The prince was both nervous and exhilarated. He knew that what he was doing here was scandalous: a prince standing around naked in a witch's cabin, begging to throw it all away and become a wild beast. If this secret ever got out, he'd be locked in a tower to the end of his days. But here he was, showing his ass in more ways in one, and this old woman seemed all too happy to enable him.
Damon was standing there, feeling the potion gurgle in his gut, hoping he hadn't drunk poison, when he felt a weird twitch at the bottom of his spine, right when something fuzzy flopped against his bottom. He looked back and found a furry tail hanging down over his butt, which he could flap around and wag from side to side. The fur was spreading up off of it and growing out of his lower back. The sounds in the cabin started to get louder and clearer, and then he felt the twitching in his ears.
* Whoa, this is actually happening! * he thought, feeling more changes taking root inside his body. He suddenly found himself seriously wondering what the life of a wild animal was actually like. He'd always imagined it as a carefree, rule-free life, or at least a less stressful one than representing the royal family and always having to set an example for the nation. Of course, he couldn't actually have any real idea, at least not until today.
* I guess I'm about to find out, * he thought as his nose turned black and pushed forward. A sharp pressure jabbed through his crotch as a bone grew in, so that his dick stuck up and thinned out before getting swallowed up in the skin and fur of his belly. His snorted and reached his hands down there to try to find it; it was still there: a hard stick ready to poke out at a moment's notice. There weren't going to be any royal babies from him, though, that's for sure.
Damon started to stagger as his feet grew longer and pushed him up on his tiptoes. A swollen feeling surged up through his skull on both sides, so he reached up and felt some hard thick growths stretching up and branching out--his antlers! A forearm brushed the tip of his furry ear, making him realize for the first time just how long those were now.
* This is nuts! I'm really gonna be an animal! * he thought.
His toes had long since fused together into two at the end of each foot, and they were sprouting some hard black accessories he recognized as hooves. They were thinning out almost too much to keep him upright now. His hands locked up and started stretching and fusing almost the same way. He held them out and watched them change until his snout widened out and pushed his eyes apart. Most of the color drained from Damon's vision, which blurred up a bit as his field of view expanded and his eyes took their new stations on his face. They would no longer indulge a prince's life of lavish and intricate art; their job was to give this agile beast of prey the early warning it would need to spring away on its nimble legs in almost an instant.
Speaking of nimble legs, Damon had a full set of four of them now, so he leaned forward to give his new front hooves their proper share of his weight. He barely needed to turn his head to see that it was finished. From the slime on his nose to the fuzz on his tail, there was nothing left of the prince but a stag of the sort that his dad and uncles hunted for sport. That last thought sent a chill down Damon's spine and made his powerful heart thump louder.
"A fitting form for an ill-fitting prince," said the witch with a grin. Damon reflexively perked his ears toward her and flinched. It sounded like she was shouting at him, but it was just his super hearing!
"A prestigious and supposedly majestic creature that must live in fear of people and run away to live its life. The potion always picks what's in your heart, my friend. Now go on and live the wild life you asked for."
The loud voice booming through the cabin, the human smell that now meant danger, the ominous fire flickering under the cauldron, the humbling awareness that he was now a game animal... all of this sent Damon scurrying for the exit far more urgently than the witch's request for his departure. His new antlers slammed into the door, knocking some of the wood and stopping him with a thud. Good thing he was built to take a pounding, like the bucks he'd have to fight in the wild. The witch waved her arms and the door opened wide enough to let him bound away into the woods.