The pegasus looked around one more time. It wasn't safe to be there. The ruins hadn't been stable before, they were it much less after whatever had happened to them. Clean cut, square and rectangular holes on every surface and structure, like portions of matter had been severed away by someone or something. What had been there before nowhere to be found. Some form of magic, no doubt. At any moment something there could break down and fall to the ground, and they were planning to avoid being there when that happened. But just as they were spreading their wings, ready to leave, their front hoof slipped inside a small hole in the stone pavement, and they found it annoyingly refused to come out.
Firecracker struggled, trying to pull their leg free, but no matter what they couldn't manage to pull it out. Their hoof was stuck there. Just then there was a cracking sound from higher above, and the pegasus looked up along the length of the tall column next to them, all the way to its tip. Just a little lower, a chunk had been removed, and the thin portion still holding the top had just split. And a second later, that top part slid forward.
They saw the rock coming down towards them. They tugged their leg, still stuck in the ground, and knew they wouldn't be able to pull away in time. And they watched, as the chunk of stone made its way sailing across the air and headed for their body, too large to hope it would somehow miss them, ready to crush them with its weight. Then, a hoof touched their shoulder, and they were no longer there.
They were floating, somewhere. Or at least, it felt like it. It was like the beginning of a dream, that odd mental space one drifts into when falling asleep, the one the slightest shock knocks you out of. But nothing came to shake them, and they didn't fall asleep. Instead they floated on, as time seemed to slow down to a crawl, while the world around them twisted and bent at impossible angles. Until suddenly it all stopped, and they were ripped out of it, and time was again and they had an up and down and things were normal again. And they were standing, somewhere.
It was cold. Firecracker looked around. They'd spent enough time flying through the clouds to know they were fairly high up somewhere, but that was about all they could tell at first glance. They were standing on something, yet it almost looked like they weren't, staring down. Not quite like a glass pavement, but as if the thing below them was and wasn't there. But even still, they couldn't properly see the ground far down below. They looked around again, and froze.
There was a pony, there, sitting. A stallion by the looks of it, no wings or horn to be seen. A bit taller than average, coat of a light grey brown, and his mane a darker shade of the same colour. His cutie mark was hidden while he sat in that position. He turned his head towards the pegasus, and spoke. "Hello. Firecracker, was it?"