NOV 28 Saturday.

I look through another vendor's goods before moving on a moment later. Today I'm working my way through the market to buy gifts and to find some new plants hopefully, but I'll get to that second part later.

The wooden jewelry I've been working on over the past two weeks is now done. The first is a necklace that has its chain made from interlinked tiny rings of wood and a small locket also made from wood, it is engraved with Daisy flowers and holds a small topaz.

The second is a bracelet that has a root theme carved into it along with many maple leaves engraved on its surface, and it holds a small emerald in the center.

And finally, a cufflink, it's smoothed and sanded to a mirror shine, and it is engraved with fires while a small ruby sits at the center of an engraving of a blazing fire, pun intended.

All of these took a good amount of work even with my life magic, mostly because I insisted on carving them out instead of growing them into shape, it felt more personal that way, and gave me a chance to use the book Celestia gifted me last year.

I turn a corner and start to make my way to the outer edge of the markets. Beyond the jewelry, I've also bought several smaller things, a few puzzles, some paint, and a book on pie recipes. Nothing too fancy but all things I know they'll like.

I arrive at the market edge and from a distance I see what I'm looking for. I'm here at the markets to once again visit the Zebra caravans, mostly in search of trees. Herbs are something I always want to look for, but the trees are for a new project.

Ever since Stone asked me what type of armor I want I've been thinking about it. I still like the idea of full plate armor, but like I suspected I couldn't find any smith or business that could make some good full metal plate armor for me. Price isn't the problem, simply no pony offers to make it, but even if I did find somepony that would make the armor it would take weeks or months to be finished.

On top of that, I'd outgrow it in time and I'll have to order more. All of this will just waste a massive amount of my time, so why not use that time for something more productive? Something like learning the structure and all the pieces needed to make my own plate armor.

If I know how to make armor I can make my own out of wood, now that might sound a little counteractive as most wood is much weaker than any metal, unless you're working with magical wood that is. But Iron Oak won't work for my idea, it is great at physical force but not the best against magic.

So I'm looking for some type of tree with magical resistance and I'll crossbreed it to make something that will work just as well as metal armor, but that will take a long time, for now, I'm researching plate armor and looking for a tree that I can start with. And that's part of the reason I'm at the Zebra caravans.

Last year I saw a few tree saplings but didn't have room or much of a need for them, but now I'm glad the caravan arrived last week. As I near the wagons I pick them out easily by the swirling patterns drawn on their wagons and the cloaks they are all wearing to fight off the winter cold.

There are a few more stall’s than last time but none of them have anything I'd be interested in, most only have medicines and potions with a few selling more mundane goods. But after some looking I see a larger stall that's out of the way and is a little hard to notice, at the stall surrounded by small plants is an old Zebra mare.

A few things about her stand out over the other Zebras, the swirls she has painted on herself are all green and she doesn't have a cloak but seems perfectly fine with the cold. She silently tends to a few small bushes of Raspberries as I approach the stall.

She doesn't turn to me but still speaks. "A minute I will need to tend to your needs." Her voice is quiet but surprisingly raspy. I nod as she continues to tend to her plants while I just start to look through all the plants laid around me, I immediately notice that a lot of them are plants that like the cold.

Makes sense I suppose, if you're going to sell plants you'd want them as healthy as possible when you sell them. Most plants are common things, but after a while something does catch my eye, a regular rose bush. It's not special but I wouldn't mind having a rose bush to mess around with.

I pick up one of the tiny rose bushes before moving on to other plants. After a few minutes, the old Zebra mare walks over to me with a small smile. "It seems you have found what you have sought?" She asks with the same raspy and quiet tone.

I nod and pass the rose bush to her. "Yes, I also wanted to ask if you have any tree seeds or saplings?" This is business so I keep my words simple and blunt.

She smiles a little more at the plant. "I have what you seek, many are named in the book I keep." She points a hoof to a simple book on her stall's desk.

"Thank you, but it might actually be quicker to ask you about what I'm looking for." She raises a brow and stays silent. "Do you have any magical plants?"

She smiles even more at my question. "To find something rare indeed walk with me." she walks to the side of her stall and shows me a small table with only a dozen or so plants on it. A few are things I recognize but I see three I don't immediately recognize.

All have name tags on them so I start with that, I walk around the table and start to look the plants over one by one.

The first is a Black Palm Tree. This small palm sapling is far from where it would normally grow, it has dark-green leaves with a brown bark, what's interesting is that the undertone of the bark looks black. It's probably not that healthy considering the cold.

The second is Ash Grass. A gray colorless-looking grass, it looks very similar to crabgrass and seems to be planted in a very dark soil. I have no idea how well this plant is doing, mostly because its leaves are so grayed, but I can tell its life magic is still there so it is alive.

And finally, a small sapling, named Fire Blossom Tree. The small sapling is normal looking and I can't notice anything odd about it. It seems fine with the cold weather.

I only know of the first plant while the other two are a mystery to me. Black Palm wood is considered a very luxurious wood that's very expensive because of its very black color and good durability. I can't remember if it has magical properties off of the top of my head but it's still something I'm buying.

After a moment I turned back to the Zebra. "I'll take these three," I say, and after a quick exchange of bits I'm on my way home with four new plants. It's a long walk through the snow but eventually, I return to the soothing sounds of Entropy squawking at something that's offended her.

I quickly open the door with a little worry, only to see Entropy and Philomena fighting over one of Entropy's toys, a small wooden ball. I look around to check that they haven't broken anything, they didn't, before leaving them to their war. As I enter the room Entropy looks over to me. "Help?!"

I smile at Entropy's plea, "That depends, did you start this?" I ask with a little humor, I know she probably did. Out of the two of them, Entropy is the younger and more mischievous one. She likes to fight and win, too bad she doesn't do much of the latter when it comes to Philomena.

She stops for a moment but still tries to pull the ball away. "... no." I don't trust that answer for a second, so with a smile I just walk into my workroom and leave her to fight the battle she started. A few moments after I enter my workroom Entropy teleports inside and gives me a long stare.

I have no idea what she's trying to convey to me because I can't see her face past the darkness that she's made of, but after a moment she caws a little. "Mean." I just chuckle at that and place my new plants on an empty desk.

"Rude," I say back while walking out of the room. "Now come on, it's lunchtime." That perks up her mood in an instant. While walking to the kitchen I noticed why Philomena was here in the first place, a single letter sitting on my countertop. I decided to leave it for now and focus on food first.

I gather everything I'll need while Entropy and Philomena entertain themselves by preening each other's feathers back into their proper places, I leave them be again and start my food prep. Two diced up Red Spicy Root and some diced fish in an oiled pan while I grind down some dry corn in my mortar and pestle.

I grind the corn down into a rough flour before adding water and mixing. Once I have the right consistency I use the flat bottom of my baking sheet to flatten out several corn tortillas. I heat up a second pan to cook them with a little oil, and a while later everything's ready to assemble my meal.

I keep things simple with a little cheese and some lettuce and make my fish tacos. I fill two small bowls with some fish and Red Root before mixing in some barriers and a little lettuce, and letting both fluff balls dig into their food while I sit down with a little tea and enjoy my own meal.

I open the letter while eating and notice it's from Celestia. She's stopped by Gaia's Eden a few short times during the last few weeks, I was only there for one of those visits so she left notes for the other times, I should just add a noteboard or something to keep track.

I leave that thought alone and focus on the letter.

Dear Shade. I hope this letter finds you well.

I'm writing to tell you that our next two meetings are sadly canceled because of some work, nothing to worry over, just me working on a few things that need attention. So instead of our meeting, I've scheduled a meeting with Cadance, but she was also busy this week, so your next meeting will be on December thirteenth at noon.

Speaking of Cadance she was more than eager to agree to help you make a rune and as far as she's aware it should be possible. Although she sadly doesn't have much time to spare as she moves around quite often for diplomatic work, so it may take time to finish this project.

Signed, your friend, Celestia.

I smile at the short letter and the last sentence. If you told me two years ago that I'd be best friends with Celestia I'd probably have a heart attack at the shock and my own paranoia. But despite all the worry and bumps it's nice to know she's a friend.

And I get to see Cadance again, she was fun the first time we met, but honestly, I would be lying if I said she didn't frighten me. Don't fuck with love, it's not a good idea and never will be, but I can't help it and get a little excited at the meeting I'll be having, it should prove interesting if nothing else.

I put the letter to the side and finish most of my food, I leave my plate on the counter to be cleaned by the two food vacuums to finish the food. I lay down on the floor and move over my deck of well-worn cards, these have been my primary way to practice space magic for a few months now.

I've seen progress in several ways with my space magic. The main thing I've seen progress in is my control, it's still far behind my other forms of magic but progress is progress. At this point, I can hold three cards in the air at the same time or spin two in place at a time.

My conversion ratio is also very slowly improving. And finally, I've been trying to practice freezing a small area of space, but that has proven to be difficult. It takes a good amount of space magic to accomplish and as expected it takes more space magic the larger the area I'm holding still is.

Also holding a section of space is actually relatively easy, the hard part is letting something move in that area at the same time. It's a whole new way I have to split my concentration but I still practice when I can, and on that note, I've had some good news.

Mana Mimicry has reached the point that even in Canterlot it can boost my magic regeneration, not by a large amount but every bit helps. And as a result, my progress has sped up slightly which only fuels my determination to keep training it. But right now I want to try something new.

I've been bending space for a while and I normally do that by just giving it a gentle pull somewhere and letting it snap back into place a second later. I'm still not sure why, but this creates a little force that lets me move objects slightly, this is how I've been lifting these cards.

I want to see what happens if I bend space and simply hold it like that for a while. But I don't just rush in and try this, first I make sure my magic is full and I only bend space the slightest amount. Just enough to feel it but not too much just in case anything goes wrong.

I bend the space a few feet in front of me very slightly, to the point that I can barely see any distortion from it. At first, it's nothing but a light and consistent drain on my magic, but as time goes on I feel the space start to shift back and I have to use more magic to keep it bent.

But once again the space starts fighting me harder, the longer I keep the space bent the more the space fights me to return to normal. After a few minutes, I stop and let the space return to normal before I lose control of using too much space magic. Well, that was interesting.

When I freeze space I never feel that, it seems there is some law of the universe that fights back against space being incorrect. I have no idea if that's some law humans knew about or simply something only in this world, but it doesn't make a difference anyway.

I start to test this new phenomenon again and again while writing down what little I notice. Back to the grind then, the endless grind.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D
current year is 993