Title: Monologue
Author: BethCarielle
Genre: General/Angst
Rating: G
E-Mail: bethcarielle@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: I do not own the ideas or characters from Highlander.
Author's Note: I have an angst streak to rival most angst streaks…as evident in a lot of my poetry. *shrug* The world may never know why. Methos POV, his thoughts and feelings on the Game, and life. AU-ish timeline.
Why do I keep going on? Is there a purpose? Every challenge, every draw of my sword, why bother? Some unseen force drives my will to live, not that I have a choice.
I've lost two students in as many decades; almost cost Amanda her life, paid in blood for Duncan's. They both live, going on, the past is past and they cannot dwell. But I, I cannot push the brutal memories of frightened faces freezing to accept their death.
It's not like I can suicide, remove myself from this life, I'm forced to go on, meeting mortals and immortals without distinction, concocting what I need to survive.
"Methos?" a quiet voice breaks my silent reverie, a concerned face, painted with question pierces my void. Friend, a friend, I haven't had one of those in a long time. Some I can trust, someone I can talk to, someone to care for. Pulling my gaze out of the golden amber liquid before me, with a gentle smile of answer on my face, I turn.
"Everything alright Methos?" asks the Scot next to me at the bar, various emotions fleeting across his face.
"Fine Mac," I answer, not far from the truth. I may wish to die, but that doesn't mean anything is wrong. Eternity is much too long and the future holds no past for the timeless. A memory that mimics a thousand jigsaw puzzles tossed together in a small child's idea of 'put away'. A multihued glimpse of memory here, a sharp feeling of déjà vu there. Nothing complete, nothing alone in its meaning. A high pitched C of passion, a thundering resolve of determination, swirled together in an endless collage of hope, grief, fear, lust, pain, and wanting.
A wanting I cannot explain. A blood lust quenched by the lives of tens of thousands, the desire to wander squelched by already traversed lands. What more is left?
A singularity of desire with no known name or fulfillment. All I've seen and all I've done, and yet, my heart beats empty. Fiery lives coursing my veins, Quickenings of hundreds coat my soul, but I am alone. Alone.
If I lose what I have left, even if I don't know what that is, I may refuse to draw again. Leave my sword as a reminder to those yet to succumb, that little is gained in 5000 years with the exception of agony and joy.
The few moments of pure happiness are shadowed by a greasy reality of pain I cannot wash away. A pain so fierce I swear I can feel the pulse of every nerve as sensation crawls along my body. The gentlest of caresses reminiscent of hot bladed swords slicing my flesh, only to be stitched by an icy heat of lightning, making me whole, dissolving the pain I so desperately want to feel.
I need to feel so I know I'm alive, truly living, not play acting a predetermined battle in which my friends will lose their heads to my sword in the quest for some nebulous Prize promised to the winner.
What good it power with no reality? If they are gone and the mortals to dust, what is truly left for me? Anything? Everything, and nothing. A paradox of existence from which there is no escape, no release from the pain of living, yet no peace in death.
So here I shall remain, forever trapped in a mystical world of eternity punctuated by grace and sorrow, a sadistic irony of fates, a duel to know no end. Personalities and identities adopted and shed as needed, a true friend who I hope will someday take my head rather than I his.
"Are you sure Methos?" asks the concern again.
"Positive Mac. It's been a long day as Adam Pierson."
He smiles and nods, satisfied with a simple answer to an easily resolved problem. But my need to savior true death does not abate. Am I ready to lay down my sword? Will the world let me? Will I let myself?