The cycle of the old ones

         They were the old ones. The bones of the mountains, as they called themselves while they spoke in their strange rasping tones. The younger ones would often rest near and listen as the old ones spoke of times when they would waylay roads, or crouch under bridges for an unwary traveler. They would tell stories of how the great heroes would come, of how great dragons would fly overhead, of a time when every man was his own, when every woman was quiet, when every child respectful. They would often speak of these things with a gruff laugh behind the words, as if they knew how true what they were saying was.
         Every so often, one of their strong tales would hit home in the hearts of the young. Every so often, one of the young would leap up, beat his stony chest, and scream of how he would prove himself. They would then speak, in rash tones of how they would come to glory, of how they would be the robbers, the anti-heros of their time. And every time the old ones would try to reason, would try to persuade otherwise. Another of the young ones would stand to defend his comrade, and another and another. Soon there would be all of the young ones standing. By then the old ones resigned. The young ones would leave.
         Many tales would be told, but without the young to listen and to learn, the stories had lost their pallor. To a watcher, it would have seemed as if they were waiting to die, telling their memories to pass the time. When the memories began to stop being told however, the survivor would come. The survivor would come, and tell the story of the others, of how they lost all their friends, all their companions. Occasionally the survivor would bring back a story of bravery that they had heard upon the surface. No matter what though, all but one of the young would have died, would have crumbled into dust and rock. All but one would have succumbed to the sun-curse.
         Soon the survivor would lose the hardheadedness of the youth, and would sit and listen to the old ones again. The survivor would sit, and every tale the old ones told they would listen to with a new perspective, for even the most repeated of stories would have a new moral, a new lesson to learn. For ages the survivor might sit there. Ages they would sit until, after an old one had finished a story, they would speak. And the survivor would tell a story, maybe one they had made up themself, maybe a story that they had heard, long ago. Soon the survivor would be an old one, sitting and telling tales to pass the time, tales of a time when every man was his own, when every woman was quiet, every child respectful.
         After countless swappings of parables and fables, a new group of young ones would come. Then the cycle of the Trolls would repeat.