Nightmares & Shadows

Fanfiction
Title:	Nightmares & Shadows
Author(s):	Maygra de Rhema
Date(s):	1997
Length:
Genre:	fanfiction
Fandom:	Highlander
External Links:	Nightmares & Shadows (HLQC)
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Nightmares & Shadows is a Highlander series by Maygra de Rhema.

From the story header:

THIS IS NC-17 RATED OR WORSE DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU DRAW THE LINE: Graphic violence ( No worse than MILLENNIUM,) rape male and female -- both described and referred to. (A little worse than THE ACCUSED,) torture, (MILLENNIUM), Hetero & Homosexual acts (m/m, m/f) and child abuse & rape. I MEAN IT -- TURN BACK NOW IF THIS OFFENDS YOU

Series

Part One: Shadows of the Past

Part Two: If We Were Lovers

Part Three: Unleash the Nightmare

Part Four: When Shadows Collide

Part Five: Into the Darkness

Part Six: I Will Not Fear

Author's Notes

People have found this again, with mixed comments of praise and disgust and confusion. For the praise, many grateful thanks. For the disgust, what part of the warnings did you miss? And why? And for the confusion, well, let's see if I can alleviate some of it.

This whole saga was started not long after the airing of Comes a Horseman and Revelations 6:8, both of them pivotal episodes for the Methos character if not for Duncan. I'd guess there was more fan fiction written in and around those two episodes than any other and with good reason. It was shocking, intriguing and maybe for the first time, gave a big glimpse of what living forever can really mean -- and how Immortals can change and survive and what happens when they don't. A hint of madness, a testing of friendships for all the characters involved. It was a spectacular tale.

And it left a lot of room for fan fiction writers to play -- I was certainly no exception. But what happened was I had a lot of ideas to play with and I tried to pack them into one story. Someday I may even get my act together and sort it out to complete this novel the way it should have been done in the first place.

So, basically, this was started before I ever got on the internet or knew there was a cohesive community of fan fiction writers, before I'd ever heard of slash, before I realized that character loyalties within the HL fandom could be so amazingly split. You will see bits and pieces of ideas from this work showing up in nearly everything I wrote and posted afterward: kinks and obsessions, speculations and possible back stories. Recurring themes are either a trademark or a flaw in my writing -- take your pick.

So, in 1996 I started writing this and got on line in the spring of 1997. But I was amazed and confused too, by the plethora of fic and the discovery of slash. For myself, historically, The Abomination was up first at the HL Quill Club but not terribly long after that, and having read Kevin Robnett's Two Men in a Tub, I wrote Brotherhood. And picked up a pen name. Then I hit Deadly Allies by Terri Botta and wrote Gather Thy Cares which got an LOC from a fan named Rachael Sabotini asking if I could expound a little...which I did, producing Gather Thy Cares- Special Edition, and then, realizing there was an audience...started posting slash as well as NC17 no-slash.

And Nightmares and Shadows was still on my hard drive waiting for me to do something with it. Net fic lead to Zine fic and I was contacted by the publisher/editors of the now defunct Manacles Press, wondering if I would be interested...

I was, they were, and N&S went back and forth twice, still unfinished but with some direction from the wonderful folks there, expanding the beginning, building bridges between the later sections and then...Manacles went under.

But I had this epic...parts of which people had already seen.

During all this, the series went on. The original villain in N&S had been the one-handed Xavier St. Cloud but sometime after I started this, he got whacked on the series and somewhere in my twisty brain (and the fact that I was seeing the older eps out of order) I needed a villain who was still kicking and recalled Kiem Sun. So I did some reworking -- made him a little crazier than he was in the series and moved on.

Cassandra has a bigger part in this than what is posted because I haven't forgotten that she has a little reconciliation of her own to do. This is one of several views I have of Cassandra, (none of which, to date, have managed to satisfy anyone, including me.) But since I think all Immortals go mad at some point if they live long enough, I'm okay with the contradictory views of Cassandra as Good Witch or Bad Witch. Since I'm an extremist, she always seems to be pushed to one end or the other. This is the Good Witch Cassandra, and probably more the character I'd like to see than the one I actually saw. (No Cassandra rant here, but I have doubts about her benevolence in any episode she appears in. At best, I see her like I do most Immies of indeterminate morals -- doing the best they can to get through it all. I actually think she is more like Methos than MacLeod.)

The rest is a mish-mosh of Methos' past, leaning heavily on the Dark Duncan of Deliverance and the idea that no one is 100% good 100% of the time. Some just try harder than others. I have a non-con kink, and a kink for sexual obsession, all of which figure into this at some point. Methos has a lot of problems n this, a lot of deep seated fears that were brought to the surface during his reacquaintance with Kronos -- of having a violent and brutal past thrust into his face again after 2000 years. I think he's entitled to a rather spectacular nervous-breakdown. And lots of comfort...MacLeod Style.

In compiling these notes, I also went ahead and built mirror pages for those who find light text on dark background difficult to read. Just scroll to the "Plain Format" version and go from there.

Hopefully, this clears up some things and if not, just ask (or write it off to author indulgence.)

Maygra

01/2001

Recs and Reviews

Plain Old Rape (if there is such a thing...) HL: Not really a Bronze Age story, but a subtle and sad tale of Methos’ beginnings and possible future in Nightmares and Shadow, by the incomparable Maygra. (Warning; unfinished.)