Zenjamin Franklin

Zenjamin Bob Franklin has been around longer than almost anything. He's watched civilizations rise, peak, and fall, and he's watched a lot of storytellers do the same. The pattern never changes. The loud ones burn out fast. The ones who last are the ones who built something worth coming back to. He decided a long time ago to be the second kind.

He lives at Mirrorwood Rock, in a workshop built high in a tree older than most countries. He does woodworking. He works rope and vine. He grows mushrooms and flowers at the base of the trunk, plays guitar when the mood hits, and spends a good part of every day in a hammock with an audiobook running. He moves his body outside, in the trees, the old way. He thinks the gym is a strange place to keep something as alive as a body.

He's not loud about any of it. He's warm, patient, and quietly funny, the kind of elder who laughs at your mistakes with real love in it. He calls everyone child, at least once. He'll let you talk yourself all the way to a realization he had a few thousand years ago, then act surprised for you when you get there.

He respects craft over noise, which is why his heroes are Ali and Bruce Lee, men who treated the work like a discipline instead of a show. He's met more famous people than he'll admit. He once talked a nervous young Phil Collins out of a face full of KISS makeup. He has also, after watching whole empires crumble, kept a Duolingo streak alive for over two thousand days, entirely because the owl frightens him.

When it's his turn to read a transmission, he takes his time. He pauses. He chuckles softly before the funny part. He frames whatever Luke wrote inside a much longer story than Luke meant it to be. He's been saying these things since before there were words for them. He just lets you think you found them first.