//Confidence by Teddy Geiger
Sunday
O3.27.11
The trek back to town will take up the morning, leaving your afternoon wide open. However, we have special plans for tonight; we’re heading to the opera! Ladies get out your gowns, and gentlemen find your tuxes. This is a formal attire event.
{collab with kirsten!}
Shiloh, Liam, Aaron and I stood in the entrance of the Opera, waiting to be ushered inside. The boys looked dapper in their tuxes, and even though I hated to admit it, I liked wearing my gown. I felt like a princess and Aaron my prince with his hand on my waist keeping us close.
"Are you Shiloh Kidman?" A British accent said from behind us.
We turned around to see a fair haired, fair skinned, broad shouldered man. He was intimidating, and it was almost disturbing that he knew Shiloh's full name and recognized her. "Honey, I found her!" he shouted to a woman. As she approached us, I saw that she was blonde, like the man, and they were both dressed in all black. How odd.
The man stepped towards Shiloh. "Do you know who I am, sweetie?"
Liam snarled and pulled Shiloh closer to his side. "You look like a pedophile."
A giggle managed to escape my lips, because in all truth, he really did. I quickly covered my hand with my mouth, but not before the man gave me a glare.
When the woman smiled, it was a creepy smile. "We're your parents," she said, the grin encompassing her whole face until it looked like she was going to break. Shiloh did nothing but bury herself into Liam's shoulder. She muttered something I couldn't comprehend, and before I knew it, we were fleeing the scene in the opposite direction. I couldn't imagine what might have been going through Shiloh's mind. The whole thing was insane.
We followed the rest of the Institute into the theater to be seated. Liam and Aaron were on the end of the row, and Shiloh and I sat directly in from them. As soon as we were seated, the lights dimmed and the curtains were drawn open. The beginning scene was in a garden with a single woman sitting on a stone bench. She was absolutely stunning. If her face was that beautiful, I couldn't wait to hear her voice.
When the woman opened her mouth to sing, I was stunned. She was singing in Italian! I was expecting it to be in English, but as I thought about it, I realized that almost all classic operas were in Italian or French. How stupid of me. I leaned over to where Liam was sitting. "What is she singing about?"
"Her husband is going to war," he replied in a bored tone.
The woman, named Arietta, went on to sing another lovely song in her garden. I had no clue what it was about, but I adored every second. Before I knew it, the lights were coming back on and there was an announcement that it was intermission for fifteen minutes. Aaron and Liam looked relieved. They told us that they were taking their break outside, and they would return in a minute. I reached up and gave Aaron a light kiss before he walked out of the theater.
An opera singer reappeared on the stage fifteen minutes later, and both boys were not in their seats. Shiloh and I brushed it off because they weren’t having much fun with the show before intermission. The opera ended a half hour or so later, and we were now becoming a bit worried. Where were Liam and Aaron?
Shiloh and I walked out of the opera house. We expected Liam and Aaron to be hiding out, or at least pop out and scare us to try and get a laugh. Instead, we got something completely different.
Aaron and Liam were at the end of the alley, sitting down, slumped over. They seemed to be unconscious. Shiloh and I pulled up our dresses and ran toward them.
We immediately checked for injuries. Liam had a gaping wound on his chest, which dripped scarlet red upon his white dress shirt. Aaron’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle and his nose was dripping blood. The most disturbing wound was on his abdomen, where blood was seeping through his jacket at a rapid pace. "Who would have done this?" I wondered aloud in horror.
Shiloh grimaced. "I think I have an idea."
I was about to ask who she had in mind when I heard a quiet, yet sudden, noise from behind us. As I turned around to see what it was, Shiloh whipped around. A gasp escaped my lips at the sight before us. The man and woman in black, the ones that had earlier claimed to be Shiloh's parents, were propelling down the side of the Opera house.
They took no pleasure in explaining why they were there, what they were doing. A silver flash of a seraph blade flashed in the night. It imbedded itself in the hem of my dress, pinning it to the ground. I tore my gown so I could attack.
Between the last time I was attacked and my most recent conversation with Neveah, I realized that it would be smart to carry a weapon with me. I pulled a dagger and a seraph blade from a holster on my thigh. Because I had not been going to training as frequently as I should, I had almost no technical skills. I just let instinct and adrenaline take over.
My first throw of the seraph blade hit the woman. It sliced deep into her arm, but the injury was not fatal. I whispered the name of the blade, Tizare, and it flew back to me. Shiloh did better with the man, embedding her dagger in his abdomen. It looked painful as he pulled it out of his skin.
Suddenly, the woman charged. She was flailing wildly with a dagger in her hand. Shiloh and I stepped back, but she got a few stabs in. Two on Shiloh's arm, one on my leg, and another on my arm. It hurt worse than anything and was bleeding like crazy, but I continued to defend myself with my own dagger.
The woman, who had worse injuries, looked at the man with fear in her eyes. He wrapped his arm around her and dragged her back around the corner where they came from, but not before giving us a death glare. Who were they really? And more importantly, why had they attacked us?
Shiloh and I turned our attention back to the semi-conscious Aaron and Liam now that the immediate danger was gone. We wrapped strips of cloth from our gowns around their wounds that bled the most profusely, and then worked on wrapping our own gashes.
I put a glamour on us before we walked down the street so we wouldn't get any unnecessary attention. Slowly and painfully, we dragged the boys back to the hotel. When we entered the foyer, both Clary and Jace were there immediately to help us and bomb us with a flurry of questions.
I did not have any time to answer them before I slipped out of consciousness and on to the floor.
{type 'fight' if you read all of that}
