I may be the only one who knows how this story begins, but for my sake as well as yours, it is best that I start with another kind of origin.

So imagine this, if you will: there were twelve of us, arranged like a constellation. We knew our alignment as the stars knew theirs, and in the same manner as the stars gracefully navigated the heavens, we trekked through the dense forests and idle rivers of the crudely shaped land below, following in their wake until we reached the seas, which we had no desire to pass. These lands alone were ours to wander, a containment cell stretching hundreds of miles of dark natural expanse, only dotted by the trappings of the light-heavy modern world.

We alone among the beasts had no given form, and our bodies twisted to the desires of our minds like water filling an array of exotic glasses. We were made of the same stuff nonetheless, and identity became something sacred to us, a way for us to tell ourselves from the animals in the brush or the people whose elaborate structures caught the eye of many of our number. However, both the instinctive lives of the former and the strange but familiar world of the latter were barred from our permanent entry. We skirted the edges of two universes on our continuous walk to nowhere, spurred forwards by the oldest among us, who demanded we live our lives in absolute secret.

Only the earth and the sky knew us for what we were. The trees would ruffle our hair affectionately as we passed, the water whispered secrets no human was privy to, and the wind would steer us in the right road for miles to find our next place of rest.

Through the nature of our being, we were at once closest to all creation and more isolated than any cluster of beings could ever hope to be. It was us against the universe in its entirety, day in and day out. Fear drove us as much as any whim or lead, but it was not all that of the outside world, for though we might possess any shape on this earth and move faster than any human, we could not outrun ourselves. Nor, due to our shared origin, could we outrun each other.

Perhaps this is where all the trouble began.