St. Elmo's Fire:
 NEST OF ARMS  

And down below him, looking to be as near as his pack but actually several miles away, were reflections of the stars on Loch Shiel, one of the lakelets that nestled in this land of granite and heather.

It was beautiful... and it was home.

And hell as well.

Brooding, he looked north a bit, towards the islet and the castle where he was born.  It was a ruin, now, like his and Heather's old home; no one had lived there for centuries.

It should have assuaged his anger and his pain, to know that no one was left alive of those who'd hurt him so long ago.  It didn't.  Instead it was like salt water poured into a wound, a bitter reminder that he'd loved and been loved -- and those he'd cared for had turned on him like snapping curs... all for being different.  A demon.

He'd told himself a thousand times that they could have done nothing else, had known no better.  He told himself that, but couldn't make himself feel it, the pain at the betrayal so ingrained now it was a part of him that couldn't be separated out, a thing that twisted his soul with every breath he took.

He knew it; watched it carefully, to make sure that it didn't turn him into a monster like others he'd known.  He'd tried to heal it, but couldn't... he'd come to believe that the healing had to come from outside before it could be completed in the soul of the one in torment.

He'd managed to spare Duncan that, at least, had gotten to him before the canker had grown in him... or maybe the lad had just been too good for it to take root, as it had in Connor.  The bairn had had twelve more years of love to cushion him, and a mother to give him her blessing afterward... that might have helped.

If Ramirez had lived... maybe he could have conquered his hate.  The old haggis had a way with him.  Or maybe not.  God knows Heather had loved him enough for ten men, and he'd still held the enmity for his kin close.

Moodily, he stirred the embers again.  That wasn't quite true.  He'd helped Duncan, had taken him in, and Duncan was a MacLeod and of his clan.  But would you have helped him had he not been immortal? a nasty voice asked him tauntingly, and Connor shook his head in answer and anger at it.

Well, maybe he would have, even so.  Being driven from your clan was no good thing, then... and the lad was so naive, so... innocent.

Connor snorted at that, lips curling with laughter that came seldom to him.  'Innocent'.  Connor was sure he'd lain with every woman in the clan except his mother.  The boy knew the joys of the flesh, all right.  Though those first few years Connor hadn't realized it, for Duncan's trauma had been as deep as his own... 

But the lad had grown past it, and Connor hoped he'd had some small part in that.  He didn't want Duncan to have this legacy of hate in him.  Especially not if he took the prize, as so many thought he might.

Connor smiled again as small sparks flew up about his wrist.

There was a certain satisfaction in hearing of Duncan's progress.  Like watching your son grow to heights you, his father, never reached.  Though not yet.  Not quite yet, the highlander thought judiciously.

And that reminded him that someday he and Duncan might yet face each other in earnest with drawn blades.

Or might not.  Ramirez and I never did... never will, not now.  And I badgered the old peacock about it, asked him whether he'd take my head -- he's probably laughing like a loon, now.  For I took his, in a way.

Inside him was Ramirez, with the Kurgan.  A tiny glow warmed him as he thought of that, his bitterness easing as he realized he would always carry Ramirez with him now.  The Kurgan, too, but he dismissed the man.  The Kurgan didn't matter.

Ramirez did.

With that easing came a sense of peace.  He leaned back and relaxed against the boulder behind him.  He shut his eyes and felt for the life around him as Ramirez had taught him so long ago.  The small creatures that came out at night to feed, so fearful, and the others who preyed on them.  Not on him, he was too big... the wolves no longer here as they once were, nor any bears or cats of a largeness to threaten.  But the lesser ones lived and felt, and he joyed in their uncomplicated feelings, bringing himself to a calmness he'd not known in years, fraught with the living in the crowded cities of humanity and the constant threat of his own kind.

Gradually he withdrew from the life about him, finding another path that led inside himself.  It was a pleasant track, green and rocky, like the one up the mountain that he'd taken when he'd been driven out.  He frowned at that memory, but his brow smoothed as he realized how removed it seemed from him, as if it had happened to someone else.

Imperceptibly the passage broadened and he saw, with surprise, that there were others there.  The Kurgan stood, sword in hand, on one of the boulders that were outcroppings of the mountain.

He nodded affably at the man.  He bore no one any ill-will, not at the moment.  And whatever wrongs the Kurgan had done, his life had paid for all.

The ancient warrior gestured in return, but did not approach him, and he continued, drawn on by the road and the hill.  Kastagir was next, his old friend, and Connor grinned at him, glad to see him; he sat on a swing he'd fashioned under some pine trees.  A hand raised to him, and Connor passed on, still feeling the peace and joy in the day he'd not felt in centuries, if ever.

There were more men and women, now, they fair littered the landscape; a few, a very few, looked familiar, but most were strangers.  He was polite to all, a bow, a nod, a raised hand in greeting, but he would not stop to speak.  Finally, about half-way up the mountain, he came to a grassy glade, daisies and wildflowers growing in bright profusion, all colors mixed together.

And there on the bank of the stream was the old haggis, a fishing pole in his hand and his hat perched over his face while he slept.

Connor stopped, his heart drinking in the scene.  He grinned again, an expression that felt strange to his face, and crept up quietly, picking up a twig as he neared the line.  A twitch, and then another; Ramirez never stirred.  Impatient, then, the highlander tugged on the line with his wrist and bent the rod clear down to the water.

Ramirez jerked awake with a yell as he lunged for the rod.  "God and the Virgin, it must be a whale!" he cried out, only to find Connor rolling on the ground and laughing.

He laughed so hard the tears came to his eyes; he never knew when they turned into tears of sorrow and he found himself sobbing as he knelt in the grass and the leaves.  A strong arm held him, cradling him against a velvet-clad chest, broad and comforting.

"There now, pendejo," the peacock murmured.  "There now, it's all right."

And at last, like a miracle, it was.

~-~-~

He was naked as the day he was born, and he looked with mild amazement at himself.  Still, the day was warm...

He threw back his head and laughed.  "It's no' real, any of it!"

"No, pendejo?  How do you know?"  Ramirez' white teeth flashed in his swarthy face.  The old man was naked, too, and Connor blinked at the sight.  He'd never seen the peacock out of his velvets and furs before.

"Because," the highlander's breath came too quickly; he felt almost dizzy, "It's never warm in Scotland -- not even in midsummer.  And especially not up in the mountains.  But I'm warm, even without my clothes.  So it's no' real," he added simply, and was gratified when Ramirez laughed, his full-throated enjoyment a delight and a thrill.

"Aye, you have the right of it, young one."

"Then, are you real?" Connor asked, a distinct thread of worry beginning to gnaw at him.  He reached out to grip the firm shoulder, make sure the old man couldn't slip away from him without warning.

"Oh, this is me, my quickening.  But all around us --"  Ramirez gestured expansively, "That is you.  And a lovely place it is," he approved.  "I've almost caught up with my reading."

"Books?  Here?"

Ramirez laughed again at Connor's expression.  "Every book I've ever read, every book you've ever read, and every book any of us here has ever read... we have them all, from any willing to share -- and most are.  He had many victims in him, the Kurgan.

"The ones you have added had less to offer -- just as those who came with them had more," the Egyptian added, and Connor thought he saw approval in the ancient eyes.

"That's... nice," he said inanely.  The shoulder beneath his hand was sun-warm; tough with the hard muscle of a man, silken-smooth with the supple strength of the flesh.  The tang of musk was in his nostrils, the clean smell of his teacher good to him, less sharp than his own odor, which was like sandalwood.

Ramirez' face changed, his eyes piercing in their blackness, like a falcon's.  "Oh ho.  Is this what you want, pendejo?"

"Always," Connor breathed.  Doubt assailed him.  "But you -- am I forcing you to --"

"No, Connor," the husky accent told him.  "No.  This is what I want, too.  Never doubt that.  Here, no one can force another."

"But I am -- I made this place.  I could make you --"

"You could put me in a bed, you could strip me; you could not make me consent, pendejo," Ramirez murmured.  "You could not make me love you."

The bearded mouth bent to take his, and Connor smiled to feel it tickle the sensitive skin of his face.

Then all smiles died as the rapture took him. 

It was late when they woke in each others' arms, but the sun was still warm.

"You didn't tell me it would be like this," he whispered, his head on Ramirez' chest.

"How would I have known?  Yes, I have shared flesh with others here," Ramirez forestalled his questions, a daisy flicking at the highlander's nose.  "But... it is only like this when you love... and I did not know you loved me."

"Dense as an oak," Connor teased sleepily.  "Who would not love you?"

Ramirez snorted.  "Not everyone has your perspicacity.  Now up, pendejo!  We have much to discuss, you and I."

Connor rolled to sit, his wits still sluggish.  "What about?"

"Your training, of course!  I never finished it.  Now is as good a time as any to start."

As Ramirez began talking, Connor rolled his eyes and covered his head with his shirt, feeling young again.

~-~-~

"A haggis, am I?  Then what does that make you, pendejo?  Stuffed with something worse than a sheeps' lights and liver?"

The white teeth against the swarthy flesh made a contrast that tugged at Connor's heart whenever he saw it -- Ramirez' joy was Connor's, and his own laughter echoed the dark man's.

"So what does pendejo mean?" he asked, already knowing the answer, but keeping his face straight as he saw Ramirez flush.

"Um... fool?" the old man offered.

Connor looked downcast.

"Coward, a little..." Ramirez said in a smaller voice.

Connor looked wounded.

"And... a male pubic hair."

Connor's eyes closed in pain, and Ramirez grabbed him close and kissed him.  An eye flicked open, dancing with inner mirth -- and Connor grinned.

"At least a haggis makes good eating," he murmured, and pinned Ramirez to the grass before he bent down, using his tongue and teeth to show Ramirez how one could best eat a haggis.

He made a most satisfactory meal.

~-~-~

He woke when the sun made the morning mist shine silver.  The damp clung to his bones like seaweed on a drowning man, and he shook with the cold the night had laid on him.

He shrugged it off.  He would have suffered a year in hell for the time he had had -- one night on the hills above Jedburgh was nothing.

He rolled his shoulders and found dry kindling for the fire, squinting at the sun as he did so.  There was still so much more to learn... and a pleasure, too, to share his self with Ramirez, whether in the flesh or not.  But the stiffness of his jeans was from seed, not urine, and the aching of his arse wasn't from sitting the night by a dead fire.  Ah, who the hell cared what was real and what wasn't?

Not him, not now.  But maybe he'd not tell Duncan where he came by the new knowledge Ramirez had given him... he'd have much to teach the young pup when next he saw him.

He started hot water and powdered eggs in the small pan, thinking about what he'd learned over the days and nights they'd been together.  Only one night in this world, but far more than that in his quickening.  Incredible -- and dangerous.

He'd visit the old haggis again as soon as he could, but it would be far better to find a monastery for a while and do his night-roving while on holy ground.  His head would be safer, and the body needed to be cared for, wherever the spirit wandered.

Besides, if he lost his head, what would happen to Ramirez?  From what he'd gathered, the Kurgan's quickening had not been nearly as pleasant a place to pass time in as his own idealized version of the Scottish Highlands.  He fell to eating, and ruminated on what could be done about that if he lost to one of the bastards he hunted...

A memory of the sun-warmed days brought heat to his loins as he pondered.

~-~-~

"Come here, haggis... it's time tae be eaten," Connor crooned, and crowed when Ramirez blushed beet-red.

~-~-~

Gathering up his scattered belongings, Connor tied them into a neat pack and shouldered the bag, making sure the fire was thoroughly out.  The bracken was dry as tinder with the summer heat, and could smolder for hours before breaking out into an uncontrolled blaze if left alight.

The road wound down the mountain and small beads of sweat gathered at his brow along about the third or fourth hour of walking.  The stick in his hand, a stout carved blackthorn branch, swung in a rhythm that he could match for days, and his thoughts kept pace with his legs, in a steady, ground-eating gait.  Briefly he pondered calling Duncan when he reached the next town, then shrugged the decision away.  Duncan would keep.  He had the eldest, after all.

And how had he known that?  Connor asked himself.  It took only a moment before he remembered what he'd forgotten for centuries.  The first night he'd spent as an exile, dead to the world in the middle of the stone circle on top of the mountain.  He shook his head at himself.

But things had worked out well, after all.  He'd met Heather, and had the long years with her.  Ramirez had come and died, but that, too, had been foredoomed to happen.  He accepted it with the same calm that the haggis had, pain there as well for the years he might have had with him alive and well, but understanding nothing comes without a price.

Duncan will have to learn that, if he hasn't already... he thought grimly.  If he's the one, he'll more than have to learn it.  But what did they see in my hand, so long ago?

He passed the stick to his left hand and studied the right; then reversed the process.  There was nothing there that he could see, nothing save dirt and calluses, and a hand that, when it laid hold of something, that thing moved. 

Well, no doubt Ramirez would tell him, in his own sweet time.  Or maybe the old man.  It was time for him to have met Duncan by now, surely?  Duncan had not called to tell him, but he might not have told Duncan who he was.

Whatever.  Connor MacLeod saw the beginnings of fences around the fields and realized he was near to the village.  He could catch a train here, most likely, and then a plane.  First to Seacouver, to see Duncan and talk to him about what he must do when he met the eldest...

He chuckled at that, thinking of what he'd say. 'Now, Duncan, when first ye see him ye must name him, for that'll gie ye power over him.  An' then, when he's swimming, steal his skin and bid him come home wi' ye; ye may promise tae free him when he's been yer wife for twenty years, but no' before...  Tame him wi' food and drink, wrap your plaid about him...  If he takes bread and salt frae yer hand, ye hae him; tak yer blade and shed blood for him, and he'll be thine.'

Absurd, to think of the eldest as a selkie or a swan-prince.

Or maybe not.  Connor thought about the man as he'd seen him that once; pale skin, thin and — young.  So young, until you looked into his eyes.  Eyes that could see through the sun and the moon and the stars; the earth, too.

He shook his head again.  That story was for Duncan.  He'd take Ramirez, and be thankful.

How soon could he find that monastery?  He could hardly wait to see Ramirez again.

His steps quickening, Connor MacLeod walked into Glenfinnan, looking for the railroad station.
 

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