Mulan & co. get bored of being ancestors, so they recorporealize in the modern day. (which, of course, takes away all of the fun issues of Mulan)

Would preferably involve a lot of annoying the descendants, both on purpose and on accident.

(Hmm, I guess I could do the last part in the Dinosaur verse...suddenly, Mulan shows up at the house of the descendants of one of her adopted kids/one of her friends' descendants. And proceeds to annoy the shit out of them, who are used to thinking of her as an honored ancestor/honorary ancestor.)

Confronting Duncan

Duncan stopped mid-sentence, tensed, and turned to the door of the bar, alerting Joe to the presence of another Immortal. Who would it be this time? Amanda? Methos? Another of Duncan's Immortal acquaintances? Somebody who would inevitably try to kill him? Maybe the years of being so close to Immortals had jaded Joe, but it seemed like it was never good news when an Immortal Duncan didn't already know came to town, and usually when one he did know came to town, too. At least they didn't tend to see Joe as a worthwhile target. He was just Duncan's bartender, after all, not somebody who could make Duncan fight a Challenge by being threatened, not like it had been with Tessa Noel.

The Immortal who walked in through the door wasn't anybody Joe had expected. For all their faults, the Watchers actually were fairly good at keeping track of the Immortals, and as the Regional Supervisor, Joe was supposed to be notified of any Immortals coming into the area. The number of Immortals moving in and out of the region lately was not inconsiderable; Immortals always had been more mobile than mortals, and modern transportation had only increased that movement. But still, Joe was certain that this Immortal had not been one of the Immortals he had been notified about. Even if the eye patch was false--and he didn't think it was likely that an Immortal would give himself an identifying mark like that, but then again there were Immortals who made themselves more identifiable, and at least an eye patch was easily discarded--none of the Immortals who should be in the region matched his stats. Either some Watcher had forgotten to send in his report, or this Immortal didn't have a Watcher.

"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," Duncan introduced himself. "Why don't you sit down and have a drink?" Ah, the subtle method of ascertaining if the Immortal's intentions were peaceful.

"Duncan MacLeod?" The other Immortal asked, his voice cheerful. "Just who I'm looking for!"

"Oh?" Duncan asked, relaxing at the Immortal's tone. "Why's that?"

"You killed three of my students," the other Immortal said flatly. "Now, I know the Watchers will cover the bar if I take your Quickening in here, but it's only common courtesy to go outside for a Challenge, so if you don't mind..."

"What...?" Duncan couldn't make a full sentence, he was so stunned. Joe took over.

"You know about the Watchers?" he asked, seeing another reason the Immortal might not have one.

"It's kind of hard to miss when you're being stalked," the Immortal said. "Or, well, when other Immortals are being stalked, when you're hanging out with them, since I only picked up a Watcher a couple of times. But it's cool. A bit creepy, but since most Immortals try not to leave much of a legacy I guess it's the only way they're going to be remembered. And it's not like I can't lose a tail when I get one, just like every other Immortal with sense."

Joe had to snort at that. Even the most conservative estimates said that most of the Immortals still alive had Watchers, and hadn't even noticed them, much less lost them.

"Well, it's not like most Immortals have any sense," the Immortal said with an eye-roll. "It's all The Game this, and 'oh, my insulted honor' that, and that's not even counting all the stupid debate about what being Immortal means, and how we should act towards mortals. It's all so stupid." He looked back over at Duncan. "Is he going to stay like this all night? I mean, not that I have anything else to do, but shouldn't we get this done before your customers start to arrive?"

"I think he's still trying to figure out who he killed that would make you want to kill him."

"He kills that many people?"

"Mostly he only kills bad guys."

"Bad guys? What the hell does that mean? Just cause a guy's done some bad things in his life, doesn't mean he should be killed!"

"Mostly, they try to kill him or somebody else first."

"Whatever happened to trapping people in a well until they've learned their lesson, huh? Why isn't that good enough for the kids these days?"

Joe gave him a strange look. "That's how it's been as long as the Watchers have been keeping records. And what about you? Didn't you just Challenge him?"

"That's different. You don't mess around when it's family, you send a very clear lesson to anybody else who might be thinking along the same lines. But you didn't say anything about *his* student getting killed, so he's got no excuse for killing *mine*."

"Look, I don't know who your students were, but they probably attacked him first."

He opened his mouth to reply, but at that instant Duncan stiffened again at another Immortal's presence. The other Immortal was smooth about it, though; if Joe hadn't had Duncan to watch, he never would have realized that another Immortal was approaching until the door swung open to reveal Methos.

Methos froze as soon as he saw the other immortal, and Joe groaned mentally. If those two had a history...he didn't want to have to write the termination report for Methos. But although Methos looked dismayed, he didn't look alarmed. "Beer," he said to Joe.

"He's mine, Adam," the other Immortal said. "They might have been your brothers, but they were my students."

"I killed Silas," Methos said quietly. Joe had to hold himself back from interfering. If the Immortal was so willing to kill Duncan, he wouldn't be any less willing to kill Methos. But it wasn't his place to interfere. And besides, Methos was still...not relaxed, exactly, his shoulders were tight with tension, but unafraid. It made no sense; Joe had to be missing something, and not just the fact that this Immortal had apparently trained the other three Horsemen.

"Oh, Adam," the Immortal said, sympathy in his voice, completely different from his reaction to Duncan. "Why?"

"Kronos and Caspian...they were rabid dogs, unwilling and unable to change their ways even after so long, and you know Silas always went along with them..."

"They hadn't changed?"

"Upgraded their methods, but they had the same goals in mind, and I don't think even you could have changed their minds."

The Immortal smiled sadly. "You did good." He turned to Duncan. "I release you from my Challenge. If Adam says it was necessary, it was necessary."

"Stick around?" Methos asked. "I'm sure Joe's full of questions, and you can always ignore MacLeod when he gets preachy."

"Sure, I've got some time on my hands now that I don't have to spend it recovering from a Quickening."

Challenge

Sam's current assignment was both tricky and volatile, one of the ones who didn't think twice before killing any mortals who saw something they shouldn't- exactly the kind of Immortal that Watchers tried to keep their distance from, observing only from a distance. But today he hadn't had a choice. The Butcher had chosen to take his most recent victim into the alley that Sam had been in, barely giving him enough warning to conceal himself. It wasn't the first time it had happened to Sam, and if it had been nearly any other Immortal Sam would have been glad of the opportunity to watch their fight from so close- he was an unabashed geek about sword fighting, which was why he had this assignment in the first place- but that didn't do anything to make him less afraid.

The Butcher had a reputation. He was a headhunter, but only the oldest and most obscure Immortals were "good enough" for him, the ones who'd survived for a minimum of a thousand years. Something like 90% of his victims didn't have a Watcher when they ran into the Butcher, and the remainder all had a history of losing their Watchers for long periods of time. There were always Immortals who managed to slip away from the Watchers' notice, but those who did it to such an extent were few and far between, and a lot of those had the same feelings about killing Watchers that the Butcher did, along with more of a tendency to notice Watchers than he did.

Fuck, Sam hoped he wouldn't get noticed.

The Butcher's victim didn't look like much. No matter how long he was in this business, Sam kept half-expecting Immortals to look different, somehow. More muscular, taller, that sort of thing. But then, that was the point, wasn't it? You really couldn't tell unless you were an Immortal yourself. The victim- okay, okay, he might not be the one who would lose today, but the Butcher had killed the rest of the Immortals he'd fought, so Sam felt justified calling the guy a victim until proven otherwise- looked more like a grad student than anything else, all scruffiness and cheap, baggy clothes, but Sam knew how much those kind of clothes could conceal, in terms of both weapons and the condition of an Immortal's body. Immortals couldn't change their features, but they could and did rely on misdirection- like con artists, the way they presented themselves almost did more to convince mortals (and possibly other Immortals) than words alone could. A change of clothes and hair, and an Immortal who looked like he could win the Game was transformed into one who looked like he couldn't even pick up a sword, much less fight well. You learned quickly not to judge from appearances, in this business.

The Butcher wasn't good about cleaning up his victims' bodies, so Sam would probably have plenty of time to take note of identifying information from the body, but just in case he set in to memorize the victim's features. The nose would be a good place to start the search; there weren't many people, Immortal or otherwise, with noses that impressive.

"I don't suppose we could talk this out?" The victim asked, the note of humor in his voice showing what he thought the likelihood of that was. As a (presumably) older Immortal, he surely had enough experience with headhunters to know which ones wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. His eyes were already scanning the alley, calculation in them: learning the territory. They lingered for a little bit too long on Sam's hiding spot, and his breath caught in his throat. Had he been spotted? But the victim's eyes slid past to the only entrance to the alley again, behind the Butcher.

In reply the Butcher growled and pulled out his sword. He wasn't really one for conversation…or other Immortals.

"Well then," the victim said, his eyes snapping back to the Butcher. "I suppose that's my answer." Accepting that he wasn't going to get out of it, he drew his own sword. A hand and a half sword, maybe an Ivanhoe?

It wasn't boasting to say that Sam was one of the best Watchers at identifying sword fighting techniques, maybe even the best- just simple fact. It was why he had this assignment. There was always an element of uncertainty to it, especially with Immortals- it was more of an art than a science- but Sam could identify when and where Immortals had learned their fighting styles, and through that and their skill, how old they were. The more he saw of a particular Immortal's fighting style, the better he could pinpoint it, but even the first few seconds told him something, and based on this victim's initial stance at first he thought that the Butcher had made a mistake. With a stance like that, the victim couldn't be older than a century- no older Immortal would possibly…oh!

They engaged for the first time, the Butcher attacking first, and the victim's style slid effortlessly into another; Sam revised his estimate upwards. There was no way the victim was anything less than 500 years old, and now Sam was pretty sure that the Butcher hadn't made a mistake after all. Sure, some people were naturally better than others, and sometimes it was hard to tell if skill came from natural ability or simply lots of practice, but there were some things that needed a lot of practice, and that right there- that effortless transition- was one of them. And the victim had started out pretending he was less skilled than he actually was- probably still was, for that matter. It took a while for most Immortals to learn that kind of subtlety, and to be confident enough in their ability that they weren't afraid to do less than their best. It only took one error to lose the Game, after all, and downplaying one's ability meant making errors deliberately.

The Butcher was good, though; he wasn't going to be beaten by an Immortal pretending to have that little experience. There was a reason he went after older Immortals, after all: they were a better challenge. He pressed his advantage to back the victim deeper into the alley, almost to the back wall, but he was still playing, trying to draw the victim out and ignoring some fairly large holes in his defense. "Fight, damn you!" he finally growled in frustration; the victim had cut clothing and random patches of blood but was still pretending he was only 500 years old.

"All you had to do was ask." Sam would have thought the tone was playful if he hadn't seen those eyes. They were…feral was the only word he could think of to describe it. As if a switch had been flipped, a fire lit, and now the victim was the hunter on the prowl. He paused to shrug off his jacket, and the Butcher let him, glad that his prey was finally taking him seriously. Beneath the jacket he had on a T-shirt reading Si hoc legere nimium eruditiones habes. He'd probably learned Latin before it had become a dead language.

The first pass was fast-paced and furious, the victim's style closer to the ones Sam only knew because he'd been the Butcher's Watcher for so long. Most Watchers didn't get the chance to see the older styles even once in their lifetime- there weren't many Immortals old enough still alive, and those who were tended to be good at avoiding Challenges. Coming out of it, the Butcher was grinning; this was what he lived for, challenging his skills against the best and oldest. "Now that's more like it!" he said as they paused briefly, both of them untouched.

The victim rolled his eyes. "I have stuff to do today. Can we hurry this up?"

The Butcher growled and attacked again, but they were evenly matched. Here and there an attack made it through the other's guard, but they were all minor nicks and cuts, nothing major. They separated again, their cuts already healed, and circled, sizing each other up again.

The victim had apparently given up on escaping from this Challenge, not even glancing at the mouth of the alley even as his eyes swept the rest of it, again lingering on Sam's position. Shit! Sam was almost certain he'd been spotted, and if he had, his chances of living much past the end of this Challenge weren't very good. But the victim's attention was only on him for a moment before he made a move that was a combination of a shrug, rolling his head on his neck, and shaking himself all over to loosen up. When he finished, his style was different again, this time something that even Sam hadn't seen before. He didn't pretend to have seen every style ever, but he'd seen enough over the course of his career to make at least a guess, and this…this he couldn't even guess where or when it came from, it was so different.

If you could get over the violence, Challenges were beautiful to watch: two extremely skilled athletes doing what they did best, engaged in a deadly dance full of give and take. The more skilled the fighters, the more beautiful it was, but the victim took it a step further, elevating it to an art form all by himself. He'd shed his carefully-constructed guise of posture and movement. Never mind what his hair and clothes said about him, it was impossible to see him as anything other than an apex predator when he moved like that. He wasn't anything like the Butcher's usual victims, who might be able to match him for a time but inevitably fell before him; this Immortal danced around the Butcher's blade with ease, playing with him like the Butcher had done to him when he'd been downplaying his skill. He didn't even have to parry; wherever the Butcher's blade was, he simply wasn't, and the Butcher was gaining new wounds faster than the old ones could heal.

It was the first time Sam had seen fear on the Butcher's face, and it would be the last. In the blink of an eye, his sword went flying into the trash bags piled in the dumpster and he fell to his knees, the victim standing above him with his sword raised.

"Sure you wouldn't like to talk this out?" he asked, the sword flashing down without waiting for an answer. The Quickening was amazing, and Sam was in the perfect position to watch it and not get hurt, but he couldn't pay any attention to it, his mind stuck on what he'd seen when the victim held his sword up. There, clearly visible from Sam's hiding place, was the telltale round blue tattoo of a Watcher, twin to his own. His mind was gibbering at the implications of it- the victim was a Watcher! An Immortal was in the Watchers! How? Why? How could they be sure that any of their information was accurate?

Maybe he should have run away while he had the chance, while the victim was still recovering from the Quickening- he could lose himself for long enough to let the Watchers know that there was an Immortal among them, at least, and do some good with the last few minutes of his life since he didn't think he'd live long either way- but his window of opportunity was closed before he could break out of the stupor the revelation had put him into.

"Bugger," the victim- not such a victim anymore, but he didn't have another name for the Immortal- said, the mild curse seeming strangely out-of-place coming from his lips, and got back to his feet. "I don't suppose there's any chance you slept through all that?" he asked, looking straight at Sam's hiding place. Terrified, Sam didn't dare reply, but the Immortal didn't seem to care. "Didn't think so," he answered himself, sounding suddenly tired. "You can come out now. I don't bite." He frowned at the Butcher's body. "…That's not too believable after this little scene, is it?" No, it really wasn't. But the Immortal turned his back on Sam to root around in the dumpster, giving him at least the illusion of being able to walk away without consequence. Damn him. Sam had always been too curious for his own good; it was what had gotten him into the Watchers in the first place, and he might as well spend his last few minutes doing something other than running for his life.

He crept out of his hiding place as the Immortal found what he was looking for- the Butcher's sword. A trophy? But he took it back to the Butcher's body and laid it between his hands, the tip of it pointing towards the body's feet, before picking up the head and positioning it as best he could on the neck. For the life of him, Sam couldn't figure out what the Immortal was doing. Sure, some Immortals cleaned up after Challenges they'd won, but that wasn't what this was.

He couldn't help himself. "What are you doing?" he asked, and his hand flew to his mouth to keep from asking any more stupid questions- and they were all stupid, at this point. Don't annoy the Immortal, and maybe he'll let you live a few more minutes.

"Funeral," the Immortal replied, though, apparently not having a problem with questions, or at least that question. He paused and looked at Sam. "You've been his Watcher for a while, right? Would you like to say a few words?"

"…I'd rather not speak ill of the dead at their own funeral," he admitted reluctantly.

The Immortal snorted. "Yeah, somehow I didn't think he'd gotten any better since the last time I ran into him. Well then." He straightened up, suddenly not the same person the same way he'd switched earlier. Sam hadn't known it was possible to imply priest with merely a change of posture and expression, while everything else about him screamed student, but somehow it was. Maybe it was the way he stood, straight-backed and with his shoulders back, or his expression- wiped clean of the cynicism and weariness of earlier, his eyes somehow clear, hopeful, and kind. However he did it, he somehow managed to convey priest so well that Sam could almost see the regalia that wasn't there. He had no doubt that somewhere along the way the Immortal had been a priest.

He wasn't a linguist, so he didn't even try to place the language that the Immortal spoke in, much less understand it, but the Immortal translated for his benefit. "We consign to thee, O Gods, this man, known to me as Mnestis. In death let him find the peace he never accepted in life." A moment of silence, and the Immortal shrugged off the priest persona, returning to the tired one- the real one? Was it even possible to tell, with Immortals?

"Mnestis?" Crap, he was asking questions again.

Again, the Immortal wasn't upset at him. "No idea if it's his real name, but it's the only one I know of. Somebody in the Watchers didn't realize it was a name, so they translated it like a nickname or title- the Butcher. But at the time it was more like one of the names like Rose or May now- just a name that you're not supposed to actually translate."

"And…the funeral?" Well, if he was going to die anyway, might as well satisfy his curiosity before then.

"Just something from my first life," the Immortal dismissed, and then looked Sam straight in the eyes for the first time. "Damn, I was hoping I remembered wrong and somebody else was his Watcher. You're something Myerson, right? Stan?"

"Sam," Sam corrected automatically.

"Sorry. Sam. They don't make us memorize names in Research like they do in Field- we can always double-check them if we need to." He sighed. "Of course I had to get caught by one of the unbribable Field Watchers. Couldn't make things easy for me for once…" he muttered to himself, tilting his head back to look at the sky. "I know I dedicated myself to you, but is this really necessary? Really?" Or maybe those gods of his. "You are unbribable, right?" he asked Sam.

The smart thing to do would be to lie, but being smart wasn't something Sam was accused of a lot. He nodded.

"And you weren't nodding off, which means you saw enough that I can't convince you I'm young, not with your skills." The Immortal dismissed the possibilities at breakneck speed, narrowing them down to just one. Sam tensed, knowing what was coming. "Damn it. I'd hoped to be a Watcher for a while longer."

"What?" Sam blurted out. Even if the Immortal was in Research- and it was hard to imagine how he could have been a Field Watcher- he had to know that if he killed Sam there wouldn't be any way to trace it back to him; why would he have to stop being a Watcher?

"I'm not going to kill you for doing your job," the Immortal said. "If I didn't believe in what the Watchers are doing, I wouldn't have joined them."

"But you're an Immortal!"

"Immortals aren't allowed to care about their own history now?" he snapped, then rubbed his hands down his face and sighed. "Don't mind me; it's the Quickening. Do what you want. I'm going to Joe's, if you want to talk. Or avoid me." He put the jacket back on. With it buttoned up, he looked like just another person, not an Immortal covered in his own blood, but he hadn't switched back to the student persona he'd walked into the alley wearing; he still looked dangerous, just not suspicious. A side effect of the Quickening? The Watchers only knew what they could observe, and unfortunately that meant there were a lot of gaps in their knowledge. Immortals didn't tend to talk about how Quickenings affected them with even their closest mortal friends, and the observed effects changed from Immortal to Immortal and Quickening to Quickening.

Sam couldn't help but stare at the Immortal's back as he walked out of the alley, leaving Sam alive behind him. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen an Immortal do, and he still didn't know the Immortal's name.

Changes

Although you expected the Great Reveal to happen sometime soon, it still comes as a surprise. Every Immortal you know has been bracing for it for years, knowing that it was inevitable, but there is a difference between being prepared for it in theory and being prepared for it in practice. This isn't just a minor, easily predictable change, but one which changes everything. You don't know the forms that change will take, much like Immortals couldn't have predicted the Game when the Bronze Age began, simply that they will be profound.

Oh, you can predict some of the immediate consequences of the Great Reveal: a good deal of talk and debate about Immortality by people who know very little about it, followed by responses by the various governments in the form of laws and legislation. Some responses will be reasonable, but others will be intolerable. The most you can do is hope that your family and friends will be able to withstand the initial storm; eventually you will all become accustomed to the new world, but that will take a while, and the beginning is usually the most dangerous.

Immortals tend to follow the laws in the same way that a man with a body in his trunk will drive under the speed limit: not for any inherent respect for the law, but because being suspected of anything could easily lead to worse crimes being discovered. On the whole, Immortals are law-abiding, but few- if any- of them believe that any government should have anything to do with the Game, whereas governments will no doubt feel it is their duty to end the Game- or at least regulate it.

Thanks to a large number of Immortal politicians and journalists in America, it's one of the first to give an official response to the Great Reveal, behind only a few dictatorships which don't have to wait for their response to pass through the slow workings of Democracy, and is the first to respond in a way that Immortals like.

Oh, there aren't enough Immortals in Congress to make Immortals entirely happy; they have to compromise on some things. But a policy of non-discrimination towards Immortals and not interfering with the Game so long as the rules are adhered to are more than most Immortals had dared to hope for, especially since the United States wields so much influence on other countries. The only thing any of them have to complain about is the Visible Weaponry Law- the law which will come into effect on the New Year mandating that Immortals must not conceal their primary weapon whenever they're carrying one. After lifetimes of hiding what they are, showing the world what they are feels like walking around naked and vulnerable, but it's a small price to pay. Anybody who doesn't like it can leave; the world is a big place, and Immortals are skilled at finding places to hide- there are always places with no real government in which to hide, deserted islands and deep in the wilderness. And from the beginning America institutes a policy of offering asylum to Immortals from countries with less enlightened policies.

Canada is, unfortunately, one of those countries, much as you'd predicted. A string of beheadings twenty years ago- ironically, by a mortal serial killer who had been stopped using his own methods by an Immortal headhunter- is the first thing to spring to the minds of the politicians, and unfortunately sets the tone of Canada's new Immortal laws- they don't want any Immortals in the country, and are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that the country is comprised of only mortals, short of execution.

The day the announcement is made, you turn in your resignation before Inspector Thatcher can begin the official tests for Immortality, dressed in civilian clothes with your sword at your hip. The VWL hasn't taken effect yet, but already it's become the style for Immortals to wear their swords visibly in America. You're soon to be American; you might as well adapt now. And it helps prevent questions; Inspector Thatcher looks shocked and upset, but she doesn't ask any questions or try to talk you out of leaving. How could she? This time you've been declared persona non grata not just by the RCMP, but by Canada herself.

Vocation

At first, the furthest thing from Mulan's mind had been enjoyment of her time in the army, or fitting in. She was a woman in the army; she would never fit in. And as for enjoyment, she hadn't joined out of choice, she had joined because it was the only option she had. Her father couldn't have served again, she'd known it then and her opinion didn't change once she was actually in the army. But somewhere along the way, she'd started to fit in. And once she'd started to get better, along with the rest of the new recruits, it was like something had snapped into place in her, like something broken had been made right.

She'd always been the failure, the girl who wasn't girlish enough, who couldn't manage to do anything right. When she'd joined the army, it had been the same: she'd been a failure at being a man. She hadn't been able to do anything right, but that was how it had been for her entire life, nothing out of the ordinary. She'd had her whole life to practice being a woman and she'd failed at that; why shouldn't she have failed at being a man when she'd started with only a few minutes' practice under her belt? But then she'd gotten it right. Somehow. And it was like the sun breaking through the clouds, her whole life being wrong suddenly set right.

She wanted to do this for the rest of her life.

Dinosaur ideas

Amanda Grayson was one of the mortals raised in the Dinosaur Family, who keep in contact with Spock. Sulu is totally an Immortal (not Family)- originally 18th century swashbuckler? POV Uhura, totally. Or the whole senior crew. *evil laughter*

Modern day- Methos gets the urge to celebrate one of his original holidays and drags everybody else in with him.

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.

Gods of his Youth

Methos was young once.

 

In those days, mortal youth was short. Life was hard, and few mortals were blessed enough to live longer than a few decades. From the time he was old enough to obey, Methos worked. On festival days, he listened to the priests, enraptured by the tales they told of the gods. Nimet the god of summer, perpetually at war with Kallor, goddess of winter. Draray, who wove the world out of her own being. Ineet, goddess of death and love, who was very creative when seeking her revenge. But his favorite was Yemi, spoken of only in whispers, god of a host of scattered areas with no explanation for why: hunting and knowledge and doing what had to be done and the kind of luck that kept you alive when you should have died. He was a god who didn't want to be worshipped, for mortals to come to depend upon his aid: there were no festivals dedicated to him, no sacrifices given. Any prayers offered to him were furtive and hidden.

It hadn't taken the priests long to notice his interest and take him as their apprentice. Where his agemates' minds were firmly rooted to the ground, his seemed to reach for the heavens every chance it got, as was fitting for a priest. Farmers and hunters had no time to care for anything other than the physical; the higher world was the task of the priests, who had to be able to look towards it. He wasn't able to dedicate himself to Yemi, so he dedicated himself to all the gods, and none.

He died sheltering a boy from a half-starved lion with his body. It wasn't a priest's job to protect anybody's physical body, but he thought that Yemi would approve.

 

He awoke at a fireside and knew immediately that he must be in Irtai, the land of the dead. He hadn't survived the lion's attack, of course; he had known that he wouldn't, and now he was in no pain. But when he opened his eyes he didn't see Ineet, but a man with dark hair and only one eye who explained what he was.

In those days, Immortal youth was long. Bronze weapons were still new enough that few carried them, although new fear of permanent death had made them an increasingly popular trend among Immortals; never before had there been anything which could so easily kill an Immortal. Already, Immortals hundreds and thousands of years old had died at the hands of Immortals wielding bronze weapons. The age of Immortal suspicion had only just begun, and had not yet affected Immortal youth.

Immortals, so long-lived and having no reason to fear each other, kept their students until they had taught them all they could, the joys of life and secret knowledge they had accumulated over their lifetimes. There was no reason not to do so, and every reason to; what other purpose was there to their lives? Immortals were considered young for hundreds of years- free to roam, as nothing could harm them, but always attached to an older Immortal who taught them the ways of Immortality and the wider world.

It was a time of rapid change for Immortals. They either adapted quickly or not at all, killed by the bronze swords they refused to learn to use. To a people made static and pacifistic by never dying, the change was too great for many to adapt quickly enough. And for those who remained, suspicion was high. Swords meant protection and threat; the Buzz changed from joyous announcement of Immortal company to warning of possible death. Even students weren't safe from suspicion, young though they were. Weren't they Immortal, too? Rumors abounded about the horrors their kind had begun to perpetuate on each other, even the students. Perhaps especially the students, who after all had not been steeped in the traditions of Immortals as long as their elders had. Around them, the usual teaching period grew shorter and shorter, and the War became worse and worse. They hadn't called it the Game yet.

But through it all, his teacher remained the same, a solid if unusual rock for him to steady himself on. Even Methos, newly Immortal, could trace the changes in the world of Immortals, could see the suspicion and terror in the eyes of the Immortals they met, but his teacher showed none of it, though it seemed that every time they met another Immortal there was more news of his friends' deaths and worse suspicion.

As a priest, Methos had been taught how to observe. How to watch the world for signs from the gods, to better serve them and live in harmony with their desires. How to watch his people, to learn their characters and serve them best. How to watch outsiders, to see past their words to their hearts and discover if they were friends or enemies- protecting the tribe from human dangers was a spiritual duty. His tribe was limited now, only himself and his teacher, so he found himself often watching his teacher. He felt lost, unable to fulfill his duty. He couldn't even figure out his teacher, much less help him as he had helped his first people. But as time passed, he began to weave together the bits and pieces he knew into something resembling knowledge.

 

Time passed, and Methos grew in experience. Piecemeal, his youth slipped away, seeming to take his faith in the gods with it. His hands stained red with the blood of the first mortal he killed, a lover who tried to kill him, he lost his faith in Ineet. Nimet was lost in the icy north, snowy all year round. His faith in Draray just unraveled over time. But throughout it all, he kept his faith in Yemi- after all, even if he called himself by a different name now, wasn't he Methos's own teacher?

Leaving

The Immortals- or at least the ones you know- have known it was coming for a long time. No matter how quiet most of you keep on the subject, there are always those who are willing to talk, even if it isn't in their best interests. You know it's coming, and coming soon.

The portents, both those mystical and those more mundane, have increasingly been pointing to Canada being a poor environment for Immortals after the Great Reveal. Already many of your fellows have left for other countries or for the North, where there are few enough people that official repercussions can be easily avoided, so long as one lives and lets live.

You've almost decided to quit your job and move to someplace more remote (it's a difficult decision; you've loved Canada for longer than it's been Canada, and have scarcely stepped foot outside of her in centuries, but on the other hand, although you didn't start life that way it's now difficult to imagine not being an officer of the law, and it will almost certainly be impossible to continue being one in Canada) when you're told of Robert Fraser's death.

Robert Fraser, who allowed you to graft yourself onto his family tree, to be the son he never had. You're told at his funeral that he was the last of a dying breed, and maybe it's true. He took you as his son with scarcely a question, fewer than you would have asked if you had been in his position. You will not allow his murder to go unsolved, even if you must delay your plans and leave Canada to deal with it.

Age

There was no part of being an Immortal that was purely good. Every silver lining had its cloud. Their quick healing led to them often being rejected from wherever they made their homes, or killed- sometimes even tortured. Their long lifelines just led to grief, loss, and survivor's guilt. Their memories, sharper, clearer, and without loss, meant they remembered everything. It was a blessing for the good memories. Their oldest memory was as fresh as the day it was made. If they wanted to, they could relive their happiest memories on a daily basis, but it was impossible to live as long as Immortals did and only have good memories. They couldn't forget even their most tedious memories, or their most traumatic, and the worst of them had a habit of resurfacing when they were least wanted.

Xander remembered, as if they had happened only yesterday, every moment of his life. He remembered the yellow crayon incident and Buffy coming to town. He remembered the dinosaurs and the first mammals and Amy the rat. He remembered hunting for food, for survival, to save the lives of innocents. He remembered Jesse. He remembered the True Demons.

What he didn't remember was being young. He didn't remember what it had felt like to live in a world where he wasn't the oldest person alive. He didn't remember what it was like to be inexperienced, or naïve, or bad at fighting. He had the memories, but somewhere along the way, those feelings had vanished, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't remember what they had felt like. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be young.

[Edited 1/25/2010]

Experimental Magic

Someday, books will be written about magic. Spells will be passed on in Latin, and most of the accurate books will be in dead languages.

Latin doesn't exist yet. Writing doesn't exist yet. Magic has yet to be formalized to any degree- it's all just amateurs stumbling around in the dark, experimenting to find out what works and what doesn't.

Xander had never considered learning magic. He'd never been much of a book learner, and as it was he'd spent too much time reading old books in languages he halfway understood with the help of dictionaries and illustrations. He hadn't been about to volunteer to do it more, and the more he encountered magic the warier he'd become of it- especially once Willow had started to slide down the slippery slope. But he isn't the same person he'd been back then, and this experimental magic appeals to him. It isn't set in stone like magic had always seemed in his first life, merely endless possibilities to do what he wills, like a piece of wood for carving or an ingot of metal for forging.

It'll be dangerous, but there isn't much in life that isn't dangerous. When carving wood, his knife could slip. When forging metal, he could burn himself. His creations, no matter the medium, could be turned against him deliberately or accidentally. But he'd learned how to be careful while taking risks a long time ago. Mostly it meant taking things slowly, and he has all the time he wants to take things slowly.

[edited 01/26/2010]

Faith

Methos had no memory of his first life, beyond vague impressions which were more feelings then memories, but he remembered the Gods, and he remembered that while he had never been the firmest believer in them, neither had he been the most skeptical.

So he sang to the Gods at sunup and sundown, trying to hold on to the few memories of his first lifetime that he remembered. Despite his teacher's assurances that he'd never forget anything again, he couldn't shake the feeling that if he'd lost his memory once it could happen again, if he didn't hold them tight. By his teacher's body language he knew he wasn't a believer, but he never said anything aloud.

"A lot of the Gods were or are Immortals," he told Methos around the fire one night five winters after he'd taken him in as a student. "You combine somebody with powers like ours, or magic, or anything outside of the realm of easy understanding, with people who don't have them, and you get one of two reactions most of the time: fear or awe. And either of those can turn into worship or a mob trying to kill you. We're only human. A lot of us were perfectly willing to be worshipped."

"Lyara? Soldash?" Methos asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't keep himself from asking. He clung to his faith as one of the few things remaining from his first life, not because he was convinced of the existence of the Gods, but because it was one of the few familiar things in a world that already seemed unrecognizable from time and travel.

"I don't know every Immortal, or every God," his teacher replied. "Anyway, I figure it's better to believe in Gods that don't exist than to not believe in Gods that do exist. You never know when a God's passing themself off as an Immortal."

"Inar?" slipped past Methos's lips before he could stop it. He felt the strongest connection to Inar of all the Gods. If his teacher picked that one to discredit… Methos held his breath.

"Inar?" his teacher said, a strange expression on his face. "I haven't gone by that in centuries. People are worshipping me?" He sounded disturbed. "I'm not a God."

Methos looked at him and thought. Inar was the God of hunting and knowledge and the kind of luck that kept you alive when you should have died. His teacher wasn't anything like how he'd imagined Inar to be.

He never said a word about it, but from that moment onward he had faith like he'd never felt before.

To Uncover What Is Hidden

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5574114/1/To_Uncover_What_Is_Hidden

Comforting

When he thought about it, Methos found it a comfort.

No matter how many times you died, there was always that lingering fear that next time it would be permanent, that there was some magic number of temporary deaths to be reached and then, poof! You were dead for good. So really, it was a comfort for him to know that there was somebody around who was so much older than he was, that had died so many more deaths than he had.

It was the same role he played for the younger Immortals: somebody who was always older than them, older than they could hope to survive even with the best of luck. Old enough to make them feel young, even when the mortals around them had the lifespans of mayflies.

To Live For

He'd long since discarded the idea of ever being normal; he was fairly certain that threshold had been reached well before his first death, and the time travel hadn't helped it any. He wasn't even sure if he could act normal; too many things had passed from habit into reflex for him to change his behavior anything other than slowly.

Somehow, he'd held out this hope that once humans were around everything would be all right, that he'd be able to fit in and live a normal life or ten. But that wasn't how it happened. He'd spent so much time pinning his hopes on the first humans he saw that the reality fell far short of his expectations. They were better than the demons, but the world was a rougher place than it had been in his first lifetime, even if the conflicts were smaller in scale.

Even after all this time, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to live to the time of his first life. What did he have there? Friends who were scattered across the globe and still managed to wish him gone, who he'd worked through all his emotions toward until they were as minimal as his emotions toward strangers. What did he have in this time? Not enough to live for, and that was unlikely to change any time soon.

Sometimes, the only thing keeping him sane was his students. Teaching them to the best of his ability was something to live for, and they were young enough to still be enthusiastic about the world, in whatever way they were enthusiastic.

He had a lot of students over the years; he travelled around enough to run into a lot of pre-Immortals and new Immortals, and he taught all of them who were the slightest bit receptive. Some of them were cheerful. Some of them were angry. Some of them were determined. But they were all enthusiastic about something, and that was something he could live for, seeing and fanning the fire in their eyes.

In a Funk

Some days, it was hard to get out of bed, much less muster any enthusiasm about doing the same monotonous thing for centuries if he was lucky, hours if he wasn't…although there were days when he thought the luck of those options was the opposite. Days when there was nothing new, nobody to live for. Nobody to put on a cheerful face for.

It was always worse when he died. No matter how much the others swore they felt normal when they woke up, he was always chilled, a bone-deep chill from his body temperature dropping as he spent time as a corpse and made him want to just stay dead when he came back to life. It never went away quickly, either, always lingering and making him lethargic and disinterested in anything, even trying to act normally as he did under any other circumstances.

He was surprised, every time he broke out of his post-revival funk, that he hadn't been killed for good. It was what every Immortal wanted, an unresisting Immortal at their mercy, right? But then, chaos had always dogged his steps, so maybe he shouldn't be so surprised when the unlikeliest things happened around him.

Immortal Purity Test

Somebody makes an internet purity test based on what they've heard in an Immortal drinking game similar to "I Never" (last one to die of alcohol poisoning wins). It's posted on a forum used by Immortals (the FAQ claims they're "roleplayers" who meet IRL. There are a few members who have no idea that Immortals are real and not just pretend; they're usually easy to spot, but one guy is mortal and nobody else knows it), including Amanda and Methos. They're amused enough by it that they're having fun with it in the bar, and manage to drag Richie and Joe into it (both of them are very pure), and a reluctant Duncan (he's done more, but he's still pretty pure). Amanda isn't as unpure as you'd think, and Methos is down at like 2% plus a decimal because there are just that many items. Duncan says there must not be anybody who's 0% pure, but Methos says he knows somebody.

Sample items:
been burned at the stake
had a slave
been a slave
successfully pretended to be the opposite sex
used the opposite sex as a long-term identity

All ideas are free for the taking.

Awakening

Wake up, bleary-eyed, to the incessant beep of your alarm clock going off too early after the late-night stakeout you'd been on the night before. Groan and turn the noisy thing off, rolling out of bed and gaining momentum with the somewhat dubious ease of years of experience with too little sleep. Wish, for an instant, to return to the days before alarm clocks were popularized.

Abandon that foolish thought as you step into your nice refreshing shower. Once again thank God for the invention of indoor plumbing and the water heater.

Pull on your clothes with a smile at being allowed to wear pants- you'd learned how to fight in even the most cumbersome skirts out of necessity, but it's so much easier when you can wear pants.

Head outside to get the newspaper, your only source of news from yesterday since you'd been on the stakeout during the news last night. Pause to see the beauty of sunlight striking the dew on the grass; although you have seen tens of thousands of scenes like it, your teacher had managed to instill a sense of wonder at nature's beauty in you. Consider being a photographer in your next lifetime; this life might have just begun, but it's never too early to make plans- the unexpected has a tendency of happening, especially to your "family".

Shake the dew off of the plastic bag covering your newspaper as you take it inside. Peel the bag off and drop it in the trash can, dropping the paper on the table without a second glance on your way to getting out the Rice Krispies.

Prepare your cereal the way you like it: with more sugar than most people like and less than your teacher uses on it, and still more than a little crisp.

Unfold the newspaper and freeze, your cereal going soggy as you stare at the headline: "Immortals Among Us".

Wonder how long it will take before you're told to arrest yourself for existing.

Watching the Watchers

It had always amused Xander that so few Immortals knew about the Watchers. How hard was it to notice somebody watching you, especially since they had the handy Watchers' symbol somewhere on their person – usually in plain sight - to make them easy to find? Sure, most of the smart Watchers watched from a distance as much as possible, but a lot of Watchers weren't smart, and even the smartest couldn't always Watch from afar.

Occasionally Xander somehow picked up a Watcher. Sometimes it was baffling how they knew he was an Immortal, with as few heads as he'd taken and how little he interacted with other Immortals, but they found him somehow. He checked the Watchers' archives occasionally out of curiosity, and none of his identities had been linked. Half of the time, they thought he was a new Immortal, which amused him. When Methos had been a Watcher, he'd pointed him towards the Chronicles of his past lives, which had set him off muttering obscenities in languages Xander pretended not to know.

Amusingly, though, a few of his lives in the period after he'd been sent back in time had been linked to his first life. The Watchers knew that Alexander Lavelle Harris was an Immortal and when he had been born. They just didn't know how long he had lived.

The New Linguist

Jack grinned as he heard the sound of Daniel's voice. If he was back from recruiting that Pierson guy he could be a good distraction from Jack's mounds of paperwork since Carter had already kicked him out of her office. And if the Buzz was anything to judge on, Daniel had succeeded in his mission. Jack just hoped the new recruit wasn't a headhunter.

He rounded the corner, words of greeting on his lips, but they died when he saw who was with him. "What are you doing here?" he asked, rudely because he was so stunned.

"Jack!" Daniel snapped. "Sorry, Dr. Thomas, Jack's a little…"

"We know each other from a while back," 'Dr. Thomas' waved off the attempted apology, then answered Jack's question. "Dr. Jackson just hired me."

"Hired you?" Jack asked in confusion. "I thought the only position you had open was for a linguist, Daniel."

"It was," Daniel replied. "Dr. Thomas knows more languages than I do."

Jack turned to 'Dr. Thomas'. "I thought you said you'd never be a linguist."

"Yeah, because I'd have to take courses to teach me languages I already know," 'Dr. Thomas' said. "My doctorate's in women's studies. Dr. Jackson wouldn't even have glanced at me if Adam hadn't recommended me so I'd stop bumming his couch."

Jack could feel a headache coming on, which he hadn't even known was possible for Immortals. "Women's studies? Why?"

The other man shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do. Is us working together going to be a problem?"

Jack shook his head. "Just bad memories." 'Dr. Thomas' nodded in understanding. "Hey, why don't you come over to my house for dinner? We can catch up with each other's lives."

"Sure," 'Dr. Thomas' said. "I gotta stop by my house and feed the cats first though."

"You still have those menaces?" Jack asked, a horrified expression on his face.

He rolled his eye. "Not the same ones. They don't live that long, you know."

"I don't care," Jack said emphatically. "Your tigers are not invited to dinner."

"Tigers?" Daniel asked, breaking into the conversation they'd started to think of as semi-private.