Adam Pierson (Methos) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
too_old_for_this) wrote2012-11-24 01:56 pm
too_old_for_this) wrote2012-11-24 01:56 pm
Entry tags:
[OOC: PERMISSIONS & APPLICATION]
CHARACTER NAME: Methos ("Adam Pierson")
CHARACTER SERIES: Highlander
Backtagging: Until the cows come home! If we're working on something that needs resolution, I am also open to discussing outcomes while the thread is ongoing. PM or private plurk me at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
tinwateringcan.
Threadhopping: Always okay by me, as long as it's okay with the person I'm threading with and the thread isn't private. (If there's a filter please ask first!)
Fourthwalling: Is fine!
Offensive subjects: Don't hesitate -- and please contact me if anything I'm writing makes you uncomfortable for any reason. Methos has a lot of ugly things in his backstory and although they are very unlikely to come up in dialogue I may mention them in narration.
---
Hugging this character: Sure! But whether or not he's happy to see you, that is a gun in his pocket. (And a sword under his coat.) Hug with caution.
Kissing this character: He can definitely be convinced to go along with this.
Flirting with this character: Odds are quite high that he will flirt back.
Fighting with this character: Go for it!
Injuring this character: Absolutely OK.
Killing this character: Unless you are going to remove his head I am absolutely okay with Methos being dealt a fatal injury in the course of battle. He'll resurrect, healed, within minutes. You do not have to ask me first before trying something that would be fatal if it connected, again, unless you're chopping his head off in which case I want to talk about that.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Go for it! And shoot me a PM or private plurk for details, because there's a lot to uncover.
Name: Kira
Personal Journal:tinwateringcan
Contact: Plurk or swordwithasmile [at] gmail [dot] com
Other Characters Played: Axeldoestheickyjobs
Are you 18 or over? Ayup.
Canon: Highlander (TV series)
Character: Methos (“Adam Pierson”)
Timeline: Between Archangel and Indiscretions (early 6th season)
Personality: Mild-mannered, quirky, built like a beanpole and fond of Queen, craft beer, oversized sweaters and skinny jeans, historian Adam Pierson is nothing but hidden depths. His current life as a member of the Watchers, a secret organization formed to track and record the lives of the Immortals who wage their secret war under the cover of human society, is a cover for his true identity as Methos, the oldest Immortal, a walking myth.
At 5,000 years old, he hasn't quite seen it all, but that's mostly because he's made a real effort to avoid exciting situations. Methos would much rather live a long life than an exciting one. He's openly unconcerned about chivalry, fair play, and accusations of cowardice; when it comes down to sword against sword, he will defend himself, but he prefers to avoid that eventuality as far as he possibly can. Among the Immortals we see, he is probably the most effective at removing himself from the Game (in which Immortals compete in battle to behead one another, stealing greater and greater power and knowledge from their defeated opponents for the day when there will be only one, omnipotent Immortal left alive) without taking refuge on holy ground and therefore removing himself from mortal society as well.
Methos fears death, but despite his armor of iron-hard cynicism he also loves life. Throughout the millennia he has become something of a chameleon, giving up absolute morality and attachment to the familiar in favor of a process of constant reinvention to enjoy the world he finds himself in. He's a brilliant liar, actor and manipulator, prone to casually contradict himself in any friendly conversation (“What do I look like to you, an actor?” to “Like you say, darling, I'm an actor.” in two minutes or less) and to weave impregnable personae around himself – identities that are meant not only for the mortals who he interacts with, but the immortals as well. Until he met Duncan MacLeod, who guessed his true identity from his situation, Methos seems to have hidden his real name and age from everyone he'd met for centuries. He largely avoids immortals (“too much of a commitment,” and, besides, there's the possibility of violent attack) and immerses himself in mortal life and mortal identities.
Of all the old Immortals, he seems the best adapted to the modern mortal world. He complains about his friend Duncan MacLeod's love of opera (“Where's the Queen? The Springsteen?”), teases his mortal friends about not liking modern technology, and can frequently be found hanging out at older Watcher Joe Dawson's blues bar with a beer. He doesn't retreat to grand manors or arrange to spend his life among old and precious things; he's attached to certain possessions (a big iron orrery; his diaries; his sword) but he seems to deliberately avoid reminiscence. He's fond of comfort and luxury, but the thing that makes life worth living for him is his connection to people; and people are always people.
As he says, “Only the details change.”
The combination of a constant hunger for affection, attachment and approval and a flexible shades-of-gray morality makes Methos unfortunately likely to fall in with less than pleasant crowds; he has a weakness for decisive, charismatic, challenging people who he can butt heads with – people with what he calls “the fire” for life – and he's not particularly sensitive to just how “mad, bad and dangerous to know” they might be. He falls in love quickly and easily – he's been married 68 times, although never to an immortal woman – and he cares deeply about his friends. Although he claims to be immune to guilt, to have killed his conscience, and to only care about his own survival, he risks his life time after time for the people he loves. He goes after Duncan to save him from a “Dark Quickening” that sent him on a violent cross-continental rampage; he fights and takes the first head he's taken in centuries to protect Duncan and his student Richie from an immortal bent on revenge; he kills a brother-in-arms he's known for three thousand years in order to save Duncan and a woman he once fell for, he risks his neck and his cover as a Watcher trying to steal a crystal with supposed magical powers to save the life of his dying mortal lover Alexa... every time there's a threat to one of his loved ones, Methos sticks his neck out.
He's no warrior for lost causes, though. He won't risk himself for revenge, only for the chance of actual gain; when someone is dead, or impossible to save, he accepts the loss. Of course, to him, all mortals are dying too fast: “six months, twenty years, what's the difference?” There's a pattern to Methos' acceptance, though. When things go wrong, even badly wrong, he'll show his grief but he carefully represses his anger. It's not that he's resigned to loss or has no temper – he snaps sarcastically when his feelings are hurt, and he'll rub friends' faces in it for as long as necessary if he's feeling betrayed. Rather, it may be that Methos has too much of a temper for his own comfort. For a thousand years, in the Bronze Age, he traveled across the Middle East and North Africa with three other Immortals, casually slaughtering, enslaving and stealing from any living humans they met. They were the Horsemen, inspiration, he claims, for the myths that led to the Four Horsemen of Revelations; he killed tens of thousands, he says, for fun.
The urge to throw aside care for others, to take what he wants without care for the pain he causes, still tempts him. He may be disgusted by bloodlust, but Methos is and always will be tempted by power and pleasure. What stops him from hurting others now – what makes him help and heal instead of slaughter and rape – is a muddled combination of guilt (“a thousand regrets,” he says to Duncan) and the brutal empathy of having, literally, been in the place of every sufferer over his long life. He's starved to death, he's been a slave, he's been cramped on a rowboat crossing the Atlantic and hung and stabbed and shot. He knows pain because he's been there, and he no longer has the stomach to cause it, despite his temptation.
Background: Methos doesn't remember exactly how old he is, but he claims it's been around 5,000 years since he beheaded his first opponent, which puts his likely birth somewhere around the invention of writing. During the Bronze Age, for an extended period of time, he rode as one of the Horsemen (a group of four Immortal warriors), slaughtering and spreading terror throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. During this time, he captured and enslaved a young immortal girl by the name of Cassandra. He spent time in ancient Egypt (possibly as a scribe, since he's literate in hieroglyphics), ancient Greece, and Rome around the time of Julius Caesar. In the 700s he was a monk in Ireland; he was in China sometime in the 1400s, and in the 1500s he attended the University of Heidelberg, earning a degree in medicine, which he used to continue practicing as a surgeon and doctor under the name Benjamin Adams off and on until the mid-19th century.
Sometime after 1950, Methos decided to join the Watchers. He'd learned of their organization from a Watcher of his own long past, one who became his friend; his increasing desire to avoid the endless battle of the Game sparked his realization that the easiest way to avoid other immortals was to join a group that tracked the location of every immortal they could identify. He took on the identity of Adam Pierson, went back to college, and built a connection with research Watcher Don Salzer that got him appointed as head researcher on the Methos Project, investigating his own past records in an attempt to track down his own location.
In 1994, his careful cover was ruined when his friend Joe Dawson, a field Watcher, sent his Immortal Duncan MacLeod to talk to Adam in an attempt to track down the location of Methos ahead of a murderous Immortal, Kalas, who'd learned of the Watchers' existence. Duncan immediately recognized “Adam” as an immortal, and guessed – accurately – that it was Methos himself. Panicked at his sudden reimmersion in the Game, Methos first offered his life to MacLeod, then arranged for Kalas to be arrested for murdering his friend Don Salzer and disappeared from his home in Paris.
Unfortunately, Kalas didn't stay missing, and as a member of the Watchers, Methos couldn't remain hidden from Joe Dawson. He found himself drawn into MacLeod's life again to help defeat Kalas once and for all, and developed an unlikely friendship with the righteous younger Immortal, following him to Seattle to warn against another hunter on his trail not long after Kalas's defeat.
In Seattle, Methos encountered Alexa, a young and terminally ill waitress at Joe's blues bar, and fell head over heels in love with her. He coaxed her to accompany him on a whirlwind tour of the world, trying to see all the cities and places she'd longed to in the few months she had left before her impending death. In Switzerland, she finally became too weak to continue and was hospitalized. Methos desperately ransacked the Watchers' archives in an attempt to get his hands on a mystical artifact that was supposed to grant mortals eternal life, but it was destroyed and the pieces lost before he could bring it back to her. Alexa died, and Methos had her buried near his home in Paris.
After her death, he spent more time with MacLeod and Joe, until one of his very oldest Immortal acquaintances, Kronos, leader of the Horsemen, reappeared and threatened Methos's life. Methos's old victim Cassandra, still alive after three thousand years and an old acquaintance of MacLeod's, showed up following Kronos and told MacLeod about Methos' bloody past. To save himself, Methos convinced Kronos to re-convene the Horsemen, having located their other two one-time comrades in the Watcher archives, and manipulated MacLeod into following them across Europe.
Kronos had a plan to use an artificially developed virus to plunge the world into chaos and anarchy under the rule of the Horsemen, but between Methos' betrayal and Duncan's skill with a sword, they managed to defeat and behead the other three, leaving Methos as the only survivor. Duncan convinced Cassandra to let Methos live, but their friendship was badly shaken.
It was dealt yet another blow when Duncan fought and killed Methos' friend Byron over his murder of a mortal protege of Joe's. When that was followed by Duncan's collapse into increasingly bizarre hallucinations under what he claimed was the influence of a millenial demon, hallucinations that eventually led him to accidentally behead his own student Richie Ryan, beg Methos to kill him in a fit of despair, and disappear utterly from Paris, Methos had had enough. He left Paris as well, dropping out of sight and staying gone for a year and a half, through Duncan's reappearance, defeat of the demon, and withdrawal from battle to cope with his experiences. This is the point from which I will be drawing him.
Abilities/Additional Notes: Note: Methos will be masquerading as Adam Pierson, his current persona, in order to avoid discovery by any other Immortals who may be in the city. (His real name makes him famous as “the oldest immortal,” which renders him a target for attacks by those who wish to kill him for his power and experience.)
Immortals have all of a mortal human's weaknesses and needs (food, water, shelter, sleep) with the exception of being immune to disease, able to heal any injury short of beheading within a few hours, and able to revive after death due to any cause other than beheading. They can die of hunger and thirst, and experience pain and physical discomfort just as a mortal would. Nonfatal wounds heal quickly and without any mark, except for deep cuts to the throat, which (since it's their vulnerable point) can leave scars and permanent damage.
As an Immortal, Methos has a powerful aura that can be sensed by other Immortals and is capable of sensing the presence of others; he has no other supernatural abilities or senses.
He's been a doctor, lawyer, historian, monk, slave, naturalist and mounted raider, and has a wide range of practical survival skills, although he has a definite preference for intellectual and studious professions and complains of being out of practice at riding and wilderness survival. He is fluent and literate in a broad range of languages, although extremely out of practice with many of them.
He's a capable shot and good with a sword, able to hold his own although he's far from the best fighter among Immortals. His main combat skills are planning, preparation and an ability to get inside his opponent's head, not necessarily superior speed, strength or skill.
Sample Journal Post: [There's a hand over the camera for a moment, adjusting the angle of the PCD before it withdraws to reveal a wry look on Methos' face.] Testing, one two three! Adam Pierson speaking. How is the mic – ooh, is that a camera on this thing too? Very fancy, I like it. I'll take five.
And if they're not for sale, I'd love to hear what you all can tell me about this place! I've done some traveling and I am fairly sure that the Great Wall of China was all in its original location the last time I happened by there. [He shifts the camera to show a dizzying distance below his feet, hefty stone facing jutting into the void.] Although this is the most faithful replica I've ever seen.
I've looked around a little on this forum of yours, so please do feel free to skip over the basics about – what is it you've been calling this place? Adstringéndum? Binding together, very poetic, really. In any case, the monsters, no leaving, strange events, et cetera, I'll take your word for it for now.
Oh, yes, last point: does anyone have a spare room? I haven't the slightest idea what you all use for money around here, but I do know fifty excellent ways to cook rabbit? [He tries a charming smile, shoulders hunching up to his chin.] And I wash a mean window. Any place where the roof won't fall on my head at two a.m. would be perfection, thanks very much, goodbye!
Sample RP: The suitcase tumbled onto the sheets, bounced, and fell open and empty across the bed. Methos yanked the top dresser drawer open, stacking shirts and boxers in his arms with sharp, economical movements.
It was time to leave town. Time and past time. He should have walked out and bought himself a ticket the moment MacLeod had started ranting about strange old men and millenial apocalypses. Fifty centuries of life had taught him exactly when to leave a situation, and yet. And yet he still hadn't learned to pick reason over the irrational urge to stick with a friend. He'd stuck, and what had it gotten him exactly?
Richie's blood spattered over the floor of an empty building, hard to distinguish in the harsh lighting from the blackened scars of his Quickening across the concrete. Duncan on his knees, his ivory-handled blade trembling on his open palms, begging for death. Begging Methos to take his head.
He dumped his armload of clothes into the suitcase, slammed shut the top drawer, and pulled open the second one down. Pants, sweaters. He hesitated over the latter: Aruba, St. Martin, Cuba, no. He didn't want luxury. He wanted to get lost. So Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod had finally lost it, four hundred years of white-knight heroism come down to committing murder out of the delusion that he was fighting an evil demon for the fate of the world. So he couldn't live with the death of his student. Well, he could go find some other sap to take his head, because Methos was not going to step up to the plate for a swing.
Three pairs of slacks and two sweaters. He slammed the suitcase shut. The traveling box for his sword was under the bed: papers and permits for flying it from France to the United States, and that made the destination decision easy, didn't it? He'd pick up a van. Drive, and keep moving; leave everything else here. The rent on this place was covered for another year, and he could arrange for movers if he decided not to come back.
It was always easy to run.
He swallowed bitter anger and knelt to pull the sword case free. He'd been enjoying this life. Insufferable honorable bloody Duncan Macleod and the whirl of Immortal friendships knowing him dragged you into – a man could get used to that kind of thing, and the next thing he knew he was re-growing a conscience, a sense of obligation and the kind of expectations that made him feel foolishly betrayed to see Duncan begging on his knees for death.
The cloth drape inside the case was plain flannel, black, without any shine or glitter to catch the eye. Staring at it was not only pointless, it was also boring.
Past time to leave town, and Methos still found himself struggling with that stubborn bit of conscience. He'd walked out of the building, not wanting to know the rest of the story, but what if MacLeod just needed some time to sleep it off? Some time to come to terms with the loss, to learn to forgive himself, to get over that hero delusion – say, a couple decades on Holy Ground....
Maybe he still needed an older and wiser head around. It wasn't as though Methos knew nothing about regrets.
His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, ready to set it down, hesitating as the seconds stretched until he stepped back and slammed the lid of the case closed on on nothing but black flannel. There. Fine. Enough. His conscience was going to get him killed, and he was going to blame Duncan MacLeod for it when it happened.
And he would have, too, if MacLeod had reappeared, but he turned out to have been the first to run.
Methos wasn't one to beat a dead horse. A week later, he was in Illinois.
CHARACTER SERIES: Highlander
Backtagging: Until the cows come home! If we're working on something that needs resolution, I am also open to discussing outcomes while the thread is ongoing. PM or private plurk me at
Threadhopping: Always okay by me, as long as it's okay with the person I'm threading with and the thread isn't private. (If there's a filter please ask first!)
Fourthwalling: Is fine!
Offensive subjects: Don't hesitate -- and please contact me if anything I'm writing makes you uncomfortable for any reason. Methos has a lot of ugly things in his backstory and although they are very unlikely to come up in dialogue I may mention them in narration.
---
Hugging this character: Sure! But whether or not he's happy to see you, that is a gun in his pocket. (And a sword under his coat.) Hug with caution.
Kissing this character: He can definitely be convinced to go along with this.
Flirting with this character: Odds are quite high that he will flirt back.
Fighting with this character: Go for it!
Injuring this character: Absolutely OK.
Killing this character: Unless you are going to remove his head I am absolutely okay with Methos being dealt a fatal injury in the course of battle. He'll resurrect, healed, within minutes. You do not have to ask me first before trying something that would be fatal if it connected, again, unless you're chopping his head off in which case I want to talk about that.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Go for it! And shoot me a PM or private plurk for details, because there's a lot to uncover.
Name: Kira
Personal Journal:
Contact: Plurk or swordwithasmile [at] gmail [dot] com
Other Characters Played: Axel
doestheickyjobsAre you 18 or over? Ayup.
Canon: Highlander (TV series)
Character: Methos (“Adam Pierson”)
Timeline: Between Archangel and Indiscretions (early 6th season)
Personality: Mild-mannered, quirky, built like a beanpole and fond of Queen, craft beer, oversized sweaters and skinny jeans, historian Adam Pierson is nothing but hidden depths. His current life as a member of the Watchers, a secret organization formed to track and record the lives of the Immortals who wage their secret war under the cover of human society, is a cover for his true identity as Methos, the oldest Immortal, a walking myth.
At 5,000 years old, he hasn't quite seen it all, but that's mostly because he's made a real effort to avoid exciting situations. Methos would much rather live a long life than an exciting one. He's openly unconcerned about chivalry, fair play, and accusations of cowardice; when it comes down to sword against sword, he will defend himself, but he prefers to avoid that eventuality as far as he possibly can. Among the Immortals we see, he is probably the most effective at removing himself from the Game (in which Immortals compete in battle to behead one another, stealing greater and greater power and knowledge from their defeated opponents for the day when there will be only one, omnipotent Immortal left alive) without taking refuge on holy ground and therefore removing himself from mortal society as well.
Methos fears death, but despite his armor of iron-hard cynicism he also loves life. Throughout the millennia he has become something of a chameleon, giving up absolute morality and attachment to the familiar in favor of a process of constant reinvention to enjoy the world he finds himself in. He's a brilliant liar, actor and manipulator, prone to casually contradict himself in any friendly conversation (“What do I look like to you, an actor?” to “Like you say, darling, I'm an actor.” in two minutes or less) and to weave impregnable personae around himself – identities that are meant not only for the mortals who he interacts with, but the immortals as well. Until he met Duncan MacLeod, who guessed his true identity from his situation, Methos seems to have hidden his real name and age from everyone he'd met for centuries. He largely avoids immortals (“too much of a commitment,” and, besides, there's the possibility of violent attack) and immerses himself in mortal life and mortal identities.
Of all the old Immortals, he seems the best adapted to the modern mortal world. He complains about his friend Duncan MacLeod's love of opera (“Where's the Queen? The Springsteen?”), teases his mortal friends about not liking modern technology, and can frequently be found hanging out at older Watcher Joe Dawson's blues bar with a beer. He doesn't retreat to grand manors or arrange to spend his life among old and precious things; he's attached to certain possessions (a big iron orrery; his diaries; his sword) but he seems to deliberately avoid reminiscence. He's fond of comfort and luxury, but the thing that makes life worth living for him is his connection to people; and people are always people.
As he says, “Only the details change.”
The combination of a constant hunger for affection, attachment and approval and a flexible shades-of-gray morality makes Methos unfortunately likely to fall in with less than pleasant crowds; he has a weakness for decisive, charismatic, challenging people who he can butt heads with – people with what he calls “the fire” for life – and he's not particularly sensitive to just how “mad, bad and dangerous to know” they might be. He falls in love quickly and easily – he's been married 68 times, although never to an immortal woman – and he cares deeply about his friends. Although he claims to be immune to guilt, to have killed his conscience, and to only care about his own survival, he risks his life time after time for the people he loves. He goes after Duncan to save him from a “Dark Quickening” that sent him on a violent cross-continental rampage; he fights and takes the first head he's taken in centuries to protect Duncan and his student Richie from an immortal bent on revenge; he kills a brother-in-arms he's known for three thousand years in order to save Duncan and a woman he once fell for, he risks his neck and his cover as a Watcher trying to steal a crystal with supposed magical powers to save the life of his dying mortal lover Alexa... every time there's a threat to one of his loved ones, Methos sticks his neck out.
He's no warrior for lost causes, though. He won't risk himself for revenge, only for the chance of actual gain; when someone is dead, or impossible to save, he accepts the loss. Of course, to him, all mortals are dying too fast: “six months, twenty years, what's the difference?” There's a pattern to Methos' acceptance, though. When things go wrong, even badly wrong, he'll show his grief but he carefully represses his anger. It's not that he's resigned to loss or has no temper – he snaps sarcastically when his feelings are hurt, and he'll rub friends' faces in it for as long as necessary if he's feeling betrayed. Rather, it may be that Methos has too much of a temper for his own comfort. For a thousand years, in the Bronze Age, he traveled across the Middle East and North Africa with three other Immortals, casually slaughtering, enslaving and stealing from any living humans they met. They were the Horsemen, inspiration, he claims, for the myths that led to the Four Horsemen of Revelations; he killed tens of thousands, he says, for fun.
The urge to throw aside care for others, to take what he wants without care for the pain he causes, still tempts him. He may be disgusted by bloodlust, but Methos is and always will be tempted by power and pleasure. What stops him from hurting others now – what makes him help and heal instead of slaughter and rape – is a muddled combination of guilt (“a thousand regrets,” he says to Duncan) and the brutal empathy of having, literally, been in the place of every sufferer over his long life. He's starved to death, he's been a slave, he's been cramped on a rowboat crossing the Atlantic and hung and stabbed and shot. He knows pain because he's been there, and he no longer has the stomach to cause it, despite his temptation.
Background: Methos doesn't remember exactly how old he is, but he claims it's been around 5,000 years since he beheaded his first opponent, which puts his likely birth somewhere around the invention of writing. During the Bronze Age, for an extended period of time, he rode as one of the Horsemen (a group of four Immortal warriors), slaughtering and spreading terror throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. During this time, he captured and enslaved a young immortal girl by the name of Cassandra. He spent time in ancient Egypt (possibly as a scribe, since he's literate in hieroglyphics), ancient Greece, and Rome around the time of Julius Caesar. In the 700s he was a monk in Ireland; he was in China sometime in the 1400s, and in the 1500s he attended the University of Heidelberg, earning a degree in medicine, which he used to continue practicing as a surgeon and doctor under the name Benjamin Adams off and on until the mid-19th century.
Sometime after 1950, Methos decided to join the Watchers. He'd learned of their organization from a Watcher of his own long past, one who became his friend; his increasing desire to avoid the endless battle of the Game sparked his realization that the easiest way to avoid other immortals was to join a group that tracked the location of every immortal they could identify. He took on the identity of Adam Pierson, went back to college, and built a connection with research Watcher Don Salzer that got him appointed as head researcher on the Methos Project, investigating his own past records in an attempt to track down his own location.
In 1994, his careful cover was ruined when his friend Joe Dawson, a field Watcher, sent his Immortal Duncan MacLeod to talk to Adam in an attempt to track down the location of Methos ahead of a murderous Immortal, Kalas, who'd learned of the Watchers' existence. Duncan immediately recognized “Adam” as an immortal, and guessed – accurately – that it was Methos himself. Panicked at his sudden reimmersion in the Game, Methos first offered his life to MacLeod, then arranged for Kalas to be arrested for murdering his friend Don Salzer and disappeared from his home in Paris.
Unfortunately, Kalas didn't stay missing, and as a member of the Watchers, Methos couldn't remain hidden from Joe Dawson. He found himself drawn into MacLeod's life again to help defeat Kalas once and for all, and developed an unlikely friendship with the righteous younger Immortal, following him to Seattle to warn against another hunter on his trail not long after Kalas's defeat.
In Seattle, Methos encountered Alexa, a young and terminally ill waitress at Joe's blues bar, and fell head over heels in love with her. He coaxed her to accompany him on a whirlwind tour of the world, trying to see all the cities and places she'd longed to in the few months she had left before her impending death. In Switzerland, she finally became too weak to continue and was hospitalized. Methos desperately ransacked the Watchers' archives in an attempt to get his hands on a mystical artifact that was supposed to grant mortals eternal life, but it was destroyed and the pieces lost before he could bring it back to her. Alexa died, and Methos had her buried near his home in Paris.
After her death, he spent more time with MacLeod and Joe, until one of his very oldest Immortal acquaintances, Kronos, leader of the Horsemen, reappeared and threatened Methos's life. Methos's old victim Cassandra, still alive after three thousand years and an old acquaintance of MacLeod's, showed up following Kronos and told MacLeod about Methos' bloody past. To save himself, Methos convinced Kronos to re-convene the Horsemen, having located their other two one-time comrades in the Watcher archives, and manipulated MacLeod into following them across Europe.
Kronos had a plan to use an artificially developed virus to plunge the world into chaos and anarchy under the rule of the Horsemen, but between Methos' betrayal and Duncan's skill with a sword, they managed to defeat and behead the other three, leaving Methos as the only survivor. Duncan convinced Cassandra to let Methos live, but their friendship was badly shaken.
It was dealt yet another blow when Duncan fought and killed Methos' friend Byron over his murder of a mortal protege of Joe's. When that was followed by Duncan's collapse into increasingly bizarre hallucinations under what he claimed was the influence of a millenial demon, hallucinations that eventually led him to accidentally behead his own student Richie Ryan, beg Methos to kill him in a fit of despair, and disappear utterly from Paris, Methos had had enough. He left Paris as well, dropping out of sight and staying gone for a year and a half, through Duncan's reappearance, defeat of the demon, and withdrawal from battle to cope with his experiences. This is the point from which I will be drawing him.
Abilities/Additional Notes: Note: Methos will be masquerading as Adam Pierson, his current persona, in order to avoid discovery by any other Immortals who may be in the city. (His real name makes him famous as “the oldest immortal,” which renders him a target for attacks by those who wish to kill him for his power and experience.)
Immortals have all of a mortal human's weaknesses and needs (food, water, shelter, sleep) with the exception of being immune to disease, able to heal any injury short of beheading within a few hours, and able to revive after death due to any cause other than beheading. They can die of hunger and thirst, and experience pain and physical discomfort just as a mortal would. Nonfatal wounds heal quickly and without any mark, except for deep cuts to the throat, which (since it's their vulnerable point) can leave scars and permanent damage.
As an Immortal, Methos has a powerful aura that can be sensed by other Immortals and is capable of sensing the presence of others; he has no other supernatural abilities or senses.
He's been a doctor, lawyer, historian, monk, slave, naturalist and mounted raider, and has a wide range of practical survival skills, although he has a definite preference for intellectual and studious professions and complains of being out of practice at riding and wilderness survival. He is fluent and literate in a broad range of languages, although extremely out of practice with many of them.
He's a capable shot and good with a sword, able to hold his own although he's far from the best fighter among Immortals. His main combat skills are planning, preparation and an ability to get inside his opponent's head, not necessarily superior speed, strength or skill.
Sample Journal Post: [There's a hand over the camera for a moment, adjusting the angle of the PCD before it withdraws to reveal a wry look on Methos' face.] Testing, one two three! Adam Pierson speaking. How is the mic – ooh, is that a camera on this thing too? Very fancy, I like it. I'll take five.
And if they're not for sale, I'd love to hear what you all can tell me about this place! I've done some traveling and I am fairly sure that the Great Wall of China was all in its original location the last time I happened by there. [He shifts the camera to show a dizzying distance below his feet, hefty stone facing jutting into the void.] Although this is the most faithful replica I've ever seen.
I've looked around a little on this forum of yours, so please do feel free to skip over the basics about – what is it you've been calling this place? Adstringéndum? Binding together, very poetic, really. In any case, the monsters, no leaving, strange events, et cetera, I'll take your word for it for now.
Oh, yes, last point: does anyone have a spare room? I haven't the slightest idea what you all use for money around here, but I do know fifty excellent ways to cook rabbit? [He tries a charming smile, shoulders hunching up to his chin.] And I wash a mean window. Any place where the roof won't fall on my head at two a.m. would be perfection, thanks very much, goodbye!
Sample RP: The suitcase tumbled onto the sheets, bounced, and fell open and empty across the bed. Methos yanked the top dresser drawer open, stacking shirts and boxers in his arms with sharp, economical movements.
It was time to leave town. Time and past time. He should have walked out and bought himself a ticket the moment MacLeod had started ranting about strange old men and millenial apocalypses. Fifty centuries of life had taught him exactly when to leave a situation, and yet. And yet he still hadn't learned to pick reason over the irrational urge to stick with a friend. He'd stuck, and what had it gotten him exactly?
Richie's blood spattered over the floor of an empty building, hard to distinguish in the harsh lighting from the blackened scars of his Quickening across the concrete. Duncan on his knees, his ivory-handled blade trembling on his open palms, begging for death. Begging Methos to take his head.
He dumped his armload of clothes into the suitcase, slammed shut the top drawer, and pulled open the second one down. Pants, sweaters. He hesitated over the latter: Aruba, St. Martin, Cuba, no. He didn't want luxury. He wanted to get lost. So Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod had finally lost it, four hundred years of white-knight heroism come down to committing murder out of the delusion that he was fighting an evil demon for the fate of the world. So he couldn't live with the death of his student. Well, he could go find some other sap to take his head, because Methos was not going to step up to the plate for a swing.
Three pairs of slacks and two sweaters. He slammed the suitcase shut. The traveling box for his sword was under the bed: papers and permits for flying it from France to the United States, and that made the destination decision easy, didn't it? He'd pick up a van. Drive, and keep moving; leave everything else here. The rent on this place was covered for another year, and he could arrange for movers if he decided not to come back.
It was always easy to run.
He swallowed bitter anger and knelt to pull the sword case free. He'd been enjoying this life. Insufferable honorable bloody Duncan Macleod and the whirl of Immortal friendships knowing him dragged you into – a man could get used to that kind of thing, and the next thing he knew he was re-growing a conscience, a sense of obligation and the kind of expectations that made him feel foolishly betrayed to see Duncan begging on his knees for death.
The cloth drape inside the case was plain flannel, black, without any shine or glitter to catch the eye. Staring at it was not only pointless, it was also boring.
Past time to leave town, and Methos still found himself struggling with that stubborn bit of conscience. He'd walked out of the building, not wanting to know the rest of the story, but what if MacLeod just needed some time to sleep it off? Some time to come to terms with the loss, to learn to forgive himself, to get over that hero delusion – say, a couple decades on Holy Ground....
Maybe he still needed an older and wiser head around. It wasn't as though Methos knew nothing about regrets.
His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, ready to set it down, hesitating as the seconds stretched until he stepped back and slammed the lid of the case closed on on nothing but black flannel. There. Fine. Enough. His conscience was going to get him killed, and he was going to blame Duncan MacLeod for it when it happened.
And he would have, too, if MacLeod had reappeared, but he turned out to have been the first to run.
Methos wasn't one to beat a dead horse. A week later, he was in Illinois.