The Top Five
If anypony had asked Twilight the answer she'd been expecting when she asked Smolder what the leading causes of death were for dragons, she wouldn't have said “Eaten by predators”.
It was a more morbid topic than she usually liked to get into, but finally having a dragon around long enough to actually get some useful information was an opportunity she couldn't pass up. She'd waited, of course. She hadn't wanted to bombard her very first dragon student with an interrogation right off the mark. Well, truth be told she had wanted to do exactly that, but what kind of impression would that have made? The school was, first and foremost, about promoting friendship, and that mission had to take priority over everything else. Now that Smolder and Spike had become friends she could take the time to finally get the answers she'd needed for YEARS. So she'd sat Smolder down in the castle dining room with a heaping bowl of gems and a list of questions ready for answers.
Even if some of those answers were… unsettling.
“Eaten?” she asked with a mixture of horror and incredulity. “What kind of predator can eat a dragon?”
“Oh, y'know, rocs, hydras, ursas, chimeras,” Smolder casually ticked them off on her fingers then shrugged. “The usual.”
Twilight's eyes darted back and forth as she tried to process the idea of a chimera taking down a dragon. It didn't add up. By all accounts dragons were at the top of the food chain pretty much everywhere except the depths of the oceans. Even an Ursa Major, for all its size, was at a disadvantage against their flight and fire. To say nothing of the fact that dragons weren't simple beasts, they were intelligent creatures on par with any other race intellectually, if not technologically. A chimera was an extremely dangerous threat to a pony but a dragon?
“How does a chimera eat a dragon?”
“When we're little, duh.” Smolder tossed a fist sized emerald into her mouth and chewed noisily. “That pretty mush goesh fur mosht uf the tohp fifve caushes uf deahf.” She swallowed and licked her scaly lips clean of glittering dust while she reached out for the bowl again. “Average life expectancy for a dragon is about… a hundred.” She took a bite out of a large, rounded ruby too big to cram into her jaws whole and still be able to talk. “Giffur tahke.”
“But-- But I've read that dragons can live for millennia! Ember told me that the whole reason the Dragon Lord steps down is because if they ruled for life they'd almost never get a new one! We once had to chase a dragon out of the mountains before he could settle in for a hundred year nap and block out the sun with his snoring! To have an average lifespan that low your juvenile mortality rates would have to be incredibly high!”
Smolder shrugged. “Eh, pretty much. If you make it past your first couple of molts you're probably gonna make it long term but most of us don't. Predators really like that molt smell.”
Twilight swallowed hard. The idea of being caught and eaten… To Tartarus with that, the idea of kicking out your children and letting them get caught and eaten! What kind of cultural mindset lead to thinking THAT was okay!?
“Trust me, you'll like that one better than the second cause of death.”
Twilight gave her student a disbelieving look. “What could I like less than children getting eaten being your leading cause of death?”
She shrugged. “Dragon slayers.”
Twilight felt the blood drain from her face. “Dragon… slayers?”
“It's a distant second but, yeah, the number two cause of death for dragons is dragon slayers. That one is pretty much only for young dragons, too. Heh, I once saw a pack of slayers go after this kid who hadn't molted yet. Can you believe they were dumb enough to keep chasing him right to his parent's cave?” She grinned fiercely, the effect punctuated by the glints of red gem lingering on her teeth. “Those harpoons just made his mom mad.”
“Harpoons?” Twilight's voice was rather weak at this point, perhaps explaining why Smolder didn't hear her distress and kept on going.
“Number three is cavern collapses, and number four is avalanches and landslides. Those can get you no matter how old you get if you're not careful. A big enough mountain will crush just about anyone, so we're pretty picky about what caves we move into long term. Not to mention where we dig for gems. You learn where not to dig or...” She let the implication hang either for dramatic effect or so she could eat a small, lumpy sapphire.
A sense of claustrophobic dread crept up Twilight's spine and helpfully lifted her eyes to the vaulted crystal ceilings. The very solid, very heavy crystal ceilings. Ceilings that Spike slept under every night.
“And at number five is drowning. Cave getting flooded or just some kid with bad luck, either way.”
Twilight looked back down at her guest, but her eyes were looking straight through the young dragon to her mental list of large bodies of water in and around Ponyville. Streams, rivers, creeks, you name it. Spike had fallen into a cold lake once and nearly gotten hypothermia. If he ever decided to go swimming on his own--
“I asked Professor Fluttershy and she told me you guys mostly die from heart problems and 'old age'? I don't think a dragon has ever died of old age.”
Twilight tried to swallow but found her throat dry as a bone. “Never?”
“Never.”
A full day had passed since Twilight had Smolder over for lunch for their little dragon lesson when Smolder finally had to throw up her claws and visit the friendship tutors. The latest sections in several of her courses required a lot of putting names to faces and, when it came to ponies, Smolder had about as much luck with that as Ember did.
She glowered at the flashcards floating in the green aura of one of the friendship tutors, whose name she couldn't be sure of at the moment. She knew all three of their names, of course, but was less sure which one belonged to which pony. She was pretty sure Scootaloo was the pegasus, but the other two could go either way. It hardly seemed to matter since they were… what was that pony term? A “packaged deal”? Ever since the trio had started as tutors she hadn't seen them apart for even a second. It was honestly starting to get a little weird. They even had the same marks, something that Sandbar had told her wasn't supposed to happen as far as he knew.
The figure on the card was just as hard to sort out as the tutors. Dark, lots of gray and black, and he had a long, smooth, reddish-orange horn. Truth be told, it was mostly a pony head on a dark cloud of smoke.
“...The Pony of Shadows?”
“Um,” the little white unicorn lowered the card sheepishly. “No, sorry. That was King Sombra.”
Smolder folded her arms. “What is it with Equestria and dark smoke monsters? First that Tantabus thing, then Sombra, then the Shadow Pony.”
The yellow earth pony scratched her head. “Uh, maybe that's just what dark magic looks like? It is called 'dark' 'n all.”
“Fighting the Tantabus was awesome!” Scootaloo said. “It was all in a dream and we could do anything! It was like being in a living Power Ponies comic.”
“Oh, yeah, the living Power Ponies comic is in chapter twelve, by the way,” the earth pony added. “Ain't on this test though. This one's all about overcomin' fears 'n stuff with friendship and harmony.”
The unicorn lifted up a bigger sheet of paper covered in notes and picture of a dark unicorn wearing a red cloak with the same head as the one on the smoke cloud. “Which is why Sombra is on it! He had this creepy magic door that--”
Smolder jumped when the unicorn's lecture was cut off by the tutor's office door slamming open behind her. She twisted on the spot, expecting either Yona or an overstimulated Silverstream to greet her. Instead a small figure clumsily waddled through the door, made clumsy by the fact that he was covered, head to toe, in safety gear.
“What did you tell her?”
“Er, Spike?” The earth pony took a tentative step forward. “That you in there? What happened?”
Spike took an awkward step forward that might have been menacing if he could walk properly. It looked as though he'd been cornered by a deranged sports coach and made to put on all of the gear. Bulky hoofball shoulder pads, a hockey helmet with a slot cut for his spikes, a catchers chest protector with pillows strapped on the front and back, oversized leg guards, elbow pads, there was probably even an ill-fitting cup buried somewhere under the insulated suit that all the other gear was strapped on top of.
“What. Did you. Tell her?” he repeated.
“Uhh,” Smolder looked him up and down, “what happened to you?”
“Spiiiiiike!” Headmare Twilight rounded the doorframe, eyes lighting up when she caught sight of her assistant. “Spike! There you are! Why did you run off like that? You didn't even grab your innertube!” A blue and pink innertube floated into view in the grip of her magic along with a pair of bright orange floaties. The same raspberry aura lifted Spike off the floor and swept him away down the hall.
“I've also bought you a life jacket and some flippers! I'm also gonna talk to Rainbow Dash about adding a cloud wing to the castle! It's high time I learned how to build with clouds. Nice, soft, fluffy clooouuuds!”
Smolder and the tutors stayed quiet for a few moments as Twilight's slightly unhinged voice faded away down the halls. The dragon turned to her tutors but they looked as bewildered as she felt, except for the earth pony. She just sighed and lowered her head.
“Don't worry, girls, I've seen this before. Reckon I oughta go get Applejack.”
Smolder raised a brow. “Uh, seen what before? Apple Bloom?” she added as an afterthought. In hindsight she probably should have remembered that the weird accent meant she would be the one with “Apple” in her name.
Apple Bloom started walking to the door. “Somethin' must'a got Twilight feeling a mite overprotective. My sister got the same way once.” Apple Bloom paused and shot Smolder a look. “Spike said ya told her somethin'?”
Smolder shrugged. “She brought me over to her castle for lunch yesterday so I could tell her about dragons.”
The unicorn (Sweetie Belle by process of elimination) made to follow Apple Bloom to the door. “What did you talk about?”
“She wanted to know what our leading causes of death were.”
Sweetie tripped over her own hooves. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both gasped.
“And you told her!?”
“Aw, ponyfeathers, this ain't gonna go well. Sweetie, y'all better go get Rarity, too. Scoots--”
In a blur of orange and purple, Scootaloo was on her scooter and had her helmet jammed on her head. “I'll grab Rainbow Dash and Pinkie. We're gonna need all hooves on this one!”
“Good call, I'll go 'n grab Fluttershy, too. Sweetie, maybe ya better get Starlight.”
“Don't bother,” a rather tired voice said from the hall. “I already know.” Starlight slowly plodded past. “And I told Fluttershy already. Just get the others. We'll try to corner her in the teacher's lounge. Oh, and you,” Starlight stuck her head around the door frame to glare at Smolder.
“What did you tell her!?”
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Oh man, it is going to take a LOT to calm Twilight down from this...
The world is a terrifying and violent place and no one is safe, but somehow, Equestria sounds even more terrifying if nothing terrifying or violent ever happens there.
This was a fun little story. I approve.
Hilariously accurate.
Mama Sparkle is displeased with dragon culture. Can't say that I blame her, even if she is overreacting. They didn't get hit with the nurture stick, it would seem.
The best part of this is that I can hear her unhinged voice, as well as the resigned reactions of every other pony like, "Eeyup. Same crap as always."
Smolder’s answers felt like they were delivered with a non-chalance of someone who grew up with that reality. Nicely done.
Ah, the turn of the Industrial Revelotion average family. Lots of children in order to try and make enough to counter all the violence, infections, and natural disasters.
Given the dragons demonstrated immense variation in size, and Spikes Egg, unless Holders Boulder turns out to be that from and Elder Dragon, the larger teh dragon, the more eggs they can make at a single setting. But given how long they sleep, it looks like the far longer between megaclutches from a given one. If they force the young to roam away from protection, they must have even more than expected, which means even more eggs which suggests many wont even be viable one way or the other, and maybe form geode beds that Rock Farmers harvest?
I find it intresting that Music Neighton of the extended Apple Family is one of the top causes of death for dragons.
Twilight. The Castle is Grown crystal. It isnt going to fall. You could drop the planet on it and the rocks would flow round the structure due to the stress and magic infusion.
Maybe there could be a buisiness building reinforcing into Dragon caves to prevent them collapsing, like rock anchors and sheeting and brick vaulting etc Effectively building bridges from the inside out?
For a Roc on the outer edge of the Dragon Lands, just how much of its diet comes from various ages of young dragons, eggs, pre wing, new winged etc?
Good thing Smoulder didnt get further down the list, given everything else, it surely cant be too much to expect that in certain areas at least, and not at all rarely, and especially given Garble and companys behaviour, that major cause of dragon death is other dragons. And someway possibly not that far below that, death by being eaten by dragons.
Twilights going to bankrupt the country. Especially with the rest of the girls trying to calm her down?
Insnt nature so fascinating.
This is great -- the conversation between Smolder and Twilight is well done and very much in character. And at first I thought it was just going to be an amusing conversational vignette, but then I got to the second part, which was hilarious and made it into a full story, Nicely done!
"... it's probably for the best that I didn't mention the aliens. They only come by every thousand years or so, but I think they're about due..."
A case of Twily-nannas is always funny.
quiet
Wait until she asks about religious customs.
Smolder: "I guess it's a good thing I didn't let her know the sixth leading cause of death--smoking in bed. Of course, that only kicks in when we reach puberty. Oh, that reminds me--and then there's sex....
"
"
"
Twilight: "WHHHHAAAAATTTTT!!!!!!!??????
Spike: "Oh, just fucking great! Way to go, Smolder! There goes my stash of Marlburros and my Playstallion collection! Thanks a lot!
Smolder: "Ooops. I didn't think she was still around."
9503473
Oh, I like that.
He should be thankful they didn't cover the birds and the bees.
I can’t stop laughing!
Poor Smolder's so out of the loop on handling Twilight.
Just wait 'till Twilight hears about the Alicorn vs. Dragon wars 2891.56254 years ago..
Wait, what's the fourth leading cause? You jumped from third to fifth.
The more you think about it, the more you realize just how rare and fragile a utopia the ponies live in. I really hope we get to learn more about dragons in season 9. By the way, congrats on the feature!
9503808
“Number three is cavern collapses, and four is avalanches and landslides."
I admit this part is a little ambiguous. I'll adjust it to read a little bit clearer. Thanks for reading!
9503821
From what we've seen, they're one of the more advanced and prosperous nations around. Plus the benefit of not being a predatory species and thus less prone to aggression. I mean, their entertainment technology has completely outpaced their apparent military technology. That's a society with radically different priorities to ours, for example. Thanks for reading!
9503073
Well, they do have to thwart the apocalypse on a semi-regular basis, so I wouldn't say nothing terrifying happens to them. Imagine being the average Joe when Discord overthrew the laws of the land and physics, or having your magic sucked out of you by Tirek. Thanks for reading!
9503449
Thanks. There's always something that slips through, isn't there?
9503566
Oh yeah, that's going to be one heck of a conversation. Cross-species birds and bees.
9503473
There is no conversation so awkward that it can't become more awkward. Thank you for bringing Exhibit A. Someday, some variation of that talk will have to happen and neither Spike nor Twilight will enjoy it.
9503187
Thank you, I'm very glad to hear that her voice came across!
9503375
I'm glad you liked it and that their characters came across well. My first time writing Smolder, not to mention having her interact with Twilight, so it's nice to hear that they felt right.
9503427
She panics because she cares... slightly more than is probably healthy.
9503675
There's only one way to learn and she's getting a crash course now. Plus a chance for extra credit!
9503483
Thank you for giving it a read!
9503609
I'm glad you found it funny. Thank you for reading!
9503103
Thank you. I had originally thought to have another scene or two but ended up feeling like it was really a "less is more" situation.
9503062
Oh yeah. Big time. Lot of magical scans looking for harpoons and panicking at the sight of running water before she snaps out of this one.
9503901
I was merely referring to the joke of dragons dying from smoking in bed (remember the "Dragonshy" episode) & from the act of engaging in sex--dragons going at it should make Klingon mating rituals seem like kittens tussling. Those would contribute to the average life expectancy to further be driven down toward the lower three digits, so naturally, Twilight will have to fix those, too, to save Spike from an early grave.
9503805
There's a lot of potential for unfortunate implications there. For example, why there are only five alicorns and why so few of the dragons seen appear to be fully grown.
9503382
"Now, I'm not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens."
9503352
Well, if dragons are as territorial as they seem and live as long as is implied by 100 year "naps", how many fully grown dragons could the world realistically sustain? They certainly couldn't approach the levels of population density of the ponies in Manehatten or Canterlot, for example. If every or even most baby dragons made it to adulthood, the world would be in trouble.
9503866
Stupid me.
9503937
Wow, I'd actually forgotten that. It's been too long since I went back and watched the earlier seasons. I should take some time to fix that. As for the comparison to Klingons... you think "dragon courtship" is covered on standard property insurance in Ponyville? It's a question that might become relevant in the next couple of centuries.
9503928
Someday, Twilight will look back on this and laugh. Someday. Everypony else will look back and laugh almost immediately.
9503341
Given how she handled explaining the molt, it seems like she honestly doesn't see any problem with the harsh realities of dragon life. I'm glad I managed to convey that casual "might as well be talking about the weather" attitude towards the whole thing. Thanks for reading!
9503975
I don't see why not... considering everything else that's happened to that town. They've either got a nationwide version of Obamacare for mandatory universal purchase of disaster insurance at 10,000 bits per head per month just to cover what hits that village every other week.... Or they're not allowed any sort of insurance at all...
...moar?
9504029
I've always assumed that they live in some sort of socialist Utopia where they pitch in together as a community to rebuild everything, and the government funds anything they have to get. After all, most of the times the town has been damaged were the result of national emergencies or Celestia sending Twilight to Ponyville in the first place...
Glorious!
On the upside, that would then imply that, seeing some dragons live for so incredibly long already, then they might just be capable of living forever.
Barring none of these artificial causes of death Smolder lists, of course, but that would probably be why they're the leading causes of death. A dragon just keeps right on living until he or she meets their end at one of those.
Of course, Twilight isn't stopping to think about that, nor the fact that Spike's gotten this far in life without incident, as well as the fact that a number of these dangers are probably going to be less likely for Spike so long as he continues to live among the ponies, at least for the foreseeable future. He already lives a pretty sheltered life in comparison to other dragons, so I have few doubts Spike will safely, easily, get to adulthood at the very least.
Gang best open with telling Twilight all of that.
This actually makes a lot of sense and explains the rarity and low population of dragons in the show: Low fertility rate + loads of predators of the young to keep them under control.
Aw jeez! It's Somepony to Watch Over Me episode all over again... but with Twilight overprotecting Spike!
Still hilarious though!
Classic Twilighting ....
I've tears in my eyes from laughing
9504042
Well, they're clearly neither a purely capitalist nor socialist society, although we can see there are elements of both as well as some feudal bits tossed in as well. It's been shown that bartering is also a major component to their economy. A utopia, I'll agree, but a "socialist utopia" would be even more unbelievable than magic. At least with sufficient technology applied, you can always mimic "magic".
If they had to pay money for repairing the damages, then it would likely drain the national treasury in short order, thus the need for a tax to cover the costs mentioned in my earlier post.
OTOH. rebuilding most likely is done from the efforts and materials gathered by their own hooves, thus only costing the labor of fixing everything not completely destroyed beyond their ability to recycle the debris.
Thus, it's very probable that Ponyville is simply uninsurable due to the number of disasters that occur there. If anyplace in Equestria has insurance, I don't think you will find it available in Ponyville.
this is great I cannot wait for more
edit:I see you have this marked as complete, but the finish really suggests more. Is it done or will there be more chapters
I wonder just how many generations of egs and young have gone to feed Torch to get to the size he is without drowning the world in spawn, or thousands of years ago when young or even teen, how many the hunter squads just killed, how many they ate, and how many they did just like cats, and played with.
9504161
Funniest bit to me is that in order to reach this utopia you need an immortal and benevolent ruler. She knows how to keep everything running because she’ll be dealing with any and all consequences of her actions, no matter how many centuries away they are.
Nah, Spike is like Keith Richards, he should have died years ago but perseveres on through numerous life threatening events. He’s tough as teak. They’ve both survived being crushed by falling books for instance, although Keith broke 3 ribs.
9503473
Keith Richards set light to his bed while high twice. Survived intact.
9504161
Um... That's not entirely how disaster relief funding works... Think of it as a big pool that the entire country chips into and whenever one section of the country has a disaster they get to dip in. It doesn't "drain the treasury" because everyone everywhere isn't constantly having disasters, so it's not being dipped into by everyone all the time. Ponyville gets destroyed a couple times a year, so it probably gets more than most towns its size, but it's also a small town, which keeps costs down, and it's of strategic importance, which makes it worth repairing over and over.
9504302
To paraphrase the late Robin Williams: "There's a cure for whatever biological weapons may be used against us... and that cure is inside Keith Richards."
9504273
It's... probably for the best that we don't think about those questions too much. That way lies, well, I think that emoji you used there pretty much sums it up, actually.
9504177
Sorry, but this is going to be a standalone chapter. I had originally planned to write out Twilight's freakout and getting talked down in detail but I ended up cutting it off as it stands now. I didn't think I could really pull of the freakout, confrontation, and resolution without turning Twilight into a complete caricature. Every attempt I made felt so clumsy, 2-dimensional, and like I was stretching the joke too far.
I'm sorry to disappoint. Thank you for reading what's here, at least. Sorry if the ending is too much like a cliffhanger. I didn't mean it to come across like that.