Work Text:
The night is calm and quiet, a blissful reprieve after the endless days-weeks-months of dangerous travel it took to find and deliver the Stone of Tears to the Pillars of Creation. Now, with their sacred task completed at last and the world safe from the Keeper's corrupting influence, Kahlan lingers by the fire, soaking in the warmth of its orange-red glow and trying very hard not to think about how it felt to be powerless, bound to Nikki's will with her own stolen han. How it felt to look down and see her hand outstretched towards Cara and Zedd, the sickening dread that had ridden alongside the magic radiating towards them. The bone deep certainty that it would lead to enslavement for one and enslavement and death for the other. That same hand wrapped around Richard's throat and her dagger buried in his chest. The warm wet red of his blood on her hands.
She shakes her head and looses a tremulous breath, turning her attention outward and focusing with everything she is on the people around her instead of falling deeper into her own tumultuous thoughts. The steady rise and fall of Richard's chest is reassuring. Spirits preserve her, even Zedd's snoring is a welcome sound, causing Kahlan's lips to tick upward with every garbled inhale. But, no, wait. That isn't right. There should be three sets of deep, even breaths, not two.
A throat clears to her left and she reels back, daggers in hand, only to find Cara standing there, hip cocked and arms crossed.
“It's my turn at watch,” she deadpans, as if seeing Kahlan all but leap out of her skin is a common occurrence.
Perhaps there's something to Mord’Sith stoicism after all.
Kahlan sighs and nods, returning her daggers to their sheaths as she turns back to the fire. “I can't sleep,” she says in lieu of greeting. “It seemed silly to wake you.”
“Oh yes,” Cara says as she moves closer, folding herself onto the log beside her. “Far better for you to sit here, distracted and alone, rather than wake me. Very sensible.”
She sighs again, a blood-deep, bone-weary thing that feels entirely too familiar for comfort. “I'm too tired to argue with you, Cara.”
She expects Cara to get up then, to either head back to her bedroll and pretend to sleep until she actually drifts off or march off to the not-so-distant treeline in silent protest. She does not expect Cara to echo her earlier sigh, tone and all, or to feel the warm brush of her shoulder against her own. “I'm not trying to argue with you, Kahlan,” she says in what might be the softest voice Kahlan has ever heard her use.
The silence – broken only by Zedd's teeth-rattling snores – that settles between them feels heavy, thick with their experiences over the last few days and the apology Kahlan desperately wishes she had the energy to voice aloud. If only she wasn't so tired.
If only she could sleep.
Things always have a way of looking better in the morning.
“Would-” Cara sucks in a sharp breath through the nose and jabs a stick into the fire, stirring up a shower of dancing sparks.
Though the color is all wrong, it reminds Kahlan of the Night Wisps. She wonders if it does the same for Cara. If she would, after they make it to Aydindril, visit them with her.
“Would you like to-” Cara makes a pained sound, an unfamiliar cross between a grunt and a groan, that has Kahlan turning to look at her with wide, concerned eyes, “Would you like to talk about it?” she asks, pushing the words out from between clenched teeth, her lips pursed and face twisted with a mixture of clear unease and even clearer distaste, and Kahlan can't help but chuckle at the sight.
“No,” she says, smiling at Cara's answering sigh of obvious relief. “But we could talk about something else, if you'd like.”
She grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “should've known there was a catch,” before clearing her throat and turning in place until she's facing Kahlan more directly.
Kahlan is entirely too charmed by the display to not do the same, shifting until she can look the Mord'Sith in the eye.
The silence returns, though this time Kahlan is treated to a front row seat of Cara's mounting discomfort. She finds herself enraptured by the way she shifts in place, hands curling and uncurling against her leather-clad thighs, the way she looks up at her every so often, somehow both expectant and uncertain all at once. It is, without a doubt, the most endearing thing Kahlan has ever seen.
It's both a moment and an eternity later that Cara grunts and fixes her with a look Kahlan has never seen on her face before. There's frustration, yes, but also a most uncommon softness, a naked yearning to…comfort? By the Creator and all the Spirits, how far they've come. “I don't know what to say,” she admits, the words underlined with unfamiliar, heartbreaking, shame.
Maybe that's why Kahlan doesn't hesitate to reach out, why she takes one of Cara's curled hands and slowly, meticulously, uncurls each finger before entwining them with her own.
“That's alright,” she hears herself say. “I'll start.” And that would be fine, more than really, except Kahlan has no idea what to say, wholly unsure of what roads are safe to travel in the wake of all they've been through. Raw and reeling, she doesn't feel like the same person she was before she was confessed, the one who always knew what to say, how to bring comfort to those around her.
But then the tension in Cara's shoulders eases in time with her slow exhale and Kahlan knows she can't take it back, that she would do almost anything to ease the weight of Cara's budens. There's something to that, to admitting it to herself, that makes her think of the Night Wisps, of the deep desire she has to see them again with Cara by her side, and the words she didn't know she was looking for appear on her tongue. “What will you do, now that it’s finally over?”
Cara huffs out a breath, as if Kahlan should already know the answer. “I will once again attempt to convince Lord Rahl that his place is on the D’Haran throne and not in a Westland hovel.”
From the other side of the fire, Richard makes a sound in his sleep before turning over. Kahlan fights the urge to smile; it’s just like him to disapprove.
Cara tosses a stick into the fire with a frown. “Failing that, I will return to the People’s Palace myself and rally my sisters to defend and secure the house of Rahl until I’m able to convince him.”
Kahlan blinks, tilting her head to the side as if the new angle will allow her to see something in Cara she'd previously missed. “Forgive me,” she says, with a dip of her head, “But I can’t help noticing that your plan doesn’t leave much room for actual failure.”
Her frown deepens as she leans back in her seat, obviously affronted by even the suggestion that her plan might not come to its intended end. “Mord’Sith do not fail, Confessor.”
“Of course not,” she says, knowing better than to push too far into that subject right now. One thing at a time. “Still, for the sake of conversation if nothing else, let’s say Richard does agree to accept the mantle of Lord Rahl. What will you do then?”
This time it's Cara's turn to tilt her head to the side and examine her. “I am a Mord’Sith, Confessor; my place is at Lord Rahl's side.”
Kahlan shakes her head; she won't let Cara off that easily. “That might have been enough for Darken, Cara, but it won't be for Richard, you know that. He’ll want you to have a life outside of service, to be happy, to be…loved.”
Cara looks at her then, really looks at her, face sharp and soft all at once. “I…am not meant to be, to have, those things. I am a Mord’Sith,” she repeats, as though Kahlan might have forgotten. As if she could. “My place is with Lord Rahl.”
“But for how long, Cara? What will you do when you cannot defend him as well as he must be defended? What happens to a Sister of the Agiel who can no longer serve?” Kahlan asks and, even as the question leaves her lips, she finds herself strangely hungry for the answer.
Even before her journey to Westland in search of the famed last Wizard of the First Order and the one true Seeker, Kahlan – to say nothing of her fellow Confessors – had traveled the Midlands extensively and yet she'sn ever seen, or even heard of, anyone who would qualify as an ‘old’ Mord’Sith.
“They receive the title ‘Mistress of Voices’, a rank above even the highly coveted position of First Mistress, and retire to the People’s Palace to act as a representative of all the temples,” she says. “To have lived the life of a Sister of the Agiel and served the House of Rahl with such cunning and skill as to reach old age is seen as the ultimate honor.”
If Kahlan was anyone else, those honeysweet words would be more than enough to satisfy her. But Kahlan is a Confessor and, though she cannot read Cara's truth, she still knows how to spot a lie of omission when she hears one. “One, I suspect, few Mord’Sith receive.”
For what might be the first time since they met, Cara seems hesitant to answer, her gaze falling away from hers as she bows her head. “In the history of our sisterhood, no Mord'Sith has ever outlived her agiel,” she admits in a small, defeated voice.
Kahlan feels her heart stutter in her chest and swallows down the almost primal urge to throw herself at Cara's chest, to wrap her in her arms and never let any harm come to her ever again. Creator knows it's what Cara deserves, even if she doesn't want it. Even if she'd never accept it. “What if Richard says ‘no’, Cara?” she says instead, clutching at Cara's hand and hoping she doesn't sound half as breathless, as desperate, to Cara as she does to herself. “What then?”
She makes a sound of protest low in her throat, but Kahlan knows her well and had anticipated as much. “For the sake of conversation,” she reminds her gently, adding another, gentler, squeeze of their joined hands for good measure.
Cara sighs through the nose and, before her eyes, Kahlan watches as a sort of melancholy settles across her deceptively delicate features. “Then…then I would have no purpose. Without the Lord Rahl, without Richard, I…would no longer be Mord’Sith,” she says reluctantly, as though even voicing the words aloud causes her tremendous pain. “I would be nothing.”
“You, Cara Mason, could never be nothing,” Kahlan says fiercely. She doesn't think she's ever believed anything she's ever said as much as she believes that. “And, whatever the future holds for you, whatever path you choose, know there will always be a place for you in Aydindril.”
“With respect, Confessor,” she says, a hint of a smirk tugging at full lips. “I think my leathers would clash with the décor.”
Kahlan shakes her head and smiles, just a little. “Not even the Mother Confessor has the power to dictate what garb becomes her advisors.”
For a long moment, Cara just looks at her, her eyes searching though, for what, Kahlan isn't sure. “…no,” she says at last.
Foolish as it is, Kahlan finds herself on the verge of tears, deeply hurt by the sheer lack of emotion held in that single word. How strange is it that the lack of a thing could cut so deeply? “No?” she repeats.
“No, I'd not be your advisor,” she says with a nod of emphasis. “I’m no crone, wizened and toothless and unable to fight. With or,” her eyes flit, briefly, towards Richard's back, “Or without Lord Rahl, I am a warrior. It is…all I know how to be.”
Kahlan smiles, wide and warm and welcoming; she can't not. “A general, then?” she suggests and, after a moment of thoughtful consideration, Cara nods.
“I would stand at the head of Aydindril’s army,” she begins with an ever-widening smirk, “and defeat anyone who dares question the will of the Mother Confessor.”
“Generals don’t usually stand at the head of the army.”
Cara huffs and waves her free hand dismissively. “I will be an exception, then.”
“You always are.” Kahlan’s eyes go wide even as she gives the words breath, surprised at her own boldness and complete lack of restraint. This is what she gets for engaging in such a serious, multi-faceted conversation with no sleep and entirely too many of her own feelings involved.
Cara preens a little; pride has never been something Cara has struggled with. “Of course I am,” she says, as if it should be obvious. “I am Mord’Sith.”
“That’s not what makes you exceptional.” In for a copper, in for a gold, as the saying goes.
“No?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “Then what, Confessor?”
“You,” she says simply, “Just…just you, Cara.”
The Mord’Sith frowns. “I don’t understand.”
Kahlan shakes her head and squeezes her hand. “That's alright. I'm certain you'll figure it out.”
Though she still looks confused, Cara offers her a slight nod. “You look tired, Confessor.”
She chuckles without mirth. “I am.”
“Then you should sleep.”
“I'm…” she sighs. “I'm afraid to.”
Kahlan expects ridicule or, at least, a general sense of disapproval. She has, after all, lost count of the number of times Cara has decried the power she allows her emotions to have over her, as if it's a choice Kahlan makes every time she feels anything. As if she has control over such things.
She certainly doesn't expect Cara to squeeze their still-clasped hands and say, “You're worried about what you'll see.”
It is not a question but, srill, Kahlan answers. “…yes.”
She nods. “You should sleep, Confessor,” she says again, her voice pitched low. Soothing. Soft. “I’ll be here, if you wake up.”
There's something deeply comforting about the idea of Cara watching over her while she sleeps, of her offering to do so in the first place. So comforting, in fact, that Kahlan feels a wave of lethargy wash over her and knows she's powerless to resist the call a moment more.
So she nods and pushes herself wearily to her feet, hoping she doesn't react too obviously when her hand parts from Cara's after having been entwined for so long. “Goodnight, Cara,” she whispers as she steps around her and curls up on her bedroll.
And the last thing Kahlan hears before she drifts off to sleep is Cara's petal-soft reply of, “Goodnight, Kahlan.”
By the time morning comes, the dark of night split and sundered by the encroaching amber light of dawn, she possesses no sense of the number of times she woke during the night and remembers nothing from her dreams beyond the scent of iron and the sound of her own screams. But what Kahlan does remember is opening her eyes over and over and always seeing Cara. And as she sits up on her bedroll and turns to find Cara still there, her eyes on the trees but her body angled towards Kahlan herself, she knows that means something important. Something that could change everything. Something that, maybe, has already done so.
But the day's just started and, for once, there are no great and terrible armies at their back, nothing but distance standing between them and their destination, and Kahlan has earned a little time to rest. They all have.
Tomorrow, though, she thinks as she smiles at Cara and watches as the corner of her mouth rises. Tomorrow is a new day entirely.