The long road home.
Kitzu felt the familiar sensation of teleportation, the numbness of lack of feeling. A numbness that lasted perhaps a bit too long. She felt the feel of tile under hoof and threw off the garment that had been thrown over her. To her chagrin, she found the garment to be her own cloak. Some pony had thrown the cloak over her, and she’d panicked.
Kitzu looked down at the garment, let out a sigh, and then used her magic to put it, and her hat back on. The hat had come off when she’d pulled the cloak off. She then took a look at where she was and discovered she was in a library bereft of any books. Kitzu looked about momentarily confused and put a hoof to the moon medallion knowing that Luna would at least be able to track her with it. The place was familiar and had the feel of old magic about it. It took a moment, but she knew the place well as it was the old private library in the castle of the two sisters. She smiled as thoughts of spending time in this place with her two mothers and was comforted in remembering that Twilight had been removing all the books for conservation.
Kitzu looked out the window, the afternoon shadows were growing long. Soon the Timberwolves would begin to prowl, and she’d no desire to be stuck in the castle all night without a bite to eat. She fastened the cloak and made her way to the main hall. There she was delighted at the sight of work being done to restore the place. Scaffolding was set up all over, and a temporary roof was above the gap where the roof had collapsed. Kitzu hurried on, the place was empty now, and despite the signs that ponies had been there recently, it was cold and empty.
Outside the shadows were gathering, the sun would be down soon. Kitzu hurried along, nor did she want to risk another teleport. Her panic-induced teleport had left her feeling queasy, which she took to be a sign she’d used way too much of her reserves of manna. She looked up at the sensation of rain on her nose. Just what she needed, but then her hat and cloak would protect her for a while. A good shield spell would have come in handy, she thought as the rain began to come down harder. The gathering gloom prodded her into a trot. Part of her wanted to run, but she knew she’d never been able to keep up the pace. Teleporting just wasn’t an option no matter how badly she wanted to try it.
Kitzu pushed on till she’d finally made it out of the woods, where she felt it would be safe enough to relax. It was getting dark though, and the rain was coming down harder still. The trot through the woods had winded her considerably, so now all she could manage was a slow walk into town. There a few curious ponies caught out in the rain would cast a glance her way, but none stopped. To them, she was just someone’s filly who’d been caught out in the rain.
“Excuse me, but are you alright?” Asked an alabaster pony as they approached. Kitzu looked up to discover Rarity holding up an umbrella with her magic.
“Oh hi Miss Rarity,” Kitzu offered as cheerfully as she could muster. The trek through the woods had worn her out, and the rain was beginning to soak through. “I’m alright. I’m just headed up to the castle.”
“Afraid you won’t find Princess Twilight, she was called away.”
“Undoubtedly looking for me, no doubt,” Kitzu mused. “I had a rather spectacular blunder. Teleported my way from the palace all the way to the castle of the two sisters.”
“Oh my?!” Rarity exclaimed.
“Thought it’d be best to keep my hooves on the ground for a while. I’m restricted to line of sight because I could end up no pony knows where if I’m not careful. - Thank you for offering, I’ll just let myself in when I get to the castle.”
“Well alright, but don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything.”
“Yes, thank you. I will.” Kitzu replied with a genuine smile and continued on her way.
“Wonder who she is?” Rarity said softly as she watched Kitzu go. “She seems to know me, but I can’t for the life of me recall who she is?”
🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧
Kitzu arrived at the castle a short time later greeted by dark windows. Not even a porch light was on. She looked for the lamp and used fox magic to kindle it, and then tried the door – it was locked. “Come on Castle, let me in. I live here, remember?” Kitzu pressed against the door and tried to jimmy the lock, but it was no use as her skill was nowhere near what it would need to be. She tried holding the moon pendant up to the door, but this was one door that simply did not respond to the moon pendant. “I’m simply going to have to ask mom for a key,” Kitzu muttered thinking she just might have to impose on Miss Rarity. “Come on Kitzumi, you’re a fox pony, think of some clever way to get in.” She said to herself. She was soaking wet now even with her wings shedding water, and giving up now was just something she wasn’t ready to do. No, the castle was a bit outside of town, and it would mean having to trudge back through the rain and mud. As generous as Miss Rarity was, Kitzu did not wish to impose. She couldn't fly up to a window, and climbing in that storm was out of the question. Nor did she wish to attempt teleporting to a ledge as she felt she was too worn out to attempt it. Now if she was inside, it would be nothing to open the door – and then it hit her. She may be outside, but there was nothing preventing her foxfire from going in, and opening the door.
Kitzu set herself, her stand firm willing up the Foxfire. A mist formed at her hooves and began swirling about, and with a little concentration, she willed tendrils of mist forward to penetrate even the tiniest of cracks around the door. This was one time she was grateful for the draftiness of Twilight’s castle as the mist found the latch on the inside of the door. A moment later the door swung outward allowing Kitzu’s entry. Kitzu wiped her hooves as best she could, and entered feeling elated in her cleverness.
“Spike!” Kitzu called as the door shut and latched behind her. “Miss Glimmer!?” Not that she expected anyone to answer. An involuntary shudder came over her causing a cascade of water to come off her. Better here, then all the way through the castle Kitzu thought, and then made her way to the bath on the second floor, dribbling water, and tracking mud as she went. Once there she hung her cloak on a peg, and after carefully removing her hat from her horn, the horn having worked its way through the knit placed the hat on a rack to dry. From there she ran the water to fill the tub and scrubbed herself off in the shower to rid herself of all the remaining mud. From there the tub now full to overflowing, she climbed in, and after a bit of wing flapping, settled down to soak. Never had a bath been so inviting.
⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜⚜
“Hey Twilight, glad you’re back.” Starlight Glimmer announced going out to greet her at the entrance.
“Wow, greeting me at the door… at this hour? What’s going on?” Twilight asked a bit concerned.
“OK, who tracked mud on my nice clean floor?” Spike protested.
“About that, I rescued an alicorn from the bath.”
“An alicorn? - From the bath? - Luna?” Twilight asked perplexed as Luna was the only alicorn other than herself to be found in Ponyville on a regular basis.
“Um, no. A little filly. She’d fallen asleep.”
“Flurry!?” Twilight exclaimed wondering how Flurry could have gotten all the way from the Crystal Empire.
“Um, no.” Glimmer offered.
“No?” Spike said confused. After all, they only knew the one filly alicorn.
“She has a cloak with the Canterlot Academy livery, and a palace ID stating her name as Kitzu Nightfoal.”
“Nightfoal?” Spike echoed.
“Name ring any bells?” Starlight asked. “The ID indicates she’s some sort of apprentice to Princess Luna. - That and she’s wearing a moon pendant.”
“Where is she now – Kitzu that is?” Twilight asked.
“I got her dried off and put her in a spare bedroom. - She’s running a bit a temperature as well.”
“Alright, you can show me in a bit. - Spike, I need to send a letter to Princess Luna. - Wonder why she never mentioned having an apprentice?”
“I don’t.” Luna offered as she entered behind Twilight, and Spike causing both to jump. “Sorry I startled you.”
“Don’t you start tracking mud in here too,” Spike protested.
“Did you fly in that storm?” Twilight asked with a hint of a scold in her tone.
“Yes, I did. - And spike...” Luna shakes herself off like a dog. “Now I won’t be tracking anything inside.”
“Luna!” Twilight protested trying to hold back a smile.
“Starlight, if you could show me this apprentice?” Luna asked.
“Let me put my cloak and luggage away, and I’ll join you.”
“Just wait till Spike sees the second floor bath.” Starlight offered, showing Luna and Twilight to where Kitzu was. A blurry-eyed Kitzu met them in the hall. Kitzu zeroed in on Twilight, snuggled up to her, and complained her stuff was all gone.
“We should get you back to bed.” Twilight prompted.
“But mom… where’s my stuff? There’s nothing in my room?” Kitzu protested.
“Kitzu?” Luna said looking at her.
“Muma,” Kitzu replied looking at Luna with half-closed eyes.
“Who are you?” Luna asked. Kitzu thought for a moment, and then her eyes snapped open.
“That’s not even funny,” Kitzu said looking Luna in the eye.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are,” Luna stated emphatically. On hearing, Kitzu backed away from Twilight.
“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well. I’m going back to bed.” Kitzu offered, turned, and went back to the guest room.
“Muma.” Starlight said giving Luna a dirty look. “Way to break a fillies heart.”
“But I’ve never seen her.” Luna protested.
“She’s wearing your enchanted moon medallion, and there’s an inter-dimensional locator spell on it,” Twilight announced. “I’m going to go see if I can cheer her up a bit.”
“And I seriously want to get to the bottom of this,” Luna stated following after Twilight.
The two quietly entered the room just as Kitzu was climbing back into the bed. Kitzu ducked under the covers and curled up into a tight ball. “Hey,” Twilight said peeking under the covers.
“It’s OK, some pony will be around to fetch me.” Kitzu offered. “I’m just in the wrong dimension… again.”
“Oh, is that what’s happened,” Twilight said softly. “Well, you get your sleep.” Twilight put the covers back down, and quietly escorted Luna back out closing the door.
“What was that she said?” Luna asked.
“Wrong dimension,” Twilight announced.
“Wrong dimension?” Starlight asked confounded by the notion.
“Suppose that explains how my moon pendant can be in two places at the same time,” Luna said thinking about it.
“She’s just a lost filly you brought in out of the rain.” Said the voice of Twilight Sparkle approaching. Luna looked back and forth to discover there were now two Twilight’s, and hers along with Starlight were under some kind of spell. “Her mother came and picked her up.” Continued the new Twilight. “Why don’t you two go have some tea.”
“Tea, yes that sounds like a good idea.” Twilight and Starlight said at the same time. The two then quietly left.
“What did you just do… what?” Luna began, but the new twilight had leaned over and kissed her.
“Right dimension wrong time I’m afraid.” Twilight offered. “And as much as it pains me to do so, I’m going to have to take her back to the place she’s been living.”
“You're abandoning her to another dimension?”
“Not exactly.”
“Pardon?”
“Same dimension, different time stream. - It’s exactly 180 degrees out of phase with this one, but having the same dimensional coordinates. - I’ve no doubt their Luna is having a fit right now because she can’t figure it out.”
“And why aren’t you just taking her back with you?”
“Because I can’t. - I would have some time ago if I could figure out how to pull some pony out of the past, and the time travel spell I’m using only allows me to come back for a short duration. When it wears off, I go back to when I started. - There’s no grabbing Kitzu and bringing her back with me.”
“Oh.”
Twilight then went into where Kitzu was sleeping. “Hey, sleepyhead.” Twilight’s voice was soft and had a different sort of sound than her younger counterpart had a few minutes earlier. “I’m here to take you back to where all your friends are.”
“Mom?” Kitzu asked poking her nose out. “Back to my friends?” Something about the way Twilight had spoken, along with what she’d said was playing havoc with her mind. Kitzumi looked at Twilight and discovered this one had the most beautiful wings. Her mother’s wings. “Mommy!” Kitzumi scrambled out of bed, and the two embraced. “Home? You are taking me home?”
“I’m taking you back to that other world. I never figured out how to bring you home, and your friends are all in that other timeline.”
“But?” tears began to form.
“Well, you can’t stay here. You’ll split the time stream again. - Don’t worry, you’ll catch up to me eventually.” “The new stream, the one where you live in the past will eventually overwrite the old one, and both Twilights, from this timeline, and the other will become me. - And don’t worry about the old timeline vanishing and you along with it, it will remain. That which has happened cannot be undone.
“Hang on, how exactly does that work?” Luna asked.
“It’s rather difficult to explain, but I’ve found it happens more often than you’d think.” Twilight offered. “Generally results in individuals remembering things differently. - Every so often the quantum time matrix will split. Time itself flows like a river, and splits don’t always result in new dimensions. Sometimes they come back together. - I actually remember both timelines. I started to remember shortly after Kitzumi went back in time. It was a bit disconcerting at first, and I think the time travel spell has something to do with it as well.”
“Or else how would you know you’d mucked uptime,” Luna offered.
“Not so much as mucked up, but created a brand new timeline. Well come on then, let's get you back to your room,” Twilight said to Kitzu.
“Um, how does this work?” Kitzu asked as she climbed out of the bed.
“We are going to take a walk down the hall.”
“Pardon?” Luna asked.
“New spell. Well, new to me. - Lady Aiko taught it to me.” Twilight offered as they went out into the hall. “Now it’s only good for traveling to locations not our own that occupy the same space, and I need you to cast the spell with me.” Twilight then said a carefully memorized spell in a language that was about as foreign to Luna as a language could get while Kitzu faithfully repeated each word. As they spoke a thick mist formed in the hall. “Come on Kitten,” Twilight said with a tear in her eye, and a smile on her face. The two walked into the mist till they’d come to the door to Kitzumi’s room. Twilight opened the door. “This is as far as I go. And remember that spell, it might get you out of trouble someday.”
“Um, OK,” Kitzumi said entering to discover her room was back to being her room.
“Goodbye, and remember I’ll always be there for you,” Twilight said closing the door.
“Wait?!” Kitzu protested turning and pulling the door open. The fog was gone, as well as her Twilight.
“Kitzu!?” Twilight shouted. She’d been out in the hallway with Luna. The two had been trying to make sense of what Luna’s locator spell was telling her. “Don’t tell me you’ve been in your room all along?”
“But we looked? She wasn’t there?!” Luna protested. “First it said the forest, then Ponyville, then here, and not once did we find her where my spell said she’d be?!”
“I um …. kind of got here via my old home timeline sorta,” Kitzu announced looking about her tone subdued. “Mom number one just dropped me off. - Though thinking about it I think mom three-point-oh might be a better description. - I couldn't stay there so she wanted me to come back here where I have friends.”
“Pardon?” Twilight asked.
“I went home, but I was still in the past.” Apparently, my home dimension isn’t a separate dimension at all, but a separate timeline. Two timelines of the same dimension flowing like a river around an island. - I seem to have split the timeline. There is the original timeline, and the new one, I assume started when you brought me home.”
Twilight went to Kitzumi and hugged her tightly.
“Hey, I found her cloak, hat, and ID badge hanging in the bath!” Spike shouted running down the hall. “It’s soaking wet too – hey you found her!”
“More along the lines she was returned to us.” Luna offered.
“You have a slight fever,” Twilight said softly still hugging Kitzumi.
“I got caught out in the rain.”
“Rain, what rain?” Spike asked.
“There is a storm brewing over the Everfree Forest.” Luna offered. “Chased us all the way here. Go look out a window Spike. - Kitzu, would you like to tell us what happened, and where you teleported to?”
“The tour people seemed to be stalling, and they weren’t being very nice.” Kitzu offered. “We’d been waiting quite a while when someone threw my cloak over me. Course I didn’t know it was my cloak. I thought it was the bat ponies all over again.”
“You thought you were being foal napped, is that it?” Twilight asked.
"Yes. I panicked, and teleported all the way home.”
“Home was in the Everfree?” Luna asked. “And you teleported all the way to the Castle of the Two Sisters.”
“It’s not really that far from Canterlot. - OK, maybe it was a bit far, I think I hit my limit. - Too many ponies wanting a piece of me in town when I was little. So I spent most of my time at the castle of the two sisters.”
“Piece of you?” Luna asked stunned. “And that’s still a mighty long way even for an adult.”
“Tourists I’d wager.” Twilight offered. “We get a bunch of em gathering outside here on a fairly regular basis now. Fortunately, they’ve only been small groups, and only on the weekends, and don’t yet know about Kitzu or they’d be hounding her for sure. - They stay well clear of the forest though.”
“Oh dear,” Luna said at a loss.
“I gather that’s why I have to hide that I’ve both wings and a horn? - I walked here from the forest because I felt like I’d tapped myself out on that jump, and didn’t want to risk another jump.”
“Wise decision not to try another jump. And yes, we’ve been hiding what you are because ponies might think you are an alicorn impersonator.” Twilight offered. “Ponies who make themselves look like alicorns but aren’t. - Some ponies can be very critical of them.”
“Some of them might be alicorns.” Kitzu offered. “Just with less magical reserve. - Miss Inkwell says reserve and ability are two different things.”
“Indeed it is.” Luna offered. “I’m to understand our dear Twilight here had plenty of reserves but lacked when it came to ability.”
“I studied really hard to make up for my shortcomings.” Twilight offered. “Now, what say you lay down, and I’ll see what I can whip up for that cold. Did they give you anything? Are you hungry?”
“I’m OK, maybe I’ll eat later – I just want to go back to sleep.” Kitzu leaned into Twilight. “I guess I’m home now too, and I can quit worrying about it.”
“I guess so.” Twilight offered and escorted Kitzu back to her bed. She tucked her in, went back out to the hall, and closed the door.
“I’ll fix her something later.” Twilight offered. “We need to let the others know we found her.”
“Do you think there really are two-time streams?” Luna asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. - Something tells me I’m going to need to know.”
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Regarding this project: I created Kitzumi the fox pony to be a brand new take on an old OC of mine. The character name Kitzumi comes from an old anime based OC of mine that I created way back in November of 2006. The name ‘Kitzumi’ is actually derived from 'kitten zooming'.
I started writing this Back in April 2017 to be posted in moderately sized vignettes on my Tumbler blog. In truth I had no idea where I was going with it at the time. No plans, just some ideas in my head, sit down, and write. Since then it has become somewhat buried in my blog, and grown considerably. What I present to you here is slightly better edited version of that material where I hope to correct continuity problems, and eliminate errors while adding more material along the way. It also serves as the set up and background material for future projects I have planed. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Why does Kitzumi look like Twilight? I mean, I assume that's her in the cover picture.
8663856
Because in Kitzuimi's original world Twilight is her mother.
Kitzumi Nova Nightfoal Silvermane.
That sounds like a Mary Sue name. I'm not saying it is one, just that it sounds like one.
9186546
The name Kitzumi was derived from kitten zooming, It's an old character name I recycled. Nova is derived from my initials when written in katakana. Nightfoal is to tie her to Princess Luna. Silvermane is her father.
Aside from that, she's not really intended to be a "serious" character. And yes, she is definitely borderline, though I do try to reign her in. Ya, not really. I mean, she's a foxicorn, for G-s sake.XD ;)
9187146 Hey, respect the fox. We have to stick together. Vulpine power yo!