Raiding villages was a bad idea.
For old dragons it was a waste of time, for young dragons it was dangerous, reckless, and as many other words for stupid as any dragon could think of. Most ponies might have been panicky and skittish, but they weren't all cowards, and they weren't all helpless. Sometimes the ones who could fight back could more than make up for all the ones who couldn't. And then there were the ones who got fed up with constant attacks and paid gold to other creatures who would “take care” of the problem. Smolder's own mother had told her never to raid a pony village… until she had to.
“Never let yourself go more than three days without food. On the fourth day, do whatever you have to do, and take from whoever you have to take from.”
Smolder flexed the bony digits of her wings into a half-fold, turning her high soar into a long dive towards the thatched roofs below. Her sharp eyes narrowed against the wind, flicking from target to target until she settled on a pristine roof. She drew in a deep lungful of air and flared out her wings just as the first terrified voice screamed out.
“DRAGONS!”
Right on cue, she blew out a jet of red-orange flames, drawing a line from one end of the roof to the other. Just before her fire could scorch the ground beyond, she flapped hard to pull up into a steep climb. In moments she was up and out of reach of all but the most eagle-eyed unicorn. Garble and Fume had spotted more than a few horned ponies when they'd scouted the place out the day before. Crossbow bolts were no big deal if she kept her distance, but there was no telling what weird things those unicorns could do.
Other dragons were doing the same all around her. Roof after roof went up in flames, and ponies galloped into the dirt streets in blind panic. Fume drove a small group of earth ponies through the middle of town with low swoops and streams of smoke, while Backdraft was already tearing open a burning roof to break in. A deep, tooth-rattling belch and a burst of flames from an alley told her that Clump was doing his part stirring up panic, and Garble--
“Ha! What's wrong? Are the pretty little ponies scared of a little fire!?”
Smolder rolled her eyes. Garble was doing what he did best: over-compensating. Her big brother laughed spitefully as he came up level with her.
“Look at them run! Not so tough NOW are you!?”
Smolder gave him a sidelong look. “Okay, what's up with you, Gar-Gar? You've been acting weird ever since the Migration. Did someone see your drums--?”
Garble's claw clapped over her snout. “Not in front of the guys!” He cast frantic looks all around him to make sure no dragon was looking their way.
She flapped back and out of reach. “Relax. I'm pretty sure they're not listening.” Another fiery belch rang out from below as if to prove her point.
“Yeah, well, we've got work to do.” Garble squared his shoulders and pointed down at the burning roofs below. “Get in, grab whatever food you can carry, and get out. We've only got a few minutes before those wimpy pegasi show up with storm clouds, and you're not ready for that kind of action yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, my next two emeralds say I get the bigger haul!”
Garble bumped his fist against hers. “Ha! You're on!”
As Garble dove, Smolder squinted down at the roof she'd set alight, waiting a few more moments for the flames to really take off before she followed.
Smolder tucked her wings and dove again, this time pulling up and alighting right in the middle of the dancing flames eating away at the roof she'd lit up before. She licked her lips eagerly while she tossed aside burning clawfuls of thatch, the aching hollowness of her stomach only getting sharper as she got closer to her goal. Give it an hour and, with a little luck, she'd be roasting up the spoils with Garble and the gang, swapping their stories of the raid, and laughing while they watched the smoke rise over the horizon.
This was gonna be a good day.
“You want to do what!?”
Smolder crossed her arms and kept her eyes level with the Headmare's from across the desk and between the piles of paperwork.
“It's basic dragon knowledge. Every dragon needs to know this sort of stuff.”
Headmare Twilight's wings snapped open and shut over and over while she sputtered and alternated between waving her hooves in weird, jerky motions, and cradling her head in between them.
“But-- that's-- you-- what!?”
“So… Thursday?”
“What? No!” Twilight shook her head violently and wrestled her wings back against her sides. “This is absolutely, one-hundred-percent out of the question! You are not teaching Spike how to burn down Ponyville!”
Smolder rolled her eyes. Leave it to the pony to jump to the worst case scenario. “It's not like we need to burn the whole town. We just need one building and a couple of volunteers--”
Twilight reared up and planted her forehooves on her desk. “Are you crazy!? You can't burn down a building!”
“Pft, why not? It's not like it'd be the first time.”
Twilight's eyes went as round as bits. “It wouldn't?”
Smolder casually shrugged and leaned back in her seat, claws behind her head. “Not even close! Me and Garble must've hit about a half dozen villages. Well, me, him, and some other dragons. Solo raids are waaay too dangerous until you hit a hundred or so. Most ponies are lousy shots, but you give them just one or two dragons to aim at and one of 'em is gonna get lucky sooner or later. Oh, yeah, that reminds me,” she sat forward in her seat again, “do you know anyone who's good with a crossbow?”
Twilight's eyes went wider still. “Crossbow?”
“He's gotta learn how to dodge them.” She brought one claw around to rub her chin thoughtfully. “There's other stuff too, but you probably don't have a ballista or any catapults laying around this far from the Dragon Lands. Oh, and we'll need some pegasi with storm clouds, and some unicorns who can shoot those magic beam things. Those are all the biggest hazards with pony villages.”
Twilight threw her hooves up high. “But we're at peace! Ember said she'd forbidden dragons from attacking ponies!”
Smolder straightened up and nodded sagely, a single finger raised. “Well, actually, she told us not to attack Equestrian ponies. Some ponies do live outside Equestria, y'know. It's just easier to avoid them all, just in case. And Ember could call off the whole 'friendship' thing tomorrow and we'd go right back to raiding the border towns. Besides,” a fierce grin exposed almost all of her wickedly sharp teeth while she settled back again, “Spike could use a little more exercise. He spends waaay too much time doing paperwork and junk.”
Twilight shook herself from head to tail and straightened up, full princess style. “No. I do my best to respect the cultural heritage of every species, but I will not condone teaching Spike how to attack and terrorize innocent creatures. That sort of behavior goes against everything this school stands for.”
Smolder met the headmare's stern glare for several long seconds before she yielded.
“Whatever.” She hopped down off her chair and made for the door. “I'll figure out something else for the next lesson.”
“Smolder.” The dragon paused and looked back, claw resting on the door handle. The headmare's expression had softened somewhat. “I appreciate you agreeing to take all this time to teach Spike, even if some of the things you want to teach are… unconventional.”
“Maybe to you,” Smolder muttered.
Twilight went on as if she hadn't heard her student. “But I have to do what's best for him, and I just don't see how learning to raid villages would ever do him any good.”
Smolder snorted, pushed open the door, unfurled her wings, and launched herself down the hallway without another word.
The strategy to raiding ponies was so simple that a hatchling could understand it. Start by lighting the roof on fire. That drives the ponies out of the building, but destroys the rest of it slow enough to ransack from the top down. When the burning roof starts falling in, move down to the next floor until you hit ground level. Gems were almost always on the upper floors in drawers, or any fancy looking little boxes, so check there first. Most of the rest of the food would be kept in wooden wall-vaults downstairs, but the best stuff was always in their ice-vaults.
Stuff like eggs. There hadn't been anything worthwhile upstairs except for an oversized basket that looked good for carrying loot, but the day was a victory the moment Smolder opened the ice-vault door and saw a full dozen eggs waiting for her. The sweet taste of victory got soured when the first egg shattered into a thick splash of cold goo between her teeth. She choked down the slimy mouthful with a determined shudder, but wasted no time blowing a small jet of flames across half of the remaining dozen or so. The sharp cracks and pops of the shells breaking open as their insides flash-baked was almost loud enough to drown out the impatient growling of her stomach. She popped a second egg in her mouth and chewed experimentally.
That was more like it. Egg after lukewarm egg got crunched up and swallowed as fast as she could get them down. It was a mystery to her why ponies thought eggs were good cold. Mom's scrambled cockatrice eggs with seared slingtail steak, now that was a breakfast. Fresh eggs mashed up and sizzling on a hot rock with some smashed rocksalt and a little gypsum, delicious! There had never been anything better than waking up to the sound of a freshly caught slingtail being dropped on the cave floor next to the hoard. Sure, butchering one was a lot of work, but it was so, so worth it when the meat started to sizzle on the rocks. If only ponies ate meat…
She finally forced herself to stop after her sixth egg when she saw that smoke was beginning to curl down the stairs and spread across the ceiling. The rest went in the basket along with anything else she could get her claws on. Bottles, jars, bowls, everything in the vault was fair game. She moved on the moment it was empty, digging through the wooden vaults instead.
“Honey? Is something burn--?”
Smolder froze where she stood on the kitchen counter, looking over her shoulder at the mare that stood, just as frozen, in the doorway. Her pale gray coat was rumpled, her slate blue mane and tail were a pair of perfectly matched tangles, and her eyes were carrying around some seriously dark circles under them, like she'd been woken up from a hundred year nap fifty years early. That didn't stop those big, pale blue eyes from drifting from Smolder to the empty vault, then down to the loaded basket, up to the plume of smoke fanning out over the kitchen ceiling, before finally coming to rest back where they started.
“Dah. Druh. Dra--! Dra--! Drag--!”
“Dragon?”
“DRAGOOOOON!”
The pony spun about and galloped out of sight past the edge of the doorway, still screaming at the top of her shrill pony voice. Smolder kept still a moment or two longer, waiting for any sign that the panicking pony was going to stir up any other stragglers. When no more screams started up in response, she snorted and went back to rooting through the dry goods for anything worth taking.
“Sleeping through a dragon raid. Heh, wait 'til the guys hear about this one.”
Smolder picked at the pile of food on her lunch tray with unusual disinterest. It'd been pretty cool at first, just being given three meals a day. She'd spent the first few weeks shoveling it in as fast as they'd serve it to her. Turned out that the ponies in the lunchroom had no idea how much food a dragon her age needed, so they never even questioned it when she demanded more, outside of cowering a little. She'd almost felt bad about it after the whole thing with Sludge but, hey, these were grown adults whose actual jobs were to give out food, not a freshly molted kid who thought he was being reunited with his long-lost dad.
It was weird though, thinking about it. All this food just given away. She sat down three times a day, every day, with a tray full of fish, vegetables, fruit, and gemstones, all piled high just for her. So did Gallus, Ocellus, Yona, Silverstream, and Sandbar. Every creature got food, no matter what kind of food they ate.
She turned a rough, mashed potato smeared ruby over with the tip of a talon. Even ponies didn't give stuff for free. The less of a thing they had, the more bits it cost to get it. Spike and Professor Rarity had probably dug up most of the gems she ate every day. Had they charged the school for it? Who did the school charge to get the money to pay them? Sure, Sandbar's parents could probably pay for him, and Silverstream was basically royalty, but did Yaks even use gold for money? And what about Gallus and Ocellus? What about her? Did the ponies really have so much food that they could go around throwing it at creatures like the three of them?
“Why dragon-friend glaring at food?”
Yona's question snapped Smolder out of her thoughts. The ruby suffered the consequences. “Itsh nufhin'.”
“Soooo,” Silverstream leaned over the table, “how's teaching Spike going? Oh, oh, oh! Are you teaching him how to breathe super amazing fireballs or how to crush rocks with his teeth!?”
Sandbar swallowed his mouthful of salad. “Uh, I'm pretty sure he already knows how to do that.”
Silverstream sank back onto her seat, rubbing the back of her neck and flashing Smolder an awkward smile. “Oh, right. That's just… all I really know about dragons.”
Smolder snorted out a puff of smoke then shoved a clawful of potatoes in her mouth.
“I actually don't know much about dragons either,” Ocellus chimed in. “All I'd been taught before Thorax took over was that dragons were too dangerous to replace for love stealing.”
Smolder raised a brow. “Why?”
“Umm…” Ocellus shrank down in her seat. “Because you breathe fire and can crush gemstones with your teeth.”
Smolder's expression soured. “Seriously? Doesn't anyone know anything about dragons!?”
Yona raised one of her cloven hooves. “Yona knows! Small dragons no like cold! That's why dragons not raid Yakyakistan. Yaks tough out coldest winters with tough hides and thick coats. Scales hard, but bad at keeping dragons warm.”
“So, let me get this straight. The only one here who knows anything about us is the one creature living in a place dragons my age never go.” Smolder blew short jets of smoke from her nostrils. “Figures.”
“Eh, it's no big deal,” Gallus said. He'd picked his fish down to the bones by this point and pushed his plate away as he joined the conversation. “It's not like any species really knows anything about any of the others. Half the ponies I've met at this school didn't even know I was a griffon until I told them. I'd never heard of hippogriffs or sea ponies before I came here, and changelings were just a myth in Griffonstone.”
Sandbar ran a hoof over the back of his neck, his face settling into the awkward frown of somepony noticing a not entirely comfortable fact for the first time. “Yeah, I guess ponies kinda just learn about ponies in school.”
“Yaks all alone in Yakyakistan until we make friends with ponies.”
“I met some Sea Serpents once! They were really friendly and had the most amaaaazing manes! Other than that, nooot a whole lot of creatures to talk to under the sea.”
Ocellus shifted uncomfortably, ears wilting. “I would have learned more about other species if things hadn't changed. Infiltrators needed to know enough to get by no matter where they were sent. The adults are still working out how to redesign our training programs around our new diet.”
“What Smolder know about us?”
Smolder shrugged and picked another gem out of her potatoes. “Eh, not that much, I guess. Probably the most important thing before I came here was that you ponies don't lay eggs.”
Silverstream shot out of her chair to hover over the table right in front of Sandbar's muzzle with her claws cradling her face. “Ponies don't lay eggs!?”
Sandbar leaned way back from the pointy pink beak that was much too close to his eyes. “Uh... nope? And that's pretty specific. How often does stuff like that even come up?”
A large, potato covered emerald cracked between sharp teeth.
“Yeu'd be shurprished.”
The pony just did not stop screaming.
Ponies took panicking so seriously that it felt rude not to watch them go at it. And watching her run by the open doorway every few seconds, screaming all the way, was funny for the first couple of times. She'd run past (screaming), go out of sight, there'd be some banging and thumping, and then she'd go past the other direction (screaming), there'd be some banging and rattling, and then she'd go past the first way again… screaming. Every pass she got a little slower and wheezier, but kept right on going anyway, and after lap five Smolder tuned her out and went about her plundering.
It wasn't until her basket was just about to the point where she wasn't going to be able to carry it fast enough for a quick getaway that she realized that the screaming had finally stopped. She cocked an ear to listen and got only the roar of flames and… coughing? She raised a claw to her frill and listened harder. That was definitely coughing. The pony was still in the building.
Sighing, Smolder hopped down off the counter, crossed the room, and stuck her head around the doorway into the pony's living room. “Okay, are you actually going to run away or…?”
The pony lay huddled at base of the front door, watching the smoke above with wide, terrified eyes. Her legs were all tucked up against her stomach and her whole body was shivering.
“Uh,” Smolder stepped through the kitchen doorway, glancing between the pony and the closed door that was right behind her. The pony's eyes snapped onto her and she pressed herself even harder against the floor. “Have you tried opening the door?”
The pony swallowed heavily. “I-! I c-can't. It's… stuck.”
Smolder shot a look over her shoulder at the far wall where a window stood wide open. “Aaand you're not going out the window because…?”
One of the pony's back legs protectively tucked up higher against her side. “I can't fit.”
“Pft, seriously? You're not that--” Smolder craned her neck to get a good look at the pony's midsection. Now that she mentioned it, she was kinda big. Make that really big. The rest of her was on the small side for a pony (as far as Smolder knew ponies), but her stomach was huge! It was so big that--
“Never forget that ponies do not lay their eggs like we do. If you see a mare with a belly too big for her body, do not lay a claw upon her. Ponies will accept the wounding of a soldier, or even a foolish pony defending his home. But if you value your life then you must NEVER harm a pregnant mare.”
“Are you... pregnant?”
The pony blinked for what might have been the first time since Smolder started talking to her. “Y-yes? Why--?”
Smolder smacked a claw to her face. “Why didn't you say so!? Move over.” The pony continued to stare at her. “No, seriously, move over and I'll let you out.” Staring. “Do you want to stay here!? Move it!”
The pony finally remembered how her legs worked and scrabbled her way against the wall and out of Smolder's way as she stomped up to the door and took a deep breath. One jet of metal-melting fire to the lock and swift kick later the door swung right open.
“There you--” The pony shot past her in a gray and blue blur, galloping away towards the edge of town. “…go. Huh.” With a shrug, she flapped back inside to grab her loot and then shot off into the sky as fast as she could carry it, joining the rest of the gang all winging their way out over the lava fields.
Did she ever have a story for them.