A Truthful Dragon

It was late in a summer's evening and Celestia's sun was drifting down over the canopy of the Everfree Forest. The young dragon Spike had recently had his twentieth birthday and had therefore been allowed by his older sister to explore the Everfree by himself, a task he quite often used to gather gems for his beloved Rarity, often alongside her but sometimes when she was busy or if he wanted to surprise her, he went alone. Today was one of those days.

"It's getting late though," he thought to himself, but looking in his bag, he frowned. “But I didn’t really get too many gems.”

He really didn’t want to go back empty-hooved, so he continued his search, eventually coming across a strange, crystal-encrusted cave, and by crystal-encrusted, he didn’t mean just filled with gems, he meant the whole cave was one big crystal. One that stretched deep down into the ground.

“What the?” He muttered to himself, moving in closer to explore. It reminded him of the Tree of Harmony, or perhaps even the Castle of Friendship, but this was far away from both Ponyville and the Castle of the Two Sisters. Curious, he began to explore.

The cave took him down, deep down into the ground. He thought about turning back several times, only for his curiosity to push him further down the tunnel. The crystals kept the place lit up even as the entrance, and thus the sun, was far from sight until he finally came across a dead end, with a long root-like crystal sticking through the cave, glistening with some kind of orange magical aura.

"What is this?"

"I'm glad you asked." A familiar voice said from behind him. Spike jumped out of his skin and turned sharply. At first he thought it was Applejack, but soon he realized that this was some kind of hologram of her. “What y'all see there is none other than the Root of Honesty.”

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All characters will be aged up to at least eighteen in this story, of course