Ch 1: Ut In Praesenti
by @sega-guin

That night, my life flashed before my eyes. If we made one wrong move, I'd lose my whole world.

I felt every moment, every laugh, every argument like it was fresh again, but it faded just as quickly as it appeared. 

Part of me wished I'd never found out my mom was still alive. I was only eighteen, I didn't want a potentially life-threatening adventure. I had enough of that walking the streets of downtown Toronto at night. 

One scene kept replaying, every night since then, like clockwork:

"I saw you in my dream," 

He appeared out of nowhere, scaring me so badly that I almost fell over the swing.

"What do you mean? Who are you anyway?" I could barely think straight.

"My name is Robie Esmer. I'm a warlock."

I stifled a laugh. "Well yeah, you are dressed like you came straight out of fire emblem awakening. Let me guess, you have no memory?"

Robie stared at me. For a second, I thought I'd offended him but he just seemed confused.


"Anyway," I tried to lighten the mood. "I'm Aisaiah Amiens, local clown."

"You're very crude," He said.

"Excuse me?" I replied and Robie rolled his eyes.

I was starting to get upset. I didn't like the way he composed himself.

"We don't have time for this!" He exclaimed though he didn't appear to be talking to me.

"Something's coming, can't you feel it?"

I looked around and back to him, giving him a 'are you talking to me' face. He rolled his eyes once more but before I could give him hell he started talking nonsense again.

"It doesn't seem like you know anything," He sighed and this time I wasn't going to keep it to myself.

"Can't you see how much better of an impression you could have made by just shutting up?" I blurted.

Robbie didn't seem surprised, though he was taken aback for a moment.

"I'm sorry, I meant no disrespect," He said. "I'm not very good at interacting with people not from my realm." 

"Your realm? You mean fire emblem?" I inquired. He gave me that puzzled look again.

"I was referring to Cadair," He answered as if it was supposed to be obvious.

I racked my brain. I'm sure I'd heard of that place somewhere before.

"Oh!" I said finally. "You mean like shadowhunters?"

Robie made a face. "Those books were wildly inaccurate." 

I shrugged.

"Have you heard the saying: all the stories are true?" He continued.

"Is that another shadowhunters reference?" I mumbled

"Your mother is Donna Parrish, am I correct?" Robie said, ignoring my attempt at humour.

"And if she is?"

His face softened. "I met her a few times. She taught at the academy where I studied. She mentioned you quite often and kept a picture of you on her desk."

I looked away, desperate to hide my tears. I don't remember much about my mom, she died a couple of years ago and my dad doesn't speak about her much.

"Your mother was a rephaim." Robie seemed unsure if he should continue. "Though she participated in some actions one might consider..distasteful, I truly believe she is a good woman."

Great, my mom was a probably war criminal. 

"Distasteful in what way?" I asked, he seemed to know things about her that my dad would never answer.

Robie scattered his brain for the right words. "She was, more or less, in a cult. They experimented on several children and may have killed an entire race of people."

This time, I fell over the swing. I decided my body would do better on the warm sand. 

"This cannot be real"

"If you are who I think you are, then yes," Robie said, helping me up. "Part of you knows, or else you would not have come."

All of my strange dreams flashed like a movie sequence. I didn't want it to be true, even though deep in my heart, I knew not everything he proposed was a lie.

"If you don't believe me," Robie's face turned sour. "Ask your friend with the two eyes. His father was the root of all of this."

I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what Nico had to do with any of this.

"So you're telling me Nico's basically a shadowhunter and his dad was some kind of nazi?"

"And my mom," I continued. "She was a part of this guy's cult and I'm some sort of metahuman?"

"Fey blood runs through your veins." He said. "So does nephilim. I can sense it."

"I'm sorry. This must be a lot to take in." Robie took a seat next to me.

I sighed and looked up at the sky. I noticed a rainbow, though something about it looked odd. It seemed broken and scattered into the sky, like paint. There was so much running through my head at once, I didn't bother trying to speak. I just started swinging. Robie and I swung at the park until my mind started to feel a little less like fog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke to the sound of a blade being sharpened. Looking around groggily, I spotted Jia a few feet away. She was sitting by the door, probably thinking of a way to betray us. I was tempted to wake Lu but thought better of it. What would I say that wouldn't sound irrational? Even though I didn't trust her, I knew how much it meant to Lu to have her here. I swallowed my pride and moved my sleeping bag closer to her.

"Where did you run off to earlier?" I inquired.

No answer. She was deep in thought and didn't seem to notice that I was there. I gave her a nudge and out of what I hope was reflexes, she pointed her blade at my throat. Before I could properly fear for my life, she put it away just as quickly. 

"Sorry," She squeaked, like that made up for it. 

As if reading my thoughts, Jia sneered. 

"You don't like me anymore, do you?" 

She sounded sad, but I just couldn't forget everything she had done.

"I had no problem with you until this." I started, making sure not to wake Lu. "Until you left Lu alone for years with them. Everyone thought you were dead but she never kept looking." 

Jia looked away but I wasn't going to stop.

"And when we finally see you again, you're in some cult, working for a guy who just wants to kill what he doesn't understand."

"You're the one who doesn't understand!" Jia glared at me, tears in her eyes. "You think it was easy for me to leave Lu behind? Don't you think I wanted to reach out? How badly I wanted to take her with me? She had a life there with you all."

"You did too!" I protested but she was nowhere near finished.

"Besides, we aren't doing anything wrong!" Jia argued. "Didn't you always say you would protect those who couldn't protect themselves even if it was against the law? We aren't hurting anyone who doesn't deserve it. Even then, we don't kill."

I didn't want to hear it. I was insulted that she'd still defend them after what they did to Nico.

Jia grabbed my hand and looked at me pleadingly.

"What happened to Nico wasn't their doing, I can prove it." She said. "I know that wolf, the one who bit Nico."

Jia explained that he was a rogue named Austin. He was supposed to be serving jail time for the murder of his sister, Camille. Her 'group' had helped the police but him there, they would never be the ones to set him free. She gave me countless stories of the people they had saved from abusers, how they made them stronger and most joined from free will and could leave if they chose. They were there to protect those the government didn't care about. Jia was their family and in turn, so were we. 

At the time, I really did start to believe her.