Machella, Oracle of Sun

 
Machella's younger years are shrouded in mystery. No one knows from where she hailed or who her family was.   She appeared on the steps of the Windsun Temple, dressed in a knee-length, ratty dress, sporting uncombed hair and dirty skin, with no shoes or money, and proclaimed that a fire would ravage the place within the year if the high priest were not removed.   Offended, the Sun priests cast her from their door, asking if she were unwell. The high priest was much beloved, and no one had a reason to doubt him or the temple. She left, as if she expected their scorn.   A year to the minute upon which she issued her oracle, the high priest, caught by his wife with another woman, knocked over a lamp during the ensuing scuffle. The temple, a place of centuries-old dried wood, went up in flames.   So began Machella's oracles.  

  (mah-kell-la: means Voice of the Sun in Sonkotrow)   Machella, while alive, did not proclaim grand oracles but twice; once was the Windsun oracle, the other was given to Ban Tor, ruler of the human land of Brin Kael. He heard that a wise witch lived in a tiny forest hut in the Midden Forest, and that she successfully predicted things for the nearby villagers. Since he passed by on his way to battle the mighty Flerinzhall nymphs, he thought he'd stop by and hear of his success.   Machella told him he would die in battle by arrow to the eye, and that his son would avenge him, leading to a golden time among the Brin Kael.   His advisors had to pull him away before he hurt her, he was so upset. He wished her harm and departed, vowing to put an end to her false mouth, only to die in battle by arrow to the eye. No one expected it; the eye slits in the helmets were small for a reason, but a missile broke on a fellow fighter, and the shaft with the broadhead spun away at just the right angle to enter it and embed in his eye.   The freakish incident was not lost on his son, Seval Tor. He immediately regrouped his father's demoralized troops, and they obliterated the overconfident Flerinzhall from memory.   NOTE: In nymph cultures, obliterating something from memory is used to describe an embarrassment so severe, nymphs will refuse to talk or write about it, which, in essence, will wipe the occurrence from memory.  

  Machella continued as she had, issuing small-time oracles to the local populace, though Seval Tor gave her a place in his court and treated her, by all accounts, as if she were a minor syimlin. Whispers are that she granted him personal prophecies, and each one came true--including the time of his death.   Through her guidance, he molded Brin Kael into a mighty empire, and the laws and actions he took paved the way for the Kael's distant descendants, the Keels, to conquer much of Talis.   When she passed, Seval's son, Laren Tor, held a grand funeral reminiscent of ceremonies used to bury ancient syimlin. Her tomb, a cavern within Mount Grat in Keelsland, is now a museum.  

  Machella's predictions held true--until they did not.   The interstellar invasion of Sensour happened. Her followers eagerly awaited the birth of the Daughter of the Sun, the woman who would Redeem the Evenacht.   When Machella announced the birth, thousands celebrated at the Temple of Oracles, and when the crowds dwindled, a core remained, eagerly planning on how to greet this wondrous woman when she fulfilled her destiny on Talis and entered the Evenacht.   And then the Daughter of the Sun was assassinated. She announced it as she had other prophecies, from the balcony of her temple, and retreated.   If Machella had flubbed a minor prediction (or even a greater one), no one would have cared. She was right more often than not. But to have the focus of her grand oracle, the woman everything else built towards, die before she accomplished what she was supposed to accomplish on Talis, well, it was a punch her followers did not like.  

  Feeling betrayed that they wasted so many years in service to a false oracle, her followers and enemies fell to anger. Riots ensued. The Temple of the Oracle was razed to the ground, and Machella disappeared. Suddenly everyone and their cat combed through the past prophecies, attempting to prove that those, too, were wrong, and she misled the entire Evenacht. Anyone who profited from her predictions found themselves hunted or jailed, even if all evidence proved that those had, indeed, been correct.   News organizations withdrew their support of her oracles. Sun temples forsook her. Rulers took out bounties on her, claiming that she purposefully tried to end their reigns. Religious organizations said she terrorized both living and dead populations with her false words, and needed to spend some time in the Fields of the UnRedeemed as punishment. Her most loyal attendants fled into hiding to escape the wrath.   Before any of it gained footing, Death appeared at the razed temple and declared if anyone harmed another due to the sundering of the Recompense, she would see them to the Void--living and dead alike. Since no one wanted Death's attention, revenge died along with her words, and the Evenacht continued as it always had, minus a prominent Sun Oracle's words.   Where is Machella now? Some think she fled to the Forest Temple and keeps Death company, as Erse Parr was a curious supporter. Some think she resides in exile with the Badeçasyons. Still others think she returned to the land of the living, to once again bathe in the rays of the sun.   What I do know is that she has not lost interest in the Recompense, and appears to be meddling in Laken's Redemption. Where this will lead is anyone's guess, but considering the recent past, I don't think it will be anywhere good.