Possibility grew out of distance and circumstance. We moved away from all we knew into strange lands and strange times, looking for a place that could become a home. We had all lost so much, only memory remained, and memory, like the seasons fades away into loss... eventually. But these were still raw times; the memories of our loss burned and were sore.
There were some amongst us who had lost everything, except themselves. Lone survivors of families and the last of their name now, trudging through the winds and the blizzards. Alongside them, were those who still had remnants of family left, thinking they were the lucky ones, only to see those relatives fall and die by the wayside as we trudged on.
We were a weak and defeated people, making our stumbling way through hostile lands. Predators can smell fear, taste weakness on the wind. Not only animals: mountain lions, bears, wolves, but the wild humanity that prowls these thick forests too, the outlaws... they could sense we were easy pickings. Many of us died: taken in the night by animals, attacked at dawn by renegades, outlaws and slave traders. All eager for the easy pickings we – the weak – gave them.
It was a hard land and we too – eventually – learnt to be hard back, offering no mercy, no quarter. We became just as ruthless, just as savage as those that would prey upon us, but each day trudging ever onward, looking for that elusive place we could, one day, call home.
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