//------------------------------// // Top Heavy // Story: Shellstrings // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// The female buffalo's ears drooped as she fought the urge to cry. Sighing, she reached forward and gently pressed Lyra until she was lying back against the cot once again. "Why don't you... uhm... just relax, okay?" Little Strong Heart smiled awkwardly. "We're going to get you feeling better, Shadow Charge. I promise. I just... uh... I-I just need to go have a word with Chief Thunderhooves." "Chief Thunderhooves...?" Lyra rubbed her throat again. "Look... I can tell you've been super nice to me and all, but would you mind telling me what—" She glanced at her hoof... only to notice that it was split down the middle. "What." Her eyes widened, darting back and forth as she looked at forelimbs—both of which ended in extremely non-equine cloven hooves. "What what what what what what." "Just... j-just stay there!" Little Strong Heart insisted, backing nervously out of the teepee. "Everything's going to be alright! I promise!" She took a deep breath, then galloped briskly out of the tent-flap in a brief flash of daylight. "Chief Thunderhooooooves!" she could be heard yelling outside. "Call the medicine doctor! It's worse than we thought!" Lyra was scarcely paying attention at this point. Trembling, she sat up in the cot—only to nearly teeter over from the sheer girth of her weight. Her weight... Gnashing a huge set of teeth, Lyra looked down at her ridiculously uneven figure. Her body was large, muscular, and bigger at the front than at the rear. She was covered from head to tail with coarse black fur, and she could have sworn that her skull was as big as a bus. "Oh what the Hell..." She stared at her cloven hooves, wheezing and hyperventilating in that deep, masculine voice that refused to go away. "Oh what the Hell... what the Hell... what the Hell..." She wriggled her forelimbs, her rear limbs, her tail, her... something else. "???" Lyra lifted the sheets entirely and glanced down between her legs. A pair of buffalo eyes twitched in horror. "Ohhhhhhhhh what the HELL." ~o~Calm down or else you will ruin everything.~o~ "Who's saying that?!?" Lyra leapt out of bed—only to faceplant skull-first into the dirt from her top-heavy body weight. "Shit!" THWUMP! "Mmmrfffnghhh!" She hissed straight into the dirt. The mare—if she could still be called that—found that her two buffalo horns had been lodged into the earth. She shook and struggled to yank her cranium loose. "Grnnngh... friggin'... peyote... nightmare bullshit... grrrggghhh!" ~o~We may have made a terrible mistake...~o~ "Who..." At last, with one savage twist of her neck, Lyra raised her head—tossing clumps of dirt in opposite directions across the tent. "...said that?!" Her voice box was capable of intense volume, and the canvas material rippled from the outburst. Something else was rippling. Lyra blinked aside to see a tiny trough of water where Little Strong Heart must have been soaking the cloth that was applied to her buffalo forehead. With pensive, shallow breaths... Lyra leaned forward and peered into the liquid's surface. The light from a coal-fueled brazer positioned nearby illuminated the image as it came into focus. A buffalo was staring blankly back at Lyra... mimicking her movements—including the tiniest twitch of her facial muscles. "This..." Lyra gulped and the male buffalo reflection followed suit. "...this is some bucked up dream. Lemme tell ya..." Lyra squinted. The buffalo squinted. Lyra raised her hoof up. The buffalo mirrored it with a cloven hoof. Slowly—with tentative movements—Lyra felt the two prominent horns sticking out of her forehead. She winced at the cold—but very real touch. "Alright... if this is a dream... and I know it's a dream... then that makes it lucid. Soooooooo... I should be waking up right now. Cuz I never get to have awesome lucid dreams." She sat still and waited. Silence reigned. "Orrrrrr... at the very least..." Lyra glanced around. "...I should be able to consciously control it. Sooooooo... give me the entire San Antonioats Hoofball team!" Nothing happened. "Uhm... the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra arriving to congratulate me on publishing Ballad of the Princess?" Nothing. She frowned. "Octavia swinging from a noose! Come on!" Still nothing. ~o~You are far more superficial than we imagined.~o~ Lyra snarled towards the canvas walls. "Who said that?!" Without thinking, she dragged her hoof and savagely headbutted the cot next to her. SMASSSH! Splinters fell across the floor, startling her. "Whoah whoah whoah..." She blinked at the wreckage. "Did I just...?" The dust settled slowly. Fidgeting, Lyra turned and looked into the trough yet again. The buffalo stared back... and it was then that she realized that it wasn't the face of just any random buffalo. "Wait a second," she muttered in that deep voice. Leaning over, she peered even deeper into the watery surface. A black face with even blacker, beady eyes stared back... full of confusion, concern... and pain. "I know you." Lyra's lips slurred. "But... but from where—?" "Must go. Must go before it's too late!" The buffalo hyperventilated, plastered to the wall of the cave via green slime. "The green light!" "Shhhhh—!" "The green light!" He screamed, his voice deep and raspy. "It's too late!" Cricket song. Ropes of living insects coiled around Lyra. She gasped as she was yanked down into a deep, dark hole... where two green eyes burned hungrily. ~o~Let us see how you fit.~o~ Lyra tried to shriek, but her lungs—and spine—was replaced with a jagged horn. SCHLUNK! Lyra stumbled backwards, knocking over the dishes of food. She panted and wheezed, sweating through her thick buffalo fur. She ran her cloven hooves over the alien body that was encasing her. "Oh Goddess... oh Celestia..." She whimpered—but her voice still couldn't get high enough. "Oh Goddess please—!" ~o~The apprentices of Clover can't help you.~o~ Lyra jolted again. Her blood went cold as she spun around in fright and bolted through the tent flap.