NOV 22 Friday. As I walk with a book cart I stop and start placing books back into their proper places on the shelf in front of me, as I do this, I pick up three books at a time, after all my training with my TK field, three things at once seems to be the limit of things I can hold at one time.

After emptying my cart, I move back to the sorting room and grab another full cart, and repeat the process again and again, as much as I like working here it can get very repetitive but that's ok, I'm happy with my work as while it's slow and boring sometimes, I enjoy the silence and time to think.

As for what I'm thinking of, well a few things one is my current project, the anti-pest spell, at this point it's almost done I have everything I need, I have all the effects I want to figured out, I just need to combine them into one spell.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the spell work off of my spell gems, but the spell won't require a large gem just a slightly bigger gem a little over an inch as the small gems I have are just under what is needed, still, this means that after I finish the spell, I can just send it to Celestia as she is more than capable of finding a gem to test the spell for any side effects or potential problems that they may cause.

Beyond my spell work, I've kept up with my carving and even practiced some illusion magic, for carving I finally finished my alicorn model it's done, and it doesn't look that bad in my opinion, I'm planning on enchanting it with several basic illusion spells to make it look like Celestia for a hearth's warming gift to her.

I have also for several months now been learning healing magic and after all this time I've finally successfully cast the most basic healing spell that I could find, all the spell does is help speed up the healing of small bruises and rashes, that may not seem like much but considering I've only been learning for a few months and I'm self-taught its some decent progress.

My life magic has had much progress as I can now control the growth of small plants to a vast degree, it's still hard to control large of magical plants as I can only really stop a plant's growth or speed it up, but for small and non-magical plants I can control the growth to a much greater degree.

I can control what parts grow or stay the same and how it will grow in what direction and how far or if I want flowers or fruit, it's still only for small plants like my False Daisy and Gripping Vine but progress is still progress, as for my other plants I've been experimenting with the Iron Oak I've been feeding a good amount of life magic into one branch and taking samples to see its changes over time.

My space magic is about the same no real difference for now, as for the black egg I've seen it shake a few more times and it's still getting darker and at this point it almost looks invisible when in a shadow it might hatch soon but I don't really know with that in mind I've used another gem to shield it just to be safe.

I empty another cart and take it back to the sorting room, I look at the clock on the wall and see it's three twenty-two and my shift is over I let go of my cart and make my way back to my room, after entering my room, I sit at my desk and start finishing my anti-pest spell.

I start with the targeting part of the spell, this piece of the spell works by using the protection rune and having it target any bugs on plants with fruit or grains on them, this leaves the plant unharmed as the spell only targets pests trying to eat the plant and its fruits.

This part of the spell then feeds what is targeted into the next part of the spell, this part freezes bugs that the spell tells it to, over an hour or two the bugs will very slowly start freezing bit by bit until they stop eating the plant or die this means that they still eat some of the plant, but it stops them from doing so until the plant dies.

The spell will also freeze all bug eggs that are laid on the plants, killing them and preventing new bugs from being born on the plants, I have found one problem that I wasn't able to solve for now, the spell doesn't have enough power to go through that much soil meaning that underground bugs won't be very affected by the spell.

So, the spell won't be as effective as I want it to be but it will still help farmers as right now, they have nothing beyond just killing pests with regular methods, and finally, the last part of the spell is its enchantment this part is not really interesting just a slight modification on the preexisting enchantment spell.

I spend over an hour piecing the spell together and making sure it functions correctly and won't fail when used, I grab some paper and start writing a letter to Celestia about how the spell works and what type and size of gem is needed for the spell along with what should be tested.

I finish my letter and copy the spell matrix onto some paper and seal it inside an envelope along with my letter before grabbing my bag and leaving my room, as I step out of the library, I hear the snow crunch under my hooves as I walk, we are well into winter now and the snow is getting thick on the streets.

I walk the streets moving to the post office I've used several times now, I enter and talk to the pony behind the counter going through the process of getting a letter delivered before leaving and moving back outside., feeling the chill in the air I hurry back to the library.

After getting back to my room I curl up in a blanket and read my book on illusions in front of my desk, I want to enchant my wood alicorn carving to be a small copy of Celestia so I'm reading through this book, illusion spells that are static are much easier and take less magic but can take a long time to get right.

I start by hollowing out a small compartment in the wood, I go slow so I don’t break anything and after a while I have a square hole, then I take another piece of wood and carve it down to fit the hole, I enchant a gem with the base spell that sets the Illusions base color.

After layering several more illusion spells onto the gem and spending time adjusting the colors and shapes after a while, I have a rough copy of Celestia, it's not ready yet and I'll need to do a lot of work on it, but it's just a matter of time until I finish, I spend the next few hours adjusting the illusion trying to get it right.

I place the model back on my small shelf and check on the black egg, it's not moving right now it seems to only shake every once in a while, there's no other activity from it, just the odd shake, I make some tea, and start checking my plants to make sure they're all fine.

After I'm done, I settle in for a cold evening with my tea and a good book, I read through some of the book before hearing a knock on my door and after opening my door I see Blaz standing there with a bag, "Hey Shade, how's your day been?"

"Not bad you?"

"Good, do you mind if I come in."

"Sure," I say, moving to the side and letting him inside.

After he enters my room, I close the door and lead him to my table as we both sit around it, "So, to what do I owe this visit."

He looks a little pensive before placing the bag he has with him on the table, "Well, if you don't mind me asking you eat meat, right?"

I raise my brow at the unexpected question as I've told both Blaz and Daisy that I eat meat fairly regularly and while I still share some of my cooking with Daisy somedays, I've offered some of my cooking to Blaz before, but he refused my offer as he said he doesn't like meat so him asking me this is a bit odd.

"I do but why do you ask? I thought you don't like meat?"

He nods "I don't but I'm not asking for me."

His answer caused me some confusion "So why are you here? Do you need something?" as I made some tea for us.

"Well, it's about my son and his wife, they are expecting a foal soon."

"Congratulations," I place the now heated tea, having used a spell to heat the water almost immediately before adding some tea leaves.

He nods "Thanks but they have a problem," I pass him a teacup and he stops for a moment to take a drink.

"Well, less a problem and more just an annoying situation, my son's visiting with his wife and they're staying with me as they live in Cloudsdale, but like I said his wife is expecting a foal and both are pegasi."

He takes another drink "And she'll be due soon, so she's been getting a parity bad craving for meat, so my son went and bought some meat thinking I'd know how to cook it, I don't ."

"So you want me to cook some meat you brought?"

"Yes, I was hoping you could help us."

I smile at him "Sure, let me see what you've brought with you," He nods his thanks before passing me the bag he brought with him, after opening it I see a chunk of fish meat.

"Well first, what type of fish is this?"

"Bass."

I nod "ok any preference on how I should cook it?" He shakes his head "ok then it won't take long to cook so come back in an hour or so."

"Thanks Shade."

"No problem, Blaz," After that, I lead him to my door and see him off before closing my door and heading into the kitchen, I fully unwrap the fish meat and place it down before grabbing my knife and cutting it into several inch thick slabs, I set my pan to heat up and add some oil and after letting the pan get hot, I add the fish.

I sprinkle some salt and pepper on the fish as I cook it and after a while, I turn the heat off and place the cooked fish on a plate before cleaning up, I'm enjoying some tea when I hear another knock at my door, I grab the fish and walk to the door opening it to see Blaz standing there.

I pass him the plate "Here you go this should be decent."

He gives me a nod "Thanks again I hope you have a good night."

"Same to you Blaz," He walks away and I close my door.

I go to my bed and bundle up again to continue reading my book.

Author's Note

Small filler chapter with little plot. I might spend a few days on the next few chapters so expect things to slow down a little. Or I'll binge write who knows?.