**The Crown of Power**

  Among the shifting shades of forest light, a fox spotted its prey.

  Swift and sly, it pounced—a wandering chicken, helpless and slow.

  The fox devoured it with pride, then lay beneath a tree, belly full, drunk on its own glory.

  But pride is a loud thing—it echoes where silence should be.

  And so the wolf, hungry and patient, saw the fox too late in its arrogance.

  With a flash of teeth, the forest shifted again—the fox became a meal.

  The wolf, now fed and proud, strutted through the woods as if crowned king.

  But the crown does not fit all heads.

  A lion, true king of the wild, saw the arrogance in the wolf’s stride and roared in offense.

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  With one furious leap, it crushed the wolf beneath its paws and claimed the forest as its own.

  Victorious, the lion rested beneath the grandest willow, growled once for the earth to remember, and let the sun bathe his mane in gold.

  It roared once more, not for hunger, but to remind the earth who ruled.

  But power, too, has blind spots.

  Its tail flicked, out of habit, brushing the ground where a scorpion waited.

  The sting was swift.

  The lion cried out—not in glory, but in pain—and stumbled toward the river.

  But before it reached water, it fell.

  Not far off, the scorpion danced in the sunlight, unnoticed and undefeated.

  Until a chick spotted it, eyes wide with hunger and wonder.

  With a chirp, it darted forward and pecked the scorpion clean off the earth.

  Then, proud as any prince, it marched toward the unknown—

  chirping its anthem to a forest that watched in silence.

  So then, tell me—

  who was the strongest of them all?

  The lion... or the chick?