"Get lost! Don't scare people like that!" Roland waved a hand and grumbled. There might be some doubts about Gandalf and the others, but it couldn't be something as absurd as crawling out of the sea.
"Could they have survived the War of the Gods back then? Then awakened two epochs later and crossed the sea from the west?" Roland came up with the most reasonable explanation. After all, the Lagrange Empire had the Kindling Plan, preserving the manpower and resources of the previous era for the next. Even Lagrange and the dragonkind could avoid the effects of the Great Movement, so it was normal for the gods to have some means of leaving behind a handful of survivors!
"How long ago was the War of the Gods? I don't even know about the Twilight of the Gods..." Thranduil's mouth twitched. So Roland meant that these people had been holed up in some corner for several epochs? Thranduil, lacking such imagination, scoffed at the idea and felt that Roland was talking nonsense.
"..." Roland gave Thranduil a long look, only becoming more certain of his own guess. Even a "peculiar specimen" like Thranduil, born in the First Epoch, could not figure out Gandalf's circumstances. No matter how absurd it sounded, Roland's theory was the only possibility.
"I think the only person who knows the answer is King Elrond!" Thorin interrupted their conversation. Elrond had known Gandalf for a long time, and he was one of the oldest beings in Middle-earth. Thorin guessed that only he could know the truth.
"Perhaps Queen Galadriel as well! She is also an ancient being!" Roland sighed. He knew that before the First Epoch, there had been a so-called Two Trees Epoch. Gandalf and the others should have been born in that era, and the