“My God! What the bloody hell is this?” A man with an accent cried, placing the item haphazardly back on the table.

Another man picked it up and blanched in horror as he, too, saw the hairline crack in the urn’s base.

“Sir, you are correct. Please accept my apologies for this damaged merchandise. Your bill will be corrected immediately.”

The old woman smiled as she watched a beautiful girl with wild red hair approach the man and speak with pretended nonchalance. “Excuse me, but what will happen to the pot now?”

“It will be re-auctioned, as is, of course,” the man said.

The couple continued to eavesdrop on the events of the auction, but only until the redhead bought the urn and drove off their grounds with it tucked into the seat beside her.

“She did look amazingly like the Incarnate on the urn,” the old man said.

“That’s because she is the Incarnate on the urn, or at least she will be very soon.”

“Hard to believe someone so-” he paused, trying to decide on the right word, “-modern is going to stop the Fomorian invasion.”

The old woman laughed. “At first she’s going to believe that she’s divine by mistake. As if Epona makes mistakes!”

“The Goddess’s ways are not always clear,” he said.

“No, but they are always interesting,” she said. “Shall we finish this, love?”

Instead of answering her, he approached his wife. Facing her, he took both her hands in his own. “It has been a long, full life, hasn’t it, Aine?”

“It has been, just as our Goddess promised.”

“Because through her will we were able to escape and save Partholon,” Tegan said.

Not only through my will, but also through your strength and willingness to sacrifice yourselves to defeat evil. Epona’s voice filled the room with ripples of magic and love. Now, my children, it is time you came home.

Still grasping hands, the old couple’s bodies began to shimmer, and then their crooked, wrinkled forms fell away, leaving a beautiful dark haired woman with eyes the color of a spring sky, and a tall, lean man whose wings unfurled majestically as he threw back his head and laughed with absolute joy. Tegan took Aine into his arms and kissed her passionately as they faded from the modern world to reappear in their Goddess’s verdant meadows, where she welcomed them with song and laughter and love.

P. C. Cast