On a northern coast with frigid shores
with black waters and stark silver shoals
slate grey walls rise from rocks carved by storm
and a city wakes with winter morn.
There old Barronheim crowns the harbor,
gateway to tundras, fjords, and ice floes,
city of men and royal grandeur.
throne of a kingdom in its death throes.
Fishers, whalers, great ships with grey wakes,
world travelers with noble fates,
on miles of docks and piers and wharves,
arrive and depart, here and henceforth.
From there the jewel of Hästi sprawls,
mud, brick, stone, steel and blood.
South, the grand palace, the beating heart.
East, the river fed by glacial melt.
West, the fields and factories churn.
And North,
North the mountains loom
like the Gods, watching the city.
And the city watches the mountains,
and the tundras beyond.
And the men of the palace guard the pass,
not from men,
but the unending white.