Wounded Heart

by tinylexie

Darken Rahl's thoughts and feelings towards Jennsen in "Fever."

I have known of your existence

For a long time, baby sister.

I knew that you and your mother

Lived near my palace.

I knew that you were pristinely ungifted,

Which means that you can't be affected

By any magic,

Including the magic of Orden.

Jennsen, you are just as much as a threat to me

As the Seeker is,

Perhaps even more

Since you can't be controlled by magic,

Like the Seeker can be.

However, I never tried to eliminate you.

I never bothered you or your mother, baby sister,

Even though you could be dangerous to me,

Even though your mother was the daughter of Zeddicus,

One of my greatest enemies.

I guess your mother was so naïve

That she actually believed

That I did not know where to find you both.

Your mother probably painted me as some monster

That needed to be destroyed by the great and heroic Seeker.

No doubt that's the reason

You would rather be on the Seeker's side than mine.

Despite all this, though, I left you and your mother alone,

To live your lives in peace.

Have you never wondered why, baby sister,

I never sought to destroy you,

Especially with you living so close to me?

I sought to eliminate the Seeker when he was a baby

Because prophecy said that he would be my executioner.

Prophecy may have never named you as a threat to me, baby sister,

But it's obvious that you are a danger to me

As long as you live.

Yet I never harmed you or your mother in any way, Jennsen,

Until the day I needed your gift

In order to obtain the last box of Orden.

Instead of helping me, however, baby sister,

You chose to go against me.

When I saw that I had none of the Boxes of Orden,

I was angry about the lost, the theft.

I was afraid about the Seeker coming after me

And using the power of Orden against me.

There was something else I was feeling

Besides those things, baby sister.

My heart felt wounded.

I had allowed you to live your life in peace, Jennsen,

And you repaid me by betraying me.

I should have killed you

As soon as I found out about you,

But I didn't.

Don't you want to know why, Jennsen?

I knew that you were dangerous,

But I also knew that you didn't necessarily

Have to be a threat against me.

You were not the Seeker mentioned by prophecy, baby sister.

You were not destined to be my destroyer.

Perhaps I should have brought you to the palace

To live with me,

But I knew that I would never win over your mother,

Even if I did somehow manage to win you over.

I would not have wanted

To separate you from your mother either, dear sister.

A mother's warm, gentle touch is no doubt a lovely thing.

So, I left you and your mother where you were at.

There were times when I thought of you, though, Jennsen.

I wasn't thinking about destroying you.

Instead, I was thinking about the fact

That you were my family.

The Seeker is my family as well,

But prophecy has forever made a rift between you.

There did not have to be such a rift

Between you and I, dear sister.

Yet I never persuaded you, Jennsen,

Because I didn't see the value in having a family.

Family has done nothing but wound me.

Our father betrayed me by creating the Seeker.

The Seeker desires to destroy me.

I had to get rid of both of them.

You were a different story, Jennsen.

You were a family member as well,

But you had never betrayed me.

You were never a direct threat to me,

Like our father and the Seeker were.

There was no reason for me to kill you.

I was a fool; I should have know better.

I knew that family

Was nothing but a curse to me,

Yet I still did not kill you, Jennsen.

I did not spare you because you were family.

Family means nothing to me

Because I mean nothing to family,

But I saw no purpose in destroying you, baby sister.

Many people paint me as a monster,

But they are wrong.

I do not do anymore than what is necessary to survive,

And I did not see you as a threat to my life.

I really should have known better.

I had you in my grasp, baby sister.

You knew where the boxes were at,

And I was not going to have any pity on you

Just because you were family,

Especially because you were family.

Like the rest of my family, Jennsen,

You had betrayed me.

You had wounded me.

I do what is necessary,

And I would have done whatever was necessary

To get the information I wanted

Out of you, Jennsen.

You would have been a challenge

Since I would not have been able to use magic

To torture you,

But trust me, dear sister,

I would have found a way to make you talk.

Then I learned that you had lost your memories.

You did not know who you were.

You did not know who the Seeker was.

You did not know who I was.

At that moment, I didn't want you on my side, Jennsen,

Because you were family.

I personally would prefer that family

Stays far away from me.

To tell you the truth, baby sister, I didn't really want you on my sister.

True, your gift of not being affected by magic

Could have proved useful to me,

But you could have become ambitious.

Ambition, after all, runs in our family,

As does betrayal.

You could have used your gift, baby sister,

To betray me, to wound me.

That's why I never bothered with you

In the past, Jennsen,

But suddenly I saw an advantage

In having you on my side.

Your mother made me the enemy,

But you no longer remembered that.

I knew that if I could make the Seeker

An enemy to you, Jennsen,

I could use you to my advantage.

The Seeker would not be able to use any magic

To stop you from stealing the boxes from him,Nor would he ever expect for you to betray me.

He thought that you were on his side, Jennsen,

And you were,

Until you lost your memories.

It would have indeed been poetic justice

If the same person who had stolen the boxes from me

Would be the one to bring them back to me.

If you had later proved to be a threat to me, Jennsen,

I could have easily eliminated.

I definitely would not have needed magic

To accomplish that task.

I approached you, baby sister,

Not quite knowing what to do.

I knew that I wanted

To make you view the Seeker as an enemy,

But I didn't know if I wanted to reveal

That we were siblings.I really saw no point in it.

Family, after all, is a curse to me.

Besides, I realized that I didn't know

How a brother was supposed to interact with his sister.

I know how to read people.

I know how to push people

So that they will give me what I want.

I know how to manipulate,

But I knew nothing about talking to a sibling.

I know how to talk to people,

And I know how lovers interact

Because I have seen plenty of that,But I have never personally seen

A brother and his sister interacting.

How did such a relationship work?

I tried not to interact with you, baby sister,

As I would with a woman I wanted to bed,But that's the only woman interaction

I truly understand.

I don't have any friends.

I definitely don't have any women friends

That I don't have sexual feelings towards.

Talking and interacting with you, Jennsen,

Definitely made me feel the most awkward

That I have ever felt in my life.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do with a sister,

So I tried to pretend that you weren't.

That wasn't possible, though.

Even though family means nothing to me,

There was no way

I could pull the seductive act with you, Jennsen.

It just felt too awkward to do that.

Deceiving you proved to be an easy task, baby sister.

Your mind was a blank slate,

And I am gifted at being very convincing.

I was nice and gentle to you, Jennsen,

Because I knew from many observations

That people tend to respond positively

To kind and gentle treatment.

Besides, it would have done no good to torture you, baby sister.

You still would not have remembered anything.

I don't torture people just for the fun of it.

Everything I do serves a purpose, including torture.

I won you over to my side, baby sister,

To such an extend that it shocked me,

That it touched me somewhere

Where I had never before been touched.

I knew from many observations

That women generally have a weak spot for kittens,

So I gave you a kitten, Jennsen.

I was expecting that you would be happy about that gift,

But I definitely never expected

That you would kiss me on my cheek, baby sister.

That kiss, that gentle, warm kiss,

Touched me in a space in my heart

That I never knew existed.

I have definitely kissed women before.

My Mord-Sith can especially atone to that fact,

But the only kiss from a woman

That I'm used to is a kiss of a sexual nature.

There was nothing sexual about your kiss, Jennsen.

It was simple but genuine.

I have never before felt a genuine kiss.

I thought that the only meaningful relationship

That a man could ever have with a woman

Was a sexually-charged relationship.

You proved that wrong, Jennsen.

You made me realize

That lustful pleasure is meaningless.

The joyful feeling that results after sex

Is only a temporary feeling.

Then, I'm left feeling empty inside once again.

I never thought that empty space inside me

Would ever be filled with anything.

To tell you the truth, dear sister,

I have rarely been bothered by the emptiness

That I feel.

I could have cared less that I was an empty shell.

I didn't need anymore.

I definitely didn't need love.

Your simple but genuine kiss changed all that, Jennsen.

All of a sudden I wanted to have something more with you.

Before you misinterpret that, baby sister,

I didn't want anything sexual with you.

No, I wanted to love you like a sibling,

And I wanted you to love me as a sibling as well.

You made me realize, Jennsen,

That I need someone in my life

Who genuinely cares about me.

That is why I decided

That I would open my heart to you, dear sister.

It worked like a charm.

You sympathized with my pain, Jennsen.

You comforted me with a warm, gentle touch to my shoulder.

I have never before been touched by a woman

In a manner that was not sexual,

And after feeling your touch, Jennsen,

I came to realize that I preferred your sisterly touch

Over the touch of a lover.

A sisterly touch is more sincere than a lover's touch.

A sisterly touch shows more tenderness than a lover's touch.

You made me feel loved, baby sister,

And you made me realize that what I truly want in life

Is to be loved.

You saw our father and the Seeker as the evil ones,

But you saw me as the good one.

I was the good brother; the Seeker was the evil brother.

Things could have not been better.

All was well.

I sent you to get the boxes of Orden, baby sister,

Falsely believing you to be on my side.

I was a fool; I should have known better.

Family is a curse to me.

Family seeks to destroy me.

I don't understand why anyone would want a family.

A family is good for nothing

Except for betraying you

And for causing you a lot of pain and agony.

Anger and rage flowed through my blood, Jennsen.

Your betrayal wounded my heart beyond imagination.

I opened my heart to you, Jennsen.

I revealed to you things that I had revealed to anyone else.

I trusted you, Jennsen.

You made me feel like I've never felt before.

You touched a part inside me

That I've kept hidden for so long

That I did not even know it existed.

You made me believe in love, Jennsen.

You made me believe in family.

That kitten I gave to you, Jennsen,

Suffered the fate that you deserved.

Oh, Jennsen, I would love nothing more

Than to be able to snap your pathetic neck,

For at this moment,

I hate you more than I've ever hated the Seeker;

I hate you more than I've ever hated our father.

Neither of them betrayed me or wounded my heart

As terrible as you did, Jennsen.

Neither of them ever made me feel human at one moment,

Only to throw it in my face at the next moment

That they see me as not human,

But as some monster that needs to be destroyed.

Curse the existence of the human heart,

For it is a weakness;

And I definitely can't afford to be weak.

Death, after all, is stalking it was my father's fault for creating the Seeker.

Now, it is your fault, Jennsen Rahl.

I really should have know better than to trust you.

After all, it is in the nature of a Rahl

To betray and to wound another Rahl.