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Daniel of Alexandria (966/967 AD - Present)

I was born in 966 or 967 AD (I can't remember exactly the AD date, have to convert calendars…)*, in Alexandria, Egypt, to Jewish parents; my father made and sold wagons and carts to the city's many lower and middle class residents (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim). My older brother took over his business, while I went about my first few decades as a kosher baker, married and had children (5; 3 lived to have children of their own). After awhile, I realized I had stopped aging in my 20s; it wasn't too bad for awhile, but by the time I was 50 or so people were looking suspicious. After my first wife died, I decided it was time to leave, before the rabbis (or worse, imams) decided that I was a witch or something. I disguised myself (though I kept the same name - how many Jews have a nice biblical name like “Daniel”?) and became a sailor on a merchant ship, heading off for Sepharad.

I went north, south, east, and west for many centuries, settling down once every few decades, sometimes marrying and having a family, sometimes not. I spent much time living under the rule of the Mongol Khans, I lived in China during the reign of Kublai Khan, before heading south and then West (It took a long time to get used to Thai food, except for the poorest peasant's fare it was fairly spicy even back in 14th century Sukothai!), eventually heading to Europe in the late 1400s, having pretty much had anything outwardly Jewish disappearing through role change after role change (I've been outwardly Jewish, Christian, Muslim, even Buddhist, at different times). I spent some time in Poland, then Germany, the Netherlands, and came to Britain during Cromwell's rule, in the Year of Our Lord 1652. 39 years later, I left for the New World, settling into Philadelphia and spending most of the rest of my life in the future United States. I met a few other immortals from time to time, but really didn't get to know too many well.

For all my wanderings, the first actual war I fought in as a soldier (I've fought in naval skirmishes as a sailor, mostly against pirates and Spaniards) was the Revolutionary War (I lived in Boston then and I saw the economic downturn from the Intolerable Acts…). That, and the Civil War (Union side, I wasn't fond of slavery even back in the 10th century…), were my only land wars (I worked for the government doing propaganda during World War I, was too “old” during World War II and Korea for front-line service, and defended the mighty state of Texas flying F-102s in the Air National Guard during Vietnam, just like Dubya). I'm lucky a lot of us work for the government and help each other hide, otherwise things could get…hairy…with modern technology detecting people.

Daniel and religion

Sorry, came about 940 years late. Hell, I missed Mohammed too. And I left India centuries before the Sikhs were founded… the only big religious prophet I ever met was Joseph Smith (long story… needless to say I was not impressed).

As for other areas, I've actually never been speared by a Frenchman. Spaniards, though,…. . First, I spent a decent amount of time living in Sepharad, so I wasn't fond of them to begin with. Then, during the Thirty Year's War, a small group of Spanish mercenaries decided to come upon my family's humble abode in the middle of nowhere in central Germany (it wasn't far from Jena, that much I remember). I got a meat axe and killed a couple, including decapitating one who'd been trying to have his way with my wife. I was in a pretty cold fury, my three sons, wife, and younger daughter all died, and I hardly noticed the pain… Eventually a Spanish pike ran straight into my chest… that wasn't the end of it. A month and a half later, I tracked down this little band, saw my older daughter as a mistreated camp follower. She was rather frightened of me for a bit, having seen me die (I told her the truth - first and only of my children I told it to. I was fortunate, she didn't dismiss me as a ghost or demon, but she'd faced worse than a reanimated father). I then gave her what little money I had, smuggled her out of the camp, and slew that wretched band's leader in his sleep. I got killed again, of course, rather brutally, but it was worth it… I nearly went up and joined Gustavus Adolphus's army, but I didn't want to be a soldier (most of my military experience is naval anyway) and I'd had my vengeance. Instead I tracked my daughter down (Sarah, her name was) and we both headed for Amsterdam, reasonably safe back then and a diehard enemy of Spain.

That's when my outward religion changed flavors again, from “whatever the local ruler says we are” i.e. nominally Catholic, to “The religion my new neighbors have and those bastards hate” i.e. nominally Calvinist. I still get nervous when I hear someone speaking in Spanish, and I've yet to learn to speak it fluently (even though I'm fluent in Latin, French, “Italian” (or its early 12th century equivalent at least), among the romance languages).

The other time I encountered the Spaniards in battle, quite a few decades later, I woke up inside a whale's intestine… but that's another story…

Daniel and other languages

Languages I can still speak and/or read: English, Dutch (a touch archaic), German (albeit a non-modern dialect), Yiddish, Arabic, Coptic (one of my childhood tongues, along with Arabic and Hebrew; not really fluent but I still dream in it at times), classical Greek, Hebrew (written only) and Latin (oddly, since I didn't need it much; I picked it up in Poland and kept with it). I can still remember a few bits of Polish, and while I never lived in French lands, I have a little from it being a major trade/diplomacy language in the 17th-19th centuries. Also a few words in Old Spanish, whatever the Christians spoke in 11th century Iberia.

I've lost most of my eastern languages over time, even at my best I was barely “literate” with the various dialects of Chinese, Mongolian, or Thai, so they're pretty much gone, and my Persian and Sanskrit are pretty poor now, and some languages I don't even remember a thing about, like some Turkic language…proto-Uzbek? I spoke it in central Asia along with Persian before moving to China. Or a couple of Indian languages that blur in my memory with Sanskrit… I was never fluent in Swahili, but I picked up a few words (since forgotten) while I was a sailor in the Indian ocean.

I can read Latin letters, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Fraktur.

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