"Why am I doing this again?" I asked myself silently. I honestly don't know how the old stallion did it, but somehow he made me believe Guards had cleanup-duty...

I thought back to him, and realised I couldn't remember how he looked, or how his voice sounded. All I know is that he looked unordinairy, and that his voice sounded hypnotising. The only thing I have heard about similar to that are the old shaman-identity-hiders...

ancient puppets pumped with enough magic to put ten combined nukes to shame.

I looked at the scene, all those guards trying to hold back civilians seemed pretty funny for me, especially with that beautiful sunsif they would just...

speaking of the devil, they had yet again a problem with civilists wanting to look at the only house destroyed when the spells were woven through the air.

I didn't quite understand how half entirety of the Everfree-Guard was unable to keep the public away while the other half seals up the soon-to-be-construction-side, but I tried to think of yet another way how to get the attention of the Guard to let them see the intruders, without telling right away that there was a frosty-human-ghost in the middle of them.

I groaned, and thought about the good ol' days...

Sor'Gat, the shaman of the Geror'-Clan, which consisted out of giant rabbits with fangs that would put a mammoth to shame... in relative size, looked over to me, and asked:

"Whatcha there? There'n ghostey?"

I loved those bunnymen, well, rabbitmen, they always spoke with a funny accent and wrong grammar, and at the same time were able to say words of greater wisdom than I heard ever before.

I laughed, and told him: "Yeah, there's a ghostey, a friendly ghostey. Non-eating-ghostey, you know?"

He then looked over me in such a weird way, with mischievousness in his eyes, and said: "No-atng-ghosteys worse, life'n unshiny. Prepar'n for catastroph'n."

I never figured out how they said atng, but I know I did have pretty rough times.

I was about to answer, I remember, when he left. I realised that that was the usual behavior of the shamans, they often went away in the middle of a conversation to get something. Most of the time it was something the other one needed, so I waited patiently for him to return.

When he did return, he gave me a small puppet looking like him: "Needcha ever help, call'n through void'n. Help'n much others before, help'n much other after."

I cringed a bit about his wrong use of 'many' and 'much', but thanked him nonetheless.

He then looked at me in this strange way only shamans do, and continued his speech, now speaking completely fine: "You will find that others are more willing to help when you are offering to help them in exchange. Fill something with your essence like I did with the puppet, and you will be called, but will be also more qualified for calling for help."

He then spoke 'normal' again, before leaving me more confused than ever before, but not ever after.

I heard his voice still, even after he left, in my head when I held the puppet:

If'n need help'cha can be'n shout'n me.

I was thrown out of my memories by a loud shout of a guard.

Seems like I didn't have to even make them realise there was someone inside the 'construction'-side. Snickering, I realised something felt oddly familiar... as if a known essence was here at most two days ago...

I put my bag down, before going into meditation-stance, folded my left leg vertical towards my right leg, and opened my mind for the sight of the essence.

As I entered the realm of souls, essence or magic, however you call it, I felt  a pitchblack presence, causing my whole body to shiver, something was evil enough to do that to a frost-spirit.

When I started to construct my mental defenses, I  felt it fading, fleeing. It would have been interesting to see what that was..., I thought, before re-focussing my mind to the task at hand: The familiar essence.

Sensing around, there is no better word to describe what you do in the essence-realm when searching for an essence, I quickly spotted my target, an essence of a dull gray, but with black to end all blacks woven into it, it was not a colour you get for being evil, but rather for being him...

Pitch, currently incarnated by Albert Rose, the Nightmare King, the Boogeyman (in this universe more well known as Boogeymane) and also...

my brother, having visited the Comic-Convention all those years before, where he bought that Onyx...

Was there no end to this forest?

I feel like I have been wandering in here for an eternity, even though I am pretty sure it was not even a day since I woke up at the edge of that blow-town... considering the night has risen already.

I get the feeling somebody is thinking of me, how sweet...

"After all, I can't get forgotten now, can I?", I asked myself, pondering about that dreadful possibility, "Being forgotten without knowing even where I am, now I can't let that happen..."

"You could, but it wouldn't be your wisest choice..."

"WHERE ARE YOU?" I screamed, looking around for a while, until I finally managed to calm myself. "Calm down, Albert. You are even hearing things now, how bad can this day become?"

"Much worse than it already has, dear Pitch, Nightmare King, also known as Boogeymane..." the voice said.

I smiled, knowing I had the upper hand over... myself? Argh, anyways, I then told myself: "That may be true, but then tell me why there is nothing you talk from?"

I would swear I heard a chuckle, before the voice said: "There is something. Look above you, and your question answers itself."

I wondered what the voice meant, then I shrugged and looked into the nightsky.

I wasn't prepared to see the moon having already risen to its primetime.

I wasn't prepared to see the stars forming a big hole around the moon.

And I definitely wasn't prepared to see a freaking huge formation on the moon that looked like a FREAKING UNICORN!

All of my surprise, and anti-amazement could only be worded by one sentence:

"You got to be kidding me..."

"As much as I would love to, I am not kidding you. You have brought my twin to life, and my twin me. You paid for it, she didn't. There is currently for me just one way to fight here... by teaching you how to use your shadowbending abilities you haven't used for centuries." the voice... the unicorn on the moon said...

Wait a minute...

"What do you mean with that? I've never used shadow-magic before, I mean, I always wanted to, but never could because there is no magic!" I shouted, stunned with surprise about everything that has happened, and silently praying that I truly can use shadow-magic.

"Excuse me... we have forgotten my twin did encage your mind immediately after you animated her..." Ooni... Moon-Unicorn? Ah, forget it. Now that I think about it, I do look like Pitch from 'Rise of the Guardians'... so that is probably a parody of the man in the moon, probably mare in the moon or something like that.

Well, anyways, the moonspirit said that, and then I fell on my face of excitement.

When I first tried to stand back up, I was hit in the back by an object, causing me to fall down again...

Learning from this, I now tried to turn around, and saw a figure looking like Jack Frost fly above me.

"Huh, that was close..." I said, just now realising I cloaked myself in darkness...

Must be an instinctual thing... and now that I realise it, I knew without knowing that I did not need food...

"You should probably look and find out what that thing was..." the mare in the moon told me, seemingly having problems to keep her emotions under control, and was... happy?

I picked up the object, seeing now that it was a puppet halftrapped in ice...

It was then that I heard the voice... no, scratch that, voices:

If'n need supporters to can be'n just call me.

The mare in the moo... scratch that,  I should be allowed to call her she now, she then said: "It is an essence-container... you should add your own taint of essence and call your own line..."

Since she promised to teach me shadow-magic, I was suddenly very obedient to her, so I focused my soul and poured it into the ice, turning half of it into shadows...

"You get something if I get something."

Then suddenly the essence-container imploded, blinding me for a few seconds.

And that is how I learned not to overpour essence-containers. You don't know where they might land. Next Chapter: It also brings the darkness.... Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes