This was indeed a strange and unusual, yet spectacularly beautiful land. Dark legs picked their way carefully through the underbrush, the rust-colored stag choosing the path less travelled. That was the way he had been taught to travel through unknown territories as a youth; stick to the trees, away from the roads, and see others before they see you. Not that he didn't want to talk to anyone. He was sure that he had to come across someone soon, and he fully intended on making himself known to whoever's path he crossed, but his family had told him it was safest this way and they had reminded him of it just before he had left is valley home.

A pang of sweet sorrow, nostalgia, flickered across his mind. He missed his father and mother, all of his siblings, and the other stags and does of his herd. He thought about them often in his travels, and the thoughts always brought a smile to his face. He wondered idly how they were all doing. Mother must have given birth to his little brother or sister by now. How long had it been, exactly? He wondered how the little one was getting on in life. He imagined a little fawn prancing happily through the fir trees of his home, carefree as the rest of his herd.

Shaking himself out of his daydream, Ichab let out a tiny sigh, a smile still playing across his lips. He had to get his mind out of the past and back to the here-now. He was entering a new, unknown, and wondrous land, which was surely full of amazing new experiences and friends. His trajectory led him to cross a well-traveled dirt path, wider than the deer-trails he was used to. He skittered across it, back into the trees on the same side, and then paused. A light laugh bubbled from his throat. He was being silly, surely. His parents had taught him to stick to the trees, stay out of sight, until her knew the lay of the land, but surely he was in no real danger here, in a land so grand and majestic where all around him swirled the scents of others like him. Other equines.

He turned his head back to the path, now behind him. It ran a twisted path westerly, the same direction in which Ichab was, however indirectly, travelling. There could be no harm in sticking to the path for a little while. "Sorry, Da," he murmured, sending apologies for is disobedience to his far away adoptive father. Turning himself around, with more perceived elegance than actual, he put himself on the path and trotted forward with confidence.

It was only a couple of minutes before a sound in the trees startled him. He stopped abruptly, his hind feet tripping over his forelimbs and nearly sending him into a heap on the ground. He caught himself, barely, off-balance and turned to face the noise. His tail flung itself over his back, the white flag underneath becoming vividly apparent. He paused a mere moment to stare in the direction of the rustling and as it became louder, closer, he leaped away, back into the cover of the heavy foliage.

Why? Why couldn't he just be a good stag and listen to his parents' lessons?

Why?!

"Talk."