If one were to try and avoid crossing the Twilight Lands, the options are either to go far to the north or far to the south. Most choose the northern route, as the southern is even worse than the Twilight Lands. South and southwest of the Twilight Lands are the imposing peaks of the Wyvernspine Mountains. Too high to fly over and too steep to climb; only a few passes are open even in summer, and even those are treacherous. The trek is long and arduous, the paths ravaged by rockfalls and high winds. Pony settlements are non-existent, aside from a few haggard mountaineers.
Even if you can cross the highest mountains, the terrain in the south is inhospitable to Pony life. The isolated valleys receive very little rainfall, the clouds blocked by the surrounding high peaks. The snow-pack melt-water lakes are brackish due to the metals and salts in the soil and make poor drinking or water sources for irrigation. Most of the mountains themselves are too cold for Ponies, and the lowlands between mountain ranges are too hot and dry. It’s a brutal and often deadly place for Ponies to live.
For Dragons, however, it’s nearly ideal. Nearly everything that makes life harder on a Pony is preferable for the scaled creatures. They ride the high winds up to cliff-side caves and spires of stone, subsist on hardy lowlands animals and mountain goats, and the mineral-dense waters are suitable for soaking scales in. Even the bracing frigid air of the peaks and hot winds of the lowlands are extremes they enjoy.
For the most part, the Dragons simply do not care about the world beyond their borders. Pony lands lack the interest of the mountains, and Ponies make few goods that the Dragons require or desire. This is fine with most Pony nations, as Dragons are large, physically mighty, and challenging to kill. However, little interest is not no attention, and the Dragons do observe their neighbors’ activities. They even send diplomats, on occasion, to monitor and inform. It is easier to be left alone when they know you mean no harm.
Although Dragons appear simple or primitive, as they do not have much use for large structures or massive organized agricultural systems, they are far from simplistic animals. Dragon culture is a deeply philosophical one, albeit one which few Ponies would understand. They follow a complex hierarchy of rituals and laws that determine one’s social standing. While larger and stronger Dragons tend to sit higher in this social system, well-thought-out verbal rhetoric is respected as solid arms and wings. Arguments and disputes are as often resolved via courts and debates as they are by contests of strength.
Draconic leadership has a problem; in recent decades, the population has slowly risen to the point of straining their ecosystem. There simply isn’t enough grazing land for the large herds needed to feed all the Dragons hatched in the coming years. They know this and are already working to overcome the problem. Their first mitigation efforts focused on more sharply organizing their feed herds and actually developing the agriculture needed to feed those animals. With the poor soils, this will prove to be insufficient, and they know it.
With their lands reaching capacity in the coming decades, Draconic leadership turns their eyes towards more fertile regions where crops for livestock grow in abundance—places currently populated by Ponies.