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seriousficOh, by the way, they have girl scouts in the LotS universe. It's in the books. Totally.
Title: We're a long way from home and home is a long way from us
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,229
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Triana, Cara/Dahlia, Richard/Kahlan, Berdine/Raina
Author’s notes: Betaed by the lovely, talented duo of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivanolix and susurrusnight
Previous: Part 3
Next: Part 5
Summary: Cara lives for battle. But when it's against Dahlia, she doesn't feel alive at all.
It was a long ride, especially at full gallop, but the horses were used to Richard's demands. The Mord'Sith's horses, recently purchased to replace the ones they'd donated to pull a robbed, stranded wagon, lagged behind, but they saw to that with judicious application of their Agiels. Cara patted her horse reassuringly. She didn't need to rely on that.
Kahlan, riding alongside her, watched Cara's hooded cloak flare up behind her. "Nice cape. I've only known you to wear leather and other leather."
"I can't accessorize now and then?"
"When I bought my last traveling dress, you told me that in the heat of battle, you might not recognize me and thus end up killing me."
"It was a compliment. You looked a lot better than you used to."
The trail they were on died away into roots and detritus. The trees started to hunch together like cold old men. The shadows reminded Cara of the Underworld. They were getting close. Up ahead, Richard signaled for a halt, and the team instantly stopped. He dismounted, went to a bed of leaves ahead of him, and stuck his sheathed sword in. It went in all the way, but he had to wrestle it out.
"Snake vine trap," he said.
"We can jump it," Triana replied confidently.
Richard looked at the white froth dribbling from the sides of her horse's mouth. "The ride's getting too difficult anyway."
"The Underworld has poisoned the land," Zedd said, banging two flints together. The sparks were green.
"All the more reason to be on foot," Richard said, helping Kahlan down. "I'd hate to be on a fearful horse when there's some monster about."
Kahlan giggled haplessly. Cara looked away so they couldn't see her eyes rolling.
"If you want to be careful, be careful of Darken Rahl." Zedd painfully got down from his horse, holding his back afterward and casting a few jealous glances at Kahlan.
"At least he'll be as delayed as we are."
"Do they always talk this much?" Hally asked Cara.
"Pretty much."
They tied the horses to the trees, Richard checking the knots. Unsurprisingly, he had an opinion on them. "This way," he demonstrated, "it'll give the horse more room to breathe."
Raina was indignant. "The knot will slip! They'll get away!"
"If we're not back in a few hours, we won't need them anyway."
Berdine set a hand on Raina's shoulder, thumb massaging the back of her neck. "Come, Raina, won't it comfort your rotting corpse to know that your horse at least will be able to go on living?"
Richard gave the horse some oats, looking disdainfully at the Agiel marks on its flank. "This is a nice horse. Where'd you get it?"
Triana clasped her hands behind her back proudly. "I obtained them, Lord Rahl. We got them from a horse merchant."
"He's alright, isn't he?"
"He's fine. We were quite fair with him. We did no harm."
"Ah. That's good." Richard started to turn. Stopped. "You did… pay him, correct?"
"Yes, Lord Rahl."
"Oh. Good." He started to turn again.
"We paid him with his life."
With a huff of air, Richard turned back around. "What now?"
"At first he wanted us to pay an outrageous price for them, but after we explained the situation, he gave them to us for free."
"Oh, so you told him we needed the horses to save the world." Richard nodded and turned around.
"No, we told him we would kill him if he didn't." Triana added a mollifying "Lord Rahl."
Richard turned around. "I thought you were under strict orders not to kill anyone."
"Yes, Lord Rahl. But he didn't know that."
"He didn't ask, either," Berdine pointed out.
Kahlan patted Richard on the back. "Gentle encouragement, dear, gentle encouragement." She faced the Mord'Sith. "It's good that you found a creative, non-killing solution to your problem…"
"And we didn't use our Agiels!" Berdine added.
"And that's good. But in the future, it'd be best to pay for horses."
"But… Cara said it was all right!"
Cara, who'd been trying to get a headstart into the woods without straying too far from the protection of the group (she wasn't Richard, after all), cringed.
Kahlan marched over to her, hands on her hips. Cara hated when she had her hands on her hips. "We will talk about this after we save the world."
Cara bowed her head. "Yes, Lady Rahl."
Kahlan looked from Cara to her ring.
"Will we also be talking about that after the world-saving?"
Kahlan stormed off, muttering "impossible woman" under her breath.
Triana came up to Cara. "You show more deference to her than to the Lord Rahl."
"Maybe she deserves it more."
"Maybe." She walked off. As she was headed for the group, Cara followed.
There was a green horizon. It was a three-hour hike there. Richard was set on making it in two. The hike wasn’t the most arduous, but it had its own challenges. Cara didn’t like it. The trees grew tall, but they grew wrong, coiling around rocks like pythons strangling their prey. Moss grew in thick, brown clumps the putrid color of mud, falling onto the ground with a disgusting sound and a worse noise. Roots, white and girthy, broke out of the ground like giant worms. And the wind made the trees sound like they were screaming.
Richard broke off walking sticks for all of them. He took point and Zedd brought up the rear, less out of concern for his safety than the fact that he was out of shape. Berdine and Raina walked side by side, shouldering against each other occasionally to see if they could knock the other off-balance.
“Nice day for a walk," Triana said, watching them. "And such a romantic view."
“Yes," Cara replied. "Checking for ambushes. Kinky.” She considered walking with someone else. The Mord'Sith had paired up to cover the Lord Rahl in all directions. Pointman and rear guard. Master and slave.
Richard stopped to close his eyes. “Birdsong for ten miles. If we have company, they aren't using magic.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Berdine asked.
“Junior Beavers scoutmaster handbook.”
Kahlan arched an eyebrow at ferreting something out of Richard, who hated talking about himself. Modesty. “You led a Junior Beaver troop?”
“It's a good way to pass on the Junior Beaver experience,“ Richard said defensively.
"I was a Junior Beaver," Cara said, breaking away from Triana.
“You were a girl scout?” Zedd asked, mounting a light jog to catch up. This he had to hear.
"I was a Junior Beaver," Cara emphasized. Girl scout was so… demeaning.
Zedd and Kahlan had a good laugh and Cara could see Triana’s shoulders shaking.
“You? In the little shorts?”
“Selling cookies!” Zedd pointed out, making Kahlan laugh so loud she embarrassed herself.
Cara smiled along with them. It had been fun, spending all that time with Dahlia.
"It teaches you to respect nature," Richard crabbed, and Cara nodded alongside him.
Vines with an unpleasantly viscous resemblance to mucus grew between the trees. The Mord'Sith broke out their longknives to clear a swath. They didn't need that much space, but as an escape route, it was perfect. Richard cut through four vines at a time with each swing of the Sword of Truth. Zedd muttered about ancient, magical relics.
"If you want, you could always flame through the vines," Richard told him.
After one try, they all went back to cutting the vines. The smell was too foul.
After an hour they took a break to sharpen their blades. Kahlan poured water over her face. It ran down her dress.
Richard looked up from the longknife he was sharpening. As the Sword of Truth didn't need sharpening, Alina had conned him into doing hers. “Could you stop that? It’s… distracting.”
“It’s supposed to be,” she laughed.
Cara kept sharpening her knife.
After another half-hour of arduous labor, they came to a clearing. For a half-mile, all vegetation just stopped, giving into an ash-gray wasteland. The fires of the Underworld had shot through, burning it clean. Up ahead was the Boundary, a solid green fogbank. But it had ripples in it, like torn gossamer fluttering in the wind. Through it, they could see gathered shadows.
"Jagang hates the very idea of the Seeker," Zedd warned Richard. "A thousand years, with nothing to live for but hate… he'd set himself on fire if only you would burn with him."
"Great. As if I didn't have enough enemies, now I'm inheriting them!"
Zedd was pulling things from his bag, setting up two interlocking squares edged by strange objects. "Just a few minutes. No interruptions."
The Mord'Sith knew he wasn't talking about asking if he would like a glass of water. They took up position around him, Agiels drawn, so many at once that it sounded like one continuous scream. Richard paced uneasily, his sword set on his shoulder, fingers drumming on the hilt. Kahlan gave his arm a rub and walked over to Cara, who tried staring straight ahead like Darken Rahl's old honor guard had at the People's Palace. But she couldn't look away from Kahlan.
"Can we talk?"
"I can listen."
"Richard and I are getting married."
Cara nodded stiffly. "So? Everyone knows you're in love. So now you're saying you're in love in front of some elder. If that makes you happy, go ahead."
"I'd like you to be my maid of honor."
Cara bit her teeth. "I will serve however you wish, Lady Rahl."
"Now stop! If you want to go off and hunt boars from when I buy the dress until we're back from the honeymoon, that's fine, but just say so!"
"I'd like to go off and hunt boars from when you buy the dress until you're back from the honeymoon."
"Okay then."
"Good."
"Good."
"No, great."
"It is great."
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"I am trying to concentrate here!" Zedd said out of the corner of his mouth before going back to chanting. Lines of green flame had formed between his relics, beginning to rise. The Boundary mirrored them, stitching itself together.
"There is a point," Kahlan whispered fiercely, "where it stops being about making allowances for your background and starts being about you wallowing in immaturity!"
"I wallow in immaturity? You practically play with dolls every time you imagine your future."
"Not true!"
"What will you name your second child?"
"Zedd if it's a boy, Kya if it's a girl… that's not the point!"
"This may take longer than I expected," Zedd said, causing them both to look over their shoulder.
"We're fine Zedd." Richard twisted his sword. "Just stay with it."
"Easy for you to say. You don't have to go to the bathroom." The flames rose higher. "Keep not interrupting me."
Triana nudged Rikka to cover for her, then walked over to Cara. She took her by the shoulders. "We should take breaks in shifts. Cara and I will go first."
Kahlan huffed and covered her eyes. "Fine. Just… go."
Cara let herself be led back to the treeline before knocking Triana's hands away. Triana took hold of her again.
"If you have something to get rid of, take it out on me," she said.
Cara pushed her away again. "I'm not in the mood for your foreplay. Usually, I find it a little amusing, but right now, I could do without your obsession with me."
"I'm not seducing you. There's no time. I'm just letting you know that this is why we're trained against feelings."
"I do know that. I just don't care."
"If you start caring, I'll be there to take the pain away. Or at least replace it with the kind of pain you like."
"You're not worthy to get the stains out of Kahlan's dress."
"Are you?"
Cara dropped a hand to her Agiel. But no. That was what Triana wanted.
"She made me better," Cara said.
"Better for who?"
"I can better serve the Lord Rahl…" Cara shook her head. "I can better serve myself, as this."
"You're not serving yourself. You're serving her. She's broken you."
Cara's hand wrapped around Triana's throat. The Mord'Sith smiled. She'd never seen it coming.
"I am not broken," Cara hissed.
"Prove it." Not making any effort to remove the hand from her throat, Triana pulled Cara closer. Cara's cloak ruffled between them. "Prove it." Feather-light, Triana brushed her lips against Cara's, like a gourmet waving a meal under someone's nose. "Prove it to me." Her tongue ran over Cara's mouth like a flint over steel.
Cara forced the next move, squeezing Triana's slender neck as she devoured her lips, so ravenous that Triana moaned aloud. Cara backed away, her hand still on Triana's throat, but if anyone were there, it wouldn't fool them.
"I thought I was better than this," Cara said.
"I thought you would never come back to me," Triana replied. "My sister."
There was a familiar whistling. A more familiar kind of scream. All that changed was the particular. Cara had never heard Kahlan scream before. She turned, her lips still warm from Triana, to see Kahlan crumpling. A dozen more dacras were flying in, but the half-circle of Mord'Sith around Zedd protected him. Cara hadn't been there. She'd failed Kahlan.
She ran through the field of fire, dacras thrown and deflected. One nearly hit her, but her magic pushed it aside with a wrathful thought. Then she was beside Kahlan's body, across from Richard. The dacra protruded from the Mother Confessor like some monstrous infection.
"She'll be okay." Richard was asking more than telling. "Cara, she'll be okay."
Cara looked into Kahlan's eyes. "They're coming," the Confessor said.
Cara gripped her Agiels. She couldn't feel the pain. Not through this. "I will kill them all for you."
Richard stayed behind, holding Kahlan's hand as she pulled the dacra out, by herself, so the magic couldn't kill them both. It was alright. She preferred it that way. She would rather hold an Agiel than someone else. There was only so much pain an Agiel could inflict, was the difference.
One foot in front of the other. In the woods, a hornet's nest of dacras had been disturbed. They flew out to sting her. Cara held her hand in front of her and her magic, pain and rage and sheer bloody-minded determination, did its work. The dacras splashed in the dirt and chipped into the trees and soared up like birds taking flight. None of them so much as cast a breeze on her.
Now she could see them. Sisters, so many, too many, lined up between the trees like a forest fire. Dahlia was leading them. By some sixth sense, Cara felt the air on either side of her solidify, giving her strength. Triana was beside her. She'd brought Alina. Their Agiels sang together.
Ten feet away and Dahlia stopped, smiling with the kind of fanaticism Cara might've seen in a mirror once. Lightning bled out of the world and struck an ash-white tree. Cara's eyes flicked from it to its origin, Darken Rahl. "Down!" she yelled, tackling Triana.
The tree exploded and Cara felt her leathers pinch in a dozen places. Alina gasped wetly. When Cara looked up, she saw that the shrapnel from the blast had skewered her. Four Dragon Corps quads were charging for Kahlan, led by Darken Rahl. Cara got to her feet to find the Sisters surrounding her. Triana let Cara worry about it, snapped Alina's neck. They stood together, back to back.
"Want to put our Agiels in her ears with me?" Triana asked, glaring at Dahlia. She still had blood on her hands.
“No. Dahlia’s mine,” Cara said.
“I don’t see your name on me,” Dahlia replied, circling.
“Not yet.” Cara reached down to take her longknife in her other hand. No magic now. She wanted to leave a mark like Dahlia had left.
"You were my best friend," Dahlia said. "How could I hurt you?" She turned to her Sisters. "Hurt her."
They moved in. One was faster than the others, or more suicidal. Cara didn't bother with the Agiel's magic, she just let it cave her skull in. Triana caught half-a-dozen dacras coming at Cara's back and deflected them, scattering the Sisters. Dahlia was gone, running to join Rahl's charge.
"Back to the Lord Rahl!" Cara ordered. She and Triana charged.
They worked as well together as Cara ever had with Kahlan.
***
Dahlia nearly looked over her shoulder, but didn't. She had to keep her eyes on the prize. It was a shame. As a connoisseur of death, she considered Cara in action a thing of beauty. And it wasn’t like she would be doing any encores.
***
"I'll kill you!" a Sister screamed as she lunged.
Triana batted her out of the air like a cat with a piece of string. "No," she replied.
They marked their trail with dead bodies and screams and Cara felt that hand clenching her heart give her a break. Maybe Triana was right about her.
***
Richard had been ready the moment Kahlan got the dacra out, kicking it away and bandaging the wound. Then he'd pulled her to her feet and she'd plunged a dagger into the heart of the D'Haran about to skewer Richard. With one arm around Kahlan, keeping her up, and the other moving the Sword of Truth, they fought the endless river of enemies trying to force them back into the Boundary.
"Just like old times, eh?" Kahlan said, blocking a blow so that Richard could finish him off.
"I can think of a few things that've changed for the better." He kissed her cheek in the half-second he had before he needed to block a crossbow bolt.
***
"Just a few more minutes!" Zedd cried. The green flames bent inward, wrapping around him like an igloo.
The Mord'Sith around him weathered the Sisters of the Dark like boulders being pounded by the surf. The phalanx they had formed was impenetrable, the briefest touch of their Agiels like being scourged by a cat o' nine tails. The fear of pain made its own bottleneck. Dahlia watched the way the Mord'Sith protected each other, none more so than Berdine and Raina.
"Her," she said to the D'Haran she'd pulled away from the fight with Richard and Kahlan. He aimed his crossbow and fired.
Berdine fell.
Raina called her name and ran to her, leaving Dahlia to slip inside the Seeker's ranks.
***
Cara and Triana were only yards behind Dahlia, but there was an entire quad between them, which meant the women had to fight two D'Harans at once. But Cara still had enough of an eye on Dahlia to see her look over her shoulder and wink before she threw her dacra.
The gathering thunder of Zedd's chanting stopped all at once. Despite the clash of swords and the screams of the dying, the silence was deafening. It was like the Boundary was letting out a death-cry, drowning out all other sound.
And the Boundary began to drain into the ground, the Underworld, like a bath with the stopper pulled out.
Dahlia turned away from it, her smile wide, her eyes sparkling. "This world belongs to the Keeper."
Cara faced her, longknife held out like a challenge. "Let's go see him together, Dahlia."
Title: We're a long way from home and home is a long way from us
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,229
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Triana, Cara/Dahlia, Richard/Kahlan, Berdine/Raina
Author’s notes: Betaed by the lovely, talented duo of
ivanolix and susurrusnight Previous: Part 3
Next: Part 5
Summary: Cara lives for battle. But when it's against Dahlia, she doesn't feel alive at all.
It was a long ride, especially at full gallop, but the horses were used to Richard's demands. The Mord'Sith's horses, recently purchased to replace the ones they'd donated to pull a robbed, stranded wagon, lagged behind, but they saw to that with judicious application of their Agiels. Cara patted her horse reassuringly. She didn't need to rely on that.
Kahlan, riding alongside her, watched Cara's hooded cloak flare up behind her. "Nice cape. I've only known you to wear leather and other leather."
"I can't accessorize now and then?"
"When I bought my last traveling dress, you told me that in the heat of battle, you might not recognize me and thus end up killing me."
"It was a compliment. You looked a lot better than you used to."
The trail they were on died away into roots and detritus. The trees started to hunch together like cold old men. The shadows reminded Cara of the Underworld. They were getting close. Up ahead, Richard signaled for a halt, and the team instantly stopped. He dismounted, went to a bed of leaves ahead of him, and stuck his sheathed sword in. It went in all the way, but he had to wrestle it out.
"Snake vine trap," he said.
"We can jump it," Triana replied confidently.
Richard looked at the white froth dribbling from the sides of her horse's mouth. "The ride's getting too difficult anyway."
"The Underworld has poisoned the land," Zedd said, banging two flints together. The sparks were green.
"All the more reason to be on foot," Richard said, helping Kahlan down. "I'd hate to be on a fearful horse when there's some monster about."
Kahlan giggled haplessly. Cara looked away so they couldn't see her eyes rolling.
"If you want to be careful, be careful of Darken Rahl." Zedd painfully got down from his horse, holding his back afterward and casting a few jealous glances at Kahlan.
"At least he'll be as delayed as we are."
"Do they always talk this much?" Hally asked Cara.
"Pretty much."
They tied the horses to the trees, Richard checking the knots. Unsurprisingly, he had an opinion on them. "This way," he demonstrated, "it'll give the horse more room to breathe."
Raina was indignant. "The knot will slip! They'll get away!"
"If we're not back in a few hours, we won't need them anyway."
Berdine set a hand on Raina's shoulder, thumb massaging the back of her neck. "Come, Raina, won't it comfort your rotting corpse to know that your horse at least will be able to go on living?"
Richard gave the horse some oats, looking disdainfully at the Agiel marks on its flank. "This is a nice horse. Where'd you get it?"
Triana clasped her hands behind her back proudly. "I obtained them, Lord Rahl. We got them from a horse merchant."
"He's alright, isn't he?"
"He's fine. We were quite fair with him. We did no harm."
"Ah. That's good." Richard started to turn. Stopped. "You did… pay him, correct?"
"Yes, Lord Rahl."
"Oh. Good." He started to turn again.
"We paid him with his life."
With a huff of air, Richard turned back around. "What now?"
"At first he wanted us to pay an outrageous price for them, but after we explained the situation, he gave them to us for free."
"Oh, so you told him we needed the horses to save the world." Richard nodded and turned around.
"No, we told him we would kill him if he didn't." Triana added a mollifying "Lord Rahl."
Richard turned around. "I thought you were under strict orders not to kill anyone."
"Yes, Lord Rahl. But he didn't know that."
"He didn't ask, either," Berdine pointed out.
Kahlan patted Richard on the back. "Gentle encouragement, dear, gentle encouragement." She faced the Mord'Sith. "It's good that you found a creative, non-killing solution to your problem…"
"And we didn't use our Agiels!" Berdine added.
"And that's good. But in the future, it'd be best to pay for horses."
"But… Cara said it was all right!"
Cara, who'd been trying to get a headstart into the woods without straying too far from the protection of the group (she wasn't Richard, after all), cringed.
Kahlan marched over to her, hands on her hips. Cara hated when she had her hands on her hips. "We will talk about this after we save the world."
Cara bowed her head. "Yes, Lady Rahl."
Kahlan looked from Cara to her ring.
"Will we also be talking about that after the world-saving?"
Kahlan stormed off, muttering "impossible woman" under her breath.
Triana came up to Cara. "You show more deference to her than to the Lord Rahl."
"Maybe she deserves it more."
"Maybe." She walked off. As she was headed for the group, Cara followed.
There was a green horizon. It was a three-hour hike there. Richard was set on making it in two. The hike wasn’t the most arduous, but it had its own challenges. Cara didn’t like it. The trees grew tall, but they grew wrong, coiling around rocks like pythons strangling their prey. Moss grew in thick, brown clumps the putrid color of mud, falling onto the ground with a disgusting sound and a worse noise. Roots, white and girthy, broke out of the ground like giant worms. And the wind made the trees sound like they were screaming.
Richard broke off walking sticks for all of them. He took point and Zedd brought up the rear, less out of concern for his safety than the fact that he was out of shape. Berdine and Raina walked side by side, shouldering against each other occasionally to see if they could knock the other off-balance.
“Nice day for a walk," Triana said, watching them. "And such a romantic view."
“Yes," Cara replied. "Checking for ambushes. Kinky.” She considered walking with someone else. The Mord'Sith had paired up to cover the Lord Rahl in all directions. Pointman and rear guard. Master and slave.
Richard stopped to close his eyes. “Birdsong for ten miles. If we have company, they aren't using magic.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Berdine asked.
“Junior Beavers scoutmaster handbook.”
Kahlan arched an eyebrow at ferreting something out of Richard, who hated talking about himself. Modesty. “You led a Junior Beaver troop?”
“It's a good way to pass on the Junior Beaver experience,“ Richard said defensively.
"I was a Junior Beaver," Cara said, breaking away from Triana.
“You were a girl scout?” Zedd asked, mounting a light jog to catch up. This he had to hear.
"I was a Junior Beaver," Cara emphasized. Girl scout was so… demeaning.
Zedd and Kahlan had a good laugh and Cara could see Triana’s shoulders shaking.
“You? In the little shorts?”
“Selling cookies!” Zedd pointed out, making Kahlan laugh so loud she embarrassed herself.
Cara smiled along with them. It had been fun, spending all that time with Dahlia.
"It teaches you to respect nature," Richard crabbed, and Cara nodded alongside him.
Vines with an unpleasantly viscous resemblance to mucus grew between the trees. The Mord'Sith broke out their longknives to clear a swath. They didn't need that much space, but as an escape route, it was perfect. Richard cut through four vines at a time with each swing of the Sword of Truth. Zedd muttered about ancient, magical relics.
"If you want, you could always flame through the vines," Richard told him.
After one try, they all went back to cutting the vines. The smell was too foul.
After an hour they took a break to sharpen their blades. Kahlan poured water over her face. It ran down her dress.
Richard looked up from the longknife he was sharpening. As the Sword of Truth didn't need sharpening, Alina had conned him into doing hers. “Could you stop that? It’s… distracting.”
“It’s supposed to be,” she laughed.
Cara kept sharpening her knife.
After another half-hour of arduous labor, they came to a clearing. For a half-mile, all vegetation just stopped, giving into an ash-gray wasteland. The fires of the Underworld had shot through, burning it clean. Up ahead was the Boundary, a solid green fogbank. But it had ripples in it, like torn gossamer fluttering in the wind. Through it, they could see gathered shadows.
"Jagang hates the very idea of the Seeker," Zedd warned Richard. "A thousand years, with nothing to live for but hate… he'd set himself on fire if only you would burn with him."
"Great. As if I didn't have enough enemies, now I'm inheriting them!"
Zedd was pulling things from his bag, setting up two interlocking squares edged by strange objects. "Just a few minutes. No interruptions."
The Mord'Sith knew he wasn't talking about asking if he would like a glass of water. They took up position around him, Agiels drawn, so many at once that it sounded like one continuous scream. Richard paced uneasily, his sword set on his shoulder, fingers drumming on the hilt. Kahlan gave his arm a rub and walked over to Cara, who tried staring straight ahead like Darken Rahl's old honor guard had at the People's Palace. But she couldn't look away from Kahlan.
"Can we talk?"
"I can listen."
"Richard and I are getting married."
Cara nodded stiffly. "So? Everyone knows you're in love. So now you're saying you're in love in front of some elder. If that makes you happy, go ahead."
"I'd like you to be my maid of honor."
Cara bit her teeth. "I will serve however you wish, Lady Rahl."
"Now stop! If you want to go off and hunt boars from when I buy the dress until we're back from the honeymoon, that's fine, but just say so!"
"I'd like to go off and hunt boars from when you buy the dress until you're back from the honeymoon."
"Okay then."
"Good."
"Good."
"No, great."
"It is great."
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"I am trying to concentrate here!" Zedd said out of the corner of his mouth before going back to chanting. Lines of green flame had formed between his relics, beginning to rise. The Boundary mirrored them, stitching itself together.
"There is a point," Kahlan whispered fiercely, "where it stops being about making allowances for your background and starts being about you wallowing in immaturity!"
"I wallow in immaturity? You practically play with dolls every time you imagine your future."
"Not true!"
"What will you name your second child?"
"Zedd if it's a boy, Kya if it's a girl… that's not the point!"
"This may take longer than I expected," Zedd said, causing them both to look over their shoulder.
"We're fine Zedd." Richard twisted his sword. "Just stay with it."
"Easy for you to say. You don't have to go to the bathroom." The flames rose higher. "Keep not interrupting me."
Triana nudged Rikka to cover for her, then walked over to Cara. She took her by the shoulders. "We should take breaks in shifts. Cara and I will go first."
Kahlan huffed and covered her eyes. "Fine. Just… go."
Cara let herself be led back to the treeline before knocking Triana's hands away. Triana took hold of her again.
"If you have something to get rid of, take it out on me," she said.
Cara pushed her away again. "I'm not in the mood for your foreplay. Usually, I find it a little amusing, but right now, I could do without your obsession with me."
"I'm not seducing you. There's no time. I'm just letting you know that this is why we're trained against feelings."
"I do know that. I just don't care."
"If you start caring, I'll be there to take the pain away. Or at least replace it with the kind of pain you like."
"You're not worthy to get the stains out of Kahlan's dress."
"Are you?"
Cara dropped a hand to her Agiel. But no. That was what Triana wanted.
"She made me better," Cara said.
"Better for who?"
"I can better serve the Lord Rahl…" Cara shook her head. "I can better serve myself, as this."
"You're not serving yourself. You're serving her. She's broken you."
Cara's hand wrapped around Triana's throat. The Mord'Sith smiled. She'd never seen it coming.
"I am not broken," Cara hissed.
"Prove it." Not making any effort to remove the hand from her throat, Triana pulled Cara closer. Cara's cloak ruffled between them. "Prove it." Feather-light, Triana brushed her lips against Cara's, like a gourmet waving a meal under someone's nose. "Prove it to me." Her tongue ran over Cara's mouth like a flint over steel.
Cara forced the next move, squeezing Triana's slender neck as she devoured her lips, so ravenous that Triana moaned aloud. Cara backed away, her hand still on Triana's throat, but if anyone were there, it wouldn't fool them.
"I thought I was better than this," Cara said.
"I thought you would never come back to me," Triana replied. "My sister."
There was a familiar whistling. A more familiar kind of scream. All that changed was the particular. Cara had never heard Kahlan scream before. She turned, her lips still warm from Triana, to see Kahlan crumpling. A dozen more dacras were flying in, but the half-circle of Mord'Sith around Zedd protected him. Cara hadn't been there. She'd failed Kahlan.
She ran through the field of fire, dacras thrown and deflected. One nearly hit her, but her magic pushed it aside with a wrathful thought. Then she was beside Kahlan's body, across from Richard. The dacra protruded from the Mother Confessor like some monstrous infection.
"She'll be okay." Richard was asking more than telling. "Cara, she'll be okay."
Cara looked into Kahlan's eyes. "They're coming," the Confessor said.
Cara gripped her Agiels. She couldn't feel the pain. Not through this. "I will kill them all for you."
Richard stayed behind, holding Kahlan's hand as she pulled the dacra out, by herself, so the magic couldn't kill them both. It was alright. She preferred it that way. She would rather hold an Agiel than someone else. There was only so much pain an Agiel could inflict, was the difference.
One foot in front of the other. In the woods, a hornet's nest of dacras had been disturbed. They flew out to sting her. Cara held her hand in front of her and her magic, pain and rage and sheer bloody-minded determination, did its work. The dacras splashed in the dirt and chipped into the trees and soared up like birds taking flight. None of them so much as cast a breeze on her.
Now she could see them. Sisters, so many, too many, lined up between the trees like a forest fire. Dahlia was leading them. By some sixth sense, Cara felt the air on either side of her solidify, giving her strength. Triana was beside her. She'd brought Alina. Their Agiels sang together.
Ten feet away and Dahlia stopped, smiling with the kind of fanaticism Cara might've seen in a mirror once. Lightning bled out of the world and struck an ash-white tree. Cara's eyes flicked from it to its origin, Darken Rahl. "Down!" she yelled, tackling Triana.
The tree exploded and Cara felt her leathers pinch in a dozen places. Alina gasped wetly. When Cara looked up, she saw that the shrapnel from the blast had skewered her. Four Dragon Corps quads were charging for Kahlan, led by Darken Rahl. Cara got to her feet to find the Sisters surrounding her. Triana let Cara worry about it, snapped Alina's neck. They stood together, back to back.
"Want to put our Agiels in her ears with me?" Triana asked, glaring at Dahlia. She still had blood on her hands.
“No. Dahlia’s mine,” Cara said.
“I don’t see your name on me,” Dahlia replied, circling.
“Not yet.” Cara reached down to take her longknife in her other hand. No magic now. She wanted to leave a mark like Dahlia had left.
"You were my best friend," Dahlia said. "How could I hurt you?" She turned to her Sisters. "Hurt her."
They moved in. One was faster than the others, or more suicidal. Cara didn't bother with the Agiel's magic, she just let it cave her skull in. Triana caught half-a-dozen dacras coming at Cara's back and deflected them, scattering the Sisters. Dahlia was gone, running to join Rahl's charge.
"Back to the Lord Rahl!" Cara ordered. She and Triana charged.
They worked as well together as Cara ever had with Kahlan.
***
Dahlia nearly looked over her shoulder, but didn't. She had to keep her eyes on the prize. It was a shame. As a connoisseur of death, she considered Cara in action a thing of beauty. And it wasn’t like she would be doing any encores.
***
"I'll kill you!" a Sister screamed as she lunged.
Triana batted her out of the air like a cat with a piece of string. "No," she replied.
They marked their trail with dead bodies and screams and Cara felt that hand clenching her heart give her a break. Maybe Triana was right about her.
***
Richard had been ready the moment Kahlan got the dacra out, kicking it away and bandaging the wound. Then he'd pulled her to her feet and she'd plunged a dagger into the heart of the D'Haran about to skewer Richard. With one arm around Kahlan, keeping her up, and the other moving the Sword of Truth, they fought the endless river of enemies trying to force them back into the Boundary.
"Just like old times, eh?" Kahlan said, blocking a blow so that Richard could finish him off.
"I can think of a few things that've changed for the better." He kissed her cheek in the half-second he had before he needed to block a crossbow bolt.
***
"Just a few more minutes!" Zedd cried. The green flames bent inward, wrapping around him like an igloo.
The Mord'Sith around him weathered the Sisters of the Dark like boulders being pounded by the surf. The phalanx they had formed was impenetrable, the briefest touch of their Agiels like being scourged by a cat o' nine tails. The fear of pain made its own bottleneck. Dahlia watched the way the Mord'Sith protected each other, none more so than Berdine and Raina.
"Her," she said to the D'Haran she'd pulled away from the fight with Richard and Kahlan. He aimed his crossbow and fired.
Berdine fell.
Raina called her name and ran to her, leaving Dahlia to slip inside the Seeker's ranks.
***
Cara and Triana were only yards behind Dahlia, but there was an entire quad between them, which meant the women had to fight two D'Harans at once. But Cara still had enough of an eye on Dahlia to see her look over her shoulder and wink before she threw her dacra.
The gathering thunder of Zedd's chanting stopped all at once. Despite the clash of swords and the screams of the dying, the silence was deafening. It was like the Boundary was letting out a death-cry, drowning out all other sound.
And the Boundary began to drain into the ground, the Underworld, like a bath with the stopper pulled out.
Dahlia turned away from it, her smile wide, her eyes sparkling. "This world belongs to the Keeper."
Cara faced her, longknife held out like a challenge. "Let's go see him together, Dahlia."
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Date: 2010-07-16 03:50 pm (UTC)Hilarious: "When I bought my last traveling dress, you told me that in the heat of battle, you might not recognize me and thus end up killing me."
"It was a compliment. You looked a lot better than you used to."
Great line: "Great. As if I didn't have enough enemies, now I'm inheriting them!"
Poor Cara: "I'd like to go off and hunt boars from when you buy the dress until you're back from the honeymoon."
And then an awesome action scene.
Really cool lines: "Dahlia turned away from it, her smile wide, her eyes sparkling. "This world belongs to the Keeper."
Cara faced her, longknife held out like a challenge. "Let's go see him together, Dahlia."
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Date: 2010-07-16 04:56 pm (UTC)Cara faced her, longknife held out like a challenge. "Let's go
see him together, Dahlia." -this
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Date: 2010-07-17 01:20 am (UTC)I loved the banter, and OMGWHATSGOINGTOHAPPEN.
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Date: 2010-09-05 11:44 pm (UTC)