I was deep in penitent prayer when I heard some stomping through the underbrush the next morning and voiced in...English?
Then a crow landed on a branch beside me. Not just any old crow, either.
"Oi! Paddy wanna bandaid?", said Nevermore, before cracking up into what passes for laughter among birds, I suppose. He'd said it exactly as a human would say "Polly want a cracker" to a parrot.
"Oh very feckin' funny...", I said, wincing. I concentrated deeply and my wounds closed up all over my body.
"Y'know, I'm glad you waited to do that...made findin' you a lot easier, y'know...", said Nevermore, a bit more seriously.
I produced a wee bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey that I picked up in the Duty Free Shoppe in Dublin Airport...
"That's for minding Aisling in SFO", I said. "I won't tell Laurel."
Nevermore's eyes brightened..."Speakin' of, mate, I'm not the only bird what Nate brought along on dis here trip, ifn you catch my meaning...", he said, motioning towards the ground with his head and beak.
I looked down and saw Nate enter the clearing; behind him a few steps was a strikingly beautiful young woman with long, flowing, silvery-white hair I'd know anywhere...my heart skipped a beat. Ogma had heard and answered my prayers.
"Aisling!", I called out, then jumped down from the tree.
"Brendan!!!" she cried, rushing past Nate, who raised his hand in greeting and said simply "Yo."
Aisling kissed me deeply for a solid minute, pausing only to catch her breath and say "I love you" in Gaelic. She was petite in stature but curvy in all the right places.
Nate coughed and looked around the clearing. Nevermore flew down and landed on the truck's roof and said "...right, you two can get a room later, 'k? For now, Nate here be needin' a SITREP kinda ASAP."
I detailed for Nate all that had transpired since our arrival in Wolfsheim, and explained our encounter with Harlan, and what he'd related of his experiences as well. I handed Harlan's ID over to Nate. "My guess is he's a fellow Federal government employee of some stripe," I said. Nate looked at the ID, nodded, the put it away in his pocket.
Nate decided he and Nevermore were going to head into town. I declined, having been recently shot there and all. Apparently Irish neutrality in WW2 didn't mean much to Nazi werewolves in the 21s century.
When Nate and Nevermore had left the clearing, Aisling produced a tiny wooden box and said "yer Da told me to give this to you, said you would know what to do with the contents. He forbade me to open it until I found you."; she spoke with the same soft County Galway rural country girl accent she always had, only richer and more full.
I opened the box and found two Claddagh rings...one with a gold band and a silver heart. The other with a silver band and a golden heart. Over the gold banded ring I saw my name in Ogham script. Over the silver banded ring was Aisling's name, also in Ogham script. I placed the gold banded ring on my finger, and it glowed softly. I pulled out the silver-banded Claddagh ring and dropped to one knee before Aisling, placed the ring on her finger.
"Aisling, will you marry me?", I asked in Gaelic.
Aisling started to cry, and let out an involuntary squeal of joy and excitement...
"Fer fuck's sake I thought ye'd never ask!" she blurted out in English with a laugh...she smiled warmly and said after a solemn pause, "Aisling O'Shea has a very nice ring to it...so I think I have to say 'yes'. Yes, Brendan O'Shea, I will marry you, if that is your wish."
"Yer the answer to my prayers, my love, and that is my deep and abiding wish.", I said, simply.
Both rings glowed brightly for a brief second then faded.
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