JUN 29 Thursday.

I wrap another bandage around an elderly mare's hind left leg while ignoring how close I am to her backside. A nurse keeps an eye on my progress as they treat another patient, by this point they know I can at least do this without close supervision.

Once I'm done the nurse I'm assigned to waves me over to their patient. "Have you ever cleaned a cracked hoof? A serious one I mean?" She asks while motioning to a pony hoof that is pretty badly cracked open. It's a bit gory and some flesh is exposed, but it's healing well from what I can tell.

I shake my head a little. "A few smaller wounds, but never a hoof, or anything too large," I answer and she nods before taking a clean cloth with her hoof and starting to slowly and delicately clean the wound while I watch closely and take physical and mental notes on the process.

Once she's done cleaning the wound and explaining a few things she turns to me. "That's about it, also make sure to keep an eye out for other cracks whenever doing it so the cloth doesn't snag." She waits a moment for me to finish my note-taking before continuing. "Either way, you're done for the day so dress this and you're good to go."

I nod and she points out a few more small things on wrapping a cracked hoof before leaving me in the hallway like every time over the past few weeks. But I don't immediately leave the hospital as I have something else I need to do, with that in mind I make my way through the hospital and find a specific office.

This is something small but important to me, and it's about my jewelry. Specifically my bracelet, I've had to leave my saddlebags in a locker room while I volunteer, but my bracelet also detects Changelings. I would have just added it to my necklace but the diamond it uses can't handle a spell that strong.

Other jewelry wouldn't be big enough to have a gem either and adding to my necklace might add more questions that I don't want to answer. A few days ago I had the idea to just wear my bracelet on a hindleg to not interfere with my work while helping other ponies.

But that's where things get more iffy. Originally a nurse told me to take off my bracelet to do my work, so I'm not exactly sure about the rules here and have just been doing what I was told. And because I don't know the rules I need to ask some questions and get some clear concise answers.

The good news is that there is a simple enough solution to all of this, when we went through orientation Dr. Meadows said we could ask her questions if needed. I'm normally not one to ask for help, but a hospital is no place for that mentality and I swallow all those thoughts before knocking on the office door. "Come in."

I open the door and see a slight smirk on Dr. Meadow's muzzle. "Mr. Evergreen, anything I can help you with?" She asks while looking up from some paperwork she was working on.

I don't sit down and just nod while showing her some respect. "Just something I wanted clarification on, if you're not too busy at the moment?" I ask and she nods with the same professional and business-oriented expression. "What are the rules around jewelry? I wear some so I thought it best to get some clarification." There is no reason to lie so I just ask bluntly to not waste her time.

She doesn't look surprised and just opens a drawer in her desk, she pulls out a stack of documents and flips through them for a moment before copying a few pages onto blank paper and passing them to me. I raise a brow slightly and she nods to the papers. "You are far from the first volunteer to ask about the rules, and I have work to do, that is the exact rules on jewelry. Have a good day Mr. Evergreen." She dismisses me after that and goes back to her work.

I don't feel like bothering her more and leave quickly. This is part of the reason I've come to respect Dr. Meadow's. I've not interacted with her too much, but every time she's been blunt and stern, but fair and efficient. This is a good example, she didn't waste time talking and just had a copy of the rules to copy and distribute as needed, simple and efficient.

I stop by the locker room that also holds Bristle's office next to it, he always has the feeling of annoyance around him but he does his job from what I've seen and he doesn't bother me at all. I gather my things before putting away my notebook and the papers before heading home for the day.

I leave and cast a spell to fly, and while flying home I speak aloud. "Come on out," I say and I feel Entropy shift onto my back from my shadow while I quickly cast an illusion spell over her. She jumps off of me and in a moment we're flying together. It may be a little risky but from this height, nopony would see anything in detail, and I could just say I was holding her in my saddlebags if needed.

Entropy is still coming with me to the hospital, so eventually, she asked if she could fly with me, mostly because she was in my shadow as I flew to the hospital and back home. I didn't see much harm as long as we were careful and agreed, and as a bonus, I got to fly with her more often.

Even better, I've gotten more flying practice while going back and forth so often. It's only helped with small things like landing in between buildings or on crowded streets, it's still nice though and all training is welcome. When I arrive home I take a moment to circle around and I land on my apartment building's roof.

I found out while complaining about walking up and down the stairs every day to Blaz, that many buildings keep their roof access open for pegasi. It seems so simple and obvious in hindsight, but I just never really thought about it honestly. Either way, it kind of shortens the walking for me.

My apartment building has five floors and I live on the third floor, so I'm still walking roughly the same distance but at least it's all descending instead of climbing, plus it's easier to land on the roof than landing on a busy street. I cancel the wing spell and descend the stairs to get into my apartment.

I relax with a shower before anything else and after getting clean I lay down with some fresh tea and the rules I have, the sooner I know the rules the sooner I can start looking for solutions or loopholes. Its text is very dry, and I'm not surprised at how much legal jargon is used.

After reading through it all I go through it again just to be sure and start thinking on how to go about this. Well, first and foremost there are no rules specifically against or for wearing a bracelet on your hind legs, at least not in that exact wording and it gets a little complicated.

Ok, to simplify it all. Volunteers are allowed to wear jewelry of any type, but that is subject to any actual worker at the hospital. So that nurse asking me to remove my bracelet and not my necklace was totally fine, but this rule is also vague about what that means.

I quote, 'Volunteer is allowed to wear jewelry in regular voluntary activities, with the exception of restricted sections below, or at the asking of any staff member' So ya, it's not entirely clear about if I can wear my bracelet on a hindleg, I'll probably just need to ask each nurse I shadow when the day starts and go from there.

Overall this doesn't really answer my question, but it does bring up something I do need to be aware of. Restricted sections, the list of things that fall under that mostly consists of anything to do with surgery or high-level healing spell casting. The idea here is very obvious.

Jewelry can be small and healing a small loose earing inside a wound on accident seems like a clusterfuck waiting to happen. There are several other things on the list and beyond volunteering no staff member is allowed to wear any jewelry at all at any time.

Honestly, I don't know why we even get an exception, maybe to prevent theft of items? Either way all this points to the simple fact that I'll need to take my jewelry off at some point in the future. Taking my bracelet off is mostly a slight worry for me because I can't detect Changelings, but my necklace is arguably worse.

I'm still not entirely sure what a Changeling can do with their magic, I do remember... Cricket, or was it Cicada? One of them mentioned something about using different emotions in magic. I have no idea what that means and I should look into it more, but the emotional shield around me is the only defense I have for anything like that.

The thing is I don't really have another form of recourse, I either need a spell that will work similarly to my enchantment, or I need to sneak in my jewelry some. Both seem like a bad idea that could get me in legal trouble, so my best defense might be something my paranoia really hates.

Do nothing, just take off both pieces of jewelry and become ignorant of the scenario, at least until I can find a new solution. It definitely has risks to it, I wouldn't know if I'm talking to a Changeling, and also wouldn't have a defense against any magic they might have.

On the upside, I wouldn't draw attention by trying to sneak things in by casting odd spells on myself while in a hospital. Plus it's not like I have much of a real choice here, I will need to remove my bracelet and necklace at some point. So, for now, the plan is simple, ask me to wear my bracelet on a hindleg and just take it off when I have to.

Even if I do it, remaking the enchantments as spells will be hard as a few of the runes used aren't supposed to work on a pony, and I'll need to fundamentally change them to work at all. The hardest part is keeping them just as effective, especially the Changeling detection spell.

Changelings have something to counter my detection spell and right now I can only detect them because my spells are better than their defense, if it weakens even a little that might change rendering any resulting spell useless.

I really am putting a lot of thought into a situation that I have very little control over huh? With that thought I distance the topic from my mind while trying to pull my mind off of something already somewhat solved.

I stand up and stretch for a moment, I have something I want to work on and for that, I'll need more space. "Hey Girl?" Entropy turns to me from playing with her toy. "Need to take a trip to Gaia's Eden," I explain and she flies over to me without a word before we both vanish.

When we reappear inside my shack I pet her for a few moments. "Go play. Treat?" She asks while acting cute, I chuckle at her before reaching into my bag and feeding her a few pieces of fish jerky. She gobbles them down happily, once she's done she tilts her head a little. "Cood?" She guesses a bit hesitantly and doesn't use the word right.

I raise a brow as she's never guessed before, I just pet her more. "Cod, and nope, it's Trout." She ruffled her feathers and teleported away to a different part of Gaia's Eden. I chuckle at her antics before looking over my shelves and grabbing a few things I'll need for my plans today.

I take my Life gem out of the padded Golden Oak box I keep it in, I also grab the piece of Gold Oak I have. Next, I grab my woodworking tools and a few seeds, a Golden Oak seed, a Fire Blossom Tree seed, and an Iron Oak seed, along with several pots filled with soil. With all that gathered I take it with me out front of my shack to start my work.

I lay down in the summer sunlight and lush grass before setting everything out for my two projects. To start I take the piece of Gold Oak and start very slowly carving it. After improving my carving tools with an improved sharpness spell and a medium ruby it now actually smoothly cuts the Gold Oak wood, which gave me an idea.

I've learned a few things about the Gold Oak wood I harvested after testing it further. The wood is able to absorb life magic smoothly from either the sides or the ends, and then release it smoothly from either end of the small stick. It's somewhat like an electric wire, although that comparison is not completely accurate.

It lets me direct life magic into a single point if done right though, and with the life magic blocking abilities of the Golden Oak wood lets me block life magic from moving into the Gold Oak wood by covering one in the other. But this is all preamble to mention my idea so let me get to the damn point with another rant.

It turns out that when Gold Oak wood is stripped of its bark, I'm able to control the life magic that's flowing through it without much difficulty, specifically I'm able to control the direction it flows very easily. I finish smoothing out the foot-long thin pieces of Gold Oak I have and put it to the side for a moment.

I plant a Golden Oak seed into a pot and start to grow it slowly and deliberately. I make it into an inch-thin and two-foot-long pole without bark or leaves, I then carve a small round hole into the top of the pole with my knife. I fit the Gold Oak stick into it and lined it straight with the rest of the pole.

I continue to grow the Golden Oak wood around the small piece of Gold Oak while leaving a few small gaps at the meeting point of the two woods. It's two feet of Golden Oak wood and then a few small gaps in the to show the core, followed by another foot of pole with a Gold Oak core.

The Golden Oak wood grows around and to the other end of the Gold Oak wood, I then carefully move the Life gem into place at the top of the newly formed pole. I place the Life gem on top with one of its twenty flat sides touching and sitting atop the Gold Oak core.

I grow the Golden Oak wood to cover the Life gem in six spikes of wood that conform to the Life gem's sides and lock it firmly in place. I decompose the base and detach the pole from its stump, then I move it around in several ways while the Life gem stays in place, I even swing it around while being prepared to catch the Life gem if it breaks free.

Once I'm sure it's not going to move I start to test my main idea with this new staff I've made. I place my hoof on the section that has the gaps to the Gold Oak core and starts to pull life magic from the Life gem top-down through the Gold Oak wood and to me.

The life magic is absorbed without difficulty and it's easy to pull it from the gem through the Gold Oak. I take a moment to grow a pointed end on the bottom of the simple staff before sticking it in the ground to stand on its own. I smile at my work for a few moments before making some notes.

I made this staff for a few reasons, but the main two are magical loss from moving magic through the air and safety with a fragile gem. When magic moves through the air a little is lost in the process, the better your control and the closer you are the less you lose, and the inverse is obviously true as well.

It's not massive when working with plants as they are normally very close to me, But holding the life gem so close to myself messes with my life magic senses because of how much it gives off passively. With a loss of my senses comes a loss in my control and when doing things like healing the Gold Oak that really matters.

This is my attempt at somewhat solving things and seeing if the Gold Oak wood would work for this. This staff moves it an extra foot away from me if I hold it right and that makes a small but noticeable difference in my senses. Another very large benefit is simply the safety of the massively valuable Life gem.

Having such a thing simply on its own without protection or resting on a surface is a danger to its safety, accidents can and will happen. I also can't directly enchant the Life gem because it would take away some of the precious life magic held inside that I can't waste on such a simple purpose.

Now? I can just put gems in the staff and use that to protect the Life gem. It's also just safer to transport in this form, and I'll admit that having a staff is also a bit of a dream and badass. I leave my new staff alone for the moment while moving the seeds and pots over to start my other project.

The Fire Blossom Tree and the Iron Oak. Now that I have access to the gold dust and the Life gem I can breed plants much faster, so I want to try and crossbreed these two trees now. I've grafted Fire Blossom bark to my Steel wood armor, so my goal is to improve the Fire Blossom bark with some toughness from the Iron Oak and also try to improve its fire resistance even further.

I still want the base armor to be pure Steel wood to not weaken it, but better bark will help and make the lengthy grafting process more worthwhile for me. As I start my plant breeding I pause hearing the faint sound of piano music as Celestia plays something from inside her home.

I was so focused on the staff that I limited my life sense while testing it and apparently didn't notice Celestia's arrival. I'm so happy she's enjoying her gift, and the music is a nice addition to this calm sanctuary. As I work I listen to the distant soft sounds with a smile.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D
Current year is 995

I thought something small and simple would be a nice touch and break up all the dialog and emotions of the few last chapters. I also will be adding a bit more experimentation and crafting as we drifted from that for a bit now.

Also, Shade be wissard boy now.

This last thing is completely unnecessary, but I thought you all might find it interesting. First, a little bit of an omitting on my part. When the show was being released I watched it as it came out and never rewatched anything.

So it's been like eight years sense I watched the first seasons, with is why I can sometimes misremember things and events. And, my favorite character is Spike.

Do what you will with all that information.