And so I wound up walking through the woods, just me, myself, and a cartoon zebra with penchant for rhyme.
Hmm. I have a rather bothersome feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg made of frozen Kool-Aid. God, I hate Kool-Aid.
Freaky. No, not the zebra, that’s cool. The fact that there were currently two of me? Not sure if want. I’m the four-tailed one, by the way.
And how does that work, anyw--actually no, that kind of makes sense. Maybe it’s like that Ring of Nine Dragons from that show with the ridiculously hard-to-spell name. Except I’m fairly certain that was China, and kitsune are from Japan. Predominantly, at least.
Kitsune, or whatever I/we am/are, are usually magical creatures. And since I’m not piloting a custom-built jet in an attempt to keep up with a ludicrously fast hedgehog, I have to assume that I’m of the magical variety. The size-changing and splitting in two support this theory.
Kitsune. Hm. Doesn’t really roll of the tongue too well in a sentence, what with weird emphasis. Kit-SOON. Kind of awkward, methinks. What did the old guy call himself? Keaton? I’m fairly certain that wasn’t his real name, but was it just a clever pseudonym or was he telling me what he was? Hrm...
I turned to myself. “What do you think?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I don’t like kitsune either. We’ll call myselves a keaton.”
That’s another thing. We have exactly the same thought process. It’d be creepy if it weren’t so convenient. Really, I hate talking to people. I always know what I mean, but I have a lot of trouble putting thoughts into words. Talking with someone who already knows what I’m thinking is almost a relief. Oh hey, we’re here.
Let me tell you, Zecora’s place is creepy as all get-out in person. It was awesome. I could almost hear tribal drums playing in the background.
Wait... That's not just in my head, is it?
Apparently not. Zecora looked at me strangely, so I turned around. My tails were glowing. The other me’s were pulsing to the drums, while mine were just shining softly.
“Okay, that’s kind of cool. But distracting. How do I turn it off--oh, nevermind.” The song cut out on its own.
Other-me scowled, a rather frightening expression with a muzzle full of sharp teeth. “Great. So now I can play music. But how do I control it?”
Zecora opened her door. “Step into my home with me, and perhaps we soon shall see...”
Her house looked a bit different from the show. Not by much, but noticeably. The potions were understandably more detailed in person, as opposed to the palette-swapped jugs on the show. Aside from the front room with the cauldron, there was one other room with her bed (with leopard-print sheets). It was in this latter room that a large-ish bookshelf stood, and it was from this shelf she pulled a much-worn book.
“This is a guide that I have been writing,” she said, “of all of the creatures this forest is hiding. Manticores, hydras, dragons, here, look. All written down in this one little book.”
“So you’ve got something about magic foxes in there?”
“Perhaps, but not much I fear. Your kind is not native to here.” She opened the book seemingly at random and put her hoof on a rather dismally small couple of paragraphs next to a rather stylized sketch of another fox.
“This isn’t a lot.”
“It’s all that I’ve got,” she said, apologetic.
I huffed and sat down with the book in my lap--wait. I was on all fours the whole way over here, now suddenly I’m sitting cross-legged. How am I not breaking bones?!
Whatever. The book didn’t say much, but what it did have was useful. It listed me simply as “Kitsune,”, and said that we were rare, long-lived tricksters from across the sea. We were known to be shapeshifters--Ooh, can’t wait to try that--and on the rare occasion we appeared we were causing trouble. Okay, don’t like that. It went on to say that kitsune were powerful, with the oldest of their kind capable of throwing down with the likes of Celestia!
I found that dubious.
Aside from shapeshifting, it wasn’t very clear on powers, though. I finished the little excerpt quickly, when my double reading over my shoulder piped up and pointed to the adjacent page.
“What’s that?”
Good question. The thing was actually listed as “???” and had barely any information at all. Just a picture of some nondescript shadow. I asked Zecora, and she said she didn’t know, it was just something she’d seen on occasion. She said she tried to avoid it when she saw it, because every animal in the forest was terrified of it. Even the plants shied away from it...
Well, mystery for another day. I still need to figure out how to join back together--
--!
!?!
----------...
Ow.
Okay, let me gather myself.
Breathe in... breathe out...
Okay. Calm? Yes. Good. Yes.
…
That was messed up, man.
The good news is, I’m back in one piece now. Bad news? It hurt. Not physically, because otherwise the pain would’ve knocked me out. No, the physical part was rather nice. The only way I can describe it is like that relief you get after that pin-and-needles feeling you get when you try to move a numb foot goes away. Sort of.
Anyway, no, it was the mental feeling of having two sets of memories trying to occupy the same neurons. Unpleasant. Wires crossing. Bad.
At any rate, back in one piece. How long was I out? Looking outside doesn’t help, it was dark already under those trees.
I must have been out a decent while, since Zecora was kind enough to put a pillow under me and a blanket over me and a dog bowl filled with water next to me.
What.
A dog bowl?
Why a dog bowl, I am a human.
Well I was a human.
You know I starting to get the since that Kitsune’s are treated just like dogs, wait a minute ponies don’t eat meat which means I can’t eat meat. Aw man I really loved meat, I mean what I don’t understand is why I am a magical fox but yet I still can’t eat a normal human/fox diet. I mean what is this My little pony oh wait that's right I am in Equestria. Well I guess I should ask Zecora about going to Twilights for any knowledgeable books on the Kitsune race but right now I guess I should get some water I am thirsty.
I was drinking my water when I heard a knock at the door, so I naturally decided to get up and walk over to the door to see who it was and what I saw surprised me.