Twilight closed her eyes as she felt Luna begin casting the Dreamwalk spell. Grabbing hold of the fabric of the spell, she wove it into the crystal hanging from the sleeping pegasus' neck. As she tied the anchor point off, she also began to slip her own psychic link alongside the silvery thread of dream magic. She took a deep breath and began to ease more of her awareness into the link...
And opened her eyes to a long cloudscape next to Luna. She looked around and spotted Tabula sitting on the cloud, gazing longingly at other clouds as they drifted along.
"I wish it was as easy as that," Tabula said. "You just get to drift along, not having to worry about anypony judging you, asking you questions about your past." Her wings shifted uneasily.
The sky started to darken, storm clouds rolling in with a rumble of thunder.
"It's always this way, I suppose," continued the Pegasus. "Never thought I'd end up like this, though." She rose, and Twilight could see a hazy shape on her flanks, the pattern almost recognizable but blurred.
"Is there any way to see the cutie mark more clearly?" Twilight asked.
Luna closed her eyes and her horn lit briefly. "Not at this point in the dream," she said. "It is still somewhat blocked by the trauma that affects her in the waking world. We will not discover any information that way."
"Can you make it so I can speak with her?" Twilight inquired as she stepped forward, feeling the slightly springy cloud beneath her hooves. "Maybe I can jog her memory here."
Luna looked doubtful. "I am not sure I can do such through the breakwater of the amulet you placed upon her, but I shall try."
Her horn lit, and the cloud began to feel more solid to the lavender pony. She walked up to Tabula slowly.
"Hello," she said. "Do you remember me? I found you in the forest earlier today."
Tabula glanced at her, her eyes showing no emotion. "Yes," she said with a sigh. "Thank you for getting me help, by the way."
"You're welcome," Twilight said. "Do you remember anything else? A name? Where your home is?"
Tabula shook her head. "Everything is foggy here," she said, pointing at her head with a hoof. "But I remember emotions. I was sad, and often scared. I remember soaring with the clouds, and sunny days perking me up, but I don't know why I was sad, or why the sun made me happy."
She shook her head violently, mane flying about. "I want to remember," she whispered. "But I'm scared of what I might find."
"Why are you scared?" Twilight asked. "Nothing you've done is worth being ashamed of."
"Can you say the same of your past, Princess?" the Pegasus asked sincerely. "That there is nothing in your past that you aren't willing to relive, somethings that you wish you didn't have to remember?"
The dreamscape shuddered violently, and suddenly they were standing before the Golden Oaks library.
"What in..." Twilight asked, just in time to see a bright flash on one of the balconies, seeing her slightly younger self step up to her telescope viewfinder.
"Luna, what's going on?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," the Princess of Dreams said, stepping into the view, horn glowing. "I cannot stop the image."
Twilight watched again as the home she had come to love was destroyed again, the pain stabbing her in the heart just a freshly as when it happened.
"Steel your mind, Twilight," Luna said. "Else the vision will repeat."
The young alicorn gathered her mental strength and managed to clear her mind, but instead of returning to the clouds, they were suddenly in the Castle of the Two Sisters.
"Oh, stars," Luna whispered. "I have relived this night enough times." She closed her eyes just before she and Celestia launched into battle again.
"We all have things we wish we could forget, Princess," Tabula said. "It just seems I overdid it, whatever I did." She glanced at her cutie mark. "And it must have been related to my special talent too. What a foal I was."
The dreamscape altered again, becoming full of fuzzy buildings and faceless ponies of indeterminate gender or tribe. Luna glanced around.
"It seems a spell caused this lapse of memory, not a trauma," she said. "We should withdraw and see what we can ascertain about it, and I have my duties to attend to."
Twilight nodded, putting a hoof on the forlorn Pegasus' shoulder. "We'll be there when you wake up," she murmured. "I promise."
Luna lit her horn, wings spreading slightly, only for her horn to fizzle out.
"How odd," she said, attempting again.
"What's wrong?" Twilight asked as the spell fizzled again.
Luna looked at her, worry in her eyes.
"I cannot sever the Dreamwalk," she said. "Something is interfering with my link to the greater weave of magic."
Twilight visibly paled.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means that we are bound here until our host wakes and this dreamscape is destroyed," the midnight alicorn said.
"How long will that be?" asked Tabula, clearly aware of their continued presence.
"It is difficult to say," Luna said. "Catatonic patients often have erratic sleep, not to mention that time is fluid in dreams. It could be a few minutes or days to our perception." She glanced at Twilight.
"You wished for time to speak with her," she said wryly. "It seems you have gained your wish."