Our Choices
Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of the Seeker or the Sword of Truth books. I especially don't own the characters Kahlan or Cara…cause if I did I would not be writing this I would defiantly have my hands…err full with other things. Lol. See what I did there?
Summary: If you have had all your choices taken away all you knew was pain and cruelty then suddenly you had them given back to you what choices would you make?
Pairing: Kahlan/Cara, Possibly other pairings
Authors Notes: I hate authors notes so I will try to limit them to things you need to know. This is defiantly AU, I know the TV series and a little about the book but much more about the FanFictions so some things I have made up to suit my purposes or because I feel it should have happens of goes better with the story. This is my first fanfiction attempt, and I have no Beta so… Sorry for any mistakes. Hope u Enjoy, let me know about it if you feel like it.
Kahlan sat by the blazing campfire, it was cold this evening in the midlands. She was sitting wrapped in her winter cloak on a log staring at the fire. She was studiously trying to avoid looking at her only companion for the night. Something she has been finding harder and harder to do in the past few weeks, or has it been months? Thinking about how hard it is not to look at her friend, of course leads her to unconsciously look at her. She studies he face as shadows from the fire play across the curves and lines of her strong but surprisingly, femininely, beautiful face. Kahlan shakes her head and looks back to the fire. She's been having these kinds of thoughts more and more often lately and where at first she found them disturbing she seems to be growing more and more accustomed to them, and even welcoming of these thoughts of how beautiful and strong this woman is.
"Do you suppose they have gotten into trouble yet mother confessor?" Kahlan, startled out of her musings, jumps slightly at the unexpected words from the Mord'Sith.
"Richard and Zedd don't always find trouble Cara." She says in response with a knowing smile, while hoping her previous thoughts don't show on her face.
"Your right as usual Mother Confessor, sometimes trouble finds them all on its own." Cara says with a mischievous smirk.
Despite herself Kahlan smiles, she can't seem to help herself, whenever she sees even the slightest semblance of joy on this woman's face it makes her happy.
When Kahlan first meet Cara she hated her, on principle alone, after all Mord'Sith are a Confessors mortal enemy. They represent all that Darken Rahl has corrupted in their lands. After that the hate just grew with the knowledge that Cara was personally responsible for the attack on the order of Confessors including what she thought was the death of her sister Dennee. Though she later found out that her sister was alive it did little to quell this anger and hatred she had for this vile, rude, corrupted woman that she had been forced to travel with.
However, after Cara's trial where Kahlan almost convicted and carried out the sentence of death by confession on Cara. She began to realize, with all the things that she learned about how Cara became a Mord'Sith that, as much as she hated to admit it to herself Cara was as much a victim as the other people who suffered at the hands of Darken Rahl. Still her will to cling to the hate she had, allowed her to argue to herself that she still had a choice in all the pain she had caused after her training. She wouldn't allow herself to realize that the very nature of having completed Mord'Sith training meant that you no longer had a choice. That they beat and tortured all of the choice out of her until all that was left was to serve her lord Rahl. She refused to realize that the fact that Cara now was helping them defeat the Keeper was the greatest feat any Mord'Sith had accomplished. By refusing to abide by the orders of Darken Rahl and instead choosing to follow Richard in his noble quest, she refused to see that every time Cara didn't torture an Innkeeper for charging her for a room or kill a farmer for insulting them by thinking himself worth of asking for their help, or every time she actually listened to or took an order from Kahlan herself she was defying her very nature and proving how strong she was, she was making choices, choices that proved she was so strong that not ever Darken Rahl and the Mord'sith could beat that strength it out of her.
After the trial was when she noticed things begin to change in how she viewed this blonde Mord'Sith. Reluctantly she imagined herself in Cara's position, kidnapped, starved, endlessly tortured, tricked into killing her own father, and having everything she knew taken away to be replaced only by pain and what she was told was her duty, her only reason to live. She imagined if it was her instead of Cara, a child, going through this, she too would not have had a choice but to become what Cara became. A hardened, emotionless machine, that killed, tortured, and maimed, at the beck and call of her Lord Rahl. But that begged the question, why was this broken woman with them now, how did she overcome her lifetime of violence and suffering and misplaced duty? How did she choose? The only answer Kahlan could come up with was that there was something inside this woman. Something that though her body and mind were broken and pieced back together in the image of Mord'Sith, there was something in her spirit that could not be and never was fully broken. That her spirit was what she now saw in Cara everyday growing as a person, as a living, breathing, feeling, choosing person.
"Well, Mother Confessor" Cara said as she stood from her log and walked over to their packs, "It's time for dinner, you will need to keep up your strength if we are to save the wizard and the seeker from whatever pit they have fallen into after saving the latest litter of puppies."
Kahlan laughs, lately Cara has taken to throwing out, ridiculous scenarios in which Richard, often accompanied by Zedd ends up in situations that require their being rescued. After a few days of this Kahlan had begun to think that Cara was doing it just to make her laugh. But after further thought she thought it more likely that Cara said these things simply to alleviate her own boredom and find some humor in her day. After all, the blonde Mord'Sith did think herself exceptionally witty. But what Kahlan didn't see as Cara handed her some bread, with a wedge of cheese and fruit, was the soft smile Cara had as the Mother Confessor laughed at her joke.
"Thank you Cara, I just hope the puppies are alright, I do love puppies you know." She chuckled as she bit into her food.
"Yes I do know, you have a great love for all things soft and fluffy, anything that can lick your nose will have a friend for life." Cara said with an uncharacteristically soft smile of her face.
When Cara and Kahlan bunked down for the night they both were feeling unexpectedly serene, that was until they heard the screams.