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The sky is alight with flames. Not the usual deep crimson of sunset or the softer orange glow of a new dawn. It’s burning, bright flickers of scorching heat, singeing the edges of wings and turning pale feathers black.
Isabelle bites her lip against the pain and tastes blood, exploding on her tongue in a rush of metal.
Angels don’t bleed, not really, it’s an illusion to make them feel more human, more connected to the parts of themselves bound to the earth below. An earth that’s littered with destruction. Smoke curls high into the sky, empires are collapsing on their very foundations, the ground shaking with tremors. Screams echo so loudly they curl towards the heavens, ready to bring all of its grandeur down with them.
From her vantage point, perched on a grey cloud streaked with flames, the world blurs before her eyes, heavy with tears and red from the biting smoke.
It’s my fault, she thinks but no regret swirls in her stomach. Only the knowledge that all this destruction means everything will be born anew, bright and hopeful and good.
Her heart aches for the people in pain, the people dying, the people watching with betrayal in their eyes as she had let Clary rip a chasm into the very essence of the universe with a sword black as coal.
It’ll be fine, she tells herself. Because destruction means rebirth and soon enough none of them will remember the way this world turned out, the ways in which they went wrong. She can only hope they’ll do better, in that next life, despite their lack of knowledge about lifetimes past.
“Izzy,” Clary croaks out from beside her and curls her fingers around her wrist, wet with blood. Stripped of all her angelic might by those too ignorant to see her powers for the beautiful things they were, she’s covered in the ashes of her wings. Her green eyes flutter, her lips curve into a smile – or the ghost of one, rather. A grimace of pain and heartbreak and centuries of longing. Her teeth shimmer in bloodied copper.
“It’ll be fine,” Isabelle says, out loud this time and tugs a curl of fiery red behind the shell of Clary’s ear, lets her fingers linger on her jaw. Her voice is a whisper but steady, not shaking like it had been hours ago when she had raised her chin to the heavens and cursed them all. Not broken like it had been when she had said goodbye to her brothers and mother, a last farewell before a new life.
There’s only hope, burning brightly, only the pure conviction that soon enough, it’ll all be over.
“I’m sorry,” Clary whispers, her body shaking with tears or pain or the feeling of slowly fading from existence. Isabelle wants to roar and rage and claw at the very seams of Heaven in retaliation. Again.
“No,” she whispers back instead, blinks and tastes salt on her lips. “It’s me who should be. For not listening, for not believing. For not telling you sooner that I lo-”
Now her voice does break over the words, the ones she’s repeated in her head over and over and over again whenever Clary smiled at her, bright as sunlight; whenever they’ve chased each other among the clouds; whenever a good deed had been more important to her than obeying Heaven’s rules. Saying them out loud though, even as life and death begin to crumble around them, is still the thing she’s most afraid of.
“I know, Isabelle,” Clary says in a frantic shade of desperate, her breath rattling in her lungs. “If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
Centuries and they’ve only ever kissed once, beneath the dark cloak of midnight under a starless sky, holding each other’s trembling bodies and floating with the nighttime breeze. It seems not much different now, except there are blood and tears on their tongues and the roaring of destruction in the background.
“I’ll see you soon,” Isabelle breathes against Clary’s lips.
The sky explodes in flames.
They collide in an ungraceful manner as the mundane sits up with a half cut-off scream, woken from whatever dream she had with a start and clasping a purple glowing necklace.
“Ow,” Izzy says and suppresses the urge to be dramatic and rub her forehead.
“Wait, I don’t know what-,” the redhead starts, blinking perplexed and moving to put some distance between them, hands clenching into fists as if those were a match at all for a trained fighter like her.
“You’re safe. I promise,” Isabelle tries as gently as possible and lets her gaze linger. Something in the swirl of green eyes is so achingly familiar that it makes her want to reach out and touch, grace her fingertips across trembling lips. It awakens a sudden urge to protect her, like earlier in the club or later in the ruined apartment when she had all but collapsed into Isabelle’s arms.
“And you think I will just take your word for it?” the other girl scoffs, her chin lifting in a quiet, small act of stubborn defiance. Her eyes linger though, sweeping over the tight black leather covering Isabelle's body and under the bright infirmary lights, her cheeks flush a delicious pink, betraying her.
“I would hope you do,” Isabelle replies with an easy shrug.
The other girl shakes her head, red curls flying in the tangled mess they’ve gotten themselves into during sleep.
“I- I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start.” She wraps the blanket tighter around herself, a shield against the unfamiliar surroundings. Isabelle can hardly imagine the fear and confusion that must be swirling in her mind, the things she's seen that don't make sense to her quite yet. She hates to be the one to turn her whole world on its axis.
“How about at the beginning?” Isabelle extends a hand instead of launching into some complicated explanations. “I’m Isabelle.”
A pause. Then with a barely dimmed shade of curiosity: “Clary.”
Their fingers brush in a touch so innocent it shouldn’t set Isabelle’s whole world aflame. And yet, something old glides across her neck, the shadow of a ghost, a life lost that calls to her in a broken, joyous whisper.
Finally. At last. I found you.