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Description
EDIT:

See "A Challenger Approaches" at the bottom of the page!

---

OK SOOO… some really heavy themes and events, but it's still the Wander ya know and love!
So please give it a chance <3

Part 2

www.deviantart.com/fae-captain…

---

Wander Over Yonder is property of Disney.
The art belongs to me.

Trigger Warning:

Death, violence, implied enslavement, poverty, child abuse/neglect.
---------------------------------------------------------

"The helper seeks to help, because he knows what it is to be helpless."

----------------------

~~Child of the Stars~~

This legendary nomad's beginning may not be the happiest, but the life the child grew to make for himself is nothing short of miraculous and triumphant.
After being born as all star nomads are -- thrust into creation by a supernova, like them all, this little one floated through space for three years, asleep, in a bubble of stardust.
But when finally the time was right, he was sucked into the engine of a spacecraft, and as luck would have it, safely transported into a storage room onboard.
Unnoticed, he stayed dormant amongst crates and boxes for several days, until finally the craft landed on a planet called Bol'Dunny.
As it docked, the stardust faded, and at last little Wander was born.
Just in time to be seen by the aliens unloading the cargo on the ship, who were perplexed (and alarmed) that a small child had stowed away.
Confused and worried, the men took the child to a Bol Resources building, leaving him in the custody of Bol'Dunnian law.

No one claimed him, of course.
Wander had no parents, no people, and even drawn DNA for a lab test yielded nothing.
All original DNA, but no match in all the cosmos for a single relative.
Confused and unable to further help, Resources surrendered Wander to a local orphanage.
Having no known name, the staff called him "Boy" for some time.
Despite everything, he was a happy child who was enthusiastic to learn and explore.
He was also a right handful, got into all kinds of trouble and always was missing or messing with something.
He was much smaller than the Bolian children; it was tough to keep track of little mischievous Wander.
But he was loving, he was playful, he shared his toys and babbled at the other children day and night.
Still, as wonderful as he was, after being there for several months it was beginning to look bleak for him in terms of adoption.
Sure, such a thing took time, but every prospecting parent was put off by his appearance, and concerned that he had no genetic lineage.
What if he was a monster in its early stages?
Or a beast from the spacial abyss, or who knows what?
Some visited him, but none could bring themselves to take a risk.

Nights were hard on little Wander.
Everyone minded their own business when the sun went down, and the staff made it known that bedtime was for bed.
Wander was energetic, but he was also lonely, and needy.
He wanted to cuddle, but the other children did not indulge, and the caretakers held the children at arm's length for fear of bonding too much.
Many nights he crept out of bed and snuck around the home.
Eventually his curiosity and destiny-driven instinct to explore led him to take the first major step on his journey...

There came a night when Wander simply left the orphanage.
No more wondering what lied beyond the playgrounds and the windows, no more wondering what glorious twinkling lights adorned the skies when he was sent to bed.
Somehow he felt less alone beneath the vast skies, than in rooms full of people.
He waddled away into the darkness, guided by luck and a need for adventure, out of the sight of those enduring the night life.
Needless to say there was quite a bit of panic at the orphanage the following morning, but Wander was none the wiser, and already happy to have parted ways.

For the next several years, the universe cared for him most.
He would stumble onto ships and end up transported to other worlds, often with the time of visitation spanning anywhere from months to mere days.
Sometimes he went days without eating, and his cries often fell on deaf ears.
But at some point, care always found its way to him in the form of pure fortune.
And as usual, he was sociable, playful, and wanted affection.
He would hug on strangers and try to pet animals, and though he seemed cute and friendly enough, most often he was rejected and ignored.
Any soul who happened to care would take him somewhere so he could be, once again, processed and surrendered to an orphanage.
By now, though, Wander had learned that these were dead ends, and he always snuck away in the night after only hours.
When he wasn't caught up in the bustle of alien cities, he was exploring their wilderness, seeing and experiencing both awe and wonder, and pain and isolation.
Like most children he wasn't overly careful, and took many tumbles and falls.
When he bled, no one was there to kiss the wound better.
When he was hungry, there was no one there to feed him.
No one to follow him, shelter him, or nurture him when he occasionally got sick.
Still, he would not stay anywhere he was taken, for it mattered not whether there were people.
It all ended the same.
But as children do, Wander quickly and easily forgot his pains and woes, and his fears.
Each sunrise brought a new opportunity, and each new thing piqued his blossoming mind.

Wander traveled and remained homeless, as always, until coming upon a planet called Litche ("light-ch").
The Litchen people were not much larger or different than humans, and lived peacefully on their world.
Much of the planet was technologically patchy, as the people there preferred a naturalistic approach to life.
Market stalls, fruit and food on display everywhere, and loads of colorful clothing and decorations adorned the city Wander stumbled into at the age of seven.
By now he could talk and even sloppily write a few words.
Thankfully most other races also spoke Galaxian, so learning language wasn't terribly difficult.
Unbeknownst to him, though, he was also gifted with a natural intuition for language; it was the way of his species.

Small and now somehow more energetic, bouncy and curious than ever, Wander found himself really liking the feel of Litche, and so he stayed put for months.
By now he could outrun anyone who sought to turn him over to the law, and any adult who saw him left him be.
Occasionally he would play with other children, but kids's parents weren't always fond of the unidentified boy.
As for living, he found a hole in the ground in a rundown part of town, and made that his home.
For ten months he thrived on Litche, collecting items and food.
He may not have had anyone to care for him, but it was obvious he was a homeless stranger, and so those at the stalls and markets usually allowed Wander to take a few free items each day.
When it wasn't enough or he wanted to explore the wild, he would eat whatever nature gave him -- if he could find it.
But inevitably he would return to the hole under the broken dirt street, which he covered with a plank of wood.
As far as little Wander knew, he could've stayed there for far longer.
Until, sadly, that option was taken from him.

~~Helpless~~

Life wasn't perfect.
Sometimes people were just outright mean to the boy.
Since he had no name, people just called him whatever: "boy," "thing," "weirdo," "fuzzball," "freak," and more.
Sometimes people shoved or pushed him away, or shouted at him when he was unknowingly somewhere he shouldn't be.
These events gradually made him wary of certain people in certain situations, but things only got worse when the planet was more frequently visited by a race called the Xynn ("zin").
Part of a military order, xynn aliens came to Litche by military instruction.
Their planet, ExThra, had recently had heating tensions with Litche and its people.
Once neutral parties, the invading planet was under a new hierarchy and corrupt government, and used their advanced military to their advantage.
They sought control of their planetary neighbor, and pushed it past its people's limits.

For the last three months that Wander was on Litche, he witnessed more and more xynn troopers starting to fill the streets.
Litchens were harassed and scared; the child witnessed verbal and physical abuse, and scare tactics like turning over stalls and tearing down decorations.
The streets grew lighter and lighter with healthy activity, as many were afraid to leave their homes.
Wander, nervous but undeterred, would occasionally try to interject or try to befriend the soldiers.
But the armored outworlders were the cruelest yet, hitting or kicking him away, cursing or berating him.
As always, he was reminded of his differences from other people.
They hurt him, and he still tried every other day to make peace or ask them why they were there, what they were doing, why they were bullies, and so on.
Even when scared, he was brave, but it always cost him.
From this he simply learned to run faster, think faster, and had planned escape routes to avoid being followed to his hole in the abandoned street.
The last few weeks on Litche brought more and more violence and heartache, and physical violence and shouting became more prevalent.
Wander was scared, and had nowhere to run, and no way to safely leave the planet.
He ate very little, and cried alone many nights in his hole in the ground.

Finally, disaster struck when ExThra's leaders ordered its armies to take control of their stationed part of Litchen.
Grey skies and overcast shadowed the land as droves of xynn soldiers stormed the streets, unleashing unholy violence and terror.
Hiding, Wander could only watch in horror as innocent people fled, screaming, shot down or beaten.
The city shook, collapsing buildings, debris, fire, death and blood filled Wander's peripheral.
It was all too close for comfort -- feeling unsafe in his underground space, as the troops closed in, the boy bolted from his shelter and had to run away from soldiers who spotted him.
Crumbling architecture presented small spaces for him to crawl through to escape.
For the rest of the day he kept running and hiding, terrified and subjected to way too much horror.
A tenth of the planet went under foreign control that day, and those who weren't killed (which most of them were) were taken hostage for enslavement on ExThra.
Battle vehicles filled the skies, there was noise and chaos for hours.
Wander had many close calls with soldiers, nearly being blasted multiple times, or taken hostage.
But he was too little and too fast, and the mercenaries weren't keen on tracking down this tiny, fuzzy child.

Day became night.
In the darkness, red and green lights shined and blinked, casting shadows.
Sirens screeched.
The boy hid and peered through cracks in the brick walls, watching, waiting for chances to escape the troops.
He'd seen emergency Litchen vehicles try to leave, only to be blasted down.
Finally things took a turn for his favor when he tried to hide in a sack, which was picked up and thrown onto a military ground vehicle for transport elsewhere.
For several hours into the night, Wander rode undetected in the back with cargo.
As it went on and he listened to soldiers talk and laugh about various things, Wander peeked out occasionally for an opportunity to hop out somewhere.
He got his wish when the truck took to traversing over barren terrain.
There in the night, he bravely jumped out, holding his breath so as not to shout when his tiny body hit the dirt and sand.
The soldiers didn't notice or hear a thing.

In shock, the little nomad laid there in the desert, under the stars, and heard explosions and carnage far away in the distance.
With what little strength he had left, once the truck was out of sight minutes later, he finally picked himself up and crawled through the desolate expanse.
Eventually all he could do was lay down and fall asleep, unable to process anymore.
When he awoke again a few hours later and saw it nearing morning, he picked his sore self off the ground and wandered, staggering, into nowhere.
But amazingly he was only a few hours away by foot from an un-invaded territory.
They were gearing up their own armies across the planet to fight back, but Wander only sought to escape.
Another foreign people had come to their aid after receiving distress calls the day before.
Seeing a cargo ship dock, Wander snuck on like he had always done, and waited, praying that he would safely be free from this hell...

~~A Hole in the Soul~~

About an hour after sneaking on, Wander was unknowingly transported off of Litchen aboard the alien ship, and for the first time in too many hours, heard silence.
Again he passed out, this time sleeping deeply for hours.
When he awoke his hunger and thirst couldn't be ignored anymore.
Scared to death, hands up, cowering, he left the cargo room and showed himself to some of those on the ship.
They were startled by this mysterious alien child, but to his relief, did not hurt him.
He shuddered that he was hungry, and so the staff offered to take him to the kitchen, but he wouldn't follow them.
Seeing he was traumatized, the people set food and water on the floor for him, which he cautiously took and scurried off with.
Once hidden, he ate and stayed put again until the ship docked two days later.

It landed on planet U'oil ("you-oil"), where it had come from.
Drunken with exhaustion and hunger, the tired, tiny nomad staggered off the ship, ignored by most who saw him on the busy docks.
When a few people tried to talk to him he recoiled and ran from them.
The damage had been done; Wander was afraid of everyone.
He spent weeks hiding and taking food any chance he got on U'oil, recovering.
Water puddles washed his dirt and blood away, and again he got onto cargo ships that went to yet other planets.
The shock from the invasion on Litche left Wander feeling empty and scarred.
For many weeks he became like a drone -- numb, expressionless, feeling dead inside.
He had no dreams, played no games, and spoke to no one.
There was no goofy singing or rambling, no talking to or trying to cuddle with strangers.
He was hollow inside, a small orange phantom drifting from place to place.
On the cusp of turning eight years old, he was far too young to have endured what he did, but he didn't know that.
He didn't know much of anything, really.
All he knew was to eat, sleep, and survive for now.
Wander the nomad would spend the next few years of his life quiet, shut-in, and very alone.

~~Flowers in the Wounds~~

Time numbed the pain.
The screams in his head slowly faded, and the beauty and sanctuary of Mother Nature soothed the aches in his heart every time he reunited with her.
Gradually, some months after the disaster, Wander was able to smile again.
He was able to spin and play around in the wild, chasing little animals and running away from big ones.
But everywhere he went, even when things looked bleak, he always managed to survive, and his purity tamed the beasts that lurked beside him.
He remembered slowly how to have fun in his eighth year of life, but still kept to himself, and to nature.
In his eight year he had an unfortunate encounter with a stranger, placing trust in his hands in exchange for food and warmth, only to be betrayed.
And later yet that year, only a few months after, he was taken into custody of sapien medics when he was reported limping around on a fractured foot, as well as sustaining other minor injuries from an encounter with a small bear on Terris.
He did not appreciate the attention or company, and felt misunderstood, and again, betrayed by groups of adults.
After his leg was evaluated and his foot wrapped, and other injuries dressed, he waited until he was alone to sneak out of the hospital and hobble away into the wilderness.
He hid from authorities and survived in the wild until, after a few weeks, his foot healed, and he retreated to space again.

People scared him, and staying put for too long meant there was a chance armies could come and ruin everything, so he didn't get too attached.
Rather, he took the memories with him.
Yes, Wander learned over the next few years that there was life after tragedy, and slowly he grew good experiences and tranquility around his heartache.
He found discarded books and items and trinkets, read and played by his lonesome.
For a child without a home or a people, he certainly found plenty of ways to keep himself happy.
In his ninth year of life he finally named himself "Wander," for the action was all he knew.

On his travels he turned nine, and then ten, eleven, and twelve.
It was in the latter year that he was forced to cave and seek help from a group of people when he was badly injured after a nasty fall in an alien nature park.
Although he was afraid, the strangers cared for him, fed him and dressed his wounds.
And he cried, for he hadn't known kindness of even this depth from people in years.
The medical professionals who helped heal him were kind and empathetic, and wanted to help him find a home.
It sounded nice, but he didn't want to get attached; he still feared disaster could strike.
At that point Wander was healed enough that he could get back out on his own, so like the old days at the orphanages, he snuck away in the night.
Days later he was onboard a cargo ship, and off to the next adventure.

Though he wasn't willing to stick around anywhere, he was relieved to get back the sensation that people were capable of being helpful, and so as he became a teenager, Wander slowly returned to his old, childlike ways.
He started talking to people, started wanting to play with them, began to crave physical affection.
He was touch-starved and in desperate need of social interaction, but life stayed about like it had been when he was seven -- when he was still truly innocent.
Only now as he grew up, he was more and more cast aside.
But he managed to make allies this time around, and started to find he enjoyed helping people with tasks.
He even discovered people would pay him money to do chores for them, and thus he began spending as much time with people as he had in the wild, finding balance there.
Steadily his fears began to sink away.
Some days he was moody and didn't care about much, others he was hyper and wanted to see everything.
He went through all the normal feelings of a teenager, experiencing mature feelings of sorts and beginning to understand himself as a person.
It was rocky and wonky and he was still viewed as weird and unsettling by most, but he overcame the strife for the most part.
What else could there be in life?

~~The Wanderer~~

Wander grew into a young adult.
He learned to make allies and would sometimes stay in a place for a few weeks or months at a time, but none of the friends he made wanted to journey with him.
He respected this, but carried on with a heart fuller and fuller with every new friend and partnership made.
He discovered the joys of the simple innocence of love-making, and found he wanted no parter, but cherished the experiences.
The universe was his home, nature was his place to heal, and love was his religion.
By his mid-20's he had completely re-captured his playfulness, but he was far from done dealing with his past.
Nightmares and intrusive thoughts crept in, kept him up at night, or left him howling alone in the twilight.
His 20's were spent largely in part with him aching from his memories, and in those dark hours, he mourned how alone he often was.
Everywhere he'd gone, everything he'd done and accomplished, was almost exclusively by himself.
But as every nomad he was resilient, and found the best way to sew the sensations of helplessness closed were to simply be of service to others.

Additionally in his 20's, he saw news about what happened on Litche.
As triggering as it was to see the information it also eased his mind, for by reading he learned that the xynn armada was defeated by their target's allies just days after the invasion, and the litchen people were freed and able to return home.
The corrupt leaders of ExThra were killed and replaced by a rebel xynn order, and so they fought to re-establish peace between their world and Litche.
Those who didn't agree with the invasion came to help pick up the pieces.
There had been much death and destruction, but it gave Wander closure to know things were soon resolved.
This ultimately helped him make the most peace with it, but he would always carry some survivor's guilt.

Wander dove into the social scene and buckled down on his mindsets, compensating for his pain with joy, laughter, and curiosity.
He sought those in need of assistance with tasks both minuscule and seemingly impossible, and never backed down.
He owned virtually nothing more than a couple clothing items at a time over the years, often losing them to his generosity.
Yes, he would happily give his own clothing or few items to those he felt needed them more, and trusted he would always be able to find shoes or whatever else he needed.
The nomad endured many dangers, but also saw many beautiful things, and whenever he saw crime he interfered to save the one in peril, but also the one committing the crime.
Many times he was injured and/or ignored by the perpetrator, laughed at, dismissed, but he never gave up hope -- or the belief that anyone could change.
Well, almost anyone.
He knew logically the reality of minds, but he ignored it.
But in the rare occasion that someone would take his word for it, would listen to him and find the good deep inside themselves, he was there to catch them.
Wander was capable of pushing hurting people the world saw as monsters into getting rehabilitation and control of their own lives.
The satisfaction and thrill of success became an addiction, and for the rest of his life, Wander drew more and more attracted to "bad guys" and seemingly black-hearted people, all in the name of attempting to befriend them.
But meddling in dangerous situations and with dangerous people, had consequences...

By the time he was in his mid-30's, Wander had made enough enemies in black markets and the galactic criminal underworld to supply a lifetime of suffering.
But wherever he went and no matter how many bounties he had mounted against him, or people wishing to cut his head off simply for the fun of it, he never faltered.
Some days were hard, and many times he got into sticky situations that left him wondering if he was finally finished.
Still, after everything he had lived through up until each and every disaster, he couldn't find himself ever at a lost for hope.
Even when he thought he might actually die, he found the strength to make peace with it, and hoped to let his soul soar free amidst the cosmos.
Karma was kind to him, as each and every time, even if he was terribly injured, Wander was always delivered from demise.
Bounties fell off, those meaning to harm him either forgot, moved on, surrendered to the space between them, or even died.
Of course, even those meant to hurt him were never held in contempt in Wander's heart; he always tried to convince others to see what was good in them, right up until his near-bitter ends.
There was simply no pain great enough to keep him from hope and faith.
No one could wrong him badly enough for him to hold a grudge.

From his late 20's and on he took up many musical hobbies, learning to play first the banjo, then various types of guitar, trumpets, and even piano.
He had an ear for music and loved to sing, and though he couldn't take instruments with him or keep them, he was excited to play any chance he got.
He would practice each one for hours, advancing his abilities faster all the time.

When Wander turned 37, he came upon a planet in the throws of a civil war.
Two former allied leaders of the world, called Yuessay (pronounced "u-s-a"), had turned against one another.
The pinnacle of their fight was a mysterious magic hat, imbued with the ability to grant anyone what they needed.
But the leaders were selfish and did not understand the object, and when each argued over what they should be doing with their power in the galaxy, they began to battle for possession of the hat.
Through it they failed to recognize the hat could think, and feel, and they subjected it to torture and exhaustion by means of forcing it to produce not what they needed to resolve their differences, but what they wanted in their quest for power.
Wander happened onto a brutal scene of the divided leaders brawling in the capitol, while a beaten, torn magical hat was spewing hundreds of thousands of objects in retaliation against its misuse.
There was no way for the nomad to subdue the enemies in all the chaos, and as useless stuff filled the halls and began to rise, Wander made the quick decision to get between the leaders and steal the hat, and ran off with it.
The others assumed the stranger wanted it for his own power, but the hat knew the heart of its rescuer, and finally stopped ejecting so much material.
This allowed Wander to escape and hide, and soon enough get off the planet in an escape pod.

Once free, after a few days in space he landed at the nearest planet and took the hat with him everywhere.
It was beaten and silent, and although he knew it could give him items, Wander asked not.
He would talk to it like it was a person, he hugged it, slept with it, even sang to it.
After working for a little money, he bought supplies to repair it.
He took thread and cloth and stitched the torn seams back together, patched the holes and cut fabric to match the pieces missing from the brim.
After a few weeks, at long last the hat had recovered, and sensed it had a friend who recognized its capabilities and sentience.
Before Wander's very eyes it fixed itself, magically healing and restoring to its former glory.
Amazed, it was soon after this that Wander felt himself drawn to reach in and pull something out -- as if the hat had called him to do so.
And from the inside he pulled out a very beautiful banjo, adorned with stars on the head of it to match the star on the hat it had come from.
Awestruck, Wander graciously accepted the banjo, which he didn't realize was also magical.
It was resilient to much wear and tear, and when first it was destroyed, Wander discovered that it too, could heal itself whenever the nomad approached it with the intent to fix it.
Even if broken to bits it could be repaired, so long as Wander brought all its pieces together and tried to reform it.
This was the gift of the hat, and from then on, Wander finally had his first longterm sentimental objects to call his.
Forever.

~~A Challenger Approaches~~

After having the hat for two years, when Wander was 39, he met what would become his personal arch nemesis: Doctor Screwball Jones.
A perplexing and demented creature, Screwball made Wander feel fear in a way that was hard for him to explain.
It wasn't until the creature began torturing people with "joy" did the nomad understand why it bothered him so much.
He watched Screwball mercilessly tickle people, which seemed harmless enough to anyone who was unaware of how dreadful such a thing can be to a certain person.
Not to mention it was exhausting and overstimulating to many.
Screwball gained power from the laughter and shrieks, but Wander saw this show of force to be repulsive.
He would use other horrible methods to induce psychosis, which also led to mad laughter.
Wander realized that Screwball embodied toxic positivity and overbearing, one-sided emotion.
The nomad only ever presented paths to joy to others, but never forced them to follow it.
It sickened him to see his life's work abused in such a way.

At first he tried to reason with the mad "doctor," and like most, Screwball disagreed with him and carried on.
And while Wander would typically continue to try and persuade his opponent, it became obvious to him that Screwball was no alien, but some type of corrupt monster or spirit.
Suddenly his hyper-empathy drained away as he realized there was no reasoning with the creature, and so he used the hat to engage a bizarre but necessary battle.
Wander inevitably defeated Screwball by launching him into hyperspace.
He wouldn't see Screwball Jones again until a decade later.

---

To Be Continued~

Description
EDIT:

See "A Challenger Approaches" at the bottom of the page!

---

OK SOOO… some really heavy themes and events, but it's still the Wander ya know and love!
So please give it a chance <3

Part 2

www.deviantart.com/fae-captain…

---

Wander Over Yonder is property of Disney.
The art belongs to me.

Trigger Warning:

Death, violence, implied enslavement, poverty, child abuse/neglect.
---------------------------------------------------------

"The helper seeks to help, because he knows what it is to be helpless."

----------------------

~~Child of the Stars~~

This legendary nomad's beginning may not be the happiest, but the life the child grew to make for himself is nothing short of miraculous and triumphant.
After being born as all star nomads are -- thrust into creation by a supernova, like them all, this little one floated through space for three years, asleep, in a bubble of stardust.
But when finally the time was right, he was sucked into the engine of a spacecraft, and as luck would have it, safely transported into a storage room onboard.
Unnoticed, he stayed dormant amongst crates and boxes for several days, until finally the craft landed on a planet called Bol'Dunny.
As it docked, the stardust faded, and at last little Wander was born.
Just in time to be seen by the aliens unloading the cargo on the ship, who were perplexed (and alarmed) that a small child had stowed away.
Confused and worried, the men took the child to a Bol Resources building, leaving him in the custody of Bol'Dunnian law.

No one claimed him, of course.
Wander had no parents, no people, and even drawn DNA for a lab test yielded nothing.
All original DNA, but no match in all the cosmos for a single relative.
Confused and unable to further help, Resources surrendered Wander to a local orphanage.
Having no known name, the staff called him "Boy" for some time.
Despite everything, he was a happy child who was enthusiastic to learn and explore.
He was also a right handful, got into all kinds of trouble and always was missing or messing with something.
He was much smaller than the Bolian children; it was tough to keep track of little mischievous Wander.
But he was loving, he was playful, he shared his toys and babbled at the other children day and night.
Still, as wonderful as he was, after being there for several months it was beginning to look bleak for him in terms of adoption.
Sure, such a thing took time, but every prospecting parent was put off by his appearance, and concerned that he had no genetic lineage.
What if he was a monster in its early stages?
Or a beast from the spacial abyss, or who knows what?
Some visited him, but none could bring themselves to take a risk.

Nights were hard on little Wander.
Everyone minded their own business when the sun went down, and the staff made it known that bedtime was for bed.
Wander was energetic, but he was also lonely, and needy.
He wanted to cuddle, but the other children did not indulge, and the caretakers held the children at arm's length for fear of bonding too much.
Many nights he crept out of bed and snuck around the home.
Eventually his curiosity and destiny-driven instinct to explore led him to take the first major step on his journey...

There came a night when Wander simply left the orphanage.
No more wondering what lied beyond the playgrounds and the windows, no more wondering what glorious twinkling lights adorned the skies when he was sent to bed.
Somehow he felt less alone beneath the vast skies, than in rooms full of people.
He waddled away into the darkness, guided by luck and a need for adventure, out of the sight of those enduring the night life.
Needless to say there was quite a bit of panic at the orphanage the following morning, but Wander was none the wiser, and already happy to have parted ways.

For the next several years, the universe cared for him most.
He would stumble onto ships and end up transported to other worlds, often with the time of visitation spanning anywhere from months to mere days.
Sometimes he went days without eating, and his cries often fell on deaf ears.
But at some point, care always found its way to him in the form of pure fortune.
And as usual, he was sociable, playful, and wanted affection.
He would hug on strangers and try to pet animals, and though he seemed cute and friendly enough, most often he was rejected and ignored.
Any soul who happened to care would take him somewhere so he could be, once again, processed and surrendered to an orphanage.
By now, though, Wander had learned that these were dead ends, and he always snuck away in the night after only hours.
When he wasn't caught up in the bustle of alien cities, he was exploring their wilderness, seeing and experiencing both awe and wonder, and pain and isolation.
Like most children he wasn't overly careful, and took many tumbles and falls.
When he bled, no one was there to kiss the wound better.
When he was hungry, there was no one there to feed him.
No one to follow him, shelter him, or nurture him when he occasionally got sick.
Still, he would not stay anywhere he was taken, for it mattered not whether there were people.
It all ended the same.
But as children do, Wander quickly and easily forgot his pains and woes, and his fears.
Each sunrise brought a new opportunity, and each new thing piqued his blossoming mind.

Wander traveled and remained homeless, as always, until coming upon a planet called Litche ("light-ch").
The Litchen people were not much larger or different than humans, and lived peacefully on their world.
Much of the planet was technologically patchy, as the people there preferred a naturalistic approach to life.
Market stalls, fruit and food on display everywhere, and loads of colorful clothing and decorations adorned the city Wander stumbled into at the age of seven.
By now he could talk and even sloppily write a few words.
Thankfully most other races also spoke Galaxian, so learning language wasn't terribly difficult.
Unbeknownst to him, though, he was also gifted with a natural intuition for language; it was the way of his species.

Small and now somehow more energetic, bouncy and curious than ever, Wander found himself really liking the feel of Litche, and so he stayed put for months.
By now he could outrun anyone who sought to turn him over to the law, and any adult who saw him left him be.
Occasionally he would play with other children, but kids's parents weren't always fond of the unidentified boy.
As for living, he found a hole in the ground in a rundown part of town, and made that his home.
For ten months he thrived on Litche, collecting items and food.
He may not have had anyone to care for him, but it was obvious he was a homeless stranger, and so those at the stalls and markets usually allowed Wander to take a few free items each day.
When it wasn't enough or he wanted to explore the wild, he would eat whatever nature gave him -- if he could find it.
But inevitably he would return to the hole under the broken dirt street, which he covered with a plank of wood.
As far as little Wander knew, he could've stayed there for far longer.
Until, sadly, that option was taken from him.

~~Helpless~~

Life wasn't perfect.
Sometimes people were just outright mean to the boy.
Since he had no name, people just called him whatever: "boy," "thing," "weirdo," "fuzzball," "freak," and more.
Sometimes people shoved or pushed him away, or shouted at him when he was unknowingly somewhere he shouldn't be.
These events gradually made him wary of certain people in certain situations, but things only got worse when the planet was more frequently visited by a race called the Xynn ("zin").
Part of a military order, xynn aliens came to Litche by military instruction.
Their planet, ExThra, had recently had heating tensions with Litche and its people.
Once neutral parties, the invading planet was under a new hierarchy and corrupt government, and used their advanced military to their advantage.
They sought control of their planetary neighbor, and pushed it past its people's limits.

For the last three months that Wander was on Litche, he witnessed more and more xynn troopers starting to fill the streets.
Litchens were harassed and scared; the child witnessed verbal and physical abuse, and scare tactics like turning over stalls and tearing down decorations.
The streets grew lighter and lighter with healthy activity, as many were afraid to leave their homes.
Wander, nervous but undeterred, would occasionally try to interject or try to befriend the soldiers.
But the armored outworlders were the cruelest yet, hitting or kicking him away, cursing or berating him.
As always, he was reminded of his differences from other people.
They hurt him, and he still tried every other day to make peace or ask them why they were there, what they were doing, why they were bullies, and so on.
Even when scared, he was brave, but it always cost him.
From this he simply learned to run faster, think faster, and had planned escape routes to avoid being followed to his hole in the abandoned street.
The last few weeks on Litche brought more and more violence and heartache, and physical violence and shouting became more prevalent.
Wander was scared, and had nowhere to run, and no way to safely leave the planet.
He ate very little, and cried alone many nights in his hole in the ground.

Finally, disaster struck when ExThra's leaders ordered its armies to take control of their stationed part of Litchen.
Grey skies and overcast shadowed the land as droves of xynn soldiers stormed the streets, unleashing unholy violence and terror.
Hiding, Wander could only watch in horror as innocent people fled, screaming, shot down or beaten.
The city shook, collapsing buildings, debris, fire, death and blood filled Wander's peripheral.
It was all too close for comfort -- feeling unsafe in his underground space, as the troops closed in, the boy bolted from his shelter and had to run away from soldiers who spotted him.
Crumbling architecture presented small spaces for him to crawl through to escape.
For the rest of the day he kept running and hiding, terrified and subjected to way too much horror.
A tenth of the planet went under foreign control that day, and those who weren't killed (which most of them were) were taken hostage for enslavement on ExThra.
Battle vehicles filled the skies, there was noise and chaos for hours.
Wander had many close calls with soldiers, nearly being blasted multiple times, or taken hostage.
But he was too little and too fast, and the mercenaries weren't keen on tracking down this tiny, fuzzy child.

Day became night.
In the darkness, red and green lights shined and blinked, casting shadows.
Sirens screeched.
The boy hid and peered through cracks in the brick walls, watching, waiting for chances to escape the troops.
He'd seen emergency Litchen vehicles try to leave, only to be blasted down.
Finally things took a turn for his favor when he tried to hide in a sack, which was picked up and thrown onto a military ground vehicle for transport elsewhere.
For several hours into the night, Wander rode undetected in the back with cargo.
As it went on and he listened to soldiers talk and laugh about various things, Wander peeked out occasionally for an opportunity to hop out somewhere.
He got his wish when the truck took to traversing over barren terrain.
There in the night, he bravely jumped out, holding his breath so as not to shout when his tiny body hit the dirt and sand.
The soldiers didn't notice or hear a thing.

In shock, the little nomad laid there in the desert, under the stars, and heard explosions and carnage far away in the distance.
With what little strength he had left, once the truck was out of sight minutes later, he finally picked himself up and crawled through the desolate expanse.
Eventually all he could do was lay down and fall asleep, unable to process anymore.
When he awoke again a few hours later and saw it nearing morning, he picked his sore self off the ground and wandered, staggering, into nowhere.
But amazingly he was only a few hours away by foot from an un-invaded territory.
They were gearing up their own armies across the planet to fight back, but Wander only sought to escape.
Another foreign people had come to their aid after receiving distress calls the day before.
Seeing a cargo ship dock, Wander snuck on like he had always done, and waited, praying that he would safely be free from this hell...

~~A Hole in the Soul~~

About an hour after sneaking on, Wander was unknowingly transported off of Litchen aboard the alien ship, and for the first time in too many hours, heard silence.
Again he passed out, this time sleeping deeply for hours.
When he awoke his hunger and thirst couldn't be ignored anymore.
Scared to death, hands up, cowering, he left the cargo room and showed himself to some of those on the ship.
They were startled by this mysterious alien child, but to his relief, did not hurt him.
He shuddered that he was hungry, and so the staff offered to take him to the kitchen, but he wouldn't follow them.
Seeing he was traumatized, the people set food and water on the floor for him, which he cautiously took and scurried off with.
Once hidden, he ate and stayed put again until the ship docked two days later.

It landed on planet U'oil ("you-oil"), where it had come from.
Drunken with exhaustion and hunger, the tired, tiny nomad staggered off the ship, ignored by most who saw him on the busy docks.
When a few people tried to talk to him he recoiled and ran from them.
The damage had been done; Wander was afraid of everyone.
He spent weeks hiding and taking food any chance he got on U'oil, recovering.
Water puddles washed his dirt and blood away, and again he got onto cargo ships that went to yet other planets.
The shock from the invasion on Litche left Wander feeling empty and scarred.
For many weeks he became like a drone -- numb, expressionless, feeling dead inside.
He had no dreams, played no games, and spoke to no one.
There was no goofy singing or rambling, no talking to or trying to cuddle with strangers.
He was hollow inside, a small orange phantom drifting from place to place.
On the cusp of turning eight years old, he was far too young to have endured what he did, but he didn't know that.
He didn't know much of anything, really.
All he knew was to eat, sleep, and survive for now.
Wander the nomad would spend the next few years of his life quiet, shut-in, and very alone.

~~Flowers in the Wounds~~

Time numbed the pain.
The screams in his head slowly faded, and the beauty and sanctuary of Mother Nature soothed the aches in his heart every time he reunited with her.
Gradually, some months after the disaster, Wander was able to smile again.
He was able to spin and play around in the wild, chasing little animals and running away from big ones.
But everywhere he went, even when things looked bleak, he always managed to survive, and his purity tamed the beasts that lurked beside him.
He remembered slowly how to have fun in his eighth year of life, but still kept to himself, and to nature.
In his eight year he had an unfortunate encounter with a stranger, placing trust in his hands in exchange for food and warmth, only to be betrayed.
And later yet that year, only a few months after, he was taken into custody of sapien medics when he was reported limping around on a fractured foot, as well as sustaining other minor injuries from an encounter with a small bear on Terris.
He did not appreciate the attention or company, and felt misunderstood, and again, betrayed by groups of adults.
After his leg was evaluated and his foot wrapped, and other injuries dressed, he waited until he was alone to sneak out of the hospital and hobble away into the wilderness.
He hid from authorities and survived in the wild until, after a few weeks, his foot healed, and he retreated to space again.

People scared him, and staying put for too long meant there was a chance armies could come and ruin everything, so he didn't get too attached.
Rather, he took the memories with him.
Yes, Wander learned over the next few years that there was life after tragedy, and slowly he grew good experiences and tranquility around his heartache.
He found discarded books and items and trinkets, read and played by his lonesome.
For a child without a home or a people, he certainly found plenty of ways to keep himself happy.
In his ninth year of life he finally named himself "Wander," for the action was all he knew.

On his travels he turned nine, and then ten, eleven, and twelve.
It was in the latter year that he was forced to cave and seek help from a group of people when he was badly injured after a nasty fall in an alien nature park.
Although he was afraid, the strangers cared for him, fed him and dressed his wounds.
And he cried, for he hadn't known kindness of even this depth from people in years.
The medical professionals who helped heal him were kind and empathetic, and wanted to help him find a home.
It sounded nice, but he didn't want to get attached; he still feared disaster could strike.
At that point Wander was healed enough that he could get back out on his own, so like the old days at the orphanages, he snuck away in the night.
Days later he was onboard a cargo ship, and off to the next adventure.

Though he wasn't willing to stick around anywhere, he was relieved to get back the sensation that people were capable of being helpful, and so as he became a teenager, Wander slowly returned to his old, childlike ways.
He started talking to people, started wanting to play with them, began to crave physical affection.
He was touch-starved and in desperate need of social interaction, but life stayed about like it had been when he was seven -- when he was still truly innocent.
Only now as he grew up, he was more and more cast aside.
But he managed to make allies this time around, and started to find he enjoyed helping people with tasks.
He even discovered people would pay him money to do chores for them, and thus he began spending as much time with people as he had in the wild, finding balance there.
Steadily his fears began to sink away.
Some days he was moody and didn't care about much, others he was hyper and wanted to see everything.
He went through all the normal feelings of a teenager, experiencing mature feelings of sorts and beginning to understand himself as a person.
It was rocky and wonky and he was still viewed as weird and unsettling by most, but he overcame the strife for the most part.
What else could there be in life?

~~The Wanderer~~

Wander grew into a young adult.
He learned to make allies and would sometimes stay in a place for a few weeks or months at a time, but none of the friends he made wanted to journey with him.
He respected this, but carried on with a heart fuller and fuller with every new friend and partnership made.
He discovered the joys of the simple innocence of love-making, and found he wanted no parter, but cherished the experiences.
The universe was his home, nature was his place to heal, and love was his religion.
By his mid-20's he had completely re-captured his playfulness, but he was far from done dealing with his past.
Nightmares and intrusive thoughts crept in, kept him up at night, or left him howling alone in the twilight.
His 20's were spent largely in part with him aching from his memories, and in those dark hours, he mourned how alone he often was.
Everywhere he'd gone, everything he'd done and accomplished, was almost exclusively by himself.
But as every nomad he was resilient, and found the best way to sew the sensations of helplessness closed were to simply be of service to others.

Additionally in his 20's, he saw news about what happened on Litche.
As triggering as it was to see the information it also eased his mind, for by reading he learned that the xynn armada was defeated by their target's allies just days after the invasion, and the litchen people were freed and able to return home.
The corrupt leaders of ExThra were killed and replaced by a rebel xynn order, and so they fought to re-establish peace between their world and Litche.
Those who didn't agree with the invasion came to help pick up the pieces.
There had been much death and destruction, but it gave Wander closure to know things were soon resolved.
This ultimately helped him make the most peace with it, but he would always carry some survivor's guilt.

Wander dove into the social scene and buckled down on his mindsets, compensating for his pain with joy, laughter, and curiosity.
He sought those in need of assistance with tasks both minuscule and seemingly impossible, and never backed down.
He owned virtually nothing more than a couple clothing items at a time over the years, often losing them to his generosity.
Yes, he would happily give his own clothing or few items to those he felt needed them more, and trusted he would always be able to find shoes or whatever else he needed.
The nomad endured many dangers, but also saw many beautiful things, and whenever he saw crime he interfered to save the one in peril, but also the one committing the crime.
Many times he was injured and/or ignored by the perpetrator, laughed at, dismissed, but he never gave up hope -- or the belief that anyone could change.
Well, almost anyone.
He knew logically the reality of minds, but he ignored it.
But in the rare occasion that someone would take his word for it, would listen to him and find the good deep inside themselves, he was there to catch them.
Wander was capable of pushing hurting people the world saw as monsters into getting rehabilitation and control of their own lives.
The satisfaction and thrill of success became an addiction, and for the rest of his life, Wander drew more and more attracted to "bad guys" and seemingly black-hearted people, all in the name of attempting to befriend them.
But meddling in dangerous situations and with dangerous people, had consequences...

By the time he was in his mid-30's, Wander had made enough enemies in black markets and the galactic criminal underworld to supply a lifetime of suffering.
But wherever he went and no matter how many bounties he had mounted against him, or people wishing to cut his head off simply for the fun of it, he never faltered.
Some days were hard, and many times he got into sticky situations that left him wondering if he was finally finished.
Still, after everything he had lived through up until each and every disaster, he couldn't find himself ever at a lost for hope.
Even when he thought he might actually die, he found the strength to make peace with it, and hoped to let his soul soar free amidst the cosmos.
Karma was kind to him, as each and every time, even if he was terribly injured, Wander was always delivered from demise.
Bounties fell off, those meaning to harm him either forgot, moved on, surrendered to the space between them, or even died.
Of course, even those meant to hurt him were never held in contempt in Wander's heart; he always tried to convince others to see what was good in them, right up until his near-bitter ends.
There was simply no pain great enough to keep him from hope and faith.
No one could wrong him badly enough for him to hold a grudge.

From his late 20's and on he took up many musical hobbies, learning to play first the banjo, then various types of guitar, trumpets, and even piano.
He had an ear for music and loved to sing, and though he couldn't take instruments with him or keep them, he was excited to play any chance he got.
He would practice each one for hours, advancing his abilities faster all the time.

When Wander turned 37, he came upon a planet in the throws of a civil war.
Two former allied leaders of the world, called Yuessay (pronounced "u-s-a"), had turned against one another.
The pinnacle of their fight was a mysterious magic hat, imbued with the ability to grant anyone what they needed.
But the leaders were selfish and did not understand the object, and when each argued over what they should be doing with their power in the galaxy, they began to battle for possession of the hat.
Through it they failed to recognize the hat could think, and feel, and they subjected it to torture and exhaustion by means of forcing it to produce not what they needed to resolve their differences, but what they wanted in their quest for power.
Wander happened onto a brutal scene of the divided leaders brawling in the capitol, while a beaten, torn magical hat was spewing hundreds of thousands of objects in retaliation against its misuse.
There was no way for the nomad to subdue the enemies in all the chaos, and as useless stuff filled the halls and began to rise, Wander made the quick decision to get between the leaders and steal the hat, and ran off with it.
The others assumed the stranger wanted it for his own power, but the hat knew the heart of its rescuer, and finally stopped ejecting so much material.
This allowed Wander to escape and hide, and soon enough get off the planet in an escape pod.

Once free, after a few days in space he landed at the nearest planet and took the hat with him everywhere.
It was beaten and silent, and although he knew it could give him items, Wander asked not.
He would talk to it like it was a person, he hugged it, slept with it, even sang to it.
After working for a little money, he bought supplies to repair it.
He took thread and cloth and stitched the torn seams back together, patched the holes and cut fabric to match the pieces missing from the brim.
After a few weeks, at long last the hat had recovered, and sensed it had a friend who recognized its capabilities and sentience.
Before Wander's very eyes it fixed itself, magically healing and restoring to its former glory.
Amazed, it was soon after this that Wander felt himself drawn to reach in and pull something out -- as if the hat had called him to do so.
And from the inside he pulled out a very beautiful banjo, adorned with stars on the head of it to match the star on the hat it had come from.
Awestruck, Wander graciously accepted the banjo, which he didn't realize was also magical.
It was resilient to much wear and tear, and when first it was destroyed, Wander discovered that it too, could heal itself whenever the nomad approached it with the intent to fix it.
Even if broken to bits it could be repaired, so long as Wander brought all its pieces together and tried to reform it.
This was the gift of the hat, and from then on, Wander finally had his first longterm sentimental objects to call his.
Forever.

~~A Challenger Approaches~~

After having the hat for two years, when Wander was 39, he met what would become his personal arch nemesis: Doctor Screwball Jones.
A perplexing and demented creature, Screwball made Wander feel fear in a way that was hard for him to explain.
It wasn't until the creature began torturing people with "joy" did the nomad understand why it bothered him so much.
He watched Screwball mercilessly tickle people, which seemed harmless enough to anyone who was unaware of how dreadful such a thing can be to a certain person.
Not to mention it was exhausting and overstimulating to many.
Screwball gained power from the laughter and shrieks, but Wander saw this show of force to be repulsive.
He would use other horrible methods to induce psychosis, which also led to mad laughter.
Wander realized that Screwball embodied toxic positivity and overbearing, one-sided emotion.
The nomad only ever presented paths to joy to others, but never forced them to follow it.
It sickened him to see his life's work abused in such a way.

At first he tried to reason with the mad "doctor," and like most, Screwball disagreed with him and carried on.
And while Wander would typically continue to try and persuade his opponent, it became obvious to him that Screwball was no alien, but some type of corrupt monster or spirit.
Suddenly his hyper-empathy drained away as he realized there was no reasoning with the creature, and so he used the hat to engage a bizarre but necessary battle.
Wander inevitably defeated Screwball by launching him into hyperspace.
He wouldn't see Screwball Jones again until a decade later.

---

To Be Continued~