"...and the nerves transfer lightning from the brain to the muscles, allowing for movement by causing them to contract. There are actually two sets of muscles in each major flex point, one to pull in one direction," Max demonstrated by pulling his leg up off of the ground "and one to pull it back into position."

What had begun as a simple biology lesson had soon turned into a briefing on every little bit of relevant biology he could dredge up, while what had begun as a simple audience of just Luna and her guards had soon evolved into a small crowd of educated individuals, mostly unicorns, who were more interested in learning than sleeping. Many were either taking notes on long scrolls of paper or had an aide writing down the entire explanation for later review. It actually made the stallion a bit nervous. This information, if it passed muster here tonight, would likely be disseminated throughout the country and eventually the planet. The ideas he was proposing were years ahead of what medieval medicine would be able to prove anyway, even with magic supplementing it, not to mention the loss of knowledge Discord's reign had caused.

When Max and Luna had first entered the throne room and he'd explained to the knights what he was about to do, as well as asking for a chalkboard or something similar, one of the guards had asked if it was possible to hold off while he alerted a unicorn acquaintance who was a well-known scholar. According to the knight, the stallion would never forgive him if he allowed this information to pass his friend by. One thing had led to another, and eventually the private lesson had turned into a public class about basic biology regarding the body. Many had balked at the idea of learning from a creature as strange as Max, but both the fact that Princess Luna was sitting on a comfortable long pillow with several scrolls held in her magic as well as the presence of an increasingly interested group of scholars seemed to calm many of the more uncomfortable visitors.

"You say that lightning causes the muscles to move," one of the older unicorns said, looking over his scroll. "I find this a trifle difficult to believe, as I've seen the damage caused by lightning. Burns are always an issue, even among pegasi who don't manage to shield themselves properly. How can our...brains? Yes, brains- generate enough power to generate lightning, or do so without causing harm to our bodies? I would think that such power contained in the skull would cause irreparable damage."

"The amount you're using is extremely small. So small in fact that it would dissipate in you body if not for the fact that the neurons are specially designed to carry these electrical signals. Once they reach the muscle, it's a simple yes and no question that decides what the muscle does. Is there a signal? If the answer is yes, the muscles contract. If the answer is no, the muscles relax. I'm oversimplifying this, as there's also the number of muscles that contract and how far, but that's the basics. You can actually prove this idea with how a body reacts to lightning. A being's muscles will all contract from the stimulation, sometimes causing convulsions as opposing muscles vie for which is going to pull the electrified parts."

The group descended into general chatter, a unicorn and pegasus even trying out the theory and those around making notes at the twitching the electrical discharge caused in the pegasus' foreleg.

Seeing Luna waving his attention to the setting moon, Max cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid we're just about done for the night. I'll be happy to continue this at a later time. It will also allow you to both think up any questions or clarifications you need, and maybe even tell some friends that you think may be interested in this. And remember, power corrupts, and knowledge is power. So study hard and be evil."

A few curious stares came from the ponies, though one or two did chuckle at the saying. A few whispers were traded and the number of chuckles increased, some not seeming to understand the joke or realize it was a joke. The courtroom emptied in preparation of the end of night court and Luna smiled widely at the changeling.

"We have not seen so many in the night court in our memory," Luna said, a twinge of sorrow in her voice. "The explanation was also very interesting. You will be discussing mico-bees next time, as well as the parasites?"

"Yea. As something to grab their attention, I figured a bit of anatomy would be better. You can use biology in anything. Self defense: knowing the soft parts of an opponent allows you to take them down faster. Medicine: knowing about the blood flow and pressure points can help you slow down bleeding thus preventing death by blood loss. Even sex, as the little button inside a wo-mare's private bits would actually become a penis if she had ended up as a male. When the child is still developing it actually has a point in its growth where it doesn't have a gender. Once it starts developing those traits, the body molds to the proper form. In this case, either a penis or a clitoris. That's why it's so sensitive, I think. I don't know if it's true, but I want to say the female has almost as much sensitivity in that one spot as a male has in his entire length."

Looking to the guards, both of whom were listening with perked ears, Max grinned.

"Keep that in mind, guys. Females are really sensitive there. Sometimes that means too much can hurt them, so you have to treat it with caution till you know what the girl likes. Everyone's different though, so be prepared to roll with it."

Luna giggled at the attentiveness of the knights. Whatever their opinions of Max, they were certainly listening now.

"I believe Autumn Breeze would be most delighted to help put this knowledge to use, Lance."

Max raised an eyebrow as the pegasus' wings popped out, drawing a full-on laugh from Luna and a face-hoof from his compatriot. It seemed that wingies were a thing. He vaguely remembered Luna's wings splaying, but it was difficult to tell if it was from stimulation or from some flight-based instinct.

A sudden twinge in his chest caused the changeling to flinch, putting a hoof to his barrel. His eyes widened in horror as he realized it was getting closer to the end of the third day. He'd been so involved in the lecture he'd not paid any attention to the hour.

"Max? Max, what is... Remain calm, we are right here. We even have the vial with the extra love present," Luna comforted, moving closer and pulling him towards her with her wing.

"I completely forgot about the time, oh shit oh shit. I don't even know how long I have, I mean I could have been lying there for hours before one of the guards stumbled across me. My shell is black, it would have been easy to miss in the dark. What if that was the disconnect? What if I don't have this right? I-" *clack*

Luna, having stepped back from him during his tirade, slowly lowered her hoof back to the floor even as the changeling nursed the marred shell of his cheek.

"Calm yourself. You gain nothing by panicking. If that was the disconnect, then you are still alive and well. If that was a warning, you are well and truly prepared, even wielding extra love in case what you have is not enough."

Stepping in and brushing her cheek against his own, she smiled softly.

"And should even that fail to work, we are more than willing to give you what you require. Come, mine sister awaits. We will dine with her then retire."

Celestia blinked blearily as she sipped her morning tea, working out the last bits of sleep from her eyes. The sight of her sister still attached to her, dare she think the term, lover was still difficult to deal with but it was nice to see Luna speaking well of night court for a change.

"T'was most informative, sister," Luna said between bites. "We shall send your assistant a copy of the notes for your own perusal. We had at least twelve nobles in attendance for Max's lecture on basic anatomy and there may be even more next time. He even knew the purpose of some of the stranger or disconnected body parts."

The princess of the day nodded in feigned understanding. She could only assume Luna meant several of the inside-bits that scholars had yet to determine the purpose of. Perhaps reading the notes would help relieve some of the misgivings she had about the stallion? She was already starting to believe his story, if only because she had come face to face with Discord and the amalgamation had merely insulted her décor and then left.

That had been a terrifying experience no matter how she tried to think about it. Discord was random, he never had a purpose. He acted out, and those around him suffered. To see that same mind turn from childish games that ruined the world around him to an intelligent, calculating and worst of all planning being capable of ripping the fabric of reality asunder? Celestia was certain that her troubled sleep was only just beginning.

Taking another bite of her pancakes, she watched curiously as the changeling just stared out he window, anxiety playing over his features.

'That's right, it was about now that our knights had first discovered him.'

The timeframe Discord had given had been very vague, but at her most kind guess she gave the changeling an hour or two before its time was up. After that its survival would rest on her sister.

Looking closer at the stallion, she noticed he was shaking slightly, while the slight buzzing she had attributed to a fly was actually his wings buzzing with nervous energy. Pegasi did that sometimes, as did Luna when she was agitated. The only reason Celestia didn't ruffle her wings that often was because she was still not quite used to them. It had only been five years, after all. Five years since two young mares had stood up to Discord and sought to wrest control of the heavens from him. Luna had walked away with a horn while Celestia had gained wings, leaving the two of them the only ones on the planet to have achieved this state of being in recorded history. The following year had been a crash course for the two of them in using the new appendages, as taught by the one who had been borne with them.

Looking back to her sister, Celestia nodded her head, directing Luna's attention to the jittering male. The blue alicorn rolled her eyes, drawing a polite cough from the white mare.

"Max, be still," Luna chided. "At this rate, the energy you have gained shall be burned from your system in minutes. We shall see you through this. We swear."

The changeling nodded absentmindedly.

"I, I know but I've just never had a deadline that was quite so literal. I'm not even running on food right now. I'm living on what amounts to magical fumes. It really doesn't make sense to me, it's not something I understand and that's what scares me. I mean, this is it. If I screwed this up I'm dead. I don't even know how feeding works, I think it just kind of happened, my body pulling in the energy that was directed at it. What if that's not how it's supposed to work? What if-"

"Calm, Max! Calm. You will be fine," Luna said again, placing a hoof on his shoulder.

The white alicorn watched the changeling trying to calm down for a few moments before noticing something incredibly strange. While pegasi would flutter their wings, and some ponies would scuff their hooves on the ground, the stallion was bouncing one of his rear legs. It was almost...alien?

The mare blinked as the idea hit her. There was just no explanation for having a nervous tic like that, it didn't even make sense. Judging by the fact that despite how awkwardly the changeling was in his leg-bobbing he wasn't slowing down, he wasn't even aware of it.

'Luna had already said that she had seen things in his dreams, things that prove that he is from another world.'

It was almost painful for her, but Celestia had to admit it. Max really was an alien. Going by the picture, his awkwardness, and even his strange habits he wasn't even a quadruped by birth.

As the mares finished the last of their meals, Celestia and Luna both rose from their seats and made their way to an open balcony.

"Come Max, we would like you to be present," Luna called back as she left the room. "We believe you will like this."

"Is that a royal we meaning you, or are you speaking for Celestia as well?" Max retorted without thinking.

Both princesses stopped dead in there tracks and stared at the stallion, who blinked and seemed to realize what he'd just said.

"Sorry, I'm a bit...I retort on autopilot sometimes."

Luna smiled good-naturedly and beckoned with a wing, holding a door open to allow him to step into the cool morning air. Max smiled as he walked out onto the balcony. In truth, this was the first time he'd actually been outside since he first ended up in this mess. Well, aside from lying unconscious in the garden, but he wasn't certain that counted.

Luna and Celestia both took places on either side of the balcony, spreading their wings and lighting their horns as they participated in their daily ritual. The changeling smiled at the exchange. The two alicorns were pulling energy in towards themselves, charging the air around them with potential. Max idly noticed his own horn was buzzing as it was exposed to the magic in the air, but he was soon distracted by the ignition of the blue princess's horn.

Luna pulled the magic to herself, channeling the blazing vortex of power through her focus and gently pushing the moon below the horizon. The moment Luna's horn dulled Celestia's lit up, the magic sweeping from Luna to her sister like a wave of water contained between two barriers. Riding the rush of magic dissipating from her sister's spell, Celestia lit her own horn, pulling the magic towards herself and pulling the sun over the hills to begin a new day. As the magic was released from the solar sister, Max could feel the magic washing over him as it dissipated into the surrounding area. Never before had he felt both so small and so excited at the same time. This was the potential of magic, something he would be able to grasp given the time and effort. What was the top end for a changeling? Would he one day be capable of such a feat? What kinds of things would he-

Max jerked as he felt something snap inside of him.

The world swam in and out of focus while he impacted on the stone floor, his legs having given out from the sudden vertigo. He heard someone shout, felt someone bumping him in the shoulder. He closed his eyes to avoid the spinning vision, but it didn't seem to help him much. Things felt off, wrong. Like suddenly he was aware of the fact that he hadn't actually eaten anything in days. It was about how he would have assumed he'd have been, actually. Weak, in pain, hungry. Maybe dying?

Suddenly there was a torrent of warmth pouring into his body, both from something currently holding onto him as well as a warmth flowing down his throat. The warmth immediately spread throughout his form, causing his head to finally stop spinning. Opening his eyes, he found himself on his back with two concerned mares standing over him. Luna was holding him, crushing him against her barrel and nearly in tears. He was about to say something, something to assuage her fear when she leaned in and kissed him.

His eyes widened as he felt energy pour into his body. It was pure, it was sweet, it was potent, it was like nothing he'd felt yet. No, that wasn't right. He'd felt it before, in fact some of what he was feeling was the vial of love that Luna had kept for him in case something like this had happened.

'Then why does it just feel so much more...powerful?'

Whereas before the flow of energy was noticeable, it had gone from a trickle to a fire hose. After only a few moments, Max swore his vision started to tint pink from the large amount of love the mare was pouring in to him. He blinked a few times to clear his sight and managed to wrap his own forelegs around the lunar diarch.

At his movement, Luna jerked back, yelling into his face.

"Max? Maximus, are you well? Speak please, you collapsed and-"

"Relax Luna, he is recovering. See his eyes? They are tracking us again."

Max felt himself lowered back to the floor, the two alicorns hovering over him as everything started coming into focus again. The pink tint was fading at almost the same rate that his gnawing hunger faded, so he could only guess that the emotions Luna had focused on him was being processed by his body for energy. Not just the love either, he could taste the bitter fear, the sour worry. He could even taste the less potent concern from Celestia, though from what he could tell much of it was directed to Luna.

He could taste other things now as well. Curiosity from a serving girl in the other room, boredom from the knights down in the courtyard. Disgust from a distant pony at the edge of his senses, somewhere in town around the castle. Lust, anger, happiness, curiosity, love, confusion, hate, fear. Where before they were faint, he felt them with absolute clarity now. Focusing on Luna, he could almost see the emotions wafting from her, many of them blazing at him and pushing at him as she focused them on the changeling.

"Maximus, can you hear me?" Celestia asked softly.

Max managed a slow nod this time, his mind finally catching up with the new information he was being forced to process.

"I, I'm here. I felt like something got ripped out, everything went, kinda fuzzy. It's coming back now and, it's all a lot clearer. I can sense more emotion now, I can feel more and from a, farther distance."

Celestia lit her horn, the bright light causing him to wince and squint his eyes. A moment later he was staring in confusion, as were the alicorns, as the world had taken yet another tint. A blue tint this time.

"A secondary eyelid. Some creatures have that, but we had no idea...and I assume you didn't either, correct?" he heard the white mare ask.

He shook his head, attempting to open his eyes wider and get them to open properly. After the alicorns began chuckling at his eye-movements, he sighed and lied limply on the balcony.

"The problem with, with new muscle groups is that you, don't know how to make them move. I don't know how to open them now."

He watched as Celestia once more lit her horn, her magic sweeping up and down his form in what he assumed was a scanning spell. Where Luna's fell apart though, Celestia increased the power and held the magic together, pushing through the diffusing effect of the chitin.

"There's a bit of Discord's magic lingering still in your body, but we believe we understand what has occurred," Celestia said. "Discord left a good amount of energy in your form to sustain you during these days. Once the time expired the energy was removed, leaving a large void in your magic. Being a being who, er, lives on emotional energy, it left you physically weakened. "

Max pondered the explanation for a moment before nodding weakly.

"That makes sense I guess. Would someone else's magic dull your senses? I feel like I just got over a cold, and my nose is clear for the first time."

"We would assume so, especially with Discord's magic, though we have not actually heard of such things before. How do you feel?" Luna asked.

"Tired. I feel like I haven't slept in a while and just ate my first meal in twice as long," Max said, his body slumping in exhaustion. Now that the deadline had passed and he was alive, the fear and tension he'd been feeling was gone leaving him pleasantly numb.

Luna smiled, hefting the stallion with her magic and placing him on her back.

"We shall see you tomorrow, sister. We will be turning in early tonight. This excitement was a bit much and I believe I shall feel better later today."

Max lied limply on Luna's back for the trip back to her room, almost falling asleep before they even reached her room. She carefully dropped him onto the bed before hopping into bed herself, pulling the light blanket over the two of them and pulling the stallion closer with a wing. Dozing there with the blue alicorn pressing possessively against him and even now radiating warmth and love that he could feel empowering his body.

"Sorry I'm not up for doing anything for you now, Luna."

The mare giggled and gave him a peck on muzzle before laying her head over his neck.

"We are not so cruel to require you to attend to us when you are unwell. We have plenty of time, Max. You may make it up to us at a later date. Perhaps tomorrow we may start training you in properly grooming wings?"

The changeling gave a noncommittal grunt before dozing off. After panicking for the better part of the day he was exhausted. He'd feel better later. Probably.

No, never mind. He would likely end up feeling worse.