The Three Kingdoms

by James Pwyll

Spike's Lesson

As was often the case for the classroom of Ponyville Elementary, the early morning was abuzz with the excited chatter of the children as they made their way and to their desks. All manner of talk occurred between them, mostly about what they might be taught today. Cheerilee, who had been here for some time and was looking over a few papers, smiled as she saw such enthusiasm for learning among her students. But, once everypony was here, she got up and headed over to the nearby chalkboard, taking a small piece of said chalk and tapping it against the surface. Instantly, the students heard it, and so calmed down, looking to her eagerly to await her words. Taking a moment to look over the assembled students to make sure everypony was here, Cheerilee nodded to herself before finally breaking the silence. "Alright, class. Good morning."

"Good morning, Miss Cheerilee," the students dutifully replied together.

Turning to the board, Cheerilee began writing upon it. "Now, we've discussed a number of the neighbouring peoples that have been known to ponykind in past sessions, but today, we will be learning..." She paused, having finished writing a single word upon the board, which she now gestured to. "...about dragons." Naturally, a topic such as that caused even further excitement among the children, many of whom now looked wide-eyed to one another. Looking to the side, Cheerilee looked to the door of the classroom, which hadn't been closed since the kids arrived. "And to help with this particular topic, I decided that it might be worth inviting Ponyville's very own resident dragon to the discussion."

As if on cue, which it probably was, Spike soon poked his head into the doorway, smiling to the students before entering in earnest. "Hey, kids."

"Hi, Spike," several of them all said together.

Cheerilee, giving a nod of greeting to the visitor, stepped back slightly so as to give him her spot in front of the chalk board. "Alright then, if you would be so kind as to begin, Mr Spike?"

"Just Spike thanks," Spike clarified. Clapping his claws together and rubbing them, he looked to the students. "Okay. So, where to begin?" Then, he snapped his fingers. "Well, let's start with the basics." He turned, reaching up and pulling down the scrolled-up map that was hanging above the board, after which he pointed to the right-hand side of the image. "So, we dragons, as you probably all know, come from this land right here, far to the east of the Everfree Glades." After tapping the spot, he looked to the kids again. "Dragons are pretty nomadic by nature, so while we do have a homeland, you won't be surprised to find one or more of our number walking or flying around many other parts of the continent." After he'd said that, one filly, whom Spike recognised as Applejack's sister, stretched out her hoof, obviously wanting to ask something. "Yes, Apple Bloom?"

The filly, happy that she'd been allowed to speak, got up from her desk and spoke, with all others watching her. "Is it true y'all have a Dragon King over there? With a big scepter an' everythin'?"

Spike chuckled slightly. "Dragon Lord, actually. But it's not really the same arrangement as the leaders of other peoples. The title of Lord pretty much just goes to the toughest dragon around. The one who all agree you shouldn't mess with. They can give orders, sure, but for the most part they're usually fine in letting dragons roam about and mind their own business." He looked again to the map. "Right now the title is held by a sky dragoness named Ember, and we don't really know that much about her."

Apple Bloom looked to him with her head tilted to the side slightly. "Sky dragoness?"

Hearing her, Spike snapped his fingers. "Ah! Right! Sorry, should've mentioned that already!" Reaching down, he pulled on the cord at the bottom of the map, allowing it to retract back upwards, after which he grabbed some chalk and started drawing something upon the board. "Much like how there's four different types of ponies, we dragons are also divided into a few categories." He stepped aside, revealing that what he'd been drawing was, in fact, a crude image of himself, to which he now pointed. "First of all, you have the earth dragons, such as yours truly," he explained, pointing to himself for emphasis. After that, he got back to the drawing, rubbing away his forelimbs and instead scribbling in a distinct pair of wings in their place. "After that, we have the sky dragons, the ones who, you guessed it, have the ability to fly." Satisfied with how the kids were paying attention, he again got back to the picture, rubbing away the wings and even the hind legs, and replacing them with a pair of webbed forelimbs and a long tail respectively. "Lastly, we have the sea dragons, who live deep beneath the waters." He mused on that for a while as he put the chalk back. "But they're pretty reclusive compared to the rest, so chances are you're only ever gonna see the first two types, unless, you know, you feel the need to head out to the Great Sea one day."

Another young filly, one wearing purple glasses and sporting a curly, red mane, and who happened to be sitting right next to Apple Bloom, raised her hoof, and once Spike gave her a nod, she stood up and spoke, albeit with something of a lisp. "Do the sea dragons spend time with the sea ponies, since they all live in the same place?"

To that, Spike shrugged. "I wish I could tell you. Truth is, you know as much about that whole deal as I do. Sure, they live in the same area as your underwater kin, but really only the Hippogriffs of Mount Aris could tell you whether the sea ponies have anything to do with my guys down there."

The filly nodded, sitting herself back down, and in the moments that followed, another filly, one bright pink and wearing what appeared to be a tiara, stood and spoke without waiting for permission first. "No offense, Mr Spike..."

"Just Spike thanks," Spike said again for the second time, and this time with slight annoyance in his voice.

The filly, ignoring him, continued. "It's just...this is all interesting and all, but when are we gonna get to the good stuff?"

"Good stuff?" Spike reasonably asked.

The filly nodded. "Yeah! You know, about how dragons can grow a hundred feet tall, breathe fire and swoop in to terrorise pony villages and all that?"

Spike had known it was coming, but even so just hearing it was all it took to cause him to groan with exasperation. "Okay...I know a lot of you have probably heard a hundred stories of monstrous dragons in books or from your grandparents, so let me set the record straight here." He cleared his throat. "We don't eat ponies. We don't grow to the size of giants. And we don't, I repeat, we don't...breathe fire."

There was a noticeable murmur of disappointment among the colts and fillies, culminating in that same filly from before looking to Spike with incredulity. "...What?!"

Folding his arms, Spike nodded firmly. "Sorry to burst whatever fantasies you had, kids, but it's the truth." He shrugged. "My guess? Some pony way back in ye olden times had a chip on his shoulder about my kind and so started telling stories about them in the most demonic, unflattering way possible. Then others followed their example and so on until we get to today, where clearly the idea of one of my number not being absolute terrors is a shock to you." He chuckled dryly. "What you're looking at here..." He gestured to himself. "This is about as big as any dragon is going to get, give or take."

All of the students' ears drooped at the news, and the pink filly who'd been speaking slumped back into her chair to pout over having her notions of dragons undermined. Meanwhile, a silver-coloured filly, who'd been sitting next to the former, looked to Spike and raised her hoof. After Spike nodded to her, she spoke. "So...dragons have never been bigger?"

Here, Spike fumbled a bit. "Well...I wouldn't say never exactly..." Instantly, the kids looked to him, enraptured once more. And Spike, of course, did his best to explain. "Looks, maybe back through the generations one or two of us might have grown pretty big. But that was way back. Aside from that, the worst you'd get is inside our own myths about us." As soon as he'd said that, he saw the inevitable. The curiosity of the children, reinvigorated to their earlier hights, eager to hear more. Alas, Spike wasn't about to give them what they wanted. "Sorry, kids. But my being here was to teach you about real dragon facts. Not stories."

Here though, Cheerilee giggled. "Oh come now, Spike. I'm sure a story won't go amiss. It might be fun."

"Especially since it's such a good one!" another voice declared.

Spike's head snapped to the side, and he saw, to his surprise, that it was none other than his four closest friends in the classroom doorway, with Twilight standing ahead of them, having been the one to speak. "Wha...what are you four doing here?!"

Twilight snorted. "What? You didn't really think we'd miss out on your first teaching session, did you?" she answered with at least a little bit of mischief.

"Don't worry about being too serious, Spike," Sunny added. "It'll really brighten up the kids' days."

"And besides, it's always of value to one's education to be given an insight into the cultures of others," Moondancer proposed.

"So go ahead, Spike. Spin em a good yarn," Applejack finished.

Spike sighed, glancing to all the faces looking to him right now, knowing he wasn't going to get out of this. So, after taking a breath and clearing his throat, he finally relented, stepping forward and speaking in the tone of voice one always reserved for storytelling. "Long, long ago, when the world was young, the earth itself brought forth a beast that would strike terror into all who saw it." He took on a more ominous look for emphasis. "Tiamat, the first dragon. The horror of the world! In time, that first dragon sired three sons, who in turn would be the first of the three dragon races. Their names remain unknown to this day, and so are remembered only for the effect they had on the world around them." Stretching out his claw, he gestured to nocreature in particular. "Tremor, Tsunami and Typhoon." After a pause, he looked to the kids. "Imagine it. Wings so vast they could blot out the sky from horizon to horizon. Size so great that every step could shake mountain ranges." Another moment of silence before he continued. "Other generations came...grew smaller...until we became what you see now. What happened to the Old Ones?" He shrugged. "Nocreature knows." His eyes narrowed. "And perhaps...it is best if we never find out."

There was a deafening quiet across the classroom from child and adult alike, and only after a solid minute of letting that story sink in did anypony start to look at each other. Spike, naturally, was satisfied that his story had done the trick, though he was surprised to find Apple Bloom raising her hoof again. "So...yer people's story is kinda like our story about Harmony? One really important person havin' three important kids an' bein' a role model an' such?"

Spike smiled to her. "You're not wrong. In fact, as Moondancer over there has told me..." he began, pointing to the mare in question. "There's been a lot of debate over the years about the similarity between the two stories."

The kids looked to Moondancer, who nodded with a smile to confirm what Spike had said, leading to them all turning their attention back to him. "So...what did they decide?" Apple Bloom asked.

To that, Spike simply gave another shrug. "That's it's just a coincidence. Don't worry about it."

Once again, disappointment was on the faces of the kids, and Cheerilee, who had been equally as engaged with the story, exhaled deeply. "Well then...I'd say that certainly qualifies as a memorable class."

Comments

[TasermonsPartner]

Spike is an excellent storyteller. Still, in this universe, it's interesting how he ended up with Twilight and her gang since she didn't hatch him as a project for Celestia's school. Will his origin story be revealed in a later chapter?

[Yoshifan30]

Well then very interesting for Spike to teach the class about Dragon histories and everything even though the kids were expecting excitement or something like that but it's so kind of interesting but still I think we're still we're missing one more character where Sandbar we almost saw everybody except for him I wonder if we're going to see him I guess we'll find out next time

[Comickook]

Hey there. Thanks immensely for getting the next chapter up. Really appreciate the effort that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Certainly liked Spike trying to educate Cheerilee's class on dragons and trying to separate the facts from the stories. And, yeah, makes sense that there would be different types of dragons (earth, sky and sea) just as there are four different types of ponies (Unicorn, Pegasus, Earth Pony and Sea Pony). So, it sounds like the dragons in this universe have a bit of Adaptational Wimp since they don't have "Greed Growth" and can't breathe fire (despite the stories the ponies have heard to the contrary). Also liked the Mythology Gag with the mention of "Generation One" as well as Spike finally conceding on sharing that story concerning the first dragon and the first three sons. And experience with genres like this tell me that the similarities between the stories of Tiamat and Harmony ARE more than just coincidence and are quite likely to become significant sooner rather than later. Though I admit that I COULD be wrong on that. Of course, I'm still curious as to Hitch and Sandbar, but that's very likely going to be in a chapter coming soon.

Definitely looking forward to more of this.

[Max Stroberger]

I'm curious are you going to have Sunset Shimmer, Trixie Lulamoon and Starlight Glimmer show up which territory do you think each would fit best in the same I think applies to the dazzlings or the sirens oh I hope you don't plan on leaving these six great characters out.