Content Warning: Mention of harm

She never needed to eat or drink, though her heart always kept a steady rhythm and her muscles never atrophied from lack of use. She merely slept, and, unwilling to let her go, her parents dressed her in fine lace and tucked her in, often speaking to her as if she could wake up one day and listen.

She was listening, in a way. Ilmora’s magic began immediately for her, floating her consciousness as nothing more than a shadow in the air, an apparition unable to act or speak. Her family felt her presence but could never really find her, not until she fell into her mother’s body and possessed her for the first time.

Her family thought she’d died the first time she spoke. Frightened and beside themselves to hear her disembodied voice, they checked her pulse and broke into tears, to her great confusion. Her perception felt more like a dream than anything else, and their reaction didn’t make sense to her, in the illogical sense of sleep. They spoke into the great mirror in her bedroom, and Ilmora saw through her mother’s eyes, felt the heavy weight of her bones as opposed to the feather-light nothingness of air, but nothing beside that.

She never felt the warmth of the blanket around her mother’s shoulders or smelled the lilac perfume she always dabbed under her chin. She couldn’t feel her movements or hear her thoughts. She was a visitor, a voice, nothing more. And as Ilmora grew up and understood more of the world, the more frustration built in her heart.

Her elder sisters could go outside and feel the sunshine on their skin, her woodworking father could turn the pages of his book at his own leisure, while she had to hover over his shoulder and ‘tsk’ when he went too quickly for her. Her mother could feel the wool she spun, could fill the air with the smell of warm bread that made the entire house sigh, and the unfairness of it all burned.

Of course her parents searched for a solution. They promised her over and over again that she’d wake and finally feel their kisses on her cheeks for the first time, but no matter what mage from the Order they brought home, none of them could break whatever spell separated her consciousness from her body. Ilmora’s childish hopes were dashed each time until she grew old enough to become bitter.

She possessed her family members constantly, aching for a single sensation, a moment of true autonomy to choose her own actions. She pushed and cajoled and suggested things to do with the eagerness of youth, but she couldn’t force them to do what she wanted, and resentment grew on both sides. The family coffers were running low because of the mages they hired, and they were starting to go hungry in lean months, which Ilmora couldn’t understand, having never felt the weight of hunger. She was desperate, and began to crave being more than a voice in someone else’s head.

The first time she possessed someone outside of the family was when her mother was driven to hire people outside of the Order, banned from further aid from Namarast itself. The man was something called a "Corruption Eater", and as they descended the steps together, all the things that Ilmora had ignored in her goals came crashing down. How had she not noticed when her furniture was sold and her body taken down here? How had she not noticed her father breaking down in tears as he worked on a morbid bed to house her in - a glass coffin. He'd given up years ago, but didn't have the heart to stop his wife from this insane ritual of eating a meal over Ilmora's sleeping body. Horrified, Ilmora possessed the Corruption Eater, screaming at him to stop and driving him to run from the house in fear. No one came to the house after that, calling it haunted, and Ilmora turned a blind eye as her father lost any business he had left.

Her family finally broke when Ilmora, clutching her last straws, coaxed her youngest sister to touch the fire in the hearth. Surely she’d be able to feel something so drastic, a sensation so acutely described in all of her father’s books! But no – all that happened was a scream, a rushing of cold water, and a denouncement of her judgment.

Her eldest sister aired out her grievance, four months hungry: that the voice in their heads wasn’t her sister, but a demon haunting their home, driving them to pain and poverty. It was a bitter thing to say, but no one else in the house corrected her as Ilmora’s youngest sister cried over her burned palm.

Ilmora left that same night.

For the first time, she realized she wasn’t tethered to anything, let alone her body. She could fly up above the clouds, pass through any walls she wanted, listen to any conversation, like everything was a never ending dream. She possessed anyone she wanted, speaking to them at length, eventually learning to laugh through their initial cries of fear. They couldn’t touch her or banish her with their prayers to Grace, and eventually she learned a version of apathy towards her nightly adventures.

She was fascinated with Faline, the city that never truly slept, and with Namarast with its endless secrets locked behind pages she cannot turn on her own. She's gained a small reputation for haunting the libraries of Namarast, searching for any mention of her curse and how to break it.

[ 1003 Words ]

• Her body currently rests in a glass coffin in her family's basement in Mead.
• It takes very little for her to lose her temper. Insinutate that she's a burden, and she'll make you regret it.
• Her Ivran Zodiac is the Looking Glass.

Design:

• Her sleeping body looks like a white deer with a transparent horn that's hard to see.
• Only those with specific magic to see the unseen are aware of her ghostly form, which looks like her body made of shadows, her eyes an eerie white.
• Her voice is calm, and younger than her hosts might expect.