Chapter 1 - This is how a dragon gets roped into things.

Ponies have always struggled to understand dragons.

On the one hoof, the overwhelming majority of ponies would never see a dragon, let alone meet one, unless they happened to live near the current migration path during that once-a-generation event. The average pony therefore knew next to nothing about dragon culture, biology, or magic. On the other hoof, just about all of those provably uninformed ponies would swear up and down that dragons were nothing more than huge, vicious, greedy, nigh-immortal monsters who would burn down a city as soon as look at it. Equestria's thousand-year history was littered with groups calling out to Celestia to save them from the oncoming draconic horde. A horde that must surely have been about to arrive at any moment after having so many long, peaceful centuries to prepare.

The trouble was that ponies never quite understood the predator mindset. They picked up on the obvious things-- the aggression, the hunting, the territorial instincts --but they did not appreciate the caution. Dragons, namely the mature specimens that every end-is-nigh fearmonger imagined when whipping up the public anxiety, earn their place at the top of the food chain the hard way. Every towering adult began as an egg no larger than a hoofball and hatched little more prepared for the world than a pony foal. It takes centuries of fighting and scraping for survival in the wild lands, far from the luxurious cities of ponies, for an infant to grow to maturity. No dragon, not even the most slug-brained brute, makes it to five-hundred years old without cultivating a healthy level of pragmatism, for no creature is more aware than they that dragons are far from indestructible.

There are a thousand ways for a dragon to die, and an adult will have seen them claim peer after peer until a scant clawful of their generation remains. The ones who make it are the ones who learned to ask themselves two words, two words that have protected Equestria and every other nation in the world since time immemorial:

“Why bother?”

They could raid that small mining down for gems but… why bother? The ponies shipped out their finds too often for there to be a big stockpile, so a decent meal's worth would still need to be dug up. Just dig on the other side of the mountain and skip the trouble.

They could follow that would-be-thief all the way home and raze his town to the ground but… why bother? It'd just stir up the rest of the ponies with their ballistas and their lightning and their spells, and who wants to deal with that? It's a lot easier to just take a nap for a few decades, after which any given annoying pony will probably be gone or too old to cause trouble.

They could attack every pony who passes through the fringes of their territory but… why bother? One good scare every few years or so was enough to remind the ponies just who is at the top of the local food chain and why they should expand their town the opposite direction. Sure, it's fun to chase one around every so often, but it's not like there's going to be a shortage of ponies to terrorize any time soon.

In truth, there was a good chance that the average pony wouldn't find any of that particularly reassuring. Learning that your civilization exists because it's too much trouble to burn it down is something of a cold comfort. Most would probably prefer that the lack of razing was because of Celestia's magical protection, or some ancient, inviolable pact between ancient Equestrian heroes and dragonkind, or even just pure dumb luck. But that was the way things went when ponies learned about dragons. For every one commonality that opened a door towards friendship, there was another difference that set the ponies on edge or, alternatively, into a blind panic.

This was a lesson that Smolder was, albeit inadvertently, being taught by one Princess Twilight Sparkle.

It had all started so innocently. The headmare wanted to learn about dragons, Smolder wanted to eat a huge bowl of gems, it was a win-win. The pony princess had asked a few tame questions about diet, illnesses, lifespan, that sort of thing, until she finally asked for the leading causes of death for dragons.

Smolder was pretty well educated by dragon standards (meaning that she could read, write, and do basic math beyond counting gems), but the dragon educational system was founded on the ancient academic principle of “eh, you'll figure it out”. This meant she didn't have access to a census to base her answers off of so much as she had what she'd heard from other dragons her age, and what her parents had told her to watch out for. So she'd put together a list on the fly that seemed right to her based on what she knew, and called it good.

In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best way she could have handled that. She'd been in a tutoring session with the three younger ponies who ran the school tutoring program when the fallout from that talk with the headmare had reared its head. Before she knew what was happening, she was being dragged along by Counselor Starlight to “help clean up this mess”. Then she'd been sidelined to the hall outside the lounge and told to wait until she was called in. Now she was stuck just listening to a half-muffled argument from across the hall while the three tutors huddled around the door with their ears pressed to the wood so tightly they might have been glued there.

“Be reasonable darling,” Professor Rarity's voice sounded with remarkable clarity, “it's not as though Spike could drown in the middle of a classroom! … Well, yes, I suppose that's-- … I'm certain that-- … Yes, I imagine it could-- … Twilight, you and Starlight are the only unicorns in a hundred miles who could possibly perform a spell like-- put her down this instant! Applejack, a little help?”

“Easy now, sugarcube. Now I know yer worried 'bout Spike, but smotherin' him just ain't gonna work. … Uh, can y'all speak up a little? A mite hard ta hear ya through that there, uh, bubble 'o yours. … Uh-huh. … Now that just don't make a lick 'o sense. … Spike don't even live in a cave! … Er, well, I suppose the castle is-- … Yeah, reckon I-- … Uh, girls, one of y'all might want to step in here, 'cause some of this is startin' ta make sense.”

“Ugh, Applejack, honestly! Fluttershy, darling, if you wouldn't mind?”

What followed was several long minutes of silence in the hallway. The tutors pressed their ears all the harder against the door, but trying to eavesdrop on Professor Fluttershy through a closed door was a fools errand. Funnily enough, she actually lasted the longest against Twilight out of the professors so far before somepony else spoke up.

“Okay, this is getting weird now,” Professor Dash said, probably interrupting Professor Fluttershy. “Twilight, open up already!” If Smolder cupped a claw to her earfrill, she could just make out the sound of hooves beating on a magic barrier. Counselor Starlight's voice heaved a loud sigh.

“Rainbow, that's not going to work.”

“Oh yeah? Well, watch--”

A bright, raspberry pink flash of magic flooded the hall and Professor Dash appeared flying full tilt down the hall before smashing into the wall at the end. Slowly, she slid down and settled on the floor in a heap alongside a stray feather or two.

“…this.”

The lounge door swung inward, sending the gawking tutors sprawling into the lounge at Rarity's hooves.

“Girls! Have you been eavesdropping?”

“Uh…”

“Um…”

“Maaaybe…?”

Smolder snorted. “You haven't really been keeping your voices down, y'know.”

Professor Rarity frowned and shooed the fillies back out of the room with a hoof. “You can all go back to your little office now, girls. We'll take it from here. Smolder? Be a dear and step inside, won't you?”

Professor Dash stumbled to her hooves, grumbling and ruffling her wings while the tutors shuffled past her as slowly as they thought they could get away with. Smolder was willing to bet they were going to stop just around the corner and zip straight back to the door the moment they heard it close. Rarity leaned her head further out into the hall to regard her fellow teacher with a raised eyebrow.

“Really, darling, what did you expect? Now, come along, Smolder.”

Smolder rolled her eyes and made her way across the hallway. She brushed past her fussy teacher then came to a dead stop when she saw what lay beyond the door.

“Whoa.”

A shimmering, raspberry pink barrier dome the size of a garden shed glowed at the far end of the room. Headmare Twilight sat defiantly beneath it on a two pony sofa to the left of a pile of mismatched sporting gear that happened to have a small purple dragon embedded within it almost as an afterthought. Said dragon also wore an utterly deadpan glare on the portion of his face that could be seen through the face guard of his hoofball helmet. The headmare, on the other claw, had a somewhat haggard and mildly deranged glare that spoke of paranoia and a severe lack of sleep. The rest of the main school staff stood around the barrier, including all the professors and Guidance Counselor Starlight.

Professor Applejack stood awkwardly to the left of the bubble, clearly not sure what to do about the situation. Professor Fluttershy stood on the right, attempting to comfort Spike by delicately resting a hoof against the barrier. Counselor Starlight was a few paces away from her, locked into a staring contest with Twilight as her own horn glowed with pale green light. Meanwhile, Professor Pie had gotten on top of the barrier and was bouncing up and down, giggling as the magical energy tickled her hooves with every landing. Professors Rarity and Dash filed in behind Smolder just before the door shut.

“Uh,” Smolder said, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, “what's going on?”

“Smolder!” Twilight said, a little too cheerfully. She broke off her staring contest with the counselor so she could grin much too widely at her student. “Great, you're here! Now YOU can tell everypony that my precautions are entirely reasonable!”

“Uh,” Smolder repeated.

“It's like you said: Predators, slayers, cavern collapses, landslides, and drowning!” Her left eyelid twitched. “I've taken precautions against all of them!”

It was at this moment that Smolder noticed that all the rest of the staff (minus Pinkie and Fluttershy) were now glaring at her. She got a particularly cranky one from Professor Dash as she flapped past and took up a position hovering near Professor Applejack.

“Yeeaah,” Smolder began, slowly. “Did I mention that I don't actually have numbers to back that list up?”

If the headmare heard her, she gave no outward sign beyond another eye twitch which might have been coincidental. “And as soon as we get this all straightened out, I'll be able to get to work on remodeling the castle! I really have been comPLETEly irresponsible this whole time. When I think back on all the obvious mistakes I've been making,” her sentence was interrupted by a series of raspy, gasping barks that might have been a laugh, “well, it's just crazy!”

Smolder considered this for a couple of moments before she turned to the counselor. “Okay, what's going on?”

Counselor Starlight sighed. “In my professional opinion as school counselor… she's overworked. Between the school and her increasing royal workload, she feels out of control and has latched onto protecting Spike as something that can give her a clear sense of purpose.”

Professor Dash snorted. “Or she just hasn't slept in days because she micromanages ALL of the grading!”

“Don't forget the coffee~!” Professor Pie called, each word punctuated by another bounce on the barrier.

“I thought y'all were gonna cut her off?”

Professor Rarity heaved an over-the-top sigh. “Twilight is fully capable of going to Barnyard Bargains for coffee on her own. Or so it would appear.”

“Hey!” the headmare snapped. “I'm right here, you know!”

“Of course you are, darling. It's just that, well… I am trying to be delicate, but--”

“I am NOT 'Twilighting'!”

“Perish the thought, dear! But, you must admit that you are, shall we say, stressed?”

“I am NOT stressed!” Twilight shouted. She sprung to her hooves, wings flared out and tail lashing. “And I am NOT overreacting! I am being completely, one hundred percent rational about the importance of Spike's health and well-being. And there is nothing anypony can say to convince me otherwise!”

“Um, actually…”

Twilight rounded on Professor Fluttershy, grinning ear to ear. “YES!?”

The professor shrank back, then rallied her courage to look the headmare in the eye. “Twilight, you're not thinking clearly, and you need to calm down,” she said firmly.

Headmare Twilight relaxed little and giggled to herself. “Oh, don't be silly! I'm perflectly fline! Perfectly fine! What makes you think anything's wrong?”

“Um, it's just…” The pegasus took a deep breath and raised a hoof to point over Twilight's head. The headmare and everypony else in the room followed the imaginary line with their eyes up to the corner where the outer wall and the ceiling met. The upper third of the wall had receded and reshaped itself into a luxurious theater balcony, complete with rich mahogany railings and curtains the color of vintage wine. The plush seats within were occupied by not one, but three Discords eating popcorn.

The middle Discord lifted his red and blue glasses and leaned forward. “Oh, don't mind me. Please,” a slightly sinister grin snaked across his face, “continue!”

Twilight sat down. Hard.

“Okay. Okay, you… may have a point. I just--” she looked around the room, eyes scanning over her friends, her student, the barrier, and the pile of sports equipment formerly known as Spike. She rubbed a fetlock against her eyes. “I'm doing it again, aren't I?”

A murmur of relieved agreement rippled around the room.

“If'n it's any consolation,” Applejack stepped forward, right to the edge of the barrier, “I know how ya feel. I'm sure y'all remember what happened with me and Apple Bloom. Somepony ya care about is growin' up, and ya don't know how to handle it, right? You're worried sick that you're doin' it all wrong and they ain't ready. But ya can't protect him from everything. If ya go 'n hide him away to keep him safe from dyin', yer gonna keep him safe from livin' too.”

Twilight's ears drooped. “But I can't just ignore what Smolder told me!”

Smolder ran a claw over her crest. “Uh, yeah, about that. I was sorta winging it with that list. You'd really have to ask the Dragon Lord for the last Counting. And besides, Spike isn't like other dragons. He wasn't kicked out to fend for himself. He doesn't have to find his own food or hide from predators or fight with other dragons over a pile of gems. Seriously, do you have any idea what a sweet deal living in a place like this is for dragons our age? Timberwolves are easy compared to hydras. Plus, he has all of you!” She waved her arms in a sweeping gesture over all of the assembled ponies. “He's got friends on all sides who will protect him from anything! He's probably the safest kid in Equestria!”

The headmare slumped a little. She took a long look over her shoulder at Spike, then sighed and dropped her barrier… and was promptly flattened by Professor Pie.

“Whoopsie! Sorry, Twilight!”

Starlight set Pinkie on her hooves and settled Twilight back on the sofa with her magic before she got to work on digging Spike free.

“I'm sorry everypony,” Twilight mumbled.

Rarity brushed past Smolder, favoring her with a nod and smile before moving to her friend's side.

“Think nothing of it, darling. It's nothing a little sleep won't cure. When did you sleep last?”

“Er,” Twilight ducked her head a little, “Three days?”

Professor Dash's jaw dropped. “Three DAYS!?”

“Land's sakes, no wonder y'all're actin' up!”

“Whatever were you thinking!?”

“There's just so much to do!” the headmare protested. “Ever since Celestia and Luna said they want me to take over, I've been studying everything I can find on Equestrian law and governance, but there's still so much to do for the school, and I can't give it to Starlight because she's already overworked, and all of you already have other jobs, and Spike needs his time to spend with his friends and--”

“Okay, sloooow down,” Rainbow Dash cut in. “We can handle all the work junk later. Right now, you need some serious downtime.”

Spike, finally free from the confines of his safety gear, slipped off the couch to stand next to Twilight. She immediately reached out and pulled him into a hug.

“I'm so sorry, Spike, I don't know what got into me.”

Spike hugged her back. “It could've been worse. I know you just wanted to protect me.”

“I'm not really sure you need my protection,” Twilight relaxed her grip so she could look Spike in the eye. “I could barely make that roc flinch, but you drove it off with one flame. You can fly now, and you're only going to get bigger and tougher. Pretty soon you won't need me at all.”

“I'm always gonna need you, Twilight. I'm pretty sure you're always gonna be smarter than me, and I'll always need your advice. Just maybe let me handle some stuff on my own, okay?”

She reeled him back into a hug. “Deal.”

“You know,” he said, slyly, “if you really want to make it up to me, you could always let me have a tub of ice cream.”

Twilight giggled. “Oh… fine. But after dinner, mister. And the stomach ache is on your head.” The pair shared a laugh and parted, Twilight rubbing at her eyes again. “The worst part is, I don't even know how to give you advice. It's like flying lessons all over again. I just don't know how dragons handle their problems.”

“No kidding,” Smolder mumbled under her breath. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. Nopony was looking at her so she could probably sneak away without them noticing. Or…

Her eyes wandered back to Spike. She couldn't even imagine what it must've been like, being raised by ponies. How would it feel to the only one of your species around, surrounded by creatures who didn't understand you or how to live with you? He couldn't even laugh properly without risking hurting everyone around him. His reaction to the Molt was funny at the time but, looking back, he was probably scared out of his mind. He'd never had his parents to tell him what was coming. He'd never had a mother to teach him how to find gems, or a big brother to teach him how to claw-wrestle, or how to do a fire duel. He never got to sit around a fumarole with other dragons his age, telling stories and steaming fish in the hot fumes. Sure, Ponyville life was pretty sweet, but there was so much he was missing out on.

Things that Smolder found herself missing, too. Their trip to visit Garble at the Hatching Grounds had reminded her of all the stuff she couldn't do with her other friends. Dragon stuff. She'd already been teaching him a little about fire-breathing contests and flying techniques since Sludge came to town. Would it really be so hard to step that up a notch?

She squared her shoulders and stepped forward.

“I'll teach you.”

Twilight and Spike both looked at her, wide eyed.

“You will?” Spike asked.

She shrugged. “Why not? I can't do a worse job than Sludge did.”

“But, you just said you weren't even sure about the leading causes of death,” Twilight said.

“I might not know the actual numbers on predators, but I know how to avoid them. Plus all the other things that can get a dragon killed. Besides, there's LOTS more to being a dragon than just flying lessons and breathing fire. I always kinda figured you weren't interested in the serious stuff, but I can teach you everything I know if you want.”

Spike's wings flared out excitedly while his grin almost split his face in two. “Really!? That'd be great! When can we start?”

“Later,” Starlight interrupted before Twilight could even open her mouth. Twilight cringed a little.

“That's probably a good idea. I could really use some sleep.”

“I suppose this means that the show's over,” Discord lamented, making the whole group jump. He dropped down from the now absent balcony and tossed his popcorn aside. “Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. Do let me know if you need to take a vacation. I'd be happy to fill in as vice head-draconequus again.”

All eyes turned to a suddenly uneasy Starlight Glimmer. “Er… sure! That sounds… great.”

Discord flashed them all a crooked grin then tugged sharply on his beard, rolled himself up like a window shade, and vanished.

Twilight turned back to her friends.

“Was I really that bad?”

Chapter 2 - This is how a dragon finds gems.

View Online

Deep in the heart of the Dragon Lands, inside a vaulted, gray-walled mountain cavern, a centuries old dragon lay upon a hoard of gold and gems that would have put even the wealthiest griffons from the heyday of their collapsed kingdom to shame.

She was a long, slender creature, easily taller than a five story building when sitting upright, though her true size was difficult to guess while curled atop the largest of the golden heaps in her hoard. The light of the setting moon cast its pale rays on her deep ocher scales and the pronounced maroon crests that ran from the crown of her head all the way down to her shoulders. Her ear frills were particularly long in the spines, webbed with a pale yellow that matched her wings and underbelly, and lay relaxed in her slumber. The two white, upwardly curved horns which swept back from their roots just above and behind her frills almost glowed in the moonlight. The effect was nearly enough to draw an observer's eye away from the glint of the triple pairs of long fangs which stuck out over her bottom lip by the length of an average pony mare.

She had been dozing for well over a day, and hadn't stirred so much as an inch in five hours save for the rise and fall of her side, not even when a tiny, orange head topped with an orchid pink crest poked up over the rim of the cave. Sharp cyan blue eyes studied the mature dragon warily as they had done many times over the past few hours. Their owner had been preparing for this moment for weeks, studying the sleeping pattern of the adult, picking out exactly which treasure to target, and steeling her nerves to make the attempt. A forked tongue ran over scaly lips at the sight of her chosen prize: a large, exquisitely dark and lustrous emerald. The adult was asleep, the cave was upwind, and the gem had slid all the way down to the floor of the cave, right between the adult's snout and elbow. This was the chance she'd been waiting for.

With great care, the baby dragon eased herself up and over the lip of the cave and began to creep across the slight downward slope of the floor on all fours. She was small, round in head and belly like the wingless hatchling she was, and she moved with the exaggerated “stealth” of any child approaching a cookie jar. She edged her way along closer and closer to her goal, one dramatic step at a time. It took nearly a full minute for her to creep all the way up to within arm's reach of the gem. She glanced up at the sleeping adult, carefully studying her face for any sign of waking. Finding none, she rose to an upright position and slowly, delicately, took the gem in her claws. She looked up again, breath held tight, but the adult still did not stir.

She turned and started tiptoeing away from the hoard, glancing back over her shoulder every few steps, getting giddier and giddier with each one. She was so close! She could just about taste the delicious gem already! She cast one last look back--

*WHAM!*

The cavern floor shuddered under the impact of an enormous, ocher-scaled tail slamming down across her path. The pure, brute force of it knocked her flat on her own tail and sent the gem tumbling out of her claws. The adult's head and neck rose from the heap, gold and gems sparkling and clinking as they cascaded away under her shifting weight. Piercing cyan eyes bigger than the would-be-thief's entire body glared down from on high above an arsenal of bared teeth that put the Canterlot Guard's armory to shame.

The baby dragon scrambled up on all fours and sprinted towards the tip of the maroon-finned tail blocking her path. She hadn't gotten three bounds before a cage of talons crashed down, punching deep into the solid rock with an almighty *crack* like thunder. She hit them at full tilt, bouncing off the adult's middle finger and tumbling back head over heels until she came to rest flat on her stomach, dazed and helpless.

The enormous talons pulled free of the floor and swept overhead, hanging in the air over the stunned youth for just a moment before coming down again. Yet instead of a second thunderous impact with all four mighty talons, the thumb and third finger of the claw curled in. Talons that could rend steel like paper delicately pinched the tip of the hatchling's tail between their smooth sides to lift her high off the cavern floor. The would-be-thief's eyes went as round as the bits that littered the hoard below when the adult began to draw in a long, slow breath…

…And blew a tiny flicker of flame no hotter than a match.

“No!” the thief begged, “No no no nooah-hahahahaha!” The thief wriggled and kicked desperately as the tongue of flames tickled her belly just enough to send her into hysterics. “St-ahahaha-op!”

The flames cut out and the adult pulled her head back enough for her victim to clearly see the smirk on her face when she spoke in a deep, reverberating voice that would have turned the legs of most creatures to jelly.

“You should be glad your father isn't here. He'd have you roasting for hours for failing like this.”

The baby glared at her mother, claw outstretched with her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “I was this close!” she protested in a high-pitched and slightly rough voice. “Go back to sleep so I can try again!”

Her mother chuckled and started to sit up on her haunches. Once her other arm was free, she dropped her child onto her waiting palm. “I was awake the entire time waiting for you to finally find your guts.”

The baby folded her arms and sat down in the center of her mother's palm, grumbling unintelligibly under her breath. Another rumbling laugh rolled over her like distant thunder and she had to sprawl out for balance as the claw beneath her shifted. Her mother rose from the hoard onto her hind limbs, stretching and flexing her serpentine neck and tail.

“Where are we going?”

“You want gems that badly? Then I think it's time you learned how to find your own.”

The baby's eyes lit up. “Really!?”

Her mother crossed the gap that'd taken her baby a minute to cross in a single step, ducking her head and tucking in her wings to slip through the cave mouth.

“Your brother was about the same age when your father taught him.” The adult's fingers curled protectively over her palm to keep her daughter securely in place as her wings unfurled.

“We start by choosing a place to dig.”

It was only a few hours after dawn, but already Smolder soared high over the White Tail woods. A light crosswind from the south east required minor course corrections here and there, but given that she was aiming for a small mountain, she was in no danger of losing her bearings. A curve of her tail and a dip of a wing, and she drifted right back onto the approach she'd planned out for the day's lesson.

She smirked as Spike bobbed up just to eye level off to her left. He had to flap about five times for each of her own strokes; pretty good for someone just out of his first molt and well past the flight-magic surge that came with it. Her smirk widened at the memory of his reaction when she'd found him in that closet and explained the Molt. She could just imagine the look he'd get when she told him about the next molt.

“How much further?” he called over.

“We're about half way there,” she shouted back over a brief gust of wind. She banked a little closer to him and pointed to their destination. “We're going for the lower peak just to the left of the big one there.”

“Why are we taking such a long route?” another voice called out over the wind as a larger purple form rose up on the far side of Spike. Smolder sighed and rolled her eyes. Headmare Twilight just HAD to tag along, didn't she? She was going to spend the whole day dragging everything out with questions and hovering over Spike like he was fresh out of the egg. How Spike wasn't cringing into a ball of embarrassment Smolder had no idea. It had to be a pony thing.

“Uh, to keep us downwind when we get close, duh,” she answered.

Spike nervously missed a beat and had to add several extra flaps to catch back up. “Uh, why do we have to worry about that?”

“You wanted to know how dragons do things, right?” He nodded. “Well, this is how dragons do things. Most predators know a young dragon when they smell one, even without the molt smell. Once we're on the mountain, we're gonna have the high ground and be able to see anything coming from behind us. Staying downwind means we'll be able to smell anything coming from the other way before it can smell us.”

Twilight and Spike shared a look. Smolder could only see the back of Spike's head but the Headmare looked worried. Typical. She was going to need to claw-hold the pony before she started freaking out again.

“Relax, most big monsters don't usually climb up past the treeline. We shouldn't run into any diamond dogs up that high either.”

Spike heaved a sigh. “That's a relief. I don't know if Twilight can whine like Rarity.”

Smolder raised a brow ridge at the younger dragon. “Uh… what?”

“A pack of them foalnapped Rarity once to try to make her use her magic to find gems for them. It turns out that diamond dogs can't stand high pitched sounds. By the time we rescued her, they were begging us to take her back.”

Smolder scratched her head just behind her right ear frill. “Huh. I don't think any dragon would have thought of that.”

The whole group had a chuckle about that while Smolder lead them on into the final leg of their journey over the rising foothills and up to the mountain peak itself. This lesson was one of the first things she'd decided on when she'd officially agreed to teaching Spike about being a dragon. After all, it didn't get much more basic than food. If a dragon wanted to grow up strong, then they'd better know how to find gems.

“Okay, step one: Picking a place to dig.” She pointed to the slopes slowly rising to meet them as they passed over the foothills. The angle was pretty moderate, not too sheer, but not exactly made for an easy stroll. The whole surface was covered in loose, pale rocks in subtle shades of off-white piled up on light brown sandy dirt. “You're gonna want to go above the treeline on a surface dig when you're starting out. Like I said, fewer monsters that way. But you can't just go landing anywhere. See all those rocks?”

“Yeah?”

“That sorta loose ground is easy to dig but one wrong move and you can set off a humongous landslide that'll squish you like an egg. We're gonna stay away from really steep spots on a slope like this, but we gotta dig carefully and we gotta land light.” Her searching eyes finally caught the splash of blue on the rocks that she'd been looking for. “Follow me.”

Smolder angled herself into a slow dive, keeping half an eye on Spike and Twilight to make sure they weren't doing anything stupid. It was probably a good thing she'd taught Spike how to land without smashing his face into the ground before taking him up into the mountains. She pulled up into a hover a good five times or so her height from the ground to wait for the others to catch up.

“See this big rock here? All that blue stuff on the side? That's blue beryl. If you can see some small crystals like that at the surface then there's a pretty good chance there are some big gems underneath them. That's the sorta thing you gotta look for with this kind of gem hunting.”

“Should I always look for blue beryl?”

“You're looking for anything that stands out. Turns out that, for this mountain, that's blue beryl. Do a couple circles over an area and look for any spot that looks different. We're gonna start digging here.” One of her ear frills twitched as it caught a faint tinkle of magic in the air. She rounded on the headmare. “Hey! No pony magic. We're doing this like dragons.”

Twilight sheepishly put the small rock she'd picked up back down. Spike came to her rescue by flapping over to break Smolder's line of sight. “So, how do we start?”

Smolder rolled her eyes and let herself descend to the rocks. “Step two: Prepare the dig site. The first thing we do is move some of the loose rocks out of the way to make ourselves a ledge to stand on. Right now you're one bad step away from a twisted ankle or a crushed toe. Check everything before you shove it down the slope. You find anything that doesn't look like a plain old rock, let me know.”

Spike was actually a pretty quick learner for a dragon who'd spent his whole life getting pampered by ponies. He didn't hesitate to get his claws dirty and he worked hard and fast. So much so that Smolder had to tell him several times to slow down and pace himself. She planned to have him digging most of the day, after all.

The headmare was another story. It took about five minutes for it to become painfully clear that she had no idea what she was doing without her magic. She clumsily shifted rocks around with her forehooves, trying to inspect them carefully before rolling them down the slope. She failed miserably more often than not, allowing rock after rock to tumble away unchecked. The first, and only, time Smolder had intervened was to tell her not to chase down anything she dropped unless it was obviously a gem. Otherwise, she was content to let the pony rough it for a while.

It took the three of them about ten minutes to clear away all the loose rocks and soil from an area just big enough for about five ponies to stand side by side with about a hoof between them. The end product was a patch of cold dirt at the base of a short wall of rock full of dirt-packed cracks and crevices.

“Alright, either of you find anything interesting so far?”

Twilight sighed and shook her head ruefully, then cast a longing look down the slope at the patch of ground where all her unchecked rocks lay.

“Well…” Spike began a little uncertainly, “I didn't find anything in the loose rocks but,” he pointed a talon at a glint of blue on the freshly exposed rock. “I think there's some beryl here. Should I start digging?”

Smolder raised a claw to stop him. “Hold up, we're not done clearing the area. We've got a place to stand, now we need to make sure nothing's gonna cave our heads in.” She stepped back to the edge of the new flat spot they'd carved out of the loose ground so she could eye up the exposed freshly exposed rock. Her eyes settled on a large, roughly triangular boulder perched at the top, smack in middle of their dig site. She hopped into the air and hovered next to it, eyeing it critically before she gave it a gentle shove that set lose a trickle of sandy dirt around its base.

“Okay, this sucker's gotta go. We start digging and it's probably going to fall on us.”

The Headmare pulled herself away from her pile of discards and gave her student an appraising look. “Wow, Smolder, I'm impressed! I had no idea you were so safety conscious.”

Smolder landed next to the rock and motioned Spike to land on the other side. “Eh, this is all basic stuff. My mom started teaching me this when I was six.”

Spike flapped up and landed on the opposite side of the lose rock. “Your mom had you digging up gems when you were only six?”

“Nah, that's just when she taught me how to find them in the wild. Dragon parents mix gems into big piles of dirt and gravel on the floor of their cave for their hatchlings to dig through.”

Twilight held a dusty hoof up to her chin thoughtfully. “I had no idea digging for gems was such an important part of dragon culture.”

Smolder braced her claws against the rock, testing her grip and footing for the best angles to approach. “Digging, hunting, fishing, foraging, any dragon with decent parents learns all about them before the Molt.” After a moments consideration of the way the headmare was cringing she added an offclaw comment of, “No offense. If it makes you feel better, most parents never teach their kids to read, so you've got 'em beat there.”

“What!?”

Smolder shrugged. “It's not like we have books in the Dragon Lands. Heh, one good sneeze and you can kiss your whole library goodbye!”

“What!? But-- you-- what!?”

“Hey, Spike, get over here, next to me.” Spike needed no urging to move so that the boulder was between him and their distraught chaperone. “Okay, you push here, no, here. Higher up. There. On three, we push. One… two… three!”

The two dragons strained against the boulder with all their might. The loose, rocky soil shifted under their feet, forcing them to tread in place until they found purchase.

“Almost… got… it… hrrrah!” The ground just under the boulder gave away. The tall, angular stone tilted drunkenly until it reached the point of no return. Twilight yelped and took to the air, the sound of tumbling and grinding stone jarring her out of her frenzied thoughts regarding the draconic educational system just in time to avoid a battering from tumbling gravel. The dislodged boulder thudded down onto their cleared work area and slid a further three yards down the slope before settling into a new rut for the next few hundred years.

“Aaand done,” Smolder said, straightening up and dusting off her claws. “Now we dig.”

Smolder could still remember that first dig under the shadow of her mother on top of that craggy mountain. Hours of sifting and digging, and blowing fire on her claws to keep them warm in the chilly air of the early spring morning. It was hard work and she was well and truly tired when she'd finally struck lucky. It wasn't a rare gem or anything, just a common yellow topaz. Not the darkest or best looking or even very big. But when she'd shoved that rough hunk of crystal into her mouth, it'd been the greatest thing she'd ever tasted.

When Spike held up that first aquamarine of the day, she could see that same joy in his eyes that she'd felt. Sure, he went digging with Professor Rarity all the time, but those were her digs and her gems that she found. This gem was Spike's gem. And when he stopped short of taking his first bite, mumbling something about waiting for lunch, she told him the same thing her own mother had told her, in exactly the same words.

“Always eat your first find the moment you dig it up. That way, no matter what happens later, you won't face it on an empty stomach.” She sat down next to him and put a claw on his shoulder.

“A dragon's life is hard. If you spend your time hoarding all your treasures for later, then there's a good chance you'll never get to enjoy them. Take some today, enjoy some today, and regret nothing tomorrow.”

Spike looked down at his gem for a long time after she finished. Probably thinking about what great advice that was. Smolder had never forgotten it after she'd heard it, that's for sure, and she'd lived her life by it ever since. Spike must have got it too because, when he finally took a bite, he took the time to really savor it. He chewed slowly, eyes shut, and breathing deep so he could taste every last shard of that gem. Smolder smirked proudly.

Then the expression on the headmare's face caught her eye. She'd put one hoof against her chest and she was just smiling at her and Spike. It actually kinda reminded her of how her--

Smolder scrambled back to her spot and dug her talons into the ground again. There was still a lot of digging to do if SHE was gonna have any gems for lunch.

Chapter 3 - This is how a dragon raids.

View Online

Raiding villages was a bad idea.

For old dragons it was a waste of time, for young dragons it was dangerous, reckless, and as many other words for stupid as any dragon could think of. Most ponies might have been panicky and skittish, but they weren't all cowards, and they weren't all helpless. Sometimes the ones who could fight back could more than make up for all the ones who couldn't. And then there were the ones who got fed up with constant attacks and paid gold to other creatures who would “take care” of the problem. Smolder's own mother had told her never to raid a pony village… until she had to.

“Never let yourself go more than three days without food. On the fourth day, do whatever you have to do, and take from whoever you have to take from.”

Smolder flexed the bony digits of her wings into a half-fold, turning her high soar into a long dive towards the thatched roofs below. Her sharp eyes narrowed against the wind, flicking from target to target until she settled on a pristine roof. She drew in a deep lungful of air and flared out her wings just as the first terrified voice screamed out.

“DRAGONS!”

Right on cue, she blew out a jet of red-orange flames, drawing a line from one end of the roof to the other. Just before her fire could scorch the ground beyond, she flapped hard to pull up into a steep climb. In moments she was up and out of reach of all but the most eagle-eyed unicorn. Garble and Fume had spotted more than a few horned ponies when they'd scouted the place out the day before. Crossbow bolts were no big deal if she kept her distance, but there was no telling what weird things those unicorns could do.

Other dragons were doing the same all around her. Roof after roof went up in flames, and ponies galloped into the dirt streets in blind panic. Fume drove a small group of earth ponies through the middle of town with low swoops and streams of smoke, while Backdraft was already tearing open a burning roof to break in. A deep, tooth-rattling belch and a burst of flames from an alley told her that Clump was doing his part stirring up panic, and Garble--

“Ha! What's wrong? Are the pretty little ponies scared of a little fire!?”

Smolder rolled her eyes. Garble was doing what he did best: over-compensating. Her big brother laughed spitefully as he came up level with her.

“Look at them run! Not so tough NOW are you!?”

Smolder gave him a sidelong look. “Okay, what's up with you, Gar-Gar? You've been acting weird ever since the Migration. Did someone see your drums--?”

Garble's claw clapped over her snout. “Not in front of the guys!” He cast frantic looks all around him to make sure no dragon was looking their way.

She flapped back and out of reach. “Relax. I'm pretty sure they're not listening.” Another fiery belch rang out from below as if to prove her point.

“Yeah, well, we've got work to do.” Garble squared his shoulders and pointed down at the burning roofs below. “Get in, grab whatever food you can carry, and get out. We've only got a few minutes before those wimpy pegasi show up with storm clouds, and you're not ready for that kind of action yet.”

“Yeah, yeah, my next two emeralds say I get the bigger haul!”

Garble bumped his fist against hers. “Ha! You're on!”

As Garble dove, Smolder squinted down at the roof she'd set alight, waiting a few more moments for the flames to really take off before she followed.

Smolder tucked her wings and dove again, this time pulling up and alighting right in the middle of the dancing flames eating away at the roof she'd lit up before. She licked her lips eagerly while she tossed aside burning clawfuls of thatch, the aching hollowness of her stomach only getting sharper as she got closer to her goal. Give it an hour and, with a little luck, she'd be roasting up the spoils with Garble and the gang, swapping their stories of the raid, and laughing while they watched the smoke rise over the horizon.

This was gonna be a good day.

“You want to do what!?”

Smolder crossed her arms and kept her eyes level with the Headmare's from across the desk and between the piles of paperwork.

“It's basic dragon knowledge. Every dragon needs to know this sort of stuff.”

Headmare Twilight's wings snapped open and shut over and over while she sputtered and alternated between waving her hooves in weird, jerky motions, and cradling her head in between them.

“But-- that's-- you-- what!?”

“So… Thursday?”

“What? No!” Twilight shook her head violently and wrestled her wings back against her sides. “This is absolutely, one-hundred-percent out of the question! You are not teaching Spike how to burn down Ponyville!”

Smolder rolled her eyes. Leave it to the pony to jump to the worst case scenario. “It's not like we need to burn the whole town. We just need one building and a couple of volunteers--”

Twilight reared up and planted her forehooves on her desk. “Are you crazy!? You can't burn down a building!”

“Pft, why not? It's not like it'd be the first time.”

Twilight's eyes went as round as bits. “It wouldn't?”

Smolder casually shrugged and leaned back in her seat, claws behind her head. “Not even close! Me and Garble must've hit about a half dozen villages. Well, me, him, and some other dragons. Solo raids are waaay too dangerous until you hit a hundred or so. Most ponies are lousy shots, but you give them just one or two dragons to aim at and one of 'em is gonna get lucky sooner or later. Oh, yeah, that reminds me,” she sat forward in her seat again, “do you know anyone who's good with a crossbow?”

Twilight's eyes went wider still. “Crossbow?”

“He's gotta learn how to dodge them.” She brought one claw around to rub her chin thoughtfully. “There's other stuff too, but you probably don't have a ballista or any catapults laying around this far from the Dragon Lands. Oh, and we'll need some pegasi with storm clouds, and some unicorns who can shoot those magic beam things. Those are all the biggest hazards with pony villages.”

Twilight threw her hooves up high. “But we're at peace! Ember said she'd forbidden dragons from attacking ponies!”

Smolder straightened up and nodded sagely, a single finger raised. “Well, actually, she told us not to attack Equestrian ponies. Some ponies do live outside Equestria, y'know. It's just easier to avoid them all, just in case. And Ember could call off the whole 'friendship' thing tomorrow and we'd go right back to raiding the border towns. Besides,” a fierce grin exposed almost all of her wickedly sharp teeth while she settled back again, “Spike could use a little more exercise. He spends waaay too much time doing paperwork and junk.”

Twilight shook herself from head to tail and straightened up, full princess style. “No. I do my best to respect the cultural heritage of every species, but I will not condone teaching Spike how to attack and terrorize innocent creatures. That sort of behavior goes against everything this school stands for.”

Smolder met the headmare's stern glare for several long seconds before she yielded.

“Whatever.” She hopped down off her chair and made for the door. “I'll figure out something else for the next lesson.”

“Smolder.” The dragon paused and looked back, claw resting on the door handle. The headmare's expression had softened somewhat. “I appreciate you agreeing to take all this time to teach Spike, even if some of the things you want to teach are… unconventional.”

“Maybe to you,” Smolder muttered.

Twilight went on as if she hadn't heard her student. “But I have to do what's best for him, and I just don't see how learning to raid villages would ever do him any good.”

Smolder snorted, pushed open the door, unfurled her wings, and launched herself down the hallway without another word.

The strategy to raiding ponies was so simple that a hatchling could understand it. Start by lighting the roof on fire. That drives the ponies out of the building, but destroys the rest of it slow enough to ransack from the top down. When the burning roof starts falling in, move down to the next floor until you hit ground level. Gems were almost always on the upper floors in drawers, or any fancy looking little boxes, so check there first. Most of the rest of the food would be kept in wooden wall-vaults downstairs, but the best stuff was always in their ice-vaults.

Stuff like eggs. There hadn't been anything worthwhile upstairs except for an oversized basket that looked good for carrying loot, but the day was a victory the moment Smolder opened the ice-vault door and saw a full dozen eggs waiting for her. The sweet taste of victory got soured when the first egg shattered into a thick splash of cold goo between her teeth. She choked down the slimy mouthful with a determined shudder, but wasted no time blowing a small jet of flames across half of the remaining dozen or so. The sharp cracks and pops of the shells breaking open as their insides flash-baked was almost loud enough to drown out the impatient growling of her stomach. She popped a second egg in her mouth and chewed experimentally.

That was more like it. Egg after lukewarm egg got crunched up and swallowed as fast as she could get them down. It was a mystery to her why ponies thought eggs were good cold. Mom's scrambled cockatrice eggs with seared slingtail steak, now that was a breakfast. Fresh eggs mashed up and sizzling on a hot rock with some smashed rocksalt and a little gypsum, delicious! There had never been anything better than waking up to the sound of a freshly caught slingtail being dropped on the cave floor next to the hoard. Sure, butchering one was a lot of work, but it was so, so worth it when the meat started to sizzle on the rocks. If only ponies ate meat…

She finally forced herself to stop after her sixth egg when she saw that smoke was beginning to curl down the stairs and spread across the ceiling. The rest went in the basket along with anything else she could get her claws on. Bottles, jars, bowls, everything in the vault was fair game. She moved on the moment it was empty, digging through the wooden vaults instead.

“Honey? Is something burn--?”

Smolder froze where she stood on the kitchen counter, looking over her shoulder at the mare that stood, just as frozen, in the doorway. Her pale gray coat was rumpled, her slate blue mane and tail were a pair of perfectly matched tangles, and her eyes were carrying around some seriously dark circles under them, like she'd been woken up from a hundred year nap fifty years early. That didn't stop those big, pale blue eyes from drifting from Smolder to the empty vault, then down to the loaded basket, up to the plume of smoke fanning out over the kitchen ceiling, before finally coming to rest back where they started.

“Dah. Druh. Dra--! Dra--! Drag--!”

“Dragon?”

“DRAGOOOOON!”

The pony spun about and galloped out of sight past the edge of the doorway, still screaming at the top of her shrill pony voice. Smolder kept still a moment or two longer, waiting for any sign that the panicking pony was going to stir up any other stragglers. When no more screams started up in response, she snorted and went back to rooting through the dry goods for anything worth taking.

“Sleeping through a dragon raid. Heh, wait 'til the guys hear about this one.”

Smolder picked at the pile of food on her lunch tray with unusual disinterest. It'd been pretty cool at first, just being given three meals a day. She'd spent the first few weeks shoveling it in as fast as they'd serve it to her. Turned out that the ponies in the lunchroom had no idea how much food a dragon her age needed, so they never even questioned it when she demanded more, outside of cowering a little. She'd almost felt bad about it after the whole thing with Sludge but, hey, these were grown adults whose actual jobs were to give out food, not a freshly molted kid who thought he was being reunited with his long-lost dad.

It was weird though, thinking about it. All this food just given away. She sat down three times a day, every day, with a tray full of fish, vegetables, fruit, and gemstones, all piled high just for her. So did Gallus, Ocellus, Yona, Silverstream, and Sandbar. Every creature got food, no matter what kind of food they ate.

She turned a rough, mashed potato smeared ruby over with the tip of a talon. Even ponies didn't give stuff for free. The less of a thing they had, the more bits it cost to get it. Spike and Professor Rarity had probably dug up most of the gems she ate every day. Had they charged the school for it? Who did the school charge to get the money to pay them? Sure, Sandbar's parents could probably pay for him, and Silverstream was basically royalty, but did Yaks even use gold for money? And what about Gallus and Ocellus? What about her? Did the ponies really have so much food that they could go around throwing it at creatures like the three of them?

“Why dragon-friend glaring at food?”

Yona's question snapped Smolder out of her thoughts. The ruby suffered the consequences. “Itsh nufhin'.”

“Soooo,” Silverstream leaned over the table, “how's teaching Spike going? Oh, oh, oh! Are you teaching him how to breathe super amazing fireballs or how to crush rocks with his teeth!?”

Sandbar swallowed his mouthful of salad. “Uh, I'm pretty sure he already knows how to do that.”

Silverstream sank back onto her seat, rubbing the back of her neck and flashing Smolder an awkward smile. “Oh, right. That's just… all I really know about dragons.”

Smolder snorted out a puff of smoke then shoved a clawful of potatoes in her mouth.

“I actually don't know much about dragons either,” Ocellus chimed in. “All I'd been taught before Thorax took over was that dragons were too dangerous to replace for love stealing.”

Smolder raised a brow. “Why?”

“Umm…” Ocellus shrank down in her seat. “Because you breathe fire and can crush gemstones with your teeth.”

Smolder's expression soured. “Seriously? Doesn't anyone know anything about dragons!?”

Yona raised one of her cloven hooves. “Yona knows! Small dragons no like cold! That's why dragons not raid Yakyakistan. Yaks tough out coldest winters with tough hides and thick coats. Scales hard, but bad at keeping dragons warm.”

“So, let me get this straight. The only one here who knows anything about us is the one creature living in a place dragons my age never go.” Smolder blew short jets of smoke from her nostrils. “Figures.”

“Eh, it's no big deal,” Gallus said. He'd picked his fish down to the bones by this point and pushed his plate away as he joined the conversation. “It's not like any species really knows anything about any of the others. Half the ponies I've met at this school didn't even know I was a griffon until I told them. I'd never heard of hippogriffs or sea ponies before I came here, and changelings were just a myth in Griffonstone.”

Sandbar ran a hoof over the back of his neck, his face settling into the awkward frown of somepony noticing a not entirely comfortable fact for the first time. “Yeah, I guess ponies kinda just learn about ponies in school.”

“Yaks all alone in Yakyakistan until we make friends with ponies.”

“I met some Sea Serpents once! They were really friendly and had the most amaaaazing manes! Other than that, nooot a whole lot of creatures to talk to under the sea.”

Ocellus shifted uncomfortably, ears wilting. “I would have learned more about other species if things hadn't changed. Infiltrators needed to know enough to get by no matter where they were sent. The adults are still working out how to redesign our training programs around our new diet.”

“What Smolder know about us?”

Smolder shrugged and picked another gem out of her potatoes. “Eh, not that much, I guess. Probably the most important thing before I came here was that you ponies don't lay eggs.”

Silverstream shot out of her chair to hover over the table right in front of Sandbar's muzzle with her claws cradling her face. “Ponies don't lay eggs!?”

Sandbar leaned way back from the pointy pink beak that was much too close to his eyes. “Uh... nope? And that's pretty specific. How often does stuff like that even come up?”

A large, potato covered emerald cracked between sharp teeth.

“Yeu'd be shurprished.”

The pony just did not stop screaming.

Ponies took panicking so seriously that it felt rude not to watch them go at it. And watching her run by the open doorway every few seconds, screaming all the way, was funny for the first couple of times. She'd run past (screaming), go out of sight, there'd be some banging and thumping, and then she'd go past the other direction (screaming), there'd be some banging and rattling, and then she'd go past the first way again… screaming. Every pass she got a little slower and wheezier, but kept right on going anyway, and after lap five Smolder tuned her out and went about her plundering.

It wasn't until her basket was just about to the point where she wasn't going to be able to carry it fast enough for a quick getaway that she realized that the screaming had finally stopped. She cocked an ear to listen and got only the roar of flames and… coughing? She raised a claw to her frill and listened harder. That was definitely coughing. The pony was still in the building.

Sighing, Smolder hopped down off the counter, crossed the room, and stuck her head around the doorway into the pony's living room. “Okay, are you actually going to run away or…?”

The pony lay huddled at base of the front door, watching the smoke above with wide, terrified eyes. Her legs were all tucked up against her stomach and her whole body was shivering.

“Uh,” Smolder stepped through the kitchen doorway, glancing between the pony and the closed door that was right behind her. The pony's eyes snapped onto her and she pressed herself even harder against the floor. “Have you tried opening the door?”

The pony swallowed heavily. “I-! I c-can't. It's… stuck.”

Smolder shot a look over her shoulder at the far wall where a window stood wide open. “Aaand you're not going out the window because…?”

One of the pony's back legs protectively tucked up higher against her side. “I can't fit.”

“Pft, seriously? You're not that--” Smolder craned her neck to get a good look at the pony's midsection. Now that she mentioned it, she was kinda big. Make that really big. The rest of her was on the small side for a pony (as far as Smolder knew ponies), but her stomach was huge! It was so big that--

“Never forget that ponies do not lay their eggs like we do. If you see a mare with a belly too big for her body, do not lay a claw upon her. Ponies will accept the wounding of a soldier, or even a foolish pony defending his home. But if you value your life then you must NEVER harm a pregnant mare.”

“Are you... pregnant?”

The pony blinked for what might have been the first time since Smolder started talking to her. “Y-yes? Why--?”

Smolder smacked a claw to her face. “Why didn't you say so!? Move over.” The pony continued to stare at her. “No, seriously, move over and I'll let you out.” Staring. “Do you want to stay here!? Move it!”

The pony finally remembered how her legs worked and scrabbled her way against the wall and out of Smolder's way as she stomped up to the door and took a deep breath. One jet of metal-melting fire to the lock and swift kick later the door swung right open.

“There you--” The pony shot past her in a gray and blue blur, galloping away towards the edge of town. “…go. Huh.” With a shrug, she flapped back inside to grab her loot and then shot off into the sky as fast as she could carry it, joining the rest of the gang all winging their way out over the lava fields.

Did she ever have a story for them.

Chapter 4 - This is how a dragon knaps.

View Online

Smolder rapped her knuckles on the frame of the headmare's office door and stuck her head inside.

“Hey, uh, Professor Fluttershy said you wanted to-- whoa.”

The air was full of books, scrolls, and papers, all wrapped in a raspberry pink aura, and all floating past the headmare's desk one after the other. Each one got passed off to Counselor Starlight to either return to the shelves or be sorted into one of several large boxes labeled with things like “legal”, “academic”, and “personal”.

“Tax records: keep here, zoning determination: keep here, student roster: keep here, Deed: take a copy--” A blank scroll floated out of the desk, flashed pink, then parted ways with the original.

“Twilight? Smolder's here.”

“Hmm?” The headmare paused the conga line and peeked past a stack of papers so thick that someone had given up trying to paperclip it properly and just speared it together with the bent wire. “Oh, Smolder, you're right on time! Just a moment!” The floating documents heaped themselves up in the corner behind her desk. “Please, make yourself comfortable. Starlight and I were just getting a head start on some paperwork.”

Smolder shrugged and took her usual seat across the desk from the headmare. Oddly enough, Starlight settled into the chair next to her and flashed her a smile.

“Uh, am I in trouble or something?”

“What? No no, not at all! I'm actually very pleased with how you've been doing in class. Er, for the most part. Some of your grades are a little--”

Starlight cleared her throat.

“--But that's really something I should let the other teachers talk to you about, and isn't why I called you here. I actually wanted to talk to you about the lessons you've been giving Spike.”

Smolder folded her arms. “Is this about the raiding lesson I wanted to do?”

“No, er, well,” Twilight stopped herself for a deep breath. When she started talking again she was much more composed. “Smolder, when we first talked about these lessons, I'd been planning to be a part of all of them. Unfortunately, that's just not going to be practical. I have too much to do to get ready for my coronation and, while I still plan to sit in with you whenever I can, I can't keep putting sessions on hold if Spike is going to have the opportunity to get the most out of your help before we move. Ideally, I'd like to have Spike visit Ponyville when he can to visit friends even after we return to Canterlot, but time is going to be at a premium once that happens.”

“So, you want me to just teach him whenever from now on?”

“Nooot exactly. Spike still has his own responsibilities, after all. I'm just going to leave scheduling time to him from now on. If I can make it I'll join you but, if I can't, then I'll just have to sit that lesson out.”

Smolder nodded cautiously. She had a feeling there was another boulder about to roll. “Sounds good to me.”

A hard bound book floated out of the desk and swooped in front of Smolder's snout. “So, I'd like you draw up a lesson plan!”

And there it was. “A what now?”

Twilight's grin gave no sign she'd picked up on Smolder's lack of joy. “I've already put together a template for you to follow.” The book opened itself to show off the premade forms that filled each page. “The name of the topic, a brief summary of the activities involved, required materials (if any),” Smolder swore she could actually hear the parentheses, “ideal locations, ideal time of day and/or season, estimated duration, risks, related topics, creatures who can assist, and ideal order in which it should be handled!”

Smolder stared blankly at the form. It was more complicated than one of Professor Dash's Wonderbolt stat-sheets.

“Uh…”

“Trust me, it's not as bad as it looks,” Starlight chimed in. “I'm pretty sure Spike and I will end up filling most of that out.”

Smolder shot the Counselor a look between attempts to fend off the book trying to push itself into her claws. “You?”

“That's the other thing,” Twilight continued. “I'd still like you to have some supervision. I firmly believe that there's no difference between any two species that can't be overcome with friendship and understanding, but it's also a fact that ponies are a lot less resilient than dragons in many ways. There are aspects of your daily life that are very, very dangerous to other creatures. Gorge surfing may be a lot of fun for dragons, but I have to cast powerful heat-shielding spells on my friends every time one of them goes to the Dragon Lands just so that they can go near to an exposed lava flow without risking burns or heat stroke. I would really feel a lot better about things if I knew that somepony will be there just to make sure there aren't any accidents or misunderstandings.

“Besides, it's a great opportunity for more ponies to learn about dragons! Once you've got a list of topics you want to cover, you can coordinate with Starlight to make plans with an appropriate observer and to get you whatever you need!”

Smolder finally took hold of the book and glowered down at the empty forms. This was such a pain in the tail. If she'd known it was going to be this annoying to put lessons together she'd… She heaved a smoky sigh. She'd probably still have done it.

“Fine.”

“Great! I really appreciate this, you have no idea what a load off my mind this is. I'll just let you two get started.” Twilight got out of her chair and trotted for the door. “I have a chariot to catch to Canterlot so I can go over some tax law with Celestia. Have fun you two!”

“Good luck!” Starlight called after her. “…Staying awake. So, Smolder, do you want to start now or would you rather schedule an appointment or…?”

“Now's fine, I guess.” Smolder's lip curled as she flipped through page after page of blank lesson plans. “Do I really have to do all this?”

“Nope!” Smolder looked up, confused. The counselor had a relaxed smile on her face which only got wider when she tugged the book out of Smolder's claws. “Honestly, between you, me, and Spike, we can probably get away with filling in most of it as we go along. It'd probably be a good idea for us to at least work out a few to start with, but it's not as though we have to sit down and fill in every last page with every tiny little detail all at once.”

“I still don't get why we need somepony watching our every move,” Smolder grumbled. “I mean, yeah, I was gonna teach him how to melt rocks, but we can't go gorge surfing in a little lava puddle.”

“We're probably worrying about nothing but, well, we're kinda responsible for you while you're here. Not just you, but every single creature inside the school is under our care and protection. If there's an accident with some lava and somepony on the staff or one of the other students gets hurt, it'll be our fault for not preventing it.”

“This is that dumb 'liability' thing that Professor Dash told us about, isn't it? That pony rule that stopped us doing that thing with the thunder clouds and concentrated rainbows in cheer squad?”

“Got it in one. Sometimes coolness has to take a back seat to not destroying the stadium and every creature in it.”

Smolder groaned and slumped lower in her chair. “Fine, we can do the lesson plans.”

“Great!” Starlight levitated a quill and some ink over from the desk and flipped to the first page in the planner. “What should we start with?”

That was a good question. They probably shouldn't start with the lava bowls or the advanced fire breathing lessons until the headmare was convinced that they weren't going to burn the school down. Raiding was out, and hunting was probably going to be a tough fight to win. There was always more to learn about flying and that was pretty safe, maybe a few more lessons about that. Fishing would be good, but needed a lesson or two in tool making to build up to. Actually…

“You know anywhere we can get some flint?”

“Napping?” Spike asked as the pair of them landed on the castle balcony. “Is this about how dragons can sleep for a hundred years?”

Smolder rolled her eyes. Sooner or later she would probably get used to just how much Spike didn't know, but it hadn't failed to surprise her yet. Smolder had settled on the castle balcony for the next lesson once she'd picked the topic. She got tired of being inside all the time at school, but having a pony guest she knew nothing about coming made her think it could probably be someplace “nice” or whatever. She and Spike flew up as soon as classes were done for the day and Ocellus had agreed to take her stuff back to her room for her.

“K-N-A-P-P,” she waved a talon as if to point out each letter. “Knapping. Y'know, making tools out of stone?”

Spike gave her an odd look, one that she couldn't put a finger on. “Dragons are still using stone tools?”

“Stone, metal, things that don't burn when we sneeze. The only wood I know that holds up is Dragon-Sneeze Trees. It's how they spread their seeds or something.”

Spike didn't get a chance to ask whatever question was eating him before the balcony door swung open from the inside.

“Sorry!” Counselor Starlight said as she trotted out into the afternoon sunlight. “We got held up by Pinkie. Maud and I have been friends for ages now, but Pinkie still insists on 'checking in' on-- Er, uh, anyway, come on out!”

It wasn't the first time Smolder had met Maud Pie but she still weirded her out. Pretty much every pony she'd ever met got at least a little nervous when they met her because of the whole “dragon” thing. They'd smile too wide or keep twitching their tails or wings or whatever. Maud was just… there. She didn't smile, she didn't flinch, she barely even blinked. But, according to the guidance counselor at least, she was the pony for rocks in Ponyville.

Maud came to a stop a couple of paces away from the group and leveled her blank eyes on Smolder. She'd actually pulled a small wagon's worth all the way up the flights of stairs to took to reach the balcony by the looks of it. It was a pretty good haul too, even if she didn't have a clue how it'd stayed in the wagon all the way up those stairs. It saved Smolder the days it'd take to scope out the areas outside of town for what she needed, that was for sure. That was something she could teach Spike while they were out doing other stuff.

“Hi.”

“Uh… hey?”

Maud pulled the wagon around and unhitched herself as she spoke. “The local chert deposits are reasonably high quality. They should produce good tools.”

Smolder raised a brow. “What do you know about stone tools?”

There was no telling if Maud was offended by the question or not. She simply reared up and pulled a large, lumpy, off-white rock out of the cart and onto the floor. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, studying the misshapen stone critically. Then, without a word, she turned it over, braced one hoof on it to keep it steady, and struck the edge of a lump with the other. A sharp *crack*, and an almost glass-like clatter of shards rang out as a large, flat flake of dark flint split off, perfect for shaping.

“Huh, not bad.”

“Where did you learn to do that?” Starlight asked, somewhat awed by the display.

“It's a hobby.”

Spike bent down to pick the flake up and turn it over in his claws. “Is… that it?”

Smolder snorted. “That's just the start. You bring the hammer stones like I asked for?”

Maud reached into her wagon again, this time unloading a small, wooden box full of smooth stones. “I wasn't sure what to bring. I don't use hammer stones. I don't have claws, either. These are mostly quartzite.”

“That'll work. Pick one out, Spike. Try to find one that fits in your claw that's got a good, smooth side to hit with, then we'll get started.”

A few minutes and explanations of proper stone grip later and the group was seated in a loose circle, each with a rough flake of stone on their lap or on a stubby wooden stool between their forehooves. And it was a group thanks to the counselor not-so-subtly hinting that satisfying Maud's inevitable curiosity about dragon-style rock shaping techniques would be the friendly thing to do back when they'd planned the lesson. She could use the extra credit with how badly her grade in Generosity class had been turning out lately. Professor Rarity really needed to find some fireproof fabric. She'd tried to suggest they bring in some asbestos to sew with but she might as well have suggested using cursed mummy wrappings with the way they'd reacted to that idea.

“So, once you've got your core and your hammer, you can start on shaping it. Right now this thing,” she traced the edge of her plate-sized core with a talon, “is way too blunt. See all this white from the outside on this side of it? We want to get as much of it off as we can until the edge is all black stuff the whole way around.”

Spike turned his own, smaller core over in his claws. “So, do I hit it on the white side to break it off?”

“Other way around. Watch.”

Smolder turned the core dark-side up and braced it firmly against her thigh with one claw while she hefted her hammer-stone in the other.

“You wanna find a spot as close to the edge as possible on the opposite side from what you wanna take stone off of. Somewhere you can get a clean hit, like right here. Line up your hammer, tap once to get your angle down then hit it--” A sharp *crack* and a tinkle of shattered stone rang out. “Like that. See?” She turned the core over to show the newly exposed edge of black on the white side. “This stuff kinda breaks like glass. Now, you try.”

The almost rhythmic tapping and cracking of stone set an off-kilter tempo for conversation the rest of the afternoon. Spike caught onto the technique for making a good edge pretty quick. He only ruined six cores before he got one to start taking the right shape. It was still pretty rough but it'd do the job if he got it finished. It wasn't like she was expecting Spike to be an expert overnight. Knapping took years to get perfect and she wasn't anywhere close to being as good as her big brother. She'd challenge anyone to find her another dragon who could shape a set of drums with nothing but stones, fire, and his own claws. Besides, once you got the basics, knapping was really just about practice. It also kept your claws busy and that meant it was a good way to pass the time while she filled him in on some of the smaller details of survival.

“But, yeah, timberwolves are easy: just blow some fire at them and fly away. They won't go more than a mile outside the forest before they turn back. Oh, hold onto that flake, Spike, it'll make a good scraper later. Watch out when it rains though. Whatever magical wood they're made of holds up against fire better than you'd expect after it soaks up a ton of rainwater, and they know it.” She punctuated her warning with a sharp *thwack* on her stone. “They're only scared of it when they're dry.”

Starlight swept a few shards of stone away from her hooves and levitated her most recent attempt for scrutiny. “Applejack told me they don't like loud noises either. Granny Smith used to chase them off by banging metal pans together back when the Apples first settled down here.”

“Yeah, they spook pretty easy. They're really only dangerous when they get the drop on you or catch you grounded.”

Spike puffed up his chest proudly. “Oooor you can throw a rock right down their throats. That's how I took down a giant timberwolf at Sweet Apple Acre's once. Plugged up that rancid breath until it blew apart. And that was before I had these babies!” He flexed his wings for emphasis.

“Rocks make versatile and effective tools for self defense in a variety of situations,” Maud said.

“…Is that what these things are for?” Starlight prodded her floating tool with her hoof. Hers was turning out long and jagged, a far cry from the more even, teardrop shape of Smolder's, or the smooth half circle of Maud's. She kept using way too much force with her magic and smashing off big chunks instead of flakes. “What are we even making, anyway?”

“We call them 'claw axes'.” Smolder held hers up by the broader end. “We use 'em for all sorts of stuff. Breaking things, cutting things, gutting things, hammering things--”

“Wait, what?”

“--grinding things, you name it.”

Spike and Starlight shared another one of those weird, wide-eyed looks ponies got sometimes until Spike asked, “Uh, did you say… 'gutting' things?”

“Yeah, I'll teach you all about that when we go hunting and fishing. Trust me, you do not want to taste what your prey had for breakfast after it's been in there for a few hours. Big stomachs are great if you can get your claws on all the ingredients for a haggis though. And you can trade the guts with griffons once you clean them out if you're close enough to a village to get there before they start rotting. They use them for sausage casing. You ever had blood sausage before?”

“Maud!” Starlight turned a slightly frantic smile on her fellow pony. “What do you use claw axes for?”

Maud held up her tool just below shoulder height. “This is a mouth axe. It's meant to be held between the teeth. I picked up the hobby for something to keep me occupied between dig sites while researching my dissertation. It's believed that ancient ponies used them for the same things dragons do. Except for the gutting.” She blinked slowly as she turned her eyes onto Smolder. “Most ponies find discussion of preparing meat very disturbing.”

Smolder casually jabbed her axe in the Maud's direction. “Ponies eat eggs, don't they?”

Maud turned her attention back to her rock. “That's different. Domesticated chickens lay unfertilized eggs when kept separate from roosters. They never hatch.”

“Oh. That reminds me,” Smolder gave another sharp tap her to axe and swept the flakes away. “Cockatrices. Half chicken, half snake-things? They don't eat dragons, but they're crazy territorial and attack on sight. Never look one in the eye. If you do, you'll only have a few seconds to shut your eyes and fly before they'll turn you to stone. Their magic wears off quick if you break eye contact and they won't usually fly far above the canopy, so just go straight up as fast as you can. The eggs are good if you find a nest. Just chase the adults off with a little fire and they're all yours.”

“That's where dragons get eggs?” Spike asked.

“You see any markets in the Dragon Lands? We get food wherever we can find it. Gems, fish, game, plants, you name it. There are a few things you shouldn't eat though. If any dragon ever dares you to drink hot tar? Don't.”

“Why not?”

“Trust me, you don't wanna know.”

Starlight frowned. “Iiif Twilight were here, I'm pretty sure she'd want to know.”

Smolder waved her axe in the general direction of the castle. “This is pretty nice castle, right? Does it have that plumbing stuff like the school does?”

“Of course it does.”

“Now,” Spike corrected. “I mean, it was pretty cool of the Tree of Harmony to give us this place after the library got blown up, but it was no plumber. We had to get three different contractors in here to get everything up to code. My claw still hurts just thinking about those checklists!”

“Yeah, well, you drink some tar and you'll have to get those 'contractors' all over again.” Smolder smirked at the horrified look on both their faces. Looked like she'd gotten the point across pretty well, even if she didn't have a clue what a 'contractor' was. She'd have to ask Sandbar about that later.

“Is… there anything else I shouldn't eat? Ponies always tell me they can't believe some of the stuff I eat.”

“Well, yeah, a few. Flash bee honey is great, but it's not worth the flash bees, and you really don't want to eat them without taking the stinger off first. Swamp Lilies are only good for a really weird cough if you eat them. You're really better off just not eating most plants you find in a swamp since it all tastes like mud anyway. You don't even want to think about touching anything a Tazlwurm has drooled on until you're about a hundred. And… I can think of one thing you really oughta know about.”

She suppressed a shudder at the memory of her own 'learning experience' with foraging for food in unfamiliar territory. Honestly, she probably should have started with that. Some mistakes you didn't make twice.

“…You ever hear of something called Poison Joke?”

Chapter 5 - This is how a dragon smiths, part 1: Sourcing Materials

View Online

Smolder caught more than one pony shooting curious looks her way as she and Spike walked through town with their escorts. For once, she couldn't blame them. Over the last few weeks she'd started to pick up on a few things from Spike and Counselor Starlight about how daily life went in Ponyville. Enough to know that a pair of dragons hauling a red wagon full of rocks and charcoal though town was something they didn't exactly see every day. Having the counselor and Professor Applejack with them was the garnet on the steak.

“Thanks again for getting this set up for us, Applejack,” Spike said.

“Aw, it weren't no trouble, sugarcube. Iron Billet's been a friend of the family goin' back decades, ever since his family first set up shop here in Ponyville. All I had to do was ask.”

Smolder frowned at her teacher suspiciously. “And why do we have to go see this guy again? I'm the one who's doing the teaching here.”

“Safety,” Starlight answered. “A blacksmith's workshop is probably the safest place in Ponyville for today's lesson.”

“Eeyup! Old Iron's been workin' with metal since before I was born. If there's anypony in town who will know what to do if there's an accident, it's him.”

“We've been working with lava for a couple of weeks now without burning down the town,” Smolder retorted. “Right, Spike?”

“I guess… but that's really only because we were doing out in the middle of nowhere with Maud.”

“'Sides, weren't y'all havin' some trouble findin' any iron out there? Billet said he's got a whole heap of scrap for you to use. I reckon him and Oil are mighty curious to see how dragons do things.”

“Plus, he'll have all sorts of tools and stuff we can use,” Spike added.

Smolder waved her free claw over her shoulder at their wagonload of cargo. “We've brought plenty of tools! We've got hammer stones, claw axes, awls, crucibles, and molds. All we need and then some.”

Spike sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck while he glanced back at the mound of stone behind them. It was a lot more than they really needed, but Smolder hadn't felt like telling Spike that even if it looked like he'd figured it out on his own. Whatever weird feelings he'd had about using stone tools at the start of their lessons had faded quick once they'd started working with lava and clay. Turned out the kid was really good with his claws. In no time at all he was making crucibles and molds right alongside her and having a blast. Headmare Twilight had gotten all teary-eyed when he gave her that sculpted lava mug with “#1 Sister” inlaid on the side in amethyst.

So, yeah, they might have had a few spare crucibles to work with.

Spike straightened up quick though. “Okay, we've got tools, but if there's one thing I've learned about being a dragon, it's that we'll use whatever we can get our claws on to get the job done. If we've got ponies willing to let us use their stuff and spare metal, shouldn't we take the opportunity?”

“I, uh… guess so…”

Spike nudged her in the side with his wing. “Come on trust me, it'll be fun! Maud was pretty cool once you got to know her right?”

Smolder groaned and threw up her claws in surrender. “Fine! We'll do the lesson at the smith-pony's place. Might as well since we're going there anyway,” she grumbled.

“That's the spirit! Sorta,” the counselor said.

Smolder hunched her wings over her shoulders and kept walking.

The ringing of the bell hanging over the smithy's front door hadn't even stopped before a deep voice called out to the group.

“Well howdy there, Applejack. C'mon in! These must be them students y'all were tellin' me about.”

Smolder hung back a little to let the others go in first, including Spike and his wagon, before cautiously sticking her head in after them. At first glance there wasn't a lot to see. It was a pretty typical pony store, if a little less colorful than most. Wood floors, plaster walls, and lots of shelves and racks full of metal stuff for sale. Once she was reasonably confident that the stuff inside was mostly farming tools (and that she wasn't walking into an armory full of spears and harpoons) she followed the group up to the counter where the owner was talking to the professor and counselor with Spike hovering alongside. She stopped a few paces back to wait with her arms folded across her chest.

Smolder's first impression of Iron Billet was that ponies were weirdly good at naming their kids. His coat, eyes, and short-cut mane were all shades of steely grays that probably would have let him camouflage himself perfectly against his wares. He was built big, maybe just a little shorter than the professor's brother, but just as bulky and with practically the same sort of accent. The really odd thing about him was that he was wearing clothing, and plenty of it. Big brown boots made of thick looking fabric ran all the way up to his body on all four legs, high enough to vanish under the heavy, black apron thing he had draped over his back. A set of pitch black goggles sat perched just above his eyes to round off whatever look he was going for. They pretty much had to be just for looks because there was no way he was going to see anything through those.

“This here's Spike, though I figure y'all probably recognize him well enough.”

“Sure do.” Billet reached over the counter to bump his hoof against Spike's fist. “Helped out Ponyville a fair few times with the Princess and all that. Glad to have ya.”

Spike waved off the compliment but went ahead and puffed out his chest anyway. “Aw, it was nothing.”

The professor smiled and shook her head before picking up where she left off. “And this is Smolder, our visiting student from the Dragon Lands.”

Billet raised a hoof in greeting. “Good to meet you, Smolder.”

Smolder stayed put. “Uh huh. So, where are we doing this?”

Smolder caught the counselor's frown in the corner of her eye but Billet didn't miss a beat. He stepped away from the counter and beckoned them to follow him to a half-open door on the back wall.

“Come on 'round the counter. Workshop's out back through here. My apprentice'll show ya around while your teachers and I have ourselves a chat.”

Following him to the shop ended up being easier said than done thanks to their wagon. After a few awkward minutes of trying (and failing) to figure out how to get the heavy hunk of overloaded metal around or over the counter without spilling it or breaking something, Smolder finally admitted defeat and let the counselor zap it through the door. She locked her jaw to stop from grinding her teeth and tried not to storm her way through to the back. Things were annoying enough without making the ponies start panicking.

The workshop she wound up in was unlike any pony room she'd ever seen. The walls were ordinary enough rock and timber, but the floor was a solid slab of some sorta smooth gray stone she didn't recognize at all. Work benches and tool racks lined the edges of the room, all loaded and fitted with weird metal things she had no names for. The squat, metal stove she figured quickly enough as being a forge, even if the ones she was used to were all made of stone or clay instead of metal. The other machines were a complete blank to her.

The hammer stuck in some kind of wood frame on a pivot? No idea. The big, top-heavy iron block with a flat top and a thick spike sticking out one end? Not a clue. The towering contraption of wheels, belts, springs, and chunks of metal? Even less of clue. The whole thing looked like some crazy pony had just stuck together whatever bits of metal they had laying around. She wouldn't have guessed that this was were ponies came to make metal stuff if it weren't for the big pile of scrap in the back.

“Welp, this here's the shop,” Billet said. He stuck a hoof in the direction of an earth pony mare standing over by the forge. “Oil Quench here'll get you set up with some stock and whatever tools ya need. Just give me a holler when you're ready to fire things up.”

Quench approached with an eager smile and an outstretched hoof while Billet doubled back into the storefront. She was a lot smaller, a lot younger (around Sandbar's age if Smolder had to guess), and a lot more cream colored than Billet. Her glossy black mane and tail were probably a lot longer too, but they were all wrapped up in some sort of complicated knots instead of cut short like Billet's. She was also wearing an almost perfectly matching set of clothes to the big stallion, which was confusing. The only things Smolder could remember ponies wearing matching outfits for were all sports related.

“Hi! It's great to meet you!”

Spike grinned and bumped her hoof. “Same here! Thanks for offering to help, Oil Quench.”

“Just call me Oil,” she said, offering her hoof to Smolder next. Her smile drooped a little when Smolder kept her arms crossed. She dropped her hoof after a couple of awkward seconds. “It's, uh, I've been looking forward to seeing how dragons work with metal.”

Smolder avoided eye contact by craning her neck to look past the pony. “The other guy said you had metal for us.”

“Right! Yes, it's just back here.” Oil Quench beckoned them to follow her to the back of the workshop. Smolder hadn't gotten two steps before she was stopped by an elbow to the ribs.

“Hey, what was that for!?” she hissed.

“I know you're not happy, but would it really hurt to be friendly?” Spike whispered back.

“Whatever…”

“If you're just gonna spend all day being mean to Oil Quench then I'm gonna call this whole thing off.”

Smolder gritted her teeth. “Fine, fine, I get it, I'll be nice.”

They followed Oil over to a squat bin heaped high with metal scraps. Mostly iron and steel by the looks of it, none of it especially shiny. Good material to start them off.

“Metal is pretty easy to work with compared to rocks if you can get your claws on some. I can show you how to smelt it from ore some other time but, truth is, taking it from other creatures is usually a lot easier anyway for the rare stuff. Ponies especially.”

Spike gave her an unamused look. “You mean raids.”

“What? Ugh,” Smolder clapped a claw to her face, “this is why I wanted to have that lesson. Dragons raid for food, not junk. Do you really think I'd risk my life just to snag a few chunks of metal? Not a chance.”

Spike's expression lightened. “So… you don't steal metal?”

“No way. Raiding is all about risk versus reward. No chunk of metal is worth getting hurt over, so you take it by sneaking into the village at night while they're all asleep and won't notice you carrying it off.”

“Uh, Smolder? That's still stealing.”

She put her claws on her hips. “Oh yeah? Alright, let's ask the pony. Hey, er…”

The smith mare started and straightened up. “Oh! Uh, call me Oil, please.”

“Hey, Oil, do you care if somedragon takes stuff you've thrown away?”

Oil cocked her head to the side. “Thrown away?”

“Yeah, you know, the junk you guys leave outside to rust and stuff.”

Oil touched a hoof to her chin. “Well… I suppose it depends. Just because we leave it outside that doesn't always mean we're getting rid of it. But if it's actually just garbage then I guess it doesn't really matter who takes it.”

“There, see? Junk is outside, so it's really easy to grab and go at night. But they keep their food inside, and that makes getting it waaay more dangerous. If you sneak in then one of them might get the drop on you and there's no way to know what weird magic tricks they might have. So you go in when most ponies aren't home to start with. A few fires get the rest out and once they start panicking in the streets, the rest probably will too, and then there's nopony in the way until the pegasi show up. You don't need to worry about any of that with junk though." She jerked her thumb at the junk pile. "It's just like this stuff here. They don't care about it or else they wouldn't be giving it to us to practice with, right?”

Spike looked thoughtful, if a little unconvinced. “I guess that could be okay. Are you sure you guys don't need any of this metal?”

Oil stepped closer to the pile, a (slightly nervous) smile back on her face. “Oh, sure, this is all just scraps. The boss and I mostly use it for practice ourselves. Is there anything special you're looking for? I'm sure I can find just about any grade or quality you want in here.” She made to start rummaging until Smolder held up one claw to stop her while waving Spike closer with the other.

“Nope, that's the first part of the lesson. Start pulling this stuff out and laying it out on the floor. Set aside anything that looks like it's got some shine to it first and we'll sort from there.”

Chapter 6 - This is how a dragon smiths, part 2: With Adult Supervision

View Online

It took Smolder, Spike, and Oil the better part of an hour of rummaging through the scrap to roughly categorize it all by size and rustiness. They were completely surrounded by a wide array of scrap metal strewn in rough little piles across the floor by the time they broke out the crucibles… which was also when Oil insisted that they call Billet back to babysit them.

Billet gave them a slag bucket, cleared up some of the truly worthless rust hunks, and shifted the big metal block thing out of the way to clear some floor space for them to work. Other than that, he'd actually stayed out of the way. He just hung back and watched them go through the lesson without a single interruption. He was really watching though. It was like how her dad used to loom on the ridge overlooking the valley when she was practicing hunting with Garble before her Molt. He didn't say a word, but she could feel how ready he was to pounce in at the first sign of trouble.

“You taste that sort of zing its got?” Smolder asked while Spike gnawed a piece off a thick steel bolt from the closest pile. “That's the chromium. Good stuff like that is more than a tenth chromium.”

“That's 316 stainless,” Oil chimed in. She hung back a few paces on the other side of the crucible, craning her neck to watch, and apparently listen, just as attentively as Spike. “16-18% chromium, 10-14% nickel, 2-3% molybdenum--”

“Moly-- what?” Spike asked.

“You catch that funky aftertaste?”

“Uh-huh. It kinda tastes like powellite.”

“That's the molybdenum. Like she said, a little goes a long way. We're definitely gonna use these. Go ahead and add it.”

There wasn't a metal Smolder had ever met that could hold up to a dragon's fire. Her mother had told her stories of dragon slayers armed with enchanted chains that shrugged off the fire of young dragons. Leftover pony scraps didn't stand a chance.

Oil shook her head in amazement while Spike's green flame turned bolt after bolt molten over the crucible mouth. “I heard about dragons eating gems, but grading metal by taste? I feel like I'm watching my mom cook!”

Smolder blew flames over her own clawful of bolts and poured them into her crucible. “It's how my mom and dad taught me.”

“Does your mom do a lot of this kinda stuff?” Spike asked.

“Nah. Not anymore, anyway. Dad still does sometimes though. It's sort of a hobby, I guess.” Smolder scraped some rust off the next piece of metal then tossed it over her shoulder onto the 'useless' pile when all she saw on the other side of the rust was the far wall of the workshop. “Plus, some dragons like to wear armor to show off, so Dad'll make 'em stuff sometimes if they cough up enough gems.”

Oil Quench leaned in with a grin for some reason. “Dragons wear armor?”

“Yeah!” Spike chimed in. “When I first met Ember, she was wearing this whole suit of bronze armor so that her Dad wouldn't know that she was trying to run the Gauntlet of Fire!”

Oil's grin faded to confusion. “Bronze? I always heard dragon scales were tougher than any armor, especially bronze.”

“Pft, yeah, when we're big,” Smolder said with a roll of her eyes. Did ponies only ever think about grown-ups? “Besides, it looks cool. You should see old Lord Torch's armor. He's got this ginormous breastplate made of black steel that you ponies could build a house in. He must've had to trade a total feast of gems to get that thing made. But we're not gonna be making anything like that today.”

“Oh.” The pony sounded a little disappointed by that. She craned her neck over the wagon full of molds and tools. “What are you gonna use this steel for, then?”

Smolder shot her a critical look. “What do you think we're gonna use it for?”

“More tools, I guess? It looks like you already brought a lot of stone hammers and… are those knives or spearheads?”

“Claw-axes,” Smolder corrected. “This is all just stuff for shaping the metal after we cast it. Some of the fancier stuff is gonna need some detail work. Punching holes, sharpening, that sorta thing.”

“Hey, Smolder,” Spike called. “That's all the bolts. This look like enough?”

Smolder leaned over the wide mouth of Spike's crucible and reached her claw into the thick, melted metal. She was halfway up to her elbow before her palm found the flat bottom. Any deeper and Spike was gonna have a tough time working it.

“Yeah, that should be good for the first pour.” She scraped a few clingy globs of metal off her fingers and backed up to give Spike some space. “Let's get it mixed up. Bare claws are the best tool for this. You wanna get over it like this, right? Hey,” Smolder stepped around to where Spike was hunching over his little crucible and put her claws on his shoulders to straighten him out. “Don't scrunch up like that. We're gonna be here for a while, so you're gonna wanna stay loose.”

“Sorry.”

She rolled her eyes and took up her position at her own crucible. “It's your back. C'mere and watch me first. So, claws against the far side like this, bring 'em aaaall the way down to the bottom and sorta scoop it up through the middle and fold it back on itself.” She ran through the motions twice slowly then a few times at the right pace, “Down, up, over. Then do a quarter turn,” she stepped around the edge, “and repeat. Make sure you're getting as close to the bottom as you can without scratching it. You don't wanna get any bits of stone in there. And just keep going down, up, over, down, up, over. Then heat,” a long blast of flames brought the dulling glow right back up to full brightness, “and let it sit and wait for the slag to bubble up. Now let's see you do it.”

Pouring was the worst part of the whole casting deal. All the hours of work that went into sculpting the molds, scrounging, melting, and skimming the metal, all of it could be chucked right back in the caldera by a lousy pour. It didn't help that she'd stupidly decided to start with the biggest casts of the day. The rectangular mold was as tall as Spike and almost as wide when stood on end for filling. Two thick “straps” of cooled lava held the halves of the mold together, with a single well no bigger than her fist left open at the top for them to pour the metal into.

It would have been a lot easier if getting a hold of Spike's crucible wasn't such a pain in the tail. Out in the wild it was easy to just dig your talons into the dirt to get the bottom with one claw and hold the rim with the other. This “cement” floor made that impossible, so she'd had to risk rocking the super-hot, super-brittle stone back and forth until she and Spike could both get a grip on it and lift it up and over the narrow hole in the top of the upright mold.

Then it turned out that Spike was too darned short to get it up to the right height without flying, so they'd had to work out the best positioning for that. Then the metal had gotten too cold so they had to put it down, heat it back up, and get in position all over again.

“Hold it good and steady, we only get one shot at this.”

“What happens if we mess up?”

“Then we'll have to remake the mold and start all over again, that's what. We wanna pour it good and steady until it fills all the way up the well. Try not to let it get all globby or it'll get holes in there. On three, ready? One… two… three!”

Together, they tilted the crucible over and set the molten metal pouring down the narrow channel sculpted into the cooled lava. The stone creaked and plinked from the heat, but no major cracks popped up right at the start.

“Just about… Just abouuut…” Metal crept up to the very top of the well until it threatened to spill over. “Stop!”

They backed off and set the crucible down gently a couple paces back. Smolder stepped around the mold to check that the seams held before she flashed Spike a thumbs up.

“You gotta check for any metal getting out and try to stop it if you can. Leaks can totally wreck a cast. Now we just give it a minute to set up and then we'll crack it out of there. Then we'll do mine while it cools a little.”

“I can't wait to see how it turns out!” Oil was practically prancing in place with excitement. “I've never seen a stone casting die before!”

Smolder's brow furrowed in confusion. “What do ponies use then? You can't seriously use wood or something, right?”

“Well, yes. I mean, no. The wood is just a frame to hold the sand. We use packed sand with just a little oil to make it take an impression.”

“Sand, huh?” Smolder rubbed her chin. “I've always used lava.”

“Lava? You mean like those volcano bowls they make in Haywaii?”

“Yeah!” Spike said. “Smolder's been teaching me how to sculpt lava. I made this mold myself,” he added, proudly.

Smolder smirked at the way he puffed up at the wonder on Oil's face. It was good to see him boast a little. Getting pumped up was half the fun of competing!

“That is so. Cool! Have you ever done glass? I know a colt up in Canterlot--”

Smolder let the pony ramble on while she got to work pouring her own batch. The sooner she got this lesson done, the sooner they could get to the fun one.

After all, what wasn't to love about spearfishing?

The more she thought about it, the more Smolder suspected that ponies might have a lot they didn't love about spearfishing.

They'd broken for lunch right after they'd gotten the tines of her spear roughly shaped to show Spike how it was done before they did his. Oil was a little too into it when she'd figured out what she and Spike were making, but Smolder had a feeling she wasn't thinking about what spearing a fish was actually gonna be like. She also wasn't the one she had to talk into letting her teach Spike how to stick and gut a fish.

Ponies didn't eat fish. They gave her, Gallus, and Ocellus stuff that sure looked and tasted like fish, but she'd seen ponies make things out of thin air before. Or they could've bought them from griffons or something. Letting Spike actually catch his own, like a real dragon, was a whole lot different from magic or money. And giving her fish only happened in the cafeteria at school. There wasn't so much as a crayfish to be had in Professor Applejack's whole picnic basket.

It was a weird way to eat lunch, too. She'd lived in Ponyville long enough that it wasn't anywhere near her first picnic, but they didn't get any less weird to her. The cafeteria made sense. The cook ponies made food in the back where they didn't have to chase anyone off, and everyone else ate right there just outside the kitchen because that was convenient. Cooking everything in one place and then dragging it all outside to eat in Billet and Oil's back yard though? And on a blanket too, which Headmare Twilight brought along because ponies only wanted to eat grass, not touch it. Apparently.

Then there was the food.

“What… is this?” She asked of the bowl of pale cubes slathered in a yellowish, mustard-smelling goo that Spike dished out onto her plate.

“That there's potato salad!” Professor Applejack said. “Made it myself!”

“You should try it!” Spike said. “If you like it, I can make you my own recipe sometime!”

Smolder scratched the base of her crest at the back of her head. “Uh… I thought salad was the leafy parts?”

“Ponies have all sorts of salads,” he explained. “Potato, egg, cobb…”

“A salad,” Headmare Twilight declared, “can refer to any dish (usually cold) consisting of fruits or vegetables, such as (but not exclusively) lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, covered with a dressing and sometimes containing eggs, nuts, or seeds.”

“Or gems!” Spike added.

“Or gems,” Twilight conceded with a smile. “But, you're probably not going to find gems on most menus in Equestria.”

“Oh, yeah, I've been wondering,” Smolder countered. “Why do you like eggs cold and raw, anyway?”

Everypony from Billet to Twilight actually gagged on their food.

“That ain't even close to right, sugarcube,” Applejack said.

“Who told you that!?” Oil asked.

“Uh, the ponies who kept theirs in cold vaults? Why else would you make 'em cold?”

“'Cold vaults'?” Spike asked. “Uh, do you mean ice boxes?”

“Uh… I guess?”

“Those are for storage,” Twilight said. “Most food will keep longer if kept cold.” She touched her hoof to her chin. “Maybe I should add some basic science to the curriculum after all. Ooh! Or a comparative life-studies course to promote international friendship by fostering a greater understanding of day-to-day life in other cultures!” A quill and scroll zipped out of the saddlebags beside her and started scribbling.

“How do dragons store food?” Spike asked.

“We usually pile it up and sleep on it.”

That pulled the Headmare back into the conversation.

“Wait, does that mean that dragons eat their hoards?”

Smolder snorted. “What, do you think grown-ups just don't eat for a hundred years at a time?”

“You mean… that's normal?” Spike said, hopefully. “All dragons eat in their sleep? It's not just me?”

“Let me guess,” Smolder sighed. “Ponies don't do that, huh?”

“Er, actually… we do, sometimes,” Twilight said. “But it's part of a condition called 'sleep walking'. It's not a normal, healthy sleep pattern for ponies.”

“So you thought something was 'wrong' with him, huh? Why am I not surprised,” she grumbled under her breath. She scooped up a clawful of potato gunk and stuffed it in her mouth. None of the ponies came up with anything good to say to that, which she took as a win.

“So!” Counselor Starlight said to break the awkward silence. “Now that we've learned that, how is the rest of the lesson going? Learn anything interesting, Spike?”

Spike brightened right up again. “Loads! Smolder taught me how to taste different kinds of metal, and how to mix it up and skim off the slag! We're making fishing spears!”

Smolder stopped short of scooping up another clawful of the actually pretty good potato gunk and sat up straight. They'd gotten to that part way quicker than she'd expected.

“Er, don'tcha mean fishin' rods?” Applejack asked.

“Nuh,” Smolder answered, then swallowed her mouthful and tried again. “Nah. We're gonna do spearfishing.”

“Huh. Ain't never heard of that before.”

“Neither have I,” Twilight admitted. Her quill and parchment took up their positions again, waiting for details. “From what I read in Bygone Griffons of Greatness, griffon fishers usually used nets or their bare claws to catch fish. I don't remember any mentions of using spears though.”

“Nets are flammable,” Smolder said with a shrug. “Guess that explains how you know what fishing is though.”

“I've been fishin' before,” Applejack said. “For my dog, Winona. It's good for her to get a little fresh meat every now 'n again. Plenty o' ponies got pets that eat that sorta thing. Why, Fluttershy probably buys more fish than the rest of Ponyville put together!”

“It's all carefully regulated, of course,” Twilight added. “I've never fished myself, but I buy some for Spike. Ponies may not know much about dragons, but we understand how important a balanced diet is for omnivores.”

“So…” Smolder cast a wary look back and forth between Spike and the ponies, “you're cool with this?”

“Why wouldn't we be?”

Smolder threw up her arms. “What's the deal with you guys!? I wanna teach him to spear and eat fish and you're just cool with that? You're not gonna panic or call me a monster or lecture me about how fish have more right to live than dragons do to eat?”

Twilight jerked back like she'd been whacked right across the muzzle. “We'd never deny any creature or animal what they need to live! How could you even think that!?”

Smolder crossed her arms and glared at Twilight. “Why wouldn't I? You've freaked out over just about everything else! I mean, you ponies all act like the whole world is gonna burn down if we spill a drop of metal!”

Most of the ponies got that awkward, nervous look that they did whenever an argument started up. Starlight in particular looked worried, while Applejack tugged the brim of her hat down and murmured something to herself that Smolder didn't catch. Headmare Twilight, on the other claw, set her jaw and glared right back.

“And you don't seem to appreciate just how dangerous a drop of metal can be! Do you have any idea how hot molten iron is?”

“What difference does it make? You can just use your weird pony magic to fix everything, so what does it even matter?”

Twilight's whole expression changed. One second she was going full headmare rage, the next she was just… shocked. “Is that what you think? Smolder--”

“Two thousand eight hundred degrees marenheit.” All eyes turned onto Oil Quench. She was looking at the sandwich resting at her hooves, but she might as well have been staring off at the horizon. “Water boils at two hundred twelve degrees marenheit, but it takes a lot of heat to get it there. If you soak your coat and move really quick, you can touch something like molten lead and be just fine because the water turns to steam and insulates against the heat.”

“Quench, ya don't hafta--,” Iron Billet started, but Oil didn't seem to hear him. She got up on her hooves and turned to her left like how a pony might do to show off their mark or something. A sharp bite and a tug with her teeth undid the ties of her apron. Another twist pulled it off and flung it aside.

“Otherwise, you get burned.”

Smolder didn't get what she was supposed to be seeing at first. Fur wasn't something she thought about a lot, except for when Yona tackled her and nearly smothered her in it. She thought even less about bare skin. You couldn't shave scales, after all. So it took her way too long to realize that bare skin was exactly what she was looking at. But, even then? Even then she didn't need to hear the gasps around her to know that skin wasn't supposed to look like that.

Oil's right side was bare the whole way from shoulder to flank. A few sparse wisps of colorless fur tried to sprout from the bizarrely smooth wrinkles of pinkish flesh, like scrub grass on a lava field, but it was nowhere near a normal coat. The rest was nothing but warped-looking skin.

“I got lucky.” Oil's voice was softer, but still miles away from all that enthusiasm she'd had when they were working. “Somepony heard me scream when it happened. And that's down to luck because I was alone in my workshop, like the dumb little filly I was. And because I was a dumb filly, I didn't keep my 'workshop' organized. If I had, I wouldn't have been looking for my goggles when I already had metal melted and ready to go. And I wouldn't have tripped over a toolbox on my way back. Then I wouldn't have stumbled into my crucible and knocked it over on my way down.

“I had second, third, and fourth-degree burns all along my right side. If there hadn't been a weather team prepping clouds right overhead, I would've died.”

A shudder ran through the group at the grim certainty in Oil's tone. She made it sound so… factual. Like one of the Headmare's lectures or something. Smolder had never heard a pony talk about death like that. Like it was an actual thing that could happen to them. Whenever she or Gallus brought it up, they'd dance around the subject until they found a way out of it. She pulled her eyes off the gigantic mess of scarring to look at her teachers.

“What's a 'fourth-degree' burn?”

Headmare Twilight grimaced. “Doctors have a rating system for burns, from first to fourth. Fourth degree burns are the worst. That means the heat has gotten all the way through the skin and started destroying muscles, tendons, and even bones.”

“I was lucky,” Oil repeated. “I was only on the edge of fourth degree. I don't think they could have saved me if it had gotten my ribs. I'm lucky to be able to walk.”

“I remember when it happened,” Applejack said. “Whole town was holdin' its breath for near on a week, waitin' to hear if y'all were gonna pull through. Just about the biggest relief we ever had when the doctors gave us the good news.”

“But… it's fixed, right?” Smolder asked. “It might look weird, but you got a spell done or something--” Smolder started in place when Spike spoke up.

“Magic can't just unburn stuff, Smolder, believe me.” He paused, shot a look and Twilight, then picked up again after she nodded. “Twilight's one of the best at spells, and even she couldn't unburn all the stuff I set on fire when I was little.”

Smolder huffed angry jets of smoke. “Well, duh, that's dragonfire. It's magic too, y'know.”

“That would actually make it easier to undo,” Counselor Starlight chimed in. “Magic can reverse magic easy. If I were to, say, transform this apple into an orange,” she plucked an apple out of the picnic basket and shot a beam of blue-green magic at it to do just that, “the orange sorta… remembers that it used to be an apple. That means that somepony else, like Twilight, could just use a generic counter spell--” A zap of pinkish magic from Twilight turned the orange back into an apple. “And change it right back to how it used to be.”

Twilight nodded approvingly and picked up the lecture along with the apple. “There are three kinds of changes in nature: physical, chemical, and magical. Starlight's transformation spell uses magic directly to alter the form of an object, making it a purely magical change because that underlying memory isn't altered. But magic can also perform physical changes, like cutting, by using magic to apply physical force.” Her magic split the apple into perfect segments. “Or chemical changes, like cooking, by using magic to generate heat.”

A focused bolt of magic struck the segments, instantly setting off hissing and steaming like they'd been tossed into a frying pan. The smell of roasted apple wasn't nearly as drool worthy as usual alongside the sight of Oil's scars.

“These sorts of changes do change the memory of the apple. It's a segmented and cooked apple now. Even if I magically transformed it back into a whole, raw apple, it would always be a segmented and cooked apple just waiting to be changed back to its true form.

“That's why the Elements of Harmony could undo everything Discord did to Ponyville, but couldn't repair the Golden Oaks Library. Tirek didn't transform the library into a stump, he blasted it with heat and force.” She cast a sad look at Oil's scarred side. “Magic can fix some physical changes, but cooked apple is a fundamentally different thing than raw apple. That's why something like ordinary fire can cause more lasting damage in a matter of seconds than spending hours under the influence of chaos magic. Burns like that must have taken moons and dozens of operations to treat.”

Oil nodded. “It was half a year before I was out of the hospital. Another full year of physical therapy to get me close to normal. This,” she brushed a hoof over her scars, “is as healed as I'm ever going to get.”

“But… one of you raises the sun!”

“It's not about power,” Twilight said. “If power was enough, then Starlight and I could empty all of Equestria's hospitals by ourselves. Magic is an important part of medicine, but it can't fix everything. Some things… just can't be fixed.”

Smolder stared at Twilight. She wasn't done with her lecture, was she? There had to be more, right? There was always more with these ponies. They always had a trick or a spell or a something to solve their problems. If there wasn't, then…

“You're crazy,” Smolder said.

Twilight frowned. “Smolder, that's not--”

Smolder sprang into the air right in the middle of the group. “You're telling me that normal fire can kill you, and there's nothing you can do about it? And you invited dragons to your town!? Do you have any clue how many houses I've burned down? And you're telling me I might have-- Is that why mom always said…?”

“Uh, Smolder,” Spike tried to say.

“And you guys!” She whirled around to face Oil Quench and Iron Billet. “Are you out of your minds!? You spend all day messing around with stuff that could kill you!? Why!?”

Oil turned herself a little further so that her flank was on full display. On it, with the edge just barely shy of her scars, was a cutie mark of a bucket brimming with fire, with a spear and sword crossed over inside it.

“Because I love it more than anything.”

Smolder hung in the air, staring at the mark Oil had presented as if a patch of colorful fur would just explain it all away. She flapped higher and shook her head in a daze.

“You're crazy. You're all crazy.”

She shot away from the group as hard and fast as her wings could carry her.

Chapter 7 - This is how a dragon sulks.

View Online

Smolder liked digging.

Down in the tunnels the only rules were what she needed to do to not get buried. There weren't any manners to remember. There wasn't anything she could ruin with a sneeze. No ponies to panic, yaks to offend, hippogriffs to upset, or changelings disguised as rocks to accidentally try to nap on. There was just her and the ground.

And the gems, of course. She wasn't gonna dig and not get a meal out of it. Especially after bailing out on lunch.

Running was stupid of her. They were all gonna think she was upset, which was stupid because she wasn't. She just wanted to dig, that was all. She was sick of their pony food and pony rules. It was good to just be a dragon digging for gems.

Speaking of, Ponyville's underground was packed with gems. The walls around her glittered with them in the dull light filtering down the tunnel from some larger chamber along the way. It was no wonder that Professor Rarity had run into a diamond dog pack just outside of town, or that a grownup had tried to settle in the nearby mountain range.

A grownup the ponies had chased away.

She landed at the next likely spot. Loose material, nothing that was holding up the ceiling, streaks of green woven into the blue-gray rocks. A quick flick of her tongue, out and then dragged over the roof of her mouth, brought the taste of tourmaline she was looking for. Common as quartz, except way tastier and even less filling. In pony terms: junk food.

She drew in a deep breath through her mouth and then, just when her lungs felt full, drew in that little bit extra through her nose. Then she unleashed a full-mouthed torrent of flame up and down the rock wall. Tiny fissures split wider and deeper between the gems and stone under the withering heat. By the time her flame faded there were plenty of cracks big enough for her to get her talons into. She growled and tore into the wall until she finally ripped a fist-sized hunk of tourmaline from the rock and crammed it in her mouth and chomped down. She'd barely finished swallowing before she was back at it.

“Smolder?”

Smolder whipped around on the spot, wings spread and teeth bared. The vicious growl she'd been about to fire off shriveled up in her throat when she saw Ocellus shrink back around the corner of the tunnel. Instead, she huffed and crossed her arms.

“What do you want?”

“Um…” the blue changeling leaned out cautiously. “Some of the teachers are looking for you. Spike, too. They asked if we'd seen you.”

Smolder hunched her wings and turned back to where she'd been digging. “Don't care.” She dug her talons back into the dirt and stone. “They-- can keep looking! Rrrgh! All day! For all! I! Rrrh! Care!” Another chunk of tourmaline broke loose and got crammed straight into her mouth just like the first. “Whaf yeu gunna du aboud id?”

“Did something bad happen?” Ocellus rubbed one foreleg against the other. “They were pretty worried about you--”

“They're worried about me?” Smolder said, incredulously. “I'm the one with fire breath.” Stone flaked away under talons once more. “I'm the one who can crush rocks with my teeth!”

“Um—”

“I'm the one! Who! Rrrgh! Has to tip-toe around all day!” A gleaming shard snapped free and got chewed to glitter. “Ah'm thuh wun hu--” she swallowed roughly “—terrorizes villages.”

“You haven't terrorized Ponyville,” Ocellus countered.

“Yet,” Smolder grumbled.

Ocellus picked her way through the rubble until she was a couple lengths away and just stood there waiting while Smolder picked halfheartedly at the wall. It didn't take long for the dam to burst.

She told Ocellus everything that'd happened. The lesson and all the irritation she'd felt about it. The awkward start to the lunch, and the argument which ended it. She did her best to repeat everything the counselor and headmare taught her about magic. And then to describe what had happened to Oil Quench, from the accident to the moons of treatment that still left her horribly scarred.

Then she told Ocellus all about how a dragon raids.

“So, yeah. I just found out I'm a monster.” Smolder sat down heavily. “No big deal.”

Ocellus settled down a pace or two to Smolder's left. “I know the feeling.”

Smolder shot her friend a glare. “How would you know the feeling?”

A swirl of greenish-blue magic leapt up around Ocellus like a gout of flames. In an instant she went from soft blue to greasy black. Irregular holes riddled her legs like bug-chewed leaves, and her glittery frill and tail turned to spiky fins that were almost dragon-ish. Her eyes were still greenish, but they'd gone all pale and dull.

“Oh.” Smolder rubbed the back of her neck. “Right.”

“Mm-hm.”

Smolder turned her eyes back to the floor. She'd thought changelings looked a lot cooler before they did the whole 'sharing' thing back when she'd seen pictures of them at school. But seeing Ocellus that way, as herself rather than her old queen? She didn't look cooler at all. She looked… sick.

“You ever feel like you still are? I mean,” Smolder rubbed the back of her neck, “I know you kinda had a thing about it when the Tree of Harmony pulled that 'face your fear' stunt on us but… I'd totally get it if you still got hung up on it sometimes.”

Ocellus shrunk down a little more and started rubbing one leg against the other. “Not as much as I used to, not since the cave. But… sometimes. If I get too hungry, even if it's just for food. Did I ever tell you how changelings used to feed?”

“Uh… you used to go copy other creatures and steal love from the creatures who cared about them, right?”

“That's how the gatherers got love, but grubs can't infiltrate. Neither can the drones who had to protect the hive from monsters. Even when I grew up, a worker like me wouldn't go out with the drones to steal love.”

Smolder looked over to her friend again, claw raised to stop her. “What's the difference between a worker and a drone, again?”

Ocellus gave her a look like she'd just asked a really dumb question, but only a for a moment. “Oh, I never actually told you that. Um, drones are boys and workers are girls.”

“Ohhh. So, your guys do all the love stealing? Uh, did?”

“Mm-hm. Drones were in the Swarm, too. That's our military.” She buzzed her wings nervously. “That's all mixed up now, though. Pharynx is taking any changeling who's still willing to fight, drone or worker. It's a lot easier to fight when you're always starving.”

“…Yeah.”

“They used to make me fight.” Ocellus held up one of her legs like she was looking at the holes. “A gatherer would get thrown into the nursery and we'd all jump on him to steal as much of the love he was carrying as we could. If we couldn't get it from him, we'd take it from the ones who did.”

“Whoa, that's harsh.”

Ocellus shuddered hard enough to make her plates rattle. A burst of fiery magic turned her back to her normal form.

“It's better now. We can get all the love we need from each other. And all our bugs, fungus, and vegetables are growing so much better with the throne gone that we don't have to ration them anymore either. We're even allowed to season our normal meals instead of waiting for the next gourd fest.” Her ears drooped. “There was a lot of fighting over food in them too. Mainly the gourds.”

“Dragons don't really fight over food that much. We compete for it. Y'know, feats of strength, races, fire duels, that sorta thing. I guess it's like… if you show that you're tough enough then you can skip the fight because it's obvious you'd win.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the two of them. Smolder couldn't guess what her friend was thinking, but she felt like her head was gonna burst from everything she'd had hammered into it so far. Not to mention all the friendship lessons telling her what she should do next.

Because Spike had, at some point she couldn't pin down, become her friend, and she could practically hear Professor Dash telling her how 'uncool' it was of her to run out on her friend like that. Professor Fluttershy would say it wasn't very nice of her to let him and everyone else worry about her. Professor Rarity would call it selfish, and Professor Pie would… probably try to give her a cupcake or something. Most annoying was what Professor Applejack would say: the she needed to go and talk to them honestly about everything that was going on until they all found a way to fix it.

“Smolder--?”

“Fiiine,” she groaned as she stood up and dusted her claws off. “I'll go talk to them about it. …Right after I grab that gem.” She grabbed an especially large dark green prism and started tugging. “I'm not talking about feelings on an empty stomach.”

“I owe you an apology, Smolder.”

Those were not the first words Smolder had expected to hear out of the Headmare's mouth once they were alone. The flight back to school was short, but it was nothing compared to how fast she'd been dragged to the Headmare's office. Professor Dash spotted her pretty much the second she and Ocellus landed in the yard, and that was that. The search was called off, Ocellus was asked to give them a moment, and Smolder was dropped smack in front of Twilight's desk and left to wait for a lecture.

Only that didn't seem to be what she was getting.

“For what?” Smolder asked. “I'm the one who didn't get how fragile ponies are.”

“And it was my responsibility to make sure you learned about that. Resolving these sorts of differences is part of why I founded this school in the first place.” Twilight brought a hoof to her chest. “I should have talked to you about all of this right from the beginning instead of panicking over causes of death. Because we've both been making assumptions.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one thing, I've been treating you like a child this whole time. I had no idea that dragons your age were so independent until Spike told me what you taught him about the Molt. It still didn't really sink in until today. If I'd have sat down and discussed things with you much earlier, like adults, maybe we could've avoided all of this.”

Smolder shrugged. “I probably wouldn't have bought any of it if you had. I grew up hearing all sorts of crazy stories about what pony magic can do. No way I'd have believed you over my parents.” She hunched her shoulders, arms crossed. “Oil Quench's scars are pretty tough to argue with though. I should've taken you seriously when you warned me about how dangerous dragon stuff is for ponies.”

Twilight bowed her head, her ears drooping along with it. She looked about as miserable as Gallus had back at Hearth's Warming.

“And I should have trusted you. Dragons assumed that we could use magic to fix anything bad that happened to us, so it didn't matter what you did in raids. Ponies always assumed that dragons just didn't care, and I was scared that attitude would rub off on Spike. I know Spike probably seems really pony-ish to dragons… but to a pony? There are things about him that are so obviously not pony-like. The things he's willing to eat are proof enough of that.” She shook her head as she sat back in her seat. “It's so hard to know what's nature and what's nurture. And then to worry that the nurture he's getting is bad for his nature.”

“I don't know about all that stuff. It's not like dragon parents always raise their kids right either, y'know.”

“Neither do ponies. My dad used to make jokes about having 'lost the manual' the hospital gave him.”

Smolder raised a brow. “Wait, seriously? My dad said he must've napped through his parents telling him how to raise hatchlings.”

Twilight giggled. “I guess dads are dads. The point is, Smolder, that I was wrong to treat these lessons like they're a threat to Spike. We teach foals about the strife between the tribes before Equestria and it doesn't make them decide to turn against other kinds of ponies, and I shouldn't have been afraid that learning about raiding would make Spike turn on Equestrians. It's a part of his heritage and he has as much right to explore it as any pony does theirs.”

“Whoawhoawhoa! Hold up!” Smolder sprang into the air over the desk, waving her claws to stop the Headmare. “No way! Have you lost it? You can't tell me all about how fire can wreck all your stuff and then tell me you want me to teach Spike how to raid!”

“Smolder, it's--”

“Did you even see Oil Quench!?”

“Smolder!” Twilight shouted. She stood up on her seat with wings flared. “Calm down! I have a plan.”

Smolder rocked back in the air, arms folded. “Oh yeah? I've seen how ponies fight off dragons. If there was anything that'd make it safe you'd have used it by now.”

“Do you remember what we told you about the limitations of magic and how we can't just do whatever we want with it?” Twilight sheepishly rubbed one leg against the other. “There is one teensey little exception to all that.”

“And that is…?”

Twilight glanced off to the side. Something about the way she said her next sentence gave Smolder a bad feeling about this 'plan' of hers.

“It's, uh, really more of a 'who', actually…”

Growing Up Dragon

by Hasty Revision

Chapter 1 - This is how a dragon gets roped into things.

Chapter 2 - This is how a dragon finds gems.

Chapter 3 - This is how a dragon raids.

Chapter 4 - This is how a dragon knaps.

Chapter 5 - This is how a dragon smiths, part 1: Sourcing Materials

Chapter 6 - This is how a dragon smiths, part 2: With Adult Supervision

Chapter 7 - This is how a dragon sulks.