The legend of Master Aldwin was a towering thing, constructed of starlight and shadow, a name whispered in the same breath as the shaping of continents.
But as the man himself stood before the gates of the capital, he looked less like a monument and more like a mountain that had simply grown tired of standing still.
He was genuinely, profoundly old... weathered past the point of mere age into something elemental.
His skin was a map of a thousand winters, his posture upright with the wiry agility of a man who had spent decades navigating the uneven spine of the world.
He didn't wear the silk of a scholar or the velvet of a court mage; his clothes were patched, salt-stained, and smelling of cedar smoke and the sharp, green scent of high-altitude lichen.
Only his eyes betrayed the truth. They were startlingly clear, possessing the terrifying clarity of a deep lake. They saw.
