Your breath begins to slow, your leg stops trembling, and eventually, you're fairly calm. Terrified, yes, confused, double yes, and clueless as to what you've gotten yourself into, triple yes, but calm. Ish. Your heart is still racing and your mouth is dry.
"Water?" you hear, and it's the cow-woman again, standing there with a glass of refreshing-looking ice-water in her hand. A hand that has odd fingers that you assume are what you'd get if you crossed a human hand with a bovine hoof.
"Don't worry, it's not laced with anything," she says, clearly sensing your hesitation. "It's not the water that does it."
"S... so what does it then?" you ask, your voice quiet and trembling.
"Some form of magic, some say. Others think it's a folding in space... time... continuity or something like that. Me, I don't care. I just know it happens, to anyone coming here."
"So... I'm gonna be a cow?" you ask, eyebrows lifted.
"Ha! If you were, I'd be glad for it, girl. Lord knows we could use some new blood in the herd. But you could be anything. Well - almost anything."
"Almost?"
"Few rules seem to hold true. One: those who are supposed to be here - those tasked by our jobs with the big farming companies that divvied this town up, are always livestock. Cattle. Horses. Pigs. Chicken. Goat. Stuff like that. Except if you're a herding dog or a barn cat."
"And there's no way to... pick? Guess even?"
"If there is, we haven't figured it out. So it seems pretty random. Second rule is - if you're not supposed to be here - if you sneak in, or accidentally find your way here - you're a rat. Or a fox."
"And that's why barn cats," you say, surprised that you said it at all.
"You're getting it. Rule number two people are compelled to try and sneak in, steal, raid, maraud. Basically, they can't help but be assholes. You are supposed to be here, right?"
"Uh... yeah. Hillburg... Hillburg sent me."
"Oh! Hey, cool! We're coworkers!"
"You work for...?"
"When I'm not manning this place. Dot, that's me. Not my real name, which is Beatrix, but hey - cow, spotted fur, runs a diner, people start calling you Dot, so it stuck."
"Uh... I'm Ally. Alicia," you say with a less pronounced tremor to your voice. Your fear is subsiding, and it helps that Dot, or Beatrix or whatever she wants to be called, is very friendly and calming.
"Glad to meet you, Ally," she says with a broad smile. "Only get so many customers, you know. Most of us prefer to graze. Myself included."
"Heh - right," you say with a smirk, catching her wink. You could see yourself making friends with this cow woman, which strikes you as a little odd since it wasn't so long ago that she freaked you out. "Is it, uh... when will it... you know..."
"When are you gonna change?"
"Yeah. I mean, is it gonna happen right away, or...?"
"It's kinda slow. Might take a whole week, depending on what you are. Bigger animals take longer."
"Oh, I uh... guess that makes sense." Part of you just wanted to get it over with, done and out of the way. The rest of you dreaded it.
"So, all that out of the way, you must be famished, so what will you have? Anything you want, I got it."