High Sun 16th 3475 EE

It appeals to my sense of symmetry that this entry in my notebook is just after summer solstice, and the first Summer Sun Celebration ever, when the last was just after my sister's Winter Moon celebration. It was held in Canterlot, not my idea but the King's, though I made sure as many Maresians as possible could attend. The whole thing turned into a giant festival, I think there was some competition from the Canterlot ponies who'd been to my sister's celebration.

There is also another reason to celebrate, King Goldmane has taken a wife, Queen Fair Magic, a unicorn, but that's not unexpected. She's a fairly powerful spell-caster, and one of those who's talent is magic, rather like Luna was, though she has a white coat and blonde mane and tail.

She also happens to be from one of the noble families that have been an ally of Maresia, the Fife of Rohorn. Despite it's unicorn-centric name, it's always followed Maresia's lead in a more balanced approach to the treatment of non-unicorns.

With Canter, the King's own Fife, they form an important alliance, one that can only further our long term goals. Several other Fifes put forward a candidate, but none of them, especially the one from the Shires, Golden Torc, were anywhere near as pleasant. Rare as it is in this kind of marriage, I think they may actually be starting to love one another.

I'm going to be keeping a watch on More Gain, Golden Torc's mother. She's a pretty powerful unicorn herself, and was allied to Alfalfo's family, before it imploded so spectacularly. She was a long time opponent of my own mother, Marelin, and the way she was looking at Fair Magic during the wedding ceremony, well if looks could kill, King Goldmane would be a widower.

On our own researches, we haven't had as much time as we hoped. We've done some of the groundwork, but there's a lot more that needs doing before we can even start to design, let alone build any actual artifacts. Part of the problem is my earlier promise to myself not to become an absentee landlord. Even with the Mayors and Citizens councils to handle the day to day work, there are still problems only Luna and I can answer.

Add to that the time we have to spend in court politicking and maintaining our influence, and we're not left with very much time at all. Part of the problem is the need for secrecy. It was word of our experiments leaking out that ultimately caused the first disaster, so we've confined our work to Maresia Keep. It's unlikely anyone else will bother us there, the plants in that area seem to have adapted to the high background magic level and started growing at a furious rate.

It won't be long before we have a veritable forest surrounding the castle, in fact we had to widen and deepen the outer defensive ditch into a chasm and clear away the plants around the castle to stop it being over-run. And some of the plants, and even animals are fascinating. I've seen multiple headed lizards, a winged wildcat with a stinger tail, and other even stranger things on my flights around the boundaries.

Note to self: Record some sort of bestiary of these new species. I don't think they could live outside the high magic zone, but they might roam as far as the edge. Some of the plants might have useful properties too, but I don't know where I'll find the time to test them.

About all we've established so far is that my initial ideas are feasible, and that we should be able to design something along the lines of what I postulated. Luna is frustrated with the lack of progress, which is odd, as you'd expect me to be the one to be in a hurry. But what we've done so far is more working out the ideas rather than applying them, more my sort of work than hers.

I've told her we'll get there, and that it will be her skill that will convert these ideas into practical artifacts. For that matter, she's going to have to be the one to act as the central unicorn in the matrix when we get around to doing practical tests. She's more attuned with magic than me, a leftover from her unicorn heritage.

At least I've finally had time to revise and re-revise my Law Codex. I intend to start introducing it over the next year, and that will hopefully take one of the duties off our horns, giving us more time for our other tasks, as well as giving a better quality of justice to every-pony in Maresia. I'm already on the look-out for likely ponies to understand and help enforce these laws.

Commander Horse is likely to be one of them. He's back from training the Royal Guard, and one of the difficulties with having so thoroughly taken care of our problems is that there's very little for the guard to do. I think he will be up for a new challenge. He really is amazing. While he was in Canterlot he wasn't just training the guards, he was also learning.

He had the money to hire tutors, and now I defy you to tell him from any noble-pony, except for the lack of a horn. He's learned etiquette, oratory, music and history, all the things a noble should know. Of course, the fact that he's still one of the deadliest warriors in the kingdom has prevented there being anything more than a few quiet harrumphs from some horn-stuck-in-the-mud idiots.

I've spent time walking through the Royal gardens with him on my own visits to Canterlot, and he is as engaging and lively a companion as I have ever met. Of course, there's also his aforementioned impressive wingspan...

I'd better close this up, I hear Luna coming. If see sees me mooning around over Horse, she's going to tease me mercilessly. She doesn't accept that I'm just spending time with him because he's a very good person to spend time with, and no other reason... sorry about the scorch marks, I don't know why my aura ignited like that. Anyway, mooning around is Luna's job, not mine.