James O'Connor scans the few faces of those waiting for the passengers disembarking from his small commuter plane. His eyes find the face he seeks. Maggie McAllister stands alone, her arms crossed, a raincoat draped over them, and a small handbag hanging from her shoulder. Her auburn hair frames her face, hanging down over shoulders clad in a soft yellow cable-knit sweater. She is wearing a pleated plaid skirt, her husband's clan plaid. Around her neck hangs a gold chain, a pendant on it, circular, with four equal arms, which he does not recognize from that distance. She is wearing knee-high black leather boots. Her face is impassive, calm, stonelike. He stops, feeling suddenly unsure of what his next move should be. He has gone through a roller-coaster of emotions for days, first elated and excited, then apprehensive, and now, standing just yards from the woman he has changed his life for, he finds himself unable to proceed, waiting for her to make the first move, after all.

Maggie senses the hesitation, and lets her senses expand, surrounding the slight, silver-haired man standing still, barely past the desk area of the gate. She finds only the natural shields of any average human, and probing beyond, finds the disciplined but untrained mind of a cleric used to the meditation of prayer, but not the practice of ritual magic. There is a slight sensitivity to magical energy, the way many humans sense the location of the sun in the sky even on a cloudy day, marking O'Connor as unusual, perhaps even capable of learning, if he were willing to work. Finally, there is the strong, bright mark of his bond, chosen and accepted, again and again over time, to his God. Maggie withdraws, watching O'Connor's face carefully to see if she has been detected. He shows no sign of awareness, and the entire probe has been less than ten seconds in length.

Maggie draws a deep breath, and steps forward. She reaches one hand out, and speaks. "Jim, welcome to Scotland, how are you?" Her voice is calm, soft, impersonal. James O'Connor sets down the small carry-on bag in his right hand, and reaches out with both arms, setting his hands on Maggie's shoulders. She freezes, her outstretched arm crossing back over her chest, holding the raincoat in front of her.

He leans forward, looking closely into her face, his eyes meeting hers directly. "Mary Margaret Frances Fitzgerald, I love you, will you marry me?"

"No." Maggie takes a step back, and turns towards where she knows the luggage will be delivered. "We'd better go get the rest of your baggage, James, and get you settled in the one small hotel here on the island. My cousins' house is full of family right now, we can't even offer you a sofa, and I'm sure you'll be comfortable for a day or two, until you can get a flight back to the States."

"The States? Are you nuts?" James O'Connor steps around in front of Maggie again. "Maggie, I've travelled half way around the world to talk to you, to ask you to marry me, and I'm supposed to just take a plain 'no' for an answer and go back home, my tail tucked between my legs, meekly accepting of the fate you've handed to me? No way, Maggie, we are going to actually TALK about this, and you are going to give me some sound, solid reasons for why you don't want to marry me."

"James!" Maggie's voice is fierce, just above a whisper. "Don't make a scene, not among strangers, for pity's sake. Let's get your bags and take them to the hotel. Then, we can either talk there, briefly, or, if you want a full explanation, we'll take a little drive out into the country and have it out, all the way. I told you on Samhain night that our paths were destined to diverge, I told you on Christmas Day that my answer to your proposal would be 'no', but you insisted on coming here anyway. Since you're going to push me, I'll offer you the full explanation, but not here, not in public. Now let's go get your stuff." Maggie turns away again, and strides off towards the baggage claim area.

O'Connor stands still a brief moment, then grabs his carry-on and follows the red-haired woman. Her stride is long, years of time spent horseback and working outdoors have let her keep her athletic physique nearly unchanged. He watches the red plaid skirt sway with her steps, then hurries to catch up, soon walking beside her the short distance to where his luggage already awaits.

In the bedroom of the pub in Ballykissangel, Orla smiles, and turns to Assumpta as she reclines against her headboard, reading. Assumpta looks up, and Orla gives a "thumbs up". Assumpta nods, goes back to her book, and Peter turns to Orla, a question clearly on his face. Orla speaks softly, "Maggie's met him at the airport, she's sure she has his measure and that he's no threat, and she's given us the 'all-clear' to go back to regular routines. Do you and Assumpta want to stay the night, sort of have a 'mini-vacation', before you go back to Dublin? We can bring supper upstairs, or we can try and sneak you out if you want to drive home."

Peter looks at Assumpta, who lays her book down after placing a marker on the page she's quit at. She stretches her arms and arches her back, then swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands. "Oh, I don't want to try and drive back to Dublin now, it's late enough in the afternoon, why don't we stay, Peter? We can just go downstairs and have supper in the pub, you don't need to go carrying things up to us, Orla." Mischief twinkles in Assumpta's eyes suddenly, the corners of her mouth turning upwards.

Orla giggles at the same time she shakes her head, but Peter is looking both worried and a bit eager.
 
"Ya know, Assumpta, it'd almost be a relief. I don't want to keep hiding from the folk here forever, I'm not ashamed I married you, I'd like to shout it from the rooftops! Maybe we should just go ahead and come back publically, tell everyone that you've been in a hospital with amnesia, and that Niamh and Brian kept it quiet so you'd have privacy while you recovered, but that when I found out you were still alive, I insisted I be allowed to visit you, and that was what triggered the return of your memory. We decided we still wanted to get married, and now we are, and want to share our happiness with all our friends."

"Peter, dear, I know it's tempting, for us both, even if it's for slightly different reasons." Assumpta's eyes are still sparkling with mirth at the shockwaves her "return from the dead" would set off. "But really, dear, we don't live in BallyK any more, and there'd be as many people shocked and offended by our marriage as would be happy for us. We have a good business in Dublin, and you might start teaching in the schools there at any time, who knows, maybe even as soon as after the Christmas holidays, if they need substitute teachers. Everyone who knows us there is happy for us, and those who are happy for us here can come visit easily. We've a new life for ourselves and for our baby. I think we had better plan, at least for now, to keep our lives in BallyK in our past, and to go forward with our future, not try and recapture that past. As long as we're together, I'll be happy, but why let ourselves in for grief if we don't have to?"

Orla reaches down with a small golden knife and sweeps aside the herbs laid in a circle around the bed, and Assumpta steps through and puts her arms around her husband. Peter embraces her in return, and Orla steps to the door. Just before opening it, she whispers, "I'll be up with some supper in a little while, right?" then she leaves.

Assumpta lifts her face from Peter's shoulder, and he bends down, starting a sweet, gentle kiss, which she returns eagerly, sparking a response suddenly passionate, soon overwhelming them both.

Sitting in the passenger seat of a small car, James O'Connor turns to watch Maggie McAllister as she drives along the narrow winding road into the hills outside the small town where her husband's family lives. His bags are all in place in the little hotel, his room booked for two nights. His hands are tightly clenched in his lap.

"Maggie, where are we going? Why couldn't we talk at the hotel?"

"Too public, James. I can't have anyone overhearing what I am going to tell you. And once I tell you, I'll have to kill you, you know!" The silver haired man gasps, and she laughs outloud. "Gotcha!"

"Maggie! Can you be serious, please? This is no time for jokes!"

"Oh, lighten up, you old fuddy-duddy! You aren't a priest any more, right? Then quit acting like one, if you want me to believe it. You may not wear that black suit and white collar, James, but you still just *ooze* 'Father' out your pores. Calling me by my maiden name, throwing in the confirmation name, too, for pity's sake! I stopped going by 'Mary Margaret' years before I ever met you, and hardly a soul now living knows about 'Frances'."

"I just wanted you to recognize how serious I was, Maggie. I didn't ask you to marry me on a whim. I remember the day we met, how I felt like I'd been asleep all my life until that very moment. How you looked like an angel, with that sunlight streaming in the church doors, framing you in glowing gold. All I could do was stand there, trying to breathe, and fighting with all my might to keep myself from grabbing you up and kissing you in front of the pastor and the whole congregation. I walked off that plane today, saw you there in the terminal, and it was like no time had passed at all, I was 28 all over again, standing there in front of you wanting nothing more than to kiss you until you answered me with a 'yes'!" James has reached over and laid a hand on Maggie's thigh. He hears a sharp intake of breath.

"Please take your hand off me, James, unless you want me to run off the road. I have to concentrate or we'll be in a ditch or into a stone wall in a heartbeat. We're almost there, and we can get out and talk soon, okay?" Maggie's voice is both firm and cracked, a hint of shakiness is lurking in between the words. Soon the car wends down the last curve of the hills and runs along a deserted stretch of coastal road. The sun is beginning to set as Maggie pulls into a small lay-by, and shuts off the engine. She gets out of the car, pulling on a warm heavy coat she retrieves from the back seat. James O'Connor follows suit, and joins Maggie on her side of the car.

"See, down there? Those stones are all that is left of a line of standing stones that reach out into the Irish Sea. Officially, nobody knows what they were set to mark, but I know, as do others of my kind. Come on, let's go down on the beach." Maggie heads off, leaving the old priest to follow. Crossing the road, they are soon walking on the gravelly shore, until Maggie reaches a tall stone, half way between the road and the water's edge. James can see that high tide must reach this rock, there are shellfish anchored around it's bottom edge, shut now against the dryness of low tide, waiting for the sea to sweep in and let them open again to feed and breathe and reproduce until the tide changes again. Maggie sets one palm flat against the stone, and James sees her eyes close, then open again, as she pulls the hand back, and, holding both palms out in front of her, begins to wave her fingers as if in water.

"James, I brought you here to show you why I cannot marry you, why you should go home.  Did you think that I was going to suddenly become the quiet, dutiful Catholic wife? That I was still the Catholic schoolgirl, bound in rituals and traditions? Sorry, James, I'm not the girl you know, the woman you dreamed about. I'm not a Catholic anymore!" Her hands lift high, and as he stares, a shower of light cascades from her palms, green and glowing, welling up and trickling through her fingers like streams of water, spilling down over her head and shoulders. The golden wheel on the chain around her neck seems to spin, spraying out stars which surround her like an aura.

James O'Connor steps back, his mouth gaping open. "Maggie, what, what is this, what are you doing?"

"Showing you what I am, James. I'm a witch, a pagan, a heathen, I practice magic, I serve the Great Goddess, the Earth Mother. Just as you are bound to your Desert God, I serve my Goddess, with joy and happiness in my heart. When baby after baby died in my arms, I begged for some reason, some answer, and then, I was given it. In my Mother's loving arms I found a reason not only for the pain in my life, but a source of the joy in it as well. Since that time I have only sought to grow stronger in Her service, so that, eventually, I will be fit to stand in Her guard when the last battle is called, in hopes of seeing Her victorious, reigning again as Queen over a renewed and purified Earth." The green, star-enrobed aura surrounds Maggie completely now, the light continuing to spill from her upheld palms, and also beginning to glow softly from the stones, the tallest one which she is closest to is a soft, warm, golden, and each other, stretching both back towards the hillsides and down into the water, soft reds or greens or blues or violets. James O'Connor stands aghast, her words only half-heard, and then falls to his knees, and, crossing himself, begins to pray.

Maggie laughs out loud. "I might have figured! Go ahead, He cannot hear you here, but then again, you don't need Him, you're in no danger, either! I won't harm you, James, but you cannot own me, you cannot possess me. I am free!" Maggie throws her head back, her arms wide, and rises slowly off the ground, her body seeminly suspended in mid-air. O'Connor hears a rushing sound, as a huge gust of wind blows around him, and feels the ground shake as something heavy seems to land upon it. The wind does not disturb the cascade of lights streaming from the stones, but Maggie's face turns towards the source of the sound. "Ah, my friend is here, perhaps you will know him, you have seen him before." Maggie settles back to the gravel, and walks away from the line of stones, the lights dimming somewhat. James O'Connor stands, and turns to follow her, stopping immedieatly with a gasp on his lips. Maggie is leaning against the huge shoulder of a beast out of a fairy tale book. A long scaled neck twists aginst her, seeming to cradle her in a protective ring of armor. "Come, James, you remember Iblis, don't you?"

The old man's face is as white as his hair, but he musters his will, and speaks. "Maggie, I don't know when you managed to slip me a mickey, but whatever drug you used, it's a whopper. Ibils is your horse, not a *dragon*!!! What I want to know is, when am I gonna come down off this trip you've sent me on, and am I going to have the Scottish Police at my hotel door, arresting me for possession of an illegal substance, and deporting me?" He manages to stand up, and cross his arms across his own chest, feeling his own will begin to firm up as his mind struggles to find a rational explanation for what his eyes are telling him. Maggie sighs.

"Ah, well, I knew you didn't have eyes to see with. This is why I won't marry you, James. You could never accept me as I am. Come, lay your hand on these scales, feel their warmth, their reality. Iblis is my familiar, and he can take whatever form he chooses. I'm a witch, just as you are a priest, a priest *forever* of the line of Melchizedec. Accept that, James, and go home. Let me finish this life and go on to my next one, and you go on, too, to your Heaven, if that's where you'll go. The bond that once joined us can be severed in this lifetime if you will let it be, and you can be forever free to serve your God with no remorse or longing for a life you cannot have and still remain in that service. I do not know how many lives we have led together, or how many may have been torn apart by this duality you bear; the silver curtain of Time is drawn together for me as it is for almost everyone, but this pain can end here, if only you will it."

James O'Connor stands straight, and looks at the woman a few feet away from him, encircled by the long neck of what appears to be a huge winged reptile. Gone are the plaid skirt and yellow sweater, she is dressed in a long flowing gown of pale green, the color of new leaves in the springtime. Her long auburn hair is lifted and tossed on the gentle breeze of a more temperate ocean than the Irish Sea she seems to be standing by. Her face is as he remembers it in his dreams, soft and young, sixteen again, not the mature face of the woman laying in a hospital bed, wracked by the pain of the loss of her child. He looks back on his long life, remembering all his joys and satisfactions, and even the glory and ecstasy he sometimes experienced as he stood before the altar, or knelt, deep in prayer. All his life he had wavered, unwilling to give up the one life to embrace the other. His indecision had cost him much, and he knew, deep inside, that it had cost this woman much as well. He wondered if he could ever make that up to her, in any way, if he could give her any happiness. Looking at her, he knew he could find incredible happiness in her arms, and at her side, for however many years he had left to him, but would that be enough, could it take the place of what he was leaving behind?

"Maggie, if you won't marry me, would you live with me, share my bed and my table, be my partner and my lover and my friend, for however many years we have left to us?" James O'Connor closes his eyes. There it is, he has said it, the decision started with the petition for release from his vows is final. He cannot take back the words.

"Yes, Jim, I would." Maggie's voice is soft, but he hears it clearly. He opens his eyes, steps forward, and lays one hand on the neck of the great beast between him and the woman he loves. The scales are hard and smooth, and quite warm, and very real. The neck lifts, and he looks up at the head, long and elegant, eyes still brown and limpid as pools, the eyes of the black horse he so often admired in pasture or stable. He smiles, and says, "Hello, old friend, glad to see you again." The great brown eyes warm, and the neck lifts up and over and behind him, drawing him inside the circle, pulling him suddenly close against Maggie as she stands, braced, against the dragon's shoulder.

"So", James O'Connor whispers "I guess all those times I said I believed in 'things seen and unseen', I really meant it, even if the 'unseen' didn't include dragons, so far as I knew, huh?"

"Well, you could put it that way, yes. Jim, are you sure you can do this? You'll have to do alot more than 'suffer a witch to live', you'll be living with a witch. I won't make you give up your Church, though, Jim, please understand that. I just can't join you in it. You can go to church every day if you want, and twice on  Sundays. It's one of the strongest tenets of my faith, we don't proselytize, and we don't deny anyone the right to worship the God of their choice, so long as that worship doesn't harm the innocent, of course. But if you do this you'll be committing what your Church considers a mortal sin, damning your eternal soul, Jim! Are you sure this is really what you want?" Maggie is clearly torn, there is both hope and fear in her voice.

"Mary Margaret Frances Fitzgerald McAllister, you were married to a lawyer for too damn long! Shut up and let me kiss you!" James O'Connor braces both arms around his beloved's shoulders, pinning her against Iblis, and finally indulges in a desire postponed for over three decades.

Minutes later, green eyes open again, Maggie looks into blue eyes, finding herself in the uncharacteristic position of having nothing to say. James is smiling, running fingers through auburn hair. He notices the green gown is gone, replaced by the long woolen coat, skirt and sweater Maggie wore earlier in the day. The stone pillars no longer glow, but the setting sun still glints off the scales of a huge black reptile, who is keeping them both warm against the wintry gusts of the wind off the Irish Sea.

"Hey, wait a minute, the sun was just setting when we got here, that had to be half an hour ago........." James O'Connor is trying to reconcile his realites.

"Well, Jim, for a little while we were in the Other Lands. It was the only way I could show you what I was, clearly, without attracting too much attention. This is a pretty small island, after all. And speaking of that, my dear, you had better head back to that cave you found, unless you want to make another night flight back to County Wicklow and sleep warm in your stable with Razor tonight!" Maggie addresses the head of the beast she leans against. Iblis lifts his neck, and both humans suddenly feel the cold air, and shiver. The head cocks, and James sees the clear question in the face.

"Don't worry, big guy, I'll get her back in the car and warmed up pdq. We'll be okay." James assures the dragon. He pulls Maggie against him, and upright, and the big dragon stands, spreading his wings. The head lowers again, right in front of the pair of humans, and Maggie embraces it, kissing the forehead between the eyes.

"Yes, love, I'll be all right. If you didn't think so, you'd be using his bones for toothpicks right now, and I know it. Go on home to Ireland if you want, and I'll be back in a week or so. After all, you have a date with The Cat this spring, and maybe more, if that foal turns out nice, so I pretty much have to come back with you, now don't I?" Maggie strokes the long head, stopping to scratch gently over the brow ridges, and then Iblis raises his head again, turning it, nostrils flaring, into the wind. He backs up a few steps, turns, and barely trots forward before the enormous haunches launch him upwards, his wings beating a downstroke that barely clears the sand, but lifts him further still, fully airborn, then another stroke, and he is moving forwards, into the wind flowing from the sea, lifting higher and higher with each wingstroke, quickly disappearing into the thick cloudcover of a darkening winter sky.

"Using my bones for toothpicks?" James turns to Maggie.

"Yup, no doubt about it, sorry. I protect him, he protects me, we are strength and power combined for each other. It's how we've been for uncounted lifetimes. He's not always an animal, I'm not always a human, but we are always together." Maggie is huddling against James now, shivering harder with both the cold and the energy she has expended, shielding Iblis from sight and helping him get off the ground with so little room. O'Connor pulls her back towards the road and her car, but cannot resist speaking as well.

"Hmm, with that as competition, what do you need me for? I'm really no more than chopped liver compared to a dragon!" Maggie giggles as she reaches into her coat pocket for the car keys.

"Silly, don't be jealous! We're not lovers, he's more like my eternal brother, a sort of twin brother under the skin. It's complicated, but it's not a physical relationship in that sense at all!" Both of them pair has climbed into the car, shutting the doors tight, and Maggie starts the engine. "Say, Jim, please don't tell anyone in Ireland, or here, either, for that matter, that Iblis isn't just a horse, willya?"

"Oh, gee, Maggie, I thought I'd blab to everybody, so I could get locked up in a lunatic asylum! Isn't the original Bedlam Prison somewhere over here? Yeah, sure, I'm gonna tell all the neighbors that my lover's horse is really a dragon, riiiiight!" Maggie turns, hearing in this voice echoes of a young man, full of fun and jokes, not the regimented, constricted voice of a priest. James O'Connor's silver hair is ruffled from the wind, his face is still lined, but the blue eyes twinkle as they have not done for years, there is still fun and mischief, bubbling just below the surface, and allowed for the first time in a long time, to come out. Maggie laughs along with him, the released tension between the two of them leading to a dual fit of the giggles that leaves them both wiping their eyes minutes later.

"Well, are you going to introduce me to your family, or just drop me off at the hotel and leave me all alone for supper with strangers?" James asks, as Maggie shifts the car into gear and heads back up into the hills, towards the small city on the other side of the island.

"Umm, well, they're my late husband's family, I don't think I had better introduce you as my lover, Jim. Do you think you could stand to be just a 'regular' friend for a few days?"

"So long as I get to be your lover in bed, I'll be discreet during the day, honey. I'll try to keep my hands off you in public, anyway." James smiles, "but since we aren't in public right now..."

"Jim, oh, my, you're going to get us killed, stop that!" Maggie grips the steering wheel, trying to fight the sensations Jim's hands are creating.

"I think we need to run out of gas on some back road, don't you?" Jim whispers in Maggie's ear.

"There *are* no back roads along here, just turn-outs, Jim, *please* stop that, at least until we get to the hotel!"

"Aren't they going to frown on us spending time in bed, when they know we aren't married?" James O'Connor's brow furrows, having made his choice, he is finding his former scruples swept away by the prospect of claiming his lover as soon as possible.

"They'll just shake their heads and call us horny Americans!" Maggie answers, then moans, as Jim begins to kiss the side of her neck. "You keep that up and a turn-out is going to have to do!"

"Sounds like a plan to me, then we'll take our time and do it all over again when we get to the hotel!" James O'Connor's voice is deep and husky, his hands touching what has so long been off-limits.

"Well, Cassanova, I'd prefer to wait for the hotel, we aren't the only car on this road, you know!" Maggie grips the steering wheel firmly, reigning in her emotions with discipline born of years of training. "Here all these years I thought you never gave me a second thought, while I was aching for you, and now all of a sudden you can't keep your hands off me. Too bad you didn't try this when I *was* a teenager, we could have spent alot of time in the back seat of my old Mustang!"

"Oh, man, Maggie, don't torture me, don't you think I didn't dream of doing exactly that, night after night? And all those years I assumed I was imagining all this up in my own head, that there was no way a gorgeous girl like you would have ever looked twice at a guy like me, and at my age, even if I wasn't wearing that collar!" James O'Connor sits sideways in his seat, gazing at the beautiful redhead he has finally decided to make a part of his life. He heaves a huge sigh. "Okay, I'll keep my hands to myself, but I hope you make good time back to that hotel!"

"Don't you worry about that, I'm in every bit as much of a hurry as you are! I've been waiting 34 years too, you know!" Maggie's chuckle is deep and throaty, and James O'Connor groans inwardly, trying to keep his promise not to interfere with her driving of the car. Soon enough, the island is crossed, the hotel room re-gained, and what both of them have dreaming of since their youth finally comes to pass.