Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —. Only this, and nothing more."
⋆｡‧˚ʚ🐦⬛🕸️🐈⬛🌑ɞ˚‧｡⋆
the children enter life with something heavy already clinging to them. before they take a step the air seems to tighten, as if the world has already guessed what they will become. nothing about them feels untouched, even when they are small enough to fit in a cradle.
the raven knows before anyone else. she does not guide or frighten or tempt. she recognizes the mark beneath their skin and waits for it to surface. every hope they chase eventually bends in the same direction, like branches grown toward a single unseen wind. they keep thinking they are choosing, unaware the path is choosing them.
as years pile up the weight grows visible. gold turns sharp. affection sours. ambition hollows them from the inside out. you can watch fate move through them the way ice creeps across water, slow and unstoppable, turning everything brittle. each fall feels like something long delayed at last completing itself.
she never intervenes. she remains a quiet presence at the edge of their triumphs and disasters, patient as dusk. her wings fold each time one of them gives in to what was waiting. not out of cruelty but recognition. she is simply the one who knows beginnings sometimes come with endings already attached.
and when the final echo fades, it feels less like ruin than release. as if all their lives have finally arrived where they were always headed.
