Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

[🎶 It's All Coming Back To Me Now – CELINE DION.]

The pool of memories was a tide that flooded her; drowned her under. Cora felt her heart yearning as she became consumed her in emotions so strong she began crying. It wasn't everyday a dark goddess fetched you out from eternity like a fucking button doll, and made your entire former life disappear.

If she had Lilith in her grasping hands, she mused, she would wring the supernatural fucking life the shit out of her.

This little angel woman she'd met in the realm of light didn't need to spell out to her the said deity who was responsible for her woes. Refreshing into her pysche with the guzzles of memories were a genius intelligence that had been instrumental in her guidance as chamberlain of Emberfall.

She remembered how brilliant she had once been; how loved, how admired by her one true Lord and Sire: Israfel, the Burning One. A man that had fought and was still fighting to break the hex of amnesia in her mind.

'Well, Your Grace. I guess all of your persistence has reached, even into the afterlife.'

Cora teared up at the corners of her pale, lit eyes.

In the first bubble of light, she saw Emberfall: its Goth rise and turrets. The acres of ghost fields. The macabre-esque chambers. Lorded stewards. And the high black silver gates. A general omen in the spooky grounds.

In this particular memory, she stood in front of the Manor, her hand on the open door, to a man taller and perhaps more beautiful than her. Redhaired and gallant Israfel.

It was the first day they had met—and no, not at the fucking academy. The real first day.

She saw herself in maroon butler pantaloons and doublet smile and usher him in. This memory ended.

In the next, Rafel was presenting to her a Siwan diamond watch: a gift. Cora saw herself as she was on that momentous day, smiling and blushing hard as he wore it over her wrist. Funny how the things the mind chooses to store up are the littlest gestures. This memory fizzled out too.

More bubbles of light passed over her face. It glued to her mind and fastened safely, never to be broken again. In the final flash of recollection, she saw the fire.

The Great fire.

The night of ashes that had borne for her the beginning of the end.

Titans fucking landing.

Cora didn't want to look into this bubble. It hurt her eyes, and her mind. She could breathe the ash in her lungs, the singe on her skin, the choking air, the scent of blood and burning flesh. She saw the Emberfall mansion in the inferno: a gigantic ruin of cinder and red, smoking logs. And it broke her heart anew. Cora was glad when the memory ended.

But it was seared now into her mind forever.

She almost wished to forget it all again—at least that final part.

Cora was sobbing. "I can't believe Lilith would do that to me. This is some real villainess shit. Fuck her! She was my Matriarch. I would die for her.

Yet, she discarded my entire life like it meant nothing to her. She didn't stop me getting killed. Oh no! What's a little murder to sit the Fae Throne, huh?

And then, when it was certain her beloved nephew, whom she's fucking by the way, loved me too much to let go—something she didn't expect, she was left with the sordid choice of resurrecting me. But she couldn't let me have my memories, could she? Not when I posed a real threat to her place in Lord Rafel's heart.

Well, fuck you, Lilith, you hear me! FUCK YOU, you fucking c-cunt!" Cora cried harder and hiccuped.

She had never been so emotional as this day, not even at the funeral of Alaric and Lucia Piven Mortimer.

She wasn't one to cry. But she did.

Her bright eyes dulled from the shiny, luminous glaze of pure white now that the [Memory Linking] was successfully imbibed. She had all of her memories restored. Her pysche finally felt like it should be, and not like some crazy Erythrean vase, glued together by sparkly glue; with pieces showing the derelict patches.

The small iridescent woman walked close. She put out her hand of pure energy to Cora's shoulder.

"Let it out, Corazón. Let it all out, and let go. This is a place of peace. You are free to let the kind auras wash away all the pain. Like your tears, let it seep off into the vast infinity of the hereafter. With the music in your ears, you are renewed.

Revitalized. Made whole. You can let go, darling. You can let it all go. This is the perfect place to cry. So, you never have to again."

The woman's words soothed as much as her rubbing hand. And to think this entire freaked out night had started with a weird mirror.

Cora found herself opening her arms. She really needed the hug. The woman reciprocated, opening her arms too to fold her into her embrace. And suddenly, Cora was the smaller one. This being of utter light held her that way for several seconds, until her sobbing calmed. "I'm sorry you had to go through all that," said the kind voice.

"I am also sorry for the ones who've had to mourn you, seeing you everyday, but not quite the YOU they fondly remember."

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Images of Rafel, and Aya, and Ravenna danced into Cora's head at the woman's words.

She continued with Cora's head on her shoulder. "You have a world to get back to. You know what to do?"

"Yes. F-Fuck that bitch!" Cora sniffed.

The woman pulled back. "Of course." She smiled.

Cora got it; there ain't no swearing in heaven.

But the petite celestial's white eyes were clear in just what she thought of the Queen of the Night.

Cora dropped her hands and rubbed at the corners of her eyes, wiping tear streaks off. "Who are you? If you don't mind me asking. A spirit?"

"Who or what I am doesn't matter, Corazón. In this place, we all exist in nirvana. Names are temporal attachments. But we all here help those like you, those with The Light in them, in our own small ways," the woman replied.

Cora let out her first smile in a long time. "You all here are wonderful. You seem like a great white mix of fairy godmother and guardian angel. But since you clearly are luminous, I'll call you Angel. My personal helping Angel. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," the tiny woman shook her head; sparkles of light bounced off her haloed skin, "I will accept this if it makes you feel better."

Cora glanced up for a moment at the other souls, or spirits in this place. They still talked amongst on another. Perhaps, helping others like her who had been wronged. Cora looked back to the radiant form of Angel. "So, am I dead?"

Angel looked into Cora's face, trying to ascertain the best possible way to sugarcoat her reply. Her fair shoulders fell with a sigh. "Yes, you are, darling, unfortunately. While you were plucked from the mortal coil untimely, there is nothing we can do to restore you to the [True Life] as your ashes were scattered into the ocean by the hands of your loved ones."

Cora touched herself. "B-But I have a body?"

"Yes, you do. But it is not living. It is only a corporeal form, granted to you during resurrection with the use of a Divine rune.

Think of it as a swaddler on a child. It is present, but it is not skin. You, darling Corazón are wrapped in an unearthly swaddler. You only appear material and animate because the place in which you exist on the mortal plane has a high potency for magic. Otherwise, your form will be revealed for its true nature: ethereal."

"You mean the academy?"

"Yes. I know it's a lot, but you, my darling, are a ghost. It is only because of the Academy's powerful mana core that you are not walking as a luminous spirit."

"So, I can only be felt and held because the school has strong enough magic? Otherwise I'd be walking through walls and passing through people?"

"Yes," said Angel.

Cora's knees went knobby. "My God!"

"I'm sorry, Corazón, but you are a [Ghost]."

Cora couldn't speak. Angel was right: it was a lot. Her fingers started to glow in the same strange white light of this radiant realm. And before long, she could see through them. Cora stared down at her hand. Seeing this also, Angel walked close and took Cora's hand in hers.

"You are changing, my dear. You must take your leave of us. Our realm is seeping into you, trying to claim you back. But you have unfinished business on the mortal plane.

People care for you there. If you don't leave right now, you may never leave again. Now, you must go. Go!"

Angel gave a stunned Cora a little shove, and a sudden force pulled her back. She slithered on air, yanked backward by some invisible force without moving her feet as she heard Angel echoing in her head.

"Go, Corazón. GOOOOO!!!"

The sounds and white warbled into each other, spinning out of sight. Gone were the strange luminous people and realm of light. Cora was swallowed in a spool of energy and it was dark in it for a split second. But when she came to, she was on her feet again, standing in front of her dorm room's huge, oval vanity.

Cora instantly moved to touch the mirror.

Her hand didn't go through.

It was solid. In her subconscious, she mused, 'I've been closed off that wonderful world.'

Still, she had no reflection in the mirror. But with her exit from the realm of light, she now stood with a fuckload of shit memories she didn't know what to do with—mostly shit memories.

"Hey," came a wispy voice.

'Oh, shit.' Cora turned, remembering Skyla on the bed. She padded away from the mirror to her. Deja Vu hit like cold water on her back as she moved in pajamas and knitted socks. "Hey there," Cora said back. "How're you doing? Is it morning already?"

Skyla gave her a look. "Morning? It's the Ninth Hour."

Cora looked towards the glinting ornate clock on a pedestal in the corner. The red digits chimed a minute past nine in the night. Just a minute? All that fucking time in that mirror fucking dimension: talking, and crying, and remembering; all that fucking shit! And only a minute had passed. It went against all the books she'd read chronological shifts among realms.

Time went snail-slow in the realm of light.

Huh? She put that at the back of her mind to contemplate later.

Skyla was still watching her with that look.

Cora eased her with a quick kiss. "I'm sorry, love. I must've lost track of time. Go back to sleep."

She watched Skyla close her eyes, but it was only when Cora heard the telltale soft sounds she made in her sleep that she rose again from the bed, gently. She walked to the mirror, pausing in front of it for the third time that night. Still no reflection. "SENTIENT HOME! Kill the lights. And drop the mana level in present chamber to zero count." She gave her dorm room the order.

As per student rights, each dorm room had a sentient ability to serve its hosts.

This one obeyed.

Once the mana level was down in her bedchamber, Cora moved closer to the mirror. Slowly, she appeared in it. But her form was hazy and luminous, and in fucking flowing white robes. She had dropped the potency of magic in her immediate surrounding, so she was able to see her true form.

A poltergeist. She floated in the mirror.

"Holy fuck. I'm a Ghost Girl."

Cora shut her eyes for a second. And then she opened them again, giving orders once more: "SENTIENT HOME, send a message to Israfel: we need to meet. ASAP!"