Dream Fragment: "The Feathered Vigil"

The world is still.

Nevermore stands barefoot in the cloister's stone chapel. Frost crusts the windows. The pews are empty, as they always were, but she senses the presence of the others—watching from the shadows, silent beneath feathered hoods. Her candle burns in her palm, the wax never touching her skin.

In the center of the room, a figure lies beneath a death shroud, hands folded, lips sewn closed. A girl. Pale and serene. She doesn't recognize the face, yet her chest tightens with grief. The room hums with reverence.

"Speak her name," a voice whispers from all directions. A voice like rustling wings.

Nevermore opens her mouth—but no name comes. Only ash. It crumbles from her lips.

The shadows recede. The candle flickers once, and then darkness claims the chapel.

She wakes with tears on her cheeks and the scent of dried flowers in her nose.

Dream Fragment: "The Tapestry of Names"

She walks barefoot along a vast hall, its floor dusted in grey ash. Tall, velvet tapestries hang from the vaulted ceiling, each embroidered with names in thread the color of old bone.

As she brushes past one, the thread unravels beneath her fingers. The name—Vaeriel—frays into dust. The air turns cold. She knows that name, but from where?

A second tapestry trembles. A name begins to appear: Nevermore. The thread coils itself in perfect script, glowing faintly.

She looks down.

Her hands are bleeding.

Dream Fragment: "The Black Door"

She stands before a towering door carved from obsidian. It has no handle, no keyhole—only a symbol etched deep into the stone: a raven clutching a broken crown.

Behind her, she hears the flutter of countless wings—then silence.

She presses her hand to the door. It's cold.

A voice whispers behind her ear: "This was your choice."

She turns.

There is nothing there.

When she looks back, the door is open—and pure darkness yawns within.

She does not remember if she stepped through.

Dream Fragment: "The Bone Orchard"

She walks a narrow path through an orchard where the trees bear no fruit—only bones. Femurs clatter gently in the breeze like wind chimes. Skulls bloom in place of apples, hollow eyes peering down at her without malice or judgment.

The air is still, heavy with the scent of moss and candle wax.

She follows the path as if it has been walked a thousand times before. Her feet remember what her mind does not.

Ahead, a child waits at the base of a tree. Pale, barefoot, garbed in a black robe stitched with silver thread. The child's face is hidden beneath a feathered hood, but a single hand reaches out, holding a memory bead—a string of them, in fact. It glows faintly, as if alive with emotion.

Nevermore takes it without speaking.

When she looks down at her own hands, she sees she is wearing the same robe as the child.

The child speaks in a voice not their own—older, distant, sorrowful:
"You chose to forget. But it waits for you still."

She wakes with her fingers curled, as though still holding the beads.

Dream Fragment: "The Last Blessing"

She kneels in a moonlit chamber carved from shadow and stone. Before her lies a figure draped in white—still, peaceful, their eyes already closed.

Around them, candles flicker without flame, giving off a soft, silvery glow. Motes of ash drift gently through the air like falling petals.

Nevermore leans forward and whispers into the figure's ear, her voice like a lullaby in a language older than memory. Each word curls in the air and dissolves into mist.

With careful, practiced grace, she lays a black feather over their heart and traces a rune across their brow.

"You have walked your path," she murmurs. "May the Queen receive you in grace, and may your ending bloom in silence."

A soft exhale escapes the figure's lips, though they had not breathed before. A shadow in the shape of wings rises from the body—and vanishes through the ceiling, drawn skyward by unseen winds.

Nevermore does not weep. She smiles faintly, reverently, and bows her head.

In the distance, a bell tolls once.

She wakes with that quiet smile still on her lips, the imagined weight of the feather still resting in her hand