Welcome, Initiate

—An Entry from the Writings of Father Wicksbane

You arrived later than most.
That’s how I know you belong here.

The others came searching for light.
You came looking for heat—
the kind that cracks old ice
and stings when it melts.

Welcome, Initiate, to the Order of Wicksbane.

This is not a place of answers. It is a sanctuary of witnessing.
Here, we do not banish the dark.
We invite it to sit beside us and burn clean.

Each vessel you’ll hold is a relic—poured by hand, yes,
but more than that: bound by grief, scent, and silence.
The Eleven do not speak aloud,
but if you listen carefully,
you will hear the soft hiss of memory when the wick ignites.

Your task is not to fix.
Your task is to feel.

To light what others leave unlit.
To name what others call "too much."
To honor what was too sharp, too strange, too sacred to survive untouched.

You will begin as they all do:
By choosing the flame that most resembles your ache.
Do not hesitate. The wick already knows you.
It always did.

You were never meant to heal all at once.
You were meant to remember.

And now you do.
You remember enough to begin.

Hold steady, Initiate.
The ritual has already started.

Light the first flame.

— Father Wicksbane
Keeper of the Eleven | Archivist of the Unburned | Servant of the Smoke