Disclaimer:
I don't own the characters, storylines or quotations of the 'Highlander' universe, but I do own the OCs and the storylines I invented and created for this fan-fiction story.
Summary:
Tired of chopping heads and facing other immortals, Methos decides to vanish into thin air again and to return to a place, whereto he once accompanied an old friend of his.
Carried away by memories and admitting to himself that, even though he still loves his life, he still doesn't believe in being able to get up the nerve to fight for being „The One", he decides that it's time to sum up his life.
Prologue: Tired of the Game
Byron: "Do you want a tombstone that says, 'He Lived For Centuries' or do you want one that says, 'For Centuries He Was Alive'?"
Methos: "You're not listening to me. I don't want a tombstone."
(Highlander: TV-Series - Episode 'The Modern Prometheus')
Austria, Tyrol – The former Province Noricum – Present
'I am the end of time!'
Kronos' words resounded deep inside my mind and they echoed through my heart ever since the moment I heard him yell them at the Highlander only seconds before his time was up, before Silas' time was up and before my time was up.
'I want him to live...'
If not for McLeod keeping Cassandra from taking my head that day, the legend of the Four Horsemen would slowly have fallen into oblivion, leaving our victim and former slave behind to remain the only one to remember those days of old.
If not for McLeod daring to interfere and to break the age-old rules of the 'Game' we all are attached to, I'd have lost my head to the only one who might have had a right to take it.
That day, trapped inside the derelict and almost surreal surroundings of that abandoned power station, truly marked the end of time – not only for those I once considered my brothers in everything but birth but also for me.
I felt shattered and exhausted like I never did before and even though I knew I wasn't the same any longer like I had been thousands of years ago, I also knew that this part of my past would always be able to catch up with me and to affect me, my actions and those close to me.
The bitter tears I cried while I knelt by Silas' side, I did not just cry them over the loss of my brothers or over the loss of a long lost past and long forgotten memories which tried to drag me back in time without mercy while reminding me of what I kept hidden deep inside my innermost. I also cried them for myself and the unkind truth that no matter how hard I might have tried there were things I couldn't run from. And I also cried them shattered to the core over the loyalty of a friend, who decided to trust me no matter the circumstances and the inability to forgive of a woman whom I missed to protect when I should have to...
Months passed by since those days in Bordeaux and as if Kornos' last words would have foreshadowed the happenings to come, the loss of McLeod's young friend and scholar really felt as if the end of time was close.
In addition the primal and most deeply enrooted fear of humankind started to develop and to blossom again. In some of the weirdest ways thinkable:
The fear of world's end to draw nearer the closer the world got to its latest change of millennia.
The number of self-declared experts sermonizing the downfall of mankind was bigger than ever before and once again it happened, that uncertainty yielded bizarre results while once again it happened that a few were able to stir up the fear of those, who are afraid of everything and who are willing to believe in everything. Even if it included the absurdest, wildest and weirdest theories...
Some things will never change.
This time would not be the first time and it would not be the last time and as always it will make those pay the highest price, who are that much afraid of probably losing their lives that even the vaguest promise of survival will make them pay whatever demanded of them, just to make a fruitless try to escape the unavoidable: Death!
Good times for charlatans and religious zealots!
Maybe, Kronos' was right and mankind would have deserved the return of the Horsemen, but meanwhile I doubt that even a ruthless band like ours would have been able to 'save' humanity from its own stupidity.
No! Not really...
Today, they worshipped other Gods than a band of immortals...
I shook my head, smiling at this thought while I followed the narrow lane through the woods, which would lead me closer to the aim I wanted to reach.
Excavations and ruins!
The once buzzing trading spot, embedded in picturesque landscapes, surrounded and sheltered by high mountains and narrow glens and settled close to the meeting of two mountain rivers, fell victim to the turns and the tides of time and today's only remains of the once beautiful and flourishing Roman junction are excavations and ruins, partly restored to attract visitors and guests interested in history and archaeology...
Two thousand years ago, when the Romans still used to rule the biggest part of the known world and when I first came to pay a visit to them, these ruins were filled with life and laughter. Ancient woods, fertile fields and fruitful soil provided its inhabitants with a not even small amount of wealth and its well chosen location made it a place worth to retire to.
A place, to forget about everything one could ever feel troubled by...
Letting out a sigh, I turned my back on the ruins and followed a small and stony path uphill until I reached a more than just familiar place.
An aesthetically built Roman villa once nestled up to the mellow hillside, shielded from curious eyes by old and knaggy trees while its wells and fountains, fed by a spring of fresh and clear water, granted its owner full autonomy from the buzzing town down the plains.
The well chosen place held a wide view around the scenery, including the valley, the settlements and its amazing surroundings and it was beautiful.
It was beautiful, it still is, and it once belonged to an amazing man, an old friend of mine! One of those few, I would name a true friend!
He was a cynic, he was a satirist, and he was an aesthete and as the place belonged to him, so also did the impressive villa – centuries before the ancestors of those got born, who were now digging for its relics...
In a different time – two thousand years ago...
I had a look around, tried to find answers to a thousand questions:
What was it, leading me back to this place?
Right now?
After not having thought of it for a rather long time?
'I am the end of time'...
'The end of the world is close'...
Both sounded nothing but strange to me...
What meaning could it have to someone, to whom time itself has no meaning?
What meaning could it have to someone, who does not count in years or decades, but in centuries and millennia?
What meaning could it have to someone, whose memories are dated back that far from today, that their beginning is nothing to him, but a blurred image reflected by a blind mirror?
What meaning could it have to someone, who once was known as to be the end of the world himself?
'None!' I heard the calm and slightly amused voice of my old friend respond to my unsaid questions.
Unless...
Well, unless the old prophecies about the end of the world would come true. Then, without any doubt, the end of the world would affect him as well, because, in this case, the end of the world would also mean the end of the 'Game'...
The 'Game'...
An extraordinarily strange and admittedly inoffensive paraphrase of the one and only fact, that apparently grown ups – immortals, living unrecognised amongst their mortal fellows – are constantly on a hunt for each other, for only one reason:
To fight each other till death with archaic weapons in godforsaken lonely places until one of them takes the other's head.
Sounds weird, doesn't it?
To me it does...
The 'Game'...
To me, it has nothing to do with common sense, honour or reaching a vaguely promised prize offered as a reward for the last man standing.
To me, it's rather a morbid alteration of a perpetual massacre, warranted by its rules settled somewhere back in ancient times, following just one single aim: In the end, after centuries of slaughter, there will be one, only one survivor – for the collective good, for the good of the world, perhaps even for the good of the universe...
So it says, so it's conveyed, so are its rules.
I'm part of this world. I'm part of the 'Game'. I'm part of its rules. For more than five thousand years...
But does this mean, I have to believe in it and its rules?
Because, I'm forced to take part in this 'Game'?
Because, I love this world I live in – including all its beauty and even its blemishes?
Because, I'm immortal?
I saw things, I experienced things, far beyond the imagination of every mortal I ever came across.
I decided to write down what I experienced ever since the days when writing got invented...
I committed deeds – deeds beyond words, deeds, I won't ever get forgiveness for, no matter how long my life will last...
And one day, perhaps, one of my opponents might be able to outsmart me...
I let out another sigh.
To be honest, I'm tired!
Tired of the 'Game'!
I'm tired of killing and of chopping heads, because both ruled my life – and the lives of so many others – for much too long.
I'm tired of losing friends to ruthless participants of the 'Game' and I'm tired of avenging said friends.
I'm also tired of hiding, even though I don't regret avoiding fights whenever I'm able to do so...
However, whoever will be the winner of the 'Game', one thing I won't deny:
Neither do I own the ambition nor do I own the fire to become the one to hold the world's fate in his hands.
To me it would do to remain the one I am, but as hard as I may try, I can't withdraw from the 'Game' forever. I'm bound to it as much as we all are and I'm bound to it like I'm bound to my memories: There is no escape.
To count in centuries or even in millennia, means to carry tons of memories, and sometimes, they tend to catch up with you, the good as well as the bad.
And so there are the memories of Cassandra, who's still unable to forget or to forgive...
And so there are the memories of Kronos, who was unwilling to accept, that I changed into the one I am today...
Both never had or won't ever have the slightest idea, how coming across them changed my life.
Twice!
Our second encounter convinced me, that I want to be the one I am – with all my flaws and merits. I'm neither black nor white, I consist of shades and if I'd not have kept my ancient self safe inside of me, I would never have survived that long, but it was our first encounter, which left me, in its aftermath, with just one wish: to become more than what I've once been...
Did I succeed?
I think so...
My name is Methos and my story begins within a time, back in history, when a life had no meaning to the man able to take it, when a sword decided if a man would live or die and when only a few ever came to know my real name...