Four Richards that never were, and one that could be. Five short drabbles.
ONE
Richard Rahl, heir to the D'Haran throne, could see the entirety of the palace courtyard from his vantage point, standing at the windows in his rooms. He had the perfect view as the Mother Confessor and her wizard, the First Wizard, were dragged in, unconscious and trussed up like first-rate escape artists. She was truly beautiful, Richard mused to himself, half-hoping that his father would let her die quickly, after she bore Richard a child.
Later, in the dungeons: Richard looked into the Mother Confessor's eyes and felt something. Like he could have loved her, if love were something he could feel. Then he used his natural gift with Subtractive magic to cut her hair short and moved along to the next cell.
The First Wizard there, Zeddicus Zu'l Zorrander, went white as a sheet and whispered, "Richard," in horror, and, "I had hoped you were dead," in something far too much like pity and sorrow.
"I have wished for it as well." Richard whispered back as the wizard died in Subtractive fire. He closed his eyes and pretended he didn't care about what he was about to do to the Mother Confessor.
It wasn't enough, but it never was.
TWO
Richard Cypher was only physically twelve when the invaders came. He hadn't even touched his Han yet, had barely gotten a chance at life. The invaders, the Imperial Order, came and took the Palace from the Sisters. Richard saw people dying, right before someone tried to hack his head off with a sword and something snapped, and the Rada'Han fell to the ground at his feet, broken, as magics the world hadn't seen in three thousand years erupted from him.
The Palace crumbled to dust in moments. Everything in a fourteen mile radius was obliterated in an instant. The ocean rushed in to fill a monstrous crater where Tanimura and Halsband Island, the Towers of Perdition and Valley of the Lost had once been. At the epicenter, a boy was dying.
THREE
Richard Rahl, Lord Rahl as of today, sat back on his new throne with a contented sigh. Finally, he thought.
Cara, standing in front of him, smiled and knelt, and pledged her allegiance to the new Lord Rahl.
"Get up," Richard said, half-smiling still and waving. "Come on, you've done that already. If it weren't for my sisters of the Agiel, I wouldn't have this throne."
"Lord Rahl." Cara said, standing. "I had no idea when we found Darken Rahl's heir, just a small child, that you would become such a great man."
"All thanks to the sisters who raised me."
Berdine ran in at that moment, panting and in red leather. "Lord Rahl, in the dungeons." She said. "The Mother Confessor. She is eight months pregnant. It's not urgent, but... what are you going to do with her? We thought the Confessors were all dead."
"We can't very well keep her alive, now can we?" Richard said. "She would be in the way of our conquering the Midlands. My father was a fool to think magic was the way to do that. By war, the Midlands are ripe for the taking. Have her killed - but quietly. We don't need martyrs. And send in the generals. I want an invasion force as soon as possible."
"Yes, Lord Rahl." Berdine said, bowing out.
"You're going to be great, Lord Rahl." Cara told him.
"They will remember my name for centuries to come, Cara." Richard replied, his eyes alight with madness as he gripped his Agiel, the one given to him by his one-time mistress Denna. "I will rule from D'Hara to Westland, both the New World and the Old. It is my right."
FOUR
"I wish there was another way." Richard said sadly, drawing the Mother Confessor's hair back from her face, laying it evenly on either side so the executioner's axe wouldn't sever it. "I talked them into letting you keep this long," He held up a strand of hair again. "But you refused to work for us."
"The Blood of the Fold is a gang of monsters and torturers." Kahlan spat. "And you're no better, using your magic to help them."
"Magic was given to me by the Keeper, but I use it for the Creator's will." Richard said simply. "I, at least, do not blindly think it is all evil. Only when used for good should magic be allowed. But who is to make that distinction, when it is good and not good? There are different points of view to every war. No one should hold enough power to decide good and evil, no one but the Creator, and so all magic must die."
"You're insane." Kahlan said, stalling, feeling her power building back up. "They will kill you."
"I'm afraid neither is true." Richard put one hand to her face, expecting the usual flinch at a touch that most women prisoners of the Fold suffered from. Kahlan didn't even blink, just glared harder and dared him to try something. "I am horribly sane, you see, and I will take my own life before I allow anyone else to do so. Just as I will take your life, before allowing anyone else to be damned by the act."
"How noble." Kahlan mocked. "I am glad to know my killer's face, so that I can haunt you from the underworld."
"I had hoped you would be the one to understand." Richard said, sighing, getting up from his crouch outside her cell. "I guess not."
When he was gone, Kahlan cried. Not because she was about to die - that was more of a relief.
No, it was because she did understand. Richard was a monster, yes, but not one of his own making.
FIVE
The war dragged on for two years before Emperor Jagang's forces breached Aydindril in the dead of night, and an assassin got into Kahlan's rooms. Half a country away in Kelton, dealing with another face of the war, Richard got the news a day later.
People in Aydindril swore a second sun rose that day, in the form of a massive ball of fire that explooded in the midst of the Imperial Army's camp. Richard vanished, and an incomprehensibly powerful force descended to the Old World in a swathe of darkness that left only dead things behind. Plants crumbled to dust, trees withered to old sticks, animals fled before it but were consumed and not even the bones were left. Miles and miles of blackened earth in a giant's footpath down to Tanimura - burning, dying - and the rest of the Old World - BURN - all the way to the dream-walker's palace.
Jagang had all the time in the world, but no matter how many seconds he stole between thoughts, he could not escape. There was no counter to this burning black madness. The only response to it was death, and death was the only thing it would accept.
Richard reappeared the day after Jagang's palace was obliterated, and claimed to have no knowledge or memory of what had happened. The look in his eyes said otherwise.
Cara would ask him, later, why he never seemed to regret the thousands of innocents his black wave had killed. Richard would turn to her and she would see that madness, that unstoppable power again.
"Acceptable casualties." He would say. "They do not matter, and I do not care."
There were a lot of ways Richard could have become evil, Cara would reflect, but this one was the worst. In this world, there was no redemption to be found. Worse, Richard wasn't even looking.
Obviously, based on the books more than the (ridiculous) TV show. I'm telling you, if you liked the show YOU HAVE TO READ THE BOOKS. At least the first four, after that they just seem to drag things out a bit, but they're all very good.
In case you didn't notice, the first four Richard had some level of regret about what he was doing (except for 2... I have no idea what happened to that one...) but in the fifth, the one that could still come to pass, he's basically without regret, and just wants revenge on everything. So yeah, you think one thing's horrible, and then it turns out in reality it could be so much worse. C'est la vie - such is life. (I really hope I spelled that right. I felt very learned while typing it.)