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// Only Thing 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
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"You know, I've been thinking. Fingers are really convenient. Unicorns have magic and pegasi have wings, but for an earth pony they might actually be an improvement over hooves. And even for pegasi and unicorns I'd still argue they can be better once you learn to use them. They easily allow fine control that's hard to achieve with magic or wings or hooves." Twilight levitated a cookie from the jar in the middle of the table to her mouth. "I regret not learning how to use fingers properly," she said after finishing her cookie. "I wonder if there could be a way to keep the benefits of both worlds. To still have horns and wings but give ponies fingers."
Cadence definitely thought about it as she drank some tea. "Perhaps there exists a world where ponies have both fingers and their more traditional appendages. Maybe even in an erect form, like dragons here."
Twilight too seemed to think about that, and ate another cookie. "Kind of like humans? Or maybe some cross between humans and ponies?" She placed a hoof under her chin. "It might exist, I suppose. Dragons do exist here, like you said, and there's nothing to indicate any reason why it wouldn't be possible." She tilted her head to the side. "I do wonder if we'd wear clothes regularly or not, if we were like that. Humans do, but I think that's more to do with their lack of natural hair or scales, and with peculiar social standards inherent and specific to their culture. Ponies don't have much of a biological need for clothes, so such norms would probably never develop."
"Would we even be ponies if we had fingers and stood on two legs?" Cadence asked.
"Pony is just a name, and a name only indicates what it's been decided it indicates. If that world's ponies were so, they'd be ponies provided they called themselves as such. It is interesting to discuss if we'd fit each other's definitions of the term, though. I suppose one could make the argument that dragons are all called dragons, whether they stand on two legs or on four." Twilight ate another cookie.
"What is up with that? I've always wondered, I hope it's not improper to ask," said Cadence, setting down her empty teacup.
"A mixture of different factors, as far as I can tell," Twilight replied. "Part of it is dragons presenting a much wider spectrum of individual differences- or, well, not quite that. Ponies differ greatly too one from the other, but we are used to such differences all being part of what a pony can be. Dragons don't differ much more than we can, but they differ in different things, notably shapes, whereas every pony is roughly shaped the same. The other factor is age. Bigger dragons tend to assume a more quadrupedal stance to best support their weight, and likely as a result of further shifts in their anatomy as well."
"Fascinating." Cadence eyed the emptying jar, and took a cookie for herself while she still had a chance to.