Shortly after their visit with their headmare, Silverstream lay in her hammock in Zecora's hut. To anycreature that would see her, it appeared for her to be peacefully sleeping, but that was not the fate that awaited this Hippogriff. Her mind was churning as always.

     They were stuck in Zecora's hut, which resembled a tree, so that should provide them a bit of protection, but if Aura Light finally realises where they would be, what then?

    Headmare Starlight Glimmer already stressed how much their friendship could defeat Aura Light, but Silverstream couldn't see that happening, seeing as all her friends were just roaming around the hut, clearly avoiding her for their own right reasons.

    Silverstream didn't know anything anymore. She felt as if she was surounded by ice, blocked from the rest of the world, at the same time devoid of any emotion, feeling completely numb.

    She felt like crying herself to sleep, but at the same time not. She couldn't do anything. The only thing she was good for was sitting in her hammock, contemplating about life, and crying about it because it's so bad.

    No wonder they hate her so much. She was useless. They didn't like her being roped into their adventures, no matter how hard they tried to show otherwise.

     Silverstream was nearly drifting off to sleep before her eyes snapped open. She placed her claws on her hammock and pushed herself to sit up, then swung her hooves over to the floor and stood up.

    She found herself staring at a dark version of Zecora's cottage, with the moonlight glinting off her eyes. She could make out the vague outline of everything, but other than that, it was just her.

    A cold breeze blew through a gap in the tree hut that posed as a window, and Silverstream shivered. The flora and fauna in the Everfree Forest seemed much more dangerous now. The silence was suffocating her.

    Silverstream flapped her wings once, then twice, then three times. She felt her shoulders relax as she released a sigh of relief, all her worries immediately dissipating into clouds. Then her ominous suroundings came back to her.

    She repeated the flapping exercise, reminding herself that it was probably a trick of the senses, or one big terrible dream, and the momentary peace she had achieved a while ago returned to her once again.

Her concious nagged her that this wasn't a dream. Silverstream did the flapping exercises once again. She knew her concious. They were even acquantances. They had met many, many times, but each time, Silverstream ignored it because none of what it said could have possibly been true, but this time, things were different. Very different.

Silverstream didn't know when, but she felt like she had changed since their first encounter with Aura Light. Her anxiety may have taken a major toll, but a lot of other doors opened for her, and she had quite a few good options.

She was now on the run from a rampaging rhino and stuck inside Zecora's hut waiting for the word from Starlight Glimmer that it was safe for them. Her environment had changed considerably, along with her. She felt... calmer now.

So she closed her eyes and listened to her concious. This wasn't a dream. This was all happening. This was all real.

Silverstream did another round of her flapping exercise and sighed, taking a step. She didn't know where she was going to go, but she wanted to arrive somewhere.

    As soon as her eyes landed on the faint outline of Zecora's bookshelf, Silverstream gave herself a small smile as she walked towards it. She looked at the potion lantern Zecora made and took the bottle, shaking it until it glowed, then she started searching through the titles to what could have potentially happened to Aura Light.

+*+

     The mood in Zecora's house wasn't exactly happier in the morning. Silverstream felt a small spring in her step as she finally forced herself out of bed in less than fifteen minutes, something that rarely happened when her anxiety was afloat. She walked over to a clear space in Zecora's hut and sat down, her friends begrudgingly following suit.

    Silverstream frowned. She may have embraced her concious and common sense, but she was still wondering whether or not her friends really hated her. She had a feeling she was going to have to sooner or later.

    She flapped her wings, feeling herself become relatively happier as she sat up straighter and looked to her right, where Zecora was preparing steaming bowls of soup with her cauldron. Silverstream didn't really know what Zebras ate, but the smell of the soup sure was overpowering.

    She felt her mouth water as Zecora trotted towards them and began placing bowls of the soup on the floor of each of her friends.

    "Eat now, creatures. Prepare for your next adventures," Zecora spoke, always in rhyme, and always as if she knew more than anycreature else, and maybe it was true. After serving the bowls, Zecora left.

    When the bowl was placed in front of her, Silverstream took a strong whiff of it and began sipping it almost immediately.

    "Hot!" Silverstream exclaimed, gently but swiftly putting the bowl back on the ground. Her tongue felt like it was burning and she tried blowing with an open mouth and she was glad as it helped a tiny bit.

     It was nice to be a little more like herself again, but she didn't have friends to enjoy in what she was doing this time. They were all staring at their food, some snickering at Silverstream.

    She frowned and waited for her soup to cool, tapping her claws on the floor in silence. It was all she could hear now. The taps were getting louder and more repetitive. It was the only thing in the air. The taps were swirling around all of them, no doubt about it, squeezing them to their very core.

    "Stop!" Gallus yelled, his eyes furrowed and eyes burning with fury as he glared at Silverstream.

    Her eyes grew wide. She knew that Gallus really hated her tapping, but she didn't know he hated it this much. Or maybe it was because everything seemed so much more terrible now.

   She looked at her soup with her head hanging low and began subtley sipping it. The soup seemed much colder now. It didn't taste like it smelled a while ago. It tasted like nothing.

   The soup was slowly flowing down into her mouth until the last drops fell from it and Silverstream wiped her mouth with her arm, looking at her friends who appeared bored and dull, lying around in various places in Zecora's hut.

    "Hey, guys?" Silverstream asked, earning their momentary attention, their eyes flicking up towards her, before briefly moving back to what they were doing.

    Silverstream cleared her throat once again and decided to speak in a more commanding tone. "Guys!"

    This time, all heads perked up towards her direction. She waited for a few seconds with beads of sweat forming on her forehead, wondering whether or not they'd look away again. They didn't, and Silverstream didn't know how to feel about that, but she knew that she must do something now. She stood up.

   "So..." Silverstream began, unsure where to start, but just decided to keep it all rolling off her tongue, "I was up last night"

    "Of course you did," Gallus interrupted her, rolling his eyes and facing away, but still managed to side-eye her.

    "Yes, I did," Silverstream gulped. This was not going the way she expected it to be. She did her flapping exercises again and it gave her confidence to continue, "And I was reading through Zecora's books and I found something out"

    She saw the eyes of her friends widen as she walked towards Zecora's bookshelf, pulling out a drab brown book with the title, 'Curses Bestowed' written in yellow.

    Silverstream placed it on the floor and her friends immediately walked to gather around it. Silverstream cleared her throat again as she turned to a page with the words 'Evil Spirits' written on top of it.

    "What's this for?" Smolder said in an accusatory tone with her eyebrows raised in skepticism and interest.

    "Now, I don't know what spell Starlight used on Aura Light," Silverstream said, staring at the page as she did her flapping exercise once more.

   "I believe it's the 'Evil Forth' spell," Ocellus said in a small voice, offering her first input on the matter in a while.

    "I thought so, too," Silverstream nodded as she pointed to a text on the book and began reading, "'The "Evil Forth" spell was not widely used, for it is usually used by Ponies out for revenge. It wasn't a spell in its beginning days, but rather used as a curse to charlattans, bringing out the evil within them. It is a tricky spell to get right, and if it goes wrong, the victim may fall pray to the "Curse of the Spirits"'"

   "So... Headmare use 'Evil Forth' curse?" Yona asked, seeming as one of the only creatures who actually cared.

    "So what?" Gallus asked with a huff, his face appearing completely unamused as he made a show of yawning.

    "So Aura Light fell prey to the 'Curse of the Spirits'?" Ocellus guessed, grabbing a better hold of the situation than the others, but her face, too, was scrunched up in confusion.

   "Yeah," Silverstream nodded once again and performed the flapping exercises, earning a few groans, and began to continue reading aloud, "'The "Curse of the Spirits" is brought forth by the "Evil Forth" curse, if done wrong. Doing the curse wrong will open a gap in a Pony's being, allowing bad spirits to enter and reside, cursing the Pony for the rest of his life'"

   "So Aura Light's not himself anymore?" Sandbar piped up for the first time in a while, a little bit of hope tinting in his face.

   "Seems like it," Ocellus said, taking the book from the floor and began reading it, flicking through the pages in her own terms.

"Is there a way to cure it?" Sandbar snapped at Ocellus and Silverstream, his eyebrows furrowed with sterness, but there was a little chaos and worry in his eyes, and great longing for Aura Light to return.

"The book said there isn't?" Silverstream replied in a small voice as she attempted to smile sympathetically, but it mostly resembled a disappointed frown. It felt weird, like she didn't know how to smile anymore. She didn't know if any one of them knew how to smile anymore.

"F***, what are we going to do?" Sandbar asked as he began pacing around the hut as he rubbed his hair, as if it was going to give him answers.

"Starlight told us to stay here," Smolder snapped at him with a huff, her eyebrows furrowed and face twisted in disgust.

"No one gives a f*** about what that stupid b**** says!" Sandbar yelled, stopping to face the five of his former friends. His was heaving as he glared at them with gritted teeth and a fire burning behind his eyes. "I am not going to f***ing stay here while Aura Light's out there possessed!"

With that, he slammed the door in their faces.

+*+

     Silverstream thought that she never had a lunch more dull than this one. Zecora had recently returned when the skies were getting grey with the sun trapped behind them, as if the Everfree Forest was planning to drench them all in rain, or it was planning to shroud their senses with fog.

    The air was colder than ever before. The lunch didn't smell like anything this time as well. The silence was definitely having the most impact on them, flitting to and fro, reminding them that there was yet a word to be said.

Silverstream looked at each of her four remaining friends who were glumly sipping their lunch soup, none being intent on breaking the spell of silence over them, even though it was apparent that it had to be broken soon.

As the last drops of her soup entered her mouth and dropped on her feathers, Silverstream decided to be the first one to break the spell.

"So... we know what happened to Aura Light now," Silverstream said. It was hard to say, despite it being a simple fact. She heard a few murmurs of 'yes' and some just nodded.

"Should we do something... about it?" Silverstream asked, feeling that her friends were probably inwardly cringing at her.

"Silverstream," Ocellus said with a sigh as she placed her finished bowl of soup on the wooden ground in front of her, "Headmare Starlight said she can handle this"

Silverstream sighed as she lowered her head and her shoulders slumped. "I know. I just feel so useless sometimes"

She didn't know what type of reaction she would get, or even if she would get a reaction at all, but there it was. Yona gasped as Ocellus opened her mouth in shock, but no sound emitting out of her. Smolder looked up with her eyes wide while Gallus just turned his head the least bit up.

"Hippogriff not useless!" Yona exclaimed, suddenly standing up, thought it was written on a brief awkward smile that she had no idea what she did it for.

"Yeah! You helped us figure it all out!" Ocellus said, always being the one to attempt to talk sense into anycreature.

"If anything, we're more useless," Smolder said in an attempt to cheer her up, adding a smile for effect.

"Definitely," Gallus said with a nod, not really saying much since they moved into Zecora's hut, but his eyes clearly showed that he deeply agreed with the rest of them.

+*+

Zecora's hut, Silverstream found, was much more peaceful in the morning the day after Sandbar left. Everything also felt much lighter, no more heavy loads on her back, all of them disappearing all because of one conversation. It was like magic, really.

The sun was shining much more brightly compared to yesterday when the fog crept in, and there was actually cheerful birds chirping out a song for once. Silverstream never thought she'd hear such a pleasant sound ever again in her life. She closed her eyes as she listened to it.

The real world felt so far away right now. It was hard to believe there was anything more to life than hiding from a rampaging rhino.

The air felt much warmer now, too. It was like the first breath of spring all over again, or the first breath above water after hiding from the Storm King all those years.

Silverstream sniffed and found a pleasant smell wafting from Zecora's cauldron. She smiled as she made her way towards the empty space where they sat everyday, some of her friends still snoring in their hammocks, like Yona and Smolder, while some already sitting down, like Gallus and Ocellus.

     But some nagging thought at the back of her mind was telling her this was all temporary.

"Starlight has summoned me. She says she has news about your families. Wake your friends up when the time is right, so you can have your breakfast in the morning light," Zecora said, leaving bowls on the wooden table beside her caudron. She let go of the ladle she was using and looked at creatures who were awake sternly, before grabbing a saddle bag and opened the door, closing it gently behind her.

"What did she say?" Gallus asked, earning weird looks from Silverstream and Ocellus. He subtley rolled his eyes. "I don't speak Rhyme!"

Ocellus gave a sigh. "She told us to eat breakfast when they wake up, or wake them up if they don't. She's going to Starlight to get news about our families"

"Our families?" Silverstream's eyes grew wide. Suddenly, everything didn't seem so bright and cheery anymore, the colours draining from her face as she seemed to shrink. She never gave a thought about her family since the start of everything. She had thought they were fine. What if they weren't fine? What if they're worried sick? What if Aura Light was out to get them?

Everything seemed to swirl around her once again.

+*+

      The next morning, Silverstream couldn't find it in herself to get out of bed. She tried to search for it, really, but it was like it was gone, like it was never there. She really tried, but it was hust not there.

    Silverstream didn't know why but the sun shining brightly out the window just blinded her on this day and she grabbed her pillow, placing it over her. The very edges of her mouth went up the slightest bit, finding contentment in the darkness, even if the pillow was suffocating her, and making it really hard to breathe.

Silverstream was getting really worried. Zecora hadn't come back yet. Maybe she was dead. Maybe Starlight was dead. Maybe her parents and little brother were dead, and Zecora's trying to delay the delivery of the news. Silverstream could understand that. Maybe everycreature other than her was all dead, and Aura Light was still on the hunt for her.

    Silverstream wished she was back in Seaquestria. She didn't care if it was dark and dreary and cold, or that there was a Storm King who was hunting for their magic. At least she was with her family there, and barely anything could go wrong with family.

    "Silverstream?"

Silverstream groaned as she pushed the pillow harder, hopefully to muffle the sound by covering her ear tuffs.

    "Silverstream?"

    "Silverstream!"

    "Get out of bed, Silvy!"

Silverstream heard a door open and some hoofsteps heading towards her.

"What have we here? Why is Silverstream cowering in fear?"

Silverstream felt a bit of relief wash over her when Zecora spoke, but it was only for a brief moment.

    "If you chose to stay where you are, I do hope you listen up to par. Your parents gave us no news. We tried to contact them but we had issues. I do hope you won't feel bad. There are plenty of reasons to be glad"

   Silverstream felt like crying, but she couldn't force the tears out of her. Everything just felt so heavy now. She truly felt like she was suffocating. Her family was probably dead. She tried repeating it to herself over and over again, and she repeatedly admitted and denied it. Her family was probably dead.

What else was there to make of it anyway?

+*+

Silverstream found herself awake that night. She sat up for the first time that day and took a good look at her suroundings. The moonlight helped her see the silhouettes of her friends, already sleeping in their hammocks, and snores were coming from a closed door that headed to Zecora's private room. The air smelled damp, as if it was about to rain, and the wind was blowing gently. Silverstream did one of her very faint smiles that you have to really look for it to see it.

     She swung her hooves over her hammock and stood up, walking towards Zecora's shelf full of potions.

    "My famly's dead," Silverstream whispered to the darkness surounding her, but her concious was nagging her otherwise. They weren't dead, it objected. They're in mortal peril, Silverstream argued. She shook her head. She didn't have the time to waste arguing with her very stubborn and very wrong conciousness. She looked at the labels on the potions. There were countless ones, and most could help in every situation.

An idea began to blossom forth in Silverstream's mind, or maybe it had been blossoming already, for a long long time, but only now is the time Silverstream's recognized it. Just a small itty bitty idea planted in her brain, nurished by her worries, until it grew tall enough to see.

These potions were oh so tempting, Silverstream thought as she ran her claws across the bottles, her eyes wide and mouth hanging agape in awe. With just one of them, her entire family could be saved. She didn't have to worry about anything anymore. All she had to do was to take the potions which were already begging her to do so.

    Silverstream's eyes flicked around the room for a brief moment before landing on Zecora's saddlebag which was stashed in the corner on the right of the front door. She carefully made her way towards it, trying her best to avoid the vague outlines of Twilight-knows-whats hanging from the ceiling. Only one wrong move would cause it to fall and alert the others, which was not something Silverstream was quite looking forward to.

    Silverstream gasped as she felt something bumped her wing, and looked to see hanging potions and whatnots swinging from the ceiling, knocking into each other to create a racket.

    "Nonononono!" Silverstream yelped quite loudly as she flew and lunged at the hanging stuff, hugging them all close to her chest. They clinked and clanked against one another until all that filled the air was silence.

    Silverstream's heart was pounding fast as she looked across the room towards the hammocks where her friends lay asleep in. Gallus stirred and Silverstream gasped, but luckily he still lay asleep and she breathed a sigh of relief as she let go of the hanging potions one by one, gently setting them back in their original places.

    Silverstream continued to inch her way towards the saddle bag, a lot slower now, and a lot more cautious, until she finally made it. She tentatively took the saddle bag and placed it over her back as she walked back towards the potions shelf.

    Silverstream looked at the potions once again, each one calling out her name. She tucked out her wings and flew to the highes shelf, placing each potion bottle carefully into her saddle bag, leaving it mostly to luck to keep them from bumping against each other.

After a while, Silverstream finally got most of the potions on the shelf which she deemed useful to help her parents and nodded, determination settling in her eyes as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She turned to face the front door. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps until she can come out and help her family. One step. Two steps. Three st—

"Silverstream?"

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

Okay, I'm just going to say one big fat f***ing fact here and don't you dare try to disagree with me:
Edge of Friendship sucks.

The plot? Inconsistent. Characters? Inconsistent as well. Writing? Decent at best (which rarely happens)

I could just go on a full rant here but I'll spare you the details. I'm sure you can already tell how bad it is. I quit working on this chapter multiple times but just decided for the sake of everything to just finally finish Edge if Friendship, so there ya go.

+*+

Do you ever feel like you go overboard with profanities when you're writing?

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