Katniss Everdeen (thisgirlsonfire) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-08-18 14:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2019 august, ~25 points, ~~katniss everdeen (thisgirlisonfire), ~~~~jace herondale (hatesbergamot) |
WHO: Katniss Everdeen and Jace Herondale
WHAT: Making friends
WHEN: This morning
WHERE: Horst’s Little Bakery Haus
WARNINGS: Talk about terrible things in both of their canons
STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Jace didn’t have a lot of friends in Madison Valley, but it really didn’t bother him. He’d always been a bit of a loner, and didn’t see the need to have a huge number of friends. Clary was here, and Isobel and Emma, and that was really enough for him. He also knew a lot of people didn’t like him, but that wasn’t that weird either. It was another something that he was very, very used to.
He wasn’t a huge fan of Madison Valley, but the thing he liked least was the lack of purpose he had here. Back home, he did what Shadowhunters did - he fought demons, helped control downworlders. It was an important job and one he didn’t mind risking his life for every day. But here...well, he was kind of just...floating, trying to find something to do that meant something. After spending the first twenty-two years of his life nearly dying for the safety of humanity on a regular basis, getting a job at a burger joint just didn’t seem very fulfilling.
He always woke up early - it was something that had been engrained in him as a child. He went out for a run, trained a little, then headed out to pick up some doughnuts for himself and Clary. Getting in line at the crowded bakery, he noticed the girl in front of him was someone he knew, and someone who was one of the few people in Madison Valley that he actually had felt some sort of connection with.
“Hey,” he said simply, his amber eyes twinkling. “Don’t buy them all before I get some.”
***
Ever since the portal opened to Panem, Katniss had been on edge. It was only open for two days and nothing terrible happened, but now that she was aware it could happen, she was terrified it would happen again. The reminder of her previous life caused a resurgence of her nightmares, so she wasn’t sleeping well, though she was doing her best to keep that from Prim and Mitsuko. She didn’t want either of them, especially Prim, worrying about her. And she didn’t want her sister worrying about what might happen in the future.
She’d fallen into the habit of drinking more coffee even though the taste was a little too bitter for her liking. The caffeine kept her functional. This morning, she’d decided to stop at the bakery to pick up donuts for the girls in addition to her much needed fix.
Startled when someone spoke, she turned around, eyes wild as if they were expecting a threat, and immediately relaxed when she recognized Jace. They weren’t exactly friends, but Katniss knew he wasn’t a danger.
“Don’t worry, I’ll share,” she said, attempting a smile.
***
“Good,” he grinned - a sincere smile that not everyone saw from him. There was a little sadness in it, too, though, because he’d noticed that wild look and was well aware what that meant. It wasn’t a good thing. But he chose to ignore it for now, and if she wanted to talk about it, she could bring it up herself. He hated being forced to talk about things he wasn’t ready to talk about yet.
“Which ones do you like best? If we’re lucky enough to like different types, we can clear them out all together so that we’re the only ones who get them today.”
No, that wasn’t going to happen. Jace didn’t like that many doughnuts, and he could smell that they had more in the oven in addition to what they had in the case. But after seeing that look in her eyes, he wanted to keep things light for her. She could make things a bit more serious if she wanted to. He’d be fine with that. But it was entirely up to her.
***
Katniss appreciated that he kept things light. It wasn’t that she was against the idea of talking about her many, many issues, but she didn’t want to risk traumatizing any of the other people in line around them. The bakery wasn’t that large, after all.
“I have a weakness for anything chocolate,” she admitted. “But I’m also getting some for my sisters, so I’ll get an assortment.” She knew that neither Prim nor Mitsu was very picky when it came to sweets. “Which ones do you like best?”
***
“I’m rather a purist when it comes to doughnuts,” he said. “I don’t really like anything fancy. Glazed. Cake, either with powdered or cinnamon sugar.” He knew it was a little boring, but he liked what he liked.
“Do you have a few minutes? Maybe we could sit and have a cup of coffee and a doughnut before heading back.”
He wouldn’t mind talking to her, or getting some caffeine and a nice, fresh doughnut.
***
“Yeah, sure,” Katniss said, stepping up to the counter to place her order. In addition to a dozen assorted donuts, she asked for the largest coffee they had, with double cream and sugar. She still didn’t understand how people could drink coffee black.
It was kind of weird, but she felt like Jace might actually understand what she was going through.
***
Underneath his somewhat cold and sarcastic exterior, Jace had a lot of feelings. Too many feelings, maybe, because they didn’t always treat him well. He struggled with so many things, and very few people knew about them because he didn’t let them reach the surface. They were his thoughts, his feelings, and not for anyone else to see or know about. Except Clary, maybe, and she was different. Very different.
Jace ordered a coffee and a doughnut separate from the dozen he bought and found a table for them to sit at.
“So how are things?” he asked. He wasn’t one who really liked to talk about himself, so he’d start out talking about her.
***
The bakery was still crowded, which made Katniss a little wary of actually opening up a lot, but she took a careful sip of coffee, being cautious not to burn her mouth. She shrugged in response to his question.
“They’ve been better. They’ve also been a lot worse.” Even her worst day in Madison Valley couldn’t compare to the horrors of life in Panem, particularly her time in the arena. “A portal opened up to a version of my world last month. It brought back a lot of unpleasant memories.”
***
Jace frowned, understanding more than most what it was like to have your whole life thrown in your face like that. That had happened to him when he’d been forced to face Valentine again, and relive all the abuse he’d gone through as a child. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience.
But he didn’t tell her he was sorry (he still didn’t understand why mundanes did that), rather he simply nodded.
“It closed again? Did anyone unwelcome come through?”
Bad people appearing in their world through portals was the story of Jace’s life, and he could definitely do something about that, if they had.
***
Katniss nodded. “Yeah, it was only open for a couple of days and no one came through, so it worked out, but it was tense.” She’d been mostly worried about Prim’s safety and well being, though she knew it could have gone very bad for her and Johanna if the wrong people had discovered them.
Seeing Haymitch as he was then was rough. She was happy that he had such a good life here and she hated what he’d been through in Panem.
“Luckily, I have friends who were willing to keep an eye on things and make sure no one crossed into town.” Even with her fellow archers keeping watch, Katniss hadn’t gotten much sleep.
***
“Yeah, I’d be the same if it had been a demon portal. You just can’t let your guard down when people are in danger. I get that.” It was his entire reason for existing, really. “I’m glad things worked out though. Glad it closed without anybody terrible coming through.”
Her world sounded terrible, and reinforced his view that bad people could be just as bad as demons. Demons at least had an excuse, after all.
“Are there a lot of people for your world here?” He hadn’t paid much attention, because very few people in this town interested him. Katniss was one of the very few.
***
“About a half dozen,” Katniss said. There’d been more through the years that had come and gone, but there were only a few of them left. Which was sad, because everyone from Panem, at least everyone from the Districts, deserved a better life than what they had.
She wondered how the demons he mentioned compared to the humans she’d dealt with. “We weren’t dealing with demons or anything supernatural,” she said. “Just terrible human beings.” Which might be worse, now that she thought about it.
“If it happens again, I’ll have to call you for backup.” Katniss really hoped that wouldn’t happen again, but anything was possible in Madison Valley.
***
“Absolutely,” he said, jumping at that offer. He was so bored and felt that he had never purposeful to do here, and he would be absolutely thrilled to have something important to do, even if it was only fighting human demons. It was still better than nothing.
“A lot of the problems in my world are more with people than with demons. Valentine was human. And he killed so many Shadowhunters…” He wasn’t sure if he’d killed more than the demons had throughout the years, but it was definitely comparable.
***
If she remembered correctly, Shadowhunters protected people from demons, so she couldn’t imagine why a human would want to kill them. “Was he working for the demons or something?” Katniss asked.
She knew that the people in her world who did the worst things were largely motivated by greed.
***
“No…” he trailed off. It was complicated and got into Shadowhunter politics, but he’d explain it the best he could, he supposed. “He...hated Downworlders. Downworlders are those who have demon blood, but aren’t full demons. Vampires. Werewolves. Warlocks. Fae. They’re not evil anymore than humans are. The Shadowhunters kind of police them, make sure that the vampires aren’t going crazy and killing people, or that the Werewolves aren’t turning everyone all the time. Valentine wanted to kill them too. All of them. It started a civil war, because the decent Shadowhunters didn’t join in with him, because they saw him as the genocidal maniac that he was. So a lot of Shadowhunters on both sides died.”
He took a drink of his coffee. He hated talking about Valentine, even if it didn’t show on his face, which was nearly expressionless.
“And that’s the guy who raised me. Thought he was my father until I was seventeen.”
***
Katniss’s eyes got wide at his explanation. “Wow, that’s… a lot.” No wonder Jace was kind of… difficult sometimes. It was hard to be friendly and open when you were betrayed like that.
“Sounds like he’s at least as bad as Snow was. That was the president of Panem. He didn’t start the Games, but he continued them and threatened my family.” She hadn’t intended to become a symbol of revolution though that didn’t matter to him. She was a threat and needed to be eliminated.
***
“Anyone who continues them is a monster,” he declared. It was straight forward and simple to him. To do that to children was a horror and a disgrace. And then to call it enertainment? That took it that last step of the way to insane and evil. “I’m glad you got out of there. Although, if you were back home, you could kill him.” That was the only way to stop people like that.
“Yeah. It is a lot. My mother and father followed him. My father died and my mother killed herself. He’d been doing experiments on me while my mom was pregnant with me, so when she died, he cut me out of her and raised me. Guess he wasn’t willing to waste his experiment.”
***
“Well, that makes him a monster in my eyes,” Katniss said, shaking her head.
She took another drink from her coffee. “Sounds like we both need better things to talk about.”
***
“Yeah. Things have gotten better in the past five years, though.” He actually flashed a small grin, which wasn’t a common thing for him. It had gotten more common since he’d met Clary, but it was still a rarity.
“Met a girl, fell in love, grew up a little. Back home Clary and I run the New York Institute, which keeps me busy and gives me a purpose. Here, though…” He really felt like he lacked that here.
***
Things were a lot different here, in mostly good ways, though Katniss understood the frustration at the lack of purpose he felt. “What do you do at the Institute?” she asked. “Could you do something like that here?”
She wouldn’t say she was jealous that he had the person he loved here, but the dome had other plans for her there and she’d given up on finding a relationship at this point.
***
Jace shook his head almost immediately.
“It’s a place for Shadowhunters. We’re connected to the other Institutes all over the world, and we represent and provide shelter and support for other Shadowhunters in the area. We work with the New York downworlders. I don’t think there’s anything like that I can do here.”
He shook his head.
“I mean, there are some of us here, but not nearly enough to need an institute.”
And some of them were even starting to go native, not that he could blame them when they’d been here as long as Izzy had.
***
Katniss nodded. “Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out something,” she said. “It just might take a while.” It was only recently that she’d found an actual job and that was only because her friend opened a business that was tailor made for her skills.
***
“Yeah, I’ll figure something out.” He was pretty certain he could have a job - some type of job - today, if he wanted it. He just wanted a good one, because he deserved it.
Finishing his cup of coffee, he sighed and pulled out a couple of dollars to leave on the table as a tip.
“I’d better get going. But we should talk again soon.”
***
“Yeah, we should,” Katniss said with a nod, giving him a slight smile. She should probably get home and drop off the donuts for the girls so she could head to work anyway. “Good luck with the job search.”
***