The Balance of Light and Darkness

Guess what's here 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 wearing clothes(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 mocked, 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, and neither did an anthropomorphic, dress-wearing falcon who was watching in a tree and holding a sword nearby. Despite her common sense telling her not to, the falcon decided to pursue her vengeance right then and there.

As such, the falcon put her sword's handle in her beak, changed her arms and hands into wings, and began to quickly fly to and then dive bomb Princess Gwendolyn once she was close enough, ready to kill Princess Gwendolyn with the sword in her beak once she was close enough.

## Chapter 3

It might've been a good thing(for Princess Gwendolyn at least) that the anthropomorphic falcon's(otherwise known as a Caelian) attack was viewed by Nocturne and Harris as well and not just Princess Gwendolyn, because as soon as Nocturne saw the Caelian dive bombing at Princess Gwendolyn and looking like she was going to cut her head off with the sword in her beak, he changed his arms and hands into bat wings and flew off like a shot towards the Caelian, colliding into her and causing both of them to fall to the ground in the process.

"Princess!" Nocturne exclaimed frantically to Princess Gwendolyn, trying to keep the struggling Caelian down with his body and kind of failing. "You need to return to the castle right now! Take Harris with you! I don't want anyone to get hurt- wh- whoaaaa!"

Nocturne was interrupted by the Caelian rolling over, causing them to switch positions. Then the Caelian snapped her clawed fingers and had a literal ring of fire go around a fleeing Princess Gwendolyn and a confused but also fleeing Harris.

"Leave this alone, Penumbra!" The Caelian screamed at Nocturne while she got off him and ran to her sword. "I have unfinished business with your race, too, but in order to enact *proper* justice for *my* race, I need to eliminate Princess Gwendolyn first *and* foremost! If you're not foolish enough to get in the way of *vengeance,* Penumbra, I suggest that you stay out of this!!"

After getting her sword, the Caelian then ran towards Princess Gwendolyn and Harris, ready to kill Princess Gwendolyn. Fortunately, Princess Gwendolyn put up a yellow forcefield before the Caelian could kill her, and Nocturne, who had gone to and picked up his oversized sword after the Caelian ran off, tried to attack her from the behind with a *wonderful* battle cry of "AAAAAAAAAA-"

Unfortunately, the Caelian caught Nocturne's sword as it was coming down with her sword just in time.

"*Again,* Penumbra!?" The Caelian said with her eyes wide, then growled. "I know that your race was on the side of Princess Gwendolyn and her parents during the war, but why are you helping her? Why are you doing this?! You'll only get killed in the process if you continue, I can assure you that!"

"The princess is my race's ally and friend!" Nocturne exclaimed, trying to move his sword again but having it be blocked by the Caelian's sword again instead. "Also, I don't want anyone to get hurt, which you probably don't understand, being evil and all!"

"Says someone who belongs to a race who willingly teamed up with Princess Gwendolyn and her parents and killed tons of Caelians in the war, including my-" The Caelian cut herself off, shaking her head and moving to attack with her sword again, which Nocturne sloppily blocked. "Nevermind! Just let. Me. Through!!"

"Never!!" Nocturne replied, starting to get tired because of the oversized sword he carried.

The two then began to fight with their swords in silence, with Nocturne struggling to keep up with the Caelian's fast and sure sword strokes and movements. Nocturne could also hear Harris blaming Princess Gwendolyn for something, but he was so focused on defeating the Caelian that he basically tuned it out.

Before Nocturne knew it, though, the Caelian had made Nocturne's sword go flying with her own sword and was pointing her sword straight at Nocturne's chest.

"Stay out of this, Penumbra," The Caelian warned Nocturne before turning her attention to Princess Gwendolyn, who was talking to Harris at the moment and seemingly getting more and more aggravated by him. "You can't stop what's about to happen, no matter you do, so why do you even-"

And then the ground shook.

"That will be *enough*, Voice," Princess Gwendolyn said, looking calm otherwise but still giving the most terrifying glare Nocturne and the Caelian 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, the Caelian, 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 and secretly impressed the Caelian. Her eyes now also had a yellowish tinge to them, and she was floating 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, Nocturne, and the Caelian 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, when a sudden deafening growl filled the ears of Nocturne, Princess Gwendolyn, the Caelian, 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, Harris, the Caelian, and Princess Gwendolyn being there.

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

## Chapter 4

Thankfully, Dawn(the Caelian) and the Penumbra were able to escape the creature and the shock waves its landing produced by changing their arms and hands into wings and flying into the sky. The Penumbra had also scooped up Harris(who seemed to be changing again) in his clawed feet, but unfortunately hadn't been able to carry Princess Gwendolyn all by himself, so she got caught in the creature's shock waves while she was running away from it.

"*This is all the Penumbra's fault!"* Dawn thought as she flew away from the creature. *"If he hadn't intervened, I would've killed Princess Gwendolyn and already been far away from the creature right now!"*

"Everyone, get inside the castle *now*!" Princess Gwendolyn suddenly said after she picked herself back up and pointed towards her family's castle.

The Penumbra simply nodded and flew towards the castle, with Gwendolyn following close behind him.

Dawn, meanwhile, thought about going to the castle for a few seconds, then decided against it.

*"Why should I do what* she *wants me to do?"* She thought to herself. *"*She's *the bad guy here! Besides, I can totally defeat that thing!...Right?"*

Dawn then skillfully grabbed her sword in one set of talons and then placed its handle in her mouth, already flying towards the creature and getting ready to attack it with her sword.

Unfortunately, the creature noticed Dawn going to attack it, and with one swipe of its giant paw, it sent her flying to the others, knocking them over in the process. The creature then slowly walked up to them and 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, the group tried to all get out of the heap, with Dawn suddenly putting her sword against Princess Gwendolyn's neck when she could.

"PRINCESS!" Nocturne exclaimed, already holding up his sword while a nearby black hedgehog(which could've been Harris, as he was a shapeshifter, after all) seemed undecided on whether to be happy or concerned.

Princess Gwendolyn, however, remained calm, much to Dawn's surprise.

"You really don't want to do this," She said, which made Dawn snort.

"Of course I do!" She said. "Why do you think I've so determined to kill you all this time? Do you think I'm just a standard evil person straight out of a fairytale who kicks puppies and turns young maidens to stone?"

"Well-"

"What I mean is that I'm the only one who's stopping us all, including *you*, from being killed," Princess Gwendolyn said.

"Ha! I can easily cut that thing's head off with my sword-"

"Could you?" Princess Gwendolyn asked, though it seemed like she already knew the answer. "Look, I don't care if you have the best skill with a sword ever. That monster is bigger than all of us combined, probably has tremendous power, and was trying to eat us before I put a forcefield up. Unless we can find a way to tame or calm the monster down, my forcefield, and by extension, me, is the only thing that's keeping the monster at bay. Unless you have a stronger forcefield that could do the same thing?"

"..."

Dawn put down her sword very slowly, still glaring at Princess Gwendolyn.

"Thank you," Princess Gwendolyn said, moving away from Dawn and using all of her willpower to not fall to her knees and cry. "Now-"

Suddenly, the forcefield started shaking, due to the creature slashing and swiping at it with its front paws. The forcefield still held up, though.

"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 Princess 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," Princess Gwendolyn said, smiling and curtsying. "It's nice to see you again."

Harris wasn't as pleased to see Celestine as Princess Gwendolyn was, though, as he trembled and jumped into the Penumbra's arms a few moments after he saw her.

"It most certainly is," Celestine said to Princess 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, but before she could say anything, Dawn piped up.

"Who are you, and what relation do you have with Princess Gwendolyn?" She said, shooting a suspicious glare at Celestine.

"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 Nocturne and Gwendolyn something very important."

"Gwendolyn"? So the relationship between Celestine and Princess Gwendolyn was a close one. And judging by the way Celestine and Princess Gwendolyn had acted to each other, it was probably also a positive one.

...Was Celestine an enemy of some sort?

"What is it?" Princess 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, ignoring Dawn's even more intense glare. "However, you *can*escape it."

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

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

Nocturne, Harris, and Dawn looked just as confused as Princess 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."

Princess 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.

Dawn's eyes widened when she noticed this, and, even though she still couldn't fully wrap her head around there being other worlds, she was the first one to go through the portal, with the others close behind.

Celestine and the forcefield disappeared after they went through the portal, 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.

## Chapter 5

The first thing Gwendolyn noticed when she and the others went through the portal was that everything looked...different.

Mainly, the ground was light gray and cut into squares, the buildings were large but also shaped like rectangles and squares, and were there...big, bipedal, clothes wearing mice running around??

Gwendolyn *had* seen anthropomorphic bats and birds and prey before, and had heard of other anthropomorphic animals in Gaia, but never *mice!*

"A mouse!?" Gwendolyn suddenly heard Dawn exclaim, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Why am I a mouse!? I eat mice for breakfast!!"

"Why are my ears so big?" Nocturne asked. "And...like mouse ears- I'M A MOUSE!?!?"

"Ugh, I'm *already* so sick and tired of being small animals!!" The Voice complained. "Why can't I just be tall for once!? I was tall in Gwen's- er, I mean- Princess Gwendolyn's mind!!!"

Whipping her head around, Gwendolyn saw a shocked brown mouse, an annoyed gray mouse, and a small, angry black mouse who looked mixed with a volcano behind her, much to her surprise. After a few seconds, the brown mouse(Nocturne??) noticed her and looked even more shocked.

"Princess, is that you??" He asked. "You look very...mousey today, don't you think?"

"I do?" Gwendolyn said, then looked down at herself.