"Once there was
a boy," said Jace.
Clary
interrupted immediately. "A Shadowhunter boy?"
"Of
course." For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice.
Then it was gone. "When the boy was six years old, his
father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors- killing
birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.
"The
falcon didn't like the boy, and the boy didn't like it,
either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes
always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak
and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were
always bleeding. He didn't know it, but his father had
selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and
thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because
his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to
please his father.
"He
stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to
it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant
to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the
hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He
was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn't bring
himself to do it- instead he tried to sit where the bird could
see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust
him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat.
Later it ate so savagely that its beak would cut the skin of the
boys palm. But the boy was glad because it was progress, and
because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to
consume his blood to make that happen.
"He
began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings
were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift,
fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like
light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly
shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his
shoulder and put it's beak in his hair. He knew the falcon
loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but
perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had
done, expecting him to be proud.
"Instead his
father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and
broke its neck. 'I told you to make it obedient,' his
father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the
ground. 'Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not
meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and
cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.
"Later, when
his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until
eventually his father sent a servant to take the body if the
bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never
forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and
to be loved is to be the one destroyed."
~Cassandra Clare,
The Mortal Intruments, City Of Bones