It's been a really long time since I went for a run, Alison thought idly, dropping another ear of ripe corn into the pail beside her. I don't think I've gone for two weeks without a run since high school, other than a couple of particularly nasty flu episodes. And the time I tore the tendons in my knee, that took forever to heal. But otherwise, I never go this long without a run.

No wonder I'm feeling so twitchy.

I'd probably damage something, though, going running built like this. It would take a fairly serious sports bra or two to keep me from bouncing enough to tear tissue behind my boobs. I don't even know if they make a sports bra big enough and sturdy enough, actually. There's a whole lot more of me everywhere than there used to be.

She scratched distractedly at the middle of her forehead, just above and between her eyebrows, but her attention focused sharply when her fingers found something other than skin.

Something round, the base maybe an inch in diameter, with the slick consistency of a seashell; it protruded only a little, but her fingers traced spiralling ridges.

What the hell is that?

Oh, who cares? I want to run. I need to run. It doesn't have anything to do with that.

The skin of her legs prickled all over; it escalated swiftly to a maddening itch. The material of her ultramarine-blue clothes shredded under her clawing fingernails as she tried to scratch everywhere at once, which probably should have worried her, but right now it only meant that she could better reach the source of the itching.

Worse, the base of her spine tingled and prickled and joined in, giving her one more thing to try to scratch.

When the hand behind her encountered a solid knot, which went from barely perceptible to the size of her fist within seconds and kept on growing, she froze, the itching of her skin temporarily pushed aside. It was high on her pelvis, roughly level with the widest point of her hips. What was there? Something on her forehead, now something on her bottom too? She tried not to scratch at the lump, but it itched with a ferocity that she had never believed possible, and finally she took her nails to it, cautiously.

That hurt, but it also brought a blessed sense of relief. The skin of it, or covering, or whatever it was, tore away in shreds.

Hair tickled the backs of her legs, as the burning itch began to ease as swiftly as it had struck.

She touched the base of her spine, ran a shaky hand downwards along something that was covered in very long thick hair, with a solid core only for the first few inches. She wrapped it around her arm, and brought it around to where she could see.

That's a horse's tail.

Which just happens to be exactly the same colour as my hair is now. And just happens to be growing out of my ass. What the hell?

It shouldn't interfere with running, which is the important thing. As long as I can run, everything will be okay. That's always how it goes. Running is freedom and safety.

My clothes being wrecked, though, that could be a problem. They weren't enough but they were all I had.

Why were my legs itching too?

She let go of her tail and looked down.

The brilliantly white fur, even whiter than her skin now was, began in a fuzzy line just below her navel, and as near as she could tell it covered both legs completely.

The clingy clothing that provided no support was gone entirely, though she was sure she hadn't torn it above waist level at all. Despite that, she wasn't naked. Sturdy ultramarine-blue cups of what she thought might be leather cradled her breasts firmly, with a wide band underneath and substantial straps from the centre up over her shoulders as well as from the outer corners; straps of the same crisscrossed her abdomen and broad hips, and there was even one strap around each upper leg, all linked by thick gold-coloured rings and a few matching buckles. Her bottom was bare, but then, anything would probably be uncomfortable over her new tail; at least across the front, an inverted triangle dangled down to give her some modesty—although there was, she discovered, nothing terribly modest under it.

Since it probably hadn't existed before now, she could almost certainly take it that nothing had died to provide the leather, if that was what it really was. That at least prevented any ethical dilemmas. And it was remarkably comfortable, so perfectly fitted and arranged that she could barely feel it, despite the impressive support right where she needed it.

Even her hair felt less heavy; a quick check found that it was actually rather short now on the sides, with a stripe down the middle that still grew much longer and fell to her left, much less annoying than the hip-length mass of golden waves she'd been struggling with for two weeks.

Barefoot wasn't really ideal for a long run, but she could stay on grassy areas. There were no lurking low-lying prickly things in the grass, since there were no weeds.

She took a moment to do a few warmup stretches out of a lifetime's habit.

To her alarm, she staggered and fell to one hip, her legs suddenly refusing to move the way she was accustomed to. Her upper leg muscles tightened to the point of discomfort, then further. Briefly she fantasized that a giant had a palm over each end of her femurs and was pressing inwards to make them telescope. She looked down, and watched wide-eyed as her upper legs compressed and shortened, putting her knees much higher. A similar sensation as her lower legs compressed and shortened, though not to the same extent. But the 'giant' grabbed her toes and her heels and pulled them apart like taffy, stretching them: her feet altered the most drastically, elongating and narrowing, her ankle now a hock at roughly the height where her knees had been, her toes fusing together into broad ultramarine-blue hooves. She brushed aside the long silky golden hair that covered the lowest part of her legs, hanging down so the ends brushed her hooves themselves; just above her hooves, hidden in the gold, the glassy cuffs remained, somehow having migrated downwards during the process and adapted to the new size.

Not just a horse tail. Half a horse.

I need to run. I don't want to be where humans can see me. Humans aren't supposed to see me, I'm supposed to run.

Feeling like a newborn foal must, except that a foal had four feet and she still had bipedal proportions, she tested her altered legs, finding out how they bent and where and to what extent. She didn't have a horse's rump end, her horsey legs blended into her wide human pelvis. So she should still be able to run on two feet.

Warily, she got both hooves under her and staggered upright. Her balance was alarmingly distorted by what felt like the world's highest high-heeled shoes ever, but without the heel, so all her weight was on her toes—and she'd never been fond of even minimal high heels. The corn stalks around her were little help, not really strong enough to bear much weight. Her fingers around the stalks seemed a bit shorter and broader, and her blue nails were definitely shorter and thicker and more blunt.

Once she thought she was more or less stable, she tried taking a small cautious step.

With human legs, she probably would only have dropped to one knee, maybe both, from that stumble; with these ones, she fell, and couldn't quite catch herself on her hands. She felt her cheek connect with the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of her, but she'd had worse damage than a bruise in her very active lifetime.

I have to run, I need to run, how can I run if I can't even walk?

Determined and frustrated, she flattened her hands on the ground and pushed herself up, trying again the rather complex series of moves required to stand up with these legs.

If a newborn foal could be up and following its mother an hour or so after birth, she could figure this out, right? She just had to keep trying. Despite the changes, she was sure she could still run, once she learned how.

And hooves would be better on variable ground than bare feet. After all, equine hooves were meant for running, every bit as much as human feet were, if differently.

Probably she could run even faster and further than ever before. No one would ever be able to catch her. The humans, the ones who wanted her and her herd to be silent and do their chores and then go to their room, they'd be left far behind in the dust.

Thirty-six square kilometres wasn't much, she could do multiple kilometres easily on a good run even without her fae strength and stamina, but that was all right too, she could find enough space. Three-fourths of it had current temperatures that would be no more than mildly uncomfortable once she was properly warmed up, despite her considerable bare skin. Uneven terrain didn't matter.

She just needed to get the hang of this, and then she could run as much as she wanted.