🖤Shadowhunters Short Stories❤️

III - Sebastian

A river wound through the countryside, in a place that looked like it had just endured a major earthquake and volcanic eruption at the same time. Charred areas stood out starkly against large cracks in the parts of the landscape that remained green.

Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern sat on the dew-ridden grass atop a hill, surveying the destruction surrounding him.

He had not intended to destroy the country in this manner, it had done nothing to him, but things had got out of hand in the Battle for Thule. The rebels had been harder to deal with than Sebastian had anticipated.

Ever since taking on the identity of Sebastian Verlac in Idris, he had decided he preferred the name. He had never truly connected to the name Jonathan, perhaps because it reminded him of his psychopathic father or because it was the name of the first shadowhunter ever created. Sebastian didn't desire to remember either part of his past. He was as much a shadowhunter as the vampires and werewolves and warlocks he had slain on the battlefield.

He was better.

He was a new and improved race; faster, more cunning, professional. More angelic than his ancestors had ever been.

Like Ash, a shadowhunter - fey hybrid who, once fully grown and trained, would be unstoppable.

Sebastian would lead his army to the other dimension with Ash at his side and Jace under his command. No - Janus. The Jace Herondale of this world had insisted that he would be nothing like the weakling of the other. He would never share his name.

Sebastian worried, though. Recently Janus had been visiting that other place more and more. Every time he came back changed. He would be distracted or angry or just downright depressed. One time he came back almost in tears, and when Sebastian went to ask what the hell was wrong with him, he just heard him muttering in his room.

'Clary...' he had whispered to himself.

Sebastian had not said that name in so long it hurt to hear it. Without his permission, his mind conjured up all the images of her it could scrounge from his memory:

Clary at the house in Venice, smiling back at him over her shoulder. Clary standing before a blank canvas; colours whirling behind her eyes. How her hand felt in his. The pads of her fingers brushing his skin. How her hair felt as he ran his hands through it. How her lips moved under his own.

He shrugged off these thoughts before they clouded his mind, but he still felt a distant longing; A profound desire for those moments with her, Happy and carefree. It had been so long since he had felt a smile grace his features - a smile void of evil or destruction...

But no. He couldn't think this way. He had to stay strong for his cause, to bring Clary back to him. He had to stay strong for his army, to keep control. And his son... Sebastian tried not to think about his son.

Sired from the shameful union with the Seelie Queen, Ash was a mere reminder of his past mistakes. However vital he would be to the future of Thule.

Some days Sebastian regretted how he treated his son. He hadn't wanted to be like his father, but it seemed it was necessary. How could Ash treat others without mercy if he wasn't treated the same way?

But, now and again, other instincts came to him out of the blue. The need to wrap his arms around his son; to shield him from all the dangers this world and others could throw at him. He wanted to spend time with Ash teaching him all that he knew. He wanted to tell him about his aunt, how she would have loved him and cared for him. How she still would once she was back and everything was alright.

But when these thoughts came, infrequent as they were, all Sebastian had to do was think of his father.

His father pushing him to do the impossible and then beating him once he inevitably failed.

His father driving away his mother and therefore losing Clary.

His father dying before him, begging and pleading, as Sebastian drove the blade through his heart.

For that had been what happened in Thule.

Sebastian had killed his father.