Halfamoon '22 Recommendation #3: Time & Space (HL, Tessa)

[brightknightie]

I'm playing halfamoon '22 as a recommendations challenge...

For the third theme, "Time and Space," I recommend this Highlander: The Series story. It winds up to its pitch through a patter of light, amusing, passing encounters between Tessa and assorted immortal characters we know and love, long before we meet them in the present day. It then bursts out into a tale -- as rich as it is tiny -- of young and aged, energized and tired, hopeful and jaded. It is not a torch passing from the other character to Tessa. Much, much better, she re-lights his flame.

(When the story was new, I didn't pick up on who the other character is. I hadn't yet learned the fanon vocabulary. I do know now.)

"Paris, 1978" by lferion
~2K words
G

Comments

[celli]

Oh, help, who is the other character? I feel like when you tell me I'm going to slap myself on the forehead, but I can't figure it out.

[sholio]

It's Methos, isn't it - the one she talks to at the art gallery? At least I assumed so.

[celli]

oh, gosh, he's right there in the character listing, too. See, I knew I was gonna feel silly.

[brightknightie]

Don't feel silly! I didn't get it when I first read the story, and my vintage comment is on there to prove it! :-)

I think that reading Dr. Talhaern as an original character or as Methos doesn't change the story for Tessa or for Tessa's lifetime, but of course it adds a future for the story in Methos and Methos's lifetime.

[sholio]

I wasn't entirely sure either - at least, your question had me doubting! So it's not actually *that* obvious. I think the cane, and the suggestion that he actually needs it, is a definite red herring that makes it a little hard to tell.

Who is the other character?

[brightknightie]

I believe now that Dr. Talhaern is not an original character, as I did when I first read the story, but instead is actually Methos.

Reason 1: The narration says, "No, the first immortal Tessa Nöel encountered could have modeled for L'Âge d'airain, once upon a time, though when she saw him she had no idea why she thought that. Too much nose, too much age, ... but the conviction of it stayed with her." (Fanon: Almost all references to large noses = Methos.)

Reason 2: The archived story tags Methos as a character. His name appears nowhere in the story.

Reason 3: I re-read the ending with the idea that it was Methos in mind, and it fit.

Reason 4: Talhaearn is the first recorded Welsh poet (from the "sub-Roman period"). No works by him survive, but apparently a reference to him as "greatest of the wise men" does, and, apparently, like Taliesin, the "Tal" in his name translates to "shining brow."

Re: Who is the other character?

[celli]

That totally makes sense! I think I was overthinking, heh.