Land of Shadows and Fears (Mortal Instruments/ Mark Blackthorn FanFiction)

Forgetting the Past

Lately something had changed.

Mark could feel it, although he did not know exactly what it was. He had been with the Wild Hunt for - he did not know for how long, since time ran differently in the Faerie. To him it felt like an eternity, but he was still young, so his mind told him, it could not have been more than months or a year at last. He had lost count of days or weeks, they flew by in a dizzy blur, and most of the time he was thankful for that, because it meant that he had no time to think about his old life.

There were times Mark remembered who he used to be; times in which he could see the skyline of Los Angeles or the demon towers of Alicante - the two cities he had called home. He remembered that he used to be a Shadowhunter and that he once had had a family, brothers and sisters. He remembered their names, but their faces had faded throughout the time he had spent here. Sometimes he saw them in his dreams, blurry and vaguely, hearing their distant voices. Sometimes he heard them calling for him, as if they were looking for him, trying to bring him back home.

Those were the nights he usually woke up screaming, his heart panting heavily in his chest, thundering against his ribs, while his hands were shaking uncontrollably. Those were the nights in which he missed his loved ones so badly, it made his heart ache with a burning, all consuming pain. Those were the nights he felt lonely and wished for nothing but to return to his family.

But deep inside Mark knew that it was not possible. Even if he tried to hold on to the thought that his siblings and the others were looking for him, he felt that he would never see them again. For a long time he had held on to the hope that they were doing all they could to bring him back home, that they were moving heaven and earth, but his hopes had been dashed. The bitter truth was that all the time he had spent with the Wild Hunt nobody had come to bring him back home, although they knew that he was still alive. He had warned the Shadowhunters during the Dark War; told them that the Fair Folk was betraying them. Mark had risked his life for those he once had thought of to be his kind. He had been raised as one of them, although he was part fey - his mother had been a fairy, his father a Shadowhunter. Even though Mark and his older sister Helen had been considered as half Downworlders, they had been allowed to become Shadowhunters, because they were able to wear the Runes. All this had made him think he was one of them and he had tried to be a good Shadowhunter. He had learned how to fight, had helped to teach his younger siblings how to fight and had tried to be a role model for them.

Mark had wanted to be accepted as a Shadowhunter, clearly aware of the fact that his appearance alone would always give away that he had fairy blood in his veins. While his younger siblings had brown hair, his and Helen's hair was light blond. Of course, that was not that unusual - but just like all fairies, he had pointy ears, which he tried to hide beneath his hair most of the time. All his life he had tried to hide, to deny his fairy side. He had wanted to be just like the other Shadowhunters, to be accepted by them and not to be judged just because of his blood.

But despite all his efforts, and despite the love his family had always shown towards him and Helen, Mark had felt like an outcast most of his life. It was as if he was always in between. The only exception had been Amelia - or Mia, as he called her. She and her family had moved to the Los Angeles Institute shortly after the mother of his younger siblings had died. At first, Mark had not paid that much attention to Mia, but then they had met frequently - mostly in the library - and slowly Mark had fallen for her. She finally made him feel complete, when he was with her, he felt at home. While all the others just seemed to see what separated Mark from them, Mia just saw what they had in common. She did not seem to care whether there was fairy blood in his veins - to her he was just Mark.

Sometimes he saw her face in his dreams as well, and that were the dreams that hurt most. Thinking about her was painful. He missed her with every breath, with every beating of his heart, in ever minute of every day he was forced to spend away from her.

During his first days in Faerie Mark had dreamed of Mia quite often. There had been days when those dreams had been his shelter, his lifeboat in this storm-tossed ocean he had been thrown into.

But that had changed; those nights had begun to fade away, just as Mia's face had begun to fade away from his memory - slowly, but constantly, leaving an empty space that could not be refilled. No matter how hard Mark was trying to hold on to her, she was slipping through his fingers like sand.

And it was not only Mia. Slowly Mark seemed to forget almost everything about his old life. Of course, he still knew that he had a family, but sometimes it was hard to remember their names. Sometimes he just forgot how their faces looked or their voices sounded. It was as if everything that once had been a part of him, that once had defined him, was fading into oblivion. There were times when Mark was not sure if he still knew who he was himself. And in his darkest moments, he did not even want to be reminded of who he was - or who he once used to be. Forgetting was easier, it brought less pain than remembering all he had lost.

All the time he had spent in Faerie - regardless if it had been days, weeks or years - had made Mark realize some things. Now he knew that he was left on his own devices, that no one would come to rescue him. He knew that the feeling of being a Shadowhunter and being part of their society had been nothing but an illusion - they had completely forgotten about him. Whatever he might have believed his whole life - now he knew that he was no Shadowhunter anymore, probably he had never been one to the others.

But he also knew that he was no real member of the Hunt neither. Whereas his fairy blood had always been a reason for the Shadowhunters to mistrust him, it was his Shadowhunter blood that made the other fairies eye him suspiciously. Mark was aware of the fact that he would always be in between, not really belonging anywhere. It was an extremely painful cognition. There was nothing scarier than the thought that he would have to spend the rest of his life alone.

But lately that had changed. The reason why his situation seemed not that hopeless anymore was one of the other hunters.