Aesop lightly picked up the potion from the pedestal in front of him. His good byes over, he turned up his head, gulping the potion down. As the cool liquid streamed down his throat, adrenaline caused him a rush of excitement. Finally he was able to make his own choice. The potion began its change; power flowed through Aesop’s limbs, seemingly unstoppable. But by the time the potion had been fully swallowed, he began to feel drained, the new energy sucked right out of him as well as the old. Aesop slumped to the ground, no longer possessing the ability to stand. Now on the cold, stone floor he lay, his vision slowly tunneling. Was this what it was like to die? And yet the foreign death came painless, and so it was welcomed. A few seconds from unconsciousness, Aesop winced as the voice of one of the authorities slithered insie his head, “You... have failed... your punishment... shall not be quick...”
The last bit of hope vanished then, like dew as the morning sun strikes it, and Aesop plunged despairingly into a deep, unwaking darkness...
•••
Voices overhead. The screeches of wild foul. Thudding of hooves. And... a wooden crate.
These were the first things Aesop’s senses latched onto as he slowly, but surely, awakened. At the moment, time seemed irrelevant; Aesop only wondered where he was, not why or how, or even when. He tried raising his head. Not going to work. The slanted oak-wood boards prevented any line of sight from being reached through the top of the container. Aesop thought for a moment, before finally coming to the most reasonable conclusion that he was now trapped, somewhere far away from where he had started with the mythical potion.
Wondering if this was to be where he was punished, Aesop listened carefully for the sound of the authorities outside his box...
No suspicious noises were heard, and he immediately began formulating an escape plan. But... he needed sight on his side first. Perhaps if he moved his wings here, and his tail there...
!!!
Aesop’s heart skipped a beat as it began increasingly obvious that he was no longer human.
The new question now instified as this: