She braced herself as the landscape trembled around her, changing a thousand times between one heartbeat and the next before she could reassert her tenuous control over the firmament again. It was here, at the far edges of the dreamlands, on the border of existence itself that they touched all the realms that were, are and might be. It was here she had come in search of her lost friend. Every step in this place was a hazard, as you fought to prevail upon it both your existence and its.
Here where reality itself was questionable the echoes of Celestia’s and Twilight’s brief time in the Other reverberated like a soundless thunder. The aether was thin, brittle like bad ice and if one was not careful you could fall through and find yourself lost amid the myriad worlds that lay beyond. This is what she suspected had somehow happened to Twilight, and which was why time, if it had any meaning in this place, was of the essence. Many of the worlds beyond were dangerous in a way that young Sparkle was not prepared for, and they in turn could be grievously wounded if the inexperienced alicorn delved too deep or too recklessly in her newfound power.
Luna only hoped that Twilight had heeded her sister’s advice. She still struggled with the weight and consequences of her fall and she did not know if she could bare facing the reflection of it in her friend. Twilight giving into despair or anger wasn’t the only worry however. If she really had become the manifestation of Magic and all that entailed then she could cause far more damage with even the best of intentions than Luna had ever been capable of in her darkest hours.
She had only traveled a short distance further when the next tremor caught her mid-step and suddenly found herself and the landscape around her split into a thousand imperfect fractal reflections. A thousand aspects of her and their differing effects on the dreamlands swirled around as though she and the world had become a damaged kaleidoscope. Crying out in pain and disorientation she struggled to pull herself back into a singular being. Some pieces came easily and quickly joined the task. Others struggled or tried to hide. The last shards, the parts of herself that she hated or was ashamed of were the hardest. She fought herself and then fought herself in an endless battle both real and entirely imagined until an eternal instant later she made another step and was whole again.
The dark alicorn shuddered and the world shook and darkened around her as she fought to release the fear of what she had just gone through. The experience had shaken her, any worse and she might never have recovered from it. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to return to Equestria and cry into her sister’s soft fur. To touch light and love and know without doubting that it existed. When she had gathered herself enough to move once more the caution with which she did so made her earlier measured pace seem like a reckless gambol.
Lost pockets of alien dreams, secrets, and relics that existed outside of time and space materialized and faded away as she followed the echoes of Twilight’s passage. Luna knew better than to attempt to look at any too closely, nothing that retained shape in this place was without power or consequence.
The longer she walked the more she felt the faint echoes of past hoof steps. Somepony had been here before. Instinctively following the ancient yet familiar feel of them she stumbled upon a loose trail scattered with faded pieces of rainbow. Their edges jagged as though they had been violently shattered. ‘The bridge?’ Luna thought, incredulous.
Had the elements somehow reconnected with what remained of that ancient construct? It was possible. Luna picked up her pace as the lingering magic of rainbow shards and the memories of past ponies gave solidity to this sliver of the borderlands.
Hope and worry warred within her. As she traveled she became more and more convinced that she would find Twilight Sparkle at the end of this path, but the bridge had been destroyed for a reason. That even this much of it remained was worrying.
It had been a lighthouse with which to navigate the treacherous seas of the border. Perhaps one of the greatest feats of magical engineering that had ever been imagined, let alone realized. They had traveled far and explored with the unrestrained earnestness of youth. Always the bridge would guide them back, and as they traveled they had anchored it to more and more of reality. They had learned however that many lost things had been searching for a harbor.
The aether began to take on a fouled and dirty feel even as it became more solid. Some fey thing had wallowed its way through here, graceless and violent. Casting in this place was the height of folly and the impressions old, nevertheless she found herself readying defensive spells and looking around warily.
Suddenly she was thrown off her hooves as a massive pillar of light on the horizon speared violently through the aether. Thousands of years of experience was the only thing that prevented her from falling into the vast cosmos below as the whole plane cracked and shifted beneath her, giants rifts into nothing and everything spiderwebbing and becoming solid as the terrain around them boiled between a million different landscapes to fast for thought to accept.
Throwing all her previous caution to the wind she raced recklessly towards the light. The appearance of five flickering rainbow bands arcing overhead and heading towards the disturbance gave Luna no cheer. True harmony was beyond any thinking being’s understanding and the elements could be as dangerous as any problem they were invoked to solve. A lesson she and her sister had learned long before the name Nightmare Moon had ever been uttered aloud. Without her friends nearby to anchor Twilight and help direct the magic the risks were greater still.
As Luna sped towards the light she only hoped she arrived in time to prevent history from repeating itself.