Welcome to Gaia! ::

As Delilah quickly scanned through the book, she tried to refind the pages they had been on with regards to sacrifices.
"We're a little short on men, Stratios." she said, "Peter here, has a problem with his tongue and Markus whom you saw earlier, doesn't have either the skill or patience needed for the job."
She quickly found the pages and memorised the order of the actions needed.
"First, we'll need to prepare a fire for later- can you do that Sage?" Delilah asked her.

Delilah told him, "Stratios, please, you are a guest amongst us. You cannot be expected to know our customs, so please, observe them only for today."
She then found the page she needed. "Right, one beribboned cow, check... Here we are... Barley seeds and water!" She handed out handfuls of barley seeds to each of the people present, including Stratios, who still seemed a little bemused over the whole affair. Eh, he was a man before the empowerment of women, he probably only thought about two or three things when asked about women.


Hermes found his hand full of barley seed. At least they know the right way to sacrifice, he thought, looking at the codex that the shapeshifter held. Later, when the formality of the sacrifice was over, he would steal the codex just to have a look at the contents at his leisure. The quiet woman was a bit odd. Hermes recognised her as the green-haired girl he'd met earlier. A raised eyebrow? What would that mean- an invitation or a challenge? That was the problem with women, especially quiet ones. The loud ones were generally open about emotions and 'gut feelings', but the quiet ones were a different kettle of fish. You never knew when they were going to do something... out of character.

Hermes heard the quiet snickering of the girl, and wondered how much face he would lose if he let the mortals tell him what to do. Reluctantly burying the embarrassment as he didn't want to compromise his disguise, Hermes stood up and shuffled his feet to the altar, ready to throw the seeds at the word go.

Delilah had hid the knife from the view of the bemused cow. She was nervous. What if the knife didn't properly slice the neck, leaving the cow to die a bloody and loud death. What if she dropped the dagger during the ritual, would it stress the steer? Too many worries, too many concerns!
"Are you ready?" she asked, breathing deep breaths to combat the nerves.

Catching the smile, Delilah took a deep breath, and, standing straight and tall, began.
"I call out to the great gods of these lands to witness that we are sacrificing to Great Pan, who haunts wild places, so that his anger may be abated and we can continue on with our journey. If it is pleasing to you gods that we should continue and make this sacrifice, send an omen from our surroundings, but preferably neither a discreet or blatant one, please." Delilah asked, slightly nervous.

Blatant one? Discreet one? What were those mortals up to? Were they being deliberately patronising? Hermes relayed the message mentally to Artemis, along with a short account of what had happened since he had left Olympus, not that long ago.

Hermes looked around. He sent a mental question back.
How about an interesting cloud pattern? That's neither too subtle or too blatant.

Is that Sandi? Make it run around, and that'll catch their attention! Hermes mentally replied. Heck, I'll even make it bark to get their attention

Delilah looked around for what could be described as an Omen, and, on looking around on the ground for it, did not see it.
There was a loud bark, and on looking for what sounded like a dog, she looked up, and saw, to her suprise, a giant dog-shaped cloud, acting in a canine manner.
On looking at the dog's behaviour, from its wagging tail to its 'play-beg' position, Delilah said,
"I guess that's a favourable omen."

Delilah felt the watchful eyes of the dog on the little scene below. If she wasn't so preoccupied, she would've become a giant just to play fetch with it.
She waited for the seeds to be thrown, before she poured the water over the cows' head.