//------------------------------//
// A crazy dragon's musings 
// Story: Deep Cover Confusion 
// by Zerodius 
//------------------------------//

Spike blinked a few times. With Twilight's permission, he had been allowed to go at that dragon migration thing and meet with those of his kind. It had been quite exciting though there was one significant drawback. Namely, the fact that him being supposedly a baby dragon was thrown at his face even more than at home.

Sure, he is younger than Twilight but by pony standarts, he was definitely legal. He wasn't much taller, true, something about dragons being longer-living but it was incredibly, endlessly frustrating. He had learnt, spent time getting to know things... he think that after all this time, he's more mature. He definitely feel it yet he's treated as a baby all the time. And yet... he knew they were right in many ways. Even as he had explored his feelings, he had realized that his body felt... different. The cravings that ponies of his age went through, he had not went through. Even as he rationally grasped more mature concepts, it felt like his body was lagging behind.

To be fair, he had hoped for that feeling of being two things at the same time to be left behind when he had went to his people. To know, once and for all, if he was truly as much of a baby as everyone said he is. And well... unfortunately, that had not been the case. It had only grown worse. Those three teenage dragons had been the worst. They were over fifty years-old?! How could that be possible when they acted like they were ten? He felt as if he had been surrounded by idiots! To think he had been afraid of what they had thought of him! Yet, it also bothered him. Immature in some ways... and yet so much more mature in others.

The way they'd been talking of impressing females, of their concerns for the future... rationally, he knew about crushes or even about what they led to, despite his adoptive sister's best efforts. But he... it had only made his feeling of not knowing whenever he was too mature for his body or simply destabilized because pony society expected him to advance too quickly for him worse.

Gloomy things. He hate them. And he's not even sure if he hate them because gloomy subjects are not fun or because he's too much of a kid to enjoy them.

Oh well.

He decided to instead focus on an argument. An older dragon, a elder by the looks of it, was talking with a bunch of adults who gave him a look not unlike what Twilight gave him whenever he tried to ask why her horn had been jagged and her eyes, more akin to his during that night five years ago when he sneaked into her room to check if she had been okay due to a weeks-long studying rush for an exam.

"None of you have ever seen a real pony. Ponies do not turn insectoid after a few weeks if they can't renew a magical grooming ritual! Ponies look like colorful horses with a tattoo on their butt!" went the elder.

"Of course they do, after they have groomed. And well, it's not like they look that different without it. All it does is remove the jagged parts, remove the useless bits, and make their coat uniform and smooth." said one of the younger adults, his voice flat.

"Real ponies did not need to do that! They looked like equines all the time!"

"Ponies are equines. They just look a bit strange. Zebras have their weird lines on their coats, donkeys have those big ears, ponies look a bit like insects. That's all."

"You do not understand. They were once permanently like they are post-grooming. I have not seen real ponies in centuries!"

A sigh and a roll of eyes from all the assembled dragons listening to the older one. "And what's the difference, beside the looks, if any of what you're saying is right?"

The elder opened his mouth, paused, closed it, scratched the back of his head, blinked a few times, and then sighed loudly. "They didn't look insect-like at all! What you call ponies are bugs acting like ponies!"

"Bugs that act like ponies, breed like ponies, think like ponies, got pony magic, and are pretty much equines with slightly insect-like looks. Yep, totally don't sound like ponies to me."

"Seriously, grandpa." went another adult. "Ponies hate it when they're seen without their make-up on. Like, they positively freak out. I think it's natural that the ponies of your time would make sure you'd never catch any of them in their true form."

"No! Those ponies did not turn insect-like, ever! You could kill one and keep its body around for weeks and it would stay the same!"

"Grandpa, that's gross! Why would you do that?"

"Well, it could happen!" he said, realizing with embarassment what he had just said as his fellow dragons glared at him. "I wasn't some kind of supremacist wild dragon nut!"

"Then how would you know if a pony back then didn't turn back?"

"A pony fell and broke his neck?"

"And they just left its corpse on the streets for what amounts to a full freakin' month? I'm sorry but no, not buying it."

Collective groans and the argument begun to go in circles. Judging by their expressions, Spike guessed it actually had been going in circles way before he started listening. Hmmm... ponies who don't actually look insect-like? That's... strange, really. After seeing Twilight that way, he had just assumed it was normal and that everyone knew, given how no one ever made a deal of it. Were ancient ponies sometimes stuck in their make-up and unable to get out?

Frankly, he don't get it. He's been raised among ponies his entire life and he still don't get it.

So... zebras are weird, dragons are weird, ponies are weird. Is there any species that isn't weird on this planet?