Damon thought back to all of the times he had sat with his family and servants at formal dinners fantasizing about being a wolf or a bear or even a fox, with the woods as his playground and no one to tell him what to do. He'd thought about just running away to a witch to go live in the wild and just do what he wants when he wants it, but he had always been too shy and sheltered. When he finally built up the courage to come this far, he'd found himself looking over his shoulder the whole way.
* Now, here I am in the witch's cabin; I guess we'll see what will happen. *
The potion made Damon feel weird in a way he couldn't quite place, and at first he thought it was all mental. Then Damon started to get dizzy. At first, he thought he might fall over, but he didn't. Nevertheless, he could see first his clone and then the witch and then even the furniture towering above him! It took Damon a moment to register that he was indeed still standing... he had simply shrunk! Poor Damon didn't even come up to waist-height anymore.
When the shrinking stopped, Prince Damon was less than a foot tall, looking around at the seemingly massive cabin in awe.
* I feel almost normal again, but somehow there's so much less of me now! I wonder where it all went? * he thought, not that any answer would have really mattered in the great scheme of things.
Of course, the prince was not going to feel normal for very long. Soon a pressure started building all through his torso until he felt like something was going to just explode out of his back. He winced and groaned until the pressure released itself right out through the top of his rear end. The prince suddenly found himself dizzy again after whatever that was, and he heard the witch's voice giggling from high above him. The tiny man was extremely disoriented and decided he felt as though he were lying down and standing up at the same time. When he turned around to see what he'd involuntarily forced out, he squeaked at the massive forest of fur stretching out behind him across the witch's floor!
Well, okay, it wasn't actually massive. The bushy tail was less than a foot long, but in comparison to Damon's new size, it was like having a whole other body back there. He instinctively lifted his addition up and found it long enough (and hairy enough) to cover up his whole back and then some! He couldn't help grabbing on to some the long brushy fur and just trying to wrap his arms all the way around his fuzzy new companion.
* I can't believe there's so much MORE of me now! * he thought ironically.
Then the indefinable weird feeling came back, and Damon got a puffy feeling all up and down his chest and belly. He faced forward again and looked down to see creamy white fur sprouting all up and down his front end. He rubbed his hands through it... It felt heavenly, but discovering this new change spreading over this big section of his original self brought his cowardice right back.
* This magic stuff is for real... do I really want this to happen? *
The screaming (squeaking) former prince had no choice but to feel puffiness spread all around his sides and back as brownish-gray fur burgeoned like grass in a time-lapse video. His hands tensed up; he held them out to watch as claws ejected out of his fingers and rough pads bubbled out from underneath them. His legs hunched up and shortened while his feet stretched out and birthed some new claws of their own. The growth of fur coursed up his neck, and then his ears twisted themselves unsettlingly until they were perky cups held high up over the top of his head. He could feel their misshapen nature, but he didn't dare reach up to touch them for fear of his new claws.
Then Prince Damon felt a pressure building up in his face, like when he grew his tail, but not quite so insanely intense. It stretched his mouth and nose out into a single bony mass while his eyes swelled up, turned black, and ended up on the sides of his face instead of the front. He suddenly had to cope with seeing everywhere except directly backwards, but only in the muffled tones of colorblindness. The smells coming into his new nostrils were so overwhelming that he didn't think he could even begin to understand them just yet.
Damon's heart thundered in his new ears as prickly sensations sprouted up on either side of his snout, then behind his eyes, and even on his arms and belly. Long, sensitive fibers were forcing their way out from his skin through his fur, and Damon for the first time felt the twitching of whiskers (and not only on his face).
A few more seconds of weirdness, and it was over. The witch and the clone were looking down at a beautiful little squirrel, which circled around a few times gazing at its new body. Damon looked took some deep breaths, twitched his tail a few times, and tried to calm down to figure out what should happen next.
The witch's human-sized footsteps thundered across the floor as she made her way over to the door. She opened it and gestured to Damon.
"Well, what are you waiting for? You wanted to live on the wild side, now go out into the wild."
Damon cocked his head and looked at her for a few minutes, hoping she was joking, or that she would relent and offer him the choice to change back. She was clearly not going to negotiate, though, as she eyed the tiny woodland creature staring out at the savage wilderness beyond her door.