"Indeed"
“So...in saying this with the most respect possible...because I know how it feels to get stopped and asked this on the streets...but what exactly are you?”
Spike had to fit his question in-between the pants caused by his speeding form, as the blinding light fell onto his eyes upon bashing into the next room. The area was unlike any others, big as the throne room as to fit a dozen or so, while wooden statues were littered across the floor with dust gathering within their cuts.
The golden aurora morphed into existence in the middle of the room, already in the form of words that answered the approaching drake’s question. “I am the last conscious remnant of this castle. My spirit, now fading away each and every day, once belonged to a member of royalty powerful enough to control and lead the dragons.”
“What? No way!” Spike couldn't help but chuckle as he cut the distance between him and the next door and half, eyes envision semi-transparent dragons training in the very room he resided in. “I thought the only one powerful enough to have any sway over dragons was the dragon lord himself! And even then he could only draw dragons because of an urge he drove inside of them, not because of the authority that he was.”
A trio of dots appeared just before the next door, each one jumping after the previous had fallen as if they were momentarily in thought. Spike found this funny as he lightly chuckled at them, while at the same time, feeling a tinge of sorrow for the things. They transformed into words before the feeling of pain could intensify.
“Our forgotten royalty comes long before your current dragon lord was even a Lord, to when dragons were more savage for the times were more primitive, where ponies were just beginning to blossom in the lands of green. An early stage of dragons, deciding not to give into their natural greedy urges like the rest of the species, discovered a new way for the breed of dragons to live.”
“That must of not gone over well with the other dragons.” Spike’s shoulder blew through the words and against the door, opening against the might, as his feet picked up once more along the red-carpeted halls.
The wall of the chamber was then coated in wisps of gold. "Indeed.”
Spike rounded the corner of the hall, which great to his surprise, laid another hall looking the same as the last. “Okay. So either interior decorators weren’t a thing back in your time, or you’re just zapping me through the same halls without my noticing.”
Spike bit his tongue as soon as the words left his lips, fearing he was being too rude to the thing he didn’t know too much about, and wouldn’t be in his best interest to upset. Luckily for him, however, the wall of the next hall already had his response waiting for him.
“Fashion wasn’t a thing until dragons began to discover ponies, eyeing the strange clothes adorning their fur before they popped them into their mouths where they then slid down their throats.”
“Yeesh.” The drake couldn’t hold back the comment as he imagined Cheerilee disappearing past the massive maw of a dragon, which caused him to clench his claw in repression of his species heritage. “I guess that means even royal dragons were guilty of doing the same back in your day?”
The question went unanswered for a little while as he reached a stairway that descended for a little while, where portraits hanging on the walls were missing their paintings, and the dust on the smaller windows dimmed the light. Spike spiraled downward, delighted he could kill two birds at once, as his message followed him down the chamber of the stairwell.
“At first. But such ceased when ponies began to hold conversations with us in the midst of our claws, the reason why those before were devoured because they were too scared to speak. Those ponies brave enough to face out fangs and still speak told us what the stars above meant, and how to read them. How to commute ideas and feelings through not just howls and growls, but by words of reason that could avoid the conflicts dragons were so well known for.
“But more importantly, the ponies of those ages taught us of an intrinsic quality inside of us that depended not on the knowledge possessed, but by the strength and will of one’s heart: magic. It was the thing that both ponies and dragons shared, that could not only bridge the gap between the two species but perhaps the entire world.”
Spike skipped the final steps of the stairs by hopping past them, a cloud of dust arising from the impact of his feet, as he carried down the new corridor with a huff. “Sounds romantic enough. But magic is a powerful thing when held by those impure in the heart, or at least, Twilight told me that. So I guess that not all ponies were okay with dragons learning magic, as they were already powerful enough, and would become unstoppable in the eyes of ponies.”
It only occurred to the drake then and there why he had decided to start running, or how he was so frank with a mystical source of magic that he would at once be terrified or too scared even to contemplate what is was. Like how he would develop a stutter when speaking to villains, his heart was calm despite the situation he was in.
That train of thought was drained away by the superficial door of gold, comprised solely of the words ‘indeed,' causing the drake to laugh as he phased through it. For a long dead entity trapped inside a forgotten castle, its sense of humor sure survived through the ages., as its answer floated on the other side of the door.
“An alicorn, by whose power and her rule that I wouldn’t be surprised if she still lived to this day, condemned those who shared of ponies knowledge to the dragons, even if it were to save their tail from being eaten. She did, however, come around to teaching us few who possessed the same capacity of ponies the art of magic. Though there was one lesson, she tried to fit in more so than the others.”
Spike felt the ending to this little race was nigh, feeling as though the spirit was still manipulating the drake to go where it desired. But he didn’t mind so much, as the sights were interesting and the once forgotten stories fascinating, though he knew now where he was heading, for it lay beneath the castle.
“So what was the lesson this alicorn was trying to get across?”
The drake began to slow down upon reaching the last door, revealing behind its hinges stairs that descended straight down, where a holy light flickered at its bottom. A sense of joy washed over him as he took the first step down, not able to cease the laughter that began to spew out from his lips.
Spike got his answer on the sloping ceiling above his head, a word that he had already subconsciously manifested, piecing together some of the strings of the mystery of the castle. For, the lesson most needed to get across to the dragons was this:
“Friendship.”