Two Roads Diverged
By: Arsenic
Disclaimer: I am just baby-sitting, the real parents will reclaim their
children at the end of the story...
Grammar Notes: asterisks indicate a stressing of a particular word
I don't think there is a warning for this one...(there's a first for
everything, I suppose)
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Amand-r for heading up these things,
and of course, to Sinden Medley for the gorgeous choice of a poem.
Most especially, thanks to Jam, to whom I dedicate this story, for
her inspiration and friendship.
***
425 CE, Paris
I stand in between the last two pews and cross myself more out of
the need to appear inconspicuous than any true piety. I can't feel his
presence and I wonder if the stories are true. It seems ridiculous to
me, a light quickening. There is no precedent for it in my three
thousand plus years of experience. Then again, there's a first for
everything. If nothing else, that was a proven fact.
I have been pretending to pray for ten minutes when I feel him. At
least, I hope it is him, I have no desire to be meeting any other
immortal today. His signature is so different from the last time I felt
it. I gaze up to find a man I know intimately...knew intimately,
staring at me. It is not Darius' the general who is staring, though.
There is still sharp intelligence, but there is no assessment for
weakness, no picking apart of a possible foe. Instead he smiles,
beckons to me with his head. It takes me all of three seconds to
decide to get up and follow. After all, it *is* holy ground.
I find myself in a small, cozy, if somewhat spartan, room. Darius is
pouring tea and I am standing, watching him.
"Sit down, Methos, relax." It is a softly voiced request, not an
order. This in itself shocks me enough to make sitting a necessity.
He turns and hands me a cup. "I am glad you came, old friend."
"Do not presume that we are friends." The words come out of my
mouth without my permission. I murmur an apology for them, more
out of fear for the Darius I knew than any real regret.
"It is I who should apologize. You show up at my door and I
expect all to be forgiven in a matter of moments over a cup of tea.
Yet I have given you no reason to forgive me." I want to rub my
temples. This is not my Darius, I'm not sure I even have cause to be
bitter towards this creature in the first place. "I am sorry, terribly
so. For more crimes than I think you can imagine. Right now,
though, you are the one I have a chance to redeem."
More crimes than I can imagine? For his sake, I am hoping not. He
is looking at me as if I am the key to healing all his wounds. I am
not. The question comes to me as to whether I want to stay here
and let him heal this part of himself. Accept his apology and smile at
him or move on and let him work through it all alone. I am tempted
by the latter option, I owe Darius nothing but my contempt, even if
it is mixed by a hesitant admiration. Unfortunately, I am well aware
that I do not owe the man sitting across from me anything at all.
Least of all contempt, if what he says about redemption is true, he is
by far the better man between us.
I sip my tea and decide to address the real reason I am here. Or the
reason for which I believe I came, overwhelming curiosity.
"Why did you stop at Paris? You were...driven. This makes no
sense, you, Darius, *he* does not belong here." I am practically
rolling my eyes at my own oh-so-articulate question. He
understands, though, I was sure he would. Intelligence was never a
weak spot with him.
"Surely you have heard the stories?"
"A light quickening?" I raise my eyebrows. "I am a bit old for
bedtime stories."
He smiles an increasingly familiar kind smile that makes me wonder
if it is pity I am seeing in his eyes, or merely a complexity that I have
no right to peer into.
"Believe as you wish. When I walked away from the fury of the
quickening, I no longer had an interest in maps and strategy." He
was silent for a moment, sipping his tea. "I came here. I don't
remember why, it just seemed the right thing to do at the time.
Maybe it was one of his memories." The way he says "his" catches
my interest. He says it with the same tone one would say "my" in
this particular case. I try to remember ever feeling that close to a
victim after the quickening. Perhaps that was what a light
quickening was, just an overwhelming bombardment of memory and
sensation, as opposed to the information so easily integrated after
the majority of those lightning shows.
"I've been here since. You're presence makes me wonder if hiding
here is the right thing to be doing."
"Hiding is a strong word, I think. It took me no time at all to find
you once I bothered." I wonder at the rough reassurance in my
words. I work to bring up a picture of my thirty-seventh wife
bleeding to death in my arms, of him laughing at my pain. In my
mind, the voice offering me more tea is rougher. It falls down on
me, taunting me for my foolishness in loving a mortal. I am too
numb to respond to the mocking, searching for the energy to tug at
my bonds again. It eludes me.
I realize that my body has jerked in response to the memory, spilling
now cool tea onto my fingers. Darius is touching me, the touch is
gentle, four fingers against my upper arm. I pull away instinctively
and flinch at the understanding in his eyes.
"I find myself back there too, sometimes. More times than I would
like." His mouth curls at this statement. I know he would prefer
not to visit his past, our past, at all. I realize moments after I hear
my voice that I am speaking, trying to tell him something.
"Her name was Dia. You never knew that, I don't think. I fell in
love with her because she had a tendency to laugh at the wrong
moments and charge into protect things weaker than her, even when
the oppressor could easily beat her as well." I am not sure he
deserves this information, either the honor of it, or the pain it brings
him.
"I think I knew that part. She had such desperation in her eyes
when she came at me that night. Did she consider you weaker than
herself?"
"Weaker or stronger, I was hers to protect. She had something of a
possessive streak." I look up, startled to hear him laughing. I rub
my neck, wondering why I don't mind this reaction.
"I am sorry." I shrug at this. "Not for the laughter, for her. For
deciding you were mine to keep instead of hers." I am silent at this
revelation. "I could never understand it then, immortals who loved
mortals. Every little boy plays with toy soldiers, I played with them
as a grown man, only mine were living. For all I cared though, they
could have been those carved pieces of wood, stone, anything."
"You meant nothing to me and yet, as another immortal, I wanted to
prove something, I think. It seemed so vital that you understood
how pitiful mortals were. The lesson was lost on you. To you, she
was as strong and important in death as she had been living."
"After a while, I wanted to be that important to you. Not out of any
real need for acceptance, but to me, you were MY possession, and it
was my right to be the first thing you thought of when you woke up
in the morning and the last before you went to sleep at night."
"You succeeded there." He looks sick at my words. I wonder if he
understands how driving hate can be. I think he does, I think the
Darius I knew was a creature of hate, as much so as violence and
perseverance. This one...this man comprehends hate, has learned
from it, even if he doesn't experience it. So far I have seen no signs
that he does.
"Maybe. At least to the extent that I was a driving force in your
existence. I didn't posses you, though. She was right when she felt
she had to fight for you, you did belong to her, if not in body and
soul, then at least in mind. As for me, I controlled the fate of your
body. Nothing more, nothing less." This is an apology, an offering.
He is attempting to give any remnants of myself I believed he held
back to its original owner. I wonder if this is what I wanted when I
came here. If it is, I am disappointed.
"Why did you come?" I want to tell him to go mind his own
business, that donning a monks robes does not make him any more
desirable to me as a confidant. I want to tell him this because I still
have not come up with a valid answer for his question.
"I don't believe in light quickenings." It seems like a complete
thought to me; I came to see if the rumors were true.
"If that is so, why would you have had any interest in finding me?"
He's got a point and he knows it. I recognize this look, the one that
tells his prey he is aware they have been caught in a trap of his own
devising. I am thrown by it. The last time he looked at me that way
I was hanging off the point of his sword moments later. There is no
bloodlust in his eyes now, just insight.
"There can be only one." I don't think that is the reason I came. If I
had wanted to hunt Darius, devote that kind of time and energy to
him, I would have long before this. It is all I say, though, because it
sounds right, and I have no other coherent thought to lay in front of
us.
"Then I am glad to be on holy ground." He picks up the kettle and
pours himself some more tea, the drink having become an excuse for
both of us to give into our own silence. "When it first happened,
there was I, kneeling on the ground, overwhelmed by these
emotions, motivations that I knew weren't Darius the general's, but
all the same, they were mine. I turned my head fractionally to the
camp, aware that I doubted if I should ever come back to that place.
There was this regret inside me at that time, not for the life going
back offered me and not for the deeds of the past, that was to come
later. It was merely a sense that I could not change what I had
wrought and only follow the change that was burgeoning inside me.
In a way it was uplifting, but there was this nagging of blame,
especially where Grayson was concerned. Leaving things behind,
that was new to me. Over time, when those feelings faded and I
began to feel remorse for things I had done, you were part of that
feeling, things I couldn't change, I no longer had any type of power
over. I don't understand your coming back to me, I don't think you
understand it, bluster and all. I am glad you did though. It has
given me the chance to say I am sorry, to see that the damage done
was not at all irrevocable. And that has made all the difference to
me."
"I can say with all certainty that this trip was not for you." He is
smiling. I suppose I should be infuriated at this, but there is no
mockery in the expression.
"It is said that the Lord-"
"Works in mysterious ways, so I have heard." He had once said
that about my "falling" into his hands. I know he remembers. I
allow myself to savor the way it sounds different coming from this
born-again monk.
"Did you get what you came for then?" I am busy wondering the
same thing. The Darius I knew is dead. Not for a long time have I
felt the need to act out my own revenge. Dead is dead, no matter
how or by whom the deed is accomplished.
Something in me is calmed by the fact that Darius the general no
longer exists. Maybe that was what I came for, to make sure his
existence was no longer continued. At the moment, it is the
explanation that makes the most sense to me. Why else would I be
feeling this content with the state of things?
"It's possible."
"I'm glad." He is, too. I find to my amazement, that my lips are
curling into an expression of ironic amusement. I set my empty tea
cup down and stand up.
"I should be going Brother Darius." I am surprised I add the title to
his name. Then I look at his eyes. No, I put it there because it
belongs there, as much as the title General no longer fits. "I hope
this place keeps you safe." I gesture to the walls of the cell, the
church. It is the only peace offering I am willing to give. He takes
it.
"Goodbye Methos, I hope to hear of you many many years into the
future." I walk out of the room letting the brother's benediction
echo in my ears.
***
The Road Not Taken
By: Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back
.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.