This story is set at Stonehenge (hence all the Stonehenge-type pics ;), on the Salisbury Plains, England; and the one being watched is Methos. The one who is watching him (i.e. narrator of this story) is most probably Duncan, but I'm not one hundred percent positive on that. This story is gen.

Feedback welcome at tarshaan@moonlit-eyrie.com.

You have slipped your tether again, my friend. Stolen silent and swift past the watchful eyes of the yellow-coated guardians and now you stand, immobile as the stones surrounding you. The circling tourists seem blind to your presence; obedient they remain, like the sheep, within the path allotted them. Never deviating, never seeing, never hearing; concentrating intent on the tinny voices of the guidephones, held tight against their ears. They walk on command, ooh and aah on cue. And you--you stand as if you have always stood, as if you will always have stood, as if your presence is as much a given as that of the stones themselves. And, indeed, the place itself recognises you. There is no wind, this grey day; and yet I watch, spellbound, as it moulds your clothing to your body; light jacket, closed against the winter chill, the bulk of your sweater visible beneath as the wind shapes your stance. Denim stretches taut over your thighs, and I can see the muscles stretch and ripple as you rock with the wind, a minute swaying. Is this what you expected? This wind raised only for you, as you take your place amongst these circled stones--is it the welcome you dreamed of, those hours we spent in transit? But I see--there is a smile on your lips, fiercely welcoming, and as you turn your face to this wind I cannot feel your eyelids slide sensuously down to hide your laughing eyes, and oh, my friend, I did not know this love could hurt so much....

I would never have imagined you here, you know. And yet, this place, its currents leaping wild just beneath the surface... this place, it's just like you. The heart of you, cast improbable upon the face of the world, open and wilful and oh, so lost in mystery.

They say these stones go half again their height beneath the surface. And you, my friend--I do not think there is an end to the depths you have hidden beneath your skin. The shadows they cast, these stones--and I never would have seen you for a spirit of the earth if you had not deigned to show me so irrefutably. And you stand, so still. Tilted, slightly, into that wind I so wish that I could feel. And the joy in your face is not in the unsmiling curve of your mouth, or the dance within your eyes, or the tilt of your face into this cold grey day. Nor is the rapture in your soul visible in the curve of your body or the immobility of your muscles or the lilt of your silent voice; and yet I know, all the same, how much this moment means to you. How safe you feel, how whole. How love washes through you and invisible caresses erase cares and worries and worn, tired fears... and oh, how my own heart dances in joy that one of us at least has found this peace.

You move, and I don't even register how much this surprises me until I hear my own gasp, returned to me on this wind I cannot touch, no matter how I try. You take a step, and another, your hands rising up before you; the anticipation in your eyes glitters golden about the whole of you. Your arms are stretched out before you now, reaching. Palms outward, fingers spread, wrists bent up and elbows loose. You step forward again, and half your body disappears into grey, and there is nothing odd, nothing at all, how seamlessly the stone merges into you.

You step, again, and your elbow bends. You are close, now; and the golden motes glittering your anticipation have become a swarm. There is laughter in their movement, joy in their dance, love in their promise. The swarm breaks about your hair as you bend your neck, and they twinkle through the short-shorn strands. A moment of astonished stillness as your forehead touches stone; and then, triumphant, they garner to themselves an impossible light, a depth of colour that I had not suspected could exist. Greens and browns and golds; and now they vanish and all that is left is you, my friend, immobile. You; half now a creature of stone and I imagine I can see, in your eye now hidden in the shadow between your breath and this stone, a hint of contentment ages old and shining bright.

Mist wraps close about me, paradoxically warming my skin. We will be here a while, will we not? Yes, and I will watch over you, although surely nothing of harm may come to you there. Naught that causes harm could bring such a peace as I see inside you here. I understand, now. Why you arranged this trip, why you could not put into words your reasoning, why your eyes grew more distant and more open, both, the closer we came to this place. I recognise, now, that mysterious light that shone behind your face as we approached this lonesome field. And so I will settle in for the long haul, and I will watch as you commune with a peace beyond my ken; and I will savour this gift you offer me.

The grass is soft and resilient, giving way beneath me with a tough springiness as I fold my legs and sink down upon it. A hand reaches unthinking into the rich soil beside me, earth crumbling dry and dense through my fingers. Whole in itself no matter how much I separate it; and I cannot help but think of you. Forged in the crucible of millennia, tumbled heedless through the ages, will-he nil-he, and the wonder of your survival is as enormous and heavy in my mind as the earth itself, as inexplicable as the wind caressing soft fingers across the nape of your neck.

Moisture slithers cold down my spine; if we stay here, you and I, we will soon be soaked. But you--you open your body to the water as you did to this wind I do not feel. As you open your mind to the stones and your heart to the earth and your very soul to this place, this place that is you reflected large upon the face of things. As you open your self before me, layer the shape of your being indefinably into the stone against your skin, the earth packed solid beneath your knees, into the very air about you; and how is it that I know these things, my friend? What manner of thing do I witness, this day?

"What's he doing?" the voice comes from somewhere near my elbow, startling me back to the reality of this strange day, an eerie echoing of my thoughts. I look down slowly, to give my beleaguered mind time to readjust. There's a girl seated cross-legged beside me, one hand tugging at the springy grass by my feet. Her nails are well-chewed, bitten almost to the quick, her hands lightly dusted with dirt, calloused and quick. Her hair is pigtailed and her chin rests determinedly in one tiny hand, her wrist wrapped about with glinting silver. She wears jeans, and a swandri, and her accent is most decidedly un-British. She is all of five years old, and she is staring, my friend, right at you.

Her eyes are clear and grey, much like the stones you blend so seamlessly into, or perhaps the sky, promising rain and heavy with mist. I follow her gaze, try to see you as she must see you; and in the back of my mind words tumble over one another to leave me in tongue-tied frustration. What are you doing?

"I don't know," I murmur eventually, and when she looks up at me there is disappointment shining clear behind the wide grey eyes. I look away, abruptly, back at you; bowed forward against the stone, breath mingling with the mist that caresses you now, soft and sure as the wind rifling through your skin. What are you doing? Do you even know? What thoughts, are there thoughts, running through your mind as the muscles of your back ripple, minutely, and you shift into that unearthly touch of sky and wind and water? What impulse led to this, this tableau of earth and sky? What magic, my friend, called you to this melding?

Chill seeps slow and steady through my thighs, and I cannot help but wonder, canted against the stone as you are--are you not also chilled? The earth is cold, this time of year, its bones of stone colder still. But there is a shaft of sunlight playing over your hair, though the sky is well-wreathed in cloud and the sun himself so shy. And there is naught but she and I to keep this odd vigil; time bends about the three of us and perhaps your body, half buried amongst the cold, cold stones and caressed through with wind we can only watch; perhaps you are warmer there than any mere feat of flesh can accomplish.

The longer I sit here observing this peace-filled tableau, the more I hear an echo of that peace inside my own heart; the stronger that echo resounds throughout my soul. I wonder if this girlchild sitting so poised by my side; I wonder if your peace echoes in her, as well? I wonder if she feels the life in this place, if the convergence of its soul in you is as clearly visible to her as it is to me, this moment. They say children can see things we who are grown do not... does she see more than I, this day? Or is all I see no more substantial than this mist winding its chill fingers about the three of us? Does she, in fact, see less?

So many questions. And none of them are important in the face of the pleasure I saw on your face as you stepped inside the circle. That you allow me this witness--it is indeed a gift, and I will treasure it with all due care. Tuck it safe away in some corner of my soul, and we will never speak of this, will we? It is enough that it is given, and accepted, and there is no need to sully it with words, my friend. No need at all.

We have been so still so long, we three, that the movement at my side sets my heart to racing inside its bone cage. She is standing, now, her eyes solemn as only a child's can be, and at the same time impossibly merry as she stares into my face. I smile, helplessly, the corners of my mouth turning up and the echoes of her giggle ringing in my ears. She smiles back, boldly, taking my laughter as her due. No shyness in this one, none at all. Just an all-encompassing curiosity, and the glance she throws at you now promises mischief, indeed. What were you like, at this age? Did you even then wear your mystique like a shield, guarding your self behind walls of misdirection and a maze of truth from an invasion you did not truly comprehend? Do you even remember?

She runs with all the awkward grace of childhood, confident in herself and her ability to navigate the world; and not even her tumble over the ground dents her happiness. She takes it as an adventure, her laughter ringing over the barren field, weaving amongst the mist with startling clarity. It is infectious, this laugh of hers; yet the responding smile that steals over my face still takes me by surprise. So much so that I blink, and when I open my eyes, there is in her place a young boy, stretching luxuriantly into the mist, and his eyes, my friend, are yours.

I blink again, and there is only this same young girlchild who so recently warmed my side. What was that? Did I see what I saw? Was that you, as you were so many many years ago? Or was it just you as I wish to imagine you then, young and happy and not yet haunted by your demons, by the memories carved into your soul through five millennia of a life well-lived.

She drops again, tumbling for the sheer joy of it, and rolls giggling across the grass. When finally she stands her jeans are wet and grass-stained and her hands dirt-smeared, and suddenly in her place is the boy I thought I saw a moment ago, similarly mud-spattered, his body a canvas painted in childhood's delights. What were his dreams? Do you still remember? Or were they irretrievably lost in the dull grind of surviving through some of the harshest periods of our history? Is there some spark of this young child, full of laughter and mischief and dreams, does he still survive inside of you?

He wipes his hand across his cheek, and she leaves a smudge of mud behind as she lowers her hand once more, merry grey eyes sparkling where a second ago they were mischief-coated hazel. Her gap-toothed smile stretches the width of her face as she makes her way toward the circled stones, her small frame drawn ridiculously tiny against the solid stone backdrop as she nears the monoliths and stumbles to a halt. Her head tilts back, up up up up up up, the progress of her gaze measured in the ends of her pigtails, inching their incremental way down her back as her neck bends and her eyes widen and her mouth slides open in silent awe. And you; you do not move at all. You do not seem to be aware at all of this young girlchild poised on the edge of your domain.

Are you aware? Do you know what is happening in this world so nebulous about you? I find it difficult to imagine otherwise, and yet--you are so still. So utterly immobile. You could be stone yourself, so deathly still you rest; and if you were not immortal I would wonder at your seeming lack of breath. Is your mind linked to this world, even now? Or have you left your body behind you for a spell, abandoned your immortal flesh to the placid care of this unaging place whilst your soul wanders far within the depths of stone you lean against, while your heart soaks deep within the patience of the earth, and your mind delves headlong into the quicksilver dance of wind across them all....

When her hand touches your arm, my friend, will you be surprised?

She spins abruptly, swinging away from the stone before her, and the grin she throws at me charges irresistible through the chill air to write itself large and merry upon my own face. Her hand waves a tale at me, but before I can reply she has spun yet again and now she leaps, straining as far as she can, reaching up to slap her hand high against the stone. And jump as she does, with all her strength, all the pleasure in her, still her touch falls only partway up the stone's enticing length. About where you and I could reach if we stood there and raised our own fingers high. And now she is falling, floating her way back unto the earth beneath, and I swear there is a laugh, low and rumbling, mixing in with her delighted cry and wrestling tumbled through the mist between us.

Her step is delicate, careless, a kitten stalking shadows. She makes her way across the circled threshold; and still you are immobile. She pauses to run a curious hand across the surface of the smaller inner stones, and I wonder if she finds it warmer than the outer monoliths, as all the brochures claim they must be. I've never been able to tell, myself; never been able to measure so subtle a difference with nothing more than my naked hand. Can you? Can you tell, from touch alone, one from the other? Do these stones speak to you, my friend, do they share with you the tales of their individuality? Do they open their scars to you, as you to them? Would you tell me if I asked? Could you? And if you could, if you would--would I then be able to ask? Or would the knowledge of your trust ensnare the words within me, bind them threefold round in chains of friendship?

I think it might, you know. Somehow, someway... I find I do not want to expose this--this, whatever this is, this thing--this odd ritual of yours. So simple and so subtle, this reaction you have engendered inside of me--I do not want it made to words. None of it, not your part nor mine. Though I cannot help but wonder--are there words? Do they even exist, should we desire them? Do you know them? Could I comprehend, should we choose to share this verbally--would there be words in a language I might understand? Could you find them, my friend? Could I?

A soft brush of wind upon your skin and you arch into it, your movement so slight that now it is past I am no longer certain you made it at all. How can you be so oblivious to this child intruding so boldly upon this tableau you hold so effortlessly? Yet you do not react to her presence at all; are you then so utterly focused on what it is you do, there on the edge of this world? Even the wind acknowledges her; skims around her curiously, like a puppy, tugging at her clothes with sharp wee teeth. But you, you kneel as you have since this began, and not even her appearance at your side wakes you from your merging. Not even the touch of her hand, splayed palm down against the stone and flush against yours, as though she would see the things you do, this day.

And finally, finally you seem to wake. A little if not a lot; your head turns slowly, slowly, and almost I can hear a creak as of stone beginning to sway beneath its own weight, easing itself deeper into the earth cradling its might. Your face emerges from the stone you rest against with incremental gravity, millimetre by millmetre reappearing before my eyes. And soon your head is tilted sideways against the stone, your eyes glazed and burning and distant, all at once, and staring straight into hers where she stands beside you with her curiosity wrapped undisguised about her. Mist strands thick about your hands, unmoving on the stone, and the breath catches in my throat as I glimpse your eyes staring into the face of your younger self, scuffed leather about his shoulders and his fingers moving, hesitantly, to wrap about yours.

But you do not react. How can you not react? This boy--this boy who was you--he stands straight and impossible beside you and there is no sign of the girl who shared her laughter with me. No sign at all--and yet you accept her transformation with equanimity. God above, my friend, how can even you be that unshakable? Even with the earth and the sky and the stone thrumming so intense about you, how is it you can gaze into his eyes and not grieve for all you have lost along the way? Not rejoice for those of his dreams you have kept safe? How can you kneel there so calm in the face of such a miraculous visitation?

Oh, my friend. Such a gift they have given you, these stones. Or is it only I who sees this lad, standing so young and carefree before you? Am I seeing things? Is he truly real? Is she?

But you trace your fingers along his arm, and so he must be--or she must be--at least as real as you, there between these stones. I see them pause; your hesitation so slight it is only the flare in your eyes that lets me see it. And now they reach his face, and carefully, wonderfully, you caress softly along his jaw. And then you stand, graceful and swift, and as he turns to follow your movement his head tilts high to see your face, and the gap-toothed grin he wears is somehow more affecting than all that came before. And it is echoed in your stance, somehow, an innocence I did not know you could reclaim staking its uncontested territory throughout your very heart. The smile you give him is tender as he leans up to hug you, and you lift him high, so high he can reach the tip of the stone you knelt so long before.

I shouldn't be surprised to see him vanish as his fingertips reach stone. I shouldn't; and yet it is still a shock, when you lower her laughing to the ground.

The wind ruffles through your hair one last time, a benediction; and then it is gone, left behind as the two of you step your way lightly across the border these stones enfold. There is a spring in your step that has been gone oh, lo these many months. Your face breaks into a grin, somehow no older than that of the child traipsing beside you, as you tilt your head the better to hear her chatter. And chatter she does, endlessly, and you do not seem to mind at all. Her giggle travels clear across the air between us; and your own flies hard upon its heels.

Oh, this is good, my friend. Your laughter rings happy through the mist, low and pleasant and tingling down my spine, wild and free. And now you are above me, although I do not recall seeing you cross the intervening space. Your hand reaches down, brushing soft against mine, and as your fingers clasp tight about my wrist I see a light behind your eyes I had not known was missing until it was returned, and my friend, whatever it was took place inside yonder circle this day, it was worth it.

Well worth it.


and the rain sings through the circle
silent wind begins to call
light licks flames of golden colour
earth connects us all

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