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Hunting the Hunter

written by
Fata Morgana
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Disclaimer: Ceirdwyn belongs to the creative geniuses who write for Highlander. Genevive DuLac is a convenient plot prop I thought up completely on the spot. Don't sue, because all I've got is some Guiness and my Muses, and you can't have them. Especially not the Guiness. It's what keeps my MethosMuse working for me. :>

This one was -old-. I can feel it in the Quickening. So many damn years coursing through my blood, so many memories not my own. Skill, strength, knowledge. Not all good, not all bad. Just there, should I need to call upon it. Peripherally I can hear the explosions around me as the very fabric of life is shifted one from headless body into my own.

It seems trivial at the moment, but the collateral damage that ensues a Quickening is ridiculous. Lamp posts exploding, power shorting out, massive lighting storm centralized around one area. Given that our aim is to be discreet - to keep ourselves out of mortal knowledge - you'd think this bit of the Game would be a little more... contained. Anyhow, the millions of volts of life-force electricity has ended.

There's nothing left to do now but fall to my knees and pray to the Gods that no one got a chance to see that. A fleeting shadow on the highlighted factory wall unfortunately tells me otherwise. I suspect that figure is just my departing Watcher, though. We don't get in each other's way, and that works for the both of us. I've got to use my sword to prop myself up from the ground. Perhaps I'll just rest a moment.

For an event that puts so much into me, it certainly takes a lot back out. For all the memories and skill and strength this enemy had imparted me, the victor, with, I feel like I've been completely sapped of energy. It's not an entirely unwelcome feeling. Infact, it's the elation of crossing another enemy off my rather long list, and owning control over their very being that makes me look forward to the Quickening.

A nearby car guns it's engine and retreats, and I know my watcher has left and gone to enter this kill into my history. So why do I hear footsteps. Looking around, I can see no one around me, but I know they're there. The 'buzz' tells me so. Another Immortal, this one nowhere near as old as the one I've just beheaded, is thinking I'll be an easy kill drained of energy after a Quickening. That they'll get two for the price of one.

Wrong. So very wrong. I am a fighter. I am stronger than they know. I am Ceirdwyn, warrior goddess. I am Icenian. And they will not have my head. Following the retreating buzz is a simple matter, into the dark maze of buildings in the industrial section of Paris. I can hear the click of heels on wet pavement. "Show yourself!" That is my challenge to them. The walking stops. I wait to see if they will accept.

They will accept, or I will -make- them accept. Suffice to say I don't appreciate being taken for carrion. The silence ends, and the clatter of heels in the opposite direction proves them to be a weakling. They have realized I will still fight. I am not an easy target. I wouldn't still be around if I were. And there are so few of us Elders left, the ones who have been around since the days when the years counted down rather than up.

The Prize will not go to a young one, I will not allow it. The young ones, the ones that have only died in the last few centuries, they haven't got the experiance to handle the repercussions of The Prize. If indeed there is even a Prize. Perhaps that is just a myth designed so that my race will commit a twisted form of genocide. It really wouldn't surprise me, you know. No, this youth will not be around to take the Prize.

Energy, I find, returns rather quickly to me these days, and so running after them is a completely viable option. Even the thud of my boots isn't loud enough to drown out the trail of breadcrumbs - their footfall- from reaching my ears. It stops. They seek shelter. Unfortunatly for them, there is not Holy Ground in an industrial area. And fortunately for me, they don't seem to realize it.

Harkening back to my days as a warrior under the command of the Queen Boadicea, I can make my own step as silent as the stillest night. They... no, she... never hears me coming, perching in the shadows just beyond the ring of a spotlight that brightens the damp cement. "Who are you." My laughter rumbles in a manner I can only think of as predatory. She jumps and spins, her sword shakily pointed at me.

Her answer makes me chuckle again, for it holds words braver than her voice when I pace forward, my own sword lifted, circling her. "Genevive DuLac," is her name, she tells me, and "I have come for your head." Really, now. You think so, Genevive? We'll see. I deplore the pointless discussion that comes before a fight, so I'll just remain silent and let my sword do the talking for me. Seems reasonable.

After all, the girl did just challenge me formally. She attempts to block my blow. I draw blood from her arm. "That man you just killed was my mentor, and now I will avenge him," Genevive says, speaking through gritted teeth and the clash of metal. "The man I just killed murdered one of -my- students, and I avenged him," I answer. She's got my hackles raised. Is that what being an Immortal is all about?

One long, endless spiral of people avenging other deaths? Perhaps. My blade goes through her defences once more and slices through the leather covering her back. Her scream is almost thrilling. I will feel no pity for this. She takes her chances trying to avenge her teacher. I took my chances avenging my student. Fate and the Gods happened to be with me tonight, and I did. I won. Perhaps fate and her Gods are with her tonight.

But still, knowledge and skill cannot be overtaken by inexperience and indiscretion. She has nobly attempted to do what she feels is right, and I am following the rules of our Game. She offers no plea of mercy when her sword is batted away and mine presses the delicate flesh of her dark-skinned neck. Her eyes fix on mine, and she nods once, knowing she lost. For that, I will make my stroke swift. I return the nod.

And then it is done. The incomplete body slumps to the ground, and the process starts once again. More collateral damage to the Paris Industrial Sector. I might just send them a big check to replace all those lightbulbs bursting. Her essense slips into me with all the silence of a raging thunderstorm and causes me to once again fall to the ground in exhaustion. The spiral has progressed another turn. Death departs, life goes on.


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Review me, and I won't send Ceirdwyn after you with a bloody battle-axe?

~Morgana