Disclaimer: It is most certainly not mine, anything you recognise belongs to others.

Five Times Methos Tried to Deny the Existence of the Supernatural

He was still new to the Game the first time. New and scared that maybe he'd become a demon himself. So, when the village was attacked by a creature, he told them all it was a lion and led a hunting party after it.

What they found had the form of a man, but the strength of ten. They attacked it with spears, but it tore into the hunters, leaving none alive. When he awoke, Methos left the village, never to return.

-

The next time was in Tibet. He had spent decades travelling between monasteries, learning from the Lamas, hoping to find inner peace and a respite from the horrors he had committed as a Horseman. When a stranger arrived in the village and children started to disappear, the monks called it a demon, but Methos knew that man was capable of terrible acts without demonic influence. Surrounded by men of peace, he saw redemption at the end of his sword, and went to face the monster.

He had to admit, spontaneous human combustion after beheading was something he'd never seen. But there were those who would think the Quickening mystical, so he saw nothing supernatural in the creature at his feet.

-

In Prague he had been swept up by a mob hunting down a pair of 'vampires'. Clearly the young woman was insane, and probably the child killer they were seeking. He felt almost sorry for her and her blonde companion as the mob laid into them. Obviously one or both suffered from the condition proferia and fed on the children's blood to survive. It was tragic for all concerned.

-

In Paris, he had first laughed at the ridiculous claims, then watched, helpless as his friend descended into insanity. Duncan's preposterous tales of an evil being and a champion of light had seemed like lunacy. Methos had tried every argument of rational thought he could think of to persuade the deluded Scot to seek help. Then Richie had begun to believe too, and the insanity seemed to be catching.

If only he had listened, if only he had believed. But no, nothing he could have said or done would have stopped the tragedy that had followed. He couldn't have stopped either one from going to that racetrack, whether it was a supernatural creature pulling their strings, or awful circumstance. He admitted later in the silence of the aftermath that perhaps there was something, even if it were only the darkness in a man's soul, but he would never say that to Duncan or Joe.

-

Then there was the incident with Duncan and the renegade robotic vacuum. Duncan had called a friend, Ellen, for "help". He'd referred to her as a hunter and tired to convince Methos once again that dangerous things lurked in the dark. Methos had dismissed Duncan's explanation and filed that day away as one he would rather forget and most certainly will never discuss with anyone.

If all these instances were looked back upon and examined, a picture would emerge. Taken in seclusion, each event could be explained by the rational mind, and in his journal entries of the time he did just that. But taken as a whole, there was something undeniably irrational and unnatural, perhaps even supernatural, about it all. But then, Methos never was one to examine his past in too much detail.