Impostor Syndrome

by Jack of a Few Trades

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Ocellus, Romance, Smolder, Slice of Life
Length: 6639

Smolder invites Ocellus to visit the Dragon Lands. Ocellus takes to it well! Maybe a little too well...

Dragons are a lot of things. Strong. Brave. Confident.

Smolder has all of these qualities in spades. For example, she needed strength, bravery, and confidence to ask the object of her crush to visit her in the Dragon Lands.

She just didn't expect Ocellus to be such a good dragon too, or why that would be such a problem.

Edited by my dear friends FamousLastWords, Not Enough Coffee, Ice Star, Semillon, Muggonny, and MissytheAngle

Cover art by Raikohillust!

Published 2021-07-22 18:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-07-22 18:40:01 UTC

“Do you ever feel like... you’re living a lie?”

Waiting sucked. Especially when it had to be done on a deserted train platform in the middle of nowhere, and the train in question was hours late.

Skeleton Ridge was a ‘town’ that really lived up to its name. Perched at the foot of the long, jagged mountain that was its namesake, the old diamond dog outpost that once harbored miners and criminals on the run had long since been abandoned. The town was mostly a network of subterranean tunnels and rooms where a few stubborn dogs still lived and carved out a meager living for themselves. All that remained on the surface were collapsing, rotten wood structures that miraculously hadn’t been burned away by wildfires years ago.

The only thing there that looked remotely new was the platform, but it was just a simple wooden deck with a sign on it and nothing more. Officially, Skeleton Ridge depot. Unofficially, the Dragon Lands depot. This was the closest point on the railroad to home, built sometime in the last few years when Dragon Lord Ember opened diplomatic relations with Equestria. Not that it saw much use. If any dragons had business with ponies, they usually just flew wherever they needed to go. It was mostly built for the occasional ground-bound races of pony that might need to come to the Dragon Lands for whatever reason, however rare that actually was. Most of the time, the trains rolled right past the dusty platform.

But today, I knew the train would stop here, and so I waited.

At least the anticipation of the train’s arrival kept me from getting too frustrated. I’d been sitting patiently on that platform for a couple of hours, and there I’d sit for as long as I needed to. I would be here when Ocellus arrived. I’d been waiting two months. What was a couple more hours?

Still, finding ways to occupy myself in a vacuum wasn’t proving easy. The landscape around me was devoid of interest. A flat plain of dusty brown rock and a few scrub trees stretched out to the horizon before me with Skeleton Ridge to my back, and I’d already grown bored of looking at the mountain. We had better ones back home in the Dragon Lands, anyway.

I wished I’d brought something to read. Granted, my stash of literature at home was pretty sparse compared to what I’d left in my dorm room when I went home for summer. Unfortunately, books were flammable, so I didn’t take any of the ones I cared about. All I had in claw was the last letter Ocellus sent me.

Dear Smolder,

I’d love to come! Being home is wonderful, but I could stand a change of scenery. I actually just went and bought my ticket! Skeleton Ridge sounds like a scary name for a train station, but I guess that’s just the nature of the Dragon Lands, right? I’m scheduled to arrive at 4:30 Monday afternoon. Can’t wait to see you!

Love,
Ocellus

The letter, short as it was, filled me with a bit of warmth. She wrote like she spoke, a delicate yet purposeful grace to her lettering that I was admittedly a bit jealous of. I’d asked her for lessons on how to write prettier before summer, but one day of practice did not a calligrapher make. Mine still looked like the scratches left on cave walls after a hoard theft. Hasty, angry, forceful. Maybe I could get her to sneak in a penmanship lesson while she was here.

Off in the distance, I heard the faint echo of a whistle. The track was straight as an arrow on the flat, featureless plain surrounding Skeleton Ridge, and sure enough, a tiny light flickered into view far down the line.

“Finally!” I shouted. A little wave of excitement rolled through my gut, followed by a twinge of nerves.

Would I be able to keep it a secret?

It was no coincidence that of all my friends from school, Ocellus was the first one I ever invited to the Dragon Lands. I missed her a little more than the rest of the gang. We had grown pretty close since the incident when we got trapped under the school and were forced to live out our worst nightmares. I’d helped her pull herself together only after revealing my deepest secret to her. Bonding over a traumatic night orchestrated by a tree made of pure magic was as good a thing as any, I guess.

We started hanging out a lot late at night, after everyone else was asleep. It helped that both dragons and changelings are both nocturnal creatures. The “top secret tea parties” I’d made up on the spot to help talk her down that night became a real thing. I’d wait for her after class and we’d walk to the cafeteria together. I somehow enjoyed listening to her talk about her assignments like they were fun challenges instead of oppressive tests of willpower.

Recently, I started noticing more little things about her. The way she fluttered her eyes a bit when asking a question. How she liked to separate the food on her tray even though she barely ate any of it. Even the way her chitin shone in the light after she spent a little time polishing it. There were a lot of things about her to like and I didn’t even have to search to find them.

That was why this was so dangerous. What if she found out about my feelings? How would she react? It was risky, but I couldn’t stop myself when she mentioned wanting to see the Dragon Lands in a letter a few weeks ago.

I took a breath to calm myself. Thinking things through was never a strong suit of mine, or any dragon for that matter. Except for maybe Spike, but he didn’t count. I clutched her letter a little tighter against my chest. There was no backing out now. Despite the little cloud of dread hanging over the whole affair, I was honestly just happy to see my friend again.

The headlight drew closer, more details of the train resolving themselves bit by bit. The sound of the engine chuffing as it slowed on its way to the station, swaying gently from side to side on the rickety rails. The squeal of the brakes, a blast of the whistle to signal its arrival, and then a rush of wind as the locomotive rushed past me, leaving the smell of soot and steam in its wake. I watched the windows of the passenger cars as they passed, slowing down gently from a jog to a crawl, and then stopping with a light jerk.

I’d been to the train station in Ponyville a few times, and every time there was a rush of activity as passengers embarked and disembarked. But not here. Nobody on the train had any business at Skeleton Ridge, except for one. A door opened in the next car down the platform from me. A muffled exchange between the conductor and a very familiar voice, and then there she was.

A light tan dragon with long orange head spines stepped off the train.

It took me a second to recognize the form since she used it so rarely, but it was the same one she wore the first time I met her at school.

“Ocellus!” I called, racing down the platform to greet her. She perked up when her eyes landed on me, a gentle smile crossing her snout. Some part of my brain screamed at me to tone it down, but the passengers on the train watching us be damned. I was excited to see my best friend!

I snagged her in a tight hug, pulling her close. She had most of the qualities of a dragon down, but one thing was definitely lacking. Dragons usually had a bit of an ashy scent, but not her. She smelled like apples and cinnamon, the same perfume I gave her for her birthday that she liked to use at school. A smell I’d found myself missing as of late.

Might wanna take about ten to twenty percent off there, lover girl, said a little voice in the back of my head. I let her go. It was so easy to lose track of time when hugging her, but I had to trust that my timing had been reasonably platonic.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said, her smile as warm as she was.

“I missed you so much... er... too, I mean,” I said. “Rocking the dragon form already, huh?”

“I thought it would be nice to start off with the right appearance.” She twisted herself around, examining her own features. “It’s been a while since I used this form so I feel a little rusty. See any details I might have gotten wrong?”

Twenty seconds together and I was already backed into a corner. She’d literally just requested that I look her over from head to toe. Not that I minded! She looked excellent: a good bit taller than I was and sleek, perhaps a bit on the lanky side, and her attention to detail with everything from the scales to the claws was just about flawless. But I had to be careful. One wrong word and she’d either be insulted or pick up what I’d unintentionally put down. My mind carefully selected each word for maximum plausible deniability.

“Looks fine to me,” I said, flashing her a thumbs up. Nailed it.

“Good,” she said. “I was a little nervous that I'd forget something and look ridiculous.”

I shrugged. “Eh, there’s been enough ponies and other creatures coming and going lately that I don’t think the other dragons would care even if you used your normal form. And besides,” I smirked and pointed to myself, “if they give you any trouble, I’ve got your back.”

She giggled a little at that. “I’m glad I have you around.”

“Same,” I said, trying to hide how warm the comment made me feel. “Uh, we should probably get going. It’s still a pretty long flight from here.”

Ocellus nodded and cinched down the strap on her bag. “I’m ready!”

And so we took off for the Dragon Lands.

Our flight from Skeleton Ridge took the better part of an hour. Despite being the closest stop to the Dragon Lands on the rail line, it was still quite the trek to get there. In her dragon form, Ocellus had a bit more wingspan than I did, so I was having trouble keeping up. I had to be due for a growth spurt soon. Being small was an inconvenience I had lived with for long enough.

Still, it didn’t take size to be formidable. Dragon Lord Ember was a testament to that. Despite being on the small side of average, she commanded the dragons under her with a force that was mesmerizing to watch when you weren’t the one she was shouting at. I’d been on pretty good terms with her since she sent me off to school, and that was the little status boost I needed to help build a fearsome reputation despite my size. The other dragons feared me, or at least they respected me enough to not give me any trouble.

The smell of fire and brimstone grew stronger the longer we flew, the air warming as the ground beneath us became more and more volcanically active. My cave was high up on the side of a sheer cliff overlooking some of the more popular lava pools. For a dragon my age to wind up with real estate like that was rare. I’d had to fight for it more than once.

I pointed out our landing site to Ocellus, and we angled down to the ledge at the cave’s mouth.

“Welcome to Casa Del Smolder!” I announced, throwing my arms out. The cave was dark, so that meant we were probably alone. Reaching deep within myself, I hacked up a big ball of flaming loogie and spat it right into the middle of the burn mark in the middle of the floor, shedding a little light on the subject.

“That was gross,” said Ocellus.

“Still haven’t gotten any magic powered lights out here so we gotta make do,” I defended.

Ocellus laughed. “You should see the things changelings make out of spit. It’s way worse than fire mucus.”

I let my guard down a little. There was no need to try impressing her. She was my friend, and that was enough. So why was I acting like a pony on a first date?

“Hey, can you put that light out?” came a voice from deeper in the cave. “Some dragons are trying to sleep.”

“Trust me, Garble. No amount of beauty sleep can save whatever you’ve got going on.”

A small fireball whizzed past my head and exploded in a puff of flame against the wall. “Ha ha,” he replied with a yawn, getting up from his sleeping rock with a huff. He wasn’t ever good with retorts, but doubly so when he was groggy. “I didn’t think you’d get back so early. That your friend?”

I smiled. “Yeah, this is Ocellus. Ocellus, this is my brother Garble.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ocellus said with a wave.

Never one for pleasantries, Garble didn’t return the greeting. “I thought you were supposed to be a changeling or something.”

Ocellus’s eyes darted back and forth. “Uh…”

“Are those even real scales?” he asked, slithering across the cave floor toward her.

“Garble, chill,” I warned.

“No, hang on. I heard you’re a shapeshifter. Can’t you take any form you want?”

“Y-yes, but I thought it’d be safe to not be flammable while I’m here,” said Ocellus.

“But you could have made yourself less puny, right?” Garble was right in her face now. I started over toward them. I figured he would have at least waited a few minutes to start this whole routine, but here we were. He poked her in the shoulder, squaring up for a fight. “How strong can you really be? I heard changelings are a bunch of weaklin—”

What happened next shocked me. Timid little Ocellus, usually an anxious mess over small interactions with strangers, snarled so viciously that it made my blood curdle. She moved with a sudden burst of speed, slipping around Garble’s back before he could react. Despite being considerably smaller than he was, she was able to lock an arm around his neck and kick his legs out from underneath him in the same motion, taking him to the ground in a headlock.

He thrashed, but it was pointless. Ocellus held the high ground. She went to work on immobilizing him, pinning his wings to his sides with her legs pressing a knee into his back. She had him wrapped up like a spider would a fly.

“Tap out when you’ve had enough,” she said, her voice calm through the exertion. I stood there with my jaw slack as my big brother was effectively taken out without so much as a fight. By Ocellus.

I felt my cheeks warm up, surely showing a blush plain as day. I knew Ocellus could hold her own, but this was new. A level of confidence I wasn’t used to from her.

It was one of the most attractive things I’d ever seen.

Garble slapped the floor, and Ocellus released him from the pin. He coughed a couple of times. “That’s not fair! I wasn’t ready!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Gar-Gar.” I laughed as he shot me a look full of venom.

“Whatever,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I’m going back to bed.”

Ocellus watched him with a critical eye, but I knew he wouldn’t try anything. His pride had just been severely wounded, but at least for his sake the incident had gone down in private. Getting whooped so easily like that in public... that would make him more of a laughingstock than he already was.

“Okay, spill it.” I turned to Ocellus. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

She blushed sheepishly, “Combat training was one of the core lessons we learned before the hive was liberated. That was a pretty standard maneuver.”

“And I never found out about this until now, why?”

“There’s no fighting classes at school. And I would never use my training on any of my friends!”

“That’s just… wow,” I said.

“I don’t like to use those skills unless I have to. Is every dragon going to be like him?” Fear flickered in her eyes.

“No,” I said, giving her a pat on the shoulder. “Garble’s just a loudmouth. Always trying to establish a pecking order on everyone he meets. Most of the other dragons will be a lot more chill, especially now that I can vouch for how tough you are. Violence kind of works like a rite of passage around here.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m not sure I’d like to stay for very long if I was going to have to do that all the time.”

“No worries. But yeah, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get you settled. Sorry it’s not as cozy as our rooms at school.” Our cave was on the small side, enough room for Garble and I to have our own separate corners with our beds and what little hoards we managed to accumulate here. Garble’s pile was on the left, mine was on the right. His side was more of a classic dragon pile, but I took more inspiration from my time in Equestria in my decoration. I had carved a few shelves into the rock and put some of my more valuable pieces in them. Books, souvenirs, little novelties I’d accumulated from gift shops. A multicolored cube puzzle with one side solved was the centerpiece of the affair. I was extra proud of that one.

Next to the shelves was my bed, a wide and mostly flat piece of shale. Definitely wide enough for two smaller dragons like us to share, but that thought made me tense up. I couldn’t just ask her to sleep with me. “Sorry, but I didn’t really design this place for sleepovers. First order of business; let’s go get you a sleeping rock. I know where to find the best ones!”

“Sleeping on rocks?”

“I recommend staying in your dragon form when you sleep. It’s actually just as comfortable as a feather bed if you’re equipped for it.”

Ocellus’s eyes darted around the cave for a second, like she was questioning her decision to come here. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said after a moment.

“That’s the spirit!”

And so we went to the shale beds.

To say Ocellus took to dragon life well was an understatement. She took to it like a hatchling to a lava pit.

After that first little run in with Garble, we encountered some other dragons on the way to the shale beds. Introductions were a bit uneasy until Ocellus really leaned into her newfound confidence. It took a bit of prodding from me, but she boasted of her fighting prowess and how she’d just folded Garble like a cheap tent. With that, she won them over.

Of course, that sort of bravado led to a few wrestling challenges. At first she was hesitant, but she accepted. These weren’t so one-sided, but the key difference was that this wrestling was all in good fun. Spectators flocked in over the commotion, and in under an hour, Ocellus had made a name for herself among the dragons.

We enlisted a couple of the other dragons to help us carry our chunk of shale back to the cave, and that night we stayed up late chatting about dragon culture. I told her a few of the stories from last year’s Feast of Fire. Everything was great!

The next day was even better. Word had spread about Ocellus, the outsider. We took a trip to the lava pits and wound up running into Dragon Lord Ember and her entourage. It had never come up with the others that Ocellus wasn’t actually a dragon, but Ember knew. She’d met Ocellus before, but she seemed to pick up on that and never made any mention of it. As far as we were concerned, Ocellus was as much a dragon as either of us.

We went home that night full of gems provided courtesy of Ember herself and feeling like we owned the world. Ocellus was beaming, a sort of elation that was contagious. I felt lighter than air when I was with her. I hadn’t ever seen her smile that much.

That night, sleep came easily. I dreamed about gems the size of airships falling from the sky, crushing my enemies under their delicious mass. It was the sort of sleep I wished I could get when I was back at school, stressed to Tartarus and back over tests and whatever else, but even the best of sleep can be interrupted.

I awoke in the middle of the night with my mouth feeling like sand. Despite being a creature with a constant fire in her belly, I still needed water. I hadn’t drank anything for most of the day, so now it came to bite me. Getting a drink would require me to fly down to a small stream that ran in the next valley over from my cave. I was spoiled by having running water in my dorm room at school, but such was life in the Dragon Lands. I rose from my rock and stretched, taking a deep breath and smacking my dry lips.

As I rose, I noticed a glow near the mouth of the cave, brighter than moonlight would be. I crept forward on silent feet, watching the entrance for signs of movement. Peering around the corner, my fears of intruders were quashed immediately. The greenish blue light came from the tip of a jagged horn. Ocellus was back in her normal form.

I dropped my stealthiness and walked outside. “What are you still doing up?” I asked quietly with a yawn.

She stiffened and extinguished her horn, shuffling around a bit. My eyes were only partially adjusted to consciousness, but I could tell she was hiding something.

“Had a little trouble sleeping,” she said, the panic still evident in her hushed whisper. “Thought I’d get some fresh air.”

“You didn’t try sleeping in that form, did you?”

She shook her head. “No, I used my dragon form. Like you said.”

“Then you should be sleeping like a rock. Is something bothering you?” I took a seat next to her, and despite her efforts to hide it, I could see the edges of a book poking out from under her forelegs. “Hey is that a diary?”

She tensed. “Yes. And it’s private.”

I snorted a half laugh. “That’s kinda what a diary implies, yeah. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna take it or anything.” She looked at me with her pupil-less changeling eyes, moonlight shimmering off of their iridescent surface.

Silence took over. I turned my gaze outward, toward the warm volcanic glow of the lava pools far below my cave’s entrance. The night was still, the only sound on the warm breeze was the distant bubbling of the lava. The glow of other pools stretched out to the horizon, lighting the sky a faint twinge of orange.

A quiet sigh next to me turned my attention back to Ocellus. “Can I ask you something, Smolder?”

“Shoot.”

It took her a moment to put the question together. “Do you ever feel like... you’re living a lie?”

The question cut right to the bone, almost enough to make me think I’d given myself away. But there was no accusation in her tone. Just… introspection? I think that was the word. “That’s a really big and oddly specific question.” I expected her to elaborate, but she stayed quiet, prompting me to fill the silence. “I dunno, I guess? Like, we all lie to each other. Look at us, we’re pretty close but I don’t tell you everything about myself, and I bet you don’t tell me everything either.”

Ocellus frowned. “Not quite what I was going for,” she said. She stood up with a sigh and was suddenly enveloped in a rush of teal flame, replaced with the tan dragon form she’d been in since she got here. Now a good deal longer than she was as a changeling, she curled up on her spot, brushing her tail against my side in the process.

“Are you hiding something?” I asked.

“No.” Ocellus’s answer was clipped, like there was something else she wanted to add but didn’t. She took a breath. “I’m thinking more… existential here. I’m not even sure I know how to put it into words.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t think I’m living a lie. I’d say my life is as honest now as it’s ever been, and that’s my whole problem.”

“Not sure I follow,” I said, shaking my head. “Explain it like I'm a hatchling.”

Her face was hidden from view, but I could tell Ocellus frowned. “What if I just stayed a dragon forever?”

Realization dawned. This conversation was going to some deep places, way deeper than my groggy brain knew how to handle. “Well, I’d sure be glad to have another dragon to hang out with in Ponyville besides Spike, but wouldn’t you get tired holding that form up all the time?”

Ocellus shook her head, her long head spines waving faintly under the motion. “I’d only have to take short breaks every now and again, and I could do that entirely in private. This form doesn’t take that much magic to keep up.” She rubbed her elbows and looked over to me. “When I’m in another form like this, I feel like I unlock different aspects of my personality. You saw that when I wrestled your brother, right? I would have totally shied away from that if I wasn’t disguised. I can be anything else. Take on any other persona at will. What if I just... left regular old Ocellus behind? My life could be so much easier.”

“Ah, well… that still sounds exhausting.” Why was I so bad at this? I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t quite put my claw on why.

Maybe I just needed to be honest with her.

“I’d miss Ocellus if you left her behind.”

“You’re one of the few,” she said with a derisive snort. “I don’t know if you noticed, but Equestria hasn’t just forgotten what Chrysalis did. Ponyville has been pretty easy to get along in, but when I go other places, I see it a lot more. I make ponies uncomfortable. They feel like they can’t trust me because of who I am.”

“Why do you care what a few ponies you’ll never see twice think?”

She scoffed. “It’s easy to think like that when you’re not the one getting called a walking body horror show.”

I deflated a bit. I thought I’d really hit the nail on the head with that line. A few tears glittered in the moonlight on her eye that wasn’t hidden behind her spines.

“I don’t know,” she said. “This is probably all just stupid. You can go back to bed and I’ll just mope until I feel better.”

“Not gonna happen,” I said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her over to me. She stiffened a bit but didn’t push me away. “Let’s talk this out. Did all this just come up out of the blue?”

Ocellus shook her head. “I’ve had these thoughts ever since I renounced Chrysalis’ ways, but coming here brought them back up in my head. It’s like… I thought I felt a sense of belonging here when everyone was blissfully unaware of who I really am. I’m tired of feeling like I stick out all the time.”

“That doesn’t sound like belonging to me. It sounds more like role playing.”

“Is that not what we all do anyway? Aren’t we all just characters playing roles in a big story, living out our lives in service of some greater plot that we can’t know until it’s too late?”

“Alright, let’s take the existentialism down like two or three notches,” I said, releasing her from my hug. “Say you want to live a different life. Sure, fine, not my place to judge, but won’t you have to totally cut ties with everyone else in your life?”

“Not necessarily,” she countered. “Only the ones that couldn’t accept me being different.”

“That’s a big dice roll.”

“It is.”

“You feel that strongly about it?”

“I have good days and bad days,” she said. “There's been more bad days than good lately. This spring, after the big battle with Chrysalis near Ponyville? It got worse. Sure, we helped defeat the threat, but I still get the sense that ponies are blaming me for what happened. For all I care, I could never go to Canterlot again. There’s just too much judgment there.”

I clapped my claws together. “So don’t go to Canterlot! Problem solved.”

She sighed, readjusting her wings. “It’s not that simple. Avoiding where I’d get judged or seen as lesser by someone would just make me stay in the Badlands forever and never leave the Hive. I have too much riding on my life in Equestria. I’ll have opportunities after graduation that I’d never see back home. I can’t give that up, but if I just hid in plain sight like I used to, everything would get easier.”

“But you said it yourself, you’d be living a lie.”

A pause. “Is that so bad?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. As foolhardy as the idea seemed to me, she had a point. Truth be told, I had no idea if I could even counter it, let alone if I even should.

I had to try. “You know I’ve been there before, right?”

“What?”

“Well, not literally,” I said. “I’m not a changeling, but I’ve gone through something similar. Being pressured. Wanting to fit the mold someone else made for me. You know our Tuesday night tea sessions?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t just pick up an interest in that stuff when I moved to Ponyville. I’d been hiding it here since about my second molt.”

Ocellus turned toward me with interest. “Really? How’d you even get that stuff?”

“Dragons go outside of the Dragon Lands sometimes, duh. When I visited pony towns for supplies, I liked to walk past the store fronts and see all the fashionable things they had in the windows. One time, I snagged a copy of Couture in Color magazine and snuck it home. I actually still have that issue. I loved the designs and dresses and stuff in there and even tried making myself some horn rings out of some obsidian I found on the ground.”

“So you got bullied for that?”

“Nah, I was too sneaky. I found some private caves where I could put on fashion shows for myself. That sort of thing. It was my deepest, darkest secret. No dragon ever found out.”

She quirked a brow at me. “And… that’s it?”

I sighed. “It didn’t matter if anyone found out about it or not. I knew about it. I knew how the other dragons talked about ponies and how weak they are. I still decided to indulge my interest in it anyway, and I felt like less of a dragon because of it. But you know what? I got over it.”

“How?”

“You were the first one I ever told about my interest in cute, silly things, remember?”

Ocellus nodded.

“That was a tipping point for me. The secret was out, so I stopped hiding it when I was home. Anyone that gave me crap for it, I rubbed their noses in the dirt. Simple as that.”

The point I was making was imperfect, even I could realize that. But she smiled anyway. “That sounds like how you would handle the situation.”

It made me smile back. “You said you wanted to stay a dragon forever, right? Well, that’s lesson one in how to be a dragon! Don’t take any crap.”

“Solving problems with violence is something I’d like to avoid,” Ocellus said with a mirthless chuckle. “I don’t have to be a dragon. I can be someone else.”

I sat up, looking straight at her. “That’s the problem. You can pretend to be something you’re not and hide from your problems all you want, but at the end of the day, you’re still you. You may have skill in not being yourself on account of your changeling training, but it isn’t healthy. It isn’t the Ocellus I lo—” My eyes widened as I realized what I was about to say. Abort! Abandon ship! “Know. The Ocellus I know.”

She looked at me quizzically. “What was that?”

“Nothing! Don’t worry about it.”

Ocellus closed her eyes for a second, and then nodded for me to continue.

“So anyway, like I was saying.” Be still my nervous, awkward heart. “There’s no substitute for the real you. All of your friends like you because you’re you. We’ve got your back. Heck, I’d go to war for you and every single one of our friends. I care enough to sit up here at who knows what hour and talk to you about feelings, and you know I’m terrible with this kind of stuff.”

“So what if I decide to live my life in a different form?” she asked.

“Then that’s your decision and I’d support it,” I said. “But I don’t want you to make it for the wrong reason. I’m glad you’re in my life, and you saying you want to be someone else makes me worry. Seriously, do you need me to go crack some heads for you? Just say the word, I’ll take care of whoever’s giving you trouble.”

That got a laugh out of her. An actual laugh, not just a byproduct of anxiety. It made my heart swell. “I’ll let you know if I ever need an enforcer,” she said.

“I’m here when you do,” I said. I let silence take over the conversation, and we sat there enjoying the glow of the lava pools below us. The night was warm and sultry, a bit of mist trying to gather in the valleys where the lava pools didn’t evaporate it all away. A beautiful night. And now that I wasn’t talking to Ocellus, I remembered how thirsty I was.

I excused myself to go down to the little stream to fulfill the original purpose of me getting up. I could still feel the pit in my stomach from my almost-confession. That had been a close one. Probably couldn’t have come out at a worse time too. Ocellus was having an existential crisis and I chose that precise moment to make a move on her? Shameful. I dunked my head into the stream, letting the steaming hot mineral water clear my sinuses as I gulped down a few mouthfuls.

When I flew back up to the ledge, I was immediately greeted with a warm smile from Ocellus. “Have a good drink?” she asked.

I returned the smile. “Nothing like geyser water. Can’t get that stuff in Ponyville.”

Ocellus chuckled. “Even when I’m in dragon form, I’m still not used to the fact that you can drink boiling hot water.”

“That’s the best kind of bubbly if you ask me,” I said with a wink. “You uh, gonna be up much longer?”

“You gave me a lot to think about, but I shouldn’t be up too much longer.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Happy journaling!” I started back into the dark of the cave.

“Hey Smolder?”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

“Why did you backpedal when you were going to say you love me?”

An invisible anvil slammed into my head and nearly knocked me to the ground.

Ocellus fixed me with a coy grin and continued before I had the chance to stammer out a reply. “Now, me personally, I tell my friends I love them all the time. I know I’ve heard you say it to others before, at least as a joke. So why is that such an awkward thing to say to me now?”

My mouth was dry again. My brain spun in circles trying to come up with a way to pass it off, but nothing came to mind. “You knew?”

She laughed and stood up. “I had a hunch, so I took a little taste of your emotions just now to make sure.” She paused to casually examine her claws. “Pining is pretty unmistakable.”

“Fine,” I blew a breath out of my nose. The heat from my cheeks must have been hot enough to glow. “I like you… different from the others. As more than a friend. Okay? Happy now?”

Ocellus stepped closer. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

I scratched the back of my head. “I dunno. I guess I was just kind of waiting for the right moment. But, you know, it never came.”

Another step closer. “Did that have anything to do with you inviting me to visit? Were you trying to make the right moment happen?”

“Only a little,” I laughed, trying to just play off the moment. “Couldn’t hurt my chances to have you here instead of a thousand miles away. I mean, not that I was using you or anything, I just really wanted…”

Ocellus moved even closer.

“..to..”

Closer.

“...see you.”

With surprising speed and grace, Ocellus closed the gap and planted a quick kiss on my lips. I was filled with many emotions. Surprise. Elation. Longing. In my head it dragged out for minutes and ended in the blink of an eye, despite the kiss itself lasting for but a fleeting second.

She leaned back, opening her eyes and staring directly into mine. “The truth is, I like you too. If you couldn’t tell.”

My brain, never known for its skill in processing cheesy romance novels, had found itself in the middle of acting out a cheesy romance novel and promptly short-circuited. I had the barest brainpower to vocalize a primitive “Uhhhh.”

Ocellus took the lead, giggling at my sudden incapacitation. “Smolder?”

“Yeah?”

“Not much for words?”

“Yeah.”

“You can just kiss me back,” said Ocellus with a coy smile.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

Author's Note

It's been about six months since I published anything on this site, or really had time to think about anything other than school and work. A writer's hand can get pretty rusty in that time, and that was the point of this story. Shaking off the rust and getting back into the groove of making things!

Considering that this story is basically just a big warmup, I'm actually kind of proud of it! Smolder and Ocellus were the last of the Student 6 that I had yet to write a story centered on, and I think I did them justice here. I really love Ocellus and her complex relationship with her past. She's a bug with a lot of internal conflict, and I just love how she and Smolder play off one another.

I want to give big thanks to all of my editors again. They are amazing friends and the fact that they take so much time to help me whip my words into shape means the world!

And thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story, and I hope to see you soon. :)