Oracles, Gods, and Monsters
Disclaimer: It's been decreed by the gods on Olympus that I own nothing. I'm merely borrowing them and I promise to be kind and rewind.
Deviations from the Norm: AU, Greek Mythology. This story will encompass some of the standard Greek myths most people are familiar with. However, there will be summaries of the myth-in-use available at the bottom of the chapter for those who are unfamiliar with it. And there will be lingual anachronisms, because lingual anachronisms are just so much fun.
Pairings: 3x4x3. Anything else is up in the air at this point, so expect the gamut…shounen-ai, shoujo-ai, and hetero. Damn those producers for being so vague and open to interpretation!
Encapsulated Summary: Quatre is in training to be the next Oracle of Delphi. However, things aren't going as well as he'd hoped. How so? Befriending monsters, pissing off gods, heroes, priests, and every royal family this side of Athens. Greek mythology has never gone more wrong!
It has been known throughout mythology that when one had a problem, there was only one place to go. Well, two places if you counted all of those geniuses who lived during that era, Daedalus, Archimedes and the like. But most of the time, when one had a problem, they sought the advice of an oracle, a wise and prophetic priest or priestess whose garbled utterances were supposed to be the words of the gods themselves. There were several oracles scattered about the ancient world, but the most famous was the oracle who resided at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Pythia. Some of the greatest heroes of the times came to hear her wise words. It was she who commended Hercules to his Twelve Labors, and she who sent scores of other heroes on their merry ways.
However, there comes a time in every oracle's life when they become too old to preach, and by then their mumblings and wild gesticulations are just too garbled to make any sense…not that they made much sense to begin with. And so, before the oracle makes their journey with the ferryman Charon to the Elysian Fields, a new oracle is trained. The high priests at the Delphic temple were not idiots, and knew Pythia's days were marked. It was becoming more difficult to translate her prophecies, the need to completely ad lib the results of her visions becoming more frequent. And so, the five priests of Apollo at Delphi met one dark evening to discuss their plans.
"Good oracles have been hard to come by lately," head priest Jarus sighed, pouring himself a large goblet of wine. Galenus nodded, glaring down his long nose.
"None of the other temples have been able to find any sibyls worth training either. I've sent messages to all the city-states, seeking anyone with oracular abilities, but nothing."
Oryxis shook his bald head with disappointment. "I'm beginning to wonder if they've all been sacrificed to gods or thrown to monsters."
Senex and Hylas were leaning over scrolls and charts, scrutinizing all past predictions and current censuses, anything to find a clue. Hylas straightened, twirling the end of his thin moustache on his fingers.
"I've just remembered. There has been talk of a boy who lives not more than five leagues from here who can see the future. He is still young, they say, but he was born speaking the word of the gods."
Senex hit him over the head with a scroll. "Fool! Then why have we been wasting our time with these? Someone send a priest to fetch this boy immediately! He must be trained at once to replace our oracle."
"Yes," Jarus agreed, "I don't know how much longer I can keep making up interpretations for that she-goat's mumblings."
Galenus clapped him over the back, causing the longhaired priest to spill some of his wine. "Come now, Jarus, you've been making up interpretations for years! Nobody has ever been able to understand Pythia, not even when she was a young sibyl."
And so, the five high priests sent one of their little underlings off to collect this prophetic child, in the hopes of training him to be a great and mighty oracle, speaker of the gods' will, Apollo's right hand. What they didn't realize is that they would be getting a little upstart who would be more trouble than he was worth…
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Seventeen harvests flew by in the bat of an eyelash, and the high priests were beginning to wonder if a yellow dog could do a better job predicting the future than the oracle-in-training they had whisked away into the night those many years ago. While his predictions were accurate, they were sporadic and sometimes came too late. That, and there was the nagging fact that their trainee did not like to share his predictions with the priests. He wasn't particularly fond of them, save maybe Hylas, who doted on the boy far too much, and often did as he pleased.
The young sibyl was called Quatre, a handsome young man in his twentieth year. He was of an average height, slender, but finely toned from years of performing manual labor for the priests. Some claimed that he was the child of a god, with his brilliant sea-blue eyes and hair golden as wheat from Demeter's basket. And though the priests would claim that he was a disagreeable brat, young Quatre was a kindly soul, ever ready with a smile and a kind word for even the lowest of low and the most disparaged. Gifted with fingers that could coax beautiful music from even the most stubborn of lyres and a healing touch, he truly belonged in the temple of Apollo. He was just a lousy oracle.
"Quatre! Don't you be hiding in that tree, brat! I know you're up there, come down!" Senex chastised. "You are overdue for your lessons, and you know full well that Jarus demands punctuality!"
The old priest, with his shock of white hair and his false nose, stood shaking a fist at a laurel tree in the courtyard of the temple. His charge was known to disappear into the laurel come lesson time, and he would beat the young oracle at his own game this time.
"Master Senex, what are you doing yelling at that tree? Somebody's going to walk by and think you've gone mad," a light and airy tenor voice quipped from behind him. Old Senex whirled on his heel, finding a certain blonde youth standing behind him, digging the toe of his sandal into the dirt while absently popping dates into his mouth. Senex's gaze went from the boy to the tree and back again, mouth hanging agape as he realized he had been bamboozled once again.
"I hope you get flogged and then put on statue scrubbing duty for your impertinence."
Quatre merely smiled. "Aw, I love you too, Master Senex."
Before the aging priest could sputter and fume further, his pupil jogged off towards the temple interior, where he was supposed to be taking his lessons with Jarus and Galenus. Senex shook his head gravely.
"That boy will either save us all or be the death of us."
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Pythia couldn't help but chuckle wryly as she watched Quatre take his lessons and his beatings from the two votaries. She sat atop her tripod, gnarled hands folded in her lap, smiling at the youthful blonde as he skirted around the answers he knew he had to give.
"Recite your lesson, boy," Galenus repeated for the fifth time, running his hand through his gray mushroom cap of hair, "before we're all taking a ferry ride down the Styx."
"Which lesson is that, Master Galenus? Not to incur Hera's wrath by staying away from all wild animals who could be gods with the same hormonal imbalances as teenage boys?" Quatre replied, fluffing his blonde hair with his slender fingers innocently enough.
Jarus glared at him. "Mind your insolent tongue, Quatre, or you will incur Hera's wrath!"
"Oh, but Jarus, as the mouth of a god, do I really need to be learning all of this? Haven't you been telling me all these years that I'm far brighter than even the great philosophers? Why teach me all of this if I'm that intelligent? Why not just plop me on the tripod and have me start predicting away?"
"Because you may be bright, but you lack the focus!" Galenus replied testily. "You cannot make use of your gifts, and when you can, they are more than mostly useless. Unless you become more disciplined, you will never be a good oracle. Now write out your lessons on these tablets, and don't move from that spot until you have done so."
The two priests ambled off, muttering things about disrespectful youths and the way the city-states just weren't how they used to be, leaving Quatre with his tablets and the stylus he rolled back and forth between his fingers. The old oracle, who was watching the whole time, slowly got down from her tripod, shuffling over to him with a methodic slowness.
"Quatre, don't let them discourage you. You will be the greatest sibyl Delphi has seen in a long time, believe me," Pythia said, ruffling his wheat-blonde hair. "You don't need their focus or their discipline, you just need to believe in your predictions, like I used to."
"You don't anymore?" he asked.
"Are you kidding? Of course I don't, I'm an old woman, I've lived a very long life and I'd like to lie down in the Elysian Fields and savor the fruits of the Afterlife. But you, you have a long life ahead of you, you have people who will depend on your gifts, whose lives you will touch."
Quatre smiled. "And here I thought all you could do was mumble and foam at the mouth."
"Hardly. I just do that for show, keep those bats on their feet."
"Well, Pythia, you seem to think rather highly of me. Does Apollo really believe I can be an adequate replacement for you? Or is he just stringing me along for a good laugh?" he asked with a sigh, copying his lessons into the soft wax of the nearest tablet. The aged woman shrugged.
"Only time will tell, my dear, but I believe you will be just fine."
It was at that moment that Quatre saw a flash of bright light come from behind his eyes, every nerve ending in his body prickling as if he were about to be struck by lightning, the forewarnings of his oracular abilities. He heard a fearful voice whisper, they are cutting her thread, saw the Fates brandishing their wicked scissors, saw Pythia crumbling to the temple floor.
"Pythia!" he wailed, voice lost in the roar of wind that swirled in his ears. When the vision was over, it was too late. The Oracle of Delphi lay motionless on the ground at his feet, her wrinkled flesh cooling, eyes staring sightless off to the horizon.
Hylas came running, well, more like waddling to compensate for his portly countenance. He stopped just before the colonnade, hand over his mouth. Quatre was shaking the sibyl's shoulder, screaming her name, begging the old woman to live again. But her soul was already being whisked off to the Underworld, it was too late for anyone to do anything.
"Quatre, she's gone. You are, henceforth, the Oracle of Delphi, the Word of Apollo," he said gently, voice ringing with solemnity. Eyes as blue as Poseidon's realm glared at him tearfully.
"I'm not ready, Hylas, I'm not ready! I can't be an oracle…Pythia, you…when I die, I'm going to kick your ass clear across the Elysian Fields for doing this to me, do you hear? I swear I will…" he sobbed, unwilling to believe any of this was happening.
And so, with a heavy heart and an untrained power, Quatre became the new Oracle of Delphi. The priests wondered if they should start packing their things for Thebes immediately.
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Notes:
I think I'm making up the stuff about the oracles, but the fact that there were oracles, especially Pythia of Delphi, is true. They sat on three-legged stools (conveniently located over cracks in the temple that spewed hallucinogenic vapors) and spouted garbled prophecies for the priests to interpret. The Elysian Fields was the portion of the Underworld where good souls went, the heaven of the Greek world, if you will. Charon the ferryman boated your dead soul down the River Styx to the Underworld after your time came. As for Hera and her wrath, well, most Greek myths started because Zeus took the form of an animal and mated or raped a woman. And the Fates were three women who spun, measured, and cut the Thread of Life.
Next Chapter: Quatre meets Theseus, who is supposed to slay the dreaded Minotaur of Crete. Too bad for him that our oracle has other ideas, ones that might not go over too well with the gods. And just how dreaded is this Minotaur? Well, we'll just have to find out, now, won't we?