You don't know very much about me, do you?
It's not too surprising, really: me and mine are
mysteries wrapped up in enigmas, every one of us. Our
name is not spoken in our old homes, and our enemies -
on both sides - have never been really able to
understand us. If the Symphony could be perceived
visually - as a map, as you will - we would be the
blanks spots on it, or perhaps even the place Where
Dragons Be.
I remember dragons. Some of them were wonderful
creatures, you know: wise and full of their own wild
music. Trust a Malakite to be tone deaf, of course.
You know, I think that that's what started the entire
trouble. The Malakim were never meant to be in the
first place, and they've spent their existence being a
half step behind the rest of the orchestra. It must
be maddening, to know that you don't fit in anywhere.
Of course, it must be even more maddening to encounter
those that were created to counterpoint your
existence. We fit in everywhere.
No, we do. As angels, we were at home in Heaven: as
the Choir closest to humans, we can live on the
corporeal plane and drink in its Song without missing
a beat. Even the ethereal plane holds no sense of
unfamiliarity to us. Our unique nature allows us to
move in it as a celestial yet experience it as a
human. There is no place where we are not at home -
save Hell, of course. We save that familiarity for
the blackwings.
What? There are no Malakim in Hell? Strictly
speaking, no: but they could live there without
trouble. A Malakite is as close as an angel can come
to embracing the concept of forcing one's own views of
the world upon it without Falling. Or perhaps they
all did, and never noticed. Hell has demons who think
that they are angels: the potential symmetry is
interesting, don't you think?
But this isn't about the Malakim (and, truth be told,
some are able to transcend their nature), it's about
me, and my Choir. It is painful to admit that the
primary charge against us was correct: we did
interbreed among humanity, and we did have children
that could not handle the pressures of being both
angel and man. We were all very young then, and we
didn't always know what we were doing. Punishment was
merited.
But not what was given to us. The books tell of the
our Outcasting: what it does not speak of was the
machinations necessary to justify sending off an
entire Choir to quite possibly die. There were
Grigori that never visited Earth, Grigori that chose
chastity, even Grigori that had fledged the very day
of the final decision (and I will make very sure that
they, at least, are avenged)... in short, there were
Grigori that did not deserve their sentence, and yet
they were sent away with the rest of us.
And then the killing started. This has been touched
upon, in other places: suffice it to say that we were
horribly at risk for a long time. We are not
completely safe, even now.
But, enough about ancient history: you wish to know
about me. I am ... Song. Such a simple Word to
encompass such a grand concept. From the start, I
have seen myself as a continual praise to the glory
and wonder that is God. That's what the first songs
were, you know: hymns. All angels are hymns to God
(although most Malakim could use a drastic rewrite),
of course, but I am a hymn stripped of all extraneous
notes and flourishes. The fact that I am in the
wilderness, so to speak, merely means that I can be
louder.
No, I am not complex, except in the way that humans
are complex. To use the phrase of a recent mortal, I
have a barbaric yawp, and I quite enjoy expressing it.
There was Song before there was Music (although
Israfel's elevation is, in my opinion, long overdue),
and I reflect that.
Much is made of the fact that, as Song, I must have
some special interaction with the Symphony: that I can
bind and loose it at will. Well, it's been a while,
so I'm not surprised that they've gotten it completely
backwards. I do not act on the Symphony: the Symphony
acts on me. I do not cause disturbance because
everything I do is dictated by the needs of the
Symphony. I am not its brains: I am its hands ... and
I cannot act contrary to myself. I - and now my
Choir, and to a lesser extent our children - are the
tools that soothe the jangled notes caused by others.
You scoff, now. There aren't enough of us to handle
such a job, surely. No, I'm not reading your mind:
it's been said before. Consider this: if what I say
is true, how could anyone see us? Celestials are
quite often tracked by the disturbance that they
inflict on the world: we do nothing of the sort, and
so we are invisible. Anyone you pass on the street
could be Grigori, safe inside her proper place in the
Symphony and immune to your prying senses.
But our numbers would have dwindled over the millennia
and never replenished? That no new Grigori could be
created outside of Heaven? Well, that hasn't stopped
Eli, has it... but I speak too much of this, as well.
I will leave you with one final thought, one more hint
to our purpose. When God created the Grigori, he must
have known what would happen to us, and yet he did it
anyway. This is either evidence of His cruelty - and
no one who has felt the major chords of the universe
flow through his soul like I have could ever believe
that God is cruel - or it was a necessary move to
protect the universe from itself. Heaven and Hell
have spent so much time fighting each other since then
that they forget to look at the quiet places. The
Grigori have learned to be quiet.
But our voices will rejoin the chorus, someday soon,
and what a Song that will be, come the Day...
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