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Methos interrupts quickly, “I think Duncan knows the rest”.
Duncan glares at both his guests as if they are conspiring against him, “Oh, sure, I know the rest. Except that I didn’t see a frightened young woman. I saw—” His voice catches for an instant, as if he can’t quite make himself say what comes next, “I saw…”
Felicia just grins, “… a tigress? A ghost cat? A magnificent specimen
of the feline form? Of course you did. That was why I lost control of my
magic”, (Methos scowls as she finally uses the M word), “and why I didn’t
dare go into combat in the first place”.
Duncan jumps to his feet with a strong negative gesture. “This has
gone too far. I’ll admit that I saw the cat, but you’re not going to convince
me that you are the cat.” He enunciates carefully, one word at a time:
“There—Is—No—Such—Thing—As—Magic!”.
Felicia is left speechless for an instant by this outburst. She laughs, “You don’t believe in magic? Better to say that the Sun doesn’t believe in fire!” Her words take on a more serious tone; “You give off power like the heat of a forge. I can feel it. More than that, I can use it”.
“That’s Quickening, dear.” In spite of everything, Duncan still thinks he’s dealing with a wayward (though unusual) young Immortal. “If you think it’s magic, you’ve got a lot to learn.”
“I think it is you who needs your eyes opened. Do you want a demonstration, dear?”
“Felicia,” Methos warns gently, “this is neither the time nor the place for anything spectacular.”
She sweeps past both men, striding purposefully; unnoticed, she acquires a cup of coffee in passing. She pauses at the steps to the deck, replies sweetly “I’m only going to be as ‘spectacular’ as he is stubborn”. Duncan looks mildly offended.
As Methos rises to follow, he mutters “That’s what I’m afraid of…”
Three people appear on the deck of the barge, Methos, MacLeod and the stranger—Felicia. The name is hard to recall; he still couldn’t bring himself to put it down on paper. They seem to talk for a moment among themselves. Duncan and the woman step forward; she makes a broad sweeping gesture that encompasses much of the river bank, Mac only shrugs. The mystery woman abruptly kicks loose the barge’s gangplank. It drops into the river, provoking a loud protest from the Highlander; wind and distance steal away her soft-spoken response. Again the woman points out to shore, this time uncomfortably close to the Watcher’s own position. MacLeod nods, adding a show me gesture—and suddenly he is standing alone.
Dawson is shocked: he hadn’t looked away, hadn’t heard anyone jump; he was almost certain he hadn’t even blinked. One moment a black-clad young woman stood in plain sight; the next she’s simply… gone.
“Greetings, old man.” The voice is almost at his ear; the strangely musical accent is familiar. Oh, Hell… he forces himself not to turn and look; says nothing.
“`Tis a lovely day. Such a shame to waste it watching a single boat. Especially one that isn’t going anywhere. ”
Deny everything, look normal—it was one of the first things any field agent learned. He keeps his voice cool and casual, “Everybody needs a hobby. Like you said, it’s a nice day.”
A steaming mug is placed on the rail by his elbow; the smell of coffee is very tempting. “I thought you might need a little something, since your—um, hobbies seem to keep you up all night.” More quietly, ”Though every Shadow knows that double shifts dull the senses.”
Dawson sighs, makes a swift decision (one he may yet regret). He answers in the same near-whisper, “There are those who Watch from the shadows and then there are the true Shadows…”
Laughter, “You flatter me.”
He takes a sip from the offered cup, scowls at the taste. “Who made this?” A strong yet dextrous hand points out to the barge. “It figures, he never could brew a decent cup of coffee.”
He turns toward her, catching sight of an impish smile. Mac has all the luck when it comes to women-. Behind the false bravado, she looks tired, worried, maybe even a little bit scared. He lays a reassuring hand on her arm, “He’s a good man, you know.”
On the barge, Methos steps forward as soon as Felicia Teleports. “Where’d
she go now?” Duncan waves a hand in vaguely the right direction, still
searching for his voice. The Scholar keeps a companionable silence, knowing
full well that her demonstrations took a while to sink in.
Finally, “You don’t think she’s going to—?”
The Eldest Immortal shakes his head quickly, “Hurt Joe? Not a chance; she respects him. There’s some kind of professional courtesy between those two. ” As they watch the situation on shore, both Immortals share the same thought: exactly what was Felicia’s profession, and did they really want to know?
As suddenly as she had vanished, Felicia reappears. MacLeod reaches out—to demand an explanation, to give an apology; even he’s not sure which. She brushes past him as if he didn’t exist; there is a look of intense concentration on her face usually reserved for Zen Masters and Shao-lin monks. She scans downstream, and it takes several moments for Duncan to realise that the woman is—chanting? The muttered words are totally unfamiliar, but there is a definite sense of something recited rather than spoken.
Felicia points at a distant object, reaching out as if she could touch it by will alone. At first it is only a shadow on the water, hard to recognise in the distance, but it soon resolves into the fallen plank. Duncan lapses into another stunned silence as he watches the wood float quite naturally toward the barge against the current. Felicia is still oblivious to everything; her hand trembles in its grasping reach, beads of sweat gather on her brow. Approaching the barge, the heavy water-soaked board rises out of the water, settling gently into place mere inches from its original position.
The rhythmic chant ends abruptly in a deep moan; Duncan turns in time to see Felicia start to collapse. He catches her deftly, praying she wasn’t hurt even as he guides her fall. She didn’t have to do this to herself, not just to convince him. As they touch there is a tiny spark and the Immortal feels…drained. Strong hands cradle her gently; he carefully brushes aside a strand of hair. The mysterious stranger, the woman with the soul of a tiger, suddenly seems so—vulnerable.
Blue eyes open slowly, followed by a weak smile, the first genuine smile he’s seen. “Too…spectacular?” asks a small voice, weak but getting stronger.
Duncan’s own smile shows a mix of concern, relief, awe, surprise and perhaps a touch of remorse. “No more than I was stubborn. You have my word, we’ll get you home again.”
Inwardly, he cringes; would she ever let him forget that one lapse? “It’s a chance not many get once they’ve seen it the other way. I hope you appreciate how close you came to being a head shorter.”
She shrugs eloquently, “About as close as you came to being a convenient meal. But we both proved ourselves to be better than that, didn’t we?” Now that Felicia has admitted it once she is quite casual about the Cat, as long as they are alone. MacLeod hasn’t actually seen the tigress since that first night, but that hasn’t stopped him from finding shed white fur everywhere, and some disturbingly large claw marks on some of the furniture. He wonders where one might go to find a scratching post for a 600-lb. cat.
To keep from wandering too far down that bizarre thought path, Duncan asks the one question that’s been bothering him since the cemetery, “Why me?”
“Would you believe, at first, it was the blade?” Felicia’s eyes never leave the sword as she speaks, “I had just come from a place where a blade like that wasn’t just a weapon, it was a way of life. The bearer of one, or of the matched set, could be guaranteed to have an unshakeable sense of honour.” She looks up at him, deadly serious, “Of course, I’m assuming you came by it… honestly”.
The flash of challenge in her eyes has become familiar by now, though the random shot is closer to the mark than she imagines. “It belonged to my teacher.”
Felicia considers what she knows of Eastern culture, and is suitably
impressed. “You must have been an exceptional student.”
In his mind, Duncan hears an echo of Hideo Koto’s voice: When it
is over, the sword is yours. His reply is barely above a whisper, “He—didn’t
need it any more.”
“Oh”. Felicia remembers young Uhroko, their guide and adopted samurai, who would rather sleep with his blade than be without it for even that long. “Oooh!” She bows her head gravely and the two share a moment of silence that seems to bring them closer.
Duncan is still curious in spite of himself. “If you trusted me immediately, why the stalking?”
“ ’T wasn’t a stalking, or you would not be here. It was a reconnaissance; I needed to discover the man behind the weapon. I liked what I found.”
Duncan leans back in his chair, amused. “And what did you find?”
“I found…Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod; surely you know him?” A warm smile and a gesture bid her to continue. “If you insist. He is a quiet man; wary of strangers, intensely loyal to those he would call friend. A man in his prime, in peak condition. Yet he has—how to say it? —A very old soul; you can see it in his eyes. He has seen and done things he would rather not remember; but his heart will never let him forget.”
She pauses to look into those too-old eyes. There she finds amusement at her description, hiding wariness and—was that a touch of shock? How interesting, it seems she has wandered too close to a secret. Felicia continues her tale, cautiously, to see what else she can learn. “He is proud and somewhat stubborn; yet he is always willing to give of himself. He helps people, sometimes against his own better judgement; does what is Right no matter the consequences. Another time, another place and he could have been a warrior, a champion, someone’s noble knight; here, he’s a mystery more than anything else.”
She ends her story with a sly half smile, weighing his reaction. “Well, have I come close to the mark, or am I merely spinning a Bard’s tale?”
MacLeod regards the young woman with a new appreciation. “Closer than
you could ever imagine”.
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