Epilogue: The Doorways in the Mist
The forest had no underbrush. It had no streams. It had no wildlife. It had no night, and no day — only a perpetually gray twilight.
The forest had no name.
What the forest did have was fog, trees and doorways. Tree trunks rose up from the forest floor, standing like thick poles, reaching up into the mist. Somewhere above, presumably, was a canopy of branches and leaves, but these were indistinct in the fog. The doorways stood scattered seemingly at random, each one a perfectly normal seeming wooden door with a brass doorknob, mounted in a wooden frame, standing upright, incongruously, with no surrounding walls.
Dark quadrupedal shapes moved through the forest, through the mist among the trees and doorways. Their footsteps were muffled, their buzzing and clicking voices subdued when they spoke, which was rarely. They hawked up gobs of green goo, which they used like paint to rudely mark a different number upon each door.
One of the creatures was much larger than the others. She sat and watched and waited until an armored subordinate came to report: “We’ve assigned a number to each doorway, as you ordered! The total is 773.”
“Good work, Commander!” Queen Chrysalis responded. “Make sure our scouts understand their mission. One of these doors leads to the waking world, and to Equestria. That doorway must be identified.”
“It shall be done!” He buzzed his wings together, making a shrill sound like a cicada, calling the other changelings to gather around. When they were sitting and settled down, he addressed them: “Listen up, scouts! Each door has a number marked upon it. Each of you has also been assigned a number. You will proceed through your door and scout the land on the other side of it. You will remain there until you have determined whether it is the pony nation of Equestria. Then you will return through your door and report to me.”
He continued, “Once you have passed through your door, take immediate notice of your location! If you get lost, you will not be able to return to The Dreaming. Nobody on the other side will be able to see the door unless you guide them to it yourself. If you do not return, we may or may not send another scout after you, so don’t count on it. If you remain too long — for several days — then the door may vanish from your sight as well.”
He was silent for a moment as he swept his gaze across the assembled changelings. Then he said, simply, “Good luck to you one and all! Scout number one, you’re up!”
Changeling Scout No. 1
The first changeling scout stood before the first door while another held it open. The only thing visible within the door frame was absolute blackness. The scout crouched, buzzed his wings, and then charged forward into the blackness.
For a second he was floating, or perhaps tumbling, through a black void. Then, as suddenly as it had gone, light appeared again, and the scout tumbled down a sand bank.
Cold, cold, cold, COLD!! The sand seared him with cold wherever he touched it, and he buzzed his wings desperately to try and get away from it — but his wings found no purchase, gave no lift, despite the weird feeling of lightness he had. He tried to scream, but could muster no breath from his lungs. A wild glance at his surroundings showed only red sand, red rocks, red sky, and a shrunken, feeble sun. Desperately he spun and tried to claw his way back to the door. It was above him, higher up the sand bank, and it had already swung closed.
His oddly light weight may have been all that allowed him to climb back up to the door, but he still couldn’t catch any breath, and his thoughts were becoming muddled. He tried to grasp the doorknob with magic, but his horn only sparked feebly. He tried to grab the doorknob between his front feet, but the slick, round shape resisted his clumsy fumbling.
Blackness closed in, and he slipped back down the slope into the freezing sand.
Changeling Scout No. 57
The changeling scout tumbled out of his doorway and into a mud hole. Before he could even pick himself up, he heard a gruff voice ask, “What was that? It sounded like something splashed in the mudhole.”
A lighter voice responded, “Why ask me, Pumbaa? I thought you were the expert on splashing in mudholes.”
The scout was about to be spotted — and without a disguise. He looked around in near-panic, but there was nothing present that he could mimic, and his wings were fouled with mud. A tuft of grass above the bank rustled, and the face of a hideous creature popped up. Its beady eyes locked onto the scout, and it gasped. “Timon, look at this!”
A small, furry animal popped up beside the first and blinked at the changeling scout, then flinched. “Ewww… What a hideous creature!”
The larger animal grunted and nudged the smaller one. “Be nice, Timon! I’ve never seen anything like this before, but maybe it’ll be our friend.”
The changeling hissed and turned to bound up and out of the pit, away from them. “WAIT!” Pumbaa yelled after him. “You’re running toward hyena territory!”
Changeling Scout No. 73
In a dark chamber, deep inside a dark palace, in a dark land, a dark and twisted figure shuffled about his laboratory and its many iron cages. Creatures of all kinds keened and whined and made calls of distress. “Silence, animals!” the scientist snarled. Dressed in voluminous folds of tatty, dingy clothes, his body wizened, bony and vulture-like, he opened one of the cages and pulled out his captive. As the scout squirmed and whined, the Skeksis spoke to him. “You’re next, little Changeling.”
The Skeksis scientist dragged the changeling scout over to a metal chair and shoved him into it, then tightened down clamps on each of the changeling’s legs. “This won’t hurt. We just want to drain your living essence. Then you can be like the other slaves here.” The changeling whined and strained at the clamps, to no avail. The scientist turned to a podling slave and yelled, “Open the wall!”
Obediently, mindlessly, the podling turned a crank, and a gap opened in the wall, and red light spilled through along with gusts of hot air as though from an oven.
As the gap slowly widened, the scientist felt an impulse to brag about this pride and joy. “Now, Changeling… Out there is the great shaft of the castle.” To his slave he ordered, “Position the reflector!” A lever was pulled, and an arm began sliding into position, moving a large chunk of crystal into place just beyond the wall opening.
“The reflector will capture the beams of the Dark Crystal floating high above. Look into the reflector, Changeling! Feel the power of the Dark Crystal!” A beam of magenta-colored light shone out from the reflector and into the scout’s eyes. Slack-jawed, he stared back, unable to resist. The scientist watched closely. “Mmm… Ahh, yes! And now the beam will rid you of your fears, your thoughts, your vital essence.” A liquid began to bubble through the tubes surrounding the chair and drip into a flask beside it. The holes in the changeling’s legs grew visibly larger, his figure more emaciated, and the color faded from his eyes.
“You’re lucky, slave. Only the Emperor can drink your essence.” The Skeksis picked up the flask and sniffed. “Ahh… Fresh essence from a new and magical species! Perhaps I should sneak a sip myself — for science, of course.”
Changeling Scout No. 186
A wrinkled, shriveled, old man peered through his thick glasses at the others gathered around a meeting table and announced, “Good news, everyone! We have a new employee on the Planet Express team. Please welcome Skitterskee! He’s a ‘Changeling’, which apparently is some sort of alien half-bug, half-pony thing seeking asylum from his tyrannical queen.”
The others around the table — several humans, a mutant, a robot, and a crab-like alien — all waved and offered half-hearted greetings, with one exception. The small human wearing a pink sweatsuit drew her hands up to either side of her face and squealed. “Eeeeeee! I always wanted a bug-pony!” She hopped out of her seat and ran to throw her arms around the changeling, dazing him with her sudden outburst of love.
Changeling Scout No. 270
Door number 270 swung open and the scout tumbled out of it — back into The Dreaming. Another changeling started to ask, “Did you find Equestria…”
He was cut off by the frantic chittering of the scout. “CLOSE THE DOOR CLOSE THE DOOR CLOSE THE DOOR!”
Confused, the other was slow to respond. He’d just started to reach for the door when a loud buzzing noise came from the opening and dozens of objects began flying out. In a moment it became obvious that these objects were yellow-and-black striped wasps, each about the size of a large rat.
In moments to follow it became obvious that these wasps were very angry.
Changeling Scout No. 318
After a moment of blackness and disorientation, the scout tumbled out of his doorway and onto green grass. After a moment for his dizziness to subside, he stood up and looked around. He found himself in a small meadow with scattered sprigs of wildflowers, and trees growing all around it. He sniffed about, and the air was clean and good. He buzzed his wings and lifted off for a wider view.
From above he spotted a trail running through the grass. He followed it for a short distance until it led him to an object, where he landed to get a closer look. He found a mailbox on top of a wooden post. Next to the mailbox was a hole in the ground: a burrow with bare dirt heaped around it.
The scout sniffed at the hole, but sound and movement from inside made him pull back — just in time, as a creature popped out of the burrow right in front of him. It looked like a gray rabbit, although much bigger than any the changeling had seen before, its body oddly shaped, and it wore a pair of white gloves. The bunny gnawed for a moment on the end of a carrot he was carrying, and then said, “Ehhh… What’s up, Doc?”
Changeling Scout No. 360
Tumbling out of his door, the scout thumped against a solid wall. Picking himself up, he found himself in a small room with white walls, gray tiles and cold, bright light coming from some sort of panel in the ceiling. A metal table had some document folders, and a large window offered a view into a similarly featureless hallway. The window had the biggest and most perfect sheet of glass the changeling had ever seen, a luxury that seemed at odds with the rest of his spartan, sterile surroundings.
He exited through a metal door opposite the magical one he’d come from, and he cautiously moved down a hallway. There were no windows looking outside, making him wonder if he was underground or deep inside some sort of fortress. All the rooms and furniture were stretched vertically, as if made for very tall occupants.
A voice from nowhere almost made him jump out of his carapace. Weirdly distorted and mechanical, the voice intoned: “EMERGENCY - RADIATION - CONTAINMENT - TEAM - TO - SECTOR - D.” The scout froze, looking all around for the source of the voice, but found nothing. Since the voice had stopped speaking, he moved further down the hallway. He reached a burnt area where some sort of explosion had broken the wall and ceiling tiles and had exposed pipes and wires that sputtered and sparked threateningly. He eased past those and reached a corner. From around it he could hear voices. Very cautiously he peeked.
Three bipedal beings were in the room: one laying dead with blood spattered around it, and another being bandaged by the third. All were wearing white lab coats. The scout overheard the uninjured one say, “We should wait here for rescue. I’ve sent Gordon Freeman up to the surface to get help. With his hazardous environment suit, he just might make it.” An instant later tiles crashed down from the ceiling and pelted the two men. A ropy tentacle dropped down and snared the one who’d been performing first-aid. He screamed and flailed as it pulled him up and into the ceiling, while his companion crawled away. The screams suddenly stopped, and crunching sounds came from inside the ceiling.
The changeling scout had seen enough. This was most definitely not Equestria. He turned and scurried back toward his doorway to home, but a burst of light and sound in the hallway ahead cut him off. Another bipedal being appeared, though this one was green and hunched-over with a huge, red eye in the center of its face. It uttered some sort of unintelligible speech and flung bolts of green lightning at the scout. Shocked and burned, the scout shrieked and ran back toward the corner to try and find cover.
Changeling Scout No. 441
The scout watched as one of his comrades was carried on a rude stretcher, chitin scorched, twitching feebly. Scouts had come back frozen, poisoned, mauled, or simply terrified out of their wits. Others hadn’t returned at all.
“Scout number 441, you’re up!” called the commander. The scout approached with his head low. The commander pointed. “There’s your doorway. Good luck!'
The scout hesitated in front of the open door, trembling. The commander scowled, then a spark of green magic zapped out from his horn to sting the scout’s thigh, and the scout leapt forward into the doorway — and into the strangest adventure of them all.
Changeling Scout No. 518
The changeling commander escorted a pony to his queen. He saluted her and announced, “Scout number 518 reports success.”
The pony stepped forward and spoke, “I emerged from the doorway in a rural area. After a short search I encountered a pony and mimicked its form. I also brought back this evidence.” The disguised changeling tossed a pouch onto the ground, and Equestrian bits spilled out.
Queen Chrysalis smiled. “You have done well, scout.” She stood up and looked to the armored changeling. “Commander, begin gathering the hive to swarm! We’re going to Equestria!”
Changeling Scout No. 1
“This morning we have a photo from the Opportunity rover on Mars that’s been getting a lot of attention on the internet. This dark colored object in the sand is what some are calling the Martian Bug.”
“That really does look like an alien creature, Chet! You can see there’s what look like eye sockets and a sort of horn sticking up. Now, I understand this is only the latest example of Mars photos that look like objects or creatures that don’t belong there. First we had the notorious Face on Mars, as seen from orbit. Then, right after Opportunity landed, we had the Martian Slug, which turned out to be a piece of debris from the landing system. Since then sharp-eyed Mars watchers scouring over the flood of photos have turned up images that look like bigfoot, a human skull, a gecko, a flintlock pistol, and more.”
Chet nodded. “That’s right, Linda. NASA officials have taken it all with good humor, but they’ve explained that the wind and weather on Mars can sculpt rock formations into all sorts of unusual shapes, and that human beings naturally use their imagination to try and match those shapes with familiar ones. It’s all just a psychological quirk, a kind of extraterrestrial Rorschach test. Scientists are, actually, intrigued by the dark color and unusual placement of this particular mineral outcrop. However, it’s located part-way up the slope of a crater wall, and they can’t easily get Opportunity close enough to investigate it further. They’ve had to pass this one by.”
“Now coming up on the top of the hour. When we return we’ll have breaking news from the Middle East…”
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Well 1 out of ten ant bad.
6472353
Err, not sure how you figure that? It took them 518 tries before they found Equestria.
As for how many of them died (or worse) in the attempt, your guess is as good as anybody's.
6472467 just counting the listed attempts still what was it 773 and it took 518 well that's lets see(does math problem) 67%? could be worse.
Changeling Scout No. 288
The scout prided itself on its courage. Confidently, it strolled through the door boldly only to encounter......nothing.
A gray expanse with no definition faced it. Slowly, his surroundings began to change, flickering then resolving into a pastoral scene.
i.imgur.com/iuVnuMv.jpg
The changeling smiled. At last! A chance for Colossal Adventure!
If anyone is curious about the music I referred to in the story, here's a blog post with a few brief notes on the subject, along with a bonus track:
http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/698724/all-the-colours-of-the-dark