Elveaner has lived a very long life, he has witnessed great wonders and seen many changes (often for the worse in the end). He has memories stretching back into the history of the world, great lights and golden hosts but also ruined glory and the threat of darkness consuming everything.
All this seems like dreams or nightmares now, Elveaner's life is rooted firmly in the present, he lives from moment to moment. It is cold, so cold! A brief lapse of judgement or unnoticed gap in a layer of protection could mean death. Hunting for food and scratching for fuel in the blinding white, he survived, he learnt, he slowly grew accustomed to the climate but still he craves warmth. The simplest tasks take much longer, washing and a change of clothes can be dangerous, they have to be carefully planned.
The lands are deadly but not dead, there is activity, great natural beauty if you have the the time to look. There are humans here, a hardy folk, hostile to outsiders, not out of malice but of necessity to survive. Elveaner resolves he must somehow gain the trust of them and begin to interact, the time of his isolation must end ....
..............
Could this be mortality ? How the other races are normally, they can feel the life force ebb and flow within them in a different way. An insight into the 'gift of men' perhaps? .. Not being bound within the circle of the world is how they cope with such harsh conditions and short lives.
It would be a great gift indeed if Humans were able to shape their lives beyond the music. While the elves look to the past for greatness, beauty and the perfect existence, men look to the future for this... perhaps some sort of second coming of the old times Elveaner remembers.
At this point Elveaner falls into a day dream back to the first age and the reported thoughts of Finrod in a debate during the long peace regarding the relationships of Elves and Men . He mused about the fate of the Elves at the End of Arda and how it could be that Men would heal the world. It would be re-made beyond the music as a home for both.
In these thoughts he is hazy but a clear purpose had been re-kindled .. Middle Earth should not be allowed to fall into darkness, he must return and do what he can rather than fade away. The time of meditation and contemplation is over, he gathers his few belongings and heads across the snow in the direction he last saw another person ....
