To Know is to Burn
There are a great many adjectives that can be attached to a pony working as an intern in dragon country. 'Diligent' is a good word, describing most everypony who's made it to their second week with all or the overwhelming majority of their limbs. 'Passionate' cannot pass one's lips enough, as nothing else could possibly drive them to put themselves at such risk. 'Intelligent' is such a common word in their quarters that they've had to stop using it, for fear that it will spontaneously cease to exist.
'Safe' and 'happy', though... neither of those are words that you're likely to see attached to any ponies working for dragons. Not that you'd know it from seeing them in action, mind you. If there's one good thing that even the most self-absorbed dragon can say about their interns, it's that they never complain when management or tourists are around.
But nopony is ever interested in the masks we wear, only in what lies underneath. And so we find ourselves peering into the mind of Parastratiosphecomyia Sphecomyioides, a pegasus jokingly referred to as Pathetic Insect by friend and rival alike.
But not for very long. He is about to die, after all.
Pathetic Insect dodged the latest gout of flame, fighting down the urge to laugh at the sheer thrill of having once again cheated death. A good thing too, as the motion of throwing his head back in laughter would have put his head in exactly the right place to be impaled by a shard of bone-meltingly hot glass. As it was, he only lost part of his mane and a good deal of the attached skin.
"Excellent form, Sphecomyioides!" Woodlock boomed, the luscious timbre of his draconic voice shaking their mountain lair. "A few more years of practice, and you'll be able to make it through spring cleaning with nary a scratch!"
Insect all but collapsed onto the first patch of solid ground that he came close to, almost choking his lungs as he struggled not to pant from exhaustion. "Thanks for the compliment, boss. How's the orrery doing?"
"The orrery can wait," Woodlock assured Insect. "There are other projects that require our attention." He turned his massive form around with a deceptively simple motion, and began to slink away into another part of the laboratory-cave.
Pathetic Insect did his best not to sigh in resignation. He liked the orrery. It was a simple project, an attempt to study the stars without tripping any of Princess Luna's memetic astronomy-detecting spells. It didn't involve any whirring blades, or exploding components, or any more than the standard number of potentially volatile compounds. In that sense, it was unique among the dragon Woodlock's experiments.
A new project meant new suffering, new risks. Most importantly, it meant new and exotic prosthetics and/or skin grafts for Woodlock and his fellow dragons to test out on the poor intern. Sometimes, Pathetic Insect wondered if his entire purpose in life was to have parts of his body torn, blown or otherwise cut off from his person in new and interesting ways, so that new and interesting solutions could be found. The fact that his cutie mark looked like a diagram of anatomy was hardly reassuring in that regard.
"Come along, Sphecomyioides," Woodlock called from down the hall. "Your presence is absolutely crucial for this next project."
Insect sighed, put on his eager smile, and took wing. It took a few minutes to catch up with Woodlock, and when he did, Insect was not entirely clear on what he was seeing. He could tell from the gigantic, toothy smile that his employer was very proud of it, though, and that would be enough for him in a perfect world.
Of course, in a perfect world he wouldn't have a distinct memory of seeing Woodlock smile that exact same smile seconds before the two of them had tried to reverse pancake.
"Today, you will be assisting me in testing the latest theory on draco-equine compatibility." Woodlock reached over and pulled a lever that was half the size of himself, and the room-sized apparatus bubbled to life.
From where Pathetic Insect stood, he was on the edge of a veritable city of steam pipes. Some of them were red-hot and hissing like temperamental snakes, some were so cold that ice was forming on them. And in the center, dwarfing even Woodlock in raw size, there was a massive roiling ball of blue and red fire.
"What is that?"' Insect asked.
"Oh, good, you can see it. The apparatus works." Woodlock moved away from the lever, and fanned the fireball with his wings. "In the simplest possible terms, this is the very essence of dragonkind. The thing that makes us who we are. All of the things we know without being told, all the things that we've been able to learn over the centuries. And we're going to see how well you can channel it."
All of his intern's instincts couldn't prevent Pathetic Insect from cringing in horror. "You want me... to try and channel that?"
"That is what I said." Woodlock's smile wavered for the first time since Insect had known him. "Is something the matter, Sphecomyioides?"
Insect swallowed his fear, and propelled himself back up into the air with a few lazy beats of his wings. "Of course not, sir. Just the average pre-science jitters."
"Oh, dear. You know, if you need to take a moment to have a coffee and calm down..."
Insect shook his head. "No, sir, no, I'm very ready for this." He stared down at the ball of fire, and took a deep breath in and out. "So, any ideas as to how I'm supposed to channel the essence of dragonkind?"
"No idea," Woodlock announced brightly. "Just try to hold an image in your head of the quintessential dragon. If you get it right, the experiment will be a success."
"And if I don't?"
"You needn't worry about it."
Insect didn't believe Woodlock for a second, but he sighed and tried to imagine a dragon. But not just any dragon, the very best dragon, the sort of dragon that popped into everyone's head when you said the word. He imagined an insane collection of barely-held-together aging scales, cackling wildly as it poured over ancient texts and debated the merits of molecular disintegration while snacking on ponies just trying to scrape together college credits.
At the end of the day, Woodlock gave up on trying to describe the minimal advances in draco-equine compatibility and instead wrote a dissertation on the danger of subjective experiences negatively impacting scientific environments.
Welcome to the Draconic College. Less a loose collection of mad scientists, and more an entire brood of Niv-Mizzets constantly butting heads while a bunch of pony interns get caught in the crossfire.
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Parastratiosphecomyia sphecomyioides - Wikipedia ... Well, that's an interesting reference!
... Did Pathetic Insect die by turning into a dragon by the Firemind? Or "He is about to die" a exaggeration or something?
As in they detect people thinking of astronomy? What, so she can tell them about it? Or at least know that sapients are thinking about her Night?
7647155 After a thousand years of a static night sky, astronomy was so deeply entrenched in a singular design that it didn't end up sitting particularly well with Luna. She's been at odds with astronomers ever since.
The best comparison I can come up with is, imagine you're a painter. You paint for beauty, for evocative feeling, and one day someone comes along and starts trying to use metric to analyze your work. It's beyond just an opinion you don't agree with, it's an entire outlook that doesn't seem appropriate to the medium. Luna dislikes astronomers because they try to put her works of art under a microscope, so she set up spells to keep an eye on those troublemakers.
As for the unfortunate fate of Pathetic Insect, the final lines of the chapter are meant to imply that his mental image of a dragon was so out of sync with the actual idea of the quintessential dragon that he went splat. I just didn't want to graphically describe what his death looked like.
Oh goodness. More than one Niv-Mizzet? Everyone on the planet should count themselves lucky that none of the dracogeniuses have found any uranium.
Also, I can't think of few activities more perfectly Izzet than trying to reverse pancake.
Still, all told, this doesn't seem all that much worse than the average internship.
7647166
Sounds like Estee's Luna or something, whichever one said something about how Celestia kept the night sky static... Ah. It's FOME, not Estee... Here: Story Shuffle - Matters of Interest.
Oh, 'cause with this:
It seemed like a thing that would be happening after the essence infusion attempt, if taking "At the end of the day" in a non-metaphoric manner.
Why would Luna have memetic astronomy-detecting spells? Wouldn't she like ponies to be interested in the night sky?
Or maybe it's because she's a little too interested, and just becomes completely insufferable once she latches onto a potential astronomer?
And then I read the explanation in the comments. It makes sense, but I like my idea better.
What the hay is a reverse pancake? I doubt we're talking NFL, and I'd be disappointed in the unlikely event that it had anything to do with those inane challenge vids.
7649263 Try reading the comments to see if your question's already been answered.
I... what? O.o I'll be honest, I'm glad you said he was going to die, or I definitely would have missed out what happened at the ending. :B
Dare I ask what "reverse pancake" means?