Max stared at Luna.
Luna stared back.
Celestia was also staring at Maximus, while Crystal and Seven were staring in turn at the alicorns.

"You...don't know what seasons are. You're in control of the sun and moon, the heat of the sun being the primary source of seasons while the moon changes the tides and you have no idea what the seasons are."

Luna looked to Celestia one more time before turning back to Max.
"Tides?"

"Oh my god," Max whimpered, burying his face in his hooves. "This is, I don't even know how this is supposed to work in magic pony land. I mean, sure we're doing well but I can't see an eternal summer being good for the planet."

"The weather is fine. Why would you want it to change?" Celestia asked.

"It's not the weather as you feel it, but the weather of the world as a whole," Seven explained, her connection to the male giving her memories of winters and springs. "While it may be difficult for you two to pull off at the moment, spring is often a rainy season. Deserts will become inhospitable in an eternal summer, while seasons allow rainfall. It also helps with weather in areas that are not subject to pony rules. You've already seen it outside the keep, the clouds that float randomly about. They don't come into our airspace because of pony magic."

"Something about pegasus weather magic leaves behind a kind of...magic soup that slows weather that they don't control. The more active they are, the less natural weather you experience. I want to say this means that if we cut off the weather patrols we can get some natural rain and not just have the pegasi grabbing clouds that are floating by, but we need to explain to not just the knights but the peasants as well that the rain is necessary. That a little bit of natural order saves us time and effort."
The changeling stallion rubbed his temple, trying to gather his thoughts.
"It's fine, we're fine. The world is still in a recovery phase right now so a few nice solid summers is to be expected. We may need to start changing day length a little bit to fluctuate temperatures. Experiment a little. Hot and cold air make wind, which is the basis of a lot of weather systems. This, this is going to take time and effort. We're going to need a way to record temperature accurately, as well as-fuck, humidity and pressure won't be calculable for now because of pegasi. Oh god, this is so much more complicated than I ever thought."

Luna was still looking a little confused but smiled.
"You were successful in identifying several other issues, Maximus. We'll trust you on this. But we're going to need more information. I do not recall Starswirl mentioning seasons before, nor do I recall reading about anything like that from before Discord's reign."

"Did you at least, was there snow and rain?" he asked. If ponies were completely unfamiliar with any kind of natural weather they may see even uncontrolled rain as some horrible thing.

Celestia thought for a moment.
"Rain we are aware of. Snow is...the powder on mountains?"

"It's frozen rain. When water falls to a certain temperature, it becomes ice, correct?" Seven said. At the nods of the alicorns, she smiled. "When it gets cold outside, the rain can become either sleet, which freezes on contact with anything, even clothes if they're not worn, hail, which is ice falling from the sky, or snow, which is soft ice crystal formations that stick together and gently fall down. If it's cold enough and it snows, you can find yourself staring at a landscape that is completely covered in the stuff."

"I'll show you what different seasons look like in a dream tonight, if you'd like. We'll discuss weather as well, and...we really need better maps," Max said, his voice trailing off. There was, god there was always so much more stuff that he was finding was missing. Things that on Earth were so unchangeable he wasn't even aware things could be wrong with them.
"We'll figure it out. Maybe a way to slowly acclimate people to seasons again. If this world is as big as I anticipate, there may be others who depend on them. First reactions would probably be to say screw those guys but we know nothing about the surrounding territories. I'd say countries but at this point in the world..."

"There aren't any as far as we are aware. Countries are usually a united governing body ruling hundreds if not thousands. As it stands you rule over a single piece of land. While it feels like a large amount, it is only the smallest of starts," Crystal added. "Mother's empire was comprised of thousands of changelings. Drones, queens, not to mention the hundreds to thousands of captured ponies used for food. The hive itself was almost four times the size of this keep and it expanded in all directions. Add the outposts for foragers and raiding parties; she controlled a vast area. And I do mean she controlled it. Nothing happened without her say-so."

"That absolute control was what caused her to snap so quickly when Chaos decided to visit. Suddenly her perfectly controlled world was in ruins and she did not allow even the smallest perceived slights to go unpunished, often by death at the least. What he did? She wanted to torture him until the end of time."

Celestia winced.
"That...makes sense I suppose. I also vaguely remember one of Discord's weather changes dropping clumps of ice from the sky. They were multi-colored though, and had different flavors."

"I think my favorite was the red ones. It tasted of cherries."
Luna giggled at the memory.
"Not all of Discord's games were maddening, but that does not change the fact that many were terrifying. If not because of how they broke all laws of reality then because of the sheer power it displayed."

Max stared at her.
"He dropped icee's on ponies. He...you know what, that doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it should. Nevermind. Right, right. Weather, maps, how's the forge? Is it working well?"

"It is," Crystal said with a smile. She looked to the door and it opened, allowing a few ponies and a drone to enter. Each was carrying a blade with a standard muzzle-guard.
"She wanted to give a gift to Luna for hiring her, then realized that you pointed her out to Luna. After a while she just made blades for each of us."

Max cautiously accepted the blade, taking it in his magic and tilting it this way and that. Then he bit onto the handle, feeling the weight such a grip would give to his head.

Beside Celestia, Seven was staring in confusion as a blade was offered to her.
"Why am I receiving one? I'm not, well, I hadn't planned on staying."

"You have been working with us extensively, Seven. So much so that ponies have begun seeing you as part of the changeling leadership," Celestia explained. "And in truth, you are. You are both a full fledged queen, and one of the people the drones turn to for orders."

"Welcome to the top, Seven. It's just a little hill at the moment, but this little civilization will be growing soon enough. We're going to need all the help we can get in the coming months and years, so if you've been enjoying how things are..."

"That's the most unwarranted offer I've ever been given."

"Like you've been given many offers," Crystal scoffed, a smile playing over her face.

"You know damn well what I mean. I have food, I have safety, and I have access to a breeder...a viceroy. I can't think of anything else I need, and leaving would only leave me without."
Seven gave the stallion a hard stare.
"You've made what should be a hardened enemy position into a sanctuary for changelings. A place where we have what we need. Only the mentally deficient would wish to leave."

"Like you were trying to," Crystal added, bursting into giggles.

"I had just experienced a mental ass-beating the likes of which I did not think possible. I think I am allowed to be listed under mentally deficient at that time. And before that, it was a combination of starvation and fear. Part of me assumed it was some sort of trap. The other part of me...I was too hungry to ignore the amount of emotion I sensed."

"You were separated from your sisters, do you have any idea how far they were?" Luna asked. "I find it strange we've only picked up a few drones. If the honey called to you at a good distance, than shouldn't we have seen these other queens?"

"I...we used Mother's presence and the location of the hive for most of our direction-finding."

Luna and Celestia didn't seem to understand, but Max's eyes widened.
"So without the link, when the Hive collapsed, every changeling was suddenly very lost. You hadn't bothered trying to watch for landmarks because you all had a line to follow that would lead you right back home."

"I think we should make certain that any changeling scouts and explorers learn something about exploration and pathfinding. I mean, I'm not an explorer by any means but I know about following a river to find civilization, or which way the sun rises and sets."
A sly grin passed over his face.
"The sun always comes from the east."

"She has a preferred direction?" Crystal asked. "I didn't know that. Luna doesn't seem to care, as long as she cums.

The white alicorn blinked before setting a hoof over her face, though Max caught the faintest hint of amusement coming from her this time.

'We'll get her settled eventually. Ruling doesn't mean being alone.'

"No, I do not- stop that!" Seven shouted.

Max wandered closer, getting a look at an excited Temper attempting to check the queen's size by fitting some large metal plates of armor onto her back. The cause of the mare's excitement? The metal ingots currently on her flank.

"It wont take long, your majesty. I promise. I just need to see if I can get these to settle properly over your shell."

"I'll do it," Max offered. The blacksmith perked at the offer and Seven took off like a shot, fleeing from the crazed mare before she could be sucked in to something else.
As she began her work, Max watched her curiously.
"I take it life's treating you well?"

"Oh is it ever!" Temper gushed. "I love working with the metals, and there are so many! I only ever really saw gold or copper back at Silver Blood Keep, but here, here you have titanium, electrum, I even saw some Dark Triton! That metal can only be found in the deeper parts of the ground, how did you get it?"

"The Princesses pulled the stone for this keep directly from the earth with a teleport spell. I don't know what they did with the metals, but we just went down there to fill it in. While we were down there, we grabbed a lot of ore."

"So it's straight from the ground, never touched by ponies before," the mare said, looking to the metal ingots across the way in renewed awe. "I'm working....I'm working virgin metals."

"I take it that's uncommon."

"Ponies aren't the best miners, if you couldn't tell by looking at us," Temper said, hefting a large plate onto his back. She hummed to herself as she adjusted it, making note of how it sat on his chitin.

"It just looks odd," she huffed, removing it and putting it with a small group of other plates. "Anyway, because of this most of the metals we use are reclaimed. We melt down old things, scrap them, turn them into things we need. Less than a quarter of the things in Sure Strike's smithy are virgin metals, if that. As such, ponies put more value into items made this way. The items...Strike didn't believe it, but they say sometimes, the metal reacts to your wishes. That by pushing magic into it and shaping it like that, it tends to hold up better. A metal that's only ever been a shield will resist blows that would normally shatter one of the same material. A sword may keep its edge longer than should be possible. Even a bucket could become puncture or corrosion resistant. But it only ever was said to happen to metals that were being shaped for the first time. It only works for virgin metals."

"Really? Didn't know that," Max said, watching the mare begin wandering her workplace. She paced, she picked up a few random tools and ingots before placing them back down, she shivered...
"Temper? Are you alright?"

"Alright? Of course I'm alright! I have the job of my dreams! It's all I could have asked for, I mean I even received my cutie mark! Do you know how few ponies get those since Chaos? It's great, I'm great, everything's-"

"When was the last time you ate, Temper? Or slept?"

"Sleep? Oh, no-no-no, waaaay too much to do. I'm the only blacksmith, which means that I have to take care of all of the weapons and armor and I need to forge the tools and the weapons and I ned to make the new hoof-hammers and I need to make a new forging hammer because mine is starting to bend-"

"Temper!"

The mare squeaked, looking to him with wide eyes.

"I appreciate your loyalty. We all do. But I need you as a long-term asset."
'Flick, I need you to get some help. Temper's gone a bit Cutie-mark Crazy.'

'I'll have a team ready in a moment sir. Alicorn level?'

'The whole shebang. She doesn't look like she's bathed, slept or eaten in at least a day. Likely longer if she grabbed a snack.'

Max used a quick spell to pull the tools out of the mare's hooves, much to her protest.

"No, I need that! I need to work! I need to improve, the princesses need a good blacksmith, I have to-"

"Temper, I am going to order you, as an advisor to the throne and one given Luna's permission to make such decisions, to rest. We will not think ill of you, you will not lose this job, and you will likely work better once your body has had a chance to recover."

The mare began sobbing, rushing forward and grabbing his forelegs.
"No, no I need to do this! I can't, if I'm not working, its not worth it! I cant afford the food, I don't have a bed aside from the one I was given. I'm using your metals to work, I don't make anything here!"

Max picked her up, looking her in the eye. It was a bit more difficult than he thought it would be, given the mare's earth-pony build left her fairly solid.
"You, Temper, are a servant of the Solar Alicorns. Your service pays your rent, your food, and your baths. All you need to do is ask one of the servingponies and they'll get you set up. In fact I thought they already assigned you a bed."

"I, it's not mine."

"It is your payment, Temper. This is not a private smith. It's owned by the crown, but what good do these materials do us with nobody to use them? This entire room, this whole setup is useless without you. You are here to do what we need and in return, your own needs are met. Do you know how important this job is? When I heard they didn't have a smith, I was gob smacked. It didn't make sense. Castles and Keeps don't function without a smith. We. Need. You."

He set the mare down as a small group of changelings arrived, Flick at the head of the group. Two earth pony knights were also present, carrying some restraints just in case.
"I don't think those will be needed, but good job thinking ahead," Max chuckled. "I want her bathed, fed and put to bed. You have my permission to sedate her if she gets out of control. And uh...Stone and Brick-thank you, Flick- If you two know of any other ponies that are like this, make sure they don't hurt themselves. I don't want something exploding because of a pony burning out. Temper here could kill herself if she collapses onto her forge, for instance."

"General health and wellness inspection, got it," Flick replied, giving a quick salute.

'Keep an eye out for this sort of thing as well, Flick. Pass around that I want changelings to watch for it. We're not hurting for anything right now so there's no reason for people to be killing themselves. And I don't want to hear about you guys doing this either. Unless there's something important going on, there's no need for it.

'Yes sir.'

Max looked to the still smoldering forge, mindful of the fact that it had to be kept hot.
'I also want someone to keep an eye on the forge every now and again.'

Max huffed in irritation, moving out of the room.
'There will be plenty of time to push ourselves in the future. All doing so now does is wear you down. If you see someone doing that, even myself or the princesses, say something. Consider this your permission to do so.'

'Does that include the knights?' he heard one of the newer drones, Enord, ask him. He still wasn't sure why the drone was keeping the name after he offered to let them change it, but apparently it was a bit of a proud accomplishment for him. To that the drone had merely smiled and explained that a queen had changed his designation to Enord after he'd done something extremely well and asked for a different name. She'd done it more as an insult than anything else, but he'd kept it. After all, the best revenge was to be proud of it, and it was still a different name.

'Bit more complicated for them. Those guys may push themselves as part of their conditioning. Ask Shimmering first. He should know enough to be able to spot the difference between dedication and self-destructive tendencies.'
Feeling a surge of information flowing between Crystal and Seven, he pinged them both.

'Oh, Seven said you were busy with Temper," Crystal sent. 'Excellent. We received a ping from the bots we left near the dog den. You remember the creature they were reporting? We have an image.'

'Hit me.'

Max stopped in the hallway, letting the 'security footage' play. The drone was sitting in a tree, a mixture of bark-texturing and clear skin making it near-impossible to spot. Add in the fact that it wasn't sapient and didn't use a lot of energy, they were able to hide the drones and leave them guarding areas for extended periods of time. A sort of living security system.

The drones focus shifted, its eyes on an approaching emotion source. A flicker of movement near the river, and it stepped out, drinking from the water's edge.

'Tell Luna and Celestia we're going to show them something in the dream-realm,' Max said, a grin splitting his face. 'We found our strange creature.'

'Already done,' the proto queen replied.

Max trotted down the hallway, renewed energy in his steps now. Their intruder had excellent timing. The changeling stallion was beginning to think he'd be stuck playing Civ-builder for the next decade before something interesting happened. Hopefully this next week would be a bit more interesting than move rocks here, build walls, harvest grains, store food in storage sheds, build more storage sheds, build better roads.
'You must construct additional pylons,' he chuckled to himself.

Luna and Celestia both watched the drone feed with interest, staring at it for several moments even after the feed stopped. While both were excited at the prospect of the new being, both were also aware of what it was at the end of the day.
"It's a predator."

"A griffon," Max said. "But yes. It could be dangerous. It could get even more dangerous if we add to the fact that it's likely not the only member of its kind nearby. I've read that eagles can be solitary predators or hunt in mated pairs, but big cats...it depends on which one you're speaking of. Lions used prides, mostly female groups, while I don't think I ever saw more than two jaguars or cheetahs that weren't blood relations.."

"So we do not know how many could be nearby. Were you unable to follow it?"

"No, he-at least it looks male from this distance, was gone by the time we were able to find this," Seven answered. "I only just recently thought of using the drones in this way after going over some of the odd technologies floating around in Max's head and realized some could be replicated easily enough. Since I didn't know what to do with most of the drones, a security system seemed appropriate."

Crystal nodded.
"We just don't know how to make them ping us when something specific occurs. We can have them store the information and give them commands, but aside from a general ping, which any pony or diamond dog sets off, there's nothing we can do to make this easier. Aside from having sapient drones review the images, but that is extremely personnel-intensive."

Luna scoffed.
"You can't expect me to believe that with how quickly you share information that-"

Luna's words died on her lips as the queens and Max expanded the screen to fill several walls, each wall hosting several images of their own that were playing images from various drones used to survey important locations. The alicorns vaguely noted that there were apparently drones watching the treasury and the storage rooms in particular, both locations that would be difficult to secure completely if the guards were subverted.

"It's like when people were telling me the government was reading our texts," Max said. "We get all of this information, Luna, but we don't have time to review it all. So we have to focus. If something happens in an high-profile area, we review it more closely, but otherwise a lot of this is just forgotten at the end of the next day. No pings, no checks. Pings in an area we're not worried about, no checks. Lots of pings in a high-traffic area that the knights didn't report issues with, no checks. We simply don't have the time or resources to go through it all. Not only that, do you know how boring it is to watch an empty forest for ten hours?"

"This isn't a replacement for guards," Crystal added. "We cant do anything unless we notice something wrong and sometimes that doesn't happen for hours. Sometimes we don't even notice until the knights mention something and it gets passed along to us. That's actually why Max suggested holding the memories a day, so that the knights don't come along mentioning these things and we've already forgotten what we need."

"I would like to get this information passed along to the dogs. They'll need to know what they're dealing with. It will settle them down a bit if nothing else, as the scariest bit here for them is all of the unknowns. The more we can resolve, the better they'll feel."

"Then we have to find out what state the griffon is in. If it's sapient, if it is a lone hunter or scout, if it has family."

Celestia nodded, looking to Luna.
"You managed to make first contact with the dogs. I want this one."

"This isn't about who makes more contacts, Tia," Max admonished. "This is about contacting them in a way that's safe for us, and doesnt spook them. Those claws arent for show. By the same token though, if we come to them with weapons drawn we could instigate a fight."

"If we come across too weak though, the griffons, if there are mutliple griffons nearby, could see it as weakness," Seven said. "I wouldnt want to ally with some creatures that would only weaken me. So there we reach the issue of balance. Max would like to make a good impression, but we need more information on how to approach them."

The alicorns and changelings stared at the image of the griffon, a tom if he was going by feline terms. Did eagles have specific terms like that? Either way, the next few weeks would be interesting.