Lullaby for a Princess
The sky was dark and the sea was relatively quiet, the waves washing about and flowing gently back and forth under the tidal currents of the stars. A strange pale of silvery light washed over the Outer Banks on a perfectly cloudless night as the moon itself hovered in the skies. More than 50 years on from the day when Armstrong had placed his foot on that vast, rocky expanse and fluffed his scripted line, the moon remained the closest companion of Earth, for otherwise the seas would stop and water would not move. And that would be a bad thing indeed.
From the rear window of his home on Devon Street, Manteo, Jimmy peered at the moon through a skylight. He wasn't usually up at this time of night, as usually he got an early night's sleep. Nobody really understood why, as it took him ages to get going on a morning, like an old car with dead or failing batteries. Anyhow, Jimmy looked along and saw how the light was beautifully bathing the landscape, the small crescent moon doing a good job of lighting the landscape and keeping the eyes of the town enraptured with its glorious glow. This was too good an opportunity to miss.
He headed for his door. "I'll take a moonlit walk!" he exclaimed, though nobody was entirely sure why as Jimmy was the sole occupant of his home. Anyway, he said it, and popped out of the door, feeling it warm enough to walk outside without a coat. In the middle of January. Something was seriously wrong here, but Jimmy wasn't going to let logic get in his way.
As he walked along a sidestreet, he noticed others walking toward the beachfront, cameras out and binoculars and telescopes set up to look at something. Probably the moon. I really must stop using the word 'moon' so often. Anybody know any good synonyms for 'moon'?
Anyways, Jimmy proceeded to the beachfront, his eyes firmly looking at where he was going, due to their being some nutcase drivers being around at this time, and crossed to the beachfront, his eyes at last making contact with the sand, and so he stopped, and looked up, intending to pause for a bit to look up at the spectacle of the night, and then walk on for a bit. He glanced away from the moon from a moment, and then was greeted with a sudden blast of bright light. He looked up to see the previously crescent moon was now full. What was going on? Jimmy decided to reach for his phone and find out if this was natural.
His arm wouldn't obey him.
"Stupid pins and needles!" he snapped. He tried his other arm, to find that wouldn't move either. In a panic, he tried every conceivable muscle. The only ones that responded were the ones that allowed him to breath, blink, and speak. Nothing else would move no matter what he tried.
"Help! HELP!" he cried, but nobody seemed to notice. It was as if Jimmy had vanished totally from the world, and in that moment the moon glowed so brightly he shut his eyes as it was otherwise going to damage his eyeballs. A wave of energy shot over him, and in that instant he knew what was happening.
Suddenly regaining control over his neck, he looked down to see his trainers begin to narrow at the front, squishing his toes, and the laces and flap vanish from them. Deep blue leather grew into their place, and the rest of his trainers then changed into the same leather material. They shrank back to expose his ankles and achilles' tendon, and a heel was suddenly forced out of the bottom of both, pushing Jimmy upwards by four inches.
His socks vanished, and the heels shrank slightly to compensate. His beige shorts suddenly turned a light shade of blue, lighter than that of the heels, and the zip and button vanished from them, more fabric filling in the place of the zip and the top of the shorts merging with his polo shirt. A loud noice was audible as the legs of the shorts stitched themselves together, and the gap between them vanished, producing a very odd looking skirt. The pockets vanished from them, and the skirt grew longer and longer, until it reached the floor and covered over his feet.
"Great, I can't see my feet," he grumbled. "This is just like Cind-" he stopped, and realised something. "Is this another Disney Princess?"
The long skirt, which at the moment flowed down his legs, suddenly bulged outwards in several places, and gained volume as Jimmy could suddenly feel several petticoats brushing against his legs. He also felt something else appear, something much colder, before another skirt appeared under that. He knew all too well what the cold thing was.
A crinoline.
Another burst of light came from the moon, and it was like somebody had switched on an air hose as the skirt rapidly began to grow in all directions, flowing backwards over the pathway, and sideways and forwards over the sand. The fabric off the outermost layer didn't seem to be stretching. There was physically more and more growing from the bodice, but yet none of the passersby seemed to notice that, right next to them, a skirt was growing of its own accord. Once it passed five feet, it began to slow down. It hiccuped briefly, added a few more inches, and then, once it had reached six feet all around, it stopped. Jimmy glanced about him. True, some parts of the skirt still bulged out more than others. But the skirt was otherwise a perfect half sphere, a precise bell shape, and the dome had a wonderful gradiated curve to it as well as hanging gently off his hips.
Just then, his shirt began to change. It turned to two different shades of blue, a very dark blue for the bodice and up through the centre to his collar, and a lighter blue for the sleeves. The buttons vanished, except for the top one, which transformed into a silver clasp as both it and the hole it sat in grew wider. The area which had formally been occupied by the other button grew in width, and more of the bodice tore itself open as it dropped down to where his nipples were visible briefly. His sleeves shrank back to just shy of his shoulders, and began to puff up, inflating into a pair of spheres. Moments later, his collar shrank back slightly, but still ran around the top of the bodice and round to the back, along with the dress still having a back. A dark blue crown suddenly appeared on his head, sitting in amongst his hair, and with that it seemed to have stopped.
Anybody who's read this series for long enough will know that isn't the case.
His hair suddenly pulled back up his head, stopping when it reached his shoulders and suddenly curling outwards in all directions. A fringe dropped into his face as his hair turned a light blue, and his eyelashes grew longer as his eyes turned a gentle blue. Given his eyes were blue anyways, this wasn't much of a change.
His face suddenly began to morph and compress, the bones cracking, breaking apart, and reconnecting in different ways. His eyes shifted in size and his face narrowed. His Adam's Apple suddenly shrank into his neck as the rest of his body slimmed down, muscle and body fat simply melting away until he had a slim, feminine figure. His chest suddenly felt oddly warm, and as he looked down he saw something pushing against the bodice and the open part, pushing them both forward. His chest had started growing into a pair of breasts, and they kept on growing until they were at least B cups, soon joined by a bra to help keep them in place. Jimmy gasped when his waist was suddenly sucked inwards both by his stomach shrinking and a corset pulling it into an hourglass shape, the bodice shrinking onto his new figure. He was looking more and more like a woman with every passing second, and this was soon continued when his manhood was suddenly sucked into his body. Not long after, her hips began to widen, growing for a few seconds. The frame of the skirt and some of the extra petticoats grew with them, in order to prevent the dress getting too tight or damaged. Finally, her legs slimmed down and her feet shrank, becoming very petite, the heels shrinking with them. Her arms became shorter and thinner, and her hands shrank in size as she looked at them. Then, the world began to get bigger all around her, as she lost approximately 6 inches of height. However, the skirt got slightly shorter as well to compensate for the decrease in height.
With that, the moon suddenly returned to its earlier crescent shape, and Jimmy looked over herself in confusion, trying her very hardest to walk away, but her attire made moving very difficult as she was not used in the slightest to such a huge skirt. "How? What?" she asked. "Who is this even?"
She looked over herself. Dark blue bodice, enormous blue skirt, a blue crown and hair, being in the moon-
She then had a brainwave. "I am Princess Luna!"
"My lady! MY LADY!"
Jimmy turned as best she could, the skirt inhibiting her movement somewhat. Sprinting toward her was a figure with purple, red, and black hair, dressed from head to toe in purple armour plating, as well as a pendant of a bat in her hair. She skidded to a stop in front of her.
"Your highness," she puffed and panted, "please forgive me. I should have taken better notice, otherwise we may never have found you again!"
Jimmy had no clue who this was, but suddenly another portal opened in front of the pair, and another figure stepped out.
She had hair in every colour of the rainbow, and wore a golden crown upon her head. She had pink eyes that radiated warmth and compassion, and she wore a white dress that was fairly similar to that of Jimmy. However, the bodice was closed, albeit lower cut, the sleeves were puffier, the skirt was even bigger than that of Jimmy's dress, and the bottom was lined with gold embroiding. She also had a pair of formal gloves on her arms.
"Sister," she said, "you have no idea how releaved we are to have found you."
"Y- you do not understand!" Jimmy stammered, but the pretence didn't especially work as she sounded exactly like Luna now. "This happened but a few minutes ago! I am-"
Celestia looked worried. "I can only assume that jumping between worlds by accident must have somehow caused you to lose your memory. But we searched as hard as we could for you, and at least you are safe." She reached out her hand. "Come with us; Equestria needs its Princess of the Night."
Jimmy briefly hesitated, and then put her hand onto Celestia's outstretched one. "Of course, sister."
"It cannott hurt getting to be my favourite princess for a bit, can it?" she thought to herself, and the pair went through the portal, the light flickering and vanishing as both princesses vanished.
Little did they know, a small crowd had assembled to watch. "Did anybody see the two princesses?" a woman asked, very confused.
From a nearby set of shadows, a woman wearing a dress identical to the one Jimmy had been wearing (and looked exactly like Luna) was watching.
"Excellent!" she said. "Jimmy gets to be his favourite princess for a few weeks whilst I get a holiday." Observing the attire of the townsfolk and seeing a gap in the community, she thought to herself.
"If I go around dressed like this, I shall stick out like a sore thumb, not to mention struggle to get in and out of doors. Time to fill a gap, I think."
The moon, returning to full, glowed brightly again, and her skirt began to shrink...