It's Friday, Jun 21 today and it's the summer sun celebration and Canterlot is busy with all different kinds of ponies moving about for the festivities, and I've been given the day off as the library will be closed today, and Celestia is going to be giving a speech like she does most years and like most years before this one I'm not going.

Mostly because It's just not my thing I don't mind going to a party but something like this is a little too big for me, that doesn't mean I'm going to be doing nothing though I have a few plans of my own, I'm going to be shipping a package to a certain pony.

To explain we have to back up a bit, during the past few weeks after meeting Shining and Twilight I've been thinking about how much I should change about the timeline, at first I didn't want to interact with any of the main characters, and I still don't but I've realized that if I don't know any of them then it will be hard to help when canon starts.

But if I can get to know some of them before canon at a minimum, I can offer help or be asked to help, the problem being how to do this without getting too much attention on me, I want them to know I exist not to become a part of the main cast, I'm basically trying to become a background character, someone who can help but does things unseen most of the time.

So, I'm taking advantage of the summer sun celebration as many ponies send gifts to Celestia on this day and I'll be doing the same, my plan is to send a lot of my new tea to her, this may not sound like much but after learning about the blood leaf tea's magical effects I kept researching the plant, I learned that the plant is much rarer than I thought as the only way to harvest it is to wander the forests and mountains looking for it and while it's not hard to spot it's not common to find.

I also went looking for it in the markets to see that it was priced at four hundred bits for an ounce, that may seem ridiculous as you'd think at least one other pony has a life affinity to sell this stuff, but after some thought I realized that the process to unlock an affinity isn't easy.

As I learned in the past to unlock your affinity you need a lot of magic, but you also need a lot more money even me with a decent-paying job where I don't have to pay for food or rent it took just under a month to collect the money necessary the only reason, I got such a good crystal for so cheap was blind luck.

That and as I've learned the reason plant magic is so underutilized is how complex the spells are and just how rare the life affinity is, combine this with the expense of a decent crystal and having to enchant it along with the possibility of the enchantment failing and the crystal being rendered useless, along with the time and knowledge needed to use an affinity means most never find out what affinity they have and even less try unlocking and using them as It's much easier to just use normal spells.

This means that the only way to get blood leaf tea is by harvesting it from the wild, a dangerous job even in my old life and my past world didn't have magical monsters roaming the wilds, and I haven't even mentioned the last piece to this puzzle, the magical effect of the tea doesn't give you magic but specifically increases one ability to regenerate their magic so while the effect doesn't do much for your average pony as they haven't trained to regenerate their magic, but for ponies that have the effect it is much more noticeable in some cases taking hours off recovery times.

All this accumulates into its absurd price now as for why this is important is because I might be the only pony in Equestria that can produce as much as I like only requiring time as it takes longer to dry the tea than grow them, now I don't want to start selling the stuff as that would immediately put me in the public spotlight, but I can send a twenty-pound package of the tea to her, as for the reason I think she'll need it is that even if she wanted to drink it every day she couldn't because even though she definitely has the money to pay for it there's just not enough to go around, plus, the magical effect is still coming from the herb itself so for somepony of Celestia's size she'd need much more to achieve the same results.

So, with all this in mind I walk with a box filled with twenty pounds of tea stored in a few wooden boxes I bought yesterday bringing it to the post office, one of the few businesses open today, as I enter the post office is busy and it takes half an hour to get to the front of the line.

"Hello sir, what can I help you with?" the brown-colored unicorn stallion at the counter asks me.

"I'd like you to deliver this to the princess, I presume that you can do that right?"

He nods "Yup I will need your name,” he passes me a small piece of paper and a quill and an ink well, “and I need to know if it's fragile?"

"No, it just can't get wet."

"Ok it will be five bits please" I give him five bits and I write my name on a small piece of paper he gives me, as he takes my package behind the counter, I move out of line for the other ponies waiting before leaving the post office as I start walking home.

After reaching home I start cooking a small meal for myself, frying some salmon I bought and slicing some bread along with lettuce and mustard making myself a fish sandwich after I sit down at my desk and start reading a silly crime novel I found while eating my sandwich.

After finishing my dinner and washing my plate I sat on my bed and started reading about healing magic, after learning how difficult it is to learn healing magic, I decided to learn it anyway as in the future I would like to make healing spells, mostly basic ones.

It will take me a few years to learn what I need to know before I can even start trying to make a healing spell, but I have time so why not, another thing I've been trying to unlock is my space affinity, the only real progress I've made is when I try meditating, I can somewhat feel the empty space around me although it takes all my concentration to feel anything and even then it's a faint feeling, but it is getting easier with time although like healing magic this might be unusable for a few years.

I have made some progress with plant magic mostly in the efficiency of my magic conversion, I now lose less magic when growing plants, it's not much less, only a few percent but with time that will grow, no pun intended, as I stay awake throughout the night waiting for dawn I read and draw.

After several hours I check the time, five forty-six dawn break will be at six so I put down my book and make myself some tea before sitting in front of my window and waiting for dawn break, I sip my tea as the sun starts to rise and the moon falls.

I raise my cup to toast, to another year in this world, :Well I hope the princess liked my gift: after enjoying the sunrise for a moment I move to my bed more than ready for sleep.

pov shift to Celestia

After raising the sun, I move to the throne room and take my seat preparing for day court, before one of my little ponies comes up to me Clover Field my assistant after giving a short bow she speaks.

"Good morning your majesty."

"Same to you Clover."

She gives a quick nod and floats a clipboard and a package next to her :That's odd, most gifts I get are sorted and checked for danger before I get them:, I do love how much they care I just wish they would worry about me less.

"Clover is that one of the gifts I got, I thought we would only be opening them later after day court, which starts in half an hour?" I asked my assistant.

"You are right, your majesty but after we found out what this package contained, we thought it best to get it to you as fast as possible," This caused me to grow concerned.

"Is it something dangerous?"

"No, it's just the value of the package that's a concern," This answer makes me confused.

"Well don't keep me in suspense,"

"Well at first the guards didn't know if it was real but after getting an expert to inspect it, who confirmed that it's all real," She moves the package to me, the outside being basic cardboard with the top loose, as I open the box, I see several simple wooden boxes and a note laying on top of them, I picked up the small note while reading it.

May this serve you well princess signed Shade Evergreen that was all nothing else just some nice words and a name, I move the note to the side and grab one of the boxes before opening it, I have to struggle to keep my face neutral as the box is filled to the rim with a tea I recognize well having enjoyed it greatly in the past on the rare few occasions I've had it, blood leaf tea.

I turn back to Clover "How much is in these boxes?"

"All the boxes combined have roughly twenty pounds in total."

This time I can't keep my shock off my face :TWENTY POUNDS!! The herb sells for hundreds of bits per ounce: .

"How?"

"We don't know your majesty, all we found out was the sender's name, one Shade Evergreen, and where they sent it from one of the post offices in Canterlot"

"Hmm, that's not a name I recognize."

"I'm having some ponies looking into it but that could take a few days."

"That's fine I do wonder how they got so much though?" I take a moment to cast a spell seeing the time, day court starts in a few minutes.

"Well please keep me informed on what you find." I take some tea out of the box and summon a small jar to put it in before moving the box to a safe place. "And please have some tea made for me," I ask Clover as I pass her the jar.

"Yes, your majesty." She then walks away to deliver the tea leaves as I prepare for day court, after a few minutes ponies start filling the throne room along with Clover holding a silver tray with my tea set on it, I take a moment to sip some, tasting the light lemon undertones and the feeling of my magic refilling, :Shade Evergreen I wonder, who are you?:

Author's Note

[ if you've read this far thank you :D ]