Disclaimer: The characters and back gound stories of this fan fiction story do not belong to me but to Terry Goodkind and ABC/Disney. I just borrow them to play. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be made.
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan (pre-slash)
A Letter
by
romansilence
Dear Kahlan,
Now that we are only hours away from reaching Aydrindril, I have to ask a favour of you. When we ride into the city and the Confessor's Palace I no longer will be what you made me. I no longer will be Cara Mason. I will be Mord-Sith, nothing more. That's the way it has to be.
Your marriage with Lord Rahl will unite D'Hara and the Midlands. I know at the moment Richard thinks that he can escape his destiny. He thinks that Darken Rahl will once again take over D'Hara and that the D'Haran people will welcome him with open arms. But he does not know what I felt when Zedd put Darken Rahl's soul in Walter's body. He may look like his old self but he is not. Darken Rahl no longer is the magic against the magic, Richard is. That's one of the main reasons you have to convince Richard to learn from Zedd how to use his gifts – besides does the Mother Confessor not always has a wizard at her side?
The bond I felt coming from Darken Rahl in Walter's body is only a fraction as strong as the one coming from Richard, the true Lord Rahl. The people of D'Hara will also feel it, in time. They will not trust their feelings at first but at the first opportunity when Rahl magic is needed, Darken Rahl will fail. A wizard's soul has not much magic, his magic resides in his body; that's why one can take his magic from him by skinning him alive, but I'm getting off topic here, and that's why Denna's plan to put the soul of her trained pet into Richard's body would have worked to perfection.
Darken Rahl will fail, and Richard will have to take over to avoid chaos or an all out war. It may not happen tomorrow or next year, but it will happen, and the true Lord Rahl has to be prepared. It is our duty to prepare him. Zedd will teach him, you, Mother Confessor, will convince him that the people of D'Hara need him as their Lord, and I will protect him.
As a Mord-Sith that is my duty, but more importantly, I made you a promise. Cara Mason, however, can't protect Lord Rahl. She is not Mord-Sith enough. Only Mistress Cara can (with the help of the other Mord-Sith who will come to Aydindril over time to serve their true Lord – and they will come. Darken could never go long without bedding at least one of his Mord-Sith, and the moment he does that she will know the difference and the news will spread, though at first only a few of my sisters will act on it. Mord-Sith don't do second best.)
When we ride into Aydindril I will wear the full Mord-Sith armour, the neck-guard and armoured gloves to remind myself of who and what I am, a tool to serve and protect Lord Rahl and at his orders the Mother Confessor, nothing but a tool. You have to stop looking at me as if I were more. I never can be.
Try to look at me like you did before you knew about your sister's death, Kahlan. Look at me with suspicion and distrust, use me like the weapon I was made to be, but stop looking at me like you do now, like a friend, like someone who cares for me, for the woman you found under the layers of Mord-Sith conditioning. Cara Mason can no longer be allowed to exist.
I know you, Kahlan Amnell, I know by now you want to confront me about my delusions. You want to convince me that being just Cara instead of Mistress Cara will not make me less capable of protecting Richard. Out on the road that might even be true. In Aydindril it no longer will be enough. Richard may see himself as the Seeker of Truth first and foremost, but he will be seen as Richard Rahl, Lord of D'Hara. He will need more protection than Cara Mason can give.
When we were in Aydindril, after Zedd had put you back to together, to wait for your sister's arrival, I had a lot of time to observe people and in terms of political manoeuvring, back-stabbing and intrigue the Confessor's Palace is not much different from the People's Palace. In other words, nobles and officials alike first and foremost work for their own agenda and not for what is best for everyone. It might be a part of human nature to be selfish, and you, Mother Confessor, are not naïve or stupid enough to believe that people's selfishness and misguides self-interest will stop shy of Richard just because he also carries the Sword of Truth. I saw the eyes of the people in the palace when they thought I couldn't see them. I saw fear in their eyes and I didn't even wear the full uniform then. In the beginning we will need that fear to keep Lord Rahl alive. I will need to be more Mord-Sith than I ever was to discourage those who would want to harm Richard. Duty comes first, something else Richard will have to learn.
Do you still think that I'm delusional? I might as well be, but not in the way you think. This letter is starting to get longer than I had planned. You all will wake up soon, and I intent to be gone hunting when you read this. I know that there are already more words in this letter than I usually speak in a month, but it can't be helped. In order to make you fulfil my request, in order to get you to help me bury Cara Mason you will have to know the truth, the truth about why I helped Richard to kill Darken Rahl and why I followed him. In order to make you understand you have to know the truth about Cara Mason.
I know Richard has not been very forthcoming with the details about the future we suddenly found ourselves in, presumably to spare your sensibilities. He only gave you the bare backbones of what happened. I know you're not as fragile at he wants to see you, and now I think you have to know.
Niklas Rahl, The Master, the son Darken Rahl had tricked you into conceiving had all of my sisters killed, the women I had been trained with, the women I had trained, they all had been killed because of Darken Rahl's folly to think that he of all people would be able to control a male Confessor. Mord-Sith serve the House Rahl; we are bonded to the House Rahl, but we are devoted to the sisterhood of the Agiel first. Darken Rahl had to die in order to preserve the sisterhood. It's as easy as that, and yet it is not.
In the ruins of the People's Palace, among rubble and debris we found marble statues of Darken Rahl and you adorning your graves, lying side by side. I had only seen you for a split second in the glow of the Boxes of Orden but your marble counterfeit was so majestic; it was the first time I understood why the Midlands came to be ruled by the Mother Confessor.
And then we found Shota, an old woman, still wearing a Rada'han, and she told us what had happened. She told us how Darken Rahl had blackmailed you into becoming his wife, his Queen, and bearing his children, and that you accepted the bargain, but not to save your own life but because Shota had told you that sixty years in the future Richard would return to save the world. She also had told you that he would need a Confessor to return to his own time and keep this future from ever happening. That's why you needed to continue the line of Confessors, but Rahl betrayed you.
He used magic to make sure that your child would be a boy. You knew deep down that nothing good could come from a male Confessor, especially not one who also had Rahl blood, but you still tried to raise your son as a good person. When you found out that he wasn't, that he enjoyed torturing people you tried to kill him and were executed for it. It was your son who killed you.
I couldn't help but be impressed that you were willing to kill your own flesh and blood for the good of a people whose leader held you prisoner. It was something a Mord-Sith free from the influence of the House of Rahl would do. I didn't know you then, but I knew that I couldn't let you make such a sacrifice, and if the Boxes of Orden had not killed Darken Rahl I would have – and not only for the sake of my sisters.
Staying with Richard was more instinct than anything, but then you found out about your sister and Stowecroft happened, and everything changed. In the town hall, when you had your hand on my throat to confess me, I could feel your hate, your need to avenge your sister's death. It was as pure as anything I have ever felt from a fellow Mord-Sith. I felt your strength and I knew that dying by your hand would be an honourable death. That moment Cara Mason began to emerge from under the thousand tons of steel Mord-Sith training had buried her – and not only because of Mistress Nathair's confession.
Cara Mason came back because she felt your strength and compassion. Sometimes, even now, after all those months, when Richard and Zedd look at me I can see pity in their eyes, pity for what was done to me, for the way I grew up. You never looked at me with pity, Kahlan. Oh, I know that you hate the way Mord-Sith are made and you would do anything in your power to stop it, but you don't insult what my sisters and I have become by pitying us.
Travelling with you I learned that in a strange way Confessors and Mord-Sith are different sides of the same coin. A Confessor's power is rooted in love, and yet it does not allow for personal love (I know it's different now that you know that Lord Rahl is safe from confession because of his love for you, and I'll never begrudge you the happiness that will bring you, but the principle remains). The methods were different, but Confessors and Mord-Sith were made to serve and growing up we learned the same lessons. You learned that your duty has always to come before your personal happiness and for a Mord-Sith there is nothing but duty.
I'm once again starting to ramble. It's as if now that I've started all those words I never will say out loud are beginning to pour out of my quill and onto the parchment. Let me try to get back on track.
The person in red leather who joined you after Stowecroft no longer was a true Mord-Sith. She was confused and vulnerable.
Richard and Zedd, they judge me based on my actions and on what they know about my past. You, Kahlan, you looked into my heart and my soul. You helped me to accept that even someone like me has those things, a heart and a soul, and you taught me what to do with them.
Cara Mason now exists because of you. You gave her strength with every tentative smile and every fleeting touch and every kind word.
When Richard went to the Old World to learn how to deal with his magic it was not the Mord-Sith who stayed at your side, it was Cara Mason, and during those weeks… It was as if both of our pasts did no longer exist. We grew so close, and it was so hard to see you crying over the Sword of Truth for missing Lord Rahl. Sex with Leo made it easier to bare, but ever since then your smile and your words and your touches burn me more than an agiel ever could.
I only understood what had happened to me when you were reunited with Lord Rahl. I understood then that I had done the one thing Mord-Sith should not be able to do: I fell in love with you, with Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor, every Mord-Sith's born enemy.
Now, I said it. I love you, Kahlan. I'm in love with you.
It took me some time to deal with that revelation. That's why I was distant during our journey back to the New World. Mourning Leo's death was just a convenient cover.
I didn't want to admit it this openly, Cara Mason's love, but now you know why she has to be buried again.
I know you don't share my feelings. I'd never expect you to after everything I've done. And I don't want you to start pitying me now, though I know that pity is not your way. You even have the right to be outraged at my emotional presumptions, but that too is not your way. You're more prone to berate yourself that you didn't see the signs in time to spare me the heartbreak.
Please, don't. My feelings, now that I have accepted that I have feelings, are my own, they are what they are and I will never regret them, not for a single moment. But it's time to let go of them.
When we ride into Aydindril a new life will begin. You belong to Lord Rahl, you love him and he loves you. That's how it should be. It's best for the both of you and for both of our people. Duty comes first, and it's fortunate that in your case your duty is also your pleasure. Duty comes first, and what I, what Cara feels for you, Kahlan distracts me from my duty. It has to be buried. It has to be hidden under two thousand tons of steel.
It is time to let go of that part of my life. It is time to be Mistress Cara again. Please, help me, cease to be Kahlan when we interact. Be the Mother Confessor. Please make it easier for me to be who and what I have to be to protect Richard Rahl.
Cara Mason, Mord-Sith.