There once was a really, really nice pony who lived in a bright and sunny land where there are rainbows everyday and lots and lots of happy friends and hardly anything ever went wrong. Her name was Heart Shine and she was an Earth pony with a soft white coat and shiny blue mane and tail. Her cutie mark were two hearts, one purple and the other pink, with crowns of same colored light beaming from their tops.
Heart Shine loved traveling through the forest that on the outskirts of town. She would trot with a bounce in her step as she explored everything that the forest ha to offer. But on this faithful day, it was not the animals, plants or the lay of the land that caught her interest, it was a rock.
The rock glowed with a pinkish glow and it was hot enough that she could feel its warmth on the breeze from several yards away.
"I wonder what would happen if I cooled it off," she said aloud to herself, thinking of the stream she had passed. As she approached the strange rock, she could feel the heat intensify. It did not appear that the rock was heated externally, but it seemed that it would not cool-off anytime soon, so she stepped up to it. The heat quickly caused her to sweat as she used her front hooves to roll the rock back to the stream.
By the time she made it to the stream, Heart Shine was sweating and panting, having switched from front to back hooves and back again in order to keep from burning herself. She drank deeply and washed the dried sweat from her coat before turning to the stream, looking for a spot to douse her "prize."
Finding a small section where water flowed, but not strong enough to take the rock away, Heart Shine nudged the rock closer to the stream. Not sure how much steam the stone would cause, she was careful not to be close when she pushed it in. She gave the rock a careful nudge and the rock fell into the stream with a plop and hiss of steam.
After the steam and bubbles had faded, Heart Shine took a look at the rock. What was once a solid stone now looked ashen and brittle. She reached in to touch it and the rock supplies and began to cloud up the water. She quickly tried to salvage the rock by scooping it out of the water, but came out with muck covered hooves and a disk like object.
Her disappointment over losing the rock quickly turned into curiosity over what was inside of it. She quickly washed the muck and rock residue off of both her hooves and the disk. Looking it out of the water, she found the disk was in fact a compass. To her amazement, it was not damaged even though it appeared to be made of simple materials. Even the thin piece of glass that protected the fragile marker was not even scratched.
So Heart Shine pointed it north but the compass slowly moved to the east. "If you're not meant to show north, then what were you meant to show?" Curiosity got the best of her as she crossed the stream to the east, following the compass on an adventure.
She traveled for hours until the sun was about to set, when she came across a cave. When she tried to go around the cave, the compass redirected her to the cave's mouth. So she stepped into the cave, pushing aside her growing fear, while nurturing her rapidly fading sense of adventure.
The deeper she went, the lighter the cave got. It was as if the walls were enchanted to give light. She followed the compass through the twists and turns of the cave system until she came to what appeared to be a large ant hill. It worried her that it came up to her chest, and the opening was as large as her head. Heart Shine totally did not mind ants, but if they were large enough to make that hill, she had second thoughts.
She waved the compass around the section of cave in hopes that the ant hill was not the end of her journey. But the compass refused to show her any other way. So Heart Shine peered into the ant hill and saw two glowing orbs just arms reach away. She pointed the compass at the orbs and the hands began to spin with purpose.
Seeing the end of her adventure at hoof, she reached into the hole and touched the two orbs. She felt them shiver with life and begin to crack. Heart Shine quickly pulled her hoof away as she watched as two glowing creatures, which resembled butterflies, emerge from the now faded orbs.
As each butterfly began expanding and drying it's wings, Heart Shine could tell that their wing span would be larger than her head. When they spread their wings as far as they could, they started to climb up the sides of the hole. When they reached the top, Heart Shine could see that their wings took on an almost crystalline quality. As their wings reached their largest point, the glow from the cave's walls began to fade rapidly. Soon just the glow of the butterflies illuminated the cave.
Then, without warning, the butterflies took flight down the path that Heart Shine came from. She followed them, afraid of being stuck alone in the dark. She struggled to keep up with these strange insects until suddenly, she was out of the cave.
The butterflies fluttered around her head before taking to the night sky, leaving Heart Shine alone with nothing but her thoughts and the compass that now stopped working.
Once she caught her breath, Heart Shine broke in laughter. "This is one tale I must tell my friends!" With that thought she trotted home, ready to her next adventure.