Incubus, by Selena (PG13)

[the-hobbet.livejournal.com]

Fandom: HIGHLANDER
Pairing: Gen (Methos, Cassandra)
Length: Medium
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Seventh Dimension
Why this must be read:

Many fans have wondered what Methos did during the time Duncan disappeared after killing Richie under the influence of Arhiman. In Selena's story he approaches Cassandra in his desperation to help Duncan, hoping that her supernatural powers will be able to uncover the truth about Duncan's strange behavior. The two form an uneasy alliance. Incubus offers a believable explanation for Methos' absence and an engrossing exploration of the complicated relationship between two fascinating ancients, Cassandra and Methos.

Selena also wrote a companion story to Incubus and a sequel. In Transferences Selena explores what it means to be a Watcher, and the reasons for noninterference. In Once Out of Nature Cassandra and Methos again team up to protect the secret of Immortality from scientific researchers.

Sample Incubus

Apart from the coat, he was dressed, as he had been in Seacouver and Bordeaux, in jeans, a sweater and hiking boots, old boots at that, showing how muddy his trek to her cottage must have been. Casual harmlessness itself. No wonder MacLeod had been fooled. The features, of course, were the same, had always been the same, though she had to admit the short hair contributed to the harmless look. But the hazel eyes did not, taking everything in, giving nothing away. She knew that expression. Back then, she had learned to read all his expressions, because it could mean the difference between life and death - temporary death, but death still, and as she believed he alone had the power to bring her back, she never knew whether one day he might not bother anymore. Right now, he was assessing an enemy.

She wondered what he saw. His captive, superimposed on the woman who nearly killed him some months ago? On an impulse, she decided to show him someone he had never met. Cassandra the Queen, who had ruled the Iceni for decades before she grew sick of the power and vanished, leaving that life behind and turning into Cassandra the Healer again. With the small, disdainful inclination of the head she had used to greet unruly chiefs, she silently motioned for him to enter.

A spark of amusement crept into his eyes. He followed her admonition, but instead of either greeting her or continuing their silent exchange of looks, he grabbed the nearest chair, straddled it and sat on it.

"Well," he began without further preliminaries, "as prophets go, I'd certainly take you over two babbling old fools. Too bad Mac didn't. At least you wanted him to play saviour just for you, not for the rest of humanity as well."

He proceeded to tell her about Landry, Ahriman and MacLeod's increasingly strange behaviour, his studied sarcasm and flippancy a stark contrast to the story. She abandoned the idea that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse almost as soon as it came to her. Millennia myths and Persian demons weren't something the Methos of old would have come up with, and the 20th century version seemed to be even more sceptical. When he paused, she said, frowning: "In my own vision, I saw Duncan fighting evil. But it always had a human face - one of us, I thought. Not something from the nether regions. I would have warned him..."

"Oh, ultimately it was one of us," Methos interrupted, and for the first time, the determined flippancy had completely vanished from this tone. Instead, he sounded bitter, worried, and above all, very serious. He paused for a moment, then he said, looking straight at her: "He killed his student, believing him to be the demon. And then he asked me to take his head."

All the resentment she felt for Duncan vanished as the horror of it all sunk into her. Demon or no demon, the man she knew would be destroyed by such an action. She had never met Richie Ryan, but Duncan had told her about him, with the pride a father felt for his son, and she knew, only too well, how utterly devastating the loss of a student could be. It was one of the reasons for telling MacLeod about Kantos. She couldn't have killed Kantos, and not just because the powers of her former pupil had outstripped her own. Students were the closest thing the immortals had to children, and at the same time they were even more. The older you were, the more you needed young immortals in order to find contact to the present. They taught you as much as you taught them. The killing of a student, even a student who had rejected one's own way, was devastating. It tore up your soul. The killing of a beloved student...

"How will he bear it?" she whispered.

Sounding slightly questioning, Methos said: "You did not ask me whether I took it."

Incubus
Transferences
Once Out of Nature