Do you have any thoughts about the greek AU for Malec?
I so love all things mythology greek style!
I mean, there was one particular thing that was started in the discord server that had my mind factory working. (wait a sec, need to ask permission to use the discord prompt here)
(okay, we cool)
The prompt was this:
Alec as Artemis and Jace as Apollo, Simon as Icarus and Isabelle as Enyo. With Magnus and Raphael as the unfortunate somewhat-mortals who draw the attention of the gods by sheltering a runaway oracle; Clary.
(after getting a bit of background from the prompt giver, I added this)
So, possible scenario?
Clary is being kept captive at a temple, with the occasional public appearance, where she has a "vision" that goes something along the lines a great calamity is coming;
because the gods are angry at the humans greed, and it can only be prevented if the people sacrifice some of their riches to the temple to appease the gods.
Clary is made to have these false visions by the temple's head honcho, Malachi, who her father sold her to, so that Malachi can get richer.
During one of those public visions, Clary gets away from her guards for a few minutes, just long enough to run into Simon and ask him to help her.
But before he can do anything, the guards are on her and bring her back.
Simon goes to his friends, Raphael and Magnus, and tells them what happened.
They decide to break Clary out of the temple and get her out of the city, to the free lands where they can't get to her anymore.
Jace becomes aware of one of his oracles leaving one of his temples, and enlists his brother, Alec, to help him get her back.
They aren't aware that the oracle was kept and used against her will, just that an oracle was at a temple as it should be, and now the oracle is gone, and that just won't do.
So he gets Alec and Izzy to help him track the missing oracle, they come across the group and after maybe a little a little back and forth, they learn the full story and decide to do something about the corrupt temple head. Along the way, Malec and Jimon happens.
Right, so I'm back to writing after my exams have finished, and I've written this to warm up my writing skills a bit. I've seen loads (by loads I mean, like, 6 or 7) of Malec AUs where one of them is a mermaid.... I would suggest you go check out may10baby’s Glaukos, if you haven’t already. It’s amazing :)
This might be longer.... this chapter ends with a not-so-satisfying conclusion, so I may have a few extra chapters.
WARNINGS: gore/blood, injury, language- basically proceed with caution.
The ocean was an expanse of violent turmoil, waves twisting and colliding with one another, shamelessly flinging themselves into the thundering sky. The horizon was lost behind the wall of water that always seemed to be at war with the sand, crashing down upon it with an unearthly might. White foam bubbled on top of the waves, but other than that there was no other colour to be spotted that wasn't grey or black, murky like the night sky that was too cloudy to let the stars pierce the darkness. The chaos was truly mesmerising. Magnus couldn't look away.
He was watching the scene from his own bedroom window, his legs crossed on his bed and his forehead pressed against the window glass like an eager child. Above the condensation of his breath on the cold glass he could see, mere acres away, the ocean in all its furious glory. It wasn't rare for storms to churn at this time of year, but it was extremely rare to be able to look through the darkness and see each individual shape of the waves. The only light around was from a lamppost further up from the shore, by a few benches along a tourist path.
Lightning suddenly cracked across the sky, thunder making the earth tremble slightly. Magnus blinked once. To be honest, he was too tired to react how he maybe should have done. His mind wasn't inside his huge, drafty home, it was outside, fighting with the waves, conjuring images of possibility beyond the storm, searching beneath the turbulent surface for the dark secret the opaque depths held. He always did this on clear nights, when the waves were loud enough to reach through his window and whisper to him, rousing him from his sleep.
Too tired to do anything productive but too alert to go back to sleep, Magnus sat against the headboard of his big, lonely bed and lost himself in thought. Big and lonely, his bed was, just like the rest of his home. It was an old house and held a certain charm that Magnus couldn't help but love. It wasn't particularly huge, but it was certainly too big for one man and his cat. Even with the Chairman, Magnus still felt a constant ache of loneliness inside of him, but it was only a small price to pay for the luxury of having his own isolated dwelling. He had bought the house for two reasons: the price (which was low for a house this size because of its uncomfortable close proximity with the sea) and its strategic position, a short walking-distance from the local pub, but still quite faraway from any of the townspeople who were annoyingly friendly and mostly retired couples.
Most nights, Magnus usually had a one-night-stand, most often a tourist girl he had spotted on the beach sunbathing. Or sometimes it was a man. Anything went, really, to fill up his empty nights. Tonight, however, he was alone. This was because he had a date the following evening with a local rich girl who lived somewhere along the coastal line, perhaps just a few miles away. They had already been on a few casual dates in the past, but she was slightly prude and hadn't even been inside Magnus' home yet, given she had passed it many times. This time, he was going to take her to a romantic seaside restaurant in an attempt at establishing a long-lasting relationship. Her name was Camille and she was gorgeous and polite, for a rich girl, but Magnus could forgive her for that, assuming the date went well and they decided to give the relationship a shot.
Magnus wasn't particularly looking forward to the date and his heart still wasn't in it the next day when they were sat by a window overlooking the now calm ocean. The restaurant was an extremely short distance from his house and he had been there many times before. Camille was chatting mindlessly about her father and his job and money, and Magnus was mindlessly listening to her, nodding, but never taking in a word of what she was saying. Instead, his eyes and his mind drifted back to the sea. It was unusually still, the wind barely stirring the surface, causing small ripples to interrupt the stillness. The water was completely different from the night before, now serene and turquoise, providing a shimmering mirror for the orange sky as the water seamlessly met the sky along the fine line of the horizon.
He turned his attention back to Camille in case she noticed his lack of interest in the conversation. When she eventually stopped talking about her family and their money, she actually asked Magnus about something that wasn't all about her. Magnus told her a little about his job working as an editor and journalist for a global magazine. He spoke of it in a similar way to if you were to list, in chronological order, all the plays Shakespeare ever wrote. It wasn't that he didn't like his job, because he really, genuinely did. Working with imagination and mainly from home was definitely ideal for Magnus. It was because, although Camille was gorgeous and wealthy and educated, beneath her immaculate mask, Magnus could sense something off about her, a serpent hiding beneath the flower. The serpent's presence put Magnus slightly on edge, not enough to hate her, but enough to know that having a relationship with a manipulative snake would drive him insane. She looked like a snake too, with her green, calculating eyes and thin, painted lips. Her hair was a white-blonde colour, hanging in precise waves that reached just past her shoulders. She wore an emerald, knee-length pencil-skirt with matching heels. Well at least she made an effort.
And then he went back to looking out the window miserably while Camille jabbered on, wishing he could be outside instead of couped up in the restaurant with Camille. The weather was perfectly warm, hot enough that a swim in the shallow water without a wetsuit on would not give Magnus a cold. The beach was nearly empty despite- and because- of the calm weather. Because there were no decent waves, surfers didn't usually go to the beach. Only tourists, sun-bathers and children were there, enjoying a peaceful Saturday afternoon in June along Britain's southwest shoreline.
Something then caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, bringing him out of his reverie. A flash of movement down by the caves, a black shadow appearing momentarily near the surface of the turquoise water. Magnus couldn't see clearly, but he could tell that it was too long to be a diver and whatever it was, it was unusually large for an animal that lived around these parts. A large seal? Perhaps a dolphin in too shallow waters? Magnus made a mental note to check once he'd finished up with Camille, which he hoped was to be soon.
It was. Camille, apparently, needed to get an early night because of some modeling job she was going to have an interview for early the next day. Magnus paid the bill and accompanied Camille to her car, silently praying to himself that she didn't ask for another date.
"Thank you for this evening, Magnus," she said as she opened the car door of her black Mercedes. "I do apologise for cutting it so short, but our time was not wasted."
Mine was, Magnus thought grimly. "Yes," he said, flashing her a well-practiced fake smile. "I had a brilliant time."
"The food was good, for a restaurant so... quaint." Magnus inwardly rolled his eyes. "I'd love to do this again, sometime soon."
Uh oh. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. Do I really have to go through that again? He answered his own thoughts by answering Camille out loud. "Yes, that would be nice. I'll call you with some details." And then forget all about them.
Once he bid Camille farewell and waved as she rolled out of the car-park and drove out of sight, he was left standing in the half-full car-park and finally allowed the smiling façade to slide from his expression and disappear with the wind as it whipped his hair across his face. He sighed heavily and wondered how he was either going to avoid Camille or let her down gently. But the problem was that he really didn't want to face the serpent when she was angry. That he especially wanted to avoid.
He was slightly surprised by his sudden lack of enthusiasm for Camille. When he first saw her he was instantly attracted to her, but then again, any red-blooded man would be. Now he was starting to think that perhaps he had been shallow, as he had just been on one of the most uninspiring and clinical dates of his life. She was so impersonal and detached that Magnus couldn't even tell whether she was attracted to him or not.
Feeling the need for a long walk and some fresh sea-air, Magnus turned left down a footpath that lead to the beach. He decided to look around the caves that he had spotted earlier along the short journey home, just in case there had indeed been an animal of sorts down there. The chances that he'd find anything were slim, but Magnus fancied a walk anyway.
The rocks weren't wet or slippery under the baking sun, so Magnus held his shoes in one hand and hopped, bare-foot, from each boulder to the next, expertly keeping his balance after each step. Although he didn't feel particularly youthful on the inside, his years of experience wearing him down, he did feel childish and young on the outside as he made his way down the cove in a similar fashion to how he may have done as a young boy. The rush of the wind against his skin, the sparkle of the sun reflected from the water into his eyes- all these feelings were somewhat rare in the daily life of a twenty-eight-year-old journalist, and he really missed them. He missed freedom.
Then a single person came into view, lying in between some rocks at a strange angle. Magnus was at quite a distance from him, but he could make out a mop of messy, inky black hair and the fact that the stranger was topless. As he drew closer, the stranger not noticing him nor turning around, he could see the top of something black along his waist, probably a wetsuit that had been pulled down to his hips. "Hey," Magnus called out to him, beginning to jog over to the man. "You alright?"
The boy’s head snapped round suddenly, his eyes wide with alarm. There were two things striking about those eyes: firstly, how unusually blue they were, a sapphire-blue that rivaled the sea's own beauty, and secondly, how blood-shot they were, as if the stranger had been crying. The young man stayed stock-still, as if from shock, as Magnus drew closer, finally seeing the lower half of the man.
Abruptly, Magnus stopped in his tracks, only a few metres from the stranger. He almost slipped off the rock he was balanced on as he yelled "Holy shit!", his free hand instantly flying to his mouth. It... it can't be! He's wearing a costume, he has to be wearing a... a costume? No, that's wrong... What?
The creature tried to scramble away from Magnus, using it's upper-body to drag itself out of the rock-pool it had been lying in. However, instead of slipping back into the sea as Magnus half-expected, it backed into a small, dark cave, it's tail leaving a long trail of glistening water and dark-purple blood in its wake.
A tail, it's a tail, he has a tail, Magnus slowly realised as he tried to slow his erratic breathing, trying to keep his sanity under control. "That," he breathed, "is a tail. It's a mermaid- I'm going crazy!" He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, expecting the figment of his imagination to be gone. It wasn't. It still lay there, struggling to get further from Magnus.
One of the creature's hands was gripping its human side, the other fumbling through the darkness to guide it into a corner. From the flesh above his waist protruded the handle of an ivory-coloured object, probably a knife or a dagger, the tip sunk deep into his side. Blood pulsed out of the wound and around the weapon at an alarming rate, blood oozing down his side, trickling down over his white skin and then, his tail.
The thing was long, longer than normal human legs. It appeared to be in the shape of something like a dolphin's tail, only more flexible. It had skin made up of tightly-packed scales, each one varying in a different shade of metallic black, silver and blue. It had a feathery, tattered-looking dorsal fin stretching down its spine and had a wide caudal fin that flopped weakly on the floor. The creature curled itself up as much as it could, cowering away from Magnus as if he were a predator.
Magnus cautiously followed it inside the cave, his brain not processing information properly, causing him to stand and gape at the thing before him. It was panting hard and fast and was groaning, whimpering in agony at every move it made. It sounded human to Magnus, despite it's inhuman qualities. The creature pursed his lips tightly to try and muffle the small cries of pain that bounced in echoes off the walls of the cave.
Pulled back to his senses by the distressed human sounds it was making, Magnus took a few steps towards it, slow so not to scare it further. "Shh, it's OK," Magnus whispered, showing his palms to calm it. "I just want to help."
He didn't know whether it understood him because instead of looking at him, it squeezed it's eyes shut, grinding it's teeth together and hissing through them. It's breathing was becoming more heavy and laboured, heaving from it's chest. Magnus assumed the creature had some form of intelligence as it didn't look like it was trying to extract the spear from his abdomen. That was definitely an extremely bad idea, even though the pain was clearly excruciating. Magnus actually knew quite a lot about first-aid and health-care in emergencies, which was useful seeing as he wouldn't be able to take it to a hospital, or a vet...
Magnus slowly placed his hands on the creature, one to pull the body so he could see the wound properly, and the other to restrain it's tail in-case it decided to attack him even in it's weakened state. The scales felt dry and prickly under his fingers. It's eyes flew open at the touch, then squeezed shut as if deciding Magnus was less of a threat than the immediate and potentially lethal wound in it's abdomen. Magnus inspected the damage gently, not touching the wound in-case he caused him any more pain. The dagger didn't exit his body, so Magnus had no way of telling how deep it was. For all he knew, the spear could have been the only thing keeping the creature alive. The amount of blood that he was losing was frightening, more thick, hot liquid pulsing from the wound every second. It definitely needed a hospital, but that was not an option.
"Right, w-wait here, I'll be back," Magnus said, scrambling to his feet. It didn't appear to have heard him, more focused on controlling it's breathing as sweat broke out all over the human-half of it's body. Magnus really didn't want to leave it, as while he was gone it could either go into shock, do something to move the spear or die of blood-loss. "Don't move," he said for good measure, in-case it could actually understand him.
Magnus' heart hammered painfully in his chest as he sprinted across the beach, bare-foot because he had left his shoes in the cave. His breathing became erratic as he sped back to his house which was thankfully only a few minutes away. Thoughts were whirling round his head, constantly demanding answers to questions that he certainly couldn't answer himself. However, one thought stood out amongst the rest of the panic, which was that the creature, or whatever it was, needed help, NOW. It was moments from death and Magnus knew he couldn't let it die. It wasn't human, but it still seemed human.
He rushed round his house, retrieving a first-aid kit, a clean duvet-cover to use as bandages and a torch so that he could see through the rapidly-growing darkness as night approached.
Once he sprinted back across the deserted beach, using the torch to guide him, he found the creature in the same position, unconscious and still, a huge pool of blood surrounding him. "Oh no," Magnus breathed out, rushing over to him, dropping his supplies and kneeling in the blood. He felt his neck for a pulse and he breathed a sigh of relief as he found one, albeit a weak, slow one.
He used the torch to inspect the damage further, wincing as the smell of salt and iron hit him. He needed to take it back to his house so that he could perform the surgery of removing the spear under better lighting.
In the meantime, Magnus needed to stop the bleeding and wake the boy before his body gave out. "Hey, wake up," Magnus stage-whispered, grabbing the young man's shoulders and shaking him vigorously. His skin was damp and ice-cold to the touch, scaring Magnus with how close to death he really was. Under the dim light, he could make out the boy's muscled torso, his chest and shoulders wide from a life of swimming underwater. His jaw was square and stubborn, his lips colourless but full, his black, rugged hair damp and swept back from his face. "Come on, wake up," he said more urgently, slapping the young man's face lightly with one hand to rouse him.
His eyes finally fluttered open a little, looking at Magnus weakly. "There you go," Magnus said with a reassuring smile. The young man was too weak to respond, but he continued to stare at Magnus blankly. "I need you to stay awake for me, just as I get you out of here, ok?" Magnus took the single blink the man gave him as a yes.
Quickly, constantly checking to see if the man was still conscious, Magnus wrapped the duvet-cover under his waist, pressing it firmly around the spear, immediately soaking up the blood from the wound. He then pulled out a bottle of distilled water from the first-aid kit and emptied it over the wound, causing the man's body to jerk and shiver. Magnus was then suddenly aware of how naked the man was. He had assumed that he'd be fine in the cold because he, well, he lived in the... ocean, but maybe that didn't apply when on dry land. Goosebumps had broken out all over his human half, and given he was still weak, he was cold enough to shiver. 'Oh shit, what if he has hypothermia?' Magnus panicked, wondering whether it was after all the best idea to take him inside.
Leaving him to bleed to death wasn't an option, so Magnus instead shrugged his jacket off and pulled the merman up, putting it around his pale shoulders. Feeling the bitter cold himself, Magnus put one arm under the man's back to keep him upright and then slid one arm under his dry tail. The merman was too weak to struggle and didn't protest or make a sound as Magnus lifted him, managing to still hold the torch in one hand as he did so. The man was incredibly heavy, probably because of the long addition to his human body, but Magnus was able to carry him just fine due to the adrenalin pumping through his veins.
Concealed completely by the shadows and darkness, Magnus rushed back to his house, careful not to move or put any pressure on the metre-long weapon that was fixed rigidly in the man's abdomen. The stranger's eyes kept fluttering shut, but Magnus could tell he was actually trying to stay conscious. To help him, Magnus spoke in his ear for the whole journey back, mainly telling him he was going to be alright and that it wouldn't be long before he could sleep again. Magnus needed to keep him awake just until he removed the spear, to prevent his body from going into shock.
He burst through the front door of his house and a pleasant air of warmth and comfort surrounded him, probably generated by the underfloor-heating. He rushed up the stairs, clutching the man to his chest and entered the guest room and gently lay him down on the double bed that his tail didn't fully fit on top of. The man still had his eyes half-open, but be was completely unaware of his surroundings. True, he did look like a fish out of water, but the warmth seemed to have a calming effect.
It was then that Magnus realised that he'd have to perform the entire surgery while the patient was conscious. He had no anaesthetic or powerful painkillers to help. Instead, he brought up a bottle of strong whisky and forced it down his patient's throat, hoping that the alcohol would numb the pain instead of make him drowsy.
Before removing the ivory spear, Magnus tied the merman's arms to the bed-posts and then straddled his tail so that he wouldn't be able to struggle and knock Magnus as he attempted his first and last ever emergency spear-removal. What Magnus found, thank God, was that the wound wasn't deep at all, but did enter the body at an angle so it could potentially be quite long. But the merman had been able to crawl away from Magnus earlier, so the chances that the spear had punctured an organ or touched a rib were slim.
Magnus took his chances and removed the spear. He pushed the edge of a pillow into the merman's mouth to give him something to bite down on, but the sounds that left his mouth were loud all the same. The muffled screams and groans of pain were human, but chilled Magnus as he worked, almost making him wish he had left the young man to die. Perhaps that would have been better.
It was two hours before Magnus had completed the extraction and cleaned the wound. It had stopped bleeding. He couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He didn't particularly have high-hopes for the merman's survival, but he had done all that he could. It was lucky he had spent four years living with a medical student in university, that way he knew a few tips on dressing wounds and cleaning deep ones. He considered stitching the wound together, but he was really out of his league on that one. All he could do was hope what he had done was enough to let the body slowly heal itself.
The bed that the now sleeping merman was lying on was completely soaked with dark purple blood that smelled oddly salty. The mattress was completely ruined and so were all the bed-sheets. Disposing of them was going to be a nightmare.
Magnus, exhausted and almost falling asleep on his feet, then moved the creature from the guestroom and put it in his own bed, not really caring about where he put the man. All he really wanted right then was to sleep.
The time read 04:46AM. He lay by the unconscious merman, the stranger beneath the duvet and Magnus curled up on the opposite side on the big, somewhat crowded bed. Magnus fell asleep immediately.
