Ancient Monday

[tigriswolf]

Hello, y’all! I’m tigriswolfand today is Monday, the day of ancient prompts.  Prompt about old (old age-wise, not old fandoms) characters, ancient sites (Stonehenge; Easter Island heads), long ago times (or, hey, the Ancients from Stargate). 

Remember the rules, please:

No more than three prompts to a single fandom

No more than five prompts at a time

Use the following format:

Highlander, Methos, he designed the pyramids

Highlander/SGA, Methos + author’s choice, walking the old girl’s halls, Methos almost feels young again

Remember, there are lonely prompts still needing some love, as well, if nothing appeals to you today.

Tag = ancient/old

Comments

[tigriswolf]

Highlander, Methos, he designed the pyramids

[tigriswolf]

Highlander/SGA, Methos + Atlantis, walking the old girl’s halls, Methos almost feels young again

The Human

[sakiku.livejournal.com]

Ignores SGA season 3

The Human

The day The Announcement is made (it is written in capital letters, even the definite article, because there is no way such a monumental happening could be expressed with any less – if it hadn't looked so ridiculous, the media probably would have capitalized it all - THE ANNOUNCEMENT) Methos is caught totally unprepared.

The Announcement is world-wide, a message to all of humanity and supported by enough feuding heads of state that it is highly unlikely that it is simply a government plot: We Are Not Alone. Aliens are amongst us and have been amongst us and will always be amongst us, and we actually have the technology to visit them on their home planets.

Methos has always known of the first, We Are Not Alone. How could he not when he had been engineered and educated by the Alterans eons ago?

He has also always known about the second, that there are aliens all over the world. If one doesn't count Immortals as aliens and the Alterans as his progenitors, Methos has seen Goa'uld come and go, has seen Asgard ships hover just below the clouds, has seen how Myrrdin built Camelot and the myths surrounding it. He has always thought it the height of arrogance that humans think themselves the crown of evolution with no care that there might be other intelligent life around them.

However the third, of humans being able to travel to alien planets? That is the part that catches him so unprepared that a bolt of fear makes him pale paler than a sheet. How has he not heard of that? Do those in charge know what kind of wasp nest they have stirred? Do they know how fraught with peril interstellar politics are?

He immediately plays his net of contacts and slowly, bit by bit, a picture emerges. It is by far less devastating, and yet far more terrifying than he had feared. Those in charge are well aware of the situation, and the only reason The Announcement has been made is because humanity has managed to wipe out its two closest threat: the Goa'uld and the Ori.

The Ori.

He almost has an heart-attack when he hears that. Methos still can't believe that humans succeeded where the Alterans failed. It sends shivers down his back to know how close earth has come to extinction – and he had not known it – but humanity has prevailed out there, has made powerful allies and powerful technology, and the Ta'uri have crossed that dangerous threshold into becoming an interstellar power.

All without Methos knowing a thing.

This is what hurts the most. He is quite certain (no, he knows, but he doesn't want to admit that to himself, not even after more years than most people can count) that he is the last one, but there should have been one of them present to help humanity with that first step. It is why they have been left here nearly a million years ago. It is indirectly the reason for there being an entire race of Immortals – in the hands of someone who knows what he is doing, the Gathering would have provided enough energy to drive off even a determined invasion force.

But like so many things, it has been perverted until none of the original purpose shines through. Even Methos has forgotten, grown lax in his task. And he should have known that with the way technology has been improving continually faster, especially over the course of the 20th and the 21st century, that it would be only a question of time until humans found their way into space.

However after the scare of having a successful moon landing, such an infinitely clumsy attempt conducted with purely human means and absolutely no chance of going any further than the first four planets of their solar system, he grew complacent. He thought he would have at least a century until technology had grown enough to allow for true interplanetary travel. He thought he would have at least several centuries until technology had grown enough to allow for true interstellar travel. And by then, the general level of technology would have been enough to mitigate most dangers threshold species were exposed to.

[tigriswolf]

Highlander, Methos, if anyone is a god to Methos that is likely quite beyond the ken of humans - and he probably doesn't worship it anyway (snagged from marbleglove

Fill: This too shall pass [1/2]

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Okay, I couldn't resist filling this.

This too shall pass

The priest had come by several times to check on Methos, sitting his silent vigil in the church, but he only shook his head and the priest went away again.

Darius would have sat beside him in silence for as long as it took Methos to give up and demand a game of chess to drown out their silent debate on faith.

Methos had grown up worshiping nature spirits. Every tree had a spirit, every rock and every stream required proper respect and reverence.

Once, he had spent several centuries worshipping a single tree. He had nurtured it from a seed and watched it grow. He had fertilized it with the blood from his veins and he had defended the village that grew around it with the blood of his enemies. At a time when he was so close to losing his faith, he had loved that tree.

It had grown great and thick and bright and a grove had grown around it.

He had loved it until it died and beyond.

There had been no great tragedy.

It had been healthy and cared for. There had been no lightning strike or ax blade. It had merely grown old and time had taken it away.

He had not allowed it to be harvested or burned or removed from the grove it had started and lived in for so long and he had stayed with it until it’s body had returned to the earth entirely. By the time it was gone, so too were every single living person other than himself who had ever known it when it lived. The young child who had climbed it one last time before it got too brittle had already died of old age.

Another time, he had loved a woman in a village on the side of the mountain. He had married her and raised her children. The village was small and poor and so he traveled as a merchant, but always returned with funds to support his family. He returned every few months while his wife lived and together they had worshipped the spirit of the mountain.

After she had been laid to her final rest, he had taken longer trips. But he had returned to help his children and his children’s children and their children too. The trips grew progressively longer and he had remarried many times, and lived many different lives, but he tried to return at least once a generation to see his family. He no longer worshiped the mountain, though, because they didn’t, and because each time he returned, it was less a mountain and more a worn hill.

The wind was taking it away with each breath.

[tigriswolf]

Highlander, Methos, his true name is hidden on every megalith in the world

[tigriswolf]

Supernatural, Castiel, he feels unbearably old sometimes

Weight of waiting, Castiel, 1/1

[hobnailedboots.livejournal.com]

And the award for worst title ever goes to... :P


Castiel never knew why some saw the night as cheerless. He'd been reading, a lot, and though Dean was still as foreign as he had always been he had come across the phrase 'pathetic fallacy'. Humans equated the darkness in their hearts with the darkness out the window, and it angered him on two fronts. For the first, humans were not special; the weather did not change to reflect their moods. Secondly, why had darkness come to represent something negative? All darkness was was the absence of light.

The feathers had been hung on Castiel's wings before his father had said those four words. Castiel's wings were as black as space. Blacker. They absorbed light, and sometimes Castiel wished it would all be absorbed. Things were simpler, then. With light came thought, conflict, noise. To Castiel, darkness was silence. The night might be cheerless, but it was devoid of everything else, too. It soothed him.

Castiel turned from the window and stared into the quiet gloom around him. Dean turned in his sleep and exhaled – whuff – in the shade.

Soon, morning would come, and with it action. Seals were there to be saved, but as the weeks passed and he remained tied to the Winchesters, as he was granted six hours or so of every twenty-four in which to think, he began to believe that heaven's plan was the same as Uriel's, but for its protagonist. Heaven didn't care about the seals, Castiel thought. If anything, they wanted them broken.

The host wasn't huge, but there were enough low-level angels that more than him could have been spared. Castiel had no illusions regarding his significance in god's plan. He was not one of the first created, and nor was he an archangel. He was barely above cherubim, and his powers attested to that.

Castiel had watched most of human history from afar. He had spent recent nights absorbing book after book written about human wars.

Castiel was afraid to think it, and afraid to believe it, but he knew it was true in the same way that Dean Winchester knew a hunt when he saw one, or how to hustle pool. Castiel was cannon fodder, and the Winchesters were but sacrificial lambs to herald the oncoming reckoning.

Sometimes, Castiel wished that he could sleep and embrace darkness fully, if only for a little while. What good is thinking when he is prevented from action? What good were doubts if they could not be voiced?

[ryouseiteki.livejournal.com]

Supernatural/Stonehenge Apocalypse, Dean/(or+)Jacob(or somehow Castiel?), There's something about an alien or robot or whatever on the moon, and some ancient artifact from the pyramids that could end the world (must be thursday); but all Dean can think when he meets Jacob is Cas Cas Cas.

[ahavaelwilhouse.livejournal.com]

love this prompt

[lucdarling.livejournal.com]

Leverage, Eliot Spencer, he never thought he'd live to see this birthday

[moonchildfic.livejournal.com]

For a single, vertigo inducing, moment Eliot has to resist the urge to yell at the kids to get off his damn lawn.

He isn’t sure how *this* happened.

He’s standing on the porch of his country house (estate) watching as the last of four unmarked black vans pull to a stop. It’s a good thing they let him know they were coming or the sight might have given him a heart attack (or resulted in several IEDs putting a damper on the celebrations).

First out were the kids, and they seemed like damn children for all the youngest was already twenty four, that had finally replaced the last of Hardison’s original crew. Next came the handful of team members that had split off over the years. Hardison’s original crew. The splintered members who had come and gone through the final years of Leverage.

And finally in the last van Hardison and Parker, all grown up and verging on old, emerged before stopping to help unload Sophie and Nate.

Then Parker’s and Hardison’s son and Sophie and Nate’s grand daughter, both members of Leverage’s grandchild crew, started to race across the lawn without reverence of Eliot’s gardens and Eliot had to refrain from shouting at them to get off his damn lawn and…

He leaned a little harder on his cane, glancing back over his shoulder to his house and the wife and daughter he’d finally settled down to have after old injuries piled up too high to keep fighting and Eliot Fucking Batman Spencer faded into legend.

He was turning eighty.

Time was in his life he’d never imagined living to see forty.

A peel of laughter and he turned back to see Parker chasing her daughter and their family, their hugely extended family of crime…

And when they reach him he claims it’s the damn sun that’s making his eyes water.

[ryouseiteki.livejournal.com]

Doom/Author's Choice of Sci-fi, John/(or+)Author's Choice, People don't give up on space once the arc is destroyed, and in fact work harder than ever to achieve intergalactic travel on their own merit. He doesn't often think back on the old days, but when he does, he wonders that Sam would think. It's hard, he's found, and lonely; being immortal.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Stargate Atlantis, an Ancient, everyone expected him to know all the answers and he tried to live up to their expectations but he had lost his war millenia ago and he didn't feel very wise

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Highlander, Duncan and Methos and Joe, old is a comparative term

untitled - Methos pondering, PG, gen

[tigriswolf]

Humans would consider MacLeod old. Most of them would consider Joe old, too.

MacLeod considers Methos old. Amanda thinks Methos is old. Rebecca and Cassandra and Darius all considered Methos old.

Kronos and Silas and Caspian all though Methos old.

Old, Methos tells Joe, is all relative.

He stares down into the Grand Canyon. He daydreams about the ocean and all the life she swallowed, including what had been his before he went to the desert.

Joe will wither and die. MacLeod will try to finish a fight and lose his head.

Methos will walk into the desert and out of the sea.

Old, he whispers, watching the sun. Tell me what you think that means.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

The Pretender, Jarod, he is both very young in experience and unbelievably old

[oteap.livejournal.com]

Being Human, George/Mitchell, One hundred years and counting

[oteap.livejournal.com]

Being Human, Ivan/Mitchell, too old for this shit

[mahmfic.livejournal.com]

Being Human UK, Annie, being dead feels like forever

[hawk-dancing.livejournal.com]

CM: Suspect Behavior, Mick/Prophet, "Would you stop calling me Grandpa!"

[adlanth.livejournal.com]

Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion, any, The ruins on the island of Himling are very old, yet the memory of the kinslayers remains.

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Supernatural, Michael, he was already old when God and Death created Life

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

The Silmarillion, Maglor, wandering through the ages

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

Teen Wolf, Any, The moon's power is old and its reach is long.

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Highlander, Methos, changing the past is easy enough when you are the only left who can tell you what happened

to the victor goes the spoils - outside pov, PG, gen

[tigriswolf]

Devon raises his hand and asks, "But how do we know its right?"

Mr. Benson smiles at him. "What do you mean?"

Devon swallows and licks his lips, looking around the room. Callie gives him an encouraging nod. "Well, I mean," he says, "the winners write the books, right? So, all of the past... how can we know that's what it was really like? It's all guesswork, isn't it, or propaganda?"

Mr. Benson chuckles. "That's what everyone who looks at the past wonders, Mr. Wiles." He turns to the board and writes To the victor goes the spoils in broad, sweeping letters. "Now, can anyone tell me what this means?"

George says, "What Devon just said. The winners write the history books. Who cares about the losers? They were all enslaved or wiped out, anyway."

Mr. Benson nods. "Exactly. History is whatever the victor wishes it to be." He holds up their textbook, then lets it fall to the desk. "And how would any person know for sure its wrong?" He shrugs. "It might he harder today to fake something, or rewrite it how you like - but not impossible."

A moment passes, while Devon stares at his book in growing horror, and Mr. Benson says, "But we're not here to investigate the veracity of a millennia’s worth of historical texts. We're here to learn what will be on your tests. So turn to section three and read about the Black Plague that wiped out Europe."

Mr. Benson raises an eyebrow at Devon. Devon flips open his book.

.

(In ten years, Devon dies in a carwreck. One of the EMTs sneaks him out of the morgue and he hears about his family’s lawsuit against the city for losing his body. Sarah teaches him how to live in this new world – guys with swords after his head, and waking up after death, and living forever if the guys with swords don’t get him.

And then Mr. Benson finds them at the place Sarah said was safe, a bar in a city protected by the best of them all, and Mr. Benson says, “I knew I’d see you soon.”

Devon gapes at him. Mr. Benson hasn’t aged a day. “But – you – I –”

Mr. Benson laughs. “Call me Adam, child, and ask your question again.”

Staring at him, Devon tries to remember. History had been fascinating that year, with all of Mr. Be – Adam’s snark about what the book said. Quips and asides, and pithy comments that had even the least interested kid sitting up in anticipation of what might come next.

Devon asks, “How can we know the books are right, when the winners write the books?”

Adam smiles. “Live long enough to find out,” he says, and buys Devon a beer.)

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

My Secret Identity, Andrew + Any, Age changes one's perceptions toward everything, including superpowers.

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow People, Any, The future of the human race started a long, long time ago.

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow People, Any, The Time Guardians only look young.

[falconwhitaker.livejournal.com]

Atop The Fourth Wall, Linkara + any, the evil that is Ancient Egypt strikes again

[mahmfic.livejournal.com]

Futurama, Professor, I'm old!