OCT 31 Friday.

It's been just under a month and a few things of note have happened in that time. My second meeting with Celestia and also her showing Entropy a room she can deliver letters to. It was a small blank room with only a single table in it, but that worked just fine for us.

On the same day I also told her the fake name she could use for me, Veil Winter. It's got nothing to do with my name and should throw off any attempts to find me.

Beyond that over the past month, I have been using almost all of my free time to finish the cleansing spell, and that paid off when I finished it two weeks early. However I didn't send it to Celestia yet as I wanted to improve and polish the spell to the best of my ability before giving it to her.

I did this both because it's at least somewhat important to her, and because I wanted my first healing spell to be fully complete and triple-checked for any mistakes. And yesterday at our last meeting I was able to give it to her, but it wasn't as much of a celebration as you'd think.

Celestia had a somewhat gloomy mood the whole time, she was definitely happy with the spell being done but I could tell she wasn't in a good mood. Why? Well we met yesterday and today is Nightmare Night, and I'd imagine that this day isn't much of a holiday for her.

I am glad she got some good news before today, I hope that helps her in some way. But enough of the sad talk, beyond that everything else is progressing nicely. Caelum thinks I should be done learning from her in a few weeks or a month at the most, and that time is just to make sure I remember everything I've learned.

It's not an emotional goodbye for me, unlike Stone or Blaz I never developed much of a relationship with Caelum. The most I could say is she's a good teacher that I liked to learn from and would do so again. Moving onto Stone things have been going well, if you can call me getting my flank kicked well.

Apparently I've learned enough about daggers to have a basic amount of skill, so now we've started working on the greatsword. And just like the dagger I get my flank kicked back and forth until I learn something. I also asked him what we'll do when I'm done learning the basics of the greatsword.

And he doesn't really know, I remember him telling me he doesn't know how to fight with both a dagger and a greatsword. So his plan seems to just be to have me fight him while he uses various weapons and I use a dagger and greatsword until I learn my own combat style.

I'm not sure if that will work but other combat styles had to start somewhere so I'll give it a try, I'll probably also see if I can find any books that could help, but considering how peaceful this world is I won't get my hopes up.

Next is my work with Ruby Rose, and It's been going just fine, I should be fluent enough in written Griffin by the time the new year starts to take over for her. I've also gotten to know Ruby a bit better, but much like Caelum I don't think we'll ever be more than teacher and student.

As for me right now? I'm at home right now cooking some breakfast to start my day. I'm not planning on going out as many will be walking around and I also rather not walk around in the cold and busy streets. I also have some things I want to work on today, so after eating my food while Entropy uses her bath I head to my workroom.

I don't have a main project to work on so I'll be doing some experimentation today, specifically with plants. A while ago I was grinding down more Moon Glow to see how long the powder would last before its magical effects fade. But while growing a Moon Glow I saw it have an unintended effect.

I've been selectively breeding the brighter strain of Moon Glow while harvesting the petals trying to make it brighter, but one of them developed a small mutation. The effect that makes its petals spread into all its leaves, I'm not sure how this happened but I got lucky finding it as the glow was so soft I almost missed it.

Its glow is so soft it almost looks like it's just light reflecting off the leaves, but after picking a leaf and putting it in the dark it definitely glows. I sit at my desk with two pots filled with soil and some Moon Glow Seeds, these seeds are from the Moon Glow that mutated.

I plant a seed in both pots and grow them, I start breeding them again and again while picking out those that glowed the most. I want to see how far I can push this mutation and how much I can make the plant glow. I don't really have a reason for doing this beyond my curiosity.

The Moon Glow doesn't take much magic to grow as it's a small flower, this lets me go through many generations before running out of magic. And after forty-seven generations I'm almost out of magic and go to make some fresh tea, and some lunch.

I leave my workroom and see Entropy sleeping on her perch, she doesn't sleep anywhere else anymore and I'm happy she likes it. I get to work making some tea and food while reading up on some healing magic. I've made much progress in healing magic but I'll still need to study much more if I want to make better healing spells.

Entropy wakes up a while after I start cooking, I pass her a bowl of food I made her. We both eat in silence like most days as the snow falls heavily outside. After I'm done eating I go back to breeding plants, it's a slow process but over time I see the small changes accumulate.

I stopped to drink more tea, but it's gone cold. I think on that for a second, let's fix that. I decided to take a break from plant breeding and start modifying the heating spell. It's a very simple spell so after an hour I'm done, I enchant my metal teapot and activate it.

The spell is very weak but it should keep my tea nice and warm for as long as I like. I continue my plant breeding, by the time I'm done it's a little brighter than when I started. It will take me much more time to get the leaves to glow like the flower but it should be possible with enough time.

I still have a lot of the day left but not much to really do, I walk back into the main room and sit facing the window. The snowfall is even worse now, I watch as flakes of snow fall in uncountable numbers past my window. I find my sketchbook and start drawing the view.

I draw the outlines of different builds that I can just make out through the snowfall. I take my time with it and try to add as much detail as I can. It's a slow process taking me two hours to get right, but it comes out to be one of my better drawings. I sit there for a moment trying to think of what to do next.

I could start thinking of gifts? Hearth's Warming is in a few weeks and I'll need gifts for a few ponies. Daisy always likes new paints, and Blaz always likes puzzles, as for Maple I know she likes anything involving pie and a few other sweets. I start scratching away at some paper thinking of different things I could give them.

I can buy some small things for them next week, but I also need to buy some necessities. After finishing my list I stand up and stretch and start practicing my runic casting. At this point I can form a four-foot-long line of magic without using my hooves,

I've made good progress but still far from forming a spell matrix. I'll need around eight to ten feet just to form a basic spell, and I'll also still need to form the matrix with that line and memorize it before I can cast it instantly. I continue my practice as the sky grows darker.

time skip

NOV 1 Saturday.

I keep my cloak close as I make my way through the snowfall. After a while, I enter the library and make my way to the right room. I enter and take off my cloak while moving to my work desk, "Find your way through the snow?" I look over to Ruby as she asks me that.

"Just fine, but I'm wondering what the weather teams feel like right now? Probably cold." She just nods before going back to work, and I do the same sitting down and getting to work. All this snowfall is from a rogue storm that got out of control, and from what I hear the weather teams are having a hard time with it.

Rogue weather is the term given to any weather not made or controlled by ponies, basically it's what a human would call normal weather. But there's nothing to be worried about as all that this storm brought is higher snowfall than normal and some stronger winds.

It can make it hard to move through the streets though, but the weather teams made an announcement and this storm should be lessened by tomorrow and gone in two or three days. I focus on my work as the hours tick by, I stop when it's lunchtime and make my way to the breakroom.

I sit down with Blaz, Daisy, and Maple like always. But I pause as I see Maple, she seems tired, like really tired. She looks the same as normal but her movements are slow and she's sluggish to react, "Did you not get enough sleep last night Maple?"

She turns to me and blinks slowly, "I'm fine, just tired." She says this while sounding a little out of it.

I raise a brow at the way she answered me, she must really be tired to not even be able to form a half-decent response. I've known Maple for almost a year now, and I know she's not a morning pony. And this isn't the first time I've seen her tired, but this is more than normal.

I just give her a nod, "If you say so, but tell me if you need help with something ok?"

She gives me another slow blink, "Sure." I'm not sure if she really understood me but I got an answer. I turn to Daisy and look at her while gesturing with my head to Maple and giving her a questioning look. She just shrugs and shares my look of confusion.

Maybe I'm worrying over Maple too much? She is an adult and is probably just dealing with something. So I'll do what a friend should offer help and wait until she either accepts, or until she needs help so badly that I do it without asking.

But for now, I'll just hope she's ok and wait until she needs my help. It sucks, but like I said she's an adult and as a friend, I'll have faith she can take care of herself. After talking with Blaz and Daisy for the rest of lunch I make my way back to work. A few hours later I'm free and start making my way out of the library.

As I do so I also see Maple leave the library. Why the hell would she be leaving in this weather? Food? Maybe something she needs? My curiosity is killing me, but this isn't some pony I don't know, this is my friend and I shouldn't dig into her business.

So I let it go and made my way home in the falling snow. Maybe I should invite her to do something, get her mind off of work for a bit, and talk to her?

Author's Note

I was thinking of just using the suggested names as inspiration, but there where just so many good ones. And I couldn't decide, so I decided to just mash two of them together, and I think it came out decent.

Thanks to everyone who suggested something, I may use the other names for oc characters later on.

Thanks for reading as always. :D