Player Information
Player name: Awbrey
Contact: enkindle @ plurk / evadingdamnation @ gamil
Are you over 18: Yep.
Characters in The Box Already: Nope.

Character Information
Character Name: Clarissa "Clary" Adele Fray (Morgenstern/Fairchild)
Canon: The Mortal Instruments (book series by Cassandra Clare)
Canon Point: City of Lost Souls, Post-Epilogue.
Is your character Dead, Undead or Alive: Alive.
History: clary @ shadowhunters.wikia
city of bones @ shadowhunters.wikia
city of ashes @ wiki
city of glass @ wiki
city of fallen angels @ wiki
city of lost souls @ wiki
Personality:

If one had to pick a single word to describe Clary Fray, it would be spitfire. As it is, one word is not nearly enough, but were it the case, that would be the one. She's strong-willed and stubborn to a fault. But, more on that later, because at the base of everything there is something much deeper and powerful pushing her toward that stubbornness. The most important, defining, powerful trait that Clary possesses is not her emotions and emotional attachments themselves (and there are many), but the strength that she exhibits with her emotions. She is an extremely compassionate and caring individual, and when she loves, she loves wholly and fully and will do just about anything for the people she cares about. It can sometimes be a character flaw; she feels so strongly about her need to protect (and even save) the people she loves that she takes unnecessary risks and dives into situations without thinking - because love is what drives her, not logic. She is a creative thinker, an artist, and it is passion that sends her into some of the worst, most dangerous situations that have become a part of her. But the love she feels for others is stronger than her fear. It makes her brave, perhaps even reckless at times, but it propels her forward and gives her a fearlessness that even runes cannot match. She is willing to set aside possible dangers or consequences in order to save the people she loves and has exhibited this more than once in the recent past.

She isn't just nothing but fierceness, however. Clary is still a sixteen year old girl. She has a razor-sharp wit and a lighthearted sense of humor. Her automatic response to things, when in a humorous tone, tend to be more sarcastic than anything else. She is a daydreamer, often becoming absorbed in her own mind and her own thoughts to the point of tuning out whatever is happening around her - even when someone is speaking to her directly. She has a creative-minded set of eyes with which she looks upon the world. She does not see things as black and white, but vibrant Prismacolor shades - hundreds of them. She is vibrant and full of life. She's a total nerd. She even has shirts that label her as an otaku girl. She likes anime and books and she likes to watch bad movies and make snarky commentary on them. She can be a goofball. She loves to people watch, studying everything with a keen and sharp artists' eye. She is a rebellious teenager in a great deal of situations, including going to night clubs that her mother doesn't like and staying out later than she should. She doesn't disregard the feelings of the people around her in these acts; she's simply expressing herself and expanding her limits. It's purely for her own enjoyment. She can be self-indulgent. Because she's still a teenager, in a lot of ways. She has grown up a great deal in the recent month-and-some-change that has brought a whirlwind of change into her life... But those bubbly aspects of her personality still surface sometimes, and are capable of surfacing much more when the tumultuous environment around her settles.

Let's talk about that loving people thing a little bit more. Step one: Jocelyn, her mother, and Luke, her might-as-well-be-her-father mom's-best-friend father figure. Clary's entire descent and immersion into the world of Shadowhunters and all that it entails originally stemmed from something that happened to her mother. She did see Jace and the Lightwoods at a club, with a demon, which piqued her curiosity - but it wasn't until her apartment was attacked by an actual demon and her mother went missing that she started to dive head first, without reserve, into this world. Her mom is one of the most important people in her life. Even for all their disagreements and Clary's fierce teenage rebelliousness (which is definitely A Thing), Jocelyn was always her mom. Always loved her. And Clary loved her mom back. The entire first book is a crusade to get her mom back, with twists and bends all over the place and a lot of crazy stuff that happens around all that, but her goal is still pretty much the same: get mom back. Save mom. Mom, mom, mom. Clary looks up to her mother, admires her mother, resents her mother, is afraid of her mother, trusts her mother, loves her mother, unconditionally. While she no longer harbors resentment toward her mother for hiding her true identity for all those years, she does have a tentativeness about her when getting to know Jocelyn for the real Jocelyn. There is the mother-only-version of Jocelyn Clary knows and grew up with, and now there is the person that her mother used to be - the real Jocelyn. Even when Clary learns that she had been shielded from the truth by her mother, she still loves her, and she still fights for her.

Then there's Luke. Luke is the only true father that Clary has ever known. He may arguably be more important to her than her mother is - the lack of a blood tie being the only real difference. He hid things from her as well, at her mother's behest, and he has hurt her in recent times - but all of the pain he caused was out of love for her, and a desire to protect her. Now that everything is out in the open, she is forgiving of him - moreso than she is of her mother's shielding. He was the man who pushed her on the swings at the park, who patched her knee up when she fell off her bike, who taught her how to ride without training wheels. He is the man who raised her. Together with Jocelyn, Luke helped to form and build the Clary that she is today. Her love of books and reading may, in fact, stem from Luke - he did, and had for many years, own a book shop as a mundane face covering the truth of his life. He has been her protector and someone to speak for her upon more than one occasion and, while still protective of her, has been one of the most influential people to those around them with regard to accepting Clary as a young woman rather than a silly teenager. Luke is a rock for her in many ways. He is a security blanket of sorts, and she loves him as any daughter should love the only man she ever thought of as "father".

Next, her best friend, Simon. She has been best friends with Simon since they were young children. They grew up together, became anime enthusiasts together, went to school together, were inseparable, until the Shadow world came into play. And, even then, Simon was always there. Unfortunately for Simon, Clary has never fully and truly reciprocated the feelings he has for her - but he does love her, and she knows, and she loves him back... Just not in the way he wants her to. They dated for a short time, and Clary had sparks of jealousy when other girls gave him the eye, but it was more from a friendship perspective than romantic. Clary nearly lost Simon at one point, he did in fact die - but even in coming back as a vampire, they remained friends. Clary's entrance into the Shadowhunter life left a rift between them - one they have since patched, for the most part, but one that took (and is still taking, in some aspects) a lot of hard work to get over. He is still her best friend. She still loves him. Even if he is a vampire now, she will stop at nothing to protect him and to keep him safe. She struggles with a lot of guilt about the way Simon's life has been totally altered because of her, and because he refused to give up his loyalty to her. She is just as fiercely loyal to him, and has taken many deadly risks simply to help him or save him from the world she brought into his life.

Fourth, and perhaps most important of all the people in her life, is Jace. Her mother's disappearance was not the only reason she became part of the Shadow world. She was born into it, yes, but it was Jace who caught her eye, Jace who kept her eye, and Jace who became the all-consuming emotional apex of her existence. Her headlong bodyslam into the Shadowhunter universe came from a desire to rescue her mother. Jace was the vehicle in which she bodyslammed. He caught her eye immediately, and has kept her eye ever since. Even when she and Simon were dating, all Clary could think about was Jace. Jace is her world. He is her everything. He becomes the sole thing she would do literally anything for, no matter what the price. There is a period of time, one after they develop romantic feelings for one another, when they believe they are biologically brother and sister. During this time, she constantly wrestles with herself on what is right and what is wrong, because no matter how hard she tries, she cannot push away her romantic and passionate feelings for him. It is quite lucky that they find out they aren't really related, because there is a part of her that is more than willing to throw away her reputation and society's view of her just to be with Jace, even if he is her brother. Isabelle tells her at one point that when Jace met Clary, it "woke him up". They are the center of one anothers' universes. When faced with the Angel himself, the one who created all of them, she is granted one request - and it is after Jace has died for her. Her request could be anything. Saving the whole world, purging the demons from everywhere forever, turn Simon back into a human -- anything. But what she chooses is to save Jace's life. All she wants is Jace. All she sees is Jace. It is a dangerous and somewhat unhealthy situation to be in, especially at her age, but they are each the true grounding element for one another. Sort of. She is consumed by passion and love for him; he drives her to shallow breaths and heavy heartbeats. She loves him, deeply, is in love with him irrevocably, and if she were more of a believer in destiny, she would probably think that they were actually made for one another.

The other "shadow-world natives" in her life, the ones who have become her friends, are Maia, a member of Luke's pack, Isabelle and Alec Lightwood, and Magnus Bane. Isabelle is the closest one to a true friend of all of them, and while she and Clary butt heads sometimes, they have a great deal of respect for one another. Clary often compares herself to Isabelle and finds that she is the one in the negative light - Isabelle is tall, and beautiful, and she has boys wrapped around her finger in an instant. She is strong and deadly. She is everything Clary has never been. Clary both admires and fears this, in a lot of ways. She has gotten over her resentment and jealousy, but she still finds Isabelle to be a very immense presence. They have become friends, and they have done things for each other that suggests that they care for one another in a way, but there are still moments of tentativeness from both. Alec... Well. Alec, Clary learns, harbors jealousy toward her because he is love with the boy she's managed to wrangle. Despite the siblingly upbringing of Jace around the Lightwoods, he felt strongly for Jace. He also has a harsh judgment toward mundanes, and he viewed Clary as that and nothing more for a long time. He refused to accept that she was actually a part of their world, and it has taken a great deal of time to get to a point with Alec where she feels like they could be considered friends. They might not even be that, still. She calls him such, but sometimes it is still evident that there is a mutual respect but not much warm-fuzzy beyond it. Maia and Magnus are both downworlders - Maia, a werewolf, and Magnus, a warlock. Magnus and Clary have a sarcastic, teasing relationship with one another. They aren't dreadfully close by any regard, but it's clear that they share a mutual respect, and are friendly with each other more often than not. Magnus also has the benefit of being Alec's boyfriend, and is thereby integrated into their little inner circle - Jace, Clary, Isabelle, Alec, and Simon also included. He has helped her mother, has helped her, has helped her friends - he even administered the antidote to save her mother's life. She owes him a great deal and she pays her debts (so far) in friendliness and immense respect for him. Maia is a friendly, bubbly girl who Clary was jealous of at first, due to Simon's flirtation with her, but who has turned out to be just like any other teenage girl. Aside from being a werewolf. Clary considers her at the very least an ally, and better, friends. Despite her sometimes tentative relationship with all of these people, she would gladly take risks - and has - to help them or save them. She cares about their well being and she cares about them as people.

Now, back to that whole stubborn, spitfire thing. When Clary gets an idea in her head, when she sets a goal, she sticks to it - logic and her own safety be damned. She becomes drawn to Jace in the very beginning of the series, and despite his warnings about the world he's a part of, she can't seem to stay away. In fact, a constant theme throughout the entire series is the magnetic connection between the two of them - but that's a separate point. This is only one example of how stubborn she can be. She is told, multiple times, to do something or not do something based on the threat it may pose against her. Without fail, every time, she refuses to listen and she follows her heart and bangs her very, very, very hard head against the protective walls people try to place around her. She does not like limitations, she does not like being told to sit and wait in the safety of things while the other people in her life take risks for her. More than once, and by more than one of the other characters in the series, it is stated that Clary does not take instruction and does not listen - and it is true.

While her stubbornness gives her an edge of independence and strength, however, it is also one of her biggest flaws. She struggles with the repercussions of that stubbornness more than once, and while she can't exactly say she regrets certain actions, she certainly feels guilt for how they affected others. By being as headstrong as she is, as strong-willed as she is, she has on more than one occasion gotten someone else into a tight spot, or a dangerous situation. People have nearly died simply by keeping an eye on her ass in situations she's been insistent about getting herself into. She often ignores or disobeys the protective wishes of others, feeling like she's simply being brushed aside because she was not brought up as a warrior the way her (Shadowhunter) friends have been. She is not useless, she does not like being treated like she's useless, and she balks against it in many, many situations - some of which are probably better to avoid getting into in the first place.

Clary has an element of pride to her that leads her to not taking lightly when she is scorned or treated like a child. She also easily angers when someone tries to shield her from something, or when someone puts themselves at risk for her (not that she doesn't do the same things, but everyone's a hypocrite sometimes, right?), or... Pretty much whenever someone does something she thinks they could have done better, or could have avoided altogether. Again, not that she doesn't do things like this all the time, but that doesn't really seem to get to her much. She is perfectly fine with taking her own risks, but coming back to the love and compassion she feels for others, she is not fine with other people taking her risks for her. Even though her risks usually spill over onto a bunch of other people at the same time. But. You know. Again. Everyone's a hypocrite. Point being: she gets mad at stuff. She can be a grudge-holder. At one point, Jace even says about her, "You know, short, redheaded, bad temper." Truer words could never be spoken.

Despite her rebelliousness against being sheltered, despite all of her stubbornness and pride, Clary really is still a novice and doesn't really know much about the Shadowhunter world. Somewhere deep down, she knows that, and her dependence on Jace and other Shadowhunters' knowledge shows it. She just wants to learn, and what frustrates her is being treated like she can't. She doesn't always like what she does learn, though. The way the Clave, the governing body that presides over Shadowhunters, operates is something that does not sit well with her. Sometimes, Clary believes, the law is too outdated and too old - so she stands up and does something about it. When faced with annihilation versus an alliance with downworlders (who Shadwohunters seem to inherently be racist/speciesist/whatever-ist against, even if they aren't openly hostile to them per the Accords and their laws) Clary somehow manages to exact the ultimate form of justice for both sides of the fence - she is capable of great change, of enacting it, of creating it. She is capable of seeing the truth and the best of worlds where others would see only darkness. She is not solidly optimistic, but she is very open-minded about a lot of things and tends to at least try to see the good in everything, and the good in what could come of a dark situation. Where Shadowhunters only see downworlders, Clary sees them as what they are - people, living beings with rights just like the rights of humans. She doesn't see the demonic blood. She sees the individuals and the groups and how they live relatively harmless lives. Through this strength, this inherent ability to see the good in people - even her own horrible, evil father, for a time - she is able to figuratively move mountains and create alliances where only tension remained before. Through her actions, she indirectly creates a whole new Clave - one that is better suited to the truth in what justice should be, for which she has an innate sense and feeling. She has an artist's eye for the world - seeing the beauty in things others could never see the beauty in.

Clary is a girl with many admirable traits, but she isn't without flaws. She is lighthearted and joyous, she is difficult, she is weak and strong, she is capable and intelligent, she is reckless and careless, but she is compassionate and daring. She is concrete, but she is dynamic. She is steady but she is capable of change, and has changed much in the very short span of time covering her recent history, her new life. She is brave. She is the girl who stopped the war. She is powerful. She is worlds stronger than she is given credit for. And she is just beginning.

Abilities, Strengths and Weaknesses:

Clary is a Nephilim – the offspring of humans and angels. A Shadowhunter by birth, though she was raised human, in a human life, she possesses preternatural sight and awareness of a world within a world, among other things. She can see beyond glamours, which are magics used to shield the "shadow world" from normal (mundane) humans' eyes. Out of sight, out of mind, right? She is able to be marked with runes by an instrument called a stele - runes are protective marks, so to speak, though their use isn't limited to just protection. There are runes for healing, swiftness, and even the ability to move with silence. However, she spent the first fifteen years of her life almost entirely unaware of that world, due to a spell her mother had cast upon her to keep her blind and ignorant to both the current "shadow" world, as well memories of the few extraordinary things she had witnessed. She had fringe memories from her childhood, but her mother hid those from her as well.

Anyway - as a Nephilim she has the ability to have runes written onto her skin, and to wield a stele (the Shadowhunter tool for writing runes) to write runes on herself and others, to give her those runes' abilities. She can see past the veil shrouding mundanes from the world beneath the world. That, we've covered. But, unlike other Shadowhunter kids, she didn't receive tons of combative and weapons training. Luckily for Clary, being a Shadowhunter comes with some natural aptitude for these things - it's part of their blood, of their breeding. But Clary herself is naturally curious, fierce, and stubborn - which leads her to a (sometimes reckless) pursuit of learning how to fight and actually gaining field experience without knowing how. She's quick on her feet, she learns fast, and she asks enough questions (sometimes with a side of nagging) to get the answers she needs to proceed in learning the skills needed to most effectively make use of those abilities which are naturally ingrained in her.

Clary, however, isn't like other Nephilim. She was raised in the mundane world - but that's not the only difference. Clary is, additionally, part Angel. Not just in the way that all Nephilim are - born of a mixture of human and angel blood - but more than that. While her mother was carrying her, her father gave her potions and mixtures containing the blood of the angel Ithuriel. It was to help with her mother's postpartum depression after the birth of her first child, Clary's older brother Jonathan, and her father was not aware that Jocelyn was pregnant at the time. As a result, Clary possesses a particularly exceptional ability - one that is unique to her, that no one else in the entirety of the world can do. She can create Runes.

Unlike other Shadowhunters, who simply use the Runes taught to them by the Grey Book, Clary is able to picture something in her mind - a word, an ability, a blessing if you will... And she can take that, and create from it a new rune. One that can be used on the skin of Shadowhunters. She sees runes in her dreams, she's shown having flashes of runes or manners in which to make already existing runes more powerful... She even creates a rune than can bind Shadowhunters with Downworlders - the beings that aren't pure demon, but aren't human either... Werewolves, fae, vampires, warlocks, etc - to each other to share in each others' unique abilities. She's also able to use Runes powerful enough that only actual Angels should be able to use them, such as the Mark of Cain, which she placed upon her best friend Simon to protect him from the other vampires who pretty much wanted to kill him out of jealousy. All thanks to the accidental Angel blood doses she received as a wee little fetus.

Physical: see above!
**Mental:

Clary is a very quick learner and, because she is stubborn and refuses to back down once she's made up her mind about something, adapts well to her surroundings. She has proven time and time again that despite her inexperience and lack of training, she is capable in dire situations. She isn't perfect, of course - no one is, and she's just a teenager, but she puzzles things out very well. She also tends to see the world with different eyes than anyone else around her. She is an artist, and she sees the world through those eyes, so she sometimes picks up on details that others miss.

**Emotional:

Clary is exceedingly fierce. She loves with her whole heart, and she loves hard, and she loves very strongly. This is also a downfall, but I'll explain that in her weaknesses section. She is extremely passionate, and once she decides something, she refuses to back down. She propels herself forward with the sheer power of her raw emotions and strength of will and determination even when situations aren't particularly promising.

weaknesses; Physically, especially compared to other Shadowhunters her age who have had training, Clary is very small and weak. She is unskilled in physical combat, which tends to be a major part of the conflicts in her life. She's scrawny, though she's filled out a lot over the span of her canon. Her limitations physically are pretty much limited to her tiny size and lack of muscle mass and her totally unskilled manner of scrambling through battles by the skin of her teeth. Mentally and emotionally is kind of another story. I've covered a lot of it in her personality section, but as a supplement... Clary has a lot of things that she fears, but none so many as losing the people close to her. Her biggest weakness is applying pressure to her emotions in the form of causing harm to her most important people. She is reckless and will pretty much stop at nothing to assure the safety of the people she cares for. She has demonstrated it many times. She was given the chance to request anything, anything in the world, and instead of something that could have brought lasting peace to all of the planet, or something, she wished to breathe life into a fallen Jace. She stopped at nothing to retrieve her mother from her kidnappers and worried constantly about her mother's state of being while Jocelyn remained comatose. She has nearly died more times than she can count at this point, and all in the name of preserving the lives of the people she cares most for. She fears demons as well, though much less now than she used to. She fears her older brother Jonathan, for he is as darkly demonic as they come, and a cunning deceptive snake. She fears losing Jace, in any capacity. She fears losing Jocelyn (her mother), and she fears losing Luke (her practically adoptive father/stepfather), and she fears losing Simon. She fears dying. She sometimes fears her own power and ability to create runes. She fears the crumbling of the world. She is emotionally brash sometimes and this can be a weakness, as she can be a little too soft-hearted and tender at times. Pretty much anything else was covered in her personality section I think.

( a lot of her emotional and mental strengths [ as well as weaknesses ] were covered in her personality section, so i'm trying to keep these sections concise )

Samples
Network/Action Spam Sample: here is a delicious array of samples to choose from. I recommend this and this in particular. I would be happy to write fresh ones, however, if you'd prefer!
Prose Log Sample: ( this is a sample that i wrote when i apped her into scorched; i have, however, edited some items to reflect the change in canon point, as her canon point there was two books earlier. i have not edited out the relief she felt for having her friends in that particular setting, as they are an integral part of how she would react to a setting. )

All in all, things could have ended much worse. She could have found herself transported to, and trapped in, a world festering with nothing but demons, all day, every day. Not unlike her own, really... But one without any humans to balance out the evil. She could have ended up in a world without her friends. She missed her mom, she missed Luke, but beyond that she had the people she cared about the most. Isabelle and Alec and Magnus, Simon... And, of course, Jace. Jace, who could actually touch her here, without it burning her. Jace who, despite all they had been through, still helped to steady her hand when it would shake. But there were still things which didn't mesh up, things which got her curiosity piqued... Things which concerned her. Something about the Mist, the manner in which the world here worked, the way she was now identified as someone Scorched... It didn't sit right with her. People here were in danger, but she didn't understand enough in depth about it to do much against it yet.

Her gut twisted occasionally, nerves boiling up inside of her as to the origin of everything here. She'd been told the situation, explanations given to her multiple times, but there was still a nagging sense of discomfort at the back of her mind. It wasn't something that she allowed to preoccupy her. At the very least, she tried to keep her mind off of it. But she never left the apartment without making sure she was well and thoroughly marked, and she spent a great deal of time sketching to put that nervous energy to good use. She sketched maps of the city, studied each and every location with an artist's eye, even watched the people. The way the Mist was described left her wondering what sort of lingering side-effects it could have on the people who lived here. She wanted to know, needed to know, because knowing meant she could help. Knowing meant she could do something about it. And she wanted to. Just because she wasn't back home and the monsters under the bed here were different didn't mean that she had to sit back and watch. She was a Shadowhunter. She could protect people. She felt stronger, better, older than she used to. She'd grown from the scared girl she once was, into a warrior.

She wondered if the Scorched were different than normal mundanes. She often found herself pondering on whether or not they could be Marked. Jace was very discouraging of this, because there was no way of finding out what might become of them. There weren't studies as with the Forsaken; they could react better to the Runes, she argued, but he returned that they could - or that they could react worse. She knew it took more than just a little marking to create a Forsaken, but the risk was just as high that there would be negative effects on those marked. She wondered if she could find any volunteers that would be willing to try it, but the thought was immediately stamped out by the reminder that all her father ever did was experiment on people. All people. Nephilim, downworlders, even an actual Angel. Even her brother. The thought of Sebastian made her shudder. No. They were rid of him now. He was severed from Jace, and it didn't matter anymore. He wouldn't bother them, or anyone, anymore. His words, though... They stuck with her. You have a dark heart in you, Valentine's daughter. But no. She was not like her father. She didn't want to be like him, not ever. She would have to settle for helping in other ways.

Her pen flew across the paper, and she sketched a particular spot in one of the open public areas. A bench, unmarked by anything particularly extraordinary, with a man sitting on it - also unmarked by anything particularly extraordinary. Mundane, in every aspect of the word. In this, it was its own brand of extraordinary. Where others would only see a guy sitting on a bench, Clary saw each hard line of his aged face, the way his fingers bent and unbent, entwined and wrapped in the fading fabric of once-green gloves, fingers cut off - likely hastily, if she had to guess by the fraying. His eyes, she was certain, had to have been blue at one point in time. But now, they were a faded gray. Perhaps the color was stolen by time itself... Or perhaps the color had been robbed by grief, poverty, exhaustion... What the cause was, she could not know. She could only know that his irises were large in contrast to his pupils, and that hidden in the cracks of the hard gray sea they had become, there were the barest glimmerings of the sky's own reflection. She wondered what had happened to him, to wear him away so.

Her mind returned to the Mist. She remembered what the other Scorched had shared with her, what the Lightwoods and Jace shared with her when she first arrived. They were beyond sparing her, and she was beyond being spared. There was a level of respect between them now, one that spoke of her Shadowhunter lineage taking precedence over her mundane upbringing. She had stopped the war. She had ended the destruction of all Nephilim. She defeated her father, and saved everyone. She defeated her brother, and saved everyone again. At least, everyone she could save. Not without help, of course - never without help. But she had managed. She was no longer the wide-eyed mundane girl on the fringes of the Shadow world. This was information she could handle, information she could be trusted with. She knew what it could do, at least as far as anyone else's knowledge - because what could she know beyond what she had been told? She was brave, but not perhaps so brave as to be suicidal. No, she had been prepared to lay down her line in that last battle, to sacrifice herself if it meant the salvation of the world. But that had been with good reason, a reason that drove her beyond being able to see anything else as a possibility. Reckless, she could be. But diving headfirst into something unknown with terrifying side-effects, and without a purpose? No. She would not. Not unless something propelled her toward it. Not unless it was necessary. She needed to rest, least of all; she needed not to frighten everyone so much, secondarily.

Perhaps the man before her had once found it necessary. His clothes were in tatters. Clary felt sorry for him. If she had any food with her, she would have offered it. But then, perhaps he wasn't homeless at all. Perhaps this was simply the way he chose to keep himself. His secrets, Clary would never know - she would never know him as he was, let alone what he once had been. But she knew this moment of him. This single, frozen moment, as she captured it. Each scratch of the pen across the paper left another part of his story there for the viewing, each detailed resemblance of a wrinkle or a misplaced hair, or the way he didn't quite cross his legs at the ankle, more like the calf. Was he a native to this place? Or was he Scorched? It didn't much matter, but it did make her worry about the long-lasting effects of this world.

Scratch, scratch... Strokes and crosshatches and lines and shading, strokes, shading, strokes... The art was an escape from all around her, but it was also her safe place. Her place to think. As her pen finished out the last details of the man's hollowed eyes, she tried to picture herself in his situation. The thought was unbearable. So long as she had Jace and Simon and Alec and Isabelle and Magnus here, she could never become that far gone. Even so long as she had only her sketchbook and her memories, should such a time come when she was alone without her friends, she could never become that far gone. She would find ways to combat the effects of the mist. She could never lose herself like that. Could she?

In her mind, she repeated one mantra: "That will not be me."

note; I would like to note that I choose not to use the actress that portrayed Clary in the City of Bones film. I feel Kristen Connolly (strangely enough in her role as Dana Polk in Cabin in the Woods) much better displays the appearance that the book describes. Red hair, green (more or less, Kristen's are a blueish green) eyes, pale and freckled... Whereas the movie actress was brunette and not freckled at all and definitely did NOT have the right eye color. Anyway, I just wanted to specify! :)

wip