It was Eirikr who told the final part of the story. Long after the last reunion, long after the golden trails of starlight faded back into myth and memory, he sat beneath the high-glass canopy of the arboretum and spoke softly, more to the air than anyone in particular.
“People always ask about the gods,” he said. “They want thunder and judgment. Fire and lightning. But that was never Tak. He wasn’t made for altars or war. He was made for feeling. For love so vast it could undo him. And it did.”
The House stood quiet behind him, fragrant with sage and the slow blooming of midnight jasmine. Somewhere, a lark sang even though it was nearly dawn. His hands, calloused and lined from decades of rebuilding what grief had shattered, rested on the old silver deck between them—cards Henry once shuffled with one hand while smiling sideways at Tak like he was getting away with something.
“He chose to end himself,” Eirikr murmured, staring out over the horizon. “Right here. On this cliff, he called the fire into his own bones—unmaking himself, not in anger, not in punishment, but in a silence so sharp it became his only language. He believed if he burned cleanly enough, the world might be spared the weight of him.” But we wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t let him.”
He didn’t need to name Asherah. Her presence lingered here, in the warmth of the soil, the quiet hush of understanding that wrapped around even the deepest heartbreak. She had gone before Yahweh himself, challenged judgment with mercy, and won Tak a miracle.
A single night. Every year. A loop in time where Henry could step through, whole and golden and alive. Not a memory. Not a ghost. Just him.
“And every year,” Eirikr said, “Tak would stand at the door like it was the first time. And Henry would run into him like no time had passed. They never said it out loud, but we all knew the question.”
He smiled faintly, shuffling the deck once. Twice.
“One night together… or one night always?”
In the early years, it was Tak who carried the weight of that question. In the ache behind his smile. In the way he clung a little tighter as dawn approached. But as the decades passed, something in him began to settle—not as surrender, but as reverence. He learned to live in the echo. Learned to let the love rest.
And it was Asherah who once said—her voice quiet beside the Well—“Perhaps that was always the test. Not whether he would keep the secret. Not whether he would stay silent. But whether he would love, truly love, without trying to possess.”
Yahweh had said nothing in return. But the veil opened again the next year. And the next. And the next.
Asherah had been right: deeds matter more than desire. Love, when freely given and unkept, is the only force Chaos cannot unravel.
And Tak had chosen to stay.
The House still stands now, vines climbing its frame, windows full of stars. The horses graze below in soft valleys, long descended from the ones who once carried them west. Inside, the saddle still rests by the door. The bed is always turned down. And on a table in the arboretum lies a note in Tak’s curling hand:
“One night… always.”
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A Note from Erik, for you dear readers.
What happened between Tak and Henry was not just their story. It echoed through the bones of our world. What began as a singular love became something larger—an inheritance we all share now.
In the years that followed, the ripple of that love reached every corner of the immortal realm. It reshaped how we speak of time, of grief, of devotion. And eventually, it gave birth to what we now celebrate as Lá Teaghlaigh Tír na nÓg—Family Day.
Lá Teaghlaigh begins at sundown on December 24, marking a sacred night of unity, joy, and the celebration of life and love, extending until the first light of December 25. We chose this time for what it represents—darkness giving way to light. Renewal. Reunion. And on this night, when the veil is thinnest, Henry McCarthy returns to us once more, from the embrace of El-Yahweh, to walk beside Tak in the garden, if only for one night.
The holiday has grown far beyond its origins. Lavish feasts stretch from household hearths to the great plazas of the Ancients. Dishes, both traditional and enchanted, are imbued with meanings—prosperity, healing, fertility. There is music, dancing, the telling of stories and legends, and rituals to honor ancestors and land alike. For some, it is quiet. For others, jubilant. But always, it is sacred.
And so it is that Lá Teaghlaigh has become a cornerstone of who we are: a night where love wins, where family—by blood or bond—is everything. A reminder that even in the face of death, of chaos, of cosmic indifference, the heart still chooses.
And we choose to remember.
One night. Always. See what Love can do!
