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The air in the hut was overwarm despite the snow that fell outside. A woman with salt and pepper hair lay nestled under layers of blankets, breathing slowly, her chest rising only a fraction with each intake of air. A tall, lean man with a prominent nose and dark hair ministered to her, wiping her brow and speaking softly to her in a soothing tone. Methos sat with his wife for hours, never leaving her side, and when she drew her last breath, he wept.
In the corner, unobserved, the bear goddess watched and despaired. Her last follower was gone, departed for the afterlife. The world was empty. No one would lift their voice to sing her praise. No one would pour libations or give offerings, and her last child would be buried unanointed in the cold earth. The goddess wanted to join the man in his weeping.
After a long time, Methos stood up, wiping away his tears. To her surprise, he began to sing a familiar song, one that all her children knew. His voice was rough, but strong, as he sang the funeral rites that would ease his wife’s journey from this world to the next. He prepared her body in the ways of the bear people, washing her lovingly, then smoothing fragrant oil over her skin. He painted the symbols of her family and clan on her forehead, meticulously forming each whirl and flourish, and when he was finished, he wrapped her carefully in clean linen. For three days, Methos kept vigil, and on the third day, he built a pyre for his wife and sent the smoke to the sky.
He was not one of her children. He was a child of lightning - blessed and cursed. Yet, he performed each task with care, honoring his wife and her goddess.
He stayed in the little hut throughout the winter, grieving his loss, but when the spring came and the snows melted, Methos left the hut behind, and the bear goddess went with him. When he encountered another of his kind, they performed their own rituals. She watched as they fought and used what power she had to flush a bird from its nest, startling his opponent. He was a seasoned fighter, despite the quiet life he had been living, and the moment of distraction was all that he needed.
The goddess smiled, satisfied that this man who loved the last of her people so well would live on to carry her memory.
Methos drank deeply from his wineskin and passed it to Theron as they wove drunkenly down the street. He was enjoying Hellas. The culture was invigorating. Science, Philosophy, Art. The Hellenes had it all. If civilization was anywhere, it was here. Theron put a hand on Methos’s arm to steady himself and began to talk of a play he’d seen at the amphitheater. Methos listened fondly, more than a little distracted by the other man’s lips. Theron was always half in love with someone in the chorus. Methos would have preferred for Theron to be half in love with him.
Urged on by that half formed desire, and the half-drunk wineskin, Methos looked around himself for inspiration. He found it in the form of an ox dozing sleepily in its pen after a day's work.
He turned to Theron and offered casually, “You know long before Hellas, long before the Hellenes, there was a people that revered bulls, and on holy days they would leap over a bull. They would grab the horns, and it would launch them into the air when it shook its head.”
Theron was watching him, only this time it was he who was distracted. That was how Methos wanted it. He walked up to the pen and threw his hands to the sky, well aware of the figure he cut.
“Great gods of Crete! Hear me!” Ritual words in a language Methos hadn’t uttered in a thousand years echoed through the streets. He poured a generous libation from the wineskin onto the dusty ground. “Witness my strength and agility! Bless your son on this night of revelry!”
Wide-eyed and curious, Theron accepted the wineskin, watching as Methos climbed the fence and stood in front of the ox. To do this right it should have been a bull, but the spirit was the same. He sized the animal up, noting that the horns were tipped in bronze. It was still blinking at him sleepily when he launched himself at it, somersaulting over it's length with ease. Theron laughed delightedly as he landed, and the ox turned it's great bulk to eye him warily. He repeated the process, only this time, instead of flipping under his own power, he grabbed the horns and let the ox launch him into the air, he landed briefly on the animal's hindquarters before springing off.
On the street Theron cheered, and Methos gave him a broad grin before he was forced to dodge the ox's horns. It had obviously decided that Methos was a menace and began to chase him around the pen. He avoided the animal's charges, curving his body with practiced ease. Before long Methos was clowning, Theron was bent over laughing, and the owner of the animal was cursing Methos in two different languages.
In the end his antics were worth it. Methos hopped the fence and rejoined Theron, who stopped talking about the chorus and started making pointed remarks about where, exactly, Methos planned to sleep that night. Methos smiled to himself, already anticipating the feel of Theron’s well-muscled body under his hands.
The next morning, as the light of dawn slowly began to turn the room golden, Methos convinced Theron to come away with him. They would tour the Mediterranean, hopping from island to island. Methos would introduce Theron to a hundred places he’d never seen, and in doing so he would experience each place anew through the young man’s eyes.
The goddess stood in the middle of the street, unobserved. The wine that called her here mixed with the dirt, and she watched as a man she hadn't seen in a millenia uttered an exuberant prayer to her in the language of her people, a language that had been dead for hundreds of years.
He leapt over the ox with grace, and it didn't matter that it should have been a bull. The joy in his heart swelled inside her, and for a moment, she remembered what it was like to be loved, to be adored, to be worshiped.
Later, when the man had convinced his lover to visit Crete with him, the goddess kept watch, resolving to make his voyage a safe one. This man, Methos, had captured her attention. She wasn't yet ready to abandon one who remembered her when all others had forgotten.
As they were boarding the ship, another of his kind wandered onto the docks. This man was dark of hair and had a scar that cut across his eye. The goddess knew him at once for who and what he was. The man stopped, suddenly aware that he was not the only immortal present. He scanned the area carefully, and from his vantage point, he spotted Methos first. Surprise marred his features, followed swiftly by rage. He marched quickly and purposefully through the crowds, shouldering people out of his way, before finally drawing his sword and breaking into a run.
On the ship, Methos was surreptitiously scanning the docks, and it was only as the sailors began throwing off the lines that he located the immortal he was feeling. He watched as a figure hurtled down the dock toward them at top speed. The two men locked eyes, and the shock on Methos’s face was plain.
“Kronos.” He breathed the name so softly that no mortal being heard him. There was longing in his voice, and fear.
The goddess raised her hands, two snakes twining around her arms, and called a wind. The sails snapped taught, and the ship moved swiftly from the shore.
Kronos prepared to leap but, realizing the distance was too great, came to a screeching halt at the very edge of the dock, his chest heaving and his arms flailing for balance. Both men stood silent, staring at each other until long after either one could actually be seen.
Methos paced the halls, cursing. His plan was falling apart. Rodrigo had been under guard constantly since the Duke made his declaration. Execution seemed a bit much for fucking a tavern wench, especially when said wench was a happy participant, but Duque Baltasar Pacheco was not known for his reasonable responses. It didn’t help that the woman in question happened to be the Duke’s mistress. Rodrigo hadn’t known that at the time, but it wouldn’t have killed the man to show some remorse, or at the very least, to refrain from looking quite so fucking satisfied in front of Pacheco.
The only reason Rodrigo wasn’t already dead on trumped up charges was because Methos had stepped in. The Duke was...fond of gambling, to put it politely. To put it rudely, the man was a letch who was going to lose his lands and title in a card game.
Methos had taken advantage of the Duke’s vice on more than one occasion, so when Rodrigo was dragged in, and Pacheco had been about to condemn the man, he politely suggested a bet to decide the man’s fate. With the Duke’s interest piqued, he swiftly manipulated the conversation and convinced the Duke to settle on a horse race in three day’s time. Plenty of opportunity to break Rodrigo out and let him escape to the hills.
Only there hadn’t been an opportunity, not unless Methos wanted to take on the Duke’s entire army. The captain of the guard was frustratingly good at his job, and after three days of trying and being foiled at every turn, Methos was at his wit's end. Rodrigo was a good friend, and he’d be damned if he’d let the older man die at that idiot Pacheco’s hands.
Tomorrow morning would decide his friend’s fate, and after one last attempt to see him, Methos retired to his room. He lay in his bed in the Duke's castle trying to think of a way out. He'd thought of killing the guards and stealing the key, but due to the Duke's capricious nature, there were five of them in a tight hallway. He'd be more likely than not to end up sharing the cell with Rodrigo, and then where would they be?
He'd thought of poison or sleeping draughts already, but the guards didn't eat or drink on duty. He'd even thought of burning the place down, but the collateral damage would be significant, and he might end up killing the man he was trying to save. Methos sighed. The only course of action at this point was to wait and watch. If an opportunity presented itself, he would act.
He let his mind wander, and couldn’t help thinking of Rodrigo. The man was a good two decades older than Methos’s physical age. He loved women, wine, and good stories, but his laugh was most memorable. It was a loud and boisterous laugh that had a way of including everyone who heard it, inviting them to join in his mirth.
He contemplated what life would be like without that sound until finally Methos shook himself and forced his thoughts elsewhere. He found himself remembering another man with a contagious laugh. His friend Jiang. His had been a laugh that would fill a room. It emanated from deep in his belly, and if you didn’t join in, it always felt like you were missing out somehow.
In the first century, he’d visited the east again, spending some time in Han Dynasty China, and somehow, without really understanding how it had happened, Methos had ended up as Jiang’s traveling companion. The trouble the man had routinely gotten into rivaled anyone Methos had ever known, and it had always amazed him that he’d ended up the patriarch of his family. After his death they’d built him an altar and left him offerings. They’d said prayers and made solemn, important announcements in front of a tablet with his name inscribed on it.
Methos had longed to explain to them just how funny Jiang would have found it all. Instead, he’d let them have their vision of a proper, wise old man and took to leaving offerings Jiang would have actually liked anytime he traveled near. Along with steamed buns, he left rice wine and Liubo pieces. Once he’d even left a few questionable drawings that he knew would have made Jiang laugh, but the last time he’d been through the area, the altar had been abandoned. Methos paused long enough to put it back to rights as much as he could, but there was no one left to attend it. The family line had died out.
An idea struck Methos as he lay there. He was desperate enough about Rodrigo that he’d almost stopped by the chapel to offer up a prayer of some kind, but he’d never felt like these new gods were listening. The old gods, though. Methos wasn’t sure. He wasn’t religious, but there had been times when he thought maybe… Well, he didn’t know what exactly, but it certainly couldn’t hurt anything, and it would give him something to do.
He stole quietly down to the kitchens. A young servant boy stirred from where he slept by the fire, but Methos shushed him and continued about his business, collecting things into a small bag, then stopping by the chapel to steal a little incense. When he returned to his rooms, he had enough for a meager altar of his own. A bowl of the short grained rice they grew in Valencia, some wine, and a few sweets. He carefully inscribed Jiang’s full name onto a piece of paper, lit the incense, and recited one of the formal prayers his family had been so fond of, then he added a few choice words of his own before asking Jiang to look out for his dear friend, Rodrigo.
He burned the paper in the flame of a candle and watched as the smoke floated lazily to the ceiling. None of it was right. The rice was wrong, and the wine, but maybe it would be enough, if Jiang was watching. Just before the paper was consumed, Methos could have sworn he saw the smoke swirl in a breeze that wasn’t there.
Jiang watched as Methos burned the paper with his name on it and thought how good it was to see his friend. It had been a long time since they parted, and he wondered at the man’s youthful features. In life, he’d never known the secrets his friend kept, but now, Jiang could read each one in the features of his face. He could see the depth of the darkness his friend held at bay. Jiang smiled and ran his hand through the smoke that drifted to the ceiling. If Methos needed help, Jiang would give what little he could, and maybe this new friend, this friend who was in so much trouble, would help cast a light into that darkness.
The next morning a small crowd gathered to watch the horse race that would determine whether a man would live or die. Mixed in at the edges of the crowd Jiang could see a woman wearing the pelt of a bear, and a man carrying a spear with a hound at his side. Neither were mortal beings. They nodded at Jiang, but stood back, letting him do as he wished. He’d had no idea his friend was so popular.
Methos spent the morning trying to convince the Duke that Rodrigo should be allowed to watch the race, claiming that a man deserved to at least witness his fate being decided. Jiang knew his friend well. The man didn’t care whether Rodrigo saw the outcome. He was trying to create an opportunity to steal him away. Duke Pacheco was unmoved, so Methos gave up and stood calmly with his arms folded, watching as the riders saddled their mounts and prepared for the race.
Jiang rubbed his hands together eagerly. This was like old times. Methos had been at his side for most of the misadventures in his life. The idea of having one more together made Jiang indescribably happy. The Duke’s rider mounted his horse after checking the saddle one last time. Just as the flag dropped, and the horses took off in a flurry of hooves and kicked up dirt, Jiang waved his hand, a mischievous grin on his face, and loosened the girth. The Duke’s horse got an early lead, but soon the saddle began to slip sideways, and the rider scrambled to stay on.
The horse’s lead began to disappear, but not quickly enough for Jiang’s liking. He waved his hand again, and the rider’s hat fell forward, obscuring the man’s vision. Between fighting to stay seated and not being able to see, the Duke’s rider faltered, and the horse slowed. Methos’s horse took the lead, it’s feet pounding the earth and it’s neck stretched long. The rider never gave up his lead and managed to cross the finish line an entire length ahead.
Surprised by the outcome, relief was plain on Methos’s face, as well as a little suspicion. The Duke’s face turned red, and while he kept his temper, the man was obviously displeased. Seeing the Duke’s mood, Methos turned quickly to collect on his debt. It had to be done while there were witnesses, and Methos wasted no time seeing Rodrigo released from his cell.
Later, when he told Rodrigo the tale over a drink, Methos frowned. “I swear to you, I watched that man saddle his horse. It should have stayed in place.”
“Maybe it was faulty.” Rodrigo suggested watching the crowd at the tavern with the eye of a man restored.
“No.” Methos was staring thoughtfully at a spot in the air, “I checked after the race.”
Rodrigo, wanting to enjoy his unexpected release and already tired of this conversation, announced, “God wanted me to live, my friend! Of course he did! There’s nothing more to it than that.” He clapped Methos on the back with a laugh. “Now, stop musing and tell me about that pretty maid in the corner.”
Methos ignored him, murmuring quietly to himself, “Someone did. Maybe not God, but-” He stopped, then leaned back from the table to pour a little of his drink out onto the floor, whispering quietly, “Safe travels, Jiang. Thank you.”
In response, Jiang waved his hand one more time and sent a breeze swirling around Methos, ruffling his hair and making him smile.
Joe’s had a good crowd. The tables were full, and the second level had people leaning on the rail, listening to the music. Duncan was at the other end of the bar chatting with a few of the regulars and stealing glances in Methos’s direction at every opportunity. Methos was studiously ignoring the man under the pretense of listening to Joe Dawson play a truly amazing set.
He’d made an effort recently to shake off the last vestiges of the Adam Pierson persona, and as a result he’d taken to wearing clothes that were much more form fitting and fashionable. To say that Duncan had noticed would be putting it mildly.
These furtive glances had been going on all week, and Methos was on the verge of doing something about it. The longer he sat there watching his friend, the more certain Methos became. He didn’t want to be sitting at this bar anymore, and he definitely did not want to leave alone. He caught Duncan looking at him, but this time he didn’t ignore it. He met the man’s gaze openly and saw the unspoken desire in Duncan's eyes.
Methos smiled knowingly. It was definitely time to do something. He turned to drain the last of his beer and paused, struck suddenly by an idea. Grinning to himself, he drew a quick eight pointed star on the bartop using the condensation from his glass, murmuring a prayer to Inanna and pouring a few drops of dark liquid onto the floor. Satisfied, he picked up his coat, and Duncan’s, then made his way to whisper in the man’s ear.
From the corner, Innana, goddess of love and queen of Heaven, sighed. Methos was in love again. She shared a glance with Sud, an older man whose robes bore a six-petalled rosette. He was the Slavic god of family and fate, and he smiled fondly, raising his eyebrows at her as Methos steered Duncan MacLeod out of the bar with a firm hand.
She shook her head in amusement and shrugged before following the two men. After three thousand years, Methos still spoke her name and prayers when no one else remembered, she would give him what little blessings she could.