MAR 11 Sunday.

I slowly look over the fish swimming around in my small pond, I take a moment to check and make sure they are healthy.

The past days have mostly been me slowly settling into my calm routine once again. My volunteer work at the hospital continued with little fanfare, I just checked in with the right ponies and got back to work. In a way, it's as if nothing at all has changed in the time I was away.

I know that's not true though, I have a game night later today with my friends so I'll get all caught up soon enough. For now, I've spent my time editing the notes I gathered and practicing like normal. I did get to see Stone again and have my usual fun of getting my shit kicked in for a few hours.

I didn't talk to him much about my trip as he's not really the type to ask anything about it, especially during training time. Beyond game night I sent out a letter to both Twilight and Avalon to talk about my trip a little, mostly about the ocean and Griffonstone.

I obviously didn't go into much detail about everything and tried to make it come off as fun but mostly uninteresting. Along with the letter I sent each of them a gem carving and explained where it came from, using the same excuse I did with Daisy. Avalon got a topaz bird of some type I didn't recognize, and Twilight got a building carved from amethyst, both mostly on theme and half-decent gifts.

I even got a letter back from Celestia, blatantly telling me that my last letter was not exactly informative, but thanking me regardless and confirming she'd see me on the twenty-first. I am both excited and a little worried about what she's going to say when we finally meet again.

I can't do much but wait and while I am a little concerned it's not all that much, the worst she can do is ground me and I have no intention of going anywhere for a few months at least. I also trust her not to be overly harsh, she knows me well enough and I think she'll understand my reasoning when she hears it, either that or I'm about to be locked in some tower at the palace.

I shake my head a little and push my mind away from that particular thought, moving away from the fish pond to look around for a while. Everything in Gaia's Eden seems completely untouched by the passage of time, the only exception being the growth of plants.

Everything is healthy and working properly though so I'm not one to complain, it is nice to be back home but I haven't spent too much time here, I find myself spending more time in the Canterlot Park. I guess I just missed the busy feeling of Canterlot, even if it can be annoying at times, another thing I've found interesting is a very long-term project of mine that is nearing some major developments.

After a long LONG time of selective breeding and no small amount of work, the Copper Lily is now almost at the right size to begin working on it in new ways. Right now the flowers are around two inches in size and I'm hoping to get them to one inch before starting to breed them for other traits.

This brings up the obvious question, what should I breed them to do? I know they can extract copper from an environment so I could breed them to potentially do the same with other metals beyond copper. This is mostly me theorizing for the moment as I have another more pressing thing I need to breed the plant for, survivability.

Once the flowers are at the correct size I'm going to spend some time trying to make the Copper Lily grow without the need for copper while keeping its ability. As it stands the plant requires an environment with strict conditions and I'll need to make it more durable so it can grow wherever it's needed.

Not only does the Copper Lily need copper to be in its environment, it needs a high amount to even attempt to grow, so I need to breed out these traits. If I succeed then the result would be a plant that could sit in a stream or lake for a long time and just slowly gather metal from the water.

Still, starting that project is at least another month out, from my previous rate of progress that is my best guess on how long it will take to shrink the Copper Lily flowers enough. At the moment I've been wanting to experiment with my space magic and my life magic, and now that I'm home and safe, I can start testing.

I pass by the Vita Tree and glance over before abruptly stopping, my life magic staff has stayed where I left it on the charging pedestal I left it on, but over that time its life gem has obviously filled up and I can now see a slight side effect. Turns out that placing a staff made from living wood next to a tree that gives off an insane amount of life could cause the wood making up the staff to start growing, who could have guessed?

I take the staff down and notice small branches trying to grow off from the main piece, most are just twig-sized branches but a few are larger. I move my life magic and decompose the extra parts that have grown before taking the staff with me as I continue to walk around. Back to my experiments, my space magic has been something I've always been curious about and I need to test a few things.

I have mostly been wanting to experiment with Spatial Strings, so I quickly take out a notebook and gather what I will need. As a start, I spend some time finding and gathering large bugs with my life magic from around Gaia's Eden, and then I form a short Spatial String before throwing a few inside, they drop out the other end no worse for wear as I expected.

Next, I threw them inside and while they were moving through it I let the Spatial Structure collapse in on itself. A moment later I'm greeted by a large Centipede writhing on the ground with a few of its legs looking to be broken or missing, I repeat this test several times and try to understand what is happening.

After a while I put together that they are mostly being harmed by the rebound, the space doesn't need to move much to move back into place. The space moving back was still enough to do a little harm, it pulled on the Centipede, the Rebound broke a few of its legs, and the space returning to normal pulled a few off. The force of the space itself moving back to normal doesn't seem too extreme as even a Centipede survived it.

At this point the Centipede is pretty damaged, having been thrown into unstable space a few times, but the Centipede is still alive and that is a good sign that Spatial Strings aren't too dangerous. Its damage mostly seems like several broken or lost legs, and a few large cracks on its exoskeleton, so after a moment I reach out with my life magic after getting a new idea.

I don't really have a good way to test out the healing power of my life magic on living things, so why not just use bugs? They repopulate fast and I've seen no evidence that they are as intelligent as other beings. I have to train on something and at least with bugs the chances of me hurting something near sapient is less likely.

From what I've learned and seen, bugs are basically the same as they were in my last life, they don't act more intelligent like the larger animals. I think for a few moments and eventually, my curiosity wins out, I move my magic into the weakly struggling Centipede, the life magic I use is far more than necessary.

I give it roughly five times its total life magic and watch closely to see what happens. For a moment it stills but after that it starts to squirm even harder, thrashing about as its body starts to rapidly heal. The broken legs seem to shift back into place on their own and the missing ones rapidly start to regrow.

The cracks in its exoskeleton seal and heal in the blink of an eye, barely a few seconds after I give it all that magic it sits completely healed and intact. I blink and take a few notes as the effect is far beyond what I expected it to be, sure the amount of healing magic was a little bit much for a Centipede but the effect is still amazing to watch.

I place the Centipede down on the ground and watch it quickly move away and try to crawl into the grass and escape me. It seems to be fine overall and acting normally, it's life magic seems more healthy than when I first caught it and it is definitely healed to a degree. I get an idea and pick the Centipede up again before moving one of the other smaller bugs I caught near the Centipede to test a theory.

I move them close and for a moment it seems like the Centipede is getting its bearings, but once it finds the smaller bug, a small Grasshopper, it immediately attacks. I raise a brow as I expected it to take more work than that, but the Centipede just digs in with its jaws and starts eating the Grasshopper after it kills it.

When I was healing myself a few weeks back I did experience a slight increase in my hunger, I assumed it was from my wound rapidly healing and my body needing more food to replace what it lost. I just had this bug regrow a lot of damage and the hunger is probably pretty extreme.

I'm not sure how much pain it felt or how hungry it got, but it's definitely something to keep in mind if I ever want to heal others from extreme injuries. I wonder if I could accidentally kill something through starvation? This method of healing is all based on my will so if I'm more focused on healing an injury than keeping them alive it might be possible, something to watch out for then.

I sit next to the floating Centipede as it devours its prey, I'll need to do a lot more tests to make sure I know what I'm doing if I ever need to heal somepony. Something positive of note is the fact that the Centipede grew back missing limbs, when comparing our to sizes it's not much of an accomplishment, but the possibility of regrowing missing limbs is highly interesting.

I take the Centipede with me and move over to the pavilion, I grow a box from the wooden floor and fill it with soil by growing wood inside and decomposing it. I place the Centipede inside, planning to keep it here for the time being so I can keep an eye on it and make sure there are no other side effects.

I drop the other bugs inside before growing over the top of the box with a very thin wood mesh so I can still see inside. It doesn't take long for the Centipede to start hunting the other bugs. It seems I have yet another thing to train with, back to the grind then.

I spend the next few hours working on notes in between practicing with my life magic and Spatial Strings. I heal wounds from the various insects I use as test subjects and train my Spatial Strings by forming them as far away as possible while limiting my senses to only a short distance.

Through several tests I can say nothing bad normally happens when something crosses the path of a formed Spatial String, they just pass through the space without any difficulty. And I’ve confirmed that this is because of my will and thoughts, I want nothing to come to harm when it passes through, so it isn't harmed.

I base this on the fact that when something moves through a Spatial String it causes me to need to use a small but noticeable amount of magic to make sure nothing happens when something crosses over a Spatial String. So naturally I tried to remove this restriction from my will and tested it again, keeping in mind the idea that I wanted to remove this protection while testing, the result was a few scattered bits of the insect coming out both ends of the Spatial String.

I think the compression of space caused it to be ripped apart and spat out both ends, so I am now always going to keep that earlier thought of nothing bad happening FIRMLY in mind, I do not want to blend something by accident. I am also able to form a pretty long Spatial String, my best so far has been over fifty feet long, but the cost is increasing from that point.

The larger it gets the more magic it takes to simply maintain and keep it stable, still moving a few dozen feet in a split second is a massive achievement. I was also able to make an interesting discovery, while forming one of the Spatial Strings I had another interesting idea.

I dumped more magic than the normal amount of space magic into the Spatial String but I didn't use that magic to expand it further, I just let the magic stay inside the formed Spatial Structure. When I let go of the Spatial String, letting it slip from my control completely, instead of immediately collapsing it persisted for nearly a full minute before collapsing in on itself, that did take a large amount of my magic though.

It does open the door to a few interesting possibilities though, I can keep any Spatial Structure stable without constraint attention as long as I provide extra magic for it to persist on its own. I don't have much of a use for it beyond Spatial Strings at the moment but it helps me understand my abilities more and will likely have other uses.

As I lay in the pavilion I spend my time slowly thinking of new tests and theories about my abilities. I know normal living beings have no problem moving through a formed Spatial string, but eventually I'll need to take the next logical step. I'll need to test it on myself and see if I can actually move through unharmed.

I'm not going to be doing it today though, I remember Celestia asking to be present when I do make any attempt at teleportation, and I don't need another reason for her to ground me. So for now I just make some notes on the theories I have and end the experiments for today.

After I'm done with my notes I pack everything I'll need away and whistle over to Entropy, she pops her head out from the golden leaves of the Vita Tree and flies right over to me. She lands on my back and wags her tail feathers, "Friends? Go?" She asks excitedly.

I nod and not even a second later we are back in my apartment, I chuckle at her excitement and put several things away before spending a little time copying information into a notebook. This notebook has the copy of the information I'm giving to Celestia about the Dragons. It should be done by the time we meet, the public copy is going to take more time as it needs more editing.

After I'm done I spend my time cooking, I'm hosting tonight so I'm also the one making the food. I bake several Spicy Roots and also make some pan-cooked fish, along with some pan-fried squash for anypony that doesn't enjoy having some meat in their diet.

Daisy sometimes likes eating meat and Maple seems fine with it, Stone and Blaz are against it though, and have no interest. By the time I have everything but the squash done, I hear a knock on my door, "It's open, come in." I shout a little and glance over at Entropy to make sure she has her illusion on, which she does.

A moment later the door opens and I see Maple walk in alone, the first to arrive. I smile at her and put down my cooking for a moment to walk over to greet her properly, "Maple, good to see you, I'm still cooking, sit where you like." I give her a happy greeting and move back to the kitchen so nothing burns.

She smiles a bit and nods silently while looking around, "Shade, enjoy your trip?" She asks in her normal blunt manner while immediately making herself at home. I've had them all over for many games nights before and this is nothing new for any of us. "Entropy." She adds after spotting Entropy on her perch.

I shrug a little and continue to cook with her to my back. "I did, it was an enlightening experience. although, Griffons can be a little blunt sometimes, kind of like you actually." I turn to look her over, "Are you sure you're not part Griffon?" I ask in a clearly joking manner.

She just gives me a deadpan stare while I turn back to the food and take it off of the stove to cool down. "In all seriousness, they do tend to be a little more blunt with things. I even ended up taking a few of their sayings back with me, so don't let me talk your ear off." I deliberately use one such saying to mess with her a little.

In response Maple cringes a tiny amount and turns to Entropy, giving her a very slightly pitying look. "I'm sorry you have to live with him." She says seriously and for a moment I stare at them both before chuckling. Maple smiles a bit again, "It's good to see you, Daisy and Blaz are too loud." She jokes about our other friends.

Not a moment later we both turn as another knock comes from the door. I open it with my magic to let them in while smirking at Maple, "Now look what you did, you summoned them with words alone. You have a true talent." I continue to joke with her a bit before turning to Blaz and Daisy as they walk in, "Come on in, I just finished cooking." I greet them both with some slight excitement.

Daisy just nods and places some cookies on the table for Maple and Entropy to enjoy while Blaz greets me with his normal self. "Hello Colt, enjoy your trip? You better have, I had nopony to joke about for weeks, it almost made work boring." He immediately starts to joke at my expense.

Like always I swing back with barely a beat of hesitation. "Really? You still haven't retired? Your poor body, a true shame to waste your golden days behind a desk." I come out swinging a little hard, but he just starts laughing after a moment of stunned silence and I am again taken a little off guard as one of my friends hugs me.

He only does it for a moment, but it is nice to see just how much they care about me, it is something I'm happy to see again. "Oh, I missed you, Colt!! Come on, let's play some games and forget every problem we have for today, or at least the next few hours." He says happily and walks over to the table to join the mares.

I nod but walk over to my workroom for a moment and retrieve two more gem carvings and a few of my sketches. I walk back over and place them down on the table, a whale carved from onyx for Maple, and a turtle carved from ruby for Blaz. I smirk at them, "Sorry I couldn't get you all anything more personal, to be fair I don't think a Dragon would carve something a Pony would like." I explain as they all look at the gifts.

Maple picks up the carving with a smile and nods in satisfaction." I like it, thanks." Ever the mare of few words she says nothing more on the matter and occupies her muzzle with more important matters, like eating more cookies while sharing with Entropy.

Blaz looks over the carved piece of ruby and nods slowly after a moment. "Right, Daisy did say that a Dragon carved these. I'm not sure I believe this was carved by a Dragon, but I like it regardless. A good gift as always, Colt. Thanks to you I now have something else I can weigh down my paperwork with." He smiles at the slight jab and places the gem back down close to him.

Daisy looks over the gems as well and I take a moment to enjoy the happy faces of my friends. "Well, I don't remember if any of you have been to Griffonstone, but let me tell you about it. There were some actually interesting things going on in the city." I comment in a more grounded tone as we all settle in and I pass a well-used deck of Uno cards to Daisy.

She starts to shuffle and hand out the cards so we can play while Entropy hops across the table to sit next to me. Blaz Chuckles and gives me a knowing look, "Interesting to you? Or us? Because the last time we talked about something interesting to you, you started blabbering about chess moves." He continues to mock me without any heat.

That earns him a giggle from Daisy and a smirk from Maple. I huff a bit but continue on anyway, "Well, Griffonstone seems to be prospering, when I was there it seemed like every other building was under construction. But I'm going to go out on a lim- Branch here and assume you want to hear the interesting things?" I catch myself from the mention of limbs, it might not be that bad here but I need to break this habit.

They do look interested and their silence is as good an answer as I need to continue. "Well too bad, I spent most of my time in Griffonstone and not much really happened. I did pass by Dragon Bridge though, it was an amazing sight." I think for a moment and bring over one of the sketches I made a few weeks ago.

They look it over with curiosity and I shrug. "It's not the best, pretty basic," I explained as the drawing turned out to be a little rough in the end, I was doing it from memory to be fair. "So beyond Daisy getting married, anything actually interesting happen while I was away?" I changed the subject as I don't have much to talk about.

Daisy smiles at me and nods. "Yup, me and Blaz found a new bar to drink at, the place is pretty nice." She thinks for a moment. "I'm taking a trip to where I grew up." I give her a slightly surprised look. "I had no idea where to go this year, I won't be gone that long though, at least not as long as you." I just nod and leave the topic alone, not wanting to dig up old memories any more than necessary.

Maple speaks up after a beat of silence. "I'm taking my two weeks off, I'm going to bake things." She says simply and none of us are really surprised at that, Maple has done that a few times now. "I am also joining a baking class to learn." She adds after a second.

I give her a knowing look. "I'll give you my cherry pie recipe then. It's easy enough and a good place to start." Maple's smile widens a notch and her eyes nearly sparkle in excitement while she nods in agreement. I turn to Blaz, "And what about you? Retirement home selection?" He snorts as he eats a cookie and coughs out a few laughs.

He gives me a glare without any heat. "No, in fact I've been thinking about dating, something you should do as well. Unless you already have a mare in mind?" He says in an oddly sultry voice. I ignore the slight blush I get from the outrageous tone he uses, I also ignore the giggles and laughs that erupt around the table from them all at my reaction.

I sit there, and despite my slight embarrassment, or maybe because of it? I enjoy myself, and the simple feelings of being home and back with those I know. :I missed this, and I missed them. I also missed her... Nope, ignoring that for now: I take a cookie to hide my embarrassment more by filling my muzzle.

It's at this point Entropy decides to join in. "Funny." That's all she needs to say to have them all descend into small laughing fits once again. I glare a little at Entropy as she looks back smugly. I sigh, " I raised you well, good job." I praise her regardless as she is being both smart and social. "Ok, enough joking at my expense, let's all lose to Maple instead. We have a futile score to maybe even out." I add some more humor and pick up my cards so we can finally start our game.

Maple just smiles at us all. "Bring it on." And so we once again start to descend into a night of games and poor jokes. :By magic, it's good to be home:

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D
Current year is 996

I wanted to delve more into healing and the fact that space magic is more based on will, both deliberate and subconscious. Something he'll need to keep in mind when working with both his space magic and life magic.

Have a good day.