Everfree Village · 11:08pm Jul 31st, 2014
Some people have expressed an interest in what life is like in Everfree Village, so here are my notes.
Everfree Village:
Warning, this contains spoilers from the last two chapters of A New Dragon in Ponyville. If you haven't read those yet, you may want to come back to this later.
Founding:
After inter-species tensions caused the original Dragon-Pony Cultural Exchange Program to fail, Spirit Shield (Spike) proposed the idea of a new town, to be founded jointly between wyrms and ponies. This town would technically be a foreign country within the borders of Equestria, thus ensuring that the individuals living there would have full control over the creation of their own laws, culture, etc. He published several articles about it, explaining the details of his idea, and asking anypony willing to immigrate there to fill out a form and send it back to him. Meanwhile, Cliff Runner and his fiance, Fluttershy, began traveling from coven to coven, doing something similar with the wyrms they met.
The response on both sides was better than they had hoped. Large numbers of wyrms could sense the strength of the relationship between Cliff and Fluttershy, and determined that peaceful coexistence on a larger scale really would be possible. Ponies, on the other hand, had been reading about wyrms for several months, and many were excited at the chance to live alongside these bizarre, yet fascinating, beings. Due to Equestria's population being larger, and having better communication between towns and cities than wyrm covens, many more ponies than wyrms responded, requesting permission to move to Everfree Village. However, because they wanted a fairly even split between the two species, most applicants were placed on a lengthy waiting list.
Spirit utilized a large amount of the royal budget to fund major reconstruction on the Castle of the Two Sisters, and construct a large wall around the area, to keep out the monsters of the Everfree Forest. They also began building houses, modeled after the Dragon House where the Ponyville Coven once lived.
About two months after Cliff left Ponyville, he and Fluttershy returned with their first group of wyrm volunteers. Many pony volunteers were there to meet them, and a large celebration was help to commemorate the founding of Everfree Village.
Population:
Wyrms: 162
Crystal Ponies: 59
Earth Ponies: 49
Pegasi: 41
Unicorns: 37
Griffons: 3
Donkeys: 1
Zebras: 1 (Zecora, obviously)
Alicorns: 1 (Twilight, just as obviously)
Total: 354
Government:
A council of five wyrms and five ponies rules over Everfree Village. They meet once per week. Each member was voted in, and has a specific area of focus, although the entire council votes on all important matters. The pony council members, and their area of focus, are: Princess Twilight Sparkle (higher education/scientific advancement), Autumn Gem (harmony between the species and races), Rarity (finances and exports), Applejack (food and imports), and Rainbow Dash (weather).
The wyrm council members and their areas of focus are: Burning Torch (city planning), Page Turner (education), Fire Claws (security), Egghead (jobs and economic infrastructure), and Spirit Shield (immigration).
Each council member also has the option of making a committee to help with their jobs. Fire Eyes, for example, is on the committee for security, and oversees the training of new wyrms in how to fight alongside ponies.
Culture:
Much like a pony community, all vital jobs have someone permanently assigned to them. However, getting a substitute or trading with someone for the day are both fairly common.
All members of the village are required to learn basic combat skills. These include fighting against wyrms, ponies, creatures from the Everfree Forest, and especially how to handle berserkers. Like at a coven, this is considered a basic part of education, and is taught in schools, however, to cover the adult ponies in town, the entire village does one hour of combat training each morning.
Because of the inherent risk of living with a race that can breathe fire, Twilight and Page Turner developed a medallion that grants its user immunity to heat. This medallion draws energy from the wearer's natural magic field, and is set to only activate when the wearer is exposed to temperatures higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Twilight also has developed a spell that puts a sort of inhibitor onto a wyrm's ability to use magic and/or go berserk. Basically, unless the wyrm is consciously willing itself to be able to do either, it can't. This prevents wyrms from going berserk unless they are currently using their magic. Unfortunately, most warriors keep at least one spell active at all times, so the benefits on that group are minimal, but for other wyrms, and especially hatchlings, it has drastically reduced the frequency of berserker attacks.
Unfortunately, this spell cannot return a berserker to its original form after it has changed. However, every unicorn in Everfree is expected to know a memory spell that can return a berserk wyrm to normal.
The Castle of the Two Sisters is the physical and cultural center of the village. Meals are served there three times per day, it has many nests, which can be freely used by any resident or visitor, council members meet there each week, and the grand hall is used for all village meetings. Visitors have often commented that it feels as though somepony fused an apartment complex with a town hall.
A variant of the popular wyrm game Bash has become a hit in Everfree. Two teams of two form, each with one wyrm and one earth pony. The wyrms enchant their partners with Strength and Scale Armor, for protection, and the earth ponies then play Bash as normal, seeing which pony can knock the other back the farthest. The current record was set by the team of Big McIntosh paired with Fire Claws.
Finances for members of the village has been an ongoing problem since its founding. At present, all basic necessities are free, such as food and housing, however, villagers are given a salary for extra expenses, which can be spent in the nearby town of Ponyville. Rather than actual bits, workers are given special written notes (dollar bills, essentially), that can be redeemed at Everfree for bits. While the difference between that and handing out bits is largely negligible, it creates a mental disconnect for the wyrms, letting them pretend that they don't actually have any money, which is important to them.
Everfree Village has become a major exporter of enchanted items and clothing, thanks largely to the efforts of Rarity and Twilight. One of their most popular items is a glowstone. As the name implies, it's a small, round stone that glows like a lamp for about five years before it needs to be either recharged or replaced. Guards uniforms enchanted with Scale Armor, and the heat-immunity medallions have also earned the village quite a few bits.
Houses in Everfree are based off the Dragon House, from the failed attempt for wyrms to live in Ponyville. Each house has a nest, a kitchen, in case the residents would rather make their own food than eat what's being served in the castle, two enclosed bedrooms (wyrms generally use them as Intimacy Chambers), a bathroom, and a living room.
Magical Advances:
Thanks largely to the efforts of Twilight Sparkle, Everfree has gathered a number of experts in nearly every known form of magic, and that fusion has resulted in several unexpected advances in various fields.
The most well known of these breakthroughs are the enchanted items that Everfree exports. Wyrm enchantments tend to have a limited supply of power, and go dead after that power is expended. Unicorn enchantments are more difficult, but are usually self-sustaining. By combining methods, a unicorn and a wyrm can work together to create enchantments that replicate wyrm spells and last for several years before needing to be recharged by willpower.
Natural magic field alterations have also advanced quite a bit. Normally this type of magic is rarely practiced, but by using Rainbow Dash's artificial dragon abilities as a template, items have been created that can add an extra ability to the subject. Even more importantly, qualifying conditions can be set, to prevent the magic drain from killing the item's wearer.
Finally, magic converters have been created and successfully tested. Using one, any creature with a natural magic field can drain some of its field and grant it to another creature. For example, a pegasus could temporarily weaken its natural pegasus magic, and then give the drained magic to an earth pony, temporarily increasing the physical power, connection to the earth, and ability to grow plants, that are granted by that earth pony's own magic field. This has led to the creation of magical 'batteries' that ponies and wyrms alike can use to boost their natural magic during times of need. Unfortunately, overdosing on magic can have severe consequences for the user, and so each battery is set to give no more than its user's body can handle.
Thanks for explaining the culture. If I may be so bold to suggest. I think you should show this culture in a possible sequel. Maybe to see what happens when Fluttershy and Cliff decide on adopting a child, and said child meets uncle Spirit and Aunti Twi.
This is a neat information.
I definitely want to see more stories in this world. The worldbuilding you have done is impressive.
You really have put a lot of thought and time into this, haven't you?
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Don't worry, I appreciate it when people tell me what they'd like to see in a sequel. I'm not sure how much time said sequel will be spending in Everfree Village, but I can promise at least a couple of chapters, possibly more.
2333920 SO you are going to write a sequel?
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Yeah, it might take a while though. I'd rather not rush it and wind up with something that sucks.
2334851 Okay. Good luck with that. Also for that I will follow you. So I will know when it is released. Good luck.
This is great info Vedues, this cleared up a lot of questions I had, about how things turned out in Everfree. Those "magical battery" things have me going through loops, If they fell into the wrong hands, like if their was a possible antagonist character that could absorb magic, (NOT Tirek, Oh god please no!) or something like that, could cause a lot of problems for them. That gives me another Idea too, What if smugglers targeted Everfree Village for its goods, or even better, its dragon eggs. If they could somehow distract the security team, they could swoop in and rob them,
that mite even be a good way to introduce a darring doo character. 
hehehe Sry brainstorming wont stop, gerrr...
Oh and I couldn't help but notice Wyrm homes don't have bathrooms, where do they even go?
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Crap, forgot about the bathrooms! Yes, each house has one. I'll add that ASAP. Theft attempts in Everfree probably wouldn't be unheard of, and they'd employ similar preventative measures as in a regular pony town (mostly locked doors, I'd imagine). I almost pity anypony that tries to steal dragon eggs from Everfree. It would technically be an international event, requiring an immediate and firm response from Equestria for them to maintain relations with Everfree.
The magic batteries are pretty useful, but probably not as powerful as you're thinking, as the batteries have limited storage, and spells in this universe are fueled by a refined type of magic (mana for unicorns, willpower for wyrms), and that purified magic is too volatile to be safely stored. So even though a unicorn could give itself more ambient magic to refine into mana, the actual benefit would be more a matter of magical stamina than any increase in power output.
Thanks for the ideas, by the way. I always enjoy a good brainstorming session.