//------------------------------//
// What Happened Here? 
// Story: Discovery of the hidden dragons 
// by EveryAlternateEnding 
//------------------------------//

Discovery of the hidden dragons

Chapter 1: What happened here?

Twilight looked curiously at the mysterious lock. It was as large in diameter as a dinner plate, and made out of the same dark grey metal as the chain it was tightly bound to. In its centre was a bronze circle, encrusted with four gems that seemed far too opulent for anything that hung off a stone door. One was dark, sapphire blue, one pearly white, one of pink diamond, and one clear crystal that was marked with a question mark, arranged as four quarters of a circle. There was no place for a key.

"You must understand, Princess Twilight," the scatterbrained animal keeper explained for what seemed  the thousandth time, "I need to get in there! The princess trusts me, the animals trust me, and-"

"And you accidentally spilled coffee on the list of barns that you had to look after this week, so you checked with all your coworkers and checked all the barns that no one else had on their list, including some that turned out to be empty. But this one you need to me unlock," Twilight finished. She would have been annoyed, but honestly, this intellectual challenge felt like a break from sitting on her throne and listening to ponies' problems. Celestia was out on a five-day diplomatic tour, and as a result, Twilight was filling in on throne duty.

She put a hoof on the shoulder of the anxious rose-coloured mare. "Thank you for your diligence, Tenderheart, and don't worry one bit. I'll make absolutely certain that this barn is opened. No creature will go unfed."

"Thank you," the mare said breathlessly, before leaving Twilight her privacy.

I wonder if that she's related to Fluttershy, thought Twilight, It's possible. Her brother had children. Maybe she's her great niece? Ah, well. Where were we?

A tap on the pink jewel revealed that they pressed in, though it popped back up immediately afterwards. Twilight tried the clear one, and then the white one. The white one stayed pressed in. As if their colours hadn't made it obvious enough, Twilight could now assume that each stone represented an alicorn, the clear one with the question mark representing herself. Whatever this lock was, it had to have been made before Celestia had made her an alicorn. She tapped the blue, then the pink, and they stuck. But when she pressed the clear stone, they all came back up again. "Huh?"

Twilight thought. It seemed as though the stones had to be pressed in the order of the ascension of the alicorns. But then, why did it stop at hers? Or did it? She pressed the white and then the pink. Predictably, it came up when she pressed the pink. Now Twilight was confused. She began to guess randomly, hitting the first three in order, and then the white. Fail. Upon trying the process over, she hit the blue gem fourth. This time, it stayed down, below the other two pressed gems as it had been pressed twice. Huh? Twilight thought. That doesn't make sense. Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and then Luna? But wait... when Luna became Nightmare Moon, she definitely seemed unponylike. Was she something other than an alicorn? Or at least, is that what the designer of this lock thought? That would mean... she became an alicorn again, after Cadance, but before me. 

Twilight tapped the clear crystal, and a the lock clicked. It was undone.

Twilight's jaw went slack as soon as she saw the sight behind the door. There were dragons. So many dragons. There had to be a few hundred in the large but crowded royal stable. And they were staring right at her. After a moment of confusion, a green drake close to the door spoke up, "hey, everyone. Celestia sent us a visitor!"

He then held out his hand to shake, at which point Twilight realized that the dragon was shorter than her: he was no taller than an average stallion.

In a daze, Twilight shook his hand. "You look... confused. Are you alright?" Twilight said nothing, so the the dragon just shrugged and walked off to a stool before a mirror, the other dragons similarly losing interest. He picked up scissors, and began to casually cut into the orange membrane of his wing. 

"Stop!" Twilight yelled, "What are you doing?!"

"Trimming my webs," the dragon said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. 

"Why?"

"Because it's good hygiene?"

"Who... told you that?"

"Celestia." 

Twilight sat down on the floor, mouth agape. A concerned crowd of small, webless dragons gathered. A yellow dragoness walked over to her and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Sorry," Twilight said, getting herself together, "this is just... Such a surprise. Can I speak with one of you? I'm extremely curious as to how you've been living."

"Ooh, me!" A slate-grey dragon piped up. He pushed himself through the crowd. "Will you tell us about the outside world? I'll tell you everything you want to know if you can do that!"

"Sure, I'l do that," Twilight responded, smiling awkwardly.

"Great. My name is Carver, by the way. I'll show you my place of work," he said kindly. He turned to face the crowd. "Some privacy, please." They turned away and returned to their activities. Twilight saw dragons polishing armour, smelting metal pieces, chatting, and even a few playing cards. Twilight knew she shouldn't say it, but she said it: 

"You're awfully polite for dragons." Twilight cupped her hoof over her mouth. "Sorry! That was inappropriate!"

"It's okay. Honestly, it's more confusing than offensive. Where did you get the idea that dragons weren't polite?"

Twilight was no longer surprised by how little this dragon knew. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know about the outside world after you tell me about your world, alright? Let me just check my schedule..." Twilight went through her list of royal duties. Her assistant could handle the throne room for her for an hour, and after that it was her lunch hour. After that she had an important meeting with the Canterlot education directorate, and she couldn't make it seem like she didn't care about the education of young ponies, especially since she did care! "I can stay here for an hour and fifty minutes. So, a fifty-five minute question session for me, and then one for you sound fair?"

"Sure. Now, ready to see my place of work?" he asked rhetorically, puffing up with pride as the pair approached a stable area entirely covered in tarp. His claws gripped the fabric, and he looked into Twilight's eyes, as though expecting them to glitter in excitement. Twilight mirrored that desired excitement. Clearly the dragon wanted it, even if all Twilight wanted was to start the interview. Carver tore off the tarp to reveal a stable full of stone carvings. They weren't the best stone carvings, but for an amateur with no real training, they were rather impressive. Twilight could spot a mare's head, a few dragons' heads, a potted plant, an orb, and few other carvings.

"Wow!" she beamed in mock excitement, "These are really impressive. You learned to make these all by yourself?"

"Yes. No one even told me what art was until Celestia called my stone carvings as such. It's a natural part of me."

"Wonderful! Now, ready for the interview?"

"Sure," he said quickly, a bit disappointed that they couldn't dwell on his art a bit longer.

"Question one: how long have you been here?" Twilight asked as she conjured a quill and some parchment. The dragon was not surprised by magic. Though with Celestia seemingly being their only caretaker it was hardly surprising, Twilight took note of that.

"I don't know. I stopped counting long ago. Ever since Celestia took us out of this place... we've started calling it the test running place. But that was thousands of sleeps ago."

"Tell me about the test running place."

"I couldn't tell you much about it. We were kept in glass cages at night, with a dog bed and a few dog toys. We were fed dog food. That's where we were most of the time. Sometimes they'd take some of us out. It seemed like some they didn't have use for, but maybe they just had shorter tests than I did. I don't know."

Twilight was growing very concerned. "What... were the tests? Anything inhumane?"

"Mine weren't. They had me breathe fire for treats. I think they were measuring the length and heat, but you have to understand that we didn't understand what was going on very well, back then. They'd have me exercise and grip things, and run a maze. I actually liked it. For many of the tests they'd take off my constraint gloves or muzzle, or both."

"That's very interesting. But, what do you mean, yours weren't? Were others?"

Carver looked down as though ashamed. "I know someone who would... really like to tell you about that. Follow me."

The dragon in the far corner was lying down in a corner. It seemed as tall as Twilight, and fat: a sign that it had nowhere near the power it desired. Two other overweight dragons were lazily hanging around it. "Fang?" Carver began, "a guest is here to see you."

"What do they want?" the dragon groaned in a deep, but distinctly female voice.

"She wants to hear about your time in the test running place," Carver responded, minimal annoyance seeping into his voice. "That's what she wants." 

The orange she-drake rolled over to reveal a mess of scars on her belly. Some of them were very clean, as though from surgery. Some were messier. Her horns were both broken off, fairly close to the base. "Well, hi, pony," she began, putting a maximal amount of bitterness into the word. "You want to know why I'm lying back here while fools like this," she got up and pulled Carver over by the the arm, "are hauling bricks around all day?"

"Actually I honou-" Fang gently held his snout shut.

"It's because I'm one of the first ones they tested. The best of the first ones they tested, apparently."

Twilight stared at the comparatively huge she-drake in her face. Everything in her wanted to look down, but the idea of showing this aggressive dragon weakness seemed extremely foolish. Her poker face, honed by her many trials as leader, remained. "Please elaborate. I need to know exactly what they did to you. I'm not necessarily on their side."

"Right. Well, I don't even remember when it started. No one here seems to remember. But in the beginning, it was just me and a bunch of other dragons: the first dragons. We were just little baby dragons, and they cut us open and prodded at all the... inside bits... Gronkle, what are those called?"

The stooped green underling scratched his chin. "Uh, guts? Organs! It's organs!" 

Fang slapped him in the face. "No, they make music with that! How do you make music with something stuck in a dragon's body, Gronkle? Idiot!"

"Wait," Twilight interjected. She had nearly faded into her own overwhelmed thoughts, "are you saying that they performed a vivisection on you... And you lived? Were there others?"

"Yeah. I let them know how tough dragons are. Anyhow," Fang continued, "they did that to a lot of dragons, I think. I know I saw them move a lot of little dragons, and some came back with stitches up their stomachs, and some didn't come back at all." She grinned a nasty grin, "Do you know why they call me Fang? It's because it's all they left of me. They took the horns, the claws, the other fang, but I didn't let them take this one," she rolled back her upper lip and  stuck out her one ugly, sharpened yellow canine. Twilight could smell her sour breath. "They wanted a safe little victim. They only liked seeing me bleed. But I didn't let them take this one. You know why I'm so big and tall? It's because these dragons let me hoard everything there is to hoard here!" her voice reached a fever pitch. "So it all worked out for me. Thank the white one," she finished, lying back down. 

Twilight shook. There was much to take in. However, she managed one final question. "By the white one... You mean Princess Celestia?" 

Fang groaned, "Tell her, Carver," she answered lazily.

"Let's go," Carver said, holding Twilight's forehoof to lead her away from the aggressive dragon that he clearly wanted to be nowhere near. "We love Celestia, Twilight. She took us away from the place that she's describing and gave us a life here: work, food, a nice big area to move around, some favours..."

Twilight nodded slowly. She wanted to say something. Say, 'but that isn't a full life," or, 'but who put you in there to begin with?', but she was afraid of upsetting a balance that she didn't understand.  "I have to go," Twilight said finally. "I promise you, though, I will see you again. For the interview." It took all of Twilight's strength not to gallop straight out of the room.