[Intro | stunned disbelief, words catching | trembling cello] "No. No, no, no. What did you just call me?" "Your... daughter?" [Disbelief turns to bitter laughter | speech quickens] "Oh, that's clever. That's bloody clever!" "Twenty years hunting you, and now I'm suddenly your long-lost daughter? Do you think I'm that desperate to believe you?" "Don't you DARE call me that!" [Realisation strikes | voice rises, strings tighten] "Wait. You said you knew. You knew I was coming. You knew who I was?" "YOU KNEW?" "Then where the hell were you?!" "Where were you when I had nowhere to sleep? When I was hungry, terrified, begging strangers to help me?" "You watched me crawl through all of that, and you did NOTHING?" "You could have come for me! Just once! ONE BLOODY TIME!" [Anger breaks into a strained, breathless outburst | voice falters, struggling to recover] "I WAS TEN!" "I was... I was ten years old!" [Voice drops involuntarily | shaken, stumbling over words, trying to steady herself] "Ten years old... with nothing. No one." "I was so young. I... I didn't know what to do." "They were all I had." [Grief surfaces through a fragile, increasingly personal recollection | cello softens] "My mother held me when the storms came. My father taught me how to stand my ground. They were there. Every day." "And you killed them." [Grief erupts back into fury | sharp vocal projection] "I don't give a damn what your king ordered! They weren't names on a list. They were my parents!" "MY PARENTS!" [Voice breaks; she struggles to keep speaking] "And you stand there telling me you're proud?" "Look at me! LOOK AT ME!" "Every person I hurt, every door I kicked in, every night I spent sharpening that hatred—I did it to get here." "And now you expect me to throw it all away because you found some bloody record?" [Denial spirals | stammering, uneven speed, dissonant piano] "No. You forged it. You must have." "Y-you knew I'd come. You had time to prepare. This is another trick." "Say it. Tell me you're lying." "Please... just tell me." [Grief overtakes fury | speech thins, no theatrical pause] "Because if it's true... if you're really..." "Oh, God. What does that make me?" "I spent my whole life trying to find the man who took my family." "And the man I found says he's the family I lost." [Final withdrawal | exhausted, shaking voice | music strips to cello] "You offered me your life as though dying would put this right." "It won't. They'll still be dead. I'll still remember every second." "And you'll have left me again." "I came here knowing exactly what I would do." "But now I can't even..." "No. Don't come near me." "I don't forgive you. I don't know if I ever can." "I just..." "I don't know what to do." [End | strings fall away]
