Sparkles and Scales

by Winter Quill

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Spike, Dragons, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 4536

Twilight Sparkle is the Element of Magic, the personal student of Princess Celestia... and a dragon, but it hadn't always been that way.

For most ponies the day they get their cutie mark is the day everything changes. That was especially true for Twilight Sparkle, as the day she got her cutie mark was also the day Princess Celestia took her on as a student, she gained a new little brother and started on the road to her future.

It was also the day she became a dragon.

Custom cover artwork by Elza Fox
Editing and so much more by Klamnei

Published 2018-09-02 00:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-09-02 00:50:01 UTC

Past and Present

Friendship is Magic: Sparkles and Scales
By Winter Quill

Twilight Sparkle felt like her world had come crashing down around her shoulders. All her hopes and plans had crumbled at the sight of the unhatched dragon egg sitting on the cart, almost mocking her. The twelve year old filly had expected almost anything from this exam, from having to recite some of the most complicated and difficult spells she knew to presenting an oral history of any of the great mages of the last thousand years.

But for the exam to be hatching an egg… such a thing had never crossed her mind.

Nor had the possibility that she might fail so completely at the task.

Twilight slumped on her hooves, feeling like an abject failure, like everything she had spent her short life trying to learn was pointless. She had wanted to know everything about magic, to understand every spell and incantation. Yet as she stood looking at the egg, she realized it would never happen.

She sat down on the floor with a thud, not even wanting to look over at her parents. She could only imagine how they must have felt—a once in a lifetime chance lost, all because she couldn’t hatch an egg. It must have been a simple spell, otherwise why would the examiners have given her the task? Yet it was a simple spell that Twilight couldn’t even begin to fathom.

Twilight’s cheeks burned as she heard the scribbling of the judge’s pencils. “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she said in a half whisper.

And then her world exploded.

Power unlike any she had ever felt before surged through her body, running up her legs to her head and gathering in her horn. The magic cast a spell, one so complex that she didn’t understand it and with arrays so bright they washed out her vision. It burst out of from her horn in a shaft of pure violet that arched out to hit the dragon egg, hatching it instantly.

But Twilight had no time to take this in, as the power continued to surge into her, more than she ever had any hope to control! It was so much that it was spilling free from every part of her, from her hooves to her mane. She fought against it, trying to do something, but the power refused to bend to her will as it crackled and arched around her small body.

She turned her attention to the judges. They were the best teachers at the school, so if any pony knew how to stop the surge, it would’ve been them. But as soon as she did so, the power lashed out at them, lifting them into the air and trapping them in a powerful spell before they could even light their horns.

Twilight then looked to her parents, to the family she knew and trusted to help her no matter what. They were the ones who had guided her through every challenge and obstacle in her short life. Yet as her attention fell onto them, so did the out of control magic. In an instant they were turned into a potted plant and a cactus.

Twilight couldn’t even scream. She pushed at the magic, trying to make it turn them back, but it wouldn’t obey. It just whipped around her in a whirlwind, reaching out for anything it could touch. She had no idea what to do, no idea what she could do! Unbidden, her glowing eyes landed on the newborn dragon, the baby was still floating in her magic, unaware of what was happening around him. The contact only lasted for a moment, but it was enough to send the wild magic careening towards him.

Twilight grappled with the unbridled power, using everything she knew to try and keep it away from the dragon. but it nearly impossible to control. Still, she didn’t stop, she couldn’t! Time slowed to a crawl as she pushed against the magic, trying to force it to change course.

It wasn’t enough. The power still struck the baby dragon. Yet still she fought for control, to do something with the magic that was flowing into him and causing his outline to pulse and blur. The filly pulled at the power with every ounce of strength she could summon. It wasn’t enough to pull it away, but it was enough to connect them, the power rising up and then arching back around to hit her square in the chest.

Twilight’s world exploded a second time. All her senses were overwhelmed as the energy fed back into her, shifting and shuffling as every nerve shorted out. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, she couldn’t feel, it was all being overwhelmed. She was lost inside of it, every part of her body sparking with sensations unlike any she had ever felt before. Twilight struggle to find something, anything, to hold onto, to pull herself back, but there was nothing. She was adrift in a sea of everything.

An infinite moment later, something touched Twilight’s shoulder. It somehow broke through the magic that had enveloped her, moving through it like it wasn’t even there. Twilight turned to look, even though she couldn’t see anything. She wanted them to go away, to run before the power did something terrible to them as well, yet she couldn’t help herself.

Princess Celestia looked down at Twilight with concern lining her face, her horn shining against the forces of the filly’s maelstrom of magic. Somehow it was enough to quench the flow of magic, the energy washing away as fast as it had come to send Twilight tumbling to the floor as the world returned to her. At the same moment the spell on the four judges and her parents were broken, returning them to how they should have been.

Silence fell over the room, only to be broken by the sound of a crying foal.

A moment later her father was at her side, a leg wrapped around her and pulling her up against his barrel. “Twilight, honey, are you okay?” he asked. At the same time her mother rushed past them to the cart where the baby dragon had been, but he wasn’t there anymore. Instead there was a newborn earth pony colt with a purple pelt and bright green hair.

“I’ve never seen power like that before,” Twilight heard a mare say.

“You can fix this, right, Princess?” her father asked. “You can undo this spell?”

Twilight’s head felt fuzzy, her body heavy and slow as the world spun around her and everything tingled in the oddest of ways. The floor slowly came back into focus under her, as well as her hooves…

Except they weren’t hooves. They were claws, small lavender claws that wiggled when she tried to move them.

“What happened?” Twilight asked, her voice deeper then she remembered. She squirmed out of her father’s grasp and tried to get on all fours, but found that it made her back hurt in the most peculiar way. Finally she sat down, landing on what felt like her tail, yet it was far too big and long.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said. “You have done something I have never seen before.”

Twilight gulped. “What did I do?” she asked, starting to explore her face with her new claws, finding that everything felt different and bare. There was no fur at all.

Celestia summoned a full-length mirror into the room. It hung in the golden glow of her magic as she hovered it in front of Twilight and took a step back to give her some space.

Twilight’s eye went wide as she saw her reflection; Scales. Spines. Predatory eyes and needle-sharp teeth. Her mane was still there, but much shorter than it had ever been before. A pair of small, spiralling horns rose up from behind her ears, a faint glow of magic hanging from their rounded-off tips. Her scales were the same lavender as her pelt had been, and her spines were a muted blend of pink and indigo. Her serpentine tail was thick and long with a small tuft of hair at the end, and while she was still short and pudgy, her frame was longer and more sinuous than before.

“A-A dragon?” Twilight looked up at the princess. “I did this?”

Celestia nodded, her horn glowing a soft yellow as she cast a spell over Twilight. “To not only change yourself like this, but to keep your unicorn magic in the process…” She trailed off for a moment, her mind going elsewhere only for her to shake her head and focus back on the dragon before her. “I promise you, I will do everything in my power to find a way to turn you back. Both of you,” She glanced at the newborn colt that Twilight’s mother was gently rocking in her forelegs. The colt that had been a dragon just moments before.

“Huh,” Twilight said, finding the word was somehow the exact fit for the situation.

Celestia smiled. “Until then, I would like for you to stay close to me. You have tremendous raw ability, even for a… even for one as young as yourself, but until we return you to your proper form, these abilities will be much harder to tame.”

“Huh?” Twilight said again.

The princess leaned down until she was eye level with Twilight. “I would like to make you my own personal protégé, even after I find a way to restore you to your proper form.”

Twilight’s mind broke again, after all that she had done—to herself and to every other pony in the room—not only did Princess Celestia want to have her at her school, but to be her personal student. She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know if there was anything she could say. She found herself looking up at her father, hoping he could tell her what to do.

All he did was give her a nod, and after a quick glance her mother was doing the same.

She wanted to jump for joy, to prance around the room in glee but she just didn’t have the strength for it. “Of course, Princess Celestia! Thank you, thank you so much!” she said, turning to hug her father.

That brought a gasp from the princess. “Well, that’s something I never thought I would see.”

Twilight looked back at the princess, who was looking back at her… or rather, at her flank.

Looking down, she let out a gasp. There, in the scales on her hips, was her cutie mark. The six pointed star of magic flanked by five other smaller stars.

“I got my cutie mark,” she said with a gasp. She couldn’t help it, she let out a squeal of joy and tried to leap into the air only to trip over her new tail. She stumbled forward and fell belly first onto the floor, a small puff of purple smoke escaping from her nose.

“Though perhaps we should start with the basics of how to be a dragon,” the princess said with a smile.

* * *

“You got your cutie mark by becoming a dragon?” Scootaloo asked, looking up at her in amazement.

Twilight smiled down at the filly. “Not exactly. My cutie mark represents my love and knowledge of magic, and not just because I’m a dragon.”

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo all looked at each other, then as one, they turned to look at the fourth crusader.

“Did you know you used to be a dragon?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Spike shrugged his shoulders. He was at that awkward age where his legs were a little too long for the rest of his body, making him thin and gangly. He would eventually grow out of it, but for the moment it meant he looked like he was about to fall over every time he moved. “Well yeah. It was kind of hard for our parents to hide it when my big sister was a pony in half the family photos, and a dragon in the rest. I’ve always wondered what it would be like, but I’m happy as a pony.”

Apple Bloom looked over at her friends. “As cutie mark stories go, that was pretty awesome.”

“Being the only dragon with a cutie mark, I am pretty awesome,” Twilight said with a smirk.

Scootaloo nodded. “Well yeah, you’re like the third most awesome pony in Ponyville, and you’re not even a pony! I’m sure Rainbow Dash’s story will be even more awesome. Come on,Crusaders, let’s go find her!”

She didn’t even wait for her friends as she turned and started away from the street café. After a moment the rest of the Crusaders followed after her.

“Be home before dark!” Twilight called out to Spike, but her little brother didn’t respond. She didn’t worry though, he was responsible enough to know when it was time to come home.

Twilight smiled as she watched the four of them run off down the road, glad that Spike had found some friends his own age. They might have gotten into trouble now and then but they were always there for each other. It was such a change to the way he had been back in Canterlot.

Still, if they had waited, she would have told them that the pony they were looking for would be at the bakery later that afternoon.

Picking up her satchel, she threw it over her shoulder and settled the strap between her wings and started walking towards Sugarcube Corner. She could easily fly there, but she never liked to do that for short distances… and she couldn’t read while she was flying. There was also the minor problem that while the ponies in town were comfortable around her, some of them still reacted badly to her silhouette in the air, and she could only afford to repair one flower stall a month.

“Hey, Twilight,” Applejack said, trotting up beside the dragoness. “You seen Dash around today?”

She smiled at her friend, being careful not to show to many of her sharp teeth. “Hey Applejack, I haven't seen Dash since our morning flight. She said that the weather team would be doing some extra cloud breaking over the Everfree today, so she’s probably there.”

“Ah, well the Crusaders are out lookin’ for her,” Applejack explained.

“I ran into them myself. I think they must be asking every pony in town how they got their cutie mark.”

“I reckon they are,” the farmer replied, her eyes flicking down over Twilight’s flank. “Yours must have been a doozy,” she added a moment later.

Twilight chuckled softly at that. “You have no idea.” She was going to have to tell the girls that story now that they were all thinking about it. Maybe tonight once all six of them got together for their meet-up at Sugarcube Corner.

* * *

Twilight was pleased with her latest friendship report. True it was a bit on the sappy side, but after what she and her friends had all discovered about each other, she thought it was perfect. Rolling the scroll up, she held it gently between her claws before blowing out a gout of greenish-purple flame. The scroll burnt into the familiar magenta of magical smoke before it zipped away from the library and off to Canterlot, where Celestia would be waiting for it.

She smiled at the smoke vanished into the sky, then carefully she started packing up her writing desk; closing the ink and safely putting the quills away while whipping up any little spill that might have landed on the wood. She made sure everything perfectly spotless, just as it should be.

It was funny, for being one of the most important days in her life, Twilight hardly ever thought about getting her cutie mark. It was one of those rare moments that truly did change everything about her life, but the memory had become so distant and worn. It had been just over ten years since that day, and even though she had been twelve at the time, with how few memories a young foal kept, she remembered far more of her life as a dragon than as a pony.

If anything, being a pony felt like some half remembered dream, something that felt unreal when she thought about it… and she almost never thought about it. All of her family pictures had been replaced over the years as she and Spike had grown up, now the only one left that showed her as a foal was a small one her mother had taken only a few days before she changed. It had a permanent place on the wall of family photos.

Twilight didn’t even think of herself as a pony anymore. She was a dragon through and through, and she was happy with that. Even if she had wanted to turn back now, she wouldn’t. Any spell that would turn her back into a pony would also turn Spike into a dragon, and that wasn’t fair to him. He had been a pony all of his life, nopony should take that away from him.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard the library door crashing open. “I’m home, Twilight!” Spike called out, the door shutting behind him just a bit harder than necessary.

“I noticed,” she said, turning away from her desk to look at her little brother. He and the girls must have gone off crusading after meeting up with her friends, as he had a number of sticks and twigs tangled in his green mane. “Did you have a good day with Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom?”

He nodded, sitting down in the chair next to hers. “Oh yeah, it was really cool hearing everypony’s cutie mark story. Even Scoots thought so, though she was trying to act like the only one that mattered was Rainbow Dash’s.”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile at that. It seemed that the little filly couldn’t do anything without framing it around her hero. If Cheerilee could figure out how to use that for her schoolwork, she would have the best grades in class.

“Well, her story was pretty cool, and it does connect all seven of us,” she replied, running her claw tips through his mane to straighten it out and remove a few of the twigs.

Spike tried to pull away, but he hardly put any effort into it, certainly not enough to get free of her claws. “Yeah, but the girls had so many questions for me after your story. Everypony thought that you were the one who had been adopted!”

She snickered at that, though she wasn’t surprised. It made more sense to assume she was a dragon raised by ponies, and she didn’t do much to dissuade anypony of that opinion. It was just easier to let them assume what they wanted than for her to take the time to explain it. She didn’t exactly keep it a secret, she had told all her friends about it soon after she had moved to Ponyville.

“Did they ask anything new?”

“Not really,” Spike replied, “just the usual questions about if I wanted to be a dragon again, or what it was like to be a pony. The same thing every pony always asks. Though Sweetie Belle asked if I ate gems like a dragon, I don’t think anypony has asked that one before.”

“Only for dessert,” she teased. Being able to eat gems was one dragon ability that Spike had kept even as a pony, though he could only eat a small amount of them. He said they tasted like candies, and she could believe him based on how willing he was to eat himself sick on them whenever he had the chance. “You’re probably going to get a lot more questions at school tomorrow.”

Spike deflated slightly at that. “Yeah, and I’m sure Diamond Tiara will find a way to make fun of me for it. Are you sure you can’t just blast her and Silver Spoon with fire? Please?” he asked, putting his hooves together and gave her his best puppy dog pout.

“Sorry Spike,” she said, lowering herself down to his level. “I wish I could, but that won’t do anything to stop them.” Those two had been the bane of the Crusaders, teasing them all about not having their cutie marks yet. Together the four of them had been able to ignore the duo, but like all bullies ignoring them just caused them to work harder at trying to get a rise out of them. Much to her own frustration they always made sure not to do it around any adults so nopony was willing to do anything.

He sighed and shook his head. “I know, I know. But I can still dream about it, right?”

“Of course,” she replied, running a finger over his chin. “And speaking of dreams, it’s almost your bedtime. I have some dinner put aside for you in the kitchen, so why don’t you eat and then get ready for bed?”

“Okay,” he said, giving her a quick hug before slipping off the chair and heading off the kitchen. Twilight followed after him, lifting the spell that was still keeping his plate warm even as it sat on the table.

Twilight had never expected that her little brother would end up living with her in Ponyville, but she was happy he was that he was. Her parents had sent him to live with her after she had been living in Ponyville for a few months—and with about a half a day’s notice. He had arrived with Princess Celestia in the middle of the whole mess with the parasprites. It wasn’t exactly her finest hour.

Spike had been having problems at school without her there to help him, and it was getting worse as time went on. The bullies in his class had noticed how down he was and had ramped up just how they were treating him. Being the only earth pony in a unicorn school didn’t help him much and he didn’t have any real friends his own age that he could turn to for support. The Ponyville school had been so much better for him, Cheerilee was far more hooves on and they had a strong focus on earth pony magic and not just what you could do with a horn.

Any pony could see how much better he was doing now.

As Spike was digging into his dinner, she walked to the far side of the kitchen and opened the jar of gems. She picked out a few small pieces of lapis for Spike and a couple of large emeralds for herself. She popped one into her muzzle and chewed happily, enjoying the smoky taste of the gem. It was a pity that she couldn’t share them with all her friends.

Her friends… it was funny that they were all connected by their cutie mark stories, like somehow they were destined to be friends. She had never really had friends before; sure there were some ponies that she spent time with while she was in school, but she would hesitate to call them friends. Almost nopony really ever accepted her for who she was.

Yet her five best friends had all accepted her the moment they met her: Rainbow Dash loved having a new friend she could go flying with, Pinkie enjoyed coming up with new ways to cook with gems, Rarity had made dozens of dresses for her, and all of them (with one notable exception) looked fantastic, Applejack just liked her for who she was and enjoyed chatting out the deeper meaning of things when Twilight helped out on the farm. Even Fluttershy had opened up to her so fast that she hadn’t realized just how shy she really was until later, she just wanted to learn about dragons.

And it wasn’t just them, most of all ponies in town had come to accept her: Zecora, the Cakes, Mayor Mare, the spa twins, and so many others that she was happy to call friends. It was such a change from living in Canterlot! While she had enjoyed going to Celestia’s school, there was always a stigma from not being a unicorn, even if she had a unicorn’s magic. At first the princess had been happy to tell Twilight that it wouldn’t last, as she would soon find a way to turn her back, but as the weeks turned into months and the months into years, she had slowly stopped speaking of it.

A few weeks before her graduation, during one of her private lessons with Celestia, Twilight had ask the princess to stop trying to find a way to undo the spell. Celestia seemed a bit disappointed by the request, but still accepted it as no pony had made any progress in even understand what she had done to herself, let alone reversing it.

Twilight popped a second gem into her mouth, slowly chewing it. After graduation she had ended up with a job in the historical section of the archives, though she continued to live with her family. Celestia had offered her a private tower—officially part of the library but a place that no one else but her would have access to—but she turned her down. She didn’t want to be away from her little brother, and couldn’t do that on the other side of Canterlot. He had still needed a foal sitter back then, though now he could take care of himself for the most part.

Looking down she saw that Spike had nearly cleaned his plate, only poking at the last couple stalks of his asparagus. That was good enough for her as she set the lapis pieces down in front of him, his green eyes going wide when he saw the little bright blue gems. “Thanks, Twilight!” he said before quickly eating them.

She laughed and fluffed his mane. “Alright, go get cleaned up for bed.”

He nodded, mouth full of gems as he quickly hugged her, then slipped of the chair and headed upstairs. Twilight picked up the dirty dishes and walked them back to the sink. She may had never expected to be living in a small town, yet it had been one of the best choices of her life. And while sometimes her dragon nature had caused her problems—like trying to steal another dragon’s hoard when she was supposed to be talking him into leaving—everypony was willing to overlook her mistakes. Everypony was willing to forgive and forget.

Taking one last emerald, she headed upstairs to tuck her little brother in. A part of her had always wondered what would it have been like if she had never become a dragon, but it was a very small part. She was Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s personal student, the Element of Magic, town librarian and a dragon. She couldn’t imagine being anything else.

Author's Note

There will be more stories in this setting in the future!

Click here for Story Notes.