remembering will herondale: a thread

"The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives."

cr: @malec_hugs

They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwiseㅡ

and of the fact that though his prose was excellent—he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he’d retired that had been very well respected—his poetry had always been awful, though that had never stopped him from reciting it.

"Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will’s unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire."

cr: roItsSomething

"Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them—when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought—and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie."

cr: paink

"Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, “Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back,” ㅡ

thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well—and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand.

"his habit of taking Tessa on romantic “holidays” to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined."

cr: whimsicalillustration

"And in the shadows they’d whispered, reminding each other of the stories only they knew. Of the girl who had hit over the head with a water jug the boy who had come to rescue her, and how he had fallen in love with her in that instant."

"Of a ballroom and a balcony and the moon sailing like a ship untethered through the sky. Of the flutter of the wings of a clockwork angel. Of holy water and blood."

cr: thewildestdream.devianart

"Jem played, and he played the years of Will’s life as he had seen them."

"He played two little boys in a training room, one showing the other how to throw knives, and he played the ritual of parabatai : the fire and the vows and the burning runes."

"He played the day in the library when he and Will had jested with Tessa about ducks, and he played the train to Yorkshire on which Jem had said that parabatai were meant to /love each other as they loved their own souls./"

"He played that love, and he played their love for Tessa, and hers for them, and he played Will saying, 𝘐𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦 ."

"He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs."

"Will had opened the blue eyes that had never lost their color over all the passing years, and looked at Jem and then Tessa, and smiled, and 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘥, with Tessa’s head on his shoulder and his hand in Jem’s."

𝑨𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒕𝒒𝒖𝒆 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒆.

William Owen Herondale, you are missed.