//------------------------------// // Montage 2 - Between Universes // Story: Beyond the Bounds of Universes // by CTVulpin //------------------------------// Gentle white light surrounded Princess Twilight on all sides, which the logical part of her mind noted was a vast improvement over the all-consuming darkness she remembered from the void between Equestria and Valden.  The lack of a horizon in the light and the absence of gravity, however, left her extremely disoriented, and she felt panic and nausea beginning to fight for dominance inside of her.  Then, she felt a light touch on her back and turned to see Sci-Twi floating beside her.  Sci-Twi was still in her fancy dress with the crystal wings and purple visor, but she was no longer a pony.  Princess Twilight looked at herself and found that was still an alicorn. “Why are you human all of sudden?” Princess Twilight asked. Sci-Twi looked at her hands.  “I guess that out here, our bodies just follow the morphological rules of our home,” she said.  “This will make things a little easier, though.” “Easier how?” Princess Twilight asked.  In answer, Sci-Twi just wrapped her arms around the pony’s midsection, holding her close.  Then, there was a sensation of movement and the light pulled away from the pair and split into two distinct yet shapeless spheres far beneath Sci-Twi’s feet.  Princess Twilight instantly designated that direction “down” in her mind. All around the Twilights, the black void seemed to be filled with stars arranged in far too regular a pattern to be stars as the pair knew them.  “Those must be other universes,” Princess Twilight said, amazed. “Most likely,” Sci-Twi agreed.  “How do we tell which way to go now, though?  They all look the same.” Princess Twilight looked “down” at the lights representing Equestria and Sci-Twi’s world.  “Look,” she said, pointing a hoof at something she noticed.  Sci-Twi looked and saw a thin stream of light twisting off beyond the vague edge of Equestria.  She moved to get a better angle and saw that the light dissipated fairly quickly after leaving the greater mass, but it still managed to point in a clear direction.  “That may be from the Tau’rin portals,” Princess Twilight said.  “Little… bits of reality leaking out of the universe and pointing back along the trajectory Tau’rin and the Order-naries took.”  She followed the direction the light was pointing with her eyes, and it seemed to point at one of the distant stars.  “Go that way,” she said, pointing.  “Let’s see where it leads us.” “Ok,” Sci-Twi said, willing herself into motion.  She glanced back as she flew, wondering how the two of them might their way back if they took a wrong turn, and saw a line of magenta sparkles trailing out behind her, linking her back to Equestria.  Feeling relieved, Sci-Twi returned her focus to the universe the princess was still pointing toward and redoubled her efforts to move toward it. As the Twilights neared the next glowing sphere of a universe, they saw it had a little thread of light poking out of it as well, aimed directly toward Equestria.  By mutual agreement, they approached the thread and Sci-Twi carefully took one hand off of Princess Twilight to cast the portal magic at the thread.  In the blink of an eye, the girl and the alicorn were floating, surrounded by a bubble of magic, in a sky that was both comfortingly blue and strange.  Below, a town-sized cluster of buildings sat at the edge of a vast, black, perfectly circular crater.  Princess Twilight looked at her hooves and wings, then at her companion, and noted, “I guess your magic isolates us from the laws of this universe.  Otherwise, I’d be human and neither of us would be lavender-colored.” “Fascinating, “Sci-Twi said.  “But, are we in the right place?” Princess Twilight looked down at the town, lips pursed in thought.  “It’s been a long time,” she said, “but I’m certain we’re above Overlook, the Valden town located next to the spot where the Order-naries and Tau’rin left this world.  That crater’s unmistakable.  We’re on the right track.” “Awesome,” Sci-Twi said, grinning.  “Now that I know what to look for, we should make it to Taryn in no time.  Ready to go?” Princess Twilight considered for a second before nodding.  “There are a couple people here I wouldn’t mind saying hello to,” she said, “but we’re just passing through, and I can have a proper visit later, once I’m certain on how to make portals.” “All right,” Sci-Twi said, and with a wave of her hand she took the two of them back out into the void. As the Twilights flew through the void between universes, they caught momentary glimpses of each reality in the Tau’rin chain as they paused to get the bearing on the next leg of the journey.  Counting Valden, twelve universes stood between Equestria and Taryn, yet only a few provided the pair with memorable sights during the glimpses. There was a universe also inhabited by intelligent equines in a variety of colors, but with longer faces in general and a strange fixation on pastel blues and pinks, if the buildings in the village Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi saw were any indication. There was a world full of humans and other nearly-but-not-quite-human races which sailed the oceans on ships built onto the backs of giant sea dragons. A world that appeared to be split between humans and large insectoid beings that dwelt in sprawling cities under domes of magic.  A massive battle between the two groups was occurring near the massive crater that marked the “exit” portal of the Tau’rin chain; the humans were evidently trying to defend the crater from an attack by the insects. Another world at war, except that humanity’s foe here seemed to be animated chalk scribbles, which the humans fought with linked magic circles and chalk drawings of their own. As they left the twelfth intervening universe, Princess Twilight clapped her hooves in glee.  “That’s it,” she said, looking ahead to the next glowing spot in the void, “our next stop has to be Taryn.  We’re almost there.” “Oh, good,” Sci-Twi said, with a little strain in her voice, “because I don’t think we can go any farther than that.” “What do you mean?” Princess Twilight asked. “Look back the way we’ve come, “Sci-Twi answered.  The princess did so and could see a sparse scattering of magenta lights in their wake.  “The portal spell is keeping us tethered to Equestria,” Sci-Twi said, “and it’s been stretching a bit tight since the last couple universes.  The magic’s running low, too.” “Wha- why didn’t you say something sooner?!” Princess Twilight exclaimed.  “I can lend you some of my magic if you need it.”  She lit up her horn, but when she tried to touch her magic to Sci-Twi’s, she felt a sudden pull on the magic from all sides.  She dimmed her horn quickly and shuddered.  “N-never mind,” she said, “this non-space is too… weird for me to cast in.” “We can make it,” Sci-Twi grunted, pushing a little harder to reach the glow of Taryn. After an agonizing period of immeasurable time, the Twilights started to draw noticeably near their goal.  The two thread-like streams of light leaking from the Tau’rin portals became discernable, and Sci-Twi aimed toward the nearest one.  However, before either Twilight could reach out and grab the thread, their progress came to sudden, jerking halt.  The princess gasped as Sci-Twi’s grip grew unsteady, but the girl wrapped both arms tighter around the alicorn. “What happened?” Princess Twilight asked. “The tether,” Sci-Twi groaned, looking back, “it’s reached its limit.  We can’t go any farther.” “No!” Princess Twilight yelled.  “We’re so close!  We can get there!” “I’m sorry, Princess,” Sci-Twi said.  “I’m trying, but I can’t move us any closer.” “Try harder!”  Princess Twilight shouted.  She wriggled until she managed to free her wings from Sci-Twi’s enveloping arms, and started flapping hard, desperately trying to move herself and Sci-Twi the last few, tantalizing feet. “Hey!” Sci-Twi exclaimed as the alicorn’s wings jostled her.  “Cut that out, Twi.  I’m losing my gri-”  A wing flap cuffed her on the cheek and her arms instinctively shot up to guard her face.  Princess Twilight yelped at the sudden loss of pressure around her middle and she started tumbling away.  “Twilight!” Sci-Twi yelled, reaching for her companion, only to be jerked away in the opposite direction.  Before she could react, the tether of magic had begun retracting hauling her back to Equestria at blinding speeds. Sci-Twi quickly lost sight of Princess Twilight against the glow of the universe the alicorn was tumbling toward, and in a blink even the universe itself became impossible to pick out among the innumerable star-like lights around it.  Sci-Twi knew, whether because of the magic in her or her own knowledge of basic physics, that she had no chance of reversing course again, so just went limp and let the magic carry her back to Princess Twilight’s castle.  Alone.