Twilight and Spike found themselves in the kirins' village. They were on a diplomatic mission, and Rain Shine had assigned Autumn Blaze to give the two visitors a quick tour.
"Um, why do you all look like that?" Spike asked midway through the tour.
"Spike!" Twilight promptly scolded. "You should know by now that it's rude to talk about other creatures like that!"
"Don't worry, it's fine," Autumn Blaze assured. "I totally get it. We kirin aren't exactly normal-looking ponies, that's for sure.
"I mean, the horn, the scales, these, um... hoof-slash-claw things..." the talkative kirin continued, gesturing at the body parts in question as she spoke. "Heck, I don't think we really even count as ponies."
Twilight tilted her head. "How so?"
"Oh, kirins are part dragon."
"Huh, that makes sense— wait, what?"
"Yeah," Autumn nodded. "Actually, if I recall correctly, the whole Nirik thing is some sort of, I don't know, bizarro mixture of dragon greed and unicorn magic."
Twilight didn't hear her—she was still trying in vain to process the earlier information. "But... how did a dragon... and a unicorn..."
"Oh, that's a great story. You see, a long time ago, a gang of dragons—"
"...Ponies can mate with dragons?" Spike interrupted.