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This Alcove serves as the private residence of Chihso.
Only Sosiqui and invited guests may post.

Oculai: The Lost Oracles

Posessions

Chihso slid gracefully into her alcove through the curtain of seed-beads, the beads clattering slightly on the threads as she passed. The Oculai went immediately to her walls, running her fingers over the edges of many round stick-frames before selecting one strung with a twist of fine white hair.

"Lachesis," Chisho breathed quietly, her breath briefly condensing on the scrying gem held in the center of the gem. She'd made this one quite a while ago, but had no call to use it - until now. Until first Lachesis, then the Lantern Shuyin had returned in full form.

Shuyin, honestly. He was younger than she was, or at least she rather thought so. She had never had the chance to draw near to the Lantern, but Lachesis was another matter...

She half-closed her eyes, and slipped into her scrying trance, reaching out one foreleg to tap the gem. As happened every time, the power began to work almost imediately, a light beginning in the gem and spreading out from the center along each strand of the web. The light intensified, then began to pulse softly, making the lines of the web blur together into a misty mass.

Within that mass, the images of her scrying appeared, and she watched intensely, feeding the scrying gem questions with her mind. Lines of fate criscrossed and interspersed with scenes of Lachesis...

Until, finally, the hair snapped and fizzled in a small puff of foul-smelling smoke. The gem clattered to the floor, taking the potency of the scry with it.

Chihso slowly shook her head, eyes gradually coming back into focus. Her brow furrowed.

The scrying had revealed precisely nothing.

The Veiled Mystery
Part One




"I don't know why I listen to you, I really don't," Sosiqui sighed as she climbed up the rock-strewn path towards the ruins, Chihso perched on her shoulder.

"Because," Chihso muttered. "Go left at that big rock with the nose up there."

"Rocks really shouldn't have noses. That's creepy," the human remarked, but followed Chihso's instructions. "So why exactly are we here?"

"I think there's a lens up here."

Sosiqui looked startled. "An Oculai lens? Here? Why?"

"The other day when we were here, I heard voices. I spotted the humans of Lachesis and Udara-Isra here. Mysterious, no?"

"Really... Aki and Wasa... how strange." Sosiqui's forehead wrinkled in thought. "What were they doing?"

"Exploring the temple we're going to with some odd animalthings. I followed." Chihso pointed with two arms as the temple suddenly loomed at them out of the forest. "There, go in, over that fallen pillar..."

"This is kind of exciting, you know, like Indiana Jones or something!"

"Yes," Chihso said absently, in a 'that's nice, what a clever one it is' patronizing tone. "In any case, I followed, and I know how to get the lens... we should rescue it. I believe it to be a sleeping power that will change everything."

And be under my command, of course.




Half an hour later, Sosiqui panted on the other side of the door, leaning against the carved walls as Chihso circled the 'altar' bearing the strange veiled 'lens'. "Yes. This is it." The Oculai carefully climbed up the dusty stone and perched next to the cloth.

"What is it?" Sosiqui reached for the veil.

"DON'T," Chihso said sharply, slapping with four limbs. Sosiqui quickly withdrew. "This is a special thing. It will absorb power and meaning from whatever the veil is lifted to. We must lift it to something of meaning for Oculai."

"Like what?" Sosiqui carefully picked up the object, resisting the urge to just peek under the veil, and bundled it in some tissues before sticking it in her pocket.

"I will think of something. Quickly!" Chihso, suddenly furtive, shooed her out of the room...

The Veiled Mystery
Part Three

"Chihso..." Sosiqui managed, trying to avoid the urge to outright facepalm.

"What?" The Oculai puttered about happily on the small coffee table inside their hotel room. The veiled 'lens' was sitting in the middle of it. Chihso looked very pleased with herself.

"When you said you were going to go get an hourglass, I thought you meant like... a plastic one like you use with Pictionary or something!"

"I don't know what on earth you're babbling about," Chihso said absently. "But plastic, feh! A true artisan uses only the best materials."

"But but you... you STOLE that," Sosiqui spluttered, pointing at the hourglass currently also gracing the coffee table. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, with delicately carved wood and sparkling golden sand encased within glass that had just a tint of purple to it. Purple gems topped each of the 'pillars' on either side of the central glass itself.

"I did not STEAL it." Chihso looked affronted. "I borrowed it from the hotel reading room shelves. They'll never miss it; it was so dusty before I brought it up that it's obviously never been looked at in years."

"You tend to miss things that aren't there more than you notice things that are," Sosiqui sighed, rubbing at her temples. "Fine. Fine. So do whatever you're going to do and then take it BACK, Chihso."

"In due time." The Oculai padded around the table then, carefully positioning the hourglass in front of the 'lens', adjusting it minutely.

"NOW or so help me..."

"You'll what? Get a flyswatter? Please," Chihso snorted, sounding wholly unconcerned with Sosiqui's unspoken threats. "I am ready now. Kindly stand back, I'll handle this. Your great clumsy human hands would only mess things up. This requires... finesse."

"Right..." Sosiqui did sit down on the edge of the bed, though, and watched the Oculai with interest.

Carefully, Chihso finished adjusting both the veil and the hourglass, then turned the hourglass over with a heave and a grunt. Sparkling fine sand began to cascade down into the lower bulb with a soft whisper.

And as it did so, Chihso scuttled behind the 'lens' and lifted the veil.

The gold of the sands falling was instantly reflected in the cracked surface beneath, and then not just reflected but intensified. A fine golden haze rippled over the surface, and then strands of swirling color and purple began to twirl through the gold as the lens apparently took in the whole of the hourglass. Sosiqui had an odd sense that whatever was happening was deeper than just the physical... that the lens, strange as it might be, was connecting with something beyond 'hourglass'.

Then golden light flared, and Chihso dropped the veil again. It was like extinguising a candle; the glow died at once.

"There," she said, voice rich in satisfaction.

"Pretty."

"Wasn't it?" The Oculai practically purred. "A work of art, truly, and a useful one as well... this one will be strongly attuned to the flow of time and the fates, unless I was very wrong."

"Interesting. Now... TAKE IT BACK."

"Fine." Chihso stuck out her tongue.