Omphalotus

Alright this is an urgent development so I'll skip the official mumbo jumbo and get straight to the point, Omphalotus has been forcibly claimed by an omen, and yes I mean that literally.

 

She was walking through the territory of two female harbingers during a nesting and instead of chasing her away they accepted her immediately, which by itself isn't abnormal since harbingers usually want help raising young. Don't worry about the hatchlings, Omphalotus didn't kill them or anything, she even helped out as if she were another parent (and yes the geneticists are still breathing down my neck at the prospect of future children). The issue is after the young grew up there wasn't enough room in the omen for them all to stay, and when Omphalotus tried to disperse again the harbingers reacted quite... strongly. Usually harbingers prefer to keep their children in the omen and push unrelated dispersals out of the territory but when she tried to leave the harbingers got very aggressive with her, letting a few of their children disperse instead.

I made contact with the researcher in charge of one of the harbingers (Dr. Underwood) who confirmed that this has never happened before with this pair. I'm not sure why they would want to hold onto her so badly since the only hunt she participated in ended in failure, with her ending up badly injured to the point one of the harbingers had to guard her while they retreated. It's possible they grew attached since she helped raise the young but that doesn't make sense to me with what I've seen with my past assignments.

On the positive side Omphalotus seems to be ok with this arrangement, after all she is safer with an omen and shows affection to the pair. From what I've seen in the footage her main role in the omen seems to be scouting and guarding the young while the harbingers deal with territory disputes, so I suppose she is contributing in some way even if her hunt failed. Maybe that's why the harbingers are keen to keep her around, it is rare that an oracle would be willing to stay back with the children instead of rushing into battle. I don't know what they really want with Omphalotus but I hope they don't end up killing her if she tries to leave again.