Business as usual today. A faint arid breeze, a slightly cloudy sky.
And of course, around twenty changelings living with you.
Truly, what was she supposed to do to get a little bit of privacy around here? It used to be fairly easy, just go to a corner and all you'd have to do was stay out of sight of old man Rucks, and you could do almost what you pleased. But now? It was incredibly difficult having to avoid them on the surface, and avoiding them while going down narrow hallways was impossible. Once she even found one of the curious bugs in her room, trying to figure out the workings behind her harp guitar. Said bug was later enlightened on the use of an instrument as a blunt weapon.
Dusting off her dress, she inspected her favored instrument for any underlying damage to it or its strings and breathed a sigh of relief to find it unharmed. The silver metal that made up its frame was durable, but she wasn't sure how well it'd fare against a shapeshifting bug's chitin.
Yes, everyone had gotten some command over the changelings, and she really shouldn't be attacking their allies like that, especially after they'd helped bring a very important member of their group back on their feet, but she'd like to be able to relax before her round of chores without seeing bug eyes watching her every move. She didn't hold anything against them being insectile, just that they were way too curious for their own good. Not in the sense that she felt they were investigating her, more like they hadn't a single clue about anything she did.
For example, yesterday she'd been downstairs and up again collecting ingredients for a stew, wanting to get food ready and get back to some sense of normalcy considering that she still didn't know what exactly was agreed upon during the meeting, and she had a feeling that Zulf didn't understand either. The changelings the queen had dumped on them, she discovered, were playing with her stockpot! Rolling it around, throwing it with a strength she'd never admit to being jealous of, and for whatever reason, during the whole thing, two were inside of the darned thing! Her one cooking instrument to survive the calamity and these bugs were just tossing it like it was a ball of yarn! "STOP THAT! NOW!" She commanded with the force of a general. Just like that the bugs snapped to attention and dropped her pot at a short half inch above the ground, the changelings standing in formation stock still.
The Queen, or Chrysalis had put a few changelings under her command, but still, she did not fully comprehend the significance behind that order. Their reaction wasn't what she expected, maybe she was just downright terrifying when she yelled. She hardly ever did. Glancing at the sky she got a good feeling of the time, noticing it was roughly noon. Normally she'd call for Zulf to help with the kitchen, but he was busy with his own Changelings or with Rucks or whoever and whatever and was most likely unavailable. Same with the kid, he was undergoing a vigorous amount of training as a result of their time sleeping, and apparently had his changelings tag along too.
Zia stared at the skyway far out in the distance at the very end of the Bastion, she found herself feeling glad he hadn't gone out alone. She wasn't strong enough for field work, not her, nor Zulf or old man Rucks. It was just him, going out and always alone.
Exhaling as she prepared her pot for cooking, she took a deep breath. "Listen up! You lot are gonna go and pick up some ingredients from storage!" Zia withdrew a ladle, holding it angled as if it were a machete, poised to strike. "You two will bring me six carrots, six potatoes, and two pounds of salt-pork!" She glared at another changeling, handing it a bucket. "Water. Fill this. Bring it back- HEY! Get back here! No sneaking off mister!" Snapping at another frightened bug just trying to sneak away, she ordered them to stay put just like a dog. Or at least until she found something for them to do. "COME ON! I need these things NOW!" She swung at them and a trio of the bug equines dispersed to do their chores. She might not have much to do around here, but an army marches on its stomach, and there was nothing more important than keeping everyone here fed and healthy.
She dusted herself off and withdrew a flint and steel from one of her many concealed pockets, and worked to start a blaze to calm her down. The yelling was surprisingly nice, but it had hurt her throat considerably. The small embers began burning, and she realized as the little flame was born that those bugs had no idea where anything was.
Rucks was somewhere under the Bastion, his tent being too small to house all of what he'd come to privately call the Bug-Brains, his group of inquisitive changelings. Sure they weren't anywhere close to the esteemed and previously sharpest minds of a generation that made up the Mancers of Caelondia, but they were smart enough for him to attempt to talk shop with, and that was all he needed and more than he could ask for.
"Alright, one of you mind gettin' me a sheet o' paper?" The old man said aloud to nobody in particular. He had pencils of varying sizes and colors on a heavy wooden desk, and schematics written in something unintelligible. He waited patiently, mulling over a recent thought in his head when a very short stack of paper arrived. "I appreciate it Pathy. Now, ah, Finny was it?" Rucks pointed to a lone changeling, holding a pencil in their green magic and jotting down some numbers. "Come here a sec, would ya?"
Finny approached the main workstation, and Rucks withdrew a paper from the pile. "Your idea to increase space on our Bastion is a good one, especially if the material is as strong as you say, but there's just one small issue. It'd need to be anchored something fierce. There's a bit of power from every core flowing in the ground and buildings here, it's what keeps it propped up. Unless you and I can make it flow into the additions, it's just going to hang on it like a painting on a wall." Worked hands flew across the paper, etching out support beams and areas of possible weakness, and on a small corner of the page were numbers for something unknown.
"And it'll slow us down, since it's being carried around, right?" The changeling said.
"Bingo." Rucks drew up more plans, places that could do with expanding, places for guard rails that he still hadn't put up "Now I'm certain ol' queenie must have had some questions as to how and why this big hunk of rock flies. So..." The old man looked up and saw his crack team giving him his full attention. Bright blue bug eyes stared at him with the occasional twitch of a fin. "Why don't we all take a seat and have ourselves a story? It'll get us to work faster." He had chairs scattered around the room, now populated with members of his team. The sprawl of scientific instruments and papers had been tidied up into an engineering war room. The only problem with this part of the Bastion's underbelly was the low lighting, the blue orbs that hung from the abyssal ceiling only gave off so much light. Especially when the Bastion was in need of energy again.
You didn't think one core would be enough did'ja?
To his left was Toz, a quiet changeling that had few holes, but carried a sharply angled nick in their fins. So far he'd contributed the least to the group. On the right sat Pathy, he was just about the brightest mind in the room on account of being the only talkative one, something Rucks hoped would change sooner rather than later, one speechless Kid was enough to deal with. The changelings were set apart by minor details, like the shape of their shells or the damage to their fins. Pathy in particular had wide but shallow grooves that ran up and down their shell, and next to Pathy was a changeling who'd only introduced themselves as Lime, named after the green gradient his eyes had at the edges. Finally came Roath, a changeling that could be confused for Toz, if it weren't for his hind legs being riddled with holes as if one of Caelondia's finest had run dozens of pistol shots through him. Rucks wasn't quite sure how that worked, or if it was painful in any way.
"So. Why dont we get started with some questions? Anyone?"
A hoof went up, likely Toz judging by the holes. "Yes?" "Why did you make this thing?" The changeling gestured to the room, all around them. It'd be easy to just say they needed the space, but Rucks was smarter than that. Trying to hide the truth of things didn't end well.
It was what had caused Zulf to turn on them a while back after all.
Sighing, Rucks cracked the knuckles in his left hand, letting the pencil fall. "In case of trouble. Caelondia was a great city, with some... Unsavory relations with our neighbors. Nobody ever expected it to fall, though we knew it was a possibility."
"You mean this is a bunker?" Rucks scratched at his face lightly. That was one of its uses, yes. "The finest bunker of a whole world that went up in smoke, along with everyone else in it."
Loose paper was gathered up while he let his words hang in the air, letting them think about it as he drew up various images, sketched beings, otherworldly monsters and plants. His hands, while they swiftly flew across the papers they found did tremble, and his eyes seemed slightly misty. The changelings could tell what rough waters they would tread through for an explanation, though Rucks' face never once broke into a sad expression. "So... What happened? And how did you build this thing so tough it didn't fall?"
Rucks just seemed to chuckle at the voice of Roath, he'd never tell him that he was two letters away from being named after the god of thirst and plenty. "We didn't. The Bastion was a big place, big enough to house an entire city. Guess we just got too complacent, and parts of it shook apart. Then again, nobody else made it here. Except for us." Rucks paused for a moment to gauge his audience, a few insectoid eyes disbelieving in what they had heard. "The world suffered the calamity, a weapon that tore it to pieces, spat up the chunks to float in the sky, drank up the rivers and turned them to steam. Even turned our people to ash and statues."
"But that's enough doom and gloom. I bet you and your queen are all itchin' to learn how to make your own rock in the sky. Arent'cha?"
The various changelings in the room leaned closer, and Rucks gave a half-hearted chuckle. "Yeah, that's right. I don't know if you'll ever see a Calamity of your own, but I'll show you how to build a fort that'll stand strong against being blown to Mother on high."
"Anything to report?"
"No sir, Pegasi volunteers haven't managed to find anything, and our ground patrols aren't useful unless we know where to look, sir."
"Nothing at all? Nothing strange? I'll take anything that might have been overlooked in the reports."
"Well, Captain sir, the latest intel on anomalies from Equestria arrived three days ago, if you haven't found anything in those I don't think there's much we can do, sir."
"Then consider yourself dismissed and get yourself on the first train out of here, the Empire won't stay standing forever without a shield."
Shining Armor groaned inwardly, despite the attempts at keeping the snow storm at bay, it was all going to be for nothing unless they found the Heart to keep it away permanently. Sooner or later all of the unicorns in the Equestrian Volunteer forces would fall to magical exhaustion, and when that happens, the entire empire would be lost to the blizzard.
Not like it wasn't already happening, the empire was steadily losing ground in a vain effort of buying more time. As they tried to reduce the magical drain, they first decided that it was just the walls that weren't going to be covered by the magical dome, they didn't need a magical barrier covering them, then roads at the border, then homes.
All of that was foals play when compared to the fact that valuable information had just, happened to not reach him? He'd made sure that every pony under his command had known to send a missive whenever information arrived, no matter how small.
So why was he just now seeing documents about a low priority anomaly in the sky?
Micia - Goddess of Loss And Longing
'The lorn mother gave away her heart, and bears the star of Caelondia in her stead.'
The mourning star shines brightly alone in her temple, representing warmth, labor and sacrifice. It was said that her most devout followers and clergy women could wear robes and crowns made of stabweeds without drawing blood.