On the other side of the closed gate is the moon of Earth. High above Morana's bewildered face is the glistening silver moon. For a fleeting moment, a face comes to mind as her eyes fill with it's sight. She knew a protector long ago, whose silver eyes she had trouble forgetting in the Realm of Light. Morana had only managed it when she met the deep voids of Aurum.

Lightheadedness and disorientation overtake her lament form in the darkness. Something like her spirit separates from her body, but that's not the case. Instead, it's the soul of the only person she managed to save from Aurum's destruction: the one she will forever protect and bring back into her glory.

"You may not be able to do that, dear one," speaks the regal apparition.

Aurelia Kelda, a Queen among the angels and the savior of Morana Jouvempes, is a soul anchored to Morana to keep her alive. The Queen's elders thought of the idea as their desperation finally became too much. It was the only way to keep Aurum from stealing all of her power. 

"Being unable to is not the same as not trying," Morana reasons.

"He managed to take a lot of my power if I were to defeat him and bring everything back to order. I will need to regain what I have lost and more." 

Aurelia's phantom-foggy-glazed-over-eyes stare at the moon above with both awe and desperation. She doesn't know how to keep herself from telling the truth, so she lets it out instead.

"I will need the sun."

Morana stifles to breathe but notices her minor wounds are nearly healed. In the Realm of Light, she recovered like a human; even scratches took days. She was not the healthiest among her kind, but her healing rate was superhuman fast on Earth- like any vampire. The heaviest wound to her side is still taking time, but it's healing faster than she's been used to after so long.

With a soft tone but a heavy heart, she says to the Queen, "I will do as I promised, and we will go back to stop Aurum once you are renewed. For now, we will go into my world, and let us see what has become of my home."

Morana moves onwards into the forest. She stumbles and falls often but then gets right back up. Behind her follows the transparent companion whose only desire is to ease the suffering of her host. Looking everywhere, Morana's gleaming eyes are combing the mountainous stone walls surrounding them. It's becoming agonizingly blaring, and every little movement is being picked up by her superhuman sight, causing her head to spin from so much input.

Night vision was sealed away in the Realm of Light, along with so much more. She suspects her vampiric powers have atrophied severely. If she can somehow survive the next few hours, everything will be a challenge for her to relearn and live with again.

Will it all come back? And will it all be this painful? Her thoughts haunt her as she keeps going.

Morana must find a cave soon. Her heart quickens at the thought. It's near dawn, and the sun does not bless her here.

Such a truth is another deep wound. Both because her charge needs the sun and because she has grown to crave its warmth. The bright company is lovely, and just as winter snow glistens with beauty on a warm winter day, she used to sway under its watch in gladness. She will no longer enjoy such a pleasure unless she fancies turning into fire.

Sadness and anger are the two forces colliding horribly inside her. By all accounts, everything has been too much. The whirling pain, the stabbing betrayal, the drowning guilt, and yet she still needs to keep going. She stifles a whimper as she supports her weight against a stony-black-cold wall to her left. Her body rejects the movement and makes her vomit, and it's only after she's done that she lets out a gut-wrenching cry. 

Aurelia doesn't dare say anything but clenches her jaw to overcome her helplessness. 

What will we do? Morana thinks. 

It's been two hundred fifty years since she left home. But it's been two hundred years within the Realm of Light. Why she was thrown there and what it truly was are mysteries that may never have a resolution. It was where beings like angels lived, and creatures of fantasy reigned alongside them.

Morana considers them angels, but they could as well be the Fae of the First Age. Most were oddly attractive humanoids with pointed ears and grace beyond reproach; others were almost alien but elegant in their own right. The right answer was never confirmed; ultimately, it doesn't matter what they are. The only thing that matters is their threat.

She has tasted their magic and, for the most part, wielded it as well as she had her own, and from its caliber alone, she knows they are powerful enough to conquer the realm of Earth within days if they wanted to. Sure, there are those like her Queen who are benevolent and righteous, but there are those like Aurum who are ready to fall for the darkness and greed in their proud hearts at a moment's notice. A wave of prickling fear runs through her as the mind keeps thinking about such dark matters, but she drags herself along the cold stone wall, not giving up hope of finding refuge.

It was heaven and hell, much like Earth, she reflects. Inequality, war, and power struggles were prominent, and in fact, more so than within her own niche of the world.

Vampires know of peace. Vampires live in the shadows and never bring unwanted attention to the species. We are the damn that live within the shadows of humankind. We live with the Earth and its soft children and try very hard not to raise a hand to either.

Still, Morana's world is red, too. In some aspects, it rivals the angelic realm, but as far as she knows, the vampiric empire does not seek world domination, let alone domination of all worlds. She hopes there will never be a time when she is proven otherwise.

There are monsters in Aurelia's realm that seek to one day spill into her Earth and ravage it to the ground, Aurum declared as much two nights passed. Without Aurelia's insight, her allies will be at a loss on how to fight back the rebellious sort that wants the Ghost Gates to be found and opened. Morana's heart nearly halts as the echo of the horrid thought wrecks her mind.

She has to make it home and beg forgiveness for being away for so long. Her elders will probably publicly punish her, but she will live long enough to participate in her Ascension. Only by surviving it will she feel the sun again.

"Why does this ceremony bring such a feeling to your heart, dear one? It feels like someone is branding it with a hot iron." Aurelia hesitantly asks.

Instead of answering, Morana lets out a distressing gasp as her hand suddenly disappears into the mountain's wall. Her whole body follows with a heavy thud onto the floor. She rolls a way down into the shadows, coming to a weak halt in a large puddle of cave water. Morana lays still with her head facing to the side, allowing the cool water to seep into her mildly parted lips. Somehow, the smoke of Aurum's destruction is still heavy in her throat, so it is welcomed indeed.

We barely made it. She sighs in relief at the thought.

Too weak to move, she watches the sun enter the cave's mouth from her position. Thankfully, the morning rays miss her, but they beautifully illuminate the transparent figure of the standing Queen. 

Just hours ago, ringlets of gold hair cascaded down to the Queen's waist. Her soft amber eyes were always smiling, and that slender swaying vessel was filled with regal power—oh, yes, that was her Queen. Now, the ivory hands that saved her from being eaten so long ago are a clammy blue like the rest of her. No more amber eyes, no more shine in her hair, and all because Morana fell in love with Aurum.

One by one, the faces of the dead start to creep up as she passes out. One by one, the screams start to fill her ears again. The trauma will always hurt, won't it? Inside Morana's mind is a loud massacre playing out, and it won't let up. Yet outside, her body is still. Her fading sight on Aurelia's distressed expression. 

Her friend is trying to scream her awake as she succumbs to her wound finally, but Morana can't hear anything. Aurelia is trying to get her to move out of the water in the least, but her friend is catatonic. After a while, the Queen stops shouting.

But before the Queen fuses back into Morana again, one question does make it through the noise in her friend's head.

"Who is the man with the silver eyes?"