(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.”