The Balance of Light and Darkness

Hooray, 203 pages! Honestly, I wouldn't have ever expected that we would've even gotten to 200 pages back in the day, but here we are!

Okay, I'll stop celebrating and get to the story now.

## Chapter 1

*"You're worthless."*

*"You're nothing."*

*"What makes you think*you *could be a good queen?"*

These thoughts from The Voice that was in Princess Gwendolyn Opalia's head swirled around inside there, disrupting Gwendolyn from her sleep and threatening to make her cry. She knew that she couldn't, though. The Voice would mock her if she did.

Gwendolyn still wanted to get rid of The Voice at least for a little while, though. She didn't want to wake up the wizard that lived nearby the castle, even though The Voice seemed to be getting stronger, but she could clear her head by going to the castle gardens outside. Maybe then she'll get a break by The Voice's constant barrage of negative thoughts.

Ignoring the part of her that wanted to stay in her nice, warm bed, Gwendolyn got up, slipped into her royal slippers, and walked out of her room and through the castle, trying to find the secret passage way that would lead her into the garden. The moon that shone through the castle's windows gave her a good idea of where she was going, but there were also plenty of shadows in the corners.

After some time, Gwendolyn found the castle gardens and stepped out of the castle itself, eager to find some relief from The Voice.

That's when she saw it.

Right in the middle of the area that separated the castle gardens and the woods nearby was a small creature of some sort. It looked like a willow o' the wisp, but it was black, and it seemed to be making some pained noises.

Curious, Gwendolyn advanced towards it, trying to be quiet so she wouldn't scare it away. For some reason, The Voice was getting louder and louder with each step Gwendolyn took towards the willow o' the wisp, so it was almost deafening to Gwendolyn once she got close to the small creature.

Once Gwendolyn did, however, she was so preoccupied with The Voice that she didn't notice the grass she was standing on was switching between gray and green and seemed undecided about wanting to live or die.

Suddenly, Gwendolyn felt a great pain coming from her head that was way beyond a simple headache. For some reason, it felt like something was going to come out of there.

As she screamed in pain and held her head with her hands, the willow o' the wisp darted away into the woods, presumably being too distracted with its own pain to notice Gwendolyn until now.

The Voice was getting louder now, and it almost also seemed to be in pain as well as being very confused. Gwendolyn crumpled to the ground while still holding her head in her hands as she felt the pain from her head getting even worse, and then she eventually saw a small, black figure with white hair that was screaming in pain and confusion coming out of there. She first saw its head, then its neck, chest, and arms, and then it used its arms and clawed hands to pull itself entirely out of Gwendolyn's head and fall to the ground in front of her.

Gwendolyn soon passed out after that, so she didn't see the figure pass out, too.

## Chapter 2

The first thing the figure noticed when it woke up was the strange sensation on his back, heels, and the back of his arms, hands, fingers, and legs.

It wasn't the feeling that seemed to be pain. No, it was much less overwhelming than that, but it felt just as real as pain did.

And that was the confusing part. It felt real.

Just a few minutes ago, when the figure was still in Gwendolyn's head, everything there was fake. The environments were fake, the images were fake, even the figure's emotions were fake. It was almost real, but not quite.

Now, however, everything felt very real, and the figure wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Opening his eyes, the figure sat up and looked behind him to see where the strange sensation was coming from. What he saw back there was green grass. Curious, he grabbed a blade with one of his clawed hands and closed his eyes, just feeling the blade in his fingers. It felt weird, and he eventually dropped it and opened his eyes, confused and a little freaked out by all of this.

It was then that the figure finally noticed Gwendolyn in front of him, unconscious and lying on the ground. For some reason, her head wasn't caved in or had a large hole in it, which intrigued and confused the figure at the same time. He was sure that he had come out of Gwendolyn's head, but there seemed to be no evidence of that whatsoever.

It wasn't that he wanted Gwendolyn to be dead or anything- Wait, did he? He sometimes told Gwendolyn to kill herself and often gave her death threats back when he was in her mind, but given that his emotions and maybe even his thoughts were fake while he was still in there, it was hard to say if he really meant it or not-

The figure shook his head, trying to banish that thought from his mind.

*"This is ridiculous!"* He thought. *"Of course I meant it! Besides, who would I be if my previous thoughts and feelings were fake, anyway?"*

The figure had no answer to this question, and he began to feel fear for some reason. He tried to ignore it, but the feeling persisted, and then, out of nowhere, the figure felt himself quickly shrinking and changing into something else. While it felt odd more than it felt painful, it confused and almost panicked the figure to feel fur and spines rapidly sprouting all over him, his face developing a snout, notice his eyesight grow weaker, and watch as the world around him grew larger and larger in a matter of seconds.

"Stop it!" He exclaimed seemingly to his own body, trying and failing to curl his shrinking and transforming hands into fists. It was more out of fear than anger, though. "Stop it, please!"

It only took about seven seconds for the figure's transformation to be complete, but to the figure, it felt like it had taken a lot longer.

The figure was shivering now as he looked down at his new paws. At the moment, he wanted everything that was happening to him to just go away already. He just wanted to return back inside Gwen's mind and for everything to go back to how it should be.

Unfortunately for the figure, it didn't seem like that would happen anytime soon.

"Princess Gwendolyn!?"

The figure snapped out of his thoughts to see what he thought to be a human-sized, anthropomorphic bat(AKA, a Penumbra) racing over to what seemed to be Gwen. It was hard to tell due to his weakened eyesight, though, which made the figure a little frustrated.

His old form didn't seem to have a problem with seeing things, so why couldn't he had stayed in that?

Anyway, the figure watched as the Penumbra seemingly knelt down to place his clawed hand over Gwen's chest, then breathed out a sigh of relief and stood back up again.

"Well, at least she's still alive," He said, with his eyes immediately growing wide after he said that. "Wait a minute. What if she's under an eternal sleep like Sleeping Beauty was!? Oh man, I really hope that I don't have to kiss her!"

The figure snorted.

"You do realize that the Sleeping Beauty story never happened, right?" He said in a high pitched, squeaky voice(that he immediately disliked) to the Penumbra.

The Penumbra looked at the figure, though his expression was hard to figure out due to the figure's present sight problems.

"Of course it happened!" The Penumbra huffed, crossing his arms. "The story *is* in a book, after all. Everyone knows that books are the ultimate source of knowledge!"

"Even if that was true, have you ever thought about if books could lie to you?" The figure replied, feeling himself change once more. This made him panic again, however, and the figure's form reverted back to being a hedgehog.

"What was that?" The Penumbra asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know!" The figure snapped, feeling frustrated. "I don't know the answer to everything!"

The figure's form started to change again as he said this, and while the figure noticed this, his panic was overshadowed by his feeling of frustration, which made the transformation complete itself after seven seconds. His eyesight returned to his first form's clarity, his fur and spines disappeared, his height returned to his first form's, and he found himself standing on two legs instead of four. It seemed like he was made out of something other than flesh and bone, though, as while everything around him still felt real, his new form didn't feel as compact as the others. It felt like he was made out of smoke, actually.

His form would've kept being made out of smoke, in fact, if the figure didn't feel unsteady on his new legs and fell flat on his face soon afterward.

"Hey, are you alright?" The Penumbra asked, walking over to the figure and looking genuinely concerned.

"Couldn't be better," The figure said sarcastically, trying to get up while being both frustrated and embarrassed at the same time.

The Penumbra held out his clawed hand to the figure with a gentle smile on his face.

"Here, let me help you get up," He said, making the figure look up at him and become confused.

"What are you doing?" The figure asked, never having seen this kind of behavior from anyone before.

"Helping you get up," The Penumbra said simply, looking a bit confused himself. Another Penumbra would've taken his hand by now.

"...Why?" The figure asked. It was here that he took the time to notice that his voice, while still high pitched, was also child like and had an echo-like quality to it now. He still didn't like it, but at least it wasn't squeaky anymore.

"Because I want to, that's why," The Penumbra said slowly, raising an eyebrow and trying to figure out the figure's confusion. "Are you going to take my hand or not?"

"..."

The figure looked at the Penumbra's clawed hand and, shrugging and thinking that he didn't have anything else to lose, took it and accepted the Penumbra's aid in helping him up. He shifted back into his first form at the same time this was happening, and while the figure's legs were still wobbly and threatening to send him back to the ground again, the Penumbra noticed this and tried to keep the figure upright, much to the figure's surprise.

"...Thanks," The figure said, still confused as to why the Penumbra went out of his way to do all of this.

"You're welcome!" The Penumbra said cheerfully, smiling broadly. "So, what's your name? Mine's Nocturne!"

"...Harris?" The figure said uncertainly, remembering that he had wanted, in a sense, to be called Harris when he was back in Gwen's mind. "Yeah. I'm Harris."

Suddenly, both Nocturne and Harris heard a yawn from nearby, and looked below them to see Gwen yawning and stretching in a very unladylike fashion. Harris chuckled upon seeing this.

"And I thought that you always want to be graceful," He said, grinning broadly.

"I can't be graceful all the time, Voice-"

Gwen stopped talking and rolling her eyes when she saw Harris and Nocturne above her and froze. She then quickly sat up in a ladylike position and looked at Harris suspiciously, realizing that his voice didn't sound like The Voice's, but then adding that his tone and word choice sure made him sound like The Voice in other ways. She decided to try something either way.

*"If you're The Voice, you'll definitely be able to hear this,"* She thought.

Sure enough, Harris could. He smirked, glad that he could finally have some potential control over Gwen like he used to.

*"Hello, Gwen,"* He said telepathically to her, using an almost mocking tone while doing so.

*"I knew it!"* Gwen said telepathically, then her eyes widened as she realized what this meant. *"Oh, come on!"*

Meanwhile, Nocturne had no idea what was going on.

## Chapter 3

Things were very confusing and a bit uncomfortable for Nocturne after that.

While Princess Gwendolyn *did* tell him that she and Harris had a mental link, she refused to also tell him what Harris was telling her while he was using that. Harris was definitely telling her *something,* though, since while Princess Gwendolyn didn't show any completely obvious signs of being uncomfortable, Nocturne still noticed the more subtle signs she displayed, like the light in her eyes slowly but steadily getting duller, her frown getting deeper, and the sheer *pain* in her eyes that showed up eventually.

As for Harris, Nocturne noticed that he was smirking, as if he liked a part of what he was doing to Princess Gwendolyn. He also refused to tell Nocturne what he was telepathically saying to Princess Gwendolyn for some reason, though he did tell him that he probably wouldn't understand where he was coming from and would probably defend "Gwen" anyway.

In retrospect, this went on for a very short amount of time before Princess Gwendolyn decided that she had had enough of this.

"That will be *enough*, Voice," She exclaimed, standing up calmly but still giving the most terrifying glare Nocturne had ever seen to Harris. "I know that you're trying to tear me down, and I'm not going to take it anymore. You've been doing this ever since I was a little girl, and while you might've done it just because you weren't real before, now you're obviously doing it for a different reason. However, before I try to understand your reasoning, I'll be all too happy to do this."

Before Harris or Nocturne could react, Princess Gwendolyn punched one of Harris' eyes so hard that he fell down to the ground on his butt.

"OW!" He yelled, one of his clawed hands immediately going up to his now closed eye in order to try to nurse it. He then looked at Princess Gwendolyn with fear in the other eye. "What was that for!?"

"*You know what that was for, you jerk,*" Princess Gwendolyn hissed in such a way that terrified both Nocturne and Harris. Her eyes were now also had a yellowish tinge to them, and the ground beneath them was shaking a bit. "What do you want, anyway? Control over me? Well, don't expect to get that anytime soon."

Princess Gwendolyn looked like she was about to say more, but then she and Nocturne saw Harris start to shrink, have black fur sprout all over his body, and get his ears turned into a rabbit's. Despite Harris' panic during this, the transformation continued, and after seven seconds, Harris was now a still shrinking rabbit who was close to tears and looked like he just wanted to curl up and cry.

"This is all your fault!" Harris cried, trying to mask his fear and sadness with anger. "If you hadn't come here, I would still be in your head, and everything would be as it should be!"

Princess Gwendolyn, who was completely taken aback by Harris' transformation, went back to standing her ground. The ground wasn't shaking anymore, by the way.

"Oh, so it's my fault for just wanting a break from you, is it?" She said, then sighed. "Why are you like this? Why can't you just be kind? ...Wait, do you even know what kindness is?"

Harris, who was now just barely taller than an ant and apparently staying that way for now, whimpered and shook his head fearfully, thinking that doing so would make Princess Gwendolyn yell at him again.

"Wait a minute," Nocturne said, his eyes wide. "You don't know what kindness is!?"

Harris shook his head again, this time while looking at Nocturne. He was crying now, despite his best attempts of getting rid of the tears with one of his paws, and was beginning to curl up inside himself at the same time.

Nocturne wanted to say about how horrible it was that Harris didn't know what kindness was, but he knew that he probably should hug Harris first. As such, Nocturne kneeled down, carefully scooped up a surprised Harris in his clawed hands, stood back up, and gently hugged Harris and stroked his fur in a similar way that Nocturne's mom did when he was upset.

"It's going to be okay, Harris," He said, even though Harris was crying harder and hating it. "Everything's going to be okay."

After a little bit, Nocturne then looked at Princess Gwendolyn, who looked like she wanted to say something, but didn't for some reason. She also looked torn on being sympathetic to Harris and still hating him, which Nocturne understood in a way.

Sure, he probably wouldn't have believed that a person could be as cruel as Harris was earlier before, but he had seenthe sheer *pain* in Princess Gwendolyn's eyes while Harris was talking to her telepathically. Harris not knowing what kindness was probably explained why he had been so cruel, but Princess Gwendolyn definitely needed a hug, too.

Nocturne was going to invite Princess Gwendolyn to join the hugging, in fact, when a sudden deafening growl filled the ears of Nocturne, Princess Gwendolyn, and Harris. Nocturne looked in the direction where the growling came from, which seemed to be the forest nearby, and froze when he saw two giant, gleaming, cat-like eyes staring back at him.

The creature that belonged to those eyes then slowly walked into view, showing itself to be a gigantic, monstrous mix of a cat and a wolf with some demonic traits as well. It looked to be in constant pain, which probably only fueled the anger in its eyes, and it looked none too happy about Nocturne and Princess Gwendolyn being there.

The creature walked a few more paces toward an already retreating and fearful Nocturne and Princess Gwendolyn, and then it leapt up into the air and tried to pounce on them.

## Chapter 4

Thankfully, both Gwendolyn and the Penumbra(who Gwendolyn was pretty sure she hadn't gotten his name from him yet) got out of the way of the creature just in time, though they both fell to the ground when the creature landed due to the seeming earthquake it caused when it did.

Thinking fast, Gwendolyn looked at the castle, pointing to it in an instant.

"Everyone, get inside the castle *now*!" She said firmly, starting to get up.

The Penumbra, who was getting up faster than Gwendolyn and had already scooped up Harris(who seemed to be changing again) in his arms once more, simply nodded and ran towards the castle once he was back on his own two feet, with Gwendolyn following close behind him.

Unfortunately, the creature noticed the three going past it and towards the castle, and with one swipe of its giant paw, it sent them flying to its front, and then looked ready to bite their heads off with its teeth. Thankfully, Gwendolyn thought quickly again and made a yellow forcefield appear between them and the creature, causing the creature to end up biting the forcefield(which was very, very painful for its teeth) instead of them.

As the monster let go of the forcefield and howled in pain, Gwendolyn heard the Penumbra(who was apparently holding a black hedgehog that *could've* been Harris now) mutter something while she was getting up.

"Excuse me, but what are you muttering?" She asked, slipping back into the practiced formality that she was taught to use around everyone but her parents. She was a bit embarrassed that she had stopped using it while she was chewing out Harris, actually, but she guessed she couldn't help it. Besides, Harris had deserved her chewing him out.

*"Hey!"* She heard Harris telepathically say to her. *"I didn't deserve it-"*

Harris then went silent again when Gwendolyn did the telepathic equivalent of glaring at him.

"I'm just saying that it would be really nice if I had my father's sword right about now," The Penumbra said, looking at Gwendolyn and being completely oblivious to her previous telepathic conversation with Harris. "Then I could charge straight towards this beast and give out a mighty battle cry before I fight him! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Gwendolyn, despite being completely perplexed, simply raised an eyebrow on the outside. She wanted to ask about the Penumbra's "battle cry" and his pantomiming, but she didn't want to be rude. He *did* seem to think that the "battle cry" was awesome judging by his expression, after all.

The hedgehog in the Penumbra's arms(or Harris, Gwendolyn didn't know) had no such reservations, however.

"*That's* your battle cry?" The hedgehog(who was *definitely* Harris now, judging by his voice) said, looking greatly amused. "Seriously? It sounds like you're *being* attacked more than you're attacking something!"

The Penumbra looked greatly offended and like he was about to say something back when the forcefield started shaking, due to the creature slashing and swiping at it with its front paws. The forcefield still held up, though Gwendolyn wasn't sure for how long.

"I see that you are in need of assistance," A calm, unfamiliar voice suddenly echoed inside the area the forcefield was surrounding.

"Who said that-"

The Penumbra was suddenly interrupted when an old woman who Gwendolyn and Harris were *very* familiar with appeared inside the forcefield and replaced it with a new, stronger, pale blue one. She then turned and smiled at the group.

"Greetings, Celestine," Gwendolyn said, ignoring the large part of her that wanted to hug the old woman and settling for a curtsy instead. "It's nice to see you again."

Harris wasn't as thrilled to see Celestine as Gwendolyn was, though, as he trembled in the Penumbra's arms a few moments after he saw her.

"It most certainly is," Celestine said to Gwendolyn, then turned around and looked up at the creature, frowning sympathetically as she did so. "I do wish that our reunion was under better circumstances, though."

"Hi, Celestine!" The Penumbra said, waving at Celestine and looking really excited to meet a new person. "I'm Nocturne!"

Nocturne. So that was his name.

Celestine looked at Nocturne and smiled.

"I believe that this belongs to you," She said, snapping her fingers and making a large and heavy-looking sword appear in Nocturne's free hand, causing Nocturne to stumble a bit.

"How-"

"I'm sorry, but there's no time to explain," Celestine said, shaking her head and then looking up at the still attacking creature again. "Right now, I need to tell you and Gwendolyn something very important."

"What is it?" Gwendolyn asked, while Nocturne's expression turned into both a curious and serious one.

"Unfortunately, you can't defeat this creature on your own just yet," Celestine said. "However, you *can* escape it."

She then took hold of one of Gwendolyn's hands and Nocturne's free hand and made them press up against each other, Gwendolyn and Nocturne looking at Celestine strangely and Nocturne dropping his sword to the ground during this.

"Now, Princess Gwendolyn, use a tiny amount of light magic using that hand," Celestine said, pointing to the hand that was up against Nocturne's. "As for you, Nocturne, use a tiny amount of dark magic using the hand that's up against Princess Gwendolyn's."

Looking at each other and shrugging, Gwendolyn and Nocturne nonetheless did what they were told, using their respective magic and making a normal sized key that was half white and half black as a result. The key fell into Gwendolyn's palm when her and Nocturne's hands separated from each other.

"Er, excuse me for asking, Celestine, but what am I supposed to do with this?" Gwendolyn asked Celestine, talking about the key.

"The key will, if turned in the air, create a portal to another world," Celestine replied. "Entering it will help you escape the creature."

"Another world?" Gwendolyn said. "But I thought that Gaia was the only world that existed!"

Nocturne and Harris looked just as confused as Gwendolyn did.

The creature roared and then headbutted the forcefield, causing it to shake a little.

"I'll explain later," Celestine promised. "Right now, we need to focus on getting you three out of here."

Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow, then nodded a second later, grabbed the key with her other hand, and turned it, causing a portal that was half white and half black to appear.

"Now go!" Celestine said as one part of the forcefield dissipated and the creature stuck one of its paws through it.

Gwendolyn's eyes widened when she noticed this, and while it *was* tempting to go through the portal immediately, she still wanted to make sure that Nocturne and (she hated to admit it, but) Harris got through safely as well, remembering the words that her dad had said to her a long time ago:

*"A good ruler puts their people first."*

Gwendolyn wasn't sure that she could even *be* a good ruler, but she could at least *try* to be.

As such, she helped Nocturne carry his sword, and all three of them went through the portal. Celestine and the forcefield disappeared after they did, and the portal disappeared shortly afterward, leaving the creature to howl because of its own pain and look around for something, *anything,* that it could cause similar pain to.