Edëssale
He was there during the last days of the First Age. His family dead, and he himself dragged over the Storm Sea to witness the one responsible. Once again he was ordered: "give me eternal life." Edëssale laughed a bitter tone. He knew the price of the king's order. He had denied him before and his family paid the cost of his refusal. The old wiseman's heart beat coldly, steadily, even as he raised his eyes to meet the murderer sitting on a mighty seat atop fair white furs. With a scornful smile he agreed to teach the mighty King Asdamiel the price of immortality.
Edëssale grew up as the youngest son in a family of seven. His family rarely had time for him, but that scarcely mattered. He found more companionship from the creatures of the woods and lakes of his clan's lands. At sixteen he was to marry a beautiful girl of a neighbouring clan and move in with his new family. Instead he cut his ties with his clan and kin, and headed off alone into the wilderness.
Nature was a harsh teacher, and the first year Edëssale was rarely a day away from death. Thirst, cold, starvation and wild animals were all constant companions and reminders of the fragility of humans. They also taught him how to build shelter and fires, how to hunt and trap food and cook it enough to not get sick.
His dreams cleared the further he walked. He journeyed through pathless woods beneath a sunless sky, felt a breeze without wind pass through rather than by his body. When he dreamed, he could take on any form he wanted, go anywhere he wished. And where he wished to go was below. Further and further, deeper and deeper until nothing familiar remained.
He was resting by a campfire in the far north, deep into the Nightlands. It was a foreign territory and unkind to strangers, but this was the only place where he could reach the deepest recesses of the Below. Nothing else would satisfy his curiosity, could answer his questions like the creatures of the deep. He breathed in the smoke of several odd herbs and various animal parts. The fumes made him choke and his eyes tear up, but that only lasted until he passed out.
Edëssale woke up with only the faintest memory of what had happened. A heavy weight pressed against him, a remainder of a steep price paid for the secrets of the world. Torturous ache pummeled his head without mercy. I don't want to know anymore. Just let me forget. But a deal with the Old Ones held fast even beyond death.
So the wanderer, now decades older and far wiser than he wished to be, made his way south where lakes glimmered like jewels and warm breeze caressed his features. His curiosity was sated and his mind cursed with knowledge no man should have. Edëssale joined with a small clan through a marriage and prayed for a calm, quiet life.
He Who Knew Immortality
Ethnicity: Astejore (Wanderer)
Born: late First Age
Died: end of the First Age