Lion
Your nose crinkles with curiosity, eyeing the rest of the space of the field only to spot more signs scattered overtop of the grassy terrain. You start to stroll forward to the next closest one until you're close enough to spy the font over top of it: "Lion."
You take another step towards the sign reading "Lion." Your mind fills with the images of the king of the forest, the majestic maned beast. "I don't know what I'm going to have to do in this game or whatever, but being a lion... that seems badass enough?"
You shrug, hesitating another moment longer with the mental image of the rippling, golden orange fur of the mane sprouting all around a fierce muzzle, jaws huge and eyes inset and on alert. You see the wind rustling through that thick fur as you run, charging over a plain.
"Yeah, Lion-"
With your choice made, the entire field suddenly rippled with a change. The grass seems to flutter down the entire length of the clearing before you realize it wasn't the grass moving, but the entire pixelized base of the scene. Within moments, the entire landscape begins to change all around you.
You spin around, madly trying to spot some pattern or reason to the change, but before you've even gotten a good look at the rippling changes passing over the land, everything has already changed. The grass, it dawned on you, had only looked like it'd been moving because it changed the least. Rather than be dry, fall-time grass, the grass had merely morphed into the crisp, dried yellow of the African plains. Short, but top heavy spread out trees dappled the landscape. One, with its leaves dangling down within view, stood just to your side. The faint peeping sight of green showed beneath the longer, yellowed tendrils of grass to match the distant sight of bushes adding to the layered sight of the plains. You tip your head up, catching the sight of the top of the tree beside you, but then a pale blue sky stretches up above you.
Suddenly, a rustling noise yanks your attention away from mapping out the terrain. You jerk your eyes down from the sky, spotting two bright, green eyes staring out at your from through a tuft of grass. You feel a jolt at the sight, filling in the thick sight of mane surrounding the face you see staring up at you. The lion, the massive male is just staring up at you from down in the grass.
You shift, skittering off to the side slightly only to hear the distinct rustle of the grass as the lion moves forward, tracking after you. When you step, your body seems out of sync. Your gaze falls, a gasp escaping as you see your arms are not arms at all. Instead, you see thick, beefy legs rippled through with tight muscle tendons and layered beneath a layer of golden fur- just like the lion behind you.
Your fear dissipates slightly at the realization that the lion must be following you because you're a lion. You glance back, still uncertain of it, but start to try and pad forward towards the glittering pool of a blue water up ahead.
At the edge, you look down to take in your reflection, ready to see your own thick, bushy main sprouting around the muzzle you envisioned, but suddenly, when you looked down at the water that's not what you saw. Instead, you saw only the squat shape of the elongated muzzle with flicking, half-circle ears atop your head. "W-what?" you muse, for a moment thinking you were something different entirely or perhaps young.
Suddenly, a rush of an alien sensation darts up your spine as something wet and warm swipes between your legs. Instantly, you feel a strange tingling and heat rush up through your gut. Your hips twitch and jump away while your gaze swings back, only to see the male had snuck up closer.
Your ears flicker, nose twitching madly at a sudden thick, distinct smell filling the air. You sniff once in the air with the plump nose you could now see in between crossed eyes, but the smell doesn't seem to be wafting through the clear air above you. You dip your chin, realizing with more of the short, little sniffles that the smell was coming from you!
"What is that?" you think, feeling another sharp lick of the male's rough tongue over, what you have now realized, were your lower lips. "I-I'm a female..."
"And that's a male..."
The pieces suddenly fall together. You look once more at the male behind you, who has opened his mouth while he sniffs at the air- trying to sense whether the female in front of him was ready to mate.
You jolt slightly. "Nuh uh! No!" Your feet suddenly shuffled forward, trying to find how to balance on four feet instead of two. Your feet, no paws, seem too big to be able to control, yet you manage to stumble into a pattern. A spot in the distance, a random rock amidst the grassy dust of the plain grabs your attention and you fall madly towards it. Your feet don't seem to keep pace with your body's demands, but you merely thrash your tail and fall into the pattern of the uncertain, jostling motion.
"What do I know about lion mating? Is it bad? Is it painful?" Your mind swirls with growing concern as the male stalks behind you, not quickly, but keeping you in short proximity. "W-what do I do? What do I do?"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 20 February 2016
