"HEYTWILIGHTDOYOUKNOWANYTHINGABOUTPARALLELUNIVERSES"

"Ahhh!"

Twilight Sparkle, who had been quietly reading a volume on the history of Zebra-Griffon conflict over the past century, had only a second to react to the pink blur that had rocketed in the window before it collided with her chair, screaming a barely comprehensible blur of words simultaneous with its impact. Twilight heard her name and the vague hint of a question mark that had been left behind at the transfer station, then braced for the impact of the ceiling as her chair shattered into splinters behind her. The history of Zebra-Griffon conflict volume one went flying, its pages flapping out in a wing-like, aerodynamic fashion, maintaining verticality for half-a-second before the sudden accumulation of velocity caused it to burst into flames. These are physics, immutable. Look them up.

"Pinkie Pie!" It was more of a muscle memory response at this point, a reflex to explosions or unpredictable circumstance suddenly becoming discernible. Twilight's chair had just exploded. There were relatively few potential culprits anyway.

"Hi Twilight!" Pinkie Pie waved a hoof from where she had landed in a nearby bookcase, which itself had toppled over into several others in a half-hearted domino effect. Pinkie pulled herself further out the pile of pages and smiled, a ruffled atlas spread out upside down on her head like a hat.

Months, maybe years ago, Twilight would have yelled as loudly as the sound her chair had made when it evaporated--but after dealing with Pinkie's repeated confusion and, occasionally, prolonged sobbing, Twilight's methodology had softened slightly.

"Pinkie... you broke my chair."

Pinkie bounced out of the bookcase and landed on the library floor, shaking her head like a soaked puppy and dislodging the atlas and most of its pages to parts unknown.

"I did? Oh no! I'm sorry, Twilight. I guess I didn't know how fast I was going."

"Probably just shy of the sound barrier, I'd say." Twilight brushed off a hoofful of splinters out of her mane and cast a forlorn look around the library at the remnants of her bookcases. Remember how it was with Pinkie Pie, always like this. A brain made of a cupcake. Deep sigh. Calm breath. Like you're talking to baby Spike.

After a few moments of meditative silence (eight point four three seconds if you are measuring) Twilight opened her eyes and inspected the room. She concentrated on the furniture and books strewn about, retracing their path in her mind. Her horn began to glow dimly, and after only another few moments (twelve point six six one two four six seconds) the bookshelves, books, tables, chairs, and wooden globe all found their rightful places, magically massaged back to their uninjured states. Twilight's chair, however, remained dust-ified. Atomization frequently left objects beyond repair. Sigh.

"That sounds pretty fast. Heheh. 'Sounds'. Get it?"

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Yes. Haha.

"Yeah, good one, Pinkie. Was there something you needed?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, there totally is! I came over because I wanted to know if you knew anything about... PARALLEL UNIVERSES!" Pinkie raised her forelegs over her head and wiggled them spookily.

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Parallel... universes?"

Pinkie nodded.

"Uh-huh. I was reading about them the other day and they sound really neat!"

Pinkie reading, Pinkie reading about quantum physics, Pinkie coming over to ask about quantum physics, Pinkie potentially shattering the laws of physics on her way over... which to start with? It was usually Rainbow Dash who came that quickly.

"*You* were reading about parallel universes?" Twilight couldn't hide the... in-cre-du-li-ty... in her voice. I would like to be paid per word, please.

"Uh-huh! I heard there's even a parallel universe where everyone is made out of chocolate!"

"That's Choco-Land, Pinkie. We went there last week. You ate a foal made out of nougat."

"Oh yeah. Good times!" Pinkie burped.

"Look, Pinkie, this is already really confusing. Can you just get us out of this meta-narrative preamble and explain what you're talking about?"

"Sure! I just figured since you were the smartest pony I knew, I could always come to ask you anything about weird sciencey stuff. And the book I read this in was really old... like, REALLY old. So old it was made out of PAPER."

"Most books are made out of paper, Pinkie."

"Yeah, maybe in YOUR timeline."

"Pinkie?"

"Yuh-huh?"

"Please be quiet for a moment."

"Okay!"

"Well, first of all, do you know what a 'universe' is?"

"A metaphor?"

"Pretty much. Also everything. So a 'parallel universe' is kind of a misnomer."

"I like gnomes."

"Pinkie."

"Sorry."

"Everyone's going to complain you're out of character."

"They're not even reading this far, shush."

"Which one of us is talking anymore? We lost our dialog tags a while ago."

"Yeah, but you can still mostly tell by which words we're using."

"I guess so."

"Indubitably."

"Cut that out."

"Indeed I shall."

"Pinkie!" Twilight's horn flared, and a small dust-bunny underneath her newly-repaired desk combusted into a miniature but very bright purple flame.

"Yeah?"

"Parallel universes. Can I just tell you about them so you'll leave?"

"You're in a tree house, so I guess I'm always 'leaf'ing, huh?"

"A PARALLEL UNIVERSE IS A SPACE OUTSIDE OUR OWN THAT HAS SIMILAR RULES BUT DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTS AND PARAMETERS. IT CAN BE ALMOST IDENTICAL OR DISTINCT IN EVERY IMAGINABLE WAY. ALSO YEAH SURE THERE'S ONE MADE OF CHOCOLATE."

"Awesome!"

Twilight breathed a 'sigh of relief' (you have to type it in quotes every time, we're in the future where 'sigh of relief' can never not be cliche again deal with it).

"Is that everything you needed to know?"

"Um... if there are any cool parallel universes near ours, how would I go to them?"

"Well... I'm not really sure. Just because these things exist doesn't mean we know how to travel to them. We're talking about manipulating the laws of physics to take a vacation to Candy Island. Couldn't you just go visit BonBon?"

"Naw, ever since she started hanging out with Lyra she doesn't like candy anymore. She says she likes eating carpet instead. Sounds weird to me, but maybe gets those fancy, imported ones from Saddle Arabia."

"Right. Well... even magic hasn't touched on contacting parallel universes that much before. They're so strange and foreign, nopony knows what might happen if we contacted one. There have been experiments done in Canterlot, and some promise in Divern Vester's 'reverse chronology' tests, but those require so much speed not even the most trained pegasus can reach it safely. Anypony going that fast would probably explode at an atomic level before they were able to cross the dimensional boundary threshold. I used a lot of big words, so that's enough of an explanation, right?... Pinkie?"

Pinkie was gone lol.

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