George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

But me — it had changed me, and Elpenor as well.

At first, I didn’t think we’d be friends. Underneath, Elpenor was sensitive — too sensitive in fact — but outside he was classic warrior: tall, powerfully muscled, a bit of a brute and a hell of a fighter. He was young in age, not in skills, and had more deaths to his name than anyone but Odysseus himself. I, on the other hand, was the runt of the crew and possessed a distinct tendency to run rather than fight. With my wiry black hair, I had the look and temperament of a neurotic terrier.

Elpenor tried to distance himself from me, but the war was long and we were often thrown together, pressed into service for the dirtiest of work because we were the babies of the crew. Disposing of corpses, cleaning latrines, scrubbing the deck after punishments — Elpenor and I bonded over blood and human excrement, and we found ourselves talking to take our minds off the stench in front of us.

Soon we discovered we were both the youngest of large families, both pressured into fighting and sailing by older brothers who wanted us to be “men”—to kill and to wench and to sweat and to curse. Elpenor had handled the pressure by learning to fight, and fight well; I had responded by figuring out how not to fight, until this damnable war came along and I’d felt the need to prove myself.

Somewhere in the long middle of the war, there came a day when Odysseus ordered the two of us to collect all the eyes from the dead.

We never talked about that day.

But that was the day we became brothers.

That night we got drunk, confessed we both hated the captain, missed our sisters more than we missed our brothers, and right then and there we took a blood oath to survive, make it home, and never, ever touch a sword again.

Elpenor had been fine, more or less, during the war, but now that we were headed home he’d brood for hours about the men he’d killed. Who they’d been, who they could have been. Late at night swinging in our hammocks, I’d try to distract him with stories of our future. I came up with a plan to open a winery — marry some nice smart girls, raise kids, plant vines, and run the best winery in Greece. Once, drunk, I told him I could actually conjure vines out of the night air, vines that were green and full of life, which stretched all the way from our hammocks, all the way across the wide sea, all the way home. He laughed and told me to lay off the wine. But I could tell I’d managed to snag a bit of hope, for after that, on the truly bad nights, he’d always ask about my “damn vines.”

Elpenor and I had been standing next to each other when beautiful Circe ensorcelled us — not that any of us understood that at the time. Most of the rest of the crew started munching happily at the hay in the pigsties. But not Elpenor. He’d always been brave, whether as man or pig, and he barreled right past the hay, punching a hole out the back of the pigsty. Before I knew it, I too was through the jagged wood, following him out the hole, surprised at my own speed and power and fearlessness. Elpenor and I raced off in different directions, explosions of heat and hunger hunting in the forest.

Gods, I loved the wild freedom, the rooting visceralness of it. I was huge, hot, hungry desire and as soon as I saw something I ate it. Or gored it. Or rolled in it. Or gored it, rolled it, and then ate it. If I gored something, I didn’t feel bad, and if I ate something I didn’t feel bad, and if I rolled in something, no matter how smelly or disgusting, I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t worry about the war or my homesickness or my lost sense of morality. Rutting with wild sows, devouring acorns, splashing in rivers, the feel of mud drying on my skin — I simply was , I simply experienced , I simply wanted . What I didn’t do was think .

How I wanted that day to last forever.

Towards dusk, exhausted by our adventure, Elpenor and I met up again, familiar to each other even as pigs, and we collapsed in a clearing: two pigs, covered in layers of earth and pine needles, and two happier animals there had never been.

I was drifting off to sleep when the change happened. It didn’t feel like much, just a sudden shiver, and a weird sensation, like someone else was stretching your muscles for you, stretching them wildly far; oddly, it didn’t hurt.

Odysseus had convinced Circe to release the crew, for suddenly we were men again. Dirty men, tired from our strange adventure. I was filthier than I’d ever been in my life, nauseous, and Elpenor looked at me with such loss and puzzlement in his eyes, I didn’t know what to say. I shook my head. The cold knot within my chest beat its old familiar bruise. We brushed the worst of the dirt off and headed back to Circe’s palace.

That night, Odysseus and Circe went at each other with abandon, and the rest of the crew plunged their newly restored human bodies into a frenzy of debauchery. Rather than deal with the taunts of “How many nymphs can you handle, baby-face?”—and “Need someone to show you how?”—Elpenor and I retreated to the roof with a large rhyton of honey mead.

The night was clear and crisp, scented by pine and salt, and the stars were just coming out as we reclined, shirtless, on the roof tiles. The hair rippled on my torso, but I couldn’t feel the wind against my skin. My heart beat cold and distant as the stars piercing the night sky. I wondered if pigs were ever lost enough to look at the stars.

“Gods, I liked it,” I said, keeping my eyes on the night sky. Elpenor didn’t say anything, already stewing in a drunken brood. I wondered if his skin was flushing red the way I felt my own heating up. I took a long gulp of mead, its warmth tickling my throat.

“I liked it a lot ,” I said, louder this time. I couldn’t come right out and say I wanted to be a pig again. It seemed disloyal somehow. “I want today again.”

“Today? You want today again? Time to go backwards?” he said, slurring.

“You know what I mean. I want—”

“Doesn’t matter what we want, don’t you get that?” He was in a worse mood than I’d thought — not a typical brood, but mean, more like I’d seen him in battle. He grabbed the mead and stood up.

“Hey, save some for me,” I said, rising with him, chucking him on the shoulder, trying to lighten the mood.

He stumbled back from the shoulder tap, reeling slightly. “Leave me alone.” He took another big swig, then stepped towards me, lowered his head, and started… snorting.

It should have been ludicrous, but instead it was frightening. He’d refused to bathe earlier, and in the starlight, the forest mud on his naked chest could have been the blood of battle. He was mad and drunk enough to brawl, and I didn’t want to fight him, especially in the dark, on a slippery roof.

“Come on, Elpenor, ease up.”

He snorted thick guttural grunts, too low for a human.

“Stop that.” I took a step backwards. “Stop it! Speak like a man.”

He answered with bursts of gravelly breath so violent, spit and mucus sprayed out of his nose.

“Elpenor! Like a man!”

“Okay — Oink, oink!” he said. “You happy? That what you wanted? Come on — oink, oink. Say it like a man .”

I didn’t respond.

“Can’t even say it, can you?” He took a last swallow, tossed the rhyton off the roof. A wolf howled as the ceramic rhyton shattered against the stone courtyard below. Elpenor howled back, circling me, oinking and howling.

“Stop it, Elpenor!”

“You’re the one who liked it so much, come on, why don’t you join me, say a little oink oink? Oink, oink. Why not? Too human?” He snorted like a pig again, snot oozing out of his nostrils.