She-Swine

Barely a day in a new world, and Olive was already enmeshed in the criminal element. 

The sleeper stood over her, lips glossy with drool, eyes pouched and leaden. Olive quailed, her heart still cantering in her chest. The guard she'd choked out splayed out behind her, bound, stripped to the smalls. 

A droopy hand pointed to the open cage. The girl nodded, head tilting languidly, then turned, shambling out. 

This is not real, Olive told herself, rubbing at her ear as she followed them out. None of this is real. I refuse.

But what else could it be? She had already run through the possibilities, dismissing most. Is it too late to hope for aliens? Holograms? Maybe I'm still dying, and this is just the result of my last neuron shooting off sparks?

If it was, it was certainly taking its time. 

Bristle gave her a pleasant (or something meant to pass for pleasant) smile, his ears drawn up, as he carried the burly guard under his arm, dropping him into the cell. The green elf, still in his corner, regarded him with trepidation, beetled brows. 

"You know you can go now," Bristle said, with a shrug and a sway of his tail. "Or stay. It's your life."

The green elf, emboldened, rushed by, joining the rest of the group as Bristle locked up with a clang. 

"So we've got the keys, and we have numbers," Ylsa began, as the prisoners made a line before her. "They'll be checking after their colleagues in a few minutes. When they do, we let them waltz on by, no hassle, no foul. We'll hide in the other cells, wait for them to come sniffing around, then snap the door shut like a trap behind them."

"And how do you intend some of us to go unnoticed?" Sianna gestured to Bristle, her tail a whirl. "Others can hide under covers, or in dark corners. But some..." She gave a gentle, placative smile as the beast regarded her with something that broached offense. "...some demand attention. With their charisma and handsome bearing, of course!"

"A good point, and one worth addressing," Ylsa allowed, with a click of her tongue. "But, let's just say, I've accounted for this particular variable." She opened the door, looked over her shoulder, and gave a knowing wink. "I haven't played all my cards yet..."

Olive huddled under the ratty blanket, clinging to a dank corner as Sianna sat athwart, Bristle taking up a leading share of the room. Ylsa stood behind him, hand out, keen, focused. 

"You can play your hand whenever you like, sweetling," Sianna whispered, rolling her eyes. "We won't oppose."

"The Fabric can't just be folded and refolded as you would a shirt, darling!" Ylsa sang back, sliding her eyes to her, sticking out her tongue. "It doesn't like it when you do that."

"So I've heard." Sianna looked to Olive, gave her a wry wink. She ignored the Porcene's snort, and continued. "But we're rather exposed, in here. Like bats in a mine. The less risk we take on, the better."

"The sooner I'm out of here, the better." Olive shivered, the smells of mildew and urine ripe on her nose. "I've taken on enough risk for one quarter."

"Think of it more like you've made intriguing investments," Ylsa said, with a wink. "With promising new business partners."

"I haven't invested in anything, yet!" Olive pouted, her tusks jabbing her lips. "I just don't want to be stuck in jail."

"So you've invested in freedom." Ylsa smirked, and Bristle snorted. "A temporary freedom, for now, but invest a little more, and maybe it'll last."

Olive groaned, tamping down the compulsion to explain the fallacy of sunk costs. "It's not freedom I want, it's--" My body? My life? My job? My money? "--it's everything."

"And I'd love to hear all about it over a nice cup of cocoa," Sianna said, her ear quirking as she turned to Ylsa. "Once we're out of this. Up the stairs. Descending. Whatever you intend, do it now!"

Sure enough, Olive soon heard the clack of steel, the low groan of the perennially tired. Ylsa reached out, laid a hand on Bristle's matted back. The air rippled around him, bending like heat and rolling over him like waves, sloshing water. It dragged him under, then Ylsa, eddies settling over nothing, and where before stood a hackled beast, Olive saw bars, a dim hall, a seperate cell. 

Aha! That's how she snuck up on me! Olive grinned, tucking her snout under her blanket, mutely mortified that something as fantastical as invisibility had only spurred validation from her. 

The footsteps approached, then receded. Sianna jumped, shuffling out as the iron door squealed open, then crashed shut.

Voices lifted, carrying hue and cry, but a satisfying click sealed them away. 

"Expertly done!" Ylsa exclaimed, the waves giving way around herself and bristle as Olive threw off her musky blanket. The wolf man looked at his hand, fascination glittering in his dark eyes, like the stars emerging from behind a fog. "We're in the last leg! It's just a sprint, now."

Olive heard another shuffling, then saw Sianna poke her pale head into the cell. "Sprint?"

Ylsa nodded, and Olive's face blanched. "We're going to run, now."

"What happened to all the stealth, and magic, and clever planning?!" Olive dragged at her ears, pacing down the hall, past the other prisoners. "You see these tiny legs?!" She kicked out a trotter, catching a bar, making it rattle. "Look at me and tell me, honestly, that they can outrun anyone!"

"They won't be after you," Ylsa said, with a tut. "You're a small, non-priority target. If they come after anyone, it'll be me, Bristle, or Sianna."

"Lovely," Sianna said, with a sigh.

Olive went to pinch the bridge of her nose, only to clamp a clump of skin just above her snout. "And I'm just supposed to take that on faith? Assume they'll ignore me?"

Ylsa took a deep breath, stepped in front of her, and crouched. "Olive, you're a Porcene," she said, blunt as a cudgel. "If they don't ignore you, they'll underestimate you. That's your secret weapon. That's why those hayseeds were so quick to believe you." Her violet eyes shimmered as she pressed a finger under Olive's chin, made her meet them. "You're right. Maybe they'll ignore you, maybe they won't. But, in either case, it's not them or their long legs that have the advantage. It's the little spark they don't expect."

Olive's eyes were broad, her pulse racing, her palms clammy. There was certainty in her smile, a daring faith in the way her eyes slanted. She believed in her. She cared.

Was it real? Maybe not. Maybe nothing was, but she wanted, desperately, to believe it could be. Just once. 

"A-alright," she said, with a gulp. "I can try..."

Ylsa's smile widened, and her hand retracted. "That's all anyone can ask." She told her, standing. "The rest of us will run ahead, give interference, knock a few of them down."

"I would rather stay back," Sianna said, her tail raised as she stepped in beside Olive, one hand laying snug on her shoulder. Olive tensed, and then pulled back. "To make sure we all make it out."

"Not a bad idea. Just don't stray too far back." Ylsa nodded, then turned to Bristle, nestled at the bottom of the stairway. 

The beast squinted. "You want me to lead the way, don't you?"

Ylsa nodded. "And smash things."

"Because I'm big?"

"Because you're big."

"And I have teeth?"

"Big teeth."

Bristle nodded, pensively. "You make a good point," 

"So?" Ylsa asked, fluttering her eyes. 

Bristle picked at his big teeth. "Can I pick up a snack on the way out?"

Ylsa grinned back. "No deaths. But, if you're good, and I mean really good..." She leaned into his ears, whispered something. 

His tail wagged, and he jolted up, spun around, snarled, showing his big teeth. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR?! LET'S SMASH THINGS!"

The clangour rolled down the stairway as Sianna listened, an ear cocked. Olive huddled beside her, snout raised, sifting for hints of metal, oil...

Blood. It was there, irony and ripe, twisting her stomach.

"Do you have a place to go?" Sianna asked, tersely. 

Olive blinked. "N-no. No, I don't."

Sianna nodded, her tail patting her on the back. "You can stay with me, if you like. I know it's hard, being somewhere new, looking different from everyone else." Someone screamed, sonorous and sharp, making her wince. "Which is... well..." Her voice caught, eyes stuck on some detail in the coarse stone of the stairway. "Which is why we need to stick together. Us runts."

Olive paled, skin bristling. "You... mean it?" She said, disbelieving, her tail trembling. "L-like... you're not just... saying that, right?" Her voice wobbled, a thread going taut in her chest. 

Sianna snorted, flinching as something crashed overhead. "I've spoken a lot of lies, in my time, but they were always to the greedy, selfish, and cruel." Olive felt a spike of ice lance up her spine. "Never the worthy."

Something toothy ravaged the Porcene's chest. Something like guilt. Unworthiness.

She opened her mouth, but Sianna raised a hand, cutting her off with a look. "Now!" She told her, leaping up two steps at a time. With a huff through her snout, Olive followed.

"We just need to go forward, forward, left, right, forward!" Sianna called back, summiting the steps. "Then we're--"

A spear shaft appeared from around the corner, cracking her across the face, knocking her back as Olive neared the top. 

She stopped, her mouth going dry, as Frey stepped over the unconscious Sianna, bare-footed, wearing a simple brown tunic. She moved soundlessly, sneering, her ears prickly as burrs. 

"You," she said, hueless, her form wrapped in shadows. "Should have figured I'd find you at the core of this, hog. Your kind always stirs the cauldron. Don't know why we can't just kill you. The Matriarch usually doesn't do mercy, so why are you so lucky?" She held her spear in a tight grip, its point still sterling in the murk, knuckles white. "But it's fine, though. You've given me a good cause. No one can blame me for acting in self-defense to quash a violent revolt, can they?"

Olive trembled, eyes flitting toward Sianna, the woman's mouth gaping, drool drizzling down her fur. There was no salvation there.

"I--I just wanted to go home..."' She sniffed, her head throbbing. Her mother's severe, lined face came into relief. Then her father's, scolding her for dreaming. Darlene followed, rosy, keen, perfidious. 

Then Ylsa, tricky, cunning. Belief shining bright. It's the little spark they don't expect.

"Don't worry. I'll send you there." Frey grinned. There was a glimmer of keen delight in her eyes, like a fire repressed, allowed to burn free.

Olive pricked her shoulders, dropping her head as if in surrender. 

The killing point jabbed, meeting empty space.

Olive ducked, scuttling along the stairs with a squeal, pressed her back against the wall, then smashed a trotter into Frey's unprotected ankle. She felt a give, saw her leg bow, grinned as her face tightened into outrage, waxed into fearful surprise. 

She tipped forward, crashing onto her side, then pinwheeled the rest of the way, with thuds and cries. 

Olive cackled. "You should really watch your step!" She called down, with a broad grin.

Then she heard a damp crack, and that grin faded away.