Fire to Water

Changeling

Dru cursed, and scrambled to her feet. "Who the hell are you?" She was of half a mind to shove him up against the wall, but faeries were wiggly. Also, physical contact was good for magic, which was bad for her continued wellbeing.

The boy looked oddly at her. "Uh, I'm, uh."

Did she have cold iron? Ugh, dammit, of course not, what was wrong with her, why did she never have cold iron when she needed it? Luckily, the boy didn't seem very inclined to move, and she pressed her back to the opposite side of the corridor. He moved a little, suddenly, and Dru realized that she didn't really need cold iron to hurt him, her runed daggers would do just fine. She drew both of her knives, and the boy froze again.

"I'm Ash," the boy said.

"Like the tree," Dru said.

"What."

"You know, the tree? Ash trees? For protection?"

"Oh," he said. "Most people think ash like cinders. It's stupid. I mean, uh, I'd rather not be ash like cinders because there's a lot of weird magic connotations for cinders and if you ever say cinders to a mundane they immediately start talking about the fairytale and I don't even want to talk about the fairytale, the original is way bloodier than they ever bring up, all of them are, did you know in the original Cinderella's stepsisters cut off parts of their feet? Like, those aren't children's stories."

Dru stared. "What?"

"What?"

"How do you know these things?"

"There's not really much to read in faerie."

Dru tightened her grip on her daggers. Faerie. She was in faerie. This asshole was some sort of weird changeling with apparently a stalkery photo of her and she was probably totally justified if she wanted to stab him a little bit.

His eyes flickered down to her hands again, and he shifted. The odd non-light threw strange shadows, making everything more monstrous whenever they moved.

"Go back," she said, "to the part where you have a picture of me."

"Oh," Ash said. He pulled a kind of grimy paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, holding it out to her.

Dru never took her eyes off of him, and put one of her daggers in between her teeth, because she didn't want to sheathe it and also she knew how badass it made her look. She snatched the paper from him and retreated to her side of the corridor.

As soon as she looked at it, she knew Julian had drawn it. She was just slightly blurry, staring off into the distance like the answers to the universe were just over the horizon, and just in focus enough to see the look in her eyes and the set of her mouth. There was so much care in how it was set into the paper, and it seemed almost wistful. She sheathed her dagger and took the other out of her mouth.

"Where did you get this?" What she really meant: who gave you this, or did you steal it, and if it was the unseelie king don't take me to him or I'll kill you?

"He gave it to me. A few years ago."

Dru stared at him. "You're lying. This whole act is a lie." Dru kept staring, and tilted her head to see him out of the corner of her eye. Mark had said that glamours— if you tried— could be seen through out of the corner of your eye. He had been talking to Christina, not her, but she had heard. She couldn't see anything but an odd haze over his shoulders like a glowing heat haze.

"I'm not!" He said. "I swear!"

Faeries couldn't lie.

Faeries couldn't lie.

Ash stared at her, and then glanced down the hallway. He looked... afraid.

"You can't be here," he said. "J— my— he'll kill you. You have to leave. Right now."

"Why?" Dru asked, and then she was being dragged down the hall by Ash, and really, she should have stabbed him already but he was actually kind of funny and probably more useful unperforated. Also, her dagger was in the hand that he was holding, and she was rather stunned.

Dru came to her senses and wrenched sway from him.

"What are you doing?" She demanded.

"I am saving your life, you stupid nephilim!" He spat. "My mother doesn't rake nicely to finding shadowhunters threatening her son. And I'm not supposed to leave my rooms."

"Where are you taking me?"

"Out," he said, simply.

If she wasn't ever going to see him again, she might as well just ask about the investigation. Besides. It was useful to see what faeries knew about Clary.

"Have you seen a woman with red hair, about as tall as I am?"

"No. Come on, we have to go. Before the door shuts."

Dru followed him silently, down the winding tunnels, through the passages until they were both standing beneath a huge elm tree in the grey-pink light of the very early morning. Ash looked different in the light. His hair was lighter, almost white, and pearly, and his eyes were almost gold when the light struck them right. He looked like a porcelain doll, in the light, too beautiful to be real. His eyes were fascinating, though. There were darts of black and gold in them, and the green looked so very deep, and—

She was very close to him.

She stepped back, quickly, and glanced around, because who knew where she was, and because it hid her face, which was probably on fire.

Idiot.

"Goodbye, Lady Death." He said, and then, as if it was an afterthought, "What is your name?"

"Dru," she said.

"Goodbye, Dru," he said, and when she looked back (when her face wasn't red) he was gone.

Dru stared into the dawn light over the city, and, just because she could, muttered, "What the hell."

The city was gilded blue and pink in the dawn and secrets, and Dru was standing on the cusp of something bigger, something big and powerful and important, and she was tired and bruised and bloody but so very alive. 

A/n: I have noooo idea how to characterize Ash, mostly because his whole smarmy-arse-in-front-of-Janus is totally an act and also he shows up in like two scenes, so have dork with a dark side Ash, weird faerie boy with zero concept of personal boundaries or polite conversation.