SEP 7 Thursday.

I look closely at the wound on the older mare's side, it seems to not be doing too well. "This was improperly cleaned, you know a cleaning spell for wounds right?" The nurse asks me while we inspect the wound.

The mare is around fifty and came in with an improperly cleaned and bandaged wound she apparently did herself, it's not infected but it could become so if it's left as it is. I nod in affirmative, "I do, is that the best choice here? It could still be cleaned out normally, it might take a while though." I ask not to offer an alternative but to learn.

The nurse stallion tilts his head back and forth a bit. "It could be, but some filth might have settled deep inside, it means you might need to make the wound worse to fully clean it, it's best to use a spell here." I nod understanding the logic. "Are you alright with that Mam?" He asks the mare who's been sitting patiently after we gave her a few herbs to help with any pain.

She nods a bit sluggishly, obviously still somewhat in pain and looking tired. "Yes, if it will help." She doesn't say much as the wound is near her ribs on her side and probably makes it hurt when speaking or breathing deeply.

The nurse nods back, "Ok, give her another dose of Sunlight Sting for the pain." I nod. "Good she needs another dose, clean it out and stitch it up after that, maybe heal the skin a bit to speed things along if you have the magic for it." With that, he moves over to another patient while I begin my work.

I move over to a cabinet in the patient ward we're in and look through the bottles. At first, I thought it was odd that they use so many herbal medicines for treatment, but after a little thought and some questions, it makes sense. In my old world, we focused on making better medicines because we needed them.

Like many things in Equestria though, this field has stagnated for the same reason that others have, magic. Medicinal herbs in this world are more effective because many of them are magical and have greater effects. Combine that with healing magic being available to fall back on and ponies simply put less effort into more advanced medicines because they didn't really need it.

I ignore a few looks I get from ponies in the ward, some from mares for obvious reasons, and a few of curiosity. I've cut my mane down to be short, much shorter than I normally have it, but ponies are still recognizing me. I fucking hate the news right now.

After the newspaper came out ponies have been recognizing me, even with wearing my cloak more often and changing my mane. Turns out finding a tall earth pony in a city of unicorns isn't as hard as you'd think, I've had many ponies stare and several try talking to me over the last week.

Overall though most are content with gossiping about me from the sidelines instead of trying to confront me, and no news reporters have bothered me so far. I actually did some research to try and calm my nerves, and from what I can tell the other examples of this all go down the same way.

Celestia dances with somepony and it's the hot gossip, sometimes it's a noble embarrassing themselves a bit by struggling to dance with somepony of Celestia's height. Or the pony dances with Celestia for a bit before going back to the Gala, then the news runs with it.

They talk it all up and spin a few wild theories, and then things slowly flicker out a few weeks later when the next big thing pops up and everything cycles again. I find the right bottle and take out the proper dosage, inside the herbs are tied into douses so they are similar and consistent, at least mostly consistent.

I move back to the mare with a few dried yellow leaves from a medical herb called Sunlight Sting, it helps with pain in small doses, and in higher ones can kill. "Chew on these for a bit Mam, swallow when they are thoroughly chewed up," I advise and she takes the small leaves to do just that.

Another thing that simplifies herb use is that ponies can eat things humans often couldn't. "I'm going to cast a spell now Mam, it may hurt or feel off, please try to stay still." She nods still chewing slowly and I quickly cast the correct cleaning spell, it takes a moment for the spell to remove all the dirt and anything else in the wound.

This particular cleaning spell is the same one I invented, it's proven very useful to the hospital as it's easier to use than other cleaning spells that accomplish the same things. I take out a needle and some thread as her breathing starts to settle down once I'm done cleaning the wound, good the herb is working.

Sunlight's Sting is a quick-acting herb that mostly helps with pain, but dosage needs to be closely watched as giving too much over a day can be bad. I feel the eyes of the stallion nurse, and a few other nurses that pass by, watching my work somewhat closely, even after all this time I'm not left completely unsupervised.

Not that I disagree in any way, the exact opposite actually. I'm not afraid to say I've made some small mistakes while volunteering here, but those incidents were small and didn't harm anypony. Mostly because I was being watched, so this is something I welcome.

After I stitch the wound closed I tie off the thread and cast another spell, I watch as the edges of the wound near the skin heal a bit, binding to the thread more firmly as it does so. I stop shortly after and double-check the wound before waving over the same nurse when I'm done, they come over having already finished with their patient.

The nurse moves to the mare's side and inspects it for a few moments before nodding. "Hmm, good job, bandage it." I do that as he turns to the mare. "It should heal up fine Mam, but we'd like you to stay for the night if you can?" The mare is even more sleepy now but nods slowly. "Great, we'll have you moved to a room for the night so you can get some rest."

He looks at me and smiles a bit. "You're with the afternoon slot right?" I nod and he motions to a clock in the room I often work in. "You're off for the day, make sure to write down the time." With that, he turns back to the patient and I just take it in stride and leave the room.

I quickly make my way into a staffroom and write down my name and the time in a ledger before opening a locker, inside are my saddlebags and my deep green cloak. I store my volunteer badge in my saddlebags and put on both my cloak and saddlebags on. I make my way out of the hospital, and I stop at a public restroom to both do my business and give Entropy her 'dress'.

She puts it on and transforms quickly so we can both fly home together, something we've made a habit of doing over the last few months. As we fly through the air I start to ponder on my plans and projects. First and foremost is the love-gathering spell I've poured a lot of work into over the last few months.

It's mostly done so I'm onto the safety features I've been thinking about. Security has been a problem for me as I'm not sure how to actually go about it, there are several options but a good starting place is to heavily guard the Runic Context for all the runes involved, it would make the spell far less useful for others if they don't have the Runic Context.

I also made the spell only work as an enchantment, so the only way it can be used is to enchant a gem with it. Combine that with no Runic Context and the enchantment would be inefficient at best and possibly unstable. That alone might not be enough though so I have other ideas.

With this in mind, I went with something simple but effective, I encoded the runic context. Word ciphers aren't too hard to make honestly, take a very basic one for example. Take all the words of the Runic Context, or even the letters, and give them a numerical value, then replace everything with those numbers.

As long as every number used is picked at random, If you don't have a chart of all the corresponding number-to-letter conversions it makes it tricky to unwind. That still leaves you with the problem of protecting the cipher solution but that is a bit easier to do.

This particular cipher is not the best example but it proves the point, and if you combine it with another spell I added in then it works well. The other spell is a small modification of the disenchantment spell, all it does is rip apart the enchantments on an object violently.

The spell uses a scanning spell that detects enchantment-revealing spells, so when someone tries to find out the spells enchanted into the object the spells all unwind at once. This second spell is actually two small spells and will drop the efficiency a bit, but it can be added as needed.

Normally something like this isn't used in any enchanted item because the destruction it can cause is dangerous to others, but with the circumstances, I feel it warranted. I'll probably ask Celestia if she has anything else she could add to improve things, yet another thing to talk to her about.

On that topic, I sent a letter to Celestia a few days ago asking when we could meet as we have a lot to talk about, I also asked if she could set up a meeting with a Changeling to test things out. She sent a letter back pretty quickly saying we could meet in a week from now, I can do my testing with Cadance and then the next day we can meet, so I guess I'm sleeping over again.

This also lines up nicely with me being done with the love-gathering spell. Well, done enough to test it properly and make a prototype, polishing things and getting it completely streamlined for mass production will take me another week or two after that, presuming things go well with testing.

I stretch out my wings and land softly on my apartment building's roof. After a moment Entropy lands on my back, as I descend the stairs and make my way down the stairs and to the right floor. But as I reach my apartment door I see a familiar pony standing there. "Daisy? Ambushing me then?"

Daisy has been pretty calm about my news after that night, but she said she'd try to interrogate me later when they had time alone, and yes I am quoting her there. She gives me a smile, "Maybe." She looks at me innocently. "Hi, Shade. I was waiting for you to arrive, mind if we talk inside?" She asks very happily and I know what's about to happen to me.

I sigh and unlock my door, she tries to follow me inside only to hit the shield. "Right, sorry, I totally forgot to warn you of that." I laugh a bit and she rubs her muzzle and looks stunned. "Give me a moment, I'll let you inside." I move behind the door like I'm doing something, instead, I move my space magic and flip a small switch under a pot. "Come on in and make yourself comfortable," I say while walking over to put my saddlebags down and start making some tea.

She moves a hoof through the doorway before walking inside and closing the door behind her. "You have a shield around your door? No wait, that actually makes sense coming from you." She says and doesn't look too surprised about it. "Still, your paranoia is so, extreme." She giggles a bit while joining me at my small table.

I've never told Daisy about my shield, but I thought showing her couldn't hurt, plus I got to watch that. Entropy flies off to sit on her perch and rest as she normally does when I get home from the hospital. "Oh no, it's not just the door, that would be silly. The shield covers all the walls and the window as well, the entire apartment." I smile a bit as she gives me a blank stare. "So, you wanted to interrogate me?" I ask while casting a silence spell around us from under the table.

She huffs a bit at that. "I keep telling you I just want to ask some questions, it's not like I'm forcing you to." She defends herself a bit.

I keep smiling. "So I could ask you to leave and not answer you?" She looks conflicted for a moment and I chuckle at her. "Fine, just don't write anything down anywhere. Seriously." I take a serious tone for a moment before pouring us both some tea. "How would you like to start?" I find myself much more relaxed than I expected, I guess a week of time to gain some sense of normalcy helped with that.

She gives me a reassuring look. "I won't, I know how to keep a secret. Also, you know I will drop it if you want right? It's really not my business." I nod and motion for her to keep going. Daisy is the only one I can be more honest with, and this is already proving to be fun enough to be worth it.

She takes a sip of tea. "Ok, so, did you actually buy an invite to the Gala or what? Because you don't seem like the type to go there more than once." She brings back memories of the year me and her met at the Gala.

I shrug a bit. "A half lie, I did get the invite from a friend, I didn't pay for it. Seriously, trying to pay the Princess is basically futile." I know Celestia sure as hell wouldn't take my money. "To be honest? This year is my fifth time going, every year since I started my other job. The Princess is insistent on sending me an invite." I don't lie but I deliberately leave things out.

I trust Daisy enough to reveal more but I'm not the type to just reveal things, even after years. Her brows shoot up and she laughs a bit, "Every year?! Because of course you do, nothing about you makes sense does it?" We share a chuckle at that. She smiles oddly, "Also, does that mean you consider the Princess a friend?" She asks cheekily.

I stiffen a bit, looks like I let that slip. I try to see a way out of this without outright lying to her, "Kind of, it's complicated." I say honestly but leave everything unsaid. "Either way it's not something I'm too open about, so mosey on." I am more blunt than needed but she takes it in stride.

She nods and thinks for a moment. "Ok, I do have to ask as your friend, are you two actually, anything?" I give her a deadpan stare for a moment and shake my head. "Noted. So, what actually happened that night?" She sticks to her word and just ignores the previous topic.

I drink some more tea and relax my body again. "Actually I was mostly honest there, the only real change was the conversation topic and the reason I went along with it. On a different note, a bit of advice. Don't trust Princess Cadance, she is a prankster." I add with a casual tone.

Her brow jumps and she has a disbelieving look in return. "Wait Really?! She is?!!" I just smile silently and she quickly catches on. "Great! Now I have that bugging me for the next few weeks. You are really hard to interog- Question." I just laugh at her. "And now I'm out of good questions, or at least questions I think you might answer. So I guess... OH! How has volunteering been going?" She picks a topic I'm more willing to fully engage with.

I smile as Entropy moves over to sit on the tabletop to watch us. "I spent the last bit of my time today sewing up a laceration on a poor mare's side." She cringes a bit at that. Interestingly I've noticed that many of the nurses have problems with blood and gore, but they can control themselves enough to do their work properly.

Control being the keyword, they aren't used to it from those I've talked to, only a few ponies seem to actually be desensitized to it. "Overall though, it's been fun and insightful. I've learned a lot about patching ponies up, so it's going good so far, but check back in after spring, foal season is the real test." I refill my tea and get an idea. "You want to play chess? I know Blaz detests it and Maple is ok, so how will you fare?" I ask while bringing over my chess set.

She smiles and nods. "Our last games didn't go well for me, but that was a while ago, wasn't it? Why not? Let's see if I can actually win against you." I use my space magic and quickly fill up the board six pieces at a time. "You're getting really good at that, figure something new out?" She asks while looking at me move pieces

I shrug a little. "Kind of, technically I'm directly manipulating the fabric of reality to generate small forces and move the pieces through micro-movements," I explain in a single breath with a straight face. She looks confused before just rolling her eyes at me.

"You could have just not answered you know? Either way, this little game of chess reminds me, what is your current score?" I'm confused for a moment before realizing what she's asking. I could lie, but this is a pretty inconsequential thing to talk about, or I could mess with her more?

I think for a moment. "Six hundred and fifty-seven to nine point five. Who would have thought I'd actually win nearly ten games?" I joke a bit and deliberately don't mention who I was playing against, but she's already put two and two together, I'm just not going to confirm that theory.

She huffs a bit when I don't continue. "Well, they have Maple beat. Actually, I wonder what would happen if they played against each other?" I tilt my head at that, it is an interesting thought. "Thanks for yet another question without a clear answer." She teases me and smirks. "You know? I think even if I ever learned every secret you have, I'd just be more confused by the end." She chuckles at that idea.

I stay silent for a moment. "A secret is safest when unspoken. And I have so many secrets that have never been spoken." I get a little philosophical with her to mess with her more. "Nopony knows who I am, and in the end, I'm just a shadow of a shadow, a shade," I add some humor and use a sage-like tone.

She raises a brow before quietly laughing. "Maybe, but even a shade is seen." I blink at the oddly profound statement. "Now go on and make the first move, I want to see if I improved since last time." She motions to the untouched board.

I smile a bit and settle in for the game. "Only if they want you to see them." I reach out and move the first piece

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :}
Current year is 995

I thought something more relaxed and an update on the hospital was needed. This one is also a little shorter... Wait, since when did 3k become short? I'm serious, I hade this thought while writing this AU note.

The amount of time I spend on a single chapter is like, four hours, to four and a half hours at most. And hour or more of that is just editing. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole writing thing.