Universe: Reversal||Series: Ere Shadows Fall
Title: Call The Darkness
Characters: Audhild (OC), Sophia (OC), Sanela (OC), Alexandrite Dragon (OC), Fallen Angel Lucifer (OC), Fallen Angel Desire (OC), Lightlord Angel Cherubim (OC), Holy Elf (OC)||Ships: N/A
Chapters: 3-?||Chapter Words: 4,536||Total Words: 13,628
Genre: Drama||Rated: PG
Notes: This is my reversal world. So, Juudai carries the power of the Destructive Darkness and the world consists of humans, monsters, and spirits. Every story in the Ere Shadows Fall line takes place pre-capture of Johan and Ryou. The latest will be the very beginning of Juudai's conquest. This particular story here won't tell everything and will feature Ocs and world building very heavily. Don't worry, Juudai will be along in due time. He might not be very talkative when he first shows up, though. But here begins the foundation of the Reversal World and all that will come after.
Summary: Before Haou's ruthless conquest, before the rebellion, before such a person as Juudai even existed, there was a time of peace and plenty – and that time ended before he was born. Because he could not be born until that time ended and the balance was no more.
She heard before she saw. Before she even properly realized that she was awake, even. What she wanted to do was pull the blanket over her head and go back to sleep, ignoring the sniffles and the wailing. She was the queen's servant; she answered when the queen called her, not when the wails of one of the tiny royal children pierced her sleep.
A tiny thought wriggled its way into her: she should not have heard the whimpering. Her quarters weren't anywhere near the royal nursery and at most she should have heard the sounds of the other servants as they got up and started their days.
A breath later, another sliver of thought worked in: she wasn't in her bed. Her bed was soft and warm, with the blanket that she'd knitted herself spread out over it. She had a soft pillow, too, or she should have. Now whatever was under her head wasn't soft at all.
Best to open her eyes and find out what was going on. She dragged them open and blinked a few times, trying to wrap her head around why she was in the woods.
Then it all crashed back down on her – the Fallen Angels' invasion, being chosen by Queen Bijou to guard young Yubel, fleeing with Sophia and Audhild, ending up here.
She groaned and wanted to throw herself back down. If she closed her eyes again, surely she'd wake up once again in her proper bed and have only a day of her ordinary work, not this nightmare, to live through.
Something touched her side and she glared, turning to see Sophia looking down at her.
"Get up," the other servant said, not unkindly. "We have to get moving. We don't want to stay here."
"Why not?" Sanela grumbled before she started to push herself to her feet. "What's wrong with here?"
It was Audhild who answered, from where she was feeding Johan. "Because we don't know how far we are from home, which means we don't know where the Fallen Angels are, and they're going to look for these three."
And of course, keeping them safe was their highest priority. Sanela brushed herself off, wished she knew where her comb was, and headed to her pack to get out food for Yubel. Each of them took care of the one they'd carried, though Sanela suspected they'd want to learn to trade off eventually. Just in case.
The triplets were absolutely adorable, of course, even if their personalities at this moment seemed to consist of "take in food, push out waste". They weren't even six months old, so Sanela wasn't really expecting much from them.
"What do we do with them when we get where we're going?" Sanela asked, staring down into Yubel's eyes. Yubel stared back at her, a fierceness lurking behind those eyes evident even at this size. "I mean – they have to learn things, don't they? What do they teach royalty?" She'd never known that. She knew how to take care of them, to an extent. They needed food and to be kept clean and warm, and protected from anything that would hurt them. Beyond that, her knowledge about what to do with small people ended.
Sophia carefully tucked Rune back into his carry-sack. He yawned and waved his tiny fists around, fidgeting. She looked over at the others. "How to read and write and math, I guess. History?" She worried for a moment. "Dueling?"
"Combat skills of every kind," Audhild agreed. She tucked Johan into his carry-sack as well. "What we need is a city of some sort. Somewhere we can blend into the populace." She traced a finger through Johan's blue curls. "Somewhere where no one's going to look askance at them for their looks."
"We can't stay in Norbu," Sanela pointed out. "The Fallen Angels are going to be everywhere." The longer she stayed awake, the more her brain engaged and she considered their options, or lack thereof. "And it's probably not a good idea to stay too close, either." She hated to think how much this sounded like old fairy tales of long lost heirs turning back up at the last second to save their fallen realms.
Sophia leaned against the trunk of a tree and closed her eyes. "Let's get - can we get passage of a ship to one of the other continents? There's a lot of trade out there, isn't it? We can go there, raise them, and they return one day. That's what Queen Bijou wanted, wasn't it?"
Sanela wasn't sure about that herself – all they'd been told was to keep them safe. Whether they were 'meant' to return and overthrow the Fallen Angels she didn't know.
"We could ask a soothsayer or a mage of some sort," Audhild suggested. "One of those might be able to give us some sort of help."
"Why don't we ask a dragon, instead?" Sanela asked with a snort. She waved one hand towards the mountains. "We're supposed to be in their territory and the dragons are supposed to be the queen's allies, right? So why not ask them?"
Sophia shivered. "Because we don't know where they are? And don't dragons… eat people?"
"Only if the people try to attack us first." A quiet, calm voice that wasn't any of theirs spoke. All three scrambled to their feet from where they'd rested, staring in every direction. "Look up."
Audhild saw first. She cried out softly, eyes wide, at the sight of the long, slender dragon curled around the top of a broad-branched tree, staring down at them. Gems of many kinds gleamed from the scales, refracting back the morning sunlight as it lanced through the trees. She took a stumbling step back, then wrenched herself over to Johan.
"Who are you? What do you want?" She stood over the small child in the best approximation of a defensive posture she could manage.
The dragon didn't move. Sanela thought it looked more than a little amused at them. "I want to know why the heirs of Queen Bijou are in the care of three servants instead of with their mother. What has happened to Norbu?" It's head dropped a fraction. "We've not heard from there in weeks."
Sanela tensed, hovering as much over Yubel as Audhild did over Johan and Sophia did over Rune. "It was invaded by the Fallen Angels. We're – we believe that Queen Bijou is dead." She could think of no other fate that evil Lucifer would have granted her. If there were worse fates, she didn't want to think about them.
The dragon's claws tightened around the tree it clung to. "The Fallen Angels. That would explain why we've heard nothing. They likely blocked communication between us." Slowly the great head shook. "I'll have to speak to the elders about this." Then it looked more closely towards them. "You must come with me. The children will be safe with us. As will you."
"But who are you?" Sophia asked, voice thin and squeaking. "What's your name? How did you find us?"
"You may call me Opal. I am an Alexandrite Dragon. And I found you because you're in my territory. I smelled you last night and found you then." The dragon leaned down closer, then in a quick, sleek move leaped down to join them in the clearing, perched on that great rock. All three jumped, but Opal did nothing else save reach their head closer towards Johan.
Johan reached one tiny hand out and rested it on the dragon's snout. Opal chuckled, an odd sound in Sanela's mind. "Hello, little one. I'd hoped to meet you, but not like this." Opal stared harder at Johan, then shifted their gaze to the other two. "Yes. Come along; it's not a hard trip to the sacred caves."
"You're a dragon," Sanela pointed out. "Nothing is a hard trip for you."
Opal laughed, a great rumbling noise this time. "You're right on that. Come. Get on my back. I'll take you there myself. It will be faster."
The three of them cast glances among themselves, then one by one gathered up all of their possessions and started to climb onto the dragon as it waited there. The scales were hard and uncomfortable beneath them, and Sanela knew she'd never done well with heights. So as Opal spread great wings, Sanela closed her eyes and tried not to think too much about what was spread out beneath them.
From the way Sophia squeaked and the gasp of wonder from Audhild, she decided that was a very good idea. She kept her eyes closed and her arms curved around Yubel as much as she could. At least until she heard a small noise coming from the baby and cracked one eye to check that all was well.
Yubel's hands waved in glee, the most vivid expression of joy that Sanela had ever seen the usually serious baby possess before.
… Yubel likes flying. Sanela shuddered, shook her head, and closed her eyes again. As long as the babies were safe, nothing else mattered. If Yubel liked flying, that wasn't her concern. She'd stick to the ground, where feet belonged.
Lucifer's wings twitched briefly before he opened his eyes. Unlike many people, he transitioned from sleep to awake fairly quickly, and now as he woke, he smiled and reached out to run one hand down Desire's crimson wing. Desire twisted under his touch but didn't open his eyes.
"Good morning," Lucifer purred, keeping up his caress. There were many ways that he enjoyed starting his day and this was just one of them. "Did you sleep well?"
Desire grumbled and shifted a little – but more to open up to Lucifer than anything else. "I always do when I'm with you."
Of course he did. Lucifer exhausted him like no one else did. Lucifer was one of the few who could wear Desire out to the point he slept soundlessly for hours at a time.
Lucifer continued to stroke, knowing full well that Desire's wings were some of hist most vulnerable points. Granted, There wasn't a spot on Desire that wasn't vulnerable – it was why he wore armor the way that he did. He lusted after battle as much as sex and when he wanted one, he preferred not to be distracted by the other.
Slowly Desire opened his eyes, licking his lips at the sight of Lucifer over him. "Is this what you want?"
"Do you have to ask?" Lucifer smirked, one hand sliding away from the sensitive sprawl of crimson wings to brush down Desire's chest to his waist. "I certainly don't have to ask if you want this, do I?"
Desire's answer came after Lucifer's hand drifted further down and wasn't really verbal at all, though it was quite loud. Lucifer hadn't bothered to set up any noise-dampening shields before they'd bedded down the night before. He saw no reason for people not to know what he was capable of.
There were even times when those who heard him indulge himself with Zerato or Desire or one of the others offered themselves to him as well, aware of what sex with him could be like and anticipating it. He saw no reason not to indulge himself.
By the time the sun rose high enough to slide lances of light into the bedroom, Lucifer wore them both out enough that they drifted into a brief slumber, broken only when one of his imps entered the chamber, carrying breakfast for two.
He eyed the imp for a few moments. Imps tended to look alike to him more often than they didn't. He thought this was the one he'd assigned to his newest slave.
"Did you take Anisha to her room?"
The imp bowed down at once, still holding the tray of food over its head. "Yes, Lucifer-sama. She was quite stubborn, of course. But she obeyed."
"Good." Lucifer took the tray and settled it on the bed between himself and Desire. He would see to her later; he looked forward to putting her through her paces that night. Perhaps he'd even share her with Desire later; she would have to be exhausted a few times before she really learned her place, he thought. She read to him as the stubborn type.
But before then he had other matters to take care, such as getting Desire set up in his new fiefdom and conducting at least part of the search for Bijou's spawn. Reviewing the troops wouldn't hurt either. They would need to be praised properly. He wanted to check on the other prisoners, too. He'd seen one or two that he wanted to claim for his own.
Overall, taking over a country required quite a lot of effort. No matter how often he did it, there were always so many things that needed to be done.
Desire started to eat, tracing his fingers alongside of Lucifer's wings with his free hand. "Do you have anywhere else in mind after this?"
"A few." Lucifer ignored the imp waiting in favor of sating his hunger and getting his lust aroused once again. Desire was very good at that. But he still kept at least part of his attention on the conversation. "I want to get it all sorted out here first, though." He drummed his fingers for a few seconds. "Getting to Hope would be quite a bit harder than this, though. Creation's always been so – evident."
So it had always been. Creation ruled Norbu – or had before the day before – and existed for as far back as history spun. But no one knew where Hope lived – Hope remained undercover, wandering through the lands, passing from person to person without a trail of any kind. Lucifer looked forward to the day he could snuff it out entirely.
Desire paused in his efforts to drain a cup of juice and have another. "And then?"
Lucifer breathed in a soft sigh of pleasure. "And then I return home to speak with the Darkness." He wasn't entirely certain if that pleasure was for what Desire did or because of the thought of communing with the Great darkness. He wasn't certain if it mattered. Both pleased him greatly in different ways.
"What's it like?" Desire asked. He didn't share that blood in enough measure to make that communion possible. Only Lucifer, of them all, could enter the presence and be aware of what the force of destruction wished of them.
Lucifer considered the question before he slowly started to shake his head. "There are no words." How could there be? How could there be words to express the sensation of being in touch with such power? With such overwhelming force? It was like trying to talk about speaking to an earthquake or a volcanic eruption or a tidal wave. Perhaps some could – but Lucifer wasn't one of them.
He finished up his breakfast. Thinking about the Darkness brought to mind all that he needed to do today and the sooner he got that out of the way, then the sooner he'd once more stand in that overwhelming presence.
If I can tell them that I destroyed the entire line of Creation... His heart beat faster at that. He knew that doing so wouldn't be the complete end of Creation's Line – that wasn't possible for any of the four great forces. But the power that infused them would have to wait a minimum of one generation before they could find someone who could carry it.
But if I could find the genealogy charts... Though that might not be possible anymore. He'd done a very good job of destroying every bit of the castle and the temple and those were the two places it was most likely for the records to have been kept.
Although – there was his new slave. He needed to find out exactly what she knew and it wasn't impossible she could assist there. He'd probably have to rip the information out of her mind. If he did that, it would make her a great deal more co operative when he was finished. He'd never met a person who wasn't extremely co operative once he finished tearing through their minds.
He would deal with that later, though. He had a very long to-do list to take care already.
"Start picking who you want to keep with you," he instructed Desire as he sent away the remains of breakfast and reached for his clothes. "Pick who you want unless you know that I want them."
Desire nodded, also reaching for his clothes. Lucifer paused for a moment, then leaned over to press his lips against Desire's. His brother leaned into it at once, arms slipping around him in a warm embrace before they broke apart. It might be a while before they encountered one another like this, they both knew. Lucifer had duties to deal with and Desire had a new realm to set up.
"Are you going to keep it named Norbu?" Lucifer asked, pausing in the doorway as the thought occurred to him. "It's your right to change the name now." His lips curved for a second. "And I really should do something about those dragons before I forget about it. They're not going to be happy that we claimed this place."
"Get one of our dragons to help you," Desire suggested. "We have a few who would be useful, I'm sure." A smile of his own twisted his lips. "I think I'll change it. Something more suitable to one of our realms, don't you think?"
"Any ideas?"
"Nothing as of yet." Desire stretched carefully, wings spread out, and Lucifer did not fail to admire the view. "But I'll message you when I do know. I think I'll have a full formal coronation for myself once I have a castle ready and everything in order."
"Invite me. I look forward to seeing you like that."
Desire smiled. "Oh, you may rest assured on that." He began to slip his armor on piece by piece. "Go. I'll see you before you leave."
Lucifer chuckled softly. "I look forward to seeing you pledge your fealty to me as well." He especially did that. Part of the hidden rites of the fealty ceremony involved him bedding his new liege servant, after all. And from the way Desire lazily grinned back at him, he anticipated it too.
Celestia looked through her morning reports, divided between a stack of papers and scrolls and several finely crafted gems or other precious items that emitted an image of her contact giving the report. She enjoyed looking through those while she had her breakfast, since she didn't need her hands to activate or change them.
Most of what she saw wasn't very impressive, simple reports that all was well or there were minor issues that could be taken care of with a few well-chosen words or actions. A few needed more in depth handling and she had one of her assistants sit those aside to deal with later.
She'd almost finished them when a flutter of wings came from the window, and she turned just in time to see a tiny fae collapse on the sill, wings beating furiously as the fae dragged in breath after breath. She rose and hurried there at once, recognizing this fae as the one she'd assigned to Queen Bijou across the ocean in Norbu.
"Little one? Tala? What is it? What's happened?" She paled at the thought that something might have happened to Bijou. The two of them had grown up together as foster sisters and she missed her friend greatly since their respective realms called them to serve.
Tala slowly raised her head, then dropped it again, still panting. Her wide pale blue eyes opened and closed repeatedly, as if she couldn't decide to stay awake or not. Finally a few words panted out.
"Had to – get here. Too late. Too late." She shook her head, shivering, eyes closing again. "Too late."
"Tala?" Celestia touched one finger to the side of Tala's head, ever so carefully. "Please? Please tell me." She could see wounds on the little creature's body, her tunic torn and shredded by claws that dug into her body. She wasn't as skilled in healing as some she knew, but she could tell a lost cause when she saw one.
Tala raised her head one more time. "Norbu – fallen. Bijou – gone. Triplets – gone." She shook her head, her blood-stained hair falling against Celesta's hand. Exactly how she'd survived this long to bring the message, Celestia wasn't certain. But she could do no more. Tala breathed out one final time. "I'm sorry."
And then she breathed no more.
Celestia shuddered, pulling her hands away and tightening them into fists. She would not sully the body of her faithful servant. Her lips pressed together tightly, she rang a bell, calling her servants to her and sending them to gather up Heather, the Holy Elf, and those who would be able to prepare Tala's body for her proper final rest.
First and foremost, though, she wanted to talk to some of her mages, those who might be able to tell her more. Who had taken Norbu and killed Bijou and the triplets?
Her heart twisted at just the thought of that. Bijou's family carried the power of the Light of Creation. To think that they were all gone – the triplets before they'd even had a chance at life! It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.
She held the rage that lit within her back, and the cry of mourning that she wanted to explode with. That would come in due time. She would have to do a ritual for Bijou and the children, and then set her people to searching for anyone who might carry a trace of Creation's Light. It would take a long time; as she understood it, there were several rules about how the new bloodline could be born. It could take up to a year or more – possibly much more.
Someone has to find them and protect them, before whoever did this finds them. She wondered where she might find the family records. No one really knew where those were, only that they existed somewhere in the world. Rumor had it that the four bloodlines kept personal records, but those weren't necessarily exhaustive. The ones kept elsewhere – if that elsewhere existed – would indeed be exhaustive. Even if the people in the bloodline themselves didn't know who their ancestors were, those records knew.
If she couldn't find those, then she'd have to trace back what she did know of Bijou's kin. There weren't that many. She knew that Bijou's parents had passed away shortly after she'd been crowned Queen, and her husband, the father of the triplets, fell in battle against the Fallen Angels less than a year earlier. She'd never heard of any siblings and it wasn't likely that anyone on Bijou's husband's side would have the proper bloodlines.
She set that thought to the side for now. She had too much else to worry about now.
Tala didn't have any living kin herself. That was one of the reasons she'd accepted an assignment so far away. She'd quite enjoyed being in Bijou's court and for years every report she'd sent only detailed the joy she found there, and the occasional irritating issue that she had to deal with and how she'd done so. All very boring, really, and Celestia always made it a habit to listen to her reports when preparing for bed. It certainly made her rest that much deeper.
Heather stepped into the chamber, bending her head softly, her eyes drawn at once to the tiny form on the window sill. "Tala?"
"Yes. She flew in just a few minutes ago." Quickly she relayed to Heather what Tala told her, already forming thoughts on what she'd have to do now. She paced up and down, her twitching wings the only sign of her agitation. "We need to know more."
Heather, who was also one of her closest advisors, moved towards the tiny body and gathered it into her arms. "I suggest someone who can fly – and perhaps someone who can change shape as well. Someone who can hide among the invaders no matter what they are like."
Celestia nodded before catching the eye of one of the servants who lurked in the doorway. "Gather my council. Include the ambassadors from our allies as well."
The servant bowed his head and quickly vanished off on his mission. Celestia turned back to Heather, heart clenching once again at the sight of the tiny body in Heather's hands. She wanted so badly to scream, to let the tears flow, and forced all of those emotions down in order to ask the necessary questions. "Is there anything you can tell me yet?""
"These were possibly some sort of demonic claws – probably an imp since they didn't kill her right away," Heather reported. "Or poisoned if they're not an imp. I'll have to check to be positive. She might have survived if she'd taken her time to get here, but she flew so fast for so long that she used up every bit of her strength." Heather shook her head quietly. "That's all I can tell just by looking. Do you want me to do more?"
Celestia pressed her hands together. "No. That's all we really need to know. Take care of her; have her ready to rest as soon as possible."
Heather carried the tiny broken body away. Celestia stared at the place where Tala had been, then resolutely turned back to the collection of reports. She'd heard nothing at all from anyone about anything that could have led to this. There were plenty of realms, however, where she had no eyes or ears, and those were quite often the ones filled with demons or anyone else likely to be untrusting. Her spies were clever and cunning, but she would never send anyone into certain death.
Though on Norbu's western edge there was the realm of the Fallen Angels, and she'd never put something like this beyond Lucifer. At least he would never set foot in her realm.
She would have to find out if Lucifer had anything to do with this. Either him or one of his kindred – there were too many Fallen Angels and too many with ideas that would consider slaughtering the realm of Creation to be their absolute greatest coup whatsoever.
One might even think that the force of Destructive Darkness still existed in all of its old glory – if that word could even be used for something like that. She offered thanks every day that such wasn't the case anymore.
Celestia hurried into her personal chamber and prepared to change into something both more formal and more proper for mourning. She would speak with her advisors and choose a spy to enter Norbu, after making it clear to them that this could be a mission that would end with death.
It had been such a pleasant day so far, too.
To Be Continued
Notes: Sorry I missed yesterday. I was tired and needed a rest. But, here we go. If you read the one-shots for Reversal I posted some months ago, you know who Celestia is – or who she will be.