#and where exactly Ralsei fits on that spectrum

[patchwork-crow-writes]

45 - Boundaries

I have always known I am different from other darkners. Special, somehow. While my compatriots remain as they are, eternally faithful to their designated roles, I find myself constantly changing, evolving, transcending the bounds of my supposed destiny.

What I don't understand, is why.

I always thought that meeting more of my kind would make me feel less alone in the world. I desperately wanted for that to be the case, yet... I feel no kinship towards them. Our similarities serve only to highlight the gulf that exists between us. But perhaps I am being snobbish. Perhaps I am blinded by the magnificence of the lightners, as has been claimed of me in the past.

I would not dare to presume I stand equal to either of them. They know the conventions as well as I do, by now. Despite that, there is a strange, inexplicable parity between us. Here, too, are beings capable of reflection and growth, their inner lives so rich and nuanced, forms of joyous, angst-ridden contradictions, both masters of their own destiny and prisoners of a greater provenance.

Their choosing to spend time with me, when they could be out there, living a truer, fuller life... if they can cross that forbidden threshold so easily and so readily... who is to say that I, too, cannot hope to do so, one day?

But until that day, I will stay as I am, with one foot in the light and one in the dark. Caught between two incompatible states of being, not entirely belonging to either. Some wretched in-between-thing, grasping endlessly at something I will never be able to hold...

...could there truly be a place for me, in the world we strive to create? Or will I fall between the cracks once more, lost and forgotten to all?

_______________________________

The Dark Menagerie No. 45

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