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comment_fic prompt: "Highlander, Methos (+ author's choice), when the apocalypse happens, immortals of a certain age fare better than all others". Went slightly sideways on me again.
Title: Sadhana
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Highlander
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Cassandra, mention of Kronos. Methos & Cassandra
Summary: "When Olympus fell, it was the Titans who rode forth once more." In the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, it was the immortals, the old monsters, who emerged as the kings and warlords of the new era. Not all of them still want to play by those rules, though. Just because the world was bombed back to the Bronze Age doesn't mean they have to forget all the ages in between
Wordcount: 1337
Warnings/Notes: Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, war, conquest, survival, enemies-to-allies, random philosophising
Disclaimer: Not mine
comment_fic prompt: "Highlander, Methos (+ author's choice), when the apocalypse happens, immortals of a certain age fare better than all others". Went slightly sideways on me again.Title: Sadhana
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Highlander
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Cassandra, mention of Kronos. Methos & Cassandra
Summary: "When Olympus fell, it was the Titans who rode forth once more." In the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, it was the immortals, the old monsters, who emerged as the kings and warlords of the new era. Not all of them still want to play by those rules, though. Just because the world was bombed back to the Bronze Age doesn't mean they have to forget all the ages in between
Wordcount: 1337
Warnings/Notes: Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, war, conquest, survival, enemies-to-allies, random philosophising
Disclaimer: Not mine
Sadhana
The thing about humanity's development, Methos noted dully, was that their capacity for destruction progressed in step with everything else. And, indeed, in advance in of many things.
Once upon a time, it would have taken a deity to cause this kind of annihilation. Once upon a time, a man-made apocalypse would have been as small and as simple as four men on horseback laying waste to a settlement. For real damage, for an ending to span empires, a man would have needed time, or an army, or a god. All of the above. But time and armies and gods were exactly what progress, technology, had stripped away. Man had reduced himself, and exalted himself, and made annihilation so infinitely simpler. Now, all it had taken to induce the End of Days was three days, a great many missiles, and the god-in-the-machine.
Progress had its downside, the great and terrible shadow always at its heels. He should know. He'd been that shadow often enough.
Immortal fiefdoms were emerging now. They'd been the first to crawl from the ashes, the ones that hadn't been incinerated in any of the myriad ground zeroes. Radiation sickness did sod all to stop a quickening, and there were only so many times an immortal body could die to the same degradation before the quickening started compensating faster than the body could dissolve. With mortal populations so devastated, technology and infrastructure laid to ruin, it was the older monsters that crawled forth to stand, bright and shiny and terrible, over the wasteland.
It only made sense, after all. When progress was stripped away in its turn, when the bright new future was laid to waste, it was those who had predated it that emerged to rule once again. Old monsters, who remembered how the world had worked once before, and now would have to work again.
When Olympus fell, it was the Titans that rode forth once more. Just as Kronos had once predicted. Just as he'd once tried to bring about.
"And so the age of warlords comes again," the woman at his side said softly. Bitterly, but he of all people could hardly begrudge her that. "Does it please you then, Death?"
Methos turned to look at her. Cassandra, standing over a city's ruin with her sword in her hands and an expression on her face that he had not seen in three thousand years. He met her eyes, the ancient, weary hatred there, the calm expectation of brutality that belonged to an earlier time, and found himself suddenly too tired to give its ancient answer. Three thousand years. Five thousand. More. Forward, ever forward, and then suddenly back to the beginning. He was too tired. He was too old. He had not the patience to play this Game once more.
And yet, he'd not the patience to die, either. The endless irony of his existence. When it came down to it, he never dared lay down and die. Through all the many endings of the world, he damn well never planned to.
But then, perhaps he didn't have to. Might was only the law when you let it be, and Methos was too damn old at this stage not to cheat that law with every wile he still possessed. There were more answers than just the sword. There were more ways to win than just brute strength. Even when the world had fallen into ruin, even when everything had been destroyed, there was still more to life than just this endless, infinite, interminable Game. He'd spent five thousand years learning that. He'd had five thousand years of progress between that time and this. It had to have taught him something.
This wasn't the Bronze Age anymore, nor any age since. When Rome fell, the world didn't just go back to what it had been before. This fallen empire might have been the biggest yet, might have invited so much greater an annihilation, but it was still only the latest in a line of endings. Another apocalypse among thousands, only differing in its size, and Methos had seen them all. The cycle grew bigger, every time, but it grew shorter too. When you were old enough to remember past cycles, when you paid attention, maybe you learned enough to be able to kick this one in the pants and skip the painful parts. Well. The recurring ones, at least.
You go enough times around the cycle of reincarnation, you had to hit enlightenment at some point. Maybe he wasn't there quite yet, but at the very least he could open this cycle at the point where diplomacy, human rights and indoor plumbing were still on the table. Five thousand years on, he had wiles enough for that. Death might be eternal, but the Horsemen were long gone now, and maybe they ought to stay that way.
So no, he decided. No, the age of warlords didn't please him. That was a game for younger monsters, and he was too damned old to bother putting up with it. This titan wasn't playing by those rules anymore. Maybe it was time to stop letting everyone else.
"... No," he said at last. Meeting her eyes, seeing something startled and wary dawning there. "No, it doesn't please me, Cassandra. Any more, I think, than it does you." He paused, looking at her thoughtfully, and then he smiled. Slowly. Darkly. A very, very ancient grin. "What do you think, Oracle? Would you like to stop it this time? Would you like to kill it before it starts?"
Because she was a titan too, wasn't she. She was ancient too, as battered and more than he, as understanding of the darkness of this game of swords they all played. She'd seen the cycle close almost as often as he had. She'd stood in its path a damn sight more. Cassandra. Priestess, Oracle, Chooser of Champions. The witch, wary and weary, who'd fought for a future from the start, when even he'd been content with only endings.
If he could have anyone on his side, in this new and savage world, he could do a lot worse than the woman he'd once destroyed, and the woman who'd spared him in her turn. He wasn't so blind as not to realise that. She hadn't killed him yet. They'd crawled from the rubble together, by necessity more than choice, but still she hadn't killed him. Alone with an ancient enemy, justified in her grudge, she hadn't struck him down.
If there was any better argument against the law of the sword, he hadn't heard it yet. Though he'd be happy to, if one should chance to happen by.
"What did you have in mind, oh Death?" she asked him softly. With teeth in it, and challenge, but something bright and wary, too. Something new, something for a dawning age and not the endless echoing of ones long dead. She looked at him, her sword resting idly on her shoulder, and for the first time he saw in her the future and not the past. He saw it, and it was good.
"... I thought I'd try rebuilding a world instead of ending it, for once," he answered honestly. "I thought I might try being the hero for a change. I mean, five thousand years on, how hard could it be?"
She laughed at him for that, of course. Well, fair enough. She had a right to, and he'd have laughed at him too, had he been on the other side of it. But she didn't say no, he noticed. She didn't tell him not to try. From Cassandra, from the Witch of the World-As-Was-And-Will-Be, that was probably as close to an endorsement as he was likely to get.
So. Alright then. One new round of progress, courtesy of the oldest monster still standing, coming right up. One more cycle, with its shadow now at its head instead of its heels.
Let's see how quick and how great this one would be.
A/N: The title is referring to the hindu concept of Sadhana, which again I've only a limited understanding of, but it seemed to fit?
The thing about humanity's development, Methos noted dully, was that their capacity for destruction progressed in step with everything else. And, indeed, in advance in of many things.
Once upon a time, it would have taken a deity to cause this kind of annihilation. Once upon a time, a man-made apocalypse would have been as small and as simple as four men on horseback laying waste to a settlement. For real damage, for an ending to span empires, a man would have needed time, or an army, or a god. All of the above. But time and armies and gods were exactly what progress, technology, had stripped away. Man had reduced himself, and exalted himself, and made annihilation so infinitely simpler. Now, all it had taken to induce the End of Days was three days, a great many missiles, and the god-in-the-machine.
Progress had its downside, the great and terrible shadow always at its heels. He should know. He'd been that shadow often enough.
Immortal fiefdoms were emerging now. They'd been the first to crawl from the ashes, the ones that hadn't been incinerated in any of the myriad ground zeroes. Radiation sickness did sod all to stop a quickening, and there were only so many times an immortal body could die to the same degradation before the quickening started compensating faster than the body could dissolve. With mortal populations so devastated, technology and infrastructure laid to ruin, it was the older monsters that crawled forth to stand, bright and shiny and terrible, over the wasteland.
It only made sense, after all. When progress was stripped away in its turn, when the bright new future was laid to waste, it was those who had predated it that emerged to rule once again. Old monsters, who remembered how the world had worked once before, and now would have to work again.
When Olympus fell, it was the Titans that rode forth once more. Just as Kronos had once predicted. Just as he'd once tried to bring about.
"And so the age of warlords comes again," the woman at his side said softly. Bitterly, but he of all people could hardly begrudge her that. "Does it please you then, Death?"
Methos turned to look at her. Cassandra, standing over a city's ruin with her sword in her hands and an expression on her face that he had not seen in three thousand years. He met her eyes, the ancient, weary hatred there, the calm expectation of brutality that belonged to an earlier time, and found himself suddenly too tired to give its ancient answer. Three thousand years. Five thousand. More. Forward, ever forward, and then suddenly back to the beginning. He was too tired. He was too old. He had not the patience to play this Game once more.
And yet, he'd not the patience to die, either. The endless irony of his existence. When it came down to it, he never dared lay down and die. Through all the many endings of the world, he damn well never planned to.
But then, perhaps he didn't have to. Might was only the law when you let it be, and Methos was too damn old at this stage not to cheat that law with every wile he still possessed. There were more answers than just the sword. There were more ways to win than just brute strength. Even when the world had fallen into ruin, even when everything had been destroyed, there was still more to life than just this endless, infinite, interminable Game. He'd spent five thousand years learning that. He'd had five thousand years of progress between that time and this. It had to have taught him something.
This wasn't the Bronze Age anymore, nor any age since. When Rome fell, the world didn't just go back to what it had been before. This fallen empire might have been the biggest yet, might have invited so much greater an annihilation, but it was still only the latest in a line of endings. Another apocalypse among thousands, only differing in its size, and Methos had seen them all. The cycle grew bigger, every time, but it grew shorter too. When you were old enough to remember past cycles, when you paid attention, maybe you learned enough to be able to kick this one in the pants and skip the painful parts. Well. The recurring ones, at least.
You go enough times around the cycle of reincarnation, you had to hit enlightenment at some point. Maybe he wasn't there quite yet, but at the very least he could open this cycle at the point where diplomacy, human rights and indoor plumbing were still on the table. Five thousand years on, he had wiles enough for that. Death might be eternal, but the Horsemen were long gone now, and maybe they ought to stay that way.
So no, he decided. No, the age of warlords didn't please him. That was a game for younger monsters, and he was too damned old to bother putting up with it. This titan wasn't playing by those rules anymore. Maybe it was time to stop letting everyone else.
"... No," he said at last. Meeting her eyes, seeing something startled and wary dawning there. "No, it doesn't please me, Cassandra. Any more, I think, than it does you." He paused, looking at her thoughtfully, and then he smiled. Slowly. Darkly. A very, very ancient grin. "What do you think, Oracle? Would you like to stop it this time? Would you like to kill it before it starts?"
Because she was a titan too, wasn't she. She was ancient too, as battered and more than he, as understanding of the darkness of this game of swords they all played. She'd seen the cycle close almost as often as he had. She'd stood in its path a damn sight more. Cassandra. Priestess, Oracle, Chooser of Champions. The witch, wary and weary, who'd fought for a future from the start, when even he'd been content with only endings.
If he could have anyone on his side, in this new and savage world, he could do a lot worse than the woman he'd once destroyed, and the woman who'd spared him in her turn. He wasn't so blind as not to realise that. She hadn't killed him yet. They'd crawled from the rubble together, by necessity more than choice, but still she hadn't killed him. Alone with an ancient enemy, justified in her grudge, she hadn't struck him down.
If there was any better argument against the law of the sword, he hadn't heard it yet. Though he'd be happy to, if one should chance to happen by.
"What did you have in mind, oh Death?" she asked him softly. With teeth in it, and challenge, but something bright and wary, too. Something new, something for a dawning age and not the endless echoing of ones long dead. She looked at him, her sword resting idly on her shoulder, and for the first time he saw in her the future and not the past. He saw it, and it was good.
"... I thought I'd try rebuilding a world instead of ending it, for once," he answered honestly. "I thought I might try being the hero for a change. I mean, five thousand years on, how hard could it be?"
She laughed at him for that, of course. Well, fair enough. She had a right to, and he'd have laughed at him too, had he been on the other side of it. But she didn't say no, he noticed. She didn't tell him not to try. From Cassandra, from the Witch of the World-As-Was-And-Will-Be, that was probably as close to an endorsement as he was likely to get.
So. Alright then. One new round of progress, courtesy of the oldest monster still standing, coming right up. One more cycle, with its shadow now at its head instead of its heels.
Let's see how quick and how great this one would be.
A/N: The title is referring to the hindu concept of Sadhana, which again I've only a limited understanding of, but it seemed to fit?
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