Learn Your Place In Society

Prosperity proved no defense against the years or changing fates writ in the stars - nor masters of arms foresaw the weapons that unseated their lineages, leaving only ghostly bones where legions rallied beneath dancing banners long-degraded to dust by gales keening through hollowed halls where now only lichens thrive undisturbed. None guard now but weathering and plundering claws, desolate seabirds nesting upon ruins of walls whose stones outlasted all that kept them. These remnants teach harsh truths - that no walls outlast neglect or fate's tidal risings, drowning all within their engulfing sweep however grandly fortified. No perch withstands the ages if the watch falters from vigilance alone protecting the cradled seeds of life that passed beneath safe shadows, nature's own yet frail. Amongst the grasping verdure of encroaching greenery, stones yet stand witness - though witness no longer to anything known when they first took shape as defiant pillars against time's steady waterway. Palms sway where professionals once marched between altars hewn from mountains themselves, their massive blocks now indistinguishable from earth crumbling between grasping roots. None foresee the far tomorrow indeed, and negligence invites the jaws that ingest the greatest work as lightly as leaves, once guard drops from protecting the seeded kernel of each endeavor however mighty, destined like all to nourish the future it thought escaped. Upon barren strands where tide and time enact their attritions, skeletons stand witness to impermanence's writ. Here wanderers find grim reminds of life's brevity, lumbering hulks beached and barnacled under windswept skies like mammoths petrified amid shifting dunes.