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// Dreams of Dark and Light 
// Story: Reincarnated Shadows 
// by Ahrazell 
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The first thing I noticed is I wasnt in the bed anymore. Infact I wasn't anywhere I recognized. Sitting up, I looked out and saw what I can only imagine to be the world I new live on, seas of green, brown, and blue. It was beautiful. Then I looked down and noticed what the ground looked like and put two and two together. A endless plane of grey, specled with craters of all shapes and sizes, and a endless expanse of stars all around me. I was on the moon. "Finally. I was beginning to think we many never speak again, that our bond had been severed." A voice said. I turned as felt my jaw drop. Standing behind me was a tall, gorgeous woman. Black fur covered her body as her piercing, blue slitted eyes looked down at me. Her wings were feathered and yet she had a long horn. Even in armor as she was she gave me the feeling of safety, closeness, and the power that radiated off her would have made most people quake in fear. Her expression was one of care, a softness to those hardened eyes and her full lips in a soft smile.

"Who are you?" I asked, standing up only for my head to be at her midriff, such was our size difference. But my words took her expression and changed it, her eyes growing sorrowful, and her smile into the softest of frowns. 

"You do not remember me?" She asked, getting on her knees and becoming eye level with me. "May I have your name young one?" 

For some reason, despite being a stranger to me, I felt compelled to tell her everything I knew. She is a good person. "I... don't know. I woke up a few days ago with no idea of who I am... or even what I am." 

Her frown deepened as a growl escaped her thoat, causing me to instinctively flinch. "Those bastards... Oh my poor Shatter Star." Well now I know my name. She took a deep breath before smiling at me, soothing all the fear I had felt. "Your name is Shatter Star... and you are a Thestral, one of my subjects. More than that... you were a part of a ritual. Willingly mind you. The process required a loyal subject who had yet to be touched by destiny, who had yet to receive their cutie mark. They would have become a vessel for me, allowing me to escape my imprisonment early until such a time as my body could return, where I would leave. However, the Dawn Guard, My sister's elite and most devout soldiers caught wind of it and tried to interfere. So the buffoons, instead of ending the ritual and escaping, decided to rush it. And in the process opened up your soul to the void. In truth, any sould could have possessed and taken over your body. I bless whatever star you were born under that you are... mostly intact."

That formed a pit in my stomach. Soul in the void... possessed... oh dear gods no. Nonono I did not kill a kid. "Would... would there be anyway to check? To make sure that my soul is the only one there?" I asked the tall mare, causing her to nod. 

"I can... but you need to understand that in my current form, sealed as though I am, I will be unable to remove what I find, and indeed, when I am able they will be too bonded, to entrenched in your soul go be removed." Nightmare told me. 

"I understand... but I still want to know." With a nod of her head I felt a power through me, causing me to twist and squirm. It felt so wrong, like someone was pearing into your mind and moving things around, looking through things that shouldn't be there. And her deepening frown did little to lift my worries. 

"It seems you do have a stow away from your time open to the rift, but I am unable to tell it and yourself apart." Nightmare spoke as the pit in my stomach worsened. So I didn't kill a child, I'm only running around in their body while they have no control or choice as to what goes on or what I do. That's so much better! Not.

"Is it possible to bridge us together? Not so they can take over but so that communication is a possible feat?" 

She paused, giving me a odd look. "Rather verbose vocabulary, but if there is I do not know it. It is likely hidden in one of my sisters libraries if I were to guess. But enough of this talk of the void and souls. We have not much time, and much to do." Nightmare said before turning back to me and crouching to eye level. "Tell me young Shatter Star, what is the last thing you remember." 

"I... I remember pain. Then these memories that aren't mine flooding in. Then when I woke up, I was in a clearing a few days from here, this black gunk everywhere. And every time I though I was going to die, I would wake up elsewhere, that black gunk everywhere again." 

If her eyes weren't focused on me already, they sure were now. "Memories not your own would be the other riding with you.as for this black gunk you say, I will look into it. As for now, time is something I have much of. Get to civilization Shatter Star. Find ponies to take you in, and grow. When it is time to train you to serve me, I will visit your dreams again." She said before she faded away, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

So... This isn't some kind of new body the voice had made for me. This was a body the voice had taken advantage of. One that fit my wishes. A child is trapped inside of me as I control them, unable to move, to cry for help, to even talk to their body snatcher. Suddenly this second chance isn't such a good one. This is no dream come true.

This is a Nightmare.