[Ficlet] Steps

[deegeeak]

Title: Break Away
Characters/Pairing:  Canada, mentions of England
Rating: PG13
Warning: Depression
Summary:  Canada's a country, what now?

It hurt.  He hadn't expected it to hurt. 

He deserves this, Matthew told himself, he'd needed this freedom for himself, a chance to spread his wings and fly.  How could he learn what it was to be a nation if he never actually tried to be a nation?

It still hurt.

He'd signed the documents, watched Arthur's men pack their things and leave his shores and then suddenly, quite abruptly, after being someone else's for so long...He was alone for the first time he could remember.

There was no one else in his lands but him and his people.

What did he do now, he asked himself.  He finally had all the freedom in the world to do anything he wanted and he couldn't get started.  "A journey starts with only a footstep," he was told by his new government.  But how do you start when you don't know how to walk?

Francis and Arthur had always led the way before, had broken the trails for him.

"Who," asked the polar bear next to him.

"I don't know," he answered finally. "I don't know who I am."

The bear shrugged.  "Find?"

"How do I start," he asked.  "I don't know where to start."

"Just do."

Matthew glanced outside.  The snow had fallen and lay against his land like a soft blanket of the softest lamb's wool.  He took a step.  The feeling of being someone else's lessened.  He took another, and then another and then stopped.  He looked back. 

The trail he'd broken in the snow led away from the house Arthur had built, and led deeper into the wilderness. 

"The journey starts with a single footstep."

He kept walking.  He didn't know where he was going or when he'd get there, but with every step, the hurt lessened and he felt more himself. 

One step at a time, he told himself, that's how I'll do it.  One step at a time.