Unforgiven
Disclaimer: The usual suspects belong to Panzer-Davis, etc. No money made from this, no harm, no foul.
Author's Note: I wrote this over three years ago, and forgot all about it for a long time. Reading it again, I decided to clean up some of the language and style issues. Feedback is always appreciated.
Rating: PG-13 for violence and mild profanity.
Continuity: This story begins about a month after the end of Highlander - The Series.
Summary: Methos and Cassandra meet unexpectedly, about two years after the events in Revelations 6:8. Which one will survive the encounter?
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"Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,
Each able to undo mankind,
Death's servile emissaries are;
Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will
More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart."
*December 1998, Santorini*
In the old days, the island was named Kalliste -- meaning, most beautiful. As with most beautiful things of Methos' acquaintance, this southern-most part of the Cyclades bore a turbulent history beneath its serene skin. Thira, or Santorini, as it was now labelled on the maps, had blown its volcanic heart violently open three and a half millenia ago, spewing molten rock in a cataclysmic outpouring of fury that had buried the thriving settlements on its verdant hillsides. The fallout had reached as far as Knossos, on the Cretan shore, spelling the finish for the Minoan civilisation that had ruled supreme over the Mediterranean. Later legends spoke of the fabled Atlantis that had sunk into the sea.
Methos had brought Alexa here, to a magical hideaway perched on the side of the island, built into the steep cliffs that plunged straight down to a narrow, secluded beach. They had watched the sunset over the Aegean together: a treasured memory to be stored up against the years of loneliness to come. He had come here once again, to try and recapture what had been one of the happiest moments in the last turbulent decades of his life.
This time, he had rented the same villa they had stayed in, its whitewashed facade gleaming in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. Methos stood up, and began walking back slowly towards the hillside.
The vibrant shock of Immortal presence hit him then, and he looked sharply up at the cluster of massive rocks that marked the end of the track leading to the beach. Whoever it was, they were still hidden from view by the dark basaltic rocks. He stopped, waiting for the unseen Immortal to emerge.
She walked out warily, with the dignity of a queen or a goddess. Until she saw him. Her face twisted, in shock and then in rage, as she drew her sword. "You!" she hissed, lunging forward.
"Cassandra!" He backed away hastily, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.
"Yes, it's me. And this time, MacLeod's not around to save you!" She charged him furiously, recklessly, rage twisting her beautiful face into the contorted caricature of a witch. "Draw your sword!"
"I don't want to fight you!" he exclaimed, dodging and weaving out of range.
"Then that will just make it easier for me to take your head," she said in a deadly voice. With the words, she launched a fierce attack, slashing and slicing at him with furious sweeps of her sword. She caught him fleetingly across the side as he managed to twist out of the way of a vicious swing that would have disembowelled him. He somersaulted away from the follow up aimed at his neck.
"Damn you, Cassandra, I don't want to do this!" he bit out, drawing his own blade as he landed, perfectly balanced and back on his feet in a single graceful movement.
"I don't care what you want," she panted, charging him again. This time, every blow was blocked by his broadsword. Frustrated, she grew more reckless, attacking wildly, berserk with fury. But anger was no match for skill, and the bout ended quickly. He checked her stroke, enveloped before she could disengage, and followed with a blindingly swift disarm that sent her weapon flying. She dove after it, but he was there before her, planting a foot solidly on the blade and holding her at bay with his own sword. She sank down on her knees, out of breath and suddenly weary, closing her eyes in defeat.
"End it, you bastard," she said tiredly, waiting for the blow that had been coming for three thousand years. The seconds dragged by, and she opened her eyes, to see what fresh game he was playing.
He was staring down at her with an unfathomable expression. "Not like this," he said, before he knocked her out with a right to the jaw.
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Cassandra woke up to the feel of crisp cotton sheets beneath her, and the sharp tang of the sea in her nostrils. The bed was in the middle of a sunlit room, a cool breeze blowing through the open window that looked out over the quiet beach. The sound of the waves below was strangely soothing against the utter stillness of her surroundings. She sighed and stretched, hearing a disquieting metallic noise as she moved.
Shocked, she sat up to discover that her ankle was confined by a cuff, attached to a length of steel chain that was in turn firmly anchored to the solid bed. Panic quickly swelled as the memory of her encounter on the beach came back. Methos had done this! She wrenched at the jury-rigged concoction that held her, contrived from a pair of handcuffs and a length of dog chain. The impromptu arrangement was much more solid than it looked, and the bed was firmly bolted to the floor, frustrating every attempt to budge it.
Finally, she gave up and crouched on the bed, staring fixedly at the bedroom door, which did not open. There was no Immortal presence near, and Cassandra turned her mind outward, seeking cautiously for any hint of intelligent life around her. Only the buzzing of the cicadas in the olive groves and the distant cry of sea gulls wheeling over the ocean answered her. The minutes stretched into hours and she waited, huddled on the bed and clutching the tatters of her self confidence about her.
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When Methos entered, she almost flinched. But he made no threatening move, did not approach her, sliding down against the wall to sit on the floor. Hands around his bent knees, he stared at her. He did not speak, gazing at her instead as though she were a puzzle or a work of art he must study at great length to understand.
Cassandra's silence broke first, under that unsettling silent scrutiny. "You should have killed me." she blurted. "I'll never be a slave again!" To her horror, she heard her voice break on the last words.
"I don't want a slave, Cassandra," Methos said quietly. "And I don't want your life either."
"Why not? Because I'm so insignificant that it's not even worth taking my head? Because I'm nothing?" The tears welled up against her will, and she bent to hide them from him.
"You're not nothing. You never were," he said, voice still low and calm.
"Yes, I was! You made me nothing! You took my father, my people, my life and my freedom. You made me less than nothing, a slave!" she spat. You stole my will to resist and turned me into a helpless animal, whose only sense of worth came from your approval, she added silently. The burden of ancient shame descended on her like a shroud, and she clutched herself around the middle, rocking silently in pain.
"Is that all you remember?"
Goaded beyond endurance, she exploded, no longer caring if he saw the humiliating truth that she had been hiding for so long. "No! I remember that you made me love you, that you turned me into your cringing spaniel, ecstatic at a word of praise, a touch, a smile! You couldn't be content with forcing me, could you Methos? You wanted me to surrender willingly. You couldn't leave me even that last sop to my pride. Not even that!"
He was silent.
Her words and tears flowed unchecked, of their own volition, a torrent of emotion that had been dammed up for centuries. "I'm sure you were amused by my unthinking adoration, weren't you, Methos? The sorry little slave girl who thought you were her God? I thought you had chosen me because I was special. That you had shared your magic with me, to heal and protect me from harm. And I served you with all my heart, not just my body. I thought I loved you more than I had loved anyone in all my life. You were my world!"
She sobbed at the memory. "And all the while you were laughing. Because it was just another game to you, wasn't it? Wasn't it?!" she flung the words at him, willing him to admit it, with mind and Voice.
"It began that way," he said, standing up and sending her flinching back involuntarily. He noticed, and leaned back against the wall, tucking his hands unthreateningly into his pockets. "But I wasn't laughing, Cassandra. If I did, it was never at you, only with you."
She sneered at him. "Why? Because I was so special to you? Are you going to tell me that you loved me, Methos?" Unconsciously, she held her breath.
"No." The word fell heavily, damningly into the silence. "The man that I was then couldn't love anyone or anything. I'm sorry."
"You're... sorry?" she was incredulous. All that she had felt, unrequited, dismissed with such a paltry word. "That's supposed to make up for all that you did? I'd have been better off if you had taken my head and left my body in the desert! Just another slave, one who meant nothing more to you than the thousands of others."
"You did mean something to me. Not at first, but I grew to care about you," he told her, taking a step forward.
Her outrage brought her rearing to her knees on the bed. "Cared for me so much that you let Kronos take me!" While I screamed and begged and prayed for you to save me, to say that I was yours, to show everyone that you loved me too, she cried silently, desolated again by the pain of that betrayal .
"I told myself I cared for nothing, Cassandra. For a long time, it was true. I couldn't admit to myself that things were growing different. That you had become more to me than just another slave. Not even when Kronos threw the knowledge in my face. And it was too late then." He paused, then went on. "I watched you leave his tent that night. I didn't stop you."
"How very generous of you, Methos! You let me run, and die over and over in the desert, suffering the torments of the damned. When we met again, you ran from me, then refused to take my head, and threw me in a river. And then you wouldn't let Silas kill me. Should I be grateful? Do you expect me to forgive you?"
"No. How could you possibly forgive me -- you haven't even forgiven yourself." His voice was low and clear.
"What?" She fell back, stunned. "Oh no, Methos. No. I won't let you do this to me. I'm not a child any more, and you can't manipulate me the way you did then. I'm free now, I grew up a long time ago."
"I know that, Cassandra. The question is, do you? Your shame over what happened to you three thousand years ago still rules your life. You've never made peace with yourself."
"I'll never know peace until I kill you!"
He shook his head in denial. "Killing me won't help you, not while you hate yourself as much as you hate me. The man I was, the one who killed your people and slaughtered thousands more, he knew all about revenge and hate. I was just like you, believing that only vengeance would fill the gaping void inside me. I killed, I murdered and raped and pillaged my way across three continents, and told myself that the only thing that mattered was the brotherhood of the Horsemen."
"I even enjoyed it. You see, the only thing that made me feel alive was the battle itself. But with every death, every helpless victim, I lost a piece of myself. I didn't see it then, but the man who was called Death was himself dead."
He knuckled his eyes as if trying to clear his vision. "By the time I met you, I could feel nothing. Not pain, not love. Essence of emptiness, behind the mask. Io no piangeva; si dentro impietrai."
Cassandra recognised the quote from Dante. I did not weep, so much of stone had I become.
"Piangevan elli!" she spat back. "They all wept, Methos. I wept. Didn't you hear, didn't you see?"
"I was blind and deaf. Hate and revenge are the hollowest pursuits, Cassandra, leaving hollow beings in their wake, incapable of seeing or hearing clearly. The way you are now."
"I am not you!" She recoiled. "I am nothing like you!" She poured her fear and scorn out in profanity, flinging every vile epithet she could think of in a dozen languages at him. He listened, unmoved and unmoving as a statue.
"Do you truly see what you are? You are more than just my victim, Cassandra," he said, when she ran out of swear words at last. "You are a remarkable woman, with a unique talent. One of the oldest Immortals alive, a priestess, a healer, a teacher. You made yourself all these things."
"None of what I salvaged from the ruins erases what you did, Methos. What I made of myself, I owe to my own efforts. It does not excuse what you did!"
"Of course it doesn't!" he said, his voice rising. "Are you even listening to me? There could never be any excuse for what I did! This isn't about me, it's about you, woman!"
He covered the ground between them in a few long-legged strides, his impassive demeanour gone. This time, however, she held her ground, summoning up her reserves to stare defiantly into his face. She brought a hand up to strike him as soon as he was within range, her courage returning with her anger, but he caught the wrist in a lean hand, and imprisoned the other in a bruising grip before she could repeat the action.
"Damn you, I need you to hear what I'm saying!"
He glared into her furious green eyes, his own turned completely gold with strong emotion. She found herself trying to read them, as she used to in the old days, searching for hints of his thoughts and moods. The thought made her tremble, and he immediately relaxed his grip, not enough to release her, but enough to restore a modicum of composure to her.
His voice softened along with his grip. "There is nothing I can do to make up for what I did. If I were the God that you once thought me..." he shook his head impatiently. "With all our gifts, neither you nor I could take back a single instant of the past." He released her and stepped back. She couldn't tear her eyes away from his.
"In all the centuries I've lived since, nothing I could do or say, no matter how many people I helped or saved, none of it could ever atone for what I did before. No amount of remorse, no penance of mine could erase one instant of your suffering. I can't, I don't, expect you to forgive me." He paused. "Tell me, Cassandra -- when MacLeod killed Kronos; did it make you feel any less empty? Did it take away even a single tiny shred of your pain?"
She bowed her head, stunned into silence at last.
"If there's one thing I've learned, after all these years, it's this. Mortal or Immortal, whether our lives are a hundred years long or a thousand, all we have is the moment. The here and now. No tomorrows. All we can do is live today as best we can."
He walked away, to the door.
"Please don't throw away the rest of your life on the past, Cassandra."
And he was gone, just like that. She could sense his presence in the next room. But he did not come back to see her.
Cassandra curled up on the bed, exhaustion dragging her down into sleep, after the emotional and physical stresses of the day. She sobbed into the pillow, seeking oblivion. And her nightmares pursued her even there.
He stood over her, laughing, the familiar figure dressed all in white. Tall and graceful, he wore a terrifying skull-shaped mask, and there was nothing human about him. And yet, she was sure that underneath the façade was a man. She reached out to take off the obscuring mask, and it came away easily in her hand. Underneath it was a compelling face, half masked still in blue paint, as alien and as beautiful as a God. He caressed her and she welcomed his touch, revelled in it, until he flung her away to land on her knees in the dust. She reached out imploringly to him, but he walked away, vanishing into thin air.
Just as suddenly, the hooded and masked figure was back, dagger drawn. She had a sword now, but she dropped it, as he approached her, laughing. The sound of his mocking laughter was the last thing she heard as he plunged the knife into her heart.
When she awoke in the morning, her ankle was free, and there was a note on the unused pillow beside her.
'You need time to consider this. If you truly want to fight me, I'll meet you any time you like, at any place you choose. A note addressed to Joe's will always find me. In the meantime: live, Cassandra. Grow stronger. It's a poor enough gift, but all I have to give.'
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** December 1998, Donan Woods **
The days were long and hard and filled with pain. Immortal minds did not heal as easily as Immortal flesh. Old wounds flared into ferocious life, as painful as the day they had been sustained. Cassandra threw herself into a frenzy of sword training, using the physical discipline to help her deal with the turmoil in her mind. Everything she had believed was turned inside out, and the old familiar sanctuaries, both real and of the mind, were gone. It was like being new. The very foundations of her being, the ideas and beliefs on which she had built over the centuries, were adrift and alien, to be examined and fitted back together in strange new configurations.
She meditated for endless hours, trying to find the center that had been lost, trying not to feel, merely to observe the flow of consciousness and memory. A kaleidoscope of visions flitted past her inner eye.
There was Hijad, telling her that she would soon pass his meager skills. Kronos' sword, stabbing her in the heart in the midst of the village. There she was, waking only to die again at Methos' hand, and waking again, astonished, in his tent.
Through everything, there was his presence. She saw Methos's eyes, cold and angry when he caught her trying to escape. Here she was again, reflected in a polished shield, huddling fearfully with the other slaves, praying that none of the Masters would notice her, to abuse her as she had seen others abused. The sound of Methos's voice, silky but firm, as he insisted she bathe and put on the new robes he gave her. There were Methos's eyes, bright with laughter as she tried to saddle a reluctant donkey. Here was the feel of Methos's hands, gently caressing her in the privacy of his tent.
New pain and anger: Kronos' expression as she stabbed him in the belly. She stumbled away to die in the desert and woke again, not understanding, over and over, until she found refuge with Rebecca. Sweet freedom, learning the secrets and gifts of Immortality. Training with Sword and Voice. The fearful triumph of taking her first head, a barbarian from the untamed lands to the north.
Time washed over her like a warm, slow tide. Students came and went, lovers, friends and enemies. She saved a young Duncan MacLeod in Donan Wood, to watch him kill Roland Kantos four centuries later. The shock of Methos's astonished face as she recognised him in Duncan's dojo. Here was his hated, his beloved face again, unreadable, as he threw her into the river. The terrifying sight of Kronos, Caspian, Silas, and Methos, together again at Bordeaux. There was Methos, face taut, challenging Silas. There was Methos, sobbing on his knees after he had taken Silas' head. There was Duncan, keeping her from killing the unresisting man at her feet.
Memory swirled on, inescapable. Methos on Santorini, angry and passionate, telling her that it wasn't about him. Methos, his eyes bright with pain, saying he didn't expect her forgiveness.
Day followed day, and every single night, she dreamed. Slowly, her dreams began to change, as her chains finally unravelled and dropped away. She hadn't even known she'd been bound until they were gone.
The masked man who stalked through her nights would elude her, avoid her challenges, still laughing, but from a distance. Then one night, she caught up with him. Sword drawn, she ripped off the visor to reveal the blue-painted face of her tormentor. With a single blow, she decapitated him, sending the head rolling on the sands of the desert. Panting, she looked down. Strangely unsurprised, she found that it was a hollow image she had killed. A bronze statue painted to look like a man.
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*February 1999, Bordeaux: An abandoned Submarine Base, briefly the Headquarters of the Horsemen in 1997*
A brief hand-written note was all that awaited Methos in the cage that had held Cassandra prisoner.
'I cannot say that I have forgiven or forgotten, Methos. But you did teach me something. You're not him anymore. You're not Death, who rode with the Horsemen. Part of me hates you for showing me, after all these years, the man I could have known then. But I am not that frightened, ignorant slave-child, either. I am free of you at last.
You did give me a gift, after all. The mirror you held up to me reflects clearly now. You are no longer the monster in my nightmares. I outgrew my childish night terrors, and I have outgrown you. I want no part of you any more. Not your company, not your remorse, and not even your head. I'm free. So walk away, Methos. I hope that we never cross paths again.'
A single tear rolled down the ancient man's cheek. He stood there, holding the note, for a long time. When he walked out again into the bleak evening, he was erect and alone, his only companions the thousand regrets that followed him.
"We know to tell many fictions like to truths, and we know, when we will, to speak what is true."
-- The Muses in Hesiod's Theogony. Translation by J. Banks
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Footnotes:
1. "Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,
Each able to undo mankind,
Death's servile emissaries are;
Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will
More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart."
-- an excerpt from The Last Conqueror, by J. Shirley
2. "Io no piangeva; si dentro impietrai.
Piangevan elli..."
-- Dante Alighieri, Inferno xxxiii.49-50 [Italian translated in a note by Arnold as "I wailed not, so of stone grew I within; they wailed."]