Python

Ever since that morning, school had been a blur.

What had once been clearly black and white was now a sloshing, gray mess in the eyes of Ocellus especially, who trudged onto her dorm, now heavily charred.

There were tiny streaks of sickly tears running down her pale face. If it had been another circumstance, surely she would collapse on her bed and begin crying, but as of right now she had no more tears to shed.

One step into reminiscence meant another thrust back into reality.

***

“Leave her alone!”

Bzzzt!

Thud!

***

She strode past the slew of organized books on the shelf by the windowsill. Her head hung low, and yet another object caught her eye. A book, about two inches thick. HTML’s For Dummies: 7th Edition.

***

It struck Ocellus oddly that their rather eloquently spoken professor would assign something rather contrary to her choice of dialect. However it was unlike her to turn down an opportunity to learn because of something so trivial.

“Who the hell does she think I am?” A voice boomed. Ocellus’ ears adjusted attentively to the source of the noise, but promptly furled her brow when she realized it was just another one of her dorm mate’s complaints.

“When are you going to accept that HTML is a part of the curriculum?”

“When Gallus breathes fire,” the dragon, pointedly, huffed a cloud of smoke. “I’m tired of them thinking I’m just gonna take the easy route.”

“HTML is nothing to sneeze at.”

“Neither are we.” Ocellus’ gaze followed Smolder’s angry, odd rhythmed gait as she clutched her book and started out of the room. “You might look at these technicolor horses with rose tinted glasses, but it won’t take you long to figure it out. They don’t want creatures like you and me on their level.”

The changeling began to fume. “Yeah, well- well how would you know? You won’t ever get to their level if you don’t follow the curriculum!” she retorted, with an agitated hoof stamp. Smolder’s turquoise eyes went wide, and her frown rose into a scowl.

“Then follow your stupid curriculum!”

Thud!

HTML’s For Dummies: 7th Edition

“See where that gets you!”

***

Ocellus wiped her cheek with a soft smile as fresh tears began to rise at the corners of her eyes. The tip of her hoof touched the spine of Smolder’s old book. Her frowning lips turned up into a small, sad smile.

“HTML’s For Dummies...Oh, Smolder…”

Everything was where Smolder had it last. The anger and frustration still bounced vividly off each and every object with a passion, and Ocellus tasted all of it. The flavor was so pungent that it sent her straight to tears once again.

Thud!

She had fallen to the floor in devastation.

“Smolder...please come back…”

***

“Please…”

In a sea of darkness, one tall, lanky figure awoke.

“Gallus? Sandbar?”

…

“Ocellus?”

She gripped her tail nervously. Smolder shrugged the prickling chills from her shoulders and took one step forward on the cover of what looked like...ink?

A thick, loathsome trail of black ooze trickled from the soles of her claws.

“Ew....where in the hell am I?” she murmured, planting her foot down firmly. As she clenched her toes, she watched in relief as the ooze fell thinner and thinner, eventually sinking back into the stillness. “I...guess that solves it.”

She lurched onward, gazing unsettled at the unmoving, black abyss that surrounded her. If this is what dying was like, she’d congratulate Torch for surviving this long.

“Wait a second...am I dead?”

Those last three words echoed throughout her head, seeming to send shockwaves through even her skull as it rang out into the ether.

“I don’t get it…”

Smolder recoiled in shock.

Someone else was speaking, but she couldn’t quite figure out who. The void she was in began to gain a sort of color to it, developing some kind of scene. The dragon felt as if she was on stage under a spotlight of some sort, some kind of overbearing weight on her shoulders as she took another cautious step forward.

The darkness melted and fell away as she continued on her stride, shoulders broadened and posture straightened. Familiarity rose within her mind. She recognized this place; it was the dorm she had been sharing with Ocellus for the school year.

“Ocellus,” she frowned, sighing internally. Everything that happened within the last few hours was a blur, and even then, she couldn’t help but feel a rising dread within her stomach.

Within her heart.

The unbearable feeling that she’d let Ocellus down, that she had given up after how long they’d known each other, made her feel like she’d jumped into a pool of lava after ripping all her scales off. Somehow she wished fate would allow her an easier death. That she could skip these feelings and walk free in the fields of Elysium or whatever it was.

Because when she saw Ocellus weeping quietly, her heart sank into her stomach.

“...Ocellus…?” She stepped over, carefully fixing her charred hoodie.

“I don’t get it, I don’t…” the changeling cried, staring up at the ceiling. Her legs wobbled senselessly while her tears pooled over onto the book she was crying into. “Why…? Why Smolder…?”

Smolder knelt down to examine the book- Ocellus’ tears were spilling so incessantly that the label had melted off the cover. Her tail curled in on itself as she reached a claw out to comfort her friend, but it only phased right through her. She bit down on her tongue with regret.

“Smolder, I…I’m so sorry,” the changeling choked. The lump in her throat prevented her from getting a clear word out, but Smolder heard loud and clear, sitting down beside her friend. Although she couldn’t be a shoulder to cry on, Smolder would feel unworthy of death if she didn’t at least listen to what Ocellus had to say.

“I could’ve saved you, but I didn’t…I didn’t do anything except sit there and watch, like I always do…like I always did.”

The dragon tilted her head in curiosity, hands clutched around her feet in anticipation. Ocellus’ saddened grimace turned into a small, sad smile as tears continued to run down her rose-tinted cheeks. “I couldn’t ever do anything but sit idly by as you explored, as you…innovated. Despite you always holding a grudge against Professor Twilight for rejecting your inventions, I couldn’t see the point in it because…I always saw the worth in you…

“...I was just overwhelmed by the fact that you could never see it- even worse that I could never show it.” she giggled somberly. “You’d never admit it, but you really were a people pleaser…”

Smolder couldn’t help but blush as her own frown curved up into a nervous grimace. She turned her attention back onto Ocellus, leaning over in curiosity.

“...but it hurts to think that I could never say how much I loved that about you, among other things....”

Everything inside of Smolder wanted to scream, she wanted to bellow that she was right there, that Ocellus could tell her whatever she wanted- whatever she needed. The weight her emotions bore as she fought desperately to push them back had weighed heavily down on her mind, and soon enough, tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and threatened to fall.

“Ocellus-” she reached out, fruitlessly, to try and grab her shoulders. “Ocellus, I’m right here! Talk to me, tell me! Tell me everything you want me to know and I’ll listen!”

Ocellus didn’t respond with anything more than choked sobs as she fell back onto the floor. Smolder growled and roared in anguish, able to do nothing than collapse beside her best friend.

She dreaded every second of this. She dreaded being lost in a world where the one she most cared about couldn’t even hear her cries of frustration. Smolder’s friends hadn’t only lost her, but it seemed like she lost them, too. And it absolutely broke her inside.

She whispered, “I just want you to hear me…I want you to hear that I hear you…” she curled into herself, locking her arms around her knees as she hugged them to her upper body. She realized her tattered closed and chuckled dryly with a half-cracked smile. “Look at me, I’m a mess…”

Ocellus just kept crying. Smolder inched herself closer with a sigh as she continued, “It’s funny, how this is working out…you and I talking, it’s like our friendship is in reverse. I talk, you barely hear me out, and then you just keep feeling what you wanna feel. Maybe this is karma, y’know? Heh…”

“I just wish you were still here with me,” said Ocellus, standing up with a wobble and that adorable lilt in her voice. It was clear that Smolder enjoyed every bit of her, and yet this part, the part where she was vulnerable, was her favorite. Urging her to go on, Smolder rested her head by her best friend’s leg. “I wish that I could tell you how I felt when you begged for Professor Applejack’s attention like a lost puppy…how I felt when you put yourself down in front of me, how you completely ripped apart your own capabilities in favor of believing that you would never be good enough…

“I was always extremely angry at you for being such a damn idiot.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Smolder muttered to herself, sitting up and fixing her jacket. She’d heard enough at this point; any longer in this place and she would collapse into herself like Celestia’s sun would in a few billion moons. “I can’t believe I just worked that into a metaphor.” With a shudder, she shrugged her feelings off her shoulders. She felt free to spread her wings as she neared the door, reaching a claw out to the doorknob and twisting it with a sigh.

“It’s been a good run, I guess.” Smolder said, trying her best to ignore the fact that Ocellus had been pacing in circles so much that she was burning scorch marks into the carpet. Everything she was saying rushed in circles in Smolder’s mind so incessantly that she had it in her head to tune it all out. “I should probably leave you alone to grieve, but…I’ll always miss-”

“I always had it in my mind that you had issues with gaining validation, but what I’ve been meaning to say was that you didn’t need it! Not if you had me!”

The door was swung ajar, and Smolder stared into the bright white light, but then did an instant double take and locked eyes with Ocellus. Although the latter was unaware, Smolder’s eyes were focused on her at that moment. The spotlight was shining on her, the stage was hers to take, and the scene had been perfectly set for these exact words:

“I feel like you wouldn’t lash out so much if you had someone to love you- if you had me to love you! Because I loved you!”

Smolder instantly went redder than a tomato, watching in bewilderment as Ocellus sank to the ground and began to bawl loudly once again.

“I’ve always loved you…”

The dragon’s mind went entirely blank, especially when the white light disappeared. The room started to spiral in disarray and pictures flew off the wall. Books were tugged off the shelves with what appeared to be a large, powerful gust of wind. Multiple gusts of wind. The air picked up Smolder’s hoodie, and her along with it, tugging her into what appeared to be a large ergosphere of darkness.

“What the hell?!”

Smolder grabbed onto the carpet as the darkness chipped away at every bit of it, her bottom half being pulled up in the torrent of force that tossed her to and fro.

Thud!

With a heavy slam, she finally hit the wall, crying out in pain. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins as she rubbed the back of her neck, heart thumping rapidly. “For a ghost, I’m suddenly feeling really fragile right now!” She shouted angrily, not even batting an eye at the book that was flung at her from the ether.

Plack!

She grunted and groaned, falling back against the wall and holding her swollen, purple eye. “These past three days have been absolute Tartar-ahhhh!” Her untouched eye widened and bulged in horror as she realized that most of the room had been eaten up. Not even a split second after, she turned to see an awestruck Ocellus, pinned up against the wall with her chest rising and falling with frantic breaths. “Ocellus! You’re seeing this shit too?!”

The changeling seemed to register the familiar voice, immediately looking over. Smolder’s terrified, jaw-clenched frown turned into an elated grin. “You can hear me!” She cried, leaping for joy. As she freed herself from her excited trance, she realized her dilemma. “...oh. W’ahhhhhhh!!!” Her voice raised in terror as she too was thrown around the room, grabbing onto a sturdy shelf and looking back toward the gaping black hole that was swallowing up the plane.

“Yes, as much as I’m very elated to see you again, it seems there are much more urgent matters to attend to!” Cried Ocellus, gasping as Smolder was ripped from her place on the shelf and tugged into the event horizon. “Smolder!”

Leaping from her place against the wall, she was also sucked into the ergosphere.

And everything went dark.