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hmpfI've decided I need to post this before I edit it to death. Concrit, up to and including full betaing, is very welcome - this is *far* from perfect. It's basically a really early example of my writing, about eleven years old. I edited the shit out of it, and I do mean that literally. (ETA: This doesn't mean that it's good now, though. Just... less shit.)
In case some of the memories in here feel familiar: yes, all my Methos fics, but in particular this one here, Endure, and 68 Wives, are set in the same universe. And there is, theoretically, a story that ties them all together, more or less, if I ever get around to picking that one up again. (That unfinished story was literally my very first fic, and is therefore not even in active development anymore, as my writing has changed so much since 1999 that I'd need to rewrite it completely if I were to pick it up again. So that probably won't happen.)
Title: Epilogue
Author: Hmpf MacSlow
Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Methos, OC
Summary: A Quickening, seen from both sides.
Notes: A Lyric Wheel story from 2001, much revised.
***
Epilogue
It begins with a luminous mist that coalesces out of nowhere. It gathers around the body, draws a shroud around the slack limbs and the severed head that lies in a puddle of blood and muddy water. The mist pulses, slow and viscous. It extends scouting tendrils my way.
I feel perversely alive.
Strange, that I can feel it. I am dead: sound, sight, smell, touch or taste no longer concern me. The universe has been transformed into a place that is not a place, that cannot be heard or smelled or touched or seen or tasted. I have been transformed. The cutting edge has separated my being from my body.
This is the endless moment before the Quickening hits.
Static electricity is making my skin tingle.
Tension is building. A tide is beginning to draw everything that was me towards him. I want to linger in this place, this state - linger in the air, follow the wind, dissolve -- but I cannot resist his pull.
This is a moment of heightened awareness. The smell of rain-soaked wood from the fence opposite invades my nostrils. I am aware of the strength and temerity of tufts of grass in the cracked asphalt, roots winding down into hidden soil. The life of the city stretching all around me. A tiny pebble lodged in the sole of my boot. The dampness of the air after a day of heavy rain. The smell of her blood.
I know it before I enter him. He is old - older than anyone I ever took. Ancient. Voices are seeping out of him, muddying the space around him with emotions, desires. They withdraw as I approach, exposing the core they are orbiting. The core -- no. No core. Only yet more voices, more confusion.
Time jump-starts. My senses, opened wide, shrink back into me like the limbs of a frightened turtle. For a moment I am deaf, blind, senseless. I grip the handle of my sword tightly - and the Quickening hits.
Car windows are raining glass all along the street.
I am plunging, diving, through layers of lives and layers of consciousness, through a turmoil of memories.
A radiant fountain surges from her body. Bursts of light explode outwards, invigorating my every cell. I am pierced by a foreign consciousness, jolted by a torrent of energy, pricked by a billion white hot needles.
I am aware of her now.
A swarm of excited moths are whispering at me, approaching and retreating, swirling around an unseen flame. I am passing through clouds of barely remembered lives, memories of memories, faded, mixed up and surreal. Roman legions clash with modern armies on the battlefields of World War I. A Spanish galleon sinks in a desert, its sailors drowning in sand. A minstrel picks the strings of his harp on a festival stage, cheered on by a crowd of Hell's Angels. I am diving deeper.
Deeper.
I stand braced on my sword as wave after wave of energy sears me. I arch my back, and I scream.
He did not give me his name when I challenged him. He looked annoyed, not frightened; drew his sword with an ease that told of my mistake even before our blades met. This was a hunter, or had been. When I raised my sword to attack him, I knew I had met my death. Relief made me lightheaded.
Legend has it wrong. This is life's essence. It's not in the blood. It's this rush of power -- exalting, excruciating, addictive.
We are vampires.
I am going deeper - towards the core, towards the flame. Lives upon lives - times immemorial - and no center.
Suddenly, every life I have taken, every life those I took have taken, is spread before me, from the first breath to the severing sword. The memory of mankind, spread open for me to read.
I see her life, four centuries spent looking for fights, playing the Game with a desperate zeal, with a terrible innocence, and I think, something went wrong here. Not her, not now. . . it goes back further -- much further.
Something is changing. The confusion is settling down, some sort of order is being established.
Then, I know that it is him. He is calling us to order. As I understand this, I become aware of him, all around me. He is Methos.
A memory rises. In this lucid moment I know that it has returned to me many times before.
Methos. The eldest, now, but not the oldest that ever lived - not the oldest by far. I understand it all now.
I remember myself.
I see a boy, cowering in firelight. An old man sits across the fire from him. The man is small, wiry, dark. He is of our kind, and so is the boy. The boy is Methos. I hear the man calling him that, and I understand that it is not a name --
-- it means 'boy', in his language.
It is an old language, but the man is older.
He explains to me the purpose of our existence.
A simple purpose.
We have strayed so far.
He understands. We all understand. A great stillness falls, as the realization sinks into our collective mind.
So many millennia wasted.
So many lives wasted.
So many memories lost.
There is no solace in understanding.
I need to hold on to this. . . but the memory is fading fast, obscured by clouds of lost souls held captive in another, just as lost. The truth unsettles them, as it unsettles me. They begin to clamour for my attention. Already, I can barely remember the quiet voice of the Eldest.
I remember. I remember. All my life, I knew there was something wrong - living in a world that did not made sense, killing people I had never met. I preyed on Immortals, hunting and killing. I thought I understood everything. I thought there was nothing to understand.
My revelation is fading, and so is the pain. I almost welcome forgetfulness. Yet there is still a voice, clearer and more distinct than the others, nagging at the back of my mind.
I cannot allow him to forget.
I don't want to remember this.
It is so very simple.
We can't stop it now.
Remember.
No.
There is no one else who can remember.
I don't remember anything.
We remember.
No.
He is pushing away the last remnants of the memory with all his might. I am fighting him, we are all fighting, but he is infinitely stronger. We are dead, and he is alive. His will is a heavy blanket smothering us, forcing us into submission.
Slowly -- though all this is happening in the fraction of a second – agonizingly slowly, I am regaining control. The turmoil is quieting. As I gather myself, I am aware of a vague, lingering unease, somewhere on the borders of my consciousness.
His mind almost, almost brushes mine. I pause in my struggle. I hold his memory, his revelation in my consciousness like a bright flame. I stretch towards him, reach out for him with his own memory -- offer it to him like a gift.
Just a Quickening hangover.
I dissolve.
I am back in the real world now, scanning the empty street for signs of witnesses, but everything is quiet. The few streetlights went the way of the car windows when it began. There is a dead, windowless factory wall at my back, and an empty lot behind the wooden fence opposite me. With a little luck no one noticed the fireworks.
I take a final look at the body: another angry innocent dead. Suddenly I am tired - tired-of-it-all tired.
Was there ever a time when we did not do this to each other?
Maudling old man. Stop it.
It's time to disappear.
In case some of the memories in here feel familiar: yes, all my Methos fics, but in particular this one here, Endure, and 68 Wives, are set in the same universe. And there is, theoretically, a story that ties them all together, more or less, if I ever get around to picking that one up again. (That unfinished story was literally my very first fic, and is therefore not even in active development anymore, as my writing has changed so much since 1999 that I'd need to rewrite it completely if I were to pick it up again. So that probably won't happen.)
Title: Epilogue
Author: Hmpf MacSlow
Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Methos, OC
Summary: A Quickening, seen from both sides.
Notes: A Lyric Wheel story from 2001, much revised.
***
Epilogue
It begins with a luminous mist that coalesces out of nowhere. It gathers around the body, draws a shroud around the slack limbs and the severed head that lies in a puddle of blood and muddy water. The mist pulses, slow and viscous. It extends scouting tendrils my way.
I feel perversely alive.
Strange, that I can feel it. I am dead: sound, sight, smell, touch or taste no longer concern me. The universe has been transformed into a place that is not a place, that cannot be heard or smelled or touched or seen or tasted. I have been transformed. The cutting edge has separated my being from my body.
This is the endless moment before the Quickening hits.
Static electricity is making my skin tingle.
Tension is building. A tide is beginning to draw everything that was me towards him. I want to linger in this place, this state - linger in the air, follow the wind, dissolve -- but I cannot resist his pull.
This is a moment of heightened awareness. The smell of rain-soaked wood from the fence opposite invades my nostrils. I am aware of the strength and temerity of tufts of grass in the cracked asphalt, roots winding down into hidden soil. The life of the city stretching all around me. A tiny pebble lodged in the sole of my boot. The dampness of the air after a day of heavy rain. The smell of her blood.
I know it before I enter him. He is old - older than anyone I ever took. Ancient. Voices are seeping out of him, muddying the space around him with emotions, desires. They withdraw as I approach, exposing the core they are orbiting. The core -- no. No core. Only yet more voices, more confusion.
Time jump-starts. My senses, opened wide, shrink back into me like the limbs of a frightened turtle. For a moment I am deaf, blind, senseless. I grip the handle of my sword tightly - and the Quickening hits.
Car windows are raining glass all along the street.
I am plunging, diving, through layers of lives and layers of consciousness, through a turmoil of memories.
A radiant fountain surges from her body. Bursts of light explode outwards, invigorating my every cell. I am pierced by a foreign consciousness, jolted by a torrent of energy, pricked by a billion white hot needles.
I am aware of her now.
A swarm of excited moths are whispering at me, approaching and retreating, swirling around an unseen flame. I am passing through clouds of barely remembered lives, memories of memories, faded, mixed up and surreal. Roman legions clash with modern armies on the battlefields of World War I. A Spanish galleon sinks in a desert, its sailors drowning in sand. A minstrel picks the strings of his harp on a festival stage, cheered on by a crowd of Hell's Angels. I am diving deeper.
Deeper.
I stand braced on my sword as wave after wave of energy sears me. I arch my back, and I scream.
He did not give me his name when I challenged him. He looked annoyed, not frightened; drew his sword with an ease that told of my mistake even before our blades met. This was a hunter, or had been. When I raised my sword to attack him, I knew I had met my death. Relief made me lightheaded.
Legend has it wrong. This is life's essence. It's not in the blood. It's this rush of power -- exalting, excruciating, addictive.
We are vampires.
I am going deeper - towards the core, towards the flame. Lives upon lives - times immemorial - and no center.
Suddenly, every life I have taken, every life those I took have taken, is spread before me, from the first breath to the severing sword. The memory of mankind, spread open for me to read.
I see her life, four centuries spent looking for fights, playing the Game with a desperate zeal, with a terrible innocence, and I think, something went wrong here. Not her, not now. . . it goes back further -- much further.
Something is changing. The confusion is settling down, some sort of order is being established.
Then, I know that it is him. He is calling us to order. As I understand this, I become aware of him, all around me. He is Methos.
A memory rises. In this lucid moment I know that it has returned to me many times before.
Methos. The eldest, now, but not the oldest that ever lived - not the oldest by far. I understand it all now.
I remember myself.
I see a boy, cowering in firelight. An old man sits across the fire from him. The man is small, wiry, dark. He is of our kind, and so is the boy. The boy is Methos. I hear the man calling him that, and I understand that it is not a name --
-- it means 'boy', in his language.
It is an old language, but the man is older.
He explains to me the purpose of our existence.
A simple purpose.
We have strayed so far.
He understands. We all understand. A great stillness falls, as the realization sinks into our collective mind.
So many millennia wasted.
So many lives wasted.
So many memories lost.
There is no solace in understanding.
I need to hold on to this. . . but the memory is fading fast, obscured by clouds of lost souls held captive in another, just as lost. The truth unsettles them, as it unsettles me. They begin to clamour for my attention. Already, I can barely remember the quiet voice of the Eldest.
I remember. I remember. All my life, I knew there was something wrong - living in a world that did not made sense, killing people I had never met. I preyed on Immortals, hunting and killing. I thought I understood everything. I thought there was nothing to understand.
My revelation is fading, and so is the pain. I almost welcome forgetfulness. Yet there is still a voice, clearer and more distinct than the others, nagging at the back of my mind.
I cannot allow him to forget.
I don't want to remember this.
It is so very simple.
We can't stop it now.
Remember.
No.
There is no one else who can remember.
I don't remember anything.
We remember.
No.
He is pushing away the last remnants of the memory with all his might. I am fighting him, we are all fighting, but he is infinitely stronger. We are dead, and he is alive. His will is a heavy blanket smothering us, forcing us into submission.
Slowly -- though all this is happening in the fraction of a second – agonizingly slowly, I am regaining control. The turmoil is quieting. As I gather myself, I am aware of a vague, lingering unease, somewhere on the borders of my consciousness.
His mind almost, almost brushes mine. I pause in my struggle. I hold his memory, his revelation in my consciousness like a bright flame. I stretch towards him, reach out for him with his own memory -- offer it to him like a gift.
Just a Quickening hangover.
I dissolve.
I am back in the real world now, scanning the empty street for signs of witnesses, but everything is quiet. The few streetlights went the way of the car windows when it began. There is a dead, windowless factory wall at my back, and an empty lot behind the wooden fence opposite me. With a little luck no one noticed the fireworks.
I take a final look at the body: another angry innocent dead. Suddenly I am tired - tired-of-it-all tired.
Was there ever a time when we did not do this to each other?
Maudling old man. Stop it.
It's time to disappear.
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Date: 2012-03-14 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
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