question, wishing she had a precise year to give him. It bothered her that no one seemed to recognize the name Edwin or the kingdom of Northumbria. (It was only a small blessing that no one easily recognized the names of their enemies either.) Her ability to read English was comparable to that of a small child's, in this city: slow and careful, easily stymied by mysteriously constructed English words. As a consequence she had not had the chance to read many books on history and could not pinpoint her place, and her people's place, in the time. When it came to conversation such as this one, it made her feel adrift and without a place.

"Every thing is different," she admitted. Hild smiled ruefully and nodded at his weapon. "Even a bow." It was a shape that she could recognize easily, but the form was slightly different, not the long, smooth-shafted bows of home, which required so much strength to bend.

Alec looked back at his bow and then back at her. He thought, briefly, about taking his bow off and bringing it closer, letting her look at it but he didn't. The bow was Marked, runes drawn intricately all up and down the dark wood that made up the upper and lower limbs.

Alec would have it no other way either. His bow was an extension of himself, something that he'd honed and practiced at for hours. He'd notched and shot arrows until his fingers bled, he could shoot targets half a block away with his eyes closed and he never felt more comfortable in a battle than when his bow was in his hands and an arrow was flying.

"How?" Alec asked, letting himself be curious about the differences in his bow and the bows she knew. Weaponry was a safe subject, a subject that he was both interested in and willing to open up somewhat about.

Trust a gesith to want to talk about weapons. They were all the same, no matter what world or time they came from. Luckily Hild was not as restricted in her sex as most, could ask questions of archers and weaponsmiths and be indulged with answers. She had also been genuinely interested in the answers to all the questions she asked, so she remembered the details well.

"More long," she said, raising her hand to a little below her chin. "And... flat? I do not know how to say it, but your bow--" Hild drew the shape of his bow in the air, how it bent at the ends and had a more pronounced curve. Then she drew the bow she was familiar with, one long shaft with barely a bend.

"I see some men pull to cheek," she said, demonstrating. She had never let fly an arrow herself, but she knew the stance perfectly. "In my time, they pull to chest."

Alec tried to imagine pulling his bow to his chest and found that he couldn't. With the feathers of the arrow brushing his cheek, he felt utterly in control. He could sight his target, aim quickly and fire with balance and precision that he wouldn't have if he had to clumsily tuck the arrow against his chest and fire.

"You know your stances," Alec remarked with a nod. It wasn't that big a surprise, really. He lived with Isabelle who knew her weapons just as well as he did, just as well as Alec did. She could handle his bow and arrow, her dagger, a seraph blade and her whip and still manage to grin and flirt without trouble.

"That your weapon of choice, then?" he wondered, both curious and gauging. Downworlders were so different here and each time Alec learned about some new power, some new group, something else popped up that demanded his immediate attention.

Hodge would have loved the variety.

She inclined her head in a shallow nod, acknowledgement and thanks. It was an honest remark, but Hild did not feel it overly deserved, as she could never call herself a true archer. Stance was one thing, a copying of motions and little else. One only had to be observant, not skilled.

"I use staff," Hild said, then paused, searching her memory for the right word. "Quarterstaff. I have none here, but maybe one day I make." Perhaps one day she would figure out how to make one, but whereas a staff looked to be simply a staff in her day, something any might use without it being considered a weapon, a staff would stand out now, be more obviously to those around her than the knife at her belt.

"I have seax here." It occurred to her then to pull the short sword from its sheath now. A Shadowhunter warrior could appreciate it, and they had spoken long enough that he would not take it as a threat, she hoped.

The gray ray skin was more for comfort than for show, though its color and texture stayed truer than regular leather would. But the silver and copper inlay gleamed in the soft, warm light of the bookstore. Though it had cut a fair number of men, it was more ornament than instrument of war.

Alec finally took a few steps closer, examining the short sword carefully as he did. It reminded him, in a way, of his seraph blade. The length and breadth looked about the same but the blades were radically different. Still, it looked well taken care of and Alec figured that, if needed, it could do damage that would take awhile to heal from.

"I've used staffs before," Alec shared, loosening up just the tiniest bit. Weapons continued to be safe territory. They weren't talking about Idris or anything personal and he wasn't trying to painfully make small talk either. "Feather staff, mostly. I don't have one here. I've got a guisearme though. It's a family weapon."

Alec remembered feeling so proud, so pleased that his father had let him use his favored weapon. He'd thought that maybe they were going to be able to close the chasm between them but then the battle had happened, the demon had happened.

Darrow had happened.

Hild was unfamiliar with whatever feather staffs were, though she assumed, safely she thought, that they were not simply staffs with feathers attached to them. Warriors liked to be showy and bold in battle, but they also liked to live and feathers could not help them with that.

Her brows drew together at the mention of guisarme, something about it familiar, the shape of his tongue around the syllables perhaps.

"A family weapon is a thing to have pride in," she said agreeably. If her father had a sword, a spear, a shield that he loved, Hild did not know if it. It had not served him very well, even if he had. "It is lucky you keep it with you. Maybe you are here long enough, it goes to your son."

Alec fixed her with a look for that one but didn't say anything. That statement was dangerous to someone like Alec, someone who doubted that he'd have any kind of meaningful relationship in his life and someone who was determined to get back home and give his father his weapon back.

Alec's future was one of solitude and loneliness. He assumed that his siblings would find someone to love and that he'd be left behind, left with running the Institute once his mother and father passed it onto him. He'd already watched it when they were both in Idris so in lieu of anything else, he'd have the Institute.

"I'm sure he wants it back," Alec eventually said. He hadn't picked up the guisearme to do anything but clean it since that first day. It was propped up near the front door of his apartment, shiny and dangerous looking. Ready for a fight. Ready to eradicate demons from this existence.

"I prefer the bow," he added after an awkward silence. "That or a seraph blade."

She misspoke, somehow. She insulted him or... rubbed salt in a wound that she had not known was there. That stare was heavy but blank. Dull. It was an old wound, one that troubled him often, so often he did not have the energy to lash out as a man might when he felt injured and cornered. An old strife between father and son? But if the father was displeased with the son, why give him such a weapon?

Unless there would be no sons. Hild spoke from her own experience, from a world where men fought and women worked. Luke's world was more modern than that. A daughter could carry a weapon as well as a son. But their would be neither.

She stared at him, brows slightly knit, wondering if it was illness or injury, or some curse he carried. The woman he loved was dead and no other would do? She could not decipher him.

"What is seraph blade?" Hild asked, moving to sheathe her sword again, now that he was done with it. "Wait... I think Luke says this one time. But I do not see it."

Alec was quietly grateful that she didn't push him on the issue of his father. He'd been prepared to shut the conversation down and refuse to answer any further questions but she hadn't pressed. His father's guisearme had buoyed Alec's hopes at the time, given him hope that his father would understand if Alec decided to open up but that was all for not now.

His father wasn't here and the more Alec thought about it, the more he knew his father would never understand. His father had offered a weapon instead of encouraging words or a comforting touch. His father wanted nothing more for his son to be a strong warrior, carrying on the Lightwood name. His father wanted more than he was.

"This is a seraph blade," Alec said, pulling the blade from a sheathe at his waist. It was about the size of her short sword, possibly slightly longer, but it looked dull and blunt. In this form, it looked like any other short sword but Alec knew better.

The seraph blade was dormant, not yet named, and Alec wasn't sure if he'd ever name it since it was the only blade he had with him. Once it was used, it was gone.

Hild examined the blade with polite interest, but she could not help but lift her eyebrow questioningly at him. It looked like a blade, not particularly well cared for, something that would lead to his death rather than his survival. He was either playing with her or there was something more to it.

"It has magic," she guessed. "Is it secret Shadowhunter magic?"

"It has to be named," Alec said, turning it over and picturing the brightness of the sword when it lit up, adamas glowing like no other material Alec had ever seen in his life.

"Once it's named, it looks much different," he said, taking the seraph blade back and turning it once to examine the blade. If he hadn't been a Shadowhunter, he'd have been underwhelmed and unimpressed with the blade but he knew what kind of power and beauty it held.

"But, it depletes," he sighed, sliding the blade back into its sheath. "It's the only one I have so I don't want to waste it on just anything."

Her eyebrows rose. She was not sure what to make of that, a weapon that had only one use, that could not be wielded in battle after battle, sharpening itself on bone and oiled in blood. It was a little like having a sword that you knew would break, at some point, and so you had to be careful with it. There was nothing careful about battle, in Hild's experience. Only man against man, body crashing into body, desperate hacking of blades and bashing of shields.

"How do you name it?" she asked, then corrected herself before he could answer. "I mean to say, what name? How do you choose name? It is name of power, yes?"

"An angel's name," Alec provided, resting his hand on the hilt of the seraph blade. "It's infused with heavenly fire and the spirit of whichever angel you choose when you name it. Good for killing demons."

With the lack of Iron Sisters in Darrow, Alec had no way of recharging his blade so to speak so he'd been careful not to name the blade just yet. It was a valuable and powerful weapon that needed to be saved.

"It still works as a sword even when the power of the angel is exhausted," he clarified. "It's just not as powerful."

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And who are you, my pretty fair maid...

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