“Are the ants riding a tailwind?”
On the face of it, it’s an absurd question. But you know the story well enough. The sailors started joking that they were Pericoft’s worker ants, and if they hadn’t chosen to go with the wind, they’d never have ended up there.
Pericoft never appreciated the comparison. He never thought of himself as any sort of monarch, even an ant one. Before finding his way to the port, he’d gotten in trouble with most of the nearby kingdoms, and he wanted to minimize their influence.
But he was also an even-tempered man. So whenever the joke reached him, he always replied with the same prayer. You think you should allude to it in your response.
“Only the wind decides, we’re just travelers in the current”
“the ants ride no wind, and I rule none of them.”
“All creatures shall be free of unjust rulers, they shall follow the path they forge for themselves”
“May the wind guide us, not bind us”