Olive tromped, churning dirt as she paced a circle, mind weltering with a cauldron's brew of possibilities. She had already passed the pinch test, her fleshy cheek still smarting, so she couldn't say she was dreaming. She was too cognizant to blame drugs. GPUs weren't nearly sophisticated enough for the range of senses she had been experiencing.

No, this was real. She had been shot. She had been taken somewhere remote.

And she had been turned into a pig.

She punched a tree, a few flakes of bark breaking away, then yelped as her little finger throbbed, a dull ache lancing down her wrist. "Hck!" She croaked, stumbling back with her wrist in her hand, her trotters biting the loam, giving her traction.

Not my brightest moment, but I think I deserve a few stupid choices right now, she decided, hissing through clenched teeth.

And clenched tusks. The way they just poked the inside of her lips, teasing them, made her want to tear them out.

Is this gene splicing, or something? Haha, yeah, merge the rural girl with a pig, that'll be a riot! She grew up near farms, the stink of manure always somewhere in her nose. Someone rich and too clever to be left alone must have looked at her background, decided to play a joke. 'Teach her a lesson for reaching beyond her grasp! Yeah, that'll show the poors!'

Diane, the masseur, they must have been in on it. One doesn't choose 'secretary' or 'massage therapist' as long-term career paths unless they already have swollen bank accounts, or at least a generational buffer. They had been plotting from the start, nudging her on with subtle cues, with...

She wrinkled her snout, catching a whiff of her acrid vomit, shining oil-like in the sunken recess where she had been, moments before. I should really take a walk, she decided, turning away. Before I start screaming at clouds.

The scene was nice, at least, as she waded through the thicket. Clear skies, a few cottony clouds, tall oaks and redwoods ranking her path, a flock of goslings passing between them. A gentle breeze brushed her face, pushing her hair back, flopping her ears. Pig ears, of course, tented atop her scalp. After the snout, though, they seemed like such small, insignificant things. By the time she got to the tail, a little corkscrew at the base of her back, she had reccded into numb resignation.

She thought about shouting, calling a creampuff cloud something obscene, just for the fun of it. She decided against with a girlish snort, realizing she'd only frighten jays, attract predators.

In space, no one can pretend to laugh at your jokes.

That was another thought: aliens!

Yeah, I'm not going there.

Where was she going? Girl Scouts had focused more on volunteering, community outreach, and peddling sweets to the vulnerable, things she could parley into a scholarship. Not outdoorsmanship!

Would it have killed them to have taught us how to make a fire?! It wasn't cold yet, but that would change. A few speckles of mushroom caps, brown with orange spotting, spotted the understory. Were they edible? Poisonous? Hunger would be a problem, same with thirst. Was it worth the risk, to try a bite?

A trotter caught on a burgeoning root, making her groan, flail her arms. She was educated for office spaces, overexpensive restaurants, and boardrooms!

Not the middle of bumfuck nowhere! A rustle sounded to her right, turning over her ear, making her flinch, an oink shooting from her nose. Breathless, she bent, grabbed a stick, held it up, heartbeat pumping through her wrist, her fingers.

"Fuck with me right now, and this is going you-know-where! Sideways!" She shrieked, eyes bulging out of her head, tail rising like a lever.

Through a cluster of ferns, between fronds, a grey squirrel scuttled, leaped, skittered up a bole and into the canopy above.

Her cheek twitched, relief smoothing out her taut muscles. The stick dropped with a mute thud. It would have been difficult to shove up its behind, sideways or otherwise.

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I can't be losing it already. I just got here! She groaned, tucking her hair, only for it to flop back into her face, smacking her nose.

Oh, right. Ears aren't there anymore. She reached up, felt at a limp fold, pinched it, felt the pressure build. The texture was soft, almost spongy between her fingers. Pleasant, even.

She massaged them as she tramped, going over options. Changing back, that was the clear priority, but she expected it would take some doing. Getting home, finding doctors, exposing whoever did it to the press. Maybe she'd become a hero? A worldwide icon, an activist, who exposed the truth behind...

Hard to say who. Not like she kept her thumb on the pulse of genetic research. She worked in advertising, so she knew advertising firms, brands, the four quadrants.

Genetic research didn't exactly appeal to the general public. Cleaved a bit too close to Frankenstein to put next to a sitcom, or the Olympics. She knew her business, and she left the rest to someone who cared. That was the platonic ideal.

And that business would get her out of this. Selling overpriced frivolities wouldn't get her home, but convincing people to do other, exceedingly unwise things for the sake of her bottom line would give her a fighting chance. Besides, she understood people, always had. She knew what they wanted, and where to get things, generally. She just needed to find ways to make those two points meet.

Resilience. That's all the needed. To pick herself up, keep going, and climb, with whatever tools she had. Even if it meant shoving others aside, or using them as rungs.

She only needed an advantage. Something to leverage. But, for the moment, she had... nothing. A stained shirt, red, sheepskin pants, and a body that made her pink skin crawl. She scrunched up her face, scoffed, stomped a few paces.

Then stopped. Closed her eyes. Breathed.

A trace of brine tingled in her nose. Twined with smoke, horseflesh. It was faint, buried in loam and resin, but there.

She just needed to dig a bit.

With a dejected groan, her tail twitching, she raised her snout and took another sniff.

She pushed past the earthy underpinings, the moss, the dead leaves, the ordure. An olfactory map began to take shape as she shuffled about, ducking between trees, tasting the air. To the east, more dirt, more trees, as far as she could make out. To the north, traces of iron, burning metal, sulfur. South gave her fur, musk, urine, and blood.

But west... west was her ticket. Briny, smoky air, seasoned with horses, spices. She was near a port, it seemed. A farm.

I'll take either! She sighed, breathing through her mouth. Her nose felt sharp, the scents still thick inside, smothering it.

It was good for something, at least, she granted, swivelling, taking her first step in the right direction. But I'll be glad when it's gone.

----------------------------------------

The thicket broke, and a lush valley came into relief, down a threading, dirt path, lined with gulleys. Cyclists, probably. Olive scrambled, heaving breaths, eyes glossy with sweat as she regarded the sky with a squinting glare. The sun was westering, shadows stretching out over the road. It must have been late afternoon, or early evening.

I should be going home, right about now, she thought, with a whimper, trotting onto the trail. To drink a mimosa and watch stupid people bicker on TV! Not sniffing out horses like a fucking animal!

But the horses were there, through the valley and to the west. Maybe a mile, maybe five, maybe ten. God, I hope it's not ten...

Thankfully, the journey had only cost her sweat and dignity. Her feet were hardy, calloused on their soles and with a versatile grip at their 'claws'. They made shoes redundant, even assuming she could employ a cobbler who could tailor them to her porcine needs. That said, there were only so many steps one could take before ennui played its hand.

Olive found her number at six-thousand and forty-two.

"Is this, like, a cosmic statement?" She asked the wind, maundering toward the valley, her trotters twinkling down the slope. "Try all we want, scrape and fight all we can, we're all pigs for slaughter in the end. Clawing over scraps until the butcher gets hungry, and--"

Horseflesh. Thick. Raking at her nostrils.

She stopped, raised her snout, sniffed. East, on the wind. Behind her.

Hooves stomped, stampeding toward her, the sound building. Vibrations in her trotters, a murmur in her chest, a rattling in her teeth.

A form rolled over the crest of the valley. A swarthy face, weathered, over a swaddled tors. A brindled thoroughbred below him, hooves kicking up clods of dark earth. The horse was barded in silvery armour, mottled, gilded with rose-gold feathers. Some kind of bird. Dove?

Olive gawped, her head canted to a side. Was this the Middle East? Did they still ride horses in the Middle East?!

Did they still wield swords?! Bows?! The former dangled from a leather belt, sheathed in a rose-gold scabbard. The latter was draped over his shoulder, the quiver dangling by his hip.

Fuck, I hope he speaks English... She prayed, stepping forward and raising her pink hands.

"Hey! Hello! I need--"

"MOVE! IN THE NAME OF THE FURIES!" A sonorous voice boomed, like a blow to her chest. She scuttled to the verge, grass tickling between her chubby toes, as they galloped on, the horse wheezing, its barrel chest expanding wide, its dark eyes fixed on the horizon.

Olive's jaw fell slack, her face blanching. She recognized the barding, now, as it faded deeper into the valley, behind wisteria, its smell fading below the loam. It was a falcon, in full flight.

The Furies, she realized, her chest taut. I'm in Flight of the Fucking Furies!