The priestess briefly thanked Sláine for blessing the couple before moving on to Lucretia’s portion of the ritual. “I now present the offering for Lucretia, the goddess in charge of blessing the couple with many years of good fortune and wealth.” She held up two gold coins; one to represent the bride and one to represent the groom. “We offer up one coin from each side to represent the starting wealth they each bring to this betrothal. We place them together into this blessed coin purse so that you will multiply them and bless this couple with wealth for as long as they share this pouch.” She then slipped the two coins into a small leather pouch that was embroidered with Lucretia’s runes.
The priestess then walked over and stood behind a large permanently affixed stone chest that had gems embedded into it in the shape of a scale. She gently opened the chest to reveal an abundance of various types of gemstones of a large variety of sizes, shapes, and colors; there were also, mixed in as well, various plain stones that had varying types of textures and shapes. “We now ask Lucretia to guide my hands as I gather the rocks that will predict the amount and type of years of fortune the couple will face together.”
Lucretia watched on as the priestess closed her eyes and dipped both hands into the stone chest and carefully mixed the gems and stones. Lucretia didn’t have to actually do anything during this portion because the stone chests that each of her temples had were already ingrained with small portions of her divinity so that she could just sit back and let the stone chests do all the work for her. It also was a bit more entertaining for her this way, since the estimates would be a mini surprise for Lucretia as well.
Lucretia could interfere and have a say in the estimated yearly fortunes if she really wanted to, but that would require more work on her part. Plus sometimes the sharper priestesses noticed and made it a bigger deal than Lucretia usually meant it to be. This engagement was already dramatic enough as it was, so Lucretia just sat back on her floating yellow moon and watched on to see what her disconnected piece of divinity decided to predict for the couple’s wealth in the future years.
The priestess was finally done mixing the rocks and had cupped her hands together to scoop up the handful of stones and gems that would predict the couple’s future when it came to prosperity. She then opened her eyes only after she had fully lifted the handful from the stone chest. She then brought the gathering of rocks back over to the altar and gently placed them into a pile behind a large scale to separate the gems from the stones. Once she was done separating them she then counted each separately; making sure to note how smooth each of the plain stones were as well.
While the types of gemstones represented how much of different types of prosperities the couple would encounter throughout their marriage, the plain stones were debatably more important and interesting to the mortals, since each plain stone represented a single year of the couple’s marriage. The smoother the stone, the smoother the year would be financially; with any holes in the stone representing the loss of wealth. Though they couldn’t predict the correct order the stones went in, it gave the mortals a rough estimate on how well off the couple’s union would be.
As the priestess announced the results of the prediction Lucretia was genuinely surprised. Every couple that had partaken in the engagement ritual almost always had stones that had imperfections, like holes or sharp edges, yet the heirs of Frotleikr and Silvius only had stones that had been completely smoothed out by years of sitting in rivers. Not only that, but they also had received a large amount of different gemstones in the mix as well. Lucretia observed the pile of gems; she immediately saw her personal favorite of citrine, but there also were amethysts, diamonds, emeralds, garnet, jade, pearls, rubies, and then both blue and orange topaz. Considering who they were the heirs of, Lucretia could assume she would see a few of those gems, but to actually see so many of each was mind boggling even for her, the goddess of wealth; especially considering this was before she had actually officially made her decision to pass on her blessings and still had time to change her mind. Her only thought was wondering how immaculate their future financial advisor had to be.
The priestess carefully slid the gemstones into the same leather pouch as before and then placed it on one side of the scales in front of her. She then piled all but one of the other rocks on the other side of the scale. “Lastly we place the couple’s starting wealth on Lucretia’s Scales; so that we may ask Lucretia to balance the future years of poor fortune with years of favorable fortune.” She turned her head up towards the pale yellow wooden moon where Lucretia sat. “If you accept these offerings and wish to impart your blessings, let it be known.” She then placed the final stone on the scale and watched it sway back and forth.
Lucretia stood up from her seat and floated down towards the two toddlers. The piece of her divinity that she had imbued into the stone chest seemed to have already made the choice for her; she would impart her blessing upon the couple and their future fortunes. She traced her own runic symbols on the back of the toddlers’ hands right where her brother had traced his; this time the symbols that swirled on the back of their hands were yellow. She then traced the runes on the leather coin pouch, lighting them up briefly, and finally placed her hand on the altar where there was a picture of a scale. There were gasps from the mortals behind her as the picture of scales lit up; there were now two symbols on the altar lit up.
As she floated back up to her wooden moon she observed not only the mortals, but the other deities as well. The mortals still had various degrees of excitement and anxiety fluctuating on their faces, but Lucretia already predicted those reactions; her true interest was in how her fellow deities were reacting. The floating stars where the others were seated were quickly floating every which way as different groups formed to gossip, and then a few would split off and move to chat with other gossip groups. There seemed to only be excited buzzing coming from the various gods and goddesses. She even caught snippets of the whispering about the betting pool some of the deities had started before the start of the engagement. She knew there would be more of an upset than usual since everyone gathered when Ianthe showed up, yet the cacophony of the deities' voices was a bit overwhelming. The mortal’s were lucky in a way that they couldn’t hear the tongue the deities spoke in.
As Lucretia settled into her seat, her part in the ritual officially over now that the priestess had just finished thanking her, she thought she could hear some quiet whimpering from somewhere, but she couldn’t place where she was hearing it from. Before she had a chance to investigate further she noticed her sister stand up next to her.
“Quiet! All of you quiet down!” Ianthe called out louder than Lucretia had heard any other time she had observed Ianthe’s anger. Well, any other time except once; but that time was also out of sorrow.
Instantly all the deities shut their mouths and quieted down. Lucretia was reminded yet again the amount of power and sway her older sister had. She often forgot since Ianthe stayed cooped up in her personal temple run by the witch tribes, but it was a prime show of the fact that the only deities that didn’t shy away from her orders were their parents; the exact two deities that were the only ones not actually present. Of course if either of her parents actually came down to attend this “simple” engagement ceremony they all would be having a lot more issues and worries to fret over than simply the attendance of Ianthe.
Ianthe sat back down upon her pale purple wooden moon after giving a content nod towards the others. Ianthe’s frustration made sense to Lucretia since she was sure her sister wanted to be able to actually hear what the mortals wanted to offer up as gifts to receive her blessings upon the engagement. Still she was glad Ianthe left it at that when the deities all smothered their conversations and gossip immediately. Ianthe was known for her unforgiving nature after all; well, at least ever since… Lucretia shook her head slightly, she didn’t want to continue remembering the incident that caused the moment she would consider Ianthe at her angriest. Ianthe seemed to momentarily be in a good mood for some reason though.
Lucretia looked at her sister curiously through the corner of her eye. There were too many strange happenstances occurring for what was supposed to be just a small affair of two heirs getting engaged; not even their marriage ritual, but their engagement ritual. On top of that Ianthe seemed to be happy? Just what did Ianthe know that no one elsewhere knew? It couldn’t just be that the couple were born under their mother’s star sign, there had been other couples like that before that Ianthe hadn’t reacted to. There had to be something more to this, and Lucretia wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, or if it would be better to stay ignorant.
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