She-Swine

"You're gonna say it's stupid," Olive said, sniffing the burning end of her joint, crinkling her nose. "Ugh! Where did you get this, Pepe Le Pew's toilet?!"

Darlene pinched her rosy face into a grin, tossed her curly hair, sat forward on the couch. "Pretty much." She took it back, inhaled, blew smoke from her nostrils. "And I won't. You know I won't!"

"You sure?" Olive sat up, picked up a bottle of fragrance, sprayed. She didn't need her landlord sniffing around, asking questions. Her grey, shabby apartment might have qualified as three cardboard boxes in a trenchcoat, but they were her three cardboard boxes in a trenchcoat, and she had no appetite for trading it in for a single strip of cardboard on the curbside!

Not again.

"Pretty sure!" Darlene snorted, stamping the joint out in the ashtray. "Come on! I'm choking on suspense! Just tell me!" She ran her calloused fingers across Olive's shoulders, chills fluttering down her back. 

Olive flushed, bit her lip, set the bottle down. "Alright, alright..." She mumbled, pulling up her laptop, clicking on a text file, a knot twisting in her belly. "And you promise you'll--"

"Just show me already!" Darlene cackled, sticking out her tongue. 

Olive turned the laptop around, turned away, tucked her hair. Darlene scanned the screen, nodded, her brown eyes dim. 

"Flight of the Furies..." She read, her voice low. Her face dropped. "Eight hundred pages?!"

"J-just something I've been working on, since I was a kid. It's about this nobody, named Alys, who gets powers and becomes this genius, Machiavelli sorceress! But in a good way!" She rambled, foot bouncing. "Just for fun. As something to do. Something to turn to, when nothing makes sense..." She squeezed a finger in her hand. "You think it's stupid, don't you?"

Darlene's eyes snapped to Olive, brows furrowing. "What? No, this is amazing! Holy shit!" She told her, beaming. "The longest story I wrote was ten pages, so I'm just, like, in awe right now."

Olive let herself relax, prickles running down her back as a thin smile planted itself on her lips. "So, it's... not stupid?" She asked, shoulders slightly pricked, voice somewhat guarded. 

Darlene set the laptop on the table, crawled over, and planted a warm, deep kiss on Olive's lips, tongue darting out for a tease. 

"No," she said, as Olive nuzzled her cheek, sought her warmth. "Not stupid at all."

"This... is... so... stupid..." Olive gasped, running from one end of the cell to the other, the keratin tips of her trotters tapping out a frenzied beat.

"That's how all great ideas start," Ylsa observed, sitting crosslegged at the end of the bench. "With someone looking incredibly foolish."

"Hush sweetlings," Sianna said, leaning against the bars, ear cocked toward the door. "Someone's in the middle of a rather spirited rant about jams, and I'm invested."

"Are they almost done?" Bristle asked, stepping to her side and raising his own, notched ear. 

"Not yet, but can't be long now. One of them just brought up 'clover jam', so I think the conversation is in its death throes."

'Thank... god..." Olive huffed, thick with flop sweat over her face, under her arms, her breasts. Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

Wait, shit, it was me.

Most of the other inmates had talents to leverage: size, speed, magic, subtlety. She had none of those things, but she did have a porcine body, a porcine heart. And porcines, she had read in her hours of research while conceiving Porcenes, most commonly die from heart disease. 

When they aren't slaughtered, of course. 

"Coming!" Sianna said, stepping back. "Twenty seconds!"

"Everyone knows their part?" Ylsa asked, gaze flicking to Olive. The group nodded, and Olive raised a trembling thumb. "Good. No needless risks, no killing, no backing down!" 

If the plan went as written, they would soon be free, and without a sizeable tail. The guard did not like to advertise their failings, Ylsa told them, so breakouts usually went unreported, unless there was a killing. Hence, so long as they all practiced reasonable restraint, they would be mostly home free, aside from whatever price their original crime put on their head. 

And it all began with her performance. A performance she had only minutes to conceive, with the failure of her last, which ended with her snout mashed in the muck, still heavy on her shoulders.

Why the fuck am I doing this? It was an immense risk, putting herself in a vulnerable position, inviting a bounty or a worse sentence. Logically, she should have kept her snout low, played the polite inmate, and swallowed whatever sentence came down. 

But that was hardly the brightest course, in itself. For one, 'impersonating an official' sounded like the sort of charge that could get one dropped in the deepest pit, for the temerity of it alone. When she asked the other inmates for guidance, they shrugged their arms, waffled, gave her nothing to calculate. Perhaps they'd let her moulder in a cell for a few months? Or perhaps they'd dispense with the niceties and squeeze her porcine head into a noose?

Sianna held up all her nappy fingers. "Ten!"

For second, best case scenario, she would be let off with a slap on the wrist, dragged through the streets, and then tossed back into the wild to trudge through the muck and beg for scraps. 

No. Never again. If she wanted any clue as to what was happening, and how she could get back, she had to remain in the city. Had to cleave to the strong. 

Sianna dropped a hand. "Five!"

Olive stopped, her legs running with molten fire, and staggered for the cage door. To her right, the sleeper sat, snoring, head resting against the bars. 

Someone gripped her shoulder. Tightened. "You've got this! They have a quota, so they'll take the bait." Ylsa told her, her eyes sparkling like pole stars. With a parting squeeze, she pulled away, winking. "Don't worry. Just give them a show, and we'll do the rest..."

Moths flittered in Olive's belly, migrating to her heart. She nodded, swallowed, gripped the bars. If this was to work, she needed a better performance than the one she pulled at the gate. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and let it out. Okay, CMO of life! Time to make the sale of your career!

The iron door swung open, and a young man, pock-faced and lean, scrambled in, a sack hanging from one gloved hand, a ewer of water clutched tight in the other. A second, burly and hirsute as a bear, came in after, arms crossed over an anvil chest. 

So far so good. Sianna and Bristle had told them to expect two, before nightfall. Prisoners were fed twice: once when the sun poked its head up, and once when it dipped. That would also, apparently, be when the communal bucket would be traded away for a shinier one. Not that Olive was especially eager to use it, clean or no. 

She heaved as they shut the door behind them, gasping for breath. Her blood pumped fast through her palms, her face beamed in the torchlight, and her throat rasped as she tried to form words.

The young one stalled, doe-eyed, while the latter strayed back, hand about his belt. 

"P-please--" She clasped her chest, felt the rattle of her heart. Still going strong. Good... "Ca-can't breathe. Chest f-feels like it's gonna burst. P-please, please..."

Overselling it, a velvet voice swept across her brain, prickling it. Sianna, but her accent was gone, flattened away. She sat in her corner, her jewel eyes regarding her with maternal concern. Don't speak too much. Subtlety is key. You don't know what's happening. Don't outline it: let them put it together.

Olive's eye twitched imperceptibly. Of course she could do that, Of course! I was building to that, she simmered, snout wriggling. 

You need to start with it, Sianna advised, sternly. If something bad, actually bad, is happening to a person, they usually try to deny it, as long as they can.

"Watch that one." The burly one edged closer, eying the porcine. "It's plotting something..."

Shit. Her mouth went dry, chest burning. They knew. 

They think they know, Sianna's eyes were calm, a sliver of green sky prevailing through storm clouds. If they were sure, they'd have left.

Olive steeled herself. Miss I-Can-Talk-In-Your-Head was right. She tightened her grip, hands clammy.

Clammy hands, heart burn, dry mouth, all symptoms. She let herself ride them, trembling in place.

"I-I'll be fine, I just need..." She gulped, her throat dry. "I j-just need water, and some air." Her voice was brittle, stumbling out.

The burly one took a long breath through his crooked nose, then nodded to the younger. "Check her pulse," he said, taking the ewer and sack. "You lot, get back!" The other prisoners followed his order, surging for the back corners. Sianna played her part, rising with a stretch and padding away, to join Bristle and Ylsa near the back.

All except Mr Green Elf, who was already in his corner, and the sleeper, whose snores dissolved into a cascade of snorts.

There was worry in the lean man's eyes as he came close, peeling off his gloves. She allowed a whimper, a sharp exhale of breath, retracting the hand he reached for. "I-it's fine, I th-think--"

"You're pale as a fish's belly, and just as wet," the burly one said, his beard contracted into a frown. "Let the boy check."

Good. That was a good touch. Sianna told her, with a subtle nod. 

Heart in her throat, she nodded, passed over her trembling hand, prayed that her little workout was still reverberating in her chest as he pinched her wrist. 

The boy's eyes broadened. Olive suppressed a smile. 

"It's going like a horse at full tilt, cap'n!" The boy's squeaky voice wobbled. 

A rush joined her racing heart. Heat in her veins, dopamine flooding, the high of a deal well struck, of profits turning.

Now, to bring it home...

"I-I'll be fine, I just need a-- need to lie down and..." She lurched, gasped, stumbled back on her trotters, then sketched a fall onto her side before flopping onto her back, crushing her tail. 

It took the majority of her will to suppress a squeal of pain, at that. 

"Shit, get in there! Make sure it's still breathing!" She heard the burly one order, the jingle of keys following soon after. "Rest of you, stay back! Or I'll shove my foot so far down your throat you'll be shitting steel plates!"

Her heart still pattered, stampeding in her chest. For a moment, she wondered, with a jolt, whether she had willed herself into a cardiac episode, her belly sinking as the cell door shrieked open. Almost... Sianna began, as the young guard's armour jostled by her head. Almost... the cat repeated, as he tipped her head, listened to her snout, and she smelled his breath, thick with jam.

"She's breathin--"

Now!

His voice cut off, reduced to clacks, grunts, and a dim thud. Something kicked her, clumsily, in the arm, her thigh, as wet flecked her face.

Her eyes snapped open, and she saw the man's red face twist, an arm wrapped around his neck. The sleeper's passive, snoring face peeked over his shoulder as she wrapped her legs around his torso, leather boots digging between scales like spurs. 

Behind them, she saw the burly one splayed out over the floor, drool pooling by his face. 

"He should be out for a few minutes," Ylsa said, her cloak stirring as she hurried by. "Bristle, bind them."

"Permission to eat them?" The wolf asked, licking his chops. 

"Denied. Fervently denied!" Sianna squealed, her hackles up. "No killing, remember?!"

"I don't need to kill them to have a taste." Bristle whined, trudging out of the cell. "Just an arm would be fine..."

Spit bubbled by the young guard's mouth as his eyes bulged, veins throbbing about his forehead. He regarded her with a last, sharp, hateful look, grunting something guttural and fierce, then kicked vainly at her. Olive pushed onto her rump, overjoyed at the open cell door, the fulfilment of their plan.

But it was tempered by something bitter, as the guard went limp, his last kick a feeble twitch. As the sleeper shoved him aside like an empty sack. As Bristle clamped cold iron around the burly guard's wrists. As Ylsa smirked down at them, hand on her hip, face shining with satisfaction.

"Here," Sianna said, jostling the ewer in front of her snout. "Drink."

Olive's mouth was still dry, but her belly was hollow, churning strangely. She'd played dirty before, ruined lives even, but the consequences were always far away. They weren't red faces staring down at her, boiling with contempt.

"I think I'll be fine," she said, shaking her head as she stood. "Maybe later."

Sianna's mouth opened, feline incisors glinting sharp, but Ylsa's voice closed it, shooed her away.

"Good show, Olive!" She told her, with a pat on her shoulder. "Very well done! They didn't suspect you for a second!" The other prisoners surged, picking over the guards like rats, unclasping armour, taking keys, weapons. Sianna, for her part, plucked a purse from the burly one, her face downcast. "Now, you better stay close for the rest of this, or--"

"This wasn't stupid, was it?" Olive asked, pinching her ear. "Like, it was the lesser of two bad choices, right?"

Ylsa tilted her head, violet eyes boring deep, then cracked with giggles. "Oh, no, this whole plan was incredibly stupid!" She snorted, giving her face a gentle pat. "And we still pulled it off! Mostly. For now. And we'll need to iron out some kinks before our next one..."

The horse in Olive's heart went galloping again. "N-next one?"

"Not now!" Ylsa shushed her, planting a finger on her lips. "After! When we're out! Don't worry, I'll take good care of you!" Olive's cheeks flushed, though her brain began to work behind them, to see the pattern, the echoes of before. 

Another pretty woman, more assurances. She'd read this book before. 

Ylsa left her there, shellshocked, as the criminals she'd thrown herself in with, the only 'friends' she had in this sewage heap, stripped the guards bare, then kicked their unconscious bodies.

Fuck, I'm stupid.