"You don't look very dragon-like," Blueberry says dubiously.

"That is because I'm not a treatise," she says reasonably. "I'm a unicorn. And I was trying to bring back a dragon who disappeared a little while ago, but the spell I'm using has trouble distinguishing people except by broad obvious categories like species... maybe it got confused some other way. Do you know anything about a green and purple dragon suddenly appearing somewhere near wherever you just were? He's about this tall," she floats a book to a Joy-ish height to illustrate, because even if she stood on tip-hoof she'd be much too short to gesture it herself, "and his name is Joy and he's very friendly and helpful."

"Oh, that makes sense. Well, it shouldn't be very hard to put you back now that I've got you... you're definitely the only dragon-like creature in Ponyville right now. Do you want me to do that? I'd just have to reverse a few things and then check my work, it won't take long. But then I guess you should tell Joy to go somewhere there aren't any dragon-like creatures for a size-of-this-roomish distance anywhere around him, before I try again."

"What is going on?"

"From my perspective, Joy disappeared mysteriously a little while ago and I went and looked up some spells until I found one that told me where he went, sort of, and then I went and looked up some more spells until I found one that could get him back. But it isn't very good, so it accidentally got you instead."

"Aaaand where did you get me to, pray tell?"

"Equestria! Ponyville specifically. The Ponyville public library, even more specifically."

"So I'm gathering I'm not in Elcenia anymore, is that right?"

"If Elcenia is the world you were in a minute ago, yes."

"Ooookay. And I am here because your spell is badly targeted."

"Yes. I could've refined the targeting, but only by sacrificing important safety precautions, and I didn't want to do that. It's better to accidentally get the wrong dragon for a few minutes than to risk somepony getting hurt in the process of getting the right one."

"Yes, but it's the only language around unless you count animal speech and that's not learnable, so I have to put up with it."

"Rrrright. Anyway. I would like to be put back eventually so it's comforting to know you think you can do that, but I am pretty curious about this place I find myself in, what with it being magical and unfamiliar."

"You can ask me about Equestria if you want, I won't mind answering things."

"Right, so is more or less everybody ponies and dragons?"

"Equestria is a pony country. I don't know if there are any dragons living in it at all other than Joy, and if there are, they don't live in pony villages with ponies like he does. But there's dragons in other places farther away, and griffins, and certain kinds of sea monsters that can talk... I could probably look up a list of all the non-pony creatures who're known to use learnable language, but I might have to send away to another library in Canterlot for it."

"Learnable language as opposed to?"

"I mean, you can teach a dragon or a sea serpent Equestrian, but you can't teach a bear or a bunny or a bee Equestrian. But certain ponies who have the right kind of special talent can understand and communicate with bears and bunnies and bees; they just don't use a learnable language to do it. Someone who tried to learn how to talk to bears might get pretty good at it, especially if they were an earth pony to begin with, but they'd never be as good as somebody with a special talent for it."

"Explain 'special talents'."

"Every pony - and I only mean ponies this time; dragons and griffins and sea serpents don't work the same way - every pony has a special talent that's unique to them. With some ponies it's more like being good at chess or fashion or dancing, and with some ponies it's more like being able to talk to animals or cast a special spell nobody else can do, but everyone gets one. Most ponies start to figure out their special talents when they're a little older than me, and when they know what it is, they get a little picture on their flanks that represents it. The picture is called a cutie mark."

"...this is almost interesting enough to convince me to learn to turn into a pony of some kind."

"You could do that?" she asks, intrigued. "Which kind would you pick? There's three. Technically four. Unicorns like me have horns and can do magic; earth ponies don't have horns and are strong and good at some kinds of things; pegasi don't have horns and do have wings and they can fly and manipulate the weather. And princesses are like all three kinds of ponies together, and they have horns and wings and can do magic and fly and manipulate the weather and are strong and good at earth pony things. But princesses are very rare and I don't know if they're a kind of pony in the same way the other three are."