"Shhhhh. Do you hear anything?" asked Brian. The others strained their ears, listening for movement. The unmistakable sound of a large beast crashing through the forest reached their ears from somewhere far off. Cautiously, they headed towards it.
The Trojans and Phoenicians were on a hunting party, and had split up into smaller groups to catch as much game as they could. Brain, Dido, Aeneas, Ascanius, Jake, brave Serestus, and two other Phoenician warriors whose names I forget formed one group.
"Wait, stop," said Dido, "If all eight of us advance at once, it'll hear us and flee. Two of us need to go and identify what exactly it is. If it's worth killing, we'll come back and the rest of you can work your way around it and surround it."
"Sounds like a good plan," replied Aeneas, "Marvelling at Dido's intelligence, as well as her beauty. Come on, let's go." He headed off along with Dido, leaving the rest behind."
"Hey," said Ascanius, "Wouldn't it be funny if my dad came back and we had all vanished?"
"Ummm, I guess…" said Brian.
Ascanius began walking off.
"Hey, get back here," said Jake, "Aeneas would kill us, literally, if something happened to you."
A large roar sounded in the distance.
"A lion! A lion!" shouted Ascanius excitedly, "Let's go!" He took off, running through the forest as fast as his little legs could carry him.
"Whoa, wait up!" shouted Jake. He hadn't been exaggerating the consequences of allowing Ascanius to be hurt, and the young boy was now running after what was apparently a lion. Jake took off as well, followed by Brian and a Phoenician soldier. The other Phoenician soldier and brave Serestus had gotten caught up in a very deep discussion about laser eye surgery and had not noticed Ascanius's flight.
Ascanius may have been small, but he was full of energy. Jake, however, was pretty fit, even for a Trojan warrior, thanks to hours of swim practice. Unfortunately, like Brian, he was weighed down by his metal armor and thus, although they lost no ground on Ascanius, they gained none either. Ascanius, being small, also did not have to go through the trouble of ducking under the various tree branches that often got in their way.
"ASCANIUS, IULUS, ILUS, OR WHATEVER YOU GO BY, GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!" roared Jake, in as intimidating a way as you would expect from a great Trojan warrior like him.
Ascanius/Iulus/Ilus, however, if he heard him at all, just kept running. All of them were gaining ground on the animal, which turned out to be a boar. Although none of them noticed it, preoccupied with dodging tree branches and jumping over stones, the boar was looking more and more tired by the minute.
At last, the boar stopped, exhausted, and turned around. Ascanius, still as energetic as ever, rushed toward it with his spear."
The boar, seeing Ascanius, made a half hearted effort to get into a fighting position, half snarling and looking as if about to charge. Suddenly, a sad expression spread across its face. Its shoulders slumped, and it seemed to give itself up to Ascanius. The boy, confused, stopped running and approached cautiously, wondering if this was some trick. To the surprise of everyone, including Magistra, who wasn't even there, the boar began to speak.
"Please, mister random child who looks young enough to be cuddled by strangers but old enough to hunt lions, spare my life. If you desire honor and glory for slaying a wild boar, then you will gain it from killing me, for I am indistinguishable from any real boar. To slay me, however, would be murder, and would cause you to fall in the eyes of the gods. I am not a boar, but a man, transformed into the form of a beast by the the sorceress Circe, because she was really bored."
'You lie!" said the Phoenician warrior, who had just arrived, "Circe does not transform men on a whim. You must have approached her seeking a favor. She helps those who defeat her in a hot dog eating contest, and transforms those who do not. You fool! If you were unsure in your ability, if you did not possess her true name, the secret to beating her, then you should not have gone to her! Oh, woe to you!"
The boar lowered its head even more in shame. "Yes, it is true," he said, "I set sail from my native land seeking her, hoping to gain knowledge of the whereabouts of my brother. I presumed him to be drowned at sea, but wanted to make sure. She, however, upon hearing my request, transformed me into my present likeness with one wave of her wand, and with a second wave, I found myself on this land."
"You are in the woods by Carthage," said the Phoenician warrior, "And had you not come across me, would most likely have been forced to wander around these forests until your death, whether by a spear or old age. I possess a certain amount of knowledge in the arcane arts, which I learned from Elsa's weirdo husband, but not nearly enough to rival that of Circe's. Still, I believe I have the means to help you, for when performing magic for the aid of others, I am authorized to make use of the power of the Emperor over the Sea."
The boar, Ascanius, Brian, and Jake watched as the Phoenician warrior took out his waterskin and lay it upon the ground. Narrowing his eyes in concentration, he made a series of gestures over it and chanted in an ancient tongue. Taking up the waterskin again, he opened it, dipped his fingers into it, and flung the water into the air. As it sprinkled down on the boar, he sang,
"As this water here is falling,
I the undines now am calling,
And by the power of Juno's brain,
I order ya'll to bring me rain."
For a moment, the five humans (including the boar, who was really a human) stood still, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
"Well then," said the Phoenician warrior, looking around awkwardly, "Oh, wait, silly me, wrong spell." He dipped his fingers into the waterskin and once again sprinkled the consecrated water onto the boar, this time saying, "If you were born a boar, remain a boar; but if you were born a man, by virtue of this water resume your proper form."
There was a blinding flash light that forced the four warriors to close their eyes. When they opened them, they were surprised to see David. "Thanks guys," he said, "I thought I'd never regain my original form. Hey, Jake, how well do you think you did on that last test?"
"I don't know," said Jake, "They're not up on Tyler yet, but I'm pretty sure I beat that lunatic who sits right in front of me."
"Well," said the Phoenician warrior, "I'm glad I did manage to remember the right spell, although I do wonder what the first one was supposed to do." Suddenly, an ear shattering blast of thunder shook the Earth, and the sky grew dark with impossibly thick clouds that seemed to come from nowhere.
"Oh," continued the Phoenician warrior, "I remember now!"