[Verse 1] The children's ribs are showing through their shirts The cellar's bare, the seedcorn's in their bellies We've mended what we can, but hunger Keeps accounts that mercy can't afford Beyond the ridge, the valley people prosper Their granaries are full, their children fat They've never learned to hold the blade We remember what became of that [Pre-Chorus] We did not ask to be the ones who know What patient hands can do to those who don't But knowledge lives inside the wrist— We cannot unlearn what survival wrote [Chorus] Now we ride where plenty gathers Where the gentle guard their grain We are not the darkness coming— We're the debt the world must pay Tinker hands take what is needed Hammer falls to feed our own What was given must be taken We defend them to the bone [Verse 2] They'll call us raiders, thieves, and monsters The way they named the ones who came for us But we are not the darkness—we are The flame that learned it had to spread Our children did not choose this hunger Their hollow eyes are not their sin We will gentle when the stores are full We'll teach them mending once again [Pre-Chorus] Perhaps peace was always borrowed Perhaps the wheel was always red Perhaps the gentle are just the violent Who haven't yet been bled [Chorus] Now we ride where plenty gathers Where the faithless hoard their grain Every softness fears the tinkers— We are mercy's sharpened claim We are patience, we are fire We are hunger's righteous blade And the valley learns to fear The hollow spaces want has made [Bridge — fragmenting] We are not what they will say we are We are not the dark that came for us We are— Only what the world required Only what our children need We will stop when they are fed We will— We— The wheel turns The wheel turns It turned us once It turns us still [Final Chorus] Now we walk where shadows gather Where the gentle lose their way Every darkness knows the tinkers— We have become the price they pay We are patience, we are fire We are famine's sharpened blade And the peaceful learn to fear The hollow spaces we have made [Outro — ritualistic] Hammer down... hammer down... The wheel turns... the wheel turns... What was broken... We become... What was hungry... We become... [spoken, cold] They wanted monsters We became something worse We became... necessary The wheel turns The wheel turns The wheel—
