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seriousficTitle: 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: 1,554
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Triana, Cara/Dahlia, Richard/Kahlan, Berdine/Raina
Author’s notes: Betaed by the lovely and talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
susurrusnight
Previous: Part 13
Next: Part 15
Summary: Cara doesn't deal well with emotions. Especially being hurt.
When the D'Harans had occupied Hartland, they'd left a supply house. Cara had familiarized herself with its location, as well as all salient geography of Richard's home, before setting foot across the Boundary.
It didn't delight her to find Richard's people had left it boarded up and abandoned. Nothing could penetrate the fury she'd nestled herself in like a blanket. But it didn't irritate her.
She kicked the door down, further tearing the skirt of her dress. Inside were swords, shields, armor, all united under the banner of Darken Rahl. She pulled that down first and set to polishing the first sword she could get her hands on. If she had to personally hack each war wizard into undying pieces, she would rejoice at the opportunity.
"Cara." Dahlia stood in the doorway, her face looking like it was held together by strings slowly being cut. " This silence is torment. Say something."
Cara drew her whetstone across the blade so hard that sparks flew. "Stop following me or I'll kill you."
Dahlia bowed her head. "Nothing can excuse how I betrayed you."
"So stop talking."
Dahlia's words rushed out to meet Cara's rebuke. "At least let me restore to you what I helped take away."
"I don't want your help." The sword was as sharp as it would get. "I don't want anyone's help. I'm tired of all of you trying to change me, civilize me, turn me into something I'm not."
The armor hadn't rusted. She ripped the hem from her dress and pulled the chainmail on over it. The Rahl family crest was affixed in fabric to her breast. She tore it away, leaving pure, gleaming metal.
"If you would listen for one moment, please Cara, just listen—" Dahlia's voice was weak, infuriatingly weak. And Cara had still been beaten by her.
She jabbed the sword into Dahlia's gut. It was sharp enough after all. Dahlia grimaced appropriately for the inch of steel Cara had put inside her.
"Bleed somewhere else," Cara told her, "or die here. Your choice."
***
Cara gritted her teeth when she saw how Hartland was defended: both because Jagang's men were too arrogant to properly defend their perimeter, merely standing like statues around the village at regular intervals, and because they were justified in their arrogance. She could think of no way to get past their magic, no way to get to her Lord Rahl, no way to save Kahlan.
She needed to be calm. Her anger was one more thing she couldn't rely on. She couldn't trust it to carry her through bloodshed anymore, she didn't have the Seeker's family or her Sisters of the Agiel to stand beside her. She didn't even have her leathers.
All she had was the thought of Kahlan, more frustrating, more passionate, more strong than her whole world. What would Kahlan do?
***
Magic coursed through and off the war wizards as she approached, a pilfered traveling cloak covering her armament. She'd already slapped herself until her eyes had had no choice but to water.
"Please don't hurt me," she said, once within earshot.
***
The worst part about Hartland was how normal it looked. The eye perceived it as an ordinary town, waiting to wake up… only the sun was high in the sky and blood was smeared about like old rain and if you turned the wrong corner you saw war wizards fighting over corpses like dogs with a bone. Cara had to shut her eyes repeatedly against the discordance… as intrusive as Mord'Sith onto a quiet father-daughter walk.
The war wizards pushed her along, hyena-laughing when she fell down and had to pick herself up. There was a childishness to them that Cara couldn't help but fear. Mord'Sith were taken as children because that was when they could be most cruel.
Finally, Cara was shoved into town square. Her heart skipped a beat. The crossroads had been utterly destroyed, dropped into the earth by weight of sheer magic. At the bottom, a good fifty feet down, Richard's friends and neighbors were imprisoned. Cara scanned their upturned faces for Kahlan, Richard, even Zedd. She soon got a closer look. One last push from the war wizards sent her skidding and tumbling down the sharply-angled slope.
Cara landed, feeling the irritatingly insubstantial pain of skinned knees and elbows. No one helped her up, so at least they recognized her that much. She stood and ignored the twinge of old pains through her bones. "Where's Richard? Kahlan?"
"Taken," said a youth. "They--the freaks--they said they'd bear witness."
Cara bit her lip. Jagang was going to revel in his power over the Seeker, one last time. That gave her breathing room. The embers in her heart waiting for fuel instead cooled infinitesimally more. Her thoughts flowed like water bursting through a dam. She knew what could be done.
Past the lip of the pit, she could see the chimneys that rose above sloping roofs. One still puffed the smoke of a cooking fire. It loomed large, a great length of it towering into view. The house it belonged to had to be closest to the pit.
She pointed. "Does that house have a cellar? A basement?"
The crowd was losing interest in her. She raised her voice and put some steel in it to repeat the question. They heard the threat in her words and someone stepped forward to say "That's my house. I have a wine cellar."
"Good. Then we dig. All of us."
"You want us to spend our last hours digging like dogs?"
She smiled at the man who'd spoken, a graybeard who reminded her of Zedd. "Would you rather spend them with a Mord'Sith?"
They went to work, and she joined in. Kahlan would be proud at her having inspired them.
***
In short order, the sheer activity of the labor focused and energized the Hartlanders. They dug because it was an act of defiance, because it was something the war wizards hadn't taken from them. Cara had to cycle the mob so fresh diggers got a chance. When her tireless fingers finally scrapped through dirt to hard rock, it was like waking up. Cara laughed out loud and then kicked in the wall of the cellar with her boot. It gave in one blow.
The others tore away the rest of the wall with bare hands and they streamed inside, making a beeline for the stairs. Cara hung back. Her job was only half-done. Darken Rahl must've hidden the Clear Eye's Fire somewhere close. Having it under Jagang's nose would stroke his ego more than sex and conquest. And if Rahl could also snipe at Richard in the process, all his antagonisms would be fed.
Didn't Richard have a house in the village? No, she'd heard it had burned down, but his brother... oh, that would be even better for Rahl's vendetta. Remind Richard of the good brother while he went through the bad brother. The Fire would be in Michael's house.
She went up the stairs, shoving her way to the front of the line, and came up onto a battlefield. The war wizards were swooping in, indulging themselves in the recapture of the villagers. Richard's people were frozen into statues and snatched up like field mice by barn owls. Many of them were trying to fight back, and by amusing the war wizards they lived longer.
Cara ducked into an alleyway and moved in the shadow of a house to the next neighborhood and hopped the fence and ran behind it until she couldn't hear any more screaming. Saw Michael's house, palatial by Hartland standards, the paint fresh and full on two stories. Kicked the door instead of seeing if it was unlocked and inside the dust of Michael's death was disturbed. Rahl had noticed and used magic to erase his footprints, but the dust was still heavier here than there. Where would he hide something? It would have to be somewhere he could get to it quickly--turning against Jagang wouldn't leave much chances for finesse (neither would using the Lord Rahl's hometown as a diversion, and Cara was shocked how much she cared suddenly). Rahl was all id, a child really, and his rivalry with Richard would come down to crude sexuality. He'd often spoken to Cara of taking Richard's woman, being the one to have the Mother Confessor as Richard could not, talk that now made Cara flush with hatred, and that emotion heated her thoughts, made them flow faster. The bedroom. Rahl would've snickered at the thought of spoiling Richard's wedding bed with this business, as subconscious as that notion would be. Cara ran to the bedroom, overturned the bed. One of the floorboards rested higher than the others. Cara pulled it the rest of the way out of the floor and there it was. A dagger with a blade shaped like fire, a pommel shaped like an eye.
It was then that Cara realized two things. She had no idea how the Clear Eye's Fire worked, and she could hear the screaming from the center of town. Either it'd gotten louder, or she'd gotten worse at ignoring it.
Cara stuffed the dagger in her belt. She hoped she didn't have to get Kahlan to cry again.
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,554
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Triana, Cara/Dahlia, Richard/Kahlan, Berdine/Raina
Author’s notes: Betaed by the lovely and talented
susurrusnight Previous: Part 13
Next: Part 15
Summary: Cara doesn't deal well with emotions. Especially being hurt.
When the D'Harans had occupied Hartland, they'd left a supply house. Cara had familiarized herself with its location, as well as all salient geography of Richard's home, before setting foot across the Boundary.
It didn't delight her to find Richard's people had left it boarded up and abandoned. Nothing could penetrate the fury she'd nestled herself in like a blanket. But it didn't irritate her.
She kicked the door down, further tearing the skirt of her dress. Inside were swords, shields, armor, all united under the banner of Darken Rahl. She pulled that down first and set to polishing the first sword she could get her hands on. If she had to personally hack each war wizard into undying pieces, she would rejoice at the opportunity.
"Cara." Dahlia stood in the doorway, her face looking like it was held together by strings slowly being cut. " This silence is torment. Say something."
Cara drew her whetstone across the blade so hard that sparks flew. "Stop following me or I'll kill you."
Dahlia bowed her head. "Nothing can excuse how I betrayed you."
"So stop talking."
Dahlia's words rushed out to meet Cara's rebuke. "At least let me restore to you what I helped take away."
"I don't want your help." The sword was as sharp as it would get. "I don't want anyone's help. I'm tired of all of you trying to change me, civilize me, turn me into something I'm not."
The armor hadn't rusted. She ripped the hem from her dress and pulled the chainmail on over it. The Rahl family crest was affixed in fabric to her breast. She tore it away, leaving pure, gleaming metal.
"If you would listen for one moment, please Cara, just listen—" Dahlia's voice was weak, infuriatingly weak. And Cara had still been beaten by her.
She jabbed the sword into Dahlia's gut. It was sharp enough after all. Dahlia grimaced appropriately for the inch of steel Cara had put inside her.
"Bleed somewhere else," Cara told her, "or die here. Your choice."
***
Cara gritted her teeth when she saw how Hartland was defended: both because Jagang's men were too arrogant to properly defend their perimeter, merely standing like statues around the village at regular intervals, and because they were justified in their arrogance. She could think of no way to get past their magic, no way to get to her Lord Rahl, no way to save Kahlan.
She needed to be calm. Her anger was one more thing she couldn't rely on. She couldn't trust it to carry her through bloodshed anymore, she didn't have the Seeker's family or her Sisters of the Agiel to stand beside her. She didn't even have her leathers.
All she had was the thought of Kahlan, more frustrating, more passionate, more strong than her whole world. What would Kahlan do?
***
Magic coursed through and off the war wizards as she approached, a pilfered traveling cloak covering her armament. She'd already slapped herself until her eyes had had no choice but to water.
"Please don't hurt me," she said, once within earshot.
***
The worst part about Hartland was how normal it looked. The eye perceived it as an ordinary town, waiting to wake up… only the sun was high in the sky and blood was smeared about like old rain and if you turned the wrong corner you saw war wizards fighting over corpses like dogs with a bone. Cara had to shut her eyes repeatedly against the discordance… as intrusive as Mord'Sith onto a quiet father-daughter walk.
The war wizards pushed her along, hyena-laughing when she fell down and had to pick herself up. There was a childishness to them that Cara couldn't help but fear. Mord'Sith were taken as children because that was when they could be most cruel.
Finally, Cara was shoved into town square. Her heart skipped a beat. The crossroads had been utterly destroyed, dropped into the earth by weight of sheer magic. At the bottom, a good fifty feet down, Richard's friends and neighbors were imprisoned. Cara scanned their upturned faces for Kahlan, Richard, even Zedd. She soon got a closer look. One last push from the war wizards sent her skidding and tumbling down the sharply-angled slope.
Cara landed, feeling the irritatingly insubstantial pain of skinned knees and elbows. No one helped her up, so at least they recognized her that much. She stood and ignored the twinge of old pains through her bones. "Where's Richard? Kahlan?"
"Taken," said a youth. "They--the freaks--they said they'd bear witness."
Cara bit her lip. Jagang was going to revel in his power over the Seeker, one last time. That gave her breathing room. The embers in her heart waiting for fuel instead cooled infinitesimally more. Her thoughts flowed like water bursting through a dam. She knew what could be done.
Past the lip of the pit, she could see the chimneys that rose above sloping roofs. One still puffed the smoke of a cooking fire. It loomed large, a great length of it towering into view. The house it belonged to had to be closest to the pit.
She pointed. "Does that house have a cellar? A basement?"
The crowd was losing interest in her. She raised her voice and put some steel in it to repeat the question. They heard the threat in her words and someone stepped forward to say "That's my house. I have a wine cellar."
"Good. Then we dig. All of us."
"You want us to spend our last hours digging like dogs?"
She smiled at the man who'd spoken, a graybeard who reminded her of Zedd. "Would you rather spend them with a Mord'Sith?"
They went to work, and she joined in. Kahlan would be proud at her having inspired them.
***
In short order, the sheer activity of the labor focused and energized the Hartlanders. They dug because it was an act of defiance, because it was something the war wizards hadn't taken from them. Cara had to cycle the mob so fresh diggers got a chance. When her tireless fingers finally scrapped through dirt to hard rock, it was like waking up. Cara laughed out loud and then kicked in the wall of the cellar with her boot. It gave in one blow.
The others tore away the rest of the wall with bare hands and they streamed inside, making a beeline for the stairs. Cara hung back. Her job was only half-done. Darken Rahl must've hidden the Clear Eye's Fire somewhere close. Having it under Jagang's nose would stroke his ego more than sex and conquest. And if Rahl could also snipe at Richard in the process, all his antagonisms would be fed.
Didn't Richard have a house in the village? No, she'd heard it had burned down, but his brother... oh, that would be even better for Rahl's vendetta. Remind Richard of the good brother while he went through the bad brother. The Fire would be in Michael's house.
She went up the stairs, shoving her way to the front of the line, and came up onto a battlefield. The war wizards were swooping in, indulging themselves in the recapture of the villagers. Richard's people were frozen into statues and snatched up like field mice by barn owls. Many of them were trying to fight back, and by amusing the war wizards they lived longer.
Cara ducked into an alleyway and moved in the shadow of a house to the next neighborhood and hopped the fence and ran behind it until she couldn't hear any more screaming. Saw Michael's house, palatial by Hartland standards, the paint fresh and full on two stories. Kicked the door instead of seeing if it was unlocked and inside the dust of Michael's death was disturbed. Rahl had noticed and used magic to erase his footprints, but the dust was still heavier here than there. Where would he hide something? It would have to be somewhere he could get to it quickly--turning against Jagang wouldn't leave much chances for finesse (neither would using the Lord Rahl's hometown as a diversion, and Cara was shocked how much she cared suddenly). Rahl was all id, a child really, and his rivalry with Richard would come down to crude sexuality. He'd often spoken to Cara of taking Richard's woman, being the one to have the Mother Confessor as Richard could not, talk that now made Cara flush with hatred, and that emotion heated her thoughts, made them flow faster. The bedroom. Rahl would've snickered at the thought of spoiling Richard's wedding bed with this business, as subconscious as that notion would be. Cara ran to the bedroom, overturned the bed. One of the floorboards rested higher than the others. Cara pulled it the rest of the way out of the floor and there it was. A dagger with a blade shaped like fire, a pommel shaped like an eye.
It was then that Cara realized two things. She had no idea how the Clear Eye's Fire worked, and she could hear the screaming from the center of town. Either it'd gotten louder, or she'd gotten worse at ignoring it.
Cara stuffed the dagger in her belt. She hoped she didn't have to get Kahlan to cry again.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 01:04 am (UTC)Thanks for the update!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 06:09 am (UTC)I almost awaited Dahlia to crawl after her... That was a short end! (not that I complain... she deserves!*nods*)
Cara´s thought and feelings are heartbreaking, yet so fierce and strong and clear. There is no other way she could act. Brilliantly showed in your writing!
Thanks for this great update!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 02:17 pm (UTC)Guh, makes me even more curious for thenext part and how you will bring things together... :)