Hang a wreath of rowan and herbs on the door. Carry a nail in your pocket. Don't forget to leave a small bowl of milk and honey out if you're able. Brennan's mam had taught her everything she'd needed to handle the fae but what she'd neglected, and might have gotten to if Death hadn't come knocking, was what Brenn should do if she found herself living with a goddess.

Of course, since fairies and goddesses didn't exist, it wouldn't have helped.

Jesus, she needed to get it together. When had she grown so fanciful? Other people lived with their heads in the clouds, not her. At least, not usually—that's how one ended up bleeding out on the cold ground with an Aesir bullet in her chest.

"Oy, Brenn, you with us?" Dermot asked, voice raised against the din of a pub full of folk trying to fill their stomachs and forget the hell of life in the Human District. He had a spark of mischief in his eyes and it'd serve him right if she ignored him, but that wouldn't be polite, so she sighed and turned to give her cousin's husband her attention.

"Something to say?"

He grinned now. It stretched across his face and lifted his rosy cheeks. Aaron stepped in behind and wrapped his arms around Dermot's chest, resting his chin on Dermot's shoulder, brown eyes sparkling.

Great, both of them were out to get her.

"I was just telling the band to take a break before the next set. Might be a good idea for you to take yours outside. Alone..."

"...with Rora," Aaron added. Dammit. He was grinning, too. "Since you can't keep your eyes off her and it's become a wee problem, don't you think?"

"Feck off." She'd had just about enough of their teasing this week. Sure, maybe she'd been a pest when Aaron had started snogging Dermot in the pantry at the beginning of their relationship, but she'd been a kid. *They* were grown men in their thirties. Would it kill them to act it?

She turned away from Dermot's chuckle only to catch Rora bathed in the glow of the makeshift stage lights. Her nimble fingers worked the latches of her ancient fiddle case. There were freckles on the backs of those hands. Bricaní in Irish; little stars. Brenn was drawn to them—fascinated. They covered most of her exposed skin only to disappear beneath her green, knit jumper. What would it be like to seek out new worlds along the galaxies mapped out on her soft skin?

Dammit.

Why did those Muppets have to be right? She put her tin-whistle in its case with too much force and glared over her shoulder "Fine, I'll go outside to clear my head, but you'll be sorry when I catch my death from the cold."

"We both know that's an empty threat. You're half soaked and frozen to the bone on that boat half the year and you haven't died yet." Aaron this time, voice full of infectious laughter, and her heart full of betrayal as it warmed to the sound of it. Love him or not, he didn't deserve a response. Instead she grabbed her worn trench from a worn stool and stomped off the worn stage in her worn boots, right past Rora.

"I'm going outside before I murder my cousins."

"You alright then?" Rora called after her in her northern lilt but Brenn waved her off. Aaron and Dermot may have taken in an angry twelve-year-old orphan and seen her through to adulthood but they didn't get to dictate when or even *if* she told Rora she couldn't imagine the Universe without her in it anymore.

As she hit the stone floor, someone at the bar, unable to let the music go, began to pound his fist on the polished wood. A few more picked up the beat and as she wove through the crowd one of the aul ones began to sing, "Oh the summer time has come, and the trees are sweetly bloomin'..."

Even God was having himself a good laugh at her expense tonight. Look at Brennan Darcy, faced with something her technical manuals were useless against. Watch her flail and splutter like a rookie deckhand thrown overboard.

More voices joined.

"Will ye go, lassie, go?" they sang before the heavy back door closed behind her to block them out. Mist-diffused lamps along the pub's stony façade illuminated rubbish bins, but nothing more. She was alone.

Will you go, lassie, go?

She glanced up to the sky, but couldn't see the stars and hadn't expected to. Not only were they out of reach to Humans in Galway, they were often hidden by clouds as well. All the better for subjugation. It'd be hard to prove their genetic superiority if the Aesir let Humans dream about and roam the stars freely. Except some Humans did, right? Somewhere out there, light years away.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Will you go?

Go where?

There'd be no going anywhere. Only staying right here, coming home sunburned and reeking of fish after keeping ancient fishing boats running so their crews could meet impossible quotas, then spending her shore leaves at the hospital fixing monitors and life support systems. Every night she'd come home to play or serve at the pub because they needed every little bit to keep their home and fill their stomachs and sometimes it still wasn't enough. One exhausting day after another she'd live and then the Aesir would kill her for the information she farmed, or the communications equipment she maintained, or other Resistance activities—

What kind of life was that to give someone else?

The door opened and closed. Brenn didn't need to turn. An enticing energy unique to Rora buzzed around her always, inviting Brenn to step closer and feel it wash over her skin.

"We've been playing for over an hour and you stormed out here without a drink." Rora stepped beside her and she turned her head, catching a freckled face with wide green eyes, high cheekbones, and a sympathetic smile. She'd tied a cloak around her small shoulders, but left her loose auburn spirals uncovered, held away from her face with clips. Rora pressed a water bottle into her hand. "Why are you so upset with your cousins?"

"They're acting the maggot." Brenn drank half the bottle in one go. Between Rora's nursing shifts at the hospital, late night midwifery calls, and helping around the pub, how did she find time to look after herself, much less make sure Brenn was fed and watered? "Thanks. Didn't realize I was so thirsty."

"That doesn't answer my question."

From her cloak, she pulled a small jar of nuts and offered the container. She must've spent a pretty penny for such a treat. Brenn shook her head. Was it disappointment that flashed across her face? A silent moment passed as Rora chewed a small handful. Her energy reverberated at a different frequency tonight and the hairs on the back of Brenn's neck rose as if her hand hovered over a live wire.

"I don't want to talk about it." A breeze rustled both their hair and cut through the open bits of Brenn's coat. She pulled it closer, tucking her arms beneath her breast.

In a flash, Rora was in front of her, eye to eye and almost nose to nose. The air crackled the way it did before the first bolt of lighting in a thunderstorm. "Maybe I do. We both know why they're slagging you, and you're not the only target of their meddling."

Jesus, what was going on here? It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

'Lads, lasses, or the lot of us?' she'd imagined asking over casual conversation. Easy, sealed with a kiss, and ending with a long walk along the ocean at sunset.

Or not at all.

"Have they been having a go at you, too?" More reason to murder them.

"It's not like we haven't been driving ourselves and everyone else to distraction." She looked down to their feet and the gravel that might have been cobblestone a hundred years ago. "They do it because they love you and want to see you happy. I want you to be happy, too... I love to see you smile."

There went her heart, betraying her again. It squeezed inside her chest. Lift that chin, it urged. Take her in your arms. Press your nose against hers and kiss those lips until you're both smiling brighter than the moon would be shining. What kind of monster didn't smile when someone like Rora said something like *that*?

Well, no one had ever accused her of following her heart. They'd called her level-headed and pragmatic. It'd made her proud. Tonight it didn't seem so worthy of preening over.

"It's not that easy."

Rora took a turn looking towards the sky, then out towards the end of the alley where the rest of the aul city lay. Further still stood the fences and Gardaí stations that kept them inside unless they had a good reason to be outside. Freedom wasn't a good enough reason.

"It can be. You don't want it to be." Rora's gaze was piercing when their eyes met again. "I know your plan."

A challenge in that tone. What the hell was she supposed to do? Retreat or stand her ground? If she stood her ground, she'd lose, but winning might be worse.

"And what's my plan, all knowing Oracle." Jesus, she was an arsehole of the highest order, wasn't she?

Rora tilted her head to the side, expression calm, but eyes as hard as polished gemstones. There were tears in them too, shimmering in the lamplight.

"You figure since the Aesir built this world to torture us and nothing is going to get better, you might as well help them out by living as unhappy a life as possible because it isn't worth the risk to be happy, even for a little bit."

"That's—" she started and then lost her words. What? Not fair?

No, it was more than fair. It was the truth.

"People in the Resistance die young." She reached up and wiped an escaped tear from Rora's cheek and softened her tone. "We both know it, we saw it happen to our parents. They'll kill me eventually."

Rora nodded. Even her furrowed brow and pursed lips were beautiful. "And maybe they'll kill me first. Am I any less dead with the medicines I carry in my pockets than you are with your data chips? Or maybe they'll kill us together, unless you plan on asking my uncle to move me to a different cell?"

Brenn's fingers must have been taking directions from her heart. They too betrayed her, as they danced along Rora's cheekbone, up to her hairline, and back until they tangled in her curls. Rora's lips parted and it was like she'd stopped breathing. Come to think of it, Brenn's own lungs couldn't seem to get enough oxygen. The pull of Rora's energy had grown stronger— more desperate.

Before her brain could call off her traitorous heart, she brushed Rora's chilled lips with hers and breathed in the mix of warm sugar and lavender soap surrounding her. She marveled at how their bodies curved together and went in for another kiss, eyes closed, noses rubbing, tasting a hint of salt on soft lips that opened to invite her in deeper. Warm breath replaced cold mist. Electricity raised goosebumps on her skin. A fire formed in her belly warmer than any shot of whiskey.

Breathless she rested with her forehead pressed to Rora's. "I'm afraid. I don't know how to take a risk like this.."

"And I'm afraid to live another day without taking this risk." Rora whispered back.

Will you go, lassie, go?

Brenn held her goddess a little tighter. She would, wherever their path may lead.