Death and Discord

A Highlander, Thor Crossover

Disclaimer: Highlander belongs to the Davis-Panzer people. Thor -Mighty or otherwise- is MARVEL's baby.

TIMELINE- Pre-Methos introduction for Highlander, so about mid season 3. Post Thor movie, but pre-Avengers.

Summary: Methos discovers an amnesiac godling on the streets of Paris.

Because I could not stop for Death-

He kindly stopped for me-

The Carriage held but just Ourselves-

And Immortality.

-Emily Dickinson

Methos discovers an amnesiac godling on the streets of Paris.

Adam has walked these streets a hundred times in the past. Methos has walked them several thousand. (It is important to keep these two separate. One must compartmentalize: must be able to draw out personalities like well tailored suits and wear them rightly or london bridge comes falling down and ashes are all that's left.) Adam is a grad student being scouted by an organization older than any government still standing, and they think he doesn't know. Adam is a linguist specializing in the ancient and arcane and when he goes the anthropology department he's interning for will miss him deeply. Adam is at the beginning of a career that promises to show him the secrets of a world long forgotten. Methos is age-old wisdom and the hard practicality of a survivor. Methos is a lord of death and a conqueror of nations. Methos is the secret of the world long forgotten by everything but dry pages and dust.

It is Adam that is walking the street, hurrying to a meeting with an organization that promises everything a young history major could ever want, but it is Methos that hears a language he had thought died so long ago his own tongue falters around the syllables. They are crisp and sharp, clicks that make words with no true equivalence in any still living language, but for Methos the sounds echo in his skull and touch on memories of thick forests on the edge of deserts.

"Ladies, ladies, ladies," A boy hidden by a crowd of tourists chirps, and Adam unobtrusively weaves his way through the gathered marks as Methos peeks out from the curious student's eyes. "All you lovely ladies, won't you play with me?"

It's a shell game without the shells played on a rickety tray. The kid is shuffling cards with expert hands, and there is the faint glimmer of a mirage that Methos, had he not had millennia of experience, might have missed. When the brunette with the floppy hat fails to find the king Methos isn't surprised.

"What about you, sir?" The boy asks with a too-sweet smile. It is a game Methos has played many times and when he looks closer, ancient mind filtering out the little things, he can read the French speaking lips even as his ears still hear the rhythmic clicking of his all but forgotten childhood. "You after a big blonde boy?"

The kid winks at his gathered crowd and they laugh. Adam laughs with them, and Methos feels something like pressure against his ears. The not-yet-buzz of an immortal-that-will-be. There is a second child with hands just as quick as the card shark's. Mostly. When a slim boy reaches for his backpack he gives a light warning slap, but doesn't give up the game. The thief flashes the grin of old camaraderie and goes back to the business of purloinry.

The kid at the table fans his deck and pulls out a queen. "The Queen of Hearts is always your best bet, or so they say."

Methos knows just what Adam has stumbled upon. He knows how these cons work. By tomorrow the two boys will have moved their operation elsewhere, wouldn't be seen for weeks until the theft reports are buried under mounds of unsolved paperwork, and if Adam hadn't been going to a mysterious meeting with a mysterious Don Salzer about future employment he might have never meet the little hustler. Methos smiles and puts down a few bills, waves the go ahead, and watches the shuffle because he knows what the creature before him is. He remembers when they rampaged; when the world was young. He remembers when it would rain blood and the thunder came as a howl of death. Elements given human shape so that the people could understand them. There have been many, past and present, and though they all fade away only to be reborn, changed, Methos stays the same. Worlds end and empires fall, but the Horsemen remain on the edges of memory and the whisper of nightmares.

"Good try, little trickster." Methos clicks back with a rusty accent that sounds more like whistling, and flips over his card. The Queen of Hearts stares up at him and the child-god frowns in confusion. Does he not know who -what- he himself is? Methos pockets his won money with a shrug. "What is your name?"

"What language is that, Mister?" The kid questions, eyes unfocused, before shaking his head causing messy hair to flop about roguishly. "I'm Serrure, isn't that right, ladies?"

Lock. It explains so much. Methos knows just which trickster it is that stands before him, unaware, and he knows just what Kronos would have made of the such lost, unprotected potential. There are Immortals with powers beyond long life; those who can implant images in the mind, those with silver tongues, and even those who can absorb and release energy. He'd once knew a man who could rewrite reality to his whim even if he had called his art Illusion.

Methos will have to arrange an accident for Adam. Something with a low likelihood of body retrieval. Perhaps something with his car's breaks... and of course the second child with quick, seeking hands will have to be redirected to another. Methos can already see the loyalty stitching him to the little god: natural charisma and latent power working on a subconscious level. Well, Methos keeps his ear to the ground and the grapevine has whispered about a certain highlander taking in a thief... and what bleeding heart could say no to such a precocious child? If not, there was always Amanda. She adored children, and had never quiet gotten over the lost of her first student.

Yes, Methos thinks as he exchanges pleasantries and scratches the back of his head as if embarrassed at the attention, he hasn't taken a student in some time. Not since Byron, anyway, and it would be nice to have some companionship for a while.