AN: Ookay, I encountered some confusion about Vivian's identity at the end of the last chapter, which I expected, so here's a basic rundown.

Morgoth screwed up creation, and tempted Mankind to evil. Men, of our own free will, fell to temptation and disobeyed Eru, thereby bringing judgment down on ourselves so that we have bodies that wear out and die. In short, it's all screwed up, and it's mostly our fault. We were created to "heal" the wrong that Morgoth had done in creation, and instead, we only made it worse. So creation could never become the amazing perfect thing it was supposed to, and everything is pointless and hopeless.

But there's the Old Hope, (that is, the Old Estel) which says that one day, the Creator Himself will enter his creation and heal it all, and bring about Arda Remade/Healed. The Elves of Middle-earth look forward to this in the future. But remember, Vivian and Katie are from the future, from our time. And by our time, this thing has already happened. Vivian has already begun to be healed, and is becoming part of Arda Healed/Remade. Katie has not. Read on to discover more.

Katie shook her head as if she had water in her ears. "Wait. What? Ilúvatar came into creation? When did that happen, and why didn't I notice?"

Vivian grinned as she wiped away tears. "It happened two thousand years ago, Honey. None of us were born yet."

Katie frowned. Two thousand years…

Suddenly it was all clear, and she realized what they had really been talking about for the past few weeks. For a moment, her brain refused to function, caught in shock. When she came back to the present, Elrohir was speaking, his voice awed.

"But how is it you are Remade, and Katie is not? You are completely human, and yet not so. But Katie is just like every other human we know. How can that be, if Ilúvatar healed His creation?"

"Because I never believed," Katie said slowly and softly. "I heard about it, but I'm not sure I ever really got it before, and I never really believed it." She smiled a little strangely. "I had no estel; I didn't believe or trust in Ilúvatar. I had no faith in him."

"Do you have faith in him now?" Elrohir asked her quietly.

She put her hands over her face and rubbed her eyes. "I don't know yet," she answered truthfully.

"And how is it that you say Arda is Remade, and you are Remade?" Elrohir asked, turning to Vivian. "The world is still running down to an end; I saw as much when I visited in your time. It is still dying. And you are still human, though you are a new creation, as well."

Vivian nodded. "My body is going to die. I was born human, born to death and decay, and that death and decay will still come to pass. It is the same for Nature. But I will be given a new body; I will be resurrected. And so will the creation. That is what I said to you when you were in despair in our time. I and Nature will die, only to be reborn and remade.

"And we have proof, even here in this time, that it will be Remade. How could Humans glimpse the New Creation in the old, if it did not exist? Arda Remade is timeless, just as Ilúvatar is, without beginning or end. Though it was created at a certain point in history, it was created eternal, and so we do not glimpse a limited future when we glimpse it; we see that which already is, was, and yet will be."

Erestor still looked puzzled. "Finrod and Andreth wondered how the Creator could enter the creation, if he was eternal and it was limited. He would be too large for it. They recognized that his spirit was all through it—the Flame Imperishable—and also outside of it, but how could he actually enter it?"

Katie suddenly had a mental image of God writing himself as a self-insertion into a piece of fanfiction and had to choke back a laugh. She was in a very strange mood at the moment…

"Eru, the One, is in three persons," Vivian said matter-of-factly. "The creator, Ilúvatar; the spirit, the Flame Imperishable; and Eru who enters his creation, the Savior. Ilúvatar isn't the Flame Imperishable, the Flame isn't the Savior, and the Savior isn't Ilúvatar, but they're all Eru."

Erestor nodded. "That makes sense."

"No it doesn't," Katie said with a little laugh.

Erestor smiled at her. "It works with what we know of Ilúvatar and the Flame, so in that way, it does make sense." He paused. "And if no one in Arda can truly understand it, it seems to me that there are two choices: either it is nonsense, or it is something that is true, and we are simply too limited to comprehend it. If there is any truth in it, then we can see that it was not made up by anyone in Arda, because they would invent something that made sense, not something that sounded like nonsense. Logically, it does indeed make sense."

Katie shook her head again with a smile. "I think I'll try to figure out what you just said when I've got a couple of hours to devote to it."

"How did the Savior heal Arda?" Elrohir wanted to know. "Did he come in and reform it, vanquishing the evil within it?"

Vivian squinted. "Not quite. Honestly," she said with a little chuckle, "I don't really know how it works. He became a Man; his spirit was knit to human flesh. That's the incarnation. He became an incarnate, one of the Children of Ilúvatar, just like us." She indicated all of them, Elves and Humans alike. "Then, He died." Erestor and Elrohir looked horrified at this pronouncement. But Vivian followed it up. "He experienced death, in the same terrible way all humans now experience it. But Ilúvatar raised him from the dead."

"That has happened before," Erestor pointed out. "Beren was sent back from the dead."

"But he died again, didn't he?" Vivian answered. "But the Savior never died again. When he was resurrected, he came back with an entirely new kind of body. He came back in the way humans were originally, with their spirits perfectly matched to their bodies. And he ascended out of Arda—he 'left Arda, and took his body with him!'" she exclaimed, using Katie's words. They all laughed. "In the combination of those four things, he somehow healed Arda and made it possible for Men to be healed. I don't understand how it works. I don't need to. I just need to know that it does work. I don't know how the channel changes on my TV when I press the button, I just need to know that I can press the button and the channel will change. I just need to know that I can turn to the Savior, and my own channel will change."

They were all quiet for awhile, thinking. Katie realized her hands were shaking, and she watched them with abstracted fascination.

She heard Elrohir take a deep breath, and looked up at him. He was staring into space, thinking hard. "That was the reason," he said to himself.

"What?"

He turned to Katie with an amazed smile on his face. "The reason you were sent to our time," he clarified. "It wasn't just to saved Estel's life, or to protect Rivendell. It was for this conversation." Katie frowned at him, and he turned more fully toward her to explain.

"You came to Rivendell and stayed with us, and got to know us. Then you did something you were supposed to do here, and went back to your own time. But who can say that was the only purpose for which you were brought? Because we got to know you, we were taken to your time, and I was depressed by the decay I saw around us. Because of that, you took me to meet Vivian. We saved her life, and so were returned to Rivendell. Then you were brought back to Rivendell in exactly the right time and place to find the marker, and saved Rivendell. But between finding the marker and using it, you learned much more about the world and about creation. Then, when Vivian came, that and my own visit to your time led us to the realization that we were both from the same world, and that led to reading the Athrabeth…"

Katie leaned back in her chair and put her hand on her head as if she were trying keep her brains from jumping ship. She was too amazed to speak. He was right; everything had led up to this, to this moment and this conversation. This had been the point of everything all along.

Vivian began to laugh, and laughed until the tears rolled down her face. Erestor only smiled and shook his head in amazement. "'Yes, Wise-woman,'" he quoted, "'maybe it was ordained that we Elves and ye Humans, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods we should not be wholly afraid.' Our hands have touched in the darkness."

TBC

AN: I know that chapter was short, but it was important, and I wanted it to stand on its own. I'm already working on the next chapter, so you won't have to wait long for it. But honestly, this chapter and one before are the very center of this entire series of stories. They're the most important part, and they will be major to the plot later on, so I hope nobody is just ignoring them because there's no action.

Ravens Destiny: Hope your new job is going well!

Laer4572: Mmmnope. Eru is the only one who can fix it, and he already has.

IwishChan: I hope you get it now? Please ask if you don't, and I can be more specific. :)

Madd Hatter: Thank you for taking the time to read it again to get it! Makes me feel happy. lol Yep, stupid Morgoth, and stupid us! It's mostly our fault, really…

Redone: Well, it's all directly from Tolkein's Athrabeth, I just put it together with our own time to point a couple of things out. It's all right there in the Tolkein canon.

theycallmemary: Nope, because Katie never believed it. Remember, the Elves sensed that Vivian was different than Katie. —grins very widely— I am happy to be able to tell you, it is indeed all true! Maybe the Elves existed and maybe they didn't, but all the philosophy is true. Pretty freakin awesome, huh? All the info comes from the Athrabeth, and the ideas from that came from the Bible. The little bits I added myself for explanation mostly come from C S Lewis, who of course got his stuff from the Bible, too. In chapter 14 ("The Grand Miracle") from Lewis's work Miracles, Lewis actually discusses, if there are other intelligent races out there in the universe, how they fit into redemption. It's fascinating. If you get any more confused, please ask! My email's on the bio page, if you want to correspond. The action is coming then, I promise. Katie's brain needs a rest from the philosophy as much as yours does!. :) Nope, Viv's not like the Valar. And yes, I've read about the music magic. It's fascinating, but it does sound like a bit of a pain in the butt to perform.

Please review, and ask if you're confused! Hugs all around! (And if you don't want one from the author, I'm sure the Elves will be happy to oblige.)