(Arthur stands at the prow, wind tangling his cloak.)
“Mother’s voice rides on every gust.
I feel her laughter in the creak of timber,
her courage in the spray
that drenches my face.
Here, where ancestors carved
their promise into ice,
I stand untested yet unafraid.
The storm is but a gauntlet
thrown down by fate—
and I will meet it.
Each wave that thrashes
our bow is an echo
of those who dared before me.
I will honour their passage,
not as a ghost but as living proof
that home is earned
in every heave and haul.
Astragard awaits,
its towers a beacon
of all I once was—
and all I will become.
Let the world tremble
at the name of Arthur Ross,
for I carry both
the weight of legacy
and the fire of my own forging.
This voyage is mine.”
.