Actions not Words (Will Herondale x OC)

Chapter 2

Dear Sophia,

The day before Christmas! How exciting! I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I hope you enjoyed the brunch dad cooked up.

Love,

Older sis

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1 Year Later

Sophia's POV:

"Sophia! Hurry up! Will and I wanna go to Hyde Park before we are old and grey!" Jem shouted through my door. I huffed and tried to shoo off the Charlotte, who had taken to trying to doll me up.

"I do not want to wear that dress! It is too tight. I will not be able to fight in it at all!" I signed to the Head of the Institute.

Charlotte sighed, "Sophia, you know I cannot understand you when you sign too fast. I only just learned it!"

I repeated my previous statements, caring to go slower. The other residences of the London Institute had begun to learn sign language to communicate with the fourteen year old. Only Jessamine had been disdainful when the subject was brought up.

"I do not care that I cannot understand her! Learning sign language is horrid! I am embarrassed to even to be seen with her in public, her waving her hands about like a mad woman!" the fellow fourteen year old girl had ranted. "She already is horrendous to look at with all her scars and runes showing! And her hands! Ghastly! They are all rough like a common working man!"

I only just rolled my eyes at her fanatics. Unlike myself, Jessamine had grown up in a shadowhunter household, but also one that prided itself on its status in the mundane world. She had been exposed to the posh lifestyle that my parents had wanted to keep me away from. I was glad too. Jessamine was too busy worrying about what hat would go with what shoes instead of worrying about safety from attacking demons.

"Sophia, what do you propose to wear if you will not wear this dress? It is a perfectly fine dress, might I add." Charlotte reasoned.

I marched up to my dresser and pulled out a rather fashionable dress. It was a violet cloth, not too unlike the black cloth that shadowhunters are required to wear during patrols.

"But, Sophia. That is also a dress!" Charlotte exclaimed.

I shook my head. "I made this one. I designed it especially for me."

"If you say so." the Head of the Institute caved.

Charlotte stepped forward to help me undress from my nightgown, but I warded her off.

Charlotte frowned. "Won't you need help doing up the corset?"

I shook my head again and held up a finger to make her wait. Charlotte collapsed onto the chaise at the foot of my bed while I moved behind the changing curtain. A few moments later, I stepped out and twirled in front of the open mouthed Charlotte.

"But it was only a blink of an eye! You can't have possibly gotten into the dress and corset by yourself!" Charlotte exclaimed. She practically leaped from the chair towards me. She moved around me while I signed. "There is no corset, but it does seem like there is one. Doesn't it? The back actually has hidden buttons. This dress will be easier to fight in because it is light. And look!"

Charlotte stopped in front of me as I reached behind my dress to grab almost invisible strings of thread. I pulled on the strings and the front of the dress split in two, revealing a pair of trousers, the same that we use to hunt demons. I tied the extended pieces of string and let go. The dress stayed parted, and I was able to perform leaps and jumps, some examples of the exercises that shadowhunters must perform.