The Alien in Central Park

by MoiraLeeBankrupt

Summary:

When a lonely Isabelle Lightwood meets an alien boy lost in New York, she decides to take him home with her, regardless of what the Clave thinks about the matter.

OR

First prequel for my Explicit Malec love story called "Aliens, Shadowhunters, and Warlocks, Oh My!" That is in Magnus’s point of view. However, this one is in Alec’s point of view. It’s his backstory on how he ended up on earth! This idea wouldn't leave my head, and I hope some people are as interested in the uniqueness as I am! It demanded to be written so here it is! A little weird but well loved.

“Son?” Mama’s frightened, overlapping chirps and clicks vibrated through the speakers of his travel pod. “Are you alright?”

The boy’s long threads panicked. The thousands of thin tentacles on his head flared wildly in the dim light, smacking the walls and ceiling all around him. He reached a slim, pale finger over to press a button and clicked back at her, “Mama? Are we there?”

Mama let out a shaky, relieved breath. “Just . . . wait until we . . . come back and . . . get you . . . okay? It’s . . . okay. We’re . . . going . . . to be . . . fine.” She sounded strained, like she’d been swimming for days and exhausted all the air from both sets of lungs.

“Going to be?” The boy balked, dark tendrils writhing anxiously in his mouth. A few escaped, snaking past his pointed teeth to taste the air. All he smelt was himself, the faint metallic tang of the pod, and the warm fabric of his blanket. But the travel pod was meant to be extra insulated and protected to keep children as safe as possible during interplanetary spaceflight. Just because he was fine didn’t mean the rest of their ship was.

He straightened in his seat, but the harness held him too firmly to allow much movement. Did they hit something? he wondered, then promptly scolded himself. No, of course not. How was that even possible? Papa has complete control over whether or not something touches the ship.

Maybe they got lost on their way to Ucorth? Mama hated being lost. Maybe she was breathless from yelling at Papa about it?

The boy slammed his finger against the button again when his mother didn’t respond. “Mama! What’s happening?”

No answer. The thick tentacles hiding inside his gut twisted, knotting up as dread sunk into his bones.

“Papa?” he tried, slamming the button repeatedly. “Mama? Maybe we should go back?”

They didn’t need a new planet. Even though it was exciting to finally shed his birth name and earn himself a new one.

Rumvers were a nomadic people. Immersing themselves in new cultures, traveling to different planets and learning new ways of life, was what they did. Including taking a new name for themselves on each planet they made their home.

Mama had had two names already by the time she was his age. The boy was nine now but had only ever had the one! He remembered how relentlessly he’d pestered his parents about leaving and gnawed a few of the squishy tendrils inside of his cheek. 

“I like Nalmao!” He insisted. The silence, once comforting the boy and lulling him to sleep, was now an oppressive, terrifying thing. Mama always said they’d know when the time was right to leave, but the time wasn’t feeling very right anymore. “Mama? Maybe Papa needs to work on the ship a little more? We can go back and try Ucorth next year.”

Papa was an engineer. An inventor too. He loved experimenting with new materials, adding them to the ship to make it stronger and better than before. He’d know what to do.

“Papa?” the boy’s clicks and chirps took on a warbling undertone that betrayed his mounting anxiety. “Is the ship okay?”

Nothing.

“I’ll wait until you come get me,” he said, releasing the button.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

No matter what he said to his mother through the speakers, she didn’t respond again. He was nibbling on a seaweed bar an unknown amount of time later—it felt like forever—when the pod finally opened above him and his harness released.

His inky threads immediately suctioned to the sides to give the boy leverage, and he launched himself out eagerly, ignoring the slight tug at his scalp as he soared through the air and landed lightly on his feet.

“Ma—” His happy, overlapping chirrups cut off abruptly when he realized his parents never let him out. The Emergency Protocols must have been activated and released him automatically after five hours to keep him from being trapped inside the pod.

The boy’s threads dropped lifelessly around his shoulders, down his back and torso. He stared at the sight that greeted him, waiting for it to make sense.

The hatch leading outside was open, showing a baffling mass of greenery and a dark sky filled with scattered dots of light: Stars.

There were dints in the walls, and shelves ripped open, even though they’d been locked tight: Something attacked. Something strong.

Thick, dark plum liquid smeared on the walls and pooled around where his mother lie on the ship floor surrounded by discarded medical stuff. Blood. It was blood: His mother was hurt, and his father must have tried to heal her.

So, there were stars, a new planet that definitely wasn’t Ucorth, a lot of blood, his mother wounded, and his father gone. Individually, those things were easy to understand but put them all together and add the fact that his mother’s black threads, the same exact shade as his own, were dry and limp . . . and that’s where his brain shut down in protest.

Mama was on her back, arms by her sides, with a pillow lovingly placed under her head. The belly flap of her shirt was still open from when she released her battle-tentacles. There were only four left. She’s missing the other two, he noted numbly. Why weren’t they retracting into her stomach so the other two could grow back? Why wasn’t Mama moving? Where was Papa?

The young rumver couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at.

“Mama?” He clicked hesitantly, somehow finding his voice.

He gagged, shocked at the putrid scent that overpowered everything else. He turned away and slapped a hand over his mouth. The boy pressed his lips together as tightly as he could, only daring to breathe through his nose as his threads curled in on themselves in revulsion until they were a squirming mass around his shoulders.

Mama needed him. The thought kicked him into gear. She couldn’t be . . . No. He had to help her. She just needed help. Maybe that’s where Papa went, to get help. He rushed to his mother, avoiding the blood as best as he could. His threads uncoiled and reached for her when he knelt. They were poking and prodding, running along her too-stiff body, trying in vain to pinch her wounds closed, and attempting to put her battle-tentacles back inside her body.

Mama didn’t have a pulse.

He refused to realize what that meant.

Horror clawed at his chest. His eyes stung and his throat clogged. He struggled to keep it at bay as he shook her desperately with his hands. His threads were frantic now, all of them moving to wrap around her unresponsive battle-tentacles and stuff them back inside her stomach. They shouldn’t be out this long. They needed to go back inside where they belonged.

Except they weren’t moving, and Mama felt way, way too cold. He nearly called out to her again, but caught himself at the last second, keeping his lips firmly closed so his tendrils stayed inside and that awful smell outside. A handful of inky threads jerked at the memory, like they wanted to dive behind his head but stopped themselves.

He had to help his mother. Smell or no smell. Her lilac lips were slightly parted, paler than normal, and no tendrils emerged from them. Against his better judgement, he pinched his mother’s off-colored cheeks to open her mouth. He just had to see them moving.

But they weren’t.

Because she wasn’t breathing.

Because she didn’t have a pulse.

Which was why her complexion had a weird grey-ish tinge to it. Because she was . . . because she was . . .  A strangled whimper vibrated in his throat. His threads and hands trembled faintly.

He had to figure out what happened because his father was still missing. The boy held onto that and breathed deeply through his nose a few times, until his heart stopped trying to explode in his chest. He forced himself to properly look around. He had to be strong for Papa.

And only Papa . . . because his mother was . . . No. He couldn’t think about that.

He looked around, taking in the extensive damage until he noticed that the hatch door wasn’t broken. There was no sign of forced entry around it at all, unlike the door to the cockpit to his right, which was ripped almost to shreds. There was also a faint, translucent glow in the doorway, only visible if looked at from the corner of his eye; a barrier separating the boy and the new planet. Another telltale sign of the Emergency Protocols being active. When they were, the entire ship shifted slightly to the left of whatever plane of reality it happened to be on, rendering it untouchable to those who didn’t have access to it.

It wouldn’t keep anyone inside from leaving if they wanted to, but it would prevent anything on this planet from even seeing the ship, let alone getting inside of it. Which means the beast must’ve come in through an already open hatch door before his parents flipped on the Emergency Protocols in a panic.

A few dots were connecting; they must’ve chosen to interact with their surroundings, thinking it safe, and fully parked to open the hatch door, only for something to take them by surprise before they could get out and explore. But that still didn’t explain what could have hidden itself so well that the scanners didn’t detect it. It also didn’t tell the boy where his father was now.

Papa wouldn’t have let his mother bleed out alone unless none of their medicine was healing her. Unless he really was that desperate to save her that he had no other choice. And even then, Papa would have come back for him. He wouldn’t let him find his mother by himself. Papa would’ve attempted to shield the boy from the view. Like he always did, no matter how many times he told his father that he was nine now, and since he was almost in double digits, he was capable of handling more adult things.  

Even the things that Papa insisted were for “triple digit ages only.” The boy knew his father only used that line to get his way, because that was clearly so far away from the young rumver’s current age. But for the first time in a long time, he felt like he was in one of those “triple-digit-only” situations. He was suddenly very, very aware of his own youth and vulnerability. Where was Papa? His heart struggled to beat properly, almost like his inner tentacles turned on him and were squeezing the pitiful organ with all they had.

Was Papa . . . eaten? The boy shuddered.

He was used to being the apex predator. They’d been the strongest species on Nalmao, physically at least, seeing as they didn’t have any magic. Unlike the malnoids, who were physically weak but naturally infused with magical abilities from the moment they hatched. They were unique creatures, dangerous in their own right, but it was still the rumvers who were at the top of the food chain on Nalmao, not the ones used to being on the prey side of things. Not when they were so much stronger and faster than anything else on that planet.

The malnoids had offered his parents improvements on their ship when they first landed, giving all sorts of magical gifts in exchange for their protection. They guarded the malnoids for years before the boy was born and became very close with them as a result. The boy himself has killed to protect them on several occasions. Especially from the magic-eaters that rendered them susceptible to physical injury in a way most things didn’t. It was hard to catch a malnoid, but if you did, then killing them was pretty easy after that, because that meant their magic was too low to keep you away.

His family never ever ate a sentient being capable of higher thought and complex emotion, anyway. What kind of beasts did they have on this planet that were powerful enough to kill something as strong as a rumver, but simultaneously too stupid to tell the difference between prey and people? If two fully-grown rumvers fighting together couldn’t take that thing on, there was no way the boy could alone. What if it came back?

A shout outside drew the boy’s attention. He was already on edge, and the sounds of a fight brewing made him let out an involuntary hiss, lips curling up to flash pointed teeth. His threads tightened protectively around his mother’s battle-tentacles, and dark tendrils slid between his teeth to taste the air. He fought down a wave of nausea as the putrid scent of death rammed its way down his throat.

He ignored it as best as he could and slowly rose from his crouch. His threads reluctantly unwound, letting his mother go one-by-one. There was a series of soft little pop-pop-pops as the countless pinprick-sized suckers released her. When he was on his feet, they reached curiously for the open hatch, tugging at his scalp and urging him forward.

He took a cautious step when something small burst into his line of sight from inside the mass of towering green and brown land-plants. They were almost as insane as seeing something that resembled a young rumver girl burst into the clearing the ship was hiding in.

She had a glowing dagger held tightly in each hand, and more weapons strapped to her. He hadn’t expected to see something so normal on such a weird planet. She had two legs, two arms, a torso, and dark brown eyes sitting in a face that looked like one his own species might have. Her skin was tanner than his, though, with an unnatural pink hue staining her cheeks. Even her mouth was a weird pink color. The threads on her head were almost as black as his own, but hers were dry for some reason, not healthy and slick like his own inky tentacles. Was she dehydrated? Was there no water around here? It was weird how . . . thin and lifeless they looked. Why weren’t they helping her fight?

Better question: why didn’t she let out her battle-tentacles? They were a rumver’s strongest weapon.

Maybe she didn’t have any. His stomach clenched at the thought as he watched her back into the clearing, eyes locked on whatever was inside the weird land-forest. Was she some kind of cousin-species of the rumver?

Not a single person on Nalmao looked remotely like them. The malnoids were small aquatic carnivores, whose family units looked more like a floating mass of kelp. Until you swam closer and started to think they might be a bunch of camouflaging sea-snakes instead, but then, while you’re busy trying to figure it out, they’ve already taken advantage of your hesitation and attacked. Malnoids didn’t look like what you would assume people would, but there was unmistakable intelligence in their eyes that told his parents they were not mindless beasts. And once his parents were able to breach the language barrier, thanks to the magical aid of the malnoids, they realized they weren’t beasts at all.

His parents taught him that people weren’t food, and people were still people, no matter how different they might look. So, people looking different was exactly what he expected to find. Seeing someone that looked like him honestly took the boy by surprise. He admired her courage as she threw of one of her glowing daggers without hesitation as soon as a beast her size came into the clearing with them.

Predator, he knew instinctively, but a weak one compared to himself.

The girl, on the other hand, treated the thing like it could do serious damage to her. She glared, hands steady and movements sure, even as fear clearly shone in her eyes. Her species might not be as strong as his, but they were certainly as brave, because she didn’t even flinch when it let out a shriek, opening its wide mouth to display sharp teeth as soon as her dagger landed squarely in its slimy, green, elongated chest. He watched as it seemed to . . . burn the creature upon contact.

The thing had a small, triangular head and sharp, powerful mandibles that made nonsensical clicking sounds. It swiped at the dagger with one of its pinchers until it dislodged. The girl continued cautiously backing up until she was closer to the nose of the ship than she was to the beast. The moment it resumed stalking toward her on jagged, razored forelegs, the boy ran outside of the ship unthinkingly.

The planet’s atmosphere hit him square in the face and he stumbled. The gravity here wasn’t as heavy as Nalmao’s and the air wasn’t as thick. The weightlessness of it made the boy’s head swim and vision dance. His stomach swooped sickeningly, and he took a huge, heaving gasp of breath with a desperate plea to the universe to keep his feet firmly planted on the grass.

Please, please don’t let me float away.

The girl and beast both whipped to face him, startled. Her face went slack with shock, no doubt thinking he appeared out of clear nowhere. He couldn’t save his mother, but he could save her. This couldn’t have been the same one that got inside the ship. He knew he could take this overgrown land bug in a fight.

It could tell he was the bigger threat too. But it was stupid, like beasts often were, and instead of running, the land bug turned away from her in favor of stalking toward him. His belly button expanded, but the predator was quick. His battle-tentacles exploded out of his stomach to catch it mid-air when it lunged. The boy winced as his abdomen stretched open too fast, too soon.

“Ow!” he complained, glaring at the squirming land bug. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow. It clicked at him as it struggled. “I don’t know what that means.”

It didn’t matter either. His battle-tentacles made quick work of it, ripping off its crunchy limbs, spraying thin, black blood everywhere. Unfortunately, it was him who screeched then, because the land bug’s stupid blood burned like acid. He dropped it immediately and it twitched on the ground, dying.

The girl’s mouth hung open in astonishment, which was weirdly fleshy and pink inside, no tendrils at all.

“Fuck!” he cursed, retracting his battle-tentacles quickly so they could heal inside.

He refastened his shirt with a deep scowl. He wasn’t supposed to use language like that—it was only for “double-digit-people-and-up,” according to his Papa—but blood wasn’t supposed to burn. What the fuck? So, he’ll curse about it if he wants too.

Honestly. He hated this planet already. He wanted to go back to Nalmao, where things made sense. He turned his glare to the girl. What was she even doing out here if she couldn’t handle that land bug by herself? Where were her parents?

She lifted her remaining dagger threateningly. Her expression flattened to return his glare with her own.

Was she serious? He saved her life!

His threads flared in outrage, flinging all the way up over his head due to the unfamiliarity of weightless air. She tracked the movement, shock flashing across her face again. Her defensive stance didn’t waver. Her glowing dagger glinted threateningly.

“Don’t you dare!” He clicked at her, furious. Her brown eyes snapped back to his face. “What are you fighting me for? I didn’t have to help, you know!”

She spoke utter gibberish in reply—moving her entire mouth around, that fleshy thing inside of it flapping—and it reminded him they couldn’t understand each other.

And you know what? He thought to his missing father. I’ll cuss about this too.

“Aquapus’s flaming ballsack!” he cursed, tendrils vibrating, just because he could.

So there, Papa.

He was going to tell him all about it too, once he found him.

She replied, tone more insistent, but, of course, he still didn’t know what she was saying.

Her voice was strangely . . . singular. Rumvers always sounded like two different voices were speaking at the same time. It was a defensive mechanism, often used as a scare tactic. He’s seen his mother and father throw their voices around impressively, masking where they were coming from. It often made their dinner think they were surrounded and outmatched, even if they weren’t. He doesn’t know how to do that yet.

The girl stared blankly and lowered her glowing dagger slightly. At least she was smart enough to realize he wouldn’t kill the land bug just to fight her himself. He wouldn’t have stepped in if he wanted her hurt. It would’ve handled that by itself.

He lowered his threads to show he meant no harm. They squirmed around his arms, back, and chest restlessly.

She blinked at them, openly amazed. Her own stayed lifeless in a row of black knots down her back. Now that he was closer to her, they didn’t look like tentacles at all. He thought they might be hair. Odd. The only thing he had that came close to hair were his eyebrows and lashes, which were thinner than his threads, and couldn’t move on their own, but still had the same inky look and feel.

What good is hair if it’s only on her head and not the rest of her body? He wondered. It can’t possibly offer warmth. It clearly didn’t fight. What did it do?

She was speaking gibberish again, growing more frustrated, and he didn’t blame her.

He hoped the pearls weren’t crushed. He flicked a few threads at her in a “stay-here” motion and rushed back onto the ship. Normal, thick air greeted him, and he took greedy breaths through his nose, keeping his mouth closed to avoid the smell. At least the air outside didn’t reek, even if it was annoyingly light.

The boy ran down the small hallway past his travel pod. The door to the storage room was hanging in metal tatters, and he squeezed through a big enough crack, not wanting to risk using the button, just in case that broke it further. His Papa would fix it when he got back.

Like the cabin, the storage walls were dented, and the drawers were forced open. All their stuff was everywhere. How am I going to find—He inhaled sharply and quickly bent to sift through the mess with his threads and hands. He threw anything beyond repair into the hallway, some clothes and personal items were gone forever, which made him grind his teeth. He didn’t know how or when, but somehow, someday, he was going to make whatever did this pay.

He took a few more sharp breaths, eyes stinging, and tried to calm himself. The girl thought he vanished into nothing. He needed to find the pearls before she decided he wasn’t coming back and left the clearing. He ended up finding the half-ruined container they were stored in after a few frantic minutes and opened it to find only two of ten pearls uncrushed.

The malnoids had imbued them with their own magical ability to understand any language. They made the pearls for them to use as translators on their journey. That monster had no right to break them!

“That stupid—” He cut himself off again with a hissing growl, his threads cracked through the air like thousands of living whips. Still grumbling a little under his breath, he took out a pearl, hid it in a closed fist, and took a running leap into the hallway, suctioning his threads to the ceiling to swing over the pile of garbage.

The girl was pitching a fit when he got back to the hatch door, assuming she had been abandoned. She was swinging a sword back and forth near the spot where he’d disappeared. The blade of it glowed like the dagger had, which was now strapped to her side. It passed harmlessly through the ship’s walls as she was unable to perceive or interact with it without his parents’ permission.

It was funny looking, how much pinker and scrunched up her face got when she was furious like that.

He hesitated for a moment and stepped out of the ship. Switching between different atmospheres like this made his head hurt. He wished Papa would hurry back so he could adjust inside to match outside. A thread reached up on either side of his head and curled in on themselves until they were little balls that wiggled against his temples, massaging them. He wasn’t sure what his expression was doing, but it caused the girl to drop her weapon sheepishly, relief melted the anger on her face.

He opened his palm between them and spoke into the pearl. “I was getting this so we can talk.”

The pearl lit up from within and his own voice came out of it, magically altered to sound like recipient’s species.

The girl jerked, startled.

It was weird, hearing his voice sound so singular and alien. He’s never actually used them before, although he was told how they were meant to work. It was more about what you intended to convey, rather than literally translating word-for-word between one language and the next. Not all of them had the same words for things.

He watched her face closely for signs of recognition.  

She looked from the pearl to his face and back again with naked awe. He preened. Nobody’s ever looked at him quite like that before, like he was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen. A small bud of warmth bloomed in his chest, and he lifted his palm encouragingly.

She beamed and closed the small distance between them. Why were her teeth shaped like that? Was the girl a herbivore? There was definitely no meat eating going on with teeth that dull.

Her chest was almost brushing his fingers when she directed a bunch of gibberish at the pearl. After a moment, it lit up again, this time in a series of overlapping clicks and chirps. “Angels above! That’s so cool! Did you make this? Do you have magic?” She gaped in astonishment at hearing her own voice do something so different. He went to reply, but she spoke quickly into the pearl before he could. “Oh! My name is Isabelle, by the way, but you can call me Izzy. What’s your name?” There was a brief pause before she also added, “And where are you from?”

He moved as if getting ready to speak into the pearl, but lifted his brows expectantly instead, hoping to convey Are you done for real this time? Can I talk?

Isabelle shot him a cheeky grin.

His lips quirked up reflexively as he replied to her questions, “No, I didn’t make it. It was a parting gift from some family friends, the malnoids. They’re the ones with the magic. And no, of course I don’t have a name yet, I just got here.” Isabelle’s face scrunched in confusion at that. “We came from Nalmao.”

“You don’t have a name yet because you just got here?” She repeated dubiously. The feminine clicks from the pearl added unnecessary emphasis that made him defensive.

“Yeah?” He said warily, unsure if he was being made fun of. His threads moved spasmodically around him. “So?”

Isabelle blinked hard. “But you look older than me! There’s no way you don’t have a name.”

Oh.

The tension leaked out of him, and his threads slowed to a languid pace. She wasn’t mocking his culture, she just needed him to explain it. Maybe people here kept their names the same when they went to new planets.

“When our people make a new planet our home, we shed our old names to use one from there instead,” he elaborated. “It’s supposed to be a gesture of goodwill, you know? To show you that we’re not coming here to push you around or anything.”

His Mama could explain it better.

Luckily, Isabelle nodded with a little ah sound before she spoke. “No plans for world domination, then, huh?” The playful cadence in the pearl’s dual-clicks and the mirth dancing in her dark eyes told him this was a joke.

He didn’t understand why it was supposed to be funny, but he smiled and shook his head regardless.

“Hey, we do that to mean ‘no’ too!” She said, delighted. “And you nod for ‘yes,’ just like we do!”

Nobody has ever been thrilled to have something in common with him either. Isabelle’s enthusiasm was charming.

“What gesture do you do to mean ‘wait here?’” He asked, because she hadn’t understood when he’d tried to let her know nonverbally that he was coming back.

Isabelle lifted her hand up, palm facing him and fingers straight. He copied her with his free hand and then flicked a few threads at her like he’d done before. Realization dawned on her face. She made that ah sound again, without nodding this time. “How long are you staying?”

The boy swallowed around the lump in his throat and averted his gaze. “I’m not sure.”

“Why?” Isabelle stepped to the side and tilted her head to keep herself in his line of sight. “What’s wrong? Do you need help? I’m a Shadowhunter, you know.” She puffed her chest out proudly. “That’s what we do.”

He let her capture his gaze. “Your kind help people? How?”

She shrugged. “We kill demons and make sure the Downworlders stay in line mostly. But that’s all to protect people! That’s what we really do.”

Demons? Downworlders?

“What are those? Stay in line how?” He wondered, curiosity took his mind off of . . . what was inside the ship.

She gave him a brief rundown: Demons were evil, inter-dimensional beings that could move between worlds and destroyed everything in their path. They took different forms and were usually easily recognizable unless they were shapeshifters. Most of them, especially the weaker ones (Lower-leveled, she called it), usually took on monstrous appearances when on Earth.

That was the planet, he learned. Earth.

Downworlders were all the other supernatural people who lived in the “Shadow World.” Which was different than the “mundanes,” who apparently didn’t even know magic and other beings existed. They were unable to defend themselves, which was where the Shadowhunters came into play. They didn’t let Downworlders or demons hurt them.

“So . . .” she drawled out, looking at him pointedly. He just stared back, and she huffed. “What’s wrong? I can help!”

“You couldn’t even help yourself,” he reminded her.

Isabelle reared back—offense clear on her face. “Excuse you! I’m gonna get my first rune soon and you’ll be sorry you said that! Besides, I could’ve taken it. You barely even let me try.”

He rolled his eyes. There was no chance she could’ve taken that thing. Instead of pointing that out, he simply asked, “Rune?”

She sniffed haughtily, not yet over his perceived insult—although, he’d just been pointing out the facts, and not insulting her. “They’re the Marks of Raziel. They’re either drawn on us or on physical objects. Each one grants its own power,” she boasted smugly, the expectation on her face made him think she was looking for an apology. He wasn’t giving one. “And they only work if Shadowhunters draw them.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. That was an interesting form of magic. Different than anything he’s ever seen. It made him feel better that she’d have some kind of power soon to protect herself with too. “Well, I don’t know if you can help find my Papa. He was supposed to be back by now.”

Isabelle rocked back on her heels, a thoughtful look on her face. “You fought that Mantid like it was nothing. Your Papa must be super strong too?” He nodded. “But you don’t have magic. Are you magic resistant?”

He shook his head. “We have stuff that can protect us, more gifts from the malnoids, but I don’t know if he was able to take one or—” he cut himself off. Or if that beast (some kind of upper-level demon, maybe) stole them. None of their protection amulets were in the ship.

“Or?” she insisted. He pursed his lips stubbornly. She huffed again. “Fine. Anyway, if the fey saw some random, new creature roaming around, confused and clearly needing help, they might’ve tricked him into Faerie.”

Usually, Papa’d be too smart to trick, but he was desperate to help Mama.

The boy’s stomach churned. “Where’s that? How do I get him back?”

Isabelle looked around nervously like she thought one might be listening. He cast his own gaze warily at their surroundings. “We don’t know if that’s what happened. You don’t want to go accusing the fey with no proof . . . or even with proof,” she added after a beat.

He felt like a boulder landed square on his chest. A shaky breath vibrated his tendrils, and he clenched his jaw. An entirely new planet with a million new rules and beings to learn about. What was he supposed to do? Where was he even supposed to start?

“Are you alone?” she asked.

His eyes flickered to the ship, where his mother lie, and back to Isabelle’s openly concerned face. “Yes,” he admitted, fighting back a wave of pain that tried to pull him under. “I’m alone.”

“You can come with me!” she offered eagerly. “The institute is huge, and it’s mostly just my parents, me, and Hodge. My mom’s gonna have a baby soon, but it’s not like he can say anything. I can let you in! We can hide you while we figure out what you’re gonna do.” She brightened even more, if that were possible, and added, “And I can teach you all about Earth!”

“Hide me?” he wondered. “Wouldn’t they want to help too? If they’re Shadowhunters?”

There was a suspiciously awkward pause. “Um,” Isabelle’s dual-clicks pitched oddly. “Well, sure, but they’re very busy. They have lots of important Clave business.” She waved a hand around as she listed them. “Communications with Idris, that’s our home country. Downworlder negotiations. Scheduling missions for Shadowhunters in the area. You know, stuff like that.” That list sounded like it came directly quoted from her parents.

He made sure his face conveyed how much he didn’t believe her. That explained why they might not be able to help, not why she had to hide him.

Isabelle winced. “The truth is . . . Shadowhunters don't really . . . like people not like them,” she said slowly, giving each part of her sentence away in reluctant pieces.

“Your purpose is to protect people different than you, but you hate people different than you?” he said, unimpressed. “How does that make sense?”

“I don’t hate people different than me!” Isabelle protested. “I think magic is cool! And you’re awesome, obviously.” The boy flushed lilac at the unexpected praise. “But my parents might turn you over to the Clave, our government, and who knows what they’d do.” Color fled the boy’s cheeks, and his threads wrapped defensively around his upper torso like armor. “Probably not hurt you!”

“Probably?”

Isabelle winced again. “They mean well, really, they just might not know you’re friendly. They get . . . defensive.”

“Right,” the boy said sarcastically. “That’s comforting.”

“I want to help you,” Isabella said earnestly, abandoning her attempts to defend her people’s intolerance. A good call, because they were weak, at best. “The Institute really is huge. I won’t let the Clave find you. But you need someone to help you learn how Earth works, and I can do that. Come home with me! Just for a day.”

He chewed at the tendrils on the inside of his left cheek, squishing and un-squishing them. It was stupid and dangerous and reckless. But . . . but still a better option than going back inside his reeking, filthy ship alone.

Did he have much of a choice?

“Alright,” the boy agreed reluctantly. “But I’m running back to my ship at the first sign of trouble.”

Isabelle squealed and lunged. He flinched and unwrapped his threads quickly to protect himself. His fingers closed around the pearl. However, she merely embraced him for a second and stepped back. “Great! Follow me! You won’t regret it.”

“Change often appears when least expected, and it’s easy to think of change as a negative thing,” Papa told him once. “But don’t fear change, son, embrace it. Embracing change lets you see its powerful, positive impact on the universe and her many worlds.”

Don’t fear change, embrace it, he tried to tell himself as he followed her. It rang hollow.

Notes:

If anyone is interested in more "Alien Alec growing up in secret in the Institute," I'd be happy to write more content like this as well as the main story. Snippets of Alec meeting Max and Jace and even Church, maybe. Let me know.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Alien Alec Universe