This is inspired by my classical archaeology classes, but with a healthy dose of artistic liberties for not only the pantheon but also the historical chronology… the Hellenistic period of the classical world is just too much fun to not include. Written for round two of the YGO Fanfiction Contest, challenge pairing Mizushipping: Priest SetoxKisara, with a side pairing thrown into the mix for fun. Happy Reading!
"Fortuna Major"
The boat had barely left the dock and already Priest Seto was vowing that he would never be late to a meeting again.
It was all Mahaado's fault.
Correction: It was all Mana's fault, but as she was Mahaado's pupil it was his responsibility to make sure that she didn't partake in spontaneous hallway foot-races in which he stood proxy for the finish line. It had caused him to be the last in attendance to the specially-called meeting of the palace high priests, meaning that he automatically was charged with the task that everyone else had convenient excuses for preventing their immediate departure to faraway lands.
He scowled at the sea, his reflection gone in an instant in the choppy waves.
Attending the festival of Nemea was supposed to be an honor. The retinue from the city itself had arrived that day, requesting the attendance of one of the priests to commemorate the occasion and the strong ties between each territory. And of course the pharaoh couldn't say no after that.
So here he was, on a journey that spanned practically the known world, to attend a damned athletic competition.
If it would have been appropriate he would have suggested that Mana attend.
All aversions aside, he supposed that in some way this might actually be viewed as a good thing. It was a change of pace, for certain. And he was representing the pharaoh himself, so he was sure to be treated with the respect he deserved.
The boat bobbed in the water, and Seto's stomach lurched with the sudden movement. He looked to the horizon and saw nothing but blue surrounding him. He resisted the urge to curse the water that was most definitely responsible for the pangs of nausea.
It was a good thing he didn't, however, as several members of the pantheon were watching the High Priest at that very moment, and they were known more for their competitive and quick-tempered natures than their reason or understanding.
"We all know he's thinking it."
"Well if he doesn't say it aloud then you can't interfere. Not allowed."
The gods tended to stay away from this particular corner of Olympus, as the quarrelling between these two never ceased and only increased in volume with time.
"…come on, mortal! Curse the waves, the boat, the seasickness, a seagull… anything!" The man who spoke thudded his fists on the edge of the table, his honey-colored locks swishing with the movement.
"Now, Marik, you know that you need probable cause to interfere in the life of this mortal." The other man crossed his arms and grinned, obviously pleased at the other's frustration. "If he doesn't cave in ten more minutes, then I win this time."
Marik grumbled, turning back to the center of the room and peering closely at the scene on the table between them, as if intense concentration could make him win their bet. He was on a solid losing streak today, and needed to do better—as the patron of the sea, he had nearly infinite gambling credit against Bakura, but it wouldn't do to cede his powers over to the deity of the underworld—the uneasy alliance they had profoundly affected the mortal world in ways that they couldn't begin to understand.
"What are you both up to? The usual—casting your lots and rolling your dice?"
The voice belonged to another, the newly deified patron of Fortune, who cautiously entered the space. The deity named Kisara was unique in that she was on friendly terms with nearly every member of the pantheon. She was also unique in that she was deified in a manner exclusive of all the other gods; she was exalted as a result of her own merit when a mortal, chosen to represent Fortune through her own valor. Perhaps it was a result of her attribute that she often sought out these two when they were in the middle of their games.
"Who is your victim today?" She joined them beside the table.
"Some priest on a pilgrimage… unfortunate man." Bakura shrugged, unconcerned.
Kisara leaned towards the image, her eyes taking on a sudden brightness. "His name is High Priest Seto, and he might not be as unfortunate as you are led to believe."
"I'm not in the mood for your prophecy." Marik frowned, moving his hands over the table, encouraging the waves to continue to swell against the boat. "Don't tell me you plan to follow Bakura's example."
The man in question scoffed at the unwanted attention—true, he had lured a young half-mortal into the realm of the underworld, but Ryou seemed content enough to divide his time between both worlds, taking the seasons as his cue.
"Let's just see what these mortals do."
The master of the vessel, a tanned Greek hailing from their destination of Nemea, approached Seto, who was hunched over the railing currently offering up the contents of his stomach to the patron of the sea. "How are you holding up?"
"…Fine." The High Priest immediately straightened upon hearing the voice, his mouth pressed into a firm line, his eyes shadowed by his headdress.
"It takes some time to get accustomed to the sea. We are at the mercy of the gods whether or not our voyage is smooth, and more often than not they choose to disregard our pleas." He sighed, shifting his weight between each foot. "But our boat is solid and our crew is steady—we can handle any wave! It doesn't matter what the gods throw at us, we'll always prevail. Even the god of the sea himself couldn't scare us."
In the skies above, Marik locked eyes with Bakura. "Did you hear that? Looks like I win this time."
"…On a technicality." Bakura shrugged it off, continuing to watch the boat's captain boast about his vessel to the unsuspecting priest. "Odds that you won't go down there and teach those unfortunate men a lesson?"
Marik grinned, already preparing to leap down upon the boat. "Slim to none."
Marik flew towards the water with open arms as if to embrace the salty spume of the sea, followed closely by Bakura who lurked behind, ready to clean up the mess and claim his due once Marik had his fun. "Speak of the devil and look—! He appears!"
The master of the vessel had frozen on the spot as if starting with his feet, he was slowly turning into stone from fright, yet while their attention was directed towards him, Seto quickly dashed to the front of the boat, spotting an island in the horizon that, with luck, the boat might wash up onto. He knew that the chances of the boat reaching its destination unscathed were slim to none, yet he wasn't about to die from the idiocy of some foreigner.
The High Priest was in the midst of securing a quantity of wood sufficient for flotation when he saw the shadow of the rogue wave, the column of water rising up to swallow their boat. He chanced a quick look back between the island off in the distance and the two responsible for their plight. As the tower of water collapsed under its own weight, tearing the vessel apart with its brute strength, Seto's mind was a jumble of collective thoughts, previously forgotten memories shaded by the one regret he had ever allowed himself to have.
Seto came to life in an instant—his entire body in motion as if compensating for the endless seconds spent buffeted by the waves, borne along against its will. Water pooled at his feet as he kicked at the sand, coughing as he slowly sat up. He thought he heard someone calling out to him, but he couldn't tell—half of the sea still resided in his eardrums.
"Are you alright? Can you get up?" The voice belonged to a woman; robed in layers of white fabric that blended into the spectral hue of her skin. "I saw that happened—you need to get out of the water."
She helped him stand despite his waterlogged protests, her sticklike limbs surprisingly strong. Once they were out of sight of the shore and on the main path she stopped to allow him to squeeze most of the water out of his clothes. His bangs were plastered to his forehead, and it was at that moment that he realized why he had felt so lightheaded.
He had only ever removed his headdress to cleanse or rest, despite Mana's speculation that it was permanently attached to his skull. Now that the headdress was gone, its weight bringing it to the bottom of the sea, he felt an uncomfortable feeling well up inside him. He was a High Priest! The symbols of his status often spoke louder than his own words when in the company of others. It was one of the rare times he did not know what to do.
"Where are we?" At last he found his tongue.
"The island of Crete," the woman said. "We're only a short walk from Knossos, our capital. My name is Kisara—I live on the island." She regarded him with curiosity, and Seto suppressed a twinge of annoyance—she was some village girl, and this was probably the most interesting event to happen to the island in recent history. "I'm sorry, but…what have you done to anger the gods?"
"It was nothing I did," he replied, brows furrowing at the implication. "I am on a journey to Nemea for their Panhellenic festival. Unfortunately, the boat has been destroyed, and its captain has been duly punished for his stupidity."
"Perhaps not so unfortunate," she beckoned for him to follow her down the worn dirt road.
"What do you know of fortune?"
From what he could see of her face, Seto thought that she was hiding a smile. "You'd be surprised. Now, what is your name?"
The walk to the capital took the majority of the afternoon, yet he was surprised at how quickly the time seemed to pass. His clothing dried with only a minimal trace of salt, the sun wasn't oppressively hot, and Kisara was reserved enough to let the time pass pleasantly enough.
"The city! At last!" She led him through the city's monumental gates; the red-painted columns rising impressively, almost appearing to disappear into the setting sun. They wound their way among the twisting paved stone pathways, past emptying shops and marble-clad meeting spaces, their destination the large colonnaded palace on the hill. Seto looked left and right, taking in the way that the flickers of light from the windows of the houses looked like stars.
He introduced himself to the vizier, the second-in-command of the island, who informed him that Pegasus, the island's ruler, was away—visiting the city of Nemea for a festival.
Seto scoffed. "That's where I am headed—as a priest from Khemet I request your hospitality, that you grant us lodgings for the night." They were shown into the palace proper, passing several elegantly outfitted banquet halls before arriving at what was designated their rooms on the second floor of the building.
"Why do you look so angry? Is your room not large enough?" She watched him shift his weight awkwardly between each foot, his pensive frown deepening at her question.
"We're on an island, Kisara. I need a plan in order to get to Nemea without being detected by the sea god."
"Do you always need a plan?"
He wanted to snap back at her; of course you always need a plan! But the words died on his lips when he noticed that she earnestly, honestly meant it. She wasn't trying to bait him or insult him—she was merely asking a question.
He had always prided himself on the ability to read people—he gave much weight to initial impressions, and that talent had served him well in his life. Yet perhaps what he really needed was to look back to his rather humble roots, and this simple village girl was unknowingly bringing that to the front of his mind, where it rather stubbornly remained.
The most frustrating part was that he couldn't read her, couldn't predict her next move. Maybe she was right—did he really need a plan? Must one's motions be cast in stone?
"Goodnight, Kisara." He gave her a tightlipped smile, letting her know that on some level deep, deep down, he understood.
"Goodnight, Seto."
Kisara left the room and walked down the colonnaded hallway, pausing for a moment beside the threshold to her room just in case anyone was still around. The night was clear; the sky an inky blue dotted with pinpricks of light. From the veranda on the second story she could see across the entire city of Knossos and in the distance the sea beyond, only slightly darker than the sky. All of the palace's residents were asleep; the stillness seemed to pulse around her.
"Bakura… what do you want?" Her voice cut sharply through the silence.
He was leaning against one of the wide columns, his position making him invisible from anyone possibly in the open courtyard below. She hadn't seen him appear, but she had sensed him—they were always able to sense someone else in the business. He smirked at her, half of his face lit by the glow of the torch secured against the stone of the column.
"Do you have any idea of what you're doing?" He crossed his arms, his posture a caricature of indifference. "…he's a mortal, Kisara. You're taking a huge risk, helping him like this."
"Don't you dare speak like that!" She advanced towards him, fists shaking in anger at her sides. "You of all people—after all that happened with Ryou?"
Bakura regarded her with new interest. "…touché. But just so you know, I came here to warn you."
Behind her wispy bangs Kisara's eyes widened, shining in the half-light.
"Marik's been watching you from Mount Olympus," Bakura informed her without vocal inflection, as if they were talking about the weather or the menu for the evening's dinner. "He thinks that you thwarted his attempts to destroy the boat—to him, this is an open challenge. You're lucky that he's sleeping off a healthy dose of ambrosia right now, or else I wouldn't even be here."
"We need to get off of the island," Kisara mused, reminding herself of Seto's earlier comment.
"I just wanted you to know that he's watching you, and as soon as you're in his territory he's going to go after the mortal." He smiled grimly, her reminder of his own past troubles with one particular demi-god staying in the forefront of his mind.
"…Bakura, why are you doing this? Isn't the underworld crowded enough?"
He smirked, standing up straight and sauntering down the deserted corridor. "… Let's just say I have a lot riding on this one."
She smiled as he retreated into the shadows. "Thanks," she whispered to the void where he had stood not a moment before.
"You probably want to see how this place stacks up against your home, right?" Kisara's voice echoed in the vast hallway; its arched roof plastered over—in this part of the palace, away from the reception rooms and banquet halls, they had been left mostly to themselves. "That's why we have to see all of it. Besides, we have the time—it's still early."
Seto merely clasped his hands together behind his back and followed her along the path, lips quirking upwards into some semblance of a smile. It was a well-known fact that Seto could accomplish more in one morning than most other priests could in a fortnight, and he had been beyond surprised that Kisara shared his affinity for rising with the sun.
Their path forked and Kisara chose the leftmost tunnel, beckoning him to follow her. His patience for this outing was rapidly dwindling. "Do you know where we're going?"
"No."
"That's heartening." They had been exploring for the better part of an hour, and while it was entertaining enough, he really wanted to get back to the main level. They turned one corner, then another, descending a flight of stairs that opened up into a large, cavernous space.
"Have some faith, will you?" Kisara's head was craned upwards, taking in the enormous space. "There's nothing down here that can hurt us."
The telltale whoosh of wind in the subterranean chamber was too noticeable to ignore.
"Maybe there's someone down here…" Kisara walked farther into the room, stepping towards the darker patches of shadow layered on the smooth floors. Forming a cone with her hands around her mouth, she called, "is anybody home?"
Famous last words—Kisara saw it too late to jump out of the way.
Fortunately, she didn't have to.
Seto saw the shadowy beast-monster-thing appear from the wall itself and rushed to Kisara, nearly tackling her to get them out of its line of sight. Kisara felt all of the air rush out of his lungs, only to be met with a human cushion rather than the stone wall she had been expecting.
The monster screeched, sensing that it had missed its prey, and swiveled in their direction. Seto's eyes darted around the space, looking for anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, when he heard two distinctive voices approaching quickly from another hallway.
"That sounds like the shadow ghoul!"
"I know what it sounds like, you idiot!"
The voices sounded oddly distorted from the corridor and a little high pitched. They were probably not the sort of people you wanted to happen across while lost in a maze underground while also being threatened by some dangerous monster.
"Shadow ghoul! How did you get out?"
"You probably let it out—I'm telling Pegasus when he gets back from the festival." The other one waved his arms for emphasis, the torch he was carrying casting a pool of light over the monster. It screeched again and began to back away from the light.
"Oh hey, Haga, we've got company."
"I can see that, I'm not blind." The man who spoke had large pieces of glass in front of his eyes, magnifying the feature in the torchlight.
"What are you doing here? We hardly ever get visitors in the lower levels." The other man had the tendency to keep shifting his posture, causing his long hair to be constantly concealing his own face.
"…we're not from here," was Seto's measured response. How else would one react if approached by two very decidedly not-normal tunnel dwellers?
"Figures," Haga scoffed. "If more people came down here, then maybe they wouldn't always be getting lost." His smile was not helping their case—these two couldn't be creepier even if they tried. Haga continued to bully the shadow ghoul away from them using his torch, and Kisara pulled herself to her feet by gripping a part of the rough-hewn rock wall.
"Thank you for helping us," she smiled at the other, eyes sparkling as if they withheld a secret. "My name is Kisara."
"R—Ryuuzaki." He blushed and then remembered that there was at least one person he could outshine. "And that idiot over there is Haga, but he's not as important."
From within one tunnel: "You're just jealous because I invented it first!"
Ryuuzaki shrugged, playing the good host while Haga finished rounding up the shadow ghoul. "He didn't," Ryuuzaki confided to them, his voice barely above a whisper. "He stole my recipe for quick-drying resin—we're using it to glue together large pieces of papyri. Come on, you should at least see our lab so you can boast to your friends that you know us when we become world famous."
"Yeah, and then help with some introductions—Ryuuzaki needs an intercession from the gods to keep a conversation going for more than three minutes—"
"Can it, Haga!"
They set off down the corridor. Seto could smell the faint aroma of wood burning, a nice change from the musty smell of the tunnels. Once again he paused, deep in thought—construction networks this advanced were only seen in palaces or necropolises in Egypt, yet the palace's place on the hillside suddenly made more sense to him. Some of these tunnels must have stretched across the city, or at least to the sea.
"Here we are!" Haga called, pausing before a simple doorway. Ryuuzaki tried to push past him. "I'll go first!"
There was a rustle of clothes and a knocking of elbows. "—No, I'll lead the way—"
Kisara glanced up, suddenly noticing that Seto was looking at her. She smiled sheepishly; he grunted and wordlessly waved her into the room, successfully navigating the squabbling duo.
Their laboratory, as they had so proudly dubbed it, was a little cramped but clean enough—several large tables were pushed to the corners of the room, upon which several large contraptions rested. A furnace heated the space; ventilating the smoke from the wood burning were several terracotta pipes attached to the ceiling. Myriad strange and curious objects were littered across shelves, and Kisara had to resist the urge to start picking up the items within reach to examine them.
"Is that your masterpiece, then?" Seto nodded towards the paper stretched between slight but sturdy-looking wooden frames, the sail-like shapes taking up a majority of the room.
"Yeah," Ryuuzaki replied, not quite pulling off nonchalance. "They're giant wings—we've flown them off of the mountains several times but they're still the prototypes. Let me tell you—Pegasus asks us to come up with some pretty strange stuff. There was this one time…"
He continued to tell the story, involving several bulls-head rhyta and an atrociously large stage background— "and then it crashed onto the stage during that terrible satyr-play of Euripides,'" Haga cackled gleefully, continuing where the other had left off.
Seto was no longer paying any attention to them—he had noticed that Kisara was giving him that look. If he had any less self-respect than he currently did he might have thought that he should fear that look. "What is it?"
She smiled. "I think I have an idea."
"If I die from this, I'm going to haunt you for eternity, you know that?"
"Relax. Don't you trust their craftsmanship?"
He chose not to answer, merely staring at the sea from their vantage point on the tallest peak of the island. Their plan was ridiculous…so ridiculous he actually had to give her some credit. He shifted, feeling the harness of the contraption resting around his shoulders. She had a similar apparatus attached, but she was insisting that he go first.
He was not about to place his life in the hands of this flimsy paper death-trap. Through some misguided sense of fortune he had managed to stay alive through this trip gone to hell, and now he was taking the ultimate plunge, in every possible sense of the word. He locked eyes with Kisara who looked so trusting, so honest—she believed in him. He just had to believe in himself.
He looked out at the wide expanse of flat terrain they had scouted on the slope of the mountain and gritted his teeth. He had probably done something more ridiculous in his lifetime—no, this was definitely the most ridiculous, incredibly stupid, smallest chance of success thing he had ever attempted in his woefully short life.
A second later the wind started to pick up, Kisara yelled at him to run and his feet swiftly left the ground. A minute later she was soaring too, slightly behind him, using the complicated switches built into each paper panel to gain altitude.
She said that they had to be high enough to be out of reach of the largest of waves. So they climbed through the sky, darting and weaving back and forth in the air. In that moment it would have been right to envy the birds for what they could have every day. He wondered what Egypt would look like from the sky.
The wind continued to lift them up and push them along, and before long Seto was nearly regretting when they would actually have to return to the ground.
A gust of wind drove Seto higher, but when the wooden frame started to tremble from the wind the rational part of his brain started to get just the tiniest bit nervous.
He heard the crack a second later, and he knew that somebody up there had it in for him. The wooden frame of the right wing hung limply, and Seto was pushed into the air current without the support of the wings. Kisara had noticed the wing malfunction as well. Seto was currently holding the pieces together with one hand so the wing was spread out taut but it wasn't working; they both could tell. "Seto? Do you have a plan B?" Her voice mimicked the wind; uneven and shaky.
"I'm high up enough that I can glide down slowly—who knows, we could get there in time if the wind keeps up." She noticed his word choice and smoothly navigated to where she could glide beside him.
"I'm going with you, no matter what." After a moments pause: "You don't think one of these can handle two people, do you?"
"No." There was a toneless, definite finality to it. Slowly but surely, they began their descent.
It hardly surprised either of them to find Marik waiting for them as they floated downwards, a smug smile on his face. "I have to say that I'm amazed, Kisara. I didn't think you had it in you."
"You will not harm him." She moved between the two, her features fiercely set, every molecule of her being determined.
"…Kisara? What is he talking about?"
"You mean you never told him? Oh, how unbelievable." Marik's laugh was low and insincere as he turned to Seto. "Mortal—you've become the catalyst of a fight amongst gods. I'm Marik, patron of the seas. And you know Kisara—the deification of Fortune. How useful that turned out to be."
In an instant, everything clicked. The small conveniences… their escape from Knossos… even the way she moved, talked, and acted bespoke someone far removed from a simple village girl. And worst of all was that he had fallen for it.
"You won't worry for much longer, mortal," Marik sneered. Raising his arms, a wall of water began to form behind him. With one swift motion of his hands, the water climbed and rushed forwards, passing through the deity as if he was one with the substance.
"No—!"
There have been moments in Seto's life that lingered on the boundary between the real and the extraordinary. The magic performed by Mana, the spell caster-in-training from Egypt; the day the boat had capsized from the wrath of a god; even one particular night in the desert in his youth that ended so, so terribly. Yet in one instant where there had been only empty air there was a large and very corporeal dragon, scales glistening the color of the sea and the sky it hovered between. In another instant a blast of light had sliced through the water, causing the wave to pass by on either side of both Seto and Kisara.
In a third instant Kisara's eyes turned as cold as ice and a second attack from the dragon blasted Marik backwards into the water. "I said that you will not harm him." Even her voice was cold.
Then her composure dissolved in a weak smile. She moved to him and reached out with her hands, firmly enclosing hers around his own larger, calloused hands.
Seto looked at the dragon watching over them from a distance and felt the faint stirrings of a memory. "I've seen it before. I've seen you before. Kisara, why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm sorry." She smiled at him and he was struck with the thought that it made her look sad. "You saved my life that night, years ago, and gave up so much in return—and ever since then I have been looking for a way to repay you. Now, as the deity of Fortune I can do that."
Kisara sighed—she had been preparing for this moment for years and it was still turning out wrong. "I'm sorry for not telling you who I was from the start. I just wanted everything to start over. I wanted a clean slate."
"…Are we even now?" His eyes kept darting to the dragon. It was majestic.
"No, I think that there's one more thing I can do." She led him over to the dragon, who shared the slightly disdainful composure that Seto was failing miserably to uphold. "…Come on, we have a festival to get to!"
They flew towards the green smidge of land in the distance. "The Peloponnese," Kisara breathed, "and Nemea. Right on time."
The countryside was beautiful, all rolling hills and rocky bluffs. The sanctuary was located at the edge of the city's walls and from their position he could see a large crowd already gathering to celebrate the start of the festival.
"Do you think this is a good idea?" Seto whispered. "It's not exactly inconspicuous."
"Exactly," she laughed. "And this time, I have a plan."
The citizens of Nemea and those traveling to the festival pointed and gaped. He could hear their shouts of surprise as they descended onto the stadion racetrack. He couldn't believe it—they thought the dragon was a good omen, a sign for a successful and happy festival.
In the stands of the stadion, the crowd gathered around them and cheered.
"You see the riders of the dragon, the one with the blue eyes and white scales? Are they deities? Demi-gods? Heroes?"
"The girl is Fortuna—her likeness is on every coin in Sicily."
"Who's the man, then? He must be a hero, to make such an entrance!"
Their cheers filled the air and he felt their adoration lifting him up, making him feel freer, stronger, and prouder. No human had been deified since Kisara, but to the world it appeared that he was following in her footsteps. That day, Priest Seto became a hero.
After the festival, the white dragon with the blue eyes made a brief stop. High on the slopes of Mount Olympus, Seto felt distinctly out of place.
"You're a hero now," she grinned, "If you really wanted to, you could come live on Mount Olympus with me. It's something like deification by acclamation."
He took a moment to consider—for it was something to consider. "I don't know," he replied, his voice even and honest. "My life as a Priest, everyone back in Egypt—I'm not sure I want to leave all that behind."
"Have you ever heard of a compromise?" Bakura sauntered into the room with the self-satisfied air of a cat. "Six months there, six months here."
"You want us to follow your example?" Kisara's voice was incredulous, her eyebrows disappearing under her bangs.
"Why not?" Bakura folded his arms across his chest. "That reminds me, Ryou will be due to come back here any day now. And then I can collect on our bet."
Seto turned to Kisara. "Do we even want to know?"
"It was about you both."
"Really?" She grinned. "Do you ever lose?"
"Never, I always win." He turned to leave them alone, bored with them for the moment. "Must be my good fortune."
The End.
Author's Notes:
I hope that you got that Bakura and Ryou's back-story is that of the myth of Hades and Persephone. I think it's a sweet idea.
Haga and Ryuuzaki could also be known as Insector Icarus and Dinosaur Dedalus—other mythological figures. Back in the day, the fabled King Minos lived in the Palace at Knossos, and built his labyrinth there—complete with minotaur/shadow ghoul, so this just references that too—and the wings are also part of the Icarus myth.
I've studied both Knossos and the Nemean Games, which are an every two year ritual and athletic festival (similar to the Olympic Games, which were held at the sanctuary of Olympia), where people do travel from as far as Egypt to attend. I borrowed the Roman concept of deifying Fortune for this story, and thus Kisara became Fortuna.
The cool thing about the Hellenistic time period is that cultures started to really mesh, and people were borrowing different things they liked about other religions and cultures/ customs, so the Pantheon was a lovely jumble of all sorts of people.
Fortuna Major translates to 'Good Luck' or 'Good Fortune,' which ties everything together nicely.
Thank you for reading, and please review! I value and cherish each one.