It's been a few days since the summer sun celebration, and I received a letter today that has the royal seal on it, it seems I've gotten Celestia's attention, and after popping the seal open and opening the letter I started to read it.

Dear Shade Evergreen, first I'd like to thank you for your lovely gift, I rarely get to enjoy this type of tea and that's a shame as It's one of my favorites, I'm writing this letter to invite you to the palace gardens for tea on Jun 30 at three in the afternoon, I hope to see you there, show the guards this letter and they will let you into the palace grounds. Signed princess Celestia.

In all honesty I should have been expecting something like this, Celestia seems like the kind of pony that likes meeting somepony in person, so here I am standing in front of the palace at two forty in the afternoon on a Sunday ironically enough, she must really want this meeting as she even got the library to give me the day off work.

As I approach the gates one of the guards stops me "State your business?" they demand.

"I'm here for a meeting with the princess and I have an invitation," I say while holding out my letter, the guard takes the letter from me and starts reading it, and after a moment they wave another guard over "he's here for a meeting with the princess, escort him to the gardens" the other guard nods.

"Please follow me sir," I nod and we start making our way through the palace heading towards the gardens, after a few minutes we make it to the gardens just on time for my tea party, as we approach the gardens a complex web of hedge walls separating small gardens and sitting areas with benches and fountains, we move through the maze-like gardens, the guard taking several turns and at one point I'm pretty sure walking us in a circle before we finally arrive.

As we pass through an archway covered with flowering vines, we enter a small walled-off area with several guards standing along the sides, and in the center lying down in front of a table is Celestia herself, after we approach the table me and the guard bow to her "your guest has arrived princess."

"Thank you, you can leave us" The guard nods and leaves us alone standing with the other guards around us., Celestia now staring at me with a soft smile on her face, "Hello Mr. Evergreen, it's nice to meet you, thank you for coming."

"And thank you for inviting me princess" I say trying to keep my voice steady and not let my nervousness show as she gestures for me to sit.

"Before we start, I'd like to thank you for the gift," She takes a sip of tea from her cup "It's not often I can drink it and as I said in my letter to you it's one of my favorites."

"No problem princess to be honest the reason I sent it to you is because I thought you'd get more use out of it than me I can only drink so much after all," I pause for a moment as she moves a cup of tea over to me and I take a sip of the blood red tea, "Although I'm guessing that you're curious about where it's from?"

She takes a moment to drink the last of the tea in her cup before answering my question, "Straight to the point then? Yes, that was the main reason I asked you to meet me," I lift my cup to take a sip, "and I'd also like to hear the story behind that, if that's ok with you."

She seems to have noticed my TK field "Well for the first thing it might be best to show you, if that's alright with you princess?"

She nods "That's fine."

After she agrees I take a small bag of seeds and a small pot of dirt out from my saddle bags and place them on the table in clear view, Celestia raising an eyebrow at my choice of items and also not having used my hooves to take them from my bag, "So that's what your doing I must say I don't think anypony I've met has ever really tried to use their magic like that."

I pause at this "Really I'd think you'd have met at least one other pony that thought of the idea?"

She lets out a soft chuckle "Yes you'd think so, but to my knowledge I haven't, Do you mind telling me how you accomplished it?"

Hearing her question, I stopped setting up my demonstration to answer, "Well, when I was young around six or seven, I think, I saw one of the other ponies my age, a unicorn holding something with their magic, and a thought came to mind, I don't even really remember why I had the idea in the first place, but I thought that if a unicorn could lift something with magic and I had magic to pick things up why couldn't I do the same and float them too, so after that I'd spend hours practicing trying all kinds of things and after a few months I succeeded," I stop to drink some tea to wet my drying throat.

"I presume you couldn't lift much at the start?" She asks as I drink my tea.

"You'd be right princess, at first I could only lift pebbles and twigs a few inches away from me, but with time and practice my weight capacity and range increased."

Celestia now had a much more pronounced smile on her face, "It's rare to find a pony that experiments with their magic, most don't seem to have the motivation, what's the most you can hold now? if you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all princesses right now I can hold around three hundred pounds at ten feet, although after that how much I can carry decreases the further away it is, and I've found that recently its growth has leveled out."

"That's very impressive for a pony your age, most unicorns can only lift one hundred or so when they are adults."

"Thank you, princess, I also brought my notes on what I remember and what I have found out through the years," I say, bringing a neat stack of papers out of my bag and passing them to her.

The smile she's had throughout this conversation grows bigger showing a bit of her teeth, "Thank you" she says looking through some of the notes, and after a few moments she stops and looks back to me, "This is well made and very nicely done, do you mind if I give this to my researchers to study?"

"Not at all princesses there are yours to do what you want with" She nods before motioning a guard over and giving him my notes.

"You can continue" I nod and take one of the seeds I brought with me before pushing it into the soil, after I cover the seed with dirt, I place a hoof on the side of the pot and close my eyes to concentrate, reaching out with my magic I start growing the plant, its red sprout pierces the soil slowly reaching higher as small red leaf's grow and branches split as the plant continues to grow.

As the plant increases in size it starts to expand outwards and rounds out forming a small red bush in the pot, I open my eyes to look at Celestia's reaction and I've never seen her with a bigger smile before, and that includes in the show, after a moment of staring at the newly created plant she speaks excitement clear in her voice.

"It's been a very long time since I've had the pleasure of seeing somepony use life magic, it's a rare thing to witness even for me, you've been making the tea yourself then, where did you get a blood leaf tea bush from? Most that are found are picked clean or protected from poaching."

"A flower shop," I answered deadpan.

"Truly?" she asked with a humorous expression on her face.

"Yes, I originally went to buy some flowers to train my life magic and ended up buying a small bush of it from the owner, she didn't even know what it was, I was curious and she sold it to me with two other flowers for ten bits, and after a few days of searching, I found out what the plant was and did."

"You bought one of the most valuable herbs in Equestria for ten bits at a flower shop" her voice filled with mild disbelief, after a moment of silence, she asks a new question, "How did you unlock your affinity? The spell isn't something most can cast."

"I used a gem and enchanted it to hold a reserve of magic."

She nods "Many do the same, I presume you practice runic magic then?"

"Yes, it's actually how I gained my cutie mark."

"Good I find most don't use that branch of magic sadly, I must say for one so young you've learned much, I am curious what other affinities do you have? Or was life the only one?"

I took a moment thinking if I should answer or not but after some thought I decided that it's probably a bad idea to lie to the princess, for all I know she might be able to tell if I'm lying, "I do have one other affinity, the problem being that there's not much I can use it for as I don't even know how to unlock it let alone use it," But to answer your question princess I have the space affinity."

All at once I see her face shift through expressions first shock then joy and finally understanding mixed with sadness, "I see, That's an affinity that I haven't seen in a very long time, I will be honest with you, I don't really know if you can use that affinity even, I only know a few space spells myself and the only other pony I've ever met that had that affinity was never able to do anything with it."

I take a moment trying to look somewhat disappointed, it wasn't too hard as I was at least hoping she might know something to help me use my space affinity, but that just means that I'll have to do it on my own as best I can.

"That's fine princess I still have the life affinity after all and that's proving useful enough."

After my words, she regains her smile, "It's good to have some optimism, I feel most tend to get caught up in what they don't have instead of what they still have," There're a few seconds of silence, "Moving on, what are your plans for the future?"

"Most likely? The same as it's always been apprenticing at the library continuing to learn magic to research and experiment with."

"Really? That's all? I would think you'd want to become a researcher, the notes you gave me alone are probably enough to secure you a job and some notoriety with others."

"Well to be honest I'm not the kind of pony that likes attention, and while my current apprenticeship isn't glamorous, I enjoy it, and to be blunt I just don't like the idea of fame, I much prefer my quiet life as it is, that's also the reason I never sold any tea."

Hearing my answer, her smile fully recovers, "Well, sadly we're almost out of time and I have duties to attend to soon, but if you don't mind, I'd like to ask a favor from you?"

"Sure, princess what do you need?"

"Would you like to send letters back and forth?" She lets out a small laugh at my surprised face, "I enjoyed our talk and hope to do so more in the future if that's alright with you?"

"It'd be an honor princess."

"Thank you., and have a good day Mr. Shade," she stands up picking up my plant "A guard will show you out" A guard moves to stand not far away from me.

I nod "Thank you as well princess and same to you," once again following a guard through the gardens and palace before we return to the gate, as I walk home I think about the conversation I just had.

Well, that wasn't so bad if nothing else she's nice, it's kind of odd now that I think about it, I'm going to have to go back to work tomorrow like this didn't happen, as I reached my room and took a shower, I couldn't help thinking I forgot something.

After eating dinner, I prepare for bed before a thought strikes me :she stole my plant!!!:.

Author's Note

Thank for reading