The boy, now a man, first encountered the Serpent in the strangest environment he had ever come across. It was the end of his journey out, the last place he would explore before returning to the tribe.

The land there was the strangest that the man had ever laid eyes upon. It was unlike anything he had ever seen or heard of. The land was ethereal, more a memory of the glory of the natural world than actual land. At times it looked to be a forest one on such a scale that the trees were lost among the clouds. Other times the land would turn to windswept mountains that were host to forms of rock which seemed to defy the very nature of reality, seemingly always in motion, fading and growing in turns.

These sights though were the very least of what he bore witness to there: lands made from steel, a world that seemed to be made out of mist and light, an ocean which seemed to be in a constant state of changing between liquids, a twisted land made of blood and forgotten dreams, a river which stretched through a nothingness which seemed to contain all he had ever seen.

Yet for all the constant, flowing, ever-changing nature of the land there the man beheld a path through. The path at times seemed to shift, ever changing and adapting to the land’s changing nature, but always solid. To see the path was to see the totality of the journey along it, to ponder on what the path might lead to.

The man beheld the path stretching before him and as though compelled by it, by the world, and by his own soul, he stepped forward onto it.

The path seemed to drag him forwards in a way far more fundamental than the simple action of walking. As he walked it was as though the path had drawn all he had been to the present. As he walked he looked left, seeing a younger boy walking there, and he knew the spector to be himself, a representation of his kin and his duty to the tribe, as well as a representation of youthful joy.

Further along the path he looked to his right, and in looking to his right side he saw wonders. He saw a spirit—one drawn perhaps from his very nature—that was an embodiment of his desire to seek out new things. To go further than any other, to see more and experience more than he had ever dreamt of. Perhaps it was more than simply his dreams but instead a representation of all those who seek out new things.

Beyond the spirit on his right he saw the majesty of the world that he lived to experience. Around the spector on his left side he saw his memories and his duties take form. The sights he saw to his left and right seemed to him to be something less than the wind, a passing idea, fragile and needing protection. Something taken from the mind and cast onto the land, so tenuously connected to reality.

As the man walked, entranced by the visions amid the lands beyond and around the entities to his sides, the path ahead became darker and more challenging. It twisted around great obstacles, hugging the sides of mountains or requiring the one walking to climb steep hills or fallen trees.

Further along, beyond the challenges rooted in the realm of the physical came challenges of a far different and far more challenging nature. The path ahead of the man seemed to warp, in parts incomplete or in others twisted across a place not quite of the base world. The man however walked on, seemingly untroubled by the impossible nature of the path he walked upon.

In time the man came to the end of the path. He walked into the place which lay beyond, it was a place in direct contrast to the lands beyond its boundaries. Instead of a place that was less than real it was a place that was so real that the unreal would take form. It was a place where the physical nature of reality yearned to be more than what it was.

The center of the faded lands was a place of the mind, a palace where the whims of an unstructured and undisciplined mind took precedence over reality. A stray thought of what could be would become reality. Internal thoughts not spoken aloud would write themselves, in the air or in stranger places, making this a place beyond deceit.

Stolen story; please report.

He paused at the threshold to the place at the center of the ethereal lands. It seemed almost as though it was taboo to walk forwards and enter, yet a short moment after the thought had come the feeling vanished, replaced by a feeling of amusement and hospitality, a certainty that the visitor was, for whatever reason, welcome in this place.

The strangeness of the feeling and the external nature of it gave the man pause. He stepped back, perhaps fearful for the first time of the unknown. Before he made the choice to turn from the area ahead of him and return the way he had come, he heard a voice.

The voice was sibilant, echoing and containing within it both the faded nature of the outside area and the far too real nature of the inner area. It spoke in a tone that seemed to contradict itself, entreating and ancient, superior and young.

“A child comes before the serpent of the cycles. The serpent, to the child, then poses a question: Why would the young come before the old?”

The man, now named a child by the voice in the center, walked forwards as if drawn by the voice. In the wake of the serpent’s words the very nature of diction permissible in the area seemed to twist in a way similar to the words of the serpent. The Child then replied,

“I come not before the serpent, instead I come before the nature of the world. I come to the center of the greatest expression of the natural world I have seen and find within it an entity most unexpected.”

The Serpent spoke again, but to the empty air, as if suddenly forgetting who it had spoken to scant moments before. “A Child will wander one supposes. It is strange though, to see one marked such as this one so far from its kin. I wonder…”

Here the serpent paused for a moment, then it turned its attention to the child once more.

“Regardless a Child has come before the serpent of the ages, as is the nature of this an answer is owed, so ask, child. Ask and receive an answer, a boon, a gift.”

The child, though terribly confused, answered the serpent. He asked for the one thing that he could ask for, for the means to protect his tribe and to see many new sights.

To grant the child this request the serpent took the soul from the child’s body so that it could change it to give the child power that would allow him to grant his own wish. The process of changing the soul was inconceivably painful for the child, but when the serpent finally returned the child’s soul to its mortal shell the child held no doubt that his wish had been granted.

It was a subtle thing that the Serpent had granted him. It was beyond his grasp and his comprehension. But even while unable to grasp the power granted to him, the child could feel its potential. It felt like his tribe, and it felt like the land, it felt something like the joy of childhood or the first journey one goes on. It was terrible and wondrous, and yet for all of that it was yet powerless.

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The one now named the Child, left the center of that place then. It was glorious and one could easily spend an eternity within it, but he knew that it was not a place that welcomed mortals. He could not stay.

Now at the end of his journey outward, the Child turned back to the way he had come. He began his journey back and passed the same sights he had seen on his way outward, but they seemed hollow and lacking now. They were remarkable sights in the mundane world but he had glimpsed the world beyond the mundane.

In time the Child returned to the tribe. He was welcomed by his family but soon was summoned before the Shamans. The shamans had sensed the change that had come over the Child and bid him speak of the events of his journey.

The Child told the shamans of his journey outwards, of the many glorious and impossible sights he had seen. He told the shamans of the place at the end of his outward journey. He told them of the impossible ethereal nature of that place. He told them of the many sights he had seen within it and of the path. He then spoke of how he had begun to walk the path and told them briefly of the specters he had seen on the path.

He paused at this part of the story for a long moment before informing the shamans of what he had found at the center. He told them of the voice he had heard and informed them of what the voice had said. He spoke at last of the gift the Serpent had given him and what he felt from it.

The meeting lasted long into the night, with the shamans finally reaching a consensus. The child had been gifted magic, and while it was a form of magic unfamiliar to the shamans they were the best ones to teach him, and it was indeed their duty to.

So the Child was elevated to the caste of Shaman and the shamans began his schooling.