I told her everything.

I began with the fact that I was not just from another world, but an entirely different universe altogether. I then moved on to explaining that every world, both 'real' and 'imagined', had an actual universe to go with it.

I thought Twilight would be a bit more skeptical than she was, but she surprised me in that, while she did look incredibly uncomfortable with the idea, she nevertheless accepted it. Apparently she'd already been doing some 'leisurely' reading on multiverse theory before things went to shit.

In any case, I moved on from there and explained more or less everything else about me and my situation, including the other Discords and my lack of a need to eat.

That one I figured would help somewhat given her current rationing situation, but again, she surprised me by being rather disturbed at this development. I could kind of understand the implications, but I asked her why anyway. She told she'd explain later, so I moved on, and asked a question of my own.

I asked her why she didn't just graze when she thought it was safe enough to do so. She rolled her eyes and explained that grazing had died out when the ancient ancestors of the pony race did, and that it wasn't a safe thing to do anyway, as grass carried all sorts of diseases that would've had to be painstakingly filtered out before consumption.

It was the same with flowers, but to a much lesser extent for some reason. A pony could eat flowers right out of the ground up to a point, but one too many times and one ran the risk of catching something particularly nasty.

In short, it apparently wasn't worth the effort, even in her situation.

Moving past that, the explanation went on for another hour or so, with the lavender mare stopping me occasionally to ask questions or clarify, and before I knew it, I had gotten to the point where I was explaining how I got here in this universe.

Out of everything I'd told her, the one thing she seemed to focus on—and I honestly didn't blame her—was the fact that something like the universe stabilizing crystals existed, and that Discord had access to them.

This was something I had dreaded talking about, and my fears were validated when Twilight started freaking out. It took a good half hour or so before I got her to calm down.

I rationalized that if these crystals had always existed, and the worlds were still intact, either the other Discord's had no idea and the Discord that displaced me had somehow stumbled upon them, or every Discord knew and chose not to completely destroy the universe they lived in.

Of course, I doubted the second conclusion applied to every Discord, given the infinite multiverse, but I didn't mention that, and I assumed Twilight could already figure as much.

That was about the best I could do. The latter idea was still horrifying but... well, there was nothing we could do if that was the case. Unless there was a way to protect the things from getting into the wrongs hands, or hooves, or talons or paws, she'd just have to live with the knowledge.

She settled down eventually, but I could tell the worry never really left her. I told her about my 'mission' of course, and was quick to point out that I refused to use the crystals whatsoever. I also left out the, in retrospect, terrible idea I had to somehow harness the power of the crystal to destroy the barrier.

That had been an excessively desperate idea looking back on it.

Once I'd finally finished my explanation, and had told her everything I knew about the situation, she fell silent and turned to stare at her desk for a good minute. I went to ask if she was okay, but she kicked me out of the basement, saying she needed some time to process everything.

Something in her voice told me she might've snapped if I'd decided to stay, so I left, heading back upstairs and picking up where I left off in the book I was reading. I figured it must've been a lot to take in, and while I probably would've taken it all in stride had I been a mere bystander in all of this, Twilight most certainly was not that kind of creature.

I didn't know how long I spent waiting for Twilight to sort things out, but by the time she finally came out of the basement, night had fallen and I'd finished about half the book I was reading. As I expected, Twilight looked even worse than before, and distracted.

As she trotted into the main wing of the library where I was, I looked up from my book and furrowed my brow in concern. Her eyes were glued to the floor and she was frowning in thought, that is, until she raised it and spotted me.

For a moment we stared at each other, and I went to ask how she was, but she spoke first.

"We need to talk," she stated simply, "come on."

Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and trotted out of the library. I blinked, frowned, and put down my book before following her out, and into the dining room. She teleported the other chair back to the table and we both sat down.

"So what's up?" I asked, taking my seat and getting comfortable, "you doing okay?"

Clearly she wasn't, but asking was a reflex I couldn't shake. She did manage to give me a humorless chuckle at the very least before shaking her head and smiling wanly.

"I haven't been okay in a long time, Salvatore," her smile fell and was replaced with a serious frown, "but nevermind me, I'm... dealing with all of this as best I can. Right now though, I wanted to talk about you."

"Okay," I replied slowly, scratching my head, "that's more or less what we've been doing all day, but alright, shoot. What's going on?"

"It's about your lack of a need to eat," she explained, "I think that might be a precursor to something that could be... possibly problematic in the future."

"Such as?" I pushed, already not liking where this was going.

"I think the chaos magic within you is starting to affect you on a deeper level than I originally suspected," she surmised, "you see, magic can be passed onto another if you know how, but the simple transfer of mana doesn't really have much of an effect unless it's either a fundamentally different type of magic, or you happen to be a non-magical creature.

"The important thing for you to understand is that magic given freely, even chaos magic, becomes that of the one who received it. The giver effectively loses ownership of that magic. In other words, the chaos magic that Discord granted you is now your magic, not his... or at least, it should be."

"Alright," I replied, tilting my head slightly, "so what does that mean for me?"

"This is just a guess, but I think the 'commands' Discord put into place are preventing the chaos magic from fully and properly integrating with you," she frowned, "it could be that, it could also be an effect of magical build up, or it could just be that the human body isn't compatible with magic, chaos or otherwise."

"Well, here's hoping it's not that last one," I muttered with a small grimace, "if that were the case, I'm already screwed."

"Whatever the case," Twilight continued, "this may get a lot worse than just not being able to eat. I don't know how much time we have until something else changes, but we don't have any time to waste. I personally believe the issue is the commands put in place, but only time, and some more research, will tell."

"So basically, you have to find a way to change or remove these commands so that the magic can finish... ah..." I waved a hand in the air as I searched for the right word, "transferring to me, or else, something crazy is gonna happen to me. Does that sound about right?"

"For the most part," Twilight replied with a serious nod, "I don't know what'll happen if we take too long to resolve this, but I'd rather not take any more chances... although..."

She trailed off and frowned before staring down at the table.

"Although... what?" I asked, suddenly wary of any more bad news, "what is it this time?"

It took Twilight another moment to respond, but I didn't push this time. Instead I let her sort out her thoughts, and when she finally did speak, it was with a careful slowness as she looked back up at me.

"Accessing the commands, figuring out how to remove or change them safely, and now, trying to determine the nature of your change and how far it will go," Twilight shook her head and gave a grim frown, "with all the research and preparation I have to do, this is going to take time, Salvatore... a lot of time."

The look on her face and the tone of her voice said it all.

"...You're not talking just a few days, are you?" I guessed, grimacing as she shook her head, "how long do you think it's gonna take then?"

"Honestly?" Twilight paused and tapped a hoof on the table, "...I have most of what I need, barring a few tomes here and there, but I can't get those right now so I'll have to make due," she hummed in thought, "assuming everything goes smoothly, it could take up to about... a month and a half or so, maybe two."

I brought a hand to my face and exhaled heavily through my nose at the news. I'd possibly be stuck here for two months while Twilight did her work, and that was if everything went smoothly, which I was fairly sure neither of us believed would be the case.

After a moment I raised my head and swept my gaze around the room. It wasn't an ideal situation—far from it in fact—but really, what else could I do? I had no real power as of right now, and rushing things would probably only make the situation worse than it already was.

Guess Discord's just gonna have to wait, both this one, and the one that dropped me here...

Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if the Discord that was no doubt watching would just sit idly by while Twilight unlocked the power he gave me, a power that was apparently supposed to be mine now.

Then there were the changes that were happening because of this chaos magic. I was equal parts worried and curious to see just what the hell would end up happening in the long run. I assumed there'd be more changes to come while Twilight did her research.

In the meantime, all I could do was wait and see, though maybe I could take this opportunity to learn a few things...

"Alright, fuck it, I guess," I finally replied, leaning back in my chair, "so is there anything I need to do?"

"I'll need your help with a few things eventually," Twilight replied, lighting up her horn, "but before any of that, I still have one more thing I need to take care of..."

"Oh?" I asked, watching her horn warily, "and that is?"

"I have to verify your claims, remember?" Twilight replied with a wry smirk, "a lot of what you told me is frankly, incredibly difficult to believe, and even if I don't want to know if it's all true, I still need to know."

"Oh, right," I muttered, furrowing my brow, "so you do have a spell for that then."

"Yep," Twilight answered simply, her horn glowing to a brightness that was almost blinding, "sorry about this in advance, Salvatore, this is gonna be more than a bit invasive and... unpleasant."

Before I could make any kind of protest, what looked like magenta colored lightning shot from her horn and hit me square in the forehead. The memories rushed to the forefront of my mind with the force of a hurricane, and everything else was drowned out completely, save for the splitting pain in my head.

Somewhere in the distance I could hear a scream, and I was almost certain it was mine.

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