Disclaimer: I don't owe the Highlander, neither do I owe their future.
My take on what might happen in the end, if they can't come out of that stupid Game. But then again, it's their lives and theirs customs. Who am I to say its stupid? Enjoy
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In the End is the Beginning
Once upon a time, lost and forgotten now, there was a boy. A stupid little boy. Said boy was curious in nature. Very much so. He craved to find the answers that are, that explain life. Existence.
That stupid little boy would raise his eyes to heavens, the most breathtaking and far away reality he could hope to dream of and he would pray. Endlessly, so that the Gods may grant him the knowledge he so desired.
He figured would he know the answers he would be able to use them. He wouldn't have to loose his mother to illness or his elder brother to the fights among the tribes. He thought he would be able to provide the means to his tribe to gather food, no matter what the season, without them having to move continuously, or at least he would know where to lead hem to protect them from hunger or thirst.
He believed that had he had the knowledge he craved for he would make a difference. He would simply know what had to be done.
The Gods found the plead of the boy had some merit.
Would he know their plans, their ways, would he understand the way nature worked, they would have one less world to worry about. They would have a keeper to keep the order in this planet that was called Earth. But for the plan to work out, the boy would have to be granted with more than his wish.
Knowledge of all meant nothing for someone that would die only after dome decades, the gift lost in the dust the body would decompose to. And then who would hold the knowledge of the Gods? Who would be able to carry the gift? Who would want it?
They said they would try it out. An experiment. Watch for a little while, see how it goes and then may implement it in other worlds as well. Their existence would be so much easier then. Travelling from planet to planet, seeding them with life, unique in all its forms. Not having to worry, not having to return back to the planets that had been allowed to evolve as long while they were gone.
The universe was such a place. They weren't like their creators. They weren't like the primordial force they believed had created them along with the universe. They didn't exist in time. They couldn't foresee the future or visit the past to correct mistakes. They were not infallible.
But the idea had merit. And it might be worth trying it. So they waited. Waited until the boy grew to be a young man. Until he came to be all that he could be. Leader of his tribe and already a wise man. They granted him his wish.
He was twenty five. That age in those times meant that he had lived most of his life.
And along with his wish, the knowledge he received, the understanding of the ways of nature of life, he was given another gift that would come to be a curse so many times. They made him immortal, undying, so that he would be able to look after the planet and its inhabitants forever. As long as it existed.
Everything went according to plan for many great years. The young man proving that he was wise, that he did care for the people and believed that life was the greatest of all the gifts. But, alas, all had to change at some point. And the time came when the people of the Earth, using the knowledge the young man gave then, reasoned that he could only be a God. Unchanging as he was in time, outliving all and every. They bowed down to him for they really didn't understand him and they were afraid of him.
In later years, this fear would drive them to destroy what was different. They didn't know how, yet. So they bowed.
There is nothing more elevating than seeing someone kneeling in front of you. Giving one's self to you. This unconditional trust, the power, the fear and love that the young man – who was not as young anymore – could feel when people prayed in his name, it was liberating. Addictive.
The Gods had never removed his weaknesses. Had never taken out of him the core that was mortal. Human.
The young man begun believing that maybe he was a God. After all, didn't he know the ways the world worked? Didn't he have an answer to all questions? Wasn't he able to heal and provide his people with food? Water? Life?
But his people were long dead.
Wasn't he a God who lived forever? Who never got ill and healed if hurt? Who returned from the dead and was able to bring back with him others from the brick of that untouchable realm?
Wasn't he a God who could foretell when the next flood would be, or when the Sun would loose his face while joining with the Moon? He knew why, understood the workings, but he could not explain. And why would he? The men and women around him were so simple. Satisfied with so little. They would never understand so he never explained.
He always knew that is was best to leave them to discover the truth alone. Hinting the right way from time to time. He had seen the results of coming out with the truth at once.
He had been young, still, then. It had cost him his family. His people.
He had learned his lesson well, after innumerable mistakes and trials. But learned he had. It had all been so long ago. He could barely remember his wife. His children.
The power he was given freely, out of love or fear, helped him forget all the loved ones that passed away.
The decision wasn't difficult, in the end. He reasoned if he had to give all this to them, the mortals, he might take back something for it. He became the God the mortals believed him to be.
He had forgotten that he was giving all he was because he had received all he was. He was still young, in the end.
But the Gods remembered. And they were disappointed. The man that was their gift to Earth had turned into a rival. This was never supposed to happen. It wasn't in their powers to create a new God. So they decided they would have to destroy him. They thought it would be easy. They had made him, they would unmake him.
But the man had armoured him self with his knowledge and the Gods could not undone him. They had made him to exist; they never thought he would have to die one day. They had never planned for it. Yet they knew that he could not be allowed to walk on Earth thinking himself a God. It was wrong.
So they created the immortals. A race that could not die unless you knew how to kill them. A race of men and women that could not procreate, could recognise one another and whose only purpose on Earth was to find the First One among them and kill him.
Of course the Gods knew he could not be killed, but no man enjoyed being hunted down, killed again and again. No. Such a man would have to go into hiding. Would have to keep low as to protect himself. And no hunted man could be a God.
And the immortals? They weren't made as the first one. That would have been foolish. Even the Gods learn from their mistakes. These immortals could only last for a period of time. These immortals borrowed their power from their planet and had to return it back after a period of time elapsed. These immortals were only immortals in name. And they lacked the knowledge, the understanding that the Firstborn was given.
They only knew one thing.
Find the First and kill him.
But as all other creatures in the planet, they too kept their initial core that made them humans. And so the First was able to manipulate them to some extent, even if he was forced into hiding. Even if he was God no longer.
He learned to hide his power so that he was felt as any other immortal. In the beginning it worked. The immortals were looking for him, but he could stand next to them and none would be the wiser. And slowly the immortals would loose interest in the hunt and begin to enjoy life for its simple pleasures. The plan of the Gods had been thwarted yet again.
So they came up with the Game.
The next bunch of immortals, the next generation, one would be tempted to say, was told that their purpose on Earth was to rule it. And the only way of that was to be the left one standing in the planet. So born immortals would fight each other when they met. And the First One would have no excuse, no way to hide from the Game. He felt the same as the rest and he felt the most powerful. The most wanted. It was well known that the immortal who got to kill the Oldest One of them would most certainly win the Game.
For thousands of years the plan worked. The Firstborn was hard pressed, running always, never staying long enough in one place because of the danger.
Yet in his wonderings he realised something. As he was always running the life on the planet was being affected as well. The immortals never really cared for the rest of the life, since they were to rule it in the end anyway. So he decided something had to be done.
He created the rules of immortality. He used his knowledge of how they were created to tap into their awareness and have them remember about all that they were before they were turned into immortals. He forced them to at least live some of their life close by to the mortals, learning how to respect them, so that they may be unwilling to hurt them along.
He made them care.
And he watched them, sadly, as they were born, taught, learned to make friends and loose them under their own hunger of the promised power that he could not diminish. He watched what he came to consider his own people live and die for a Myth.
For the first will never die.
"That's was a nice story."
"I thought you might like it."
"Methos."
"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I'd offer you a beer, but as you can see I have none."
The nonchalantly, the easiness with which he spoke startled me. But then, I suppose, it shouldn't have. He rarely treated things as if they were of importance. Casually. I suppose 5000 years of existence does this to someone. In fact, I think that I have only two times seen him shaken. No three. When Alexa died, when he killed Silas, his one time brother and when Joe passed away.
He disappeared after that.
It's been three hundred years.
"So, where did you hear the story from?" I say something to break the sudden silence. Well, it is not exactly silence, the wind is loud and the Sea makes such a racket from below the cliff we are standing on. I am certain I would be able to hear the gathered Watchers talking or whispering to each other in the foot of the cliff but the wind is against them.
I am sure they are wondering what's going on. When I arrived on the cliff, some ten minutes ago, the Old Man was already here. In the same position as now. Seated, with his back to me, staring at the Sunset. He didn't move, didn't acknowledged my presence, though I am certain he felt me far before I sensed him, until I had walked up to him. Then he started telling me of this strange story.
Another Myth of Immortality and our origins. I wonder whether he believes it. I know he has some purpose for retelling it. If I've learned one thing from the some twenty or thirty years I've spent next to the Old Man, it's that he never says or does anything without an ulterior motive. It's the way he lives.
"I've known it for millennia. Though I was surprised when Darius told it to me." Is he amused? His voice certainly seems to be but I can't see him so I can't tell. Though chances are that I wouldn't be able to tell truthfully if I was able to see him. I only see – the world only sees – what he wants us to see.
"You knew Darius?"
"I knew Darius." That is too short even for the Old Man. It makes me wonder. But it is not the time.
"So do you believe it?" I ask instead. I don't think I'd get an answer from him about Darius anyway.
"The story? Maybe. Maybe not." He shrugs and a ray from the red dying Sun is reflected on his sword. It too, lies casually on his lap as he sits cross-legged. "What difference does it make?"
"You thought it was important enough to let me know." I point out.
"MacLeod. Take a look around you. We are the last, MacLeod. The last and we are supposed to fight to the death. I thought I might answer you that question you had asked when we first met. Remember?"
Of course I did. Could I forget? I never got an answer for it, all those years. I thought he would tell me in time. When he had the chance to get to know me a bit better. After all why would he say the reasons to an immortal that he just met? That might be his enemy?
"So, have you found any reason, meaning of all this?"
"I did give you the answer."
"The story?"
"Kind of. The answer is that the reasons don't really make any sense. At least from my point of view."
Is that sadness in his voice? I see him now. Really see him as I never bothered to do before. His shoulders are slouched as if he is very tired. As if he has been carrying the weight of the whole world. 5000 years are obviously to long a time to live. I smirk as I notice that there is no trace of accent in his voice as we speak the common language of our time. No accent to hide the fact that he is no new immortal. That he comes from a time so long ago the spoken languages, of then, don't even exist as dead. Dust in the crumbles of time. He is so old.
I take a step to his left, so that I can see his face. I instantly regret it. When was the last time you ate, Old Man? The last time you slept?
"Oh, Methos." He doesn't look up at me. His eyes remain glued to what remains of the Sun, as he disappears behind the Sea.
"You know, I've watched billions upon billions of sunsets. Every single one was different. Every single one but the last. The last one has always been the same."
His voice is strained, his face pale, even under the warm caresses of the sun. Taunt. His eyes sparkle gold and green as if he has a fever. Shadows dance in his face, darkening the hallows of his cheeks, making him look more dead than alive. And I find my self not really caring.
He abandoned me then. When Joe died. I needed him and he didn't even stay for the funeral. I feel my resolve strengthen, I feel my heart hardening and I know I can pull this off. He is so obvious tired of life. Of us. Always has been, cleverly hiding it behind his brilliant eyes, his fake enthusiasm in all that was new. I should have known even then that this was all a lie. Since he offered me his head, that day under the bridge. His fire is gone. His act revealed. I will do him a favour.
"I don't want to kill you." I have no idea where that comes from. I stand there, unsheathing my sword, ready to enter the last combat of my life, one that I will win, and I utter these strange words.
"Oh good. That makes two of us." Such a fake levity. It makes me sick.
"Get up."
I raise my sword just as the Old Man stares up at me for the first time. And as a miracle his face lightens up, just as the Sun completely disappears behind the horizon. First he cracks a small smile but then he looks as if he is unable to hold himself as he breaks down laughing. A real laugh. Alive and full and the most true laugh I've ever heard coming from him.
It's frightening.
"In all the Gods and Goddess names, Mac." He turns his head back towards the west. Doesn't he care that I stand above him with a raised blade? "haven't you heard a thing I said? I am not going to fight you. You want to kill me? Go ahead."
"You'd give up your chance to the Prize? You'd rather you were dead?" I am surprised. Which really shouldn't come as a surprise. After all this is the Old Man I am dealing with.
"I can't give up my chance to the Prize, Mac." He sighs. "I can never die. I was created thus. The Game, Mac? The Prize? I am the Prize, Mac. And the Game was won before it was even thought of." His words should mean something to me, I realise belatedly. They should explain something, fill the emptiness I feel, but there is nothing there. In me.
Just the power of the thousand of thousands immortals that I carry in me.
All crying to me to win one more battle.
One more fight.
The last one.
The final one.
I find my self wishing I could reign my feelings. My hunger for this enormous power that I can feel emanating from the man I know so much and yet so little about. It's intoxicating, his power. Tangible, far stronger than any I have ever tasted. He sounds right when he says he is the Prize. He feels like it too.
I need to stall for time.
"Why did you left?" my hand is gently caressing the hilt of my katana, my mind already planning the upcoming fight. Seeing again and again the Old Man's head flying away from his body, his sparkling essence snaking its way towards me. But I want some answers first.
"There was nothing worth to keep me behind." No hesitation as he offers his reasons. Reasons that could be his death warrant signed.
"You didn't even stay for the funeral." I accuse him, not wanting to deal with the sudden anger and hurt of the admission that I wasn't important enough.
"Joe and I had said our goodbyes. There was nothing left for me to do there." He is on his knees. I realise that I didn't see him moving. The sky is darkening now that the Sun is no longer gifting Earth with his light.
"I needed you then." And it is the truth.
"Tough luck."
"You never cared, did you? About me, Amanda, Joe? We were all a front, weren't we? A cover. Another way to loose yourself in the world. Typical you. Hiding behind masks and riddles. Myths and lies. Which mask am I seeing now, Methos?"
"You got to be kidding." He snorts and looks up at me again. "Cared MacLeod? You used to like me. You used to want me for a friend. And then, bam. You find something about me that it wasn't of your liking and from that moment on whatever I said, whatever I did, you thought it wasn't good enough. I liked Joe. Never presume I didn't. We were pals. I stayed with him when you disappeared. I saved his daughter, even." He smiles fondly at that memory. "What did you do other than scoff me, degrade me, push me away from your oh, so nice little world. You found yourself in a need of a cause. In a need of an enemy, and guess who got promoted to fill that position. Yours truly, the former Horseman, the immortal once known as Death.
"Really, you wonder why I only showed you masks and never me? Why I left?" he continues speaking and with every word I feel a blade entering my heart, twisting again and again. "You could say I got bored of trying to rescue a one way friendship. Or maybe, if this will make you fill any better, I acted as the bastard you always knew I was deep down, and used you for a while, for my own amusement. Then, when you stop providing said amusement, I left. I've done it before you know."
I want to tell him that this is not so. That it is all wrong, he got it all wrong, but you see, he didn't. I hated him, even as I wanted him around. I was envy of his friendship with Joe, and later with Amanda. I hated it when she would let it drop, accidentally, that she had met him, here or there, in some part of the world, where he never was when I left to go after him. I hate him for being who he is. Even though I have no idea who he is. And so I ask him.
"You can't be that thick, MacLeod." His voice is exasperated. I see he is slowly getting tired of this. He wants it to end as much as I do, and I can't help but feel this sudden apprehension, as if something isn't right. "I am who I am. Methos. A Myth. A legend. The Legend of the 5000 years old immortal that cannot remember his origins. This is who I am. And you are running out of time."
He is beautiful. That is the first thought that cross my mind as he allows me to see the real him. The man behind the myth. The world weary eyes, filled with so much knowledge and life and desire for continuing that it somehow seems opprobrious to look at them. He looks eternal, existing in time just as we all of us did. Before one by one we perished in our own kind's hands. Swords. He is the last of us and I have to kill him.
His power will be the greatest gift I will be bestowed in my path to become the ultimate ruler, protector of this planet.
"Get up." I repeat. He sighs just as his head is lowering and it seems the light goes off from his face. From his eyes.
"I suppose there is nothing I could say that would make you look the other way as I make my own way down this hill and disappear in the world."
He speaks in Gaelic. It feels so strange listening my birth language. So beautiful the sound of it. Something is awaken deep inside me, something that speaks of the desire of peace. Something that forbids me from taking this man's head. He is still in his knees. His blade discarded next to him, still preferring to look in the abyss that is the dark Sea before us, rather than me.
"I can't." and it is the truth. As much as I'd like to, as much as I want to walk away, the pull of the gathering that I have been feeling, that all of us had been feeling the past fifty years is still dominant. Still dictating what my next action should be.
"I could." A sad snort. "That is the difference between us, MacLeod." He stares at his blade and slowly rises to his feet, his sword still hanging by his side. "I promise you, next time it will be different." The words are so softly spoken that I barely hear them. I am not allowed any time to wonder about them as with an earth shattering war cry – I never thought he had it in him – his sword springs to life and he attacks me.
I am finding it very difficult to parry his blows. They come with a speed and elegance I had never seen before in him the many times we parried in the past. As I try to avoid a new attack I can't help but think that he held back. Every time I met him he would hold back. Whether it was information, knowledge, power, fighting skills or himself, he held back, never revealing what he could do. Always hiding, avoiding the light that would leave him bare of lies.
He moves like a panther. Not that there are any panthers left, but I can still remember what they looked like. His eyes are a shinning gold that promise no mercy, only death. I think I understand now why he was called Death. With his pale, gaunt face, and the fire burning eyes, the scrawny body that hides its strength beneath voluminous folds of cloths, he looks more than a mere man, more than just an immortal. He looks like a spirit from the otherworld, set to walk the world forever. He looks as if he came straight from the realm of the after world, to bring Death alive up here.
He looks like a God.
And yet, for all his ability with the sword – how did I ever think he might be out of practice? It is as if he was born with the blade – I am still holding my ground, parrying in one moment, lashing out my own attacks, movements graven in my mind from hundreds of years of practice, forcing him to back off as he tries to stand his ground.
Suddenly he stops. He is something like five steps away from me, breathing as hard as I do, and yet looking more alive than ever. And at the same time spent.
This is the end, he knows it and I know it.
When he comes, I expect him. I am ready. His blade is raised in the air, his steps expertly taken, the whole sequence of movements already decided and executed in his mind. He comes fast and silent, as he never before did. I hold my blade ready for him.
In the last moment I strike as he comes, my faithful katana writing an arc upwards to meet his descending Ivanhoe.
In the last moment he drops his sword, swinging his body so that my blade will find his neck.
In the last moment – to late – I let of my sword, as it already slices through his neck, his body continuing its fall down to earth.
And then there is silence. And thunder. And lightening.
I feel I am rising up in the sky, charged with the power that is his quickening, and it feels like I am moving with unimaginable speed, like I am the lightening that strikes my body. The winner. It hurts and it is elating and amazing and there are no words to describe it. I won. He allowed himself to loose.
Then I hear his last words, that I am certain were never uttered. I see his green-gold eyes that should be closed or dead, frozen in the inexistence of the other world.
"You may have won a battle, Highlander, but this was always my war to win."
Then there is nothing.
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I don't know why I felt I had to promise him such. I don't know why I felt compelled to reveal so much about the truth of our existence. Their existence. I have no idea why I am planning to do the unthinkable.
All in all, the Highlander has never been such a great friend to me.
And yet I tell him, when I usually just fight and kill them straight off. And yet I try to explain, when it is obvious that he can't withstand the power of their conditioning.
He will never understand, and yet I try.
He is too blind to see.
Or maybe he chooses not to see. It is easier thus, when you have no choice. Easier to renounce the simple truth of reality when you can't go against your own nature. I know. I've done it my self for so many years.
Sometimes I wish I could die.
I stand here, now, unmoving, taking what is going to be my last good look at him before I commence the last act of this fight. I am smiling, I realise. The fight has been good. One of the best I had in some years, in fact. Just as I expected from him, the Warrior of the Highlands. I allowed my true abilities to come forth for the first time in a fight against him.
Too bad it's going to be the last.
He stands there too, panting from the exertion, a slight wonder settled on his face. Sweet, stupid Duncan MacLeod. Brave beyond imagination, Judge and executioner of many, he wishes to finish off, I suppose, the one condemned that escaped his justice. His sword.
I think I might just fulfil this desire of his.
I think I might fall to his sword, when time comes.
The time is here.
I wish I could change the whole story. I wish I could go back, many millennia ago, and stop that little boy from making his wish. I wish I could go back in time and warn said boy that would then be older and more knowledgeable but none the wiser, against believing himself to be a God.
I wish I could just die.
As it happens the price for the wish has been too great to bear it alone. I die every day, every single day whenever I feel yet another immortal that in the end will come against me. That in the end will die in my name, for my sake, for my errors, my stupidity.
The punishment is not proportional to my crime.
I wish…there are no more wishes that I can make. The Gods have forsaken me. They won't hear my pleas they won't answer my calls. They are alive no longer and I killed them all.
Maybe I should have told MacLeod that this is the crime he should be punishing me for. I am Death. The Death. I killed the Gods and with them I killed hope. Hope for me and my kind. My people.
MacLeod will never believe me if I told him that.
I charge my last attack. I see him setting himself, ready to repel me, his eyes hardened beyond recognition. I was surprised when I saw him hardening earlier on. When he tried to take a better look at me. When he tried to expel what he was really feeling so that he could kill me. I was saddened because then I knew it was the end.
Today, it ends.
And the end is one more beginning.
Yet I cannot kill him. I cannot drive my sword into him because…because of a promise, because of a whim, because in the end it wont make any difference. The winner of this war was always known.
It's not the Highlander.
I drop my sword at the last possible moment, so that he won't be able to pull back. I see the surprise in his eyes, the mistaken realisation that I allow him to win the Prize because I am so tired of this world. He is too deep in the power-web for him to understand.
His sword slices through the air through my neck harmlessly and then he drops it, as I too fall to the ground, following the momentum I have gained. I see the last smile on his lips, as he thinks he has won, he the last, the only. The One.
Oh, Highlander! When will you learn that nothing is ever as it seems to be? I had hoped…I had hoped that I would maybe be able to teach you at least that much. I had hoped…but time, your time just run out.
"You may have won a battle, Highlander, but this was always my war to win."
He is already turning into energy, the Quickening that they are consisted of. I can see him melding into the blue lightening that is the thousand of thousands immortals that live for the past 5 or so millennia.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, though in this case it's more like matter to energy, energy to earth. Whence they form they must return. And I am the ultimate conduit.
The lightening charges against me, more powerful than I care to remember, charring me before the unbelieving eyes of the mortals that call themselves Watchers this time around. Agonisingly slow the energy assaulting me pass through me in the Mother Earth, its power dissipating, leaving me once more empty, alone.
I'll have about a hundred years before the first of the new generation of immortals is born.
A hundred years to do what I am supposed to be doing.
It's so little time.
I find myself whishing I had more. More time to help those that once upon a time I belonged to. Push them, mortals, back in the right track, before they completely waste this planet. I don't believe my existence will continue if Earth does not. I draw my power from her, as I was given birth with the use of her power.
I find my self wishing the hundred years come to a pass so that I meet one of my kind yet again, even as I dread the meeting more than anything.
As I make my way down the hill, amidst the delightfully confused watchers, I try not to think of all those friends, immortals and not, that I've lost through thousands of years. I've learned long ago that it is pointless.
Some of the watchers, the bravest ones, close in on me, blocking my way. I can see it in their eyes, the fear; the wonder. I feel…no. Those feelings that are in me must never be awaken. The lust of power over the lives of others. MacLeod was right in one thing. He never knew me. Who I really am. No one ever knew. They'd have to see me, uncontrolled as I never allow my self to be. Not even during the Horsemen – when MacLeod, I am certain, thought I was in my worst – did I allow deeply buried and locked feelings to emerge. How could I? Those were what led me here, in the first place. In this awful parody of life and death.
"Who are you?" they have heard my unspoken question all these little moments we stand here silent. Each observing one another, they are trying to realise if what happened was any good for their world. Me? Me, I'm playing their question in my mind over and over again, contemplating how to answer them. If I should answer them.
Who am I?
I am immortal.
I am so old…
I am knowledge.
"I am Methos."
And I want to live more.
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Ancient Greek Lesson for those that are interested. The rest just skip the next paragraphs.
Methos when first introduced in the series was said to be a legend, a myth. And so most – I suppose – believed that his name comes from the Greek word of myth, which is mythos, transliterated in English. I don't know if this will be readable but in Greek that is written μύθος. Now they have spelled his name as M-e-thos, though. If that comes from the same root as the name Pro-m-e-theus (before knowledge), then Methos means knowledge, always in ancient Greek. There is another Greek word that the name can come from and that is Methe, written in Greek μέθη. If that is the case then in means drunkenness, obviously not my favourite choice.
I am sticking with Methos, just as Prometheus (if you don't know who he is do a search in the web and find out that he is the titan that gave the human kind the fire) come from the word Metis (Μήτις). Metis is a titan, daughter of Ocean, who was renowned for her wisdom and knowledge and whom Zeus fell in love with. She became pregnant and a prophecy was uttered that a son born to Metis would overthrow him just as he had done to his father, Kronos (ring any bells?) So he conned her into turning into a fly that he then swallowed. Nine months later he came down with a splitting headache and begged Hephaestus to do something. He – being the blacksmith god – took his hammer and split Zeus forehead. And lo and behold the Goddess Athena sprang forth fully grown and dressed and armed! (Gotta love those powerful women.)
Anyway. Bottom line of this is that Metis means knowledge and wisdom and it is very likely that Methos has the same root, effectively meaning the same. That's the meaning I am sticking with.
So. Hope you enjoyed the little history lesson as much as the fantasy story above it. You should know what to do now, so I'll stop pestering you.