Yaoshi is imprisoned inside Oroboros
Yaoshi's garden is inside Voracity's maw.
Let's focus on Yaoshi the Abundance (praise be). The lore we've gotten from Evanescia indicates that all those who acquire the blessing of immortality become trees in Yaoshi's garden. We don't know where this garden is. Or do we?
We're told that Aha stole a branch from Yaoshi's garden and planted it in Ahatopia so as to teach it the meaning of Elation. What if..."Aha" did this at the same time it was devoured by Oroboros in the Fables? That can be paralleled with the time Enroute was consumed by a Leviathan and managed to break out, stealing Aftertaste from the Voracity.
A really neat way to tie these story events together would be to say that Yaoshi's garden is located within Oroboros and a mask of Aha (Enroute) discovered this upon being devoured by the Voracity.
I'm now going to present all my proof for this theory, then explore its conceptual implications, then connect it to Terminus' possible future presented to us in the 4.4 story quest.
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Why Yaoshi's garden is inside Voracity's maw
- Blade and Shuhu
Blade's arc in 4.3 could just be read as a generic "prisoner imprisons their captor" arc and honestly that's how I've been reading it until recently. However it has things to say on the meaning of "being a craftsman" and "forging blades" that are clear metaphors for the relationship between Abundance and Voracity.
First, Huaiyan's teaching to Blade (yellow text btw):
>"Waste not the bounty of this world, but perfect it through craft". To take what is useless, to take every failed scrap and forge it anew, isn't that our very mission as craftsmen?
Oroboros devours the bountiful resources of the world. If this "bounty" is not used, the devoured slop will remain as "failed scraps", existing in an imperfect, fallible form. This is unacceptable from the Abundance's perpsective (which believes "there must be a miracle somewhere in the universe that can cure the disease known as finality"). So the Abundance "reforges" the life Oroboros devours, "draining" it to grow a garden of immortal trees from within Oroboros' stomach.
It's not as crazy as it sounds. Leviathan conception theory implies that, although Leviathans consumed stuff in the cosmos (stars and nebulae mainly)...
>"their decomposed cells became the seedbed for organic organisms, and their dissipating life force became wandering Astral Spirits."
So (assuming this theory holds at least some truth), Leviathans never really consumed without giving back to the cosmos and Abundance is the logical way of expressing the "Compassion" they had to offer the world upon death. Oroboros obviously ascended from a Dusk Leviathan and it makes sense that this compassionate side of Leviathans would eventually emerge from within the Voracity.
I mean think about it. How many planets and bugs did Oroboros devour during Swarm Disaster? What unscrupulous amount of life energy did THEY get as a result? Abundance's growth from within Oroboros can be seen a necessary "penance", and makes narrative sense as a result.
Anyway let's move on to another voiceline, again from Blade in 4.3:
>Gazing upon the weapons I forged in days past, I can only feel a surge of endless regret. / The hammer falls and cannot be undone, yet I have spent my life taking one wrong step after another.
Here, Blade's looking at his own forged blades and reading them as instruments of harm and wrongness. This is basically the uncomfortable flip side of "nothing is wasted in Voracity's maw" perspective. If Voracity's maw is a forge that guarantees nothing taken in is lost, that also means nothing taken in can be undone.
This makes Yaoshi's compassion somewhat twisted, because it cannot be taken back and cannot be granted without cost. What do I mean by that?
As Evanescia's character story IV indicates, Yaoshi has to burn through life energy to grant those who seek immortality for themselves (Elixir Seekers) their wish.
>She was tireless on her quest for the elixir. Yet behind her hurried steps, death followed like a shadow.
Using life itself as fuel, the slender hands tending the mystical garden finally extended toward her a branch of favor.
So Yaoshi can be seen as a "prisoner" inside Oroboros because THEIR Path requires them to forge undying bodies and tend to THEIR eternal garden, but the price of doing that is the consumption of living matter. She must use death to help others overcome death.
>You are nothing but an echo of THEM, a slave trapped within your mission of "Compassion" ... You are Yaoshi's most pathetic prisoner.
So you can see how this line was heavily meta right? Shuhu is Yaoshi's prisoner because he must be there to offer the possibility of long-life to those who wish for it. And Yaoshi is the Voracity's prisoner because to fulfill the promise of immortality, they must consume life energy to forge life anew.
- Rahu
Anyway let's move to older lore. You guys remember how the Xianzhou Cangcheng died? For those who don't know, the Xianzhou wasn't originally a Hexafleet and there were three more ships that were destroyed in various ways. The Cangcheng (Jingliu's homeworld) was destroyed by Shuhu in a rather shocking and cinematic chain of events that desperately need to be animated.
Shuhu descended on the Xianzhou Cangcheng with an "incarnosphere", the living planet Rahu. He had been sighted reviving this planet (it was previously dead) by a disciple of the Sanctus Medicus. We learned in 4.0 that the planet was actually revived in a monstrous way, very unlike what the Sanctus Medicus recorded:
>"[Shuhu] turned planets into living beings and merged billions of people into flesh spheres" (for those of you who played the Elden Ring DLC, it's basically a repeat of what the Hornsent did to the Numen lmao)
Elegy, a Creed Exequy who hasn't beheld Terminus, has a memory bubble of the Cangcheng's fall:
>Elegy: The Xianzhou that follows The Hunt pursued those who were blessed by Abundance, only to find themselves falling into a carefully laid trap.
Elegy: The living crimson star hovered in the sky over the singular ship. It pulsated like a living creature, causing the shell formed by flesh and withered vines to crack before enveloping the entire ship.
Elegy: The crimson star was akin to a behemoth's stomach in charge of regurgitation, as well as a hotbed of corruption made of flesh.
Elegy: At that moment, every Xianzhou native who was swallowed had only one wish — death.
Elegy: The blessing of immortality turned into a curse. The Xianzhou people underwent countless cycles of dissolution and re-structure in the repeated regurgitation.
Elegy: Ultimately, the concept of "individuals" is lost. The blessing of immortality joined friends and foes into one.
Where do I even begin...
First, Shuhu uses the power of Abundance to "forge" a dead planet into a star eating monstrosity that goes on to consume a ship filled with long-life species already blessed by the Abundance. This is literally Voracity eating its own tail (a planet of Abundance consumes those blessed with immortality in a countless cycle until all distinctions fade and existence returns to unity).
Next, look at the name. "Rahu" actually comes from Hindu cosmology, where he was the severed head of the asura (think: demon) Svarbhanu. The asura snuck a sip of amrita (the elixir of immortality) during the churning of the cosmic ocean by devas and asuras. Vishnu beheaded him the instant the nectar touched his throat, yet, since the nectar had already worked, the head survived as Rahu.
Out of vengeance for being beheaded, Rahu eternally begins swallowing the sun and moon. But he's unable to keep these celestial bodies down since he has no throat below the cut. Hindu cosmology used it to explain why eclipses start and end (Rahu swallows the sun/moon, and it slips out of his open throat a while later).
What does this story mean? There are just so many ways to take it.
You could equate Rahu with Oroboros and you have two drinkers of worlds that cannot ever be satisfied because they're bodiless and endlessly hungry respectively.
But I think a better interpretation is that the Rahu story shows Oroboros has no control over what happens to the life it consumes.
Rahu the asura was doomed to never enact his vengeance (the sun and moon would just slip through his open throat and resurface).
Rahu the planet equally couldn't enact its vengeance against the Hunt (i.e., actually swallow the Cangcheng) because the ship was full of Xianzhou natives blessed with immortality. This is probably why Elegy describes it as "akin to a behemoth's stomach in charge of regurgitation"; the planet was consuming and regurgitating their undying flesh in an endless loop.
Both suggest on a conceptual level that Oroboros' stomach can never be a true end-state for the universe and instead constitutes the grounds in which Abundance can forge new life.
- Oroboros and Yaoshi design features
The ouroboros is a greek symbol representing the idea of eternity or infinity. Yaoshi is looking to create eternity within the cosmos through her garden (see eg the Abundance trace material "Flower of Eternity").
Also I'm sure you guys remember those pictures with Cyrene and Phainon where if you line up their splash arts one under the other, you get an infinity sign (or at least a kind of moby strip). The Aeon splash art for Oroboros when placed beneath Cyrene's creates the same effect.
As for Yaoshi, all of her Aeonic appearances have been accompanied by surfaces of water. When THEY gaze on Blade in 4.3, it is through a veil of water that ripples on the surface. When THEY appear in the first Myriad Celestia Trailer, THEY are perched above a lake of water.
Oroboros has long been associated with the sea.
>Simulated Universe: The odd sounds... Where is Fuli? As the delicate and intermittent sounds are drowned out by the sound of waves, you find yourself in the middle of the ocean! It is a sea of red...
>Oroboros: Yes, it's red! Under the scarlet sun, the ocean turns red! A beautiful and alluring singing voice comes from the choppy waves toward you... It is the Aeon's bait to lure you into a trap. The fanged and tentacled neck is as massive as the mountain and the sea, and its writhing flesh threatens to devour you.
Story implications
IPC have put a bounty on the remains of Rahu, which sits just above their bounty for the Stellaron Hunter Blade. They are looking to investigate these remains, presumably to advance their longstanding goal of understanding and commodifying the blessing of immortality. Ties in with the work they're authorising in the Mock Crimson Moon curio, and with whoever was funding the Herald of Death incident.
Given Yaoshi's garden is only reachable through the maws of Voracity, it means the unsealing of Oroboros may not be the final goal of whatever Department is interested in Oroboros' legacy.
I personally agree with the theory that Oroboros is the third face of Xipe and that Ena entwined with Oroboros thanks to the great transmuter Qlipoth in a "forging" that eventually takes its form as a new Path (Abundance) from within Oroboros. So, when Oroboros returns to the cosmos later this version, it will probably induce a dissolution from within Xipe, also returning Ena to the cosmos.
Moreover.
Oroboros and Tazzyronth have long since been arch enemies. These Aeons have fundamentally contrdictory ways of viewing and using the life energy in the cosmos. In this video, lore theorist Allegory explained THEIR conceptual clash as differing responses to the Revelation of the Permanence (what is the meaning of immortality?).
For Tazzyronth, the meaning of existence is to leave a legacy through your descendants (basically equating living with endless self-replication).
For Oroboros, the meaning of life can't just be bloodline continuation because we will die if we do not consume. Hence, the meaning of existence is found in sustaining oneself.
I think Tazzyronth is the divine infant in Terminus' observed future who is going to come back into the cosmos once Oroboros re-enters and begins THEIR sacred feast.
>In eight days, a beast will begin its sacred feast, a divine infant will fall to the mortal world. With its first cry, it will usher in an era of "madness" for the entire cosmos.
Imo Tazzyronth kinda "has" to return this version. Recall in the Swarm Disaster when Propagation was reaching its zenith. Oroboros (who seemed kinda reluctant to act beforehand) eventually must declare war on Tazzyronth otherwise Tazzyronth's view on the meaning of immortality will prevail over THEIR own, impeding Oroboros from pursuing THEIR own concept (Voracity). The same may happen with Tazzyronth if Voracity gains too much Path energy from the consumption of Planarcadia. Tazzyronth will be forced to birth itself back into the world (think: reclaim the concepts Qlipoth sealed in amber) to ensure THEY can pursue THEIR own concept (Propagation).
Tazzyronth is one of the few Aeons to have been called a divine infant in lore when THEY first entered the cosmos, so I don't think I'm reaching that hard .
>Herta: Can you hit yourself on your head and focus? Take a closer look - we've derived Tazzyronth."
Simulated Universe: Tayzzyronth? Everything happens so fast that you aren't ready for the change. You look up, and a beam of light flashes across the sky all of a sudden...
Tayzzyronth: A peculiar cry suddenly comes from somewhere, and you are certain it is the first suckling sound of an infant insect to the air. Along with it comes the melodic tone of red butterflies sucking honey from lilies. The saliva of different scents such as the scents of orange, blood, and tropical fruits is dripping, making you feel as though you were immersed in an ocean of soda.
I wonder how Yaoshi will respond to the return of Propagation in the world? She'd probably fuse with the Voracity to create something akin to the boundless beast we see in Blade's Finality as seen by Elio. (That's of course assuming she hasn't done so already considering Voracity and Abundance are heavily aligned...)
>In the "Finality" Elio revealed, he glimpsed a sea of spider lilies scattered with bones, a boundless beast skewered through, and a furnace belching flames. Black hair turned white as snow, and the aged artisan could finally embrace death. Yet the root of the immortality calamity had already bloomed anew elsewhere...
He still has a chance to change it all.
I want to talk about the implications this has for the godslayer protocol to kill the Abundance, but that's probably better as a separate theory so I'll leave things here. All I will say is that there is a reason the protocol involves the divine corpus of Voracity's arch-nemesis and that, if Yaoshi's corpus and garden located within Oroboros, it makes the protocol more complex but also more narratively entertaining to execute.