Starlight Glimmer stepped through the portal. Nothingness greeted her, a whole world of utter oblivion. It went for miles, off into the distance and beyond. The ground stretched on as an endless wasteland of ashen dust and monotone gray. Even the sky was blank, devoid of color and life.
The wind that seemed to never die away blew dust through her mane, stinging her eyes and blackening her coat. It held the reek of fires long past, of charred wood and smoldering stone. It held the smell of death. She rubbed at an eye, wiping away a sooty tear. It wasn't just from the stinging dust. She always cried when coming here. The pain was part of the appeal.
But, saying it appealed didn't quite do how she felt justice. It was more like a core reason for her chronic return, the thing that always kept her coming back no matter how painful it was to do so. It had to be done. It was as simple as that.
She couldn't forget. Wouldn't forget. It was a reminder of her past.
It'd started a few months after she'd moved in with Twilight. First as an experiment to see if she could, and when she found the answer, it became a regular, almost compulsive journey.
The dust had been the key. Something about it had called out to her when she'd brushed it out of her mane during that first night in Twilight's castle. She'd kept it in a vial, unsure why. It wasn't until the next morning that the urge to run tests on it had manifested. Months later, she was regularly stepping through into the wastes.
It'd allowed her to home in on this timeline's location in the vast web of the multiverse, lock on to it and create a portal from baseline reality to the wasteland. Of course, Starlight had brought something from what she called the prime timeline into this alternate branch, a thing she could use to return home after she'd gotten her fill of alone time and self-reflection.
Using herself as an anchor for baseline hadn't seemed to work, she'd discovered. Maybe it was due to the fact that she'd hopped through so many forking paths and parallel dimensions that her magical signature was too incoherent to pinpoint where baseline reality's unique resonance sat within her. So, she'd picked something close to her, something meaningful from the prime timeline. She could only bring a small amount through the portal. Too much material from realities they weren't native to required exponentially more magical power to bring through. That wasn't an issue, though.
One of Trixie's spare capes served as her anchor, but it also provided a sense of comfort in her travels through this dead place. It was the only bit of warmth and security she granted herself here, the only reminder she had of what she could've unknowingly erased if she hadn't changed her ways when she had.
It was hard not to lose track of time when the landscape was so monotonously barren. She wandered aimlessly for hours along miles of nothingness and seen little more than jagged mountains and scorched trees. It was apocalyptic. She didn't know what could've possibly led to this, and she'd long ago ultimately decided she didn't want to. It was bad enough that she'd somehow had a hoof in it. She couldn't bear to know the details.
She looked back at her tracks in the dust, the farthest ones already swept away by the gusting wind. It was a good thing she didn't need to return to the origin point of the portal, or she'd never get home. The cloth around her neck was all she needed. With it, she could open a portal anywhere. It was a pretty advanced spell, one she was quite proud of despite herself. She didn't like to be smug about her magical abilities. Not anymore. She'd come a long way since the days of her negligent arrogance, and she never intended to go back.
That was why she kept venturing through the portal.
Hours ticked by, miles passed, and Starlight began to feel the familiar sense that she'd soon be missed back in baseline. She never told anypony about these little sojourns into the dust, not even Twilight. No, this was her personal penance, her alone time. It was a deeply private thing. Besides, it'd be too dangerous to bring others through, and too magically draining on top of that. She could only hold one portal open at a time, and even that took a vast amount of her strength. At least they stood open for a bit post-cast, though not long enough for her to return to, usually. Again, it was fortunate she had the ability to open up a new one for her exit.
Her horn glowed, reality in front of her shimmered, and the wind abruptly kicked up. Starlight closed her eyes, brow furrowing as she tore a hole between dimensions. The wind howled, reality seemingly fighting back against her. Then, the portal snapped open. Something flicked across her back, but she was too anxious to get through to bother investigating. She trotted through, slumped on the floor, and disbanded the gateway.
Only then did she notice the cape missing from around her neck.
The knot must've slipped, she thought. That last flurry of wind had yanked it free. Her heart sank, but it wasn't the end of the world. She could get another anchor. She'd mourn the loss of the cape, as silly as that felt.
Cleaning herself up, Starlight ventured downstairs into the main hall of Twilight's castle. Voices came from the map room, her friends.
"Starlight!" Rarity called, sounding panicked.
"Yes? What's wrong? Is everything okay?"
"Have you seen Twilight? She mentioned a portal in your bedroom, said she couldn't find you anywhere! She was in a panic. We told her to calm down, but she went through it looking for you, and now it's gone!"