Devin gave his surroundings a sideways look. He halfheartedly uttered a curse in the privacy of his mind, squinting at the cows grazing in the field. They had their heads to the dirt, occasionally munching a bit of the grass that grew underfoot, occasionally lifting their gazes to indifferently inspect other cows, piles of manure, or the farmers that tended to them.

The beasts would spend the entirety of their lives doing this, sometimes milked by the humans that owned the field, feeling the warmth of their odd magic that accelerated growth, chewing the cud they regurgitated, and doing not much of anything until the day they were butchered or died from disease. Devin’s tail flicked unconsciously, batting away a pesky fly. Well, he’d be doing the same as the rest of them. Nibbling the tips of the dry grass at the corner of the enclosure, he chewed without any hurry. It had been a year, probably? A year and a half? Devin couldn’t remember exactly how long he’d lived here; he had lost count around 300 days in.

He couldn’t remember exactly how long he’d been on the farm where he had been born, but it didn’t matter as much as remembering that conversation… the one that had led to his life as a powerless beast on some farm somewhere. That woman had said a bunch of things, and Devin had remembered most of what she’d spoken of, even if there were random blind spots too unnatural to be explained away by an imperfect memory.

At first he thought that the woman had been insane, or a figment of his imagination… He could have been experiencing an extremely lucid dream after drifting off in his bed; after all, the meds they’d given him at the end had been pretty strong, even more so for an 86 year old man near death. But everything that person had said, that’d he had died, the information that he had forgotten long ago, the weird karma system she had explained to him… all of it was made more convincing by his current situation.

Devin swallowed the bit of grass he had been chewing, knowing it would be back later as cud, and slightly envied the cows that didn’t have the sensibilities of a human. As a human… well, he had a blessed life, and he had known it. Laying on his deathbed, too weak to do much on his own, surrounded by his kids and grandkids crying and making sad expressions, Devin thought it was the best way to go. He was lucky enough to outlive his late wife by a few months, not putting her through life alone, despite the company of their extensive family.

But, enough to unbalance the universe… Devin thought that lady was exaggerating, at least a tad. Sure, maybe he had won a few raffles and a small lottery as a young man, and had met his eventual wife of 63 years on a cruise won by chance, but he had lived through some hardships, like anyone else. His parents had passed, he had been let go from jobs once or twice, as well as losing his older cousin when he was only 12. That had always felt like the balancing point for his luck, symbolically at least. His cousin had been a source of cheer, and had treated Devin kindly despite a five year difference between the two. After she had passed away at a young age, Devin’s luck had seemed to skyrocket to ludicrous levels. Of course, that luck had recently fallen like a rock straight back to Earth. Or Ethera, or whatever that suspicious lady had called this world. She had avoided words in her explanation, words like ‘punishment’ or ‘atonement’, but Devin knew what his new life was.

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Spotting two cows standing side by side, Devin took his words back the slightest bit. At least he wasn’t alone with a bunch of brain dead cows. He had Calluph and Aineri. And Devin couldn’t see him now, but Takeshi as well. Others like him, serving out their punishments here - or whatever that lady had tried to disguise this as.

The lady in that office building had told him that humans in his situation were often reincarnated as cows in places like this, and Devin suspected letting them keep their sentience and so many of their previous lives’ memories only served to make this sentence harsher for them. Devin had many images of his previous life in his head, of his family, of feelings, thoughts, ideas, stories, places… there were holes in his recollection, from both his own mind’s lapses and from what he knew to be the intervention of that so-called higher power.

Still, he and Takeshi remembered enough to know they both came from Earth, even if Takeshi had died at an advanced age long before Devin was ever born, though Aineri remembered little of her life save family members and the scent of the ocean. Calluph, on the other hand, remembered much of his previous life. He had apparently also been a cow in his previous life, in a world somewhat similar to this one, but was sentient like the rest of that world’s cattle. He’d described how some mad ruler had experimented on livestock, and had accidentally made cattle not only sentient, but also highly intelligent; leading to a network of cows communicating and working to live a life of luxury under the noses of humans. According to Calluph, living as a cow among non-sentient beasts like the rest of the cattle on the farm was literally torture.

Personally, Devin thought it was lazy. He had worked managing a company for most of his previous life, and this business with that office lady and her whole universal balance shtick smelled of cut corners and irresponsible cost saving measures.

Whatever the case was, Devin was stuck here with the others, shackled to a life of mind-numbing monotony, never knowing if tomorrow was the day they were to be butchered.

Looking past the fence that marked the abrupt shift from grassy fields to shaded forest, Devin chewed the cud that had come back up, trying not to mind it too much. His attention was promptly ripped away from his food, as the brush in the forest rustled and a figure burst out, leaping from the fence up and over his head. Devin didn’t hear the death of another cow behind him: his mind was caught racing and his mouth agape. He barely had any time to react when the figure walked forward past him, an adult cow resting dead on her narrow shoulders. Devin just let out a weak ‘moo’ as she hopped the fence and disappeared among the trees.

She was different, he knew. Red hair where it should have been brown; the wings, the tail and scales of a dragon, all a deep crimson. But Devin had never forgotten that face, how could he? He’d cried in his room for a day after the accident, old enough then to be aware of the permanence of death. It seemed, apparently, that he had been wrong about that part.

Mia.