SPECIAL EVENT: The Flower Oracle

[polymods]

✖ Meet The Oracle

A low thrumming sound builds in the background noise of the raised village, starting so softly that it would be easy to mistake it for the ever present hummingbirds. It keeps building slowly, somehow managing to be both a sound and to bypass the ear as it hums in the bones. The local Temple Guardians bump heads and brush against each other, quietly affirming their bond as they divide their duties: one staying with the local Temple and the other winding through the paths of the village down to the bud of the Flower Oracle in its place of honor in the city center.

The villagers stop what they’re doing, not quite in a panic, but their speed is deliberate and definite. They gather things on their way, flower wreaths, fish, beautiful food, sharp knives, until everyone has something in their arms. There is an ecstatic tension in the air, after all, the time has come when these people will yet again see substantial proof of their god, and it seems they have forgotten all about the Travelers who might have joined them. There is plenty of room for everyone to gather in a circle around the green bud that has grown even larger.

The thrum rises until it is hard to breathe, until some of the structures around begin to groan in the onslaught, and then it stops, suddenly. In the vacuum of silence, there is a wet and meaty sound as the bud begins to open, a first hint of things that look like red lips and white teeth. A canny Traveler might be forgiven for running at that point. The visceral sound of the splitting, of this birthing, continues as the bud splits, then splits again as the four sepals fall open, exposing an inner surface that glistens red and is lined at the edges with white sharp growths that may be fangs. The villagers ignore the implicit threat. They have eyes only for the structure in the middle.

Who can blame them? Translucent petals form a breathing tower, curled tight and perfect as a seashell. A glow pulses like a heartbeat as the petals slowly unfurl, collapsing elegantly to reveal the Oracle and provide protection against the threat of the sepals. The Flower Oracle is beautiful, glowing, soft and round. She is initially surrounded by four guards, each masculine and clearly dangerous, but they move aside to leave a clear path. The villagers line up with their sacrifices, and there is ritual patience in the act. Everyone will have their time with the Oracle, and anyone must be allowed their time alone within the petals.

Notes:
Characters who wish to approach the oracle need to respond to the thread titled ‘Meet the Oracle’. After they get their response, they can post a separate reaction thread to play out some of the consequences of the event.

Responses to the Oracle Thread should include: a short description of their IC reaction/actions, a description of what they bring for a sacrifice, and their question for the ancient. Villagers will have let them know that traditional options include: fish, flowers, art, blood, secrets, or memories. Characters/players may come up with their own sacrifices. Please include a note if the character helped decorate the local temple this month.

WARNING: Contacting the Oracle may result in negative IC results for characters, and there is a degree of randomness in how the mods assign results.

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Comments

Meet the Oracle

[polymods]

Welcome Traveler and greet the Flower Oracle - and take your chances reaching out to the Ancient. In order to speak with the Oracle, please post a reply before Midnight PST on July 18 with the following information:

✖ Your character's general reaction to the events

✖ Your character's sacrifice

✖ Your character's question for the Flower Oracle

✖ (Optional) If/how your character chose to decorate the local temple this month

David Alleyne

[helpdesk_hero]

Anticipation. That's what David had been feeling about the idea of an Oracle since the very moment they had been told it was possible. Stories of answers had left him hungry to find more. Peace had found him on the island before, save for the anticipation. Enough peace that he had taken moments throughout the time to gather flowers to make garlands to help decorate the temple. It had given him inner peace that melted away now with the blooming, the anticipation overwhelming him.

Seeing the thing didn't even drive David away from prospect of answers, though. He'd helped conquer death gods, he's investigated the memories and knowledge of a nearly omniscient being, and he'd nearly been eaten by an inter-dimensional parasite. This? This is simpler.

When it was his turn David stepped forward head bowed, and offered his hand out. Blood would be his sacrifice. What could possibly be more fitting for the question he had to ask? He held himself firm and thoughtful, trying not to flinch away from what he might learn.

"Is there a way to get back the memories the last world I was in back? I want the memories of my sister back."

Deadpool

[what_fourth_wall]

Deadpool stares at the spectacle of the flower opening and birthing the Oracle. The noisy thrum it makes does make him grit his teeth - one consequence of regeneration was that while his senses weren't super, they were more sensitive. The ear will deaden to enough sound in self defense, and sometimes permanently so if the sound causes lasting damage. But he didn't get that benefit.

He grit his teeth for another reason too, this one more psychological. It was no secret that Deadpool had been railing against the authority of this place. In every awful way he knew how, he'd pushed at the boundaries. Hell, he'd even made moves to murder someone to see if death was real here (it wasn't - it wasn't real anywhere, he was a comic book character, he knew this). Now he came face to face with one of the authority figures here - someone who was responsible for him being in this place and failing all of these tests. Perhaps he should be scared of the consequences, but he wasn't. He just wanted the Ancient to answer for herself. This was the person behind the curtain, or one of them.

Also she's beautiful. Jaw-droppingly so. For more than one perverse moment, he wanted to change his question to ask if she'd ever slept with any travelers just to see what she said. Most likely, people never asked that. They wanted bigger questions. It would probably throw her off her game, off the show she'd set up here.

But he knew there were better things to ask. Bigger questions that he needed answers to. Deeper truths that he should seek, like how she defined "better" if she wanted him to be a better person. If she even though he could be better. Why he was here if she didn't.

Deadpool walks forward, past the guards. Do they bristle at him more than they do others who have taken this journey more seriously? Or is that just his imagination? Probably just his imagination. He does, after all, have an over-inflated view of his own significance.

He approaches her, and he throws down three severed hands, all his own from various attempts to send video through the Scrywatch. Also from that time he blew himself up.

"We could all use a hand, amirite?" No one had ever accused him of not taking the obvious quip.

Then he stares at her, the important, deep questions on his lips. And he asks, "Have you ever slept with a traveller before?"

Wrench

[wwrench]

He can't think of a time in his life that he's felt his whole body consumed with such sensation. Disbelieving as he is of the whole idea of ferrymen and planets and opportunities for redemption, Wrench feels compelled to follow the trail of devout. The tension in the air is all-consuming; his body is wracked and rattled down to the very marrow of his bones. Still, Wrench falls in line with the others. He doesn't look very much like the rest of them. By this point in his journey, at least half of what he wears has been dyed an inky black. His shirt still bears the splotches of brilliant oranges and teals, but it's apparent he's made provisions to change what he can. In a world with such brilliant sprays of flora surrounding him, the dark color sticks out better than it blends in.

The line shifts forward, and even after the stillness erupts he can still feel himself quaking from the outside in. His feet feel a little unsteadier on the solid ground, his head a little more filled with possibility. Wrench isn't yet beyond the stage of questioning everything he sees that doesn't line up with his reality, but something about the impossibility of the bursting bloom only makes it more incredible. He stares openly, trying in vain to make sense of it all as the crowd advances.

Not until he's next in line does he realize how fast his heart is beating, and the fact he's woefully unprepared for this. He has nothing on him save what he carries, and no sense that any question he asks could be anything more than a reflection of his (possibly) drugged subconscious. The crowd at his back seems to pulse in hopeful anticipation, so Wrench steps forward.

Is there a point when no amount of atonement can outweigh what's already been done? His palms sift up and down, like a set of narrow scales weighing its load. If justice is real, can't a person be too far gone?

Wrench seems to realize he's asked without offering. After a moment's contemplation, he draws the bowie knife from his waist and passes the sharp blade through the middle of his palm. He barely winces as the line starts to pool with hot, fat drops of blood. The gesture may be dramatic, but giving a pound of flesh is about the most familiar thing he knows.

Sephiroth

[unkindled_madness]

Sephiroth has never been a religious man. To call a thing divine is to mislabel it. The people of these islands have allowed the Ancient, and by extension her guardians and her Oracle, to assume some spiritual role, simply because she is too powerful for them to comprehend. It can't be the reality of what she is, and Sephiroth has never believed in her professed intentions for an instant.

Still, playing this little game is the first opportunity they've had to get anywhere near her. Whether it will enable him to learn anything real or useful about her, he doesn't know. It would be foolish to think he could ask the questions he most wants answered: For what purpose has she actually collected them? By what magic or technology did she bring them here? And, of course, how can they kill her?

But he can't ignore it. He isn't willing to sacrifice anything personal when this place keeps pulling things from him against his will, but... Flowers are a rarity in Midgar, and as abundant as they are here, the people seem to value them as much. He collects a variety of them, putting together an appropriately loud and chaotic bouquet. Some of them he thinks he recognizes from his world. A few he doesn't dislike.

The thrumming is unpleasant, but the blooming of the enormous bud puts him in mind of an ochu--a formidable enough monster, but only a monster. Sephiroth waits patiently, and when his turn comes, he approaches the Oracle with the careful pretense of respect and offers the flowers with both hands.

"...why has the Ancient brought so many here from Earth?"

loki odinson

[dothelokimotion]

[ the first sensation is cloying. like it's overwhelming and loki fights the urge to scratch at his throat before calming himself. there is magic here, powerful magic, reaching into the roots and sky of this place. it makes him feel small and loki has never been particularly fond of that.

as for sacrifice, well, loki takes his knife and cuts a few inches of his hair and leaving it in a bowl. not the most elegant of gestures, but one any god should recognize for its worth. asgardians do not cut hair lightly. ]

Tell me how it ends. For Thor. Does he survive Thanos? Is Asgard safe?

Thor Odinson

[assemble_the_lovbacken]

[Thor has never been one to easily shy away from magic; he'd grown up around it, been raised by it. But even he, a deity in his own right, can feel that the magic flowing in the Oracle is all together different.

He does not have much, certainly not in the way of the riches he once did. He removes one of his leather wristbands, offering it as a sacrifice. He had also done his best to decorate the local temple using flora and fauna that he found locally, carefully cutting leaves to represent some of his favorite animals as well as a few choice lightning bolts and hoped that such a display would please the Oracle.]

Loki said that we saved our people and settled on Earth. He has no reason to lie to me, but I gather that he is also not forthcoming with his information. What is it that he'd hiding from me?

Quentin Quire

[quire]

Even seeing her before him after hearing so much about it Quentin remains highly skeptical of this so called Oracle. So far it's a plant. But so is Krakoa who, while not a God exactly, he does consider a friend.

Perpetually unimpressed looking, he is at least willing to hear what this oracle has to say— the way an interested non-believe approaches a palm reader. Also because if it is incredible he'd never overcome the fomo if he passed this up.

He's not taken part in decorating the temple this month and lacking in tangible sacrifices— why would a flower want more flowers? Or a fish? None of the villagers suggestions resonated with him enough to show up bearing gifts and being the cerebral sort that he is he's more interested in knowing what it wants with their memories and secrets.

"I've got a secret for you... Only two beings in the universe know it. Me and a cosmic entity— maybe you've heard of the Phoenix Force? I told it a secret once too. And it liked it so much it gave me a fragment of it's infinite power. So uh... do I just say it and then I get a question?" shaking off the discomfort of being watched he leans in close and whispers to her the same thing he told the Phoenix.

"Kay, here's my question. What's in it for you or whoever's running this joint? THIS, I mean. Natch," he gestures widely to everything around them. "This whole little experiment."

James 'Logan' Howlett

[howlett]

When in Rome. Logan's never been much of a religious man. The promise of redemption has run hollow too many times in his life to go chasing that particular goose again. What he is though (in some part thanks to the ambient tranquility of this place) is willing to listen. Anything he's ever found that came close to a real answer has come from practicing that much at least. He's interested for experience sake, and more than willing to be patient if it means hearing whatever this Oracle has to say.

Having spent a great deal of this month adorning the temple with intricate wagara patterns he hasn't realized it if he's inadvertently stumbled into appeasing whatever force governs this place.

Never the type to overvalue either material things or what he knows, his sacrifice is practical, readily accessible and about the most valuable thing he's ever had to offer anyone — his blood of course. The sacrament of his own biological mixed blessing.

"Just one eh?" He rubs the back of his neck trying to think practically about this. What would it serve anyone here to ask something about himself? He looks at the coloured light of his Scrywatch a moment and wonders if maybe questions about himself aren't all so removed from understanding this place.

"Do gods like you approve of good things because they're good, or are good things good because the gods approve?" he asks, but the more he thinks about his question the more he already feels like he's wasted it. "Maybe I'm just looking for grace for those of us who tend to do wrong so other folks won't have to."

Angelo Salucci

[omertae]

Angelo's never really been one for religion, even in the face of objective proof that God exists back home. God might exist, but that doesn't mean Angelo has to give a shit. Doesn't mean Angelo has to go to church every week and be a good person, just because God said so. But there's enough to catch his interest here that he sticks around to watch, because he has a question and he wants it answered and if nothing else, he's just curious. Curious to see what might happen to him. He's been feeling reckless lately, uneasy under his skin, and the stalwart orangeness of his watch has become an irritant, a judgement. He doesn't care that he's a bad person; what he cares about is that someone else is bothered enough by it that they want him to know.

So he takes a step closer to the Oracle when it's his turn, his hands in fists, jaw set firmly with steel resolve. His sacrifice is a secret, one he hasn't told, one he won't tell to anyone else as long as he lives, that sits in his gut like a kernel of poison his body can't flush out. Bullshit this ritual might have been before now, but watching the Oracle appear Angelo is convinced that he can get something from this if he gives the right thing in return.

He looks over his shoulder before he speaks, both ways, like he's making sure they really are alone, and the words he says first are his sacrifice, a low mumble, between himself and the Oracle: "I killed my brother."

It tastes strange in his mouth to say it. He never had any reason before. He clears his throat, and almost visibly brushes it aside, like he'd never said it. "Alright, here's my question. When do I get what's mine? Once I'm out of this place, how long will I have to wait before my father gives me control of the family?"

hal jordan

[aviate]

There's an easy acceptance to how Hal has been going about his days here. He's experienced too much to be put off by the whole situation. It leaves him free to watch the events with an open curiosity and enjoy things as they come.

But there's still a goal to achieve here and just because he isn't clawing at the walls trying to escape, doesn't mean he's forgotten about getting back to his world. He's put a bit of thought into his sacrifice, what the Oracle might enjoy and what he's capable of producing. In the end he picks up a bit of driftwood and carves out a wooden flower. He's no expert, but it's not half-bad.

"Does the Ancient prefer greatness or improvement?"

Chloe

[neverwither]

Until her arrival on the islands, Chloe had never given much thought to deities. Aside from absorbing their myths and legends, there had been no need. She had been at the side of a man who thought himself a god amongst men. The creator of new life (no matter how much the 'aliveness' of androids has been contested).

Yet her mind isn't closed to the notion of a higher power. Especially given the experiences that the science that has shaped her life, and gave birth to it, cannot fully explain. Her world, so crafted and sheltered, has been opened in ways that should have only been in the realm of the fantastical. The impossible. Or improbable, at the very least. And so in a land of improbable and impossible things, there's no telling what could be within reach.

This island is a special place. For all her questions and continual analysis, it's largely been a haven. To give a form of thanks for being able to experience some contentment, she has helped adorn the temple with flowers both real and crafted from the bright fabric found on the island. While the fabric creations won't last forever, they won't wilt as quickly as the real flowers. Her gratitude needs more permanence.

The unfurling of the bud reminds her of beginning to admit to others about being an android; fearful and with the threat of monstrous consequence only to reveal something that could be so very beautiful. It has Chloe watch in awed fascination, both anxious and anticipatory. She's patient as she waits her turn, though a few glances are cast to the guards. There's the wariness of setting a foot wrong, of causing offence to the Oracle.

When it's her turn, she offers her sacrifice; a bouquet of those delicately made fabric flowers. In the centre is a large rose but unlike the others, it's been coloured blue with the thirium that runs through her artificial veins.

"Thank you for seeing me," she says softly. Is it necessary? Maybe not. But it feels right. Though she doesn't continue to dither, not wishing to waste the Oracle's time nor take more than her share of that time. So it's time for a question. Out of the myriad that could be asked, the knowledge that could be gained about the Traveler's circumstances, Chloe finally settled on a personal one. Maybe it's selfish. It probably is. But this is about the improbable. What she's thought to be impossible.

"...Could I ever earn having a soul?"

Harrowhark Nonagesimus

[necrosaint]

It is not that Harrowhark has not performed similar rituals before. She has. She has often postulated herself before the Anastasian monument, and once or twice to the Locked Tomb herself -- though if she received any answers, it was only to

She has not been brave enough to decorate the Temple, but she has decorated herself all month with a change in her face paint from black and white and stark lines, to white backgrounds with vibrant colors and flower patterns. She has been fitting in her own way, and has maaaaaybe been growing to like the island's insistence on her wearing flowing maxi dresses a little bit. Those are comfortable. The bold pink was not her thing, but she has settled for the purple-blue-white blend that matches her face paint and compromised. No further complaints have been made.

Harrow drops into a kneeling position, every inch of her radiating Religious Propriety, and painted in color and flower wherever skin is visible (her face, and her upper shoulders). Her anticipation was eager, curious as she was about her question but also, also about her simply gaining this audience. As she kneels, she leaves a bone. It is a human frontal bone she has grown from shards of her own bones, carefully extracted from one of her hands: a crucial, important bone, made of her own cells and her own blood and her own necromancy, working her to nosebleeds and eye bleeds and fatigue before she slept it all off. Now she is tired but alive in the presence of the Oracle.

"Will I -- will we," Harrow thinks of Gideon, and thinks of people she has met here, and shows that she has, indeed, learned she has to include at the very least her cavalier in things and that it's okay to lean on people for support really, "be able to figure the secrets of Lyctorhood while amongst the islands?"

Technically, they had a crookedly perfect Lyctorhood between herself and Gideon, they just had to figure out how it worked.

Saxsice King

[queenking]

Well, this is certainly a fun, exciting, only mildly culty time. It's the smell, really, that draws Saxsice to the...sentient flower? Is the flower a house? Or part of the Oracle? How does this all work, what's the science to it.

These are all valid questions, but not the ones that are most pressing, and definitely not something she wants to waste her sacrifice on. Part of Saxsice feels embarrassed that she's taking this so seriously, considering her entire persona kinda depends on her being devil-may-care. But the prospect of getting an honest answer, of soothing her most constant, painful fear is enough to outweigh the embarrassment.

Her sacrifice isn't very pretty -- a few shredded mantis body parts, still sticky with bug-gore, a few fish that are similarly holey and maybe even a bloodied rabbit. All of these were caught by her wolf form, which isn't exactly the most delicate of hunters. Her shoulders are hunched, eyes fixed on her feet, hands twisting together, all uncharacteristic shows of hesitancy and anxiety.

And of course her thoughts are far away, back in the world she comes from, with the son she's (possibly) abandoned yet again. It's been going on three months now, and Saxsice wakes up every day missing him, worried about him, panicking about the potential mess she's left in her wake. It wouldn't be the first time she's skipped out on parental duties, but the last time didn't come with this much grief and regret.

So, when she speaks, it's soft, half-afraid of the answer: "Are we -- am I bein' missed right now? Do they...does he know I'm gone?" Is he safe? Is he okay? rise up in her throat, but she bites them back. One question only.

One Guard Falls

[polymods]

On the morning of the third day, one of the guards stumbles. Nothing trips him, it is more like he's a puppet with his strings cut. He falls, and a cloud of powder rises up from him, beautiful electric orange that glitters like shatter glass. The Flower Oracle reaches out, but as ever is unable to leave her position, and it seems the wind is against her, carrying the fine pollen far away. The remaining guards trade looks, solemn and perhaps a little haunted, but only shift into a new formation with respect to their current number. The ritual must continue. The supplicants must be heard even if there is a new sorrow in the Oracle's gaze and the faintest hint of creases to her brow.

The villagers collect the body of the fallen guard, wrapping it in fabric dyed in their richest colors. It is carried to a pyre at the temple where it burns with the potent smell of lilies.

Gideon Nav

[necrosavior]

The island is bright and colorful, and the village getting ready for this highly religious moment feels similar to home. Only, the villagers are all alive. That creates more chitchat and excitement than most skeletons can muster. That doesn't really catch in Gideon's system. She believes the Oracle and the Ancient exist. It's simply not her religion.

The opening of the flower with fleshy magical growth (could even be necromancy, heck, if actually no the villagers are not alive same as everyone else; this place has very active and fleshy dead) is a magical act from a day that ends in y. Nothing to lose her breakfast over, nothing to nerd out over. It works. That's what matters.

She waits her turn, taking a couple days, fine letting the people who've been looking to this longer than Gideon's known it existed get their time in with their religious figure. Since food is always what has motivated her (and Gideon has been greatly enjoying the food here, even her simple boiled water protein), that's what she gathers, partially fasting to save more and more for the moment with the Oracle. She'll miss it. She misses it even more once she's handed it over. Gideon can survive (dead or alive) on less.

"I know we're all supposed to work to improve, and the answer to my question doesn't change that. I've died, nearly died, died and still been alive, in too many iterations for that," Gideon tries to be respectful. She appreciates not being related to this deity. "How many travelers are dead versus alive--all, some, none?" She's thought everyone is dead, but not everyone thinks they are dead. Shit, being dead if they're not expecting it sucks (sometimes sucks even when it's expected). Denial doesn't help anyone or anything, whether that's seeing people who live one lifetime as dead souls walking or convincing themselves they're still alive. Gideon just wants to know, to walk around without it hanging over her.

Sam Drake

[libertalia]

( he imagines this is sort of what meeting the pope must be like — only, you know, if the vatican were something out of a dutch floral painting and the pope were some sort of ethereal plant woman birthed right before his eyes (an extremely bizarre image he isn't likely to forget). he can't think of a single thing he'd want to ask the pope (frankly, he'd rather punch the pope than shake his hand), but there's been something weighing on his mind since his arrival, and now that he's had more time to sit with it, it might do him well to consult with the speaker of the ancient herself. it's not exactly a confessional, but maybe he is looking for some degree of spiritual guidance to ease his conscience. )

You're not gonna eat me, are you? ( said more to the maw of the plant that bloomed the oracle rather than the oracle herself, followed by a slightly nervous chuckle. it's something of a self-deprecating inside joke just to ease into his actual question, which has a little more weight to it, obvious by the fact that he seems a little apprehensive to say it out loud. acknowledging that it's a problem is in itself a problem, but it's a problem he got himself into, and it's a problem he's eventually going to have to get himself out of. things are a lot more complicated when libertalia isn't in their sights to keep nathan focused on avery rather than, well, the fact that sam lied to get them there. rafe makes things more complicated, too, and sam only trusts him not to let the cat out of the bag about as far as he can throw him.

that and the exit strategy to the whole mess isn't something he's thought out all that well. truthfully, there was never supposed to be an exit strategy, because the lie itself was never supposed to be an issue (aside from the morality of it all, which sam can rationalize as long as keeps telling himself the ultimate end — avery's treasure — justifies the means).

which isn't to say he hasn't thought about telling nathan the truth before — standing under avery's statue, sky darkening, nathan calling him out on his behavior when they were kids, he thought for a moment maybe this is my chance to come clean; or researching in one of carcosa's libraries, finally getting a real moment to themselves to catch up — but every opportunity thus far hasn't felt right or the moment's been interrupted by a threat, a discovery, so he's kept his mouth shut, put it off ... or maybe he's been trying to convince himself that he's still doing this for nate's own good. or ... maybe he's just scared there's one thing nathan can't forgive, and so the snowball of that lie keeps rolling down the metaphorical hill, careening toward inevitable doom and the explosive impact when it all eventually blows up in his face.

after a brief hesitation, he offers a handful of fresh fish to appease the oracle (mostly from that earlier comment, less because there's any real reverence there) — and when he's still standing and fully clothed, he breathes a short sigh of relief before posing the real question on his mind. )

Alright, good. So ... here's the thing. Nathan and I, we've got a good thing going right now. Thick as thieves, you know? Making up for all that lost time on these islands — and I just wanna say I really appreciate the opportunity, I do. ( it isn't a total lie, but there is some deception to his sincerity considering he's still not overly pleased with being stolen away from the quest he was already on. ) But say there's, uh, something pretty big I haven't been totally truthful with him about. How much would you say this is gonna bite me in the ass if I don't tell him?

Clarke Griffin

[epitaphs]

The chance of an answer is more than Clarke can make herself pass up, even though her extreme persistence in the past has caused more pain than she can accurately tally. Her question is a big ask, but she's brought a big sacrifice: a few drops of her own blood, offered from a pierced fingertip. It's an unnaturally black substance that confers her some natural resistance against radiation, and the ability to interface with the chip that had been called The Flame without it frying her brain. If the Oracle wishes to learn from her, her blood is a miracle of science, not nature. It ought to be worth something.

"Can you tell me if there's any way for me to see my daughter again?"

Madi isn't dead, but whatever she is now, Clarke can't fathom. She's trying to find her peace here; to indulge in rest and to make this space a little better -- this month, with paintings of flowers at the temple and assistance to a few individuals in need -- but it's not enough to fill the hole that her loved ones had left, or the make her forget the despair that being left behind had instilled in her.

nathan drake.

[pilferings]

[ It starts with a little information-gathering, drawings and notes scrawled into the pages of his notebook, this event treated like many of his other adventures of the past. He's had his fair share so blending in isn't too arduous; he learns quickly and takes part in the festivities without a hitch.

He fills a few more pages with penciled illustrations throughout the day: the temple covered in flowers, the people as they gather items in their arms, the hummingbirds and the stingless bees, the crowd of locals as they gather towards the bloom. And all the while, he thinks ... Christ, he hopes Elena's seen this. She'd love it. She'd love it even more if she could film it all, too: the energy, the colour, the beauty.

With some of the villagers, some understandably skeptical at first of his appearance and eagerness to learn their traditions, he gathers flower wreaths and helps to decorate the temple with its fragrant blooms all delicately strung together. With the extra wreaths he picks up, he brings with him, carries it to the procession a couple of the friendlier locals pull him towards, and he joins the line waiting to speak with the Oracle for the experience of it all and not so much actually needing an Answer.

But when it's finally his turn, having had a whole lot of time to think of one thing he could ask her, one thing out of a hundred different questions and half-truths he'd carried with him for nearly all of his adult life, he finds himself suddenly ... strangely nervous. He wouldn't consider himself superstitious in any way and stuff like this doesn't tend to faze him ... but he's had a lot of time to think lately, and honestly? Watching the fleshy bud unfurl and bloom has him feeling a little unsettled for how visceral and real it all was. How much he finds himself actually believing.

He's prepared the flower wreaths and he offers those — along with a few pages of his best sketches today, not exactly traditional art or anything but it's still art, right? ] Uh — hey. Good to meet you, your Oracleness. [ Wow, that was stupid. ] I guess if I had to ask something, I'd wanna know if ... [ Oh, boy. ] If me and Elena, my — uh. My wife Elena, she's somewhere here too, what are the odds, huh? Anyway — if we're gonna make it. You know? If this isn't ... if I didn't —

[ He lied to her about running off to find Avery's treasure, about Sam, about being done with this life ... and when he had a chance to make it right and explain himself, well, he'd kinda fucked it up all over again. ]

Could you tell if we're gonna be okay?

Gabby Kinney (cw casual dismemberment and puns about it)

[honeybadgered]

Gabby melts into the crowd despite her brightly colored clothes and even brighter personality. She was trained to be an assassin, after all. She can scope a situation subtly when she needs to. She's patched things up with the Temple Guardian whose belly she tried to pet, but just in case, she offers it some dried fish she's been carrying around and some ear scritches. She doesn't try again for the belly. Yet. But she's living in optimism.

She doesn't realize she needs a sacrifice until it's too late, but fortunately, she's got this covered. She doesn't feel pain, and she heals. She thinks about giving the Oracle the same gift she gave Deadpool that one time, but that was their thing, and besides, she doesn't know if the Oracle would appreciate being given the finger.

So instead she goes a different direction with her dismemberment puns and slices off her ear.

It's already heeling when she drops it in front of the Oracle. "Just so you know I'm willing to, you know, lend an ear." She frowns, biting her lip as she thinks of ho to best put her question. "Who exactly decides the scale we're being judged on, here?" She taps her wrist. "Cause, like, I'm not saying I'm perfect or anything but there are way worse people than me out there and they're not all here. What does better even mean in this context?"

Kit Marlowe

[nightschool]

[For one supplicant, the prospect of a god's judgement strikes terror. The sickening terror of a child who cowers under a parent's all-seeing eye, braced against sharing the same fate as the missing guard even with every step forward.

Partly because if there's one thing a non-believer fears, it's facing the faith he's scorned all his life. And partly because all his life, it scorned him first as a daemon. A creature the old gods abandoned for the new religions to twist into their image of the undesirable. To his family, he was born different. To an orderly society, he was born wrong. An almost, but not quite person; one of nature's too much or too little anomalies. Only ever right to people who are not quite right themselves and embrace a piece without a proper slot.

To bare the true face of his soul is to be seen for the darkness blotted upon it. Maybe it was always there; maybe it grew over time. It doesn't matter, in the end. He is what he is, and he fears the balance of his scales on approach to the Oracle.

After long consideration sifting through every account he's read of rites and traditions, he finally settles on practices inspired by Philippe de Clermont and the old ways. His petition is distinguished by careful observances one might have seen in supplicants of the Delphic Oracle, as best he can. He brings incense, a platter of fish prepared in the native manner; a simple cake of flour and a laurel bough, and libations in the form of milk and honey. And at the end, with the hesitation, a more personal offering.

For him, what creativity the island has restored has gone not to putting carving tools to the structure, but instead putting quill to page. The last thing set at the Oracle's feet: a letter that will never be read by its recipient. His secrets. His amends. His wishes. His words, dipped in the core of him. Love, the only kind he's known; its depths and ugliness; the honesty it centers on someone he can't, won't, and doesn't deserve to have; the patheticness of thinking it would've been easier if Matthew had killed him because life without him is empty. Pain.

The pain propels his question, which he must clear his throat for, and is almost more afraid to ask than to sit under the Oracle's scrutiny:]

How am I to do what this Ancient asks when I am out of time and there is so little left in what remains?

[Two years to live, and Matthew is gone, and the darkness feels fit to swallow him whole. Chance requires light and life and, perhaps, a better soul. Why choose him when there seems no direction to grow? He craves an answer he can't see.]

The Guards Have Fallen

[polymods]

The last of the Guards falls to be taken the funeral pyre that has burned for days and fills the air with the potent smell like stargazer lilies. Rich and somehow like rotting. The Oracle has aged. There are creases in her soft features and there is a sense of wilting and fragility to her. No pollen has touched her; her own prayers have been unanswered. Still, she is steady and waiting. For her end. For those who are still brave enough to seek to speak with the Ancient before this season is done.

Connor

[lickstheevidence]

For a short time in his existence, Connor knew exactly who created him, who he was, who was supposed to be, and his purpose in life. He had no need for deities or existential questions, because he either had or was capable of deducing the answers he needed. Then some things happened, and his entire world was flipped upside down, and everything he thought he knew came crashing down around him, leaving him desperate, frightened, and paralyzed. His search for answers in the days since had left him wrung out, exhausted, and no closer to any solutions. His scrywatch stayed stubbornly orange, too.

Maybe there was something to this Oracle he'd been hearing about? Could it at least answer one of his most pressing questions? Amanda had told him his deviancy was planned all along by Cyberlife; programmed into him from the beginning. He had to know the truth of it.

He grimaces and turns his face away when the bud first begins to open, the sounds and the accompanying sight more than a little gruesome. But Connor's seen been built to handle worse; he's definitely seen worse, and he's caused worse sights with his own two hands. The blood on them can never fully be wiped clean and he knows this. With a small sigh, he turns his face back to the sight and forces himself to watch all of it, and so he's pleasantly surprised that out of such a visceral mess could grow such beauty. The heavy weight that long ago settled in his chest lifts slightly as he approaches hesitantly with his sacrifice. The 1994-minted quarter in his palm isn't worth much, but it's the only object that's ever truly been his, and its sacrifice is painful.

He bows his head as he holds out his offering, and speaks in a low voice, barely above a whisper:

"Please. I need to know. Is my deviancy real? Are the emotions I feel my own, or am I just following yet another of Cyberlife's programs for my behavior?"

Dulcinea Septimus

[heptanary]

The entire time Dulcie has been on the Isle that Blooms, she's been happy.

Almost deliriously happy, at times. She can take deep breaths, and she doesn't bleed the way she's used to. She isn't as sick. She's been able to participate in decorating the Temple, and has been drawing and painting Seventh House-style elaborate roses everywhere she can. She's loved every moment.

It's almost sad that she's finally come to the Oracle toward the end, but it is also fitting that the corpse-girl would be doing so when she does. She has found a tie-dye green dress that is as gauzy and light as she loves her clothes, she has done her hair in the finest style, and she has brought a filled-in notebook as a sacrifice. She is not in her wheelchair, and barely using her cane, but she moves smoothly.

"This," she says, leaning forward in the chair to lay down the notebook, "is my secrets. All of them. I have written them down, but I will say the two most important aloud: I loved Palamedes Sextus back no matter that I refused him, and I really did want to rule my House and would have gone through with the sacrifice to do so if only it would have worked." This means she would have killed for it, and she is not afraid, here, to admit it. But there are pages of secrets in that notebook; it's like Dulcie wrote out every secret she ever kept.

Which she did.

"And I don't—want anything," she continues. "I just wanted to come in here and say that I love it here, and I don't know you but I already love you, and I wanted to thank you for the beautiful island and for the air in my chest and the freedom to move and the ability to see clearly and think clearly and not hurt." Her eyes are filled with tears, but she continues, "I don't know if I'm doing a good job of making it clear how important it is but it is so, so much to me, I—just, thank you."

She is not in pain, and it is so rare.

The Oracle would not have wanted her broken blood, but she happily shares every secret to have moments free of pain.

Jon Snow

[northerndragon]

Jon is no painter. Art is quite beyond him, though he writes a fine hand. A life spent with blades, and he has not even learned to whittle out the shape of a little wolf. So he has not decorated the temple; when prompted, he has said, with a hint of regret in his smile, "I would only sully it." All the flowers remind him of Maiden's Day in the little Winterfell sept, the one his father had built for Catelyn Tully and her southron gods. But for all that, the temple is comfortable. It is as welcoming to him as the North, and he is as careful to observe the people and their customs as he would be with the Free Folk.

What he can do is fish. He has fished close on every day since they came to this island; he needs little to do it but a line and some bait. He brings a bounty of fish, a few flowers. When the oracle blooms, he looks troubled -- great rumbles and cracking sounds now put him only in mind of the massacre at Hardhome -- but it passes, and he watches the blossoming with interest, sometimes glancing briefly at the villagers to gauge their reactions.

He waits until nearly everyone else has spoken to the oracle; her guards have fallen by this point, and he wonders what will become of her. And when he comes, he takes his knife, makes a small cut on his hand. He had thought that he might not do it, but it's right to do it. The gods of this place may not be the Old Gods, but he has never hesitated to bleed for anyone. And if she can help him, in all her great and passing beauty, blood might be a fair offering -- his own blood, freely given.

The Oracle troubles him less than the lady Melisandre had.

"I don't know what you know of me. Back where I come from, they made me a king, and I let them do it, to save my people. So that I could be a shield for them, and for the rest of the living world." His tone is low, urgent, but there is a hint of bewilderment in it, too. "I don't know if I'm doing it right. What should I do to give them the best chance to live?"