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Authors Notes: The fact that this fic exists at all is the complete and total fault of ‘Evenmoor’ (found on Ao3 Fanfiction). She put it in my head that Methos as a Jedi was a perfectly logical and wonderful idea and, once in, that idea just refused to leave. Please go and read her story ‘Sweet Moments Set Aside for Us’. She is an awesome author and that story has a little something for everyone.
Each chapter will be set in the same universe as every other one, but not set in any chronological order or even have connecting points. Prompts will be encouraged and accepted. But understand that I am horrible at writing romance so it will be background at most.
The idea of Methos being basically ‘ancient and timeless’ and always 5000 years old isn’t mine either. So, Tigriswolf- many thanks to you for writing all your stories. The inspiration you provided has been firmly stuck in my head since the first time I read your fictions. Also many thanks to LitaJ for informing me that 'Tigriswolf' was the author I was looking for. I couldn't remember the name for the life of me and she read this chapter and pointed me in the right direction. Thanks!
He was 5000 years old.
At least that’s what he would claim. If anyone asked the right series of questions- with the right amount of pressure and lack of escape options- he would eventually, reluctantly tell them he was 5000 years old.
(Very few people asked the right series of questions in the right kind of environment, and he did not volunteer the information. Ever.)
The main thing to ensure was that he was always 5000 years old. Because, while it was a large number- a number that had true weight- it was still small enough that people could accept it with only the proper amount of incredulity.
(One had come close to almost figuring out the truth. But that little green troll had a knack for sideways questions and strange thoughts coupled with the vaguest understanding of what it was like to watch a universe change while you didn’t; so he allowed the creature his musings and revealed nothing.)
When Earth had first been settled he was 5000 years old. When people forgot where they’d come from and all they knew of the universe was a small planet in a forgotten galaxy he’d been 5000 years old. Then the rise of the pyramids, the fall of countless civilizations and empires- some by his hand, some by others; it didn’t matter. Followed by the age of the super powers, information highways and digital living, and then suddenly back out into space and the realization that they were only one small part of a very large whole. He had been 5000 years old through it all, sitting and watching and recording everything.
(And he had laughed because history rewinding itself to that extent was a fresh enough experience to be entertaining. To make him feel young again in a way he’d forgotten was possible.)
He told the ones who knew and begged- with the right application of alcohol- stories of his current 5000 years. And some of them would be lies and some of them would be almost true. Most of them would fall somewhere in-between. He would talk of the rise of the New Republic and how it eventually fell and became the ‘Old Republic’ in the face of the Newest Republic. They would laugh at his rants about how the more things changed the more they stayed the same. And they would come to settle in their knowledge of him and bestow quaint nicknames and deem him ‘mostly harmless’ as he sat, and watched, and recorded what he saw.
(And generally tried to live up to the description people gave him because it was so much easier and cleaner than blood and war. And he had been 5000 years old when he finally learned that lesson the painfully hard way.)
Besides, it was what he enjoyed. What he was good at. Life as a scholar was always more pleasant, and less murderous, than any of the alternatives. It allowed him to exist on the side lines; aware of the game but not actually playing it. That was the true art to survival. Live long enough to realize the purpose of existence wasn’t to play a role, but to record everyone’s part so future generations could learn without the annoyance of being a part of it.
(And gods, he wished one day they would learn. It had to happen. Certainly not during this century, but eventually the rules of exceptions had to happen, didn’t it?)
His name was Methos. And it was also Mi’thes, Elim G’Kar, Achillas, Teos, Chaeremon, Loki, Ben, Tanith, Adam, Doctor, and so many more. He is- and was, and would be again- a scholar, warrior, teacher, student, master, slave, soldier, barbarian, healer, tyrant, traveler, hermit and so much more. And as the Old Republic burned in the face of the New Empire he sat, and watched, and recorded everything he saw.
And he was 5000 years old.