| Disclaimer: Methos, MacLeod, and the immortal world are the property of
Rysher/Davis/Panzer, and all those people. I have nothing to do with them, except lots of
reading, mental visualization, and sometimes whining. You got a problem with this? You
really like this? Mail me at deparsons@earthlink.net. Warning: this is the product of a
challenge from a beta friend, and though it's not really what she asked for, it is of a slightly
mystic bent. Research was done, but I have taken some liberties for the sake of time, and
simplification.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!!! This fanfic is not meant to portray the endorsement of any
religion, Christian, Hindu, Pagan (although I'm out there on the dance floor with the
Meefinator myself) or otherwise, nor is it meant to bash any religion. It is an exploration
of the characters, prone to my whimsy, because I'm the one who wrote it, and the canon
rarely covers this.....
The opening scene with Sweeney Todd and Robert Powell is real, but the inspiration is
from the (discontinued, sniff sniff) Marvel comic book, "Hellstorm" #19 by Warren Ellis.
Thanks for the demented image of Methos watching old British shows!
Lyrics from "The Return of Pan" by Mike Scott and the Waterboys
Amand-r, Amanda Parsons, religious scholar and fable writer
Duncan stared at his guest, openly and without any heed that it might be annoying the
ancient immortal. Methos was sprawled out on the couch, flipping through the channels
on the television with the remote. Mac had let him have it, too, and now he was
wondering if it had been a bad idea.
Methos stayed on the Nick At Night station for the opening of the Mary Tyler Moore
show, then made a buzzer noise, and changed the station. Now they were watching a
rodeo.
"Ennnnnnnt," the older immortal said softly. New station, this time the local British
programming. Methos whistled.
"Hey, Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad, all right! This is the one where Robert Powell gets
blown up!" The older man took a big pull from his bottle and set the remote on the table
next to him. "This is a marathon, Quartermass, Doomwatch, all the good stuff."
Duncan grinned, and opened the text he was using for the classes he was teaching at the
University. Methos glanced at the cover.
"You're really torturing them with that stuff?" he asked Duncan.
Mac raised an eyebrow. "Yes, they were important. Not everyone was there, you know.
Can't all be five thousand years old."
The other immortal was silent, so he continued. "What? No cynical remark?" Methos
smirked. "Whaaaaat?" Duncan asked, smacking the old man with a pillow.
Methos turned to him, pale face even whiter in the candlelight that they had decided they
preferred for an evening of drunken speeches, and said it so simply. It was so easy for the
words to slip out
"Mac, an evil deed done in the name of good is still evil." Duncan cocked his head, waiting
for more ‘great enlightenment.' None came.
The television exploded, and Methos smirked, opening the second beer he had pulled out
for himself. "Ahhh," he said cheerfully. "Robert Powell just bought the big one."
Duncan chuckled, and lapsed into silence. Why did Methos always replace moments with
levity?
The older immortal, oblivious to the musings of the Scot, or probably ignoring them,
threw his considerable attention into the television screen.
"Mac. Mac. Mac. Mac," Methos chased the Highlander through the choking crowds of the
University courtyard. Duncan stopped and waited for the older Immortal to catch up, then
continued his fast paced walk to his office.
"What Adam?" he asked his companion. He wanted to be in and out of here as quickly as
possible. Some of the organizers of this whole "pagan" ritual might rope him into doing
something for it, and he wasn't all that interested in watching a bunch of college students
get drunk and writhe on a dance floor. Methos tugged on his sleeve, forcing him to slow
down.
A scantily clad female in some bastardized version of a toga twirled past him, winking.
Was that Sharon? He tsked at the grad student who was his Teaching Assistant for his
medieval warfare class.
"Mac, what is all this? It's like Animal House, on crack," Methos muttered.
"Greek Week," Duncan answered. It was Greek week, as he had said, but at Seacouver
University ‘Greek Week' actually meant a weeklong party for all the students, not just the
ones pledging fraternities and sororities. The entire third week of classes consisted of a
constant barrage of badly spoken Greek pick up lines (he's been propositioned about
twenty times by students and bold faculty members alike), hideously incorrect costumes
and lots and lots of laurels. Like wearing laurels was even Greek.
A demented part of Duncan that enjoyed annoying his friend by pushing his history
buttons had asked Methos if he wanted to come along on this errand just to get a rise out
of the old man. Besides, he was running low on beer, and if he had to watch another
British television marathon he was going to scream.
It didn't seem to be working. "None of this is Greek!" Methos burst out. His eyes drank in
the drunken students, wide, and very unlike the age he was supposed to be. Just then, a
man in a loincloth passed them, two younger girls hanging off him, plying him with
wineskins.
Methos's brows rose. "Okay, well, that was Greek..." His head followed the nearly naked
females as they passed. Duncan reached out and covered the other Immortals eyes with his
hand. "Hey!"
"Oh, so you agree with all of this, historical inaccuracy?" Duncan teased. They were
almost to his office, and he was almost home free. He has the bad feeling that if Sharon
was drunk enough (and it was eight in the evening on a Friday, what was he doing coming
here at this hour on this day? If he had wanted to avoid trouble he should have waited
until tomorrow morning.) she would proposition him, and he might hurt her feelings. She
was adorable, all blonde and curvy, but she was his assistant.
Methos grinned. "Since when has history ever been accurate?" He accepted a plastic cup
of wine that some drunken soul pressed into his hands as they passed. "Maybe history
would have been more exciting if it had been like this."
"Blah blah blah," Duncan muttered. He was of the opinion that this kind of activity only
served to cause more problems then it was worth, and although he had kept quiet about it
around the other faculty members, he was under no such compunction to do so when he
was with the world's oldest Immortal.
"Oh, Mac," Methos said cheerfully over his cup of wine. "You don't mean to tell me that
you think this is bad? A bunch of young people dancing their hearts away in a haze of
alcoholic fog? For shame," he sang. His grin only served to make the grumpy Scot even
more irate.
They ducked into the building, and the din from the courtyard and its blaring canned music
dulled somewhat. Duncan shook his head to clear it of the ringing.
"What I'm saying is-"
"Duncan!" Sharon, his teaching assistant, tumbled into the darkened building, her little
toga like dress hitching up on a pair of lovely tanned thighs. Her paste board sandals were
spray painted shimmering gold. Methos shoved away from the wall by Mac's office door,
and opened his arms.
"Let me guess, the silver-footed Thetis!"
Sharon giggled. "Nooooo."
Methos tilted his head. "Ah then, let me see, Greek, not the ox-eyed Hera...not
Aphrodite..." Sharon shook her head again. Mac watched her giving Methos the once
over, her eyes hungrily undressing him. She was drunk. Methos continued. "Daphne, I
should think, or perhaps, laughing Iris?"
"No!" Sharon smiled, heartbreaking bow of cupid lips and bright blue eyes. "Proserpina!"
Methos made a tsking noise. "Ohh, blending death imagery with the surface of beauty.
Lovely." He kissed her outstretched hand. "Adam Pierson. You are?"
Duncan coughed, and two pairs of amused eyes cast themselves on him. "Adam, this is
Sharon Regiele, my assistant for my medieval classes. Sharon, this is Adam Pierson...a
friend."
"Ah, the lady who picks up Duncan's slack," Methos jibbed, and bowed slightly to the
short girl. She laughed, throwing her head back.
Duncan stiffened. "Speaking of slack-" Methos cut him off.
"Duncan is less than impressed with the festivities," he purred.
Sharon raised an eyebrow. Maybe she wasn't as drunk as Mac had originally thought.
"I can see that," she lilted. "I left those papers on your desk."
"That's what I was here for," Duncan opened the door to his office and flipped on the
lights. Methos remained in the hallway with Sharon.
He heard her ask "So Adam, are you interested in the festivities?"
There was a momentary pause, and then Adam spoke, loud enough for him to hear. "Oh,
yes, it brings back a few memories." Duncan coughed, and leaned into the doorway to
glare at the older Immortal, who rolled his amused eyes, crinkled with laughter, the
corners of his mouth turned up and dented in a smile.
"So, you've been to a bacchanalia before?" Duncan choked on Sharon's phrase. She knew
what she was asking, didn't she? Bacchanalia. Okay, he had to admit, it was funny,
considering whom she was asking. Methos took it in stride.
"One or two," he murmured. "Although none of them were quite like, this." Duncan
flipped through the graded assignments to try and distract himself from scoffing too loudly
at the other immortal playing fast and loose with his student.
Sharon, as was expected, was totally oblivious. "Well," she cooed, and Duncan felt a
twinge of jealousy that she spoke to Methos in this way. "If you feel like it, you could join
us. We could be your Bacchae," she hinted suggestively. MacLeod thought to himself
behind a particularly bad paper that Methos probably had had his share of drunken women
already.
Methos made a reply to soft for Mac to hear from the office, but it must have satisfied
Sharon, because she made a little gasping noise and called out to him from the hallway as
Methos sauntered in and flopped down in one of the stuffed leather chairs.
"Oooh Duncan, where *do* you get your friends?"
Duncan rolled his eyes. "I was just wondering the same thing," he remarked dryly to a
smug ancient Immortal.
"Blah blah blah," Methos mimicked him, studying a volume of Scottish poetry from the
desk shelf.
"You are impossible," he told Methos when Sharon was out of the building.
"Oh, I don't know," Methos gazed out the window at the fire torches that bedecked the
edges of the courtyard. Duncan thought to himself that perhaps fire and drunks weren't a
good idea. "This isn't even remotely accurate in the setting sense of course," he looked
pointedly at Duncan. "But I think it's appropriate, don't you? All the learning the Greeks
gave us, all the plays, and the social systems, and the wonderful poetry, and they choose
to remember the rare instances where everyone ‘got pissed'" He sighed, and smiled, one
hand curled about his chin. "It's indicative of the times, I suppose."
"An ill wind that bodes no good," Duncan muttered. Methos set the book of poetry on the
desk and pulled out a tome of Hamilton's "Mythology."
"Tsk tsk, Duncan, you don't approve, really, do you? I thought it was just your Boy
Scout-ishness, but no," he paused, and leaned forward onto the desk, his face peering at
Duncan, who say behind the desk. "You don't like the idea of what? The drinking? The
sex? No no, that can't be it. Would it be, the gods? No, that couldn't be it."
Duncan blushed as Methos leaned back and buried his face in the book. "I would think
that you, oh kestrel of a man," the voice from behind the book was velvet and satin.
"Wouldn't mind a little lascivious behavior every now and then." The book shifted, and the
eyes of Methos, not Adam Pierson, came into view, sober, old, teasing?
"Its no' thaa," Duncan cursed his brogue. He took a few seconds to purge it from his
speech. If he used it the old immortal would never let him live it down. He changed the
subject to something less personal than his beliefs on paganism. "How can you endorse
this, Adam?"
The old man stared at him, his eyes stunned and amused. "How can I not?"
"You're usually so...practical!" Duncan sat back and fiddled with the straps of his leather
briefcase. "This isn't very safe for them, and I thought this was the very thing that the
public tried to get their children to avoid, drunkenness, sex, probably drugs-"
"Definitely drugs..." Methos mused, his eyes again on the courtyard lights. "But you
know, you'll have that."
"You say that. You, who ran with the Lord Demonic," he grinned. Methos winced. He
was still a little jittery about the idea of Byron, and Duncan being aware of their
relationship in the past. Duncan pressed on. "There's just so much more they could be
doing, it seems they take a step back with this kind of thing..."
"Oh?" Methos raised an eyebrow. "And just where does this originate, Duncan MacLeod
of the Clan MacLeod? Let me see," the older immortal paused. "What society was it that
shaped Western culture as we all know it? Hmmmm, I have no idea, you?" His eyes were
wicked in their merriment. "Could it be," Methos gasped, and put a hand over his heart.
"Oh no! Greece! No! Havens forfend!"
Mac chuckled. "You've made your point clear. I don't have to like it."
"You wouldn't be you if you weren't worried about these little children, Mac. And I
wouldn't be who I am if I didn't call you on it." He studied the book again. "Anyway, I
was thinking I might go out and socialize, you know, see if they're any different than they
used to be. Bacchanalias and all."
Duncan dropped his jaw. "But, it's so demented and indulgent!"
Methos rolled his eyes. "Oh, MacLeod, don't tell me you, Cassandra's pagan ‘Solstice
Child,' are stodgy in your religious beliefs."
"No," Mac said, indignant. "And this isn't religious. It's a Greek party. A bad Greek party,
if the terrible costumes are any indication."
It really wasn't as if Mac had any religious hang ups about God. As far as he was
concerned, God was everywhere, and hardly confined to one religion. He'd seen too many
faiths do well, and too many acts of ‘goodness' do just the opposite of their puritanical
claims.
What had Methos said to him, very pointedly, the night before?
An evil deed done in the name of good is still evil.
Was a good deed done in the name of evil, still good?
Ah, but this wasn't even done in the name of evil, and it wasn't evil anyway. Duncan knew
that...he just didn't like it. It didn't sit well.
Probably because he was having a hard time accepting any kind of Greek or Roman God
seriously. It was mythology, stories for Gods' sake (pun intended), lessons intended to
educate and amuse the youth of the world.
Methos slammed the book shut and threw it on the desk, crossing his arms. Duncan had
the feeling that he was in for the "Adam Pierson Ph.D." lecture on ancient religion.
"What's the problem then?" Mac was silent, and the old man barreled on. "They're
children, Mac. They're playing. They're partying. They're celebrating life. ‘For joyous
drunkenness,' as Byron might have said." He grinned. "One of the reasons to live and go
on, Duncan," he said softly.
The Scot smiled, knowing he was loosing the argument. "Why Methos," he said, invoking
the tones of the joker pointing out the obvious. "Who would have guessed that you have
such a hopeful soul.
Methos snorted and stared out the window. "Don't tell anyone."
They shared the silence, the music from outside, flutes and drums, and the whine of the
electric guitar dulled by the glass of the window. There was a shriek of a woman, and
laughter.
Methos was a statue, hand curled under his chin, arms crossed. Duncan buckled the straps
of his bag, and glanced around his office. Nothing really, else to get. Maybe he'd take that
Scottish verse with him. He picked the volume up, turning it over in his hands.
"'What man, what hero, what God,'" Methos whispered, eyes still on the window. He
turned then to the Highlander. "Pindar wrote that, Mac. Where do you think he was when
he did?" Methos smiled cryptically, and his eyes flitted from the window to his companion.
Duncan shook his head again.
"No..."
Methos nodded at his stunned expression. "Not all religion is ceremonial ritual,
MacLeod."
I know, but-"
"The Canaanites paid temple prostitutes in their worship of Ashram. The Israelites danced
through the streets of Jerusalem to honor God. Or, ah, try this:
"Then I thy name shall magnify
And tell thy praise abroad,
For very love and gladness I
Shall dance before my God.
"That would be a Vaishnavite hymn, MacLeod. Or ‘Love came a guest within my breast,
My soul was spread, Love banqueted.' Muslim verses?" He raised his eyebrows at the
Scot, who knew he'd lost. He played the last card. Again.
"But this isn't a religious exercise of devotion, Methos. This is debauchery, pure and
simple."
"Ahh, yes. Debauchery," Methos said wistfully, then deadpanned. "Wanton celebration,
from the root word Bacchus, the God of wine and indulgence." His eyes sparkled even as
his face remained passive. "You're right, this is debauchery!"
Mac stuffed the verse book into his bag. "You're hopeless."
Methos stood, and stretched, shedding his long coat, the sword in it clanking a bit on the
floor. Mac gave him a quizzical look. Methos grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
"No Mac, I'm polytheistic," Methos said sweetly, drained his wine cup, and headed for the
door. "Sometimes, you need the simplest pleasures." He left the room, then stuck his head
back in the door after two or three seconds. "You coming?"
"In a minute," Duncan told him. It was his turn to muse out the window, chin in hand,
staring at the lights of the torches until the orange glow hurt his eyes.
The music outside was infectious. He found himself tapping his toe even as he brooded
over the words of the older immortal.
Methos did have a point, however convoluted. This wasn't religious, but it didn't need to
be. Sometimes actions in themselves can become holy. Duncan had faced a demon, why
not a God? Was it really a stretch to include the Greeks Gods however symbolic and
insubstantial, in his expanding pantheon?
Mary MacLeod had raised her son to be a Christian, with the proper pagan influences, of
course. But Immortals, who have a different perspective on life in general, tended to
forget about religion for the most part. Then there was Darius. Or Alfred Cahill, the
psycho who thought he was an angel.
Was it that simple? Duncan believed that life itself was holy. How could something that
induced happiness be bad?
As the years became more and more burdening, as he had lost more and more, he had
been increasingly diffident about religion, about God.
And whose fault was that?
Oh, but Fitz, coming back from the grave, or maybe it was a hallucination, or maybe, just
maybe, there was something out there...
Look up, you silly Scot, look up!
Duncan smiled, and looked up. Nothing. Just a ceiling. But the point was made.
Maybe there was room for God. Or maybe there always was room for God, and Duncan
had chosen to ignore the possibility save for a few thousand lighted candles, and prayers
on the floor of Darius's church, in his hour of great need during the Dark Quickening.
But these Gods? Drunken, and virile, and symbols of a dead empire? Who believed in
them?
Duncan left his bag and coat in his office, and sauntered out into the courtyard sprawl of
the University. Methos, he spotted, true to his nature, near the makeshift bar, Sharon, and
Lisel, the new Humanities professor, hanging off his arms. Oh, silly silly man.
Lisel squealed with delight when he approached. "Duncan! Adam here told us you had
decided to skip out in favor of..." she stopped, and her brow furrowed, and she turned to
Adam. She was drunk. Methos made big, wide, innocent eyes at him. The gesture of
boyishness never reached his eyes. "What did you call it Adam?" Lisel asked.
"Yes, what, Adam?" Mac asked sweetly, accepting the glass of wine Sharon handed him.
Adam grinned then, not caring that Mac might not like his words. Duncan was sure then,
that it had been something at his expense.
"I said ‘ascetic monasticism.' You know, dull activities that shun all fun. Bludgeoning
oneself needlessly out of a driving urge to be a pain in the ass." Methos sipped from his
cup, and Mac noticed he made sure there were several drunken women between them.
The drums beat deafening rhythms again, and Lisel squealed. "Oooch! Dance!" Both
women began tugging on Methos's arms.
Methos winked at Mac. "Oh, I suppose I could recall how to do this..."
Sharon giggled. "I bet you're wicked on the dance floor, Adam."
"Yeah, Adam," Mac made his expression sickly sweet again. "I bet you're wicked."
Methos sighed in the manner of the forever oppressed. "Oh, all right," he wailed in a
perfect imitation of a five year old. Mac chuckled. The great old immortal, beaten by two
drunken women. It was too funny.
The music was a blaring heathen mix of rock and pipes, tambourine and drums.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, someone sang.
I stood upon the balcony weigh my brand new bride
The clink of bells came drifting down the mountainside
When in our sight something moved
Lightning eyed and cloven hooved
The Great God Pan is alive!
Duncan decided the only thing to do was pick up a glas of hideous wine (re: swill! Oh!
Bad!), and watch from the sidelines. This was not his kind of dancing.
Methos spun out onto the dance floor in the arms of Sharon and Lisel. Some other girl, a
dark eyed beauty placed a wreath of laurel and holly on his head as they gyrated and
moved. Methos was a snake upright, his long limbs moved with liquid fluidness as he
pressed his face to the girl and kissed her cheek, whispering in her ear. Her eyes lit up, and
she threw her little arms around his neck.
Duncan grinned. Who would have thought that Methos could dance? Then again, who
wouldn't have? The music was insane, all pipes and heavy guitar. Methos was demented
and wild.
He moves amid the modern world in disguise
It's possible to look into his Immortal eyes
He's like a man you meet anyplace
Until you recognize that ancient face
The Great God Pan is alive!
Lisel slid along Methos's back, her arms serpentine. Methos pressed Sharon to him,
swaying, throwing his head back, eyes closed. He was a lithe Puck, he was a stunning
Dionysis, Duncan mused.
Rayonna, his history professor in crime, sidled up next to him, nudging his elbow. Duncan
glanced at her, in her little stola, cup of bad wine in her hand. Her hair was a mass of
blonde curls in a Grecian setting, cascading down her pale shoulders. Not bad for a senior
professor.
"I love Greek Week at this school," she said soberly. "I love watching all these kids have
such an unholy time, you?"
Duncan watched Methos bend down to kiss the top of Lisel's head, and grinned. "Yeah, I
can see how this might be fun to watch," he said over the music.
Rayonna snorted. Her green eyes glimmered merrily. "Let me guess, you've been
inundated with bold offers from both sexes all week?" She raised an expert eyebrow, as all
good teachers could.
He blushed, and she grinned. "Oh, I can see how that would jade you. My first Greek
Week here, it was worse, I assure you. I was twenty four, full of myself, and I must have
been pinched and grabbed by half the faculty and students." She sighed. "Now, I'd pay for
that kind of attention."
Duncan stood back, and made a big show of looking her over. Oh, what the hell. It was
Greek Week.
"You look lovely," he sang, and pulled her down in a deep bow with him, kissing her lips.
She tasted like honey and wine. Oh, sweet sweet, this was lovely indeed.
Almost half of the dancers stopped and screamed, cheering hooting, waving their hands,
grabbing their dance partners, or merely the person closest to them, and kissing them.
There were shouts of "get a room!" and "Whooooo!" There was one lone loud
"Yeeeeeeeee haw!"
Rayonna was flushed. She leaned into him, hiding her face in his coat.
"My Lord, Duncan, you know how to make a girl feel loved!"
He chuckled. "It's Greek week, and people should do that to you more often." He flipped
a few of her curls in his hand. Rayonna blushed even more, adjusted the pin on her left
shoulder and crossed her arms, looking off onto the dance floor.
"If they did, I'd never get any work done! Your friend Pierson seems to have quite a
following. He looks like he's done this before."
Duncan stole a glance at Methos, twisting like he was being blown in the wind, several
different directions. His hips swayed to the music precisely, seductively, and Duncan
wondered if the man was drunk.
"In fact," Rayonna continued. "Doesn't he look like the poster of Pan? It's a striking
resemblance."
Duncan choked on his wine in mid-sip. "What?" he spluttered.
"The posters the students used for tonight." Rayonna pointed to the pillars of the
courtyard, plastered with paste board. "It's a recopy of some old text or something. A
rendering of Pan, the god of ‘partying in the woods' or something," Rayonna smirked.
"You sure he's human, your friend?"
Duncan stared at the poster, feeling his jaw unhinging for the umpteenth time in the past
half hour.
"That little, conniving, beer-mongering-" MacLeod muttered. It was a perfect rendition of
Methos, truly, if one took away the beard and cut the hair, there was the wry smug grin,
and the eyes, virtually sparking with merriment, like he knew something even when the
drawing had been made that the Highlander didn't know.
And perhaps he had. Perhaps he still did. Mac glared at Methos, bidding the older
immortal open his eyes and look at him. No such luck. Methos was too enthralled and
enthralling for by and for the dance.
About fifteen women or so crowded around him, straining for a touch of his hands, their
hands on the back of his neck. The older Immortal spun with Lisel and Sharon, and let
them go to pick up a little redhead and bury his face in her hair as he turned them both
around dizzyingly fast.
The music was still that pounding drum and pipe.
At sea on a ship in a thunderstorm,
On the very night when Christ was born
A sailor heard from overhead
A mighty voice cry "Pan is dead!"
So follow Christ as beta you can
Pan is dead - Long Live Pan!
Methos looked at him then, this woodland creature among the beauties of the human
world. His eyes, hazel green, light leaves and autumnal colors, gleamed in wry amusement.
Mac pointed to the picture, raising his eyebrows, trying to voice the question silently but
make himself understood.
Methos's mouth quirked in a grin, and he laughed at the Highlander from under the loving
caresses of the little redhead. Her hair obscured the bottom half of his face as he let her
throw her arms around his shoulders, and her legs about his waist. The turned her again,
and again. They were sprites on the floor of drunken fools. They weren't human, that blur
of green gauze she wore, that wreath on his head, at one time inane, but now, full of the
portents of...what?
Duncan let himself wonder as Methos winked at him, and the Scot let it sink in.
Methos..bacchanalias...Pan..he should have guessed the old man might have once followed
this kind of mystery religion.
He raised his own eyebrows, and Methos nodded. His grin was infectious. Duncan
watched his friend out there, enacting ritual long past, hearing the pipes in his veins, the
drums in his heart, forcing his rhythm to match it. He glanced at Rayonna, gazing forlorn
out at their students. He watched Methos let the redhead down, and grab another, kissing
her neck, letting her feed him grapes. He heard an unfamiliar sound over the music.
Methos threw back his long graceful neck and laughed, deep throated and full, not cynical,
or full of sarcastic scorn.
It was like thunder, the way it crawled along the skin. Rayonna shuddered. Duncan smiled.
The girls in Methos's entourage crowded closer, hips swaying in ancient thrumming
pulses.
Duncan grabbed Rayonna by the waist, twirling her out to join them. If Methos could be
pagan, so could he. He was the solstice child after all.
Rayonna purred in his ear. He hitched her up against his hips and spun. Methos'' laugh
washed over them all.
"Oh, the simple pleasures, MacLeod," the old man whispering when he could at last reach
through the females and grab his friend by the neck. "The simple pleasures."
Duncan watched his eyes turn green in the lantern light. Then he pushed the Highlander
away, and returned to his girls, one mass of drunken, silly, heathen celebration.
Someone howled in the distance.
Rayonna wrapped her arms around his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder. He sighed.
The simple pleasures indeed.
From the olden days and up through all the years
From Arcadia to the stone fields of Inisheer
Some say the Gods are just a myth
But guess who I've been dancing with
The Great God Pan is alive!
FINIS
NOTES: (at jam-wired's suggestion)
BACCHANALIA: drunken orgy...a Bacchus party.
BACCHAE: the mad drunken women who followed Bacchus through the forests (re: all
the girls at MacMINT are Methos's Bacchae...hee hee)
THETIS: Mother of Achilles, a minor sea goddess/nymph
IRIS: Goddess of the rainbow
HERA: Wife of Zeus, goddess of marriage and family, often referred to as "oxen eyed"
and yes, that was supposed to be a compliement.
APHRODITE: Do I have to do this one? Come on folks! The goddess of Love and Sex!
Yowza!
DAPHNE: Female follower of Diana who was turned into a Laurel tree to escape being
pursued by Apollo.
PROSERPINA: Wife of Hades, daughter of Demeter. Lives in Hades for the winter
months, emerges for the summer months.
PAN: debatable. He was a forest God. Some say a minor one...he led parties in the woods
with the nyads and dryads and that merry bunch. People get him confused with the Pagan
God figure. Both are portrayed as youths with horns, playing the (pan) pipes, and cloven
feet.
The Vaishnavite verse is from A Hymn of Tukaram, "Sacred Books of the World..."
The Moslem verse is Ibn Hazm's "The Ring of the Dove." The book is called "Alive To
God."
- Amand-r
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