AUG 21 Thursday.

My thoughts keep running wild trying to think of any answer that is more likely than the one I found, but after a few minutes I have to face the fact that my current situation is not the best, but I realize that my mind is just going in circles and thinking of things that aren't important right now, so I get my mind in order and find a place to start.

First question, what is the likelihood of that changeling being here for me? I'm not completely sure but I don't think they are here for me.

I have a few reasons for this, first while someponies know about what I do for Celestia I don't think they have infiltrated the empire enough to get a hold of anything with my name on it, and even if they did they would probably just see that all I do is make things for the princess.

And if they did know about me they wouldn't really have a reason to find me, I don't think they'd blow their cover just to get a hold of me, as while I make things for the princess but so do many others, and the only thing that makes me stand out from them in what I do is my success and speed.

And unless I really fucked up the timeline I don't think they would need me to make something for them, so if they weren't here for me why would they be here? Well they could be here to gather love as this is a very large party with many couples and families having fun.

They could also be here to just spy on the princess and other important ponies, and to do either of these you need to blend in and not draw attention so talking to other ponies and trying to find the right type of food is a good excuse to wander around the Gala, either way I don't think I drew too much attention to myself.

Maybe some from how bluntly I answered her questions but someponies, those like me, just want to be left alone so I think I did fine, but now comes the big question, what do I do now? Well nothing, I came here to relax and have some good food, so my best move is to do just that until I can leave quietly.

The only problem is talking to Celestia as I don't think I can stop the princess from talking to me, I'll just have to do my best to not act out of the ordinary and remember to not say anything that could be overheard by others, Celestia will probably be able to tell something is wrong but I can't do much about that.

As I'm thinking over my plans of what I could do I'm interrupted by ponies around me turning their heads to my left and up slightly, I don't even need to turn my head to know it's Celestia that they are looking at, :I guess this is happening sooner than I thought it would:

It isn't all bad though as Celestia is known to talk to many ponies while at the Gala, many of those ponies are also not important ponies, from what I've seen she seems to take great joy in having a night to talk to her little ponies without needing to bring them to the palace or inviting them to a meeting.

Not that I blame her, this is probably one of the few days she gets to do that, but all this does work in my favor as while some will find it odd that she's talking to me most will just brush it off as her finding a conversation that interested her, at least that's my hope.

A pony not far from me down the table gets up and bows, :it seems I'm out of time to think: I turn my head and try to act a little surprised and do the same as the ponies around me, Celestia walks nearby and stops at the table I'm at, but to my luck she starts talking to a different pony first.

I'm not sure if she noticed something was wrong with me or she just wanted to talk to this pony but either way it makes her talking to me even less noteworthy, after a few moments everypony at the table including myself goes back to eating their food.

And after several minutes Celestia finally moves over to me and sits down, "Hello Shade it's nice to see you again, I hope you are enjoying the Gala so far."

"Same to you princess, and yes I am," from the look in her eyes she definitely knows something is up with me.

"Good, how have you been since we last talked?" but she doesn't bring up my discomfort and just continues talking to me.

"I've been well, how have you been?" I ask back more as a courtesy than anything, as she is the princess and if she wasn't well I'd have much bigger problems.

She smiles at me, "I've been just fine, so what have you been working on recently?"

:Ahh fuck, really? you could have asked any question and you ask that?: I keep my thoughts to myself and answer her, "A few things here and there but nothing that is done, right now I'm mostly just learning and training," Hopefully anypony listening in will think I'm talking about a school project, or that I'm something like a craftspony.

"Good to hear that you're still learning new things," she takes a moment to grab a plate and several slices of cake.

I decide to try and change the subject even if I'll probably fail, "Has the quill worked well? I didn't have time to make sure it would work correctly for a long time."

She gives a slight nod while eating before swallowing her food and answering, "Yes it works just fine, I must say again it's a very nice gift, and has made doing paperwork a little easier."

"Good to hear," I buy myself some time by eating a bite of my cake, :god this whole conversation is stressing me out: .

"You said you're also training?" : well there goes my plan, for the love of magic please stop talking about me, you're over one thousand years old you must have something more interesting to talk about: .

I decide to just tell the truth on this as I don't think it would reveal anything I wouldn't want her or others to know, "I've mostly spent my time trying to improve my runic casting right now," I half lie as while I am training that it's not the only thing I'm training right now.

"Really? How much progress have you made so far?"

"Some, I can form about a one-foot-long line of magic in the air, and progress is slow, but things like this always take time so I expect I'll be working on it for a long while yet."

She nods as she puts down her now empty plate, :I know she likes cake but that seems like a bit much: "That's good to hear, most don't even bother trying to advance to the next step, but that's not important right now, this may sound a little personal but I wanted to ask if you are doing ok living on your own?"

:Ahh there it is: I definitely shouldn't lie here, "I will be honest and say yes and no, there are some days that it can get lonely but I don't mind the quiet, and I do have a few friends, and colleagues to talk to, and a pet," I will have to mention Entropy to Celestia at some point and if I do it now instead of trying to hide her it will raise fewer questions in the long run.

"A pet? I myself have a pet, she's been a companion for a long time now, what type of pet did you get?"

"Yes I heard you have a pet Phoenix, I have a crow and she's a hoof full."

"A crow? I expected something else to be honest but now that I'm thinking about it that fits you rather well, a smart bird for a smart pony, and a hoof full is probably the best way I can describe Philomena, I swear she has a way to distract me at either the best or worst of times."

She says all this in both a joking and very much blunt manner, and I just have to laugh at the way she describes Philomena, "Ya mine's the same, this morning she decided I wasn't paying enough attention to her and dropped a woodball on my head while I was reading."

That gets a laugh out of her and a small smile out of me, Celestia may be a little intimidating but once you get past her size and all of that she has a way to make you just relax and talk, "What's her name?" I stopped at this, originally I didn't want to spread her name around too much.

The only ponies that know it are Maple, Blaze, and Daisy, I didn't want to tell her because of the mirror as she might have enough knowledge about that world to know what the word means, but even if she does it's unlikely she'll think I know what the word actually means.

So after a second I answer, "It's Entropy."

Her face shifts to confusion, :FUCK!: I look at her face and I don't think her surprise is faked, although it would be hard to tell given the experiences she has in that area, "Entropy," She says the word out loud, "An odd word to use as a name, where did you come across it?"

It's my turn to look confused, "I wasn't aware it was a word, I just picked it because it sounded nice to me," I tell another half-lie.

She nods, "To be honest with you I barely remembered it was a word either, from what I remember it's a very old dragon word for death," :wait what? WHAT!!?:

Crushing my panic I ask a question after a moment, "I wasn't aware the dragons had a language."

She nods, "Most don't, I myself am not sure about the reasons but at some point they stopped using it and started using the pony language, I'm also not sure why they started using our language, but back to the point a few document and text still have bits and pieces of their old language, I myself only know a few words that I could find translations for."

That was far too much information to just have dumped on me all at once, but before I could ask any questions she looks around and stood up, "It's been a pleasure as always Shade, but I would like to talk to more of my little ponies tonight ends, I hope you don't mind me cutting this short?"

:HELL YES I MIND, you're just going to drop that on me and leave?: "Not at all princess, have a good night and I hope you enjoy the rest of the Gala."

She gives me another smile, "I plan to, and have a good night Shade," with that she is followed by an attendant as she walks away and starts talking to other ponies, I take a few minutes for her to walk away from me before getting up and moving towards the exit and leaving the Gala.

As I walk home in the dark I let my mind wander to the conversation I just had, first dragons have a language? Where the fuck was that in the show, then again griffins also didn't have a language and this isn't a show but a real world, and at this point I know that things are different here.

But I didn't think it would be this different, she said that the dragons stopped using their language, so why would you just stop using an entire language? She also said they started using the pony language, when? God this whole night has been a complete mess.

First I get far too close to a changeling for comfort, and now I'm dealing with learning this shit, I shake my head and try to organize my thoughts as I enter my apartment, and Entropy like always is there to greet me with demands for food and scratches, "Berry."

"Nice to see you too girl," I get her some food and make some tea to help me calm down, well tonight was interesting if nothing else, my only real regret was not getting any answers, actually I did get one, I take off my bracelet and turn it off, I know this works on changelings now.

I'm not sure how this will help me but I have it now, I take off my suit and toss it to the side happy to not have it constricting me anymore, "You know what? fuck tonight I'm going to bed," and I do just that deciding to deal with all this later.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading.