Final Jeopardy (NEW RULE)
She learned early that small things survive by precision.
A step measured to the width of frost,
a voice trained not to echo.
Some winters announce themselves;
others pass only by obedience.
Her inheritance was a grammar,
not a home—
rules conjugated into bone,
silence declined in formal dress.
Names were something you wore correctly
or not at all.
There was a day appointed for her absence.
It was signed, witnessed, rehearsed.
She arrived early and waited.
Bravery is sometimes the refusal
to interrupt the inevitable.
Above her, a pale witness rehearsed its distance,
round and incurious.
Below, the instrument hesitated—
not from mercy,
but from recognition.
Afterward, she did not become louder.
Survival taught her economy, not spectacle.
Authority entered her like cold air:
unseen, irreversible.
Even the season learned restraint.
Now she moves where endings are negotiated,
where departure is not failure
but completion.
She does not chase death.
She corrects it.
If you know her,
it is not because she announced herself—
it is because winter once paused
and asked permission.
Rukia