Research

by Damaged

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Lyra, Romance, Bon-Bon
Length: 9984

Lyra Heartstrings is a brilliant spell-caster and spell-crafter, and remains one of Princess Celestia's first choices for research into complicated magics. Will she be able to study her latest assignment objectively?

Lyra Heartstrings is a brilliant spell-caster and spell-crafter, and remains one of Princess Celestia's first choices for research into complicated magics. Will she be able to study her latest assignment objectively?

The reasearch topic is humans, and Lyra is determined to experience them first-hoofhand. The only problem is she has no idea how to human.

Art by the amazing Dilarus. Keep up the wonderful work!

Contains: Transformation, of course. Pony turning into a timberwolf and into a human. There is nudity (about as much as the show ever gave us) but it is not the focus of things in and of itself.

This story was (originally) written for the Autumn Pony to Human TF Contest (and won second place), but has received the extra attention the limits of that contest (word count) wouldn't allow me.

See This Blog for licensing.

Published 2019-12-18 01:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-12-18 01:40:01 UTC

Just the One

It wasn't an obsession.

"Bon Bon, it's not an obsession."

Sweetie Drops walked into the room, not keen on getting into an argument, and kissed her wife on the cheek. "I know, dear, it's a cute obsession. Which is totally allowed."

Lyra Heartstrings' head jerked up from the scroll she'd been obsessing over. "It is? Is it in the rules and everything?"

"After me spending all summer trying to perfect my humbugs, you bet it's in the rules. Probably on the first page and everything." Sweetie made a happy little giggle at getting a return kiss from Lyra. "We both have passions, Ly-Ly, it wasn't like I didn't know that already when I married you."

Memories washed away the problem of seven-dimensional arrays from Lyra's head and she tilted her neck so she could bump her forehead against Sweetie's. "How'd I get so lucky as to find the perfect mare?"

"No clue. What'd you do with her before you found me?" Sweetie broke into a giggle along with Lyra. "So, what're you working on? Did Princess Celestia give you something else to work on?"

"Humans."

"What?"

"Humans. Something-something, magical mirror portal, something something, Twilight wins the day again. You know, typical stuff for Ponyville. But anyway, they're a creature that—while they don't have a lot of advantages physically—have practically no negatives. But the real thing that sets them apart is this." Shuffling through the papers (every one stamped Top Secret), Lyra floated one drawing up and showed it to Sweetie. "See?"

"That's a hand, Lyra. Dragons have hands. Minotaurs have hands. What's so—"

"Four fingers and a thumb. Four! The advantage in tool manipulation is exponential!" It didn't take a unicorn of Lyra's prowess much effort to warp her telekinetic field into the shape of the hand. "You've seen how hard it can be for dragons to use most tools?"

"Not really, but go on." If there was one thing Sweetie liked seeing almost as much as perfect candy or her wife excited about candy, it was her wife excited about just about anything else. The way Lyra's eyes brightened and she completely shut out anything negative—even reality—was adorable to Sweetie.

"The extra finger is a game-changer. It amounts to so much more usefulness, and that's to say nothing of the removing of the claws dragons have to put up with. Oh! And have I told you about sweating yet? Or clothes?"

"Lyra"—Sweetie punctuated her wife's name with a kiss—"ponies already sweat, and they wear clothes. Come to bed when you're ready."

About to reply, Lyra froze at the sight of her wife turning and walking from the room. Anticipation of snuggles warred with her curiosity.

A glance back at her notes, and Lyra was almost completely distracted again—though swirls of blue and pink tail danced in the back of her mind. "But these won't work with regular transformational spells. There has to be a spell that will let me—"

Flicking through her book of transformational spells, Lyra got distracted for a moment and went too far. She had been looking for spells to transform her, but the pages turned further and got into curses. That's when she spotted it. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Transcribing the curse in the book was easy enough for a highly-trained unicorn like Lyra. Rebuilding the curse into a spell that could be cast was slightly harder, but still doable. Adjusting a curse like lycanthropy to work with other species was harder still, but Lyra was sure she had that down as well.

It was a test. She wasn't prepared to try for strange alien species on the first go. Four hours of work led to Lyra completing the first of what she hoped would be a working spell. A working test spell.

The three pages of spell were completely unoptimized and would almost need an alicorn to cast. Almost. Lyra Heartstrings, graduate of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, personal friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle, personal friend of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and research scientist for Princess Celestia herself, was not an average unicorn by any measure.

She also wasn't a stupid unicorn.

Packing up her books and papers, Lyra proceeded to make an exact copy of the spell she'd put together and placed everything but that copy in a magic-resistant coffer meant specifically to keep things safe from untested spells.

"Okay. According to my notes this should turn me into a were-timberwolf for one day. It's not a full moon, so that means it shouldn't affect me at all physically." Lyra ran through her thoughts aloud (something she'd learned was a good idea through trial, but mostly error) before casting the spell. It was so much easier to realize you were an idiot when you said so clearly and out loud than when the fool-notion was merely swirling, obfuscated among its more legitimate peers. "But, I'll be able to detect the magic is affecting me—"

A yawn caught Lyra short. She lifted a hoof to cover her mouth and then remembered her wife had gone to bed some time earlier. Just the thought of some warm snuggles with her Bonny had Lyra wanting to put down her things and scurry off. "No. Science must be done."

Lyra was used to casting complicated spells—it was her job after all. With her musical pastime, she'd known right away that the best way to put several sheets of loose paper on display was music stands. Sheet music was much the same as spell descriptions, though with spells it was more important to have all of the pages available at the same time—hence Lyra had three music stands.

Centering herself, Lyra began the spell by weaving a small protection around her horn to prevent a failed spell causing a dangerous backlash. She then began the main spell.

By the end of the first page, Lyra was straining to channel just the right amount of magic. By the end of the second, her legs wobbled and her horn began to ache (the protection spell only stopped permanent damage, not strain).

As Lyra reached the end of the third spell, all the potential she'd woven into the magic started to twitch and vibrate. With a big grin, Lyra finished off and activated the spell.

Gold light flared brightly. Lyra felt the surge of the spell as it burned through its store of magic and aimed its effect directly at her. Magic met flesh and, just as Lyra predicted—nothing happened.

"Woo!" Lyra pranced in place excitedly. "I did it! Okay, now to—"

Something short-circuited in Lyra's head. All the science and excitement over her magic was thrust aside by a sensation unlike any other.

Love.

"Now to go upstairs and snuggle my wife. There's time for more science tomorrow." Lyra trotted upstairs and did just as she said.

Their marriage bed was the perfect place for sleeping and dreaming of each other. It was cliché, but it was how the loving couple rolled—or rather, how they snuggled.

Lyra was having a wonderful dream of spooning with her wonderful wife, when something kicked her hard in the belly. The odd thing was for her that it didn't hurt. Jerking awake, she looked up at her sweet darling standing on the other side of the room with a club raised.

"Don't you come any closer to me, you monster! What have you done with my Ly-Ly?" Sweetie was scared, angry, and more than a little in shock. Waking up with a timberwolf laying against her was definitely the source of the fear and shock. The anger was derived from not knowing where Lyra was.

"It's me, Bonny. Lyra!" is what Lyra tried to say. It muddled together into a mess of vowels that made no sense at all. Lyra Heartstrings realized there was something wrong with her mouth.

Trusting her wife not to attack her (perhaps a little silly under the circumstances, but Lyra wasn't fully aware of the situation yet), Lyra turned and faced the mirror in their bedroom. The wooden face and glowing yellow-orange eyes staring back at her drew a scream from her throat just as Sweetie's club descended onto her back.

Sweetie Drops, former sergeant of the E.U.P. Monster Hunter Corps, knew the trick to fighting timberwolves was to keep smashing them and to scatter the pieces. When she hit the beast in her bedroom in the back, she drove down and through its leaf-covered body completely.

"Bonny?"

The word was clear enough that Sweetie couldn't ignore it. "Ly-Ly?!" Dropping the club, Sweetie grabbed Lyra's shoulder and pulled the timberwolf around to face her. What she didn't account for was that she only pulled the front half of it. "Ly-Ly?"

It felt disturbing to have her body severed in half, but like the kick it didn't actually hurt Lyra. What concerned her more than being in two halves was that Sweetie sounded terrified. "Bonny, it's me." The last two words still sounded a little wrong, and Lyra shook her huge head to try to clear whatever was messing up her speech.

Behind Lyra's shoulders, unseen by either, Lyra's rear half jerked and glowed, pulling forward to grab the front and reconnect with it.

"Lyra? What did you do to yourself?" Now that her panic at having a timberwolf in her bedroom was (mostly) assuaged, and her rage at losing Lyra was calmed, Sweetie had a chance to look at what her wife had become. "Did you do this?"

Thinking back on what she'd done the previous night, Lyra couldn't imagine how she'd messed the spell up so badly. She shrugged her shoulders rather than mangle another mouthful of ponish. But, Lyra was not a mare of inaction.

Sweetie froze as a timberwolf nearly twice her size leaned in and nuzzled her cheek. The touch of wood was strange at first, but the tilt of the neck as it pressed against her was all Lyra. When her wife started to pull away, she darted in to kiss Lyra's cheek.

Freezing, Lyra got to answer a very unasked and unanswered (previously) question: timberwolves can, in fact, blush. "Love you." The words didn't come out perfect, but Lyra could see the effect they had on her wife.

"Just turn yourself back, okay? I love you too, Lyra, but I love you most when you're a cute mare." Sweetie tried to think over her morning, and couldn't put it anywhere close to the worst ever. After all, nopony was hurt.

But before she could leave the room, Lyra's focus locked onto the mirror. "Why am I orange?"

"Autumn, silly. Timberwolves grow leaves in the spring and summer and curl up to photosynthesize. In autumn they shed their leaves, wake up, and start hunting. I thought you were meant to be the smart one of us?" Stepping to the side, Sweetie let Lyra walk out before her. "Watch the door."

"This isn't easy. I'm too big." Alternating looking left and right, Lyra found herself barely fitting through the doorway, though her leaves didn't do so well. "I'll pick those up later."

"I'll make breakfast while you undo that. You can undo that, right?"

"Probably. Should wear arf—Should wear off tonight." Lyra turned too sharply out the door and bumped the frame with her thigh. If she'd still been a unicorn, it would have left her feeling a little sore. As it was, there was a big gouge out of the doorframe and left bark laying on the floor. She winced. "I'll fix it later."

Despite her claim of heading to make breakfast, Sweetie hated to hear Lyra sound so worried about breaking things. "Just don't break anything you can't fix. Do you need help down there getting your notes out?"

Lyra took a deep breath. "No. I don't even think there's anything I can do for it right now, but I want to review my notes to work out what I did wrong. That's the heart of science—learning everything you can from an experiment."

"Nerd." It was an old gag, but one Sweetie knew her wife didn't take seriously.

"Jock." Despite herself, and forgetting the damage she might cause, Lyra turned around to face Sweetie and intercept the incoming kiss with one of her own. The crash of a vase met her ears, but she didn't care—she could fix that.

"Still the same silly mare I married." Sweetie, despite the risk of splinters, didn't hold back. Kissing a timberwolf was a new experience, but it was the mare inside the beast she was kissing, and Lyra was a good kisser—in Sweetie's estimation, anyway.

The kiss reaffirmed their bond in a way that always left Lyra trembling. It hadn't been their first kiss, but the one at their wedding was the one she compared all others to. This one was pretty far up there, mostly because she knew it took Sweetie some effort to overcome the fact she was kissing a timberwolf.

"Now you have a whole new thing to freak out Vinyl, Octavia, and Cheerilee at the next game of I never-ever," Lyra said.

Sweetie's eyes widened and her smile stretched from ear to ear. "It's going to be the best one ever! We'll just have to keep a straight face. Oh, and you can't let anypony see you like this or it'll ruin it."

"You think I plan to go anywhere like this? Although, I could go and try to buy some flowers…" Lyra's mischievous grin held no real weight behind it. As much as she'd love to freak out their friends with her new timberwolf doing pony things bit, she was also afraid that some of her friends would react poorly to it.

Reaching a hoof up to run over Lyra's leafy neck, Sweetie rubbed up to one wooden ear. "You know they'd run you out of town. I don't want to move to the Everfree Forest. For one thing, there's less customers there."

Lyra let out a giggle. One of her personal favorite things about her wife was how much Sweetie made her laugh. "Well, I'm going to head down and see if I have anything that'll undo this. How about you make something warm for breakfast and—"

"If you're mobile you need, well, flesh. I'll make some eggs on toast for you, and if you haven't figured things out by mid-morning, I'll head out to get you some fish." Turning, Sweetie made her way to the kitchen.

Snapping her mouth closed, Lyra couldn't believe how much she started drooling at the idea of eggs—eggs and fish. Some ponies liked to slip a little meat into their diet, but having grown up in Canterlot Lyra wasn't that way inclined. But now? Now she really wanted to have some fish.

Letting out a sigh, Lyra carefully made her way downstairs to her study. She was so familiar with this room that the height change seemed even more pronounced. She looked around and over things that should have blocked her vision before.

Focusing her mind, Lyra reached out with her magic and—nothing happened.

It took her nearly five seconds to realize the problem. "I don't have a horn." It was obvious to her in hindsight, but her magic was so universally part of her that her change in form didn't even start to make sense enough in her brain that the absence of magic should be a thing. "Alright, nothing to panic about. It's just one day."

So, recalling her earliest memories—before she could even use her horn properly—Lyra begin poking through her notes and using her mouth to carefully lift papers out so she could read them.

The flaw was clear when, with fresh eyes, she read the spell.

"Lyra, breakfast's ready!" Sweetie put plenty of sing-song into her voice.

With a sigh, Lyra turned and started for the door. "So, it turns out I did things backwards. Kinda." She darted in to kiss Sweetie, and felt something behind her moving.

Taking the kiss on the cheek, Sweetie backed up to let Lyra through. "Oh? What did you do wrong?"

"I transposed the creatures to test, but I put them back in the wrong places. I'm a werepony, not a weretimberwolf." Looking back over her shoulder, Lyra spotted what was moving—she was wagging her tail. "So looks like I'm stuck like this for the day."

Sweetie let Lyra go first toward the kitchen and had to fight not to have a giggle fit at her wife's wagging tail. "W-What do you mean, 'wrong places'? And aren't those things the same thing?" She well knew what a weretimberwolf was, having dealt with a few in her days as a Monster Hunter.

"Kinda opposites. The spell made me into a timberwolf that turns into a pony. So a werepony, like I said. At least, that's how I'm going to write this up. Princess Celestia will want a full report, and if she gives the go-ahead I can publish it as a research paper too. Either way, I'm inventing the word." The moment Lyra entered the kitchen her voice caught in her throat and all her senses focused on one thing—the plate of eggs in a nest on the table.

It took every ounce of Lyra's focus to not rush in and jump on the table to devour the breakfast Sweetie'd made. She advanced slowly, appeasing her new predatory side with promises that it was all hers anyway, so why not stalk the kill.

Having seen predators move on many occasions, Sweetie knew to stay back and let Lyra eat. She was surprised her wife walked right up to the table before daintily tilting her head to the side and tried to catch an edge of toast with her fangs.

Lyra could sense Sweetie, but her focus was on the food. It was only when the two interacted that she paid more attention to the pony beside her. Sweetie carefully held up a piece of toast with her hoof and offered it to Lyra.

Carefully, fighting her urge to snap at the toast, Lyra let Sweetie feed her the egg-laden treat. The rich flavor of the egg had her taste buds exploding with gastronomical bliss.

"I think we can handle this for a day." Sweetie reached up with her hoof not offering the next piece of toast to rub at Lyra's ear. "You're just a big softie, aren't you, Ly-Ly?"

"Woof," Lyra—quite literally—said.

Despite how silly she felt, Lyra was leaning into the strong hoof that was rubbing her ear. Lots of sensations seemed so much stronger as a timberwolf. She finished her breakfast, let Sweetie continue rubbing her ear, and then went back to her study to continue her work.

By the end of the day, Lyra had discovered the delight of fish and more ear rubbing than any timberwolf had ever had in its whole life (with the exception of those that let Fluttershy too close).

So, back to normal and with copies of all her paperwork sent off to Princess Celestia, Lyra was left to work on the spell again. The first thing she did was to restore it to be weretimberwolf, but it was time to test something more advanced.

This time she spent a whole day adjusting the spell and double-checking it. A curse on a pony that turns them human at the full moon.

There was a full moon—that is, Lyra had contacted Princess Luna and arranged for a full moon—for the next three days, and Lyra was planning to take full advantage of it. The spell was configured to last for a week, which would give her time to explore being human.

As always, Lyra was careful to lock all her notes and copies in a magic-safe vault before laying out the spell on music stands.

"You're going to give it another shot?" Sweetie asked from the doorway.

"You know me, Bon Bon." Lyra went over her spell again, paying extra attention to the target species and duration. "If at first I don't succeed, use more magic until there's nothing but a smoking crater."

Sweetie walked into the room and up to her wife. Normally, she wouldn't even intrude on Lyra's study, but she felt the timberwolf thing gave her the right to all-but trespass. "Lyra Heartstrings, if you happen to make a crater or not is beside the point. So long as my Ly-Ly is still standing at the end, the experiment went fine."

Taking her chance to kiss Sweetie, Lyra felt as confident as ever. "Do you want to watch?"

"Is it going to do anything?"

Rolling her eyes, Lyra gave Sweetie a little glare. "Of course it will do something. It will curse me for a week."

"But will it do anything I can see?"

"No." The word came out a little sullen. "Just because my magic's not as flash as Twilight's, that doesn't mean—" She was silenced by a kiss. She relaxed and let all the annoyance pour out.

"I was just playing with you. You take that bait too easily, Ly-Ly. You're a better mare than Princess Twilight Sparkle. At least, in my eyes."

Lyra leaned her head forward and rest her forehead against Sweetie's. "Really?"

"No. That's just something I tell my wife so she doesn't try to compare herself to an alicorn." Having learned the fine art of deadpan-delivery, Sweetie tried to maintain her mastery over it whenever possible.

"You know I love you to bits, right?"

"Mmhmm. So, what will you be waking up as tomorrow?"

Lifting a hoof, Lyra booped Sweetie. "With luck, a human. It should happen some time in the early hours before dawn. You get to take advantage of my wondrous fingers for three days. What will you do?"

"Remember how I gave you all the ear rubs as a timberwolf?"

"Yeah."

"You'll have two hands, right? So twice as good as your magic is at massages and ear rubs." With her priorities in order, Sweetie drew back. "I'll make dinner. Do try to get finished with this by then."

Always a connoisseur of watching her wife move, Lyra reflected on how wonderful it was to be married to a mare with such an amazing rump. Seeing Sweetie Bon Bon walking away, Lyra mused, was almost as good was watching her advance.

With her distraction gone, Lyra turned to the spells. Like before she began to build the patterns and weaves the spell described. Each page held a dense form of short-hoof script that only a half-dozen unicorns in all Equestria could read. At Princess Celestia's school, in a class of the more elite and gifted unicorns ever, they had built a better way to build spells.

Loops and recursion were two major features of the language they built. It took as much care and focus to read and perform as it did to write, but when a technical expert in spell design and modification was performing from it, the script was performed perfectly.

As the last of Lyra's magic was spent, she felt the spell complete and had the rush of sensation as it sank into her. One deep breath, then another, and Lyra smiled. "Perfect."

Neatly gathering up the three pages by hoof (since her magic was mostly expended), Lyra put them away in a drawer and headed out to have dinner with her wife. "Bon Bon, I'm all done with the magic."

"Perfect timing. Get over here and start stirring this." Sweetie made room at the stove. "If you let this white sauce get lumps, I'll give you some lumps on that genius head of yours."

"I'm excited, Bon Bon." Under her wife's orders, Lyra had no compunction in burning up some magic to stir the pot. "I get to be a human, even if just a bit. I'll be able to go outside and freak ponies out. I will walk around and stand on my back legs and everything!"

"They're just called legs on bipedals." Sweetie still wasn't sure what was going to happen, but when it came to magic, she trusted Lyra to at least not completely mess things up. "Oh, there was a letter for you."

"Is the letter more or less important than stirring the sauce?"

"If you stop stirring that sauce I'll make you regret waking up." Sweetie leaned over and kissed Lyra on the cheek. "So this change will happen just before you wake? How'd you time it that closely?"

Outside, through the window of the kitchen, both mares watched as the sun was put away. Though Princesses Celestia and Luna had attempted to give full control of the sun and moon to Twilight, the artifact they'd used to carry that power had failed mere months after Twilight had started using it.

Despite their retirement from the day-to-day tasks of running Equestria, the two princesses still retained one duty each.

"Well, I contacted Princess Luna and asked her to turn the moon full just before dawn. Then she'll keep it full for three days." Lyra turned her head away from the setting sun to look at her wife. "Bon Bon, why do you look as white as a ghost?"

"The letter was marked with Princess Luna's seal, Ly-Ly." Grabbing the spoon that Lyra dropped, Sweetie took over stirring the sauce.

Rushing to the little counter in the hallway where they usually left the mail for each other, Lyra felt a heaviness about her head as she used her magic to pluck up the single letter sitting there.

Opening the page, Lyra shook her head as something started feeling strange.

Dear Lyra Heartstrings,

It is with great regret that I must inform you I am unable to perform the exact lunar maneuver you requested. However, I have arranged to raise the moon full tonight, and for the rest of the week. If this is not desired, please contact me as soon as possible.

—Princess Luna

Rubbing the side of her head as she read the short letter, Lyra felt a twinge in the limb. Then again. Pulling her hoof from the side of her face, she could see her hoof had flattened and the hard nail softened.

"Lyra? I think you might have a problem if this is moon based." Sweetie was looking out the window at the rising, full moon.

"Y-Yeah, Bon Bon. I think things may have been—" Lyra winced and sat down on her rump. Holding up what had suddenly hurt, she was staring at both her hooves now, or what had been hooves. New flesh was pushing out and a big split down the middle of each should have filled her with panic.

As she watched, Lyra's hooves shrank down while new digits stretched out and pushed free. The fine hair that comprised her coat just seemed to merge with her skin, and Lyra shivered as more changes started. "… stepped up a little. Just give me a minute, okay?"

"You're transforming in the hallway, aren't you?"

A lurch ran through Lyra, from her throat down to her hips and back up again. It was like her insides were having an argument with themselves and losing. "Y-Yeah."

"Just don't make a mess."

"I'll try—" Lyra felt her face pulling inward and her cute little snout fading into the flesh of her face as more of her fur merged with her skin. She tried to speak, but it all came out as vowels.

Hobbling to the bathroom, Lyra found that using the underside of her hands was best to walk on, though her ~~back~~ legs were now a complete mess—caught halfway between pony and human.

Looking in the mirror in the bathroom (a large one that would normally let a pony see all of themselves), Lyra stared in shock at the alien face that gazed back at her. Her eyes were just as big as normal, but her face was completely different.

Reaching up, Lyra felt at her nose and mouth with one hand. Then her hand flew up to the top of her forehead and she felt as her horn started shrinking smaller and smaller. A few tears cascaded down from Lyra's eye as she felt cut off from her magic.

Fumbling with her shorter tongue and smaller lips, Lyra wiggled her jaw a few times before opening her mouth. "Get a grip, Lyra. One week."

Another lurch ran through her body. She watched in the mirror as her tail hair fell out on the ground and her dock pulled up into her spine. Another lurch and she watched as her teats inched the way up her milk-lines until they stopped on her chest—and then swelled up a little.

From one moment to the next she was a pony in a transforming body and then—human. At least, she was as human as the descriptions that had come from Princess Twilight Sparkle's own journal.

Looking back, Lyra was struck by how long her ~~back~~ legs were. They were easily now well over half her height, and she was sure if she managed to stand up she'd be banging her head on the ceiling of the room. "Bon Bon?"

"Are you done? Come out and have dinner." Sweetie heard shuffling, assumed it was Lyra, and started dishing up dinner onto two plates. "Did you want a drink wi—" She froze at the sight of the obviously Lyra creature that crawled into the kitchen.

"Bon Bon, I don't know how to human." Lyra sat up and perched upon the back of her lower legs. "All my things are human things, and none of them are the right size!

"When I was a timberwolf, at least my body still worked like a pony's did. I had four legs, I had a cute snoot, and I didn't have," Lyra took a deep breath to avoid a panic attack, "these." She gestured to her chest where her breasts hung heavy—unsupported.

It was a struggle for Sweetie not to laugh. She lifted a hoof and covered her snout, but when she saw a little wetness on Lyra's cheek all pretense was dropped and she jumped toward her wife and reared up to hug her. "Ly-Ly, it's only for a few days. I can help you get used to it, I promise." She rubbed back Lyra's hair from her face and kissed at the damp patch on her cheek.

"I don't know how any of this works."

"You seemed to understand a timberwolf body pretty well, even wagging your tail like a happy puppy." Sweetie kept up her kisses, nuzzles, and hugs. Slowly, she felt Lyra calm down, but she also started shaking. "Are you okay, Ly-Ly?"

"Really cold. Why do humans have to be hairless?" Working out how arms worked was a matter of pride for Lyra, she wrapped them around Sweetie and pulled the bundle of warm pony against her. "You're warm."

"Let me get you a blanket to wrap around you and we'll have dinner. It'll be a good chance for you to work out how to use this fingers." Sweetie tried to pull back from Lyra, though it took almost a minute before she was actually successful. "Wait right here."

Lyra wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to think about how strange this was. She barely sat there a moment before Sweetie was walking back in and passing her a blanket. "Thanks, Bon Bon. Have I told you how much I love you today?"

"Not enough. Hold still." Sweetie held one end and walked around Lyra, wrapping her up in the warmest, softest blanket they owned. "If you intend to go a whole week like this, you're going to have to pay Rarity a visit."

With the warmth of the blanket around her, Lyra let out a happy sigh. "I might do that tomorrow. There was more to the letter. Princess Luna said she'll have to keep the moon full for a week." Shifting toward the table on her knees, Lyra tried to get up onto a chair. "Why are my teats so big?"

"Breasts, Lyra. Various bipedal creatures have them. The parrot females, for example. You'll want something to support them." It was up to Sweetie to serve dinner, a task she normally foist upon her unicorn wife. Setting out plates and cutlery, Sweetie got back to the question that'd been interrupted. "Would you like a drink?"

"Can this mouth even drink? It's so flat. Do you want to know the worst bit, Sweetie? I don't have my horn!"

"Lyra, do you want a drink?"

Giving a sigh, Lyra nodded her head. "Yes. Thank you, Bon Bon. I don't know what I'd do without you."

With a glass of apple juice for each of them, Sweetie settled into her seat and did her best not to giggle again. "Knives and forks, Lyra. We are civilized ponies."

"You're a civilized pony, I'm a human." Lyra knew better than to just start scooping up food with her hands, though she decided a spoon was the best way to attack her meal and not wear it. "These hands had better be worth it."

"You really preferred being a timberwolf, didn't you?" Sweetie sipped her juice and watched Lyra struggle with holding the spoon. "Hold it with a fist. Don't try anything fancy, just wrap all your fingers around—There you go."

"Yes I preferred a timberwolf to this. I didn't have my magic, but I knew where I stood—and that was with four legs planted firmly on the ground."

Sweetie snorted. "And a goofy grin on your snout when I rubbed your ears."

Taking Sweetie's advance, Lyra held the spoon inexpertly and started scooping peas into her mouth—and missed. "Why is my face so much smaller?!"

"Because you signed up to test something without thinking of all the consequences. Why not try a centaur next time? You'd have your hands and four legs."

"Might even get to keep my horn that way, too. Alright, I'll try that one next." Breaking off a piece of her Yorkshire pudding, Lyra scooped it into her mouth and managed to not miss this time. "Mmm. That's really good. At least this mouth works well on non meat things."

Sweetie tapped her chin with the handle of her fork. "Show me your teeth."

Gulping down her mouthful, Lyra opened her lips and drew them back so Sweetie could see them.

"Figured. Omnivore. Grinding teeth at the back, cutters at the front. No wonder it tastes good." She scooped up some of her own onion-gravy covered pudding. "You can close your mouth now."

Lyra stuck her tongue out before returning to her meal. If there was one thing she couldn't deny, it was that her wife made the best food in all Equestria. "These legs are too long."

"That's really your biggest take-home in all this? Your legs are too long? Ly-Ly, you're a completely different species!" Standing up from the table, Sweetie gathered her plate up and carried it to the sink.

"Bon Bon, you remember how warm it was when I hugged you earlier?"

Sweetie stopped and turned her head to look at Lyra. "No, because I wasn't the one who was cold."

"Right, but it was really nice and warm. Want to go to bed early?" Lyra passed Sweetie her own plate when her wife walked over to fetch it.

Taking the plate, Sweetie stretched her neck up to kiss Lyra's cheek. "Are you still cold, or is this an excuse to snuggle?"

Lyra blushed and let out a nervous laugh.

"Snuggles are fine too, but there will be ear-rubbing, got it?"

"I can do ear-rubbing. Pretty sure that's what these hands were practically built for." Reaching out, Lyra tested her theory by catching one of Sweetie's ears. Unfortunately, she was still getting used to the strength of their grip.

"Ow! Hey! Gentle… Oh, there you go."

Getting her sense of touch lined up with what Sweetie was expecting took a moment, but once Lyra got it right she watched her wife's expression go slack and her head tilt to one side. "Is that the spot?"

"Mmmm…"

"What about here?"

"Ly-Ly, if you stop doing this, I'm divorcing you."

"Figures. Humans might not be so bad."

A full night's sleep was, apparently, just what Lyra needed to center herself again. Of course, centering herself as a human was not as easy as just casting a few spells. She woke cuddling Sweetie Drops as tight as she could with two blankets draped across the pair of them.

In the moments between sleeping and waking, when the mind is slowly adjusting to full activity again, all kinds of strange interpretations and synaesthesic signals reached her brain and told a confusing story to her mental faculties. Of course, minds being how they are, her brain threw away most of the information and instead squeezed gently with what it interpreted as forelegs to hug Sweetie a little tighter.

Leaning forward, Lyra tried to nibble on Sweetie's ear, but kept missing. After her third try without successfully catching her prey, Lyra's brain finally started to take note of the odd signals it was getting. Signals like soft hair against naked flesh and the sensitive touch of fingers. But, what pulled her brain fully into gear was where's my tail?

"I'm still human." Even Lyra's mouth felt different and her voice was odd. Without the larger volume that her pony snout gave, her voice seemed a little more tinny than normal.

Sweetie turned her head slightly to look over her shoulder. "Yeah you are. You said a week, remember?" She followed her words up with a yawn.

"I still don't like it." It was like a lie on Hearths Warming. Lyra had been building up to how awesome being a human would be, and then she found out they're cold, soft, and didn't move right. When Sweetie started to move, Lyra wrapped both arms and both legs around her and clung on for dear ~~life~~ warmth. "Noooooo…"

Lyra's problem, of course, was that she was a human and Sweetie an earth pony. As Sweetie pulled herself across the bed and stood beside it, she was not able to free herself of the furless barnacle that clung to her back. "Are you going to get off?"

"It's cooooooold!"

"It'll be colder if you don't get something on. But, while you're onboard, might as well have a shower." Walking out of the bedroom, Sweetie made it halfway to the shower before Lyra started to shiver. "It can't be that cold in here."

Mostly shivering because her back was exposed, Lyra was nonetheless relieved when they reached the bathroom. Reaching out with her magic, she tried to get the taps turned on in advance, but remembered—"I don't have my magic."

"No, you don't. Honestly, Ly-Ly, just get in there and turn the taps on. Test those fancy hands of yours out." Walking to the door of the big shower, Sweetie waited for Lyra to slide off her back.

"It's c-crazy, Bon Bon. The moment it gets a little cooler, I feel cold. Not having a coat is the worst." As she spoke, Lyra crawled toward the shower controls. Standing up wasn't an option, what with the shower head only a little above a pony's height, so she instead reached up and aimed the head away and used a hand to turn the hot tap on.

Gathering the items she thought they'd need for the shower, Sweetie turned to see her wife huddled under the hot water stream and looking much happier. "This would have been so much easier if you had kept your magic. Look how much hair you have."

About to protest, Lyra watched her wife lift a hoof up and casually spin her around on the floor. "Hey! What are—" She cut off abruptly when Sweetie dumped a big dollop of shampoo in her hair and started working on it. Having her hair played with was one of Lyra's little things that always coaxed a happy smile and closed eyes from her normally alert self. With the hot water beating down on her, she quickly surrendered and slumped to let Sweetie work her magic. Not actual magic, of course.

In all, Sweetie expected Lyra to relax into the attention, and took care to lather up and rinse her wife's hair twice in all. When she was done for the second time, she tried to work out what to do with bare skin. She was about to ask when a thought occurred to her. Smiling at her brilliant mind, Sweetie drew out a bottle of skin cleanser they used on their more private parts, and started lathering Lyra up with it.

Squirming, Lyra was distinctly aware of how ticklish her human body was. She tried to pull away from Sweetie's hooves, but soon she was laughing too much to do more than tremble in place.

"You're almost making this impossible, you know?" Sweetie continued to lather her wife up.

"C-Can't help it!" Lyra broke into an attack of the giggles as Sweetie started work on her legs. "Th-This whole body is ticklish!"

"Are you sure this whole thing about temperature and sensitivity isn't just from being in a different body to the one you're used to?"

Lyra sat still, her mind racing over the question Sweetie had asked, as her wife rinsed her off. It made sense, but it didn't make all the strange sensations any less strange. She was still trying to figure out what other things might be odd when she heard Sweetie clear her throat. "S-Sorry?"

"It's your turn. Put those hands to good use, and don't spare my mane and tail."

"Okay!" Lyra reached for the shampoo first, fumbled, tried again, and managed to get her fingers to hold it on the fourth try. Squeezing out some, she began to work on Sweetie's tail. The work it took to get the shampoo into Sweetie's tail gave her fingers a good workout, and got her flexing and moving them more.

By the time Lyra was done washing mane and tail, then the coat of Sweetie, she was much more confident of her hands. She even spent some time rubbing Sweetie's ears.

"Ear rubs make up for everything else you've done. Keep that up, and you can be a human as often as you like," Sweetie said as she climbed out of the shower.

Lyra crawled to the door of the shower (after turning the water off) and started to shiver almost immediately. When Sweetie tossed a towel over her back, Lyra quickly got to work drying off. "Thanks, Bon Bon."

Unlike Lyra, who seemed to be drying herself off rapidly, Sweetie was stuck with using a bunch of towels. "Normally, this would be where a unicorn uses her magic to dry me off."

Having wrapped her hair with a towel, Lyra stared at Sweetie. "On it, ma'am!"

It was Sweetie's turn to melt into a happy puddle of pony again as Lyra massaged the towels over her soaked coat and hair and soon had three damp towels and one happy Sweetie on her hands. "How's that? You feel dry." She ran a hand back and forth over Sweetie's coat, a little surprised at how tactile she was now.

Sweetie turned and had to rear up a little to reach Lyra's face, but she managed a credible kiss on her wife's… chin. She was therefore delighted when Lyra leaned lower and they got to have a proper embrace. No sooner did the kiss break, however, than she looked Lyra in the eyes. "You're shivering again."

"I can't help it. It just feels really cold in here. Maybe I do need to go see Rarity about getting something warm."

"We can go together. It's been too long since I've gotten a new hat." Sweetie pranced to the door and out into the hallway. "I'll get my saddlebags."

Crawling through the house, Lyra got to the front door by the time Sweetie returned with her bags over her back. "It's not so bad now, but I'm still not exactly comfortable."

"Well, come on. You get to practice walking properly outside." Sweetie opened the door and walked outside into the crisp, autumn day. "It's a little colder out here, I think."

Lyra, however, was barely noticing the temperature. Once she crawled out of their house, she was finally able to unfold her legs and stand up. Way, way up! "Wow! Sweetie! I can see our roof!" Reaching out an arm, Lyra felt her balance shift forward and her other arm instinctively reach backward.

"Are you going to poke the roof all day or are you going to come and get some warm clothes?" Ignoring her wife's antics (once she'd judged them suitably harmless, Sweetie started to walk to the street in front of their house.

"Coming." Lyra trotted to catch up to Sweetie, her limbs somehow just knowing how to move. Compared to the complicated movement of four pony limbs, Lyra found her walking pace oddly simple. Her brain somehow cam pre-wired to keep her upright, which gave her plenty of time to examine her movement. "There's a lot of things moving. It doesn't seem like there are, but when I look at how I move, I move a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, these things on my chest for a start. We don't normally have anything this big, but these just want to bounce every step I take. Then there's my hips—they want to draw little circles as I walk. And everything goes up and down with each step." Lyra pointed to her body to show what she was talking about each time. "Maybe Rarity can help with stopping that bounce, too. I'd hate to need to run."

Sweetie looked up and snorted. "You remind me of Cup Cake when she'd had the twins. Maybe support them with an arm until we get to Rarity's boutique?" She'd made the mistake—once—of calling Carousel Boutique a shop, and had born the brunt of an hour-long lecture from Rarity on everything that made her establishment not a shop.

"Hey, that works." Lyra held one of her arms under her chest, just as Sweetie had said, and it definitely stopped the bounce—it also made her chest look nearly twice as bountiful. Soon enough they were at Carousel Boutique, and Lyra let Sweetie go first.

"Sweetie Drops, darling! It's wonderful to see you. Do come inside and I'll brew us some tea. Who is—" Rarity froze her normally animated features and looked up, up, up. "I have many questions, but I absolutely shan't be asking a single one without my fainting couch nearby and a warm drink. Do come inside."

Lyra led the way, crouching down and crawling through the doorway. The moment she was inside she felt relief flood her. The room was warm. "I was doing a project for—Well, I can't exactly say who I'm doing it for, but I'm going to be stuck like this for a week."

"And I said to her, if you're cold all the time, that means you need clothes, and there's only one pony in Equestria who could solve this problem for you," Sweetie said.

"No you didn't. You just said we should go—" Lyra stopped talking, mostly because Sweetie's hoof was shoved in her mouth.

"Quite!" Sweetie said, slowly pulling her hoof back. "So, Miss Rarity, is there any hope for my wife?"

"So, you have a fashion emergency, and your first thought was moi?" Rarity fluttered her lashes as she looked over her subject. "Very well, I accept this challenge you've laid before me. Let it never be said Rarity let somepony in the midst of urgence de la mode leave her boutique unclothed!"

All of Twilight's close friends—those that had borne the Elements of Harmony with her—often got a glint in their eyes and took on a sort of madness when in their element. Rarity was not an exception to this.

A bolt of white fabric levitated into the air along with pins, Rarity's glasses, and a measuring tape. "Over here, darling. You should be able to stand upright in the middle of my boutique. Hrmm, this is going to create some difficulty—you'll need clothes that can be worn as well upright as hunched over."

Lyra found the tape measure loop around her neck and lead her into the middle of the boutique. There, she stood up slowly, her head poking through the balcony into the second floor where Rarity's accommodation was. That's when the tape measure attacked again. "Hey! What—"

"Hold still! I can't do this properly if you keep jumping about. I mean, honestly, I've never made anything for a creature of these proportions." The last Rarity said with a sigh of bespoke bliss. It wasn't often she got to make truly unique clothes for a unique creature. "Oh, you're going to need some support for your breasts—I made a new corset last month for Captain Celaeno, and she has the same problem. Ahem. You'll need underwear, too."

"Underwear?" Lyra almost jumped when the tape measure moved to her legs. "What are you—"

"What did I say about jumping? Hold still or I'll get Twilight in here to hold you still." Rarity smiled when she heard Lyra gasp in response to her. "Will you hold still?"

Being threatened with Twilight was a good way to stop Lyra in her tracks. It was one thing to have your classmate from school save the world more times than you could count, and quite another to have her be called in to help with your research project. "Yeah."

"Would it be okay if I go upstairs so we can talk?" Sweetie asked.

Rarity, who was already back taking measurements with her tape and notepad, paused her mental faculties to focus on the question. "Whatever do you—Oh! Up there! Oh yes. And if you could put the kettle on, that'd be wonderful, darling. This is going to be a five-cup job, I think."

Standing still, moving only when commanded by Rarity, Lyra spotted Sweetie when she stepped into what seemed to be Rarity's living room. "This sucks."

"Yet I'm still by your side. That must make me crazier than you, Ly-Ly." Sweetie walked all the way over to the balustrade. Lyra's chin was at Sweetie's belly height, which put them both almost eye-to-eye.

"I don't know. You didn't cast a spell on yourself before checking what the intended duration of it would be." Leaning forward and ignoring Rarity's complaints, Lyra pursed her lips and kissed Sweetie when she leaned over the balustrade.

When the kiss finally broke, Sweetie let out a sigh. "I'd ask how you keep getting in these messes, Ly-Ly, but I can't exactly say too much given what I've put you through."

"I'm proud of your monster hunting, Bon Bon. Seeing you come back with your squad—knowing that you made a difference—it always gave me a boost." She tilted her head forward so her forehead gently contacted Sweetie's.

"But not the leaving-to-do-it bit."

Breathing out a sigh, Lyra couldn't find it in herself to argue. "No, Bon Bon. You know I don't like you leaving."

"And I don't like you signing up to do these silly things, but at least you're still at my side while you do them." Having to leave on work was the worst part of Sweetie's job for her too, she just usually had to be strong or she and Lyra would have both broken down crying each time.

Opening her mouth, not even sure what she should say, Lyra wound up shouting. "Ouch! Hey!"

"It was just a little slip." Rarity snorted a little. "Why, most ponies wouldn't even feel it."

"So humans are more fragile, too?" Lyra stomped a foot and tried to whinny in protest at life, but it only came out as a little sigh. "How am I supposed to deal with this for a week?!"

"If you give me five minutes, I'll have you something to cover up with. Two hours and I'll have you some warm clothes for outside, and if you give me a month, I'll fill your wardrobe, darling." Rarity looked up to Sweetie Drops. "Could you please make a cup of tea for me? If you would be so kind, that is. It would mean I can start work on this all the sooner."

"Okay." Sweetie winked at Lyra before she turned and headed into Rarity's kitchen.

Lyra, who still wasn't a fan of standing upright when she was so tall, sat down. "How are these things meant to fold? Everything about this body is wrong. It was easier being a timberwolf!"

"That was you?" Rarity had already sat down at her sewing machine, so adjusted her glasses down her snout a little so she could look over them at Lyra. "I went running up to Twilight's castle when I saw you, and she told me not to worry. I was all confuzzled for the whole day."

Huffing out another attempt at a whinny, Lyra nodded. "Yeah, that was me. It was kind of fun, and I let Bon Bon practice her kicks on me. It didn't hurt, though when I couldn't find one twig I did feel a little itchy. So what will I be wearing?"

Rarity struck a pose while her magic kept working the sewing machine. "Darling! You need to come here more often. You wouldn't believe how many clients have far too many ideas about what kind of outfit they want. Wanting to find out what I'll make? Mrs. Heartstrings, you are a precious catch."

True to her word, and on only her first cup of tea, Rarity had Lyra a bra, a pair of panties, and a loose sundress made up in five minutes.

Lyra could work out the panties—mostly because Rarity hadn't shut up about how Captain Celaeno wore panties and pants all the time, and since Lyra was so much like her (sans feathers), she'd want them too. So Lyra had shimmied and pulled the panties up until one small part of her was clothed, then reached for the bra. "How do I work this thing?"

"That confused me, too. Captain Celaeno put hers on by putting the straps here over her shoulders, then leaning forward and putting herself into the cups, then leaning backward." Rarity used her magic to gesture to the parts of the bra for Lyra. "We could always ask Twilight. She has been to that strange other world filled with human creatures."

"Well, you know me," Lyra said as she slipped the bra up her arms, "I never try to cause too much fuss."

"Like chasing after me in the market, as a timberwolf, to tell me I needed to get more eggs?" Sweetie asked.

Rarity used her magic to assist Lyra, pulling the bra straps a little higher on her shoulders. "Now lean forward, dear. There you go. Reach behind you, there's a hefty fastener there and…"

Lyra blinked and looked down. The weight that had been hanging on her chest was now effortlessly supported by her shoulders, and her breasts stood out and up much bigger thanks to the lift of the bra. "That's pretty good." She reached both hands up to check how it all felt, gave herself a squeeze and then pulled her hands away quickly.

"Is something wrong?" Sweetie Drops asked.

"N-No! I mean—Thank you, Rarity, that's most helpful." She sat there hoping she wasn't blushing too hard. "H-How do I get this dress on?"

The dress had been easier to work out than the bra, but harder than the panties. However, once she had it on, Lyra felt warmer immediately. The dress reached all the way to her ankles. "I just don't have the words to thank you enough for this, Rarity," Lyra said.

"Pish posh, darling. This has been exciting—even fun. I don't often get to make things for entirely new creatures. Your dimensions are certainly unique." Rarity was still working on her sewing machine. "Just drop back in two hours and I'll have you the rest of the things you'll need."

Lyra crawled out of Carousel Boutique 100% less naked than she entered it, and the autumn day had even warmed slightly—enough that she felt perfectly comfortable in her dress.

Looking at her logbook, Lyra let out another sigh and promised herself that in just an hour she'd be having a good whinny—maybe two. "Well, the spell should be wearing off soon."

"And then you'll be my snuggly unicorn wife again?" Sweetie Drops stood on the stairs—behind a yellow caution line—and watched her wife undress. "I spoke to Twilight about this, you know."

"You what?" Lyra tried to spin around and face Sweetie, but she got tangled in the woolen pullover Rarity had made for her and wound up falling in a heap on the floor. "Why, Bon Bon?"

"Because I needed to know what you'd eat, mostly, and partly to stop myself pulling my mane out. She's a good listener, Lyra Heartstrings, and she spends most of her time looking like a pony." Sweetie let out a little equine snort at the end of her sentence.

Shucking her way out of the constrictive pullover, Lyra crawled over to Sweetie and reached her arms out to her. "I'm sorry, Bon Bon. This has all been a huge mess, but—"

"But you're doing it for Princess Celestia. That's one reason, Ly-Ly, why I put up with so much." Sweetie kissed Lyra on her little nose. "The other is that I love you more than is healthy."

Lyra opened her mouth to reply, but she felt her neck and jaw clench on her. Falling backward, Lyra landing on her rear and stared up at Sweetie with an excited grin.

"You're turning back? I am going to kiss and boop your snoot so much, Ly-Ly!" Most of the event would be hidden from Sweetie by the pullover, but she got a front-row seat to watch Lyra's back-end pull in and her long human leg shrink down and sprout aquamarine fur.

Sticking her head up, Lyra let out a whinny of excitement—a proper whinny—as her face had finished changing back. It seemed like the changes came in waves, and as each progressed she became more and more pony until, finally, she was her unicorn self still struggling inside the big, cozy pullover. She also realized she'd neglected to remove one important article of clothing. "Bon Bon! Help!"

Rushing forward, Sweetie helped yank the woolen top off Lyra to reveal what she was complaining about. The bra was still latched around Lyra's body, and she now had one leg stuck in it. "I'll get a knife."

"Wait! Just unhook it."

"Lyra Heartstrings, in the week you were human I hadn't worked out how to get that contraption off you, what makes you think I know how now?"

"Rarity will hunt us down if you ruin it."

That gave Sweetie pause. She'd seen first-hoof the devastation potential of Twilight's friends in a group and individually, but she also didn't want to ruin her friendship with Rarity by destroying something she'd made. "Hold still."

"I love you, Bon Bon."

"I must love you too, Ly-Ly, but sometimes I wonder how." She set to attacking the clasp with her teeth. "Sometimes… like now."

Author's Note

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