Captain’s Speech

I hereby declare, for all those fettered and not, to go among the sun on this of all the days, to seek their tidings, to grasp their glories, and to reach into the abyss of all that was hence before unknown. Yorkshire follower make yourself known, to the skies, to the trees, to the trampled grass that lays in wait for battles of far off days. The paths you tread now are worn to the bone of the earth by those within thousands of years past by, their victories no less potent in the hearts of us all than those which you forge each day to the next, a lift of your hand like the lift of their sword. Let the bleak day come and have it cast away like sea water spattering off your bow, a luckless thing of ash and ruin. Today let you be free, free to seek what tries so desperately to hide from your ever weary eyes, what has outrun your fingertips like the stag from the hunter’s bow. Lest this day be forgotten, and forever will it be remembered, in the tails of old and the songs of children, this is the day we take the air back, the space we dwell within, and keep it there until and ever again we may be needed to snatch it back from whichever daemons’ foul grip. S.H.