"Wait!" Isabelle whined. Her Mother, Maryse, was already half way across the room to turn the light off but the nine year old wasn't comfy yet. Her brother Alexander half winced at the shrillness of her voice and rolled his eyes at her.
"Alright, alright," Maryse said calmly and waited for Isabelle to settle down. She felt a pang of pity for her son as the girl fidgeted on his bed. In truth, Alexander was getting a little old for their nightly routine. The trouble was that his little sister refused fall asleep anywhere else. Their Mother let the girl have her way for the ease of it and because she knew that just next door Jace could hear them through the thin wall. He couldn't hear them from little Isabelle's room.
When she got the all-important nod of permission to turn out the light, she flicked the switch and made her way over to the bedside. Unlike her children she was marked with runes for sight and could see perfectly well in the dark.
When she was seated she smiled at her children. Alexander was inclining his head towards his sister who was curled up into his side contentedly. Then Maryse began to sing.
"A la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener,
J'ai trouvé l' eau si belle,
Que je m'y suis baigné.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai."
Maryse had French relatives somewhere in her bloodline who had handed down the traditional song as their lullaby. She never much cared about what European heritage she had but she'd always liked the language and the song too. Her Mother had sung it to her every night of her childhood just as she did for her children.
"Sous les feuilles d'un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher,
Sur la plus haute branche,
Un rossignol chantait.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai."
Isabelle was humming along quietly and a little out of tune. Her Mother noticed that she was holding a fluffy stuffed toy in the shape of a grey cat and suppressed a giggle. Church always hissed when the little girl tried to play with him so on her last birthday Alexander had given his parents the superb idea of adding the toy to her list of less-innocent, more shadowhunter-worthy gifts. She'd cuddled it every night since.
"Chante rossignol, chante,
Toi qui a le coeur gai,
Tu as le coeur à rire,
Moi je l'ai à pleurer...
Il y a longtemps que je l'aime, jamais je ne l'oublierai."
The humming got quieter and quieter as Isabelle dozed off. Maryse paused at the end of the verse thinking that she was asleep but her daughter soon opened an expectant eye when she noticed that the singing had stopped. Her Mother stroked her hair reassuringly and continued her song.
"J'ai perdu mon amie,
Sans l'avoir mérité,
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusais.
Il y a longtemps que je l'aime, jamais je ne l'oublierai."
By now Isabelle was surely asleep. Maryse stood and carefully picked her up. Leaning closely she noticed the frown on Alexander's face, the way his eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. He was pretending to be asleep. With another smile his Mother kissed his forehead and made sure to sing the final verse very softly on her way to the door.
"Je voudrais que la rose,
Fût encore au rosier,
Et que ma douce amie,
Fût encore à m'aimer.
Il y a longtemps que je l'aime, jamais je ne l'oublierai."
Before she left she glanced to see, to her contentment, that his lips weren't so sullen anymore. Then as always she walked out of the room and peered into Jace's to see that the boy was sound asleep. She didn't know why she never invited Jace in with them; it wasn't that she wanted to exclude him at all. She put it down to his age. Alexander was growing out of it and he was only a year younger than her biological son. She didn't believe that Jace needed her way Isabelle did.
Cliché as it is to say: to be born a Shadowhunter was a blessing and a curse. They grew up surrounded by the stuff of legend, a fantastic word of real faerie-tale magic. It was, however, a dark world. It was a world full of daemons, the offspring of daemons and those infected by daemons. The Nephilim were destined for a short life stalking the night from its darkest crevices. They were taught young to never be afraid of the dark. Not in the same way mundane children are, nobody ever told them that there was nothing to be afraid of, instead they learned what was there and how to protect themselves from it. Until they could protect themselves, though, they had their parents. And the little ways those parents sang to them in the dark, just to reassure them that everything would be okay.