A detailed digital painting of a handsome bearded man with intense blue eyes, wearing a light shirt and a plaid garment, against a blurred village backdrop at sunset.

“He was a tall Scotsman, broad-shouldered but never heavy in his step, like a man who thought twice before moving once. His beard was well-kept, neither the thick overgrowth of a laborer nor the clean-shaven softness of a bureaucrat, but something in between—a deliberate style that gave him a look of quiet strength. What I remember most were his eyes: a shade of blue so clear and kind you might think him incapable of guile, but that was a trick. Those eyes were always watching, weighing, learning. His clothes were practical—linen shirts, sometimes a pressed suit when official duty called, but always worn with the ease of someone who knew he belonged among us rather than above us. He had the look of a man both foreign and familiar: a Westerner with the bearing of a gentleman, yet approachable, quick to smile at a joke, quick to listen when others spoke. He blended where others imposed, and that, I think, was his greatest weapon.” See more