comment_fic 831: Avengers/Highlander
Title: the Master whispers down eternity
Fandom: Avengers movieverse/Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Earl Marlatt
Warnings: AU after Thor; mentions of post-apocalyptic rebuilding
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1235
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, the baby is a foundling and doesn't seem quite human...
He finds the child on his daily walk through the nearest tract of Amazonia. The child is as pale as he is, which means he must not be a native of the jungle, and Ben stares down at him indecisively for a moment. This has been a quiet life, since leaving MacLeod in his dreary Pacific northwest town, and does he want to deal with the drama of finding a white child in the wilds of the Amazon?
The child babbles something at him, eyes as green as the jewels Ben wore lifetimes ago, and Ben stoops to gently pick him up.
Life was getting boring anyway, and no one within a thousand kilometers questions anything he does. He is either a ghost or a god, and either way, he is left alone.
.
Ben names the child Adam because it amuses him. Adam grows slowly, far slower than any other child Ben has ever raised, which only confirms what he’s suspected since he found the boy.
The first time Adam changes his shape, it’s into an anaconda, and he doesn’t turn back for three days. Ben treats him exactly the same and Adam laughs once he’s a boy again. The second time, he becomes a toucan; the third, an ocelot. Ben never reacts except to congratulate him.
Adam calms down when he realizes that no matter his shape, he is Ben’s son.
.
Adam is 23 and looks around 10, and he asks Ben, “You don’t age right, either?” because Ben looks exactly the same as when he found the boy in the jungle.
“I will never age,” Ben tells him. “And I don’t know how old you’ll be when you stop.”
.
Mentally, Adam is far older than his body. Ben gives him a millennia-old library and the entire internet, and sometimes, can barely stay ahead of the boy. They spend weeks at a time lost in the jungle, stalked by predators few humans have ever seen in person, and Adam builds up his shapes.
Adam is 45 and looks barely 18 when he asks, “What am I?”
Ben isn’t entirely honest when he says, “I don’t know,” and when Adam opens his mouth to demand another answer, Ben adds, “But you are my son.”
A jaguar screeches to the east, so they continue walking, spending the rest of the day in silence.
.
When Adam is 50, he asks to travel, so Ben packs everything up and they head northeast. Ben bypasses North America entirely for Europe, where they continue east all the way to the Pacific. They spend a decade wandering, and look like brothers instead of father and son.
Adam stops aging around the mortal age of 25; when Ben asks, Adam shrugs and says it’s what he decided.
.
“How old are you?” Adam asks when he is 100 and aliens from outer space have plunged Ben’s world into warfare.
They are back at the Amazon (home, Ben thinks, like the Fertile Crescent once was, like the plains of windy Troy, like the great isle that sank beneath the waves so long ago), watching humanity struggle. Their jungle is protected, and all the mortals who flee there, though not many do.
“Very,” Ben replies, strengthening his protection spell. Adam’s eyes flash that brilliant green as he adds his own power to it.
.
Thanos, like all would-be conquerors, is defeated. But Ben’s world must rebuild or the next would-be conqueror might get lucky.
“What do you think?” Ben glances at Adam, who has a sloth in his arms and one of the native children at his side. The entire jungle holds its breath, the old magicks waiting for Ben’s word, the very floor of the jungle trembling.
“This is our world, is it not?” Adam asks rhetorically. “You, the ancient; I, the foundling. This world is our home.”
“Yes,” Ben murmurs.
Adam adds, “We protect what is ours.” He smiles at Ben, handing the sloth to the child. “You taught me that, Da.”
.
When he steps out of the jungle, Ben ties the sigil to his own quickening. So long as he has his head, the Amazon will still be safe. Adam is a boa twined around his upper body and Ben quickly transports them to the heart of the rebuilding effort, in the ever-resilient city of New York.
The aesir have offered their aid, and Ben remembers well the last time he met one of their kind, in Oslo, during Hardrada’s rule. Their leader now is tall, blond, and blue-eyed, and he carries a hammer Ben knows well.
Captain America, still as youthful as ever, and the Hulk represent humanity, and SHIELD, though weakened, commands what forces are left to Earth.
Ben appears in the midst of a quarrel, Adam looped around his shoulders, and waits to be noticed.
He is not impressed when it takes an hour.
.
When Thor Odinson, Captain America, and Smith, current director of SHIELD, ask for his name, he says, “Lífthrasir Nanashi.”
Thor booms, “Well met!”
Lífthrasir smiles at him and knows that Odin Borrson would’ve questioned him further, especially with that name - but, then, Odin knows prophecy and once met a sailor who blinded the son of the sea.
But Thor’s attention is elsewhere, and Lífthrasir is too useful to turn away, and when Adam shifts back, his eyes flash as he hisses, “Thor,” low and cold and vicious. He turns quickly to face Lífthrasir and shifts into his female shape, and tells Lífthrasir, “My name is Pan.”
Lífthrasir nods. “C’mon,” he says. “Our assignment is this way.” Pan follows with a single glance thrown over her shoulder at Thor and avoids the godling for the rest of their time in New York.
.
MacLeod is helping to rebuild the Pacific coast. Most of the immortals in the western hemisphere have flocked to his banner, because what is the point of winning the prize in a ghost world?
Lífthrasir leaves him to it, traveling with Pan to Rome, at the behest of SHIELD.
.
Pan is 120 and looks barely 25, dark hair piled on her head and skin tanned by the sun, eyes poison-bright, when Thor stares at her for almost an hour before stuttering out, “Lo-Loki?”
Lífthrasir stands beside her, everything in him waiting for her play, and Pan straightens to her full height (still a head and a half shorter than Odin’s son), and she says, “Loki died when he fell from a bridge.”
“Please,” Thor says, “Loki, I do not understand - we have thought you dead for -”
Pan interrupts, voice strong, to say, “Loki, child of no one, is dead, son of Odin.” She smiles, suddenly, brilliantly, adding, “I am Pan, I am Adam, and I am the child of legend.”
Lífthrasir laughs, loud and long, and pulls Pan close for a hug. “You are, as ever, delightful,” he murmurs into her hair. When he catches Thor’s bewildered expression, he laughs again.
.
“You remember now?” Lífthrasir asks while Odin strides toward them, his retinue falling further and further behind.
“I remembered when Thor set foot on this world again,” Pan answers.
“What do you want, child?” Lífthrasir glances down at her; she is still so young, still that boy he found in the wilderness.
“You are the ancient,” Pan says, “and I am the foundling. And this world is ours.”
“Exactly so,” Lífthrasir murmurs, stepping forward to meet the All-Father, his child beside him.
Fandom: Avengers movieverse/Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Earl Marlatt
Warnings: AU after Thor; mentions of post-apocalyptic rebuilding
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1235
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, the baby is a foundling and doesn't seem quite human...
He finds the child on his daily walk through the nearest tract of Amazonia. The child is as pale as he is, which means he must not be a native of the jungle, and Ben stares down at him indecisively for a moment. This has been a quiet life, since leaving MacLeod in his dreary Pacific northwest town, and does he want to deal with the drama of finding a white child in the wilds of the Amazon?
The child babbles something at him, eyes as green as the jewels Ben wore lifetimes ago, and Ben stoops to gently pick him up.
Life was getting boring anyway, and no one within a thousand kilometers questions anything he does. He is either a ghost or a god, and either way, he is left alone.
.
Ben names the child Adam because it amuses him. Adam grows slowly, far slower than any other child Ben has ever raised, which only confirms what he’s suspected since he found the boy.
The first time Adam changes his shape, it’s into an anaconda, and he doesn’t turn back for three days. Ben treats him exactly the same and Adam laughs once he’s a boy again. The second time, he becomes a toucan; the third, an ocelot. Ben never reacts except to congratulate him.
Adam calms down when he realizes that no matter his shape, he is Ben’s son.
.
Adam is 23 and looks around 10, and he asks Ben, “You don’t age right, either?” because Ben looks exactly the same as when he found the boy in the jungle.
“I will never age,” Ben tells him. “And I don’t know how old you’ll be when you stop.”
.
Mentally, Adam is far older than his body. Ben gives him a millennia-old library and the entire internet, and sometimes, can barely stay ahead of the boy. They spend weeks at a time lost in the jungle, stalked by predators few humans have ever seen in person, and Adam builds up his shapes.
Adam is 45 and looks barely 18 when he asks, “What am I?”
Ben isn’t entirely honest when he says, “I don’t know,” and when Adam opens his mouth to demand another answer, Ben adds, “But you are my son.”
A jaguar screeches to the east, so they continue walking, spending the rest of the day in silence.
.
When Adam is 50, he asks to travel, so Ben packs everything up and they head northeast. Ben bypasses North America entirely for Europe, where they continue east all the way to the Pacific. They spend a decade wandering, and look like brothers instead of father and son.
Adam stops aging around the mortal age of 25; when Ben asks, Adam shrugs and says it’s what he decided.
.
“How old are you?” Adam asks when he is 100 and aliens from outer space have plunged Ben’s world into warfare.
They are back at the Amazon (home, Ben thinks, like the Fertile Crescent once was, like the plains of windy Troy, like the great isle that sank beneath the waves so long ago), watching humanity struggle. Their jungle is protected, and all the mortals who flee there, though not many do.
“Very,” Ben replies, strengthening his protection spell. Adam’s eyes flash that brilliant green as he adds his own power to it.
.
Thanos, like all would-be conquerors, is defeated. But Ben’s world must rebuild or the next would-be conqueror might get lucky.
“What do you think?” Ben glances at Adam, who has a sloth in his arms and one of the native children at his side. The entire jungle holds its breath, the old magicks waiting for Ben’s word, the very floor of the jungle trembling.
“This is our world, is it not?” Adam asks rhetorically. “You, the ancient; I, the foundling. This world is our home.”
“Yes,” Ben murmurs.
Adam adds, “We protect what is ours.” He smiles at Ben, handing the sloth to the child. “You taught me that, Da.”
.
When he steps out of the jungle, Ben ties the sigil to his own quickening. So long as he has his head, the Amazon will still be safe. Adam is a boa twined around his upper body and Ben quickly transports them to the heart of the rebuilding effort, in the ever-resilient city of New York.
The aesir have offered their aid, and Ben remembers well the last time he met one of their kind, in Oslo, during Hardrada’s rule. Their leader now is tall, blond, and blue-eyed, and he carries a hammer Ben knows well.
Captain America, still as youthful as ever, and the Hulk represent humanity, and SHIELD, though weakened, commands what forces are left to Earth.
Ben appears in the midst of a quarrel, Adam looped around his shoulders, and waits to be noticed.
He is not impressed when it takes an hour.
.
When Thor Odinson, Captain America, and Smith, current director of SHIELD, ask for his name, he says, “Lífthrasir Nanashi.”
Thor booms, “Well met!”
Lífthrasir smiles at him and knows that Odin Borrson would’ve questioned him further, especially with that name - but, then, Odin knows prophecy and once met a sailor who blinded the son of the sea.
But Thor’s attention is elsewhere, and Lífthrasir is too useful to turn away, and when Adam shifts back, his eyes flash as he hisses, “Thor,” low and cold and vicious. He turns quickly to face Lífthrasir and shifts into his female shape, and tells Lífthrasir, “My name is Pan.”
Lífthrasir nods. “C’mon,” he says. “Our assignment is this way.” Pan follows with a single glance thrown over her shoulder at Thor and avoids the godling for the rest of their time in New York.
.
MacLeod is helping to rebuild the Pacific coast. Most of the immortals in the western hemisphere have flocked to his banner, because what is the point of winning the prize in a ghost world?
Lífthrasir leaves him to it, traveling with Pan to Rome, at the behest of SHIELD.
.
Pan is 120 and looks barely 25, dark hair piled on her head and skin tanned by the sun, eyes poison-bright, when Thor stares at her for almost an hour before stuttering out, “Lo-Loki?”
Lífthrasir stands beside her, everything in him waiting for her play, and Pan straightens to her full height (still a head and a half shorter than Odin’s son), and she says, “Loki died when he fell from a bridge.”
“Please,” Thor says, “Loki, I do not understand - we have thought you dead for -”
Pan interrupts, voice strong, to say, “Loki, child of no one, is dead, son of Odin.” She smiles, suddenly, brilliantly, adding, “I am Pan, I am Adam, and I am the child of legend.”
Lífthrasir laughs, loud and long, and pulls Pan close for a hug. “You are, as ever, delightful,” he murmurs into her hair. When he catches Thor’s bewildered expression, he laughs again.
.
“You remember now?” Lífthrasir asks while Odin strides toward them, his retinue falling further and further behind.
“I remembered when Thor set foot on this world again,” Pan answers.
“What do you want, child?” Lífthrasir glances down at her; she is still so young, still that boy he found in the wilderness.
“You are the ancient,” Pan says, “and I am the foundling. And this world is ours.”
“Exactly so,” Lífthrasir murmurs, stepping forward to meet the All-Father, his child beside him.