Adaptation

Methos was having a bad day. It was one of those bad days where nothing major went wrong, but it seemed like everything minor had. The minor frustrations had piled up on each other until all he wanted to do was get a drink in peace and go home to sleep. Of course, in keeping with the rest of his day, Joe was out of all of the good beers, the band that was playing was sub-par, and MacLeod had decided to extol the dubious virtues of chivalry to Joe and the kid at Methos's table. It was the last straw.

"That's the kind of attitude that gets Immortals killed," he said scathingly. "Chivalry is dead; adapt or die. Just ask any Immortal who was around before the Bronze Age. Oh wait, you can't! They're all dead!"

"What does that have to do with it?" MacLeod demanded.

"Yeah, I thought they didn't even have chivalry back then," Richie chimed in.

"Look, before the Bronze Age, you had to be very determined to kill another Immortal. Before there were bronze weapons, nothing was sharp enough to decapitate easily. So for Immortals things were very peaceful. No Game, no threat of death except for freak accidents. Mortals tended to worship Immortals as gods rather than hunt them down as demons or witches or what have you. A couple of idiots picked up swords and started killing Immortals, and that all ended. You can't even imagine the fear- they all thought they were truly Immortal until then. Immortals who didn't adapt quickly enough, who didn't get a sword and learn how to use it, who stayed where everybody knew how to find them? They died quickly. They were as stuck in their pattern of thinking as a lot of Immortals are now, unable or unwilling to change with the times. Things change. Deal with it, or you'll die quickly. It's ridiculous to leave your mind in the past while you're living in the present."

Predictably, MacLeod looked like he was about to explode, Richie looked confused, and Joe was fascinated. "Even the earliest Chronicles don't have any record of this," he said.

"Yes, well, I wasn't exactly around before the Bronze Age, but while I was a student Immortals got more and more suspicious of other Immortals, even if most everybody knew each other back then," Methos said, mollified by Joe's interest, which was purely his own- no way to add this tidbit of history to the Chronicles. "Things were…unstable. Everybody was panicking. Eventually it settled down to this." His gesture encompassed their table and the world. "The death toll would have been high no matter what. But a lot of Immortals died because they expected everybody to follow the same traditions they did. Even when they heard the news, they denied that it could be Immortals doing it- because that wasn't the way things were done and it would be dishonorable. Just like it would be wrong to get a bronze sword and learn to use it."

He could see that MacLeod still disagreed with him- how could somebody so young stand to be so bound? At his age, Methos had still been a student, sampling the ways of the world. Joe was still burning up with questions, but at least he was kind enough to hold them back. Richie was still young enough to think he knew all the answers, but flexible enough to learn if you didn't force him to. Ideas could sit dormant in the mind until one was ready to accept them, and even if Richie wasn't his student he had to do something to counteract MacLeod.

He drained his beer and pushed back his chair. "Perhaps I should leave before this turns into an argument. I'm in a bad enough mood that it wouldn't be pretty." He didn't wait for an answer, just stood up and left. He'd lose these friends to death too soon; he'd rather not lose them to careless words sooner than that. Tomorrow he'd be in a better mood, good enough not to lose a friendship to what shouldn't be a serious fight. And if he wasn't, he could always take a short vacation- the Watchers wouldn't care if his plane tickets said Hawaii so long as he returned with results.

He was feeling better already.