She-Swine

The elf's head bent at an alarming angle, back arched to a side like a wish bone. Olive watched her, a moment, waiting. Holding her breath. 

Frey twitched, gargled, then went utterly, despairingly limp. 

This isn't real. This isn't real... 

"Oh... oh god..." Olive clamped her palm to her mouth, stomach lurching. Something acrid bubbled in her chest, lapped at the back of her tongue, deposited bile. Her throat tightened, hands scrabbling along the rough stone for purchase as she wobbled, shook, sought balance.

The dead woman's eyes stared up at her, cloudy, promising thunder.

"O-Olive?" Sianna's groggy voice echoed in the periphery, floating through a void, rebounding, receding. 

It should not have mattered. Olive knew death, thought it a colleague. Her father's stroke, her mother's overdose. She had a killer's instinct, she always told herself. Ruthless as the alpha wolf.

She didn't feel like a wolf, though. He was a few rooms away, howling, raising Cane. No, she felt very much like her nose, her ears, her tusks. Like livestock, a thing born to maunder, eat, and die. Not a predator, bred for killing. 

"Olive?"

Why was this happening to her?! She knew she was no saint, knew that she deserved some karmic return, but this?! She only ever did what the world forced her to! Why punish her for doing what was necessary?!

"Olive?!" Sianna shook her, downy face softened, ears drooping down her head. Her green eyes were split by hair-thin slits. "Are you here with me? We need to leave, and we need to do it now!"

Olive's voice was strange, a creak in the night. "Sh-she's--"

"Gone, and there's nothing we can do about it now!" Sianna told her, grabbing her by the wrist, her palm warm. "It was an accident. The will of Regelia, Mycah, Aly-- the Matriarch, whoever you kneel to!"

"I fucked up..." Olive croaked, stumbling up the steps, into the hall. "I should have just ran!"

"What's happening, here?" Ylsa called as Sianna towed her toward the barracks, tail around her waist. Papers floated about, tables sat inverted, legs raised like hedgehog bristles. Guards, in various stages of dress, flitted and squawked, rattling their spears at Bristle, who tore into pillows and tossed mattresses onto their side. "Everyone else is out, we're just waiting on you!"

"We were... waylaid," Sianna said, towing a heaving Olive through the row. "We'll talk about it when we're free and clear."

"Not worrisome at all," Ylsa snorted, turning an eye to the shellshocked Porcene. "Are you alright? You look... haunted."

Cloudy eyes. "F-fine." She rasped, with a curt nod. "I'm fine."

"You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it." Ylsa wrinkled her nose, a chair spinning through the air above her head. "Hurry up, I'll follow you, then show you where to go!" She commanded, tapping Sianna on the shoulder. "Bristle, let's take a bow!"

The three fled through the chaos, surging for the exit. A cluster of guards shambled together, barring the way. They reached for cudgels, fumbled at their belts, swore under their breath. 

A table windmilled across the room, crashing between them, throwing them on their backsides and forcing a retreat. 

The moment lingered, time slowing around Olive, refining to a perfect moment of unalloyed chaos. A man had fallen into an alcove, belt around his knees, reaching out for a spoon on the floor by his feet. A tankard balanced on its handle by the door. The gnome manning the desk scrambled to and fro, catching documents out of the air like snowflakes, her face splotchy red.

This was her life, now. Flustered, confused, scrambling for scraps of anything factual. None of them, at least, had killed anyone, accident or no.

The moment passed, a leaden weight settling in her stomach, as Sianna dragged her away, throwing the door open, and trading the scents of ink and iron for the perfumes of the street under dark. Cinnamon, alcohol, urine. 

The moon was a silvery disk, dancing around a blue obelisk. The Maiden and its Patron. It was a mystery she intended on expanding in later works, she remembered dully. A mystery even she hadn't managed to solve. Are they just empty shells, following the whims of gravity and inertia like the rest of us?

Bristle roared out soon after, and Ylsa came in behind him, smashing the door shut and rushing ahead. The streets were barren, noise filtering out from a nearby hostelry, a silvery bed with wings, embossed into its facade. 

"Now that was a show!" Ylsa squealed, skipping along the flagstones. 

"Not now!" Sianna snarled, grip tight on Olive's wrist.

"Oh, right."

Around the corner, leading into an alley that smelled sharply of mold and rot, the sleeper's sagging face poked, a hand waving them on.

Olive let them pull her behind them, winding down the backstreets and alleys. It was only the five of them, now: herself, Ylsa, Sianna, Bristle, and the sleeper, flitting from dark corner to dark corner. A batch of common criminals, fleeing the law. 

And a murderer among them. No. She couldn't think like that. Sianna was right, it was an accident. She only meant to stun her, thought she was hardier.

And this isn't real. It isn't real...

They ducked down, peeking over a conspiracy of barrels to look across what seemed a marketplace, its stalls packed up, flanked by a dozen dark alcoves, set with awnings. 

"So, um," Sianna began, her ears flattening. "Olive! Is that short for Olivia, or...?" She turned to her, her green eyes bright, a smile contorting her face. 

Olive stared, a moment, her snout twitching. "I-uh-- No. No, it's just Olive." Her voice warbled. "My parents really liked olives."

"Ah! Right, right, yes! Olives are good!" Sianna nodded urgently. "I like olives! Do you like olives, sweetling?"

"Too salty," Bristle said, with a huff. "Too green."

"Why is that an issue?" Sianna's pink nose scrunched up. 

"Green tastes bad." Bristle shrugged.

Sianna gaped. "What?!"

"So, do any of you mind sharing with the rest of us what happened back there?" Ylsa asked, her voice a sharp edge that made Olive's ears shudder. 

Sianna's face broadened, then crinkled. "We can go over it later."

"If it concerns the rest of us, I'd like to hear about it sooner, thank you!" Ylsa hissed, her lips pinched.

"Someone... fell..." Olive managed, tweezing her ear. 

The air went still, and thick, as Ylsa considered her, brows furrowed. "Fell?"

Bristle shuffled to a side, hiding behind a pair of barrels. Sianna's tail coiled, nails poking at Olive's wrist. The sleeper snored lowly. 

"I-it was an accident," Olive said, the space behind where the bridge of her nose should have been stinging. "I-I..."

"I shoved her down the stairs and she broke her neck," Sianna interjected, with a shrug. "Accidents happen."

Olive gawped up at her, jaw sagging, tusks bare. They didn't know Ylsa's true intentions, didn't know whether she'd turn someone in for murder to save her own skin. 

And yet, Sianna had taken the fall for her. 

Ylsa sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Well, shit." She sighed, shaking her head. "We'll talk about it later. But... shit!"

They hurried across the market, heads sweeping from side to side, Olive stared up at Sianna, eyes narrowed, trying to work out the puzzle. Is she working me? She's a thief, so she clearly wants something. Was that bit about runts a lie?! 

It wasn't just a pleasant word or piece of assurance. She had put herself at peril, had taken on risk. No one takes on risk if there's nothing to gain!

Ylsa lead them to one of the alcoves, under a purple awning, spangled with stars. A sign above wrote 'Magician's Cap!', with a top hat carved in either corner. She pressed her thumb against the door latch, and a circle of webbing runes glowed lilac as something inside clicked. 

The door swung open, the smells of polish, plastic, polyester, and herbs bowling over her. The main room was dark, encircled by shelves stacked with wands, hats, boxes, cans, pellets, and spheres. A counter demarcated the back rooms from the front, made of polished maple.

On either end of the counter, Olive could make out the outline of a cat, wearing a top hat. Coming closer, details emerged. Blue eyes, a black coat, a red cape, a wand curled in one paw. 

Sianna picked one up, pouting. "Really?" She groaned, her ears pinned to her temple. 

Ylsa shut the door behind them, pressed her thumb into it, shrugged as runes gleamed. "What? Cats are cute! You should be flattered!"

"I'm choosing to ignore that!" Sianna sang, tail whipping as she finally released her charge. Olive, trotters sore, stumbled toward the counter, dropped, sat up against it. The sleeper did the same, hair brushing at her shoulder.

"What now?" Bristle asked, tail swatting a metal sphere off the shelf, which belched a noisome smoke.

"Now, we wait," Ylsa said, holding a hand over her mouth and nose. "Wait and talk."

"What about?" Bristle asked, poking at the sphere as smoke smothered the room. 

"Oh, just the weather, the economy, your favourite colour, and oh yes, what in the Matriarch's name happened back there?!" Ylsa growled in the dim light. 

Sianna tapped her claws, and took a breath, the smoke dissipating as it surged toward her mouth, her nostrils. She brushed at her petticoats, stepping forward. "It was simple. I was threatened. I defended myself. I took no undue measures to hurt them. And gravity did most of the work." She told her, with a shrug. "If anything, I was more an accessory."

Ylsa regarded her, for a spell, eyes twinkling in the dim. They flicked, snapped to Olive, narrowed. "That so?"

The Porcene blanched, thanked the relative dimness of the shop. Her snout flared, heart pattering. Confess, and get out of her debt, or let her take the fall, and leverage?

Confessing would let her take power into her own hands, give her a reputation, too, if Ylsa let it leak. She had done something similar while in middle management, letting a rumour spread that one of her colleagues had killed himself after she had 'broken' him during a short relationship. He wasn't her type, for a set of reasons, but they had gone on one date to watch a movie. Some popcorn flick she didn't remember. He'd bought her a board game, though, and a set of dice. The game was confusing, with a small bible to memorize just for setup, but the dice were nice. She still had them in a drawer in her apartment.

That same, toothy something nibbled at her heart as they remembered their shine, the way they glittered, the clear expense in their making, the effort it would have taken to find them. The fugitive, girlish thought that it was nice to be worth a hassle.

"Y-yeah, from what I remember," she said, shrugging. "It's a bit blurry."

There was a clattering outside, guards marching by. Bristle dropped to the ground, Sianna pressed up against the shelves, Ylsa turned invisible with a tap of her nose. The sleeper snored.

"Well, that makes things just a bit more difficult for the next part," Ylsa whispered, sighed. 

"What next part?" Sianna's tail thrashed, arms crossed tight against her chest. "We need to find a place, lay low, then go our own way. That's the only next step!"

Olive's heart stung, dully. 

"We can do that, yes." Ylsa allowed, in a daring tone. "If you want to be fugitives the rest of your days. Or..."

The air rippled as she turned her head, a grin coming into relief, even through the spell. "You can help me rob the Matriarch!"