Lyra slumped in her chair. The truth was, she'd never really thought about the risks in leaving the safety of the bubble behind. The way Princess Celestia had explained the spell to her, she thought she would be returned to Equestria if the spell were to fail, regardless of where she was at the time. In hindsight, she wasn't sure that was actually true. She thought she'd crossed over the boundary before the spell collapsed, but she wasn't certain. "He . . . we'd spent enough time together, Dale seemed harmless," Lyra finally said. "He hadn't done anything threatening, even when he’d had the opportunity: I fell down on the beach, and he caught me, but he didn’t do anything aggressive. So I followed him into the woods, back to his camp."