Sweet Creature ▹ Alec Lightwood [2] ( SLOW UPDATES )

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE
GETTING APPROVED

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     "What exactly is the parabatai process?" Maia asked a few days later, while she, Adrian, and Oliver were shoved into a booth at Taki's Diner. Adrian glanced up from his banana pancakes, a piece of fruit left hanging at the end of his fork. He was tired and more than a little dirty. A demon had been sighted at Columbus Park, and Adrian had been the only one awake at three in the morning to answer the call. He'd ran into Oliver and Maia on the way, both of them running around in their wolf forms to let off some steam, and the three of them had taken down the small demon together. Now here they were, eating away and waiting for their adrenaline to die down.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, more surprised than anything. He couldn't remember ever really discussing his and Isabelle's parabatai planning with either Maia or Oliver. He had, however, complained a few times to Magnus about how long it was taking, how the Council was taking their sweet time approving the ceremony. Magnus must have mentioned it to Oliver, and Oliver must have passed it along to Maia. Or maybe Max had brought it up. He wasn't sure if there was a sign for parabatai, but perhaps Max had created one. He was clever that way.

"The real question is why didn't you tell us?" Maia challenged, pointing her own fork at him. "Why all the secrecy, huh? Are we not allowed to know your secret Shadowhunter cult-like practices?" Adrian stared for a moment, bewildered, then let out a loud peal of laughter, just at the fact that Maia had called Shadowhunters cult-like. The fact that she wasn't even wrong wasn't lost on him. They had a lot of ritualistic practices, a lot of beliefs that seemed odd to outsiders, a lot of secrets. It wasn't actually a cult, of course, but Valentine's Circle had been, and for some reason that was hilarious to him. His laughter caught the attention of the other patrons, but he ignored them as he fought his giggles back.

"Sorry," he gasped, setting his fork down to wipe his hands down his face. Oliver and Maia were staring at him in slight concern. "Sorry, I'm just stressed. The Council has to approve parabatai ceremonies because they're rare and sometimes they don't end well, and they're taking forever to approve me and Izzy. Which doesn't make sense because we trained together and that's pretty much the only thing needed to get approved. We haven't even had our tests yet—"

"Woah, there, pretty boy," Oliver cut in, sliding across the booth to get closer to Adrian. His hand went to the back of Adrian's neck, squeezing softly before his fingers went lower, digging into the tense muscles there until Adrian started to slowly relax. "Wasn't Idris a complete mess the last time you were there? I'm sure the Council's just busy." Adrian already knew that, but it didn't make him feel any better. Oliver squeezed the back of his neck again, then nudged him gently in the side. "What tests do you and Izzy have to take?"

"We don't know," Adrian admitted, which made it all the more stressful. Tests for parabatai were always different and always given at random times, without either party knowing. It was a test of compatibility. They wanted to see how a pair of people worked together before they went ahead with the ceremony, which typically happened the day after the test, if the pair passed. Adrian had tried asking Alec what it would be like, but Alec had only smiled and said that even if the tests were different, he still wouldn't be able to tell. There wasn't technically a rule in place to keep Alec and Jace from sharing the process, but it was like an unofficial code of silence. Parabatai just had to experience it all on their own. "We won't know until we get approved and they throw the test at us at a random time."