"One Golden Glance"

Achnacarry – 1855

He and Gilbarta mingled in the great lounge, greeting what guests had already begun to arrive for supper. The bagpipers droned out their ditty in the foyer, honking like upbeat geese.

Often Penance wondered just what exactly the inventor of the bagpipes was trying to make at the time. What was he trying to do, and how did it all go so terribly wrong?

Any other time the pipes would be an annoyance, but now he wasn't even paying the slightest attention to them. After a brief turn through the room, making his appearances, the' frail and sickly' wee Lochiel retired to the northern wing for a 'brief rest'. He put a small parlor room, the library, and the glass-ringed conservatory between himself and the party.

Not a lot of distance, all things considered, but it would have to be enough.

Penance stood on a little patio beyond the conservatory's frosted glass doors, his hands firmly set on the marble railing, squeezing it tight enough to draw the color from his knuckles. He'd discarded his smooth white gloves and unbuttoned his tartan jacket.

He left specific instructions to the party staff: should any stranger ask for him they should be told that he's resting out on the conservatory patio. But, he told them, if that stranger believes that the Lochiel "might go heels-over-head for what they have to say" they were free to come back and meet him on the patio.

Penance thought that little bit of wording was rather clever, especially given how he was put on the spot about the matter.

He grit his teeth at that thought. He'd known bloodlust in his time at Achnacarry; he'd had to, really. Fighting for life and limb means that one can feel nothing else if one's to survive. But now he felt another sensation; it was, comically, even more severe and enraging.

He felt 'disrespected'.

How dare someone come for him on such an occasion? On Burns Night, no less. It just wasn't done! There was something so aggravating about it— more so than the usual incidence of a person coming around to slice a 12-year-old's head off his shoulders.

It wasn't even about the idea of murder, really.

It was worse than that.

It was, well, just plain rude!

If he'd had a little distance from his own thoughts he might've found his mental process comical, but at the time all he could feel was his blood boiling, rage smoldering within him. That was unusual.

These days when he faced another Immortal his heart never broke 70 beats per minute; you could chill a washcloth on his forehead.

And so, when he reached out with his mind and sensed a figure moving off from the main party, ambling through the house on their way to the conservatory, he wasn't particularly feeling himself. He was feeling inside his jacket, fingers touching some of the knives that comprised the extra fifteen pounds of weight in his clothes.

Boot heels clacked over the tile floor in the greenhouse behind him. The figure rounded the corner just as Penance's roiling blood felt ready to burst from his eyes.

And he figured the eyes would be a good place to start...

The boy whipped around, letting loose a piercing shriek as he unleashed his first salvo. The 'guest' was quick on his feet, however, and he raised his dress cane over his face, blocking one of the spinning blades from his head while twisting his body about, allowing the other blade to harmlessly skirt the back of his coat.

When Penance unleashed his next barrage the man dove across the doorway and grabbed a nearby wooden tray propped up beside some potted orchids. He brought this to his face just in time to catch two more blades; with the force of the boy's throws they broke through the tray's thick wood like a hot knife through butter. Their stubby handles barely caught in the holes, holding them in place about a centimeter from the man's face.

When a pair of thin eyes peeked over that tray— devilishly shrewd and as syrupy as marsh water— Penance hesitantly wound-down from his throwing stance.

But he kept his knives at the ready.

Of course.

"Oh, it's you," the boy blinked. He twisted his lips and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his surprise, using his voice to mask it with annoyance. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Connor MacLeod slowly got to his feet, holding his dress cane in one hand and the pierced wooden tray in the other, balancing it like a bronze shield, looking something like a gladiator awaiting his next challenge in the arena.

"You've got a funny way of saying 'hello' these days, little Spaniard," he wagged the tray; the throwing knives embedded in the wood didn't move an inch.

"That's my way of saying goodbye, these days," Penance countered.

Connor rolled his eyes, allowing a thin smile to grace his lips.

"Guess I walked right into that one, didn't I?" The man approached the balcony railing, but Penance raised a blade in warning.

"Not yet," he said.

Connor stopped briefly, regarding the boy's display with a small, respectful nod. He did not, however, lose that sardonic grin. The man approached the far end of the balcony instead, moving very slowly and leaving a large distance between himself and the boy. He set the wooden tray on the railing beside him.

"And what I'm doing here is simple, lad." Connor leaned against the railing, standing easy and relaxed. "I was traveling through the area and thought to pay my respects to the Lady Cameron. Didn't intend to startle you—"

"I am not 'startled'," the boy grumbled.

Connor surveyed the boy from head to toe, and again he respectfully nodded.

"I can see that well enough. Anyway you wouldn't have recognized my name on the guest list, but I didn't intend that; if I'd come by just a couple years ago you'd have seen 'Captain Connor MacLeod' on your roster." Connor scoffed, shaking his head ruefully as he looked down at the tranquil pond below the balcony; a pair of swans circled in the water, hoping for a handout. "Fine fellow, that man. A respectable gold and opium trader."

He looked back over at Penance, again flashing his shrewd smile.

"Guess you've got no need for either right now, do you?"

Again Penance relaxed his stance a bit. He put another foot of space between himself and the man.

"At present? No. But you never know; opium's a decent treatment for the cholera..."

At this Connor arched a quizzical brow, but Penance merely shook his head, looking away from the man for the first time.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he mumbled.

"Fair enough," Connor said.

"So what exactly happened to 'Captain MacLeod', then?" Penance asked.

Now it was Connor's turn to look away, and there was considerable weight in the man's gaze. If he'd held a ball bearing between his teeth he might've snapped it in two. He managed to shake his head after a brief moment.

"I don't want to talk about that, either."

"What do we talk about, then?"

Connor shrugged, looking up at the darkening sky overhead.

"There's always the weather, isn't there?"

"You didn't come to Achnacarry to talk about clouds."

The boy's right eye ticked; he realized what he'd said almost before he was done saying it. When the pair of them exchanged glances the stern looks changed to hesitant smirks, and the smirks to a small, shared chuckle.

"It's in my name, is it not, lad?" Connor quipped.

"Guess I walked right into that one," Penance admitted.

"When I heard the 'tall tale' of the strange little Lochiel the description seemed a bit familiar. I was interested enough to pay a social call. Idle curiosity. And I was in the area to meet someone else, anyway." Connor looked back down at the pond below them, tactfully clearing his throat. "He missed our meeting at Glencoe, in fact. I don't suppose he... also paid you a call?"

The easy grin on Penance's face fell away. Instantly his eyes were hard and clinical.

"Depends," the boy said. "Was he a mousey-looking type? Thin red hair and iron spectacles?"

Connor nodded, not bothering to look up from the pond.

"He's in the loch. Most of him, anyway." Penance coldly motioned across the castle with his head, back to the Dark Mile and Arkaig. "That gonna be a problem?"

Connor shook his head, returning Penance's gaze with his soft, thin smile. The boy didn't reciprocate.

"No," Connor said. "Pangloss always was an opportunist, and an optimist. Leave it to him to be an overconfident ass about such things. Should've known better than to come here looking for a head. Should've heeded the rumors. It's a nasty creature, they say: that little 'Forever Boy' that haunts Achnacarry, toting his stuffed fox doll—"

"It's not a doll," Penance narrowed his eyes.

"Whatever. That boy has a reputation, if you didn't know. One that's given more than a few of us out there pause. But..."

Connor trailed off, looking down at the marble railing, drawing one finger absently along its smooth surface.

The boy was ready to bare his teeth and demand Connor make his point, but after a moment his cold hostility faded and he looked away.

"But the reputation's spreading. Word is spreading," Penance said. He wasn't guessing Connor's thoughts; he was simply stating what he already knew to be true. "Because me being here with Gilbarta is stupid, and it's wrong."

"Feels wrong, does it?" Connor asked.

Penance shook his head .

"No, but it just is."

"Because it has to be, hmm?"

Penance nodded.

Connor watched the pair of swans circle in the pond below them; they'd given up on hoping for food from either of them and now turned their attention to each other, preening.

"You don't think so?" Penance asked.

"Would I call it 'stupid'?" Connor shrugged, hunching down against the railing. "Sure, after a fashion. And it is, really, when you consider who we are. What we are. Would I call it 'wrong'? That's another question. We don't get what the others have— what they can have— no matter how long we live. We can't share our lives the way they can, even if we try. There's an important thing to it, you know: growing older, body changing with each season, even turning frail and elderly. I think there's some kind of magic in the whole thing: aging alongside another. It's a grand bond, and it unites far deeper than all others might. Deeper than an immortal could fathom, I think. Without it we can still share the time, at least, but there's a pale divide somewhere, like a pall, and it falls between us and them. Or not between us, even: maybe it's all on us. We carry it with us to each relationship we try to have, after all. And it shrouds everything. It's not so easy on the spirit, and most can bear it only once, or not at all, before giving up on the whole 'stupid' business. But for that one time? That one brief look into 'normal' happiness? Who's to call that 'wrong'?"

Penance noted the distance in the man's eyes as he spoke; he wasn't looking at any swans, or anything in the here and now; he was looking at a 'when'.

"What was her name?" The boy asked.

Connor broke from his reverie— stunned by the boy's insight— and met his gaze with a dangerous face. It was the first dark scowl Penance had ever seen from the man, and it was a frightful thing. In his eyes Penance suddenly saw Connor's creature underneath the veneer. It was what Uallas called the 'monster' beneath the man: the secret fury that all successful immortals hid within their hearts. Penance had his; he'd long ago learned to never apologize for it, and he'd long since stopped fearing it.

But when he sensed the 'monster' lurking in Connor's heart he got the idea that it would be almost effortlessly easy and simple for MacLeod to end Penance right here on the spot, if he chose to do it. It was an odd thing: somehow in that brief moment Penance felt the numb touch of death making gooseflesh of skin and searing him to his soul, and he felt it more keenly than he'd ever felt it before.

Including when he was actually murdered, for some reason.

Connor walked his sudden anger back quickly, though, when he saw the sincerity in Penance's eyes. He didn't answer the boy's question for some time, and just when Penance was ready to change the subject he spoke.

"Heather," he said. "Her name was Heather."

An awkward pause filled the air; Penance only gave a brief, respectful nod to the man to fill it. For the first time the boy turned to the side, not standing square before the other immortal, and he matched Connor's pose, leaning on the railing.

"I don't have much longer here at Achnacarry," the boy spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. "One way or another."

"No," Connor answered. "I suppose you don't."

They stood that way for a time, both of them leaning against the marble, watching the pond water darken as the sky slowly turned to night. It was a good two minutes before Penance spoke.

"You haven't asked me..."

"About what?"

"Uallas."

Connor cocked his head, shrugging his shoulders and returning his attention to the pond.

"None of that is my business, as I see it. What happened— whatever happened, because the story of how the Norman died changes based on who's telling it— well, it seems to me that it was between the two of you, alone."

"How're you so sure that I was the one who—"

"It's in your eyes, if you can believe that." The man chuckled, shaking his head. "Stupid and florid thing to say, usually. Most people's eyes are just their eyes; there's really nothing to read in there. But everyone's got a different 'tell', and I suppose that you aren't 'most people', kid. Don't know if that makes any sense—"

"It does." Penance remembered that night up at the forge with Fair Hair; that had been how he sussed out Penance's immortality: a deep look into the boy's peepers. You couldn't say that Penance wore his heart on his sleeve, exactly.

But he did show that heart through his eyes.

And as nightfall crept in over the conservatory balcony those eyes once again shone 'cold'. Fair Hair had once threatened to take everything from Penance, but his strike had been quick and vicious, giving the boy no time to think, only kill. Penance didn't know what Connor's intentions were— not for certain— but he was done thinking over them.

Thinking was overrated, anyway.

He stepped back from the railing, squaring himself before Connor.

"You've paid your respects to the Lady Cameron, MacLeod, and now you've satisfied your curiosity about the 'Forever Boy' too, haven't you?"

Connor matched Penance's move, standing up from the railing and facing the boy.

"Aye, so I have," he nodded.

"And so... the 'rest'?"

"What 'rest'?"

Penance took a slow, measured step backwards.

"What do you intend? I'm not the same boy you crossed swords with back at Letterewe."

"Indeed." Connor picked up the impaled wooden tray and tapped at one of the knife hilts sticking out of it. "Were I a tree today I'd live in mortal fear of your practice sessions—"

"Are we fighting, or not? If we are then this is it; I'm not running or playing games, MacLeod."

Connor set his dress cane genteelly between his legs, again flashing the boy his narrow smile.

"Other than the Game, that is? And that's because you'd die to protect what you have here, isn't it?"

"Or kill," Penance grumbled.

Connor's smile widened. He looked around the patio, silently nodding, as if reaching a conclusion.

"It's a decent place for a showdown, isn't it? Picturesque and dramatic, like in all the great stories. Seems a shame to waste the venue. Yeah, Penance: I suppose we really should fight, shouldn't we?"

The boy steeled himself, placing one foot behind the other, extending his hands to either side. His fingers curled at the ready, twitching to feel the hilts of all those knives inside his jacket.

Somewhere in the twilight woods the warbling coo of a tawny owl split the silence between them. Penance barely heard it, not with all the blood pounding in his head. Connor, on the other hand, reacted to it with a chuckle. He took a slow, deliberate step back from the boy.

"It's a shame, really." Connor said.

"About what?"

"We definitely should fight," the man reiterated, "but it's our bad luck to be on holy ground."

Penance cocked his head.

"Achnacarry is not holy ground."

"Isn't it?" Connor motioned back through the conservatory door. "That one time, Penance— that one brief look I was talking about? We really do only get one. It can never really come again. I've had mine, and all I'll say is that living through that life was as close to walking on hallowed ground as anything else could be."

Penance slowly wound down from his combat stance, but still he eyed the man critically.

"That's dumb poetry," he grumbled. "I didn't take you for a sentimentalist, Connor."

"I don't think I am, exactly. But you live long enough, kid, and you've got more than enough to be sentimental about." Connor twisted the head of his cane and pulled up on it, exposing the base of a narrow arming sword. This made Penance reflexively jump back, but Connor immediately re-sheathed the weapon.

"Besides," Connor smiled, "I wouldn't want to face the likes of you with ordinary steel; it might just bounce off your neck."

"Where's the Masamune?"

"That's what I was meeting with Pangloss to discuss." Connor stared down at the top of his cane, eyeing it with a rueful scowl. "That wiry little rat said he had information for me; I'm looking for someone; they've got the katana. For now, at least."

"Sorry about that," Penance mumbled.

Connor shrugged, his thin smile returning.

"Eh. Like I said: Pangloss was an opportunist. And an optimist. He was just as likely to challenge me for my head as he was to give me what I wanted. It was stupid to count on him at all, really." The man winked at Penance. "But you know as well as anyone: when you really want something you're often willing to do 'stupid' things to have it. Or to keep it."

Penance grunted noncommittally at this, crossing his arms.

"Well, you're not wrong," he whispered.

"And neither are you," Connor pointed his cane at the boy, again winking, and then he turned for the conservatory doors. "I won't keep you from your guests any longer. I'll be out of your hair entirely before long, riding fast; should make Fort William before all the innkeepers shut their doors. Doubt you'll be able to 'sense' me from there."

The man walked off, absently brushing his hand over some potted white lilies as he walked. He plucked one of them up and pointed the delicate flower back at the boy.

"See you in the great 'out there', kid. Maybe the next place we meet will also be 'picturesque'. Who knows?"

Connor tossed the lily on the patio between them and made a genteel bow.

"Until then: pleasant night to you, wee Lochiel. And peace upon your house, sir."

Penance let a warm smile break over his lips as he watched the Highlander's dramatic bow. As Connor turned to leave Penance felt a stirring inside him; a ghost more than 200 years dead seemed to wake in his brain. He found himself saying those same words he'd heard so long ago at Letterewe.

"Stay for dinner, MacLeod."

Connor turned and looked back at him; now it was the Scotsman's turn to hide his surprise.

"We'll find you a seat at table close enough to the head to satisfy your honor—"

"That wouldn't be difficult," the man smirked.

"Maybe a chair or two down from myself, though. Out of 'sword range', if you don't mind."

"Well, I can't pass up a meal, even if it's a reeking haggis," Connor said. "But I feel like I'd owe you for the obligement..."

The smile on Penance's face wormed up even broader.

"Nonsense," the boy said. "In fact, it's Clan Cameron tradition to honor its guests with presents, if you didn't know. I've got one for you, if you'd like. Perhaps you'd do the honor of addressing the Haggis?"

Connor crossed his arms, seeing through the boy's charade in short order.

"Isn't it only the host, himself, that gives the speech?"

"Or those they honor with it," Penance asserted.

Connor spread his hands apologetically.

"Alas, even if I were inclined, I can't say I know my Burns enough to have memorized it. I just don't know the words, lad."

Penance's salesman smile fell, replaced by a sullen pout.

"You'll do fine, kid," Connor said. "Oh, and before I forget..."

The man stuck a hand into his overcoat pocket; Penance resisted the urge to crouch and ready himself, but every muscle in his body went to high alert.

Instead of anything sinister, though, Connor merely produced a small piece of pottery: a glaze-fired little bowl with cloud-blue coloration. The thing was marred with irregular gold lines all along its body, and it took Penance a moment to realize that they must be cracks, resealed with some kind of gold paint.

"A little present for the house," Connor explained. "Picked it up in Japan a little while back. Don't mind saying it's a pricey little piece."

"Before or after it got shattered to pieces?"

Connor smirked at the boy's cheekiness, delicately running one finger along a golden fault line.

"They call it kintsugi," he explained. "The sealed-up cracks are one of the things that give it its character, and its value. That and the fact that the thing is older than fuck, of course."

Connor gently set the vessel on a bench near the conservatory entrance.

"Well, I've got a table to get to, I suppose. And you've got a speech to get ready to make, hmm?"

Penance's momentary curiosity at the gift quickly turned back to dour dread. Connor must've seen the color leave the boy's cheeks, because he turned with a merry chuckle and headed back out towards the great hall.

All the while throwing back a taunting verse at the boy:

"His knife see rustic Labour dight,

An cut you up wi ready slight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like onie ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin, rich!"

Penance's color-drained face again filled with blood. He retrieved the little piece of pottery from the bench, resisting the urge to add some more cracks to it, and he shook his head.

"Still a haggis, aren't you, MacLeod?"