XDGRAINER

Ah, lad, let me tell ye ‘bout the time I ran into a lass down at O’Malley’s. It was a brisk night, the kind where the wind’d cut through ye like a knife, but the pub? Ah, it was a warm haven, filled with laughter, the clink o’ glasses, and a tune on the fiddle that’d lift the gloomiest o’ spirits.

So there she was, sittin’ alone at the bar, her fiery hair like the crackling embers in the hearth behind her. She had a pint o’ stout in front of her, barely touched, mind ye, and she stared into it like it held the secrets o’ the world. Now me, I couldn’t leave a soul lookin’ so forlorn in a place as merry as O’Malley’s, could I?

“Mind if I sit?” I asked, my voice steady as a good pint. She looked up, her green eyes flashing like the emerald hills o’ Kerry, and she gestured to the seat beside her.

Turns out her name was Aoife, and she’d come from the countryside for a spot o’ work in town.