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seriousficWarning: Darkfic Hurt/comfort. Character death (don't worry, it's Zedd). Kink. Like, on the kinkiness scale, with 1 being Cara hearing that Richard and Kahlan went to get ice cream and 10 being an Anita Blake novel, this would be a 7.
Title: Only torture if it hurts
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,470
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, references to Richard/Kahlan
Author’s notes: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
susurrusnight.
Next: Part 2
Summary: After six months of captivity, Richard and Cara rescue Kahlan from the Mord'Sith. But is it really Kahlan if she's been broken?
What had they done to her beautiful Kahlan?
Cara looked over at Richard and could tell he was thinking the exact same thing. He looked queasier the deeper they got into the dungeon, the danker it got, the darker. He was comparing it to his own experiences. But Cara knew it would be worse for Kahlan. Mord'Sith believed men were weak. With women, they judged against themselves.
"How long?" Kahlan asked, after they cut her down, after she was in Richard's arms, after she realized it was him and stopped struggling.
"Six months," Richard said.
"It seemed longer… I thought you were a dream. I thought you were only ever a dream…"
***
They dressed her, careful not to agitate the welts that had been raised by Agiels. Cara hated herself for how beautiful they looked on Kahlan's skin, an imperfection that finally pointed out how exquisite the rest of her was. Cara was broken, she'd always known that, but Kahlan was intact, completed by Richard, sweet and pure and everything Cara had once been. Now… Cara wanted to rip the Mord'Sith who had done this apart with her bare hands.
***
They loaded her into the back of the wagon. Richard climbed onto the seating board, and when Kahlan couldn't see him, he hunched down and cursed himself for letting them take her. Cara sat down beside him and took the reins. She couldn't bear to be back there with Kahlan. The last thing that woman needed was a Mord'Sith.
***
A stable. Hardly the place Cara would choose to safeguard the Mother Confessor. But the tavern owner was loyal, they had saved his life once, and Darken Rahl's men might search the rooms.
***
Kahlan wouldn't eat. She wouldn't sleep. No matter how Richard tried to comfort or cajole or soften her, Kahlan was as rigid and unyielding as a statue.
"You try," Richard told Cara, walking away. It wasn't that he was frustrated. He'd shown endless patience when he'd cleaned Kahlan's injuries. It was just that he couldn't look at her like that. Every moment he did destroyed the woman in his memories a little more.
Kahlan sat there, her face lined and ragged, staring out at nothing as the soup cooled in front of her. Her raggedy clothes were a far cry from a Confessor's gown, but it was important to keep her hidden. Richard hardly ever used the Sword of Truth these days. Cara had seen him beat a man to death with his own two hands.
Things were different with Zedd gone.
Cara walked in. Kahlan's eyes lit up like tiny embers snatching air. She stared at Cara, an accusation. Cara wilted momentarily, but swallowed it as she did everything. She stepped closer, until Cara was looking up at her, and nudged the soup closer to Kahlan with her toe.
"Eat," she said.
Kahlan took hold of the bowl and raised it to her lips, pouring the soup down her throat so fast that it ran down her chin and dripped onto her cloak, made the straw she was sitting on even dirtier. When Cara left, there was a tear on her cheek. She didn't speculate as to how it got there.
***
Outside, the stars were gone. The sky was as overcast and gray as it had been during the day.
"She's been broken," Cara said.
Richard looked downcast. She could see in his shoulders that he refused to believe. "No one could break Kahlan, not in a million—"
"I could," Cara interrupted. "And I'm not as good at it as others."
Richard's teeth met and wouldn't part. He turned away.
"That's why she wouldn't eat. No one had ordered her—"
"I know how it works!" Richard barked.
Cara lowered her head. After a moment, she said "I'm sorry, Lord Rahl."
"Don't call me that… is she going to call me that?"
"I don't know."
"Can you fix her?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know!"
Cara held her Agiel, trusting that one pain could drown out another. "As much as it hurts you to see her like this, it hurts her worse. Your caring feels worse than pain." Richard looked at her questioningly. Cara barreled on, letting the emotionless Mord'Sith be her face. "She was broken. She believes with every fiber of her being that she's worthless. And you treat her like a goddess. It hurts her."
Inside its scabbard, the Sword of Truth was glowing red-hot. "I'm not just going to kill Darken Rahl," Richard said. "I'm going to kill them all."
Cara would only say "They deserve it."
***
There was always work for the Seeker, when Darken Rahl was retaking the Midlands. And deep inside him, he understood that he couldn't be around Kahlan, not when his blood and magic demanded fire. He told Cara to take care of Kahlan, gaining a little solace from the meaningless ritual, and tried to kiss the Mother Confessor. Even on the cheek, it hurt her. He moved away and Cara could see him deciding he wouldn't try again.
She vowed that when he returned, Kahlan would be the one kissing him.
***
Breakfast the next day. Cara showed Kahlan how to eat with a spoon. After each bite, Kahlan looked at her to see if she'd done well. Cara forced herself to smile in approval.
"Kahlan, what do you remember?"
Kahlan stopped with the spoon almost in her mouth. She held it meticulously still as she answered. "Pain."
"Before that."
"I remember Richard… I remember Darken Rahl... did we stop him?"
"No. You can keep eating."
Kahlan ravenously continued. Cara wondered how long the Mord'Sith had deprived her of food. Her cheeks were sunken and when she wasn't covered up, her ribs looked like they were trying to break through her skin. She looked like a drawing on a parchment, half-erased.
"Kahlan, how many rats have you killed?"
"Two hundred and twenty-one. I wounded twelve, trying to scare them off, but they kept coming back…" Kahlan shuddered, stiffened, and for the first time Cara wanted to run.
***
Cara kept in close contact with the innkeeper. She wasn't a Confessor, but if he betrayed them, she would know it. And besides, the travelers passing through brought news of the world.
"The Seeker struck at the garrison of Forthill. Burned it to the ground."
"Did they suffer?"
"They say he surrounded the ruins with a fence of heads. No one's gone inside."
"Good."
***
"You used to fight with these," Cara said, presenting Kahlan's daggers to her. She'd kept them oiled and polished since she'd found them, on the battleground where Kahlan had been taken.
Kahlan took them in her hands and they didn't seem to fit, so long and slender in those hands that were bony and veined. Cara could see where the fingers had been smashed and healed and smashed again.
"Would you like to try?"
Kahlan shook her head. "I dreamed of them. The first night I went to sleep dreaming of Richard. Then, the second night, I went to sleep and I dreamed I was going through the temple, slitting everyone's throat. But I woke up."
***
Kahlan screamed in the night. Nightmares were a good sign, Cara knew. At least her mind wasn't so far gone that the things that had happened didn't terrify her.
She sat nearby and bore witness, not knowing what to do. After a while, the innkeeper came out.
"You have to quiet her down. She's waking everyone up."
What would Cara have wished for, in the time between breakings, when she was still human enough to know how wrong she'd been made? She'd had no one. No one but her trainer, and that didn't count as humanity. She would've liked to know that someone else had been through this, that it wasn't her fault, that whatever love she'd once had clung to her, deeper than the Agiel could ever touch.
Cara sat down beside Kahlan and took her hand. Slowly, imperceptibly, Kahlan's sobbing turned into a fitful, deep sleep.
***
Kahlan didn't want to be alone. Strange, that a process designed to craft lone wolves could create such a dependency for touch. It had shocked Cara, once, to work with the Dragon Corps and find out that they were almost celibate. Cara remembered one of the wizard's rules about how pain could be lessened by company, but she doubted he'd known how true it was.
She went hunting and Kahlan went with her. They brought back a buck and Kahlan offered to clean it. Cara let her have her way. It was watching Kahlan carve the carcass that Cara realized Kahlan was serving her.
***
Kahlan screamed again, paralyzed by sleep and tortured by dreams. That was how the Mord'Sith worked, of course. Creating a prison for the mind, a cell of leather and sisterhood.
In a fit of anger, at Richard for getting them into this, at the Mord'Sith for doing this, at Kahlan for being broken, Cara shook the Confessor awake. "If you do not stop," she said, "the D'Harans will find us. Do you want that, to go back to the temple?"
Kahlan made herself silent, shook quietly. Cara tried to leave, but couldn't. She stayed near Kahlan, trying to figure out how to apologize for something she couldn't name.
"I'll stay close," Cara promised. "If there are any more bad dreams, I'll wake you."
Kahlan looked up, hopeful. "If I see your face, then I'm awake?"
Cara felt another rush of anger, irrational anger, at Kahlan's pathetic childishness. She had been a warrior, a leader of men, and now they had made her… like Cara.
She nodded tightly.
Kahlan settled down into the straw, huddling herself into as small a ball as possible. She covered her face with her hands, protection against rats that were miles away.
But she slept soundly.
***
When Cara woke, Kahlan was already up. But she didn't show it. She stayed huddled in her tight little ball, pretending to be asleep. Or maybe it just didn't make much of a difference whether she was awake or asleep. She stayed restlessly observant, her eyes fixed in the distance but watching for every threat. The thousand-yard stare of the Mord'Sith, stillborn.
Cara let her watch as she ran through her morning routine, drinking and eating first since you never knew when your next meal would be, then stripping away her leathers to let the innkeeper wash them. The peasant clothes she wore to go into town would be good enough to sweat in.
Kahlan watched as she did her exercises, one lonely cog still spinning, even if it no longer touched the rest of the machine. By the time she'd finished, Cara was bored of the silence. She approached Kahlan, and the lack of a morning greeting drove her to pull the blanket from Kahlan's body.
"You should go running with me," she said.
"Yes," Kahlan said, not appearing to think about it.
"It will rebuild your musculature. Make you… more yourself."
Kahlan nodded dutifully. Cara resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't hear a word of protest.
***
Cara wanted to see how far Kahlan could go. It was how Mord'Sith were made, after all. You saw how far someone could go. Then you knew how far you would have to go to break them.
They made five miles, ten miles, fifteen miles. It was a pretty day, but Cara had the feeling that was wasted on Kahlan. But whatever had been done to her, there was a steel rod running through Kahlan that nothing could touch. Cara had always admired that about her.
All of a sudden, Kahlan pitched to her side and vomited. Cara stopped herself in a skid of dirt and ran back to her. "Are you alright?" she asked, breathless.
Kahlan nodded. "I'm sorry for slowing you down."
"It's alright."
Kahlan spat some more. Cara patted her on the back until it was all out of her system. She kept her hand on Kahlan's back, rubbing abstract circles into it. When Kahlan wiped her mouth, Cara led her down to a creek by the side of the road and washed her off. Kahlan meekly held still as Cara cupped water in her hands and poured it into Kahlan's mouth.
The Mord'Sith ritual made Kahlan sigh in relief.
***
After a week of runs, Kahlan could outpace Cara, her longer legs moving like chords in a harmony. Three square meals a day, better than what the grateful innkeeper provided for his own family, had made her ribs disappear under her skin. Her hair was regaining its luster.
They stopped by the creek, leagues from where Kahlan had once fallen. It was much nicer at that bend, with clear water sparkling in the sun and plenty of trees for shade. Cara hoped Kahlan would like it.
Kahlan poured out the lukewarm water in her waterskin, filled it with ice-cold water from the bottom of the river, and drank greedily. Cara watched approvingly. Richard would be pleased. Then Kahlan walked around a tree trunk, fingertips extended to feel the bark, breath pumping out of her lungs as her heart rate returned to normal.
Cara didn't need to cool down. She let the heat of her Agiels fill either hand and began moving through her katas, harsh motions that dragged the Agiels' tips over her body, letting the pain soak into every part of her. In the absence of a fight, she would not become a stranger to hurt.
Kahlan watched, lapsing to a stop. Although her legs ached and her body was sodden with sweat, she was stricken with the sight of Cara. The pain was only visible in her lips, how they pinched and parted and let Cara's tongue work its way slowly outward.
The Mord'Sith stopped, her tongue nearly touching the Agiel before her. She bit her lip and faced Kahlan. "Yes?"
"I would…" Kahlan bowed her head, fighting back the tic to call Cara mistress. "May we train together?"
Cara gracefully washed from her kata into a neutral stance. "Yes."
Kahlan drew her daggers from her boots. Haltingly, as if trying to remember something, she raised them. Then, she hesitated.
Cara attacked. Kahlan blocked her first swing, but the next came within a hair's breadth of hitting her. Cara stopped it just in time, her Agiel an inch from Kahlan's face, the Confessor's eyes brimming with tears.
Cara stepped back. "This was a mistake."
"No!" Kahlan squeezed her daggers, raising them much more confidently. "I can do this."
Cara held up her Agiels in answer. "Then come at me."
Kahlan wavered for a moment, then forced herself forward. Cara easily deflected her attack, knocking it aside so hard that Kahlan was spun away from Cara, who crossed her Agiels across Kahlan's throat. Pressed into Kahlan's back, Cara spoke into her ear. "I've seen you fight better than this."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't."
Kahlan was still stiff, still weak, still fragile. Cara let her Agiel slip, touch the hollow of Kahlan's throat. The flutter that went through her traveled into Cara.
"Concentrate," Cara said. "Let everything slip away. All your hopes, all your fears, all your memories. Leave only what you want. Focus on everything in your way. Now, let those things die."
Kahlan breathed deeply. Cara felt her body tense and relax and clench and ease. Then Kahlan moved. She ducked her head, knocking the Agiels away, and drove her elbow into Cara's gut. Cara stumbled back and Kahlan whirled on her, daggers slicing through the air. Cara barely blocked them. She gave ground to recover and Kahlan looped after her, blades gliding forward like the winds of a tornado.
Cara attacked, prodding, jabbing, lancing, but Kahlan turned aside each blow. She was implacable, driving Cara back until the Mord'Sith hit a tree. She began to kick off it, a suicide run that would charge her a wound for victory, but before she could move a muscle, Kahlan had a dagger to her throat. After a moment, Kahlan cut her, just a little. Cara dropped her Agiels to the ground.
The dagger stayed at Cara's throat.
"You win," Cara said.
Kahlan's second dagger pointed at Cara's heart, just touching the bared skin. Her heart beat traveled through the blade, stopping at Kahlan's unmoving hand. Cara closed her eyes. She'd once offered her life up to Kahlan. The offer still stood.
Kahlan moved the dagger down Cara's cleavage, cutting into the leather. It parted in fits and gasps, each second letting in cooler air to prickle Cara's skin. Occasionally the blade slipped and glanced over Cara's flesh, letting out a few beads of blood. That was what made Cara really lose herself. That was what made her realize this had to stop.
"Kahlan," she said, hoping the sound of her name would bring her back to herself.
Kahlan pressed her other dagger flush to Cara's throat. If she gulped, it would end her. “Open it for me,” she said. “Slowly.”
Careful not to move fast enough to set her off, Cara spread her slashed leathers. Her nipples were as rough and hard as arrowheads. Kahlan held her dagger to one, watching as it tightened more over the tip of her blade.
"Command me, mistress," she said, withdrawing a dagger from Cara's throat.
"I'm not your mistress."
"You care for me. You protect me. You love me. What else could you be?"
"A friend. A sister."
Kahlan put her dagger to Cara's lips, trying to silence her. Cara opened her mouth and Kahlan moved the blade in, letting it press on her teeth. Cara laved her tongue out and over the blade, cutting it just a little, giving Kahlan some blood. The Confessor moaned and the knife shook. She pulled it back.
Then her forehead was against Cara's, almost close enough to taste the blood filling her mouth. Kahlan held the dagger’s tip up to Cara's eye, then traced it down over her cheek and lower. Cara felt a sharp point dig into her breast, as intimate a kiss as she'd ever received. She gasped hungrily as blood trickled down her chest. The dagger had only just penetrated, just given her a taste.
"I'm not stupid, Cara. I know you love me. You have for a long time. I didn't say anything, I knew you would be mortified. But now…" Kahlan slid the blade in a little deeper. “I can return your feelings. We can do something about this.”
Cara looked down at the dagger protruding from her. Just a flesh wound. It was so precisely placed that Kahlan could sink it in all the way to the hilt and she'd recover. The thought was thrilling. Kahlan pulled the knife out and while Cara was still lost in the pain, the submission, the Confessor bent her head to Cara's wound and suckled it like a babe returning to its mother's breast.
Cara heard herself gasp and moan and mewl and even whimper as Kahlan literally drank her down. Dexterous hands, far too devilish to be Kahlan's, were destroying her leathers even more, delving into her even deeper, rounding her hips and molding to her ass and spreading her open. Helping her. One sister to another.
A new, intoxicating sensation was spreading through Cara like fire through dry tender. Just the sight of that pretty pink tongue licking the blood from her nipple, of her own blood spilled onto Kahlan's gray linen, was enough to make her climax. But if she let herself, she'd never be able to stop.
"I feel like your whore," Kahlan moaned, rubbing her face over Cara's breast, smearing her blood across her face like war paint. "Willing to do anything you pay me for. Anything."
"Kahlan, stop. I order you to stop."
Kahlan reared up as if slapped. The blood running down her face looked less primal and more like a child playing with her mother's make-up. "But I…"
"You love Richard. Not me. You're not Mord'Sith. I am. And if you make love to me, I'll die."
Cara turned away. Taking some bandages from her belt, she began to treat herself.
"Let me help you…" Kahlan offered.
Cara shoved her back. "Go to the water and wash yourself off. Now."
When Kahlan's face was clean, she looked at Cara with something human in her eyes. "I know I wasn't always like this. But I just… can't remember how I'm supposed to be."
***
They didn't speak as they walked back to the inn. Cara held her leathers shut and thought of chains. A few days later, Richard returned. Kahlan ran into his arms and kissed him.
Cara thought of chains.
Title: Only torture if it hurts
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,470
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, references to Richard/Kahlan
Author’s notes: Betaed by
susurrusnight. Next: Part 2
Summary: After six months of captivity, Richard and Cara rescue Kahlan from the Mord'Sith. But is it really Kahlan if she's been broken?
What had they done to her beautiful Kahlan?
Cara looked over at Richard and could tell he was thinking the exact same thing. He looked queasier the deeper they got into the dungeon, the danker it got, the darker. He was comparing it to his own experiences. But Cara knew it would be worse for Kahlan. Mord'Sith believed men were weak. With women, they judged against themselves.
"How long?" Kahlan asked, after they cut her down, after she was in Richard's arms, after she realized it was him and stopped struggling.
"Six months," Richard said.
"It seemed longer… I thought you were a dream. I thought you were only ever a dream…"
***
They dressed her, careful not to agitate the welts that had been raised by Agiels. Cara hated herself for how beautiful they looked on Kahlan's skin, an imperfection that finally pointed out how exquisite the rest of her was. Cara was broken, she'd always known that, but Kahlan was intact, completed by Richard, sweet and pure and everything Cara had once been. Now… Cara wanted to rip the Mord'Sith who had done this apart with her bare hands.
***
They loaded her into the back of the wagon. Richard climbed onto the seating board, and when Kahlan couldn't see him, he hunched down and cursed himself for letting them take her. Cara sat down beside him and took the reins. She couldn't bear to be back there with Kahlan. The last thing that woman needed was a Mord'Sith.
***
A stable. Hardly the place Cara would choose to safeguard the Mother Confessor. But the tavern owner was loyal, they had saved his life once, and Darken Rahl's men might search the rooms.
***
Kahlan wouldn't eat. She wouldn't sleep. No matter how Richard tried to comfort or cajole or soften her, Kahlan was as rigid and unyielding as a statue.
"You try," Richard told Cara, walking away. It wasn't that he was frustrated. He'd shown endless patience when he'd cleaned Kahlan's injuries. It was just that he couldn't look at her like that. Every moment he did destroyed the woman in his memories a little more.
Kahlan sat there, her face lined and ragged, staring out at nothing as the soup cooled in front of her. Her raggedy clothes were a far cry from a Confessor's gown, but it was important to keep her hidden. Richard hardly ever used the Sword of Truth these days. Cara had seen him beat a man to death with his own two hands.
Things were different with Zedd gone.
Cara walked in. Kahlan's eyes lit up like tiny embers snatching air. She stared at Cara, an accusation. Cara wilted momentarily, but swallowed it as she did everything. She stepped closer, until Cara was looking up at her, and nudged the soup closer to Kahlan with her toe.
"Eat," she said.
Kahlan took hold of the bowl and raised it to her lips, pouring the soup down her throat so fast that it ran down her chin and dripped onto her cloak, made the straw she was sitting on even dirtier. When Cara left, there was a tear on her cheek. She didn't speculate as to how it got there.
***
Outside, the stars were gone. The sky was as overcast and gray as it had been during the day.
"She's been broken," Cara said.
Richard looked downcast. She could see in his shoulders that he refused to believe. "No one could break Kahlan, not in a million—"
"I could," Cara interrupted. "And I'm not as good at it as others."
Richard's teeth met and wouldn't part. He turned away.
"That's why she wouldn't eat. No one had ordered her—"
"I know how it works!" Richard barked.
Cara lowered her head. After a moment, she said "I'm sorry, Lord Rahl."
"Don't call me that… is she going to call me that?"
"I don't know."
"Can you fix her?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know!"
Cara held her Agiel, trusting that one pain could drown out another. "As much as it hurts you to see her like this, it hurts her worse. Your caring feels worse than pain." Richard looked at her questioningly. Cara barreled on, letting the emotionless Mord'Sith be her face. "She was broken. She believes with every fiber of her being that she's worthless. And you treat her like a goddess. It hurts her."
Inside its scabbard, the Sword of Truth was glowing red-hot. "I'm not just going to kill Darken Rahl," Richard said. "I'm going to kill them all."
Cara would only say "They deserve it."
***
There was always work for the Seeker, when Darken Rahl was retaking the Midlands. And deep inside him, he understood that he couldn't be around Kahlan, not when his blood and magic demanded fire. He told Cara to take care of Kahlan, gaining a little solace from the meaningless ritual, and tried to kiss the Mother Confessor. Even on the cheek, it hurt her. He moved away and Cara could see him deciding he wouldn't try again.
She vowed that when he returned, Kahlan would be the one kissing him.
***
Breakfast the next day. Cara showed Kahlan how to eat with a spoon. After each bite, Kahlan looked at her to see if she'd done well. Cara forced herself to smile in approval.
"Kahlan, what do you remember?"
Kahlan stopped with the spoon almost in her mouth. She held it meticulously still as she answered. "Pain."
"Before that."
"I remember Richard… I remember Darken Rahl... did we stop him?"
"No. You can keep eating."
Kahlan ravenously continued. Cara wondered how long the Mord'Sith had deprived her of food. Her cheeks were sunken and when she wasn't covered up, her ribs looked like they were trying to break through her skin. She looked like a drawing on a parchment, half-erased.
"Kahlan, how many rats have you killed?"
"Two hundred and twenty-one. I wounded twelve, trying to scare them off, but they kept coming back…" Kahlan shuddered, stiffened, and for the first time Cara wanted to run.
***
Cara kept in close contact with the innkeeper. She wasn't a Confessor, but if he betrayed them, she would know it. And besides, the travelers passing through brought news of the world.
"The Seeker struck at the garrison of Forthill. Burned it to the ground."
"Did they suffer?"
"They say he surrounded the ruins with a fence of heads. No one's gone inside."
"Good."
***
"You used to fight with these," Cara said, presenting Kahlan's daggers to her. She'd kept them oiled and polished since she'd found them, on the battleground where Kahlan had been taken.
Kahlan took them in her hands and they didn't seem to fit, so long and slender in those hands that were bony and veined. Cara could see where the fingers had been smashed and healed and smashed again.
"Would you like to try?"
Kahlan shook her head. "I dreamed of them. The first night I went to sleep dreaming of Richard. Then, the second night, I went to sleep and I dreamed I was going through the temple, slitting everyone's throat. But I woke up."
***
Kahlan screamed in the night. Nightmares were a good sign, Cara knew. At least her mind wasn't so far gone that the things that had happened didn't terrify her.
She sat nearby and bore witness, not knowing what to do. After a while, the innkeeper came out.
"You have to quiet her down. She's waking everyone up."
What would Cara have wished for, in the time between breakings, when she was still human enough to know how wrong she'd been made? She'd had no one. No one but her trainer, and that didn't count as humanity. She would've liked to know that someone else had been through this, that it wasn't her fault, that whatever love she'd once had clung to her, deeper than the Agiel could ever touch.
Cara sat down beside Kahlan and took her hand. Slowly, imperceptibly, Kahlan's sobbing turned into a fitful, deep sleep.
***
Kahlan didn't want to be alone. Strange, that a process designed to craft lone wolves could create such a dependency for touch. It had shocked Cara, once, to work with the Dragon Corps and find out that they were almost celibate. Cara remembered one of the wizard's rules about how pain could be lessened by company, but she doubted he'd known how true it was.
She went hunting and Kahlan went with her. They brought back a buck and Kahlan offered to clean it. Cara let her have her way. It was watching Kahlan carve the carcass that Cara realized Kahlan was serving her.
***
Kahlan screamed again, paralyzed by sleep and tortured by dreams. That was how the Mord'Sith worked, of course. Creating a prison for the mind, a cell of leather and sisterhood.
In a fit of anger, at Richard for getting them into this, at the Mord'Sith for doing this, at Kahlan for being broken, Cara shook the Confessor awake. "If you do not stop," she said, "the D'Harans will find us. Do you want that, to go back to the temple?"
Kahlan made herself silent, shook quietly. Cara tried to leave, but couldn't. She stayed near Kahlan, trying to figure out how to apologize for something she couldn't name.
"I'll stay close," Cara promised. "If there are any more bad dreams, I'll wake you."
Kahlan looked up, hopeful. "If I see your face, then I'm awake?"
Cara felt another rush of anger, irrational anger, at Kahlan's pathetic childishness. She had been a warrior, a leader of men, and now they had made her… like Cara.
She nodded tightly.
Kahlan settled down into the straw, huddling herself into as small a ball as possible. She covered her face with her hands, protection against rats that were miles away.
But she slept soundly.
***
When Cara woke, Kahlan was already up. But she didn't show it. She stayed huddled in her tight little ball, pretending to be asleep. Or maybe it just didn't make much of a difference whether she was awake or asleep. She stayed restlessly observant, her eyes fixed in the distance but watching for every threat. The thousand-yard stare of the Mord'Sith, stillborn.
Cara let her watch as she ran through her morning routine, drinking and eating first since you never knew when your next meal would be, then stripping away her leathers to let the innkeeper wash them. The peasant clothes she wore to go into town would be good enough to sweat in.
Kahlan watched as she did her exercises, one lonely cog still spinning, even if it no longer touched the rest of the machine. By the time she'd finished, Cara was bored of the silence. She approached Kahlan, and the lack of a morning greeting drove her to pull the blanket from Kahlan's body.
"You should go running with me," she said.
"Yes," Kahlan said, not appearing to think about it.
"It will rebuild your musculature. Make you… more yourself."
Kahlan nodded dutifully. Cara resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't hear a word of protest.
***
Cara wanted to see how far Kahlan could go. It was how Mord'Sith were made, after all. You saw how far someone could go. Then you knew how far you would have to go to break them.
They made five miles, ten miles, fifteen miles. It was a pretty day, but Cara had the feeling that was wasted on Kahlan. But whatever had been done to her, there was a steel rod running through Kahlan that nothing could touch. Cara had always admired that about her.
All of a sudden, Kahlan pitched to her side and vomited. Cara stopped herself in a skid of dirt and ran back to her. "Are you alright?" she asked, breathless.
Kahlan nodded. "I'm sorry for slowing you down."
"It's alright."
Kahlan spat some more. Cara patted her on the back until it was all out of her system. She kept her hand on Kahlan's back, rubbing abstract circles into it. When Kahlan wiped her mouth, Cara led her down to a creek by the side of the road and washed her off. Kahlan meekly held still as Cara cupped water in her hands and poured it into Kahlan's mouth.
The Mord'Sith ritual made Kahlan sigh in relief.
***
After a week of runs, Kahlan could outpace Cara, her longer legs moving like chords in a harmony. Three square meals a day, better than what the grateful innkeeper provided for his own family, had made her ribs disappear under her skin. Her hair was regaining its luster.
They stopped by the creek, leagues from where Kahlan had once fallen. It was much nicer at that bend, with clear water sparkling in the sun and plenty of trees for shade. Cara hoped Kahlan would like it.
Kahlan poured out the lukewarm water in her waterskin, filled it with ice-cold water from the bottom of the river, and drank greedily. Cara watched approvingly. Richard would be pleased. Then Kahlan walked around a tree trunk, fingertips extended to feel the bark, breath pumping out of her lungs as her heart rate returned to normal.
Cara didn't need to cool down. She let the heat of her Agiels fill either hand and began moving through her katas, harsh motions that dragged the Agiels' tips over her body, letting the pain soak into every part of her. In the absence of a fight, she would not become a stranger to hurt.
Kahlan watched, lapsing to a stop. Although her legs ached and her body was sodden with sweat, she was stricken with the sight of Cara. The pain was only visible in her lips, how they pinched and parted and let Cara's tongue work its way slowly outward.
The Mord'Sith stopped, her tongue nearly touching the Agiel before her. She bit her lip and faced Kahlan. "Yes?"
"I would…" Kahlan bowed her head, fighting back the tic to call Cara mistress. "May we train together?"
Cara gracefully washed from her kata into a neutral stance. "Yes."
Kahlan drew her daggers from her boots. Haltingly, as if trying to remember something, she raised them. Then, she hesitated.
Cara attacked. Kahlan blocked her first swing, but the next came within a hair's breadth of hitting her. Cara stopped it just in time, her Agiel an inch from Kahlan's face, the Confessor's eyes brimming with tears.
Cara stepped back. "This was a mistake."
"No!" Kahlan squeezed her daggers, raising them much more confidently. "I can do this."
Cara held up her Agiels in answer. "Then come at me."
Kahlan wavered for a moment, then forced herself forward. Cara easily deflected her attack, knocking it aside so hard that Kahlan was spun away from Cara, who crossed her Agiels across Kahlan's throat. Pressed into Kahlan's back, Cara spoke into her ear. "I've seen you fight better than this."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't."
Kahlan was still stiff, still weak, still fragile. Cara let her Agiel slip, touch the hollow of Kahlan's throat. The flutter that went through her traveled into Cara.
"Concentrate," Cara said. "Let everything slip away. All your hopes, all your fears, all your memories. Leave only what you want. Focus on everything in your way. Now, let those things die."
Kahlan breathed deeply. Cara felt her body tense and relax and clench and ease. Then Kahlan moved. She ducked her head, knocking the Agiels away, and drove her elbow into Cara's gut. Cara stumbled back and Kahlan whirled on her, daggers slicing through the air. Cara barely blocked them. She gave ground to recover and Kahlan looped after her, blades gliding forward like the winds of a tornado.
Cara attacked, prodding, jabbing, lancing, but Kahlan turned aside each blow. She was implacable, driving Cara back until the Mord'Sith hit a tree. She began to kick off it, a suicide run that would charge her a wound for victory, but before she could move a muscle, Kahlan had a dagger to her throat. After a moment, Kahlan cut her, just a little. Cara dropped her Agiels to the ground.
The dagger stayed at Cara's throat.
"You win," Cara said.
Kahlan's second dagger pointed at Cara's heart, just touching the bared skin. Her heart beat traveled through the blade, stopping at Kahlan's unmoving hand. Cara closed her eyes. She'd once offered her life up to Kahlan. The offer still stood.
Kahlan moved the dagger down Cara's cleavage, cutting into the leather. It parted in fits and gasps, each second letting in cooler air to prickle Cara's skin. Occasionally the blade slipped and glanced over Cara's flesh, letting out a few beads of blood. That was what made Cara really lose herself. That was what made her realize this had to stop.
"Kahlan," she said, hoping the sound of her name would bring her back to herself.
Kahlan pressed her other dagger flush to Cara's throat. If she gulped, it would end her. “Open it for me,” she said. “Slowly.”
Careful not to move fast enough to set her off, Cara spread her slashed leathers. Her nipples were as rough and hard as arrowheads. Kahlan held her dagger to one, watching as it tightened more over the tip of her blade.
"Command me, mistress," she said, withdrawing a dagger from Cara's throat.
"I'm not your mistress."
"You care for me. You protect me. You love me. What else could you be?"
"A friend. A sister."
Kahlan put her dagger to Cara's lips, trying to silence her. Cara opened her mouth and Kahlan moved the blade in, letting it press on her teeth. Cara laved her tongue out and over the blade, cutting it just a little, giving Kahlan some blood. The Confessor moaned and the knife shook. She pulled it back.
Then her forehead was against Cara's, almost close enough to taste the blood filling her mouth. Kahlan held the dagger’s tip up to Cara's eye, then traced it down over her cheek and lower. Cara felt a sharp point dig into her breast, as intimate a kiss as she'd ever received. She gasped hungrily as blood trickled down her chest. The dagger had only just penetrated, just given her a taste.
"I'm not stupid, Cara. I know you love me. You have for a long time. I didn't say anything, I knew you would be mortified. But now…" Kahlan slid the blade in a little deeper. “I can return your feelings. We can do something about this.”
Cara looked down at the dagger protruding from her. Just a flesh wound. It was so precisely placed that Kahlan could sink it in all the way to the hilt and she'd recover. The thought was thrilling. Kahlan pulled the knife out and while Cara was still lost in the pain, the submission, the Confessor bent her head to Cara's wound and suckled it like a babe returning to its mother's breast.
Cara heard herself gasp and moan and mewl and even whimper as Kahlan literally drank her down. Dexterous hands, far too devilish to be Kahlan's, were destroying her leathers even more, delving into her even deeper, rounding her hips and molding to her ass and spreading her open. Helping her. One sister to another.
A new, intoxicating sensation was spreading through Cara like fire through dry tender. Just the sight of that pretty pink tongue licking the blood from her nipple, of her own blood spilled onto Kahlan's gray linen, was enough to make her climax. But if she let herself, she'd never be able to stop.
"I feel like your whore," Kahlan moaned, rubbing her face over Cara's breast, smearing her blood across her face like war paint. "Willing to do anything you pay me for. Anything."
"Kahlan, stop. I order you to stop."
Kahlan reared up as if slapped. The blood running down her face looked less primal and more like a child playing with her mother's make-up. "But I…"
"You love Richard. Not me. You're not Mord'Sith. I am. And if you make love to me, I'll die."
Cara turned away. Taking some bandages from her belt, she began to treat herself.
"Let me help you…" Kahlan offered.
Cara shoved her back. "Go to the water and wash yourself off. Now."
When Kahlan's face was clean, she looked at Cara with something human in her eyes. "I know I wasn't always like this. But I just… can't remember how I'm supposed to be."
***
They didn't speak as they walked back to the inn. Cara held her leathers shut and thought of chains. A few days later, Richard returned. Kahlan ran into his arms and kissed him.
Cara thought of chains.
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Date: 2010-07-25 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 04:24 am (UTC)