Escaflowne: Dreams of Destiny

Escaflowne: Dreams of Destiny

Interlude: Origins

[A sentence to sum up the style of this chapter: "Meant to be helpful, ended up VERY, VERY, confusing." I'm sorry! _]

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It is strange sometimes, how when failing to look at the entire picture that Fate itself can be likened to, you will miss pieces of the puzzle that, if not present, can change the entire way that Fate is thought to happen. Every person, no matter unimportant they may seem to themselves or others, has some sort of affect on the future of every other living thing.

Only one people, one race, somehow affected Fate above all people, had the ability to wish and change and know. These had been the Atlanteans.

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The Atlanteans, indeed, had been a people that would wonder the ages. They had so much power above all civilizations on Earth, so much so that for thousands of generations, the tales of their cities and people who travel through the mouths of the Ancients.

And yet, and yet.

Even with all their legendary power, their advances in technology said to be far beyond that of today, they had still shifted to become a cursed people.

This is their story, their great people dwindling now to two.

From the very beginning, to the very end...

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A continent in the middle of a vast ocean, completely isolated from the rest of the modern world at the time, save for the few philosophers who journeyed there seeking a Nirvana of some sort, some knowledge that would put their musings to peace, or at least give them some sort of...

Knowledge. Something that they could bring back, perhaps to make their own societies just a little bit more wondrous.

In the beginning, the people of Atlantis had been kindly, willing to share their technology with anyone who would venture out to their island - waters were often treacherous and sharp rocks adorned all but two edges of the island.

It was as if no one but they were meant to know that technology at the time. Still, anyone who actually made it to their land was welcomed.

But their reverence of the people seemed to make the Atlanteans egotistical, holding themselves to be as the gods, as a deity.

The beginning of their end, truly. Once it was discovered that they alone had the power to physically make their wishes to come true, they began to get greedy.

Doing everything to somehow reach the epitome of perfection...

Flying, it seemed, was the tip of the iceberg. The idea perhaps occurred to all societies at the time, but unlike the Atlanteans, they had no real way of testing and experimenting - the capacity to believe that a machine could bring flight.

Yet, they did not need that. Surely, they had power - and they wished to fly...

And that they did.

Soon all Atlanteans had the wings, no longer just a wish, but an inherited trait...

One that could foretell their health, and their deaths. Their wings, white as the clouds, turned gray when they were ill, and pitch black close to their deaths. It had been a blessing at first, the easiest way to get around.

Funny, how soon it would become a curse.

But, in Earth time, that was 15 000 years ago.

They would continue to progress, and in the next thousand years Atlantis would continue to progress further and faster.

Surprising that all that time, through the many centuries and millennia that Atlantis simply was on Earth, it had never occurred to either the people or their leaders to conquer.

Yet they had the capacity, machines that moved in water, in air, on land by the power of a person's pendant, but those were only used to transport the sick.

That peace that they had attained, the contentedness at being at their seeming Nirvana, would soon be ripped away.

Not even their pendants could save them then...

But to understand this, it is time to delve into yet another piece of the puzzle...

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With great power comes a responsibility to find a way to use and store that power, for this force that the Atlanteans somehow possessed was physically there. If they were careless, the mere thought of something to happen could occur for the worse and it had come to their attention early on that they had to find a way to keep that power in check.

Thus came the creation of the pendants.

They were used to hold the power of each winged person at bay, and soon it was almost impossible to use the power, discounting their wings, without calling on the pendant.

It was why, after a time, foreigners soon began to try to steal the pendants... they were the power now, not the knowledge, or the people.

They still thought they were invincible.

And that was their downfall.

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To understand the Atlanteans, you had to understand the entirety of their power was used to make them... perfect. And war was not perfect.

First came the wings, then the machinery, and soon enough they ended up barricading themselves from all others, to keep that horror of battle away from them.

They began to think that Earth was no longer worthy for them, after a few millennia decided something important.

They were going to leave Earth, and create a world of their own. A world where they alone would, where nothing could corrupt them...

Where they would be safe...

It took them many years to perfect it, what exactly they wanted this world of theirs to become, and in the end... it ended up being a duplicate of Earth, hidden behind the moon, and sharing the same orbital path, so it would never truly been seen, and proved its existence, from Earth.

All was set; they would leave Earth forever, and make their departure as the end of their society, using a flood and an earthquake to destroy what might have remained of them, once they left.

But the gods had discovered their plan, and were angered... that these creations of theirs would even DARE to act as a deity, creating their own world - their own creatures!

So... keeping a close watch on them, the minute that their world was finished... they had named it 'Gaea', Latin for 'earth'... the gods, using their power, somehow froze time for 1 week, and transplanted, much like they had on Earth, people of many races, mimicking their countries, giving them some technology to start off with.

As with the animals, as with the plants.

And then time had unfrozen again.

And when the Atlanteans had arrived, the people there were already beginning the process of discovery.

They were surely angry at this fact; all they had wished was to get away from a world where war was an outcome more possible than any!

But the Atlanteans were not killers, were not a people that would massacre others to fulfill their wishes, even if it weren't by their hands.

These people were on their New World already so...

Let them be there.

They created a Gateway, one that would lead to their... home, and placed into a barren valley. So that no one would think to bother them, they transplanted the idea in their heads, those of the 'normal' people, that they were cursed, that all who looked upon a winged person would die.

They grew to hate the Atlanteans, the people of Gaea.

But the creators of Gaea still wished to protect the people... they had impossibly began to think of them as their children, in a way.

This spurred on the creation of the keys.

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The society was dying, only four millennia after they had arrived, and their isolation had proved their demise.

Their one last task had been to create the last tool of destiny aside from the only pendant remaining (the others were destroyed in making of the last tool).

The Gateway of Absolution, and the three Keys that would open it, each made of a different material - gold, silver, and jewel.

It would not appear until a war had actually broken out, and then only to stop it. It had the power to seal off a world, and to banish all ill will...

For a time, anyway. There had been no way to test it, and no reason to.

They had left this sacred information in the hands of their last descendant...

Varie... the first Atlantean to leave the Mystic Valley, following her destiny as being the one who alone would carry along their line...

And when the right time came, inform the Keeper of their duties.

There was only one problem.

The Keeper had to be an Atlantean, or a Draconian, as they were known on Gaea. And it was seen in the stars, that far long in the past, that it could not be the children of Varie... they already had purposes.

But there had been two of their race that had somehow returned, against the wishes of the elders. They were on Earth.

Their descendant would be the Keeper.

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FORGIVE ME!!!!

This is a VERY crappy chapter, even though RiverDolphin assures me it will turn out all right. Thank you SOOO much to her, being a great new friend, and allowing me to bounce ideas for both this story, and my webpage off her. YOU ROCK!

Please review. PLEASE? I'm not sure how long the next one will take, but it'll be lots better than this, I promise.

Signed,

Angelic1090
07.14.2001