Bows, Arrows and First Kisses: A Mortal Instruments Fan-fiction

Bows, Arrows, and First Kisses

Isabelle didn't like her, of that much Alec was certain. But Isabelle didn't like girls much, when you really got down to it. Isabelle was tall, taller than Alec, though he was two years older than her, and she was better than him with a seraph blade, though she'd only just gotten her first runes a few months ago. Alec had gotten his first runes almost two years ago, and the new girl—Salma—had them all up and down her arms, and where there weren't the inky black lines, there were fainter ones, white and thin, like little snowflakes on her dark skin. She arrived by plane with her mother; neither of them had had much luggage, and both of them had gone to their rooms as soon as they could. In the week since, however, they had begun to come to the table for meals more often. Alec would have come to eat, too, if he had been them—his mother always cooked the best food. Despite looking to be around his and Izzy's age, Salma hadn't spoken to either of them once since she'd arrived.

She's shy, Alec's mother had said, flipping through her documents. You should go talk to her. But Alec was shy too.

One day, Isabelle teased him viciously, telling him in front of everyone at the table that the only reason he hadn't talked to Salma yet was because he liked her. Their mother had quieted her, but not before Alec had seen the blush across Salma's cheeks, almost as red as his own. That evening, while she was reading in the library, Alec went and sat next to her.

"Hi," she said.

"Uh," Alec said, his brain sputtering, and he blurted, "I don't like you."

She stared.

"I mean I do like you, but not like Izzy said. Its not that--You're just--I don't know you, is all."

Salma laughed. "It's okay," she said, and just like that, they were friends. She had a bit of an accent when she spoke, blunted Ps and rolling Rs. Sometimes, she wouldn't have the word to say what she wanted, and Alec would guess and guess until either he got it right or they would start laughing.

"English is very different from Arabic," she said once, and she told him about her home, Palestine, and how there had been no Shadowhunters there, except her family, for a long time. Now, not a single Shadowhunter remained.

"What happened?" Alec asked. Quietly, because he wasn't sure whether she would want to talk about it. But she did want to talk about it, and she told him about the bomb that had killed her father, her two brothers.

"It was an accident," she said, and while her eyes were glassy, not a single tear fell. Growing up, Alec had always known that Shadowhunters were not supposed to cry; it was an expectation, not an exception. But on Salma, it looked brave. "I always thought that Shadowhunters could only die in battle. Or maybe in their sleep, when they were old and satisfied with what God had given them. We're Nephillim; my father wasn't supposed to leave like that."

Alec looked down, and he saw that she had taken his hand, in the middle of it all. Her palm was warm, and a bit moist, but he didn't mind.

They began practicing in the training room together, and for the first time, Alec realised how very small Salma was. Almost a full head shorter than him, and her bones seemed light and delicate. When they fought with Seraph blades, her movements were awkward, every parry and strike weighed down by the length of adamas. Alec offered to practice with something else, and her face, scrunched up with effort, brightened.

"Watch this," she said, and she ran off to the corner of the room, where a bow and a sheath of arrows were. Slinging the sheath over her shoulder, she made her way back to him, smiling.

Alec just watched. He had never tried to use those before. His father had shown him only how to use Seraph blades, and Alec wasn't much of an adventurer. The bow looked too big for Salma, but it must have been just her size, because she held it with much more ease than she had the Angel blade. With one smooth motion, she pulled an arrow from the sheath on her shoulder, strung it on the bow, and let it fly. It shot through the air with a faint whistling sound, and then there was a dull thud as it hit the target's center, on the wall on the other end of the room. Catching Alec's look of amazement, Salma smiled even wider. "Want to try?"

"I've never used a bow and arrow before," Alec said.

She laughed in the way that sounded like wind chimes in summer and said, "Then I'll teach you."

She gave him the sheath of arrows first, and then helped him to hold the bow just right. "Hold your hand around here," she said, directing it with her own. She smelled like rosewater and almonds, and her hands were slightly smaller than his. Her fingers were slender, but not long, and a brown design wound up her wrist, little flowers and dots and waving lines so intricately painted, they seemed to form a kind of lace on her skin. Alec wanted to ask what it was, but she was already telling him where to put the arrow, how to hold it so that the string of the bow was pressing against his cheek. His arms, strong, though he was only twelve, held the arrow steadily.

"Aaand—let go!" she whispered. He did, but he hadn't strung the arrow tight enough, and it fell short of the target. But he'd loved the sound of the arrow whistling through the air, the anticipating, comfortable feeling of holding the bow, so he tried again. He forgot to ask about the markings on her skin, and it wasn't until a few days later, when he'd managed to hit the bull's eye in the target three times in a row, that he remembered. His mother had brought in some cookies for them to eat, and they were taking a break from all the practising. Nibbling a cookie, Salma looked up, and with a smile, pointed at the rafters.

"Look!" she said, and Alec saw an arrow, wedged in the wood of the ceiling. "Now we know where that arrow went."

She sat down, and in the next minute, lied down on the floor. Her braid was coming undone, as usual, and it splayed out by her shoulder. Alec noticed, again, the pattern on her wrist; marks, but not in the way he'd ever seen them before. They were fading now, but they were there, soft russet against the brown of her skin.

Sitting beside her, he asked, "What is that?"

"This?" she asked, holding up her wrist for him to see. He nodded, and she said, "It's henna."

"Henna? What does it do? Is it like a mark?"

"No, not a mark. It doesn't do anything, really. It just looks pretty." She laughed and showed him her wrist, all the patterns, mixing seamlessly into each other. "Isn't it?"

Alec nodded. Just like the Arabic writing Salma had shown him, just like her accent and the baklava, sweet and doused in honey, that her mother had given his family to try, there was something strange and lovely about the design. Alec looked up, and he saw that Salma wasn't smiling anymore. Her eyes were on him, her lips slightly parted. In the next second, her eyes fluttered closed, and Alec realised, a moment before it happened, that she was going to kiss him.

Alec had thought about kissing before. Even Isabelle had thought about kissing, and she was only ten. Alec had seen his parents kissing, and that was gross, but he'd also seen teenagers kissing in the park, and that was different. Suddenly, Alec's heart was like a butterfly in his chest, a big, heavy butterfly, beating and beating it's wings. He closed his eyes, just as Salma's lips touched his.

Her lips were warm, and they tasted like cookies, but he was sure his tasted like cookies too, since they'd both been eating them. It occurred to him that cookies were so childish, and he felt embarrassed at it all. He could smell rosewater and almonds, and he could still hear his heart, but he thought it was more for the fact that he was kissing someone for the first time than because he was kissing. As she pressed her face closer to his, there was a crumb that was digging into his chin uncomfortably. And then, just as quickly as it had begun, the kiss was over.

Alec looked at Salma for a good long moment. Her expression was sober as her eyes travelled over his face, and then she laughed. "What?"

Alec shook his head. "Nothing."

"You want to keep practising?" she asked.

"What?"

She gestured at the bow and arrow they'd left on the floor. "I'll get one for me, and lets see who can get the most in the centre."

She stood up and went to arrange the targets across the training room wall. Alec stood up, feeling that kissing, in general, was really quite overrated.  

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Please, please, please, it would mean so much to me if you guys could drop a comment, let me know what I did right, what I did wrong—not sure if everyone knows this, but this is my first Mortal Instruments fan-fiction, so I'm feeling a little shaky about it. And don't forget to vote!

Vikk <3