The three of them fell into the complete blackness, with absolutely no indication or warning about what may lie at the bottom. At least two of the three were fairly certain that they were going to die in here, the third member of the party was blissfully ignorant and had decided on just letting whatever might happen to happen. Que Sera Sera, in other words.
Outside of all this, Fluttershy remained on call without hesitation or cessation. She had put Discord to bed, although the latter had struggled and protested quite fiercely. It was the middle of the day, after all, and he had things he wanted to do and chaos he wanted to perform, but Fluttershy wasn't having any of it.
"Your magic is out of control as it is," she huffed. "You're not doing any spells until we get you all sorted out. Now you're going to stay in bed, and I'm going to bring you soup, and I don't want to hear any more about it."
"But-" Discord began.
Fluttershy Stared at him so fiercely that he shrank back under the blankets again. "Yes ma'am." Any further complaints that he may have been working up were shut down entirely, and he closed his eyes to fall back into a light, uneasy sleep as Fluttershy continued preparations on various soups and salads for her guest as well as for her animals.
And on the outskirt borders of Ponyville, the ever expanding zone of instability continued to expand. It had begun to overtake its very first home, turning the furniture to rubber and the house itself to molded plastic. The house itself was becoming smaller and smaller, and its confused and frightened inhabitants had to evacuate when it became evident that they would soon be trapped inside. They could only watch with fright and sadness as their home cast them out, becoming no larger than that of one built for a child's toy.
The expanding zone of destruction would begin its ruination of Ponyville proper in a matter of minutes, and there was no telling what consequences its influence would have. Whatever it did, it wouldn't be good.
Last of all, now that we're caught up on the goings on back in the real world, we return to the plummeting peril of our trio of heroes. It was only after what seemed like an eternity of falling, but was in fact a few minutes, that Spike suddenly spoke up with his voice full of fearful optimism. "Look!"
Pinkie and Applejack looked, and saw that they were in fact heading straight for a rapidly churning, whitewater stream.
"Sweet Celestia, we're going in hard!" Applejack called. "Everyone hold your breath!"
There was a simultaneous gasping as all three inhaled sharply, cheeks bulging, moments before they plunged into rapidly moving, freezing water. The current caught them at once, and there was wildly unpredictable confusion as they were tossed and turned and thrown about like feathers in a wind tunnel, soaked and cold and scared out of their minds.
Two of them managed to stay conscious during this terrifying ordeal, but a combination of fear and hysteria swept the third straight into a temporary pit of inescapable darkness.
Of the three of them, Applejack awoke first. Shivering and cold and alone, she coughed violently, spraying up water and rising to all four legs. She felt like she'd been battered by a herd of cattle and then beaten with a stick. A nearby signpost by the bank of the calm portion of the water read simply
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
"Hah," Applejack said with absolutely no humor whatsoever. For a moment, she'd almost forgotten that she was inside someone else's body, it was all so... unusually normal, except for the bright red sky and floating lifesaver white clouds overhead. She looked around, suddenly worried. "Pinkie?!" She called. "Spike!" Which in her own tongue came out sounding more like "Spaaaaahk?!"
She stumbled further down the bank, away from the direction she'd come, her eyes heavy but fixed on a large object in the distance. It appeared to be a building of some sort, but part of it was moving. It was impossible to tell anything further from here, so further investigation was needed. She walked towards it, staying close to the bank of the stream, calling for her friends.
Pinkie woke second, laying on her back next to Spike, who lay on his stomach with his eyes closed and was not moving. She sprang upon the dragon at once, shaking off her own weariness and pounded her front hooves down on his chest, working it up and down. "Spike! Spike!" She called.
Nothing at first, for an agonizingly long minute. Her efforts were then rewarded by the dragon spewing up water and coughing, his eyes springing open with sudden force. "Wha!"
Pinkie sighed with relief. "We gotta get outta here," she said slowly. "This place is too weird, even for me." She looked around, frowning. "I think we lost Applejack." Her gaze settled on one of several identical markers that indicated her location.
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
"Hah!" She said cheerfully. "Puns! I gotta remember that."
Spike was coming around, but still a bit weary, so she flipped him up onto her back, and moved forward along the bank. She walked for some time before coming across what appeared to be a set of locomotive tracks that stretched far into the distance. She considered this for a moment, as well as the other things they'd encountered thus far, and a wide grin spread across her face.
"I bet Discord's train of thought runs on this!" She chimed. With hopeful optimism that she'd run into Applejack again, she set off down the tracks, at least to see where they led to. She didn't want to follow them too far away and leave Applejack behind. The tracks, which for the most part were straight and parallel and ran along the ground as anyone would expect them to, rose up and crested over a hill. Pinkie followed, rising up over the hill, and gaped.
"Whoa," Spike whispered.
The tracks went on an acid trip after the hill, rising straight up into the air, down again, up again, swirling around in loops and waves and ridiculous angles that would make any train progress completely impossible without a horribly fiery death.
"Is this how Discord thinks?" Spike asked.
"It wouldn't surprise me, Spike," Pinkie replied. "It wouldn't surprise me at all."