Broken Silence.

Nine months later a child is born. The trials of his ancestors and their feuds were now petty, he was told things and accepted them as truth, for there really is no way to fully experience and understand the past. When the boy matured, the line between right and wrong slowly shifted and dimmed itself until it was a pale shadow of its former glory. But morality really was no concern, because everyone lost it at some point in time, some just lost it sooner than others.

And as a child, he was a liability, nothing more than a continuation of the clan. When the clan went on hunts, he would stay behind and dream of hunting. Then the day came of his first hunt, and after that all that he could dream of was sitting around wasting the day. When the clan went to war, he was killed by an ancient enemy of his people, the Others. For years, there were small disputes that never amounted to a full-scale attack, and meaningless feuds manifested themselves in the consciousness of the people until they could no longer coexist.

Soon the armies retreated and licked their wounds, but none of them forgot that there was a day of battle ahead of them. Another campaign ensued, and then another, each time a fight to preserve one way of life over the other. After the populations had been damaged enough by death, famine, and hunger, the two nations made peace and lay in a state of uneasy military stasis.

Before long, the story of the war was changed, until eventually neither side could agree on the cause of the war, it's resolution, or anything in between. This disagreement caused another social rift, and soon after all able-bodied men were called to arms. Those that did not answer were ostracized and moved to neighboring lands, but those that fought did so valiantly, until eventually, there was nobody left to fight.

Those who were put into exile sailed across seas, trekked across mountains and plains, died in shallow graves and left no trail, until eventually, they came upon the land of wonder. Here the people lived in harmony with the Earth, and wars were settled by contest instead of bloodshed. Soon after, more people found their way to the land of Wonder, and the migration continued until all of the room in the land was taken. But those in paradise dreamed of the pride that associated itself with traveling across worlds, and they continued their travel until their sense of identity no longer mattered. Their names, long ago discarded, had lost meaning when translated into different tongues. They were vagrants and vagabonds, wanderers and dreamers, rushing towards nothing, seeking only to find pleasure.

And their long-distant cousins in that war-torn land still fought whoever came near, for their lives were backwards. They did not praise knowledge, they only sought drama and strife, destroying all that was in their path. It was important to avoid them at all costs, for wherever they walked, the grass blackened and swords were drawn.

Eventually, by chance, the warring tribes met the wanderers in passing, but the sluggish, overindulged, war-driven folk were easily outmaneuvered by the traveling people. Their constant exposure to the world and endless travels had provided them with a means of escape, to avoid all conflict if necessary, and to avoid trouble, no matter what form it manifested itself in.

To save face, the warring tribes began to spread news of a great victory, and they returned to their strife-filled land. Before long, they developed their own history, preaching lies to all those who would listen, and herding the stupid into their country, which had literally been torn apart by war. Now they lived in trenches created by the machines of war, and took shelter in the damaged Earth that could never repair itself. The tyrants and fools lived there for some time, until eventually one of the people began to wonder what dangers the outside world held. After wrapping up his belongings, he left in the dead of night whilst the army was drilling and patrolling the Eastern border.

Before long, his travels brought him in contact with the wanderers, and he joined them in their rituals and put aside his hatred forever. Whenever they would wander into the barren plains of war, they would not acknowledge any life that was there, and they were invisible. For there was a curse on the land stricken by war. They could not see happiness because they were too self-consumed and had no ambitions. After one war was over, they prepared for conflict in the morning. The state continued to exist, although barely, until the warring peoples eventually grew too diverse and their ideas became too radical. They no longer met for meals or for recreation, their only purpose was war. When they died in war, they died cursing their enemies and hating who they had become.

After a generation or two, the people were born with an empty center, for their lives had no meaning. They could no longer join the wanderers in their happy existence, and they were doomed to live in their self-created misery until the end of time.

And the wanderers just kept moving, never hating, never fighting, never calling into question one another's integrity. The wanderers were happy with who they were, and when things turned grim they would band together instead of fighting amongst themselves. They paid no mind to the events of the past, held no resentment towards those who had wronged them, and valued happiness above all. And when death came, they had lived a full life and they had no regrets, they were free from whatever rules that reality had put on them and they drifted off into death, wandering as always.