Twilight discovers that, even with the collective research, intellect and intuition of the entire Equestrian archaeological community at her back, nothing beats the source material when it comes to archaeology.

Smoulder is more than happy to oblige.

Turns out the School of Friendship has a swim team leader board. Turns out Smolder is a pretty good swimmer. She wants to be the best though, for a reason more complicated than simple pride.

Now with a Youtube reading!

This fic is the product of another one of Nitro Indigo's text prompts. This one: Portray a pony with Naked Foal Syndrome. It ended up morphing into brief character study on Smolder, but that’s not a bad thing for a fic to be.

Smolder has a nightmare.

What confuses her is that it's of something she didn't think she was actually afraid of.

Featured 3/8/2019

What do dragons think of hot peppers? Gallus wants to know.

By the end of the day, he'll wish he hadn't.

Silverstream learns an interesting fact about Smoulder's name. Naturally, she has to share!

Smoulder isn't too thrilled.

Preread by ChudoJogurt!

As featured by Equestria Daily! And again on Student Six Day!

As someone who has spent much of his time around authority figures, Spike knows well how difficult it can be for them to just relax. And this is something Smolder learns too, when the two of them receive Dragon Lord Ember for an afternoon.

Dragons are a lot of things. Strong. Brave. Confident.

Smolder has all of these qualities in spades. For example, she needed strength, bravery, and confidence to ask the object of her crush to visit her in the Dragon Lands.

She just didn't expect Ocellus to be such a good dragon too, or why that would be such a problem.

Edited by my dear friends FamousLastWords, Not Enough Coffee, Ice Star, Semillon, Muggonny, and MissytheAngle

Cover art by Raikohillust!

This story is a sequel to Leading Causes

Twilight Sparkle has more than a little anxiety about Spike's upbringing. In the wake of the Molt and the Sludge fiasco, those anxieties are clearer and stronger than ever. Like any good caretaker, she took advantage of an opportunity to learn more about dragons, including their needs and, most importantly, their vulnerabilities.

What started as a casual conversation about death for Smolder spiraled out of control into a full-fledged princess freakout, one that she is in the middle of. When it becomes clear that her teachers are completely hopeless when it comes to dragons, it's up to her to take Spike under her wing and teach him what they can't, one lesson at a time.

After a surprising number of requests for a sequel to "Leading Causes", I finally came up with something of a quasi-anthology of Smolder's lessons to Spike. While I do have a fair number of ideas, expect sizable gaps between updates.

Rated for academic descriptions (but no depictions) of death, and possible future scenes of hunting and fishing at a level slightly too mature for an E rating. Warning tags may be added later if I, or any commenters, feel they're needed.

Dragons are something of an enigma to Equestria. Those who do live within the borders are largely reclusive, either building their hoards or sleeping away the decades. So far as dragons who are active in everyday life in Ponyville go, Smolder represents a 100% increase in the population.

Twilight cannot let this opportunity slip her by. Enough time has passed for it to not be a diplomatic faux pas to sit Smolder down and grill her for much needed details on her species, not only for the sake of science, but for the benefit of the young dragon in her personal care. Naturally, the topic of death comes up.

Twilight handles that about as well as you might expect.

Discussion of death is largely academic and intended to be comedic but I've tagged it teen to be safe. No actual death or scenes of violence are shown so I didn't think the death tag itself was needed. It's also tagged for comedy as that was my intent, but only you can tell me if it's actually funny or not.

Now with sequel: Growing Up Dragon

As a filly, Twilight Sparkle used her incredible magic to hatch a dragon egg. That dragon then became her lifelong companion, friend, and even sibling: Smolder.

Now Smolder has a chance to learn more about her own kind by meeting a dragon born and raised in the Dragon Lands. She has to figure out what to do next and what that could mean for her--and her family.

A one-shot contest submission for Secrets: A Swapped Roles Contest