Mika tossed and turned in his sleep, beset by uneasy dreams. He dreamed of transformations, of different forms and bodies and lives. He dreamed of being a stableboy and the leering look on the innkeeper's face. What if he had kept the carefree life of a peasant? He dreamed of Ed, a human becoming a horse becoming a centaur. Ed seemed more than happy with his new form. He dreamed of being a mule, and of the innkeeper being a female mule, and what a male and female mule might get up to. He dreamed of all the transformative magic he had seen at home in the magical academy, and all the strong, good-looking adventurers he had seen. He dreamed about his weak and scrawny body, how different he was from them, how filled with worry and stress and devoid of joy his whole short life had been. And above all he dreamed of the Stone. It called to him with all its infinite possibilities. It beckoned to him from its box. He wanted to use it. He wanted to be different, to have a different life. He wanted the Stone.
The Stone! Mika woke with a start. What a strange dream. But he still wanted to change himself, he still wanted to use the Stone. He was hugely curious. Was the Stone having some strange magical effect on him, or had all the transformations he had witnessed and experienced just made him realize how unsatisfied he was with his life and body? It didn't matter, either way he wanted to change himself, if only to see what would happen. He scrambled out of his tent and shivered in the night air, only wearing his undergarments.
Everyone else was asleep. Mika crept over to the bags, on the ground beside the dozing molly mule tied to a post, and carefully withdrew the octagonal box containing the Stone, though he didn't open it just yet. He had to change himself, he was sick of this life.
But what would he become? It would be so easy to go back to being the stableboy, just a peasant kid with no worries, but did he want to be a kid, or a servant? Maybe he could just be himself as a kid. Would that mean he would have to live his life again? He didn't like the sound of that. Could he be a carefree peasant without being a kid? Or maybe he could make himself like Ed, a strong and powerful centaur? Or another kind of animal-human hybrid. He had always been fascinated by satyrs, creatures of magic like him with a mischievous streak that he wanted to express but never could, and he liked the idea of being a big, strong minotaur too. Did he have to be a hybrid to be big and strong, though? He could just make himself a warrior like Audrey. ...How much like Audrey, though, did he want to try being a woman if he really wanted a different life, or did he just want to be a manlier man? What about being an elf or a dwarf, or some other non-human? Or if he really wanted to have a carefree life totally different from his previous one, why not be an animal? He could be a mule again, or a horse like Ed (but not a gelding--horse or mule, he thought of giving the transformed innkeeper some company), or he could make himself into a wild animal and escape into this forest.
The notion of not changing himself, of not using the Stone, was lost on Mika by now. He wanted to be different. He wanted a new life. He wanted to use the Stone. He agonized for a few more minutes before finally coming to a decision. Mika carefully took the Stone out of its box, held it in his hands, and concentrated on his new form.