End of Forever: Part 1:
"Caspian, take that bundle to the feast tent! Silas, take the slaves to their tent! Methos, take the horses to the pen! GO!" Kronos' voice bellowed as the Four Horsemen dismounted their horses after another successful raid on a helpless village. Each raid ended similarly, with Kronos giving out orders to the other horsemen while going off to his tent with his latest treasure. The others were beginning to feel like slaves as well, and not like the brothers they once were.
"Brother?" Silas approached Kronos. "What about the sick-looking one?" he said, pointing to a slave who was standing by the horsepen watching Methos let the horses go. "She doesn't look pleasing to me."
"Did she eat on the return trip?" Silas shook his head. "Then she'll die soon enough. For now, leave her with the others," he said as he grabbed one of his prize women and dragged her by her hair into his tent.
Methos had overheard the conversation, and eyed the girl they had been talking about. She was way too fragile for his taste, but she had been taken because of her beauty. She had hair as red as fire and her eyes were as green as the river near the camp. Her frail body made her look no older than 12, but Methos suspected she was around 21. Her body was so thin, when he had put her on top of his horse, his hand easily wrapped around her thigh. Methos had been afraid she wasn't going make it back on their long journey to the camp, but Kronos still insisted she be taken.
Methos smiled at her, and she immediately turned away and walked towards the tent. "Wait!" he said as he approached her. She stopped, but wouldn't look at him. "Are you hungry?" he asked. She shook her head. "Thirsty?" Another shake. "Is there anything I can do for you?" She nodded. "What?"
"Let me go," she whispered. "I want to go home."
"This is your home now, and no matter if you want to be here or not, this is where you'll stay. What is your name?"
"Meshda," she answered even more softly.
"Methos!" Kronos shouted from inside his tent. "Take care of this one for me, I'm done with her," he said as he threw a limp and bloody body outside the tent.
Methos turned and looked back towards Meshda, but she was gone. He shrugged and walked towards Kronos' tent to do as he was told.
For the next few days, Methos watched Meshda from a distance. After a week, she still hadn't eaten anything in more than a week, and she was enduring torture not just from his brothers, but the other girls as well. She was the first to volunteer but the last one to be chosen. It amazed Methos that from somewhere inside that frail body of hers, she had the strength as fiery as her hair. One day, after she was almost killed, Methos finally convinced her to stay in his tent, where he could protect her as much as possible without the other horsemen getting suspicious.
"You can sleep on the cot, and I'll sleep on the floor. How does that sound?" he asked. It took some convincing to get her to stay, but he assured her she'd be safer in his tent than with the other slaves in their tent.
"Fine," she said. She rarely spoke, especially when she was uncomfortable, and sleeping in the same tent as him was really making her uncomfortable. She detested him and knew he had to have an ulterior motive for this. She sat on the edge of his cot and ran her fingers through her hair.
"Here," Methos said, waking over with a brush. "Let me help you." He sat down next to her and started running it through her hair.
Meshda grabbed it from him, pausing only for a moment when their fingers touched. "I can do it myself." She said as she jerked it away and ran it through her hair. "I don't need your help!"
"You needed it today when Kronos was going to make an example out of you for stealing a sip of water. If I hadn't stepped in..."
"Then I wouldn't be here, I'd be dead. And that's fine with me!" she said as she threw the brush across the tent. "Don't you understand, I'm not happy here. I wish you had killed me when you killed the rest of my village!" She got up and started to the door of the tent.
Methos got up and crossed her path. "Is that what you want? Do you want to die? Because I can kill you right here and now."
She spat at his feet. "I wouldn't give you the pleasure!"
Methos slapped her across her face, knocking her to the ground. "Oh trust me, I'd have more pleasure if I turned you over to Kronos and let him deal with you, but I'm a gentleman."
She looked up at him with anger in her eyes. "No, you are not a gentleman. You're one of them and you always will be!"
Methos drew his dagger and held it at her neck. He poised it ready to slit her throat. "Want me to show you how I can be like one of them? I can rape you right here and then slit your throat and leave you to bleed to death. Is that what you want?"
She didn't look at him. She tried holding back the tears, but they escaped. *Damnit! Why can I fight the others but not him?* she asked herself.
Methos saw a tear roll down her cheek, and withdrew his knife. Without a word, he walked out of the tent. It was dark out and the camp was quiet. He sat by the dying fire wondering if he'd made a mistake of letting her live. She wasn't happy, but he couldn't kill her. Kronos ordered the horsemen if she were to die, it would be by his hand or she'd starve to death. He wouldn't even allow her to eat, sealing her fate.
Methos looked up when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He watched Meshda slip from his tent and walked towards the river. She stayed within eyesight, but kept watch in case she planned to escape. He knew her desire to escape was growing stronger by the day, as was his, he realized.
Methos remembered when Silas first wanted to leave the horsemen. It was over a thousand years ago, and Kronos nearly took his head for the mere thought of it. "We are the nightmares children dream about at night!" he said. "We are brothers forever, and we will ride forever. If anyone wants to leave, they'll do it without their head!"
But now, the more they raided, the more they killed, and the more they tortured their slaves, the less Methos began to enjoy his reign of terror. He would do anything to leave, and if it meant dying so people like Meshda could live, then so be it. He'd lived his life, longer than he ever thought possible.