Straight from the Dragon's Mouth
“And this is our final stop for the day!” said Headmare Twilight, smiling as she made a grand, sweeping gesture at the lake before them with her hoof.
Smoulder rolled her eyes when her classmates oohed and aahed amongst themselves, staring at the crystal-blue waters with almost draconic mania in their collective gaze. After a long morning of tromping around the surrounding woods and farmlands under the relentless rays of the sun, listening to Twilight lecturing about agriculture and early pony civilisation, they all appreciated the lake for exactly one reason and one reason only. Even Ocellus, who could listen to Twilight for hours on end without breaking a sweat, had transformed into a dragon to give herself some natural resistance to the heat.
They didn’t appreciate the lake for what it really was. They couldn’t.
It was roughly the size of Ponyville and probably deep enough even for elder dragons to comfortably dive into without hitting the bottom. Gentle slopes covered with scrubs and pines surrounded it, with a few beaches in between that consisted mostly of black gravel that gradually gave way to regular dirt and thick grass. Go any further than that, and it was all fences and farmland that ponies had set up for themselves.
As far as lakes went, it probably looked ordinary enough to ponies and other creatures. But Smoulder knew better.
She sucked in a breath through her nostrils and hummed appreciatively when she caught a whiff of sulphur and a rich cocktail of minerals. In the distance, small plumes of steam rose from the shoreline, likely marking the locations of steam vents and hot springs. She could already taste that savoury water, and she was positively itchy with anticipation of a nice bath to fortify her scales.
Twilight had other ideas.
“All right, class, I know what’s on everyone’s mind,” – she wiped sweat off her brow with a wing and gave them a gentle smile – “but I need all of you to be patient and practice a little more self-control while we make our way down to the beach. There’s something I want to show you before we are done for the day.”
“Dude, I hope… it doesn’t… take much longer,” huffed Sandbar as they trudged down a worn dirt path to make their way down to the beach. His coat was matted and could almost be classified as a raincloud, considering all the sweat that dripped everywhere he went. “If I melt, someone please scoop me up in a bucket and pour me into the lake, thanks.”
“You think pony coat bad? Yona feel like baked cake!” Yona shielded her eyes with a foreleg and glared at the sun overhead. “If Tall White Pony not careful, she make enemy of yaks. Again.”
Despite being more than a little sweaty herself, Silverstream still managed to keep a bounce in her steps. “Aww, chin up, guys! Just keep thinking of all the fun we will have after the lesson. You guys could take turns diving to the bottom of the lake with me—who knows what we’ll find down there!”
“Unless there’s a big pile of treasure down there, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort,” Gallus muttered as he plodded along, ears drooping and tail dragging on the ground.
“Well, maybe not. But…” Silverstream leaned close to Gallus, batted her eyelashes and whispered conspiratorially, “What about moments that we’ll treasure for the rest of our lives, hmm?”
Gallus stared at her. A little bit of red made it through the plumage on his cheeks. “Oh, uh… sure? Why not.”
Ocellus shook her head. “Males…”
She kept looking ahead and scribbling on her notepad, still comfortably picking up on whatever Twilight was talking about up at the front. Smoulder couldn’t help grinning when she looked around and saw the other students giving them—the only two draconids around—jealous looks whilst they huffed and puffed along the way.
All twenty of them soon reached relatively level ground at the beach, and spread out to form a semicircle around Twilight whilst she stood next to what looked like the ruined base of a stone hut and a pile of rusty tools and cracked stoneware. Farther behind that, Smoulder spotted similar structures dotting the slopes of the lake, all arranged in a pattern that reminded her of some of the older neighbourhoods in Ponyville.
Once everyone had settled down—with the occasional longing glance at the lapping shoreline—Twilight’s horn glowed with magic as she picked up a triangular shard of metal and raised it high enough for everyone to see.
“Okay, who can tell me what this is?”
After a moment of silence, one earth filly raised her hoof. “That is… it’s so old that it’s hard to tell, but that looks like the head of a ploughshare, Miss Twilight.”
“Very good, Cultivar. It’s an old design, but it’s conceptually identical to what most farmers use today, especially earth ponies.”
Twilight set aside the plough and then levitated what looked like a thick bowl and stone stick from the pile. “And how about these? Anyone want to tell me—”
“Mortar and pestle,” Gallus drawled without even raising his hand.
He then grunted when Ocellus elbowed him in the ribs.
Twilight ignored their exchanged scowls and carried on as if nothing had happened. “That’s correct. Now, most modern households don’t use them anymore, but they used to be a very important part of our ancestors’ daily lives—for grinding, mincing and mixing food or medicine.
“But there’s another detail worth noting. Take a look at these markings,” – she rotated the bowl and magically highlighted a swirly pattern on its side until it glowed brightly – “and tell me, what’s so significant about them?”
“Ooh, I know that one!” Silverstream raised her hand and bounced on the spot. “They’re zebra glyphs. That one stands for vegetables!”
“Bountiful harvest, actually, but that was a pretty close approximation! I’m very happy that you remember what we covered in the previous semester.” Twilight beamed at everyone. “Now, these are just two quick examples, but over the years, archaeologists have excavated many similar tools and ornaments that are distinctly Equestrian or Zebrican in design, all buried together in this village and showing signs of extensive, everyday usage. What does this mean?”
Smoulder snorted and crossed her arms. “Easy. Ponies conquered zebras and took their stuff.”
Twilight blinked, then shook her head slowly as she flipped through a book she’d fished out of her saddlebag. “No, I’m afraid that’s not supported by the historical evidence, Smoulder. The ponies living here had next to no militarisation, and zebras were often buried alongside ponies. Any other guesses?”
A unicorn colt raised his hoof, but Smoulder didn’t catch his answer; she’d spotted Gallus smirking as he placed his upturned palm under Sandbar’s muzzle, who then winced, stuck his face into his saddlebag, and reluctantly spat a couple of golden bits into Gallus’ hand. Gallus then polished the coins on his chest plumage and carefully slipped them into his own pack. When he noticed her watching, he hastily averted his eyes and whistled nonchalantly.
Smoulder grinned and made a mental note to corner him later for her cut of the spoils.
When she turned back to Twilight, she found her already addressing the rest of the class.
“—that’s why this village is such an important discovery. As Cumber Patch pointed out, the ponies and zebras of this village were a community that exhibited the ideals of Harmony and Friendship, and they did this way back around 710 ANM, long before the return of the Elements of Harmony.”
“Then what happened to ponies and zebras?” asked Yona. “Village broken and no creature living here now.”
“Did they pull a hippogriff and migrate somewhere?” Silverstream pointed at the lake and grinned. “Maybe they’re living there right now!”
Twilight’s ears drooped as she shook her head. “I’m afraid not. There are no records that specify what happened to the old settlements in this region, but given the fact that Obsidian the Cursed built his wizard tower less than ten miles to the northwest of here in 807 ANM, our best guess is that they eventually wanted to distance themselves from his dark magic and crazy experiments.”
Smoulder tuned out the rest of Twilight’s lecture.
A ruined wizard’s tower? Why couldn’t they have gone and visited that instead? The thought of all the ancient magical artefacts she could’ve gotten her claws on for her hoard—and partially shared with her friends, of course, because she wasn’t a total jerk—almost gave her a growth spurt there and then.
Twilight continued showing off more broken stuff to everyone, explaining how they worked and what they were used for. Storage jars, brushes, fire pits, knives and stuff like that. Even a cracked chamber pot with calcified contents that everyone wrinkled their muzzles at. Yuck.
But then she brought out a stone ring from behind the hut, which instantly drew Smoulder’s attention back to what she was saying. It was bone-white in colour and pockmarked with dozens of shallow cavities and thousands of pinprick holes on its coarse surface, but it had been expertly shaved and ground down until it had an almost perfect doughnut shape, roughly two feet in diameter and three or four inches thick.
“A few objects found in this area have puzzled archaeologists for decades, and none more so than this one,” said Twilight as she stood the ring up on its side and held it steady with her hoof on top, showing sizeable gap in the middle to everyone. “At first, ponies thought that they may have been used as wheels, but most archaeologists disagree, since very few of them come in matching sets, and there’s only a single recorded instance of one being found connected to a wooden axle. They’re all made of pumice, which is a very light and porous rock that would wear down and crack easily if used like that.”
Ocellus shuddered. “Hate that stuff. It’s awful when tiny pieces of it get in between our plates and wear down our chitin, especially when we still had holes everywhere.”
“Pumice is also very abrasive,” Twilight continued, scraping her hoof against the ring. “It can be used to scrub and soften tough fabrics, and most of the houses here had at least one of them in storage. Most archaeologists agree that this is most likely what they were used for: washing clothes, and possibly grinding food and scrubbing coats if you had smaller pieces of them.
“The only remaining mystery is why the settlers chose to make them specifically in this shape, and in so many sizes,” she added with a shrug. “Just look at them!”
She placed the ring next to the pile of other stuff and trotted around the ruined hut, beckoning them over with a wing.
Smoulder and the others followed, and many of her classmates gasped when they saw that the rest of the shoreline behind the house was littered with similar rings that came in neat stacks, messy piles or were otherwise randomly strewn along the beach. They came in a huge variety of sizes, from fun-sized like the one Twilight had shown to them, to monstrous ones that would’ve been taller than a house if stood up on their side. And although many of them were half-buried in gravel and had cracks, stains and other blemishes on their surfaces, they mostly retained their doughnut shapes and had pretty consistent proportions.
Some of the rings did differ from the standard design, though. They were much smaller in size, almost rectangular in cross-section instead of circular, and had proportionally smaller gaps in the middle.
“Professor Dig Site from Canterlot University has written extensively about them in his journals, and the prevailing theory is that the settlers of this region might’ve made them like this due to superstition or based on the instruction of eccentric wizards.” Twilight leafed through the pages of her notebook and pointed a feather at one of the larger rings. “As you can see, something of that size is completely impractical for the uses we’ve previously covered, but as a monument or ceremonial sculpture—”
“He’s wrong.”
Twilight froze with her mouth open in mid-sentence, then blinked a couple of times and stared at Smoulder. “What?”
“That Professor what’s-his-name—”
“Dig Site.”
“Professor Dig Site is wrong,” Smoulder repeated, crossing her arms. “About the rings, I mean. They definitely weren’t made by ponies or zebras.”
“Then who made them?” asked Sandbar.
She puffed out her chest and jabbed a thumb at herself. “Dragons, duh. Our claws are pretty good for carving rock when we feel like it.”
“I… I wasn’t aware that dragons made tools like that,” said Twilight, still a little glassy-eyed. It was pretty much the same expression she’d worn when a student had mentioned that nopony in his village knew how to read.
“They’re not tools. They’re, umm, I guess you could say they’re… toys.” Smoulder glanced around in the ensuing silence. All eyes were on her, now. “What?”
Gallus picked up a particularly small ring, which proved light enough even for him to lift with one arm. He then looked at Smoulder, cocked one eyebrow whilst giving her an off-kilter smile, and held it horizontally, as if he was going to toss it over her head.
It took her a couple of seconds to catch his drift, but once she did, Smoulder blew smoke out her nostrils and grinned menacingly. “Oh, try it, blue chicken. I’ll roast you in five seconds flat.”
“Aww, but you were so happy about it last time!” Gallus dropped the ring and sniggered. “Also, it’s fowl, actually.”
Smoulder rolled her eyes.
Seriously, were they ever going to let her forget about the one time she’d gone through the magic mirror and gotten turned into a dog?
She then snorted and rounded on the rest of her classmates. “They’re not Frisbees, okay? They’re barely aerodynamic! And the next one who tries to play fetch with me is getting smoked until they’re well-done and crusty.”
“Okay, there’ll be no smoking or roasting today,” Twilight interjected with a nervous chuckle. “To get back on topic, maybe we could instead focus on how you know so much about these pumice rings. Could you please share with the class, Smoulder?”
“Sure, why not.”
Without waiting for permission, Smoulder strode past Twilight and walked along the beach. Black gravel and sharp stones crunched underneath her feet and under the hooves of everyone following behind. When she found a suitable chunk of rock, she picked it up, sniffed it and then took a bite.
Crunchy. Slightly spicy with obsidian. Relatively young.
She swallowed and tossed the remainder into the water. “This used to be a caldera, until it collapsed and water filled it up.”
Twilight trotted up to her side and gazed at the lake. After a few seconds, she smiled and nodded. “That’s really impressive. I hadn’t gotten to that part yet, but you’re right; some ancient texts from earlier than 580 ANM referred to this place as the ‘Lake of Fire’. Ponies and zebras had most likely settled here because the volcanic soil was so fertile. You can even find hot springs on the east side of the lake as well.”
“But what does all that have to do with the rings?” someone piped up.
“Getting there.” Smoulder put her hands on her hips and looked across the deep blue waters, taking in the contours of the surrounding slopes and treelines. She then closed her eyes and inhaled through her nostrils, savouring the faint aroma of sulphur. “My mother once told me about a lake in the pony lands that she liked to swim in when she was younger. Lots of elder dragons brought their hatchlings and drakes to swim there, too. She stopped coming after the caldera collapsed. It was a really long time ago and I never got to see it, but I think that this might actually be the one she was talking about.”
A pegasus, Funnel Cloud, opened his mouth to interrupt, but Smoulder swiftly silenced him with a glare.
After he’d snapped his mouth shut, Smoulder threw a quick glance around and walked a little farther along the beach until she found a ring of suitable size. She checked it to make sure it had no cracks, then shrugged off her backpack and stepped into the gap in the middle and pulled it up. It took a little wriggling, but once she had gotten the ring past her hips and tail, she could let go and simply let it rest comfortably on her belly.
She also found a smaller, blockier pair of rings and slipped them up her arms until they fit snugly around her biceps. Simply keeping her arms bent at the elbows prevented them from slipping off, and after flexing a little to make sure that they weren’t tight enough to cut off her blood circulation, Smoulder turned to her classmates and spread her arms out with her palms upturned, as if she’d just performed a magic trick.
“Ta-da! Figured it out yet?”
A lot of blank stares and blinking followed her demonstration. Half of the class looked as if they thought she’d lost her mind, and the other half looked like they were trying to mentally calculate some fancy math equation that only Twilight or Starlight could figure out.
Two or three smarter cookies had the light of dawning realisation in their wide eyes, but since they didn’t look like they were going to share notes with the class anytime soon, Smoulder decided to just chew and spit it out for them.
“Pumice floats well,” she said.
More silence.
Then, Sandbar suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh wow, dude... Are you saying that all these” – he swept his foreleg around, pointing his hoof from one pile of rings to the next – “are actually just floaties for dragons?”
Trust Sandbar to be the first one to figure out something related to swimming.
Outwardly, she grinned and nodded. “Not the word we use for them, but yeah. Ours are even better; they don’t go flat and sink just because you accidentally poked one with a claw.”
Twilight stared. “But, but… but that’s just—all those years Dig Site had spent on research in this area! All those expeditions and conferences…”
“Sorry, Teacher.” Smoulder shrugged. “But that professor was just plain wrong, even if it wasn’t his fault. We dragons made these, and you ponies must’ve found them much later and used them for other things.”
“Wait a minute, but these are made of rocks. Rocks don’t float!” cried Silverstream. She then rapped her knuckles on a ring and giggled at Smoulder. “Are you sure they’re supposed to be used for swimming?”
“Yona agree with Silverstream. Wearing rock when swimming looks like good way to meet ancestors quickly. Very quickly,” Yona added with a frown.
“They’re for swimming in lava, not water. I mean, pumice can float in water, too, but not well enough to hold up a dragon.” Smoulder pointed her tail at the lake. “In case I wasn’t clear, this was all pure lava before the caldera collapsed. Dragons wouldn’t have wasted their time flying all the way here if it was all just water—that’s why they stopped coming.”
Silverstream frowned and scratched the back of her head. “Hmm, I don’t know…”
“Hey, I can prove it. No problem.” Smoulder turned to Twilight and pointed at the clear patch of gravel on the beach. “If you could make some lava for me right there, that would be great.”
Twilight continued staring at nothing in particular. A few strands of hair sprang out of her mane with audible twangs and curled up whilst she muttered under her breath.
“Uh, Teacher?”
Twilight’s ears perked up, and she shook her head before finally focusing on Smoulder. “Oh, right. Lava. Sure. Everyone, please stand back here with me.”
Her horn blazed with light, and she bit her lip as she blasted a continuous beam of fiery magic straight into the ground. A great plume of steam rose into the air, but even that soon disappeared in the sheer heat radiating from the scorched ground. The stones and gravel rapidly turned cherry-red, then bright orange as they hissed and melted at the edges, and finally a brilliant orange-yellow when they transitioned into a bubbling pool of molten sludge.
The moment Twilight’s beam of magic subsided, Smoulder walked to the edge of the pool and gently lowered her foot into it. The greying skin at the top flexed and rippled underneath her foot, warming her scales quite nicely.
She checked to see that no one was within splashing distance—Twilight had shielded her classmates with a dome barrier, anyway—and jumped right into the pool. With her full weight, her legs and tail easily pierced the skin of the lava, which gurgled as she rapidly sank until her pumice float hit the surface. It briefly hissed as air and moisture expanded and escaped from its pores, but her overall weight still forced it below the surface until even the bands on her arms dipped into the lava. But she rose right back up almost immediately and continued bobbing gently on the surface until she reached equilibrium between her weight and buoyancy.
Optimal temperature, and deep enough that her feet barely touched the bottom, too.
Smoulder leaned back, closed her eyes and sighed as the heat soothed muscles strained by a long day of endless walking, not caring that she had an audience. It was immensely satisfying to feel all the stupid parasites under her scales popping and sizzling away into vapour. Ponies might’ve been onto something with soap and maybe their mud baths, but nothing beat a good lava bath when it came to an all-out cleansing.
“Oh yeah, that’s the stuff…” she murmured.
“Huh. So they do float in lava,” said Silverstream. “That’s so cool! Or hot, I guess. You know what I mean.”
Behind her, Gallus pouted as he handed a couple of bits back to Sandbar.
“Told ya, didn’t I?” Smoulder grinned and patted her ring. “Even dragons take a while to figure out swimming, so we wear these while we’re learning. And the bigger ones are for the really slow guys who take forever to learn, or are just too lazy to swim. Or just prefer to float, I guess. I know some ponies like to use them even when they already know how to swim.”
She saw a few blushing faces amongst her classmates, no doubt thinking about the rubber and plastic ones that they must’ve brought along in their saddlebags.
Ocellus, meanwhile, had been holding her tail in her claws and fiddling with the tip whilst gazing at the bubbling, glowing lava. She had that dreamy, mesmerised twinkling in her eyes which reminded Smoulder of that one time they’d found her and King Thorax sitting in front of the Ceremonial Dragon Flame of Friendship, staring at the bluish-purple flames for hours.
But Ocellus’ trance was cut short with a yelp when Yona cheerfully thumped her on the back and said, “Yona can tell when Ocellus too shy to have fun. Yona think Ocellus should try! Only one who can turn into dragon and swim with Smoulder in melted rocks!”
Ocellus blinked and gaped at Yona. “Wait, what?”
“Hey, she’s right, Ocellus!” Smoulder waved at her and grinned as she churned the pool with her wings and tail. “You wanna grab a ring and hop in? The lava’s great!”
Ocellus’ pupils shrank to pinpricks as she dug her heels in and fluttered her wings to withstand Yona’s friendly push. “Oh, no-no-no! Not a chance. I mean, I’d love to, but my shapeshifting isn’t that good yet, so I’m pretty sure I’m only fire-resistant, not lava-proof.”
Smoulder sagged a little. “Oh. Well, that’s too bad.”
“Sorry.” Ocellus smiled weakly. “Really wish I could.”
She shrugged. “Eh, don’t sweat it. There’s always next time, I guess.”
Unfortunately for Smoulder, reality had other disappointments in store for her.
Without a steady source of heat or any magma underneath, her lava pool couldn’t stay molten for long. She could already feel it congealing and sticking to her scales, so she had to get out before she got properly cemented and crusted in. Melting yourself out with fire breath was a lot of hard work, and that was only if you could even breathe deeply enough to get a good flame jet going. Every dragon made that mistake only once.
Smoulder clambered out of the pool and squeezed out of her ring and arm bands, taking care to peel off any lava clinging to the pumice and her scales.
In the meantime, Twilight had dispelled her barrier and trotted forward to stand next to Smoulder.
She took a moment to straighten out her mane, then faced the class and with an uneven smile. “Okay, I’m okay. Phew. Now that I’ve had some time to process that little doozy, I believe that there’s an important lesson to be learnt here today. Would anyone like to take a shot at summarising it?”
Several hooves went up at once.
“Pumice has many useful properties!”
“Dragons are smarter than we thought?”
“Ponies and zebras aren’t the only ones who like to go swimming.”
Gallus smirked and raised his hand. “It’s okay to get schooled by Smoulder?”
Twilight smiled ruefully and nodded. “All true, including that last one, Gallus. I’ll just bring it all together and summarise it as the following:
“It is natural for most of us to take a pony-centric view of the world around us, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it can sometimes lead us to the wrong conclusions. We aren’t the only species to have lived here in Equestria, or anywhere else, really.
“Whilst doing my research in preparation for this field trip, I had not even considered the possibility of dragons visiting this place for recreation, let alone contributing to the cultural heritage of the locals. And apparently, neither did Professor Dig Site or any of his associates.
“It just goes to show that the world is more wonderful and complex than any one of us could figure out by ourselves, and Smoulder’s sharing today is proof that bringing our knowledge and experiences together improves our odds of finding the truth.
“Who knows what other mysteries in all our combined histories lie unsolved, just waiting for the right creature to come along and share their insight?” Twilight rubbed her feathers together and giggled fiendishly. “Ooh, just think about all the research paper opportunities—I’ve got a very interesting letter to write to the Royal Society of Archaeology tonight. You could help me, Smoulder, and you’ll even get credited for it!”
Smoulder gulped. Maybe volunteering that information hadn’t been the smartest move, not when she was facing the possibility of being stuck in a room for hours whilst Twilight grilled her for information…
Judging by that jealous squint, Ocellus probably would’ve given a leg and a wing to trade places with her, whilst Sandbar, Gallus and Yona were giving her sympathetic winces. Silverstream was having a party in her head.
Then, someone’s pointed cough drew Twilight’s attention back to her class of wilting and very sweaty students. Many were swaying on their legs and running their hooves through matted manes, staring longingly at the lake’s crystal-clear water.
Twilight straightened up and cleared her throat. “Sorry. Thank you all for being so patient.”
She then looked around at them and smiled as she teleported her saddlebags onto the ground. “All right, class, who’s ready for a dip?”
“Whoo, finally!” cried Sandbar.
Smoulder cheered and pumped her fist into the air along with her classmates, and then stumbled when a dozen of them stampeded past her to get to the water’s edge. Some stopped to rummage through their bags and sat on the gravelly shore, blowing up their floats and beach balls.
Gallus yelped when Silverstream grabbed him by the arm and dragged him all the way to the water. They crashed through the gentle waves and waded out until they were neck-deep in water, then clasped hands over Silverstream’s necklace and transformed into sleek, shimmery aquatic forms before vanishing into the depths.
Sandbar and Yona had a much more sedate time off by themselves in the water, away from everyone’s horseplay so that he could continue teaching her how to swim without her customary lifejacket.
That left just her and Ocellus. Plus Twilight.
Ocellus was miming something with her claws whilst Twilight looked on with her ears perked and her eyes sparkling. If Smoulder had to guess, Twilight had already gotten started on getting Ocellus to fact-check some other aspects of archaeology.
That could wait.
She strode up to them and said, “C’mon, Ocellus, you can nerd out later—we’re burning daylight over here. I wanna show you how to cook fish in a hot spring!”
“But I—”
“Actually, she’s right. You should be having fun right now.” Twilight gave Smoulder an apologetic smile. “Sorry for keeping her, and thanks for helping out with the class today. But before you go, could you tell me if this is another object of draconic artifice?”
Twilight teleported into her magical grip what looked like an eight-foot-long pole with a crude, blunt hook at the end, which was composed entirely of black volcanic rock. Its rugged surface had a lot of grooves that resembled stretch marks, though it did have a few smooth patches at the base of the shaft and just before the hook where the rock was squished in someone’s grip.
“This does not look like it serves any practical use for equines, and Professor Dig Site noted that similar devices were found in this area.”
Smoulder nodded. “Yeah. That’s one of ours.”
Twilight’s grin widened as she stroked the pole with a hoof. “What’s it for?”
“It’s a snot hooker.”
Twilight’s hoof froze as her grin slowly peeled off her muzzle. “Come again?”
“Sometimes we get lava boogers after a swim, and our claws aren’t long enough to pick our nostrils.” Smoulder pointed at the hook in Twilight’s magical grip and smirked. “That one’s obviously for an adult, but if you look around, you can find ones that will fit dragons of other ages. Heck, some of them are even made from someone’s lava boogers; just grab a blob, heat it up, stretch it out and shape it until you got a hook that’ll fit into your nostrils. And hey, if you accidentally get hardening lava in your ear holes and other places, you can also stick it up your—”
“Uh, I think she gets the idea,” said Ocellus.
Closing her eyes, Twilight sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils, gingerly took her hoof away from the pole and gently set them down on the ground.
She then sighed and spread her wings, hooking each one around Smoulder’s and Ocellus’ shoulders as she firmly herded them towards the water. “You know what? I think we’ve discovered quite enough for today. Let’s go swimming!”
Smoulder chuckled along with Ocellus. “About time!”
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Asking someone who was actually there is not cheating. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to justify the real-life status quo in a setting that should have destroyed it, and being Equestria makes that even more futile than it usually is.
I love the idea that that's why Yakyakistan was so hostile to Equestria. "Tall White Pony declare war on yaks every summer. Yaks not take lying down!"
Well there's a story.
Fantastic work, especially the assorted draconic artifacts. Tools exist to perform tasks that can't be peformed without them, and there isn't much that dragons can't do. But they do have a few blind spots, and these cover them nicely. Abd the character work was outstanding as well.
Thank you for this. Best of luck in the contest.
Cute, well done, and amusing!
Ha! I loved this. I actually just love the idea of dragon floaties in general, that's hilarious.
She can say it because she's a hippogriff, but that's their term. Although Gallus might have H-word privileges due to also being a griff.
Coincidentally, this may enter into my own story.
At first I was thinking this was a different kind of 'toy', so I had to go check the tags again! Phew :)
I love this story. Dragon floaties. Hee!
Fascinating! I thought this was going to be some kind of Hobbit reference or something, but what we got was a lot better. Poor pony "anthropologists" can't even rely on our knowledge of universal human nature...
Very nice story! I love Twilight's little brain breakage there.
Smolder is awesome and I love the implied Smocellus. This was really funny and very enjoyable. Best of luck!
10050259
Why wouldn't ponies be allowed to say it? That's what the "hippo" in "hippogriff" is there for!
This was super cute! I really liked how the story started by showing Smolder knew something about this lake no one else did. When I was reading through the character moments like the Gallstream hints, the Gallus-Sandbar bet, and Smolder’s dog-ification, the foreshadowing that Smolder would reveal something was always at the front of my mind so I had an idea of where the story was going. The revelation itself is clever and demonstrated in an adorable way, and I liked how Smolder acknowledged that the rings might have gotten repurposed after they were initially made. Twilight’s mini-breakdown is very in-character for her, and the ending discovery was fun. Great, fun story!
One little typo I wanted to point out: “Dig Site” should be capitalized in the line, “And apparently, neither did Professor dig site or any of his associates.”
Ceremonial purposes : archaeology :: acts of God : insurance, QED
Gotta love how Smolder knew what the place & those things were, also the mini-brain break by Twilight was tops!
Hmmm I smell another possible story here?
Thanks for sharing!
10050469
There's a bit of a difference between "we've given up on trying to figure out what this is" and "haha, you thought anybody would stay in business by giving away money?"
If there were a story like this for every shipping, HiE, or displaced fic, I would be so happy.
10050161
Twilight just needs time to wrap her head around the fact that academicians were dead wrong in this case.
10050201
Yakyakistan has been declaring war on Equestria annually for over a thousand years. Their runners just never make it to Canterlot before autumn, at which point they declare victory ("Ha, ponies scared before war herald even arrive!") and go home.
Unfortunately, Twilight eventually builds a railway connection directly to Yakyakistan.
10050259
What 10050380 said. Yona and Ocellus might be the only ones who don't qualify, but given that changelings are shapeshifters...
10050384
Fixed. Thanks for spotting that!
10050288
Eh heh... I'd originally planned for the second item she identified to be of the 'Bad Dragon' variety, but decided to change it to something more innocuous in order to avoid a tonal clash with the rest of the story.
10050314
After this little incident, I imagine that Twilight's gonna be pushing them to hire consultants from other species to fact-check their work.
10050469
Hmm, I don't know about that... One could say that they are equal in terms of intellectual laziness, but the intentions behind them are very different, I think.
10050524 10050337
Twilight getting a mini (or major) brain-break is practically a genre in itself.
And the yaks clearly survived to have the chance to be made enemies again, so that says something about that.
Obviously it's a little different in the real world (less intelligent species to consider), but this is always a good thing to remember in the fields of history, or even in other fields of science for that matter. It can be easy to get locked onto a particular way of viewing things, but the reality may prove to be something quite different altogether, and it's always better to keep an open mind to the other possibilities too in instances such as this.
Oh, and that sometimes the actual explanation is waaaay more mundane than you might think.
This was a nice, casual, fic, light on the shipping (not that I have a problem with it, but we could use a few more fics in the Discovery contest that's not just flat-out shipping) and very slice of life. Can hardly ever complain to a fic like that.
kinda wish this was higher in maturity to get some dirty jokes out it but I'll take a giant dragon q tip
Something I forgot to add is that Spike really missed out here, both in learning about dragon culture & seeing Twilight flip out a bit!
10050909 Eldest, that's what Alondro is! He was here before Facebook, and saw the Tumblrites arriving. He saw the first website and the first flamewar on /b/, when the dark web wasn't scary, before the SJWs came from the Outside and ruined everything.
This...was...perfect
A fun story with a great lesson. Fit for an episode.
10050722 "Professor Dig Site was wr.... was w.... I can't say it. He was ever so slightly mistaken in the assumptions he made, so he was mostly right, but only a little wro... No, I'm not going to say it."
Nicely done, with a broadly applicable lesson for real world researchers, too. We may not share our world with other sapients, but there are other species that leave traces analogous to human artifacts nonetheless.
"Silverstream was having a party in her head" made me chuckle.
Just got to the bit where Twilight reveals the pile of differently-sized rings, and I'm calling it now -- they were dragon-sized pumice scrubs.
Eh, never mind, close enough in spirit.
In any case, this was a perfectly reasonable mistake for Twilight and the other scholars to make. Asking dragons about this would've solved everything early, but until just now they would also have had no reason to assume the dragons, specifically, would have known more about this than anyone else.
Ego-centrism results in all kinds of misunderstandings.
Such a nice slice of life. Worldbuilding is great.
10051917
Irrevelant in this situation.
How were they supposed to guess it was dragons, when there were no evidence of them?
They knew there were ponies and zebras there, and as such made the logical assumption that it was related to them instead of doing the equivalent of screaming ¨Aliens!¨
Very nice. Though you do mention Gallus’s ears drooping near the beginning.
10050722
10050288
I was thinking the 'Bad Dragon' variety for the first toy.
Then, when it turned out so innocent, I fully expected it again for the second. 
...Well, that was boring. I was expecting this to be great since your writing is normally fantastic, but all I'm left with is the feeling that reading this was a waste of time.
10052390
Well, there was the fact that many of them were appropriately dragon sized...and the fact that surely there was enough geological evidence to suggest the floaties predated the settlement, back when that caldera was still in full swing...
But you're right, given the evidence available and with consideration that there's clearly still much about dragons the ponies don't yet know or understand, it wasn't unreasonable for the ponies to assume it related to the ponies and zebras that had later inhabited the area.
Still. Even though the available evidence seemed to support the ponies theories rather than the reality, the fact they still didn't know definitively for sure meant they still should've been open to possible alternatives (which you always should when studying fields such as this) that could explain it too, just in case something comes along (like a young dragoness who happens to know better) to present new evidence suggesting otherwise. And to that end, the argument can still be made that it didn't seem like the ponies stopped to do that, at least not as much as they should've.
I'd certainly not call it egocentrism either though. More just getting caught off guard by a possibility that was, understandably, failed to be considered. And, you know, I can forgive them for that, it was an honest mistake.
Though it did amuse me that, upon failing to come up with other explanations, they just assumed the floaties were for some religious purpose. Seems like that's always the assumption for artifacts the purpose for can't be immediately explained, that there was "some religious purpose" to it. Though at least it wasn't the other most common assumption and that the purpose was sexual in some manner.
This was such a delightful read, everything felt natural. The dialogue was so well done, the pacing is just right, plus all the story elements was so endearing.
Well done author.
10053945
All of the Student 6 felt like they had their place. Yona was brief, but we still got her threatening someone.
10054302
That someone being Celestia
None messes with best yak!
10050722
Tonal clash? Maybe, but extremely fitting for archeology.
On the other claw, this was a place dragons took their hatchlings. For them to leave that kind of toy around in such a place would tell of a radically different society than usually expected, and while that would be interesting it'd be an story all of its own. And obviously not E rated.
All in all the booger catcher was oh so fitting and hilarious, kudos for the idea.
10055989
Hmm, maybe less tonal and more of content. I didn't think the joke was worth a bump up in the rating.
10051784
That's really cool.
10051293
I think I had my hands full worrying about giving the rest of the student six their own little moments.
Hmm, that's true. It never really entered my mind, though.
Dragons also invented wi-fi.
What does ANM stands for?
10071410
After Nightmare Moon.
10071558
So like, after Celestia banished her to the moon with Elements, like that?
10072333
Yup!
10072362
I bet they also use Pony BE, the one mentioned in “Trivial Pursuit”.
I don’t know if BE stands for Before Equestria or something like that.
Ah okay then
I like it! Good characterizations, good writing quality, all that jazz.
Where you shine is the worldbuilding. There's enough of it here that I feel like you could craft a much larger story than this. The wizard tower, the ancient settlement, the volcano, the dragons use of this land, all of that is really neat stuff!
However, I don't really feel like there's much of a story going on here. The basic plot is that Smolder tells Twilight that an archaeological hypothesis is incorrect. That's it. That's the whole story. There's nothing that builds tension, nothing that particularly draws the readers in and makes them invested in the events happening. There's no particular emphasis on comedy or interpersonal conflict. Nothing is threatened or challenged aside from a research paper or two. Compared to the rich world it's built in, the plot itself is very milquetoast.
I do like what you've done here, but I wish it tried to do more with the materials that make it up.
10087215
Hmm, I'm not quite sure I can agree that the story really needs to be more than that. At least, as far as the plot is concerned.
It's a low-key exploration of one of the more mundane aspects of their world, with Twilight and the students learning a small lesson about making assumptions in history and archaeology.
Admittedly, though, if I could go back and do it again, I'd probably put a little more effort into showing how Twilight's initial assumptions are unraveled as Smoulder reveals more and more of what she knows about the lake.
Thanks for the feedback!
Reminds me of a few similar incidents that happened to real life archeologists.
(This is a rough recollection of one such incident)
Archeologists digging through the remains of an ancient village were puzzled by a small ring of stones that were present on the floor of most of houses in the settlement. The ring was loosely set on top of floor, was only about a brick high, and about the width of a bucket.
Eventually, one of them got the idea of asking one of the locals. In response, the local took him into their house, and showed them the same ring, made from modern bricks.
The ring was for rearing chicks indoors, and the ring was just high enough that the chicks couldn't climb out the nest, and short enough for the mother hen to easily hop in.
10132746
That's cool. It's funny how some mundane things can look totally puzzling to outsiders.
loved this you could make a small series about other stuff the students cultres made
Contest over! Here's the review you requested.
So I have to say, I very much agree with 10087215, to be entirely honest. The biggest issue this story had for me was by far that there's no real story to it, it's just a bit of worldbuilding without any kind of conflict, or tension, or... Anything, really?
Like, the story's well written, the writing is extremely good. Sentences flow well into paragraphs which flow well into scenes; characters sound like themselves. Technically speaking I have nothing to say here, you're a good writer and it shows. This was a breeze to read.
But storytelling-wise, nothing really happens in the story. I understand that this story portrays a simple event that's somehwat common in archeology, and it's fun that way, but it's still -- most of the fic is simply Twilight talking about some ruins where nothing particular happened other than "creatures used to live here", which isn't exactly exciting as far as ruins go. And then we're pointed out some rings with unknown uses, but we already know from the title and description that Smolder knows what they're for.
So then we're told, and oh they're floaties, nice. The end.
Like, there's not much meat to this? It feels like a reasonable setup for something, but the way the story is constructed, you legitimately know everything that's going to happen from the description and first paragraph alone.
And that is an issue, because that translates into a lack of impact, of memorability. There's definitely artistic merit inthe writing by itself, and this is a good enough exercise in character writing, I suppose -- but the scene portrayed doesn't reveal anything about the characters, about the setting, about the dragons. One of the easiest mistakes to make when reviewing a story is criticising it for what it doesn't do, rather than for what it does? But I couldn't help but think that the reveal of what the dragon rings are genuinely hurts the story.
Because there's no point to it? If it were something that told us about dragons as a species, something that added some kind of information, or clarity, or gave them depth, then it'd be different, the story could be an exploration of a race or a culture. But they're just floaties, because dragons swim in lava -- which we already knew. Doesn't tell us anything about Smolder either, which I suppose wouldbe another opportunity.
I guess I struggle to find the point in the story. I come out of it not having learned anything new of any significance -- looking at previous comments, I see one of the ideas was to have the other fossils be sexual toys, which ironically enough I think would've helped a bit, beacuse then the fic is recontextualized as the setup to a punchline. Way too long a setup for way too short a punchline, but at least it's something?
So yeah, that was the big issue I had with this story -- definitely well-written, but it's not a story, it's a thing that happened once. Reframing the story into a mystery fic, or maybe adding an additional twist that isn't immediately guessed by the description would help, but as it is, the story came off as... underambitious? To give it a name.
Which is a shame, because, as I said -- the writing was really good. A bit more work into the storytelling itself, and I do think this could've been spectacular. As it sits, though, it's not a story, it's a setup.
Still, damn good writing, god dang, take solace in that. Thanks for joining the contest, and best of luck next time!
10162579
Oh man, I'm getting some major déjà vu here. These points sound similar to what you said about my other story that I submitted to your Celestia contest...
Just my luck that the second one you've read also happens to have the same issue with the story's direction—or lack thereof.
I get what you mean, though I often find it hard to convince myself that a one-shot story needs more purpose than that when I'm actually in the process of writing it. Gah. Gonna have to raise my standards in that area.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm gonna have to work harder on this particular aspect of my writing.