+*+ OCELLUS +*+

     "Silverstream?" Ocellus asked, squinting in the light her Glow Mode could provide her. She could see a vague outline in front of her, but she didn't know whether or not it was really her. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks, but they couldn't be. She had Changeling eyes, and they were the most reliable eyes that belonged to anycreature.

   "Ah— Ocellus..." Silverstream said in a hurried voice. Ocellus could hear some clicking and clanking of what seemed to be glass, but that was the most she could make out of the situation.

    The air definitely smelled like it was going to be rain, though, and it was really cold. She was glad for having a hide that can basically adapt to any temperature.

    Ocellus decided to crank up her brightness a whole notch and she was momentarily blinded by a bright white light. Maybe she cranked it up too much. She adjusted it to just enough for her to see Silverstream.

     She didn't really know what Silverstream was doing. That pink Hippogriff had a open saddlebag on her that seemed to be filled to the brim with potions. Her blue mane was also looking quite dishevelled and her wings were tucked out. In both claws she held a potion bottle.

    "Silverstream?" Ocellus asked again in a much more confused tone, raising her eyebrows. She really had no idea what to calculate from this situation. She took a step forward. "What's wrong? What's happening?"

     Silverstream sighed, gently placing the potions she was holding in her claws back safely on th shelf. She turned away from Ocellus and began to explain, gasping as she spoke. "It's just that... My family... They're dead"

    She tried not to gasp for her Hippogriff friend, but in truth, she had no idea what else to do. She approached her friend slowly, taking tentative steps, lowering her brightness with each step. "Silverstream... I know they're not dead!"

Silverstream raised her eyebrows as she stepped away from Ocellus and closer to the door, placing a claw on the door knob. "How are you sure about that?"

She didn't really know how she was so sure about that, but she reminded herself that there was no way her Hippogriff friend's parents were dead. The odds were just so slim for that. She took a step closer towards Zecora's shelf full of potions and examined each one, spying a red vial with the words 'Vision' written accross it. She grabbed it and walked over towards Zecora's cauldron and tipped the contents of the vial into it. She felt her pink friend step up next to her.

     The red colour of the potion in the vial swirled as it met the water. It kept on swirling for a while, testing a shape, then back to a swirl the next, before settling into a colourful picture of Silverstream's family happily having a picnic on the beach, with Ocean Flow as a Seapony and Stratus Skyranger as a Hippogriff, with Terramar half-in the water, half-on the land.

    "Is this true?" Silverstream ask, blinking twice as she stared into the cauldron, tears glistening in her eyes as she watched her little brother do a flip in the air, earning a joyful laugh from his parents. She clasped her claws together.

"Yeah," Ocellus replied, nodding, looking at the cauldron, hoping her own family was as happy as that. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. She'd have to use this potion some time.

She saw her Hippogriff friend's eyebrows furrow as her eyes glistened with tears. She blinked them back as they both continued staring at the cauldron, her mouth open in disbelief. "Why didn't they give Zecora any news?"

She grabbed the vial from her pink friend again and let another drop slip down and into the cauldron. The image of the Hippogriff family blurred and everything began to swirl once again, before taking the shape of the train tracks that lead towards Mt. Aris from Equestria, but the tracks looked more worn out, battered a broken, with obvious cracks in the wood and the metal guide seemed to have snapped in half.

    "Oh no..." Silverstream whispered, shaking her head as she took a step back from the cauldron and rested against a wall, leaning on it. Her face was quite pale, not its usual light pink color.

"Silverstream, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Your family's okay. The train tracks are going to be repaired." Ocellus said, with a bright smile, and that was not just because of her glow mode. She stepped towards her friend.

Silverstream's eyes were still wide, but a little bit of colour made it back to her face. She really had to feel bad for her Hippogriff friend. Her lips were still trembling as she spoke. "Are you sure?"

She smiled, despite all the other worries and excuses her mind was throwing at her and decided that it was for the best. It was for Silverstream. "I'm sure"

+*+

     Ocellus woke up to the sound of loud chatter coming from a general direction to her right. She couldn't discern who the voices belonged to so she decided to just open her eyes and swing her hooves over her hammock and she walked over towards the sound.

     Her vision was still a little blurry but the more she blinked and wiped the sleepy from her eyes, the more everything became much clearer and she could now recognize Zecora's hut, with the wooden walls full of shelves and the potions and Twilight-knows-whats suspended from the wooden ceiling by a string.

Ocellus was then able to make out her friends gathered around in a circle, and their beaks and mouths were opening and closing and the sound seemed to be coming from them. She wondered what had made them more talkative.

She wasn't really complaining since it was nice to be on the same wavelength again but then this was a time when she'd much rather keep her thoughts to herself, a Changeling habbit she was attempting to abandon.

     Shrugging, she walked over to her friends and put on a small smile on her lips as she sat down on an empty spot in the circle that was probably meant for her. "What's happening?"

    "Good morning," Gallus grumbled as he turned his head slightly away from her, and Ocellus felt a sadness nagging her, but she decided to ignore it and she turned towards the rest of her friends, quietly hoping that her Griffin friend's mood would improve, and it usually did.

"We were just thinking about how to defeat Aura Light," Smolder said with a smile, shrugging. Her Dragon friend wouldn't usually be this nonchalant about anything in times of stress, but Dragons were known to have unpredictable tempers so she just decided to keep her alertness up just a tiny notch.

"Changeling can defeat Aura Light!" Yona exclaimed, making Ocellus' heart lurch from the shock just a tiny bit. She took a deep breath to calm herself before opening her mouth.

"What? Why?" she asked, gesturing to herself in shock, placing a hoof over her mouth. She wasn't the biggest fan of this idea. She wasn't a fan of the idea at all. Just the mere thought of standing up to the rampaging rhino on her own made her feel a great unease pricking her everywhere.

"Changeling can turn into anything! Anything can be more powerful than rhino!" Yona exclaimed, furrowing her eyebrows and looking at her with much more authority, stomping her hoof, letting a small tremble travel across the room.

"Yona! I don't want to do that!" Ocellus said, suddenly finding everything to be squeezing in around her and she really wished that she didn't have to be the Changeling for once.

"But Changeling has to!" the Yak said simply, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world, and maybe for the blue Changeling, it was. She had to admit her furry friend had a point. She could shapeshift after all. She bit her lip.

"Yona, no. Please. I don't want to do this alone! Besides, Starlight said we could defeat him with our friendship! Let's try focusing on that, okay?" she said with a hopeful smile resting on her blue face.

    "Yona don't want to," Yona replied, standing up and turning away from them for a while. Ocellus didn't want to think of her best friend as a b**** but she was really acting that way as of the moment.

    "Why?" Gallus asked, piping up for the first time in a while. They all turned their heads expectantly towards the Yak and they all heard her give a huge sigh.

    "Yona just don't want to." their brown friend replied plainly and they were all clearly having a hard time deciphering the thoughts of this Yak, and they were all sure it would be easier if their own emotions weren't so muddled together.

    "Yona... Don't... Want to... Be part... Of friends'... Adventures... Anymore..." Yona replied as she sighed once again, turning back towards them and sitting once again with a big frown on her face.

    "It's not like any of us want to anyway, Yona," Smolder replied with some serious loathing evident in her voice, crossing her arms. Ocellus couldn't help but smile sadly to herself. Called it, she thought, here comes the Dragon temper.

"Dragon is frustrating!" Yona suddenly declared, and Ocellus really had to pity Smolder. She didn't deserve to be called out like that. Their orange friend may have an unpredictable temper, but it was in her nature, and they never had any problems with it before.

"I'm... sorry," their Dragon friend replied, actually sounding sorry, and Ocellus couldn't help but roll her eyes at the stupidity of all this because she didn't want to face Aura Light alone and Smolder didn't deserve to be called out on her temper and Yona was usually way more considerate than this and it was all very confusing and it really made her want to snap.

Ocellus' eyes widened. Snap. She didn't really like using the word, but it felt very comforting right now. Snapsnapsnap. Yona snapped.

She felt her mouth drop a little bit at the thought of Yona snapping. She imagined it literally and immediately erased the gorey scene from her mind, but Yona snapping figuratively was much more the case, and she really wanted to know a way to find out why.

She kept quiet as the rest of her friends talked. The conversation was mostly kept going by Silverstream, just ranting her thoughts about everything, and Gallus gave some of his own sarcastic comments.

     Smolder, meanwhile, was playing every part of the silent but angry Dragon from Ocellus' favorite book really well, crossing her arms and legs as she turned her head away from the conversation, glaring at something in the distance, but it might as well be her whole world.

Yona, meanwhile, was blinking quite quickly for an average Yak, staring off into the wall behind Silverstream who was seated right across her, occasionally throwing a glare towards a random creature from their group.

Eventually, Zecora came towards them and offered them their breakfast of soup before telling them that she'd going to try to reach their families again, then she left.

     "Ocellus, you really should stand up to Aura Light," Smolder said with a smile as she finished her own helping of soup quite quickly despite it being burning hot, but that was probably because she was a Dragon.

     Ocellus raised her eyebrow, wondering when Smolder boarded the same boat Yona was in, and she was pretty sure all of them weren't in the same boat anymore.

    Her Dragon friend kicked out her feet as she stretched her arms and rested her head on her claws, appearing very relaxed despite the situation. She smiled. "You know, I was just thinking, and you should. You're great at shapeshifting! I know you can do it!"

    Ocellus pondered on this for a full minute, biting her lip as her mind reeled on with pros and cons about facing Aura Light. She was a Changeling, after all. She had the advantage of shapeshifting. She gave a small smile to nocreature in particular.

    Maybe she could do this.

+*+

     Ocellus stood up quite fast, surprising herself, especially since she never counted on herself to snap right to action that morning. Maybe it was Yona's words, maybe it was Smolder's, but she felt a strong sense of motivation to defeat Aura Light.

     Until she took the first step into what could resemble the living room in Zecora's hut.

     Everything felt too surreal again. She could never defeat Aura Light on her own.

Ocellus turned around to look at the rest of the hammcocks where her friends were sleeping in. Gallus was tucked in away like a little kitten, though he'd never admit that. Silverstream's body was just sprawled everywhere. Yona's bottom hammock had a lot of pillows underneath her. Smolder meanwhile was sitting up, she realised, and her eyes widened with alarm.

     Ocellus took a step back, not quite knowing what to do, as she looked around Zecora's hut, unsure what she was actually trying to find, but then she let her muscles relax, deciding to just face whatever Smolder has to say, because that Dragon probably had nothing to say.

    "Good morning, Ocellus," her orange friend said after she rubbed her eyes once, her legs already dangling over the edge of the hammock. She was always quite alert already just within the first few seconds of waking up.

"Good morning," Ocellus said rather hopefully with a nod, but it came off more as desperate if anything. She took a small step back as she bit her lip in anticipation to what Smolder had to offer.

"Sorry about what I said yesterday," her Dragon friend said, flying down from her upper hammock, landing a metre away from the nervous Changeling. "You don't really have to defeat him on your own, you know? I just really believe in you!"

She opened her mouth to respond to her friend but a loud bang interrupted her from voicing her thoughts as they both turned to see that Yona's hammock actually had fallen and the Yak was now lying in a heap of pillows, but she was rubbing a spot on her head.

    Yona gradually started to sit up and she then began to notice her two friends standing not so far away from her. She immediately stood up as fast as she could, tripping once, and knocking quite a few hanging objects from the ceiling. She gave Ocellus such a stern look that the Changeling began to calmy hyperventilate inside. "Changeling has to defeat Aura Light. Now."

"Are you sure? Starlight probably has everything under control now and even if she didn't, there are loads of other creatures that could help!" Ocellus replied, smiling hopefully as she took a step back.

"Does situation make Changeling think Aura Light defeated?" Yona asked, raising her eyebrow, and the Changeling felt like her brown friend was staring right into her soul.

"No...?" the blue Changeling offered, smiling sheepishly. She saw Smolder cross her arms and sigh from the corner of her eye and she very much wanted to do that, too, but she currently had no idea how to do anything under the intense gaze the Yak was giving her.

    "Changeling should defeat Aura Light," Yona said one last time with a strong sense of finality, as if she had no other choice but to defeat Aura Light, and the Yak turned away from them and collapsed on top of the pillows.

"Hey," Smolder piped up, walking over to Ocellus and placing a claw on her shoulder, "You don't really have to do it on your own. Yona's in a hard place right now, so you don't have to listen to her"

The Changeling smiled at the sincerity of her Dragon friend, but she felt like she really had to do it now. Equestria was probably not in a much better state, and Ocellus knew she couldn't live that happily ever again if the rampaging rhino was left unchecked.

    "I'll... just go for a walk," Ocellus said, offering a smile to her Dragon friend, but deep down she knew that she honestly just wanted to get away and be alone with her thoughts for a while.

    "Okay," Smolder said nonchalantly, shrugging, before having a determined face as she smiled, stepping towards her friend who was already just a few steps away from the front door, "I'll go with you"

"No, no," Ocellus said, stepping back from Smolder as she began to open the door, smiling at her friend. She hoped she was discreet enough. "You don't have to. I'll be fine on my own"

Her Dragon friend three her a look, raising her eyebrows as she placed a claw on her waist, being quite skeptical about the whole thing, but sighed in defeat. "If you say so..."

The blue Changeling gave a smile and nodded as she finally stepped out of the door and into the unknown of the Everfree Forest, closing the door softly behind her.

    She couldn't really say the Everfree Forest was beautiful this time of year, but it still had an aura of charm, mystic and magic. Most of the light was being filtered by the thick flora so that left Ocellus no choice but to turn on her light mode, as well as a heating mode. She had no idea how Zecora's hut could be so warm in a cold and dreary place like this, but whatever made it that way, she was grateful for it.

     Ocellus began walking, unsure where her final destination would be, as thoughts swirled around in her head. She mentally documented each and every plant she passed by, avoiding the powerful smell of the Poison Joke, a blue flower that would take your greatest strength and twist it to be your greatest flaw. She discovered that she liked being in the Everfree Forest alone, with just her thoughts for company.

+*+

Ocellus found quite a nice spot to rest in. There was a little more light than there'd usually be in the Everfree Forest, and it was much warmer, too, and as far as she could tell, all the flora and fauna were completely safe.

    Ocellus sat down on a fallen log in front of a small pool of water, just thinking. Maybe she should defeat Aura Light. She was a Changeling after all, but she reminded herself she wasn't really a skilled Changeling. She wasn't as good as adapting into another form as the other Changelings were...

     She sighed as she looked far ahead into the darkness behind some trees. She really wanted to help defeat Aura Light, though, and set everything back to normal. Normal. She liked that word, she thought as she smiled sadly to herself.

     She wondered whether she could begin practising. Shapeshifting and adapting was usually just pure talent, but she heard of some Changelings that practised it enough that they were able to be as skilled as the naturally talented ones, one of them was her very own mother.

Ocellus closed her eyes and focused becoming Starlight, because if anycreature could defeat Aura Light with her magic, it was her headmare. She opened her eyes and looked into the pond in front of her, finding a purple Unicorn with a violet mane staring back at her.

    "Hello, my name is Starlight Glimmer," she said, and she sighed in relief as her tone suited the headmare. Starlight was relatively easy to copy. Maybe she should go for something more challenging.

    Ocellus wondered whether she should go for an Alicorn, the most powerful of Ponykind, or a different species altogether. She should probably start with something simpler, something she was comfortable with, and she was quite comfortable with turning into Ponies given that they helped them reform and they were the nearest creatures to their home.

    An Alicorn, it is. Which one, though? Maybe she should go for somepony a little more powerful. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard, feeling a chrysalis envelope her before disappearing. She took a step forward and smiled as a blue Alicorn with a wavy blue mane smiled back at her.

"I am Princess Luna," Ocellus said, and she winced. It came off more as casual than anything, which was something Luna was not, most of the time.

"I am Princess Luna!" she said with more grandeur this time, but it still didn't sound quite right. It was an unsettling mix of the Royal We and casual talk.

"I am Princess Luna," she said one last time, and she smiled as it finally sounded like the old co-ruler of Equestria. She sighed as she sat down on a log once again, but she immediately jumped back up as she heard a sound behind her, like the crunching of sticks and twigs.

Ocellus turned around hastily to see what had caused the sound, and she saw a pair of glowing green eyes staring back at her, not to mention the foul smell was very distinguishable.

She looked around. There was bound to be more of them around. She furrowed her eyebrows, peering into the darker parts of the forest, and she saw the same glowing green eyes.

    "Timberwolves," Ocellus whispered.

+*+A+*+U+*+T+*+H+*+O+*+R+*+
+*+N+*+O+*+T+*+E

Hello. I have not much to say to you other than I hope you have a good day, and I hope that more people read this. (Also, Smolcellus is BROTP)

+*+G+*+O+*+O+*+D+*+B+*+Y+*+E+*+