Aine paced like a caged lioness in front of her Territory’s entrance, worry etched on her face. It had been little over an hour since whoever defeated her father (her mother?) decided not to enter and walk away. She could feel the weak, feeble glow of her father’s spark and while it felt like it was slowly healing, she knew it could go out with ease if he was attacked again.

Aine paused for a moment mid pace. Something had just slipped into her Territory though some kind of backdoor. Aine whipped around to face the bar of her shop area.

Sitting at the bar, a cup of mead held in a shaky hand, her father now swayed unsteadily, looking the worst for wear, his golden hair a bloody mess, pale-faced, his clothes covered in rips and tears, powered dust coating him from head to toe. But he was alive, and it seemed he could move under his own power.

Aine turned her head to glance back at the flickering flame she thought was her father’s divine flame, then back to her father’s weakly smiling face. Aine threw her concerns for ‘how’ out the window and focused on the ‘he’s ok’ of the situation, as she ran to him, wrapping her arms around his battered form. He groaned as her arms squeezed him, a final check by Aine to make sure he wasn’t an illusion, and laughed painfully as he held her, not willing to break their hug despite the discomforting amount of pain it caused him. He placed his mug on the bar as he rested his chin on her head, rocking his little girl slowly and letting her calm down. He whispered; his voice soft with tender care for her.

“You’re ok, my Alannah Aine. Everything is ok. I’m a little bruised and battered but it’s not the worst I’ve survived. Besides, Ishtar didn’t want me dead, just broken and at her mercy.”

Lifting his hand from his mug, he stroked her silky flowing hair, his calming voice continuing.

“She did offer me mercy you know. She could have finished me off. Yet she restrained herself. Offered me mercy when I could not have been more helpless. She wouldn’t have twenty or more years ago. Wouldn’t have mattered what I said to save myself. Not before you. I’d be nothing but so much ash right now if she hadn’t . . . mellowed. I think . . . mellowed would be the right word for it.”

Aine lifted her head to stare into her father’s eyes, tears unshed clinging to her eyelashes. It broke his heart to see her in tears. But he knew his mere survival is already one of the best outcomes he could have hoped for after an encounter with Ishtar, given his disappearing act with her daughter. With all of their daughters. Lugh was not looking forward to the next few encounters he had with either Athena or Freya. The chances of all three of them letting off with just a beating were slim at best.

He detested putting her through this, her being scared for him, but he always knew there would be a price to be paid for his actions. One did not pull a vanishing act with the daughters of three of the most powerful goddesses in the world and expect to get away without paying a pound of flesh to each of them.

Wincing in pain, he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m going to have to disappear for a while, I doubt I can survive another beating like that let alone two and I’m afraid I won’t be very well liked by your next three guests. Ishtar is going to be especially mad that I’m already up and moving.”

Aine pulled away from him and glanced toward the door, then back to her father.

“It’s been over an hour and they’re still not here . . . I think you’re safe to stick around for a while yet, Dad.”

Her father smiled briefly yet fondly at her use of ‘Dad’, before his smile vanished, his stern and serious expression returning.

“There are few reasons Ishtar would restrain herself from doing anything. The most likely in this case would be either fear and/or vanity.”

Aine gazed at the floor in doubt. Her thought being: Ishtar afraid? Impossible. Her father found it hard to keep from smiling as he stared at her cute child-like expression.

“Ishtar is a being of vast pride and immense vanity and has supreme confidence in herself no matter the occasion. But . . . even she has her moments of insecurity. They are rare enough to be a myth in and of themselves and I would not have believed it myself if I had not seen it for myself.”

Using a crooked forefinger her father raised her chin.

“And my Alannah Aine, the time I chanced upon seeing the Queen of Heaven doubt herself, it lay with her concern over her decision to have a child. Her doubts were surprisingly common for one so imperiously mighty all the time. ‘Would she be a good mother? Could she be strict enough? Would she be too strict?’ Etc.”

He paused, cupping his daughter’s cheeks with both hands.

“But the thing she felt the most insecure about was her child’s opinion of her. I doubt today would be any different. Ishtar can be shockingly and deeply insecure given any perceived or imaginary reason.”

He turned his gaze to look at Aine’s simple wooden door, seemingly seeing beyond it. His eyes shimmered with a look of sympathetic understanding.

“Ishtar fears nothing but failure, her pride and vanity doesn’t allow for it. Her standards for herself is perfection, as perfection means being flawless and thus makes failure impossible. But Ishtar has failed in the past and with terrible consequences. Not just for herself but for others as well.

Lifting his hand, his mug of mead reappearing in his hand from its place on the bar, Lugh took a sip from his drink, washing the dust and dry from his throat. He lowered his hand, his mug suddenly back on the bar. Aine rolling her eyes at his magic trick while she grinned, if he was willing to play around, he must be in better shape than he looked.

Lugh sighed, he had had his share of failures, mostly after his greatest era of glory and mostly in the realm of being a parent, but he understood the drive failure would bring to a goddess or god of such pride as Ishtar or himself to become perfect.

For Ishtar, being perfect had become a complex need, almost an emotional and mental support to her psyche. Doubting herself or hearing criticism, failing to obtain objects or persons she desires, feeling at a loss or uncertain on subjects she believes she is unsurpassed in and any loss of confidence would lead to a fraying of her control.

It would not only be a loss of control over herself, her emotions and actions. It would also mean her divine power, her Domains, Aspects and maybe even her Jinn Army, something that was almost an extension of herself, like her very shadow, would lose its only restraint, a thought that remained a terrifying prospect to him. Ishtar’s army, her shadow, were warriors that existed for only two things.

The first; to serve Ishtar, the second; to make war in her name and for her glory.

In the ancient days, when mankind and civilisation were young, the Jinn raided, sowed chaos and made war on mankind individually and indiscriminately, with each small family tribe of the Jinn a minor disaster for civilisation. When no other god or goddess could save them, mankind in desperation prayed to Ishtar, Goddess of Beauty and Desire, all the other gods having failed them. And Ishtar came on her chariot, like a blazing and all mesmerising star from the Heavens, hunting down and conquering each tribe. Like a divine wind gathering individual grains of sand into a massive earth devouring sandstorm, she built and realigned them into a devastating army.

Her army. An all-conquering and all-sweeping army, one that existed as the dark shadow to her heavenly starlight.

Like a dreaded night sky, feared by divine and mortal alike, and worshiped out of both love and fear.

And without Ishtar controlling them, from either loss of confidence or the will to do so, chaos and war would, and could be, the only answer to the Jinn. Put the whole world to the sword, kill and conquer as much of it as needed until Ishtar regained her confidence or was forced to rein them in, forcing them into her shadow as she did so long ago.

Lugh turned his gaze back to his daughter.

“Ishtar needs to be in control of all she sees. Total control. All must gaze at her and admire her beauty till their death. All must toe her line in the sand or fear her terrible wroth. All must succumb to her desires or risk her jealous vengeance upon those they love.

“She is a benevolent tyrant to those she loves and a cruel sovereign to all others.”

Lugh could tell his daughter had become confused, feeling he had mixed his metaphors by the look on his face.

“Ishtar is Authority, just as she is Justice or Beauty and Desire, incarnate. But Authority isn’t always wise and rightful, Justice isn’t always morally right or impartial, Beauty isn’t always more than skin deep or innocuous and Desire isn’t always healthy or happy. Just as mortals are the sum of their parts, their building blocks, both mental and physical, and are complex creatures. We ancient gods are the sum of our Domains, the totality of each and every one of our Aspects, they were formed from our experiences and deeds after all, flawed and riddled with not only our own shortcomings but also those of mankind, as we are and our power is, the culmination of mankind.”

Lugh looked at his daughter lovingly and gently.

“While some of Ishtar’s Domains, like War, Fertility and Love are just extensions of herself and her deeds, weapons she uses to achieve her goals, they also influence her. Sometimes more obviously and noticeably than her core Domains. Ishtar is fierce yet giving to all and only to that which she loves. Because what she loves is what she wishes to control, because that which she wishes to control are her greatest insecurities, because her greatest insecurities are all that she cares for and are thus her greatest weaknesses.”

Lugh taps his daughter on the nose, causing her to wrinkle her face as she frowns, drawing a soft chuckle from him. Smiling, he continues.

“You, my Alannah Aine, are Ishtar’s greatest insecurity now. What happens to you, what you do, what you think of her in comparison to everything else, everything to do with her daughter, with you, are now her greatest insecurities. And I doubt your other mothers are not consumed by similar thoughts as well, probably not from an insecure need to control what she loves like Ishtar. But similar thoughts of wanting you to love them at first sight, to have that instant connection between mother and daughter.”

He offered a purely self-deprecatingly smile to Aine. He decided it would be best to leave it ‘as is’ on the topic of Ishtar for now.

“Of course, this is all an educated conjecture on my part. Things I have put together from clues I’ve found, our interactions and conversations, stories of her past from those involved and etc. But I’m confident in most of it.”

But he soon nudged Aine with an elbow slyly.

“Still, a little more knowledge never hurt anyone so long as you take it with a pinch of salt, you already have one mother summarised, there are two more if you are willing to hear me gossip?”

Aine sat on one of her barstools, while giving her father a withering side-eye. She looked away from him while tucking a few strands of her wild, yet serenely floating halo of hair behind her ear with her hand.

“Thanks, but no thanks, Dad. I think I will wait to meet them. See them with my own eyes and form my own opinions. I let you ramble on because I wanted to know more about the woman capable of handing you, your ass on a silver platter. Not because I think that is cool or anything . . . I was only curious about Ishtar for safety reasons . . . purely safety.”

Aine glanced at her father’s face fugitively, catching a glimpse of his nonplussed expression before he smiled cheekily.

“Scared for your safety? Maybe there is a slim, irrational chance of that. But I cannot think of anyone in the world now who has less of a need to fear Ishtar than you. Deep down, you know that and I have even told you that . . . So, best odds are, you were scared for me, pup. I don’t have her love to protect me from her anger. Were you hoping for me to tell you her anger cools with time? Ishtar never forgets, never forgives and will hold a grudge till world’s end.”

Her father gave her a sad smile.

“I’m sorry my Alannah Aine, your mothers and I are never going to be the parents you always hoped for. The happy family you always wished would come take you and Jillian from the orphanage will always be a dream unrealised. I . . . my actions made such an impossibility before you were even born.”

Aine’s eyes moistened, old hopes along with new tears fall for a childhood dream now ruthlessly trampled. He sighed, thinking that he had been doing it a lot. Better she learns now, start healing now, than keep holding out in hope. If Aine were to ever gain the happy family she was after, it would not, and could not, ever include him. He glanced at the door to the outside, the cogs in his mind turning, as a plan began to grow. In couldn’t include him . . . but did it need to? He turned to Aine.

“I think I made a mistake. What I meant to say was the happy family you want cannot exist with me a part of it but . . . it is completely possible with just Ishtar, Freya and Athena.”

Aine blinked at the mention of Athena, her expression one of shock and her voice high with surprise.

“Athena, one of my Mothers?”

Her father paused for a moment at her interruption, looking a tad off-kilter at her surprise. But he seemed to quickly draw lines and connected the dots in his own mind as he concluded an answer for her disbelief. He grinned mischievously at Aine.

“Best not tell the other two she’s your favourite goddess, you might start a war.”

However, a warmly seductive voice drifted from the entrance and simple wooden doorway of Aine’s territory. The voice came through the now slowly opening door, sending a chilling shiver up both Aine and her father’s spines. There seemed to be a cold, threatening, jealous madness lingering just beneath the warmth of that voice.

“Best not tell which other two, who her favourite goddess is? Typical of you Lugh, you child-thieving cur, trying to teach our own daughter to deceive us!”

Both father and daughter turned to stare at the now open door as three supremely gorgeous women entered. Aine, having not paid attention to her Territory’s heralding of their arrival in her surprise, was left flat-footed and off-balance. Lugh on the other hand, didn’t look overly surprised, just off-guard.

He recovered quickly enough though, as he offered a swift quip in response to Ishtar’s warm yet icy query and insult.

“Her favourite goddess? You must be getting old Ishtar, you misheard me. I said favourite goldfish, of course they are not really goldfish, mind you. Just a pet term. We are talking about her wine fish, my gift to Aine for closing her first deal with her first customer. They are in a pond in the forest, Failinis, my hound, loves running through the stream that leads to it, which made it full of wine. Since it is already full of wine, why not push it further. Three wine fish will be able to keep it clean and improve the quality. I got them from a friend in the Celestial Realm of the Middle Kingdom.”

Ishtar’s expression morphed from cold to furious the moment Lugh called her old, but she only began trembling with rage after he persisted in telling his tall tale. Dressed lavishly like a Sixties era queen of crime in full Classic Rat Pack style, slanted fedora included, her clothes coming with price tags that would cost more than most upper-middle class houses, Ishtar had decided to go with a ‘flaunting her wealth’ look. Dressed mainly in black, with a few dashes of red for contrast, with subtle yet noticeable diamond jewellery and magnificent pair of pearl earrings, she looked gorgeous. Coupled with her fury, she only lacked a tommy gun complete the look.

“LUUUGGH! You . . . do you really ‘think’ I cannot tell you are lying through your teeth?!!!” The words ‘think’ and ‘teeth’ she hissed shook the very air of Aine’s Territory with their sheer vehemence. Ishtar stood, almost beside herself with wroth.

Mentioning the subject of a woman’s age is always fraught with danger, let alone directly calling her old. Aine stared at her father wide-eyed.

Lugh only raised one of his eyebrows in response before voicing his defence.

“Hardly lying. Exaggerating perhaps. Failinis doesn’t actually love running through the stream, but he still enjoys it. A harmless embellishment I assure you.” Lugh inclined his head forward minutely, while offering an elegant courtly bow, looking every inch a courteous if battered noble.

Ishtar growled, the deep, ferocious sound rumbling like a lioness’ thunderous roar, her eyes fixed on Lugh’s pretentious act. She quickly began to long for the tommy gun she decided to leave out of her ensemble.

Athena coldly rolled her eyes in antipathy at the two of them acting like children and simply choose to walk around and away from Ishtar. Resplendent in a white Fifties Glamour dress, with plunging neckline, pearl and diamond necklace and paired with elegant white silk, elbow length gloves, her hair styled in waves, curled and flared so as to not touch her shoulders, stepped forward in glittering, diamond studded, sleek heels.

While ignoring the squabbling Lugh and Ishtar, the wiser and calmer woman approached Aine, graceful and with purpose. Her stride long and distance devouring, causing the long slash running up the side of her dress to part with a flourish, quickly revealing her smooth, tanned, athletic calves.

Ishtar became instantly distracted from her rage at Lugh, her eyes drawn to those smooth, lengthy, exquisite paragon pair of legs and the woman they were attached to.

Lugh managed to hold his laughter in. Only just though. Survival and self-preservation must have kicked in. One should not draw too much murderous attention when attempting to use the trick of sleight of hand on Ishtar. It’s not really considered a success if you get bludgeoned to death. It can only be considered to have worked if you can distract her but not to the point of creating a new issue. You have to keep just enough of Ishtar’s attention to divert to you and off from the previous topic until something else happens to steal her attention from you.

Still, it looked like the three of them had grown much closer than he had originally thought. Lugh’s eyes sparkled brightly before he concealed it. His plan for them becoming Aine’s much longed for family unit was looking that much easier to achieve.

Athena reached Aine, but stopped just short, her eyes gentle and longing. Aine stared into those eyes, long lost from her sight and saw in them all the love she had always longed to see. These were a mother’s eyes, her mother’s eyes. Athena opened her arms out to Aine, not wide open, but just enough for Aine to fit between them. Aine could see that Athena could and would wait forever, patient and ever hopeful, for Aine to lean into her welcoming embrace. Aine, overcome by the rapid changes and the sharp sting of hopeful expectations. Her throat swollen and her nose sour from a pent up, emotional rollercoaster. And as fresh tears spill out and run down her cheeks, Aine leaps from her bar stool and into her mother’s outstretched arms, her body shivering with hope.

Athena wrapped her little girl up tightly in an instant. Twirling her around and around, Athena held her close, and firmly to her, afraid her little girl was just an illusion, a pretty dream and flight of fancy. With every passing second, Athena grew surer she was real, but also more afraid of the chance of losing her again.

Freya dressed almost exactly as Ishtar had envisioned her, with a heavy leather jacket, short cotton top, skin-tight denim jeans and sexy knee-high boots, watched on in silence. Athena finally placed Aine down, locking eyes with Freya’s over Aine’s shoulder. Breaking her gaze away from the deep emotions she saw in Freya’s eyes, Athena looked at Aine’s face. Cupping her cheek with her hand, Athena spoke gently.

“I . . . am Athena and I have waited so long to see you.”

Aine leaned into her new-found mother’s touch, her voice just as soft.

“I don’t know the name you would have wished to have given me, but . . . my name, for as long as I can remember, is Aine. I wanted so much my mother to be real. Thank you . . . for finding me.”