DEC 11 Saturday

I scoop some more gold dust from the barrel and dump it into the water while watching the new copper flower grow.

It's been more than a week now and things are going pretty well. Me and Shining's spar ended with a second victory for me, but then we ran out of time as Cadance and Celestia had work to do. Afterward, though we did discuss doing it again, something I am full up for, and he agreed to send a letter for when he might have free time.

But he is just as busy as Cadance, mostly guarding her, so we may not get to spar that often. Beyond that, I also got a letter yesterday, a letter from Twilight to be more specific. It was more, formal than her past letters and it's clear things are a bit different between us.

Shade.

Sorry it took so long to send you a letter but things have been rather busy here. Hearth's Warming is close and my family is also planning a getaway after the new year.

I'd once again like to thank you for being honest with me, and I'm writing to say that I wouldn't mind catching up again and talking sometimes.

Like I said I'm busy right now but sometimes a little after the new year works for me, so please tell me if that works for you as well.

Signed Twilight Sparkle.

It's much shorter than the other letters she sent me in the past, but it's a step in the right direction. I have no doubt our next meeting will be awkward, but that's fine as long as we can try to rebuild what has been damaged. It's clear from how short and formal the letter is that we have taken a figurative step back.

I'm just happy she's willing to try and fix things as well, even if it's still a few weeks or longer until we even start to try. Now that I think about it that vacation might be something her family is doing for her, or she's lying to keep some space for a while, either way it's clear she needs more time and I'm willing to wait.

Beyond that pleasant news, I have some other news, I have all my gifts ready except Celestia's necklace, something I hope to finish soon. I actually thought about sending something to Twilight, but decided against it for this year. Also, Blaz's son is visiting other parts of the family so Blaz will be staying with us for this year's Hearth's Warming.

Like I said, all my gifts are ready and the only other thing I have planned for the rest of the year is Entropy's birthday. I'm thinking of doing the same thing as last year, you know, give her a fish along with a few new toys, her old toys have gotten pretty banged up for her and Philomena.

I let the last of the gold dust dissolve and pick the seeds needed before decomposing everything and leaving the tools in a small box next to the two barrels. I stretch and walk over to the pavilion while keeping the blindfold on my head securely. The past week has also given me some time to think about my space magic.

All my training is really starting to show as my control and conversion ratio with space magic has improved significantly. I've mostly trained my control, but I've gotten better at all my spatial abilities as well. But Spatial Cutting is something I haven't gotten down yet.

I want to try cutting something again right now as I have a few new ideas on how to go about it. For a few minutes, I drink tea and rest to recover my magic fully before taking out a seed from my saddlebags. I drop the seed on the snowy ground a decent distance away from anything else.

I move my life magic and watch as a normal Oak sapling grows from the snow into a decent-sized tree with a foot-thick trunk. I decompose everything except the Oak's stump and trunk, this leaves me with a nice and simple target to try and cut apart.

I take a deep breath and focus, I reach out with my space magic and start to form a single flat plane. I follow the same steps as the last time I attempted this and form two flat planes on top of each other. But instead of pulling them apart from their wide faces, I try to pull at the ends.

I pull the top plane to the left and the bottom one to the right. It quickly proves difficult to stretch space in two opposite directions at once. But I am able to do it and the spatial bending is less than my past attempt. After they are far enough away I let go and let everything snap back into place.

The Rebound still does some damage to the trunk as it cracks a little, but the incredibly thick pieces of the trunk that were held in those spatial planes don't have time to move back and as a result, are missing from the trunk. The top part of the trunk falls into the snow with a thump as it's effectively been cut off.

I didn't really cut it, I just removed the material supporting it, but the end result is the same regardless. The pieces of extracted wood were completely destroyed as the Rebound was too much for something that looked to be thinner than paper.

I realize something and attempt the same thing again but instead only use one spatial plane instead of two. The result is both better and worse, the spatial plane removes the material but the Rebound is stronger than before. The wood is more damaged and the cut is less stable overall.

I think for a moment and realize that when I used two spatial planes they probably canceled out each other's Rebound slightly. Not by a lot from the looks of it, but enough to make only using one less stable but more cost-efficient. I stare at the ruined tree and regrow what was broken.

Next, I will try something more experimental. I form another spatial plane but instead of making it as thin as possible, I thicken it to be around an eighth-inch thick. I then try to compress the space inside that area, something I have not tried before. I immediately feel some pushback that makes me struggle a bit, but it's manageable.

I feel the space try to move back but just dump more magic into this and try to will the space to compress to become thinner and thinner, once the space is compressed as flat as possible I let it spring back, and like other times the material doesn't move as quickly.

Nothing loud happens but there is only a slight amount of Rebound, which is odd to me as bending space always causes Rebound. The three sections separate as the middle piece is now a compressed piece of wood, it seems this works best so far, but it's odd that there was so little Rebound.

I sit there and look at the small piece of compressed wood that cracked into a few rough chunks. If I had to make a theory, I'd say that there is a functional difference between bending and compressing space, even though they are very similar in function as they both cause Rebound.

I've never tried compressing space before, but it felt less violent than bending it. When you think about it, bending space is stretching things outward, but compressing space it is bending it inwards, compacting it. The main thing that changes the most is the amount you are bending space.

Bending an entire plane at angles and curves bends a lot of unnecessary space, but compressing bends less overall space and causes less Rebound. It's just a theory, but if I'm right then I may have been going about Fusing materials in the wrong way, or maybe not, I'll need to test this a lot more to figure it out.

My magic is mostly drained by this point, one thing I can say for sure is that compressing space is more stable but it takes even more magic than just bending space. I drain the last of my tea and look over to Entropy as she sleeps on the Gold Oak, which weirdly enough doesn't have any snow on its branches or leaves.

I whistle over to her and she flies to me a few moments later. "Hey Girl, are you up for a trip?" She tilts her head and nods. "Good, we're going to Ponyville." I don't have much to do today, and I'm mostly out of magic for now so I might as well go and spend the end of the day at Ponyville.

I haven't been there in a few months now and checking in isn't a bad idea. After a moment we both vanish and I'm greeted by the Void once again, I wonder? As we move I reach out with my space magic and feel around the Void in the slight moment I have there.

When we reappear I sit still trying to remember what I felt, which was nothing but empty space. But that's important in and of itself, the space may have been empty but it was normal, with no fluctuations or anomalies beyond me and Entropy. It's not much, but it does mean that space can probably be shaped by me in the Void.

I cast an illusion over Entropy and start the snowy walk in silence as my mind words on its own. The Void having stable space makes sense, it's probably more stable than this dimension actually, there is no matter there to cause space to bend with gravity, no stars or planets.

In theory, this means I could bend the space there, so if I found a way to teleport I might be able to come and go as I please. Not that I'm thinking of doing something like that right now, I've improved a lot in my space magic but I'm not ready for something like teleporting yet.

I stop for a moment as I arrive at the outskirts of Ponyville, it looks the same as always if you don't count the large amount of snow covering everything. The sleepy little town is winding down as the day nears its end, and I decide to get myself a late lunch, or is it early dinner?

I know going to Sugar Cube Corner will mean interacting with Pinkie, but I think I can deal with that, and I could use some positivity right now. When I walk inside it's not as busy as I thought it would be, only a few ponies at a few booths, but that works well for me.

I sit down in an empty booth and make sure to check under the table first before sitting down, I don't want a repeat of last time. It seems like nopony is at the counter so I just take a sketchbook out of my saddlebags and start sketching designs for Celestia's necklace.

After a minute or so I feel space shift slightly as Pinkie walks out of the back with a tray of pretzels, but she stops when she spots me sitting down. I turn to face her a little abruptly and nod as a greeting before placing my sketchbook down. She moves quicker than she probably should and drops off the pretzels before moving over to me with a quill and notepad.

"SHADE!" I nearly flinch from the loud greeting. "HI! How have you been? When did you get into town? Do you want a donut? OH! Or a fresh pretzel?!" I keep a small smile as she rapidly fires questions at me, most of which I'm able to catch.

I chuckle a bit at her very excitable face, she always has a smile on her face it seems. "Hello to you too Pinkie. I'm fine, today, yes, and no." I answer bluntly in order while looking at the display. "Do you have any apple fritters? Oh, and a cup of mint tea if it's not too much to ask?" I move past that and I see her quickly write something down on her notepad.

I can't really tell the specifics of what she's writing, but it doesn't look like normal text. "We do, and it's not." She imitates me a bit. "Okie doki, I'll be back before you know it!" She zooms off behind the counter and starts to make my order. Pinkie is like eating raw sugar, too damn sweet for most but enjoyable in moderation or short bursts.

I barely have time to pick up my sketchbook before Pinkie quickly moves back to placing my order on the table. I raise a brow at the speed but don't question it, instead, I just smile at her and nod my thanks. "Well, it seems you keep your word. Thank you." I accepted the goodies and noticed she included a small bowl of fruit and a milkshake.

She places the fruit next to a happy Entropy before sitting down and taking a sip from her smoothie. "It's no problem!" She answers just as excited as ever. I don't bother trying to protest her eating with me, it's just who she is. I take a sip and the tea is pretty good for being made impossibly fast.

"Happy. Good." Entropy caws up at her and Pinkie beams at her with a massive smile.

"AwwWW! You're adorable!" She gets more excited than before. I think about reminding Pinkie but she doesn't pet Entropy and seems to remember that and just smile at her. "So, are you passing through again? I thought the train rail was out for the week?" She asks while happily watching Entropy eat.

I pause at that. The rail is out? It's not uncommon for it to happen with how many railways there are, but I did just tell her I arrived today. I stay calm and just half-lie like I've done many times before. "I didn't know it was out actually, I didn't take the train." Technically not a lie, just a lie by omission.

She tilts her head much like Entropy does. "Huh? Did you walk here in the snow? That's so cold, silly, you could get a cold and that's no fun!" She's looking at me over a bit but seems to show a slight worry.

I kept my calm smile and started to move my magic, I came here to have some fun, and showing off a bit should be fine and she just gave me an idea. Plus it's not like this is some massive thing, it's just a spell. I cast a spell and I chuckle at the confused and then shocked face she watches as a pair of wings start to form on my back after a few moments. "I flew actually, it's much preferable to walking through the snow." I silently enjoy the slight chaos I'm causing.

For the first time, I get to render Pinkie speechless, but that only lasts for a few seconds before her eyes widen more and she looks beyond excited, I quickly cast a sound barrier around us from under the table as she takes a deep breath. "OH MY CELESTIA!! How did you do that?! Wings! You have Wings!!" She very quickly leans over the table to get a closer look.

I'm now facing a Pinkie violating my personal space and pressing myself back more to regain some of it, only for her to practically half stand on the table to continue to look at them. I decided to try and make her back off by stretching a wing closer to her. "It's just a spell. Something anypony can learn." I downplay things to try and calm her down again.

The chaos may be fun, but this is also Pinkie Pie so, ya. "Oh! A spell?! You can do something like that with a spell?!" She asks while poking my wing with a hoof. "That's amazing! What else can you do?!! Can you control them?!" She is a bit more calm now and moves back into her seat.

I sigh a bit at having my space back while moving my wings back into place and flexing them. "Yes, and yes. What else? Well, anything? It depends on the spell and how much magic is needed, but beyond that magic has no limits." I add philosophically. "As for me? I'm not amazing, but I know a few interesting things." I motion around us. "Like a barrier spell to prevent anypony here from hearing us."

She looks confused for a moment but looks around, and despite how loud she was, nopony seems to have noticed. She looks a tad bit embarrassed after I pointed that out, but she doesn't let that slow her down. "SO I CAN SHOUT AND NOPONY WILL HEAR ME?!!"

I have to pin my ears back as her surprisingly loud voice calls out. While I'm uncomfortable Entropy just seemed annoyed. "Loud. Bad." Entropy reprimands her a bit before deciding to move onto the bench next to me. Pinkie's slight embarrassment deepens as she's called out by both of us.

She looks around again and sees that nopony noticed her shouting. "This is even more amazing! Imagine the surprise parties!" She smiles like a mad mare and still keeps her excitement up. "Can I learn to do this?" She actually drops her tone a bit finally.

I just smile at her antics. "Yes, but it's hard. You would have to draw it out as well." I draw a few lines in the air to demonstrate. "It's a big time investment as well." I see her looking thoughtful. "How much do you like reading very dry textbooks?" I chuckle at the slightly scrunched nose she shows. "Then it might not be for you, you could try to find somepony to enchant an object for it, but that can get expensive and it can be hard to find the right pony." I give her an alternative.

She looks excited but also thoughtful, an expression I'm sure not many ponies have seen on her face. "Huh, maybe! Anyway, I got to finish helping Mr. Cake close up. Have a good day Shade!" I watch with slight amazement as she drinks the remaining half of her smoothy in seconds.

I laugh at the admittedly impressive feat she just accomplished. "Same to you Pinkie, and thanks for the tea, it's great." I show her one of my better smiles as she pokes my wing one last time.

"They look nice. Bye!" With that last remark, she zooms off back through the staff door and out of sight. I can't help but laugh again at the mare that causes confusion and smiles wherever she goes. Say what you want about Pinkie, but she just makes things a little brighter.

I take a bit of my treat and enjoy the pleasant mood of the cafe. I think this is what I needed. It's nice to shake things up and have a little fun.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]
Current year is 994

A little of the pink one for you, and some space magic.