SEP 12 Sunday.

I slowly draw another line as I copy a new rune into my ever-growing collection.

Over the past two weeks, I've kept up with things and spent a lot of my time thinking about my life and future. Specifically with Twilight. I'm honestly a bit of a mess, not that I really should have expected anything different from love of all things.

Last time I rejected the idea of a relationship with her, and honestly, I still think that's for the best, but I've had more time to think about the reason for my rejection. As a starter, I really am just not looking for that, mostly because I don't think I have the time to invest in a relationship.

Companionship is something I do enjoy, but I have that in my friends already, but the deeper reason is simple. I'm not sure I can bring myself to have a relationship with so much on the horizon. The death of Bright Macintosh proved that fate won't just let things veer off course so easily.

Future events might play out similarly despite my best efforts, and if I do find love what does that mean for our future? With the way things are fated to go I won't make it to thirty, is a relationship really worth it when that time and effort can be used to give us all a better chance at survival?

That in itself is a dilemma, but add to the fact we haven't really talked that much and it gets more complicated. I don't really have an interest in her that way, she looks fine, but it's just not there. That being said, I don't want to ruin what little friendship we've had as I really do like hanging out with her.

As an example, I got a letter from her a few days ago, and I wrote back trying to act more like a friend, using less vague words. But honestly, I need advice about how to handle this, I don't want to ruin things, but I also do not feel comfortable leading her on, even if it's unintentional.

Ideally, I'd like to be a simple friend to her but just telling her that seems like a bad idea, I'm a blunt pony, and this is simply not the time to be blunt. So for now I'm just going to be friendly with her, and the next time we meet I've decided to ask Cadance for advice.

Still, this entire thing has made me think about my life and future choices. Would I pursue a relationship if I really had feelings for someone? Even with the future as it is? At this point I think fate is self-correcting to at least some degree, I don't have complete proof but Bright's death is strong but inconclusive evidence to this theory, but only time will tell if I'm right.

I let out a breath as I finished the last of my notes and added them to my Runic Library. I need something to distract myself for a bit so I start going through my notes on my newest stupid idea, raising the sun. I've mostly been looking into how it was done in the past and why it was done like that to see if I can get some form of starting point.

Records on things like that are hard to find, but I've learned a few things and remembered a bit from the show. Sadly I wrote most of my notes on the show a few years after I was reborn and even then I watched the show a few more years before I died.

I bring this up because there are gaps in what I know, some things have simply been forgotten despite my best efforts. I vaguely remember something about the side effects of raising the sun, but that is foggy and distant. So, I had to rely more on this world's knowledge than mine.

I didn't find much, mostly historical reference journals, but from what I can tell the effects on a normal pony raising the sun depended on the method and time period. Really old records said it needed a complex ritual and several magically strong unicorns, and sometimes it resulted in deaths if done improperly.

The normal side effects were extreme magic exhaustion, you can recover just fine with some time but it's never fun or easy. This changed over time though, magic like any science sees progress, so over time the number of ponies needed and the death toll was lessened, but never eliminated.

It was around this time it became possible to attempt to raise the sun as an individual instead of a group, but that never seemed to end well. The group method has a few risks, it is harder to mess up but also hard to maintain, anything like a war can fuck it up thoroughly, in contrast having only one pony needed was an attractive idea.

This is also where things get the most foggy and uncertain. At some point, somepony was able to achieve raising the sun on their own and promptly died from it. Even after many attempts, it seems the furthest they ever got was making it so you only lost your magic instead of fucking dying.

This is where all experimentation stops though, somewhere in that rough time period Celestia and Luna pop up and started raising and lowering the sun and moon. Ponies no longer needed to do it, so these two methods were thrown away as dangerous and not worth the risk.

I couldn't even find anything about how the ritual worked, only records on what happened to those who used it. Now this normally would dissuade me from even trying to raise the sun, but in the time from when that ritual was used probably the biggest invention in magic was made.

In the past you had no way to really store magic, your best bet was to take a huge gem and place it in an insanely dense magical area, even then you'd have trouble controlling the magical output of the gem. But in modern times we can collect, store, and release magic in much better ways. Back then the spell used to turn a gem into a magic reservoir and the spell to enchant objects easily wasn't invented yet.

Those ponies back then had no choice but to raise the sun with a ritual because they had no other way to collect enough magic beyond dumping all their collective magic from their bodies into a single ritual. And the more ponies that dump their magic inside the ritual the more unstable the ritual would become.

So you want as many unicorns with as much magic as possible to minimize potential problems with the ritual. But now I can just use gems to gather that magic with ease, it cuts down on the biggest problem with this old method, lack of easily usable magic.

That's not to say this will be easy, gathering the magic necessary won't be hard but building a new ritual will be. The books I found have no detail about the rituals used, not even an example of something similar, not that I'm surprised it's a good call to not let that be public knowledge. Still, I'll be looking for any information, but I would rather not ask Celestia.

She is willing to let a lot go and let me keep a lot of secrets, but if I start asking about the sun and moon and how to control them I know she'll need answers. Plus, if all my planning fails and I can't make this happen then I can just do nothing and let events go as they normally would.

I get up after my work and decide to do something with the rest of the day, I feel like I need some outdoor time and maybe another run. To this day I still exercise and take my morning runs, along with getting my shit thoroughly kicked in by Stone once a week.

I find Entropy sitting on the desk I've decided to keep in the main room, along with a couch and carpet I bought a little spontaneously. Avalon and I didn't really have a good place to relax while we worked so it's a nice addition to my small home.

My last meet-up with Avalon was awesome, his reaction alone was worth all the effort. We tested the new limb in many ways and we found a lot of room for improvement, he also never stopped smiling the entire time he was using it. I do need to talk to him about what we'll do with the project when we're done as I don't want that going under my alias, but that can come later.

He did try to pay me for the gems used when the night was over, but I swiftly turned him down. His help and friendship are worth endlessly more than a few bits, and I told him that. In the end, he settled for thanking me again and promised to be careful while using the new limb just to be safe. I reach out and pet Entropy a bit, "You ready?" She stretches her wings a bit and swiftly slips into my shadow before reappearing on my back a moment later.

I've had her practice moving through shadows as she's able to move quickly in them and it would be a good skill to learn. If she gets quick enough at it she'll be able to move around any obstacle without needing to teleport and unnecessarily waste her magic supply. "You're really getting the hang of that, who's a good Girl?"

"ME!" She states this as an irrefutable fact. I chuckle and we both vanish from my apartment, we take one trip each day to tire her out so she knows where we are going already. We appear in the evening light on the edge of a large lake inside a steep valley, the air is cold and some snow is partly covering the slightly frozen ground and lake.

Entropy is tired so I let her devour some berries and meat before she merges into my shadow for some well-earned rest. A while back I had to fly further to keep Entropy challenged, and the new spot we teleport to is this valley lake. The shaded valley is a forested area with the lake as the central feature.

I've narrowed it down to somewhere in the middle of the country. There are even some roads and paths that lead into this valley so this place is known about by somepony. I haven't seen anypony though but the place we teleport to is in between some rocks next to the lake just for some extra cover.

I don't have much to do, so I just start walking down the shoreline looking at rocks, At some points, I pick up a few and skip them across the water. It's calm here, simple in a nice way. Eventually, the sun dips past the hills and a full moon rises high into the sky above me.

It's a well-lit night and I enjoy the cold air and silence for a while, but after a while, I get a little bored. The view may be beautiful but I'm not always one for beauty, so after a moment I move to a boulder and decide to have a little crazy fun. I've always been curious about what would happen if I used my space magic as a weapon.

Something else I wanted to try was to cut things, so I found a tall boulder and started to concentrate. There are a few ways I could try this, but I start by feeling the space around the boulder, and then I try my best to visualize a completely flat plain intersecting with the boulder.

It takes a little while to form it, but when I do I add another flat plain as close to the first one I just made as possible. I then flex my will and try to pull both plains apart a very tiny distance to separate the space, the space is pulled apart and stretches while a tiny gap is formed, but holding the space like this is really draining.

I then just let both plains slam back into each other with a loud clap and the snapping of stone, the boulder is around two feet across and I watch as a line of cracks spread from the gap that was formed. It doesn't look like a clean cut at first, the space was bent just enough where the rock couldn't move back into place to refill that gap quickly enough, effectively cutting it.

It was cut right in half, but the damage beyond the cut from the Rebound is extensive. The cracks spread several inches from the mostly clean cut and the boulder would probably fall apart if I tried to move it. That proves correct when I try to pick up the top half of the boulder as it crumbles into several large pieces.

I flip the switch in my bracelet and start to take notes on the results. This is promising, but it takes too long to set up. I look down the shore at all the other boulders, it seems I have something new to practice.

POV shift Celestia.

I step through the doors and enter the mostly plain room as four of my most trusted guards follow me inside and take their posts to guard the door behind me.

This meeting has proven both tiring to get to set up and a test of my patience, but hopefully some progress will finally come out of it, even if this is only the first of several more meetings. At least that is my hope, any real progress would be welcome at this point. As I wait I survey the carefully set up room.

This is normally a storeroom of the palace that's been emptied of everything, even shelves, one large pair of doors leads outside to bring in carts, and their goods are unloaded and taken through the door behind me as needed. The outside beyond those doors leads to Canterlot's streets quickly and is probably the quickest way inside the palace.

It's normally heavily guarded, but for this meeting, the outside is devoid of guards. That's not to say my ponies haven't taken my safety seriously, there are over eighty guards past the door behind me that will flood this room at a magical signal and I have personally warded this room, I hope none of that is needed tonight though.

My thoughts are interrupted as the door behind me opens again and my sometimes adorable niece walks in with a guard of her own. I smile as she walks in and preemptively cast a privacy spell so we may talk in peace, there are some things even my guards should not hear. "Niece, are you ready?" I ask, trying to calm her a little.

I do feel for her, this is the first time she'd had to deal with something like this and it's never easy. But her expression is calm on the outside, even if I can see the signs of her worry. She keeps her mask on and nods with a very slight smile of her own, "As ready as I can be." Good, she noticed the privacy spell this time, she is improving well.

I keep my own mask of calm but switch up the topic, she could use something to distract her worried mind. "Things will go well, getting a meeting at least puts us at a starting point. How was your trip to New Trotten?" She wrinkled her muzzle and I stifled some laughter. "Yes, dealing with the trading guilds can be... Tiring, but the increase in trade has been a boon for them. It seems your trip to Griffonstone was well worth it." I try to pull her mind to a recent accomplishment.

She knows what I'm doing, I can see it in her eyes, but that just means she remembers what I've taught her. "I plan to throw glitter at Shade the next time I see him." Her tone is nothing but serious. "That Colt has gotten me in an endless stream of meetings and trade disputes." She vents a little frustration, but I also hear the underlying happiness in her words.

I tilt my head a little. "Maybe later than that would be best, I suspect your next meeting will be interesting as it is." She raises a brow slightly at that. "I decided to ask him about my ever-faithful student's feelings towards him, he seemed... Undecided, but still rejected the idea." Shade was a little quick to shoot the possibility down, but I can guess a few of his reasons already.

I nearly giggle as her ears betray her mask and pop up as she gets that glint in her eyes. "Oh? Well then, maybe I will hold off." She drops the joking tone. "Did he say anything about why?"

"Not really, beyond the fact they don't really know each other, I am glad he isn't rushing things in either direction though." I voice some of my thoughts on my friend. "I find it likely he will seek you for advice though, he didn't look resistant to it when I brought it up," I add after a moment of thought.

I am glad Shade is trying to be adult about this, even the most mature colts and fillies can fall into love far too fast. I have seen many both uplifted and ruined by love in that way, but for now, I see no reason to step in beyond offering advice to both of them when asked.

That glint in her eye intensifies. "Hmm, are you jealous?" I blink a little not expecting her sudden question but don't show it. "What was that thing you said a while back? He's growing into his body well." I narrow my eyes a little as she once again uses those words against me while ignoring the context.

I show no outward reaction and just ignore her attempt at teasing me while also focusing my mind on the meeting, she'll have to try much harder with me than Shade. "No. But I do have news for you." I don't change my expression but I see her tense a little at my tone. "Shade is almost done with a new invention, I think you can handle that well enough."

If she wasn't at this meeting she would be glaring at me by now. "If it wasn't for Twilight I would have dumped glitter into his pillow by now... Fine, what has the wonder colt invented now?" In the end, her curiosity wins out over her annoyance.

"Easily made wooden prosthetics." I almost see her disbelief break through her mask but she keeps her composure, while I have to resist a laugh of my own at her contained reaction. "You'll have a few months before then I think, but it should prove to be useful as always. And, it's unlikely to be a trade good, the logistics though are another story altogether." I peter off and let her own mind fill with what that could mean.

She's about to say something, but we both go silent as the noise comes from the far side of the room. We both straighten up and fully assume our proper royal appearance. The guards also stiffen as the door slowly opens to the darkness outside. Four small forms in full cloaks slowly creep into the room.

The well-lit room beats back the darkness under their cloaks to see their faces, they mostly look uninteresting and unassuming. They take a moment to drop their cloaks to the floor and reveal that they have no weapons before they approach us slowly. They take a moment to give a bow, not too deep or too long but enough to show respect.

A small flash of green flame and suddenly what's bowing before me is different. "Your Majesty's. I am Kalis, and I speak for Queen Chrysalis."

It's time for some progress, because I WILL not let these beings bring harm to my ponies.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]
Current year is 994

I think someone mentioned a better way to cut things with space magic, but I couldn't find the comment. So, any ideas on how Shade could improve or recreate that ability?

Ps. Sorry for asking again.