The Female of the Species
You have a sudden, desperate urge to look behind you. You almost make it. Your elevated head is turned almost ninety degrees when something hits you from behind, slamming you into the dusty grass hard enough to knock your breath out of your lungs. Your head lands at the bottom of the water hole a moment later. For a few seconds, the world is a mess of water and churned-up mud and no air, anywhere, as human and giraffe panic instincts send conflicting signals to the rest of your body. You can't remember how your neck works. It's sheer chance that your thrashing eventually brings your mouth above water. You take a deep, gasping breath. Your head clears enough to - finally - shift your attention from imminent drowning to the large, furry weight on your chest. Something is sitting on you. Claws dig into your unprotected skin.
Some new, undiscovered giraffe instinct makes you kick out wildly, sharp hooves trying to make contact with whatever it is, but something is sitting on your legs as well. Your arms are pinned to the ground the same way. You whip your neck around and finally manage to lift it out of the water - maybe you can club the thing with your head? - but you freeze as a soft paw full of needle-tipped claws comes to rest gently on your throat.
The message is clear: keep your neck still, or lose it.
"Now, now," a soft voice purrs. "You'll get the water muddy, thrashing around like that."
"Hey, you caught her!" one of the male lions calls lazily. "Good job. Lots of meat on that one."
There is a snort from somewhere around your shoulders. "Yeah, we caught her. No thanks to you."
You open your eyes cautiously, careful not to move your head in the process. Water drips from your fur and giraffe-length eyelashes. Squinting against the sun, you see a lioness sitting on your chest; she is humanoid, like the males, and also dressed in something like a swimsuit.
You suppress a nervous gulp as you notice that its pattern matches your own skin.
The male lions continue with the same good-natured laziness as when they were talking to you earlier. "Hey, we helped!" "We distracted her, didn't we?" "Hardly put up a fight at all."
"She wasn't distracted by you," the lioness sneers, "she was distracted by the water. Face it, you were all upstaged by a puddle." She grins wryly at you and rolls her eyes. "Men."
This doesn't seem the best time to mention that, until about fifteen minutes ago, you were one yourself. You grin weakly. "You can say that again." Not the wittiest response, but your neck is on the line, after all. You certainly have nothing to lose by playing along.
Written by Chrysalis on 06 April 2008
