Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
NOTE: A Greek Tragedy is the tragic outcome as a result of a character's personal flaws. They're doomed from the outset, no matter what they try to do.
"The woman in my dream told me the others are one of the great races," Elin said. "How did mortals become a great race?"
"We were designated a great race by one of the great races long ago. The four great races were the Ancients, Asgards, Furlings and Nox; however, the Ancients were the first great race and they awoke well over 60 million years ago and very far away from here. It was the Asgards who designated humans the fifth great race shortly after we met them. The Ancients, Nox and Furlings became so great and powerful, they could no longer walk among us and had to leave; and the women who spoke to you in your dreams is an Ancient," Corrina answered.
Elin nodded her head.
"You're not from here," Balin said. "Where are you from?"
"We come from a place that's very far away from here and we're much older than you," Corrina answered.
"Why are you older than we are?" Eleanor asked, sitting next to her father.
"Captain Carmen Sanchez will tell you the short version of why we were awaken before any of you," Corrina answered.
Captain Sanchez walked over to the table on the Colonel's order and sat next to him and introduced herself. "I'm going to tell you the reason why we were awaken first – and everything goes back to the beginning. Before there was anything or anyone, there was only the Lord God, who's the Supreme Being and the Creator of all things. The Lord God lives in a place we call heaven, which means a high holy place; and the first children he created were the angels who live with Him in heaven and they're His helpers. The word angel means Messenger of God, and they're pure spirits without bodies, and that's what makes them different from us, among other things. In the beginning..., and therein ends Book 1 of the Books of Genesis. The angels came in Book 2 of the Books of Genesis, and we came in Book 3 of the Books of Genesis. The Lord God also said: I am the Alpha and the Omega – which means, I am the beginning and the end. The words Alpha and Omega are Greek, and Alpha means, the beginning and Omega means, the end. The word angel also comes the Greek which means, messenger," Sanchez told them.
"What is Greek?" Eleanor asked with a confused look on her face.
"Greek is one of the many languages on our world and it's spoken by the Greeks who live in Greece – it's also the first language he spoke. What happened here it what we call a Greek Tragedy; and in fact, this whole place has been has been nothing but a Greek Tragedy. That means, the outcome was always fated to happened – long before creation itself," Corrina answered.
xxx
"After we awoke..., and their Father told them we'll surpass them in wisdom and knowledge one day; and they forgot their Father heard their scorn and ridicule of his creation – and we took the brunt of their hated and mockery," Sanchez told them. "Shortly thereafter, the Lord went after his fallen son...and then the devil said something he ought never had said, and that's when heaven shook to its very core with the angry and Wrath of God; and He told the angels: I am going to shake the nations. When those loud trumpets blew in heaven, the anger and the Wrath of God came down on the devil's head and He sent Michael after him – and He had a few nasty surprises in store for the angels. Afterwards, a loud voice said in heaven..."
"And one of those nasty surprises was made for the angels long before they were created. Apparently they forgot who they were dealing with and how small they really are, and He reminded them by putting His fist in their faces, and He brought them howling to their knees," Sgt. Williams said with a grin on his face.
A few people laughed, including the Colonel.
"The nasty words the devil spoke to his Father had nothing to do with us, but were directed at Him – and no one says that to the Lord. We know what he said, but even we'll never repeat those words. The devil's hatred for his Father is so great, he thought he could say anything to Him, but he found out otherwise," Sanchez said.
"The rebellious angels turned their nastiness on their Father. They started with us, and then they turned around and did the same thing to Him. Now you know what He meant when He said: if you do it to the least of my kind, you will do it to me, and they did it to him," Corrina told them.
xxx
"After the devil was hurled to earth like lighting, His Father told him why He punished him the first time, and then said to him: Thus, sayeth the Lord God, You were in Eden, the Garden of God, and on the holy mountain of God...until iniquity was found in you and you sinned; and by the multitude of your iniquities and the unrighteousness of your trade you were filled with violence, and so I cast you as a profane thing from the holy mountain of God and to the ground. I exposed you before kings so they could feast their eyes on you; and all who know you among the people are appalled at you. You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever. There's a lot more to that speech and story, but I only told you why he was sent to us as his punishment, and he's ours until the end, but his Father will only allow him to do so much and has a boot on his neck.
When the Lord sent the angel Raphael to us, he told us... His father also told him to put the angels in Choirs so we could better under the hierarchy of the angels; and we're to never give deference to any angel and they're never to take it from any of us. The word choir means, group of singers, and that's how we identify them. Raphael also told us that the devil was coming after us..., and when he did that, his Father told him He was going to send a woman to crush him with her heal, and He did," Sanchez told them.
"What did the Lord mean when He said He was going to shake the nations?" Balin asked.
"The nations are heaven and earth, and He shook heaven with his anger and wrath and by the changes he made afterwards; He shook it again after many angels left Heaven and went to earth to bother us many years later. He shook earth when He sent the devil to us; and He shook it again when He destroyed our world, along with us," Sanchez answered.
The Atani gasped.
"And He shook the nations," Corrina said. "The angels didn't know how terrible the Lord could be, until he showed them – and He went nuclear on them. He always knew they were going to be His biggest problem, and they were. We also paid dearly for all their sins."
"The devil is a strange name," Haldor said.
"That's the name his Father gave him after he punished him and that's what everyone calls him now, including his brothers and sisters. That name means, Adversary of God, and he's his Father's adversary and only He can deal with him," Sanchez replied.
"Why was your world destroyed?" Delmar asked wide-eyed.
"We can only tell you that after many angels left heaven and went to earth, they did something, but what, we don't know. By the time we sent our plea to Michael in heaven, earth was in ruin and most of us were dead. Michael told his Father..., and then the Lord sent Raphael to heal our world from the marring, and Raphael proclaimed it to us afterwards. The Lord sent Enoch, a man, to pronounce the angels' dooms to them. When they saw Enoch walk up to them, they shook, and through Enoch their Father spoke to them. That one-sided conversation was all about the doom they had just laid on their brothers and sisters, and He was angry, and denied their request – and they sat down in the desert and wept. Enoch then returned home and pronounced our doom to us.
...and the Lord opened what we call God's cauldron, and Raphael did his Father's Will. Then the Lord personally snatched up the leader of the rebellion with his hand – and we call that the Hand of God. Michael was sent after the rest of them, and when he came down from heaven he had a very long chain in his hands; and then the earth opened and he bound his fallen brothers in the earth until the end. After that the Lord laid a doom on the angels, which is forever, and it's big one. Michael and seven others escaped the doom, but we don't know who the other seven are. Our doom came a hundred years later, but before that, all the written evidence of what the angels did was destroyed in a fire and not one piece of parchment remained. Then our doom was upon us, and the Wrath of God came down on our heads, and He destroyed our world – with us on it – except the ones He chose to live so we could start over again.
Earth not only had to be healed from the marring, but also cleansed; that's why the Lord destroyed our world with water. That hard hand came at us and it was devastating. It was a dead world, and nothing or no one was left alive, and there was no sound of life anywhere on earth, except the weeping of the men, women and children who survived. You never want to see what He can do, and if anyone was alive who knew what the angels did – none lived to tell the tale. He wiped out all the evidence of their great sin and began again, and so did we," Sanchez answered.
"Their hatred for us finally caught up with them," Sgt. Williams said. "Now the angels need a permission slip from their Father to leave heaven and they have go through one of the Powers, who're now in charge of guarding all the access ways to and from Heaven. The Lord made the Powers so resolute they can never fall, and they were created during the devil's rebellion. The Powers and two other angels, who were created after the rebellion – God's Angry and God's Wrath – are now the boot their Father has on all their necks."
"Earth also turned out to be the angels' prison, including the Devil's, and they can never leave it. The ones that fell with the Devil are imprisoned in hell and there's an angel standing guard between them and us, because they're very close to earth." Sanchez told them. "We know what the Lord did to them and He hurt them. They're all in great pain and agony and they wish for death. We also know what's going to happen to them at the end, and it's going to be much worse, and that'll be forever," Sanchez told them.
"We have the names of all the Captains who fell in both of those rebellions and the Choirs they were in, but we can't pronounce their names – though they're written in our language. The name we have for the leader of the second rebellion and the devil had to be translated for us so we could pronounce them, but it's not the same name they had in heaven. Raphael used to have a different name, but his Father changed it because he was going to be dealing with us. The name Raphael means God's Healer, that's why his Father sent him to heal our world from the marring," Corrina said.
"Now you know why we were awaken well over a million years ago and far away from here," Sanchez told them.
xxx
"What are the Seals the Lord made in beginning?" Haldor asked.
"Those Divine Seals have to do with Divine Retribution, Divine Judgment, Divine Warnings and the Wrath of God,, and when those Seals were opened in heaven after men awoke on earth, and all the fallen angels' dooms were at hand. A few of those Seals can apply anywhere and to everyone – just ask the angels. The way the Lord punished the angels is written in Greek mythology. In Greek mythology they're 14 gods – 7 males and 7 females – who're known as the Olympians and they live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in the world. One of the Greek gods is Hades, who's name means, the unseen, and he's the god of the dead and the underworld. The angels from the second rebellion are now bound in the underworld on earth and we call that Hades – and no one can escape from Hades," Corrina answered.
"There's another place in Greek mythology called Tartarus, which is far below the underworld; and it's a deep dark abyss used for torment and suffering, and that's where the gods were sent, for which they could never escape. Cronus, the worse and most vile of all the Greek gods was thrown into Tartarus; and Hades also sent the truly wicked men and women to Tartarus. The angels that fell with the devil are in hell, which is very similar to Tartarus, but much, much worse. Tartarus is also a deity and the first entity in Greek mythology, from which light and the cosmos was born. When the Lord was making heaven and earth, he also made hell – and He opened hell after the devil said those nasty words," Sgt. Williams told them.
"And their places were found no more in heaven," Sanchez said.
"That's what the Lord saw in the beginning: The Fall of the Angels," Corrina replied.
"A Greek Tragedy," Elin said nodding her head in understanding.
xxx
Eleanor asked about the Greek gods and Captain Sanchez answered her questions. She also explained how Greek civilization influenced the rest of their world.
"I was thinking about what you said about those Seals, Colonel," Sanchez said. "The Fifth Seal has to do with Divine Retribution. Those souls are asking for God's vengeance for what was done to them; and I found the answer very interesting and realized that's why we're here. We're not only here to avenge our fellow humans, but God's other children who were killed by the white light over the many ages."
"What do you mean?" Haldor asked surprised.
"Vengeance is in God's time and not ours," Corrina answered. "The white light's doom is now at hand because of what it did to men on this world – and God's vengeance will be terrible – and that's going to be done through us."
"Your weapons," Haldor said, nodding his head.
"Yes, and those weapons are far beyond anything you can ever imagine, and they were made long ago by the gods themselves," Corrina answered.
xxx
"Why did the angels hate mortals?" Balin asked.
"We're like oil and water and we don't mix. That means our differences are so great we'll never find any common ground to build upon. The reason the Lord told us not to give deference to any angel is because he knew we never would, and we never have. We also don't think they're better than we are, and their Father had to silence them three times concerning us," Corrina answered. "The word deference means, humble submission, respect, esteem or reverence. We see them only as messengers and nothing else."
"They also think differently than we do and they can't communicate with us. The angel Raphael was the first person we met who wasn't like us, and we were never in awe of him, his abilities or who he is; and we were the first race he met that was different from himself. He had no problem telling us what his Father told him to tell us and answering our questions. He then paused and told us he was having difficulty in trying to convey his thoughts to us because we think differently, and he couldn't translate his thoughts to how we think – until his Father told him how to say what he was thinking so we could understand," Sanchez told them.
"The nasty words the devil spoke is written in our language. When I read it I found it very confusing and didn't understand what he said; and the only thing I understood was when he was talking himself. The translation is written at the bottom, but it took a religious scholar to explain further what he meant. Their speech is very different from ours and they have a hard time explaining themselves to us. Raphael did the same thing. By that I mean he started to tell us one thing, but didn't complete his thought and told us something else; and I realized then that they have no clue what a conjunction is. Conjunctions are a part of speech that connects words, phrases and sentences," Corrina told them.
"They were never taught proper grammar sir, and not one of them knows what a verb, adverb, noun, pronounce, subject, adjective, conjunction or participle is. If you asked them what they are, they wouldn't know what you're talking about," Sgt. Williams said. "That's the reason their Father always has to tell them what to say and how to say it."
"Point taken Sargent," Corrina replied.
"The angels don't sound very nice and I don't like them, and I'm glad I'm not one of them," Eleanor said.
The others agreed with Eleanor.
Colonel Corrina then told them why they brought the wagons.
xxx
Valinor - The Ring of Doom
When the others arrived Ulmo informed the Valar from his waters and they listened, along with their Maiar attendants, to the conversation between the Atani and the others, who're mortals like the Atani.
"I thought our brother was the worse Ainu," Tulkas said.
"We just found out he isn't," Aulë replied.
"The devil's rebellion changed everything in the Timeless Halls, and Atar created the Timeless Halls, earth and hell at the same time, and that was before he created any Ainu; and the words the devil spoke were the cause of the fall of the Timeless Halls."
"It seems our brother's discord in the Music was much greater than we thought," Irmo said.
"I agree, and there was a great deal of variance in the Music and we now know the result," Aulë replied.
"I suspect what the devil did had ramifications far beyond what they told the Atani," Irmo said.
"It did, and we only heard the short version of both of those stories. We know the Powers' Choir was created during the rebellion and unlike the rest of us, they can never fall; and neither can the other two Ainur – Atar's Angry and Atar's Wrath. Atar was never going to have a repeat of that again," Ulmo replied. "We also heard that the first language Atar spoke was Greek and the reasons why, and the word the humans from earth call us also comes from the Greek language."
"They'll have the devil until the end," Tulkas said.
"It's his doom," Námo replied.
"The devil's actions also brought the Wrath of Atar down on all of the Ainur in the Timeless Halls, and many cried out in pain and bleed, the same way Atar's other children do," Oromë said.
"It was one of the nasty surprises Atar had in store for the Ainur. We didn't understand what Atar meant when He told us death is a gift; but the Ainur who rebelled now understand what that means, and they wish for death to end their torment," Aulë replied.
None of the Ainur could image what that could be.
"We thought the Ainur loved men," Vairë said.
"Atar knew many would not. Some tried to kill them shortly after they awoke; and we'll never know how Atar felt when some of our brothers and sisters ridiculed his creation, and then turned and did the same to Him. We'll also never know what our fallen brothers did on earth, and Atar made sure men will never find out; and what they did is far worse than anything our brother has done on Arda," Ulmo replied.
"They never mentioned the Music," Olórin said.
"Our brother Raphael didn't tell them about the music," Nienna replied. "The Books of Genesis is their written history of the creation of the Timeless Halls, their world, the Ainur and themselves. They came in the third Book of Genesis, which corresponds with the Third Theme of the Music. We could never explain the Music to the Atani, or the other humans unless Atar told us how, because of the way thy think and understand things, which is beyond our understanding and Atar knows that. That's why He had to tell our brother how to interpret his thoughts so they could understand what he was trying to tell them – and we just learned that the way we speak is very confusing to them."
"They're speaking Quenya," Nessa said.
"That's not the Quenya the elves speak, but we understood most of what they were saying, but not all of it. The Atani don't speak Quenya, yet they understood what the other mortals were telling them. We and the Atani were hearing different languages, and I suspect that has something to do with one of their strange things," Aulë replied.
"I concur," Ulmo said.
xxx
"The men from earth think we hate them," Eönwë said.
"The Ainur were the cause of their world being destroyed, along with themselves; Atar had to silence the Ainur in the Timeless Halls concerning them on more than one occasion, and those rebellious Ainur were the cause of a great doom to be laid on us. Our doom is forever Eönwë, whereas their doom was only temporary, albeit very devastating for them, as we heard. The Ainur's hatred for men and the Doom of the Ainur were sung into the Great Music, and Atar knew that. Atar also knew the Ainur sung in the discord between men and the Ainur, which will last until the end; and also the strife between the Ainur and some of the Eldar, which will never be repaired. None of us knew the full implications of the Great Music until today, and men were the first ones Atar told because it concerned them. Men on earth got all the fallen Ainur from those rebellions in the Timeless Halls; and they told the Atani that everything Atar did in the beginning was aimed at the devil and not our brother on Arda. Atar had already made their prisons in the beginning, and that's one of the reasons those access ways are open. We can never again think of the Timeless Halls without thinking about earth, because they're joined together. The Eldar got all our love and men got all our hate – which is indeed a Greek Tragedy," Nienna replied.
"Even the Atani don't like us after hearing what the Ainur did to their fellow humans on earth Eönwë," Ulmo told him.
xxx
"The humans from earth found the Atani who were taken by the white light," Yavanna said.
"They also found them in a another part of Eä," Vairë replied.
"How did the Atani go beyond the circles of the world?" Vairë's Maia Attendant asked.
"The same way the other humans do, and the Atani leaving Arda will do so in the same manner," Námo answered, but didn't know how that was done.
"We learned that the white light is very old and difficult to kill and that the humans from earth are counted among the great races. They've risen to great heights – far beyond the Eldar – and it's one of the Ancients who's protecting the Atani and she can see what we can't, but we don't know how," Aulë said.
"She wasn't suppose to interfere," Vána said.
"Yet, she did, because of her great love for humans," Nienna replied.
"We came to make a home for the children," Olórin said.
"The majority of the Atani are dead Olórin, and the remaining few are leaving Arda for their own safety. There'll be no shadow, Ainur or elves where they're going; and they and their children will never have to worry about our brother or the white light ever again," Ulmo replied.
"The Atani are not bound to Arda and they can leave any time they wish," Námo told them.
"The white light wasn't in the Music," Estë said.
"The Vision Atar showed us didn't reveal everything – and the white light concerns men and Atar's other children," Nienna replied.
"I wonder who are the gods are and how such powerful and terrible weapons came into the hands of men?" Aulë asked.
"It was Atar's Will," Ulmo answered.
xxx
Two Weeks Later
When Elin and Balin's folk arrived their mouths dropped when they saw the stargate, as the Colonel told them it was called; and he told them other things while they were in route to their destination.
Delmar, Eleanor and many of the other children stared at the stargate and wondered how it worked, and Eleanor smiled when she saw the look on Delmar's face. "It's so big," Delmar said wide-eyed and noticed the soldiers smiling at them.
"Some of the soldiers are women," a young boy said when he walked up to Delmar and Eleanor.
"Yes they are," Eleanor said looking at him with a hard glare and smiled when he turned and run away. When Eleanor turned around she saw the female soldiers smiling at her and one winked at her. Eleanor returned the smile and knew then she wanted to be a soldier when she grew up.
The next morning Elin and Balin were escorted to their new home, and after they returned they reported their findings to their people.
"The woman in your dream was right Elin," Balin said to her during dinner that evening under the stars on Gaia.
"She was watching over us and I'll like to meet her one day and thank her," Elin replied smiling.
"Maybe one day you will Elin," Balin said also smiling.
Elin looked around and knew she was safe, and her heart lifted.