Way up north, beyond Zephyria, there once stood a valley where a stream of water cut through, severing the steeps in`twain. On each side of the silver river a different tribe would meet, and their symbols over time resembled that of the other. They would of course leap across the divide and go further north, never wondering what of and will become of the differences between us. But eventually as the law and lore promised, the great end of the sogend, the wolf tribe and the tree tribe left to go back to where others needed them. on each side of the azure expanse each left their crest: a tree and an overturned tree, resembling a wolf. and that valley sat alone for aeons, wondering if the celestial and contraterrestrial hoofprints etched in the sand belong to the same wanderer who could not see the two symbols merely reflected each other. in one version, the wolf tribe became an empire that destroyed the tree tribe, and in another, the tree tribe only-ever fled from the wolf tribe, just as we, too, flee our shadows and chase mimics.
epochs last only so long. one day, the silence of the corrosive stream gave way to a frothing foam; each tribe released a new artifact, so their sigil could live on, this time on as the bearers of hoofprints, so Zephyria became Circassia, the Circled-around-Land-of-Zeus. and again, two tribes emerged from this rivalry, not understanding each one was reading each other’s lore and laws and signs backwards, upside down. So in the end, the only real enemies we should fear, are those we invent: for they will follow you home and tickle your toes even as you escape through the acid rain and snow.
In no one’s story does anyone say: it began after something else happened that destroyed most of what happened before. But that was all that remained of our people, that there was a before, and that two people, The Runic Knight and her Loyal Paige fled with the only two things of value: a children’s book and a clown mask. So if they can make it to Mars with just that, you can do just fine with a normal pair of shoes.
That is the story of my people, The Martians