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"Looking Glass"
"Answers, now."
"Not yet."
Not yet? Not yet? I am a freak as a mundane. As a Downworlder. As a Shadowhunter. I have memories—bubbling under the surface that want to tell me something—but I can't reach them.AS if I'm drowning. Everything since I have arrived proved that you have been spinning fake memories into me, Simon, and Clary so I'd believe that I've never met you. I have believed my whole life that I ran away from my real parents, only for that TO ALSO BE A LIE."
"Kiara I understand—"
"No Magnus. You don't! Do you have any idea what this feels like? How could you? I can't trust anyone. I never could but the thing is I could always trust myself but now my own mind is tampered and violated. And that just makes me so—just so—mad! So please. I. Need. Answers."
"Alright. But I'm warning you now, Kitten. The answers you seek will only hurt and you remember enough to know hurting you was never my intention."
"The truth however terrible or beautiful is the truth, Magnus. I want the truth. And you should have thought about that before you took my memories."
"So, it begins."
***
Kiara didn't like her room in the Institute. Sure, it was comfortable and had everything she need from a large, velvet blanketed bed to a bathroom that she did not have to share for once. Yet it lacked the things that made it hers. A safe place. Rather it was a uniformed somebody amongst a everybody that had no piece of her in the walls or the colors. Which is probably why she couldn't sleep. Or bring herself to dwell in thought without the irrational feeling of someone watching her through the smallest crack.
She wanted to cry. Yet, crying meant it was real and Kiara rather stretch her denial for as long as possible. In the end she settled for a game of chess. Kiara fancied that game when ever she wanted to occupy her mind and busy it so she couldn't think about what really furrowed her brow. A game she hadn't needed in a while.
Kiara had borrowed a set from Jace. She was surprised he had it at all but then again she couldn't just assume she knew him after what, two days? She had no one to play against. So, she opposed herself. Much like what she felt these days. Each side played its hardest and with most cunning until they both gave out in a stalemate. It was pointless, senseless, and fruitless, but it gave her company, anyhow.
Kiara had been biting her lip in thought and was about to sacrifice her long enduring black knight to free a course for her black queen. Before a knock rapped against her door. Kiara glided over and opened it to meet Alec who had an ever so constant, unreadable demeanor.
"Hey." Alec greeted.
"Hey." Kiara had the door remain halfway open because she wasn't sure whether she wanted to see him.
"I wanted to check if you were okay." The Shadowhunter scratched the back of his raven locked head and flickered his line of sight across the room and back to her.
"Well, I've certainly been better." Kiara cleared her throat. "Now why, are you really here?"
"I um—I came to apologize."
"That's refreshing." Kiara hummed sarcastically. "We ought to keep count on those."
"I really am. There is nothing wrong with you. Your— I'm sorry for being careless. I don't know, I can't think straight." Alec groaned in frustration. "We've been grilled to never let emotions decide for us. Rule with our heads not our hearts. Your arrival. My feel—Jace—my feelings... Your arrival and Clary's just wrecks everything I've built."
"It's alright you don't have to admit it, unless you know how you truly feel." Kiara sighed. "I'm possibly insane but I'm not blind to how you treat Clary the closer she and Jace get. Look self-acceptance is one thing, Alexander but loving someone who doesn't love you the same way is another. What bothers me is that you know it, but you keep creating this image of an emotionless jerk! Something we can agree you are not. It's not healthy Alexander."
"So, what you been here for two days. And you have me all figured out?" Alec scoffed.
"No. This is me knowing you for two days and figured out that you are hurt."
"You don't know me."
"No, I don't know the real Alexander Lightwood. But does that mean Izzy doesn't? Because the two of us can agree that you loving Jace, more than a parabatai should. Is a losing game and you don't deserve to be hurt like that, Alexander." Kiara had a pleading glint in her stormy irises that searched a very confused Alec.
"I don't want to talk about this." Was all he gave her.
"But—"
"Please."
"Alright." Kiara gave in reluctantly. "Was that all?" Alec opened his mouth then closed it again, thinking it over.
"What happened between you and Magnus earlier? We couldn't help but notice that you two were arguing before we left." Alec asked shyly, his blue eyes were wide like a curios child. Kiara leant against the doorway and briefly glanced at Jace's chess set. Wondering whether it was time to sacrifice a castle instead.
"I wanted him to tell me everything he knew about me. How to retrieve my memories. Who was I to him. Who were my real parents." Kiara listed.
"You know you never mentioned what was life like before you got dragged in by Magnus. Where you were before he and you met." Alec pointed out. Kiara sent him a monotonous facial response of her own. "If... that's okay." The tips of Alec's ears turned pink, and Kiara thought he was rather sweet in his own way.
"It's... It's complicated. But I promise I'll tell you and the others what went down between me and Magnus. Somethings just haven't quite... slid into place yet, I guess."
"I understand." Alec nodded slowly, he backed away, but Kiara still didn't feel like she wanted him to go just yet.
"Thank you." Kiara smiled faintly when Alec turned back to her.
"For what?"
"Coming to see me. I think what I needed was someone to talk to...Just think about what I told you, okay?"
Alec returned her smile. "Get some rest."
Kiara did not get any rest.
Her hair plastered her forehead, damp with cold sweat. The blankets seemed to have every desire to strangle her and coiled tightly around her body and a shadow of pain slithered up her leg in memory of the mountain ash laced knife that was once poised in it. Kiara had her eyes wide and awake while the gears in her brain spurred into a calculating motion that worked as a rope in a lasso that bound her and invisible hands of wrongs and lies pushed her into a cold river of memory. If she were strong the Angels would let her submerge. If she wasn't, she will drown.
Am I strong? Or is Kiara Chase another mask?
The stupid thing about it was that she was dead either way. If she rose from the murky depts that meant she had drowned, and her body was afloat. Or she drowned and sunk. In other words, witch hunts and trials were directed by fools responsible for killing many innocent women. *Insert creative palette of choice, swear words.*
The only thing that reassured her she was not actually drowning was her regular breathing.
In.
And out.
In.
And out.
In with the truth.
Out with the lies.
"How does this work?" Kiara asked, watching the glittery four-hundred-year-old place a shallow stone basin on the table. Which seemed to cast a silvery light that danced along the rim. The basin had odd carvings of runes and symbols which Kiara strangely enough could not recognize. There was nothing angelic or demonic about the basin that lay stationary on the work table.
A small part of her brain told her their was nothing magical about it. Magic grew from the base of science. A warlock couldn't light a candle from the mere flick of their wrist or sharp snap of a finger without their inner demon acting like a starved animal or magnet that drew the chemicals of the wax and fused it with the gases in the air. Carbon-dioxide, oxygen, water vapor, nitrogen. Heated BY the demon itself.
The stone curiosity before obeyed different rules. Not higher order or evil punisher but something quite natural.
Self.
The warlock and the hybrid were in his study which was stocked with capped vials of potions, sets of scales, rolls of parchment, inked charts, books, and bone. They locked the study's door and Kiara stood opposite from Magnus her knuckles clenched and on the table.
"You are going to enter a state of absolute space and time." Magnus beckoned her to come over and she moved to position herself right in front of the queer stone basin. "You're neither here nor there."
"Riddle much?" Kiara mused staring into the basin. "Also, I barely passed my Physics course." Kiara couldn't tell what she was looking at. Some substance pooled inside the basin, a confusion between liquid or gas. It was sometimes clear as a looking glass or as obscure as the future. An ashen silver oddity that moved ceaselessly; the surface like water caressed by a light breeze or ghost's whisper, and then, moved like parted clouds in a smooth swirl. A light to liquid, A wind to solid. Then nothing to something.
"Beautiful isn't it?" Magnus prompted.
"What is this?" Kiara asked, in awe.
"A Pensieve."
"Now your just winning me over with Harry Potter."
"What do you think inspired Rowling?" Magnus asked as if it was the most obvious conclusion.
"You know her?"
"I know a lot of warlocks."
"She's a warlock? I knew it! Well... I sort of knew it."
"I suppose you already know how this works, then?" Magnus asked, placidly. "Only it's a little different than what you do know. Yes it acts like a sieve: collecting memories, thoughts and reflects them back for a review but you can scratch out memories for a real Pensieve..." Magnus plucked the Fairchild ring from her finger without consent. " Extracts powerful enchantments that veil the truth hidden in conduits like your family ring. With the help of your blood of course."
"How original." Kiara snarked. "But what does my blood do?"
"How much do you know about 'olfactory memory'? Evoking memories through smell." Magnus tossed the ring into the Pensieve, and the surface quaked with a cloud of nothing and something.
"Just enough for small talk."
"Well, it's quite effective for trauma induced memory loss—though in your case magic induced. Although the blood isn't for you to smell but something to trigger a message to your brain seeing how it refuses to remember."
"What do you mean? It's the magic which won't let me remember."
"Right and wrong. The Soul Sword should have broken the enchantment I placed on the ring, but it didn't. The only explanation for that is you yourself, does not want to remember."
Silence greeted Magnus's words. The annoying thing was that Kiara didn't deny it. Which without doubt backed up his theory. Maybe it was fear of the unknown or something else. Yet an empty sense of acceptance slumped against her.
Was it better this way?
Whatever it was that Kiara felt. Magnus in his own solitude felt saddened.
Kiara stepped out of her confinement on the bed and slowly paced her way to the stained-glass window. The outside world wasn't particularly clear, consumed by night that peaked with dawn in the East. The only thing she could make out were the lamplights that blossomed even with the stained glass that obscured it. Kiara settled for the sound of vehicles rumbling along unaware that they were passing a refuge for angelic soldiers, who were either asleep or working into the dawn.
The glass was cold from the inside, for the outside had condensed into water droplets. Kiara rested her forehead on it and the beads of sweat that had collected were less irritating. The cool surface soothed her by a certain measure but did not satisfy her conflict. The battle between head and heart that made her wonder whether the Nephilim weren't all that wrong when it came to their code of head before heart.
It certainly was less painful but what was life without pain? A fantasy that's all. The hybrid's head knew that the more she knew about herself the stronger she'll get. Yet her heart was fragile and afraid that knowing would be the end of the semi state of peace she had accomplished since her dark years. Magnus understood and had sent a jet of magic from his fist and into the Pensieve, which gave off an eerie hum. He told when she knew was ready, the Pensieve would appear before her.
"Heart is a fool" said Head.
"Head is stupid" said Heart.
"Both of you, shut it" said Kiara.
"You started it!" Both organs said in unison.
***
"And he spoke to you?" Jace and Kiara asked together, for the umpteenth time, from Clary who apparently had a vision of some sort where the prism like necklace she got from Jocelyn-- had allowed her to have some one-way communication with Valentine the twisted bastard himself.
A/N: I'm changing up the description of the necklace because portal shards are not purple, and it was only like that in Season 1.
"He said my name and then said, 'your mother for the Cup'." Clary explained yet again.. "Want to hear that in French?" Clary huffed. "Vous êtes tous les deux exaspérentes."
"Quel charmante." Jace responded, sarcastically.
"Je t'aime aussi, sœur." Kiara added with sappy sweetness.
"Who said that?" Alec appeared behind Clary. Kiara sent a hopeful beam his way, but he looked stormy as ever around Clary. "Who said 'your mother for the Cup?'"
"Valentine." Jace and Kiara answered.
"He's with my mother." Clary clarified urgently. Alec ran a hand up his ruffled hair and snapped sharply.
"And he can speak to you, through that necklace? Here, in the Institute?"
"I suppose. It's like when I saw Dot—I wasn't really there but somehow I was and—". Clary got cut off by Jace who seemed to be having a moment of epiphany and plucked the necklace out of Clary's hand for closer inspection.
"It's a Portal shard." Jace tossed it over to Kiara who caught it, "What do you think, Witchy?" Kiara scowled.
"I give the nicknames around here, Jerry." Kiara peered at the so-called Portal shard. While in the beginning it had resembled a rainbow tinted crystal. She noticed that the blunt, yet jagged surfaces seemed to have a little more than color but actual objects that painted a picture. Or rather a window into a place.
One small, crooked side had the vague image of a staircase like the one back in the NYPD precinct. Another larger and smoother edge showed a room like the living room back in the loft, a room with some greenish light and another which looked like a garbage strewn alleyway.
"He's right. When fragmented their confused essence just holds photographic memories of the places it has portalled last." Kiara elaborated while handing it back to Clary. "You don't think there's a way for us to track where it took Clary—well some part of her anyway. Maybe that's why Jocelyn wanted you to have it. We could ask Magnus, whether..." Kiara glanced around expectantly but everyone was lost in their own train of thought. It was only Clary who returned first.
"All I know is what I saw...my mother's alive. She's unconscious, but alive. Maybe your right and Magnus can—"
"No." Alec said stubbornly, "We've already got the attention of vampires and ended up in a Downworlder rave and caused warlocks to go into hiding. If we keep interacting with Downworlders, the next thing you know Valentine Morgenstern's daughter's arrival will be broadcasted to werewolves, seelies and warlocks—not as friendly as Magnus or this Dot." Alec argued, "we have to find another way. Where are they?" He asked pointedly at Clary.
"I don't know." Clary said helplessly racking her experience with the Portal shard to find a clue of some kind.
"But you said you saw them. Were there any identifying characteristics? Equipment, weapons, photographs?" The blue eyed Shadowhunter listed. Rash with the whole interrogation because he didn't know Clary like Kiara did. Jocelyn made a mistake by raising Clary to live in a mundane world which was further blinded by showering her with good things. Clary was strong. No one can deny her that.
But for real strength she needed experience. Some hardship to survive and live through. Kiara could only thank the fact that Luke and herself made their mark so Clary could adapt more quickly and take a blow. Kiara could guess and empathize with the fact that Clary was overwhelmed with the fact she saw the mother she had been worried sick about—being. threatened by the man she had only learned to fear through the way everyone talked about him..
"I don't remember. It was awful." Clary stressed. Alec looked like he didn't believe a word of it and looked like he was about to press on.
"Alec, lighten up." Jace directed at his parabatai.
"I'm trying to get something we can use out of this." Alec waved Jace aside, dismissively. "Clary, what did you see, exactly?"
"Valentine has my mother. That's what I saw."
"Alec, she saw her mother being held captive by a mad man. Surely, you can understand that she'd be more focused on them." Kiara reasoned but he wasn't taking it.
"We already knew that. If I were her I'd be more interested with finding out where my mother is held. Emotions are nothing but a distraction. You're ruled by them. We're taught to control them." Alec snapped coldly at the petite redhead. Clary wasn't having it, so her fiery flare lit up and she snapped back acidly:
"And how is that working out for ya?" Alec shot Clary a warning look which bolted to replace a still monotony.
"It is my job to protect the Institute." Alec drawled. "If Valentine can see in, that's a door I have to shut. Now... let me take a look at that thing." Alec gestured at the Portal shard which Clary gave him, not expecting what happened next.
"Now, it's in the proper hands." Alec dismissed and turned away abruptly and Clary took a second to process before marching after him.
"Hey!"
"Alexander."
"Where are you going?"
"To put this somewhere safe." Alec replied to Jace without looking back. They entered the ops center and Isabelle who was talking to another Shadowhunter, glanced there way.. "Where no one could be tempted to use it."
"We should use it. Alec, like your girlfriend said; we should use it to get to Valentine." Jace tried.
"She's not my girlfriend." Alec rejected, hotly.
"I could be." Kiara mused but Alec strained the muscles in his face further and ignored her. Picking off where they left off.
"If I were Valentine, I'd make you think that you could rescue Jocelyn. And then I'd lure Clary to me and leverage her life for the Cup." Alec droned while raising his stele over a selected rune on the floor. It glowed in response, and it rose off the floor to reveal a glass cabinet which held some steles. Alec placed the Portal shard necklace in it and let the cabinet recede back down to regain the appearance of a rune scribed floor.
"I like Jace's idea." Clary agreed. Alec scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"Of course, you do."
"Quit the eye rolling or we'll have to assume you keep checking up on a non-existent brain." Clary retorted.
"Alexander, while I appreciate it. Taking the necklace wasn't your call to make." Kiara insisted.
"Maybe but it was the right call seeing how all of you are blinded by your own selfish emotion. The two of you love Jocelyn. Jace is smitten with Clary."
"Love isn't selfish, Nephilim. Sometimes the heart is right." Kiara pressed. "It worked when we saved Simon from the vampires."
"Yeah..." Alec jeered, "vampires. Bored, decadent, self-involved vampires. Valentine is a real threat. He can't be handled by four Shadowhunters."
"Five." Clary and Jace corrected.
"Whatever. You and Kiara are two halves of one Shadowhunter. Leave it there." Kiara wasn't quite hurt by Alec because that was technically true in her case.
"Your delusional." Clary retorted.
"Your insufferable." Alec spat before storming off, away from them. Clary glared helplessly at the rune which barred her from the Portal shard and stalked off, herself. Leaving Jace and Kiara alone in Switzerland. They briefly stared at each other before realizing they had no purpose here.
"I don't like you."
"I don't like you, either."
"Fine."
"Fine."
And Switzerland split in two.
***
"There you are." Isabelle swung into the corridor Kiara had been walking along, aimlessly. Kiara gave her a fleeting smile in greeting but she was out of her sunshine and in with a cloud over her head.
"Are you okay?"
"Save the question for Clary." Kiara shrugged. "She just saw Jocelyn and then Alec..."
"I heard. And believe me, there have been many times where I wanted to kill Alec. Look, I know my brother can be a real pain in the ass... but he means well." Isabelle walked beside Kiara, shoulder to shoulder. "That necklace—"
"—Was dangerous." Kiara completed. "I get it. I don't trust that thing within a mile but that was a risk me and Clary had to take up ourselves."
"The thing is, you're not on your own, anymore. You're part of us now." Isabelle said kindly. Kiara felt sadness brush her shoulder when she realized where she heard those words before.
"Your not the first person to tell me that, Iz. I work better alone for a reason. You don't know what kind of person I am. Before this—the Shadow World. Magnus. Clary and Jocelyn. I had a rough life. I did things I'm not proud of even when I had the chance to be a part of something like you're telling me now."
"Then tell me about it. I'm no expert in feelings but I can understand rough backgrounds."
"It's not that easy, Izzy. Your not going to see me as I am now."
"Of course not. I'll be able to see you more clearly." Isabelle pressed on, determined.
"In a bad way."
"Fine. Have it your way. Can you at least debrief me with why you were yelling at Magnus the other day?" Kiara hesitated. Last night she was too exhausted and burdened with information to talk to Alec. Maybe telling Isabelle might relieve her somehow, the hybrid was in a better state of mind now.
"Alright."
***
"So, it's a problem of will against will?" Isabelle summed. Kiara nodded. They were sitting alone on a bench that marked the empty corridor. "No wonder you looked pale when we left Magnus's place."
"It should be easy, Iz. Getting my memories back was the plan from the moment we realized me, and Clary lost them. Clary has no chance of getting them back, but I do. It could provide myself answers—provide all of us answers."
"But?"
"It means change. It means I won't have a place here because I am indeed a Downworlder, and my life has been manipulated since the day I was born. And no one has let me choose my path for myself. I've been cheated Izzy. Good intention or not it's put my childhood through Hell and my later years in grief and guilt, and now... I am expected to eat this all up and face danger that I don't know a damn thing about. Kiara had to force word after word from her mouth as a wallowing feeling of someone trying to strangle her crippled her.
"I'm sorry Ki. I didn't think you'd feel that way." Isabelle remarked.
"I didn't think you could keep up with my self-pity."
"Like I said. I don't do feelings. Having no success in Alec's case—but I think... you should be selfish on this." Kiara frowned at this strange piece of advice.
"What do you mean?" Kiara wondered. Isabelle played with the ends of her lovely black hair, in midst of her own wonder.
"Sometimes... it's okay to not think about the greater good but... think of the little left behind. Yourself."
"But—"
"Let me finish." Isabelle elbowed her." In this situation your well being is on the line. It's your life giving you every right to think about yourself as well as the rest of us. If you let this opportunity to get your memories back, go. Then that's okay but remember the consequences. Because this choice is defined by risk and reward. If you accept the memories, you'll be whole, but you'll also be hurt. Right now, you're in denial. You fear the unknown. We're not above fear, Ki. When you make your decision, my only request is you do what's right for you and don't make decisions out of fear."
Kiara and Isabelle were intercepted by a comfortable silence. Kiara felt the strangling sensation cease a little and new found respect for Isabelle peaked.
"Your wrong." Kiara said finally, catching Isabelle of guard and the Lightwood seemed struck with an unexpected reel. "You actually do, do feelings." Kiara added with a faint smirk that reignited a part of herself. Isabelle rolled her eyes, but she couldn't resist a smile forming.
"Will you think about it?" Isabelle asked, with a hint of seriousness in her eyes. Kiara nodded.
"Of course. Talking with you actually cleared up some of my self-loathing. Thank you, Iz. Maybe we do have a chance of working together to rescue Jocelyn."
After a few more minutes of talking, their conversations expanded to more amusing topics as they swapped life stories and their own dealings with annoying siblings. Isabelle didn't seem to like talking about her mother, so Kiara made note to bring the topic more gently another time. Isabelle noticed that Kiara didn't like talking about her childhood and made her own note to embrace that topic in a better day. In the end they found themselves walking on the same corridor that stretched to the entrance of the Institute.
"I respect your brother but with all the talk of our decisions being ruled by emotions and there he was blowing us off and doing what he wanted because seeing Clary early in the morning just ruins his day. Instead of making a move with the necklace he kept asking what Valentine's room looked like.
"He was interested in Valentine's style? Fascinating... Poor you though." Isabelle added slyly.
"No, he thought Clary might have seen something that could help us find him."
"And did she?"
"I know her. Seeing her mother when their was a good chance that Jocelyn might have been dead would just distort everything else. Trauma does have a way of blotting out memory—"
"Isabelle." Said an unfamiliar voice of a woman.