Chapter 1: The First Step

The Stag Warrior stirred, the morning sun hitting his sleeping form as he lay on the rocky ground, his pack under his head as a pillow. The rays crept up his body till they reached his face, to his eyes, and at that he awoke, squinting. The day had arrived. Time for his journey to begin.

He had been waiting for this day, he had just not known it before. All his life he had been prepared for it, been taught what he needed to learn to survive. All the trials, the tests, all to culminate in this moment. The day he set out on his own. The day he cut all the ties, all the burdens, and left to forge his own way. His spirit guides, his totem animal, the stag, to walk with him, his thoughts one with their energy.

Many years he had been with others. Never having his own path, never creating his own destiny. It had become a comfort of sorts, to walk the path of the others, to have the security, to know that someone would always be there to bail him out, to save him from the difficulties the journey brought forth. Always, allowing others to control the direction his path would take.

But this journey, this morning, would be only his own. Oh, there will still be others with him, but this time, only he to determine his destiny. He got up, aware now of the chaos around him, its presence constant, so as to be idle background noise, the troubles of everyday life like a sandstorm beating his face, but only to the point he blinked a bit. Then he gazed out, out there, to the unknown. The path was waiting for him, he only need to take the first step. Leave everything else behind, take that first step to a different path than the others.

The doubts swirl in his mind like the sandstorm around him. Where will he go? What will he do? What obstacles lay ahead? In his mind's eye he brushes all the doubts and fears aside, and then...........

He takes that step.