SEP 26 Saturday.

I frown as Daisy stacks a plus two onto Blaz's plus two, I sigh while drawing four more cards, setting me back from a win. "I'd say it's not fair that you teamed up, but with Maple being Maple I can't say I blame you." I joke while watching Maple draw a new card with a blank face.

We're inside my apartment as we all finish the day with a game night, something that we've all come to enjoy doing regularly. Entropy watches us play from her perch, while Maple plays yet another plus two, and I have to stop myself from groaning. Blaz groans and nearly buries his face in his cards. "I will find out how you do this," Blaz promises.

We've been playing uno for a while now and we've all learned one thing quickly, never bet against Maple. Turns out a pony with a nearly perfect poker face and some insane luck is horrible to play against, hell one time she drew literally every plus four in the deck on her starting hand. How? Fuck if I know.

My thoughts decide to become reality as Maple plays her second-to-last card. "Uno." She says softly with a smile as she stacks two plus two's and wins the game before anypony can stop her.

This time I join Blaz and groan. "I should have never showed you this game, I can't even win and I made the game!" I exaggerate and joke around with her.

"You'd still lose," Maple jokes back, she doesn't joke often but when she does she hits hard.

Blaz and Daisy just laugh at my expression, and after a moment I can't help but laugh with them, It's nice to have friends. "So anything interesting happening?" I ask to change the subject of my slight embarrassment.

Daisy answers me. "Well, I once again have to deal with finding new ponies soon. It should prove.. interesting next year." I'm confused by her tone and raise a brow. "You remember that stallion? The really annoying one?" I nod. "He's back." I just give her a look of utter disbelief.

"How? Did he bribe somepony?" I ask incredibly.

She shakes her head. "Apparently his parents did not know he stopped working at the library, and I recently learned he was sent to the library as a punishment." I groan yet again at the memory of the stallion, Daisy smiles. "Don't worry, I made sure he won't bother us." I see a mischievous smile on her face.

She now has our collective attention now. "They wanted him to start working again immediately, but there were no more apprenticeship positions left. But I was able to offer them a job on the cleaning crew." Both me and Blaz burst out laughing at that.

The cleaning crew were a nice bunch, but their work was dull and tedious, even more than mine is. And they had a bit of a reputation for giving ponies they didn't like the worst cleaning jobs. We'll all probably have to deal with the stallion complaining, but it will be worth it.

After we finish another game they all head out before it gets too late. "Thanks for coming," I say while passing all of the leftover snacks to Maple, she happily takes the leftover cookies and hayfries.

"Thanks." I get a quiet thank you from Maple as she eyes the paper bag happily.

"No problem Colt, see you on Monday," Blaz says with a wave as he and Maple walk down the hallway.

"Have a good night Shade," Daisy says while walking over to her apartment. I smile and nod before closing my door, finally, alone I spend some time cleaning up before heading into my workroom. It's nice to spend time with friends, and even if I could technically be doing something better with that time I would rather do this.

I grab a few pots before Entropy takes me to my new camp, when we arrive we appear inside the small building I made a week ago. I cast a magic light spell and light up the dark room, unlike before. The small room now has some furniture, a desk, table and chair, a bed, and a perch, all grown from the walls and floors.

I love life magic, it's such a fun power. I leave Entropy on a perch and place the things I brought on the desk, I have work to do. I start with three pots and two seeds, these seeds are the result of the last week of work, a new vine that will glow like the moon and grow strong.

With the help of the abundant life magic in the Everfree and Mana Mimicry, I've been able to make substantial progress. It took only five days to combine the magical glow of the Moon Glow, with the fast and sturdy growth of the Gripping Vine, which has resulted in this new vine.

The new vine's glow isn't as powerful, which should save me some time from having to do that myself, but it isn't going to be ready for a few more weeks. I need to increase the flower's size and brightness, along with making sure the vine can survive without my help.

I find myself often wondering what she'll do with this new vine, I can guess it will be some form of gift or memorial for Luna, I'm just not sure what form that would take. But that's not something I need to know, all I need to know is that a friend asked me to make something for a lost family member, and that's more than enough for me.

Once my magic is drained I start my practice, I manipulate what magic I have left to form Mana Mimicry over my skin. After a few moments it's properly formed and I start the second part of my training, I move my hoof forward and take a slow step while holding the magic in place.

It's difficult to hold my concentration but I keep a delicate balance while I slowly walk from one side of the room to another. My hope is to one day be able to use Mana Mimicry while doing other tasks. Sadly, I can't use it at all time, mostly because of the green glow of all the magic moving around just above my skin.

I go back and forth in-between breeding plants and practicing magic deep into the night.

SEP 27 Sunday.

I blink the sleep out of my eyes as I quietly watch the sun rise into the sky, it has to be one of the most amazing things I see so often. To wield a star, or at last something similar, is amazing and terrifying in equal measure. I finish my tea and look away from the window before walking over to my shelf.

Over the past week, I've spent some of my time here, not a lot just an hour or two every day or so. And over that time I've discovered and changed a few things, first is my new garden. I've brought seeds of all my plants with me and I've started planting them.

I started with a herb garden next to my singular building, not a large garden but more than enough for all the herbs I use in my cooking. The second thing I did was find a problem, a few days ago I noticed that my shield had accidentally trapped a few fish inside it when I activated it.

The water can move through fine but they were trapped, I fixed that by molding the shield to not cover the river, and it now stops at the shore, I'll have to be careful when I go there but that's easy as it's hard for anything to sneak up on me from there. Sadly this also brought the fish out of the water, the good news is that me and Entropy feasted like kings for a night.

Another thing I've changed is grass, the ground is mostly plain soil and it's bland to look at. So I've been slowly filling it in with grass, not a quick process even with my improved magic regeneration, but progress is progress and it's getting done. The final thing of note is the Timberwolves.

I let my mind wander to them as I stand on the river bank and watch several Timberwolves drink water and socialize with each other.

I've seen them a few more times now, and a few things about them stand out, but to explain I need to point out something odd I've noticed. It's September now and fall is in full swing and soon snow will start to fall, but here deep in the Everfree it'd be hard to tell.

The wind is just as cold as everywhere else and everything seems right for fall, but the trees remain the same, they don't lose leaves or drop them despite the worsening weather. My best guess would have to do with the amount of life magic here, it seems to give the plants enough energy to survive the season without changing.

I'm not sure if this will hold through into winter, but I'll keep an eye on it. The reason I bring this up is because the Timberwolves are also changing, the few leaves they have growing on their bodies have disappeared and they are moving slightly slower as it gets colder.

And beyond that the wood that makes up their bodies is also changing into a pale color, they seem to be shedding a coat by molting the bark on the wood that makes them up. I'm not sure if it's to better hunt in the winter or to hide from even bigger predators, probably both.

I continue to stand on the bank of the river and watch as the small pack of Timberwolves drink and relax. I watch them scratch bark off of themselves and help others do the same, the fact that they shed their bark is interesting in several ways and I once again want to research them more.

A few seconds later I'm reminded why trying to research them unprepared would be unwise, as one of the pack comes out of the woods and runs up with a bloody rabbit it's caught. I watch calmly as they eat the rabbit, and I notice that each pack member doesn't eat that much, I'd expect something so large to eat more.

Then they all spend time simply laying around, but only in brightly lit spots with direct sunlight. I know they are more than just a plant or animal, but it's still odd to watch something eating in two completely different ways. I draw out a few sketches of them before they all leave, heading back into the dark woods.

After they leave I walk back to my shack and decide to try something I haven't before. When I visited Ponyville for the first time I took a seed from the Golden Oak library, I didn't want to try and grow a magical tree in my apartment, but now that I have all this space I might as well try.

I gently take the seed and look around trying to decide where to plant it, this tree represents many things, and to me, it is something special. I walk over to the array that is at the center of my camp, now that the shield is properly fixed in place I can move them anywhere inside.

I carefully move the gem array away from the center and place the seed on the ground before backing up a few feet. I steady myself and reach out with my life magic, I keep a close eye on the seed as I pour life magic into it. But after several moments nothing happens.

I try to add even more magic but the seed still refuses to grow in the slightest despite all the life magic it's absorbed. I stop after a while and just try to feel the life magic inside the seed, but that's where things get even odder. I can feel like magic in the seed, but it's dampened in some way.

I can still feel it but something is partly blocking my senses, this is all kinds of odd. I remember growing wood from a branch just fine but this seed seems to be something else altogether, it seems to be stockpiling life magic like Entropy's egg did, but also hiding it from the world.

Maybe some form of defense so it doesn't get eaten? I keep thinking about it while pushing more and more life magic into it. I use Mana Mimicry and decide to take breaks practicing while continuing to feed the seed life magic, but I stop as an idea strikes me and try something new.

Instead of swapping back and forth, I try to use Mana Mimicry while moving around and giving all the excess magic generated to the seed. This turns out to be a difficult but rewarding practice for me, I've never had to be both delicate and forceful at the same time with my life magic before.

I get a little too caught up in this and spend three hours in that same area before finally stopping, even after all that the seed still hasn't done a single thing. Even with its apparent ability to block life magic I can still feel a decent amount coming off of it now so it's definitely absorbed the life magic.

And now I'm not sure what to do, I don't want to bring it inside anywhere, so I guess I'll just leave it there and see if anything happens. I decided to just continue with some other plans for now, and the immediate thing that comes to mind is lighting for my small building.

Last night I had to keep casting the magic light spell and that got old fast, I could just enchant a gem with the spell, but I really enjoy the druid vibe this place has and would prefer something more natural. I have a few options but the best is probably the very thing I'm breeding right now.

The Moon Glow Vine is still not finished and will take some time but it would be perfect to grow inside while its stem is outside. I walk back to my shack and sit down at my desk to start breeding more plants, this place is really starting to come together.

I whistle a soft tune while Entropy joins in. "I wonder if I can teach you to sing?" I ask myself while staring at her, this process is mostly boring so why not spend that time teaching a certain bird to speak more words? "Can you say apple?" I ask Entropy with a smile.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D
Current year is 993

300k... I honestly don't know what to say. I'm just happy I've made it this far.

I'd like to take a moment to personally thank anyone and everyone who's helped me get this far, from small to big, every word of encouragement and kind thank you. It's all pushed me to keep going and improve what I'm making.

So truly, thank you one and all. :}

Now enough of the sappy stuff, TIME TO CELEBRATE! WOOOOOOOOW!

Also. New fan art by Sparkly sparks.

Blog with new fan art. https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1043280/more-fan-art