Let's be clear right out of the gate: this is one of the characters from the story talking to you right now. I know it's a bit strange, but then I've always been one to bend the rules to the absolute limit. We wouldn't be here, otherwise. My name is Saoirse Ní Mhaonaigh*, but I'm more generally known as the Oracle.

Yes, that's me mentioned right there in the title. The central thread in the tapestry that makes up the story here is my gambit, my gamble; me going all in for something many like you, Gentle Reader, can understand, and even appreciate, what with the thing being an adult visual novel.

I want to get laid.

That's what it really comes down to when you get right down to it. The thing is, when one is the Oracle, there are, shall we say, certain conditions that need to be met before sex even becomes a possibility, and the probability of those conditions ever being met in their entirety is vanishingly small, but not actually impossible. Well, through careful planning and execution, all the preliminary conditions have been met, which only leaves the Seven Sisters.

For reasons I'm not going to go into here numbers are very significant to matters involving the Event that required my birth. I was the third daughter born to the third generation following the Lead Seer, whose task was to implrment the early portions of my plan. Yes, she was doing that long before I was born, but she's a Seer and I'm the Oracle. Our relationship with time is...peculiar. Granny's story is another thread in the tapestry, though, and it's the Seven Sisters we're discussing here.

Obviously, if I was the third daughter, there need to be four more after me to reach that magic number. My parents, however, only had five girls, and the first died in infancy — Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It's ultimate cause remains a mystery to this day — so that means there are four of us. The youngest daughter of the previous generation can stand in for Sinéad, but that still only gets us to five. Luckily, my father gave in to his desires at just the right time, and dallied with his cousin, just the once, but she got pregnant. A half-sister counts, too, so that gets us to six. Were it not for one little detail, that would be it, and we'd be dead in the water.

Our half-sister, though, is also the Second Seer. Because of this, her mother's other daughter — her half-sister on the other side — can be counted, and we have all seven places filled. The picture shows us in order, from oldest to youngest.

Standing in for the late Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh is Shannon Finnegan, who is our dad's first cousin. Her mother is 22 years younger than her older brother — our grandfather — and she and our father were near in age and raised like siblings. Shannon is only the oldest of us by a matter of months, despite technically being of the prior generation. She's not very tall, as you can see, and she'll no doubt tell you her exact height — to the quarter-inch — within ten minutes of your first meeting. I could tell you what it is, but why spoil her fun? She had a brief run as a pop singer in her mid teens with moderate success in Ireland and the UK, but abruptly quit after releasing her second album. There wasn't even a tour in support of it. She later re-emerged as the guitarist in the rock band The Finnegans. She is shown in her typical stage attire beyond the third or fourth song in their set — she always starts the show in a T-shirt.

Next is the world-renowned concert pianist, Eithne Ní Mhaonaigh, known even beyond the world of classical music for of her habit of taking her shoes off and playing barefoot. Her first name is the same as Enya's, but my sister refuses to respell hers. She's like that. She has principles, and she sticks to them. She was also saddled with the guardianship of the rest of us when she was only just 18 herself, after our parents were killed — unintended target of a rocket attack during yet another resurgence of the Troubles. Eithne and Shannon have been BFFs since they were babies. Eithne makes her living playing the piano, but she plays just about anything, given the opportunity to play with it first. Violin. Saxophone. Bagpipes. Whatever catches her fancy. The guitar has not escaped her interest.

Next is me, and you'll be seeing plenty of me, so we'll just move on down the line. Since I'm mentioning people's artistic pursuits, I'll add that I sing, and I play the bass.

Known to the world as Moya Mooney, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh is the de facto star of the sitcom "Greener Grass" although she will deny it, insisting that it's an ensemble. She also plays a mean guitar, but that really hasn't come to light publicly yet.  She has little in common with the sarcastic and sharp-tongued character she plays in the show, save for one thing: they are both militantly lesbian. So was Granny, though, as Máire is fully aware. Because we bear the Bloodlines spoken of in the title of this thing, she will need to have a child at some point. Everyone does — except the Oracle, of course. Until now, every Oracle that has ever been has lived — and died — a virgin.

Did I mention I want to get laid?

Next to Máire we have our half-sister, whose proper name I can't speak or write**, as we haven't yet met face-to-face. That's a thing among those of us with keen, but that's a subject for another time. She has lived in a small, privately run "Home for Girls" in the Bronx,  New York, since she was 5, and it's easier there for her to simply call herself Eva Brennan, which is what she generally does. She is showing some promise as a singer/songwriter, usually accompanying herself on the piano.

The youngest of my full sisters is Siobhan, which she has styled as Sh'Von since joining the Finnegans — the band rebranded as The Finnegans & Sh'Von — after they, ah, parted ways with their original drummer. Vonny's been bashing things and pounding out beats since she was about 18 months old, and she sings, too. She's quickly becoming what the media likes to refer to as "a personality" and a favorite on the chat shows. Her relationship to any of the others has been kept quiet thus far.

Finally, we have Laoise Ní Bhraonáin. (LEE-shuh) She has lived a very sheltered existence due to the paranoia her father developed following his wife's affair with my father. The only time she gets out of her family home is when Auntie Clodagh — that's her mother — comes to visit us. Laoise has a great voice, but she lacks confidence. She'll join in with backing vocals and provide incidental percussion, but she won't take on a lead. I'm working on that.

So, that's the seven of us. Now comes the tricky bit. There's only one possible candidate to be the father of my children — we both have to be honestly trying to get me pregnant for sex to happen at all. That's not negotiable, but there's the little perk of there being no barrier to it once I am pregnant. As the Oracle, I can only be balanced by the Null, so he's it if I ever want to have sex as a part of my life. He's 60 years older than I am, but he's been kept physically young by the nanites he has in his system. His age is actually a plus for me. My particular faculties give me a perception of the world quite similar to that of the older generations.

That he's a complete blank to me is terrifying! He's the one person on Earth — our Earth, that is, in the dimension next door, as it were — who can't be directly perceived through keen, which is the name of the gift the Seers and I share. I can't predict his actions, but I need to arrange for him to proceed in a particular way, which I am barred from speaking of to him. I can't even relay it to him through another. He can't know of the Seven Sisters requirements.

You're not going to tell him, though, are you? You have no way to convey that information to him, even if you wanted to. You will have control of certain choices he makes along the way, though. So, if I tell you the requirements, well. You get the picture. It's not cheating if there's no rule against it, right?

Rick — the Null, and the primary Viewpoint Character — has to take the seven of us to bed, beginning with the Second Seer and finishing with me. The other six have each also to conceive a child before it becomes possible for me to attempt it. (It doesn't need to be his child, but I'm not sure how that helps.) Also, they must never occur sequentially, in either direction. Neither Máire nor Siobhan can follow the Second Seer, for instance. Lastly, Rick has to accept that the final arrangement includes three of us, which will be the Second Seer, myself, and whoever is placed in the central position, between the Seer's Trio and the Oracle's Trio. Any of the other five can be put there, given a bit of thought.

So, that's the story on the Seven Sisters thread, which is only one of several threads to be explored ahead. It's the one I'd most like to see you complete, though.

I really, really want to get laid!

Havenfield, Atlantis

October 26, 2094.

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* Pronounced SER-shuh nee MWOY-nay, approximately.

** Aoife Ní Bhraonáin (EE-fuh nee BRAIN-ehn)