Note: I do not own Legend of the Seeker, in book or television form. I wrote this...quite honestly, to vent. So apologies if I got a little...incoherent. I tried to stay as clear as possible, but...well, these things don't always come out that way.

Don't read if you haven't seen Perdition yet. Trust me.

A Mord-Sith's Tears

by: jewel of athos

Special thanks to The King's Soldier for the read-through. :) Thanks for making sure that I made sense!! :D

o...o...o...o...o

"Tears are a sign of weakness."

How many times had I heard that? How many times had I impressed it upon younger, weaker Mord-Sith, Richard, Kahlan? How may times had I lectured them on controling their emotions? And yet there I was, bawling like a baby on my knees.

I haven't cried since I was a little girl. I don't cry; that is the way of the Mord-Sith. But something about losing Leo broke something inside me, some kind of dam on the well of tears. I thought that I could control it, but suddenly tonight, nearly a week after Leo...after we lost him, I slipped. Somehow I lost control, and now I don't know how anyone is ever able to stop.

I miss him. He gave me something that I didn't even realize that I wanted until I had it; whatever it was that Kahlan and Richard had that kept them strong, he gave me that. And the sisters of the dark took him away, and there was nothing that I could do.

...I never even had a chance to tell him that he was right.

I lied to him about what I felt; I lied because I was afraid---another emotion forbidden by the Mord-Sith. And in lying, I broke another rule; I was disloyal. Everything that I had thought that I stood for, Leo had broken, was still breaking...

"...Sadness, remorse, love...these feelings make you weak..."

How long ago had I said that to Kahlan? One week, maybe two? How, after all of that talk, had I ended up here tonight? I'm feeling everything that I then despised about her and her feelings for Richard. But in all of two weeks, Leo had found his way past my barriers in the same way that Richard found his way past the Mother Confessor's. He and I had shared the feeling that I once scorned the most.

"I'm not sure that love makes a person weak, Cara."

"Then why are you sitting on the ground, weeping over a sword?"

I hadn't understood Kahlan then, but...maybe I do now. It isn't the emotions themselves that are to be weak or avoided; it's letting yourself be governed by them. Kahlan had missed Ricahrd; and yet she had continued on with me to find Zedd, and then Leo. She had followed Leo, even when he wasn't leading towards Ricahrd.

...So where did that leave me?

"I never asked you to marry me. But I do care for you."

I had been given my chance to tell him the truth, and I had waited too long. Leo had died. I couldn't bring him back, even with my magic. But these tears would not be in vain, nor would his sacrafice.

He died to save Kahlan and Ricahrd. I will make sure that his death was not in vain.

Whatever it costs me.

Fin.

o...o...o...o...o

Note: Thanks for bearing with me.