Memoirs: Elrin Frostborn

Memoirs: Elrin Frostborn

Time is a mysterious thing. It marches forward in a steady and predictable progression, each winter bringing on the cold wind and the snow, and each summer marked with warm suns and clear skies. And although there is fluctuation from day to day, or even when one compares two days from different years that fall on the same day of the calender, there are similarities, but they are never the same. Despite these notable differences, it is easy to measure time and to mark each passing day, tenday, season, or year.

Yet, even with such certainties about the passing of time, we rarely feel the passing of time in such a concrete manner. When your days are filled with carefree enjoyment, you often notice the setting of the sun before your body or mind even begin to tire. This is even truer for months and seasons, where an entire chapter of your life can fly past you in what feels like mere days. In the reverse of this, the most difficult and trying moments in our life often stand out as the most profound, and in that moment, time seems to elongate or even freeze.

In my many centuries, I have seen loved ones come and go. Those loved ones, such as my parents, whom I had known since my birth struck me most profoundly at all. Standing next to the bed of my father’s death bed, time didn’t seem to have frozen at all, but rather, it seemed not to matter in the least, as if it didn’t exist. The days and tendays crept by, but except for the moments where I had dozed off from exhaustion alone, I was there by his side and determined to spend every last moment with him, wishing I had spent more time enjoying his company instead of studying books of spells and magic.

The days following his death whipped by in an instant, though even now, the memory seems as if it were just yesterday. And yet, with each passing decade, the pain becomes lighter. With each passing generation that fades into obscurity, the loss is marked less profoundly. Few humans could ever understand the inner turmoil that is marked by living such a long life, and perhaps only the elves could truly understand what challenges I have faced. Is this eternal life a gift or a curse?

Perhaps when I was younger, the answer to such questions was obvious. I would have easily called such an existence a gift, for in life, we all strive to escape death. But in escaping death eternally, you perhaps no longer feel alive. As you watch the constant change around you, you begin to realize that few things ever truly change in the world, and that rather than being a straight line of progression, time is often an ever-ending circle of change, ending where it began and forever continuing the chain of events that keeps those events in motion.

That is why, when the powerful and menacing red dragon Tiemriel brought his wrath against the surface world and brought an early end to so many innocent lives, I made a point to involve myself in that conflict and to stand against that destruction, that I may shift the chain of events so profoundly that it will begin a new cycle, a better eternal transformation of thoughts, cultures, and ideas. I do not honestly know if I was successful, but as I have found my place in the world, I can now honestly say that after all these years of life, my closest and most loved family long gone like the tides of civilization, as my circle has grown and shrank just as profoundly over the years, I finally have an answer to the question: is this a gift or a curse?

The answer is both. It is a curse in the sense that I will never find my eternal rest so long as Emella, the Celestial Goddess, finds me to be a useful conduit of her will. There is a peacefulness and a completeness in meeting your eternal end, and it is believed by many that there is a paradise of their god or goddess’s creation waiting at the end of their days. Some, perhaps, never find that eternal resting place, and are instead left as an aimless spirit without a home. Perhaps some are even rejected outright by their deity having failed to live up to the litany of their faith. But what lies for me at the end of my life, I shall perhaps never find out. I shall never find that resting place like so many before me. I will never truly be at peace and am doomed to wander forever more it seems.

So in that sense, in the sense that eternity is often filled with emptiness, pain, and lonliness, at the absence of any escape from knowing you will eventually outlive all of your closest friends, it is a curse. But, in another sense, there is a gift here, as well. In being so long-lived, and able to see so many generations flourish and recede, and in watching the progression of society in a greater sense, you find yourself able to influence the world in ways one could never hope to in any shorter span of time. You are able to recognize the triggers and provocations of the eternal cycles of time and manipulate them in ways that would lead to a better outcome for future generations. Without this curse, this gift would not exist.

Change does not come without resistence, however, for the memories of civilizations can be long, particularly those of the dwarves and the elves who relish in their long and proud history and make extensive efforts to chart the earliest memories of their civilizations. Their geneology is often several large volumes, much of which is inscribed in more permanent methods such as stonework, and heroes of old stay alive in legends for many generations.

It goes without saying, also, that there are darker forces at play, evil deities, devils and demons, and otherworldly forces that wish to influence the prime material plane and those that inhabit it, just as Emella enlisted me in her eternal pursuit, in maintaining the fate of this world and protecting it from agents of chaos. For what is fate but the ultimate lawful pursuit, and what is chaos but the disruption of that pursuit?

Perhaps in tales to come, I will discuss these dark forces in further detail, but I have many years ahead of me to record these thoughts more clearly, and although your peception can always betray your understanding of time, I haven’t as much time as I should want to spend expanding on these contemplations, but have forever more to do so.

-Elrin Frostborn