Oh, To Be Like A God! (gen)
Disclaimer: Methos, MacLeod, and the immortal world are the property of
Rysher/Davis/Panzer, and all those people. I have nothing to do with them,
except lots of reading, mental visualization, and sometimes whining. You
got a problem with this? You really like this? Mail me at
deparsons@earthlink.net. Warning: this is the product of a challenge from
the hlbeta list, and though it's not really what was asked for, it is of a
slightly mystic bent. Research was done, but I have taken some liberties
for the sake of time, and simplification.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!!! This fanfic is not meant to portray the endorsement of
any religion, Christian, Hindu, Pagan (although I'm out there on the dance
floor with the Meefinator myself) or otherwise, nor is it meant to bash any
religion. It is an exploration of the characters, prone to my whimsy,
because I'm the one who wrote it, and the canon rarely covers this.....
The opening scene with Sweeney Todd and Robert Powell is real, but the
inspiration is from the (discontinued, sniff sniff) Marvel comic book,
"Hellstorm" #19 by Warren Ellis. Thanks for the demented image of Methos
watching old British shows!
Lyrics from "The Return of Pan" by Mike Scott and the Waterboys
A Highlander Tale of whimsical deification...
Amand-r, Amanda Parsons, religious scholar and fable writer
Duncan stared at his guest, openly and without any heed that it might be
annoying the ancient immortal. Methos was sprawled out on the couch,
flipping through the channels on the television with the remote. Mac had
let him have it, too, and now he was wondering if it had been a bad idea.
Methos stayed on the Nick At Night station for the opening of the Mary Tyler
Moore show, then made a buzzer noise, and changed the station. Now they
were watching a rodeo.
"Ennnnnnnt," the older immortal said softly. New station, this time the
local British programming. Methos whistled.
"Hey, Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad, all right! This is the one where Robert
Powell gets blown up!" The older man took a big pull from his bottle and
set the remote on the table next to him. "This is a marathon, Quartermass,
Doomwatch, all the good stuff."
Duncan grinned, and opened the text he was using for the classes he was
teaching at the University. Methos glanced at the cover.
"You're really torturing them with that stuff?" he asked Duncan.
Mac raised an eyebrow. "Yes, they were important. Not everyone was there,
you know. Can't all be five thousand years old."
The other immortal was silent, so he continued. "What? No cynical remark?"
Methos smirked. "Whaaaaat?" Duncan asked, smacking the old man with a
pillow.
Methos turned to him, pale face even whiter in the candlelight that they had
decided they preferred for an evening of drunken speeches, and said it so
simply. It was so easy for the words to slip out
"Mac, an evil deed done in the name of good is still evil." Duncan cocked
his head, waiting for more 'great enlightenment.' None came.
The television exploded, and Methos smirked, opening the second beer he had
pulled out for himself. "Ahhh," he said cheerfully. "Robert Powell just
bought the big one."
Duncan chuckled, and lapsed into silence. Why did Methos always replace
moments with levity?
The older immortal, oblivious to the musings of the Scot, or probably
ignoring them, threw his considerable attention into the television screen.
***
"Mac. Mac. Mac. Mac," Methos chased the Highlander through the choking
crowds of the University courtyard. Duncan stopped and waited for the older
Immortal to catch up, then continued his fast paced walk to his office.
"What Adam?" he asked his companion. He wanted to be in and out of here as
quickly as possible. Some of the organizers of this whole "pagan" ritual
might rope him into doing something for it, and he wasn't all that
interested in watching a bunch of college students get drunk and writhe on a
dance floor. Methos tugged on his sleeve, forcing him to slow down.
A scantily clad female in some bastardized version of a toga twirled past
him, winking. Was that Sharon? He tsked at the grad student who was his
Teaching Assistant for his medieval warfare class.
"Mac, what is all this? It's like Animal House, on crack," Methos muttered.
"Greek Week," Duncan answered. It was Greek week, as he had said, but at
Seacouver University 'Greek Week' actually meant a weeklong party for all
the students, not just the ones pledging fraternities and sororities. The
entire third week of classes consisted of a constant barrage of badly spoken
Greek pick up lines (he's been propositioned about twenty times by students
and bold faculty members alike), hideously incorrect costumes and lots and
lots of laurels. Like wearing laurels was even Greek.
A demented part of Duncan that enjoyed annoying his friend by pushing his
history buttons had asked Methos if he wanted to come along on this errand
just to get a rise out of the old man. Besides, he was running low on beer,
and if he had to watch another British television marathon he was going to
scream.
It didn't seem to be working. "None of this is Greek!" Methos burst out.
His eyes drank in the drunken students, wide, and very unlike the age he was
supposed to be. Just then, a man in a loincloth passed them, two younger
girls hanging off him, plying him with wineskins.
Methos's brows rose. "Okay, well, that was Greek..." His head followed the
nearly naked females as they passed. Duncan reached out and covered the
other Immortals eyes with his hand. "Hey!"
"Oh, so you agree with all of this, historical inaccuracy?" Duncan teased.
They were almost to his office, and he was almost home free. He has the bad
feeling that if Sharon was drunk enough (and it was eight in the evening on
a Friday, what was he doing coming here at this hour on this day? If he had
wanted to avoid trouble he should have waited until tomorrow morning.) she
would proposition him, and he might hurt her feelings. She was adorable,
all blonde and curvy, but she was his assistant.
Methos grinned. "Since when has history ever been accurate?" He accepted a
plastic cup of wine that some drunken soul pressed into his hands as they
passed. "Maybe history would have been more exciting if it had been like
this."
"Blah blah blah," Duncan muttered. He was of the opinion that this kind of
activity only served to cause more problems then it was worth, and although
he had kept quiet about it around the other faculty members, he was under no
such compunction to do so when he was with the world's oldest Immortal.
"Oh, Mac," Methos said cheerfully over his cup of wine. "You don't mean to
tell me that you think this is bad? A bunch of young people dancing their
hearts away in a haze of alcoholic fog? For shame," he sang. His grin only
served to make the grumpy Scot even more irate.
They ducked into the building, and the din from the courtyard and its
blaring canned music dulled somewhat. Duncan shook his head to clear it of
the ringing.
"What I'm saying is-"
"Duncan!" Sharon, his teaching assistant, tumbled into the darkened
building, her little toga like dress hitching up on a pair of lovely tanned
thighs. Her paste board sandals were spray painted shimmering gold. Methos
shoved away from the wall by Mac's office door, and opened his arms.
"Let me guess, the silver-footed Thetis!"
Sharon giggled. "Nooooo."
Methos tilted his head. "Ah then, let me see, Greek, not the ox-eyed
Hera...not Aphrodite..." Sharon shook her head again. Mac watched her
giving Methos the once over, her eyes hungrily undressing him. She was
drunk. Methos continued. "Daphne, I should think, or perhaps, laughing
Iris?"
"No!" Sharon smiled, heartbreaking bow of cupid lips and bright blue eyes.
"Proserpina!"
Methos made a tsking noise. "Ohh, blending death imagery with the surface
of beauty. Lovely." He kissed her outstretched hand. "Adam Pierson. You
are?"
Duncan coughed, and two pairs of amused eyes cast themselves on him. "Adam,
this is Sharon Regiele, my assistant for my medieval classes. Sharon, this
is Adam Pierson...a friend."
"Ah, the lady who picks up Duncan's slack," Methos jibbed, and bowed
slightly to the short girl. She laughed, throwing her head back.
Duncan stiffened. "Speaking of slack-" Methos cut him off.
"Duncan is less than impressed with the festivities," he purred.
Sharon raised an eyebrow. Maybe she wasn't as drunk as Mac had originally
thought.
"I can see that," she lilted. "I left those papers on your desk."
"That's what I was here for," Duncan opened the door to his office and
flipped on the lights. Methos remained in the hallway with Sharon.
He heard her ask "So Adam, are you interested in the festivities?"
There was a momentary pause, and then Adam spoke, loud enough for him to
hear. "Oh, yes, it brings back a few memories." Duncan coughed, and leaned
into the doorway to glare at the older Immortal, who rolled his amused eyes,
crinkled with laughter, the corners of his mouth turned up and dented in a
smile.
"So, you've been to a bacchanalia before?" Duncan choked on Sharon's
phrase. She knew what she was asking, didn't she? Bacchanalia. Okay, he
had to admit, it was funny, considering whom she was asking. Methos took it
in stride.
"One or two," he murmured. "Although none of them were quite like, this."
Duncan flipped through the graded assignments to try and distract himself
from scoffing too loudly at the other immortal playing fast and loose with
his student.
Sharon, as was expected, was totally oblivious. "Well," she cooed, and
Duncan felt a twinge of jealousy that she spoke to Methos in this way. "If
you feel like it, you could join us. We could be your Bacchae," she hinted
suggestively. MacLeod thought to himself behind a particularly bad paper
that Methos probably had had his share of drunken women already.
Methos made a reply to soft for Mac to hear from the office, but it must
have satisfied Sharon, because she made a little gasping noise and called
out to him from the hallway as Methos sauntered in and flopped down in one
of the stuffed leather chairs.
"Oooh Duncan, where *do* you get your friends?"
Duncan rolled his eyes. "I was just wondering the same thing," he remarked
dryly to a smug ancient Immortal.
"Blah blah blah," Methos mimicked him, studying a volume of Scottish poetry
from the desk shelf.
"You are impossible," he told Methos when Sharon was out of the building.
"Oh, I don't know," Methos gazed out the window at the fire torches that
bedecked the edges of the courtyard. Duncan thought to himself that perhaps
fire and drunks weren't a good idea. "This isn't even remotely accurate in
the setting sense of course," he looked pointedly at Duncan. "But I think
it's appropriate, don't you? All the learning the Greeks gave us, all the
plays, and the social systems, and the wonderful poetry, and they choose to
remember the rare instances where everyone 'got pissed'" He sighed, and
smiled, one hand curled about his chin. "It's indicative of the times, I
suppose."
"An ill wind that bodes no good," Duncan muttered. Methos set the book of
poetry on the desk and pulled out a tome of Hamilton's "Mythology."
"Tsk tsk, Duncan, you don't approve, really, do you? I thought it was just
your Boy Scout-ishness, but no," he paused, and leaned forward onto the
desk, his face peering at Duncan, who say behind the desk. "You don't like
the idea of what? The drinking? The sex? No no, that can't be it. Would
it be, the gods? No, that couldn't be it."
Duncan blushed as Methos leaned back and buried his face in the book. "I
would think that you, oh kestrel of a man," the voice from behind the book
was velvet and satin. "Wouldn't mind a little lascivious behavior every now
and then." The book shifted, and the eyes of Methos, not Adam Pierson, came
into view, sober, old, teasing?
"Its no' thaa," Duncan cursed his brogue. He took a few seconds to purge it
from his speech. If he used it the old immortal would never let him live it
down. He changed the subject to something less personal than his beliefs on
paganism. "How can you endorse this, Adam?"
The old man stared at him, his eyes stunned and amused. "How can I not?"
"You're usually so...practical!" Duncan sat back and fiddled with the straps
of his leather briefcase. "This isn't very safe for them, and I thought
this was the very thing that the public tried to get their children to
avoid, drunkenness, sex, probably drugs-"
"Definitely drugs..." Methos mused, his eyes again on the courtyard lights.
"But you know, you'll have that."
"*You* say that. You, who ran with the Lord Demonic," he grinned. Methos
winced. He was still a little jittery about the idea of Byron, and Duncan
being aware of their relationship in the past. Duncan pressed on. "There's
just so much more they could be doing, it seems they take a step back with
this kind of thing..."
"Oh?" Methos raised an eyebrow. "And just where does this originate,
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod? Let me see," the older immortal paused.
"What society was it that shaped Western culture as we all know it? Hmmmm,
I have no idea, you?" His eyes were wicked in their merriment. "Could it
be," Methos gasped, and put a hand over his heart. "Oh no! Greece! No!
Havens forfend!"
Mac chuckled. "You've made your point clear. I don't have to like it."
"You wouldn't be you if you weren't worried about these little children,
Mac. And I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't call you on it." He studied
the book again. "Anyway, I was thinking I might go out and socialize, you
know, see if they're any different than they used to be. Bacchanalias and
all."
Duncan dropped his jaw. "But, it's so demented and indulgent!"
Methos rolled his eyes. "Oh, MacLeod, don't tell me you, Cassandra's pagan
'Solstice Child,' are stodgy in your religious beliefs."
"No," Mac said, indignant. "And this isn't religious. It's a Greek party.
A bad Greek party, if the terrible costumes are any indication."
It really wasn't as if Mac had any religious hang ups about God. As far as
he was concerned, God was everywhere, and hardly confined to one religion.
He'd seen too many faiths do well, and too many acts of 'goodness' do just
the opposite of their puritanical claims.
What had Methos said to him, very pointedly, the night before?
An evil deed done in the name of good is still evil.
Was a good deed done in the name of evil, still good?
Ah, but this wasn't even done in the name of evil, and it wasn't evil
anyway. Duncan knew that...he just didn't like it. It didn't sit well.
Probably because he was having a hard time accepting any kind of Greek or
Roman God seriously. It was mythology, stories for Gods' sake (pun
intended), lessons intended to educate and amuse the youth of the world.
Methos slammed the book shut and threw it on the desk, crossing his arms.
Duncan had the feeling that he was in for the "Adam Pierson Ph.D." lecture
on ancient religion.
"What's the problem then?" Mac was silent, and the old man barreled on.
"They're children, Mac. They're playing. They're partying. They're
celebrating life. 'For joyous drunkenness,' as Byron might have said." He
grinned. "One of the reasons to live and go on, Duncan," he said softly.
The Scot smiled, knowing he was loosing the argument. "Why Methos," he
said, invoking the tones of the joker pointing out the obvious. "Who would
have guessed that you have such a hopeful soul."
Methos snorted and stared out the window. "Don't tell anyone."
They shared the silence, the music from outside, flutes and drums, and the
whine of the electric guitar dulled by the glass of the window. There was a
shriek of a woman, and laughter.
Methos was a statue, hand curled under his chin, arms crossed. Duncan
buckled the straps of his bag, and glanced around his office. Nothing
really, else to get. Maybe he'd take that Scottish verse with him. He
picked the volume up, turning it over in his hands.
"'What man, what hero, what God,'" Methos whispered, eyes still on the
window. He turned then to the Highlander. "Pindar wrote that, Mac. Where
do you think he was when he did?" Methos smiled cryptically, and his eyes
flitted from the window to his companion. Duncan shook his head again.
"No..."
Methos nodded at his stunned expression. "Not all religion is ceremonial
ritual, MacLeod."
I know, but-"
"The Canaanites paid temple prostitutes in their worship of Ashram. The
Israelites danced through the streets of Jerusalem to honor God. Or, ah,
try this:
"Then I thy name shall magnify
And tell thy praise abroad,
For very love and gladness I
Shall dance before my God.
"That would be a Vaishnavite hymn, MacLeod. Or 'Love came a guest within my
breast, My soul was spread, Love banqueted.' Muslim verses?" He raised his
eyebrows at the Scot, who knew he'd lost. He played the last card. Again.
"But this isn't a religious exercise of devotion, Methos. This is
debauchery, pure and simple."
"Ahh, yes. Debauchery," Methos said wistfully, then deadpanned. "Wanton
celebration, from the root word Bacchus, the God of wine and indulgence."
His eyes sparkled even as his face remained passive. "You're right, this is
debauchery!"
Mac stuffed the verse book into his bag. "You're hopeless."
Methos stood, and stretched, shedding his long coat, the sword in it
clanking a bit on the floor. Mac gave him a quizzical look. Methos grinned
like the Cheshire Cat.
"No Mac, I'm polytheistic," Methos said sweetly, drained his wine cup, and
headed for the door. "Sometimes, you need the simplest pleasures." He left
the room, then stuck his head back in the door after two or three seconds.
"You coming?"
"In a minute," Duncan told him. It was his turn to muse out the window,
chin in hand, staring at the lights of the torches until the orange glow
hurt his eyes.
The music outside was infectious. He found himself tapping his toe even as
he brooded over the words of the older immortal.
Methos did have a point, however convoluted. This wasn't religious, but it
didn't need to be. Sometimes actions in themselves can become holy. Duncan
had faced a demon, why not a God? Was it really a stretch to include the
Greeks Gods however symbolic and insubstantial, in his expanding pantheon?
Mary MacLeod had raised her son to be a Christian, with the proper pagan
influences, of course. But Immortals, who have a different perspective on
life in general, tended to forget about religion for the most part. Then
there was Darius. Or Alfred Cahill, the psycho who thought he was an angel.
Was it that simple? Duncan believed that life itself was holy. How could
something that induced happiness be bad?
As the years became more and more burdening, as he had lost more and more,
he had been increasingly diffident about religion, about God.
And whose fault was that?
Oh, but Fitz, coming back from the grave, or maybe it was a hallucination,
or maybe, just maybe, there was something out there...
Look up, you silly Scot, look up!
Duncan smiled, and looked up. Nothing. Just a ceiling. But the point was
made.
Maybe there was room for God. Or maybe there always was room for God, and
Duncan had chosen to ignore the possibility save for a few thousand lighted
candles, and prayers on the floor of Darius's church, in his hour of great
need during the Dark Quickening.
But these Gods? Drunken, and virile, and symbols of a dead empire? Who
believed in them?
Duncan left his bag and coat in his office, and sauntered out into the
courtyard sprawl of the University. Methos, he spotted, true to his nature,
near the makeshift bar, Sharon, and Lisel, the new Humanities professor,
hanging off his arms. Oh, silly silly man.
Lisel squealed with delight when he approached. "Duncan! Adam here told us
you had decided to skip out in favor of..." she stopped, and her brow
furrowed, and she turned to Adam. She was drunk. Methos made big, wide,
innocent eyes at him. The gesture of boyishness never reached his eyes.
"What did you call it Adam?" Lisel asked.
"Yes, what, Adam?" Mac asked sweetly, accepting the glass of wine Sharon
handed him. Adam grinned then, not caring that Mac might not like his
words. Duncan was sure then, that it had been something at his expense.
"I said 'ascetic monasticism.' You know, dull activities that shun all fun.
Bludgeoning oneself needlessly out of a driving urge to be a pain in the
ass." Methos sipped from his cup, and Mac noticed he made sure there were
several drunken women between them.
The drums beat deafening rhythms again, and Lisel squealed. "Oooch!
Dance!" Both women began tugging on Methos's arms.
Methos winked at Mac. "Oh, I suppose I could recall how to do this..."
Sharon giggled. "I bet you're wicked on the dance floor, Adam."
"Yeah, Adam," Mac made his expression sickly sweet again. "I bet you're
wicked."
Methos sighed in the manner of the forever oppressed. "Oh, all right," he
wailed in a perfect imitation of a five year old. Mac chuckled. The great
old immortal, beaten by two drunken women. It was too funny.
The music was a blaring heathen mix of rock and pipes, tambourine and drums.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, someone sang.
I stood upon the balcony weigh my brand new bride
The clink of bells came drifting down the mountainside
When in our sight something moved
Lightning eyed and cloven hooved
The Great God Pan is alive!
Duncan decided the only thing to do was pick up a glass of hideous wine (re:
swill! Oh! Bad!), and watch from the sidelines. This was not his kind of
dancing.
Methos spun out onto the dance floor in the arms of Sharon and Lisel. Some
other girl, a dark eyed beauty placed a wreath of laurel and holly on his
head as they gyrated and moved. Methos was a snake upright, his long limbs
moved with liquid fluidness as he pressed his face to the girl and kissed
her cheek, whispering in her ear. Her eyes lit up, and she threw her little
arms around his neck.
Duncan grinned. Who would have thought that Methos could dance? Then
again, who wouldn't have? The music was insane, all pipes and heavy guitar.
Methos was demented and wild.
He moves amid the modern world in disguise
It's possible to look into his Immortal eyes
He's like a man you meet anyplace
Until you recognize that ancient face
The Great God Pan is alive!
Lisel slid along Methos's back, her arms serpentine. Methos pressed Sharon
to him, swaying, throwing his head back, eyes closed. He was a lithe Puck,
he was a stunning Dionysis, Duncan mused.
Rayonna, his history professor in crime, sidled up next to him, nudging his
elbow. Duncan glanced at her, in her little stola, cup of bad wine in her
hand. Her hair was a mass of blonde curls in a Grecian setting, cascading
down her pale shoulders. Not bad for a senior professor.
"I love Greek Week at this school," she said soberly. "I love watching all
these kids have such an unholy time, you?"
Duncan watched Methos bend down to kiss the top of Lisel's head, and
grinned. "Yeah, I can see how this might be fun to watch," he said over the
music.
Rayonna snorted. Her green eyes glimmered merrily. "Let me guess, you've
been inundated with bold offers from both sexes all week?" She raised an
expert eyebrow, as all good teachers could.
He blushed, and she grinned. "Oh, I can see how that would jade you. My
first Greek Week here, it was worse, I assure you. I was twenty four, full
of myself, and I must have been pinched and grabbed by half the faculty and
students." She sighed. "Now, I'd pay for that kind of attention."
Duncan stood back, and made a big show of looking her over. Oh, what the
hell. It was Greek Week.
"You look lovely," he sang, and pulled her down in a deep bow with him,
kissing her lips. She tasted like honey and wine. Oh, sweet sweet, this
was lovely indeed.
Almost half of the dancers stopped and screamed, cheering hooting, waving
their hands, grabbing their dance partners, or merely the person closest to
them, and kissing them. There were shouts of "get a room!" and "Whooooo!"
There was one lone loud "Yeeeeeeeee haw!"
Rayonna was flushed. She leaned into him, hiding her face in his coat.
"My Lord, Duncan, you know how to make a girl feel loved!"
He chuckled. "It's Greek week, and people should do that to you more
often." He flipped a few of her curls in his hand. Rayonna blushed even
more, adjusted the pin on her left shoulder and crossed her arms, looking
off onto the dance floor.
"If they did, I'd never get any work done! Your friend Pierson seems to
have quite a following. He looks like he's done this before."
Duncan stole a glance at Methos, twisting like he was being blown in the
wind, several different directions. His hips swayed to the music precisely,
seductively, and Duncan wondered if the man was drunk.
"In fact," Rayonna continued. "Doesn't he look like the poster of Pan?
It's a striking resemblance."
Duncan choked on his wine in mid-sip. "What?" he spluttered.
"The posters the students used for tonight." Rayonna pointed to the pillars
of the courtyard, plastered with paste board. "It's a recopy of some old
text or something. A rendering of Pan, the god of 'partying in the woods'
or something," Rayonna smirked. "You sure he's human, your friend?"
Duncan stared at the poster, feeling his jaw unhinging for the umpteenth
time in the past half hour.
"That little, conniving, beer-mongering-" MacLeod muttered. It was a
perfect rendition of Methos, truly, if one took away the beard and cut the
hair, there was the wry smug grin, and the eyes, virtually sparking with
merriment, like he knew something even when the drawing had been made that
the Highlander didn't know.
And perhaps he had. Perhaps he still did. Mac glared at Methos, bidding
the older immortal open his eyes and look at him. No such luck. Methos was
too enthralled and enthralling for by and for the dance.
About fifteen women or so crowded around him, straining for a touch of his
hands, their hands on the back of his neck. The older Immortal spun with
Lisel and Sharon, and let them go to pick up a little redhead and bury his
face in her hair as he turned them both around dizzyingly fast.
The music was still that pounding drum and pipe.
At sea on a ship in a thunderstorm,
On the very night when Christ was born
A sailor heard from overhead
A mighty voice cry "Pan is dead!"
So follow Christ as beta you can
Pan is dead - Long Live Pan!
Methos looked at him then, this woodland creature among the beauties of the
human world. His eyes, hazel green, light leaves and autumnal colors,
gleamed in wry amusement.
Mac pointed to the picture, raising his eyebrows, trying to voice the
question silently but make himself understood.
Methos's mouth quirked in a grin, and he laughed at the Highlander from
under the loving caresses of the little redhead. Her hair obscured the
bottom half of his face as he let her throw her arms around his shoulders,
and her legs about his waist. The turned her again, and again. They were
sprites on the floor of drunken fools. They weren't human, that blur of
green gauze she wore, that wreath on his head, at one time inane, but now,
full of the portents of...what?
Duncan let himself wonder as Methos winked at him, and the Scot let it sink
in. Methos..bacchanalias...Pan..he should have guessed the old man might
have once followed this kind of mystery religion.
He raised his own eyebrows, and Methos nodded. His grin was infectious.
Duncan watched his friend out there, enacting ritual long past, hearing the
pipes in his veins, the drums in his heart, forcing his rhythm to match it.
He glanced at Rayonna, gazing forlorn out at their students. He watched
Methos let the redhead down, and grab another, kissing her neck, letting her
feed him grapes. He heard an unfamiliar sound over the music.
Methos threw back his long graceful neck and laughed, deep throated and
full, not cynical, or full of sarcastic scorn.
It was like thunder, the way it crawled along the skin. Rayonna shuddered.
Duncan smiled. The girls in Methos's entourage crowded closer, hips swaying
in ancient thrumming pulses.
Duncan grabbed Rayonna by the waist, twirling her out to join them. If
Methos could be pagan, so could he. He was the solstice child after all.
Rayonna purred in his ear. He hitched her up against his hips and spun.
Methos's laugh washed over them all.
"Oh, the simple pleasures, MacLeod," the old man whispering when he could at
last reach through the females and grab his friend by the neck. "The simple
pleasures."
Duncan watched his eyes turn green in the lantern light. Then he pushed the
Highlander away, and returned to his girls, one mass of drunken, silly,
heathen celebration.
Someone howled in the distance.
Rayonna wrapped her arms around his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder.
He sighed.
The simple pleasures indeed.
From the olden days and up through all the years
From Arcadia to the stone fields of Inisheer
Some say the Gods are just a myth
But guess who I've been dancing with
The Great God Pan is alive!
FINIS
NOTES: (at Jam-wired's suggestion)
BACCHANALIA: drunken orgy...a Bacchus party.
BACCHAE: the mad drunken women who followed Bacchus through the forests (re:
all the girls at MacMINT are Methos's Bacchae...hee hee)
THETIS: Mother of Achilles, a minor sea goddess/nymph
IRIS: Goddess of the rainbow
HERA: Wife of Zeus, goddess of marriage and family, often referred to as
"oxen eyed" and yes, that was supposed to be a compliement.
APHRODITE: Do I have to do this one? Come on folks! The goddess of Love
and Sex! Yowza!
DAPHNE: Female follower of Diana who was turned into a Laurel tree to escape
being pursued by Apollo.
PROSERPINA: Wife of Hades, daughter of Demeter. Lives in Hades for the
winter months, emerges for the summer months.
PAN: debatable. He was a forest God. Some say a minor one...he led parties
in the woods with the nyads and dryads and that merry bunch. People get him
confused with the Pagan God figure. Both are portrayed as youths with
horns, playing the (pan) pipes, and cloven feet.
The Vaishnavite verse is from A Hymn of Tukaram, "Sacred Books of the World..."
The Moslem verse is Ibn Hazm's "The Ring of the Dove." The book is called
"Alive To God."
Rysher/Davis/Panzer, and all those people. I have nothing to do with them,
except lots of reading, mental visualization, and sometimes whining. You
got a problem with this? You really like this? Mail me at
deparsons@earthlink.net. Warning: this is the product of a challenge from
the hlbeta list, and though it's not really what was asked for, it is of a
slightly mystic bent. Research was done, but I have taken some liberties
for the sake of time, and simplification.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!!! This fanfic is not meant to portray the endorsement of
any religion, Christian, Hindu, Pagan (although I'm out there on the dance
floor with the Meefinator myself) or otherwise, nor is it meant to bash any
religion. It is an exploration of the characters, prone to my whimsy,
because I'm the one who wrote it, and the canon rarely covers this.....
The opening scene with Sweeney Todd and Robert Powell is real, but the
inspiration is from the (discontinued, sniff sniff) Marvel comic book,
"Hellstorm" #19 by Warren Ellis. Thanks for the demented image of Methos
watching old British shows!
Lyrics from "The Return of Pan" by Mike Scott and the Waterboys
A Highlander Tale of whimsical deification...
Amand-r, Amanda Parsons, religious scholar and fable writer
Duncan stared at his guest, openly and without any heed that it might be
annoying the ancient immortal. Methos was sprawled out on the couch,
flipping through the channels on the television with the remote. Mac had
let him have it, too, and now he was wondering if it had been a bad idea.
Methos stayed on the Nick At Night station for the opening of the Mary Tyler
Moore show, then made a buzzer noise, and changed the station. Now they
were watching a rodeo.
"Ennnnnnnt," the older immortal said softly. New station, this time the
local British programming. Methos whistled.
"Hey, Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad, all right! This is the one where Robert
Powell gets blown up!" The older man took a big pull from his bottle and
set the remote on the table next to him. "This is a marathon, Quartermass,
Doomwatch, all the good stuff."
Duncan grinned, and opened the text he was using for the classes he was
teaching at the University. Methos glanced at the cover.
"You're really torturing them with that stuff?" he asked Duncan.
Mac raised an eyebrow. "Yes, they were important. Not everyone was there,
you know. Can't all be five thousand years old."
The other immortal was silent, so he continued. "What? No cynical remark?"
Methos smirked. "Whaaaaat?" Duncan asked, smacking the old man with a
pillow.
Methos turned to him, pale face even whiter in the candlelight that they had
decided they preferred for an evening of drunken speeches, and said it so
simply. It was so easy for the words to slip out
"Mac, an evil deed done in the name of good is still evil." Duncan cocked
his head, waiting for more 'great enlightenment.' None came.
The television exploded, and Methos smirked, opening the second beer he had
pulled out for himself. "Ahhh," he said cheerfully. "Robert Powell just
bought the big one."
Duncan chuckled, and lapsed into silence. Why did Methos always replace
moments with levity?
The older immortal, oblivious to the musings of the Scot, or probably
ignoring them, threw his considerable attention into the television screen.
***
"Mac. Mac. Mac. Mac," Methos chased the Highlander through the choking
crowds of the University courtyard. Duncan stopped and waited for the older
Immortal to catch up, then continued his fast paced walk to his office.
"What Adam?" he asked his companion. He wanted to be in and out of here as
quickly as possible. Some of the organizers of this whole "pagan" ritual
might rope him into doing something for it, and he wasn't all that
interested in watching a bunch of college students get drunk and writhe on a
dance floor. Methos tugged on his sleeve, forcing him to slow down.
A scantily clad female in some bastardized version of a toga twirled past
him, winking. Was that Sharon? He tsked at the grad student who was his
Teaching Assistant for his medieval warfare class.
"Mac, what is all this? It's like Animal House, on crack," Methos muttered.
"Greek Week," Duncan answered. It was Greek week, as he had said, but at
Seacouver University 'Greek Week' actually meant a weeklong party for all
the students, not just the ones pledging fraternities and sororities. The
entire third week of classes consisted of a constant barrage of badly spoken
Greek pick up lines (he's been propositioned about twenty times by students
and bold faculty members alike), hideously incorrect costumes and lots and
lots of laurels. Like wearing laurels was even Greek.
A demented part of Duncan that enjoyed annoying his friend by pushing his
history buttons had asked Methos if he wanted to come along on this errand
just to get a rise out of the old man. Besides, he was running low on beer,
and if he had to watch another British television marathon he was going to
scream.
It didn't seem to be working. "None of this is Greek!" Methos burst out.
His eyes drank in the drunken students, wide, and very unlike the age he was
supposed to be. Just then, a man in a loincloth passed them, two younger
girls hanging off him, plying him with wineskins.
Methos's brows rose. "Okay, well, that was Greek..." His head followed the
nearly naked females as they passed. Duncan reached out and covered the
other Immortals eyes with his hand. "Hey!"
"Oh, so you agree with all of this, historical inaccuracy?" Duncan teased.
They were almost to his office, and he was almost home free. He has the bad
feeling that if Sharon was drunk enough (and it was eight in the evening on
a Friday, what was he doing coming here at this hour on this day? If he had
wanted to avoid trouble he should have waited until tomorrow morning.) she
would proposition him, and he might hurt her feelings. She was adorable,
all blonde and curvy, but she was his assistant.
Methos grinned. "Since when has history ever been accurate?" He accepted a
plastic cup of wine that some drunken soul pressed into his hands as they
passed. "Maybe history would have been more exciting if it had been like
this."
"Blah blah blah," Duncan muttered. He was of the opinion that this kind of
activity only served to cause more problems then it was worth, and although
he had kept quiet about it around the other faculty members, he was under no
such compunction to do so when he was with the world's oldest Immortal.
"Oh, Mac," Methos said cheerfully over his cup of wine. "You don't mean to
tell me that you think this is bad? A bunch of young people dancing their
hearts away in a haze of alcoholic fog? For shame," he sang. His grin only
served to make the grumpy Scot even more irate.
They ducked into the building, and the din from the courtyard and its
blaring canned music dulled somewhat. Duncan shook his head to clear it of
the ringing.
"What I'm saying is-"
"Duncan!" Sharon, his teaching assistant, tumbled into the darkened
building, her little toga like dress hitching up on a pair of lovely tanned
thighs. Her paste board sandals were spray painted shimmering gold. Methos
shoved away from the wall by Mac's office door, and opened his arms.
"Let me guess, the silver-footed Thetis!"
Sharon giggled. "Nooooo."
Methos tilted his head. "Ah then, let me see, Greek, not the ox-eyed
Hera...not Aphrodite..." Sharon shook her head again. Mac watched her
giving Methos the once over, her eyes hungrily undressing him. She was
drunk. Methos continued. "Daphne, I should think, or perhaps, laughing
Iris?"
"No!" Sharon smiled, heartbreaking bow of cupid lips and bright blue eyes.
"Proserpina!"
Methos made a tsking noise. "Ohh, blending death imagery with the surface
of beauty. Lovely." He kissed her outstretched hand. "Adam Pierson. You
are?"
Duncan coughed, and two pairs of amused eyes cast themselves on him. "Adam,
this is Sharon Regiele, my assistant for my medieval classes. Sharon, this
is Adam Pierson...a friend."
"Ah, the lady who picks up Duncan's slack," Methos jibbed, and bowed
slightly to the short girl. She laughed, throwing her head back.
Duncan stiffened. "Speaking of slack-" Methos cut him off.
"Duncan is less than impressed with the festivities," he purred.
Sharon raised an eyebrow. Maybe she wasn't as drunk as Mac had originally
thought.
"I can see that," she lilted. "I left those papers on your desk."
"That's what I was here for," Duncan opened the door to his office and
flipped on the lights. Methos remained in the hallway with Sharon.
He heard her ask "So Adam, are you interested in the festivities?"
There was a momentary pause, and then Adam spoke, loud enough for him to
hear. "Oh, yes, it brings back a few memories." Duncan coughed, and leaned
into the doorway to glare at the older Immortal, who rolled his amused eyes,
crinkled with laughter, the corners of his mouth turned up and dented in a
smile.
"So, you've been to a bacchanalia before?" Duncan choked on Sharon's
phrase. She knew what she was asking, didn't she? Bacchanalia. Okay, he
had to admit, it was funny, considering whom she was asking. Methos took it
in stride.
"One or two," he murmured. "Although none of them were quite like, this."
Duncan flipped through the graded assignments to try and distract himself
from scoffing too loudly at the other immortal playing fast and loose with
his student.
Sharon, as was expected, was totally oblivious. "Well," she cooed, and
Duncan felt a twinge of jealousy that she spoke to Methos in this way. "If
you feel like it, you could join us. We could be your Bacchae," she hinted
suggestively. MacLeod thought to himself behind a particularly bad paper
that Methos probably had had his share of drunken women already.
Methos made a reply to soft for Mac to hear from the office, but it must
have satisfied Sharon, because she made a little gasping noise and called
out to him from the hallway as Methos sauntered in and flopped down in one
of the stuffed leather chairs.
"Oooh Duncan, where *do* you get your friends?"
Duncan rolled his eyes. "I was just wondering the same thing," he remarked
dryly to a smug ancient Immortal.
"Blah blah blah," Methos mimicked him, studying a volume of Scottish poetry
from the desk shelf.
"You are impossible," he told Methos when Sharon was out of the building.
"Oh, I don't know," Methos gazed out the window at the fire torches that
bedecked the edges of the courtyard. Duncan thought to himself that perhaps
fire and drunks weren't a good idea. "This isn't even remotely accurate in
the setting sense of course," he looked pointedly at Duncan. "But I think
it's appropriate, don't you? All the learning the Greeks gave us, all the
plays, and the social systems, and the wonderful poetry, and they choose to
remember the rare instances where everyone 'got pissed'" He sighed, and
smiled, one hand curled about his chin. "It's indicative of the times, I
suppose."
"An ill wind that bodes no good," Duncan muttered. Methos set the book of
poetry on the desk and pulled out a tome of Hamilton's "Mythology."
"Tsk tsk, Duncan, you don't approve, really, do you? I thought it was just
your Boy Scout-ishness, but no," he paused, and leaned forward onto the
desk, his face peering at Duncan, who say behind the desk. "You don't like
the idea of what? The drinking? The sex? No no, that can't be it. Would
it be, the gods? No, that couldn't be it."
Duncan blushed as Methos leaned back and buried his face in the book. "I
would think that you, oh kestrel of a man," the voice from behind the book
was velvet and satin. "Wouldn't mind a little lascivious behavior every now
and then." The book shifted, and the eyes of Methos, not Adam Pierson, came
into view, sober, old, teasing?
"Its no' thaa," Duncan cursed his brogue. He took a few seconds to purge it
from his speech. If he used it the old immortal would never let him live it
down. He changed the subject to something less personal than his beliefs on
paganism. "How can you endorse this, Adam?"
The old man stared at him, his eyes stunned and amused. "How can I not?"
"You're usually so...practical!" Duncan sat back and fiddled with the straps
of his leather briefcase. "This isn't very safe for them, and I thought
this was the very thing that the public tried to get their children to
avoid, drunkenness, sex, probably drugs-"
"Definitely drugs..." Methos mused, his eyes again on the courtyard lights.
"But you know, you'll have that."
"*You* say that. You, who ran with the Lord Demonic," he grinned. Methos
winced. He was still a little jittery about the idea of Byron, and Duncan
being aware of their relationship in the past. Duncan pressed on. "There's
just so much more they could be doing, it seems they take a step back with
this kind of thing..."
"Oh?" Methos raised an eyebrow. "And just where does this originate,
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod? Let me see," the older immortal paused.
"What society was it that shaped Western culture as we all know it? Hmmmm,
I have no idea, you?" His eyes were wicked in their merriment. "Could it
be," Methos gasped, and put a hand over his heart. "Oh no! Greece! No!
Havens forfend!"
Mac chuckled. "You've made your point clear. I don't have to like it."
"You wouldn't be you if you weren't worried about these little children,
Mac. And I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't call you on it." He studied
the book again. "Anyway, I was thinking I might go out and socialize, you
know, see if they're any different than they used to be. Bacchanalias and
all."
Duncan dropped his jaw. "But, it's so demented and indulgent!"
Methos rolled his eyes. "Oh, MacLeod, don't tell me you, Cassandra's pagan
'Solstice Child,' are stodgy in your religious beliefs."
"No," Mac said, indignant. "And this isn't religious. It's a Greek party.
A bad Greek party, if the terrible costumes are any indication."
It really wasn't as if Mac had any religious hang ups about God. As far as
he was concerned, God was everywhere, and hardly confined to one religion.
He'd seen too many faiths do well, and too many acts of 'goodness' do just
the opposite of their puritanical claims.
What had Methos said to him, very pointedly, the night before?
An evil deed done in the name of good is still evil.
Was a good deed done in the name of evil, still good?
Ah, but this wasn't even done in the name of evil, and it wasn't evil
anyway. Duncan knew that...he just didn't like it. It didn't sit well.
Probably because he was having a hard time accepting any kind of Greek or
Roman God seriously. It was mythology, stories for Gods' sake (pun
intended), lessons intended to educate and amuse the youth of the world.
Methos slammed the book shut and threw it on the desk, crossing his arms.
Duncan had the feeling that he was in for the "Adam Pierson Ph.D." lecture
on ancient religion.
"What's the problem then?" Mac was silent, and the old man barreled on.
"They're children, Mac. They're playing. They're partying. They're
celebrating life. 'For joyous drunkenness,' as Byron might have said." He
grinned. "One of the reasons to live and go on, Duncan," he said softly.
The Scot smiled, knowing he was loosing the argument. "Why Methos," he
said, invoking the tones of the joker pointing out the obvious. "Who would
have guessed that you have such a hopeful soul."
Methos snorted and stared out the window. "Don't tell anyone."
They shared the silence, the music from outside, flutes and drums, and the
whine of the electric guitar dulled by the glass of the window. There was a
shriek of a woman, and laughter.
Methos was a statue, hand curled under his chin, arms crossed. Duncan
buckled the straps of his bag, and glanced around his office. Nothing
really, else to get. Maybe he'd take that Scottish verse with him. He
picked the volume up, turning it over in his hands.
"'What man, what hero, what God,'" Methos whispered, eyes still on the
window. He turned then to the Highlander. "Pindar wrote that, Mac. Where
do you think he was when he did?" Methos smiled cryptically, and his eyes
flitted from the window to his companion. Duncan shook his head again.
"No..."
Methos nodded at his stunned expression. "Not all religion is ceremonial
ritual, MacLeod."
I know, but-"
"The Canaanites paid temple prostitutes in their worship of Ashram. The
Israelites danced through the streets of Jerusalem to honor God. Or, ah,
try this:
"Then I thy name shall magnify
And tell thy praise abroad,
For very love and gladness I
Shall dance before my God.
"That would be a Vaishnavite hymn, MacLeod. Or 'Love came a guest within my
breast, My soul was spread, Love banqueted.' Muslim verses?" He raised his
eyebrows at the Scot, who knew he'd lost. He played the last card. Again.
"But this isn't a religious exercise of devotion, Methos. This is
debauchery, pure and simple."
"Ahh, yes. Debauchery," Methos said wistfully, then deadpanned. "Wanton
celebration, from the root word Bacchus, the God of wine and indulgence."
His eyes sparkled even as his face remained passive. "You're right, this is
debauchery!"
Mac stuffed the verse book into his bag. "You're hopeless."
Methos stood, and stretched, shedding his long coat, the sword in it
clanking a bit on the floor. Mac gave him a quizzical look. Methos grinned
like the Cheshire Cat.
"No Mac, I'm polytheistic," Methos said sweetly, drained his wine cup, and
headed for the door. "Sometimes, you need the simplest pleasures." He left
the room, then stuck his head back in the door after two or three seconds.
"You coming?"
"In a minute," Duncan told him. It was his turn to muse out the window,
chin in hand, staring at the lights of the torches until the orange glow
hurt his eyes.
The music outside was infectious. He found himself tapping his toe even as
he brooded over the words of the older immortal.
Methos did have a point, however convoluted. This wasn't religious, but it
didn't need to be. Sometimes actions in themselves can become holy. Duncan
had faced a demon, why not a God? Was it really a stretch to include the
Greeks Gods however symbolic and insubstantial, in his expanding pantheon?
Mary MacLeod had raised her son to be a Christian, with the proper pagan
influences, of course. But Immortals, who have a different perspective on
life in general, tended to forget about religion for the most part. Then
there was Darius. Or Alfred Cahill, the psycho who thought he was an angel.
Was it that simple? Duncan believed that life itself was holy. How could
something that induced happiness be bad?
As the years became more and more burdening, as he had lost more and more,
he had been increasingly diffident about religion, about God.
And whose fault was that?
Oh, but Fitz, coming back from the grave, or maybe it was a hallucination,
or maybe, just maybe, there was something out there...
Look up, you silly Scot, look up!
Duncan smiled, and looked up. Nothing. Just a ceiling. But the point was
made.
Maybe there was room for God. Or maybe there always was room for God, and
Duncan had chosen to ignore the possibility save for a few thousand lighted
candles, and prayers on the floor of Darius's church, in his hour of great
need during the Dark Quickening.
But these Gods? Drunken, and virile, and symbols of a dead empire? Who
believed in them?
Duncan left his bag and coat in his office, and sauntered out into the
courtyard sprawl of the University. Methos, he spotted, true to his nature,
near the makeshift bar, Sharon, and Lisel, the new Humanities professor,
hanging off his arms. Oh, silly silly man.
Lisel squealed with delight when he approached. "Duncan! Adam here told us
you had decided to skip out in favor of..." she stopped, and her brow
furrowed, and she turned to Adam. She was drunk. Methos made big, wide,
innocent eyes at him. The gesture of boyishness never reached his eyes.
"What did you call it Adam?" Lisel asked.
"Yes, what, Adam?" Mac asked sweetly, accepting the glass of wine Sharon
handed him. Adam grinned then, not caring that Mac might not like his
words. Duncan was sure then, that it had been something at his expense.
"I said 'ascetic monasticism.' You know, dull activities that shun all fun.
Bludgeoning oneself needlessly out of a driving urge to be a pain in the
ass." Methos sipped from his cup, and Mac noticed he made sure there were
several drunken women between them.
The drums beat deafening rhythms again, and Lisel squealed. "Oooch!
Dance!" Both women began tugging on Methos's arms.
Methos winked at Mac. "Oh, I suppose I could recall how to do this..."
Sharon giggled. "I bet you're wicked on the dance floor, Adam."
"Yeah, Adam," Mac made his expression sickly sweet again. "I bet you're
wicked."
Methos sighed in the manner of the forever oppressed. "Oh, all right," he
wailed in a perfect imitation of a five year old. Mac chuckled. The great
old immortal, beaten by two drunken women. It was too funny.
The music was a blaring heathen mix of rock and pipes, tambourine and drums.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, someone sang.
I stood upon the balcony weigh my brand new bride
The clink of bells came drifting down the mountainside
When in our sight something moved
Lightning eyed and cloven hooved
The Great God Pan is alive!
Duncan decided the only thing to do was pick up a glass of hideous wine (re:
swill! Oh! Bad!), and watch from the sidelines. This was not his kind of
dancing.
Methos spun out onto the dance floor in the arms of Sharon and Lisel. Some
other girl, a dark eyed beauty placed a wreath of laurel and holly on his
head as they gyrated and moved. Methos was a snake upright, his long limbs
moved with liquid fluidness as he pressed his face to the girl and kissed
her cheek, whispering in her ear. Her eyes lit up, and she threw her little
arms around his neck.
Duncan grinned. Who would have thought that Methos could dance? Then
again, who wouldn't have? The music was insane, all pipes and heavy guitar.
Methos was demented and wild.
He moves amid the modern world in disguise
It's possible to look into his Immortal eyes
He's like a man you meet anyplace
Until you recognize that ancient face
The Great God Pan is alive!
Lisel slid along Methos's back, her arms serpentine. Methos pressed Sharon
to him, swaying, throwing his head back, eyes closed. He was a lithe Puck,
he was a stunning Dionysis, Duncan mused.
Rayonna, his history professor in crime, sidled up next to him, nudging his
elbow. Duncan glanced at her, in her little stola, cup of bad wine in her
hand. Her hair was a mass of blonde curls in a Grecian setting, cascading
down her pale shoulders. Not bad for a senior professor.
"I love Greek Week at this school," she said soberly. "I love watching all
these kids have such an unholy time, you?"
Duncan watched Methos bend down to kiss the top of Lisel's head, and
grinned. "Yeah, I can see how this might be fun to watch," he said over the
music.
Rayonna snorted. Her green eyes glimmered merrily. "Let me guess, you've
been inundated with bold offers from both sexes all week?" She raised an
expert eyebrow, as all good teachers could.
He blushed, and she grinned. "Oh, I can see how that would jade you. My
first Greek Week here, it was worse, I assure you. I was twenty four, full
of myself, and I must have been pinched and grabbed by half the faculty and
students." She sighed. "Now, I'd pay for that kind of attention."
Duncan stood back, and made a big show of looking her over. Oh, what the
hell. It was Greek Week.
"You look lovely," he sang, and pulled her down in a deep bow with him,
kissing her lips. She tasted like honey and wine. Oh, sweet sweet, this
was lovely indeed.
Almost half of the dancers stopped and screamed, cheering hooting, waving
their hands, grabbing their dance partners, or merely the person closest to
them, and kissing them. There were shouts of "get a room!" and "Whooooo!"
There was one lone loud "Yeeeeeeeee haw!"
Rayonna was flushed. She leaned into him, hiding her face in his coat.
"My Lord, Duncan, you know how to make a girl feel loved!"
He chuckled. "It's Greek week, and people should do that to you more
often." He flipped a few of her curls in his hand. Rayonna blushed even
more, adjusted the pin on her left shoulder and crossed her arms, looking
off onto the dance floor.
"If they did, I'd never get any work done! Your friend Pierson seems to
have quite a following. He looks like he's done this before."
Duncan stole a glance at Methos, twisting like he was being blown in the
wind, several different directions. His hips swayed to the music precisely,
seductively, and Duncan wondered if the man was drunk.
"In fact," Rayonna continued. "Doesn't he look like the poster of Pan?
It's a striking resemblance."
Duncan choked on his wine in mid-sip. "What?" he spluttered.
"The posters the students used for tonight." Rayonna pointed to the pillars
of the courtyard, plastered with paste board. "It's a recopy of some old
text or something. A rendering of Pan, the god of 'partying in the woods'
or something," Rayonna smirked. "You sure he's human, your friend?"
Duncan stared at the poster, feeling his jaw unhinging for the umpteenth
time in the past half hour.
"That little, conniving, beer-mongering-" MacLeod muttered. It was a
perfect rendition of Methos, truly, if one took away the beard and cut the
hair, there was the wry smug grin, and the eyes, virtually sparking with
merriment, like he knew something even when the drawing had been made that
the Highlander didn't know.
And perhaps he had. Perhaps he still did. Mac glared at Methos, bidding
the older immortal open his eyes and look at him. No such luck. Methos was
too enthralled and enthralling for by and for the dance.
About fifteen women or so crowded around him, straining for a touch of his
hands, their hands on the back of his neck. The older Immortal spun with
Lisel and Sharon, and let them go to pick up a little redhead and bury his
face in her hair as he turned them both around dizzyingly fast.
The music was still that pounding drum and pipe.
At sea on a ship in a thunderstorm,
On the very night when Christ was born
A sailor heard from overhead
A mighty voice cry "Pan is dead!"
So follow Christ as beta you can
Pan is dead - Long Live Pan!
Methos looked at him then, this woodland creature among the beauties of the
human world. His eyes, hazel green, light leaves and autumnal colors,
gleamed in wry amusement.
Mac pointed to the picture, raising his eyebrows, trying to voice the
question silently but make himself understood.
Methos's mouth quirked in a grin, and he laughed at the Highlander from
under the loving caresses of the little redhead. Her hair obscured the
bottom half of his face as he let her throw her arms around his shoulders,
and her legs about his waist. The turned her again, and again. They were
sprites on the floor of drunken fools. They weren't human, that blur of
green gauze she wore, that wreath on his head, at one time inane, but now,
full of the portents of...what?
Duncan let himself wonder as Methos winked at him, and the Scot let it sink
in. Methos..bacchanalias...Pan..he should have guessed the old man might
have once followed this kind of mystery religion.
He raised his own eyebrows, and Methos nodded. His grin was infectious.
Duncan watched his friend out there, enacting ritual long past, hearing the
pipes in his veins, the drums in his heart, forcing his rhythm to match it.
He glanced at Rayonna, gazing forlorn out at their students. He watched
Methos let the redhead down, and grab another, kissing her neck, letting her
feed him grapes. He heard an unfamiliar sound over the music.
Methos threw back his long graceful neck and laughed, deep throated and
full, not cynical, or full of sarcastic scorn.
It was like thunder, the way it crawled along the skin. Rayonna shuddered.
Duncan smiled. The girls in Methos's entourage crowded closer, hips swaying
in ancient thrumming pulses.
Duncan grabbed Rayonna by the waist, twirling her out to join them. If
Methos could be pagan, so could he. He was the solstice child after all.
Rayonna purred in his ear. He hitched her up against his hips and spun.
Methos's laugh washed over them all.
"Oh, the simple pleasures, MacLeod," the old man whispering when he could at
last reach through the females and grab his friend by the neck. "The simple
pleasures."
Duncan watched his eyes turn green in the lantern light. Then he pushed the
Highlander away, and returned to his girls, one mass of drunken, silly,
heathen celebration.
Someone howled in the distance.
Rayonna wrapped her arms around his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder.
He sighed.
The simple pleasures indeed.
From the olden days and up through all the years
From Arcadia to the stone fields of Inisheer
Some say the Gods are just a myth
But guess who I've been dancing with
The Great God Pan is alive!
FINIS
NOTES: (at Jam-wired's suggestion)
BACCHANALIA: drunken orgy...a Bacchus party.
BACCHAE: the mad drunken women who followed Bacchus through the forests (re:
all the girls at MacMINT are Methos's Bacchae...hee hee)
THETIS: Mother of Achilles, a minor sea goddess/nymph
IRIS: Goddess of the rainbow
HERA: Wife of Zeus, goddess of marriage and family, often referred to as
"oxen eyed" and yes, that was supposed to be a compliement.
APHRODITE: Do I have to do this one? Come on folks! The goddess of Love
and Sex! Yowza!
DAPHNE: Female follower of Diana who was turned into a Laurel tree to escape
being pursued by Apollo.
PROSERPINA: Wife of Hades, daughter of Demeter. Lives in Hades for the
winter months, emerges for the summer months.
PAN: debatable. He was a forest God. Some say a minor one...he led parties
in the woods with the nyads and dryads and that merry bunch. People get him
confused with the Pagan God figure. Both are portrayed as youths with
horns, playing the (pan) pipes, and cloven feet.
The Vaishnavite verse is from A Hymn of Tukaram, "Sacred Books of the World..."
The Moslem verse is Ibn Hazm's "The Ring of the Dove." The book is called
"Alive To God."