Magic, Memories, and Malec

Gold and Glory

"Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones

And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones."

- Northwest Passage, Stan Rogers

It happened all the time. It came with the territory. It was expected, when you were fighting and training and throwing around weapons all day. But it didn't happen all the time, didn't come with the territory, wasn't expected when it was their Toby. Toby was like Alec: clumsy. He'd always had limbs too long for his body, lanky and liable to unintentionally hit someone in the face when excited. Because of his accident-prone nature, Magnus and Alec had to permanently keep ice packs in the freezer and hot water bottles ready and waiting, to soothe swollen ankles and pulled muscles.

One day, not long after Toby had begun shadowhunting, he'd come home with what Alec had described as "the single nastiest-looking black eye I have ever seen." He'd lain on the couch all day long with a bag of ice balanced on the purpling golf ball sized bump on his face, wincing whenever he sat up or moved too sharply. It had gone down eventually, but the bruise hadn't faded for weeks. His temple and the area around his eye had been hued in green and blue and black for a month.

Another time, around half a year later, he'd managed to pull a muscle in his arm when he'd encountered a demon. Walking home from training, the mist down an alley formed itself into a figure, skulking in the depths and the darkness. Mundanes meandered down the sidewalks, and Toby's hand was reaching for the knife in his boot immediately. He surged down the alley, slashing a glamour rune on his arm as he ran. His arms were almost bare, only twelve, and the burn of a stele was still painful and unfamiliar. It seared his skin where it touched the delicate tan, scorching its mark in raw, burnt flesh. He'd never taken on a demon before, let alone on his own. He couldn't just ignore it, though. The whole point of being a Shadowhunter was to protect those who couldn't see the danger they were in. The thought of letting mundanes come to harm at the hands of this demon because he had ignored it made Toby feel sick, sicker than the thought of killing the thing himself. He'd surged forward, and killed it too, but had ended up pulling a muscle in his lower arm near his hand. He remembered the split-second of annoyance in Magnus's eyes at how late he was before he saw the ichor-stained gear, the awkward way Toby held his arm, the blood that had bloomed on the boy's lip from biting it to stop him crying out at the pain. He'd spent two days in bed with what had turned out to be a fractured wrist.

Iratzes worked wonders. Magnus had asked Clary countless times if she'd make Toby a permanent Iratze, some kind of protection rune. She would always give him one of two answers: "That's not how it works" or "What, you mean a bubble wrap swaddle rune?" The latter was always provided in a chirpy, sugar-sweet tone. And it never failed to make Magnus scowl. Who could help it? Being so protective? They'd only had Toby for a year and the Clave was already firmly against the two of them being parents. They were even more opposed to the fact that Toby would be raised under the guardianship of a warlock. Toby ignored it firmly, made sure he took every opportunity to tell the Clave how great his dads were, but he was by no means unaware of their judgement. One particularly conservative council member had once reminded him that "If you need some other people to look after you, we can sort that out." The man had laughed nastily. "I mean, you don't want to grow up with a Downworlder, really, do you?" Toby had scathingly replied that, yes that was exactly what he wanted. Alec hadn't even reprimanded him for the comment he closed with:

"Maybe you just don't get it. Maybe it's your age."

"I'm only thirty-five!" the man had protested.

"Oh." Toby had said, looking the man up and down and smiling sweetly. "You look much older, sir."

But whilst many of the Nephilim knew what brilliant parents Magnus and Alec were, they had to be permanently on their guard. Though Toby was always his sarcastic self around the Clave, he was aware that he had to be a perfect model of a Shadowhunter to remind them how great his parents were. It helped that Robert was Inquisitor. But, still, when Toby got hurt as bad as he had done, it didn't look good.