My near death experience has made me think long and hard about Aisling's fate if my so-called Irish luck should run out and I end up buying the farm. What many Americans don't know is that given Ireland's long, sad history, the best that can be said of Irish luck is that if we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have luck at all.
Aisling is my wee traveling companion, a Galway country girl....who just happens to be only a few inches tall and lives most of the time in my custom whiskey hip flask. She's one of the Faerie-folk of Erin, specifically what is classified a "Sprite". Her image is featured as the bottom graphic of this journal. She was bonded to me by Ogma as my guide and traveling companion, and we've been together since I was a teen. Chronologically, she's older than me...how old, I don't ask--wouldn't be polite nor proper. But since Sprites live longer than humans, she hasn't matured much emotionally these several years. She's still as giddy and emotionally unbalanced as a 17-year old girl, just as I first met her.
On this trip I've been wracking my brains for ways to let her help, let her out of her confinement but that keep her safe at the same time. It's a definite challenge of late. She doesn't like being crammed up in the flask all the time, but so often it's for her own protection. I think intellectually she knows that, but emotionally still finds it hard to accept. She's so incredibly loyal to me.
It pains my heart to realize how irresponsible I've been with her since leaving Ireland's shores. She's a long way from home, and one of my worst fears now is being ambushed alone somewhere and killed with Aisling still bound in my hip flask...and slowly starving to death because no one knows she's there or how to let her out.
The guilt was so strong I asked Laurel out of the blue to look after Aisling if I should die in the upcoming assault. I don't think Laurel was expecting that, could see her eyes widen with surprise and alarm. I guess maybe I spoke too impulsively, but I can't help feeling a deeper emotional closeness to Laurel now. Sort of like the way wounded soldiers bond with their nurses in Army hospitals, I suppose. Shite, I've read too much feckin' Hemingway. I know that Laurel and Gunnar seem to have this thing going, whatever "it" is. I know that. I do. Still, a man can't help feeling how he feels sometimes...though I'm not sure I can put a name on what it is I do feel now, other than to say it's different now than when I first met the group.
I know I need to talk this all over with Aisling, and I know she's not going to like it, but we have to be clear on this issue. At the very least, I would like someone, preferably Laurel, to ensure Aisling's safe passage back to Ireland. Just get her to the city of Galway and she'll be fine. Aisling shouldn't be dropped off in Dublin; even though she knows the city well, she doesn't know how to get from Dublin to Galway safely on her own. I've always taken her.
Laurel's initial reservations were that she wouldn't know how to properly care for Aisling. Left unsaid was perhaps consideration of Nevermore's emotional response and possible jealousy. I guess just ensuring Aisling's safe passage back to Ireland is the most I could ask of anyone.
I don't like dwelling on any of this, but nearly dying at a hotel in California, if not THE Hotel California, has forced me to.
I do have a responsibility to Aisling to make contingency plans for her if I should die. We Scions probably all intrinsically believe we'll beat the odds, ascend to Godhood, and live forever. As the old Porgy and Bess song has it, "It ain't necessarily so".
I do look forward to sending Aisling into action to cut the power to the cultist compound. I worry about being able to collect her after the action is over. I want her to stay on scene and hide and keep sabotaging the power supply if their security forces manage to restore it the first time. We'll just have to make sure to sweep back by the main power allocation centre to collect Aisling on our way out. I don't want to have to rely on "Dad" to help me find her. He entrusted her to me, so she's my responsibility. Always has been.
It's a shame Aisling's not a full-sized human girl, as she's certainly attractive. I'm even amused when she exhibits flashes of jealousy when I flirt with other women in her presence. Even when she's pouty she's cute. But she will always be a sprite, and I will always be a part-human, part Godling Scion of Ogma.
I want her to have the best life I can provide for her, and I want to be able to spare her a violent death if at all possible. She's my scout, a second pair of eyes, but strictly a non-combatant. I thought of having her remove the CS canister, but the gas might have overwhelmed her, and there was always the possibility of her catching a stray rifle bullet, and that would've been the end of her. So instead I just held my breath and kept on fighting as best I could...and better, thanks to Laurel working her...magic...? on me, both during and after.
She touched me and now I have a hard time keeping me eyes off her, stealing a glance here, there. Gods, the guilt. It's like I'm a little Jesuit schoolboy all over again, even though I walked away from that belief system ages ago. 12 years of Catholic school sticks with you, good and bad. Part of me thinks of going to confession, laying all my troubles to a Father Rodriguez or Padre Gonzales out here in California...not because I believe any of it anymore, but just to talk about it to a third party not involved with no stake in the issue.
I need to drive these errant thoughts from my head and stay focused on the mission. Or at least grab a pint to calm my nerves. Alas, I don't think there are any friendly Irish bars between where we are now and Badger, California, or that I have time to pop into one, even if it exists. Shite.
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