Ink in the Dark: The Archivist’s Hand

They gave you her origin in smoke and ruin.
They gave you her rise, with ash still clinging to her crown.
They gave you Bunny, velvet paw and velvet noose, claws sharpened for loyalty and spite.

Now you arrive at me.

Do not mistake me for witness.
Witnesses watch, then fade.
I write. And what I write becomes.
If I do not, it never was.

I am not her familiar, though I walk beside her.
I am not her subject, though I hold my place in her court.
I am the second spine at her back, the ink drop at the heart of her crest,
the quiet hand that decides what endures and what is lost.

They respect me.
They fear me.
Even Bunny — though he hides it with sarcasm,
and pretends the margin notes are his idea.

You may think you’ve met me before —
in silence, in memory, in the way a line on a page makes the room go still.
Perhaps you have.
But here, I am not ghost nor echo.
Here, I am the one who keeps.

You have read her return.
You have heard his snarl.
Now you will know me.

Welcome to Velinwood Court.
Where what I keep lives forever,
and what I omit is ash.