It's Definitely Not Aliens (Patreon)

Hey folks!

So, today's Quest update should be the last for a while. I guess that one went for almost a full year there! Lemme know if you want a retrospective from me, I didn't want to clog up the story with my rambling. I'll have to think about running another one with all the lessons I learned over the course of SongsTress's journey - but if I do, it'll be a bit. I've got a lot of projects on the go at the moment!

So, in the meantime, enjoy this tale of detectives, abductions, and cows! A fine combination if there ever was one, right? And have a fun summer out there! God it's hot at the moment...

“Yeah, look, I know the Miller case didn’t go the way we wanted. I was there! I know. But seriously, if this is your idea of a punishment, you’ve got a twisted sense of humour.” Fiora Rezin turned her car off of the main road and down the dusty trail that led off into the fields, keeping her phone clamped to the side of her head with her shoulder. “Talk about a snipe hunt…”

“It’s not a punishment, or a snipe hunt, Fio.” Her boss chuckled down the line to her. “It’s just a woman out in the sticks who keeps thinking she’s lost her livestock every week. And she’s paying our maximum rate to solve the problem. All you’ve got to do is go in, take a look around, and you’re collecting a fat pay check at the end of the job.”

The private investigator rolled her eyes. “Jim, you’ve got me out here looking for signs of alien abduction.”

He laughed outright at that. “I’ve got you out there giving Miss Henderson some peace of mind. That’s all you need to do.”

“Cool, all I need to do is spend a whole day poking farm animals and tramping about through the mud.”

“Exactly. So, try to have fun, and remember! If you get abducted, make sure you use your one phone call to phone home~”

“Ugh.” The brunette groaned as she hung up, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat in frustration. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. They were going to be calling her Scully in the office for years if the other PIs found out she was on this case. The best way this could turn out was if there really were aliens and they actually did abduct her, just so she wouldn’t have to deal with the jokes when she got back.

But, unless that happened in the next five minutes, there was no getting out of it. She had a job to do, and even as embarrassing as it was, she wasn’t quite ready to quit the agency over it. Maybe she could just burn all evidence of the case once she was done or something.

So, as her car rolled up the long, long drive of her client’s farm estate, she went over the facts of the case. Anabel Henderson, her client, had called the agency asking for someone to investigate… God, what was it…? She reached for the file under her phone, pulling it up to skim as she kept one eye on the empty road. ‘Disappearing and then reappearing animals.’ Oh, yeah, great. Absolutely what you called a detective in for, that.

Apparently, Miss Henderson had been struggling with this problem for months, ever since she’d inherited the farm from her parents. Every few weeks, she’d head into the barn in the morning to check on the livestock, only to find it completely empty. And then, after a day of panicking, the next day she’d find all of her the missing beasts back where she expected them, with no sign of where they’d been, or even that they’d ever been absent at all.

Which, okay. If she was going to take this seriously – and, much as she wanted to avoid this case, she always took her job seriously – then a few possibilities came to mind.

Number one was that the woman was hallucinating. Maybe she was having particularly potent nightmares brought on by the stress of inheriting an entire farm. Maybe she was having a bit too much wine in the evening. Or maybe her crops included a personal supply of mind-altering substances? Fiora wasn’t a cop, she didn’t care what Miss Henderson was getting up to, so long as none of it got in the way of her putting this case to bed quickly.

Other possibilities, the less likely ones, were things like there being some undetected way for the animals to escape their pens – maybe loose walls or poor locks on the doors. Something that would allow the herd to wander off, and then return later once they got hungry. Or perhaps they were all hiding in the back of the barn.

The PI didn’t know – this stuff really wasn’t her field of expertise. What she knew was what Miss Henderson had suggested as the likely cause, which had gone into her file in big capital letters. Underlined, even.

ALIENS.

Lovely. This was, of course, what had put Fiora off taking the case, though Jim had insisted. (It didn’t matter what he said, she knew he was still mad about the Miller thing!) Apparently there was some local legend about visitors from the stars, and of course that was the first thing the woman had blamed when things got rough at her place.

Tch. Whatever. She’d figure out what was going on herself, one way or another. And then she’d leave, and never speak about any of this ever again. And hopefully, she’d have a full wallet while doing so.

She flipped the file closed and tossed it aside as she rolled up to the main house, parking her car just outside the garage. Time to face the music.

The brunette slid out of her seat, stretching as she slammed the door behind her, and wandered up to the house to ring the bell. The tail of her long black coat swept around her knees as she walked, doing its part to give her that ‘noir detective’ look.  Hopefully this’d be quick, and then she could hop right back into her car and spend another three hours driving back to town…

There was a click, and then the front door opened – and Fio found herself blinking in surprised. “Miss Henderson?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Miss Anabel Henderson wasn’t the rough, hardy sort that Fiora had been expecting, given her stock. She was a waifish-looking woman with long red hair and a graceful demeanour, with barely so much as a frown-line, let alone a wrinkle, on her face. Farmer’s daughter type, rather than outright farmer. Huh. “You’re with the agency?”

“That’s me, ma’am. You can call me Fiora. I understand you’ve been having some animal problems?”

“That’s one way of putting it…” The woman sighed, stepping back to let her visitor in, and then waving her over to the kitchen once she’d closed the door. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure anyone was actually going to come out for this. I know it sounds ridiculous.”

Yeah, and then some, Fio thought to herself.

“Not at all, ma’am, we take our client’s security issues very seriously,” she said out loud. “Can you tell me how this all started?”

“Oh, call me Ana,” Miss Hendricks said as she turned on the kettle. “And no, not a chance. This kind of crap has been going on since long before I was born. I always thought it was just tall tales my parents used to tell when I was a kid – dad always loved his stories – but once I took over the farm myself, uh…” She paused, and then shrugged. “Well, it quickly became clear that not everything they told me was made up, you know?”

“Sure, of course.” The detective pulled out her phone and started taking notes. Spooky stories you heard as a kid – well that could certainly serve as the foundation to any number of reasons for this ‘case’. “This is why you suspect extra-terrestrial involvement?”

It was tricky to even say the words without rolling her eyes, but she managed somehow.

“Mm.” And to her credit, Ana definitely looked embarrassed to have said it. “Yeah, they were always talking about funny lights in the sky, crop circles from ships landing in the fields, close encounters with little grey guys…” She shook her head. “I can’t tell you much about that, I never saw any of it myself. Well, aside from the occasional light in the sky, but…”

But that could be just about anything. A plane, a shooting star, a firefly… Out here, the night sky was full of nonsense you could mistake for a UFO. Oldest story in the Midwest!

“What I can tell you is the first time it happened to me – I mean, while I was here, not to me, that’d be… well, that’d be something else.” The redhead shuddered at the thought. “Anyway, I’d been working the farm for a few weeks, cutting my teeth, getting used to being in charge of the place, when one morning I headed down to the coops where I keep the chickens, and… they were just plain empty.”

Fio tilted her head, raising her eyebrow. “Empty? Any signs of a break in or disturbance?”

“Not a one.” Ana raised her hands to the sky in exasperation. “And don’t go thinking I didn’t check! I was losing my mind with panic that day, no mistake.”

Yeah, that seemed like a safe bet. “And what happened next?”

The farmer sighed, leaning heavily against the counter. “Well I called the local sherif, didn’t I? Someone stole my chicks somehow, who else am I going to call?”

Hm. More reasonable than the detective had expected. “What’d he say?”

“He just laughed and said he’d heard the same kinda tales from my father, back in the day,” Ana grumbled. “Told me to call him again if they weren’t back come morning.”

… Interesting. Well, she could confirm that with the sheriff himself, if she needed to.

“And the funny thing was he was right.” Ana sounded heavily annoyed by what she was saying. “There they were the next morning, as if they’d never left. Hell, they looked better than ever, in fact. I’d swear every one of them was healthier than the day before. Got more eggs outta them than I’d ever seen after that, too.”

Fio tapped a few more notes into her phone, nodding. So far, everything sounded just like it had in the file. “I see. So what did you do about all of this?”

The farmer shrugged. “I mean what could I do? I had questions, sure, but no way of getting answers. In the end I just tried to ignore that anything had happened. For a while, that worked. Then it happened again.”

Yep, that had been in the file too. Repeated hallucinations weren’t a great sign for the woman’s mental health, so hopefully there was another explanation. “The chickens vanished again?”

“Nah, it was sheep this time. About a month later.” The redhead gave a weary sigh. “And they were back the following morning, just like before.” She glanced towards the window. Following her gaze, Fio could see a red painted barn in the distance. That must have been the place. “Then again a month after that, it was the pigs. And I wasn’t gunna let it go after that.”

The detective nodded. “You started investigating?”

“I did. But I didn’t get anywhere. So I figured I’d look up someone who could get further than I could. And that’s how I found you.”

Interesting story. “Did anyone else witness any of this?”

The redhead shook her head with a sigh. “Nah, no one but me.”

Convenient. But Fio nodded professionally anyway, jotting down a few more quick notes on her phone. “So it’s just you out here?”

“At the moment,” Ana nodded, giving her a wry smile. “I know, I know, running a place like this is all a bit much for one woman. I’ll admit it! But at the same time I enjoy the challenge, and I like my privacy. I hire workers in for the busy seasons, and handle everything else that needs handling myself…”

Behind her, the kettle clicked off, and the farm woman returned her attention to it, pulling a mug and a jar of coffee out of one of the cupboards. “Oh, where are my manners. Can I get you anything to drink? I’m afraid I don’t have any alcohol in here - I get hangovers too easily, and I need to be up way too early in the day for that nonsense.”

No alcohol? Huh. Well that was unexpected. Maybe she was lying. Something that the detective could investigate later. For now, she just shook her head. “Not for me, thanks. How about I go take a look around? Check out the scene of the crime, maybe see if I can spot anything suspicious.”

“Sure, wander as you please.” Ana settled against the counter with a shrug. She looked more than a little relieved to be able to hand all of this supposed strangeness off to someone else. “I’ll be in the house if you need anything. Just gimme a call.”

Fiora nodded, tapping her fingers to her head in a quick salute as she headed towards the back door. “Will do. Don’t worry, I’m a pro. I’ll have this case figured out before I leave, that’s a promise.”

-

Annoyingly, if somewhat predictably, taking a look around hadn’t translated into any useful clues. The detective didn’t find any sign of a break in or a hole in any of the fences – and nor did they find any traces of substance abuse or undiagnosed mental conditions in Miss Henderson. Everything seemed pretty normal around the farm, save for a few energetic animals that, for all Fio knew, were perfectly normal too.

The next step, then, was obvious, and obviously unpleasant. She’d have to keep watch overnight, and see if she could spot any unusual behaviour. A stakeout was never a fun way to spend the night, but it was also probably the fastest way of resolving the problem – whatever the problem was. She may not have liked the case, but Fiora was still going to handle it professionally and give it her all.

So that was how she ended up spending the night skulking about in the rafters of one of the barns, watching out the windows in the dark, and keeping an eye out for any intruders. If anything out of the ordinary happened, she’d have her answer. If it didn’t, then she’d have to start digging real deep.

But ugh, this was boring. She yawned, stretching while making sure to keep her balance on the beam beneath her. God, what time was it? How many more hours did she have until dawn? It must have been past midnight by now, right? It was pitch black outside, and it wasn’t much better in here-

And then suddenly it was.

There was no warning, no sound or sense in the air. One moment the detective couldn’t see a thing, and then the next the entire barn had been illuminated by pale green light. She blinked, stunned at the sudden difference, and looked around to try to spot the source, but…

H-huh… She felt… real dizzy… all’a sud…

-

The next thing she knew, Fiora was somewhere else. Somewhere very else. The cold, draft-ridden barn had disappeared, replaced by bare walls made out of blue and green metals, and glowing computer screens hovering all over the place.

Wide eyed, the brunette detective looked around. She was stood in some kind of glass box, a wide one with rounded edges, and walls that reached all the way from the floor to the ceiling. Around her were dozens of Anabel’s cows, all of them in their own box – looking considerably more snug in them than she did in hers. Was her box sized to hold a cow as well…? Y’know what, that didn’t feel like an important question right now.

 “Oh you’re fucking kidding me…”

There was no way. No way. She refused to believe this was possible. This was a hallucination or a dream or- Ow! Okay, not a dream, but it was something! The only thing it wasn’t, the only thing it absolutely couldn’t be, was an alien abduction. Nope.

Gritting her teeth, she pressed a hand against the glass, trying to test its strength. It was cold beneath her palm, and didn’t budge as she wobbled it. Not good. How was she going to get out of this…?

As she tried to work that out, her eye caught movement from down the row of cows. A device lowered from the ceiling at the end of the room – a metal arm with a glowing screen attached, and holding what looked like a gun. With mounting horror, Fio watched as it approached the nearest glass cage – only to breathe a sigh of relief as a scanning laser emerged from it, running up and down the cage and the cow within it, seemingly doing no harm to the creature. The screen flashed green, and then moved on to the next cow in the line, repeating the process.

None of the cows seemed to be bothered by it. Instead they were mostly just trying to get back to sleep. Whatever it was, surely it couldn’t be that harmful. Or, she had to hope it wasn’t, because the thing was steadily heading in her direction.

The detective bit her lip as it arrived, starring at the scanner arm uncertainly for a moment. Then shielded her eyes as its familiar light lanced out, washing over her body like it had the cows. It tingled a little, but aside from that, nothing.

She let out a sigh of relief. Okay, that wasn’t anything to worry about then. Now, if she could just get out of here, and… huh?

The screen on the arm flashed red. A digital outline of her body appeared on it, surrounded by bizarre text made of characters she’d never seen before.

Her brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to-?”

Then the floor opened up beneath her, and she screamed in surprise as she was dropped into darkness. Cool, dry wind rushed around her as she plummeted, terror seizing her heart, but the trip down was blessedly short.

She landed with a splash in another glass tube, this one much more suited to her size, and filled with a liquid – it felt too thick to be water – that tingled against her skin. In another situation she’d have called it pleasantly warm, but right now she was just focused on trying to thrash her way out of it. Dim green light glowed in from outside, revealing nothing but shadows – and no exit.

Panic was now truly trying to take over now, and she didn’t have any reasons to resist it. Before it could, though, she felt movement in the tube above her – and then suddenly a mask dropped down over her face. With it came a tube shoving its way into her mouth, and to her confused relief, she found she could breathe again, though the air tasted a little like a doctor’s office.

Okay! Okay. Uh. Now to… Now to… uh… Nn…

Fiora found herself breathing hard, taking the dry, chemical tinged air deep into her lungs, while the rest of her body began to relax. She felt strange. Listless. Weak. It was like the adrenalin of her situation was wearing off all at once, leaving her muscles quivering like jelly. Too sudden, it was much too sudden. Something – maybe the liquid, maybe whatever they were pumping into her lungs – was draining her energy, hard.

Soon, she could barely lift her arms to grasp the sides of the tube. Kicking her legs was out of the question. Some bubbles escaped her mask to drift upwards towards the ceiling as her limbs sank down. She was floating limp in the tube, barely able to keep her eyes open, her mind struggling to focus through the haze.

Green and red lights flashed from the outside, scanning over her. She tried to peer out, make sense of it, but all she could seem to do was twitch in place. The world around the tube was spinning and spinning, and there was nothing she could do about it.

A cloud of small bubbles drifted up past the detective’s face, and she blinked, a light furrow digging into her brow. Where were they coming from…? Even in her dazed state, her curiosity was impossible to deny. Her eyes flicked down, and then widened. The bubbles were streaming off of her clothes – off of her shirt, her jeans, and her coat. And with every bubble, those clothes seemed to be dissolving, melting away from her. As she watched, trying to comprehend what was happening through her slow and thick thoughts, she saw her shirt melt away completely, exposing her bra – and then exposing her bare chest a moment later, when that melted too.

That got her struggling again, her legs kicking out weakly against the glass, her arms shaking about. But that just seemed to make the process go faster, like she was stirring a drink. Her coat burst into bubbles and nothingness as she shook, her pants growing shorter with every kick. Soon even her underwear was gone, and the only thing the brunette was left with was the mask over her face.

So now she was naked. She’d really liked that coat, too. Some bubbles of discontent escaped her mask, but the numb feeling seeped back in quickly, pacifying her distress with a boost to the taste of chemicals in her mouth. More lights flashed from outside, swirling around her, and it only made the dizziness worse. She wished they’d stop.

When they did stop a moment later, she was even almost grateful! Almost. But that uncertain feeling didn’t last either, as a new glow filled her tank from below.

Peering down, Fio squinted around the mask to see a strong, flat beam of green light, focused like the scanner but slower and brighter, was starting to climb up from the bottom of the tube. And it was going quickly. She tried to pull her feet up away from it, but she couldn’t muster the strength before it touched her toes.

Warmth instantly flooded through them, like she’d just dipped them into a heated bath. It was such a pleasant, unexpected feeling that she found her feet instantly relaxing, toes uncurling and sinking back down into the beam. And the sensation spread up through her ankles and her calves as the light continued to rise. Part of her couldn’t help but enjoy it, despite the circumstances.

Then, just as suddenly as it came, the light winked out, having reached just above the woman’s knees. Disappointment radiated through the dazed detective’s chest, but she tried to resist it, looking down to see if everything was as well as it felt.

Huh. That couldn’t be right.

It was hard, with just the dim light from outside, and the fuzz inside her head, but her legs looked… different. Was that fur? It looked like fur, smooth and sleek, from her knees on down. Black and white fur, in a sort of blotchy pattern that reminded her of… something. Ngh, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on while her head was this fuzzy.

But it wasn’t just the fur. Her calves looked a lot thicker, too. Stronger. Were those really her legs? She kicked weakly, and saw one of those strange thick furred limbs kick out too, but she still couldn’t really believe it.

Her confusion was set aside, though, when the light snapped back on, starting from where it left off last time. It bathed her upper legs in warmth, before steadily rising over her thighs. More bubbles escaped Fio’s mask as that warmth flowed through her, building oh-so-nicely the longer it lasted. A real heat was starting to build up inside her now…

… And it only leapt higher when the light reached the top of her legs, and got to work on her ass. The detective groaned, twitching in place, as she felt the heat bubble inside her, like she was getting a deep tissue massage. She even let out a squeal as it slid over the trove between her thighs, a burst of outright pleasure slamming into her brain and stunning her for a moment.

When the light finally snapped off again, she had to fight for a moment to get her breath back, and she looked down expecting the worst. Had the fur climbed even higher, now?

As it turned out, no. The black and white pattern hadn’t risen any further than her knees. Actually, if she squinted, she thought she might have less hair than before, the area above her nethers now looking quite smooth…

That was easy to miss, though, because while her new fur hadn’t spread, her new thickness absolutely had. Her thighs had grown strong and stocky, giving her incredibly powerful looking legs, which would definitely be needed, because her ass looked like it had tripled in size! It quivered as she peered down at it, shocked, the warm feeling still buzzing inside her fattened cheeks. And… And was that a tail back there?!?

Then the light was back and rising once more. It was already up to her middle, and there was no way to try and avoid it now, no matter how much Fiora might wish she could. She felt a funny, almost queasy feeling in her stomach, a bubbly sensation that only passed when the light rose higher. That was quickly forgotten, though, when it reached her chest.

She moaned instantly, bubbles spilling out around the sides of her face as she felt the heat that had been growing ignite inside her, bubbling, bursting blossoms of pure pleasure flowing from her breasts into her head. It was like being zapped between her legs again, but a hundred times more intense. Her eyes were soon rolling up inside her head, her mind fading into a blur of ecstasy and colour, more moans filling the tube as the light continued to shine.

There was no way to tell how long it had been when she managed to recover, but the light had faded once again when she shook herself back to awareness. Which meant she already knew what she’d see when she looked down, though she didn’t want to acknowledge it. She could already feel the results of the attention to her chest. Maybe if she ignored it, it would all go away…?

Alas, no. She couldn’t resist a glance – and the gasp that followed quickly turned into a jiggly splutter. Her tits were huge! More than double their original size, big enough to almost press up against the glass of her tube. And god, they felt amazing, even just tingling as they floated in whatever liquid this was. It was hard to even think with these girls on her chest!

It was certainly easy for her to miss some other, less important changes – such as, for example, the wave of fur that had crept her arms, in the exact same pattern as the fur on her legs. Her muscles had clearly all grown stronger as well, most importantly the ones on her back to help her carry her new gifts…

When the light inevitably returned, she barely noticed, even though this was the part she’d been the most worried about. Now it rising up from the bottom of her neck, slowly sliding over the dazzled contours of her head and face. The warmth was back, soothing her despite herself, and she found it passing over her without much incident, merely gathering into head in her scalp, and in her ears.

This time it was hard to see what had happened, of course, given that the changes was apparently being made to her head. For a moment, though, she thought she caught a glimpse of big, floppy ear-flaps hanging on the side of her head, patterned like her fur, and two small horns poking out of her hair, just in a brief glimpse of her reflection in the glass.

God, what had they done to her…?

For a while, she was left in the tube, floating and trying to adjust to the changes in her body. The sensations were difficult, especially with the drugged haze still muffling her thoughts. She felt good – she felt great, in fact, maybe better than ever – but it was all with such intensity that it was hard to focus on anything.

And then a cool metal device settled on her head.

Alarm cleared her mind pretty quickly. They weren’t done with her yet? What more could they possibly do?! They’d already turned her body into some kind of big-titty animal girl, what was even le- Hey, whaAAaaAAat WwwwwassszzzzZZzz goiiiIIIING OOOZZZZzzzZZZz!!!

Her eyes rolled up in her head once more as her brain was suddenly bombarded by a series of images and sounds that seemed to pour directly into her mind. It was an overwhelming cacophony of thoughts and sensations that she couldn’t hope to process – pictures of cows flashed through her inner eye, the scent of hay tickled her nose, the feel of grass tickled her feet, all of it rushing past so quickly she thought she was going to pop-!

And then she was somewhere else. A wide open field, full of green grass that almost glittered underneath the open blue sky.

The detective blinked slowly, confused. Had… Had she been teleported again? Was this more alien tech at work? Could they have let her go?

If so, she had to get back to her car and get out of here. She’d tell people what she experienced once she was back to civilization! They’d have to believe her once they saw what had been done to her body – god, she didn’t want to think about that. But all of that was for later. Right now, time to run!

She turned to look for the farm, and-

No need to leave…

And… And… what… what was she doing again? The detective pressed a finger to her brow, blinking slowly as if she was feeling something dissolving behind her eyes. Huh. She’d had a plan a second ago, but now she was drawing a blank.

Oh, that was bad. Was it something that they’d done to her, like these stupid tits, or- or- or- or-?

No need to worry…

Fiora relaxed, her shoulders slumping, her breath calming. The light was getting brighter around her now. The edges of the distant fields were more like pure white walls than any horizon she’d ever seen before. That was… That couldn’t be a good thing, right?

No need to fear…

Hm? What had she just been thinking about? Huh, couldn’t have been anything important. Those white walls were starting to draw inwards now, and it felt like the closer they got, the lighter the detective’s head felt. She giggled airily as she swayed on her feet, looking around.

Wow, this place was pretty. The sky was so blue. And the grass was so green! Mm, it looked delicious…

Huh. Did that sound weird? Why would she think that?

No need to think…

Oooohhh…

The brunette’s eyes crossed, a smile playing on her lips as the white walls rushed in. It was gettin’ all… like, hard t’… think…. An’ stuff…

She giggled again, sinking to her knees. Her big boobs jiggled happily. Ahh, she felt so nice… And that grass really did look great. Maybe she should take a bite…

Just let everything else go…

The walls were getting close now, and Fiora the cow felt… happy… and… empty…~

She… She… She was… F-Fiora was…

Fio…

Fffifi…

Fiiii~

…

And be a good cow…

The nameless cow let out a cheerful “Moooo!” as she dropped onto all fours, and lowered her face to the ground. She chomped, her mouth full of green, green glass. Yum.

Everything went white.

-

There was a quiet ding, and the metal device on the dreaming cow’s head lifted away from her gently, making sure not to disturb her slumber. Outside her tube, the scanner dropped down once again, and gave her a quick check. This time, the screen came up green.

-

“Thanks for coming out, Sheriff.”

“No problem, Ana. I know this kinda thing worries you. ‘Course it’s all ol’ hat for me an’ most folks ‘round here.”

Two days after Fiora first arrived at the Henderson farm, two people were walking across the grounds. One was Ana Henderson, the redheaded owner of the place. The other was an older man in a police uniform, with short white hair and an authoritative moustache.

“I guess,” Ana was sighing. “I never used to believe in this stuff. But you’re sure she’ll be back today with the cows? I was so worried when I realised what’d happened…”

The Sheriff shrugged. “Pretty sure. ‘S how it usually goes when someone gets scooped up with the livestock. ‘Course, she won’t be coming back the same.” Her gave her a meaningful look.

She blinked, not understanding. “You mentioned that, but… How do you mean, not the same?”

“Well, near as we can figure, whatever visitors we get from up there…” He pointed at the sky with a knowing wink to her. “They’re just charitable folk who wanna make sure the animals they take are happy an’ healthy sorts. But they ain’t ever all that clear on what humans are, y’know?” He shrugged with a rueful sigh. “They just tend to see the people they scoop as, uh, unwell animals. An’ so they try ta’ fix ‘em.”

Ana’s confusion was only growing. “… Fix…?”

Instead of answering, the old man just pointed at the barn. Raising an eyebrow, she hurried over to the doors, and threw them over. For a moment, she was relieved – her cows had returned, just as promised! But then that relief turned to shock and horror, as she saw the other occupant of the barn, snoozing in one of the paddocks near the back.

“Oh my god.”

It was unmistakably Fiora. Her face and hair were exactly the same. It was just everything else that had changed. Her arms and legs had grown Holstein patterned fur, horns were poking out of her hair, her ears were definitely long, floppy cow ears – and good god, those udders. She could already see milk dripping from her teats…

“Yeeep.” The Sheriff sighed as he walked up beside her. “That seems ‘bout right.”

She turned to him in alarm. “What do we do?!”

He looked into the barn, hands shoved in his jacket pocket. “Well, looks to me like she need a good milkin’!”

Ana’s jaw dropped. “That’s not what I mean – how do we undo this?”

And at that, he gave her a sad, almost apologetic look. “Ain’t never found a way, personally. And people’ve tried. Trust me, best you can do is take care of her with the rest of your cattle – that’s what she is now. I’ll handle the evidence – make it like she disappeared elsewhere. Last thing we need is more people pokin’ their noses around here…”

He was already walking away. She watched after him for a moment, too shocked to move – but then she turned back to the barn as she heard her new cow start to stir.

“Mmmmm…?” The brunette yawned adorably, stretching and setting her big chest bouncing merrily to greet the new day. Then she opened her eyes, and her gaze fell upon her new owner, smiling with delight. “Moo!”

The redhead wilted a little. Now how was she supposed to say no to that?

“Well… I guess he’s the one who knows what he’s talking about.” She turned, beckoning for the brunette to follow after her. “Come on girl, let’s get those udders hooked up – you look like you’re ready to burst.”

The cow let out a happy moo, and followed after her without trouble. She’d promised she wouldn’t leave until she’d solved the case – so judging by the brainless glaze in her eye and the vapid smile on her lips, she’d be staying for a long, looong time.